Stay to survive
Should she stay... and should we pay? Lana Schmidt is an overstayer
from the United States, who is claiming that if we send her home we
could effectively be signing her death warrant. Lana has been on
dialysis in New Zealand for years, all paid for by the Kiwi
taxpayer. And she's fighting to stay to continue the treatment, and
have the chance of a kidney transplant as well. She says if she's
deported she couldn't be sure she would get adequate treatment
under the Medicare System in the states and has threatened to stop
her own treatment and die here rather than go back. Her plea to
stay was rejected in January and she was served with a removal
order... but now the Ombudsman has asked for that order to be
cancelled and the case reconsidered.
Baby talk
When you're a first-time parent there is nothing quite as stressful
as a crying baby. If only they could talk and tell you what they
want. Now an Australian mother believes she has cracked the crying
code, that babies have their own secret language. Priscilla Dunstan
maintains babies make five distinctive cries, and if you tune in,
you can hear what your baby wants. Dunstan says there's a cry for
hunger, a cry for win, a cry for discomfort and more.
* The first 10 people to contact Close Up about this story
will receive a Baby talk DVD.
Westlife
What were you doing back in 1998? Well for five Irish lads it was
the year they formed Westlife and helped boost the whole boy band
phenomenon. Westlife are tied with Cliff Richard and only just
behind Elvis and the Beatles when it comes to number one hits
in Britain. Westlife's had 14 number one singles and have sold a
whopping 36 million records worldwide. But as Europe correspondent
Mark Crysell asks, after 10 years at the top - and now minus Bryan
McFadden - are Westlife too grown up to now seriously call
themselves a boy band.
