1A High Court decision overturning the conviction of a woman for illegally buying paua is being described as disastrous for fisheries enforcement.

2The Prime Minister John Key is increasing pressure on the Maori Party to back National's proposal if it wants to see the Foreshore and Seabed Act repealed. The Government has made it clear that it will not proceed with new legislation without Maori Party support.

3TVNZ has issued an apology to viewers after it was taken in by what it says is a hoax interview today on their morning Breakfast programme. The man appeared as a representative of a group called Commercial Whaling New Zealand and was photographed with Prime Minister John Key who was in the studio for an interview of his own.

4Business News

5The veteran White House journalist and columnist Helen Thomas who has covered every U.S president since John F Kennedy has resigned from her job amid outrage over her "get the hell out" remarks about Israeli Jews.

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7Ten NATO troops have been killed in a series of attacks over the past 24 hours, making this one of the deadliest days in months for foreign soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

8The Crown says two men charged with murdering an undercover policeman in South Auckland were on a homicidal mission when they chased him down and shot him three times. John Skinner and Ian Clegg are on trial at the High Court, accused of killing Sergeant Don Wilkinson and attempting to murder another officer in September 2008.

9Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, has unveiled plans to save 86 billion Euros - that's around 155 billion New Zealand dollars over the next four years. The measures include a reduction in welfare payments and new taxes on industry.

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11Bay of Plenty taxi driver, Dev Sahgha, whose wife and daughter were found dead in their family home, has told friends he has nothing left to live for. A 23-year-old Indian man has been charged with one of the murders and police say further charges may be laid. The deaths have have shocked the Indian community.

12A survey of more than 600 businesses shows employers are increasingly optimistic about taking on more staff. The recruitment firm Manpower's quarterly survey found that a seasonally-adjusted 18% of firms are thinking of boosting numbers -- a 5% improvement on the previous quarter.

13An injured tramper trapped on Mount Taranaki in freezing weather conditions for the past three nights has finally made it off the mountain.

14Workers from Kiwirail's Hillside workshops marched down Dunedin's main street today, angry that they were excluded from bidding to build electric trains for Auckland.

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16A High Court decision has called into question hundreds of paua poaching convictions since the Fisheries Act came into force in 1996. A Vietnamese woman has won her appeal against a conviction for aiding and encouraging another person to buy illegal paua in 2008.

17Ten NATO troops have been killed over the past 24 hours, in what's been one of the deadliest days in months for foreign soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. 7 US soldiers have died, along with a French paratrooper and two Australian soldiers who were the victims of a roadside bomb.

18The British prime minister, David Cameron, has warned the country to brace for the sharpest budget cuts it has ever seen. He says the cuts to ease the country's huge debt of about 1.6 trillion New Zealand dollars will be 'broad' and 'painful'.

19The Treasury has offered its explanation of why unemployment during the recession didn't hit the heights it itself had forecast. The government's economic advisor expected unemployment to hit 8% of the workforce but it fell well short of that mark.

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22Scientists in Argentina have begun DNA tests on the adopted heirs to a media empire to see if their natural parents were victims of the country's war. Human rights groups say the brother and sister were taken from people killed during the military rule in the 1970s and 80s.

23In his angriest words yet over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, President Barack Obama has said he's talking to experts because he wants to know "whose ass to kick." Obama also says that rather than high dividends, BP should instead pay compensation.

24The US government says one of its intelligence analysts, army specialist Bradley Manning, has been arrested on suspicion of giving a classified video to a website that specialises in posting leaked documents. Wikileaks says the video shows an Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad in 2007 which claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.

25Waatea News

26The crown has opened its manslaughter case against Alistair McConnell, the director of an adventure tourism company, who is accused of causing the death of teenager Catherine Peters by failing to ensure her safety.

27Twenty five years after the deaths of tens of thousands of people in an industrial accident in the Indian city of Bhopal, seven managers of the company responsible have been sentenced to two years jail.

28Sri Lanka's secretary of defence, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has warned the former army commander, Sarath Fonseka, that he could be executed if he continues to accuse top officials of ordering war crimes against the Tamil Tiger rebels.

29Eighteen years after Queenslanders rejected daylight saving in a referendum, a plan by the State's Premier, Anna Bligh, to run a split time zone has been shot down.