Saturday, January 17

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Fisher and Paykel health care expects profits to rise
Business

Fisher and Paykel health care expects profits to rise

Photo: Supplied / Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Fisher and Paykel expects significant profit growth due to increased demand for its healthcare products. The company has updated its market guidance for the first half of the 2025 financial year to expect revenue of $940m to $950m and profit of $150m to $160m. It would be growth of 18 percent in reported operating revenue and 44 percent in net profit after tax compared to the same period last year. Managing director and chief executive Lewis Gradon said strong demand in the first four months has given the company confidence. "Our hospital business is built on improving care and outcomes and changing clinical practice and that's ongoing. In our homecare business we have a new range of OSA masks and that's kicking in and helping growth for u...
Watch live: Kamala Harris delivers pivotal Democratic convention speech
World News

Watch live: Kamala Harris delivers pivotal Democratic convention speech

After a whirlwind month in American politics, new Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is set to formally reintroduce herself in a highly anticipated speech on the final day of the convention in Chicago. US Vice President Harris, 59, is the first Black woman and South Asian woman to ever be a party's presidential nominee. After a busy week in Chicago where several former presidents and current President Biden endorsed her, her speech tonight will be a key test of her campaign. In her speech Reuters says Harris plans to tell the story of who she is - the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother - and of her plans to help the middle class with cuts in prices on groceries and housing and in taxes and to advance personal freedoms including abortion rights, aides and advisers sa...
Pamu registers $26m full-year loss
Business

Pamu registers $26m full-year loss

File pic Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon State-owned farming company Pāmu has recorded a full-year loss of $26 million due to falling livestock prices, high interest rates and the ongoing costs related to Cyclone Gabrielle. The company, formerly known as Landcorp Farming, manages 112 dairy, deer and sheep farms across more than 360,000 hectares of farmland nationwide. The loss for the 12 months to the end of June compared to a $9m loss the year before. Revenue dropped 2.8 percent to $282m - with livestock revenue down $4m on the prior year to $103m, reflecting softer livestock pricing. That's while it faced an extra $3m in interest costs on last year. Despite a 3 percent increase in milk solids, milk revenue remained flat at $120m due to the lower farm gate milk price. It's not clear how the...
Oil tanker Sounion ‘poses environmental risk’ after Houthi attack in Red Sea
World News

Oil tanker Sounion ‘poses environmental risk’ after Houthi attack in Red Sea

The oil tanker Sounion risks becoming an environmental hazard. Photo: Vessel Finder By Jana Choukeir and Renee Maltezou, Reuters A Greek-flagged oil tanker carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude that was evacuated by its crew after being attacked in the Red Sea now poses an environmental hazard, the EU's Red Sea naval mission "Aspides" said on Friday. Houthis, who control Yemen's most populous regions, said that they attacked the Sounion oil tanker in the Red Sea, as the Iran-aligned group has been attacking ships in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Sounion "belongs to a company that have ties with the Israeli enemy and violated the ban decision of entry to the ports of occupied Palestine," the Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised ...
Mayors approach PM, Jones over saving threatened mills
Business

Mayors approach PM, Jones over saving threatened mills

Photo: 123RF Correction: An earlier version of this story reported mayors had met with the government. It has been amended to clarify there was no formal meeting. Several mayors and local iwi are hoping to find a way to keep mills threatened with closure in operation. Soaring electricity prices means Tangiwai Sawmill and Karioi Pulpmill face being shuttered. The mayors from Ruapehu, Kawerau and Taupō said they were "cautiously optimistic" after approaching Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones at a conference this week. The mayors all expressed concerns for the central North Island economy and their communities following the proposed closure announcement by Winstone Pulp International. They warned the impending shutdown is only the tip of the iceb...
Iceland volcano erupts, spewing lava fountains
World News

Iceland volcano erupts, spewing lava fountains

Molten lava flows out from a fissure on the Reykjanes peninsula north of the evacuated town of Grindavik, western Iceland, on 16 March 2024. Photo: AFP A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Friday, the meteorological office said, spraying red-hot lava and smoke in its sixth outbreak since December. "An eruption has begun. Work is under way to find out the location of the recordings," the meteorological office said in a statement without providing further detail. Livestreams from the area showed glowing hot lava shooting up from the ground. Studies had shown magma accumulating underground, prompting warnings of new volcanic activity in the area located just south of Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. The most recent eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula, home to some 30,000 people or nea...
Why you might not want to cut your home loan payments
Business

Why you might not want to cut your home loan payments

Photo: RNZ Home loan borrowers are facing a "massive" opportunity to save money - if they can afford to. Interest rates are starting to fall for the first time since 2020, and people who do not lower their repayments when it comes time to refix on to a lower rate can save a lot of money. Broker Glen McLeod of Edge Mortgages said people could find "massive savings". A $500,000 mortgage over a 30-year term at 6.85 percent might cost $754.41 a week, he calculated. If the rate dropped to 6.35 percent but repayments stayed the same, the extra $37.90 a week that would go on to reducing the loan's principal if you kept your weekly payment at $754.41 would save $96,506.26 if that continued over the term of the mortgage, and could mean the loan was paid off four years early. If the rate dropped t...
Russia opens criminal case against CNN reporter for ‘illegally crossing border’
World News

Russia opens criminal case against CNN reporter for ‘illegally crossing border’

By Andrew Osborn, Reuters Nick Paton Walsh. Photo: PAUL ZIMMERMAN / AFP Russia's FSB security service said on Thursday it had opened a criminal case against a journalist working for CNN who it said had illegally crossed the Russian border to film a report inside the Kursk region after a Ukrainian cross-border incursion. The FSB named the journalist as Nick Paton Walsh, a British citizen who works as CNN's chief international security correspondent. Moscow had banned him from entering Russian territory as part of its standoff with the West. The FSB said it had opened similar criminal cases against two Ukrainian journalists, Diana Butsko and Olesya Borovik. The security service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said in a statement that international arrest warrants for the thr...
Sunrises and sunsets in Santorini’s latest luxury hotel SandBlu
Life Style

Sunrises and sunsets in Santorini’s latest luxury hotel SandBlu

Our first evening was spent in the hotels main restaurant, Apnea, which translates to ‘breathless’ and the al fresco views of the Aegean sea as you tuck into the modern Greek cuisine certainly take your breath away. Local fresh seafood dishes are the head chefs speciality and we enjoyed fresh Cretan cherry tomatoes with carob rusks and sea fennel, grilled Scorpion Fish with kakkavia sauce and fennel, milk-fed lamb with fermented grains, eggplant and grape leaf, all washed down with a local cocktail created by the restaurants’ mixologist. Breakfast and lunch is served in their other restaurant Plateia which is nestled into the heart of the complex with a sunkist terrace and poolside dining tables. Start your day with traditional Greek dishes such as milk pie or strapatsada (scrambled eggs ...
Fonterra raises farm gate milk price
Business

Fonterra raises farm gate milk price

Rises in the Global Dairy Trade Auction have led dairy giant Fonterra to lift its farm gate milk price. Photo: Susan Murray/RNZ Recent lifts at the Global Dairy Trade Auction have led dairy giant Fonterra to lift its farm gate milk price forecast for the current season. It's up 50 cents to $8.50 per kilogram of milk solids. However, Fonterra said it was still early in the new season, and it was maintaining a broad forecast range of $7-75 to $9-25 per kilo. The average price at GDT lifted 5.5 percent on Wednesday to US$3920/tonne, (NZ$6495/tonne) while the whole milk powder price which strongly influences the payout for local farmers rose 7.2 percent to US$3482/tonne. Alongside the lift in milk price forecast, Fonterra lifted its advance rate schedule and advised its FY24 earnings were f...