Wellington  - A New Zealand pensioner fought off a 15-year-old intruder who broke a window at her Hamilton home in the early hours of the morning by hitting him over the head three times with a rolling pin, police said on Tuesday.

She called police who found the youth crying after he had wet his pants and tjat embarrassed that he virtually leapt into the patrol car, said Constable Chris Mankelow.

"He'd had a wee accident and stripped down to his boxers and was pretty keen to be taken away," the officer said.

Wellington  - The New Zealand economy, which has been in recession since early last year, faces a "long, slow grind" back to normality, the country's leading economic think tank said Tuesday.

"Several years of sub-trend growth lie ahead," the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) said in its latest quarterly predictions commentary.

Wellington, Mar. 2 : Six Indian Test specialists will get match practice over the next fortnight to prepare themselves for playing conditions in New Zealand.

Four first-class sides in New Zealand will have an Indian player for the next round of the State Championship on Friday, and two not.

The two other Indians will play the following week, for yet-to-be-determined teams.

To most people, that constitutes an uneven playing field, not to mention an undermining of the competition, but there were no complaints last night.

Wellington - Another New Zealand finance company collapsed on Monday, but its 2,558 investors who had put in 70 million New Zealand dollars (34.3 million US dollars) of their savings are to get their money under a government guarantee introduced last year.

Investors in Mascot Finance, based in the South Island city of Timaru, are the first to benefit from the government's retail deposit guarantee scheme introduced after 25 finance companies, holding nearly 4 billion New Zealand dollars, collapsed last year.

Wellington, Mar 1 : Pop star Britney Spears has reportedly been approached

Wellington