A GRASS and scrub fire that caused the evacuation of some residents on North Stradbroke Island has been downgraded.
A Queensland Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said while the fire is not yet under control it has been contained.
He says residents have moved back into their homes after they were evacuated on Sunday because the fire threatened their homes.
BRUSSELS sprouts may not be everyone's cup of tea, but they definitely should not be on some plates at Christmas.
The controversial vegetable is a traditional festive staple in countries including the UK.
But it can be a dangerous accompaniment to blood-thinning drugs like Warfarin, as one Scottish patient found out.
The Scottish man was prescribed the drug for heart failure and warned to stay away from green leafy vegetables, especially brussel sprouts.
The vitamin K in the vegetable can interfere with the drug and cause adverse effects including bleeding, which can be fatal.
Despite the advice, the man consumed 15 to 20 brussel sprouts on three to four occasions in one week during the festive period and was admitted to hospital three days after Christmas, where his condition improved.
His treating physicians from the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Glasgow warned doctors and patients about the dangers of consuming excessive quantities of brussel sprouts at the Christmas table.
"Doctors should consider counselling patients who must remain anticoagulated at all times ... against excessive consumption of this traditional Christmas fare," they wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday.
Meanwhile, those considering starting Christmas with a grapefruit breakfast or tossing a grapefruit salad might want to check their medication first.
Chemicals in grapefruit called furanocoumarins can interfere with up to 85 known medications, including cholesterol-lowering drugs, and can cause serious side effects in the case of 45 of them.
The fruit interacts with medications to increase the concentration of the drug in the bloodstream, putting patients at risk of overdose.
But Christmas can be a time of overindulgence for everyone, which carries its own risks.
Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president Dr Anthony Cross said emergency departments regularly see the effects of overindulgence at Christmas.
Often, it was a result of too much cheap food and wine, he said.
He suggested people buy a little less, but spend more on quality goods.
"Eat the good stuff and drink the expensive stuff," Dr Cross said.
Heart Foundation clinical issues director Dr Robert Grenfell said heart failure patients needed to watch their fluid intake, particularly alcohol, as it could affect their treatment.
Details about medications that react with grapefruit can be found on the website of the National Prescribing Service: www.nps.org.au
OBESE Australians most in need of stomach-reduction surgery are missing out, new research shows.
A survey of almost 50,000 obese Australians found those living in socially disadvantaged areas on low incomes were less likely to have bariatric surgery than their higher earning, better-educated counterparts.
This was despite evidence that people from lower socioeconomic groups were more likely to be obese.
The research, published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday, found obese people earning more than $70,000 a year were five times more likely to have bariatric surgery than those earning less than $20,000 per year.
Those living in the least disadvantaged areas were four times more likely to have surgery than those living in the most disadvantaged areas, the study by researchers from the Australian National University (ANU), University of NSW and the Sax Institute found.
Clinical guidelines recommend bariatric surgery only be carried out for those with a body mass index (BMI) over 40kg after other non-surgical options have failed.
ANU researcher Dr Rosemary Korda said it was the first study examining bariatric surgery in Australia according to socioeconomic status.
"We know that obesity is concentrated in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups but our research shows that those who need bariatric surgery the most are the least likely to receive it," Dr Korda said.
There was limited availability of bariatric surgery, which includes gastric banding and bypass procedures, in public hospitals, she said.
Meanwhile, Medicare subsidised the surgery for private patients, effectively restricting lapband surgery to patients who can afford private health insurance and large out-of-pocket costs.
Of the 49,364 participants in the study, 312 had bariatric surgery but only one of those was treated publicly.
Co-author Professor Emily Banks of the Sax Institute said the decision to have surgery should be between a patient and their doctor, based on medical need.
"If surgery was distributed among a wider range of patients, inequalities in obesity and health-related problems could decline," she said.
In 2009, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing recommended bariatric surgery be made more available in public hospitals because people who needed it most were missing out.
STRICTER child protection laws have led to a surge in Aboriginal child abuse notifications in the Northern Territory, research shows.
Notification rates for the maltreatment of Aboriginal children increased on average by about 21 per cent a year between 1999 and 2010, according to NT government child protection figures published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday.
The number of substantiated cases grew by 18 per cent a year.
The biggest increases in substantiated cases were for emotional abuse, which grew by 30 per cent a year, and neglect, which rose 22 per cent a year.
The increases began around 2002, when national attention focused on the maltreatment of Aboriginal children following two state-based inquiries in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, the authors said.
Mandatory reporting obligations were strengthened in NT in 2007, the same year the 'Little children are sacred' report into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in the territory was released.
"The timing of these changes was consistent with the surge in notifications by many of the reporter groups, including health professionals, school personnel and police," the report's authors said.
"The spotlight placed on child maltreatment in the Northern Territory through two inquiries and the resulting legislative and service responses, including strengthened mandatory reporting obligations, created a surge in notifications."
There were more than 35,000 child protection notifications during the period and 66 per cent of those related to Aboriginal children.
The research was led by Dr Steven Guthridge from the Northern Territory department of health.
A 100-HECTARE bushfire is burning out of control near Seymour north of Melbourne, while fire at the nearby Puckapunyal Military Range is under control.
The fire at Whiteheads Creek, west of Seymour, broke out about 6.10pm (AEDT) on Saturday and is estimated to cover an area of about 100 hectares, a Country Fire Authority (CFA) spokeswoman said.
Twenty-five fire trucks are on scene.
"The fire is still not yet under control and we are working very hard to get it under control," the spokeswoman told AAP.
Local residents have been advised to be vigilant and monitor the CFA website and local radio for updates.
There is another blaze at the Puckapunyal Military Range, which was sparked by live firing in recent days but it is under control. The range is about 6km northwest of Puckapunyal township.
There was also a separate grass fire about 40km northwest of Puckapunyal at Heathcote but that has now been extinguished.
The UN says Congo's army have committed rapes, looting and other human rights violations near Goma. Source: AAP
REBELS and government troops raped and killed civilians and looted towns during battles in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo last month with children suffering dramatically, according to the United Nations.
The UN said on Friday that its investigators had confirmed that M23 rebels and troops had committed serious abuses in their battle for control of mineral-rich North Kivu province and its capital, Goma.
UN investigators have confirmed "serious human rights violations including killing and wounding of civilians and looting committed by M23 in Goma and surrounding areas", said deputy UN spokesman Eduardo del Buey.
UN experts have said the M23 had support from Rwandan forces as it moved on Goma last month, inflicting major defeats on government forces.
There have also been claims that dozens of women were raped by the government army, the FARDC, in the town of Minova near Goma during their retreat.
Del Buey said the UN had "expressed serious concern to the Congolese authorities".
Meanwhile three times as many children have been killed or maimed this year in the eastern DR Congo conflict region than in past years, according to UN figures quoted by German ambassador Peter Wittig.
"Just last month more children were killed due to the fighting in eastern DRC than in the whole year before," Wittig told a UN security council meeting.
Even before the M23 offensive on Goma, 143 children were killed in the conflict region from January to the end of October, up from 55 in all of 2011 and 40 in 2010, according to the UN figures.
"M23 is estimated to have at least 300 children forcibly recruited as child soldiers," Wittig said.
"There are gruesome testimonies from children confirming that M23 commanders killed child soldiers within their ranks who tried to escape," Wittig said.
The German envoy called on the security council to use its "unique powers and responsibilities" to step up the protection of children in conflicts.
MOST of them avoid reporters like the plague but in "liberated" northwestern Syria, it is difficult not to run into foreign jihadist fighters, both on the front lines and at rebel bases.
"Secrecy shrouding the activities of foreign militants makes it extremely difficult to assess with any accuracy their extent, location and potential ramifications," the International Crisis Group said in a report.
But while President Bashar al-Assad's domestic foes have tried for months to downplay the impact of outsiders, "foreign militants have had more direct involvement, fighting alongside Syrian insurgents", the Brussels-based group added.
The small town of Atme on the border with Turkey serves as a hub for foreign volunteers in the 21-month insurgency that has cost tens of thousands of lives.
They cross from the Turkish city of Antakya, travelling there from far and wide to join the "holy war".
Others make their way to the Turkish border town of Reyhanli before smugglers guide them across the border to Atme, a key rallying point for foreign fighters.
One fighter, 26-year-old Anas from Algeria, was already a war veteran, having fought in his homeland's Kabylie region, east of Algiers, as well as in Kashmir.
In the Jebel Akrad mountains, four Saudi men run the online websites of Islamist groups such as the Al-Nusra Front. They live in an abandoned apartment in the town of Salma, with a rocket-propelled grenade sitting in the living room near a copy of the Koran.
Asked what they are doing in Syria, they replied: "Tourism."
At the end of November, more than 100 black-clad men from Europe and Africa gathered in front of a mosque, under a sea of black Islamic flags after a Palestinian imam had preached to locals of the benefits of their presence in the town.
A SURFER has died and another is missing after they were caught in a strong rip near Margaret River, in Western Australia's southwest.
A search and rescue operation had been under way until nightfall, with grave fears held for the 23-year-old man, the ABC reports.
Both surfers were at Redgate Beach, 280km south of Perth, when they got caught in treacherous conditions, police said.
Rescuers managed to reach the 29-year-old surfer but they were unable to revive him.
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AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai says a suicide attack that wounded the country's spy chief was planned in neighbouring Pakistan.
Asadullah Khalid, who heads the National Directorate of Security (NDS), was targeted by an attacker with a bomb hidden in his underwear posing as a Taliban peace envoy in Kabul on Thursday.
Karzai said he believed the attacker had come from Pakistan, but he did not blame the Pakistani government over the bombing.
"We know that this man who came in the name of a guest to meet with Asadullah Khalid came from Pakistan. We know that for a fact. That is clear," Karzai told reporters.
"This attack was plotted... from the (southwestern) city of Quetta in Pakistan."
"I will raise this issue with Pakistan," he added.
Khalid was attacked at a spy agency guesthouse and is now being treated at a US-run military hospital outside Kabul where he is in a stable condition, security sources have said.
On Friday, the NDS said that he was "recovering" and in a "satisfactory" condition.
VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has arrived back home in Caracas after10 days of medical treatment in Cuba.
State television showed images of Mr Chavez arriving at Caracas' airport early Friday and walking down the steps of the presidential jet.
Mr Chavez was received by members of his Cabinet, including Vice President Nicolas Maduro.
Mr Chavez traveled to Cuba on the night of Nov. 27 after announcing plans to undergo hyperbaric oxygen treatment in Havana.
The Venezuelan leader has spent much of the past 18 months fighting cancer, and said several months ago that he was cancer-free.
