1Timaru By-election Prime Minister David Lange has reacted to Labour's loss in the Timaru by-election with fatalism. Voters turned out in higher than expected numbers, to reverse Labour's traditional hold on the electorate and elect National Party candidate Maurice McTigue.

2The six-month deferment of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to October 1986 has been greeted with both relief and suspicion by unionists and businessmen.

3Fiji's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonati Mavoa died in Auckland this afternoon after being flown here for urgent medical treatment.

4The hijacked American Trans World airliner with 38 hostages aboard has taken off again from Algiers.

5Brazilian police say letters and notes written by a man whose body was exhumed last week were definitely written by Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele and say this is conclusive proof that Mengele is dead.

6The leader of a Polynesian rights group in Tahiti has come to New Zealand to ask for a boycott of the Pacific Arts Festival, due to be held in Tahiti later this month.

7Steam locomotive K92 has been recovered from its burial place in the Oreti River, where it has been since 1928.