• Russian crimes ‘larger than Balkan wars’: ambassador
• SA COVID hospitalisations continue to rise
• SA virus peak looms as new booster rollout begins
• PM hit by racism accusation ahead of election
• Calls for war crimes investigations over ‘massacre’ in Ukrainian town
• Shooting in Sacramento kills six, injures 12
• Healy powers Aussies to perfect World Cup finish

Russian crimes ‘larger than Balkan wars’: ambassador

Russia has committed “heinous” war crimes including sexual violence, execution and torture of civilians, Ukraine’s top envoy in Australia says.

The level of atrocities in cities like Mariupol could be larger than what occurred in the Balkan wars due to higher population numbers and a lack of insight into the areas, ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko said.

“These are crimes against humanity and somebody needs to stop it,” Myroshnychenko said.

Images have emerged from the small city of Bucha near Kyiv of executed civilians with their hands bound behind their backs.

Satellite images also show a trench dug into the grounds of a church where a mass grave has been identified, according to US company Maxar Technologies.

“We see civilians’ dead bodies lying around the city, many of them have their hands tied up. We are now collecting the evidence from the witnesses,” Myroshnychenko said.

“Multiple rapes of women, children killed. This is a massacre.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia is making a “slow but noticeable” withdrawal from the Kyiv region, but his Australian envoy has cast doubt on Russia’s supposed retreat.

“They are now regrouping. They are using it as an operational pause and I’m sure they will mount another assault and therefore we need support of the free world to help us fight,” Myroshnychenko said.

The ambassador said the West needs to provide heavy weapons, air defence systems, anti-ship missiles, armoured, vehicles, tanks and planes to help Ukraine repel the Russian invasion.

“We are just like you. We were a democratic country, in the middle of Europe,” he said.

“It’s only two-and-a-half-hour from Kyiv to Paris. We’re in the middle of Europe and this is happening now in the 21st century.”

Myroshnychenko says Ukraine is not calling for boots on the ground and will continue to defend its country, but needs weapons and ammunition to continue repelling a much larger Russian force.

“Send us weapons. This is what we need, this what we’re asking for,” he said.

Myroshnychenko also called for sanctions to go further and for Australia to announce a moratorium on all Russian goods coming into the country.

SA COVID hospitalisations continue to rise

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 in South Australia has climbed again as the state records another 4595 new cases.

SA Health reported this afternoon that there are now 209 people with COVID-19 in hospital, up from 188 yesterday, and eight people in intensive care.

South Australia recorded another 4595 cases today, up from 4096 yesterday, with testing rates also up five per cent from Saturday.

No COVID-19 deaths have been reported.

There are now more than 35,000 active cases across the state.

The State Government is aiming to stand up around 200 hospital beds to prepare for this month’s surge in COVID-19 cases.

SA virus peak looms as new booster rollout begins

COVID-19 hospitalisations in South Australia have grown and the state’s cases could hit their peak this week, as the rollout of a fourth vaccine dose for vulnerable groups begins across the country.

SA Health recorded one COVID-19 death and 4096 cases on Sunday, down from the 4483 reported on Saturday, although testing was also down 14 per cent.

There are currently more than 34,000 active cases across the state. Daily cases peaked at 5496 last week – the highest number since January 14.

The number of people in hospital with the virus grew from 184 to 188 on Sunday, with eight people in intensive care and none on a ventilator.

State Government-commissioned modelling from Adelaide University released last month forecasts South Australia could record as many as 8000 daily cases in the coming days.

Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) expects an infection peak will hit in mid-April in several jurisdictions.

Police commissioner and state emergency coordinator Grant Stevens last week said the modelling shows South Australia could be at the “other side of the peak” by April 9 to 11.

Chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier, in line with the advice from AHPPC, has flagged that rules requiring close contacts to quarantine may be scrapped once South Australia gets to the other side of the curve.

Indoor mask requirements are also due to end on April 14.

It comes as the rollout of a second COVID-19 booster shot for vulnerable groups begins across the country.

People aged 65 and older, Indigenous Australians aged at least 50, disability care residents and the immunocompromised are among those receiving their fourth dose from Monday.

People can have a second booster shot four months after receiving their first.

An estimated 4.7 million people will be eligible to get a fourth dose but it is expected fewer than 200,000 will meet requirements at the start of the rollout.

PM hit by racism accusation ahead of election

[solstice_jwplayer mediaid=”ZT39Axf6″ title=”Morrison faces racism accusations from preselection battle” sponsoroption=”352624″ /]

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been forced to deny reports he used racist slander in his campaign to first enter Parliament, just days before he is due to bring on May’s election.

Last week Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells called Morrison unfit to be Prime Minister and said he had campaigned against a preselection rival, Michael Towke, because of his Lebanese heritage.

The contents of statutory declarations signed in 2016 by Towke and a preselector, Scott Chapman, were made public this weekend – first reported by The Saturday Paper – and included claims Morrison had made comments about the political downsides of Towke’s race while spreading misplaced rumours that he was a Muslim.

“These are quite malicious and bitter slurs, which are deeply offensive, and I reject them absolutely,” Morrison said while campaigning in Tasmania on Sunday.

“I could not reject this more fundamentally.”

The New Daily called more than 20 long-time Liberal Party members from the Cook federal electorate conference on Sunday.

All agreed Towke had been hit by a barrage of damaging falsehoods but none could say they had personally seen evidence Morrison was directing it.

Cook Liberal Wade McInerney recalled that after Towke bested Morrison in the preselection ballot by 82 votes to eight, party officials in charge of vetting candidates began regularly demanding answers about a string of damaging claims.

“They were all spurious,” he said.

“He just sat there languishing with all the allegations around him.”

Another Liberal involved in the preselection, who declined to be quoted by name, said material had been circulated among preselectors attempting to link Towke to local cases of disorderly behaviour.

The emergence of new details about the cloudy circumstances in which Morrison entered Parliament could not have come at a worse time for the Prime Minister, who is trying to sell voters on his budget handouts and has been preparing to formally initiate an election campaign.

Ramping up its campaign on Sunday, Labor seized the opportunity to revive questions about Morrison’s character, which had been running hot before Parliament began this year after leaked texts allegedly showed a front-bench colleague calling the Prime Minister a “complete psycho”.

“I don’t think anybody believes the Prime Minister, frankly. I don’t think people believe the Prime Minister more broadly,” shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

-James Robertson/The New Daily

Calls for war crimes investigations over ‘massacre’ in Ukrainian town

Ukrainian Soldiers inspect destroyed Russian military machinery in the city of Bucha, Ukraine. Photo: Atef Safadi/EPA

Ukraine is demanding crippling new sanctions on Russia from major Western powers over a “massacre” in a town near Kyiv which is claimed to have killed 300 people, as anger grows in Western capitals and Germany said that those responsible for war crimes should pay.

It comes after Ukraine said on Saturday that its forces had retaken all areas around Kyiv.

On the same day, the mayor of Bucha, a liberated town 37 kilometres northwest of the capital, said that 300 of its residents had been killed by the Russian army.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for international war crimes investigators to visit the area to collect evidence and said Kyiv believed the killing of civilians was deliberate.

Russia’s defence ministry denied that Russian forces had killed civilians in Bucha, and said all photographs and footage showing dead bodies were “yet another provocation”. In a statement, it said all Russian military units had left the town on March 30.

Moscow has previously denied allegations that it has targeted civilians, and has rejected accusations of war crimes.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described images of large numbers of dead Ukrainians in Bucha following Russia’s withdrawal as a “punch in the gut” in an interview with CNN.

French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned what he called the “massive abuses” committed by Russian forces and said Paris would work with Ukraine and the International Criminal Court (ICC) to put those responsible on trial.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted: “The images from Bucha are unbearable, Putin’s uninhibited violence is extinguishing innocent families and knows no boundaries.”

“Those responsible for these war crimes must be made accountable. We will tighten the sanctions against Russia and will assist Ukraine even more in defending itself.”

Kuleba called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to visit Bucha and other towns around Kyiv as soon as possible to work with Ukrainian law enforcement agencies to “thoroughly collect all evidence of Russian war crimes”.

“We are still gathering and looking for bodies, but the number has already gone into the hundreds,” he added.

“Dead bodies lie on the streets. They killed civilians while staying there and when they were leaving these villages and towns.”

Shooting in Sacramento kills six, injures 12

Evidence markers line the sidewalk at the scene after a mass shooting in downtown Sacramento, California. Photo Peter DaSilva/EPA

Six people have been killed and 12 injured in an early-morning shooting on a busy street in Sacramento, California, as police continue to search for a suspect.

The shooting occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning near the Golden 1 Center, an arena where the Sacramento Kings basketball team plays and concerts take place.

Police said they had recovered “at least” one firearm at the scene and had located 12 victims “with varying degrees of injuries”, but are still searching for suspects with no one in custody.

“We are asking for the public’s help in helping us to identify the suspects in this and provide any information they can to help us solve this,” Sacramento Police chief Kathy Lester told reporters.

Several blocks were cordoned off by officers and dotted with blue and red plastic cones that marked evidence. Police released no details on the ages or identities of the victims.

“The numbers of dead and wounded are difficult to comprehend. We await more information about exactly what transpired in this tragic incident,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg said on Twitter. “Rising gun violence is the scourge of our city, state and nation, and I support all actions to reduce it.

The incident comes a little more than a month after a man shot and killed his three children and a fourth person before taking his own life in the same city.

In a separate shooting overnight in Dallas, Texas, a man was killed and 11 other people were injured after a person opened fire into a crowd at a concert, Dallas police said.

That incident is being investigated, police added.

Healy powers Aussies to perfect World Cup finish

Alyssa Healy has smashed Australia to World Cup glory against England, making a colossal 170 to help her side regain the trophy with a 71-run final win and cap a perfect month of cricket in New Zealand.

Meg Lanning’s side won all nine games of the tournament to become World Cup champions for the seventh time.

None was more dramatic than their final outing, when England threatened a heist for the ages at Christchurch’s Hagley Oval on Sunday.

Healy powered Australia to 5-356, combining with Rachael Haynes and Beth Mooney for two monster partnerships.

Australia’s star wicketkeeper made 100 off as many balls and then thrashed away, bringing out the scoops, sweeps and flicks before finishing with 170 off 138.

Australian victory appeared certain as Healy left the field to a standing ovation and backslaps from her English opponents.

However, Nat Sciver pulled England within touching distance of a world-record chase, belting 148 not out from 121 deliveries.

Sciver, who entered the contest at 2-38, was denied a fairytale finish as she ran out of partners with 38 balls left, England all out for 285.

Australia were jubilant as Ash Gardner caught Anya Shrubsole at mid-off for the final wicket, reclaiming the trophy from England.

“That was a special game of cricket,” Healy said. “And that was pretty special from our group.”

The win ends a five-year wait for another crack at the trophy after their upset semi-final loss in 2017.

“We’ve been working towards it for a long period of time. Everyone’s been talking about it for a long period of time so to finally get over the line was pretty cool,” Healy said.

Healy struck 26 boundaries on her way to the biggest total in any short-form World Cup final, men’s or women’s.

 – With AAP, The New Daily and Reuters