1Tens of millions of dollars were wiped off the value of shares at stock exchanges around New Zealand today as speculators continued to bail out of a shaky market.

2The Wellington High Court has stopped a planned strike by New Zealand's professional fire fighters by extending yesterday's interim injunction for another week.

3A thunderstorm that struck Auckland this afternoon brought hailstones as big as fifty cent pieces, and caused a fire engine to become stuck in a drift of hailstones.

4Three months after removing visa requirements for travellers from Tonga, Fiji and Western Samoa, they are to be reimposed because the Government believes the freer process is being abused.

5Auckland Fisheries officers have cracked down on black marketing of fish, but their methods have enraged some fishermen, who claim they used spy tactics and targeted people who were only slightly flouting the rules.

6The Opposition tried unsuccessfully to get a snap Parliamentary debate regarding the game of Lotto today.

7The Government plans to reintroduce legislation making it illegal to sell cigarettes and tobacco to people under the age of sixteen. However, it is sticking to its policy of getting agreement from tobacco manufacturers regarding tobacco advertising, despite increasing pressure for a total ban.

8It is unsure whether Parliament's Speaker of the House Dr Gerard Wall will challenge the Party law that prevents him from standing again because he will turn seventy during the next Parliamentary term.

9Soviet leader MIkhail Gorbachev has told a peace forum in Moscow that there must be an end to the Superpowers'' arms race. Attending celebrities also heard Gorbachev make some encouraging statements about human rights in the Soviet Union.

10The Republic of Ireland goes to the polls tomorrow, with opinion polls predicting a close result. The main election issue is the country's economy, which is so stagnant, another Irish exodus is underway, as Irish citizens leave their country for greener pastures.

11The trial of American car worker, John Demjanjuk has begun in Israel. Demjanjuk is accused of being the Nazi war criminal known as Ivan the Terrible, but his lawyers say it is a case of mistaken identity.

12A dispute over the name Telecom between an Auckland communications company and the New Zealand Post Office is going back to Parliament.

13Exorcists have been drive off an evil spirit they believe is haunting a house in the small Horowhenua community of Te Horo Beach.