A daily five minute news wrap for English learners and people with disability.
Welcome to SBS News in Easy English. I'm Greg Dyett.
Australia's vaccine advisory group has officially recommended a fourth vaccination as part of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Health Minister Greg Hunt says it will be available as part of the vaccine rollout for four groups from the 4th of April.
The four groups include: those aged 65 years and over, Indigenous Australians aged 50 years and over, residents in the aged care or disability sector; and immunocompromised Australians aged 16 years and over.
Mr Hunt says the winter flu shot program will also be launched from early April, which aims to reach five million Australians.
"Similar groups actually: adults 65 years and over, children under five, pregnant women, Indigenous Australians of all ages, people with particular immunocompromised medical conditions as well."
New South Wales has recorded 23,702 new COVID-19 cases and seven deaths.
And Victoria has reported 9,244 new cases and nine deaths.
Throughout the pandemic, 4.2 million coronavirus cases have been recorded in Australia and there have been more than 5,800 deaths.
Australia has extended its sanctions over Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, with a new set of measures targeting Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, his family and a further 22 people, including senior editors at Russia Today .
Foreign Minister Marise Payne says Belarus must be sanctioned for providing support to Russia and its military during its invasion of Ukraine.
She says the Australian government has now sanctioned a total of 32 pro-Kremlin individuals.
The United Nations says more than half of the country's children have been driven from their homes by the relentless Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities.
In total, more than 10 million Ukrainians have fled their homes.
An estimated 1.4 million Ukrainians have no access to safe water and 4.6 million have only limited supplies.
Indigenous traditional owners in the Northern Territory are celebrating the return of nearly half of Kakadu National Park.
Elders say it has taken 45 years to complete the massive land settlement, which means almost all of the world heritage-listed park is now under Indigenous ownership.
The land will be leased back to the Director of National Parks, which will provide ongoing rental income to the traditional owners.
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold says his team has a big challenge ahead to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.
Japan has beaten Australia 2-nil, allowing it to secure automatic qualification.
The Socceroos will now have to play in several other matches to try to qualify.
Arnold says he still believes the team can improve enough to qualify.
"Japan are obviously a top side and full credit to them. But we've got to brush the dust off and get ourselves ready. Yeah, I've always said that. I believe in these boys and it is one game at a time, one camp at a time. We'll see what happens."
I'm Greg Dyett and this is SBS News in Easy English.
