Good morning. Defence minister Peter Dutton is due to make two speeches to promote a tough message on national security: one announcing Australia may establish a US-style space force in the future and accusing some countries – including Russia – of seeing “space as a territory for their taking”. The second will acknowledge Australia is “in the crosshairs” for cyber-attacks and that China has the capability to mount “an unprecedented digital onslaught”.
Ukraine has rejected out of hand an ultimatum from Moscow to surrender the devastated city of Mariupol, as authorities in Odesa accused Russia of striking residential areas in what would be the invading forces’ first attack on the Black Sea port. Ukraine also turned down Moscow’s offer to open two humanitarian corridors out of Mariupol in exchange for its residents’ capitulation. Officials have said at least 2,300 residents have died, with some buried in mass graves. Overnight shelling in the capital, Kyiv, reduced a large shopping mall to rubble and killed at least eight people. A Russian attack on Kharkiv has killed a 96-year-old man who survived a string of Nazi concentration camps. More than $17bn (£13bn) of global assets have been linked to 35 oligarchs and Russian officials alleged to have close ties to Vladimir Putin in an ongoing project to track the wealth of Russia’s most powerful operators.
A passenger plane carrying 132 people has crashed in southern China, with no survivors announced so far. The China Eastern Airlines plane, a Boeing 737, plummeted more than 20,000 feet in just over a minute. It then seems to have regained altitude momentarily, before dropping rapidly again. The airline said no foreign nationals were aboard the plane. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, called for a prompt investigation into the cause the country’s first major fatal air disaster since 2010.
The pace at which the Australian government is approving the destruction of habitat relied on by threatened species has increased in recent years, despite scientists warning of an escalating extinction crisis, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation. It found nearly three-quarters of the clearing approved was for new and expanded mining developments. Koalas were the most affected species, with more than 25,000 hectares of habitat approved for clearing. Meanwhile, one of the Great Barrier Reef’s healthiest reefs has succumbed to coral bleaching. The first recorded widespread bleaching event during the cooler temperatures of La Niña has left scientists dreading the damage that could be caused by the next El Niño.
Australia
Voters are underwhelmed by the Morrison government’s response to flooding in New South Wales and Queensland, and a majority fear disasters will be worse without significant action to address climate risks, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.
Kimberley Kitching’s husband has, during her funeral service, criticised a “cantankerous cabal” over its treatment of the late Victorian senator. The Labor senator was farewelled at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne after her sudden death on 10 March of a suspected heart attack.
With Covid cases soaring across Australia, health experts are weighing up whether a second booster rollout is needed and whether it would be effective.
The shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says if elected, Labor would present a second “proper” budget in 2022 to correct the “decade of rorts and waste” they expect to be bookended by treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s budget next week.
The world
The US has declared Myanmar’s mass killing of the Rohingya Muslim population to be a “genocide”. Three-quarters of the 1,000 Rohingya refugees spoken to by investigators say “they personally witnessed members of the military kill someone”.
An ex-Tory MP in Britain has called for an inquiry into why the £400m debt to Iran, which was likely to lead to the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, was not paid until last week and into who resisted making the payment.
Unusually high temperatures in both Antarctica and the Arctic in recent days have shocked researchers, with the mercury rising more than 40C warmer than seasonal norms. What is causing it, and what are the consequences?
Recommended reads
In Loveland, Ryan Kwanten plays a weary assassin working in a futuristic Hong Kong who calls on Hugo Weaving’s enigmatic doctor after a romance leaves him mysteriously ill. The sci-fi film by Australian film-maker Ivan Sen asks some very Philip K Dickian questions about the nature of consciousness and post-human evolution, writes Luke Buckmaster. “This unquestionably ambitious film works best as a mood piece: it’s big, bold, cerebral and intensely unsubtle.”
Nic Pettersen, drummer with the Sydney metalcore band Northlane, says he was a victim of gravity when he disappeared mid-gig in New Zealand. “[The gig] was comical to begin with. We were booked to headline, and then we asked to open, and the booking agent was like, ‘Oh … OK.’ It was all a bit of an anticlimax. That was, before I fell off the stage.”
“I thought I was fine parenting though Covid isolation. I wasn’t,” writes Celina Ribeiro. “What had been held together during all those months of lockdown finally came apart when my daughters fell sick. ‘This feels worse,’ I texted friends who had gone through it. ‘It is worse,’ they replied. We could not work out why. What was different about this shorter, totally fine lockdown? Why was it this – this stupid single week – that was breaking us?”
Listen
At least three people have died from a mosquito-borne virus – Japanese encephalitis – which is spreading across the south of Australia for the first time. In today’s Full Story, Guardian Australia’s medical editor, Melissa Davey, explains what you need to know about the virus and what this outbreak tells us about the future of disease in Australia.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
On Thursday, Fox Sports’ Tom Morris was sacked for what he conceded were “disgusting and disgraceful” comments about a work colleague, after recording emerged of him using homophobic and sexist language in reference to her. “For men following this story, there was utter astonishment, followed by a certain shame. For women, it came as no surprise at all. There was just a simmering fury,” writes Jonathan Horn.
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has been fined $25,000 by Football Australia after breaching NSW Covid self-isolation protocols.
Media roundup
Australians lost more than $38m in scams last month after falling victim to fraudulent schemes ranging from investments to romance, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. United Nations chief António Guterres has told an energy and climate summit that turning back to fossil fuels due to the global energy shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would be “madness” and risk “mutually assured destruction”, reports the Age. Energy minister Angus Taylor will warn the energy crisis facing Europe could happen in Australia unless new gas fields are opened up, according to the Australian.
Coming up
NSW paramedics have refused an order to stop industrial action.
And if you’ve read this far …
Orangutans use slang to “show off their coolness”, according to researchers studying the “kiss-squeak” alarm calls of wild communities in Borneo and Sumatra. They found that rather than such sounds being innate and hardwired, as was long thought, orangutans are able to come up with new versions of the calls, varying in pitch and duration.
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