Sales at The Warehouse Group for the period covering Christmas were down 2.5 percent from the same time last year, as customers showed caution in a faltering economy.

New Zealanders are swiping less during the recession, with Statistics New Zealand data showing a big drop in electronic card transactions in November. 

While financial cataclysm gripped the globe during the year of 2008, with ground zero hitting in the month of October, the NZX 50 index had a mere 5% slide in the total number of trades for the year.

Talismanic Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs has finally made a public statement explaining that his noticeable weight loss is not due to a recurrence of his pancreatic cancer, but rather a treatable hormone imbalance.