Afrogalaxy

 https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53568

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She was struck on the hand when batting at the Basin Reserve nets and an x-ray revealed a fracture in the middle finger of her right hand.

Coach Haidee Tiffen has confirmed Bezuidenhout will return home to rest.

Bezuidenhout will be replaced in the T20 squad by Auckland Hearts all-rounder Anna Peterson who will join the squad in Auckland on Thursday.

"You never like to see players miss out due to injury and it's no different in Bernie's case but unfortunately it's just part of the game," said Tiffen.

"We wish her a speedy recovery and know she will be doing everything in her power to get back on the park."

"Anna joins the side and brings with her experience as well as an option with both the bat and ball. She will slot right in having already been with the squad for the ODI campaign."

The White Ferns begin their T20 campaign against India women at 4pm today at Westpac Stadium before the Black Caps and India men begin their three-game series at 8pm.https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53566

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Firefighters will continue dampening down a fire in the Waihopai Valley in Marlborough today.

The blaze flared up yesterday evening, and firefighters have been monitoring it overnight.

A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said there was a flare up at 1am, but it was brought under control.

Crews also monitored fires at Templeton on the outskirts of Christchurch and Omarama overnight, making sure they were out.

Five spot fires along a 2km stretch next to a railway track and the southbound lane of SH1 broke out near Templeton yesterday afternoon, closing State Highway 1 for some time.

Firefighters are due to meet this morning in Marlborough and will continue to monitor the fire there today.
https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53514

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Two men have been taken to Auckland Hospital with stab wounds after a fight about 1.50am.

One of the men is seriously injured.

Police said they were called to a Hillcrest address in Auckland after reports of two men fighting.

They said the men were known to each other.
https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53513

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In the lead-up to Waitangi Day, history teachers are calling for compulsory teaching of New Zealand's Māori and colonial history in schools, but government representatives are rejecting the idea.

The chairperson of the History Teachers' Association, Graeme Ball, said the number of people who learned about New Zealand's history was shameful and the association had launched a petition to change that.

The petition called on Parliament to pass a law to "make compulsory the coherent teaching of our own past across appropriate year levels in our schools".

"Too few New Zealanders have a sound understanding of what brought the Crown and Māori together in the 1840 Treaty, or of how the relationship played out over the following decades.

"We believe it is a basic right of all to learn this at school (primary and/or secondary) and that students should be exposed to multiple perspectives and be enabled to draw their own conclusions from the evidence presented in line with good historical practice," the petition said.

Mr Ball said the school curriculum set out what skills students should learn, but did not require schools to teach particular topics.

He said that meant it was a complete lottery whether children studied New Zealand's history.

"I tell my classes at the beginning of the year, Year 13 class, that they're going to be an elite, and I say it's really sad that you're going to be an elite because you're going to be a very small percentage of the New Zealanders who actually know something about your country's own history. That's shameful," he said.

Mr Ball said when students did learn about colonial history and the Treaty of Waitangi, their coverage was often cursory.

"Sometimes in Year 9 or 10 at our particular school when we start to talk about the Treaty or something they'll be 'oh we've done it, we know it'. You dig deeper, they know almost nothing about it."

"It's just incredibly ad hoc."

Mr Ball said topics that should be covered included the decades leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the Waikato Wars, the Native Lands Act and the prophet movements that resisted government encroachment.

He said some schools did not teach colonial history because there were not enough good resources and because students thought it was boring and teachers were afraid of losing enrolments from their senior history classes.

Mr Ball said the History Teachers' Association had decided to push harder to make the subject compulsory and its stance was in tune with national sentiment.

"Attitudes are changing. I think people are ready for this and it'll probably surprise a lot of people too to know that we don't actually teach our own past in a coherent fashion."

The author of a resource for teaching New Zealand history and a part-time teacher in the University of Auckland's School of Education, Tamsin Hanly, said the topic needed to be taught more widely and more accurately.

"It's absolutely vital. Most people in this country, of all ethnicities, have been raised on what's called a standard story, colonial narrative, and it's inaccurate history," she said.

"A lot of teachers are still teaching very inaccurate history if they're teaching at all because a lot of teachers don't go here under the current New Zealand Curriculum that's so generic that you can basically get away with just covering things like Matariki, but you don't have to cover the Land Wars for example."
Ministers reject compulsory curriculum idea

Education Minister Chris Hipkins said schools needed more support to strengthen the teaching of New Zealand history and the Education Ministry was working on a number of projects to address that.

At Waitangi, the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, told reporters that children should learn about the Treaty of Waitangi.

"I would certainly have an expectation and a hope that it is learnt across our schools," she said.

"This is our country, it is part of our history, it is our founding document as a nation, our students should be learning about it."

But the associate minister of education and minister of Crown Māori relations, Kelvin Davis, was quick to quash any impression the government might make the topic compulsory.

"In terms of the teaching of Te Tiriti in schools, remember that schools are self-governing, self-managing. It's inappropriate for governments to come along and dictate specifics of what's taught in schools," he said.

New Zealand First MP Shane Jones said it was up to schools to decide what they taught but he expected most, if not all, would teach students about the Treaty of Waitangi.

"The reality is that I don't know of a single school that does not offer as a part of social studies or New Zealand history the history and the historical role that the Treaty has played in the evolution of New Zealand," Mr Jones said.

The Education Ministry's deputy secretary early learning and student achievement, Ellen MacGregor-Reid, said the curriculum set strong expectations about what would be taught.

"While we do not set out compulsory lesson plans that all schools must follow, we expect schools and kura to teach Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Māori history and the New Zealand land wars," she said.

Ms MacGregor-Reid said in social sciences students were required to "explore the unique bicultural nature of New Zealand society that derives from the Treaty of Waitangi", and to "learn about past events, experiences, and actions and the changing ways in which these have been interpreted over time".

The president of Te Akatea, the Māori principals' association, Myles Ferris, said most schools taught about the Treaty of Waitangi, but they had a moral obligation to teach New Zealand history correctly.

"There is a lot more to it than just the Treaty and how it was signed. Those underlying factors in most schools are probably under-done," he said.

"Even at primary school level we can teach about social justice, we can teach about the injustices that have happened."
https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53510

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Festivals are an integral part of a kiwi summer and camping often goes alongside the event.

It's easy to pick up air mattresses and tents on the cheap from big outdoor stores, but not everyone takes them home with them.

With the rubbish from food and drinks plus these bigger items, the amount of waste left behind can be huge.

Cheryl Reynolds, Chief Entrepreneurial Officer of Xtreme Zero Waste, joined Afternoons to explain the problem and give us a few solutions.

Reynolds says that after this year’s Soundsplash festival in Raglan, 500 or 600 tents were left abandoned by attendees. She said they’re ripped, dirty and often structurally compromised leaving them with no choice but to go to the landfill.

The festival hosts around 6000 campers who erected between one to two thousand tents. The mess left behind was 50 times greater than the previous year.

“It’s devastating. How is this possible?” she said. “This year something changed with the behaviour of the festival attendees.”

Extreme Zero Waste has a contract with Soundsplash and has worked with the festival for 17 years. Reynolds said the organisers are committed to zero waste and are exploring solutions to mitigate the damage next year and in the future.

One listener emailed the show to say her daughter had attended the festival for the past three years and had given up on taking quality tents after they were twice destroyed by teenage boys.

Reynolds said this sort of behaviour coupled with the rise of cheap camping gear is a terrible problem.

“In an era of rapid climate change, the last thing we need right now is a new culture emerging of single-use tents.”

Reynolds has been working with the organisers to understand the people who are coming to the festival and the behaviours they are enacting. Sixty percent of the attendees are under 18, she says, while 70 percent are girls. The majority who bought tickets were from the greater Auckland region and Tauranga.

“All of the campers that attend were given clear instructions that its zero waste,” she says.

Reynolds and the organisers are looking into solutions but are weary of cardboard tents that have cropped up in Europe because they’re still a single-use product. Currently they’re looking at a bond-system where campers have their tent area checked, or making attendees pitch their gear in advance of the festival.

Mainly, she says, it’s about education and behaviour change.

https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53508

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The former Māori Party co-leader appeared in Hamilton District Court for sentencing this morning. She pleaded guilty to a charge of drink driving last year.
Watch: Marama Fox speaks outside court after appearing for sentencing today:


The 48-year-old was pulled over while driving in Hamilton in November where she blew 593 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, more than twice the legal limit of 250 micrograms. Her lawyer Rebecca Senar told community magistrate Ngaire Mascelle the former MP made a genuine mistake. "It's a situation where Ms Fox held an honest belief that she was under the legal limit to drive that evening.. Certainly she's extremely remorseful. This sort of offending is completely out of character for her." Ms Mascelle gave Fox credit for her early guilty plea, which was entered at her first appearance, and the fact she had no previous convictions. "You, like many other people that I see before me, have simply made a mistake and miscalculated the effects of the alcohol. The reading is probably moderate by today's standards; certainly on the higher side of the legal limit of 250mcg." She fined her $590, plus $130 of court costs, and imposed a mandatory driving disqualification period of six months. Speaking after the hearing, Fox said she had been drinking at an event and got behind the wheel to avoid an unidentified person, whom she claims previously assaulted her. "I'm apologetic to the court for wasting its time and I'm adamant that this now closes what has been a traumatic chapter of my life. "I had previously been assaulted by the person who approached me that evening and I felt I was in danger so I made the decision to drive when I shouldn't have and I'm very apologetic for any embarrassment I've caused my family and anyone else who has been previously supportive of me." She said this alleged assault was the reason she did not pursue a discharge without conviction, as initially signalled at her first court appearance. "It's been pretty traumatic having previously been assaulted. It's not something I want to relive, it's not something I want to lay out in front of the courts and drag my family through as well." Fox said she accepted the irony in her drink-driving conviction, given she was in Parliament when the drink-driving limit was lowered in 2014. "I fully accept that this is not behaviour I would have previously entered into. I'm not good at drinking, I hadn't drunk for 21 years, and I'm fully committed to returning to that way. I have stopped drinking now and I'm looking forward to a new chapter opening up this year." Fox resigned as co-leader of the Māori Party in September 2018 after her business, Consultancy Group Tapui, went into liquidation owing tens of thousands of dollars. She most recently featured on reality television show Dancing with the Stars.

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Jungho Son, 29, and his 22-year-old female friend were injured in the incident but are now in a stable condition in Hawke's Bay Hospital.

Mr Son has been in New Zealand since January 2018 on a working holiday visa.

He said he had also talked to his family in South Korea, but has not told them how serious the accident was.

"They know I got my leg broken and they know the surgery went well but they don't know how much surgery did I get or how many pieces my leg got broken [into]. I don't want to give [them] details, not yet."

However, he said his mother had a feeling that it was pretty bad.

"The first time when I talked to my mother I make myself more positive or lighter, but she told me 'it's worse, right? You just try to make it lighter.' [I replied] 'Oh no, why should I do that.'"

Mr Son held an interview with media this afternoon, recounting how he and his friend were on their way back from seeing the gannet colony when the cliff collapsed.

"Actually when we passed that spot on the way to see gannet we thought it was more rocky than other place, because we could see a good amount of the rocks but we had no idea there was a collapse yesterday [the day prior to the accident].

"On the way back, we tried to pass that spot and then my friend just said 'hey, it's collapsing' so I looked up and I can see the dust, wind or something, and then I can see something like a rumbling sound and it started to collapse. I can see the big part of the cliff start to parting and then start sliding down and then I thought 'oh shit, it's really collapsing'."

He said by then it was too late to go back to where they were or return to their starting point - they were stuck.

"Then I just grabbed my friend's hand and rushed to the sea. I thought it would be better [in the sea], because it was the only way to get further away from the collapse, I thought at the time.

"We start to run to the sea. The rumbling sound getting louder and louder and then my friend tumbled. And then I tried to reach my friend, I almost reached my friend and then I almost covered my friend, almost but not fully."

Then a large amount of rocks swept them away, he said.

"We got submerged. In the ocean, I could still hear the rumbling sound, because it was still going on, it was not one time, there was a second collapse.

"I literally thought I couldn't make it... Because I was [getting hit] by rocks, so I thought I couldn't make it, but it stopped. As soon as it stopped, I tried to get to the surface, so I reached the surface and I tried to find my friend and a second later my friend popped up to the surface."

He said he felt lucky that they both could swim, but the rumbling on the cliff continued and he was cautious to avoid it.

"I tried to reach my friend and I could still hear the rumbling sound, not big like the first or second collapse but it was still rolling and rolling sound.

"At the time I know I got my leg broken because I could see it, it was obvious. I just reached my friend and I tried to drag my friend and I tried to go deeper because it was still going on so I don't to go near to the shore, so I tried to go further and further, deeper and deeper.

He said he tried to drag his injured friend to shore in a diagonal way so that they were further away from any potential collapse and to reduce the chances of being hit.

"So if there's going to a third collapse or something I thought it's better to be far from the place."

He said he then noticed a boat nearby as well as a couple and they both yelled out for help and warned them there was a tour group around the corner of the collapsed cliff.

"Then the closer to the shore [we got] the more shallow [the water was], so it was a little hard for me to drag her anymore. Anyway at the time my friend told me she could do it herself from that point, we just tried to use our hands [to get to the shore] but it was really hard, because on the shore it was quite rocky."

He said more people came to their aid once they were able to reach the shore, including the couple nearby and the tour group.

He also tried to warn others near the site to stay away from the cliff and said he even tried to straighten his broken leg, so as to not traumatise any of the young people who were trying to help.

"The helicopter couldn't land quite close from us because of the danger hazard so they got to move us to the chopper and then they tried to lift me up, and oh there was quite a good amount of pain. I screamed a lot."

Asked whether he was aware of the dangers, he said he didn't want to place blame on anyone and thought DOC were the right people to make a call on whether the area should be closed.

"I don't want to blame other things. [I'm] just thankful to be alive. Accident is really bad thing, but after the accident I was really lucky... I just got this much of injury compared to the accident, compared to the collapse."

He said he had been planning to do a lot of things before his visa expired, but the accident had made it all simpler and now his only goal was to return home.

"I like trekking, I love nature. That's why I got this injury though. Just one or two days ago [from the accident] I got my extension visa for another three months. So I didn't plan to spend my visa in this way though."

He said he had been visited by his friend and people from the Department of Conservation (DOC).

He was recovering well and receiving physiotherapy for his injury and said he wanted to personally thank all those who helped them.

"That's the reason why I'm doing this interview here. I really want to say thank you to all the people who helped us. Emergency staff, or people, tourist and citizens or whoever helped us.

"We were really lucky that we could have people around us at the time. I will go back home [and then] there is no chance to say thank you, so I want to say thank you. That's the one reason, the only reason I'm doing this."

DOC said it closed all vehicle and pedestrian access to the Cape, along the beach from Clifton, given the continuing rockfalls.

Specialist engineers are assessing the area and DOC said it would update the public after that.
https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53497

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Sri Lanka is negotiating a $1 billion loan from China to construct a highway linking the capital Colombo to the hilly resort city of Kandy, even as the heavily-indebted South Asian island nation makes arrangements to pay down $5.9 billion in foreign loans this year.
Finance Ministry spokesman M.R. Hasan said Saturday that he’s waiting to hear whether terms of the loan for the highway project have been approved.
A large chunk of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt is from China, which sees Sri Lanka as a key link in its transcontinental Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
President Maithripala Sirisena’s government had criticized the previous administration of strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa for leading the country into a Chinese debt trap. However, the government has turned to China to help relieve economic pressures. https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53436

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A French drug suspect on the run since escaping from an Indonesian jail nearly two weeks ago has been recaptured, police said on Saturday.
Felix Dorfin — who faces the death penalty if convicted — was found hiding in a forest in North Lombok on Friday night, police said, and was returned to jail in Mataram, capital of the island.
Wearing disheveled black clothes and looking tired, Dorfin initially tried to bribe officers to let him go.
“He didn’t resist arrest, but wanted to bribe our officers,” North Lombok police chief Herman Suriyono said Saturday, adding he was found following a tip-off from locals in the area.
After being checked by medical teams he was returned to jail.
The 35-year-old Frenchman was arrested in September allegedly carrying a false-bottomed suitcase filled with four kilograms (8.8 pounds) of drugs — including cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines — at the airport on the holiday island next to Bali.
On Friday officials said a female police officer had been arrested for allegedly helping Dorfin escape in exchange for Rp 14.5 million (around $1,000).
Jailbreaks are common in Indonesia, where corruption is endemic at all levels of society and inmates often held in squalid and poorly guarded prisons.
In 2017, four foreign inmates tunneled their way out of Bali’s Kerobokan prison.
Two of them were captured a few days later, but an Australian and Malaysian are still at large.

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UNITED NATIONS: The United States is moving quickly to lift a freeze at the United Nations on humanitarian aid to North Korea, just weeks before a planned second US-North Korean summit, according to diplomats and documents obtained by AFP.

At Washington's request, several applications from aid groups for exemptions to tough UN sanctions imposed on North Korea have been put on hold at a UN sanctions committee, some for as long as a year.

But in a shift, the US has over the past weeks allowed eight requests to get the green light from the committee for such items as solar pumps, plumbing parts, milk cans, tractor tyres and children's trampolines.

The approvals could significantly ramp up humanitarian aid to North Korea, where the UN estimates that 10.5 million people, or 41 per cent of the population, are undernourished, diplomats and aid groups said.

North Korea's food crisis combined with a high incidence of tuberculosis has alarmed relief groups at a time when Washington is hoping for action from Pyongyang on scrapping its weapons programs.

President Donald Trump is planning a second summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, possibly in Vietnam, to agree on concrete steps for denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

UN sanctions resolutions specify that humanitarian aid should not be disrupted by the tough economic measures slapped on North Korea for its nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches.

'MAXIMUM PRESSURE'

Aid groups however say they have been hit hard by restrictions that make imports of material for their relief projects almost impossible and create major headaches with banking.

The eight requests approved in January concern projects run by groups from Switzerland, the United States, Britain, France, Canada and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

On Wednesday, the sanctions committee gave the green light to the IFRC's request for hospital kits, medical supplies and water filters among other items needed for life-saving work.

The IFRC also won approval for 500 bicycles to be shipped from China for its volunteers who visit households in remote North Korean villages.

"The people of DPRK are enduring another harsh winter," said Richard Blewitt, who represents the IFRC at the United Nations.

Scaling up deliveries of medicine, health care items and goods to ensure access for clean water "are badly needed to support very vulnerable people," he said.

The United States, which insists on maintaining "maximum pressure" on North Korea until it fully gives up its weapons programmes, has taken time to carefully review every aid request.

Washington has raised concerns that the goods could be diverted by Pyongyang's leaders, possibly for use in the country's weapons programmes.

But in December, the US agreed to ease its grip on humanitarian aid.

TRACTORS, WHEELCHAIRS, TRAMPOLINES

US envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun announced in Seoul that conditions were right for Washington to review its approach and expedite requests from aid organisations.

Two requests from US groups - the Eugene Bell Foundation and the Christian Friends of Korea - received the green light for equipment and medicines needed for their anti-TB programs.

A Canadian NGO, First Steps Health Society, won approval for deliveries of 300 stainless-steel milk cans used for its nutrition project. The Swiss Humanitarian Aid agency will be able to bring in a solar pump system for drinking water.

Handicap International will send 93 paediatric wheelchairs, 18 trampolines and a range of other items to help detect and prevent disabilities in North Korean children.

The sanctions committee is considering seven more requests for equipment including from Ireland's biggest aid organisation, Concern Worldwide, which runs nutrition and clean water projects.

An Italian firm, Agrotec Spa, is awaiting approval to send tractors and trailers as part of an EU food aid project while Germany's Agro Action has asked for permission to ship equipment and seed storages to North Korea.

Finland's FIDA development agency has asked to bring a tractor, iron plates and steel bars for its seed potato project.

Diplomats said they expected the sanctions committee to reach a decision on these requests in the coming weeks.

https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53342

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The former National MP will return to Wellington when the House resumes in early February after a spectacular falling out with his former colleagues and leader late last year.

Last October, the Newsroom website published the accounts of four anonymous women who accused Mr Ross of serious harassment and bullying - allegations he's denied.

RNZ understands all four of the women have links to National.

One of them is the National MP for Invercargill Sarah Dowie, who had an affair with Mr Ross and is now under police investigation for a text he received saying he "deserved to die".

This month, Mr Ross apologised to everybody he hurt.

It is standard practice for independent MPs to have access blocked to the parliamentary offices of the party they no longer belong to.

https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53225

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The family could not afford the $6000 it would have cost to insulate their cold, damp home but they - along with more than 3200 other homeowners - have had their insulation subsidised as part of the government scheme.

More families will be eligible for low cost and, in some cases, free insulation because community organisations have contributed $4.7 million to the scheme.

The new community funding from district health boards, councils, and charitable trusts will be added to the $142.5 million allocated by the government over four years.

It will provide grants for eligible homeowners, and in some places those on a low income or in poorer areas will be able to get their homes insulated for free.

With the heatwave hitting the country, Energy Minister Dr Megan Woods said the benefit of insulation was it kept homes cooler in summer months too.

"What the partners do is reduce the contribution the homeowner makes. So, we've now got three areas in New Zealand - Northland, South Auckland and Gisborne - where there's 100 percent subsidy for homeowners to get this done."

There were a large number of other areas where homeowners could get cover for about 95 percent, she said.

The government programme is part of the confidence and supply agreement between the Labour Party and the Greens, whose energy spokesperson Gareth Hughes was at the announcement in central Wellington.

"I'll admit it was a bit surreal to be in a sweltering bus without air conditioning coming down here in the middle of a heatwave to an insulation announcement," he said.

"But as the minister [Dr Woods] said, insulation helps keep Kiwi homes cool but also sadly we know winter is around the corner so now is the time to get prepared."

Rangi Ririnui-Cook and her daughter Dee put in their subsidised insulation last year and said without the help they never would have been able to afford it.

Dee had earlier looked into insulation to warm the house for her mother but with mortgage repayments of $600 a week she said she would never have been able to afford the $6000.

"They were offering lots of things for people with community services cards who were struggling but because we had a big mortgage - we were struggling too.

"It really, really helped and without it we wouldn't have been able to do it, not for a long time anyway - probably a few years - and Mum is getting old and needed it."

Instead, the subsidy meant the family were left with a bill of just $400.

Dr Woods said the scheme focuses on children and the elderly, who suffer the most from cold, damp houses.

From July, grants for heating appliances will also be available to low-income households.

https://www.geezgo.com/sps/53224

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