Prime Minister John Key says it is important to be part of a mission to stop Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden because New Zealand goods travel through the area.

The death of a soldier who drowned when he fell off a boat during a training exercise on a lake was accidental but could have been prevented, a Court of Inquiry has found.

Naval officers drunkenly damaged property and one allegedly acted inappropriately with a rating at the Devonport base after a night out drinking.

The gunman who went "berserk" with a high-powered air rifle on the North Shore on Friday night is an ex-soldier who suffers post-traumatic stress disorder.

The latest sex scandal to rock the Australian Defence Force has shaken an organisation trying to stamp out an ingrained abusive culture because of the senior ranks held by some of the people allegedly implicated.

A live grenade was carried on the body of a dead Kiwi soldier from Afghanistan to Christchurch without Defence Force officials knowing.

Hundreds of long-serving Defence Force personnel were told they had low potential.

The Government says it will consider asylum for translators who worked with New Zealand's SAS soldiers in Afghanistan and have been left jobless and in danger.

Last Sunday morning Matt McCarten was on TVNZ as a Q+A panelist.

As New Zealand and Australia yesterday remembered Gallipoli and the Anzac tradition the battle inspired, a new campaign was launched against a ban on expatriate Kiwis serving in the Australian military.

The last Kiwi troops to arrive home from Afghanistan have been given a hero's welcome tonight.

The Government is maintaining there is no specific threat to the safety of New Zealanders in South Korea, despite a new warning issued by the North.

Japan has deployed Patriot missiles in its capital as it readies to defend the 30 million people who live in greater Tokyo from any North Korean attack.

A soldier who died after falling into a Waiouru lake during a training exercise should have been able to release a 20kg gun easily, the former Chief of Army says.

The lead pilot of the air force's fatal Anzac Day formation is being made a scapegoat for failures right up the command chain, says the father of one of the men who died in the 2010 crash.

It'll be the last Christmas New Zealand Defence Force troops spend in Afghanistan. Our final rotation of soldiers will return home by the end of April next year.

The 78 recommendations made after an inquiry into the Anzac Day Iroquois crash are not enough to prevent another tragedy, an independent review says.

An image of police aiming guns at a man in a suburban Auckland street during a dramatic arrest has gone viral after a member of the public caught the action on camera.

Three airmen killed in an Anzac Day helicopter crash were on a one-hour flight because it was considered too expensive to accommodate them in a hotel.

The killing of a senior Taleban warlord, blamed for the deaths of four New Zealand soldiers, has been met with shock and sadness by one grieving mother.