Tag Archives: oceania

'Our dream is undefeatable'

Ukraine's President has called on Australia to provide more military support to keep his country's forces armed to continue the fight against Russia's invasion.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a powerful address to a joint sitting of Australian Parliament today.

The essence of his address was to hold Russia to account due to the threat the country poses to global security.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has addressed a joint sitting of Australian Parliament

Mr Zelenskyy emphasised Ukraine can push back against Russia's attack, however, military and humanitarian assistance from Australia — particularly armoured vehicles — and other countries is urgently needed.

"If we can count on the support of the free world, on your support, on your assistance," he said.

"We need it not just in a couple of months, we need it urgently now."

He claimed Ukraine's "dream is undefeatable" if it can count on the global community's support.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has addressed a joint sitting of Australian Parliament

Australia pledges additional $25 million in support

Mr Zelenskyy's address came after Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged a further $25 million of defensive military assistance to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

This funding will go towards "tactical decoys, unmanned aerial and unmanned ground systems, rations and medical supplies".

It brings the total in assistance to Ukraine to $116 million.

READ MORE: Dangerous weather system tracks south as frustrations grow in northern NSW

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced additional funding for Ukraine.

Mr Zelenskyy thanked Australia for the ongoing support but continuously emphasised throughout his address for more sanctions against Russia and to essentially cut off the country.

"We can and should do more, we need more sanctions against Russia until they stop blackmailing other countries with their nuclear missiles… no Russian vessels should be allowed in international ports," he said.

"We have to stop any business activity with Russia… we have to stop any intention of Russia to bypass the sanctions… We have to keep those who are fighting against this email armed."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has addressed a joint sitting of Australian Parliament

'Unpunished evil comes back'

Mr Zelenskyy spoke of the MH17 tragedy in 2014 where a passenger flight was shot down while flying over eastern Ukraine, allegedly by Russian forces.

He said Russia has never been held accountable for this.

"Did we manage to hold those accountable who caused the tragedy? No, they are hiding in Russia," he said.

"The unpunished evil comes back, and I would say… with inspiration. With the feeling of all-mightiness.

"If we punished Russia in 2014 for what they did… there would be no invasion."

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Russian threat of nuclear war

Mr Zelenskyy touched on the threat of nuclear war and claims Russian officials are threatening to use nuclear weapons on those who do not submit to the country's demands.

"It has become a real threat to your country and people as well," he said.

"The country which is using nuclear blackmailing should receive the sanctions that would show such blackmailing is destructive for the blackmailer itself."

Part of cliff gives way, covering Queensland road in rock and rubble

Wet weather has triggered a landslide in south-east Queensland, with clean up crews working to restore access to roads.

Commutes through Springbrook Road on the Gold Coast were interrupted this morning when part of the cliff above gave way, covering the road in rock and rubble.

The road was immediately closed with work expected to take days to remove the debris.

READ MORE: 'It's a mess': NSW businesses devastated by flood crisis ahead of Easter holidays

Springbrook recorded 352mm of rain in a week.

Further west, Beechmont Road remains closed after another landslide caused even more damage after it gave way this week.

A 35-minute detour has been established for locals needing to access their homes.

In Dalby, west of Brisbane, several roads remain closed due to flooding.

On the Gold Coast, a major clean-up is underway, including to clear debris from beaches and roads.

READ MORE: 'Our dream is undefeatable': Ukrainian President calls on Australia for more military aid

Southport resident Carol Murphy said she became stranded in her apartment after floodwaters inundated her carpark for the second time in a month.

Ms Murphy said the smell of sewage was lingering after covering the ground with waste and toilet paper.

"Go in the hallway where I live, you can still smell it coming up," she said.

"Basically I was stranded, couldn't get to my car, wasn't going to attempt it."

Across the border, the main street of Byron Bay remains underwater.

Flooding remains at a major level in Lismore, devastating residents still recovering from February's flood disaster.

Ambulance Victoria on the cusp of a cultural overhaul after damning report

Ambulance Victoria has admitted it needs to "get better" as it sits on the cusp of a complete cultural overhaul.

Victoria's Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission handed down its final report into the organisation on Thursday, calling out systemic problems that facilitated bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination for decades.

In part, it read: "The Board and Executive Committee did not fully anticipate, recognise, analyse, prioritise or systematically address the unlawful conduct and harm identified by this review."

READ MORE: Shocking degree of bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment exposed within Ambulance Victoria

An Ambulance Victoria ambulance.

Commissioner Ro Allen added the issues are spread "right across Ambulance Victoria."

"Those things that have been included to help women haven't worked. They're not good enough."

Almost half (47.2 per cent) of the more than 2000 paramedics surveyed for the report experienced discrimination and more than half (52.4 per cent) had been bullied.

Testimony in today's 800-page document included comments from interviews calling out a "boys club" in which "women are usually overlooked" for promotions.

One employee labelled the system "notoriously corrupt".

Chief executive of operations Libby Murphy, who worked through a similar review during her 35 years with Victoria Police, said "we need equality, we need diversity".

"I think that's a reflection, it's not an excuse, but it's a reflection of society and what we need to change."

"If we get this right, the community is better served."

The report did not call to sack Ambulance Victoria's board or executives, but the organisation's head of people and culture resigned this week, days before the final report was made public.

Danny Hill, Secretary of the Victorian Ambulance Union, said a resignation "doesn't fix the problem".

"We need people feeling welcome at work and feeling safe at work and if we don't, yes, we do have an impact to the service provided," he said.

Paramedics have been at the centre of a health crisis gripping the state.

They're the faces we see "ramped" outside Victorian hospitals, waiting with patients needing care from a workforce that was missing 1906 staff to COVID isolation today.

They're also the faces up to a dozen Victorians were desperate to see as they died, waiting for a Triple Zero call to be answered between October and January.

Ambulances lined up outside Sunshine Hospital in Melbourne.

Brad Battin, Victoria's Shadow Minister for Emergency Services, said Premier Daniel Andrews is accountable.

"The blood is on your hands. You can fix it, you should have fixed it, you failed to fix it," he said.

"More people will die here in the state if they don't get this right."

The premier announced $115 million for the state's ailing ESTA call taking service in March, after 60 Minutes broadcast recordings of Triple Zero calls that were left on hold for 15 minutes as Victorians were dying.

"We will continue to resource this service to make sure it's as good as it possibly can be," Minister for Employment Jaala Pulford insisted today.

'Most serious cyberattack of the Ukraine war'

A malicious software command that immediately crippled tens of thousands of modems across Europe anchored the cyber attack on a satellite network used by Ukraine's government and military just as Russia invaded, the satellite owner disclosed today.

The owner, US-based Viasat, issued a statement providing details for the first time of how the most serious known cyberattack of the Russia-Ukraine war unfolded.

The wide-ranging attack affected users from Poland to France, getting quick notice by knocking off remote access to thousands of wind turbines in central Europe.

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Viasat would not say who it believed was responsible for the attack when asked separately by The Associated Press.

Ukrainian officials blame Russian hackers.

The Viasat attack, coming just as Russia was launching its invasion, was considered at the time by many a harbinger of serious cyberattacks that could extend beyond Ukraine.

Such attacks haven't yet materialised, though security researchers say the most impactful war-related cyber operations are likely occurring in the shadows, focused on intelligence-gathering.

A free-for-all of lesser attacks, many apparently carried out by volunteers, have been launched against both Russia and Ukraine.

A persistent drumbeat of malicious hacking that Ukrainian officials and cybersecurity researchers blame on Russia-affiliated attackers has plagued Ukraine throughout the more than month-long conflict.

READ MORE: Dangerous weather system tracks south as frustrations grow in northern NSW

One of the most serious hacks largely knocked offline the internet and cellular service of a major telecommunications company that serves the military, Ukrtelecom, for most of Monday.

Today, Google said it had identified a state-backed Russian hacking group engaged in a credential-phishing campaign targeting the militaries of multiple Eastern European countries and a NATO think tank.

It said it did not know if any of the targets were successfully compromised.

The attack on the KA-SAT satellite network highlighted how vulnerable commercial satellite networks that serve both military and non-military clients can be, with the impact felt by individuals and businesses far from the battlefield.

It began in the early hours of February 24 with a distributed denial-of-service onslaught that knocked a large number of modems offline.

A destructive attack followed in which a malicious software command sent across the network rendered tens of thousands of modems across Europe inoperable by overwriting key data in their internal memory, Viasat said.

"We believe the purpose of the attack was to interrupt service," it said.

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It said it has shipped 30,000 replacement modems to affected customers across Europe, most of whom use the service for residential broadband internet access.

The attack caused a major loss in communications in Ukraine in the early hours of Russia's invasion, top Ukrainian cybersecurity official Victor Zhora told reporters earlier this month.

Asked by the AP last week who was responsible, Mr Zhora said, "We don't need to attribute it since we have obvious evidence that it was organised by Russian hackers to disrupt connection between customers that use this satellite system."

He said he did not have information on whether the service had been restored and could not say which Ukrainian agencies beyond the military were affected.

Contracts show, however, that Mr Zhora's own agency, the State Service for Special Communications, is among customers that also include police agencies and municipalities.

Viasat said "several thousand customers" located in Ukraine were impacted.

Viasat, based in Carlsbad, California, said the initial denial of service attack had emanated from modems inside Ukraine.

It did not specify how the destructive malware entered the network other than to say a "misconfiguration" in a virtual private network appliance was compromised, allowing the attackers to gain remote access from the internet to a "trusted" management console used to administer the satellite network.

From there, the attackers were able to simultaneously send the disabling command to modems across Europe, rendering them useless but not permanently unusable, Viasat said.

It was not known how the attackers breached the VPN appliance. 

Satellite cybersecurity researcher Ruben Santamarta said it was important to know whether they had obtained credentials or exploited a known vulnerability.

Viasat declined to provide specifics Wednesday, citing an ongoing investigation.

Gregory Falco, a Johns Hopkins University professor specializing in satellite system security, said the impact on affected systems was minor compared to what the attackers were capable of doing.

Mr Falco said it's likely they've maintained a foothold.

"The attackers don't want to show their whole hand or any of their positioning for how they plan to persist in the network," he said.

The hacked ground-based network is run by Skylogic, an Italy-based subsidiary of Eutelsat, from which Viasat purchased the KA-SAT satellite in April of last year.

Viasat's investigation of the attack was done by the US cybersecurity firm Mandiant.

NSW bus driver allegedly let 16-year-old take the wheel with passengers on board

A NSW bus driver has been charged after allegedly letting a 16-year-old member of the public drive his bus.

Police officers from Campsie, in Sydney's south-west, launched an investigation after receiving reports the bus driver was letting the teenager operate his vehicle while there were passengers on board.

The bus driver allegedly let the teenager operate the bus numerous times between March 10 and March 27, according to police.

READ MORE: Some evacuation orders lifted in northern NSW as floodwaters recede

Officers then visited a home in Menai, in southern Sydney, at around 2pm yesterday where they arrested the 25-year-old bus driver.

He was taken to Sutherland Police station and charged with negligently moving or driving a vehicle and subjecting persons to risk.

He has been given conditional bail and is set to appear at Sutherland Local Court on April 28.

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Transit Systems, the company the 25-year-old driver works for in Sydney's Inner West, issued a statement on the incident.

"The driver has been stood down while NSW Police complete their investigation," the statement said.

"We are unable to provide any further updates on the matter given it is police investigation.

"We will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities."

Some evacuation orders lifted in northern NSW as floodwaters recede

Some floodwaters in northern New South Wales are beginning to recede, allowing residents to return home to assess the scale of the disaster.

The NSW SES has announced residents in low-lying areas of Mullumbimby, North Macksville, Kings Point, Nambucca Heads, Condong, Tumbulgum and Kyogle can return home.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said the northern rivers and the mid north coast will only see isolated showers today.

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Houses are surrounded by floodwater in Lismore, Australia.

There is however a risk of severe thunderstorms in the Hunter and lower mid north coast.

Lismore is beginning to see an end to the floodwaters, as the council said earlier the Wilsons River is "slowly receding" and has fallen below the height of the levee which overtopped yesterday.

The river now sits at 10.47 metres after peaking at 11.4 metres last night.

"River levels are likely to remain above the major flood level (9.7m) on Thursday," Lismore City Council said on Facebook.

Houses are surrounded by floodwater in Lismore, Australia.

An aged care worker, feared swept away by floodwaters, remains missing in Lismore, and the dangerous weather system is tracking south.

As a volatile weather system circles off the coast, the response of the NSW SES and BoM came under fire —with officials accusing the services of slow updates.

Recovery efforts underway

Fire and Rescue NSW teams helped to evacuate a two-year-old boy with breathing difficulties from his home in Congarinni North, in the northern rivers, yesterday.

SES on-water teams and firefighters travelled two kilometres along the river in Macksville to medically evacuate the little boy and his mother to a waiting ambulance.

The boy was in a stable condition.

Firefighters helped to medically evacuate a two-year-old boy in Macksville.

Dozens of semi-trailers have been loaded with more than 1600 bales of hay and are headed to Lismore.

The hay supply will support the state's far north coast farmers who have been hit by two devastating floods in just four weeks.

28 trucks have been loaded with hay and will go to Lismore to supply to farmers.

Airport closed due to floods

All commercial flights in and out of Ballina Byron Airport today and tomorrow have been cancelled due to the flood disaster.

Limited services will be operating over the weekend.

The airport is shut as the runway needs to dry out before commercial flights can resume.

Local resident Cathy Jordan inspects floodwater in her street in Lismore.

Storm system heads south

Strong winds are being felt across the state with a Gale Warning issued for NSW's north, down to the south coast.

NSW Emergencies Minister Steph Cooke said communities south of the northern rivers were going to be impacted.

READ MORE: 'We had an evacuation, then a non-evacuation, then an evacuation again'

Dean Narramore speaks at a press conference 31 March 2022.

"The weather system is making its way down the east coast, and we will see other communities impacted as it moves south over the next couple of days," Ms Cooke said.

Communities that live on or near the Wilsons, Richmond, Clarence and Yarrara Rivers, particularly downstream whether flood events are current, have been urged to stay up-to-date with the latest forecast and warnings.

Residents can keep across evacuation orders here.

READ MORE: Russia shells areas in Ukraine where it vowed to scale back

A low pressure system is swirling off the NSW coast, while a slow-moving high pressure system is in the Bight.

The BoM has also issued a damaging surf warning for people in parts of Mid North Coast, Hunter, Metropolitan, Illawarra and South Coast Forecast Districts.

"Damaging surf along central and southern NSW coast developing Thursday afternoon. Abnormally high tides possible along parts of the Mid North Coast from Thursday morning," it said.

The sea is being whipped by a low pressure system which currently lies about 280 kilometres off northern NSW, while a slow-moving high pressure system is situated south of the Bight.

A severe weather warning is also in place from Kempsey, south to the Victorian border, warning of abnormally high tides, dangerous surf and strong, gusty winds.

Coastal erosion is also possible, particularly on south-facing beaches.

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Local residents inspect a flooded road on March 30, 2022 in Lismore, Australia.

More than 20 flood warnings for river systems are in place across the North and Mid North Coast down to Sydney's Hawkesbury, where a minor flood warning has been issued.

The water bodies of concern in the state are: Tweed River, Wilsons River, Clarence River, Bellinger and Kalang Rivers,Macleay River, Hastings River, Manning River, Wollombi Brook, Hawkesbury and Colo Rivers, Orara River, Severn River, Culgoa Birrie Bokhara and Narran Rivers, Brunswick River and Marshalls Creek, Nambucca River, Camden Haven River, Richmond River,Coffs Creek, Macintyre River, Macintyre Brook, and Dumaresq River.

A main street is under floodwater in Lismore.

NSW SES Deputy Commissioner Daniel Austin has warned that while the threat of flash flooding from rainfall is diminished, "significant riverine flooding" was still ongoing.

"That water needs to discharge through these systems," he said.

"The riverine threat is certainly not over at this point in time."

The SES received just over 100 calls for assistance in the past 24 hours, including 11 flood rescues.

Most of the rescues were during the day yesterday, with communities caught by rapid-rising flash floods on the Mid North Coast.

READ MORE: Local heroes helping Lismore in floodwaters

Search for missing aged care nurse

Police have issued an urgent appeal for information as the search for a missing 55-year-old continues.

Anita Brakel was last seen in her car on Tuesday evening.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Joe Cassar said Ms Brakel, who originally lived in Nowra, had been recruited to Lismore as an aged care worker.

Anita Brakel, 55, is an aged care nurse currently missing in Lismore floodwaters.Floodwater inundate cars  on March 30, 2022 in Lismore, Australia. Evacuation orders have been issued for towns across the NSW Northern Rivers region, with flash flooding expected amid  heavy rainfall.

It's the second time the town has flooded in a month, with February bringing a flood peak of more than 14 metres.

Despite this flood, the NSW SES Lismore City Unit reports there were "very few flood rescue jobs over the past 48 hours".

In total the unit were tasked with just under 100 requests for assistance, including flood evacuations, support and storm jobs.

Fire and Rescue NSW teams were also on hand to assist, and helped paramedics reach an eight-year-old boy suffering from COVID-19 isolated by floodwaters at Bucca, north of Coffs Harbour.

The Lismore SES unit thanked the 'wonderfully responsive community' for heading warnings.NSW SES said it's Lismore headquarters started to fill up shortly after 6am this morning. "Family, kids, and a few brave doggos delivered to our unit headquarters," they wrote. (They were) then transported by ADF to the evacuation centre at Southern Cross University."

About 6000 people remain without power, with Deputy Commissioner Austin noting "many infrastructure challenges" in the Northern Rivers.

"We see many businesses and homes and including some of the emergency services in the community that are still in a state of repair," he said.

"We will continue to work as quickly as we can to restore those, and I am confident that those issues have not hampered our response during this particular time."

Ballina residents begin clean-up

Ballina residents have also criticised a lack of evacuation warnings as they woke up to a town underwater yesterday morning.

Long-time Byron resident Marc Wilson told 9News the flooding was the "worst I've ever seen".

Marc Wilson has lived in Byron for 35-plus years. He said he's never seen a storm like the one that blew through yesterday. People walk through floodwater on March 30, 2022 in Byron Bay, Australia.

"Words can't describe what we went through," he said.

"We knew a storm was coming just not to the extreme it did come.

"Otherwise, I'm sure a lot of these shops would have sandbagged and done a lot of preparation if they knew it would be as severe as it was."