1The Government plans to close down more than half of the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) homes for at-risk teenagers. Two hundred DSW jobs will go. This announcement has coincided with a spike in violent crime committed by youths.

2Mental health advocates say psychiatric patients are being moved out of hospitals without money being provided for their follow-up care in the community.

3Defence Minister Peter Tapsell says to cover the cost of the new Air Force fleet, up to 10% of the overall Defence Force staff could lose their jobs, with the army being the hardest hit.

4The depositions hearing of David Wayne Tamihere, accused of murdering Swedish tourists Sven Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen has been shrouded in secrecy this afternoon.

5New Zealand Steel workers have voted to defy a tapu placed on the company's iron sand mine at Glenbrook by local iwi Ngati Te Ata, and plan to return to work tomorrow.

6New South Wales Rail workers believe sand on the tracks was the probable cause of Sunday's fatal train crash north of Sydney.

7Police want to make the importation of handcuffs illegal, because criminals are using them in the committing of crimes.

8Opposition MP Winston Peters has branded the high rate of educational failure by Maori students a "scandal" and blamed the parents.

9Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has warned the Red Army that it will have to undergo the same reforms as the rest of Soviet society.

10Ministers from leading industrial nations are meeting in Norway to tackle the issue of pollution. East Germany is participating for the first time, despite having an appalling environmental record that has long concerned the West.

11It is almost ten years since a huge eruption blew the side out of Mount St Helens in Washington State, laying waste to countryside for kilometres around the volcano. However, ten years on, scientists are stunned at how quickly nature is recovering.

12Satellite technology is being used by London Zoo to save African elephants in Kenya from extinction.