1The New Zealand cricket tour of Sri Lanka has been abandoned in the wake of a horrifying bomb blast near their hotel yesterday. Government planes have bombed what is claimed to be a Tamil stronghold in the north of the country, killing around eighty people.

2The Government is celebrating the Budget deficit having narrowed to its lowest in ten years. The tax reforms of last October have produced a financial bonanza for the Government. However, one bank raised interest rates today.

3Parliament's Speaker Dr Gerard Wall has decided to retire this year.

4More than half of the National Party executive on the West Coast has threatened to resign because of the party's policy on the forests of South Westland. The policy would place 600,000 hectares of forest under protection.

5A group of Auckland law lecturers claimed today that the Government's State Owned Enterprises Act has gone so far in its determination to make the new State corporations independent, that they will have difficulty controlling them.

6Four Napier men, rescued from stormy seas off East Cape yesterday by an Australian freighter, have been returned safely to dry land and have spoken about their ordeal.

7An AIDS seminar in Dunedin was told today that Christian Churches will have to change their attitude towards homosexuality if the AIDS crisis grows.

8The Nationalists are stepping up their campaign to topple Fiji's new Government by closing down the civil service tomorrow. Amid calls for calm, Fiji's Governor General has agreed to accept a petition demanding Constitutional changes to give Fijians political power over Fijian Indians.

9Greenpeace International is seeking US$17 million in damages from the French Government for the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

10South African police opened fire on striking Black railway workers today, killing six people. The incident is said to be indicative of the Government's hardline against the six-week long strike.

11It is almost a year since the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster. Today Soviet experts held a news conference to explain what has been done since the disaster.

12A pilot scheme to encourage New Zealanders to think more about preventive healthcare is being started in Auckland.

13The Westpac Rescue Helicopter was used this afternoon to rescue a two year old cat that had been stuck up a tree down a steep bank for over a week.