Two a penny

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More New Zealand aid and specialist help has arrived in tsunami-ravaged Samoa today.

An Air Force Boeing 757 landed at the Pacific Island today carrying police dog search teams, medical personnel and a surgical team, including Samoan-speaking doctors and nurses.”We are working closely with Australian and Samoan health authorities, as well as the New Zealand Defence Force, to put people with the right mix of skills in place in a planned and managed fashion.”The timing is at the request of the Samoan authorities, so that the team will relieve some of the Australian team, and also allow local staff to take a break to be with their own families,” Health Minister Tony Ryall said.Their arrival will boost the numbers of New Zealand Defence Force personnel helping with the aftermath of Wednesday morning’s earthquake and tsunami to 99, Radio New Zealand reported.”The surgical team would take with it medical equipment and supplies requested by Samoa.HMNZS Canterbury was expected to sail from New Zealand on Tuesday with more aid and equipment.Medical and food supplies were also aboard.Yesterday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed two New Zealand children died in the tsunamis and a third was missing, presumed dead.Meanwhile, the Defence Force said a water purification system delivered on yesterday should be operational by today.”Grave concerns” were held for Matamata sisters Petria and Rebecca Martin, who were staying at Taufua Lodge resort in Lalomanu, the worst-hit area.Two adult New Zealanders had also died as walls of water swamped the island nation: Raglan woman Mary Ann White and an unidentified person, the ministry said.South Auckland woman Tauaavaga Tupuola - the 84-year-old grandmother of Kiwis rugby league star Matt Utai - was swept to her death with her granddaughter, Bula Okei, 28, and three-year-old great-granddaughter Sima, The reported.Also staying at the resort was two-year-old Auckland toddler Alfie Cunliffe, who is missing and believed to have died when he was swept out to sea as the tsunami hit.Hopes were also fading for Matamata sisters Petria and Rebecca Martin, who have been missing since Wednesday.The ministry was investigating earlier today whether Mrs Tupuola was a New Zealand passport holder, a spokesman told today. It was expected to rise further.The death toll stands at 189 - 149 in Samoa, 31 in American Samoa and nine in Tonga.He has since returned to New Zealand, but has promised the nation more aid to help in the disaster’s aftermath.Prime Minister John Key arrived in Samoa yesterday to see firsthand the devastation wreaked by the tsunamis. The title, given as he drank kava in the village’s meeting house, meant he would be known as “To’osavili Sione Key”. reported he had been made a chief, or “ali’i”, of the devastated village of Poutasi.”We are keeping a register of skilled health professionals and co-ordinating our resources with Australia to ensure that we provide the most effective help possible in conjunction with the Samoan health service,” he said.Meanwhile, more than 250 New Zealand health professionals had volunteered to help in Samoa, Mr Ryall said.Medical help would be needed for weeks to come and Mr Ryall asked that health professionals able to assist phone (09) 263 1381, fax (09) 261 3396 or email Incident.Medical help would be needed for weeks to come and Mr Ryall asked that health professionals able to assist phone (09) 263 1381, fax (09) 261 3396 or email Incident.Controllermiddlemore. .nz outlining their details.

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A senior police officer has failed in a bid to be discharged without conviction after he drove home “grossly” drunk from a police bar.

Detective Sergeant John Gualter, an instructor at the Royal New Zealand Police College in Porirua, earlier pleaded guilty to drink-driving and dangerous driving.

This afternoon, through his lawyer, he sought a discharge without conviction in Porirua District Court.

She said she did not consider a conviction would necessarily see the end of Gualter’s career.

But Judge June Johnston rejected the discharge application.”

Gualter was disqualified from driving for nine months and fined $1800 plus court costs.

“In my view the police will be in a better position to assess your ongoing employment than this court.

He will now face an employment investigation. His breath-alcohol reading of 1039 micrograms was more than 2½ times the legal limit of 400mcg.

Gualter was stopped by police close to his home in Linden, north Wellington, after 10pm on November 14.

Members of the public saw Gualter join State Highway 1 north of Porirua and weave back and forth across all three lanes.

The previously published details from the police statement of facts describing the incident.

During the journey, his car was seen straddling lanes, swerving to miss a pedestrian-crossing pole and a power pole, mounting footpaths, driving “completely on the incorrect side of a road” and narrowly missing moving cars. They rang police and followed him as he drove into Porirua and on to Linden.

“When he got out of his vehicle he was so grossly intoxicated that he was unsteady on his feet, his eyes were glazed and bloodshot, and his speech was slurred, and he had to lean on the vehicle to support himself,” the police summary said.

“When he got out of his vehicle he was so grossly intoxicated that he was unsteady on his feet, his eyes were glazed and bloodshot, and his speech was slurred, and he had to lean on the vehicle to support himself,” the police summary said

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A sharp-eyed prison officer foiled an attempt to have cannabis delivered to an inmate at Tongariro/Rangipo prison on the weekend.

“One of our guys was on his way into work when he spotted what looked like a Tupperware container tucked into the grass by the prison entrance,” acting assistant regional manager Diane Brophy said.

“Inside he found approximately an ounce of cannabis leaf – enough for several tinnies and considered a valuable commodity by some prisoners.

“The way the container was placed aroused suspicion so the Corrections officer stopped to investigate further.

“Unfortunately, there are people in the community that are willing to help prisoners access drugs by trying various devious methods to get them into Corrections Facilities. .

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Anyone caught trying to smuggle drugs or other banned products into the prison would be prosecuted, Ms Brophy said

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Two people have died on New Zealand roads this weekend.

This morning a 78-year-old Hauraki man died at the scene of a crash close to Paeroa.

The driver of the ute was the only other person involved and was unhurt.

Police said the man attempted to do a U-turn in the path of a northbound ute close to the intersection of Rangiora Road, Komata, on State Highway 26.

The dead man was driving west and hit an oncoming car, Sergeant Steve Salton said.

About 1am yesterday (Saturday) a 22-year-old man died at the scene of a two-car collision on Auckland’s Upper Harbour motorway, close to the Greenhithe Bridge.

On Friday morning two teenage girls were killed in a car crash in Whangarei.

He suspected speed to be a factor in the crash.10am.

The pair, who were aged 17 and 18, were killed when the car they were in rolled down a bank on Anzac Rd and into the front yard of a property in suburban Morningside just after 1.

The two were in the back seat of the car and not wearing seatbelts, Northland police spokeswoman Sarah Kennett said.

Police said they were locals.

They received minor injuries and did not need hospital treatment.

There were three other women, aged 16 to 19, in the car.

Ms Kennett said the car lost control on a bend and no other vehicles were involved.

The driver was breath-tested at the scene and was found not to have been under the influence of alcohol.

Also on Friday, a woman died after her car and a truck collided close to Dargaville, 58km south west of Whangarei.

She said the road would have been wet as it rained in Whangarei yesterday and overnight.

The woman driver of the car died at the scene. . The three deaths on the road on Friday fell outside of the weekend reporting period.

* The weekend road death toll was earlier incorrectly reported as five.

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Immigration ‘has to be fixed’

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Hundreds of women are paying for new “egg-timer” fertility tests, with experts forecasting increasing numbers will freeze their eggs. .

Since their introduction, hundreds of women each month have paid about $400 for the test and follow-up consultation.

Previously, women had to pay for a less accurate and more costly ultrasound scan to determine fertility.

The Health Minister is considering a recommendation by the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology, which guides the Government on fertility issues, that the use of frozen eggs be allowed for some individuals.

Experts say the tests will see a consequent rise in the freezing of eggs, despite it still being illegal to thaw them.

Collyer said one in four New Zealanders now had infertility issues.

The new egg tests had attracted “a lot of interest from single women”, said Michelle Collyer, chief executive of support group Fertility New Zealand. The egg-timer tests allowed single women and couples to make informed decisions about when and how to have children, she said. This had climbed from about one in five several years ago.

A lot of single women had not met “Mr Right” yet and wanted to know how long they had before they were unable to conceive or could do so only with great difficulty.

Many women in their 30s who called Fertility New Zealand about the tests said they were likely to consider freezing their eggs if they found they had a limited time to conceive. “That means people are often putting their career before embarking on a family.

“We are dealing with a lot of social infertility now rather than biological infertility,” Collyer said.”

Obstetrician and gynaecologist Andrew Murray, the medical director of Fertility Associates in Wellington, said its “egg-check” tests provided important information for single women and couples in deciding when to start a family.

“The egg test gives people more information about what their options are and, as far as I’m concerned, the more information the better.

Few people had eggs frozen at Fertility Associates, and they were predominantly cancer patients.

Having the test, and freezing eggs, were a kind of “fertility insurance”, he said.

Currently, a frozen embryo was far more likely to be successfully thawed than a frozen egg, he said.

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However, it was likely that if the thawing of eggs was allowed and the related technology became more sophisticated, more women might do it, Murray said.

The cost of being inseminated with donor sperm was about $1000.

It cost about $10,000 to freeze either an egg or an embryo, Murray said.

Women produced a finite number of eggs at birth.

Repromed deputy medical director Dr Greg Phillipson said its egg-timer tests assessed levels of the hormone AMH, which related to a woman’s egg supply.

If, for example, a woman scored 10 per cent, it was likely she had a limited window of opportunity to conceive, he said.

If, for example, a woman scored 10 per cent, it was likely she had a limited window of opportunity to conceive, he said.

It was likely that if the moratorium on thawing eggs was lifted, more single women with limited fertility would freeze eggs for when they met their life partner, Phillipson said.

BACK ON FERTILTY TRACK

At 31, Caron Gutovitz believed she had years left to conceive a child.

However, after a new blood test that determines how many eggs a woman has left, Gutovitz has found she is nearing the end of her fertility.

The egg-timer or egg-check blood test was recently introduced to New Zealand.

Since then, hundreds of women have had it.

Gutovitz had her son, Owen, about two years ago, and had been trying to conceive for the past year.

Eventually, she turned to fertility experts, who discovered scarring on her uterus.

This had been removed, but she was still unable to get pregnant.

“I had the egg-check tests and it showed that my fertility was very low,” she said. “It showed my ovaries thought I was far older than I am.

“My body thought I was 40-something instead of 31. The result was pretty unexpected because I wouldn’t have thought I had that problem.”

The egg-check test is done via a blood test.

Results take about 10 days and are plotted on a graph against a person’s age.

Gutovitz said the test results had “radically” changed her outlook on getting pregnant.

She is now starting in vitro fertilisation treatment.

“If I hadn’t done the test, I would have continued to try and get pregnant through less invasive techniques. This way I know what my options are and I’m not going to find myself running out of time.”

- KIM THOMAS,

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Teacher undergoing surgery after bus crash

and Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Eight pupils from a Gisborne high school were discharged from hospital in Hastings today after a bus crash on the Napier-Wairoa road.
The group's teacher, who was driving their mini bus back to Gisborne, was undergoing surgery as pupils waited for their parents to arrive from Gisborne to collect them.
The Lytton High School group was travelling on State Highway 2 near Putorino about 6.
Police said it appeared a car came around a corner towards the northbound mini bus and may have crossed the centre line.30pm when the crash happened.
The car driver received facial injuries and broken bones.
The pupils suffered moderate injuries ranging from broken bones to bruising.
The Lowe Walker rescue helicopter tried to land at the crash scene, but had to turn back because of bad weather.
Both vehicles were extensively damaged. .

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Police said they were continuing their investigation into the accident and hoped to speak to both drivers today

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Police clean up boy racers in Hamilton?

- Saturday, 21 February 2009

Thousands of tickets have been issued and hundreds of cars have been impounded as Hamilton police's Brat Pack rained on the boy racers' parade along Te Rapa Straight.
Figures obtained by the show in the 12 months to June 2008, police performed 9837 compulsory and mobile breath tests and took 97 positive readings; 3359 infringement and traffic notices were issued; 166 people were arrested for various offences; 143 vehicles were seized; and 362 vehicles were either green or pink stickered.
At the time, police labelled the work "very productive".
"Te Rapa Rd used to be a bloody nightmare because they used Scotsman Grandstands along the service lane which has since been shut down.
Waikato road policing manager Inspector Leo Tooman said the five-officer-strong Brat Pack had made significant progress with the boy racer problem in Hamilton. Now it's really as soon as we see them starting to congregate you go and move them on. Then the liquor ban came in. .
When contacted, owner Jeff Olsen said not a lot had changed.
Washworld has been a popular congregating site for boy racers over the years, with varying amounts of broken bottles, spew and urine left decorating the premises."
Mr Olsen said there were occasional nights where it was worse than normal, but there were "very occasional" nights when nothing happened at all.
"It (happens) fairly regularly; lots of broken bottles, even though there's a liquor ban.
He was disappointed there had not been as much presence of police in Te Rapa as had been promised.
He said his staff would spend, on average, an hour cleaning up the mess left behind by boy racers.
"There's a liquor ban but it doesn't seem to have any affect.
"There's a liquor ban but it doesn't seem to have any affect."
He had noticed several congregation areas including Bunnings, Westpac and Fairview Motors and Shell Pukete car parks. If it was enforced and there was enough of a police presence then we wouldn't be picking all the RTD bottles and other junk up. It flares up and police do a bit of extra activity, something like the liquor ban; it hasn't solved the issue, it still carries on.
"It's gone on for a lot of years and a lot of talk on what's going to happen."
Shell Pukete manager Pierre Erasmus said staff spent every Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning picking up rubbish, broken bottles and McDonald's wrappers along with cleaning urine and graffiti off parts of the building. It's just something that we pretty much deal with."
Waikato police spokesperson Andrew McAlley said for a city the size of Hamilton police would never be able to remove all boy racers, but confirmed police were pleased there were no longer congregations of up to 2000 at a time as was the case about two years ago.
"If they weren't so messy it wouldn't be a problem.

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Police clean up boy racers in Hamilton?

- Saturday, 21 February 2009

Thousands of tickets have been issued and hundreds of cars have been impounded as Hamilton police's Brat Pack rained on the boy racers' parade along Te Rapa Straight.
Figures obtained by the show in the 12 months to June 2008, police performed 9837 compulsory and mobile breath tests and took 97 positive readings; 3359 infringement and traffic notices were issued; 166 people were arrested for various offences; 143 vehicles were seized; and 362 vehicles were either green or pink stickered.
At the time, police labelled the work "very productive".
"Te Rapa Rd used to be a bloody nightmare because they used Scotsman Grandstands along the service lane which has since been shut down.
Waikato road policing manager Inspector Leo Tooman said the five-officer-strong Brat Pack had made significant progress with the boy racer problem in Hamilton. Now it's really as soon as we see them starting to congregate you go and move them on. Then the liquor ban came in. .
When contacted, owner Jeff Olsen said not a lot had changed.
Washworld has been a popular congregating site for boy racers over the years, with varying amounts of broken bottles, spew and urine left decorating the premises."
Mr Olsen said there were occasional nights where it was worse than normal, but there were "very occasional" nights when nothing happened at all.
"It (happens) fairly regularly; lots of broken bottles, even though there's a liquor ban.
He was disappointed there had not been as much presence of police in Te Rapa as had been promised.
He said his staff would spend, on average, an hour cleaning up the mess left behind by boy racers.
"There's a liquor ban but it doesn't seem to have any affect.
"There's a liquor ban but it doesn't seem to have any affect."
He had noticed several congregation areas including Bunnings, Westpac and Fairview Motors and Shell Pukete car parks. If it was enforced and there was enough of a police presence then we wouldn't be picking all the RTD bottles and other junk up. It flares up and police do a bit of extra activity, something like the liquor ban; it hasn't solved the issue, it still carries on.
"It's gone on for a lot of years and a lot of talk on what's going to happen."
Shell Pukete manager Pierre Erasmus said staff spent every Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning picking up rubbish, broken bottles and McDonald's wrappers along with cleaning urine and graffiti off parts of the building. It's just something that we pretty much deal with."
Waikato police spokesperson Andrew McAlley said for a city the size of Hamilton police would never be able to remove all boy racers, but confirmed police were pleased there were no longer congregations of up to 2000 at a time as was the case about two years ago.
"If they weren't so messy it wouldn't be a problem.

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Police interview 140 prostitutes in Manning murder probe

By JO McKENZIE-McLEAN - Tuesday, 13 January 2009

Police have spoken to about 140 prostitutes and 40 minders in their hunt for the murderer of a Christchurch woman. .
Her body was found in the Avon River in Dallington.
Williams said police had spoken to a man they were seeking. She had been strangled, stabbed in the chest several times and beaten about the head and legs with what appeared to be a piece of reinforcing steel.
"At this stage in the investigation we still believe it is likely that Mellory has been picked up from her corner by a vehicle around 10.
He was in the area the night of Manning's murder, driving a silver Ford Focus.45pm, and the telephone inquiries definitely indicate that all is not well by 11.
"This also seems to fit with her watch stopping at 10.30pm as she failed to reply to the next set of texts that were sent to her," Williams said."
The violent attack would have caused considerable blood loss where she was attacked, in any vehicle that she was in or anything she might have been wrapped in, Williams said.58pm.
Police had still not identified the vehicle or driver of the XR6 or XR8 Ford Falcon that Manning was seen in.
He appealed for information on anyone who might have changed their behaviour since December 18, who were reluctant to use their vehicle, had suddenly sold it, cleaned or altered it, or said they had sold it.
Police had identified about 100 cars and had sent out about 20 inquiries to other towns, Williams said.
Police had identified about 100 cars and had sent out about 20 inquiries to other towns, Williams said.
Also of interest was a man in a blue 4WD possibly a Toyota Hilux who approached a prostitute about 10.
Men had been driving four-wheel-drive vehicles in the Manchester Street-Peterborough Street area in central Christchurch about the time Manning must have been picked up, including a dark-coloured one either black or blue with chrome wheels and tinted windows, he said.
He is described as European, slim, with grey stubble, balding at the front and greying hair at the back.35pm and asked for prices.
Williams asked that person or anyone knowing him to contact the police.
He was described as "rough-looking" and was wearing a blue jersey with holes in it.

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Free study on offer if job goes under

Saturday, 29 November 2008

Government-owned polytechnic UCOL is offering free study next year for anyone who loses their job as a result of the economic crisis. .
The initiatives show UCOL's "commitment to its local communities and to the health of the regional economies UCOL serves".
"Anyone who doesn't find employment in their study area within 13 weeks of successfully completing a UCOL programme started in 2009 can then apply to enrol on another programme without paying further tuition fees in 2010," chief executive Paul McElroy said.
"There is still uncertainty about the impact on the New Zealand job market of the recession and slowdown in the global economy," McElroy said.
The offer is available to anyone made redundant after September 1 and includes normal tuition fees on certificates, degrees and diplomas offered at its campuses in Palmerston North, Wanganui, and the Wairarapa."

. "All of this means that many people are anxious about the security of their jobs and their ability to adapt to a changing employment environment