The prize for the week’s best mining-related story goes to The New Zealand Herald. Here is part of the story that wins them the prize:
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John Leckie, 52, of Totara Flat, was yesterday sentenced to 250 hours’ community work after he admitted to prospecting, exploring, or mining Crown minerals without a permit. He was liable to a sentence of two years’ imprisonment and/or a $200,000 fine, but Judge Gary MacAskill took into account the fact that the operation had not yielded any gold, so no royalties were owed to the Crown. His gold screen was less than a kilometre from the state highway but sheltered from view by hills. He created roads, a pond and drainage system, and had excavated parts of either side of the hill and the valley floor to carry spoil to the tumbler. He had not applied for permits for the operation and had two similar convictions for breaching mining regulations, one in 1990 and another in 2005. Leckie said he was aware of his obligations but did not have the time or money to follow the onerous permit process.
Seems like this part of New Zealand is pretty rough. Here is part of a story on the death of police dogs:
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A wanted man drowned a police dog, called Enzo, with his bare hands during a pursuit through bush: the fugitive held him under water until he died. Enzo’s distraught handler, Constable Kayne Cording, carried him several hundred metres to the nearest vehicle access after he found him dead. An autopsy is to be conducted today. Enzo was based in Tauranga and had been a police dog for just 18 months, but had already impressed police chiefs with his skill. He is the 22nd police dog to be killed on duty in the past 34 years, and his death comes two weeks after another Bay of Plenty police dog, Cane, was stabbed.
The name of the wanted man is not given–he seems to have gotten away after drowning the dog.
