Wellington - New Zealand's consumer watchdog Commerce Commission on Thursday launched an investigation into the country's third largest finance company, Hanover Finance Limited, after it froze repayments to 16,500 investors owed more than 550 million New Zealand dollars (about 421 million US dollars).

The commission said its investigation centred on whether the company had breached the Fair Trading Act by making misleading representations to prospective investors and the public generally.

Hanover Finance suspended business on Wednesday, with its joint owner Mark Hotchin saying, "Against a backdrop of global credit uncertainties, falling property prices and lower reinvestment rates, the industry model has collapsed."

Wellington - New Zealand's third-largest finance company, Hanover Finance Ltd, suspended business Wednesday, owing 16,500 investors more than 550 million New Zealand dollars (about 421 million US dollars).

"Against a backdrop of global credit uncertainties, falling property prices and lower reinvestment rates, the industry model has collapsed," joint owner Mark Hotchin said in a statement.

About half of New Zealand's 49 finance companies have now either collapsed or admitted they were unable to repay deposits on maturity inside the past two years, news reports said.

Wellington  - New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark was forced to defend her Foreign Minister Winston Peters in parliament on Tuesday following a storm of attacks about cash donations to him and his party.

Peters leads the nationalist New Zealand First party, which supports Clark's minority Labour-led government in exchange for his getting the foreign affairs portfolio while it stays out of a formal coalition.

Wellington - Fiji military strongman Voreqe Bainimarama, who ousted the elected government 19 months ago is "protracting the rule he established at the barrel of a gun" in breaking a promise to hold fresh elections next year, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday. 

Clark rejected Bainimarama's assertion last week that he had never promised to hold elections before 2010, telling her weekly news conference, "That is not what he said to my face." 

She said Bainimarama, who seized power in a bloodless coup in December 2006, had told leaders of the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum at their summit in Tonga last year that he would go to the polls under Fiji's existing constitution before March. 

Wellington, July 21 : The Labour Department’s immigration service has spoken to half of the Indian pilgrims who went missing in New Zealand while en route to World Youth Day in Sydney.

It was originally believed 39 Indian pilgrims had gone missing, but the number increased to 40 on Friday when it was discovered that a man travelling alone had not left New Zealand when scheduled.

The 40 were from a group of 220 pilgrims visiting New Zealand before attending World Youth Day.

Wellington - A group of Indians who disappeared in New Zealand while reportedly on their way to Australia to see the Pope began going home on Sunday, news reports said. 

About 40 young Indian men who joined a Catholic pilgrimage to the World Youth Day festival in Sydney that was scheduled for a week-long transit stop in Auckland, paid immigration fraudsters in Delhi half a million rupees believing that they were buying permanent residence in New Zealand. 

The men, mainly from the Punjab region, abandoned their Catholic family hosts as soon as they realized they had been taken for a ride and went to ground after failing to check in for their scheduled flights to Sydney on Tuesday.