The police said today that the Pike River Coal Mine will be closed and sealed perhaps forever and the bodies of the 29 miners will never be recovered. This is bad news for the families of those men. The reason for closing the mine is that it is too d

发表于:2019-02-13 / 阅读(56) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

New Zealanders are shocked at the disastrous fires in Australia. We now know that more than 100 people have died. The hospitals are filled with people who have burns; some have minor burns to the soles of their feet while others have major burns and

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(60) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

At midday today, about 6,000 Maori and other supporters held a protest march in Queen St in Auckland, in the rain. The march was called a hikoi. The hikoi was organised by a young Maori man, Ngarimu Blair, who controlled the crowd to make sure that i

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(62) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Today Parliament introduced some laws which could stop boy racers from annoying other people. The problem is especially bad in Christchurch where the streets are flat. Friday and Saturday nights are their favourite times to drive fast around the city

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(67) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

As expected, David Shearer of the Labour Party, won the Mt Albert by-election yesterday. He received 63% of the vote. This was 12,615 votes. Melissa Lee of the National Party received only 3,426, the Green Party candidate received 2,418 while the ACT

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(58) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Maybe you received a paper in your letter box about a referendum. This is telling you about a vote in August. It is not a vote for a person. It is a vote about a question and you vote by post. The question is: Should a smack as part of good parental

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(84) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Last week there were protests outside the Auckland womens tennis tournament. A small group of people were protesting against a 22-year old tennis player, Shahar Peer. She is from Israel and the protesters were supporters of Palestine. They wanted her

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(47) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Two hours after the 8.8 earthquake in Chile last night, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that a tsunami had started. It hit parts of Chile and moved across the Pacific. The New Zealand Civil Defence and police moved quickly to send messages on

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(78) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

A major earthquake 8.3 on the Richter scale followed by a tsunami, struck Samoa around 7am this morning. The tsunami hit the south coast of Samoa and destroyed holiday resorts and a new hospital as well as many homes. People ran to high hills but som

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

June 20th is World Refugee Day, a day to remember refugees world wide who have had to leave their homes and may never return. A refugee is a person who has had to escape from their country because they could be imprisoned or killed for their beliefs.

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(351) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

The winner of the Young Farmer of the Year Contest is Stuart McNaughton from the Tasman region. About 300 young men and women entered the contest earlier this year. Each region had one finalist. They each got good prizes. Then those seven finalists c

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(54) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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.

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(129) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(66) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

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

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

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

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

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(73) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

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

A philanthropist is a person who helps others. Usually a philanthropist gives money although people who volunteer their time to help others are also philanthropists. New Zealand is lucky to have many volunteers, many people who give donations of mone

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(69) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Yesterday the District Court in Christchurch fined a company for selling tourist products which looked like New Zealand products but were made in China. A Christchurch company, ProKiwi International, imported body care products from China but labeled

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(88) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

On Thursday morning, Australians were surprised to find they had a new Prime Minister. She is Julia Gillard, Australias first woman Prime Minister. On Wednesday, Kevin Rudd was still PM of the Australian Labour government, a position he has held for

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(61) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语