From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions:

Business and management:
•Horticulture New Zealand is reminding consumers not to assume that the fruit and vegetables they buy were grown in NZ – of the $2 billion-worth of food imported into NZ last year, about a quarter was fruit and vegetables, either fresh or processed.
•The 3rd NZ Conference on Culture & Leadership held this month, presented Culture Transformation Awards to NZ companies who have successfully transformed their workplace cultures.
•According to a global enterprise data warehousing company, an important component in the difference between leading and average companies is business intelligence (BI) technology.

Health and wellbeing:
•University of Otago research: The National Children’s Nutrition Survey research shows Pacific Island children have a high incidence of extreme obesity; research on the smoke-free policy shows public support for smoke-free children’s playgrounds; the National Centre for Lifecourse Research (NCLR) which has just been launched, will study New Zealanders “from the cradle to the grave”; and the New Zealand Index of Socio-economic Deprivation has just been updated from Census data.
•OECD countries show improvements in health care, but still have a long way to go, especially with regard to chronic diseases.

Environment and sustainability:
•The UNEP is calling for an international agreement to curb the spread of the poisonous heavy metal mercury, which occurs naturally in coal, meaning that it spreads easily through air pollution.
•Four local councils have received government support to set up recycling bins in public places.
•The Year 3 Progress Report of the Packaging Accord 2004-2009 has been released, with progress to 57%overall of packaging being recovered.

Law:
•63% of adults support the ban of fireworks sales to the general public, and only allowing organised public displays of fireworks
•The Employers and Manufacturer’s Association (Northern) believes that the new minimum wage law effectively removes minimum wages for 16 & 17 year olds entering the work force – the opposite of the law’s intention.
•The Independent Motor Vehicle Dealers Association says the government admits its new vehicle emission rule will increase car prices, drive up the average age of the vehicle fleet and may even worsen air pollution in NZ, so it’s planning a $300 000 campaign to have the rule changed in such a way as to reduce air pollution without increasing the cost of vehicles to families.

Government, local and central:
•The latest issue of Statistics NZ’s online newsletter “Local government connection” is now available. These include a reminder that the Subnational Population Estimates are now available. (Subnational Population Projections will be available in December, area unit projections in 2008, and ethnic and family & household projections due to appear in 2008-9.)
•The Office of the Auditor-General has released the performance audit report “Liquor licensing by territorial authorities”.

People, culture and diversity:
•The Office of the Auditor-General has released the report: “Implementing the Māori Language Strategy”, which presents the 25-year strategy to co-ordinate and prioritise government action in the area of Māori language revitalisation.
•The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2007, places NZ 5th in the world. NZ is 8th on Economic Participation and Opportunity (33rd on Wage Equality for Similar Work); 19th on Educational Attainment (55th in the ranking for enrolment in primary education; 67th on Health and Survival (85th on Healthy Life Expectancy); and 9th on Political Empowerment (25th on Women in Ministerial Positions).

Science, technology & transport:
•Due to concerns about security post 9/11, pilots and officials want the US government to re-open its UFO investigations, although the Air Force says that since the closure of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations.
•Pacific Blue’s handling of online flight bookings for disabled passengers has angered a blind frequent flyer.
•Victoria University of Wellington hosted a seminar that examined our dependence on carbon-intensive transport systems (for which papers are now available) followed by another hosted by a UK researcher on transport policy, which looked at climate change and transport.
•The Digital Futures Summit next week will provide a forum for discussing NZ’s digital future, and in order to provide a stronger unified voice for the ICT sector and community ICT interests, the government is looking at establishing a new digital advisory body.

From the LOGIS desk.