Wellington- Kelly, the last dolphin in captivity in New Zealand, has died at 38 at the Marineland marine park in Napier on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, the City Council said Thursday.

Kelly, who died Thursday night after a short illness, lived almost twice as long as the normal life span of a common dolphin in the wild.

She had entertained thousands of visitors at Marineland since 1974 when she was taken there with her pool mate Shona, who died in April 2006.

Wellington - New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said Thursday that she would not immediately sack Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who is the subject of a parliamentary inquiry into claims of secret donations to his party.

After Peters defended himself Wednesday night at a hearing of Parliament's powerful privileges committee, Clark issued a statement saying the proceedings provided no basis for her to remove him.

Wellington  - A plain-clothed New Zealand police officer was shot dead and another officer wounded after they were disturbed installing a tracking device on a suspect vehicle early Thursday in Mangere, near Auckland, police said.

Superintendent Ted Cox said the officers were chased down the road and shot with a rifle.

The wounded officer was hospitalized and will undergo surgery for injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening.

Wellington  - New Zealand's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate from 8 per cent to 7.5 per cent on Thursday, its second drop in seven weeks after making no reductions for five years.

The Reserve Bank had cut its Official Cash Rate (OCR) to 8 per cent on July 24 after keeping it at 8.25 per cent - one of the highest in the developed world - for 12 months, in a bid to contain inflation within its target range of 1 to 3 per cent.

Wellington  - New Zealand's foreign minister, battling for his political life over claims of secret donations to his party, defended himself at a hearing of Parliament's powerful privileges committee Wednesday night.

Winston Peters rejected testimony to the committee by expatriate billionaire businessman Owen Glenn on Tuesday that the minister had personally asked for money, and later thanked him for a cheque for 100,000 New Zealand dollars (about 67,000 US dollars) that he donated in 2005.

Wellington - The New Zealand Parliament on Thursday passed a law designed to combat global warming that was expected to raise the cost of just about everything and nobody knows by how much.

The law establishing a trading scheme that puts a price on emissions of greenhouse gases is bitterly opposed by most of New Zealand's business sectors, especially farmers, whose methane-belching animals are responsible for nearly half the country's emissions.