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Southland celebrated a “once in a lifetime” Ranfurly Shield win in style in Invercargill on Tuesday with thousands turning out for the traditional tickertape parade.

The Stags players were rapturously received as fans crowded both sides of the main street.

A weekend of partying flowed into the formalities as the heroes were feted in the deep south.

Southland won the famous Log o’ Wood for the first time in 50 years last Thursday night when they upset holders Canterbury 9-3 in Christchurch. There are a lot of people here, it’s great for the community,” Southland co-coach Dave Henderson told Radio Sport from the back of one of the floats involved in the parade.

“She’s pretty exciting. Once you do these sorts of things .

“There are 50 years of players that have gone through before us – 30 or 40 challenges have come up with nothing…. this might only happen once in a lifetime . you have to celebrate them in a bit of style which we are doing today..Then to see them turn up at the airport the next day and now to see thousands here cheering us on, it’s quite emotional for some of the guys.

“It was such a thrill to see the faces of the fans at the game with the support we got up there in Christchurch.

The challenge for Southland now is to stay on track in the Air New Zealand Cup where last week’s win had taken them into the semfinals.”

Henderson admitted it had been a long weekend full of partying.

Henderson said the team had trained well on Monday and would face a big hitout on Wednesday. . We have focused on celebrating the Ranfurly Shield but we have also focused on the next Saturday in Wellington because we want to go the next step,” said Henderson.

“I don’t think some of the boys remember arriving back at the airport.

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Relief looks in sight for motorists whose cars remain stuck on the snow-covered Napier – Taupo Road, with police saying it should re-open by 3pm this afternoon.

Around 100 cars remained stuck on the snow-covered Napier – Taupo Road and several hundred people have spent a second night in makeshift accommodation after a heavy snowfall cut off State Highway 5.

Police said they expected the Naiper – taupo Road to re-open at 3pm.

A further 30 centimetres of snow was expected to fall in parts of the central North Island last night and today.

State Highway 1 was closed last night between Turangi and Taihape because of the bad weather, however authorities have re-opened a section of the road south of Waiouru this morning.

MetService had issued warnings of heavy snow down to 600 metres in Tongariro National Park and on the Napier – Taupo Road as early as Saturday morning.

But the road closures came too late for more than 600 motorists who took to the roads only to become stuck in the snow.

Taupo Mayor Rick Cooper, who drove a bus to ferry motorists back to Taupo, said roads should have been closed a lot earlier, preventing the mass strandings of vehicles.

“People were very scared and frightened, many, including the elderly, had a horrific night.

“Rescuing 600 people on a horrendous night in blizzard conditions should not have had to have happened,” he said.

“It was a freak occurrence which was significantly worse than we anticipated for this time of year,” he said.”

New Zealand Transport Agency national state highways manager David Bates said road crews had been aware of the forecast but were caught out by the large amount of snow which fell in a short time.

“We are very sorry many motorists became trapped.

“We had the equipment and crews to keep the road open as long as we could but a massive temperature drop around 2pm swamped our trucks and equipment. It would have been a scary experience for all. . The forecast is for more snow, which could delay the road being opened.

The road may not be fully cleared till late today.

Emergency services sprang into action when a civil defence emergency was issued late on Sunday after 668 motorists became stranded.

About 130 cars remained on the Napier – Taupo Road overnight.

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A further 56 people were rescued on the Desert Road by the army and taken to Waiouru

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Seven years after starting work as a furniture mover for a US bedding company, Gary Nisbet was joined by a new colleague, Randy Joubert, who looked so much like him that customers asked if they were brothers.

“We thought they were just trying to razz us,” Joubert said. They really are brothers – and the attention they got after finding each other has alsoturned up a sister. .

“This kid could have been anywhere in the world, and here I am riding in a Dow furniture truck with him,” Joubert said.

The two men were given up for adoption as babies about 35 years ago, then attended rival high schools and even lived in neighbouring towns on the Maine coast before working together at Dow’s Sleep Centre in tiny Waldoboro and uncovering their relationship. She said he knew from a young age he was adopted and she wasn’t surprised he would try to find his biological siblings when he grew up.

Joubert’s adoptive mother, Jacqueline, said she and her late husband raised him with four sisters.

“But when he said he was driving a furniture truck with him, that really surprised me,” she said.

She said she always thought he had a brother because a social worker at the time of his adoption had mentioned it.”

Dow’s hired Randy Joubert on July 7, and soon afterward co-workers began commenting on how similar he and Nisbet looked. “I think it’s great. Their goatees and curled-brim baseball caps add to the effect. Both are light-haired, wear glasses and have stocky builds. He started taking the comments more seriously when people also took notice while he and Nisbet, 35, were out making deliveries.

Joubert, 36, laughed off the commentary but admits he noticed the similarities himself, even mentioning them to his fiancee. “Then my brain started heading that way.

“Customers would ask if we were brothers more often than not,” he said.

With further help from statistics officials, he also learned that he had a brother – and his brother’s original name.”

Joubert had already taken advantage of a new state law allowing adoptees to see their original birth certificates and found out the names of his biological parents, who had died by then.

FAMILY CONNECTION

Well-armed with details, Joubert posed a few questions to Nisbet while the two were making deliveries about three weeks ago. Joubert and Nisbet had been removed from their birth parents’ home because the couple could not properly care for them.

Nisbet gave him a strange look and answered, yes, he was adopted.

“I said, ‘Gary, I’m going to ask you a strange question: Are you adopted?”‘ Joubert recalled.

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Robin Bain’s brother has broken his silence to insist Robin was a “loyal, peaceful and thoughtful” man and “no killer”.

In an article published in this week’s Listener, Michael Bain, of Wellington, wrote of how the good names of David Bain’s parents Robin and Margaret, two sisters Arawa and Laniet, and brother Stephen were vilified during David Bain’s retrial, The Otago Daily Times reported.He said the extended family found the retrial difficult to accept because none of those against whom the “hearsay” allegations were levelled were alive to rebut them.

But Bain campaigner Joe Karam said Michael Bain did not know his dead brother, Robin, well enough to say publicly he was not a killer.

Bain, 37, was cleared of murder the five members of his family in June after a retrial in the High Court in Christchurch.”It is nice that he loves his brother but I think he is in denial, really.Mr Karam said Michael Bain had seen his brother less than six times in more than 20 years before the killings.”The evidence was very clear he (Robin) was in a seriously declining mental condition.

Bain had spent 13 years in prison after originally being convicted in 1995 of the killings in the family’s Every Street home in Dunedin a year earlier.”Mr Karam led the battle to take the case to the Privy Council in England which led to the retrial and not guilty verdicts for David Bain.”We, his family, knew him to be a man of integrity and a good and faithful husband to Margaret and an excellent father to his children.Michael Bain said the family rejected the allegations levelled at members of the Dunedin family, particularly Robin Bain, as “totally out of character, speculative and disbelieved”.”He was a calm, loyal, peaceful and thoughtful man who deserved to grow old surrounded by the love of his family.”Robin was no killer.”I remain honoured to be his brother.”I remain honoured to be his brother.Little attention had been paid to the others killed, whose futures were also “brutally and tragically snatched from them”.Since the Every St killings, much “media hype” had focused on David Bain, including attempts to divert attention from him to Robin Bain.”David is able to enjoy his new-found freedom, but we haven’t forgotten those who were never given a chance and now are unable to defend their reputations, or to enjoy any future at all.”For us, their loving brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins, the end for each remains as unimaginable and horrifying today as when we first heard the news.

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Air New Zealand is dismissing accusations its deputy CEO was involved in a global air-freight scandal with allegations of fix rates with key rival Emirates.

The airline issued a memo to staff earlier today when a story broke in Australian The Age and on that Air New Zealand’s deputy chief executive, Norm Thompson, has become one of the highest-ranking airline executives to be embroiled in the cartel investigation.

Letters, emails and telephone conversations between Air NZ managers and their counterparts at Emirates will be used as evidence in a case brought against the Middle Eastern carrier in the Federal Court by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

In the memo to staff CEO Rob Fyfe said no proceedings alleging any wrongdoing by Air New Zealand or Norm Thompson have been filed by the ACCC.

Mr Thompson is a 31-year veteran of Air NZ and also the chair of the Tourism Industry Association.”

Mr Thompson and an Emirates cargo executive, Ram Menen, allegedly first talked in October 2003 about prices they intended to charge for freight flown between Australia and New Zealand.

“In fact, our own thorough review of the documents shows that Air New Zealand acted appropriately in all our discussions and communications. Air NZ, Qantas and Emirates carry the lion’s share of air cargo across the Tasman. .

Mr Menen gave Mr Thompson, then Air NZ’s sales and marketing chief, assurances that Emirates would not undercut Air NZ’s or Qantas’ freight prices, court documents show. ”Similar activity is also occurring in the Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne markets.

”After your comments on Emirate SkyCargo’s selling approach, I was interested to hear from our cargo sales people that we lost some of our consolidation cargo from the Brisbane to Auckland service last weekend to Emirates, at, what we are told, rates far more attractive than Air NZ’s,” he wrote.”

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Prostitutes are locked in a battle for the streets with a community group that wants them and their kerb-crawling customers gone.

Residents of south Auckland suburb Papatoetoe have declared war on street-walking hookers and formed The Papatoetoe Community Patrol to drive them and their clients out of infamous red-light area Hunter’s Corner.

A 2005 report by the Prostitution Law Review Committee estimated there were 423 sex workers in the Counties Manukau Police District, with 150 on the street.

The patrols come as the Manukau City Council tries for a second time to make street prostitutes illegal, following a failed attempt in 2006 by Manurewa MP and former police minister George Hawkins.

“These people are unregulated.

The Papatoetoe community group scares off the hookers’ customers by breaking up their negotiations and warning them of the potential health dangers of sleeping with prostitutes.

In just over a year, three members of the 15-strong patrol group have been assaulted and they’ve had to change their patrol car three times because prostitutes have lashed out with weapons. Some of them carry diseases, so there’s a risk not only to the client but also the client’s partner,” patrol member Stephen Grey told .

“They take to them with rocks, take to them with shopping trolleys, take to them with crow bars, kick them, kick the tail lights in.

“The cars we use get considerable damage on them,” Grey said. .”

He said the group had “broad shoulders” and wouldn’t be deterred.

The group is also sending the prostitutes’ clients letters, tracking them down through their car registration plates.

“Ultimately we’d like the legislation changed so selling sexual services in the street is illegal,” Grey said.

Grey said the group had sent “hundreds” of them.

The letters contained in pink envelopes alert them to the fact they’ve been spotted and warn them of the dangers of their late-night activities.

“We don’t send the letter unless we’re absolutely sure they are negotiating with a street worker or they have picked a street worker up and we have two or three people in the car to confirm that,” he said.

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Some recipients had contacted the group to deny they were kerb-crawling but Grey said the patrol was careful about who they send them to.

“We’re really upset this is happening,” she said.

Prostitutes Collective national co-ordinator Catherine Healy said she found the group’s actions “astounding”. The men aren’t law breakers, assuming they are seeking someone over the age of 16. “It’s harassment.

Healy said the patrol groups’ actions were not the solution.”

There had been similar action taken around the country, Healy said, but this was the first time a “formal, organised group” had targeted street workers.

Grey said the patrol’s actions were a last resort, borne out of frustration with authorities not solving the issue.

Grey said the patrol’s actions were a last resort, borne out of frustration with authorities not solving the issue.

“We’ve had enough of the activities of these street workers and the body waste they leave behind, the condoms they leave lying around and the activity that goes all night long,” Grey said.

“It’s (also) the way they go about their soliciting. Some of them place themselves in residential areas.

“They work there all night and every car that goes by, they yell at, and if the car doesn’t stop they yell abuse at the car and this goes on all night.”