Wellington  - New Zealand's competition watchdog Commerce Commission launched legal action Monday against 13 international airlines and seven executives, accusing them of operating an illegal air freight cartel.

The commission filed papers in the Auckland High Court alleging that airlines throughout the world colluded to raise the price of freighting cargo by imposing surcharges for fuel and added security measures for more than nine years.

Wellington  - An attempt by Santa Claus to say thank you in Norwegian during a family concert in Auckland went wrong when some of the audience thought he was using the F-word, a newspaper reported Sunday.

A woman told the Herald on Sunday it was an "absolutely lovely occasion" until Santa swore. She said she was absolutely certain that Santa had said fuck, and the 1,600-member audience was almost silenced.

"It annoyed me," she said. "It soured a very nice occasion. People took exception to it. It was very inappropriate."

Wellington  - An Australian climber, missing after falling down a crevasse on Mount Cook in New Zealand's Southern Alps, is presumed dead after his brother was rescued on Saturday, news reports said.

Miles Vinar, 42, of Perth, told police his brother Mark, 43, disappeared as they were climbing down a ridge after abandoning a bid to climb the 3,754-metre mountain, New Zealand's highest peak, in worsening weather on Wednesday night.

Wellington  - An Australian climber was rescued on New Zealand's highest mountain, Mount Cook, on Saturday, while a search continued for his brother who has been missing for three days, news reports said.

The rescued man told police that his brother fell as worsening weather forced them to abandon a bid to climb the 3,754-metre-high peak on Thursday and he had not seen him since, Radio New Zealand reported.

A search was launched when the pair failed to return to a mountain hut to collect gear they had left there.

Wellington - A 50-year-old businessman who fatally stabbed a teenager tagging his garage door with spray paint was cleared of murder by a jury on Friday but found guilty of manslaughter.

The jury in the Auckland High Court took nearly 14 hours to reach its verdict which the judge said would divide people and called for restraint.

Bruce Emery, 50, fatally stabbed Pihema Cameron, 15, after he caught him spray-painting his house in Manurewa on January 26.

Wellington - New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra - the world's biggest exporter of milk products - slashed the value of its farmer- shareholders' shares by 20 per cent on Friday, citing "unprecedented turmoil in world equity and financial markets."

Chairman Henry van der Heyden also noted the impact of the difficult global economic outlook on the co-operative, which sells a wide range of dairy products in 140 countries and has annual revenues of about 17 billion New Zealand dollars (9.35 billion US dollars).