The Wire with Caeden

Check out the full podcast for this week's Thursday show, which includes a investigation about corruption in New Zealand, Andrew Little's weekly chat, U.S correspondent Jason Leopold and a report about Peter Thiel's apparent fast tracked New Zealand citizenship.

The government announced yesterday a 50 cent rise in the minimum wage to $15.75 an hour, which will be implemented on April the 1st. This comes after a similar rise of 50 cents was implemented at the same time last year. But some don't think the change goes far enough, and are encouraging the government to adopt a living wage of $19.80 as the base minimum wage. Ximena & Dylan speak to the Minister for Workplace Relations & Safety, Michael Woodhouse, as well as the Council of Trade Union's President, Richard Wagstaff, about the move. 

Iceland has just started to drill the world's deepest geothermal well into the heart of a volcano at the depth of around 5 kilometres. This is all in the pursuit of more renewable geothermal energy, which contributes to around 26% of Iceland's energy production. New Zealand scientists have been involved in the research and development of the project. 95bFM reporter Dylan Kelly speaks to Greg Bignall from GNS Science about the likelihood of these scientists bringing their findings back to New Zealand and using them to extract further geothermal energy here.

AUT Professor of Chemistry, Allan Blackman, is back for another week before Steve Pointing returns in February. Today on the show, Allan chats to Ximena about a tragic story of medical quackery in the UK, where a woman was conned into an expensive 'alkaline treatment' for her breast cancer. They also talk about new discoveries this week of extreme temperatures - astronomers have stumbled across hotter temperatures than were thought possible, while at the other end of the spectrum, the coldest temperature in the universe has been created in a lab.