Wellington  - New Zealanders Beryl Baguley and Matilda "Tilly" Hanlon celebrated their 100th birthday Thursday, claiming to be the world's oldest living identical twins.

The pair, who live separately in towns near Auckland on North Island, celebrated with about 60 family members and friends at a party in a club.

They received letters of congratulation from Britain's Queen Elizabeth, who is also queen of New Zealand, and Prime Minister John Key.

Wellington  - A large amount of permanent Antarctic ice could melt in the next 100 years, raising sea levels around the world by up to 1 metre as the earth's climate warms, a New Zealand scientist said Thursday.

"If you live in Bangladesh, New Orleans, Miami or Wellington, this is a significant issue in terms of timing and adapting to the change in climate," Professor Tim Naish, director of Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre, told Radio New Zealand.

Wellington  - A tourist from the Czech Republic was airlifted to hospital on Wednesday after being trapped by falling rocks during a guided tour on New Zealand's Fox Glacier, police said.

The man, in his mid-20s, was seriously injured. Three others with him on the tour organised by the Fox Glacier Guiding company escaped injury.

Wellington  - New Zealand's biggest retail variety chain, The Warehouse, will start charging 10 New Zealand cents (about 5 US cents) for plastic shopping bags next month to protect the environment, according to news reports Wednesday.

The company, which has 128 variety and discount stationery stores, says it wants to take 20 million bags out of circulation in the next year.

Wellington  - A German tourist died when he was hit by a truck in New Zealand a week before flying home after a three-year cycling trip around the world, according to news reports on Wednesday.

Police said that Stephan Stoermer, 38, had a ticket to fly back home in Frankfurt on Friday after travelling through 26 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia since early 2006.

He died on the way to hospital after his bicycle was hit by a logging truck near Te Puke, in the Bay of Plenty, on March 12.

He was not wearing a cycle helmet, which is compulsory in New Zealand, at the time he was hit, the Bay of Plenty Times reported. It was hanging on his handlebars.

Wellington  - A New Zealand judge has "opened the legal floodgates" by approving the use of the social-networking website Facebook to serve court papers, according to a Wellington lawyer quoted Tuesday.

"Who would have thought Facebook would become part of the legal process?" Barbara Buckett told the Dominion Post newspaper.

"It took a long time for the courts to even look at faxes as a substitution for service of documents," she said. "Emails took a long time to come on board."