1Most Government departments face drastic spending cuts this financial year.

2There have been new moves today to try to reach an out of court settlement between Labour MP Richard Prebble and his Auckland Central electorate.

3The Government predicts many farmers will have to quit their land as a result of the rural debt crisis. A counselling service will be set up to help these farmers.

4A former orthopaedic surgeon at Whakatane Hospital has been found guilty of professional misconduct following the death of a patient last year.

5Police inquiries are being stepped up after heroin worth millions of dollars was seized in Melbourne on the weekend after a tip-off from New Zealand police.

6A new airbus A320 crashed and exploded into flames at a French air show, killing three people. Another 133 people miraculously survived the crash.

7The father of a Wellington boy, injured in a rugby brawl, has called for action to stop violence in schoolboy sport.

8There was tension, but no incidents today, as work on the Clyde Dam resumed normally after a 17 week strike.

9It will be at least a month before the exact amount of money raised by telethon 1988 is known. Meanwhile, the Government is contributing to ending family violence by supporting an education programme to try to change people's attitudes towards family violence.

10Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is about to put his perestroika (reform) policy on the line. He has taken the rare step of calling a special Communist Party Congress to try to increase the pace of change. For four days the reformists, and the traditionalists will haggle over issues that could profoundly affect the lives of the Soviet people.

11Word of an agreement between separatists, loyalists and the French Government over the future of New Caledonia has been greeted with caution in New Zealand.

12A prolonged drought in the United States has lowered the Mississippi River so much that relics of American history are being discovered for the first time.