新西兰英语 242 Problems with XT mobile network

The XT mobile network crashed on Wednesday last week. It took one day to fix the problem in the North Island but three days for the far south of the country. More than 200,000 people have Telecom XT in New Zealand. Between 70,000 and 80,000 people in

新西兰英语 306 Should the police be armed?

Yesterday two police officers were shot and injured in Christchurch. A police dog was shot dead. The police officers did not have guns because they did not expect trouble. They were looking for a missing mental health patient and went to a house next

新西兰英语 359 one of the top cities in the world

Lonely Planet, the popular travel guide, rate Wellington as the 4th best city in the world to visit. The best city was New York, followed by Tangier in Morocco, Tel Aviv in Israel then Wellington. Wellington seems little because you can walk around t

新西兰英语 309 Boat People from Indonesia

Australia has a problem with boat people from Indonesia trying to enter Australia illegally. Many of these people come from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. They wait in Indonesia until they can find a boat which will take them to Australia. Recently, Aust

新西兰英语 96 More information on November plane crash

The Airbus company has sent a message to airlines which use the Airbus 320 about maintenance or re-painting. The Air NZ Airbus 320 which crashed in France had just been repainted in Air NZ colours because it had been used by a German airline for two

新西兰英语 185 Referendum on MMP

New Zealand has had MMP voting for our Members of Parliament for the last 16 years. MMP means Mixed Member Proportional. The system we had before MMP was called First Past the Post, like horse racing, where the winner was the one with the most votes.

新西兰英语 420 New Zealand Usar return from Japan

The New Zealand Urban Search and Rescue (Usar) team which went to Japan, returned home today. They said there was nothing more they could do in Japan. There is no hope of finding any survivors now because of the extreme cold. This is different from t

新西兰英语 99 Pacific Islands Forum 2009

The leaders of the Pacific Islands, including the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, are meeting in Papua New Guinea. Once again, the military leader of Fiji, Commodore Bainimarama, has not attended. At the last Pacific Islands Forum, (see August

新西兰英语 338 High School teachers on strike

About 16,000 high school teachers went on strike today. They did not go to school. Instead they held protest marches, and Wellington teachers took their protest to Parliament. However the teachers in Canterbury did not go on strike because school was

新西兰英语 336 A week after the earthquake

Its now a week after the major earthquake that caused so much damage to the people and places in Canterbury. Many people are suffering because they will lose their homes. At the moment, some are staying in a school. Tomorrow they will have to move ou

新西兰英语 386 More flooding in Queensland, Australia

The flooding in Queensland has now reached Brisbane. Some of the towns north of Brisbane, which had the earlier floods, have become flooded again. This time the Brisbane River has already flooded its banks. Workers in the central city were told not t

新西兰英语 384 Earthquake after-shocks

It is surprising that Christchurch is still having after-shocks. It is now 4 months since the 7.1 earthquake on Sept 4th. Just as Christchurch people were starting to think that after-shocks had finished, the day after Christmas gave everyone an unpl

新西兰英语 410 Daily life after an earthquake

Daily life in Christchurch at the moment is difficult for thousands of people. To start with, about 50,000 people cannot go to work because the central business district the CBD is closed. Schools are closed so children are at home. Many people have

新西兰英语 408 Christchurch earthquake

After Tuesdays terrible earthquake, 200 people are still missing, almost certainly dead. Just over 100 bodies have already been recovered from collapsed buildings. Thousands of people still have no power, water or sewerage system. Thousands of homes

新西兰英语 349 New Zealand technology

Many of us have been watching on TV the amazing rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. However, we may be surprised to learn that a New Zealand inventor designed a medical belt that the miners have all been wearing. They wear the belt around their waist an

新西兰英语 347 Election results

The most interesting result of the local body elections was the election of the Auckland mayor, Len Brown. He won with 221,000 votes while John Banks got 161,000. Len Brown had been the mayor of Manukau in South Auckland. Now eight councils have beco

新西兰英语 469 Women wearing a Burqa

Two bus drivers in Auckland did not let two women from Saudi Arabia get on their bus. This happened on two separate occasions. Both women were wearing a burqa full length body covering, head covering and face veil. Both bus drivers said they were ner

新西兰英语 188 Cell phones while driving

There is a new law coming in that bans the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. From November 1st, drivers caught using a hand-held cell phone will be fined $80 and will get 20 demerit points. Licences are lost at 100 demerit points. According

新西兰英语 223 $3.8 million dollars still missing

This story began six months ago and has not finished yet. In May, Leo Gao who had a petrol station in Rotorua, asked Westpac Bank to lend him $100,000 because his business was in financial trouble. A bank employee made a mistake and put $10million in

新西兰英语 219 New Zealand first in anti-corruption

Transparency International, which is an organization based in Germany, gives 180 countries each year a score for having no corruption or very little corruption. New Zealand was top this year with a score of 9.4 out of 10. Somalia was bottom with 1.1.