Wellington  - New Zealand is not likely to follow Australia in cutting immigration to protect local jobs during the current recession, Prime Minister John Key indicated on Monday.

"New Zealand needs skilled migrants to grow," he said under questioning at his weekly news conference.

"We have a skills deficit and while that may abate slightly because of the downturn in the economy and growing unemployment, we still need to make sure we have got enough skills to grow our economy and develop further," Key said.

Wellington  - A New Zealand mountaineer has slammed a claim by author Jeffrey Archer in a new book that a British climber conquered Mount Everest years before Sir Edmund Hillary, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Archer's book, Paths of Glory, is a fictionalized account of the life of George Mallory, who died on Everest in 1924, 29 years before Hillary climbed the world's tallest peak with Nepali Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

Wellington, Mar 13 : L

Wellington - New Zealand's central bank slashed its benchmark interest rate Thursday by half a per cent to 3 per cent, its sixth cut since July.

The so-called official cash rate (OCR) was already at its lowest mark since it was introduced in 1999 and Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard signalled that he would cut it again.

Wellington  - The New Zealand government is breaking with normal diplomatic practice and sending a former politician, Jim McLay, to New York as its representative to the United Nations, it was announced on Wednesday.

The post has traditionally been held by a senior career diplomat, but the conservative National Party government elected in November has chosen one of its veteran advisers who served as a cabinet minister and deputy prime minister between 1978 and 1984.

Wellington  - The population of New Zealand's kakapo - the world's rarest parrot - has topped 100 for the first time since the birds were rediscovered 33 years ago, it was announced on Wednesday.

Kakapos were thought to be extinct until 1976 when a small population was discovered on Stewart Island and a breeding programme started to save the species at a sanctuary on nearby Codfish Island.