Neu: 2001-09-11
Contents of this issue:
1. Now Is The Hour
2. Voyage To The Unknown
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September 11th, 2001
1. Now Is The Hour:
TVNZ is canning its Sunday night 60 Minutes show, in favour of a new
local current affairs programme.The program is popular with Niue
viewers. Television New Zealand spokesman Glen Sowry says the 60 Minutes
contract with CBS is up for renewal at the end of the year, and
management has decided not to go with the US import. He says TVNZ feels
the money spent on the rights to the 60 Minutes format could be better
spent on a new programme with a stronger New Zealand flavour.
The new programme will be launched next year, but the broadcaster is yet
to decide on the format.
2. Voyage To The Unknown:
Hundreds of unwanted asylum seekers faced another sea voyage of
thousands of kilometres across the Pacific after Australia appealed
against a court ruling and ordered them straight to a tiny Pacific
island. The Federal Court seemed to have dealt a blow to Canberra's bid
to slam its doors on illegal immigrants when it ordered the government
to accept 433 mainly Afghan asylum seekers it had rejected after they
were rescued by the Norwegian freighter Tampa in the Indian Ocean. But
the government responded with an immediate appeal, and then defiantly
decided to send a navy troop carrier carrying the illegal immigrants on
a 2350km sea voyage to the Pacific island of Nauru. Australia solved an
eight-day standoff near its Indian Ocean outpost of Christmas Island
last week when it announced a plan to ship the asylum seekers on board
the troop carrier HMAS Manoora to Papua New Guinea. From there, 282 of
the asylum seekers were to be flown to Nauru and 150 to New Zealand.
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