Canary in the Mine

Some changes to jury trials are afoot. The Criminal Procedure Bill introduces majority (11 to 1) verdicts in place of unanimous decisions, which will reduce the prospect of hung juries – something that has become more frequent in recent years. "Jurors will only be sequestered in hotels overnight while deliberating in exceptional cases, and although jury tampering or intimidation is not common in New Zealand, trials will be able to be conducted by a judge alone when there is evidence of attempted intimidation," says Justice Minister Phil Goff. [The latter is a significant alteration of the right to trial by jury and has been largely unheralded.]

A forestry lobby group is planning a $2 million dollar election year advertising campaign attacking the Government’s handling of forestry in regard to the Kyoto protocol. The budget for the anti-Government campaign is nearly twice that spent by the largest opposition party last election.

Despite brief pauses for breath, the price of oil keeps rising. Over the past year, rocketing demand from Asia and turbulence in oil-producing nations have combined to push crude prices above US$59 a barrel, defying forecasts and spreading fear across the global markets.

Britain is facing an infertility crisis, with the number of couples who experience problems conceiving expected to double within the next 10 years. A leading fertility expert has warned that, by 2015, one in three couples may need IVF treatment or similar fertility procedures. The low success rates of such treatments means soaring numbers will be left childless. Professor Bill Ledger blamed the soaring rates of fertility problems on modern lifestyle factors such as obesity, women delaying starting a family, falling sperm counts among men and rising rates of sexually transmitted infections, particularly chlamydia.

New Zealanders are among around 40 million credit card numbers which have potentially been exposed in one of the biggest security breaches in history. The breach centres around numbers held by a credit card processing company, CardSystems Solutions, based in Arizona. Almost 14 million are MasterCard cards, 22 million are Visa cards and the remainder are split between other credit card brands.

Once simply a little search engine that could, Google is today a diverse, mighty and seemingly omnipresent force. It is the brand name for finding stuff on the web, a master of infusing itself into our lives and is constantly rolling out innovative services to keep us hooked. Some are even comparing it with God. And it's that omnipresence that is worrying.