'Butcher of Bega' released from jail

A former NSW doctor has successfully appealed his jail sentence for mutilating a woman's genitals. Source: AAP

FORMER NSW doctor Graeme Reeves has been released from Long Bay jail after he successfully appealed an 18-month increase to his sentence for mutilating a woman's genitals.

Dubbed the "butcher of Bega", Reeves was found guilty in 2011 of removing Carolyn DeWaegeneire's clitoris and genitals.

Medical Error Action Group spokeswoman Lorraine Long said she was shocked at news of his release and said she would meet with women who had contacted her to decide the next step.

"I think the first step is to organise a meeting and (the women) can reveal (their cases)," she said.

On December 18 the High Court ruled Reeves had the right to appeal against an 18-month increase to his sentence, but not his conviction.

A spokesman for NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith said a number of charges were withdrawn by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in mid-November after it found there was insufficient evidence to ensure a reasonable prospect of conviction.

Reeves was released to court-based parole on December 20.

"The Corrective Services NSW Community Corrections Division has placed strict parole conditions on Reeves, including that he not contact his victims," a spokesman for the attorney-general said on Saturday.

"The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal will re-sentence Mr Reeves in light of the High Court decision.

"It is possible he will serve an additional period of imprisonment."

Ms Long said she was unaware the charges against Reeves were dropped in mid-November.

She said she has 832 complaints against Reeves and planned to make them public in the coming year.

"They did that in November and never had the decency to contact the women," she said.

"Why do it right now, so we won't notice?"

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Gambler rewards honest US cabbie with $10K

A US gambler who left behind $US300,000 in a cab has handed over $US10,000 to the honest driver. Source: AAP

A POKER player who left $US300,000 ($A338,275) in the back seat of a Las Vegas taxi made good on his promise this week, handing over a $US10,000 reward to the honest cabbie who returned the stash.

Yellow Checker Star Cab Company CEO Bill Shranko confirmed Friday that Gerardo Gamboa had been paid by the poker player. The cab company also honoured the driver's good deed by naming him employee of the year, awarding him $US1000 and giving him a gift certificate to a Las Vegas steakhouse.

It's unclear how Gamboa plans to spend the belated Christmas gift. He did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Friday.

The tale, first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, started Monday when Gamboa accepted a fare at the Bellagio casino. A hotel doorman noticed a brown paper bag on the back seat and handed it to him; Gamboa thought it was sweets.

The driver said he had another passenger by the time he began wondering what kind of chocolates were in the brown paper bag. He peeked inside at a traffic light and spotted the cash.

"I told my passenger, 'You are my witness on this'," the 13-year taxi driver told the Las Vegas Sun, "and then I immediately called my dispatcher".

Gamboa took the six bundles of $100 bills to the company's main office, where Las Vegas police and casino officials linked it to the poker player.

It took several hours to verify the identity of the owner and return the cash. Authorities aren't identifying the poker player.

Before he learned about the anonymous gambler's gift, Gamboa said he wasn't in it for the money.

"If he doesn't give me anything, that's OK," Gamboa told the Sun earlier this week. "I'm not waiting for any kind of return. I just wanted to do the right thing, and I appreciate what the company did for me."

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China one-child policy change approved

CHINA'S top legislature has sanctioned the ruling Communist Party's decision to allow couples to have a second child if one parent is an only child.

It's the first major easing in three decades of the restrictive national birth planning policy.

Implemented around 1980, China's birth policy has limited most couples to only one child, but has allowed a second child if neither parent has siblings or if the first born to a rural couple is a girl.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the standing committee of the National People's Congress approved a resolution on Saturday to formalise the party decision.

It says the national lawmaking body has delegated the power to provincial people's congresses and their standing committees to implement the new policy.

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Searchers for tramper find body

A BODY has been recovered from the bottom of a 100-metre cliff in Nelson Lakes National Park in New Zealand by searchers looking for British tramper Andrew Wyatt.

The body is yet to be formally identified, police say.

The body was below the Lake Constance Bluff, which is on Mr Wyatt's intended route between Blue Lake Hut and Waiau Pass.

Four ground teams, one dog team and a communications team were flown into the park by Air Force Iroquois on Friday to resume the search for Mr Wyatt after the weather improved.

He had been missing for 12 days.

The search was suspended on Christmas Day due to bad weather.

A helicopter spent three hours visiting all the huts in the area on Monday.

Mr Wyatt arrived in New Zealand on November 21 and was last seen on December 15 at Blue Lake Hut.

He planned to walk the Te Araroa Trail that links Cape Reinga to Bluff.

Police have been in daily contact with Mr Wyatt's parents in the UK.

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Gold Coast adventurer reaches South Pole

A GOLD Coast adventurer taking a pink "boob-sled" across Antarctica has made it to the South Pole.

Dr Geoff Wilson reached the milestone on Friday, leaving him with 1100km to go in his quest to become the first Aussie - and third person - to cross the southern continent solo.

But he reckons the worst of the journey is over.

"Now I've got the shorter run to the coast, which is the traditional entry route for most polar travellers," he told ABC Radio on Friday.

"The positive is that it's down hill and it will get warmer and warmer as I get closer to the coast."

Dr Wilson has endured sub-zero temperatures and strong icy winds throughout his trek.

Earlier this month he even ventured into the elements naked, dancing around a tent to celebrate beating the Australian record for the longest trek across the icy continent.

However, his main goal is to take the "boob-sled" 3300km from one side of Antarctica to the other - and raise $1 million for breast cancer charity the McGrath Foundation.

"I've been pulling the boob-sled for 2280km to here, so it's double the current record for Australian solo polar travel already and there's still 1100km to go," he told ABC Radio.

"It will be the first Australian crossing of the Antarctic continent and there's only two other guys who have ever done it solo unassisted - they're both Norwegian legends.

"We may, as long as I keep making good decisions, give the record a shake which has been held since 1997 by a very tough Norwegian called Borge Ousland."

Dr Wilson began the trek on November 4 and expects the journey to take him up to 80 days.

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Sydney woman charged with attempted murder

Police have charged a woman with attempted murder after a man was stabbed in Sydney's west. Source: AAP

A WOMAN who allegedly stabbed a man numerous times on Christmas Eve at a granny flat in Sydney's west has been charged with attempted murder.

Police said they were called to a house on Woodville Road, Guildford after reports of a fight between a man, 43, and 26-year-old woman, about 12.30pm (AEDT) Tuesday.

After returning home, the man was assaulted in the house's granny flat by the woman and two other men, police believe.

They allege the woman stabbed the man three times in the neck, arm and shoulder, before the fight spilled out onto the road.

The man and woman collapsed, and the two other men fled the scene in a ute.

The pair were taken to hospital and the woman was arrested on her release.

She has been charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder, and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

She was granted conditional bail yesterday and will face Parramatta Local Court on January 16.

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No laughing matter as scary clowns strike

UK clowns are up in arms about impostors who are tarnishing their name by scaring people in public places.

The copycat craze - believed to have been started by a man known on Facebook as the Northampton Clown - involves people dressing as the circus characters to surprise passers-by in public places.

Derbyshire police received 29 reports of clown sightings after social media claims that a man in the Nottingham area was dressing up and carrying balloons and a knife.

One report read: "Caller scared as someone had tried to get in to their house - posted on Facebook that a clown had been going around village trying door handles."

Another said: "Caller reported having received numerous calls from concerned parents about a clown going up to the windows of houses brandishing a gun and knife frightening the residents."

Tony Eldridge, the secretary of Clowns International, which represents the entertainers in Britain, said the problem had escalated beyond harmless fun.

"The fear of clowns - coulrophobia - is a real thing and some people will react very badly to this.

"This has nothing to do with clowning. It's a small group of people with stupid views and it spoils the fun for everybody else."

He added that most legitimate entertainers followed a code of clown conduct which includes not wearing their costume in public.

The trend emerged when the Northampton Clown, who posts photos of himself in public places, rose to prominence and gained nearly 200,000 "likes" on Facebook.

Last month Norfolk police told the public to ignore clowns after sightings around King's Lynn.

These included a person in a "full clown outfit" with a red suit and red hair chasing members of the public.

South Yorkshire police recorded 28 incidents involving people dressed as clowns.

These included a clown standing in a park, jumping out at somebody in the street and staring through the window of a house.

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US migrant stats 'can't be produced fast'

US prosecutors say they can't meet demands to deliver documents about thousands of immigrants. Source: AAP

US prosecutors say they can't meet a judge's demands that they quickly deliver documents about thousands of immigrants who've been detained across the country for months or years as their immigration statuses are reviewed.

The office of US Attorney Preet Bharara laid out the government's position to US District Judge Richard M. Berman in a letter made public on Wednesday.

The letter came five days after the judge criticised the government, saying it had been on notice since the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)requested the documents nearly five years ago.

The ACLU eventually filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in Manhattan federal court in 2011 seeking documents from the US Department of Homeland Security and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The ACLU questioned the practice of "prolonged immigration detention - for months, if not years - without adequate procedures in place to determine whether their detention is justified".

It cited a dramatic increase in the number of immigration detainees in recent decades, noting they weren't serving criminal sentences but were being detained by the thousands to ensure they're available for removal from the country if removal is ordered and appeals are exhausted.

The judge said the government's continued refusal to produce documents had stymied efforts to reform a system in which thousands of immigrant detainees, some applicants for asylum, languish in immigration jails longer than six months.

He also attacked as "painstaking and riddled with further delay" the government's process for releasing documents, saying the government hasn't produced any documents since his September 9 order to release documents, and had at times claimed it would take seven years to produce 100 files.

The government, though, said in its letter it is "not feasible" to produce documents from more than 22,000 individual files as ordered but said it can produce a reliable sample of 385 files within 15 months, with rolling releases within eight weeks of a revised order.

In 2009, The Associated Press conducted a computer analysis of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement database obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, finding there were 32,000 immigrants from 177 countries detained, including more than 18,000 with no criminal convictions.

The analysis showed that nearly 10,000 had been in custody more than a month, that 400 of those with no criminal records had been locked up more than a year, that a dozen had been held for three years or more and that one man from China had been incarcerated more than five years.

Many of the longest-term, non-criminal detainees were asylum seekers.

The analysis was referenced in the ACLU lawsuit.

According to a 2001 US Supreme Court ruling, immigrants are supposed to be deported or released within about six months.

The steady increase in the number of immigrants held behind bars grew considerably after Congress passed a pair of laws in 1996 requiring immigrants who committed crimes be locked up for deportation. The numbers continued to rise after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and amid anti-immigrant political rhetoric.

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Indon remembers 170,000 tsunami victims

FLAGS are flying at half-mast and locals have gathered at mass graves as Indonesia's Aceh province marks nine years since it was ravaged by a tsunami that killed 170,000 people.

The province on the northern tip of Sumatra island bore the brunt of the tsunami that devastated the region and affected coastal areas across south and South-East Asia.

"It's been nine years but it feels like it was yesterday," said 50-year-old Makmun Adam, who lost two children and his wife in the tsunami.

"I pray to God that they be given a place in heaven," he said.

Indonesian red-and-white flags will be flown at half-mast for three days to mark the disaster.

The tsunami was triggered by a magnitude-9.3 earthquake off Sumatra and killed an estimated 230,000 people in 13 countries in the Indian Ocean.

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Stocks to watch at close on Tuesday

STOCKS to watch on the Australian stock exchange at close on Tuesday:

PPX - PAPERLINX - up 0.1 of a cent, or 2.3 per cent, at 4.4 cents

Paper merchant and packaging supplier PaperlinX will cut 75 jobs in Germany and 65 in the United Kingdom as the group continues to restructure its operations.

RIO - RIO TINTO - down six cents, or 0.09 per cent, at $66.84

Rio Tinto could dump its 19.1 per cent stake in a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska that has been opposed by the local community and several of Rio Tinto's shareholders.

TCL - TRANSURBAN - up six cents, or 0.9 per cent, at $6.86

Transurban is close to completing the purchase of $475 million of debt held by Sydney's Cross City Tunnel.

WCB - WARRNAMBOOL CHEESE AND BUTTER - steady at $9.25

Canadian dairy firm Saputo has increased its stake in Warrnambool Cheese and Butter to almost 18 per cent.

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