Good morning. Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine’s cities has intensified. In Australia, the floods crisis continues with major warnings in place and evacuation orders in some parts of NSW. And Scott Morrison has drawn criticism from Christian groups over Australia’s refugee intake.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russia is trying “to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all” after Russian forces intensified missile attacks on residential precincts of multiple major cities. Russia claims to have secured the key southern city of Kherson after another day of relentless shelling, but this has been disputed by the city’s mayor. Both Kyiv and Kharkiv remain under attack, with Russian airborne troops landing in the country’s second-most populous city and engaging in heavy fighting with Ukrainian forces. In New York, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly for a resolution deploring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, highlighting Russia’s increasing international isolation with 141 of the 193 member states supporting the resolution, 35 abstaining, and five voting against. Only Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria voted in support of the Kremlin, with historical allies Cuba, Venezuela and China abstaining.
Flood-ravaged residents on Australia’s east coast are struggling for breaking news updates after widespread closures of regional media outlets left 33 local government areas without print or digital news coverage. At least 20 News Corp Australia mastheads have disappeared in recent years, with local residents reliant upon Facebook or WhatsApp groups for disaster updates. Meanwhile, the state’s deputy premier and Nationals MP, Paul Toole, has been accused of taking “political potshots” in the middle of a catastrophe for attacking opponents of increased dam walls.
Scott Morrison has been heavily criticised for suggesting Ukrainian refugees seeking asylum in Australia would be at “the top of the pile”. The Australian Christian Lobby has condemned the message that the prime minister’s statement would send to people “fleeing the horrors of the Taliban”, and called for the federal government to increase Australia’s humanitarian program intake from its current limit of 13,750 each year. 55,000 Afghan nationals have already lodged “lawful” applications, the Senate has been informed. Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also had a significant impact on Australia’s biggest super fund with Russian-based holdings losing an estimated $137m over the past week.
Australia
Confidentiality agreements in sexual harassment claim settlements could help perpetrators continue to abuse, Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, has told a gathering of industry leaders, warning that the mechanism also often leaves survivors isolated.
“Feelings of hopelessness and abandonment” could prompt as many as one-fifth of aged care workers to quit the sector in the next year, a union survey has suggested, with “preventable deaths” during the Covid crisis cited as demotivating staff.
The independent federal election candidate Zoe Daniel and her team will take a challenge to the supreme court after a Victorian council ruled that displaying campaign signs prior to the calling of the election was not permitted.
The veteran Labor politician Kim Carr could face an internal preselection battle to retain his Senate ticket spot. The longstanding political rival of the national opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, has been in parliament since 1993.
The world
Polish nationalists have attacked and abused refugees of colour from Ukraine after fake reports of groups of African, south Asian, and Middle Eastern people committing violent crimes were circulated across social media.
World leaders have agreed to draw up a legally binding treaty on plastic waste at the UN environment assembly in Nairobi. Approximately 7bn of the estimated 9.2bn tonnes of plastics produced between 1950 and 2017 are now waste items.
An abandoned ship carrying an estimated $401m worth of luxury cars has sunk off the coast of the Azores islands. An investigation is ongoing into how the fire started aboard the 200m vessel.
Recommended reads
After decades of touring, a pandemic, a baby, and now floods, musician Darren Hanlon is back where it all began. “It’s kind of strange, being plonked back into your former life, as an adult,” the 48-year-old tells Walter Marsh. And out of keeping with his reputation as a gentle indie singer-songwriter, his latest album has some tracks that are ruffling feathers: “I got quite a few emails about it. I think of it more as a pro-love than anti-Catholic [song], but people started walking out of my gigs when I play it.”
The Covid pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on homeless people. And despite two years in which to plan, for Perth’s homeless population – more than 40% of whom are Aboriginal – vaccination rates remain depressingly low, Jesse Noakes explains.
Cameron James has missed people. And while this week’s curator for our 10 funniest things on the internet isn’t alone on that front, he has found considerable solace on the web, whether it’s witnessing humans striving for connection, or just stuffing up.
Listen
It’s said the devil’s in the details. When right-wing media columnists claimed Australia’s lockdowns were an “overreaction”, they evidenced this with data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. On this episode of Full Story, Guardian Australia’s data and interactive editor, Nick Evershed, details how the numbers were wilfully worked.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Semi-retired sports administrator Tony Naar is a man on a mission. For the past ten years of summer and winter Paralympic Games, he’s been inspiring a small cohort of volunteers to create Wikipedia pages for every Australian para-athlete. Kieran Pender has the story.
Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss claims that Chelsea’s owner, Roman Abramovich, has put the London club up for a quick sale, but suggests he’ll need a consortium of owners to meet the Russian businessman’s asking price.
And when you can’t cry any more, at least there’s still laughter, as resident cartoonist David Squires takes on football’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Media roundup
The federal government is sitting on a $5bn natural disaster fund, the ABC claims, but has dispersed just $150m of the money for disaster-mitigation projects. Australian banking services fintech company Zeller has reached unicorn status in just two years, the Financial Review writes, having raised $100m during its Series B funding round.
Coming up
A Senate hearing into the future of Australia’s aviation sector will be addressed by Qantas and other industry leaders.
The coronial inquiry into the NSW bushfires continues, with ongoing investigations into associated deaths caused by fires in the state’s north in 2019.
Ongoing coverage of the flood crisis in Queensland and New South Wales.
And if you’ve read this far …
It’s an archaeological site that “doesn’t fit with anything we know”. The processing of ochre has long been associated with Aboriginal Australians, but a new discovery now suggests the practice was occurring in east Asia 40,000 years ago, much earlier than anybody previously suspected, which could change what we thought we knew about human migration routes.
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