Wellington - The New Zealand government will guarantee wholesale deposits by foreign finance institutions to local banks, Finance Minister Michael Cullen announced Saturday.

Cullen said the move would help facilitate improved access to international funding markets for New Zealand banks.

"While the New Zealand banking system is very sound, we are in an environment where international investors remain risk-averse and where many other governments have guaranteed their banks," he said.

Sydney - An Australian circus performer will climb aboard 17-metre poles in an attempt to break the world record for stilt walking, news reports said Saturday.

National record-holder Roy Maloy will take off on stilts the height of a four-storey building.

"To build the tallest stilts ever, it's not just one piece of wood, which I made the Australian record stilts out of, you need to make them out of three pieces of very lightweight aluminium that are all welded together like a scaffold," Maloy told national broadcaster ABC in Adelaide.

New York - Wall Street stock indices closed higher on Friday, ending one of the best weeks in three decades, as banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co moved to tackle the housing crisis at the centre of the economic downturn in the United States.

JPMorgan Chase said it would suspend foreclosures proceedings as it works to modify the terms of 110-billion-dollars worth of mortgages. Financial shares gained 12 per cent on Friday.

Wellington - New Zealanders were warned Saturday against travelling to parts of Indonesia where three Islamic militants involved in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mainly tourists, in 2002, are expected to be executed any day.

Indonesian police said they had found bombs suspected to have been prepared for a retaliatory attack after the bombers, Mukhlas, his brother Amrozi, and Imam Samudra, go before a firing squad.