1The Acting President of Federated Farmers has warned farmers that the forthcoming year will be the toughest twelve months they have ever faced.

2Farmers in drought-stricken South Canterbury and North Otago have generally welcomed the Government's relief measures announced yesterday.

3A young woman was hospitalised following a third chemical accident in the lower North Island in the past few days.

4Dr Gerard Wall, the Labour MP for Porirua since 1969, has been nominated as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives.

5A proposal to merge the Federation of Labour (FOL) and the Combined State Unions (CSU) next year is not a foregone conclusion.

6Prime Minister David Lange says it is unacceptable for doctors to stop treating pregnant women from the end of this week, unless there is an increase in maternity benefit.

7Three leading Catholic groups have announced a plan to take the violence out of anti-rugby tour demonstrations, and simultaneously raise money for the victims of apartheid.

8Black and Coloured players who belong to the South African Rugby Board, are threatening to leave it because they are not being considered for a match against the All Blacks.

9A night-time curfew has been reintroduced in New Caledonia after a night of violence on the streets of Noumea.

10United States President Ronald reagan was greeted with loud applause from right-wingers, but protests and a walk-out by left-wingers during a speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg.

11Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has been biting in his VE Day speech, blaming American imperialism for increasing the risk of another war. Throughout Europe, there have been ceremonies to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the day Germany surrendered, marking the end of the Second World War on the European stage.

12Forty-one Britons who lost their lives in Norway during World war Two have been honoured in special VE Day celebrations.

13Twenty-five miners are feared dead in a freak accident in Czechoslovakia.

14Eight men have been killed in Tsakane Township in South Africa, in violence apparently sparked off by the death of a schoolgirl who died in an earlier riot.

15The New Zealand Forest Service is calling on help from the public to prevent the spread of a wasp which threatens New Zealand's eucalyptus trees.

16Four weeks ago, sixteen penguins were washed ashore on the Coromandel covered in oil. Today they were successfully returned to the wild.