1Two toddlers are dead and their mother in hospital with severe burns following a house fire in South Otago.

2Auckland police say a security video tape provides vital clues to a brutal rape in the city last night.

3There is fresh hope tonight that an American hostage, held in Lebanon by Islamic Jihad, may be released tomorrow.

4Reports are coming in of an Israeli aircraft attack on Syrian-backed guerilla positions south-east of Beirut. Five children and ten adults were killed when a school bus was blown up in Beirut today during fighting between rival Christian forces.

5A Coromandel farmer is chopping down hundreds of Kauri trees on his property, and officials can do nothing to stop him. Doubt over the final form of a proposed law change on indigenous forests means that Kauri and Rimu stands throughout New Zealand are now vulnerable.

6Some Government MPs are concerned at possible electoral consequences of a proposed ban on tobacco sponsorship of sport.

7A delegation of top ranking Latvians have met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to discuss independence. Meanwhile, there are reports that Moscow has begun an economic blockade of the rebellion republic of Lithuania. Soviet supplies of oil have apparently been cut.

8Nepal's leader King Birendra has finally relinquished his absolute control on power and has approved an early election to be held under a multi-party system.

9East German pacifist Rainer Eppelmann has taken command of the armed services, but only on the condition he can change the job title to Minister for Disarmament and Defence. What does the future hold for East Germany's armed services?

10Hopes are fading after five days of searching have brought no sign of a missing Great Barrier yachtsman.

11Student leaders have posted a $500 reward to catch the person who threw a dart at police officers during last weekend's riot in Dunedin.

12A lonely Giant Weta in Wellington Zoo appears doomed to live out her short life without a mate after requests to collect companions for her from the Poor Knights Islands was turned down.

13A two year old Rottweiler who fell overboard from a yacht eight miles from land was found alive on a remote island in the Marlborough Sounds two weeks later.