- Ash Barty retiring from tennis
- More than 42,000 snap up tickets for Warne memorial
- Russia turning Mariupol into ‘ashes’
- Schools take virus hit as COVID wave looms
- Basham bites back as Lib frontbench holds on
- PM flags relaxed international travel requirements
- Chinese plane crash cause unclear amid scorched wreckage
- Kremlin critic Navalny given nine years prison
- Pakistan roar back to life against Aussies
Ash Barty retiring from tennis
Wimbledon and Australian Open winner Ash Barty has announced her retirement in a shock for the sport of tennis.
The 25-year-old, who won the Australian Open less than two months ago, announced her decision on Instagram today.
“Today is difficult and filled with emotion for me as I announce my retirement from tennis,” the world number one wrote.
“I am so thankful for everything this sport has given me and leave feeling proud and fulfilled.
“Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way, I’ll always be grateful for the lifelong memories that we created together.”
In a six-minute video, Barty said her triumphs at Wimbledon in 2021 and the Australian Open in January had fulfilled her ambitions in the sport.
“Wimbledon last year changed a lot for me as a person and as an athlete when you work so hard your whole life for one goal and I’ve been able to share that with so many incredible people,” she said.
“To be able to win Wimbledon, which was my dream – my one true dream that I wanted in tennis – that really changed my perspective.
“I just had that gut feeling after Wimbledon and had spoken to my team quite a lot about it.
“There was just a little part of me that wasn’t quite satisfied, wasn’t quite fulfilled.
“Then came the challenge of the Australian Open and I think that for me just feels like the perfect way – my perfect way – to celebrate what an amazing journey my tennis career has been.”
Barty also won the French Open in 2019. She took a break from professional tennis between 2014 and 2016 and played cricket with the Brisbane Heat during the inaugural Women’s Big Bash League season.
She hasn’t played since her stirring Australian Open Final win against American Danielle Collins on January 29, 2022.
More than 42,000 snap up tickets for Warne memorial
More than 42,000 people have already got tickets to pay their respects to cricket legend Shane Warne at his state memorial service.
Bookings opened at 3pm on Tuesday through Ticketek for the Melbourne Cricket Ground event which will take place at 7pm on March 30.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said 42,300 people have already snapped up a free ticket.
“That’s a really strong start, I’m sure there will be many more,” he told reporters on Wednesday morning.
“There are obviously seats still available. I’m sure Victorians will be there in massive numbers to pay tribute to a fantastic Victorian.”
It will be the wider public’s first chance to say goodbye to Warne following his death from a suspected heart attack at the Thai resort island of Koh Samui on March 4.
Patrons will need to be fully vaccinated to attend the service, which is expected to run for two hours.
Gates will open at 5.30pm and guests must be seated by 6.45pm for a 7pm start.
Russia turning Mariupol into ‘ashes’
Remains of a Grad missile embedded in the ground and a damaged car parked in a street aftermath of Russian shelling in Mariupol. Photo: Vojtech Darvik Maca (CTK via AP Images)
Intense Russian airstrikes are turning the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol into the “ashes of a dead land”, the city council says, as Western allies plan more sanctions to punish Moscow for its invasion.
Street fighting and bombardments raged in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said, a day after it rejected an ultimatum from Russia to surrender.
Hundreds of thousands are believed to be trapped inside buildings, with no access to food, water, power or heat.
Russian forces and Russian-backed separatist units had taken about half of the port city, normally home to around 400,000 people, Russia’s RIA news agency said, citing a separatist leader.
“There is nothing left there,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address to Italy’s parliament.
Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told CNN the city was under a full blockade and had received no humanitarian aid.
“The city is under continuous bombing, from 50 bombs to 100 bombs Russian aircraft drops each day … A lot of death, a lot of crying, a lot of awful war crimes,” Orlov said.
Mariupol has become the focus of the war that erupted on February 24 when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his troops over the border on what he calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine and replace its pro-Western leadership.
The city lies on the Sea of Azov and its capture would allow Russia to link areas in the east held by pro-Russian separatists with the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Putin’s 27-day long incursion into Ukraine has forced more than 3.5 million to flee, brought the unprecedented isolation of Russia’s economy, and raised fears of wider conflict.
Western nations plan to heap more economic pressure on the Kremlin.
US President Joe Biden will join allies in applying additional sanctions and tightening existing ones during his trip to Europe this week, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday.
Schools take virus hit as COVID wave looms
The number of South Australian students and education staff absent due to COVID-19 is rising as the state’s hospital system braces for another wave of the virus to hit next month.
A total of 697 teachers and school services officers were absent on Monday for COVID-19 related reasons, up from 549 on Friday, 597 on Thursday and 537 on Wednesday.
The Education Department figures also show 3.1 per cent of students across the state are absent for COVID-19-related reasons.
At the start of the month, the student absentee percentage was hovering around two per cent.
In the Riverland, Berri Regional Secondary College is currently in the middle of a three-day “circuit breaker” closure of its year 11 and 12 classes amid an ongoing outbreak.
The college’s principal Emily Griggs said the temporary closure, which is running from Tuesday to Thursday, is needed to contain the spread of the virus.
“We have considered the impact of ongoing positive cases emerging amongst staff and students across the school and in our community over the last 24 hours and have determined the need for a circuit breaker to further reduce the spread of the virus,” she wrote in a letter to all parents.
New State Government-commissioned modelling undertaken by the University of Adelaide shows South Australia’s daily caseload is likely to reach around 8000 in April as the more transmissible BA.2 subvariant of Omicron takes hold.
The modelling also predicts that peak adult ward occupancy in the next wave could reach above 200.
Publicly-released modelling showing the estimated adult ward occupancy during South Australia’s next COVID wave.
University of South Australia epidemiologist and biostatistician Professor Adrian Esterman said he expected cases in South Australia to reach 8000 a day by April 13 if restriction levels remain the same.
South Australia recorded four COVID-19-related deaths and 3686 cases on Tuesday. There are currently 165 people in hospital, 11 in intensive care and two on a ventilator.
SA has 3,686 cases and 4 deaths. The Reff is 1.23. Now 165 people in hospital (up 15) and 11 in ICU (up 2). In the last 7 days, hospitalisations have gone up 41% compared to the previous 7 days. I expect 8,000 cases/day by the 13th April, assuming no changes to current measures.
— Professor Adrian Esterman (@profesterman) March 22, 2022
It comes after Premier Peter Malinauskas yesterday announced a shake-up of South Australia’s pandemic management.
The state’s newly elected leader has set a June 30 deadline to revoke the major emergency declaration and abolished the former government’s COVID-ready committee in favour of an “Emergency Management Council” which will meet on Friday to review South Australia’s 15-minute face-to-face close contact definition.
Malinauskas also told reporters yesterday that he has directed SA Health to “rapidly plan for urgent additional hospital preparedness” ahead of the looming COVID-19 spike.
A “substantial” advertising campaign to increase lagging booster shot rates will also be developed, Malinauskas told reporters.
Basham bites back as besieged Lib frontbench holds on
The contest for former primary industries minister David Basham’s blue-ribbon seat of Finniss is set to go down to the wire as more postal and pre-poll votes break for the Liberals.
Basham is in serious danger of losing his notionally safe Fleurieu Peninsula seat that takes in Victor Harbor, Port Elliot and Hindmarsh Island after enduring a swing of more than 17.6 per cent to local independent Lou Nicholson.
But Nicholson’s two-candidate preferred lead over Basham shrunk yesterday from around 55 per cent-45 per cent to 53.1 per cent-46.9 per cent after the first batch of postal and pre-poll votes were counted.
Nicholson has also fallen more than two per cent behind Labor on first preference votes which would knock her out of the two-candidate preferred contest.
ABC election analyst Antony Green said the outcome in Finniss is the hardest seat to call at this stage.
“Prospects for Liberal David Basham have improved in Finniss,” he wrote on his election blog.
“Around 2000 postal votes have been counted [on Tuesday] and his first preference vote rises from 37.0 per cent to 39.1 per cent, Labor’s from 23.5 per cent to 23.7 per cent, Independent Lou Nicholson declines from 23.0 per cent to 21.6 per cent and vote for four other candidates slips from 16.6 per cent to 15.6 per cent.
“The most important point here is that Nicholson was 0.5 per cent behind Labor on Saturday but is now 2.1 per cent behind.
“If Nicholson can bridge this gap, she still wins with 53.1 per cent versus Basham after preferences, but this figure is down from 55.1 per cent on Saturday night’s count.”
As of Wednesday morning, only 47.5 per cent of votes have been counted in Finniss, a seat that has been held by the Liberals since it was created in 1993.
Pre-poll and postal votes look set to save a number of Liberal frontbenchers from electoral embarrassment, including former premier Steven Marshall who has finally edged ahead of Labor in Dunstan.
Marshall now leads Labor’s Cressida O’Hanlon 50.3 per cent to 49.7 per cent on two-party preferred, according to the Electoral Commission, although the ABC has the pair split at exactly 50-50.
Liberal frontbenchers John Gardner, David Pisoni, Vincent Tarzia and Josh Teague are also set to narrowly hold on to their supposedly safe suburban electorates once all votes are counted.
PM flags relaxed international travel requirements
International travellers could soon have their pre-departure testing requirements removed after the prime minister flagged a further easing of restrictions.
Travellers currently need to show a negative COVID-19 test result in order to board a flight to Australia even if they are fully vaccinated.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the removal of pre-departure testing is an important milestone for Australia.
He says Health Minister Greg Hunt will be making an announcement on the matter soon.
“While we’re never complacent about the challenges COVID can present and new variants, we’re watching all of those closely as we keep looking through that windscreen,” he told reporters in Cairns on Tuesday.
“Hopefully we can continue to see COVID in the rear vision mirror.”
But a spokesperson for Hunt says he is continuing to receive health advice before making further changes to Australia’s biosecurity measures.
The current biosecurity declaration is due to lapse on April 17, aligning with international cruise ships returning to Australian waters for the first time since March 2020.
Chinese plane crash cause unclear amid scorched wreckage
Rescuers conduct search operations at the site of a plane crash in Tengxian County in southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Tuesday, March 22, 2022. Photo: Zhou Hua/Xinhua via AP.
Rescuers in southern China have had no success finding survivors from a China Eastern Airlines jet that crashed with 132 people on board, as authorities warn that the severe damage to the aircraft will make it difficult to establish the cause of the crash.
Flight MU5735 was headed on Monday for the port city of Guangzhou from Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, when it plunged from cruising altitude to crash in the mountains of Guangxi less than an hour before landing time.
A jet appeared to dive to the ground at an angle of about 35 degrees from the vertical in video images from a vehicle’s dashboard camera, according to Chinese media.
No survivors have been found yet, according to Zhu Tao, director of aviation safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
“The jet was seriously damaged during the crash, and investigations will face a very high level of difficulty,” Zhu said at the first government briefing on the disaster.
“Given the information currently available, we still do not have a clear assessment of the cause for the crash,” he said, adding that the aircraft did not respond to repeated calls from air controllers during its rapid descent.
On Tuesday, rescuers combed heavily forested mountain slopes in southern China using shovels and torches in their search for victims and flight recorders from the jet that crashed.
About 600 soldiers, firefighters and police marched to the crash site, a patch of about one square km in a location hemmed in by mountains on three sides, after excavators cleared a path, state television said.
It added that the search for the recorders or “black boxes” of the Boeing 737-800 involved in China’s first crash of a commercial jetliner since 2010 would be carried out in grid-by-grid fashion, probably through the night.
State television has shown images of plane debris strewn among trees charred by fire. Burnt remains of identity cards and wallets were also seen.
Kremlin critic Navalny given nine years prison
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has urged his supporters to show their opposition to the Russian government after a court sentenced him to nine years in prison on charges of fraud and contempt.
The 45-year-old was already serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges that he says were fabricated to thwart his political ambitions.
His existing sentence will be incorporated into the one handed down on Tuesday, said his lawyers, both of whom were briefly detained after the hearing.
Navalny was jailed last year when he returned to Russia after receiving medical treatment in Germany following an attack with a Soviet-era nerve toxin during a visit to Siberia in 2020.
After the sentence was pronounced, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic reacted on Twitter: “I want to say: the best support for me and other political prisoners is not sympathy and kind words, but actions. Any activity against the deceitful and thievish Putin’s regime. Any opposition to these war criminals.”
Judge Margarita Kotova, who confirmed Navalny had pleaded “not guilty” to the fraud charges, said he would remain under some restrictions for 20 months after his release.
Alexei Navalny receiving his sentence in a Russian court for another nine years jail. Photo: Emin Dzhafarov/Kommersant/Sipa USA
Prosecutors had sought to add 13 years to Navalny’s original sentence in the latest criminal case, in which he was accused of using 356 million roubles ($A4.60 million) in donations collected by his foundation for personal purposes.
Lawyer Olga Mikhailova said Navalny would appeal.
During the hearing, held at a prison colony in Pokrov, east of Moscow, a gaunt Navalny stood beside his lawyers in a room filled with security officers as the judge read the charges.
He seemed unfazed, looking down as he flipped through court documents.
In a tweet posted by his lawyers or supporters, he said that his Anti-Corruption Foundation, outlawed in Russia, would become a global organisation and urged his supporters to join it.
Pakistan roar back to life against Aussies
A reverse swing masterclass from paceman Naseem Shah and a gritty top-order batting effort have catapulted Pakistan back into the victory mix in the third cricket Test against Australia in Lahore.
At stumps on day two, Pakistan is 1-90 off 39 overs in reply to Australia’s 391, with Abdullah Shafique (45no off 117 balls) and Azhar Ali (30no off 79 balls) the unbeaten batsmen.
Imam ul-Haq (11) was the only Pakistan batsman to fall after being trapped lbw by Pat Cummins.
Australia was cruising at 5-341 midway through day two before Shah helped spark a collapse of 5-50.
Shah (4-58) and fellow paceman Shaheen Afridi (4-79) did the bulk of the damage.
Cameron Green (79 off 163 balls) and Alex Carey (67 off 105 balls) combined for a 135-run stand to put Australia in the box seat.
But when Carey was trapped plumb lbw by spinner Nauman Ali and Green was bowled by Shah, Pakistan roared back into the match.
Australia’s tail could only put up limited resistance as Shah and Afridi continued the onslaught, with Shah’s ability to extract reverse swing proving crucial.
Shah afterwards paid tribute to the help he had received from former Australian Test quick Shaun Tait, who was hired last month by Pakistan as bowling coach.
The visitors had started the day at 5-232 following strong knocks on day one from Usman Khawaja (91) and Steve Smith (59).
The series is level at 0-0 after the opening Tests ended in draws.
– With AAP and Reuters
