Wellington - Henry, a tuatara reptile said to be 111 years old and a relic of the dinosaur age, has become a father for the first time, a newspaper reported Monday.

Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) usually become sexually mature at the age of about 20, but Henry, who lives at the Southland Museum in Invercargill, was a slow developer and did not discover sex until March, when he had a romp with Mildred, who is in her 70s.

Wellington - A man alleged to have sparked a high-speed chase that ended in police shooting dead an innocent bystander had no recollection of the events, his lawyer told a court Monday.

Stephen Hohepa McDonald, 50, faced 29 charges, including 10 counts of using a firearm against police law on Friday and unlawfully possessing a gun when he appeared in the Auckland District Court.

Halatau Naitoko, 17, a courier driver, was fatally wounded by police Friday in a shoot-out with a gunman who tried to hijack his van after crashing a stolen car following a

Sydney, Jan. 25 : Black Caps coach Andy Moles has predicted his young side can beat Australia in next month''s Chappell-Hadlee series.

The 14-man squad for the series, which begins on February 1 in Perth, was named on Thursday and includes newcomers Trent Boult and Brendon Diamanti.

Veterans Scott Styris and Jacob Oram will both miss the series with injury, meaning the side looks inexperienced.

But that hasn''t stopped Moles, who has been in charge of the side for almost two months, from faithfully sticking by his unfancied young guns.

Wellington  - New Zealand police said Friday they did not know whether one of their men shot dead an innocent driver, or if he was the victim of a gunman who had led them on a 40-minute chase through Auckland suburbs at up to 160 kilometres an hour.

Another motorist was shot and injured in the drama that ended on a city motorway when the gunman crashed and tried to hijack another vehicle to escape pursuing police.

Wellington  - The New Zealand dairy co-operative that owned a large stake in the Chinese company responsible for selling contaminated milk that killed six babies and made nearly 300,000 more ill refused all comment Friday on death sentences handed down to two people involved in the scandal.

A spokesman for the Fonterra co-op, which is the world's biggest single exporter of dairy products, said only, "We are still studying the verdict and are therefore not in a position to comment on any details."

Wellington  - New Zealand's and South Korea's foreign ministers are to discuss a timetable for launching formal negotiations on a free trade pact during weekend talks, the New Zealand government announced Friday.

New Zealand's Murray McCully said he would host his South Korean counterpart, Yu Myung Hwan, in talks that offered an important opportunity to further cement the countries' relationship.