Prime Minister, John Key, has just ended a 3-day visit to Afghanistan. Helen Clark also visited Afghanistan when she was Prime Minister. We have 70 members of the SAS (Special Air Services) fighting in Kabul and 140 soldiers working in Bamiyan provin

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(50) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Statistics New Zealand released figures of births for the year ending June 2010. The figures show that births are up by 2%. Most of that increase is in Auckland. In 1961, women had an average of 4.3 children but today women have an average of 2.2 chi

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(61) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

The governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Bollard, reduced the official cash rate (OCR) by half a percent from 3% to 2.5% today. For background to the OCR, listen to June 10th 2010 and follow the links. Most banks immediately dropped the floating mortgage

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(63) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Fonterra said today that the 11,000 dairy farmers in their co-operative will receive an opening price of $6.60 a kg of milk solids for the 2010 / 2011 year. They will also get 30c to 50c for each share they have in the company. In fact, the price cou

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(57) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Three finance companies are planning to merge to become a bank. At the moment, there is no name for this bank. The three finance companies are the Canterbury Building Society, Southern Cross Building Society and Marac finance which is owned by Pyne G

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(58) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Last week, John Key visited four Pacific Island countries: Tonga, Samoa, Niue and the Cook Islands. He spent one day in each country. New Zealand gives financial aid to each of these countries and one reason for the visit was to find out what each co

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(63) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

To remember the Erebus crash 30 years ago, Air NZ is paying for six people to fly to Antarctica and visit Mt Erebus. The people chosen are family members of someone who was killed in that plane crash. These six people were chosen by ballot. To find o

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(45) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

The funeral for Lieutenant Tim ODonnell was held today at Linton Military Camp. Linton is the nearest military camp to Tims hometown, Feilding. Tim was killed a week ago in Afghanistan. Listen to August 4th 2010 for more about what happened. He is th

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(121) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Paul Henry is a host of TV Ones Breakfast show. On Monday morning, he was interviewing the Prime Minister, John Key about choosing the next Governor-General. The present Governor-General is Sir Anand Satyanand. He is a New Zealander with an Indo-Fiji

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(67) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Senior high school students received their NCEA results last week. NCEA means National Certificate of Educational Achievement. Students in Year 11 need to get 80 credits at Level 1. Some of these credits are from work done in class and this is called

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(55) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

A new Code of Conduct became law this week. It tells real estate agents how they must behave when helping you to buy or sell a house. First they must now have a licence from a new government agency, at a cost of $500. If you want to sell your house,

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(64) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(59) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(92) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(149) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Christchurch city is holding a ceremony tonight at 6.30pm to farewell the godwits. People are encouraged to come to the beach with their cameras to see the godwits leave. The day and time are chosen because of the tides at that time. Not all the godw

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(93) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

High school teachers will start their rolling strikes on Wednesday when Year 9 students have to stay at home. On Thursday there will be no Year 11 classes and next week Year 10 students will have no classes on one day. To go on strike means that teac

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(60) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

NZ is well known for adventure tourism. These are the kinds of activities that young backpackers enjoy doing in our country. One of the first commercial adventures was bungy jumping but now there are many other activities. These include sky diving, p

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(64) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

This week the Commerce Minister has announced there will be a new law to fine people who download films and music from the internet without paying. Illegal downloading is called piracy. Downloading music illegally is a big problem for the recording i

发表于:2019-02-19 / 阅读(59) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Hone Harawira will stay away from Parliament for the next two weeks and think about his future. The Maori Party met on Thursday and the leader, Whatarangi Winiata, suggested that Hone leave the Party. He should resign from Parliament or resign from t

发表于:2019-02-19 / 阅读(72) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Ever since 1921, Australia has refused to buy apples from New Zealand because some New Zealand apples had a disease called fire blight. This disease is common in North America and Europe but Australia and Japan do not have it and do not want it. The

发表于:2019-02-19 / 阅读(58) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语