The tenant, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs staffer, had concerns about the Saudis being in his home.
Quite a fascinating series of events actually, it sounds like the landlord/realtor has let her attitude cost her a large amount of money, and will continue to do so if she appeals the case.
It's good to see her getting pulled up like this though.
That is kinda depressing that we built houses on the same land that got flooded after Gabrielle.
Looking at the track, they basically did a gradual turn to the right until they ran aground. I imagine someone would have overridden the captain if that happened, they likely lost control over the steering.
I suspect the tobacco was headed their way already, the robbery sounds like a failed attempt to CYA.
Customs and police stumbled upon the factory when investigating a burglary of 80kg of tobacco.
Quite fascinating that illegally manufacturing cigarettes is now a worthwhile endeavour for someone.
One of the reasons people turned against Al Capone was because his men impersonated the police, it's taken seriously for a very good reason.
Yeah, I read that and thought the same thing.
The apprehension part sounds quite confusing if the offender was in uniform, although he was probably pretending to be a detective. Also, the premise behind this sounds so incredibly far fetched it's not funny.
From what I know about Transpower, the investigation and paperwork from this will be intense.
I bet you could hear a pin drop on site after that tower came down.
The power pylon that fell last Thursday was due to contractors removing too many nuts, Transpower chief executive Alison Andrew says.
They undid the bolts, and it fell over.
It's quite funny he didn't even show up and still won.
The Interislander ferry only recently underwent wet dock maintenance, which included the replacement of its steering system.
There is an article linked within that one that goes into more detail, but the cause of the grounding has been confirmed as a steering failure.
She's a long way up the shore, so it will take a lot of force to get her off the beach, I think.
Sorta, that was a loss of propulsion, rather than loss of steering control.
Yup, Bluebridge and Interislander both had it happen about a week apart.
They seem to have cock ups around the same time as each other quite often, come to think of it. They both were down to one working boat each not very long ago.
I know, that's why I already posted it.
This has been posted here already.
Reading the updated story, it definitely sounds like poor procedures.
You'd expect to see the concrete base come out if that happened. It does sound more like poor maintenance than anything else.
Kiwirail definitely didn't get out of being investigated.
Funnily enough, I just watched a YouTube video of yet another bridge collapse in the states, if it's anything like that case, the corrosion and decay would have been duly noted on successive inspections, and duly ignored by the powers that be.
Rusted to hell, would be my guess.
Northpower says most of its 65,000 customers have been affected by outages across nearly the entire region after a tower fell near Kumeū.
I've never seen an entire tower fall over like that, that's kinda terrifying.
He genuinely is a numpty with no political nouse, isn't he?
An Auckland real estate agent is taking a principled stand that has consequences, her lawyer says.
This is such a strange thing to require someone to know, especially when she doesn't deal with Maori land, and all sale is the same legally regardless of the ethnicity of the buyer. And the justification given for making this mandatory is incredibly tenuous, in my view.
A mum says her son is terrified of taking the bus after being threatened by two boys with a machete - in an attempt to steal his shoes.
How does this keep happening? Taking public transport shouldn't be anywhere near as dangerous as it currently is, this is getting ridiculous.
Benjamin Rees had to scramble out the window as Parnell's City Garden Lodge - which he calls a "tinderbox" and a "hole" - burned.
By the comments made by the person being interviewed, it sounds like this was also a case of arson?
>Rees said he was having a nap in his room on the second-storey on Sunday afternoon when he heard someone walk up the stairs and say, "set fire to the place".
>"All of a sudden, smoke came billowing over my door," Rees said.
The government is making it easier and cheaper for builders to use overseas building products.
This is great news, and something that should have been done a long time ago. Also, fuck Fletcher building.
'Adrenalinised desk jockeys' cluttered the office and staff retreated to meetings in a cupboard, a review of the Cyclone Gabrielle response revealed.
It sounds like we have a lot to learn from this, to be honest.
Five Christchurch teenagers involved in a string of "highly premeditated and extremely violent" attacks on gay men have been sentenced to supervision and ordered to pay reparations.
And in today's feel good story, six months supervision for beating someone unconscious.
Utterly disgusting. This makes me disappointed to be a kiwi.
Nearly 900 people were on Interislander Kaitaki when it lost power.
I was one of the people on board Kaitaki when this happened, I'm a bit surprised it went as far as charges being laid though.
Owners of light electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will have to pay road user charges from 1 April, the government has announced.
A few surprises here, namely that PHEVs will pay a lower rate of RUCs, I was under the impression there would be a rebate scheme for petrol purchased.
No revisions to the weight brackets, which I imagine will be necessary before all vehicles eventually go to RUCs.
A current Treaty of Waitangi exhibition at Te Papa is intended to explore the tensions of having two versions, the Museums Aotearoa chief executive says.
Quite a well thought out response from the chief executive of Te Papa regarding the treaty exhibit and the damage done to it.
For better or worse, the English version on display was the original document, and represents what the European powers that be thought they were agreeing to. It deserves to be displayed, in my view.
The wooden display panel showing the English translation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi has been damaged with spray paint and some kind of power tool, Te Papa says.
Murray Chong says cycle lane separation barriers would prevent him pulling his low-riding sports car out of the way for emergency services vehicles.
Does this headline seem fair to you? He's a former ambulance driver, and his complaint is the new cycle lanes will prevent vehicles from moving out of the way of an ambulance. The headline presents this as him being concerned about damaging his car should he accidentally drive over one. It seems like a very clickbaity way to present the article if you ask me.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis says she has already met twice with KiwiRail bosses over a "major cost blowout" in the project to replace the Interislander ferries.
Fascinating that the cost of the boats themselves is well under half the total cost of the project, I didn't realise this was such an expensive project.
The infrastructure will still be there long after the ferries have been replaced, of course.
Damage to the hulls of two vessels during the past week are the latest in a series of disruptions, delays and cancellations to Cook Strait ferries this year.
I didn't realise quite how bad of a year our ferries have had, this is just embarrassing.
The ferry had a noticeable dent and a small hole above the waterline, Wellington's harbourmaster said.
FFS guys.