Police have urged an anonymous caller who phoned Crime Stoppers with information about the mysterious cold case river death of a Victorian father to contact them again.

Terrence McCallion, 55, died after plunging into the Murray River near the Victoria-New South Wales border nearly six years ago.

The beloved father was located fully clothed in the water by passers-by onboard a houseboat between Bruce's Bend and Psyche Pumps in Mildura about 3pm on May 1, 2015.

https://twitter.com/VictoriaPolice/status/1379150091773214720

Police launched a renewed appeal for information in relation to the man's death on Monday, with an anonymous caller subsequently contacting Crime Stoppers.

"Investigators from the Mildura Crime Investigation Unit are urging an anonymous caller to Crime Stoppers to contact them again with information about the death of Mr McCallion, who was found unresponsive in the Murray River almost six years ago," a police statement read.

The family of the man this week said they remained in "constant pain" as the case remains unsolved nearly six years on.

"The death of a parent is never easy but the violent nature of dad's death and the mystery surrounding it made it especially traumatic," Mr McCallion's children said in a statement.

"Dad welcomed everyone into his home and created an extended family that he loved as his own.

"We have been left wondering what happened to him and why.

READ MORE: Man arrested in relation to cold case murder of Melbourne siblings

"Answers will help give us much-needed closure, so we can finally move forward from the constant pain of not knowing, to remember him for who is was and what he meant to each of us."

A man on the riverbank, who is a person of interest to police, yelled out to the people onboard the houseboat to help at the time.

Police believe the man then left the scene in Mr McCallion's white Nissan Pulsar shortly after.

The passers-by used a small boat to recover the Buronga man, commencing CPR before emergency services arrived.

However, he died in hospital later that night.

READ MORE: Arrests made after large haul of baby formula found in Melbourne property

Police suspect Mr McCallion was assaulted and have spoken to the man of interest on numerous occasions since the incident.

"Despite a thorough investigation, detectives are still working to piece together the circumstances which led Terrence to enter the river that afternoon," a police statement said.

"Investigators are hoping more people in the community may have information about Terrence's earlier movements on Thursday 30 April and the morning of Friday 1 May."

Anyone with information about Terrence's death is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Police are seeking witnesses in their search for a man who sexually assaulted a 60-year-old woman and pinned her down by the neck in Melbourne's south-east last month.

The female victim was walking along a footpath just off Toomuc Valley Road in Pakenham about 6.30am on March 2 when she was attacked.

She tried to call for help during the assault, but the man threatened to kill her before releasing her when he was interrupted by a passing car.

READ MORE: Man arrested in relation to cold case double-murder of Melbourne siblings

The woman was going for a walk when she was approached by the unknown male on a bike who asked her for the time.

She pulled out her mobile phone to check the time when the attacker grabbed her by the neck and forced her to the ground.

He sat on the woman and sexually assaulted her as she was pinned down by her neck.

After the car drove past, the man fled on foot with her phone and credit card.

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The woman was not physically injured and managed to flag down a passer-by for help.

The male is perceived to be Caucasian, aged 18-30-years-old, 160-170cm tall and was wearing a black mask, black cap and black jacket with the hood pulled up.

The bicycle he was riding had a blue crossbar and a blue and white frame.

READ MORE: Arrests made after large haul of baby formula found in Melbourne property

Meanwhile, a teenager has been charged during the investigation but he is not being treated as a suspect for the sexual assault.

A 16-year-old Officer boy was charged with theft and deception and has been bailed to appear at a children's court at a later date.

Investigators are appealing for witnesses and urge anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential crime report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au

New Zealand is halting all flights from India amid fears passengers were contracting coronavirus on board the planes or in transit.

The move comes after 17 new cases in overseas travellers were found in the past 24 hours, all of whom were from India.

The suspension will take place from 4pm on April 11 until April 28.

READ MORE: Unvaccinated security guard catches coronavirus in Auckland

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said while the temporary ban is for India, the decision behind it is not country-specific.

"New Zealand is not immune to the virus, especially with a pandemic raging outside our borders," Ms Ardern said.

Ms Ardern said the temporary suspension of travel from India was to protect both New Zealand and the travellers themselves.

Ms Ardern said she was advised people are getting sick in transit to New Zealand – not necessarily on the plane itself – but in their travels to the airport and in congregating in mid-way points such as Dubai.

READ MORE: 'We have absolutely missed you': Ardern to Australians

The PM said she recognised the difficulty the suspension will cause for some citizens attempting to return home.

Earlier today it was announced a security guard had contracted coronavirus while working at a quarantine hotel in Auckland.

The country's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed the man, 24, had not yet been vaccinated and travels to work in a private car with a colleague. 

The man had a sore throat four days ago and tested positive on Tuesday. 

READ MORE: What countries could Australians be allowed to travel to next?

The guard had been working at the Grand Millennium hotel in Auckland.

The man was not vaccinated, but would have been offered the vaccine by now. 

Investigations are ongoing if the man rejected the offer. 

The new local case comes days after New Zealand announced it was opening its borders to Australia.

Just days after NASA's Perseverance rover gently dropped the Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars, the robot companions took a selfie together and beamed it back to Earth.

The rover used its robotic arm, which has a camera mounted on the end, to capture the image. The helicopter can be seen four metres away on the left side of the rover.

The camera, known as WATSON, or Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering, functions fittingly as part of the SHERLOC instrument, or Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals.

READ MORE: NASA releases first sounds from surface of Mars

The selfie includes 62 individual images that have been stitched together by the mission's team on Earth. There is also an image where the rover can be seen looking back at Ingenuity.

Ingenuity had been stored in Perseverance's belly since before launch. When it separated from the rover on April 3, the helicopter passed a critical milestone: surviving the frigid Martian night without the rover's power supply to keep it warm.

The rover also used the zoomable cameras on its mast to capture a detailed look at Ingenuity sitting on the surface of Mars on April 5.

Ingenuity is equipped with cameras and can take pictures of its own. The 1.8 kilogram helicopter has already sent back a small colour image of the Martian surface.

April is considered the month of Ingenuity. The first test flight of the helicopter, which will be the first powered, controlled flight on another planet, is scheduled for April 11. If all goes according to plan, NASA will share results from the flight on April 12.

READ MORE: Rare meteorite that fell on UK driveway may contain 'ingredients for life'

The helicopter team has been putting Ingenuity through tests to make sure it's ready for flight. The researchers will be checking the weather and local wind patterns, using the rover's MEDA instrument, or Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer. The rover's weather station can record dust levels, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, air and ground temperature, and radiation.

For Ingenuity's first days by itself on the Martian surface, MEDA recorded a high daytime temperature of negative -22°C and a low of -83 °C, with wind gusts up to 35 kilometres per hour.

"We're very excited to see MEDA working well," said Manuel de la Torre Juárez, deputy principal investigator for MEDA, in a statement.

"MEDA's reports will provide a better picture of the environment near the surface. Data from MEDA and other instrument experiments will reveal more pieces of the puzzles on Mars and help prepare for human exploration. We hope that its data will help make our designs stronger and our missions safer."

During the first flight, Ingenuity will fire up its 1.2 metre blades, lift three metres in the air, make a turn and come back down for a landing after 30 seconds.

Hours after the flight, it will send back data from the helicopter, as well as any images or video the Perseverance rover captured from a safe distance at a spot overlooking the flat air field where Ingenuity currently sits.

The data and images will help mission teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, determine if the first flight was successful.

Ingenuity will conduct up to five flights across a period of 31 Earth days, or 30 sols on Mars. Then, the technology experiment will come to an end. Meanwhile, the Perseverance rover will spend the next two years exploring Jezero Crater, the site of a lake 3.9 billion years ago, in search of ancient microbial life.

Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence and may disturb some readers.

The atrocities have been seared into the skin and minds of Tigrayans, who shelter by the thousands within sight of the homeland they fled in northern Ethiopia.

They arrive in heat that soars above 38C, carrying the pain of gunshot wounds, torn vaginas, welts on beaten backs.

Less visible are the memories: Dozens of bodies strewn on riverbanks. Fighters raping a woman one by one for speaking her own language. A child, weakened by hunger, left behind.

Now, for the first time, they also bring proof of an official attempt at what is being called ethnic cleansing in the form of a new identity card that eliminates all traces of Tigray, as confirmed to The Associated Press by nine refugees from different communities.

Written in a language not their own, issued by authorities from another ethnic group, the cards are seen as the latest evidence of a drive by Ethiopia and its allies to destroy the Tigrayan people.

READ MORE: Graphic unverified video emerges of mass killings in Ethiopia

The Amhara authorities now in charge of the nearby city of Humera took Seid Mussa Omar's original ID card displaying his Tigrayan identity and burned it, the soft-spoken nurse said.

His new card examined by the AP, issued in January, displays the Amharic language, an Amhara stamp and a border of tiny hearts.

"I kept it to show the world," Seid said.

"This is genocide …Their aim is to erase Tigray."

What started as a political dispute in one of Africa's most powerful countries has turned into a campaign against minority Tigrayans, according to AP interviews with 30 refugees in Sudan.

The Ethiopian government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed is accused of teaming up with Abiy's ethnic group — his mother was Amhara — and soldiers from neighbouring Eritrea, long an enemy of Tigray's now-fugitive leaders, to punish around 6 million people.

Ethiopia claims life in Tigray is returning to normal. But the refugees said abuses still occur.

Almost all described killings, rapes and the destruction of crops that without massive food aid could tip the region into starvation.

Political clash of past and present

For months, Tigray has been largely sealed off from the world, with electricity and telecommunication access severed, leaving little to support claims that perhaps tens of thousands of people have been killed.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted last month that "ethnic cleansing" has taken place in western Tigray, marking the first time a top official in the international community has openly described the situation as such.

The term refers to forcing a population from a region through expulsions and other violence, often including killings and rapes.

Refugees said Amhara authorities have taken over communities and ordered Tigrayans out.

Goitom Hagos from Humera, told the AP he saw thousands of Tigrayans loaded into trucks, and doesn't know what happened to them.

Some Tigrayans were ordered to accept the Amhara identity or leave, refugees said.

The Tigray conflict began in November as a political clash of past and present.

Tigray leaders had dominated the country's government for nearly three decades, creating a system of ethnic-based regional states.

But Abiy took office in 2018 and moved to centralise power. He sidelined the Tigray leaders and made peace with Eritrea, earning a Nobel Peace Prize.

The defiant Tigray leaders viewed the central government as illegal after last year's election was delayed, and held their own vote.

The government opened a military offensive, saying Tigray forces had attacked a military base. Witnesses say Amhara and Eritrean forces essentially split much of Tigray between them.

Ethiopia says it rejects "any and all notions and practices of ethnic cleansing." An Amhara regional spokesman refused to comment.

The killings continue. In early March, 30-year-old Alem Mebrahtu attempted a crossing of the Tekeze River between the parts of Tigray under Eritrean and Amhara sway. Separated from her children in the conflict, she had heard they were in Sudan.

About 50 bodies were strewn near the riverbank, she said.

"Some were face-down. Some were looking up at the sky, she said.

Exhaustion pressed deep under her eyes, she started to cry.

Reluctantly, to protect herself, she is trying to learn Amharic.

"Their aim is to leave no Tigrayan," she said.

The refugees said rapes are also widespread. One woman said when she returned to her looted home in Humera, she was seized by militia members speaking Amharic. She asked them to speak Tigrinya, and they attacked her.

"Claim to be Amhara and we'll give you back your house and find you a husband," the men said. "But if you claim to be Tigrayan, we will come and rape you again."

She is now pregnant. The AP doesn't name people who have been sexually abused.

More pain to come

The United Nations has said more than 500 rapes in Tigray have been reported to health care workers. But armed groups have destroyed most of Tigray's health centres, leaving little help.

And there is more pain to come.

Almost every refugee described a worrying shortage of food. Most saw crops being looted or burned. Kidu Gebregirgis, a farmer, said the Amhara harvested around 5 tonnes of sorghum from his fields and hauled it away, a task that took two weeks.

The conflict began shortly before the harvest in the largely agricultural region. Now the planting season approaches.

"But there is no seed," Kidu said. "There's nothing to start again."

Tigrayans who passed through rural communities described starving people, often elderly, begging outside churches. Sometimes they did, too.

Again, ethnicity was crucial. Belaynesh Beyene, from Dansha, said she made sure to speak Amharic when approaching homes in western Tigray for food.

Ethiopia, under international pressure, has said food aid has been distributed to more than 4 million people in Tigray. Refugees disagreed.

Maza Girmay, 65, said she heard food was being distributed, so she went to the government office in Bahkar to inquire.

"They told me, 'Go home, you're Tigrayan,'" she said. The rejection brought her to tears.

A colonel with the Tigray fighters, Bahre Tebeje, worried that starvation will kill more people than the war itself.

Tigrayans are still arriving daily at the border post where Sudanese soldiers watch a no man's land. One recent evening, the AP saw three approaching.

In Sudan, the Tigrayans are registered and asked for their ethnicity. For once, they are free to answer.

The Federal Government says it will work to reform laws and regulations around sexual assault in response to a report on workplace harassment.

Under the proposed changes, sexual harassment will be grounds for dismissal from a workplace, while the scope of the Sex Discrimination Act will be extended to include judges and MPs.

The Human Rights Act will also be amended to allow victims two years to come forward, instead of the current six months.

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The government is also looking to add sexual harassment in the definition of serious misconduct to the Fair Work Act.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney General Michaelia Cash outlined the changes as part of 55 recommendations the government is endorsing either in part or full from its Respect@Work report.

The report was released last January and the government adopted nine of its recommendations at the time.

However, today it responded to the report for a second time.

READ MORE: New figures show harassment in Queensland public service

It comes after the first meeting of the new women's cabinet taskforce, which was established in the wake of several sexual harassment and rape allegations which have rocked Australian politics for months.

Speaking to reporters, Mr Morrison referenced statistics from the Australian Human Rights Commission, which said 39 per cent of women and 26 per cent of men have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

"The events around this building over the course of the past few months have only further highlighted and reinforced the seriousness of these issues, the challenge that we face and the great frustration that is felt by Australians and, in particular, women all over the country," Mr Morrison said. 

"Sexual harassment is unacceptable.

"It's not only immoral and despicable and even criminal, but particularly in the context of the respect at work report, it denies Australians, especially women, not just their personal security but their economic security by not being safe at work."

READ MORE: Caller with tip regarding Murray River cold case in Victoria urged to come forward

Shine Lawyers head of employment law Samantha Mangwana said enacting the recommendations of the Sex Discrimination Commissioner "is the simplest first step for the government to demonstrate its commitment to making workplaces safer for everyone".

"One important change will be to extend the time for victims of sexual harassment to come forward," Ms Mangwana said.

"Previously, it was possible for the Human Rights Commission to terminate complaints if these were not brought within just six months.

"This short time period was entirely unrealistic and yet another hurdle that simply failed to recognise the complex challenges for many victims to overcome before contemplating legal action.

"They will soon have a 24-month window instead, which more meaningfully reflects the time necessary for many victims to do come forward. It is hoped this may therefore encourage more victims to take action.

"Importantly, politicians and judges will no longer be exempt from the Sex Discrimination Act, closing an important loophole that for too long had the effect of allowing some of the most powerful people in the country to be above the law.

"The shocking allegations engulfing Canberra in recent months, and the High Court's findings of sexual harassment against former Justice Dyson Heydon, have highlighted the urgency of ensuring there is a straightforward route for victims to seek justice."

This wasn't your average media conference – and that's putting it mildly.

This was a performance on a grand scale, inside a palatial ballroom.

High-backed red chairs spaced apart in front of a giant screen, nearby the Australian and Chinese flags were side-by-side.

The cast featured an ambassador in a suit, joined on Zoom by a table full of men in suits, and somewhere else, a group of people claimed to be parents, workers and an imam in the north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Accompanying them in this real-life political drama were highly-produced videos spruiking life in the province.

It was propaganda, delivered direct from Beijing, for "a wonderful land".

"A land of prosperity and progress."

"A land of harmony and stability."

A land where it's claimed 1 million ethnic minority Muslim Uyghurs are held in camps.

A land the Australian and New Zealand governments claim there is enough evidence of "severe human rights abuses that include restrictions on freedom of religion, mass surveillance, large-scale extra-judicial detentions, as well as forced labour and forced birth control, including sterilisation".

That's a far cry from wonderful.

But the Chinese Government has long disputed all these claims and inside the Chinese Ambassador's Residence, the defence was put on show.

"We're here to talk about Xinjiang," Ambassador Cheng Jingye beamed.

The performance got off to a bumpy start, as technical issues meant a video selling life in the "wonderful land" did not play, then had no sound, then was restarted for the full production.

Journalists gathered in the room were treated not to one production, but multiple on different issues.

On work, school life, the economy, birth control, and claims the Chinese Government had been countering a surge in terrorism in Xinjiang.

A surge it claims to have effectively wiped out.

But it's a surge Uyghurs in Australia say never existed.

A video is broadcast.

Over a picture of a lake at sunset, and families smiling posing for pictures, the narrator spouts: "The tendency of frequent terrorist activities has been effectively curbed."

Each of these videos was separated in the production by a different guest speaker, with a similar narrative: life in Xinjiang is wonderful.

The Vice-Governor of Xinjiang reeled off an array of numbers that would impress any statistician as he talked about lifting people out of poverty.

The public-relations exercise was in overdrive.

The Xinjiang panel was chaired by Xu Guixiang, a deputy director of the publicity department for the Chinese Communist Party in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

He had the lead role in attacking Western democracies and disputing what he described as "lies" about re-education camps.

Then came a series of supporting roles.

We were told these were six experts in Xinjiang who would tell us all about life in the "wonderful land".

All but one was a woman and mentioned they had children and how many they had.

They talked of returning to work after realising their husbands "were the only breadwinners".

It was a line seemingly repeated.

"These are related to the topics for today's event," Xu Guixiang declared.

"As we understand it many Western media are concerned about family planning policies and related issues in Xinjiang so we think it is more appropriate to have women representatives answering the questions."

But it was, at times, almost as if each were reading from a prepared script.

Eyes moved right to left across the screen like there was an autocue, normally used by television newsreaders or essentially anyone who doesn't want to get what they're about to say on camera wrong.

The only man to speak was an imam, who opened the door with an invitation to a province usually closed to those outside of China.

Again his eyes were fixed on the camera.

To them life was ideal, and the promotional videos sold a life that was designed to look that way.

Designed to make you ponder whether this place really could be what it was claimed to be.

How could somewhere as beautiful as this have 1 million people from an ethnic minority held in detention?

They all look so happy…

There's videos of people washing a family car, walking to school, landscapes not dissimilar to a tourism video.

It's like, "Xinjiang, where the bloody hell are you?"

The first hour ticked by, the first act ended.

A second was in store.

It was time for questions.

But the experts had vanished. 

There were to be no questions to them, only the Chinese government and Xinjiang officials, and the ambassador.

Mr Xu repeated Chinese government lines dismissing the claims of 1 million people held in the re-education camps.

He was asked twice a provide a number on how many were being held.

We were told how people could graduate from these camps and move on, while others who did not graduate would spend more time there.           

The ambassador said allegations of genocide or human rights abuses in Xinjiang were "fake news".

He warned if Australia was to follow other international allies by placing sanctions on China then the communist government would "respond in kind".

The Chinese ambassador said he had wanted all questions to be centred on life in Xinjiang, but after more than a year where the relationship between Beijing and Canberra has been colder and more bitter than a long, frosty winter, His Excellency would have known questions would circle back to the bilateral relations.

"We hope the Australian side will look at the situation in Xinjiang (in an) objective and rational way," Mr Cheng said.

"We hope that the Australian side will go together with us in the same direction so that this important relationship could be put back on track."

It sounded almost as wonderful as the propaganda videos made life in Xinjiang look.

But the answers were laden with language, some nuance but little in substance.

This was a show of defence and an opportunity for the Chinese government to claim it was being trying to be transparent.

Two hours of the ambassador's time, two hours of time from the officials in Xinjiang.

The show was to come to an end, but not without a final say from the show's headline act.

"Facts speak louder than words," Mr Cheng told the gathering.

"Today's presentation from a different angle, different people, these presentations as I see it has given is a true picture of Xinjiang.

"Rumours are rumours no matter how many times the rumours are repeated.

"Think those who spread those rumours against China against Xinjiang are futile.

"Nobody can stop or can change the course of progress for a better future of the place".

READ MORE: China pressures brands to reject reports of Xinjiang abuses

The ambassador finished, a panel of government officials waved from Xinjiang, ending perhaps the most bizarre media conference this year.

Bizarre if not for the fact that there are Uyghurs here in Australia and around the world who fear for the safety of their loved ones.

They fear what is becoming of them. 

They say they cannot talk to them, hear them, or know they are okay.

In some instances, they haven't spoken in years.

One woman who sent money to her parents eight years ago for them to buy a house is now reportedly being held on charges of "giving material support to terrorist activity".

That is what the Australian government is concerned about.

The show at ambassador's residence is over for now, but there could be many more sequels in this story yet.

An investigation is underway after an Australian Antarctic resupply vessel erupted in flames with more than 100 crew on board.

The MPV Everest was making its way to Hobart, Tasmania when a fire began in the engine room just after 2pm on Monday.

The ship was located about 550 nautical miles north-east of Mawson Station in Australian Antarctic Territory and had 109 crew and expedition staff on board at the time.

LIVE UPDATES: Australia asks for immediate advice on AstraZeneca vaccine

The ship's crew activated the engine room's water-mist fire suppression system to extinguish the fire.

Roughly three hours later, the fire had been put out with no crew injured during the incident.

The ship will continue on to Fremantle, rather than Hobart.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has begun an investigation into the cause of the fire.

A book detailing the impact one of North Otago’s most notorious crimes had on one of its participant’s family has stirred up controversy in the community almost 40 years on.The launch of author Verna McFelin’s book The Invisible…