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The house where a fire killed a ten-year-old boy and two other people in Sydney's south-west didn't have smoke alarms, authorities say.

Five people, including two firefighters, have been hospitalised after the early morning blaze.

At about 5.40am, ten fire trucks responded to an emergency at a townhouse on Rottnest Avenue, Hinchinbrook.

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Two women, who are yet to be formally identified but are believed to be in their 40s and 60s, died at the scene.

The 10-year-old boy was taken to the Children's Hospital at Westmead in a critical condition but he later died from his injuries.

Three other people who were rescued from the house remain in hospital: a man in his 40s, who is in a critical condition, and two women aged in their 30s and 40s, both of whom are stable.

Fire and Rescue NSW Super Intendant Luke Unsworth said two crew members were also injured at the scene.

"One firefighter received an electric shock and one firefighter fell through a weakened flood and they've injured their back," he said.

Both firefighters were taken to hospital in serious conditions.

READ MORE: NSW teen in a serious condition after being run over by crane

Fire and Rescue NSW crews extinguished the fire.

The cause of the blaze is not yet known, and an investigation is underway and a crime scene has been established.

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Experts are calling for tighter COVID-19 measures as global infections caused by infectious Omicron sub-variants rise.

Epidemiologist and former World Health Organisation advisor professor Adrian Esterman told Today that numbers will not decline on their own, and cautioned that "vaccines alone will not stop this disease".

"What we need is vaccination plus some other strategies," he said.

READ MORE: Man charged with murder after body found in bushland believed to be missing Sydney mum

"We need to persuade state and territory governments to do those other things."

Esterman called for face mask mandates, but acknowledged the reluctance of governments to impose them.

"I think the least we can do is to get much better messaging to the general public," he said.

"How many (people) know that two doses simply don't work against the new variants?"

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The comments come after the British Medical Journal, one of the most prestigious health journals in the world, published a piece by senior doctors stating the United Kingdom's National Health Service is "not living with COVID-19, it's dying from it", and Esterman warned Australia could be headed in the same direction.

New South Wales recorded 12,820 new cases of the virus on Sunday.

READ MORE: Two killed, multiple injured in horror south-west Sydney house fire

https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1550979178258132992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Fourteen people have lost their lives due to COVID-19-related illness in the latest reporting period.

There are currently 2260 people in hospital across the state receiving care, with 56 of those in ICU.

Victoria recorded 9501 new cases of COVID-19.

Another 12 people have died due to the virus, and the state has 849 people undergoing hospital treatment.

https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1550979099513978880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Queensland has recorded 5804 new cases of COVID-19 overnight.

While no deaths were recorded in the latest period, the state has 1042 people with the virus undergoing treatment in hospital.

There are 23 cases in ICU.

https://twitter.com/qldhealth/status/1551009267028791297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

A well-known Wellington busker who performs dressed as a tree has had an entire day’s earnings nicked – but the response of generous fans has mended his “broken heart”.Jarrod “Woody” Wood is better known as Tree as he’s often seen…

Russian missiles hit Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa just hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed deals to allow grain exports to resume from there.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry denounced Saturday's airstrikes as a “spit in the face” to Turkey and the United Nations, which brokered the agreements.

Two Russian Kalibr cruise missiles hit the port's infrastructure and Ukrainian air defences brought down two others, the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command said. Odesa regional governor Maksym Marchenko said an unspecified number of people were injured in the attack.

Command spokeswoman Nataliya Humenyuk said no grain storage facilities were hit in Odesa. Turkey's defence minister, however, said he had spoken with Ukrainian authorities and one missile struck a grain silo and another landed nearby but neither affected loading at Odesa's docks.

“It took less than 24 hours for Russia to launch a missile attack on Odesa’s port, breaking its promises and undermining its commitments before the UN and Turkey under the Istanbul agreement,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said.

“In case of non-fulfilment, Russia will bear full responsibility for a global food crisis.”

“The invaders can no longer deceive anyone,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

Nikolenko described the missile strike on the 150th day of Russia’s war in Ukraine as President Vladimir Putin's “spit in the face of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who made great efforts to reach agreement.”

Guterres' office said the UN chief “unequivocally condemns” the strikes.

“Yesterday, all parties made clear commitments on the global stage to ensure the safe movement of Ukrainian grain and related products to global markets,” the Guterres statement said.

“These products are desperately needed to address the global food crisis and ease the suffering of millions of people."

It was not clear how Saturday’s Russian airstrikes would affect the plan to resume shipping Ukrainian grain by sea in safe corridors out of three Ukrainian Black Sea ports: Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny. Ukraine and Russia signed identical deals Friday with the UN and Turkey in Istanbul backing the plan, which Guterres hailed as “a beacon of hope” for a world in which food prices are rising rapidly.

The agreements sought to clear the way for the shipment of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain and some Russian exports of grain and fertiliser that have been blocked by the war. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but Russia’s invasion and naval blockade of its ports halted shipments.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press showed the deals called for the creation of a UN-led joint coordination centre in Istanbul where officials from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey would oversee the scheduling and searches of cargo ships.

Zelenskyy previously called the agreements “a chance to prevent a global catastrophe — a famine that could lead to political chaos in many countries of the world, in particular in the countries that help us".

The head of Zelenskyy's office, Andriy Yermak, said on Twitter that the Odesa strike, coming so soon after the endorsement of the Black Sea deal, illustrated "the Russian diplomatic dichotomy".

US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink denounced the strike on Odesa's port as “outrageous".

“The Kremlin continues to weaponise food,” she tweeted. “Russia must be held to account.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the attack casts serious doubt on the credibility of Russia’s commitment to the deal and undermines the work of the UN, Turkey and Ukraine.

“Russia bears responsibility for deepening the global food crisis and must stop its aggression and fully implement the deal to which it has agreed,” he said.

Russia also fired a barrage of missiles Saturday at an airfield and a railway facility in central Ukraine, killing at least three people, while Ukrainian forces launched rocket strikes on river crossings in a Russian-occupied southern region.

The attacks on key infrastructure marked new attempts by the warring parties to tip the scales of the grinding conflict in their favour.

In Ukraine's central Kirovohradska region, 13 Russian missiles struck an airfield and a railway facility. Gov. Andriy Raikovych said at least one serviceman and two guards were killed and another 16 people were wounded in the strikes near the city of Kirovohrad.

In the southern Kherson region, which Russian troops seized early in the invasion, Ukrainian forces preparing for a potential counteroffensive fired rockets at Dnieper River crossings to try to disrupt Russian supply lines. Still, Russian troops have largely held their ground in the Kherson region just north of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian forces at a checkpoint are blocking 1200 vehicles carrying people fleeing the area and four people have died after being stranded there for days amid high heat, said Ivan Fedorov, mayor of the city of Melitopol, which is now under Russian control.

In the key port city of Mykolaiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said two people were wounded when Russian rockets struck an apartment building.

Fighting also raged unabated in eastern Ukraine's industrial heartland of the Donbas, where Russian forces tried to make new gains in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance.

Earlier this week Ukraine bombarded the Antonivskyi Bridge across the Dnieper River using the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), said Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-appointed regional administration in Kherson.

Stremousov told Russian state news agency Tass that the only other crossing of the Dnieper, the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, also came under attack from rockets launched with weapons supplied by Washington but wasn't damaged.

HIMARS, which can fire GPS-guided rockets at targets 80 kilometres (50 miles) away, out of reach of most Russian artillery systems, have significantly bolstered the Ukrainian strike capability.

In addition, Ukrainian forces shelled an automobile bridge across the Inhulets River in the village of Darivka, Stremousov told Tass. He said the bridge east of the regional capital of Kherson sustained seven hits but remained open. Stremousov said that, unlike the Antonivskyi Bridge, the small bridge in Darivka has no strategic value.

Since April, the Kremlin has concentrated on capturing the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region where pro-Moscow separatists have proclaimed independence.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized this week that Moscow plans to retain control of other areas in Ukraine that its forces have occupied during the war.

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Draped in rainbow flags and touting signs, around 150,000 people marched for LGBTQ rights Saturday at Berlin’s annual Christopher Street Day celebration, celebrating this year's parade theme “United in Love.”

Berlin police gave the crowd estimate Saturday afternoon but said the number may still grow into the evening.

Klaus Lederer, Berlin’s deputy mayor and a senator for culture and Europe, said in a speech opening the celebrations that Berlin must be a “safe haven” for LGBTQ individuals facing persecution in their home countries.

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“For all the countries where being queer is still a punishable offence … Berlin must be a city of freedom,” he said.

German political institutions showed their support for the LGBTQ community. In a historic first, both the German Bundestag and the chancellery flew rainbow flags to mark the occasion.

Saturday’s parade was the first time since before the coronavirus pandemic that the annual celebration had proceeded without major restrictions.

Last year, around 65,000 people attended the parade amid social distancing rules and a ban on alcohol. In 2020, the parade was cancelled entirely due to the pandemic.

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