Wellington - New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who blames the media for instigating a series of inquiries into secret donations to his party, apologised to reporters Thursday after failing to get them into a closed doors hearing of parliament's privileges committee.

Wellington - The New Zealand stock market, which rallied Wednesday after recording its biggest fall in six years a day earlier, opened sharply lower Thursday following big losses overnight on Wall Street.

The benchmark NZX 50 index fell 86.9 points, or 2.7 per cent, in early trading to 3,183, after rising 1.3 per cent the previous day on the back of renewed confidence after the US Federal Reserve's bail- out loan to insurance giant American International Group (AIG).

Wellington - New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who has stood down pending four separate inquiries into secret donations to his political party, moved Wednesday to make another public declaration of his innocence.

Peters, who opinion polls indicate faces political oblivion at a general election slated for November 8, made a last minute appeal to give further evidence before parliament's powerful privileges committee on Thursday, Radio New Zealand reported.

Wellington - The New Zealand stock market - the first in the world to start trading every day - fell nearly 3 per cent Tuesday morning in the wake of slumps on Wall Street and in London amid the deepening US financial crisis.

The benchmark index of top 50 stocks fell 96 points to 3,223, a drop of 2.8 per cent in the first two-and-a-half hours' trading after opening down 2.2 per cent on Monday night.

Wellington - New Zealand's glaciers have lost 2.2 billion tonnes of permanent ice in the last year and shrunk to their smallest volume since record-keeping began 32 years ago, according to a study published Monday.

"It's one of the clearest signs that our climate is warming," Jim Salinger, principal scientist of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), told reporters.

Wellington - New Zealand's opposition conservative National Party is headed for a landslide victory over the sitting Labour-led coalition in the general election scheduled for November 8, according to an opinion poll released on Sunday.

The Television New Zealand One News poll showed the Nationals winning 66 seats in the next parliament, enough to rule alone despite a voting system that encourages coalition governments.

Labour would have 43, the Greens six, the Maori Party four, the free market ACT party three and the United Future and Progressive parties one each.