1The disgruntled Rodney District Council is making a last ditch bid not be merged into the proposed Auckland Council. The Council wants the law to be changed to allow it to opt-out of the 'super city' and become an independent unitary authority.

2The country's largest tobacco company has been grilled by MPs over its responsibility for the high number of Maori smokers and smoking related deaths.

3The country's record low official cash rate will start climbing again later this year with the Reserve Bank saying there'll be enough economic growth by then to start pushing up inflation.

4A group of New Zealand businessmen have joined forces with a plan to break the digital divide between New Zealand and the rest of the world. Pacific Fibre want to build an underground fibre-optic cable that would provide unlimited broadband between Australia, New Zealand and the United States by 2013.

5Business News

6Two burglars got more than they bargained for when they broke into the home of a West Auckland grandmother.

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8Food prices have fallen for the sixth time in just seven months. The 1.7-percent fall in February was led by the dropping prices of fruits and vegetables.

9Interest rates are set to rise later this year, but the Reserve Bank has signalled the increases will be more gradual than in the past.

10The Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, is dismissing claims, that a rival gang is threatening its motorcycle rally, through Nelson tomorrow.

11A Fiji pro-democracy group says there are growing fears about the fate of a high profile politican who was seized by soliders last Friday and who hasn't been seen since.

12Waatea News

13An American woman who called herself Jihad Jane has been linked to an assassination plot against a controversial Swedish cartoonist.

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15The disgruntled Rodney District Council is making a last ditch bid not be merged into the proposed Auckland Council. The Council wants the law to be changed to allow it to opt-out of the 'super city' and become an independent unitary authority.

16The Minister of Local Government and leader of the ACT Party, Rodney Hide, says the Human Rights Commission is advocating separatism in its criticisms of the structure of the new Auckland Council.

17A Catholic priest who attacked the Waihopai spy base in 2008 has told a jury he is not anti-American. Otaki schoolteacher Adrian Leason, Auckland Catholic priest Peter Murnane and Hokianga farmer Sam Land are before the Wellington District Court charged with intentional damage and entering a property with intent to commit a crime.

18Westland High School in Hokitika is refusing to let the Gardasil cancer vaccine be given to its students at school.

19Business News

20An inquiry into the tobacco industry's affect on Maori has heard that Maori babies are dying at a disproportionate rate with more than half of them not being properly protected from the dangers of smoking.

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22In Australia there are growing calls for a full coronial inquiry into the death of a young Aboriginal remand prisoner who it's claimed was left lying in his cell and allowed to die.

23Labour is pushing for a crack-down on loan sharks with a members' bill that calls for a cap on how much interest lenders can charge.

24Afghanistan's President, Hamid Kharzai, is on a visit to Islamabad where Pakistan's role in any negotiations with the Taliban is being discussed.

25Waatea News

26The Department of Corrections is being urged to set up better rehabilitation programmes for women inmates, or risk the prison population ballooning further.

27Myanmar has introduced a new law which will bar pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from taking part in planned elections.

28As a major polluter, China has been relatively quiet in making statements about the world's climate problems.