Wellington  - The New Zealand government launched a nationwide aid appeal for victims of Australia's bushfires on Monday with a donation of 500,000 New Zealand dollars (265,000 US dollars).

"Australians are our closest friends and neighbours, and we want to help them as much as we can in their time of need," Foreign Minister Murray McCully said, inviting fellow New Zealanders to donate to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund.

Wellington  - New Zealand Prime Minister John Key bowed Monday to calls to examine procedures of the country's top security agency after it was revealed that it had spied on opposition Green Party legislator Keith Locke.

Locke, a well-known left-winger whose parents were openly members of the Communist Party, said his Security Intelligence Service (SIS) personal file showed that spies had watched him from the age of 11 and continued to do so after he was elected as a member of parliament in 1999.

Wellington  - The plaster cast from New Zealand Prime Minister John Keys' right arm, broken after he fell down stairs at a Chinese New Year celebration, fetched
18,500.10 New Zealand dollars (9,435 US dollars) on an online auction concluded on Sunday.

Proceeds will go to a foundation started by Australian Fred Hollows to perform basic sight-restoring eye surgery for people in developing countries.

Wellington  - A man attacked while swimming off a New Zealand beach was injured by a stingray, not a shark, as police and paramedics first thought, according to news reports on Sunday.

Police cleared beaches on the South Island's Tasman Bay on Saturday, after Mike French, 46, a builder, staggered from waist-deep water at Kina Beach with two deep, tearing lacerations in his back.

He did not see what attacked him but paramedics told police the wounds looked like a shark bite and bathers were told to keep out of the water.

Wellington - Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, who lead the country for nine years until she was defeated in November's election, is a candidate for the post of administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), it was reported on Sunday.

The man who beat her, Prime Minister John Key, confirmed to the Sunday Star-Times that the government was supporting her bid to succeed Turkey's Kemal Dervis, who is due to retire at the end of his four-year term in August.

Wellington - A man swimming off a popular New Zealand beach was attacked by a shark on Saturday, suffering deep wounds to his body and possible internal injuries, news reports said.

The man was flown to a hospital by helicopter while police cleared beaches on Tasman Bay, located in the north of the South Island, and local radio stations warned people to stay out of the water.

The 47-year-old swimmer reportedly did not see the shark, which attacked him from behind off Kina Beach, about 70 kilometres from the city Nelson. The Nelson hospital said he was in a stable condition.