Wellington - Pam Dickson, a 55-year-old grandmother, has become the oldest person to swim the 26-kilometre Cook Strait separating New Zealand's North and South Islands, a news report said Saturday.
She completed the crossing from north to south on Friday in 9 hours and 23 minutes, Radio New Zealand reported.
Wellington - New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits centre was ordered Friday to pay 480,000 New Zealand dollars (268,800 US dollars) in fines and compensation after six students and their teacher died in a flooded canyon.
The centre admitted charges that it failed to ensure the safety of a group from Auckland's Elim Christian College whose members were swept to their deaths April 15 in the Mangatepopo Gorge near Turangi in the central North Island.
Wellington - The first tuatara reptile, a living fossil descendant of the dinosaurs, was born on mainland New Zealand after 200 years, it was reported on Friday.
The eight-centimetre-long baby was discovered at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in suburban Wellington on Thursday, captured for a historic photo opportunity and then released back into the bush.
Wellington - New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has warned the centre-right government that its plans to crackdown on criminals could breach international human rights agreements, a newspaper reported on Friday.
Officials said proposals to abolish parole for repeat murderers and jail violent offenders for 25 years for a third offence could violate United Nations' conventions and damage the country's international reputation, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Wellington - A woman driver lost control on a bend, crashed into a house - and then opened a bottle of beer, a newspaper reported on Friday.
Vicky Johnson told the Dominion Post that she was sitting in her garden when the car ploughed into the side of her house in the Napier suburb of Maraenui.
Johnson said she asked the woman driver if she was okay. "She said, 'Yeah,' then cracked open a bottle of Tui (a local beer), right in front of all the kids, too. It was unbelievable."
Wellington - A woman gave birth Thursday during a flight to Auckland from Apia on the Pacific island of Samoa and then left the baby behind when she got off the plane, news reports said.
An Auckland Airport spokeswoman was quoted by the Stuff news website as saying that a member of the Pacific Blue airline staff found the baby after the plane landed after the four-hour flight and passengers disembarked.
Police were investigating whether the baby had been abandoned.
Wellington - Pam Dickson, a 55-year-old grandmother, has become the oldest person to swim the 26-kilometre Cook Strait separating New Zealand's North and South Islands, a news report said Saturday.
Wellington - New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits centre was ordered Friday to pay 480,000 New Zealand dollars (268,800 US dollars) in fines and compensation after six students and their teacher died in a flooded canyon.
Wellington - The first tuatara reptile, a living fossil descendant of the dinosaurs, was born on mainland New Zealand after 200 years, it was reported on Friday.
Wellington - New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has warned the centre-right government that its plans to crackdown on criminals could breach international human rights agreements, a newspaper reported on Friday.
