ABC

Speaking to the female sports journalist participants, Nynette Sass took the advantage to discuss any queries about the regional event.

“Samoa is ready to host the games and we are on to the final stages of preparing every place reserved for the games and we are glad to hosting this year’s Pacific Games,” Sass said.

She also highlighted the importance of women’s participation in any aspects of the Games.

Police arrived with search warrants naming two journalists and News Director Gaven Morris, the ABC says.

According to the ABC, the raid is over an investigative story into misconduct by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

The raid comes one day after police searched the home of a News Corp journalist over the alleged leak of classified information.

ABC journalists have been tweeting about the events since police arrived in the morning.

In response to budget cuts, the ABC last year ceased shortwave broadcasting in the Asia-Pacific region ahead of a switch to FM transmission.

Australia-based technology observer Peter Marks told Radio ABC's Tech Headprogramme that since that withdrawal, the space was swiftly being filled.

"Since Radio Australia has dropped off shortwave, many of the exact frequencies we used to use have been now taken over by Chinese stations targetting the Asia Pacific region," he explained.

The bill would have required the ABC to restore its shortwave transmission services which the broadcaster ended in January this year.

This move was described in the bill as having deprived communities in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and other parts of the Pacific of access to reliable emergency broadcasting.

Submitters of the bill questioned the ABC's assertions that very few listeners accessed Radio Australia's shortwave service.

ABC TV's Bananas in Pyjamas is celebrating 25 years, and to mark the occasion the Royal Australian Mint has launched a commemorative coloured coin set.

The 20 cent and 5 cent pieces feature images of the twin Bananas and Rat-in-a-Hat.

"It's the first time we've had colour on a 5 cent piece," Mint CEO Ross MacDiarmid said.

The Bananas in Pyjamas first aired on Australian television in 1992 as a live-action series featuring B1 and B2 and teddy bears Lulu, Morgan and Amy.

RNZI reports the bill was introduced by South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon after the ABC switched off its shortwave transmitters in late January.

The ABC is opposed to the bill and said in its submission that its passing would impinge on its independence by directing the ABC to use broadcast technologies for diminishing audiences and at significant maintenance costs.

The ABC also said that in the bill there were factual errors and misconceptions, including the figures for the actual cost of the services.

Locals and tourists alike crane past barriers to get a glimpse of the filming for ABC TV's The Doctor Blake Mysteries.

But not this year.

The soon-to-be-aired fifth season of the murder mystery drama will be the last after the ABC announced the cancellation of the show earlier in the year.

Set in Ballarat in the 1950s, The Doctor Blake Mysteries follow the travails of a country doctor and his housekeeper who are drawn in to solve crimes that often stump the local police.

It is the end of an era for more than 10 million people in the region, who will no longer have access to a highly-valued service, especially during natural disasters and political upheavals.

The ABC decided to pull the plug on what it calls “outdated technology”, replacing it with “online streaming” and FM radio.

Shortwave radio is old, but it is simple and reliable technology for reaching even the remotest parts of the Pacific.

The decision to kill off transmissions from towers in Shepparton in Victoria has been criticised across the region.

PINA said this is a ‘valuable and vital source of information’ to peoples and communities in the Pacific that have relied on Radio Australia for almost eight decades. 

More so now with most Pacific Island Countries in the middle of their cyclone season, said PINA President Moses Stevens, who laments the impact of the service will have on the peoples in the Pacific who rely on the service after it is closed in January. 

Mr Molins said 19-year-old Adel Kermiche was under house arrest and wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet at the time of the attack.

Kermiche and an unknown accomplice, armed with knives, stormed the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray on Tuesday, taking hostage 86-year-old priest Father Jacques Hamel, three nuns and two worshippers.