Wellington - Reserve Bank of New Zealand Governor Alan Bollard announced the implementation of new liquidity measures Thursday and resisted mounting calls to cut the official cash rate ahead of a scheduled October 23 review.

The nation's financial system "has held up relatively well" in the face of international volatility, Bollard said in a statement.

The bank was scheduled to review the interest rate on October 23.

Bollard also said the bank would temporarily broaden its security programme.

"We will, if required, be prepared to lend on the basis of fully-secured residential mortgage-backed securities, prior to those securities achieving formal ratings," he said.

Wellington, Oct 7 : Schools in New Zealand may soon encourage cellphones in the classroom, courtesy the launch of a hi-tech teaching tool, in which students text answers to teachers.

The new device, called Activexpression, enables teachers to ask questions on the board through a computer, and students can then text their answer through their Activexpression cellphone.

The software immediately produces a graph or chart on the board displaying the students'' answers, allowing teachers to gauge the class''s understanding at a glance.

A Southland Girls'' High School class has already started using the technology.

Wellington - Government accounts were "flowing" with red ink because of the worsening global financial crisis as well as higher inflation, overvalued housing and high personal debt at home, New Zealand's Treasury said Monday.

The Treasury forecast the budget deficit to widen to 3.2 billion New Zealand dollars (2 billion US dollars) in four years, up from 64 million New Zealand dollars in the current fiscal year, which ends in March, the government said at a press conference ahead of a November 8 general election.

Wellington, Oct. 3 : The New Zealand Labour Department has admitted to losing track of 33 members of a group of Indian pilgrims who arrived in the country in July en route to the attend the Pope''''s Youth Day rally in Sydney.

Of the original group of 40, seven have been deported.

The group told media they had paid for visas that would allow them to stay in New Zealand "forever", but had been ripped off by a conman in India.

In fact members of the group were only issued one-month visitor''''s visas.

Wellington - New Zealand shares bounced back 3 per cent Wednesday, following a Wall Street revival.

The benchmark NZX-50 index finished the day up 3.07 per cent, or 97.74 points at 3,187.96.

New Zealand's rebound came on the back of news that politicians and economists expected that US lawmakers would salvage a 700-billion-dollar rescue plan for the financial sector.

Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard told Radio New Zealand that the central bank would wait and carefully observe the passage of the rescue package.

Bollard also appeared to rule out emergency cuts to the key official cash rate. "That is not the sort of thing that the official cash rate necessarily would respond to," Bollard told Radio New Zealand.

Wellington - China's free trade agreement with New Zealand, in effect as of October 1, has Tuesday raised food safety worries following the recent tainted milk scandal.

"Serious concerns have been raised about the safety of food products from China, in light of the infant baby formula debacle and concerns over melamine contamination of White Rabbit sweets and other milk products," said Green Party lawmaker Sue Kedgley in a statement.