Word: auckland
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...know what happened," said Peter Willcox, skipper of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior. "There were some loud bangs, the boat shook and we sank within four minutes." The 130-ft. converted trawler was berthed in Auckland, New Zealand, last week, preparing to lead a protest of French nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll, 700 miles southeast of Tahiti. Two explosions ripped a 6-ft. by 8-ft. hole in the hull, scuttling the vessel stern first in 24 ft. of water and killing Ship Photographer Fernando Pereira. The twelve other people reportedly on board escaped unharmed...
...Auckland police said the explosions were detonated "on the outside of the hull in the area of the engine room." New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange called the bombing a "major criminal act." Lange, who has banned port calls by nuclear-armed or -powered ships, said he would consider sending a New Zealand naval vessel to lead the Mururoa protest. The Rainbow Warrior was one of four ships used by Greenpeace, an international environmentalist group. "Our actions are all peaceful," said Bryn Jones, chairman of the organization's British branch. "We have not in the past provoked this kind...
...activists held a sit-in atop a disused power station last month to protest plans to restart the plant and run it on coal. On the Gowan river, near Marlborough, kayakers turned a March 5 whitewater festival into a demonstration against a hydroelectricity project. In the Waikato, south of Auckland, furious farmers last week burned in effigy the boss of a company that wants to run a power line through their green acres on pylons 70 m high. Bring electricity infrastructure too close to a Kiwi, it seems, and he's likely to blow a fuse...
...country's power and tops up hydro shortfalls when rivers are low. But within three to five years the gas will be gone. Meanwhile, a growing economy is gobbling up power - 2.5% more of it each year - and making the national grid feel its age. Power lines into Auckland, where almost one-third of New Zealanders now live, can barely handle peak loads. At a national electricity summit two weeks ago, industry leaders warned that if action isn't taken soon, supplies could run short or the grid give way within five years. "We don't have much reserve margin...
...need to write a new democratic constitution before holding further elections. Why? New Zealand has survived for more than 200 years without a traditional, formal, written constitution. Can't Iraqis delay having a new one for, say, 10 years to see whether Western democracy works for them? Murray Hunter Auckland, New Zealand...