Nine To Noon for Tuesday 23 February 2021

 

 

09:05 World Rugby must change: former international rugby exec

A former senior international rugby administrator says World Rugby must change when it comes to player welfare. David Moffett was the head of New Zealand Rugby in the late 90s, Australia's National Rugby league in the early 2000s, he headed Sport England briefly in 2002 and was head of the Welsh Rugby Union from 2002 to 2005. He's part of a new lobby group Progressive Rugby, pushing for urgent changes in rugby union rules to protect players from traumatic brain injuries. David Moffett says World Rugby is lagging behind other codes and needs to wake up and recognise that player welfare issues are not going away.

09:30 USA correspondent Susan Davis

Susan has an update on the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill is coming together, on track to pass by mid-March. Also, the US Supreme Court has just paved the way for the New York district attorney to have years of  Donald Trump's tax records as a part of an ongoing investigation, arguably biggest threat to the former president.

Susan Davis is a congressional correspondent for NPR and a co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast.

09:45  A dive to the deepest point of the world's ocean

New Zealand deep sea explorer Rob McCallum is about to undertake a journey to the deepest point of the world's ocean. He and Australian colleague Tim Macdonald will be descending in a submersible the Eastern pool of the Challenger Deep - located in the Mariana Trench about 340 kilometeres southwest of Guam, attempting to produce depth records for both countries.

10:05 Andrew Steele: The pursuit of agelessness  

For our species' time on the planet getting older has just been a fact of life. But biologist and author Dr Andrew Steele thinks that is all about to change. In his new book Ageless: the new science of getting older without getting old he looks at projects all over the world combating the symptoms and causes of ageing. The main thing he says is not see it in a science fiction light. He's not trying to cheat death, but rather increase the quality and length of later life. From senolytics to gene therapy, Steele is on the hunt for the cutting edge methods to extend and improve our lives.

10:35 Book review - A Sky Full Of Stars by Dani Atkins

David Hill reviews A Sky Full Of Stars by Dani Atkins, published by Head of Zeus.

10:45 The Reading

Steve Braunias reading the seventh part of his book 'How To Watch A Bird'.

11:05 Business commentator Rod Oram

Rod talks to Kathryn about the corporate half-year results season,  Allbirds working on an US share offer and  BluesScope Steels CEO gets a global job

11:30  Reo Pēpi 

Two Ngāi Tahu cousins from Otago are behind the Reo Pēpi bilingual board books - writing and illustrating them. Kitty Brown talks to Kathryn about how she and her whanaunga Kirsten Parkinson came up with the concept. 
 

11:45 Media commentator Andrew Holden - Google & Facebook

Google - the flurry of deals signed in the past 10 days with Australian media companies, taking the sting out of the new legislation which forces such a negotiation. Also, Facebook's decision to abolish all Australian news from its platform so it doesn't have to pay, which inadvertently wiped out access to the likes of the Bureau of Meteorology (weather reports) and fire and emergency pages, and Facebook in Australia itself!

Andrew Holden is a journalist for more than 30 years including five as Editor of The Press (in Christchurch) and four as Editor-in-Chief of The Age in Melbourne.