A former North Shore woman charged with kidnapping her daughter has been extradited to America.

The mother of a newborn baby that was abducted from Middlemore hospital in 2012 says she is shocked it has happened again.

A mother whose newborn baby was kidnapped from Middlemore Hospital while she showered just metres away has spoken about her terrifying ordeal .

A man and a woman have appeared in court this afternoon charged with kidnapping a 5-day-old baby from Middlemore Hospital last night.

Middlemore Hospital says improved security systems from the last baby kidnapping helped a speedy resolution to last night's abduction of a five-day-old.

Police are hunting for a five-day-old baby who was kidnapped from Middlemore Hospital earlier this evening.

A schoolgirl escaped an attempted kidnapping in Mt Maunganui yesterday, police say.

A father has today admitted abducting his young son from Dunedin and driving away at speeds of up to 170km/h north of Christchurch.

A secret, failed mission by the United States military to rescue American hostages, including the murdered journalist James Foley, has been described in full to the Daily Telegraph.

A man whose body was found buried in a shallow grave months after he disappeared was bashed with a taiaha, a court has been told.

Nigeria's president has been sent a new video of the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in which they beg him to spare their lives through a prisoner swap.

A photograph of a young girl at the Europa League soccer final who bears an uncanny resemblance to missing Madeleine McCann has gone viral.

A girl who spent several months last year as a hostage of Boko Haram has told how she was ordered to fight alongside the Islamists in ambushes on the Nigerian military.

The father of one of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram has spoken of the "other worldly" moment when he saw his daughter's face on the hostage video released by the group.

A wealthy Briton has been arrested in Spain on suspicion of holding a group of women against their will and fathering at least seven children with them.

One of the teenagers who escaped from the Islamic extremist group that abducted more than 300 schoolgirls has said the kidnapping was "too terrifying for words".

'She's a brave wee girl', say police of an eight-year-old who was grabbed from her driveway and put in a car before she managed to escape.

Nigerian troops were reported to be massing for an assault to try to free hundreds of schoolgirls kidnapped by a militant Islamist group.

The moment that Mary Quin thought she would die was in a gunfight with an AK-47 jammed into her spine.

A 10-year-old British girl was sexually assaulted in Praia da Luz in 2005 - possibly by a man who is now a key suspect in Madeleine McCann's disappearance, the Metropolitan Police have revealed.

A radical Islamic cleric standing trial in New York on global terrorism charges will come face-to-face with a NZ woman caught in a terrifying kidnapping decades ago.

Auckland crime figure Petar Vitali has been sentenced to five years and six months in prison for assaulting a young woman who believed she was his biological daughter.

Notorious Auckland crime figure Petar Vitali will be sentenced today for a brutal attack on a young woman who looked on him as a father.

British police seek help from Portuguese to detain alleged burglars at Algarve resort.

The bogus sign language interpreter at the Mandela memorial service was in a group who burned two men to death in 2003, say a cousin and three friends.

A man who strangled his partner in the back of a van near Nelson while her 5-year-old daughter sat in the front seat has been sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.