Sydney - Female circumcision is called female genital mutilation (FGM) in Australia and it's a crime.

Those performing it face a possible seven-year prison term and those who don't report it risk a stiff fine.

In Sydney's outer suburb of Auburn, there's a specialist FGM clinic that has been in operation for over 10 years and sees around 40 women a year.

The typical patient is in her 20s, is about to wed, and was operated on by a village midwife in an African or Middle Eastern country when she was young.

Sydney - Getting a good job nowadays doesn't mean you are more likely to stay in employment in these recessionary times.

Research in Australia shows that the common perception that the low-paid have the least job security is a myth.

The Melbourne Institute of Applied Research found that rates of redundancy are "statistically insignificant" when the highly paid are compared with those at the bottom of the scale.

Sydney - Australian doctors believe they have found the key to eradicating the type of diabetes that obliges sufferers to regulate their blood glucose levels every day of their lives, news reports said Wednesday. "We are really excited about this because there are no treatments for type 1 diabetes," Garvan Institute researcher Shane Grey told The Sydney Morning Herald.

Melbourne, Apr 29 : Putting all rumours to rest, Hollywood actor Mel Gibson has appeared with his Russian girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva for the first time in public at a premiere in Los Angeles.

Gibson and his lover went out together to attend the Los Angeles premiere of Hugh Jackman''s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, reports The Australian.

Melbourne, Apr 29 : Hajnal Ban, one of Queensland''s youngest politicians, has confessed that she spent nine months in Russia to go under a bone-breaking growth surgery to increase her height because she used to be insecure about her size.

Bal, the 31-year-old Logan councillor, had each of her legs broken in four places for the leg-lengthening procedure.

She stayed in the Russian hospital as she grew about 1mm a day to increase her 154cm frame to 162cm.

Canberra (Australia), Apr. 29 (ANI): Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that his government will send 450 extra troops to beef up security in troubled Afghanistan.

However, there will be no combat troops among the latest contingent. The extra troops will assist in military training, governance and reconstruction, Rudd said, adding "Australia concurs with the United States that the current civilian and military strategy is not working."