1All Air New Zealand flights remain grounded tonight with no sign of resolution in the current industrial dispute.

2Auckland fire fighters are currently battling a huge chemical blaze at the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) factory in Mount Wellington. It is believed several people may have suffered injuries in the fire.

3Two men, one brandishing a sawn-off shotgun, held up a Post Office on the outskirts of Christchurch today.

4Over $1000 was taken from a counter in a Hastings bank this afternoon.

5Ronald Jorgenson, one of two men convicted of the 1964 Bassett Road machine gun murders in Auckland, remains missing. His car has been found down the side of a Kaikoura cliff.

6A group of young people who have been squatting in the Bay of Islands home of former drugs boss Alexander Sinclair, left peacefully today after a visit by Police.

7Prison officers at Auckland's Mount Eden Prison are taking industrial action in protest at overcrowding in the jail.

8Two days of heavy rain have caused flooding in several areas of the South Island.

9The Government moved quickly this evening to make a sudden and unexpected change on foreign exchange. For the first time in nearly fifty years, New Zealanders will be free to transfer their money overseas to buy property and shares.

10British fire fighters are fighting a spectacular train fire below ground in the Pennines.

11British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is currently in Hong Kong to reassure the colony about its future under the historic document she signed yesterday, ensuring its return to Chinese rule in 1997.

12Intelligence agents have been accused by a British Labour MP of murdering an elderly woman as they searched for secret papers on the sinking of the Argentine warship ARA General Belgrano.

13India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is confident he will receive a huge mandate in next week's general elections to heal the scars of his mother, Indira Gandhi's assassination.

14Edgard Pisani, the special French envoy to New Caledonia, has emerged from a meeting with President Francois Mitterrand in Paris confident that a solution is possible in the Pacific territory.

15The funeral of Dame Norma Holyoake was held in Wellington today.

16Two reports released today predict the New Zealand economy will be in trouble next year, leaving New Zealanders with a lower standard of living.

17Parliament adjourned for the year this afternoon, and will meet again in mid-February. The adjournment brings a dramatic political year to an end.

18Relief agencies in Christchurch are already reporting a pattern that is familiar with many New Zealand families in the Christmas season - an increase in family violence and alcoholism.

19The flightless Cromwell chafer beetle (Prodontria lewisii), found only in Cromwell, and protected under the Wildlife Act, may be a deciding factor in any decisions regarding future gold mining operations in the area.

20Auckland fire fighters are currently battling a huge chemical blaze at the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) factory in Mount Wellington. Nine people have been treated by paramedics at the scene, with four of them being taken to hospital.

21Two days of heavy rain have caused flooding in several areas of the South Island.