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A Chilean Indigenous Language Vanishes as Last Native Speaker Dies

(Reuters)  An indigenous language from South America‘s extreme south has all but vanished after the death of its last living speaker and guardian of its ancestral culture.

Cristina Calderon died on Wednesday, aged 93. She had mastered the Yamana language of the Yagan community and after the death of her sister in 2003, was the last person in the world who could speak it. She worked to save her knowledge by creating a dictionary of the language with translations to Spanish.
“With her an important part of the cultural memory of our people is gone,” said Lidia Gonzalez, Calderon’s daughter, on Twitter. Gonzalez is one of the representatives currently drafting a new constitution in Chile.
The dictionary, however, meant there was hope of preserving the language in some form, she said.
“Although with her departure a wealth of especially valuable empirical knowledge is lost in linguistic terms, the possibility of rescuing and systematizing the language remain open,” she said.
Although there are still a few dozen Yagans left, over the generations people from the community stopped learning the language, which was considered “isolated” since it was difficult to determine the origin of its words.
Calderon lived in a simple house and made a living selling knitted socks in the Chilean town of Villa Ukika, a town created by the Yagan people on the outskirts of Puerto Williams.
The ancestral ethnic group used to populate the archipelagos of South America’s extreme south, now Chile and Argentina, an area which nudges towards the frozen Antarctic.

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Extreme Wildfires Here to Stay & Multiply

By
An aerial view shows a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil, September 17, 2019. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly
Devastated Amazon Rainforest
  • Two new reports warn of fiery future
  • Extreme wildfires expected to increase 30% by 2050
  • Fires are more frequently burning through the night
  • More money should be spent on prevention, experts say

LONDON, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s peatlands, California’s forests, and, now, vast swathes of Argentine wetland have all been ravaged by extreme wildfires, heralding a fiery future and the dire need to prevent it.

With climate change triggering droughts and farmers clearing forests, the number of extreme wildfires is expected to increase 30% within the next 28 years. And they are now scorching environments that were not prone to burning in the past, such as the Arctic’s tundra and the Amazon rainforest.

“We’ve seen a great increase in recent fires in northern Syria, northern Siberia, the eastern side of Australia, and India,” said Australian government bushfire scientist Andrew Sullivan, an editor on the report, released Wednesday, by the UN Environment Programme and GRID-Arendal environmental communications group.

At the same time, the slow disappearance of cool, damp nights that once helped to temper fires also means they are getting harder to extinguish, according to a second study published last week in the journal Nature.

With night time temperatures rising faster than day time ones over the last four decades, researchers found a 36% increase in the number of after-dark hours that were warm and dry enough sustain fire.

“This is a mechanism for fires to get much bigger and more extreme,” said Jennifer Balch, lead author of the Nature study and director of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Earth Lab.

“Exhausted firefighters don’t get relief,” which means they can’t regroup and revise strategies to tackle a blaze.

The consequences of extreme fires are wide-ranging, from loss and damage to costly firefighting response. In the United States alone, the UNEP report said the economic burden of wildfire totals as much as $347 billion annually.

With California’s forests ablaze, the state government spent an estimated $3.1 billion on fire suppression in the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The fires raging since December in Argentina’s Corrientes province have taken an enormous toll, killing Ibera National Park wildlife, charring pasturelands and livestock, and decimating crops including yerba mate, fruit, and rice. Losses already have exceeded 25 billion Argentine pesos ($234 million), The Argentine Rural Society said.

The UNEP report calls on governments to rethink wildfire spending, recommending they put 45% of their budget toward prevention and preparedness, 34% toward firefighting response, and 20% for recovery.

“In many regions of the world, most resources go toward response — they focus on the short-term,” said Paulo Fernandes, a contributing author of the UNEP report and fire scientist at Universidade of Tras-os-Montes and Alto Douro in Portugal.

Reporting by Gloria Dickie; Editing by Katy Daigle and Jane Merriman

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Russia Postpones Cuba Debt Payments Amid Warming Relations

By
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MOSCOW/HAVANA, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Russia has agreed to postpone some debt payments owed to it by communist-run Cuba until 2027, its lower house of parliament said on Tuesday, just days after the two countries announced they would deepen ties amid the spiraling Ukraine crisis.

The loans, worth $2.3 billion and provided to Cuba by Russia between 2006 and 2019, helped underwrite investments in power generation, metals and transportation infrastructure, according to a statement from the lower house, or Duma.

On Tuesday, Russian lawmakers ratified an agreement, originally signed with Cuban counterparts in Havana in 2021, that amended the loan terms, the statement said.

Cuba last week expressed support for Russia in its showdown with Western powers over Ukraine following a visit from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, and accused long-time rival the United States and its allies of targeting Moscow with what it called a “propaganda war” and sanctions. read more

Russia’s decision to soften the loan terms comes as Cuba wrestles with a dire social and economic crisis that has led to severe shortages in food and medicine, and it follows protests last year believed to be the largest since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

Since the revolution, the two countries have had a long history of economic and military collaboration, though in recent decades those ties have faded.

Russia has, however, continued to deliver humanitarian aid and provide loans to the island.

Over the last decade, Cuba has also restructured debt with China, Germany and Mexico, as well as with Japanese commercial debt holders.

In October, Cuba reached a deal with the Paris Club of creditor nations to postpone an annual debt payment due in November until later this year. read more

Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin is expected to visit Cuba and Nicaragua on Feb. 23 and 24.

Reporting by Polina Devitt in Moscow and Dave Sherwood in Havana; Editing by Tim Ahmann

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Migrants Clash With Police in Southern Mexico

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Migrants throw a fence toward police officers in riot gear during a protest to demand speedy processing of humanitarian visas to continue on their way to the United States, outside the office of the National Migration Institute (INM) in Tapachula, Mexico February 22, 2022. REUTERS/Jacob Garcia

TAPACHULA, MEXICO, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Dozens of migrants clashed with police in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on Tuesday, as frustration boiled over due to authorities keeping them waiting for months to be granted approval for free passage across Mexico to the U.S. border.

Migrants, mostly from Haiti and Africa, have been demonstrating in Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala, for almost a month, and on Tuesday the protests turned violent as they threw stones and traded punches with members of the militarized National Guard and police.

“It got completely out of control because people are very desperate,” said Irineo Mujica, a human rights activist who has supported migrant mobilizations for years. “Many have been waiting for months” for permission to leave the city, he added.

The National Migration Institute issued a statement condemning “the violent demonstrations” outside its facilities in Tapachula. The agency said that some 100 migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Africa were protesting in efforts to secure earlier appointments for their immigration processing.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly Central Americans, flee violence and poverty at home and cross Mexico in efforts to reach the United States.

Those arriving at Mexico’s southern border cities must wait for permits to cross Mexico or responses to their asylum requests to stay in Mexico.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has urged Mexican authorities to look for more options to avoid the bottlenecks in cities like Tapachula. read more

Reporting by Jacob Garcia in Tapachula and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Writing by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Diego Ore & Simon Cameron-Moore

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Colombia Decriminalises Abortion In First 24 Weeks

BBC- Colombia’s constitutional court has decriminalised abortions within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Under the new rules, no one will be prosecuted for having an abortion within that time frame.

Since 2006, abortions have been allowed in Colombia in cases of rape, when the woman’s life is at risk, or if the pregnancy is not viable.

The ruling was welcomed by pro-choice groups, who called it “a historic achievement”.

But Archbishop José Luis Rueda said the Catholic Church would “continue to proclaim, defend and promote human life from gestation until natural death”.

Pro-choice activists say it is the latest in a series of victories in recent years, including a similar ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court in September and the legalisation of abortion up to the 14th week in Argentina.

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Analysis box by Katy Watson, South America correspondent

This is a massive step for Latin America, a Catholic region and one with deeply conservative values.

But the fact that Mexico, Argentina and now Colombia have decriminalised abortion feels like there is momentum growing.

The activist movement in the region has been huge these past few years and that has definitely influenced change.

But the fight is not over yet. Many Latin American countries still severely limit abortion rights, namely Brazil, the region’s biggest nation by far.

And in several Central American states abortion is banned outright, even in the case of rape and incest.

There are women in prison serving long sentences, many of whom say that they suffered miscarriages. But with so few reproductive rights in some countries, women who need medical help are instead abandoned by the state.

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The ruling came about as a result of a lawsuit filed by the umbrella group Causa Justa (Just Cause) whose aim is to have abortion removed from the penal code.

Causa Justa argued that because abortions were defined as a crime outside of the three cases allowed under the 2006 ruling, doctors who performed abortions and their patients were often stigmatised.

Women against abortion pray in a protest against decriminalization, in front of the headquarters of the Constitutional Court, in Bogota, Colombia, 21 February 2022Image source, EPA
Image caption,

Women opposed to abortion were anxiously awaiting the ruling

The group estimates that 90% of abortions in Colombia are carried out clandestinely, putting the health and life of women at risk.

While Monday’s decision has not removed abortion from Colombia’s penal code entirely, it is seen as a victory in the battle to widen access to the procedure.

Following its 5-4 ruling, the court urged the Congress and the government to come up with legislation which will protect the rights of pregnant women, including providing family planning services, eliminating obstacles to abortion care and helping with adoptions.

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Covid Cases & Deaths Drop Worldwide, DC Prepares for Vax Protests, Pandemic Teen Mental Health, World Covid Stats

WHO: New COVID cases fall for the 3rd week, Deaths also drop

GENEVA (AP) — The number of new coronavirus cases around the world fell 21% in the last week, marking the third consecutive week that COVID-19 cases have dropped, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

In the U.N. health agency’s weekly pandemic report, WHO said there were more than 12 million new coronavirus infections last week. The number of new COVID-19 deaths fell 8% to about 67,000 worldwide, the first time that weekly deaths have fallen since early January.

The Western Pacific was the only region that saw an increase in COVID-19 cases, with a 29% jump, while the number of infections elsewhere dropped significantly. The number of new deaths also rose in the Western Pacific and Africa while falling everywhere else. The highest number of new COVID-19 cases were seen in Russia, Germany, Brazil, the U.S. and South Korea.

WHO said omicron remains the overwhelmingly dominant variant worldwide, accounting for more than 99% of sequences shared with the world’s biggest virus database. It said delta was the only other variant of significance, which comprised fewer than 1% of shared sequences.

WHO also reported that available vaccine evidence shows that “booster vaccination substantially improves (vaccine effectiveness),” against the omicron variant, but said more details are still needed on how long such protection lasts.

The agency had previously said there was no proof that boosters were necessary for healthy people and pleaded with rich countries not to offer third doses to their people before sharing them with poorer countries.

Health officials have noted that omicron causes milder disease than previous COVID-19 variants and in countries with high vaccination rates, omicron has spread widely but COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates have not increased substantially.

Scientists, however, warn that it’s still possible that more transmissible and deadly variants of COVID-19 could still emerge if the virus is allowed to spread uncontrolled.

WHO’s Europe chief Dr. Hans Kluge says the region is now entering a “plausible endgame” for the virus and said there is now a “singular opportunity” for authorities to end the acute phase of the pandemic.

This week, Britain announced it would scrap all remaining COVID-19 restrictions, including the requirement for people with the illness to self-isolate, even as Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged there could be future deadly variants of the virus. Earlier this month, Sweden abandoned wide-scale testing for COVID-19 even in people with symptoms, saying that testing costs and the expense of its pandemic restrictions were “no longer justifiable.”

Hong Kong’s leader, meanwhile, announced Tuesday that the city will test its entire population of 7.5 million people for COVID-19 three times in March as it grapples with its worst outbreak yet, driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.

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Capitol Police ask DC Guard for assistance 

 

© Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP

It could be D.C.’s turn to deal with trucker protests against COVID-19 measures soon.

Washington, D.C., law enforcement agencies have asked the Pentagon for assistance ahead of President Biden’s first State of the Union address next week, an event expected to coincide with truck convoy protests.

The U.S. Capitol Police and the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency asked for D.C. National Guard personnel “to provide support at traffic control points in and around the District to help … address potential challenges stemming from possible disruptions at key traffic arteries,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement Tuesday.

Kirby said the Defense Department is “analyzing” the requests but “no decisions have been made yet” on whether to approve them.

Military Times was the first to report on the requests, with National Guard troops notified of a potential activation between Feb. 22 and March 7 or later, according to internal directives obtained by the outlet.

The guardsmen, if activated, would provide vehicles and personnel at “43 critical blocking positions 24/7,” Military Times reported.

D.C. law enforcement agencies have said since last week that they have received reports of truck drivers potentially planning to block roads in major metropolitan cities in the United States in protest of, among other things, vaccine mandates. These plans follow similar protests and blockades formed by Canadian truck drivers in the past month.

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CDC: More teen girls in ER for mental health 

The roughly two years since the beginning of the pandemic have seen a significant increase in teenage girls visiting emergency rooms due to mental health conditions, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last week.

The study found that the proportion of emergency room visits made by girls aged 12 to 17 doubled for eating disorders and approximately tripled for tic disorders during the pandemic when compared with 2019.

It also reported that adolescent girls’ emergency room visits rose for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder in 2021 and for anxiety, trauma and stressor-related disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder in January 2022 in comparison with 2019.

The study claimed that risk factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as “lack of structure in daily routine, emotional distress and changes in food availability,” could have been a trigger for eating disorders in particular.

The increase in visits for tic disorders was “atypical,” according to the study, as such disorders usually have an onset at a younger age and are more commonly present in boys than in girls.

Read more here.

IRAN RETURNS DONATED COVID-19 VACCINES MANUFACTURED IN US

Iran has returned 820,000 donated COVID-19 doses because they were manufactured in the United States.

The doses were among roughly a million of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine donated to the country by Poland, according to The Associated Press, which cited state media.

“But when the vaccines arrived in Iran, we found out that 820,000 doses of them which were imported from Poland were from the United States,” Mohammad Hashemi, an official in Iran’s Health Ministry, said, the AP reported.

Hashemi added that “after coordination with the Polish ambassador to Iran, it was decided that the vaccines would be returned.”

Iran has relied on Sinopharm, China’s state-supported vaccine, to vaccinate its population, according to the AP, but it also offers citizens vaccines from Oxford-AstraZeneca, Russia’s Sputnik V and Indian company Bharat’s Covaxin, as well as the COVIran Barekat shot developed in the country.

In 2020, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that American and British vaccines were “forbidden” in the country, the AP noted. The country now exclusively imports Western vaccines that were not manufactured in either the U.S. or the United Kingdom.

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WORLD COVID STATS

Coronavirus Cases:

428,569,764

Deaths:

5,927,183

Recovered:

356,676,715

IRAN RETURNS DONATED COVID-19 VACCINES MANUFACTURED IN US

Iran has returned 820,000 donated COVID-19 doses because they were manufactured in the United States.

The doses were among roughly a million of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine donated to the country by Poland, according to The Associated Press, which cited state media.

“But when the vaccines arrived in Iran, we found out that 820,000 doses of them which were imported from Poland were from the United States,” Mohammad Hashemi, an official in Iran’s Health Ministry, said, the AP reported.

Hashemi added that “after coordination with the Polish ambassador to Iran, it was decided that the vaccines would be returned.”

Iran has relied on Sinopharm, China’s state-supported vaccine, to vaccinate its population, according to the AP, but it also offers citizens vaccines from Oxford-AstraZeneca, Russia’s Sputnik V and Indian company Bharat’s Covaxin, as well as the COVIran Barekat shot developed in the country.

In 2020, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that American and British vaccines were “forbidden” in the country, the AP noted. The country now exclusively imports Western vaccines that were not manufactured in either the U.S. or the United Kingdom.

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WORLD COVID STATS

Coronavirus Cases:

428,569,764

Deaths:

5,927,183

Recovered:

356,676,715

 

Highlighted in green
= all cases have recovered from the infection
Highlighted in grey
= all cases have had an outcome (there are no active cases)

[back to top ↑]

Latest News

February 23 (GMT)

Updates

  • 11,320 new cases and 15 new deaths in Latvia [source]
  • 137,642 new cases and 785 new deaths in Russia [source]
  • 1,373 new cases and 12 new deaths in Libya [source]
  • 253 new cases and 3 new deaths in Laos [source]

ACTIVE CASES

CLOSED CASES
Daily New CasesCases per DayData as of 0:00 GMT+0Jan 22, …Feb 27, 2020Apr 03, 2020May 09, 2020Jun 14, 2020Jul 20, 2020Aug 25, 2020Sep 30, 2020Nov 05, 2020Dec 11, 2020Jan 16, 2021Feb 21, 2021Mar 29, 2021May 04, 2021Jun 09, 2021Jul 15, 2021Aug 20, 2021Sep 25, 2021Oct 31, 2021Dec 06, 2021Jan 11, 2022Feb 16, 202201M2M3M4M7-day moving average
Daily DeathsDeaths per DayData as of 0:00 GMT+0Jan 22, 2…Feb 27, 2020Apr 03, 2020May 09, 2020Jun 14, 2020Jul 20, 2020Aug 25, 2020Sep 30, 2020Nov 05, 2020Dec 11, 2020Jan 16, 2021Feb 21, 2021Mar 29, 2021May 04, 2021Jun 09, 2021Jul 15, 2021Aug 20, 2021Sep 25, 2021Oct 31, 2021Dec 06, 2021Jan 11, 2022Feb 16, 202205k10k15k20k7-day moving average
The charts above are updated after the close of the day in GMT+0. See more graphported Cases and Deaths by Country or Territory

The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting 224 countries and territories. The day is reset after midnight GMT+0. The list of countries and their regional classification is based on the United Nations Geoscheme. Sources are provided under “Latest News.” Learn more about Worldometer’s COVID-19 data

Highlighted in green
= all cases have recovered from the infection
Highlighted in grey
= all cases have had an outcome (there are no active cases)

[back to top ↑]

Latest News

February 23 (GMT)

Updates

  • 11,320 new cases and 15 new deaths in Latvia [source]
  • 137,642 new cases and 785 new deaths in Russia [source]
  • 1,373 new cases and 12 new deaths in Libya [source]
  • 253 new cases and 3 new deaths in Laos [source]

The post Covid Cases & Deaths Drop Worldwide, DC Prepares for Vax Protests, Pandemic Teen Mental Health, World Covid Stats appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

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Application Forms Available for Culturama 48 Competitions

NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS  — The following is a press release from the Nevis Culturama Festival regarding Culturama 48 celebrations.

The countdown to the 48th anniversary of Nevis’ Culturama Festival (Culturama 48) continues with the roll out of application forms for the following competitions to be staged as part of this year’s festival.

 Senior Pageants – Ms. Culture Queen, Ms. Culture Swimwear and the Mr. Kool

  1. Mr. and Ms. Talented Youth Pageant
  2. Junior and Senior Kaiso Contests
  3. Soca Monarch Contest
  4. Junior and Senior Cultural Street Parades
  5. Emancipation Jouvert Troupe

 Registration forms are available at the Culturama Secretariat located in the Cotton Ginnery Mall, Charlestown or online at www.culturamanevis.com.

Completed application forms should be returned to the Culturama Secretariat no later than 4:00 p.m. of the closing date stipulated on each application form.

Culturama 48 would be celebrated this year from July 21st to August 2nd.

For further information:

Go to: www.facebook.com/nevisculturamafestival or www.culturamanevis.com

Or visit or contact:

Culturama Secretariat

Cotton Ginnery Mall

Charlestown

Nevis

(T) (869 469 1992 / (869) 469-5521 ext. 6661/6662/6663

Email: th************@************is.com

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'Unprovoked and unwarranted': PM backs Ukraine in Russia tensions

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spoken with his Ukrainian counterpart to offer support after announcing sanctions on Russian businesses and individuals today.

The sanctions are in response to Russian troops entering rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine, described by Mr Morrison as an "invasion".

He said Australia would initially impose travel bans and targeted financial sanctions on eight members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

READ MORE: How a Russian invasion could hit global economy and your wallet

The sanctions will also include entities linked to Moscow, as well as Russian banks, transport, energy, telecommunications, oil, gas and minerals.

Australia will also extend the sanctions currently imposed on Crimea to include Donetsk and Luhansk, the separatist states in eastern Ukraine.

Mr Morrison said the sanctions on individuals and entities would target "the perpetrators and beneficiaries of this violence".

"We will be adding names to the list," he said.

"And we'll be ratcheting it up further to potentially other areas of economic activity."

Mr Morrison would not explicitly name the individuals sanctioned by Australia but said they were the same people blacklisted by the UK and US.

He said the sanctions would "ensure there are severe costs" to Russia's aggression and keep Australia in lock-step with the US and UK.

A spokesperson for Mr Morrison confirmed he had spoken to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal by phone tonight, pledging support for the eastern European nation.

"Prime Minister Morrison reaffirmed Australia's unwavering commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and denounced Russia's aggressive behaviour towards Ukraine as unacceptable, unprovoked and unwarranted," the spokesperson said.

"The Prime Minister informed Prime Minister Shmyhal of Australia's immediate action to sanction Russian individuals, organisations and banks as part of an international effort to impose a sharp cost on Russia for its actions against Ukraine."

The spokesperson said Mr Morrison was prepared to do more, if necessary, to respond to the country's needs.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said sanctions against Russia were appropriate and necessary.

"It is absolutely vital that all nations which are democratic and that value the importance of national sovereignty being respected take action in support of the people of Ukraine," Mr Albanese said.

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong also threw her support behind the decision.

"We do offer bipartisan support on the sanctions announced," Ms Wong said.

Australia's sanctions follow the path of the US, Britain, Canada, Japan and the European Union.

Mr Morrison, like US President Joe Biden, said the Russian invasion of Ukraine had already begun.

"Australians always stand up to bullies," Mr Morrison said.

"And we will be standing up to Russia along with all of our partners.

"These two actions will align us with our key partners the United States and the United Kingdom."

https://twitter.com/jekearsley/status/1496307031895986181

Mr Morrison said there are 1400 Australians currently in Ukraine.

Around 430 visa applications from Ukrainian citizens were currently being assessed by Australian officials.

"They're in Ukraine and they're in the firing line of Russians guns and missiles," Mr Morrison said.

"All nations who want to stand up to bullies should do so now."

Mr Morrison said the situation had now reached "the last stage before a full invasion" and Russia had now built to a "peak of military preparedness".

"They're behaving like thugs and bullies," Mr Morrison said.

"Tragically, the sheer force of that violence of a thug and bully is about to be impacted upon the people of Ukraine," he said.

EXPLAINED: Why Russia-backed rebels are a thorn in Ukraine's side

He said it was "only a matter of time" before they walked away or followed through "and sadly the signs are that they will follow through".

The prime minister said Australia would not be sending troops to Ukraine or its neighbours.

"We're able to assist in the broader efforts … but that doesn't involve people being deployed in the region," Mr Morrison said.

Mr Morrison said intelligence agencies would ramp up counter-espionage efforts.

Suspicious financial transactions would be monitored closely and Australia was preparing for potential cyber-attacks.

Mr Morrison earlier today called an emergency meeting of the National Security Committee of cabinet to discuss Australia's response.

The Federal Government has also held talks with its Five Eyes international intelligence partners.

Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said discussions included cyber security.

"We are concerned about protecting Australia's interests and we are concerned about the potential for a cyber attack, particularly on our critical infrastructure in Australia," Ms Andrews said.

Troops have started to move into rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised Donetsk and Luhansk independent territories.

READ MORE: Bitcoin plunges on Ukraine invasion fears

Coalition Senator Matt Canavan earlier today said Australia should join the global effort to prevent further aggression from Russia.

"Look, we should join the global effort. There is no doubt about that," Mr Canavan told Today.

"There should be consequences for this type of action, which does not represent the sovereignty of other countries.

"Of course we're a long way from this situation and we don't have extensive trade or investment links with Russia but, yes, we should be part of this effort and do what we can here to prevent further aggression from Russia and/or other countries in our region."

READ MORE: Woman dead, motorcyclist missing in floodwaters

Yesterday the Federal Government confirmed Australia's remaining diplomatic staff in the Ukrainian city of Lviv will leave and move to eastern Poland and Romania.

Mr Morrison described the suggestion that troops were being ordered into the Moscow-backed separatist territories to maintain peace as "nonsense".

"It should unconditionally withdraw back behind its own borders and stop threatening its neighbours," Mr Morrison said.

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Dramatic footage shows rescue at Sydney lagoon during wild weather

A group of Northern Beaches surfers have been hailed "heroes" after saving a man being swept out to sea during Sydney's wild weather.

Surfers were enjoying the surging floodwaters being released from Dee Why lagoon into Long Reef Beach on Monday, a common occurrence during periods of heavy rain.

Dramatic footage captured by a local drone surf photographer showed an elderly man being swept out from the lagoon entrance into the ocean.

READ MORE: How a Russian invasion could hit global economy and your wallet

A group of Dee Why surfers have been hailed "heroes" after saving a man being swept out to sea during the city's wild weather.A group of Dee Why surfers have been hailed "heroes" after saving a man being swept out to sea during the city's wild weather.

"Everything happened super quick, we just got a wash out, we tried to keep his head up," Fabio Silvestre, one of the surfers, said.

Three surfers came to the man's aid but were no match for the wall of water and were sucked out of the lagoon.

One man on the side of the wall of water managed to offer the elderly man his hand and lift him to safety.

READ MORE: Australia will impose immediate sanctions on Russia

A group of Dee Why surfers have been hailed "heroes" after saving a man being swept out to sea during the city's wild weather.A group of Dee Why surfers have been hailed "heroes" after saving a man being swept out to sea during the city's wild weather.

The three surfers who were sucked out also managed to pull themselves back to the safety of the sand dunes.

"He was in shock, he didn't say much, a bunch of guys asked him if he was okay, did he take in water and he was just shaking his head," Eugene Du Plessis, another surfer, said.

The surfers said the man didn't speak a word but attempted to go back into the water before giving up and heading to the carpark.

"I'm glad we were there, right time, and he went home," Mr Du Plessis said.

READ MORE: States bracing for more rain as two potential cyclones form

A group of Dee Why surfers have been hailed "heroes" after saving a man being swept out to sea during the city's wild weather.

Conditions have eased at Dee Why Lagoon but it is still too deep to cross.

Locals said it is rarely as dangerous as it was on Monday during the city's wild weather.

"The water running out the way it did, I've never seen it like that," Mr Du Plessis said.

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Fears major construction firm is about to go into administration

Hundreds of tradies have been booted off worksites across the country over fears construction firm Probuild is on the verge of collapse.

Subcontractors and tradesmen walked off the site this afternoon, including on Melbourne's O'Connell Street, where Probuild is behind a build for biotech giant CSL.

Workers were seen loading large amount of equipment and tools from Probuild building sites.

READ MORE: Potter claims he was 'avoiding being killed' in his 12 years on the run

Probuild's portfolio of ongoing work across Australia estimated to be valued at $5 billion and includes Greenland Centre, Sydney's tallest residential building.

The company is expected to make an announcement about its future tomorrow morning.

Long building delays and company not having enough money to pay its subcontractors are believed to be the factors behind Probuild's expected collapse.

A tradesman who fled one of the building sites told 9News: "All the contractors are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"No one's going to get their money," he said.

More to come.