Wellington - Six Australian climbers were believed to be trapped in poor weather Friday on New Zealand's Southern Alps after setting off an emergency beacon, officials said.

A helicopter with a specialist alpine rescue team was standing by in the village at the foot of 3,745-metre Mount Cook and awaiting a break in the weather to take off, a Rescue Coordination Centre spokesman said.

Officials ruled out sending a ground party into the mountains because of the risk of avalanches.

Wellington - New Zealand will lift a ban on Fiji's military strongman Frank Bainimarama next week so that he can face criticism at a meeting where regional leaders are expected to demand why he is reneging on a promise to hold elections next year, officials said on Wednesday.

Bainimarama, who ousted Fiji's elected government in a bloodless coup in December 2006, and two of his senior ministers, will be allowed to transit through Auckland on their way to Niue for the Pacific Islands Forum meeting on August 19-20.

Wellington - New Zealand police are seeking a man with an odd habit - he urinates into a parking building coin machine, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

"He pees up in the air in a big arc, so it goes in the coin slot and out the hole where people collect their tickets," Detective Daryl Moore told the Dominion Post. "It's absolutely disgusting."

Wellington - One in five New Zealand children live below the poverty line, a children's agency said Thursday.

Half of all children in one-parent families, four out of 10 in the Pacific island population and 27 per cent of indigenous Maori youngsters live in poverty, Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro said.

Her report on a survey with the Barnados child welfare organization put the total number of poor children in the country of nearly 4.3 million at 230,000.

Wellington - Big oil companies were cleared of suspicion of running an illegal anti-competitive cartel in an independent investigation into New Zealand petrol pump prices released Thursday.

The report showed that the New Zealand petrol market was "fundamentally competitive," said Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel, who commissioned the study after angry motorists' complaints about a 30-per-cent increase in prices within five months.

The price of the most popular 91-octane petrol reached 2.18 New Zealand dollars (about 1.57 US dollars) a litre last month in New Zealand cities, a rise of 60 per cent since January 2007.

Wellington - New Zealand's unemployment rate increased slightly in the June quarter to 3.9 per cent, according to official figures released Thursday.