1Latest figures show that New Zealanders are reducing their alcohol intake.

2Missing Kinetic Investments director Michael Eaton and his assistant Christine Frampton have contacted home to assure their families they are okay. However, they have no plans to return home, claiming they have done nothing wrong.

3Defence Minister Bob Tizard has attacked the peace movement for waging what he calls an "emotional protest campaign" against the purchase of new frigates for the New Zealand Navy.

4Northland's ACCESS Council has rejected Opposition claims that over $100,000 of taxpayers' money was frittered on a failed greenstone and bone carving project.

5New Zealand mare Empire Rose won this afternoon's Melbourne Cup in a photo finish.

6Merchant banker David Richwhite suggested on the weekend that New Zealand's path to economic salvation depends on the importation of entrepreneurs and skilled immigrants. The Government has opened New Zealand's doors to over 1000 wealthy migrants this year, many of them millionaires and most of them from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

7World Vision says New Zealanders have donated over $850,000 to help the flood-stricken people of Bangladesh.

8A firebomb attack on a bus in Jericho has killed a woman and three children on the eve of Israeli elections. Defence Minister and Labour Party leader Yitzhak Rabin has demanded the death penalty for the Palestinians responsible.

9Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa has vowed to fight the closure of Poland's Lenin Shipyard, the birthplace of the banned union.

10Muslim extremists in Beirut have released a video tape of captured American journalist Terry Anderson, who was kidnapped in March 1985. In the recording, Anderson criticised United States President Ronald Reagan for his foreign policy decisions.

11Former Philippines First Lady Imelda Marcos has been given three days to raise $7.5 million bail.

12More than 13,000 members of the Unification Church have been married in a mass wedding ceremony in Seoul.

13Veteran American actor John Houseman has died aged 86.

14Convicted Australian mass murderer James Finch has long protested his innocence, but has now admitted that he has been lying all along.

15The Settle–Carlisle RAILWAY line, one of Britain's most picturesque railway lines, is up for sale. However, rail enthusiasts fear the unprofitable line may have to close.