China expects 3.6bn Lunar New Year trips

CHINESE officials say they are expecting citizens to make 3.6 billion trips during the Chinese New Year travel period that starts on Thursday.

The holiday is the most important one in China and represents the world's largest seasonal migration of people as families reunite.

The Year of the Horse starts on January 31. The Spring Festival transportation period lasts 40 days from January 16.

Lian Weiliang, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, says they expect 200 million more journeys than in 2013.

Lian also told a news conference on Tuesday snow and bad weather could hamper the mass migration.

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Missing man feared daughter's relocation

Water police have joined the search for Greg Hutchings and daughter Eeva Dorendahl(pic). Source: AAP

A NSW man may be missing with his four-year-old daughter after discovering his former partner might have been planning to move to Finland with the child.

Greg Hutchings and his daughter Eeva Dorendahl, 4, were last seen on Pottsville Road at Pottsville in northern NSW on Saturday.

Mr Hutchings had arranged to meet his former partner, Eeva's mother, in Pottsville around midday but he never showed.

Mr Hutchings' family have since revealed the 35-year-old may have been concerned Eeva was going to go overseas.

His sister, Sheri Hutchings, said the discovery of a Finnish passport was possibly the catalyst.

"Greg has lived and loved that little girl with the lightest of love and would never compromise her safety," she wrote on her Facebook page.

"He has been concerned that Eeva's mum might relocate them to Finland without Greg's knowledge.

"His discovery of a secret Finnish passport for Eeva has probably been the catalyst for his hesitation in returning Eeva to her mum."

Ms Hutchings said she had complete trust Eeva was safe, happy and very well cared for.

Police would not comment on whether a passport was a motive for the disappearance.

Emergency services, including jet skis and a police helicopter, continued the search for Mr Hutchings and Eeva around Pottsville on Tuesday.

Crews scoured waterways and beaches but could not find the missing pair.

Tweed Police Inspector Gary Cowan said the pair had camped in the area before.

"It's an area where the dad and daughter have been camping before so if they have gone to ground for whatever reason, they've probably got food and water there," he told the ABC on Tuesday.

The search is expected to continue throughout the night and into Wednesday.

It has been reported Eeva was due to return home to the Sunshine Coast with her mother after staying with Mr Hutchings in Pottsville.

Mr Hutchings is of Caucasian appearance, about 175cm tall, with short brown curly hair and of a thin build.

Police say he was last seen wearing a black long-sleeve shirt, grey trousers and carrying a black backpack.

Eeva is also of Caucasian appearance, with long blonde hair and blue eyes.

She was last seen wearing an oversized blue and white-coloured shirt and multicoloured board shorts.

Police are urging anyone with information about this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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NSW cyclist dies following crash

A FEMALE cyclist has died four days after a crash south of Sydney.

Emergency services were called to McKell Avenue at Waterfall on Saturday morning after reports a cyclist and a car had collided.

Officers found a 35-year-old woman with serious injuries.

Police were told the woman was riding along the road when she collided with a car travelling in the opposite direction.

Police say the woman died in hospital on Tuesday.

Inquiries into the crash are continuing, police say.

A 23-year-old man died late on Monday night when his car ran off the road and hit a tree late at Salamander Bay near Port Stephens.

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Banana ban for health-kick monkeys

MONKEYS at a British zoo have been banned from eating bananas - because they are too unhealthy.

Animal nutritionists have likened giving bananas to the primates at Paignton Zoo in Devon to humans eating too much cake and chocolate.

The monkeys have been on a health kick and have been avoiding food that is too sweet and sugary - including bananas.

Amy Plowman, head of conservation and advocacy, said: "People usually try to improve their diet by eating more fruit - but fruit cultivated for humans is much higher in sugar and much lower in protein and fibre than most wild fruit because we like our fruit to be so sweet and juicy.

"Giving this fruit to animals is equivalent to giving them cake and chocolate.

"Compared to the food they would eat in the wild, bananas are much more energy-dense - they have lots of calories - and contain much more sugar that's bad for their teeth and can lead to diabetes and similar conditions.

"It can also cause gastrointestinal problems as their stomachs are mostly adapted to eating fibrous foods with very low digestibility."

Plowman said it had not been too hard to wean the monkeys off bananas and give them vegetables instead.

"They didn't get a choice but - unlike children - they couldn't complain."

A typical monkey diet now features lots of green leafy vegetables, smaller amounts of other vegetables and as much browse - leafy branches - as possible, especially for the leaf-eating monkeys.

A specialist pellet feed gives them the correct balance of nutrients, while small amounts of cooked brown rice can be scattered around enclosures to encourage foraging.

Animals do still get bananas if they are unwell and the keepers need to make sure they take medication.

"Putting it in a piece of banana works really well, as it's such a treat now," Plowman said.

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Man charged as dying passenger abandoned

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Firing squads proposed for US execution

A POLITICIAN in the US is proposing the use of firing squads to execute condemned inmates if constitutional problems or other issues ever prevent his state from using lethal injection.

Wyoming state Senator Bruce Burns, a Republican, said on Monday that state law currently calls for using a gas chamber if lethal injection is unavailable.

"The state of Wyoming doesn't have a gas chamber currently, an operating gas chamber, so the procedure and expense to build one would be impractical to me," said Burns, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"I consider frankly the gas chamber to be cruel and unusual, so I went with firing squad because they also have it in Utah," Burns said. He's introduced the bill for consideration in the legislative session that starts February 10.

"One of the reasons I chose firing squad as opposed to any other form of execution is because frankly it's one of the cheapest for the state," Burns said.

Burns said his bill addresses this issue because a number of states are running short of the chemicals used for lethal injection, largely because companies have stopped selling the drugs to prisons.

Wyoming, a sparsely populated western state, has only one inmate on death row and last executed an inmate in 1992.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the national Death Penalty Information Center, said on Monday he believes Wyoming could face constitutional challenges if it tried to use the firing squad as its only method of execution.

Dieter said Utah has offered inmates the choice of being executed by firing squad but said the state is phasing out the punishment.

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JPMorgan returns to a profit in Q4

Outcry over wheelchair disgrace

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Daniel murder accused stays in cells

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Harris pleads not guilty to sex offences

AUSTRALIAN entertainer Rolf Harris has pleaded not guilty to 12 sex offences dating back to the 1960s.

Harris - dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie - appeared in London's Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday for a plea and case management hearing ahead of his trial scheduled for April 30.

The 83-year-old, appearing relaxed and much healthier than his last court appearance in September, answered with a load and clear "not guilty" as each of the indecent assault charges were read to him in the packed courtroom.

Harris also remains charged with making four indecent images of a child in 2012. He is yet to be arraigned on those charges.

Harris was accompanied to the court in central London by a group of around a dozen friends and family including his elderly wife Alwen, whom he pushed in a wheelchair, and his middle-aged daughter Bindi.

He sat still and appeared relaxed in the dock during the hearing, which lasted more than an hour, speaking only briefly to confirm his name and enter his pleas.

The court heard Harris is accused of 12 separate counts of sexual assault, involving four alleged victims.

He was last year charged with six counts of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old girl in 1980 and 1981 and three charges of indecently assaulting a girl aged 14 in 1986.

Last month he was charged with a further three offences; one against a 19-year-old in 1984, one against a girl "aged seven or eight in 1968 or 1969" and another against a 14-year-old in 1975.

The count relating to the 19-year-old involved the same alleged victim as six of the earlier counts.

Harris was also previously charged with four counts of making indecent images of a child in the first half of 2012.

Tuesday was Harris' first appearance in court since a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court in September, when he looked frail and confused.

He is expected to attend at least two more hearings before his trial is scheduled to begin.

On Tuesday, Justice Nigel Sweeney renewed Harris' bail conditions, which dictate that he does not contact prosecution witness and lives at his home address in Bray.

Harris made no comment to reporters after the hearing as he walked past a huge media scrum held behind barricades at the front of the court.

Harris was questioned under caution in November 2012 by officers working on Operation Yewtree, the national investigation launched after abuse claims were made against Jimmy Savile.

He was then arrested in March, and charged in August. The allegations against Harris have no connection to Savile.

Harris has not commented on the allegations since he was first named in the press in April.

Harris, who painted a portrait of the Queen in 2005 and performed at her Diamond Jubilee concert last year, has been in the public eye for decades.

He had his first musical hit Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport in 1960, and continued to enjoy success in the industry as well as forging a television career.

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