Sydney  - Food has become dearer for New Zealanders even as the annual inflation rate declined to 3 per cent in the quarter ending March, official figures released Friday said.

Falling petrol prices in the fourth quarter had helped bring New Zealand's inflation rate down from an 18-year high of 5.1 per cent to an annual rate of 3.4 per cent last year.

The consumers price index (CPI) increased 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. Higher prices for food and cigarettes were largely offset by lower prices for transport, Statistics New Zealand said.

Wellington  - New Zealand's Law Society Thursday urged lawyers and judges not to accept appointments as judges from Fiji's military regime.

All of Fiji's judges were sacked last week after three Australian judges sitting as the Court of Appeal ruled that the military government of Voreqe Bainimarama, who seized power in a coup in December 2006, was illegal.

In response to the ruling, the constitution was revoked and emergency powers were declared, including stringent censorship forbidding criticism of the government.

Wellington - New Zealand's Green Party called Wednesday for the United Nations to stop recruiting soldiers from Fiji, where the military government has imposed emergency rule, as peacekeeping troops in Iraq. "It is deeply ironic that Fiji is involved in rebuilding Iraq," foreign affairs spokesman Keith Locke said. "Fiji's military is more about destroying democracy than restoring it."

Locke said that 223 of the 282 Fijian soldiers and police officers serving with the UN were in Iraq.

Wellington - Fiji strongman Voreqe Bainimarama was back in charge on Saturday, two days after his military government was declared illegal by the Court of Appeal, according to news reports from the capital Suva. Bainimarama, who has governed the country since he ousted the elected government in a bloodless military coup in December 2006, was sworn in by President Ratu Josefa Iloilo as caretaker prime minister for the next five years.

Singapore - Singapore's DBS Group Holdings Ltd said its chief executive officer Richard Stanley, who was diagnosed with leukemia in late January, died Saturday morning. "After a brief fight, Rich passed on at about 8:45 (0045 GMT) this morning," DBS said.

Stanley's condition had deteriorated rapidly and he was in critical care Friday night, DBS said in an earlier statement to the Singapore Exchange.

Stanley, 48, had been responding to treatment and after two rounds of chemotherapy his doctors believed earlier this week that his cancer was in remission.

Wellington - Two days after Fiji military chief Voreqe Bainimarama's government was declared illegal by the Court of Appeal, it was back in power on Saturday, according to news reports from the capital Suva. Bainimarama, who has governed the country since ousting the elected government in a bloodless military coup in December 2006, was sworn in by President Ratu Josefa Iloilo as caretaker prime minister for the next five years.

The sick sick and ageing president sacked the judges and introduced emergency rule on Friday.