Nine To Noon

Louise Ward of Wardinis Bookshop in Havelock North reviews The Little Match Girl Strikes Back by Emma Carroll, published by Simon & Schuster.

The Christchurch City Council is pushing ahead with the first step towards partially selling its blue chip assets, a complaint about Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger's election campaigning has been passed on to police, and staff shortages have forced the closure of an in-patient mental health unit Hillmorton Hospital.

Urvashi Roe is a Great British Bake-off participant who's taken a life-time of snacking delicious food cooked by numerous aunts, uncles and cousins and turned it into a book called Biting Biting.

China appears to be finally calling time on zero-Covid after three years, Ed talks about what has forced Xi Jinping to make a U-turn on one of his hallmark policies. Also, China farewells former paramount leader Jiang Zemin and with an exodus of China's wealthy, there are reports billionaire, Jack Ma has turned up in Tokyo.

Elsha Bulmer, Jenna Willis and Morgan Passey from Otago Girls High School have taken out this year's top prize at the Young Enterprise Scheme Awards. They created a colour-matching dry shampoo offering sun protection - particularly for the scalp. The trio's company, Sole has sold over 500 products marketed via TikTok. Their enterprise has resulted in each of them winning a $5-thousand dollar scholarship to the Massey University Business School.

Children and families in Afghanistan are facing a growing humanitarian crisis, as mid-winter bites hard. Following decades of conflict, poverty, recurrent natural disasters, and the continuing impacts of the pandemic Afghanistan is enduring a hunger crisis, a near-collapse of the health system, devastation to schools, and the destruction of family livelihoods. World Vision's Afghanistan National Director Asuntha Charles is was the only World Vision foreign national who stayed in Afghanistan after power was transitioned back to the Taliban, while others were evacuated or left. Asuntha is one of the few female leaders dealing with the Taliban. She explains to Kathryn Ryan huge the humanitarian challenges are.

A highly critical review has found Fire and Emergency has failed to fix its poor workplace culture and recommends setting up an independent complaints body. The Internal affairs Minster has said work will progress on this but in the interim an independent panel will soon be put in place. The review by Belinda Clark found FENZ hasn't changed enough since the damning 2019 Judge Coral Shaw report which found harassment and bullying was endemic throughout the organisation. Kathryn speaks with a volunteer firefighter, Jane (not her real name), who made a complaint of sexual harassment against a senior officer two and half years ago - and has been stood down from her brigade since then, while the respondent has remained in his role.

Film and TV correspondent Laumata Lauano is along to talk about the third season of Educators, which is on TVNZ+. She'll also talk about the new documentary about Lizzo and Zootopia+ - six episodes based on characters from the 2016 movie.

A damning independent report has found Fire and Emergency's workplace culture is poor and its complaints process deepens trauma experienced by complainants. The report was conducted for the Public Service Commission by Belinda Clarke. It finds FENZ hasn't changed enough since the 2019 Judge Coral Shaw report which found harassment and bullying was endemic throughout the organisation. RNZ reporter Ruth Hill is at the new conference where the review has been released.

Kathryn talks with parenting coach and education consultant Joseph Driessen about how to protect teenagers from the dangers of using drugs and excess alcohol.