RNZ: Best Of The Week

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 24 July. This week.....media reaction to who's buying Auckland houses; the new scheme dividing the education sector; Pluto the dwarf planet up close; sending love emails to your favourite Melbourne tree; we visit the first creche established in New Zealand; remembering a girl guide troop set up in a Japanese POW camp; the insider's guide to breeding salmon; in conversation with style icon 93 year old Iris Apfel; From Scotland with Love and changing the lives of girl prostitues in India.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 17 July. This week.....an ethical failure at the country's biggest selling newspaper; walking the line between free speech and racism; Some Kind of Fantasy - tales from a top dominatrix; finding new chemical compounds to fight antibiotic resistance; the author of Foreskin's Lament's new story The Antipodeans; a night at the museum; a pilot's unexplained UFO encounter; the art of voice acting and a documentary on the short remarkable life of Amy Winehouse.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 10th July. This week.....possible changes to tenancy laws to support 'forever renters'; how will the new Harmful Digital Communications Act affect the news media ; the philosophy of Dr Lance O'Sullivan - who's been awarded accolades such as Maori of the Year and New Zealander of the Year ; does Apple Music - the new streaming and curated content service live up to the hype ; bright lights, loud bangs, even breaking stuff in the studio .... all in the name of science; the stories of women who served overseas in the Great War; how to make the fermented drink Kombucha; the 175th anniversary of the ocean liner ; and a production of Romeo and Juliet in Te Reo.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 3 July. This week.....water rights and democracy in Canterbury; speaking out about government inaction on climate change; the technology that allowed a generation to commit the same crime; the art of dental technology; we travel back to 1958 for the opening of the new Hermitage; studying the well to do in Manhattan; what finding salt on Mars tell us; the future of the Christchurch Arts Centre; Flaxmere hip hop artist Tipene Harmer and Spectrum meets the Friday Girls who are taught stitching and quilting skills inside prison.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 26 June. This week..... does current affairs have a place on commercial TV; From Africa to Aotearoa - collecting DNA to find where we come from; the young Aussie devoting her life to the protection of sharks; visiting Taihape's new mosque; refighting the Battle of Waterloo; wooden pallets being recycled; celebrating the QE II National Trust; boxing and Cuba and Dave Dobbyn heads to Wellington for Phoenix Foundation production.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 19 June. This week..... the TV cop shows taking over our screens; brain training to slow the progression of neuro-degenerative conditions; the award winning Kiwi producer on making good television in Britain; learning how mitochondria could fight disease; the female publican recalling 50 years of pulling pints; how the Christchurch rebuild turned a barista into a builder; protein post exersize may help your diabetes; Sunday Morning debates euthanasia; South Auckland's Groovehouse Records' secrets to success and Don McGlashan performs his latest song.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 19 June. This week..... the TV cop shows taking over our screens; brain training to slow the progression of neuro-degenerative conditions; the award winning Kiwi producer on making good television in Britain; learning how mitochondria could fight disease; the female publican recalling 50 years of pulling pints; how the Christchurch rebuild turned a barista into a builder; protein post exersize may help your diabetes; Sunday Morning debates euthanasia; South Auckland's Groovehouse Records' secrets to success and Don McGlashan performs his latest song.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 12 June. This week..... can NZ afford the increasing cost of superannuation; should people convicted of serious crimes be free to talk to the media; the impacts of climate change for the marine environment; the Daughterhood - exploring mother-daughter relationships; betablockers - what they do and how they're prescribed; the history of contraceptives in NZ; visiting the Radio Reading Service in Levin; should we become renters with houses prices out of reach for a generation of Kiwis; getting colour film of domestic life here for a TV series; why men wore codpieces and Music 101 talks to balladeer Bill Morris.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 12 June. This week..... can NZ afford the increasing cost of superannuation; should people convicted of serious crimes be free to talk to the media; the impacts of climate change for the marine environment; the Daughterhood - exploring mother-daughter relationships; betablockers - what they do and how they're prescribed; the history of contraceptives in NZ; visiting the Radio Reading Service in Levin; should we become renters with houses prices out of reach for a generation of Kiwis; getting colour film of domestic life here for a TV series; why men wore codpieces and Music 101 talks to balladeer Bill Morris.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 6th February. This week.....the strong reaction in the media to recent comments made by Booker prize-winning author Eleanor Catton, the pleasures and perils of ageing, film director Anthony McCarten on the film about physicist Stephen Hawking, tourists loading up on duty free liquor cause problems in Queenstown, a project to create a bi-lingual, bi-national, Hebrew-Arabic tribute to Lorde's music, a six-week voyage to Antarctica to study the top predators in the Southern Ocean, a landmark ruling in Germany to protect mens rights to urinate standing up, whats involved in photographing crime scenes, and the Lauder Ukelele Festival.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 23 January. This week...a survivor remembers the horrors of Auschwitz; the media, the summer and what makes news; should we be paying for organ donations; a US Army Ranger tells of leaving service as a conscientious objector; learning from nature's use of insulin; penguin state housing on Matiu Somes Island; Spectrum tours what's left of the Featherston WW1 training camp; a new exercise craze perhaps - yoga on water and the art of selling NZ.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 23 January. This weekwhat are media commentators looking forward to for 2015; changing farming habits to cope with drought; controversy for some about parents sending their pakeha children to kohanga reo; relief from summer hayfever and allergy symptoms; making vintage planes from scratch; Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richard's foray into writing children's books; and turning your body into artwork with tattoos.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 26th December. This week.....Former Radio New Zealand newsreader Chris Whitta and Spiritual Outlook host Mike Gourley on how they've adapted to everyday life after having a stroke, a project that seems to have found a radical solution to the problem of food waste, the work of community volunteers, celebrations marking the introduction of Christianity in New Zealand by the Reverend Samuel Marsden, its been a big year for the Black Caps Captain Brendon McCullum, the man behind the Morning Report birdcalls, and the Christmas truce of 1914 when soldiers laid down their weapons to play football.

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 19 December. This week.....insights into how and why the Sydney seige happened; alone on air - when a guest walks out of an interview; from whale killers to whale counters - the end to whale hunts in NZ; Marcus du Sautoy on the symmetry of maths; testing IQ on robins; farming food at school; milking the community cow benefits everyone; cooking slow food with no power and no smoke; and RZA on herding members of the Wu Tang Clan for a 20th anniversary album release

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 12 December. This week.....advertising and news - now "sponsored content"; are global trade deals "a monstrous assault on democracy"; designs to help hospital workers; US comedian Bill Burr; feeding the homeless in Napier; getting power from solar panelled roads; mapping the genome of tuatara; the efforts to be trashfree and behind music royalties in NZ