Peru president tours earthquake site. Video (click here)
Peruvian President Alan Garcia tours town stricken by a devastating earthquake as death tolls rises to 437. Local reports say 70% of Pisco has been destroyed and rescuers must now focus on helping the homeless survivors that have lost everything in the quake. (57 sec./2.29Mb, shows: 21)
New Zealand Herald
Peru quake area hit by powerful aftershock
8:05AM Saturday August 18, 2007
Soldiers distribute bottles of water to earthquake survivors in Pisco, some 245 km south of Lima. Photo / Reuters
PISCO, Peru - A powerful aftershock rattled Peru on Friday, sowing panic as rescue teams and volunteers scrambled to find survivors of a massive earthquake earlier this week that killed about 500 people.
The aftershock had a 5.9 magnitude and damaged some homes in the region of Huancavelica, which lies south of the capital Lima and is one of Peru's most impoverished areas.
No one was killed but the aftershock terrified some residents of the towns hit hardest by Wednesday's 8.0 magnitude earthquake.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10458516
Bodies in the streets as Peru quake toll hits 450
10:00AM Friday August 17, 2007
By Jean Luis Arce
A man surveys the damage to his house after a jolt measuring 7.9 devastated the region
PISCO, Peru - Peruvians have pulled hundreds of dead from the rubble of homes and churches as bodies pile up on street corners after a huge earthquake ravaged the country's central coast.
Firefighters, civil defence officials and the United Nations said around 450 were killed in yesterday's 8.0-magnitude quake. Some 2,000 people were injured and the death toll was expected to rise further.
As rescuers scrambled through the debris in search of survivors, dazed residents guarded bodies in the street, unsure where to take them. Many of the victims were poor and were trapped after their traditional adobe-brick homes collapsed.
In the hard-hit town of Pisco, south of the capital Lima, at least 50 bodies were laid out in the main square, where a church fell in on itself during a service.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10458249
Second quake hits Marlborough region
4:10PM Thursday August 16, 2007
A second quake struck the Marlborough region this afternoon, this time about 30km northeast of Picton.
The 2.53pm quake, which measured 4.4, follows a 4.9 quake centred 40km north of Nelson at 7.56am.
The Picton quake had a focal depth of 60km while the Nelson one was at a depth of 150km, GNS Science reported.
It said that both quakes would have been felt in Marlborough, Wellington and Nelson. There have been no reports of any damage.
- NZPA
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10458116
Scientists try new ways to predict climate risks
11:33AM Monday August 13, 2007
By Alister Doyle
OSLO - Scientists are trying to improve predictions about the impact of global warming this century by pooling estimates about the risk of floods or desertification.
"We feel certain about some of the aspects of future climate change, like that it is going to get warmer," said Matthew Collins of the British Met Office. "But on many of the details it's very difficult to say.
"The way we can deal with this is a new technique of expressing the predictions in terms of probabilities," Collins told Reuters of climate research published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10457432
Hollywood's bid to save the planet
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
By David Smith
Can Jack Bauer save the world? News that television's secret agent, played by Kiefer Sutherland in the addictive thriller 24, is to take the war against global warming into millions of homes has been welcomed by environmental campaigners as a seminal moment in the "greening" of Hollywood.
Time, or the lack of it, is a recurring motif in the industry's take on climate change. The blockbuster that showed New York engulfed by a new ice age was called The Day After Tomorrow. Leonardo DiCaprio, arguably the most environmentally active star, has now released an alarming documentary he has produced and narrated entitled The 11th Hour. But it is 24 that has the most mainstream appeal and which, with its presentation in "real-time" corresponding minute by minute to the life of Bauer as he strives to beat the clock and avert disaster, provides an opportune metaphor for the race to salvage the planet.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10458372
Lowest of low without food weeks after flood
5:00AM Monday August 20, 2007
By Amelia Gentleman
A car tries to move through a flooded street in the eastern Indian city of Patna. Photo / Reuters
Two weeks after their hamlet of 17 houses was marooned by the violent flooding that swept through Bihar, the 200 people of Chak Ganoli are still waiting for help from the Government and aid agencies.
These villagers are members of the musahar - rat-catching - sub-caste, right at the bottom of the Indian social hierarchy. Outcast, even by other Dalit, or untouchable, groups, they are so accustomed to being marginalised there is barely any surprise at this latest neglect.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10458676
Drugs infest US schools
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
Millions of US teens attend "drug-infested schools" according to a national survey of attitudes on substance abuse released yesterday.
Thirty-one per cent of high school students - more than 4 million - see drug dealing, illegal drug use or students high or drunk at least once a week on their school grounds, said the annual survey by the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
And 9 per cent of middle school students, or more than 1 million, see classmates engaging in drug-related activity at school at least once a week.
The results also show that since 2002, the proportion of students who attend schools where drugs are used, kept or sold soared 39 per cent for high school students and 63 per cent for those in middle school.
CASA chairman Joseph Califano said the survey shows that "our nation's youth are drenched in a culture where drug and alcohol abuse are commonplace and that drug-infested schools encourage the idea that it's cool to get high and drunk. Parents should wake up to this reality ... "
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458381
Paul Thomas: US seldom elects super brain power
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
By Paul Thomas
There was blood on the stock exchange floor but otherwise the world reacted calmly to the news that George W. Bush's brain had left the building.
That partly reflected the widespread scepticism that such an organ exists. This week a fellow columnist correctly observed that it would be hard to find a better example of oxymoron than "good hummus". Some would argue that George W. Bush's brain is even more oxymoronic.
The brain in question actually belongs to Karl Rove, Bush's owlish eminence grise. In the wake of Rove's departure from the White House, pundits sagely declared that Bush was now a lame duck.
One would have thought that was axiomatic given he's less popular than irritable bowel syndrome. More pertinent is their assumption that now his domestic agenda is dead in the water, Bush will devote what's left of his presidency to foreign affairs.
Hands up all those who think that what the world needs now is more Bush.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458399
Paedophile speaks out about dangers facing kids
8:50AM Saturday August 18, 2007
A convicted paedophile says he was able to offend prolifically because parents were ignorant of the dangers facing their children.
The man who abused 40 children over decades in swimming pools, mall and on public transport, spoke to The Dominion Post to help parents be more vigilant to the risks posed by men like him.
He said he was surprised by a lot of the things he got away with and said society's reluctance to discuss sex and sexual offending made it easier to abuse.
Police asked the man to speak out, hoping if he explained the way he thought it would help parents be aware.
"People need to realise that there's no stereotype ," said Detective Sergeant Tusha Penny, head of the Lower Hutt child abuse team.
"People are calling for the Government to do more, but at the end of the day, it is a parent's responsibility to keep their children safe."
The paedophile said he manipulated his victims into keeping quiet by telling them it was a "naughty game" and making them part of the guilty secret.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10458521
Hurricane Dean strengthens to deadly Category 4
2:40PM Saturday August 18, 2007
A satellite image of Hurricane Dean. Image / Reuters
MIAMI - Hurricane Dean grew into a ferocious storm with winds over 216 kph today after it smashed into the Caribbean islands, leveling banana plantations and setting off landslides before heading toward the oil and gas rigs of the Gulf of Mexico.
The US National Hurricane Center said Dean was a Category 4 storm, the second-highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale and capable of widespread destruction.
It was expected to strengthen further before plowing directly over Jamaica toward the Gulf, home to a third of US domestic crude oil and 15 per cent of natural gas production.
Dean roared through the narrow channel between the Lesser Antilles islands of St. Lucia and Martinique on Friday, crossing from the Atlantic Ocean to the warm Caribbean Sea.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458517
Putin revives Russia's long-haul bomber flights
8:35AM Saturday August 18, 2007
Russia's President Vladimir Putin uses a pair of binoculars at the Chebarkul range to watch military exercises. Photo / Reuters
CHEBARKUL, Russia - President Vladimir Putin says security threats had forced Russia to revive the Soviet-era practice of sending bomber aircraft on regular patrols beyond its borders.
Putin said 14 strategic bombers had taken off simultaneously from airfields across Russia in the early hours of Friday on long-range missions.
"We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis," Putin told reporters after inspecting joint military exercises with China and four Central Asian states in Russia's Ural mountains.
"Today, August 17 at 00:00 hours, 14 strategic bombers took to the air from seven airfields across the country, along with support and refueling aircraft ... From today such patrols will be carried out on a regular basis.
"We hope our partners will treat this with understanding."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458520
Peru quake area hit by powerful aftershock
8:05AM Saturday August 18, 2007
Soldiers distribute bottles of water to earthquake survivors in Pisco, some 245 km south of Lima. Photo / Reuters
PISCO, Peru - A powerful aftershock rattled Peru on Friday, sowing panic as rescue teams and volunteers scrambled to find survivors of a massive earthquake earlier this week that killed about 500 people.
The aftershock had a 5.9 magnitude and damaged some homes in the region of Huancavelica, which lies south of the capital Lima and is one of Peru's most impoverished areas.
No one was killed but the aftershock terrified some residents of the towns hit hardest by Wednesday's 8.0 magnitude earthquake.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458516
Climate campaigners glue themselves to transport building
11:05AM Saturday August 18, 2007
By Jerome Taylor
As climate change campaigners readied themselves for a weekend of direct action around Heathrow, nine activists took their protest against airport expansion to the heart of central London yesterday by gluing themselves to the doors of the Department of Transport.
Dressed as office workers in order to fool security guards, six protestors doused their hands in super glue, walked up to the department's headquarters on Horseferry Road at 8.10am yesterday morning and stuck their hands to main and side entrances.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458530
Floods and disease, then 'silly season' hits Britain
11:05AM Saturday August 18, 2007
LONDON - When Jasmine the piglet hit the headlines, it was clear the season had arrived.
August is traditionally a month for light-weight, off-beat or just plain stupid stories in the British press as everyone heads off on holiday and forgets about the heavy duty news.
But this year, with the country deluged by mass flooding at the end of July and then struck with an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in early August, the so-called "silly season" was a little hesitant in arriving.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458524
Lightning kills 499 in China this year
2:20PM Friday August 17, 2007
BEIJING - Lightning has killed 499 people in China so far this year, nearly 200 more than in the same period last year, and the country's top meteorologist blamed recent extreme weather on global warming.
All of the victims were villagers and 79 per cent were working in the fields when they were struck, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday. About two-thirds died between late June and mid-August.
Large swathes of China have been hit by severe storms and flooding this summer which have killed hundreds. Other parts have suffered prolonged drought.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458336
Exiled PM lives a cut above rest
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
By Andrew Buncombe
Ousted Thailand PM Thaksin Shinawatra has bought a British football team, Manchester City. Photo / Reuters
The former Thai Prime Minister's taste for the high life is continuing to make headlines as warrants are issued for his arrest.
The life of an exile is never easy. The Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero was banished in 58BC and it caused him to fall into a deep depression; Napoleon died on St Helena, never to see his native France again; while the Egyptian politician Mahmoud Sami al-Baroudi so hated his exile to what is now Sri Lanka that he wrote a series of poems full of lament and misery.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458383
Nasa decides against repairing shuttle
7:15AM Saturday August 18, 2007
Nasa has decided no repairs are needed for a deep gouge in the space shuttle Endeavour's belly and the craft is safe to fly home.
Mission Control notified the seven shuttle astronauts of the decision yesterday, putting an end to a week of engineering analyses and anxious uncertainty.
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458490
114 and going strong
6:15AM Saturday August 18, 2007
The world's oldest person, 114-year-old Edna Parker, celebrated her feat yesterday by eating a slice of her favourite cake and saying she is amazed she has lived so long.
Parker, of Indiana, US, became the world's oldest known person with the death on Monday of Yone Minagawa, a Japanese woman four months her senior.
"It's hard to believe," said Parker, who was born on April 20, 1893. Although she never drank alcohol or tried tobacco and led an active life, Parker offered no tips for longevity.
Her only advice was: "More education."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458493
Signs of other earth
8:15AM Saturday August 18, 2007
Chemical elements observed around a burned-out star known as a white dwarf offer evidence Earth-like planets once orbited it, suggesting that worlds like our own may not be rare in the cosmos.
Astronomers studying a white dwarf called GD 362, 150 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy, figured out that the composition of a large asteroid that was ripped apart by gravitational forces as it approached GD 362 was similar to the Earth's crust.
It was rich in iron and calcium and low in carbon, much like a strong rock.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458494
US officials feared Taleban support
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
Newly declassified intelligence documents reveal the depth of US officials' concern that Pakistan was providing funds, arms - and even combat troops - to the Taleban regime in Afghanistan for years before September 11.
They also show rising frustration at what US officials called Pakistan's "resistance and/or duplicity" toward Washington's repeated requests for help in getting the Taleban to hand over Osama bin Laden.
The documents, released under a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington University's National Security Archive and posted on its website, add detail to what is already generally known about US intelligence on Pakistan's links with the Taleban as it surged to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s.
They show that as early as 1994, the US believed Pakistan intelligence services were involved with the Taleban.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458406
Iraq sect fears annihilation after scores killed
Men stand at the site of a suicide bomb attack in the village of Kahtaniya. Photo / Reuters
1:15PM Friday August 17, 2007
By Peter Graff
KAHTANIYA, Iraq - Angry members of a minority sect in Iraq have said they fear annihilation after scores were killed in possibly the worst suicide bomb attack of the four-year conflict.
Frail clay houses in the centre of Kahtaniya, one of two villages targeted on Tuesday by garbage trucks packed with explosives, were flattened for several blocks.
Chunks of concrete and twisted aluminium lay in the street beside the destroyed homes of hundreds of Yazidis, a minority sect regarded by Sunni militants as infidels.
Estimates of the death toll varied from 175 to 500.
"Their aim is to annihilate us, to create trouble and kill
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458327
Castro doesn't cash cheques for US Guantanamo base
10:35AM Saturday August 18, 2007
HAVANA - The United States pays Cuba $US4085 ($NZ6025) a month in rent for the controversial Guantanamo naval base, but Cuba has only once cashed a cheque in almost half a century and then only by mistake, Fidel Castro wrote in an essay published on Friday.
The ailing Cuban leader, who has not appeared in public for more than a year, said he had refused to cash the cheques to protest the "illegal" US occupation of the land which he said was now used for "dirty work".
"The base is needed to humiliate and to do the dirty work that occurs there," he said of the detention camp where some 355 terrorism suspects are still being held with no legal rights despite international criticism.
Castro, who turned 81 on Monday out of public sight, said the US cheques are made out to the "Treasurer General of the Republic," a position that ceased to exist after Cuba's 1959 revolution.
He said only one US cheques was ever cashed -- in 1959 due to "confusion" in the heady early days of the leftist revolution.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=32&objectid=10458529
John Armstrong: Chest beating in the china shop
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
By John Armstrong
Viewed in isolation, the kerfuffle over Air New Zealand's ferrying of Australian troops part-way to Iraq is a passing political storm which has done nothing more than rattle the fine china tea cups at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
For anyone still wondering what all the fuss is about, its significance lies in what it says about the Labour-led Government. And it says an awful lot.
A week or so ago, New Zealand First's Ron Mark got up in Parliament to complain about the minor parties being shut out of political debate by the all-consuming power struggle between Labour and National. The tempo was such, it felt like the House was already winding up to an election.
That election is still 15 months away - and Labour is hardly likely to bring it forward.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10458429
Should Air NZ have carried troops towards Iraq?
4:15PM Friday August 17, 2007
Defence Minister Phil Goff has confirmed Air New Zealand carried troops to Iraq.
He expressed his anger at the move saying it was not appropriate for the flag-carrying national airline to be used to cart troops to a war New Zealand did not approve of.
Here is the latest selection of Your Views:
Freddy (Auckland)This runaway obsession with good business sense is extremely worrying. I strongly believe that it is unethical for businesses to place profit above any other consideration. It is quite obvious that if Air New Zealand did not fly those troops to Kuwait then no major monetary loss would be felt. I believe it is quite unacceptable to lend support to a horrendous and illegal war in the name of profit and the excuse that they did not actually land on Iraqi soil is very unconvincing.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10457912
Fran O'Sullivan: Fuss over harmless flights leaves us a laughing stock
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
By Fran O'Sullivan
Cabinet ministers should take a sharp look at how their hyperbolic behaviour over the Air New Zealand charter flights imbroglio is being read in Canberra and elsewhere.
The flights carrying Australian troops to the Middle East did not breach any United Nations sanctions, nor did they infringe on Government policy. That was the judgment call made by the country's top diplomat six months ago when he effectively approved the flights as falling within Government policy parameters.
Now, Ministry of Foreign Affairs boss Simon Murdoch is being castigated by senior cabinet ministers for what the Stalinists would recognise as a political crime: failing to pre-judge six months ago that senior cabinet ministers like Phil Goff (and others) would decide to use New Zealand's position on the Iraq war as a wedge against their National opponents - particularly leader John Key - with a damn-the-consequences approach.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10458397
Once in a red moon - a lunar eclipse is coming
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
The only lunar eclipse visible from New Zealand for more than three years will happen this month.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth passes between the sun and the moon, blocking the light from the sun reaching the moon's surface.
The eclipse on Tuesday, August 28, will start at 7.52pm, but won't be noticed until around 8.51pm, when the moon enters the full shadow of the earth.
The moon will be fully eclipsed by the earth's shadow from 9.52pm to 11.23pm, and the eclipse will be over by 1.22am.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=82&objectid=10458418
CYF pays $18,000 to help mother move away from paedophile
1:35PM Sunday August 19, 2007
Child, Youth and Family (CYF) has apologised after a convicted sex offender it moved into a Napier home was seen several times in the next-door property of a mother and her five-year-old daughter.
CYF paid the mother $18,000 to help her move house after she saw a convicted paedophile in her back yard at least 14 times in April, the Sunday News reported today.
The woman, who would not reveal her name to the newspaper, said she once saw the offender with his face pressed up against one of her windows and smiling at her daughter.
She said CYF told her the 18-year-old paedophile who was convicted in 2006 for preying on four young girls in Auckland was supposed to be under 24-hour supervision by three people and alarmed at night.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10458643
Man's heart stops after Red Bull overdose
12:15PM Sunday August 19, 2007
Red Bull cans contain a recommendation not to drink more than two cans a day.
SYDNEY - Energy drinks should carry clearer warnings, says one man who almost died after downing eight cans of Red Bull.
Matthew Penboss, 28, has told Fairfax and News Limited newspapers his heart stopped after drinking the cans, each containing 80 mg of caffeine.
After a day motocross riding, the usually fit and healthy Mr Penboss collapsed and went into cardiac arrest earlier this month, his heart finally shutting down.
Mr Penboss was revived and rushed to hospital, where he spent six days recovering.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/6/story.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10458639
Girl spotted in Belgium not Madeleine
2:00PM Sunday August 19, 2007
Madeleine McCann has been missing since May 3.
BRUSSELS - Belgian police have identified a young girl thought last month to have been missing British four-year-old Madeleine McCann as the daughter of a Belgian man, news reports said today.
A woman alerted police last month after spotting a girl she believed was Madeleine at a roadside cafe in the eastern Belgian town of Tongeren with a Dutch-speaking man of about 40 and an English-speaking woman of around 25.
Belga news agency said prosecutors had confirmed the girl was not Madeleine, but Sjanneke, the four-year-old daughter of a Belgian man from the town of Hoogstraten.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458645
Bush approves pre-landfall emergency over Hurricane Dean
8:50AM Sunday August 19, 2007
Hurricane Dean and its clearly defined eye can be seen swirling in the Carribean with part of the International Space Station visible in the foreground. Photo / Nasa
KINGSTON/CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush has approved a pre-landfall emergency declaration for Texas in case the state is hit by Hurricane Dean, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
The emergency declaration, which was requested by the governor of Texas, will allow the federal government to move in people, equipment and supplies now in the event the state is hit by the hurricane, he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458628
Downside of falling kiwi dollar...
5:00AM Sunday August 19, 2007
By Chris Daniels
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. As the anguished cries of New Zealand exporters start to fade, the chorus of complaints from the other side of the room rises in volume.
This other side of the economy - in the shops and at the fuel pumps - is now being hit by last week's plunge in the value of the kiwi dollar.
On Thursday, the kiwi plunged US3c in its biggest one-day fall for 21 years. It closed on Friday at US67.15c, the lowest close this year and since November, and was trading at US69.55 yesterday morning. About three weeks ago the NZ dollar was at a post-float high above US81c.
Some $2.5 billion of NZ dollar denominated bonds mature this week, expected to put further pressure on the currency. These bonds are issued to retail investors, particularly in Japan, and give them exposure to our high interest rates.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10458550
Heavy exercise too much of good thing for the heart
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
Too much exercise could worsen high blood pressure. Photo / Northern Advocate
Although exercise can be a key part of managing high blood pressure and heart disease, new animal research suggests there can be too much of a good thing.
In experiments with rats, researchers found that excessive exercise worsened high blood pressure and progression to heart failure in rats with high blood pressure. Rebecca Schultz and colleagues at the University of South Dakota, Sioux Falls, reported the results in the journal Hypertension.
Regular physical activity has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease in numerous studies. Moreover, exercise therapy has been shown to improve blood pressure and symptoms of heart failure - a chronic condition in which the heart loses its ability to pump blood efficiently, causing symptoms like breathlessness and fatigue.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10458415
Health Story
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Baby boomers discovering the 'pause' in menopause
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
When a woman enters menopause, her sex life and that of her partner may suffer, says a survey in which more than half of the women reported a decrease in sex drive and in the amount of sex they were having since entering menopause.
Overall, 46 per cent of menopausal women surveyed reported having sex less than once a month and most women felt this was hurting their relationship.
"Menopausal women are having less sex and it's impacting our relationships," Karen Giblin, founder of the Red Hot Mamas organisation, said. "Frankly, through our menopause education programmes, I have heard a lot of women say they would rather go shoe shopping than have sex and that concerns me."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10458416
Widespread Wi-fi network just around the corner?
5:00AM Sunday August 19, 2007
By Peter Griffin
Hotspots let you surf the net for free
If you're a Telecom internet customer you may not realise that you can log into wireless internet hotspots at hotels, conference centres and Starbucks cafes the length of the country and surf the web for free. The service saved my bacon last week when a power outage at the Grand Chancellor hotel in Christchurch brought down the wired internet connection in my room.
A friend drove me to the Rydges Hotel where a Telecom hotspot operates. I didn't even get out of the car, just booted up my laptop outside the hotel, logged in and fired off the messages I urgently needed to send. Telecom says its hotspots will be free to Xtra customers to access until the end of the year. I hope it extends the offer indefinitely.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10458590
HP sued over leak witch-hunt
2:04PM Thursday August 16, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Three reporters for CNET Networks Inc sued Hewlett-Packard Co today, alleging the computer and printer maker violated their privacy in its hunt for the source of boardroom leaks.
The suit in California state court in San Francisco also alleges HP broke state business-practices rules, CNET, an online technology newsletter, said on its website.
The suit by reporters Dawn Kawamoto, Stephen Shankland and Tom Krazit seeks unspecified damages.
HP spokesman Ryan Donovan told CNET the company was "disappointed by their decision and will defend itself." He said the company had apologised to the reporters and made "a substantial settlement offer" to the reporters, their relatives and charities of their choice.
The suit follows a scandal that rocked the Silicon Valley technology giant last year after disclosures that its board had hired private investigators to determine who on the board had leaked information about sensitive boardroom discussions to news outlets including CNET and The Wall Street Journal.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10458106
Deborah Coddington: A far cry from sailing in America's Cup
5:00AM Sunday August 19, 2007
By Deborah Coddington
Can we take a deep breath and listen to what Maori Party MP Hone Harawira has to say, rather than join the queue of those pounding him for visiting Aborigine people in Alice Springs?
Who, exactly, was "howling with outrage" at Harawira's side-trip? On whose authority was he pronounced "absent without leave"? Where, apart from in the imagination of some media, was the "furore" he provoked?
There's no solid evidence for these accusations, but that didn't stop last weekend's TV reporters from wetting themselves with excitement, and pronouncing these condemnations as facts. One News preceded its 6pm bulletin by announcing Harawira had provoked "howls of outrage".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10458560
Dark forces in the Wiki - FBI, CIA edits entries
1:58PM Friday August 17, 2007
By Randall Mikkelsen
Wikipedia entries are being edited by everyone from the CIA to the Church of Scientology.
WASHINGTON - People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program.
The changes may violate Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said.
The program, WikiScanner, was developed by Virgil Griffith of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and posted this month on a website that was quickly overwhelmed with searches.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10458340
Hardcore Taser pretty in pink
11:28AM Thursday August 16, 2007
By David Schwartz
SCOTTSDALE - It resembles a hand-held electric razor and is available in metallic pink, electric blue, titanium silver and black pearl.
But it gives out a 50,000-volt jolt that short-circuits brain signals and momentarily incapacitates.
Meet the sleek new C2 stun gun from Taser International in Scottsdale, a controversial device aimed mainly at women consumers that has sparked widespread concern among US law enforcement and human rights groups.
Police forces in the United States have been issued with Tasers since 1999 to subdue violent criminals. A pistol-like civilian version aimed at the self-defence market has been available since 1994.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10458081
Hopes dim for over 180 trapped miners in China
4:00PM Sunday August 19, 2007
XINTAI, China - More than 180 Chinese miners trapped down a flooded shaft have slim hopes for survival, but officials said they would press on with frantic rescue efforts after one of the nation's worst mine disasters.
Some 172 miners were pinned down in the mine in the eastern province Shandong after the rain-swollen Wen River overcame flood defences and surged down the shaft on Friday. Nine other miners were trapped in a shaft nearby.
By early Sunday, rescuers had sealed the over 50-metre gash in the levee after hundreds of troops piled sacks of cement, trees, rocks and even trucks into the gap.
But officials acknowledged hopes were dim for most, if not all, of the 172 men pinned down the Huayuan Mining Corp. shaft that goes as deep as 860 metres. Deputy province governor Wang Junmin said 150 of them were far below the surface.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458647
Shuttle worries for Nasa
5:00AM Sunday August 19, 2007
Worried about Hurricane Dean, Mission Control considered scaling back yesterday's spacewalk at the orbiting space shuttle and station complex to allow for a possible early end to Endeavour's mission.
Nasa wants to keep its options open for moving up Wednesday's shuttle landing by one day, and shortening the spacewalk would be one way to do it, said Le Roy Cain, of the mission management team.
Shuttle managers decided yesterday to put off fuel-tank preparations for the next launch until engineers decide how to best solve the latest foam-loss problem. A piece of foam, ice or a combination of both broke off the tank during Endeavour's launch last week and shot into the shuttle's belly, carving out a deep gouge.
Much of yesterday's spacewalk involved space station chores that could be put off, Cain said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458593
Turkish plane hijacking ends as hostages freed
8:55AM Sunday August 19, 2007
ANTALYA, Turkey - Two men hijacked an airliner heading for Istanbul from northern Cyprus today, but gave themselves up and released their hostages after forcing the plane to land in southern Turkey.
Soon after landing most of the 136 passengers were released or broke out through emergency exits, running along the wings and jumping down onto the tarmac.
The pilots also escaped but four passengers and two crew members were held hostage as negotiations took place.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458629
Saddam's daughter faces death
5:00AM Sunday August 19, 2007
Less than a year after her father was sent to the gallows, Saddam Hussein's daughter is facing charges that could lead to her execution.
Raghad Hussein, 38, has been charged with financing the insurgents who have bedevilled Iraq since shortly after her father's regime was toppled in 2003, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
Hussein is believed to be living in Amman, Jordan, as a guest of King Abdullah II.
The spokesman, Abdul Kereem Khalaf, said the Iraqi Judicial Authority issued an arrest warrant for Hussein a year ago, but that it was only being made public now after Interpol, the international police agency, issued a worldwide notice that Iraq was seeking her.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10458591
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