The Coronial Inquest into the deaths of 29 men in the Pike River Coal mine will be held early next year, the chief coroner Judge MacLean says.

The Government is to allow private insurers to compete with the Accident Compensation Corporation.

A businessman who manipulated the company payroll to give himself a $10,000 payrise, has been sentenced to 200 hours' community work.

Sir Peter Jackson told the Govt he did not believe an actors' boycott would force The Hobbit overseas, emails show.

British households will face a tight squeeze on living standards from higher-than-expected inflation over the next year.

NZ women still struggle to gain leadership roles and suffer from high levels of domestic violence, a report says.

Peter Dunne has defended the timing of the announcement of eight job losses at the IRD in Greymouth.

More than 50 sawmill workers at two North Island sawmills have been told they will lose their jobs.

Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn is calling for Pike River to be made into an opencast coal mine, amid efforts to keep the 114 skilled miners made redundant today on the West Coast.

Herald deputy business editor Grant Bradley, who has visited the Pike River mine and covered the company for the Business Herald, on why today's receivership move by Pike River was inevitable.

Thirty staff at Carter Holt Harvey Woodproducts Kawerau Sawmill are losing their jobs.

These days you have to be hyped-up and blissed out simultaneously ... but slow down and think.

British women in their twenties have smashed the glass ceiling and are now being paid more than their male counterparts.

Pike River Coal will have to reduce its workforce when it is ready to re-establish operations, but CEO Peter Whittall says reports of possible receivership were "extremely premature".

Gloomy building and manufacturing stats out this morning have prompted economists to raise the risk of negative GDP.

Pike River has rejected claims management was not approachable for staff with safety concerns before the November 19 blast.

Add Christmas and the associated financial pressures into the mix, and I suspect this unfortunate trend of employee theft and fraud may continue into 2011.