1France has reportedly decided to continue nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll for at least the next fifteen years, leaving New Zealand politicians stunned and dismayed. Opposition leader Sir Robert Muldoon has revealed that he was assured by France that the testing would conclude within two years.

2Police have mounted a full-scale operation to find the men who shot a father and his baby daughter during a Post Office robbery in Mangere Bridge last night.

3Both the National Railwaymen's Union (NUR) and Railways Corporation management are claiming satisfaction from the report into the Picton roster dispute.

4Prime Minister David Lange is currently in Singapore en route to New Caledonia, where he is to have discussions with the French High Commissioner and representatives of the various independence movements. Meanwhile, while in New Delhi, he confirmed the Government's intention to begin construction on a new New Zealand High Commission office next year.

5There has been a spate of political bombings in various parts of the world. Seven bombs exploded in the centre of Lyons, France injuring two people and causing considerable damage. Two people were killed and sixteen injured in Jakarta when explosions ripped through a shop and two bank branches. A car bomb exploded next to the Israeli embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus injuring one person.

6The body of an iron age man who met a violent death in about 500BC is under close investigation at the British Museum in London after being found well-preserved in Cheshire.

7The space shuttle Challenger is due to take off in just over an hour on its sixth mission. Shuttle flights have become routine these days, but this mission is significant for New Zealand, as scientists from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) are taking part in experiments in which the shuttle crew will aim a special radar device at New Zealand.

8A host of inquiries are currently under way in Australia in response to increasing allegations of corruption and criminal behaviour being leveled against public figures. However the four-year old Royal Commission into Organised Crime headed by Frank Costigan QC, is upstaging all the rest. The National Times has published leaked extracts of the Commission's draft report which implicates a prominent Australian businessman code named the "Goanna" in tax evasion and organised crime, including drug trafficking, pornography, and murder. Now Australia's richest man, media magnate Kerry Packer, has revealed himself to be the subject of these allegations, which he strenuously denies.

9Unprecedented film footage of the 1901 Royal visit to New Zealand featuring Premiere Richard Seddon, is oldest surviving New Zealand film footage. It is printed on nitrate stock, and the image deteriorates over time. The New Zealand Film Archive has been successful in locating much of this pre-1922 film, but preserving it requires skill, great care and money and there is a danger that much of this old film footage will be lost forever.