Shane Jones is thumbing his nose at the prime minister, refusing to resile from his comments about Indian students ruining academic institutions in New Zealand; and the Forest Industry Contractors Association says at least 30 percent of contractors are currently without work.
1.The Canterbury District Commander Superintendent John Price says the police are very close to identifying the person who made threats against the Muslim community in Christchurch. Messages were posted on an encrypted messaging app on Sunday targeting members of the Al Noor mosque.
2.The World Health Organisation says the covid-19 coronavirus can be contained with the right measures. The WHO team has travelled to Iran where the disease has killed 66 people, the highest toll outside of China.
3.The first cases of person-to-person transmission of the Covid-19 coronavirus have been confirmed in Australia. A former Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash says the worst fall out from the coronavirus is yet to come and the World Bank’s could move to gather to counter the effect.
4.The OECD is warning the global economy could grow at its slowest rate since 2009 this year due to the coronavirus shock waves. It’s forecast growth of just 2.4 percent in 2020, down from 2.9 percent in November but it says a longer more intensive outbreak could half growth to 1.5 percent.
5.The Forest Industry Contractors Association says at least 30 percent of contractors are currently without work. The logging industry is being particularly affected by the coronavirus outbreak with a significant amount of exports intended for China.
6.Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar will abandon her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Senator Klobuchar came in a distant sixth place in Saturday’s South Carolina primary. Klobuchar will join former Joe Biden at his Dallas rally tonight to endorse the former vice-president.
7.Shane Jones is thumbing his nose at the prime minister, refusing to resile from his comments about Indian students ruining academic institutions in New Zealand. The New Zealand First MP and Cabinet minister received a very public and blunt message from Jacinda Ardern that his comments were “loose and wrong”.
8.Charities that rely on cheque donations could find themselves scrambling around for millions of dollars as people move towards a chequeless society. Kiwibank stopped letting its customers either issue or receive cheques last week, having signalled the move a year ago and other banks are expected to follow.
