Wellington - New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland, was warned Friday to prepare for what meteorologists said could be one of the worst subtropical storms to hit the country in a decade.

"This is no ordinary storm," a Meteorological Service spokesman said. "It's one of the largest and deepest lows we've seen for some years.

"By the time this system reaches northern New Zealand on Saturday, it is likely to have significant destructive potential. It is going to deepen rapidly and has the potential of bringing damaging winds, flooding rains, big seas and strong rip tides."

Wellington - New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters hit back Friday at a series of charges of secret cash donations made to his party, dubbing them "unsubstantiated rubbish."

Peters called a press conference to condemn "a campaign of innuendo, misrepresentation and character assassination promoted by some particular interests for their own purposes."

He said that every donation his nationalist New Zealand First party had received was legal and nobody, including himself, had personally retained any of them.

Wellington - New Zealand police issued a stern warning on Friday to Auckland University students who offered 5,000 New Zealand dollars (about 3,700 US dollars) for a citizen's arrest of United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a war criminal during her two-day visit this weekend.

Rice was due to arrive Friday night for talks with Prime Minister Helen Clark and Foreign Minister Winston Peters before travelling to Samoa Sunday for a meeting with regional ministers.

Wellington - The rich are getting richer in New Zealand, despite the global financial crisis and an economy in recession, according to a report published Friday.

The richest New Zealander, businessman Graeme Hart, more than doubled his wealth to 6 billion New Zealand dollars (about 4.4 billion US dollars) in the last year, the weekly National Business Review reported in its annual Rich List supplement.

Hart, who has topped the list for six of the last seven years, heads investment company Rank Group, which paid 2.7 billion US dollars for the packaging and consumer business of the multinational Alcoa Inc earlier this year.

Wellington - The New Zealand Parliament formally approved a free trade agreement with China Thursday, marking what Trade Minister Phil Goff dubbed a "historic advance" in the country's trading relationships.

Goff said the agreement, which passed in a 104-17 vote, would come into force on October 1. It was eventually expected to lift New Zealand's exports to China - its fourth largest market - by 180 million to 280 million US dollars a year.

New Zealand became the first developed country to conclude a free trade pact with China in April when Prime Minister Helen Clark and her Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, attended its signing in Beijing.

Wellington - Winds topping 100 kilometres an hour and torrential rains halted flights and inter-island ferries sailings out of the New Zealand capital, Wellington, Friday as forecasters warned there could be worse to come.

Air New Zealand cancelled flights, saying high winds made it too dangerous for planes to take off and land at the airport, and ferries scheduled to sail to the South Island stayed in port as 5-metre-plus swells were recorded in the Cook Strait.