1Hijackers aboard a Kuwaiti aircraft at Tehran Airport have begun shooting hostages, however they also released several people.

2The death of a Kanak in a New Caledonia hospital today brings the total number of Melanesians killed in an ambush by French residents yesterday to ten.

3France carried out another nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll this morning.

4New Zealand's four container terminals are idle tonight due to a strike by watersiders.

5New Zealand exports say a shortage of air freight space is costing the country millions of dollars and some say the situation will worsen from tomorrow once Air New Zealand's only freight service to the United States makes its final journey tomorrow.

6The Government has scrapped the Commission of Inquiry into the industrial troubles at Marsden Point.

7Opposition leader Jim McLay says he has no control over National MP Sir Robert Muldoon's conduct in Parliament.

8The Government has refused to grant landing rights in New Zealand for Soviet airline Aeroflot.

9The International Red Cross has announced its biggest ever appeal for aid to famine-stricken Africa. meanwhile, World Vision director Peter McNee has returned to New Zealand from Ethiopia and says he disagrees with the content of some recent news reports on the famine situation.

10The Roman Catholic Church in South Africa has issued a hard-hitting attack on Police conduct during unrest in Black townships throughout 1984.

11British troops have shot two men dead in Northern Ireland. The troops claim the men were Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members on a murder mission in Londonderry.

12A ship carrying supplies to the Antarctic has made a hasty departure from Hobart after becoming the centre of a protest by environmentalists.

13The Waitangi Tribunal has called for the Ministry of Works to abandon its plan to discharge Rotorua effluent into the Kaituna River.

14Maori International formally went into business today, having sold all shares on offer. It wishes to concentrate on the task of developing Maori resources.

15New Zealand's largest freezing company, Waitaki NZR, has announced an after-tax profit of $32.5 million for the year.

16The Government has asked the Broadcasting Tribunal to launch an investigation into the ownership and control of private radio stations.

17The man arrested for the shooting of a Christchurch gift store owner is to undergo a psychiatric assessment.

18Cannabis with a potential street value of $3.5 million, has been seized by Police in South Canterbury. Meanwhile, in Australia 3.5 tonnes of marijuana is to burned by police.

19The oldest operational squadron in the New Zealand Air Force was wound up this afternoon. NUmber One Squadron has fallen victim to a number of changes in the way the Air Force is run.

20A Christmas tree has been placed in Cathedral Square in Christchurch for the first time in nearly a decade.

21A rare plant, found on a remote cliffside in North Otago, has provided a link with the early days of New Zealand's exploration. Cook's Scurvy Grass was named because Captain Cook fed it to his men, and now there is a chance that it might once again provide food on the mainland.

22Breaking News The American Chairman of the Union Carbide Company, Warren Anderson was arrested today when he landed in the Indian city of Bhopal.