新西兰英语 540 Dirty rivers

Some rivers and beaches in New Zealand are not clean enough. A new report to the Minister of Conservation, Kate Wilkinson, says that we need to do more to protect rivers. Some of the problems with rivers are because too much water is taken out of the

新西兰英语 539 Pike River Mine Inquiry

The Pike River Mine Commission is still listening to evidence about why 29 men died at the mine last November. Each day, we hear about things that were not right at the mine. There were money problems. The mine was losing money and the men were under

新西兰英语 538 Labour Party Leadership

After the Labour Party lost the election, the leader, Phil Goff, resigned. Later this week the Party will choose another leader. They will choose between two men David Shearer and David Cunliffe. Both men have been speaking at Labour Party meetings.

新西兰英语 548 Internet Piracy

Four men were arrested yesterday and charged with internet piracy of movies and TV shows. Their website MegaUpload was a file-sharing website, with 50 million hits daily. It was based in Hong Kong. One of the founders of the website, a man who calls

新西兰英语 559 Norwegian sailor in Antarctica

The Norwegian sailor, Jarle Andhoy with three other men, sailed to the Antarctic illegally. One of the men is a New Zealander. They did not have permission from the Norwegian government or from New Zealand. They wanted to know what happened to the bo

新西兰英语 567 First Deaf MP

Mojo Mathers is New Zealands first deaf Member of Parliament. She is a list MP for the Green Party. She has been profoundly deaf since her birth but lip-reads well and can use New Zealand sign language. She also speaks clearly. In spite of her hearin

新西兰英语 566 Ombudsman office needs more staff

The Ombudsman, Beverley Wakeham, told a Parliamentary committee that her office has too much work and too few staff. She needs another $1m to employ extra staff and for general administration. The job of the Ombudsman office is to deal with complaint

新西兰英语 565 New Zealander of the Year

Last night at an awards ceremony in Auckland, the winner of the New Zealander of the Year was announced. He is Sir Richard Taylor of Weta Workshops. He was made Sir Richard for his successful film work in 2010. Listen to Queens Birthday Honours to he

新西兰英语 564 Why did 29 miners die?

Twenty-nine miners died in the Pike River coal mine in November 2010. The government set up a Royal Commission to find out what happened and why. The third stage of this Royal Commission Inquiry finished on Friday. This third stage tried to find out

新西兰英语 563 Memorial Service for earthquake victims

Feb 22nd 2011 is a day that no Christchurch person wants to remember but it is also a day that every Christchurch person feels they need to remember. That was the day when a 6.3 earthquake near the central city, caused many buildings to collapse. 18

新西兰英语 561 Watersiders’ Strike

They are called watersiders or wharfies and they work on the wharf, loading and unloading goods from ships in a port. Most belong to the Maritime Union. Today, 300 watersiders at the Ports of Auckland started a three-week strike. This is the 7th stri

新西兰英语 560 Changes to driving test

From tomorrow, the practical driving test will be longer and more difficult. Learner drivers will be tested on the same things as before, like parallel parking, but they will also have to show they are watching other road users and can anticipate wha

新西兰英语 558 Leap Year

Babies born today will have to wait another four years before they have a real birthday. However, most will choose to celebrate their birthday on February 28th or March 1st. Four years ago, 190 babies were born on February 29th in New Zealand. Nearly

新西兰英语 557 Shipping Containers

Shipping containers are large metal boxes used for shipping goods across the sea. However, Christchurch has found many other uses for shipping containers after the earthquakes. Some are placed against the cliffs to stop falling rocks in an earthquake

新西兰英语 556 Hot air balloon accident

Eleven people were killed early this morning in Carterton when a hot air balloon caught fire. There were ten passengers and a pilot in the balloon basket. As the balloon came in to land just before 7.30am, it hit a power line and burst into flames. T

新西兰英语 555 Rena breaks in half

On October 5th 2011, the ship, the Rena, hit a reef coming into the Port of Tauranga. The ship was carrying 1300 containers. Many containers fell into the sea and heavy oil spilled from the ship and reached the beaches. Last week, there were still 83

新西兰英语 554 Debris from Rena

Debris from the Rena has reached beaches in the Coromandel. There are bags of milk powder, plastic and rope on the beaches and broken containers. The sea around the Rena is white from broken bags of milk powder. There is also oil for about 3km around

新西兰英语 553 Another fishing ship in trouble

Another fishing ship is in trouble in Antarctica, in the Ross Sea, 3,700km south of New Zealand. The ship is the Jeong Woo 2, a Korean ship. It had a crew of 40 men from different countries. They were fishing for toothfish. Fire broke out early this

新西兰英语 562 Earthquake memories

Today has been a very sad day as we remembered the 185 who died as a result of the February 22nd earthquake last year. More than 100 of these victims were local Christchurch people. However, many who died were students at the English language school

新西兰英语 582 Remembering the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

It is one year since that terrible earthquake and tsunami hit the North East coast of Japan, killing 19,000 people. Today people in Japan remembered this in silence at 2.46pm. New Zealanders also remembered this day. In Auckland the Japanese consul h