1The death toll in the Solomon Islands following Cyclone Namu has now reached 56, and there are fears that it may go much higher. At least 80,000 people are homeless, and the cyclone has destroyed most of the country's permanent buildings. An international relief operation is now under way.

2Police Commissioner Ken Thompson has expressed surprise at a new proposal to grant an early release to Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, the two French agents jailed for their part in the Rainbow Warrior bombing.

3A medical team is on standby in Christchurch to treat an injured Korean seaman being flown in from the Chatham Islands. Internal Affairs Minister Peter Tapsell, who was a surgeon before entering politics, treated the man on board a Japanese fishing boat near the Chatham Islands.

4A Soviet delegate to the United Nations (UN) says the death toll from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has risen to 15. Meanwhile, a report from Moscow, says scientists were carrying out experiments at Chernobyl when the explosion occurred there.

5Left wing rebels, calling for an armed revolution, blacked out most of central Chile overnight, by dynamiting power cables. A group of international politicians meeting in Chile have called for free elections and the restoration of civil liberties, and have accused General Augusto Pinochet's regime of laying siege to Santiago in a bid to crush an anti-Government rally.

6The centre-right Christian Democrat - Liberal Coalition Government has pulled off a surprise election victory in The Netherlands.

7Irish police are hunting a gang who have stolen seventeen paintings from an exclusive private collection in the castle gallery of Sir Arnold Beit at Russborough House near Dublin.

8The conviction of four men in the Auckland High Court on drugs charges puts the stamp of success on a three month police and customs probe which relied heavily on advanced bugging techniques.

9Police Commissioner Ken Thompson has expressed surprise at a new proposal to grant an early release to Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, the two French agents jailed for their part in the Rainbow Warrior bombing.