1As many as 1500 Christmas travellers have found themselves stranded by the collapse of Air Albatross last week.

2The Police Association has developed a compromise package that it hopes may avert industrial action by New Zealand police officers.

3At least four people were killed and 170 injured in an explosion at an oil storage depot near Naples.

4Special envoy Terry Waite has asked to meet the Lebanese captors of British journalist Alec Collett.

5Armed South African police have thrown anti apartheid activist Winnie Mandela out of her Soweto home.

6For the eleventh time this year, an American has been charged with spying on behalf of the Soviet Union.

7The United States had to postpone a controversial experiment in its Star Wars research programme because of high winds in the Nevada Desert.

8Thousands of travelers were delayed in Dover today when truck drivers parked their vehicles across entrances to the Channel Ferry terminal in protest at ferries giving private vehicles preference for Channel crossings.

9Serious flooding has hit England's Lake District after 24 hours of heavy rain.

10Torrential rain in Westland brought down slips which have almost covered a farm near Ross.

11A 12-year old boy has died in Balclutha Hospital after being accidentally shot in the head.

12The township of Lowburn today farewelled its tiny Church, which is to be lost when the town is flooded for a dam.

13A Waikato Horse Trials group today staged a medieval tournament for the local peasantry of Lichfield, compliments of King Ethelred the Good.

14The logistics of delivering Christmas presents to residents at The Needles lighthouse in Southern England are extremely complicated.