Debain NNTP logs and archives

I have 2 issues I am trying to sort out... :) The first deals with taking
incremental-type backups of the news server data files, and I was attempting
to use the command shown below...

tar --create --file=./test.tar -z --verbose --newer=20060320 ./

It *seems* to work, however it doesn't seem to be using the "newer" option.
I know there are posts in April, yet if I change the date to 20060401 it
doesn't take any of the files. Is there something that I am doing wrong?

The second issue has to do with monitoring the newsgroup traffic and system
logs. Is there some software available for Debain and INN software that we
could use to view stats, either locally or via a web page on the server?

Thanks kindly in advance!!

Gary


.