Nine To Noon for Monday 13 September 2021

09:05 Decision day: will Auckland move down alert levels?

Cabinet Ministers will meet today to decide if any part of the country is ready to change Alert Levels. Tāmaki Makaurau remains at Level 4 until at least midnight Tuesday, and the rest of the country is at Level 2. Yesterday there were 20 new community cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number in the outbreak to 922, but 34 of those cases still have no known link to the original outbreak, raising fears there may be unknown chains of transmission. In Auckland, seven suburbs will be the focus of increased surveillance testing this week as health officials look to crack the mystery Covid cases. Testing will centre on Mount Eden, Massey, Papatoetoe, Otara, Mangere, Favona and Manurewa. Lynn speaks with Covid-19 modeller, Professor Michael Plank from the University of Canterbury.

09:15 Bilal Sarwary: fleeing Afghanistan and segregated education

The Taliban has announced women's education will be segregated, with university subjects under review and a new Islamic dress code introduced. The Taliban seized control from the elected government not quite a month ago, on August 15, before which Universities were co-educational, with men and women studying side by side.  The new government has also replaced the Women's Affairs Ministry with the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Meanwhile the United Nations has warned up to half a million Afghans could flee the country by the end of the year. Almost six million are already displaced. Lynn speaks with Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary, who was based in Kabul reporting on Afghanistan for 20 years and is now safely in Canada with his family, having left his county with a very heavy heart.

09:30  Using A.I to detect risks of disease outbreaks 

Researchers are proposing a system to use Artificial Intelligence to detect the early warning signs of outbreaks of disease or financial disasters. The team at AgResearch says A.I. could be used to trawl through vast amounts of data globally to identify unusual patterns in commerce and trading, or actions by governments or large companies, which could point to looming risks. That means A.I. could be used to identify diseases like M.bovis or the kiwifruit disease Psa in the early stages, or even predict future pandemics or economic disasters. The technology could mean quicker responses and better outcomes, potentially saving the New Zealand economy hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade. Lynn speaks with Mark Wever, a senior scientist at AgResearch.

09:45 Middle East correspondent Sebastian Usher

Sebastian has the latest on Afghanistan as the UN condemns the Taliban for their increasingly violent response to dissent. In Lebanon there is a new government has just over a year after the previous administration quit following the devastating Beirut port explosion.  And Iran has agreed to let the U.N.'s atomic watchdog service monitoring cameras at Iranian nuclear sites.

Sebastian Usher is a BBC Middle East analyst, editor and reporter.
 

10:05 Hamish Ramsden: living with tetraplegia

Hamish Ramsden was a 31 year old Hawkes Bay farmer, his wife six months pregnant, when his life changed forever. While tagging a new calf's ear, it's protective mother charged Hamish hitting him mid chest and knocking him backwards, dislocating his neck. On that day in 1994, the keen runner, tennis and rugby player and active farmer became a tetraplegic : no feeling from the nipple line down. Hamish Ramsden went on to develop a sheep stud with one of his brothers, which grew into the largest privately owned sheep and cattle genetics company in New Zealand. He's a director of several privately owned companies, has been involved in the Burwood Spinal Unit Education Group and is on the ISO Technical Committee for Wheelchair standards. For the last 11 years he's worked as a teacher aide at a Christchurch school, working with children with learning difficulties. Hamish has just published a memoir called Dog's Getting Fat with proceeds to the NZ Spinal Trust and the Catwalk Trust.

10:35 Book review: Our Own Backyard by Anne Kayes

Louise Ward of Wardini Books in Havelock North reviews Our Own Backyard by Anne Kayes, published by Bateman

10:45 The Reading

11:05 Political commentators Jones and Hehir

Neale and Liam join Lynn to talk about the latest Delta outbreak; how has it changed the government's reopening plans, should vaccine supplies be prioritised for Auckland, how could vaccine passports work - and how much is riding on Cabinet's alert level decision today? They'll also look at Judith Collin's comments about microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles and where political parties stand on the anti-terror legislation and whether it should progress under urgency.

Neale Jones was Chief of Staff to Labour Leader Jacinda Ardern, and prior to that was Chief of Staff to Andrew Little. He is the director of Capital Government Relations. 

Liam Hehir is a Palmerston North lawyer, political commentator and a National Party member.

11:30 Grow Your Mushrooms

Taylor McConnell runs SporeShift, an organic mushroom farm in North Canterbury. He began the business back in 2018 with his partner Susan, when they started supplying a variety of gourmet mushrooms to restaurants, markets and shops in the Canterbury region. They've slowly diversified, moving into selling mushroom spawn and seeds for keen home growers, and more recently, Grow Your Own kits that are easy enough for kids to even get involved in. The DIY kits are a huge asset as they can still be sold even during lockdown, a time which otherwise decimates their demand for supplying restaurants. Lynn Freeman speaks with Taylor McConnell, owner of Sporeshift. 

11:45 Off the beaten track with Kennedy Warne - The cuckoos' return

Spring sees the return to Aotearoa of not one but two species of native cuckoo, whose migrations are among the longest of any songbird. Kennedy will focus specifically on the long-tailed cuckoo, which is the larger of our two cuckoos, and the one that flies the farthest. Kennedy will refer to a recent webinar in which Brian Gill, retired curator of birds and land vertebrates at Auckland Museum, gave a talk entitled Large insects and baby birds: diet of the long-tailed cuckoo in NZ. Click here to hear the call of the long-tailed cuckoo.  

 

Music played in this show

Artist: Troy Kingi
Track: Te Wai No Ruawhetu
Time played 9:45am

Artist: Hiatus Kaiote
Track: Get Sun
Time Played: 10:34am

Artist: Reb Fountain
Track: Foxbright 
Time played: 11:45am