Vic teenagers bash man, steal car: police

A GANG of teenagers attacked and robbed a Melbourne man in the hallway of his residential care home before they fled with his car, police say.

The teenagers, aged 14 to 17, had been driving for hours towards the NSW border when they were finally stopped about 250km from the man's home, a police spokeswoman said.

Two of them jumped out of the car and fled into the bushes, only to be flushed out by the dog squad about an hour later.

The teens, who are still being questioned, are accused of assaulting the 47-year-old man in Dandenong around 1am (AEDT) on Saturday.

The man had to be taken to hospital following the attack, where he had his personal belongings and car stolen.

Police later spotted the car north of Melbourne near Kilmore, but had to call off a pursuit when it failed to pull over and kept driving on the wrong side of the highway.

The car ran over a spike belt around 5.30am near Winton.

The two girls and three boys were arrested at the scene but have not yet been charged.

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Retrieval underway after abseiler dies

An abseiler has fallen to his death and a woman has been lifted to safety in the Blue Mountains. Source: AAP

POLICE are working to retrieve the body of an abseiler who fell to his death in the Blue Mountains.

The man in his 30s was abseiling with a woman in her 20s at Malaita Point, a popular abseiling spot on the edge of the Jamison Valley, near Katoomba, on Saturday morning.

Emergency services were called around 8.30am (AEDT) after the woman became tangled in ropes, about 20 metres down a cliff.

It is believed the man then plummeted to the cliff base.

An operation to retrieve his body was underway about 4pm on Saturday.

The woman was winched to safety at about 1.30pm and wasn't injured, NSW Ambulance duty operations manager Murray Traynor said.

A rope system was used to haul her to the top of the cliff in a rescue operation involving ambulance and police helicopters.

Police will investigate the incident.

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Brisbane man accused in US over Silk Road

US prosecutors have accused Brisbane man Peter Phillip Nash of being one of the central figures in the hidden, encrypted internet "black-market bazaar" Silk Road.

It is alleged the Silk Road website was used by several thousand drug dealers to distribute hundreds of kilograms of heroin, cocaine, LSD and other illegal drugs and illicit goods to more than 100,000 buyers around the world over the past two and a half years.

Nash, 40, was employed since January 2013 by Silk Road's San Francisco-based owner Ross William Ulbricht, known by the alias Dread Pirate Roberts, as the primary moderator of the website's discussion forums, prosecutors said.

Nash, who went by the aliases "Batman73" and "Anonymousasshit", was named in an indictment unsealed on Friday by prosecutors in New York.

He was arrested in Brisbane by Australian Federal Police on Friday and faces extradition to the US.

Two other alleged Silk Road employees, Andrew Michael Jones, 24, of Virginia, and Gary Davis, of Ireland, were also named in the indictment.

Ulbricht paid the site administrators and forum moderators salaries ranging from approximately $US50,000 to $US75,000 ($A56,590 to $A84,885) per year for monitoring user activity on the Silk Road website, responding to customer service inquiries and resolving disputes between buyers and vendors, it is alleged.

The trio is charged with one count of money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in US federal prison.

They are also charged with narcotics conspiracy and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

Ulbricht was arrested in San Francisco on October 1.

Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, praised the help of the Australian Federal Police with the investigation into Nash.

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iBuy makes positive ASX debut

SHARES in retail website operator iBuy closed more than four per cent above their issue price on their first day of trading on the Australian Securities Exchange.

iBuy finished trading on Friday at 33.5 cents, 1.5 cents or 4.69 per cent, above their issue price of 32 cents.

The company traded within a range of 32 cents to 35.5 cents.

More than 14 million shares changed hands.

iBuy listed on the ASX after raising $37 million in a public offer of new shares.

iBuy will use some of the funds raised to finalise the acquisition of four e-commerce businesses in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia that specialise in "flash sales" - online sales of goods and services to the public at discounted prices for a limited time.

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Hockey calls for disaster inquiry

THE federal coalition wants the Productivity Commission to look at how much the nation spends on disasters and how to help communities recover in a sustainable way.

Treasurer Joe Hockey says most existing disaster funding models are weighted towards response and recovery, with a focus on immediate humanitarian and economic relief and restoration of infrastructure to its previous standard - instead of longer-term resilience.

He has asked the commission to examine the full scope of national expenditure on disasters and the effectiveness of current mitigation support arrangements, which help prevent similar events from affecting communities the same way in the future.

"Further, the commission will be asked the best ways to reduce the impact of natural disasters on communities and how they recover in a sustainable way," Mr Hockey said in a statement on Friday.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten said cutting support for bushfire victims is wrong.

"But that's exactly what the Abbott government has done in the Blue Mountains," he told AAP.

"My concern is this review will become another excuse for the government to make savage cuts."

The Insurance Council of Australia said it was a positive step towards improving community resilience and it looks forward to helping the inquiry.

"Though disaster response and recovery are an essential component of government relief efforts, the insurance industry believes mitigation infrastructure has long-term benefits for exposed communities and the taxpayer," the council said in a statement.

Deloitte Access Economics estimates the total economic cost of natural disasters in 2012 was more than $6 billion.

In the last five years, natural disasters around the country have claimed more than 200 lives and devastated hundreds of thousands of Australians.

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Warrnambool says Saputo offer is best

TAKEOVER target Warrnambool Cheese and Butter says the latest offer made by Canadian suitor Saputo is superior to a rival bid from Murray Goulburn.

Saputo's offer is considered superior in terms of value, certainty and timing, Warrnambool Cheese said on Friday.

The Canadian firm sweetened its offer earlier this week, in line with undertakings made to the Takeovers Panel.

Its earlier unconditional offer of $9.00 per Warrnambool share, and an increase of 20 cents if it attained more than 50 per cent of the shares, remained unchanged.

But the offer will increase to $9.40 if Saputo obtains more than 75 per cent of Warrnambool shares, and to $9.60 if it surpasses 90 per cent.

Murray Goulburn is offering $9.50 for each Warrnambool share, but it is conditional upon obtaining more than 50 per cent of the target's shares.

However, Murray Goulburn's offer has not been declared final.

Warrnambool has recommended that its shareholders reject the Murray Goulburn offer.

The final Saputo offer was unconditional, meaning that accepting shareholders would receive a minimum of $9.00 cash per share irrespective of the level of acceptances, Warrnambool said.

The Murray Goulburn offer remains subject to authorisation by the Australian Competition Tribunal, which will deliver its decision by February 28 at the earliest.

Warrnambool chairman Terry Richardson said Murray Goulburn's offer was highly conditional and carried significant risk.

Meanwhile, the company said it expects earnings in the half year to December 31 to almost double from the same period last year, when it had earnings of $29.3 million.

Improved market conditions in the final three months of the 2012/13 financial year had continued into the 2013/14 financial year, Warrnambool said.

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Video of police assault could go public

VIDEO footage of a former policeman apparently punching and kneeing a prisoner in the head could be released next week after the West Australian Court of Appeal dismissed a legal challenge from the officer.

The footage was revealed during public hearings held by the state's corruption watchdog looking into alleged misconduct by police at the Broome watch-house.

The hearings came after two alleged violent arrests involving the same officer this year.

In the footage, the officer appears to drag one man through the station by the neck, then punch and knee another inmate who was shown flying headfirst onto a concrete floor while handcuffed.

The arrests prompted the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) to investigate, and Commissioner Roger Macknay ordered the footage could be released to the media.

But Karen Vernon, the lawyer for the former policeman whose name has been suppressed, lodged a Supreme Court injunction against the release.

Justice Andrew Beech rejected all three grounds of the appeal in June, saying he did not accept that the commissioner had erred.

Ms Vernon lodged an appeal against that decision, claiming the release of the footage was not in the public interest.

The Court of Appeal dismissed that application on Wednesday, but Ms Vernon sought a further delay to consider a possible High Court appeal.

However, the CCC plans to table its report into the matter in parliament on Monday, and the footage will be included.

Ms Vernon indicated she would try to seek an agreement from the CCC not to release the footage next week.

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First death from new bird flu strain

A 73-YEAR-OLD woman in China has been confirmed as the first person to die from a new strain of avian influenza, health experts said.

The unidentified woman died of respiratory failure on December 6, six days after she was admitted to a hospital in the eastern province of Jiangxi suffering from severe pneumonia, the provincial health authority said.

Tests confirmed that she was infected with the H10N8 bird flu virus, which was not previously detected in humans, it said.

Medical staff monitored the woman's close contacts but found no similar symptoms, leading experts to conclude that "we should initially consider it an isolated case."

"There is low risk that the virus can cause human infection and transmission," the health authority said.

The woman had reportedly visited a live poultry market.

China has reported 142 cases, including 45 deaths, of another new bird flu strain, H7N9, since it was first detected in March.

In October, the World Health Organisation said it found no evidence of "sustained human-to-human transmission" of the H7N9 virus.

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This story has been removed

Police assault video could go public

VIDEO footage of a former policeman apparently punching and kneeing a prisoner in the head could be released next week after a failed legal challenge.

Bigger aerial water bomber capacity

WA'S $12 million aerial firefighting fleet now has its largest waterbombing capacity as the State prepares for a predicted severe bushfire season.

Barnett: What if a child was taken?

THE introduction of bait and kill zones for massive sharks in WA waters was prompted by the fear of a child being killed, Premier Colin Barnett says.

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Study exposes teenage weight fears

A UK study's found one in 10 teenage girls have extreme levels of fear about gaining weight. Source: AAP

ONE in 10 teenage girls have "extreme levels of fear" about gaining weight, a UK study suggests.

Eleven per cent of 13-year-old girls suffer intense worry about getting fat compared with 4.7 per cent of boys the same age.

Researchers from the University College London Institute of Child Health and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine also discovered that most teenage girls worry about gaining weight.

They also found that a third of girls and one in five boys are upset or distressed about their weight and shape.

Examining data concerning 7000 children, who are part of the University of Bristol's Children of the 90s study, the authors found that 26 per cent of girls and one in seven boys had restricted their food intake by fasting, skipping meals or throwing away food.

And 53 per cent of girls and 41 per cent of boys had avoided fatty foods.

The authors cautioned that eating problems had an impact on children's mental health and their social, personal and family life.

"We have found that behaviours typical of an eating disorder are more common in early adolescence than previously thought. Not just in girls but also in boys," said lead author Dr Nadia Micali.

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