New Zealand Herald

Manning’s Funeral - Bottrill Speaks - Baby’s Death - Sailor On Run - Waiku Rugby - Otara Youth - Smear Victim - New Health System - John Tamihere - Rudman’s City - Will Promises - Prebble In Trouble - Welfare Claims - Bumber Ski Season

MANNING’S FUNERAL: As mourners filed past Leonard Manning's grave, many paused to let fall a poppy - or a tear. Private Leonard William Manning, aged 24, was laid to rest on Saturday at Rangiriri, near his hometown of Te Kauwhata, after dying in combat in East Timor a week ago today.

- BOTTRILL SPEAKS: The pathologist blamed for mis-reading thousands of cervical smears will today give answers that Gisborne women have been waiting more than a year for. Since April, a ministerial inquiry has heard vast amounts of evidence from health authorities, medical experts and women caught up in the cancer scandal.

- BABY’S DEATH: The family of an abused Carterton toddler took the dead girl to a geriatric nurse before dropping her at hospital. The homicide inquiry head, Inspector Rod Drew, said three women took the battered body of Hinewaoriki Karaitiana-Matiaha to the accident and emergency department of Masterton Hospital at midnight on Sunday, July 23.

- SAILOR ON RUN: A British sailor dramatically rescued from the Pacific Ocean yesterday says he was on the run from New Zealand immigration authorities and was trying to slip into Australia to see his wife and children. Greg McLelland, aged 40, and crewman Peter Le Mare, 60, were plucked from a liferaft in heavy seas 300km north of New Zealand and taken on board a container ship at first light.

- WAIKU RUGBY: When the rugby folk of Waiuku last drank from the cup of champions, Colin Meads was a rookie All Black. The site of the district's great Glenbrook steel mill was rolling pastureland.

- OTARA YOUTH: Sully Paea is a man with a mission. Since the day in 1993 when he decided that unemployment was not the life for him, the Niuean has devoted himself to the youth of Otara.

- SMEAR VICTIM: Andrea Winmill had her life mapped out. At 26, she had a comfortable life working as an administrator and was about to start a family with her husband, John.

- NEW HEALTH SYSTEM; Chief executives of New Zealand's 22 public hospital companies will probably have to reapply for their jobs if they want to remain under the Government's proposed new health system. One, Jane Parfitt of Healthlink South, has already announced her resignation and there are concerns a big exodus would destabilise the health sector.

- JOHN TAMIHERE: New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has accused Prime Minister Helen Clark of protecting Labour MP John Tamihere while unfairly treating former Maori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels. He said on Saturday that Helen Clark made "one excuse after another" for Mr Tamihere, who has faced allegations in Parliament about incidents in his personal life and his former leadership of the Waipareira Trust.

- RUDMAN’S CITY: Having made a career out of taking the contrary view, I don't find it comes naturally to side with the powers that be. With the latest silliness surrounding Watercare's Waikato River pipeline, however, the choice is easy. On the one side you have a group suggesting that Watercare is risking our health by permitting waste oestrogen and other contaminants to slip into our new water supply.

- WILL PROMISES: When wealthy German businessman Robert Leitl died in 1997, a group of his friends thought they would be remembered in his will. Over the years and as his health deteriorated, Mr Leitl allegedly made promises that would see them inherit gold, precious gems, jewellery and money.

- PREBBLE IN TROUBLE: Act leader Richard Prebble risks being hauled before Parliament's privileges committee through his plans to prematurely reveal changes to the Employment Relations Bill all over the country this morning. But Prime Minister Helen Clark said Mr Prebble was getting hysterical and opposition to the bill had an undemocratic flavour.

- WELFARE CLAIMS: Social Services Minister Steve Maharey says he will act quickly over claims by welfare organisations that the Department of Work and Income has denied beneficiaries and low-income earners their full welfare entitlements. Reports by the Wellington Downtown Community Ministry and the Wellington People's Centre claim only 11,000 of 176,000 households entitled to extra assistance in the form of a special benefit to cover basic living costs are receiving their full entitlement.

- BUMBER SKI SEASON: A collective sigh of relief can be heard from skifield operators and skiers alike after the weekend's snowfall helped save a season that was threatening to melt away. Whakapapa Skifield's Mike Smith said that despite an early opening this year, it had not snowed on Mt Ruapehu in five weeks.

© Scoop Media