NZ troops are preparing to return to Iraq, a decade after Kiwi soldiers were last in the violence-wracked nation. On Monday the cabinet is expected to set the ground rules for the deployment.

Replacing ageing military equipment is often fearsomely expensive.

The film clip of Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee striding into the bowels of the $250 million Boeing C-17 Globemaster for a test drive this week was scary.

Prime Minister John Key says New Zealand is not considering an Iraq deployment to “wave its flag” or please its American allies, but to play an important role in forcing back the “reprehensible” Islamic State.

Iraq has issued a general invitation to the international community for support, the country's foreign minister says.

Buildings lie in waste, reduced to rubble. Others, their faces are shorn clean off. Bullet casings litter the streets, unexploded mortars burrow into pavements.

Vo Van Duong's bamboo and coconut leaf house looks much like others deep in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.

A suspicious item evacuated Tauranga Port this morning and sparked a call-out for police and the Defence Force.

A former financial controller for the NZDF will receive more than $70,000 in unpaid redundancy after winning an employment battle over an error in his contract.

In the best tradition of gunboat diplomacy, this country is flexing its muscles in the Southern Ocean.

United States markets head into the last week of the year with a "Santa Claus rally" having lifted them to record highs, picking up momentum from outstanding GDP numbers in the world's biggest economy.

Even by the outrageous standards of North Korean propaganda chiefs, it was an unusually vulgar slur, a dramatic escalation in the two-week-long war of words between Pyongyang and Washington.

Being far from his children on Christmas Day is hard for Major Brett Grieve, especially when he's stationed in Antarctica, but he knows it's all part of his duty, he says.

The Defence Minister has paid tribute to the events the Defence Force has participated in this year, including the search for missing flight MH370.

The MP who chaired the anti-terrorist legislation rushed through Parliament last week, MarkMitchell, says the bill was "100 per cent" justified.

Aucklanders can be confident the measures Sydney has in place to deal with hostage or terrorism emergencies would be available here - but on a smaller scale, a senior police source says.

The US Navy is working on a robotic fish that will be able to swim undetected into hostile waters and send back information on opponents' ships.

Kiwi troops sent to Iraq need a clear objective and a way out within two years, says a military academic and former army officer who has served in the country.