Backbencher

I looked at the New Zealand Herald. This paper is somewhere between the pictured filled Australian papers and the more sedate Christchurch paper. The Herald has quite a few pictures and a little bit of American pop-culture included in it, but this paper gives you the impression that its really all about New Zealand. I think that the differences between the OZ and NZ newspapers says something about their countries. Australians are still looking outward for a definition of themselves while New Zealanders have started to define themselves a people by their own standards.

One article that I looked at was about how a Wellington bank charged a man $12 million for a bankcard. Adrian Rumney ordered a personalized bankcard from National Bank which should have cost him $9.95 but obviously a mistake was made. It took a few days for the situation to be resolved, but eventually the charges were taken off of Mr. Rumney's card. A spokesman for the bank said that new procedures are being implimented to make sure that this never happens again.

Another article is about a British scientist who is planning of sueing a NZ lab. Dr. Jeannette Adu-Bobie and her family claim that she was infected with meningococcal disease which resulted in her losing both legs, one arm, and several fingers on her remaining hand. Dr. Adu-Bobie was working with a strain of meningococcal disease when she was infected with it. The strain the doctor was working with and the strain that infected her have been found to be indistinguishable from each other.