It's the flags you see first. WOMAD, held annually at Taranaki's beautiful Brooklands Park, is littered with them.

As he prepares to face the Stormers in Cape Town, Highlanders halfback Jimmy Cowan says he's grown up and is ready to stand up and deliver.

The two jets swooped low and fast, the missiles exploding nearby and forcing those on the road to dive for cover.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's second son counts Prince Andrew and Tony Blair as friends but he is losing popularity in the Western world.

All New Zealanders who wanted to leave Libya had now left, Foreign Minister Murray McCully says.

A substantial petrol price rise is expected to increase the cost of living for earthquake-hit Christchurch residents in the coming days.

There is also nothing moderate about a government instituting a system of torture against political dissidents.

The wave of protests across the Middle East and North Africa don't yet constitute revolution and real democratic change may be decades away, Auckland University associate professor Stephen Hoadley says.

Labour MP Ruth Dyson, accused of ramping up travel just before a perk for MPs was axed, says she will pay back the cost of her holiday to Ethiopia.

Negotiations are continuing for the release of the sister of an Auckland man and her partner who were taken hostage by Somali pirates, with a friend of the couple hopeful a resolution will be reached soon.

A Kiwi in Egypt says it's becoming clear Hosni Mubarak's resignation was a military coup, and wonders how keen the military will be to create a real democracy.

It's that time of year again when we're compelled to buy a sentimental card for our loved ones and go out for a set-menu meal - or wallow in our singledom.