Latest news with #Majuro
ABC News
6 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
Radio Australia finishes Pacific expansion with Marshall Islands launch
ABC Radio Australia has completed its expansion of services across the Pacific with the Marshall Islands set to host broadcasts for the first time in more than five years. A new FM transmitter means residents of Majuro atoll are the latest listeners to join the network, which has doubled in two years and now extends to 25 locations across the region. Audiences in Majuro can now tune into ABC Radio Australia on 106.7FM. The launch is the final part of an expansion which kicked off with Ghizo Island in the Solomon Islands in September 2023 and has been rolled out to the Federated States of Micronesia (Pohnpei), Palau (Koror), Nauru, Kiribati (Tarawa), Tuvalu (Funafuti), Cook Islands (Rarotonga), Auki in the Solomon Islands and three additional Papua New Guinea locations, in East New Britain (Kokopo), Manus Island (Lorengau) and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (Buka). Radio Australia now has a network of transmitters in the Pacific, like this one in Tarawa, Kiribati. Head of ABC International Services, Claire Gorman, hailed the project as a "landmark success". "In the 85 years since ABC Radio Australia first broadcast across the region, the network has undergone significant changes with this latest expansion in transmission sites," she said. "This represents the next chapter for ABC Radio Australia, providing new audiences with our slate of trusted news and Pacific-focused radio programming." ABC Radio Australia Manager Justine Kelly said teams had been working hard for two years to deliver the project. "We are proud to be available across even more locations throughout the Pacific as our talented team of presenters and comprehensive suite of shows, share the incredible stories and voices from across the region," she said. The full radio service offers listeners an extensive schedule of bespoke programming covering the latest in news, music, sports, culture, health, science and faith. Tumultuous times for broadcasters The completion of the project comes after a tumultuous few months for independent media in Asia and the Pacific. US President Donald Trump slashed funding to multiple media organisations including Voice of America, Benar News and Radio Free Asia earlier this year, which risked leaving millions of people across the region without access to independent news. The US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which funded these organisations, employed roughly 3,500 people and had an $US886 million budget before it was gutted. Aleksandra Bielakowska from Reporters Without Borders told the ABC at the time the cuts "threaten press freedom worldwide" and were a "gigantic gift" for authoritarian regimes in Beijing and Moscow. As VOA director Michael Abramowitz, said: "For the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced.'' The project began with the launch of Radio Australia in Gizo, Solomon Islands, in 2023. ( Radio Australia ) The state of the media in the Pacific The State of the Media: Pacific Region report found that, despite advancements in the Pacific media sector, it remains fragile in the face of digital disruption and additional loss of advertising revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic, creating an existential crisis. The study found there had been a sharp increase in internet access across the region over the previous decade. In Samoa, for example, internet access had soared from 7 per cent in 2013 to 75 per cent in 2025. It also found misinformation and disinformation were bigger challenges in larger countries such as Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Samoa, which have active diasporas and higher penetration of foreign media sources, particularly on social media platforms owned by big tech companies. There were also concerns about media freedom which influenced audience trust in mainstream media, particularly government-owned media organisations. Why an independent voice is important Radio Australia was launched at the start of World War II to counter propaganda from the Axis powers. For decades it provided an independent news service in multiple languages to people across the region. Around a decade ago, Australian government budget cuts forced ABC Radio Australia to wind down its coverage and services to focus solely on the Pacific and Timor Leste. ABC technicians install a transmitter in Nauru. With extra funding in 2022 and 2023, it has been able to expand the footprint and the amount of content designed for Pacific audiences. This international broadcasting is important as it can break stories and hold power to account across the region, in a way that local media at times may not be able to. ABC Radio Australia also supports local radio services by providing relevant valuable content for local audiences and can tell uniquely Pacific stores. It also acts as a counterweight to anti-democratic information and disinformation. Indeed, when the US government cut funding to its broadcasters, authoritarian regimes including Beijing-backed media celebrated the decision, while activists and analysts warned the closures would create information "black holes" that could be filled by Russian or Chinese services. There are multiple ways to listen to ABC Radio Australia across the Pacific – live via internet streaming, through 24-hour FM stations in your area, or by catching up with full episodes on ABC Pacific online.
ABC News
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
ABC Radio Australia's Marshall Islands launch completes historic Pacific expansion
ABC Radio Australia's ambitious two-year FM expansion project in the Pacific has concluded with the recent launch in the Marshall Islands of a new FM transmitter. Residents of Majuro atoll are the latest listeners to join the network, which has doubled and now extends to 25 locations across the region. The expansion project was funded by the Australian Federal Government's Indo Pacific Broadcasting Strategy and began in 2023, when ABC Radio Australia established an FM service in Gizo, Solomon Islands. Since then, the ABC has partnered with broadcasters and transmission providers across the region, to develop and launch services in Federated States of Micronesia (Pohnpei), Palau (Koror), Nauru, Kiribati (Tarawa), Tuvalu (Funafuti), Cook Islands (Rarotonga), Auki in the Solomon Islands and three additional Papua New Guinea locations, in East New Britain (Kokopo), Manus Island (Lorengau) and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (Buka). Alongside its investment in broadcast and delivery infrastructure, ABC Radio Australia has also tripled its Pacific content offering, launching new news, music, sport and cultural programming to better entertain and inform its growing audiences. ABC Radio Australia celebrated the milestone by co-hosting an event with the Australian Ambassador to the Marshall Islands, Paul Wilson, at his residence in Majuro. The event was attended by representatives of the Marshall Islands Government. ABC International Head Claire M. Gorman said: 'The completion of the ABC Radio Australia FM transmission expansion project has been a landmark success – allowing the network to significantly grow its reach and listenership across the Pacific. In the 85 years since ABC Radio Australia first broadcast across the region, the network has undergone significant changes with this latest expansion in transmission sites. This represents the next chapter for ABC Radio Australia, providing new audiences with our slate of trusted news and Pacific-focused radio programming.' ABC Radio Australia Manager Justine Kelly said: 'Across the past two years, our ABC Radio Australia teams have been working incredibly hard to deliver this remarkable project. We are proud to be available across even more locations throughout the Pacific as our talented team of presenters and comprehensive suite of shows, share the incredible stories and voices from across the region. We deliver the latest in breaking news, sports coverage, new music and conversations about culture, the environment, health, faith and science.' WAYS TO LISTEN: Audiences in Majuro can now tune into ABC Radio Australia on 106.7FM. There are multiple ways to listen to ABC Radio Australia across the Pacific – live via internet streaming, through 24-hour FM stations in your area, or by catching up with full episodes on ABC Pacific online. For all media enquiries, contact: Annalise Ramponi, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, ABC International We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.
RNZ News
06-06-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Marshall Islands nuclear legacy: report highlights lack of health research
Half of the Marshall Islands' 50,000-strong population live in the capital city of Majuro. Photo: Public domain A new report on the United States nuclear weapons testing legacy in the Marshall Islands highlights the lack of studies into important health concerns voiced by Marshallese for decades that make it impossible to have a clear understanding of the impacts of the 67 nuclear weapons tests. 'The Legacy of US Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands,' a report by Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, was released late last month. The report was funded by Greenpeace Germany and is an outgrowth of the organization's flagship vessel, Rainbow Warrior III, visiting the Marshall Islands from March to April to recognize the 40th anniversary of the resettlement of the nuclear test-affected population of Rongelap Atoll. Dr Mahkijani said among the "many troubling aspects" of the legacy is that the United States had concluded, in 1948, after three tests, that the Marshall Islands was not 'a suitable site for atomic experiments' because it did not meet the required meteorological criteria. "Yet testing went on," he said. "Also notable has been the lack of systematic scientific attention to the accounts by many Marshallese of severe malformations and other adverse pregnancy outcomes like stillbirths. This was despite the documented fallout throughout the country and the fact that the potential for fallout to cause major birth defects has been known since the 1950s." Makhijani highlights the point that, despite early documentation in the immediate aftermath of the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test and numerous anecdotal reports from Marshallese women about miscarriages and still births, US government medical officials in charge of managing the nuclear test-related medical program in the Marshall Islands never systematically studied birth anomalies. The US deputy secretary of state in the Biden-Harris administration, Kurt Cambell, said that Washington, over decades, had committed billions of dollars to the damages and the rebuilding of the Marshall Islands. "I think we understand that that history carries a heavy burden, and we are doing what we can to support the people in the [Compact of Free Association] states, including the Marshall Islands," he told reporters at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in Nuku'alofa last year. "This is not a legacy that we seek to avoid. We have attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment." Among points outlined in the new report: Gamma radiation levels at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, officially considered a "very low exposure" atoll, were tens of times, and up to 300 times, more than background in the immediate aftermaths of the thermonuclear tests in the Castle series at Bikini Atoll in 1954. Thyroid doses in the so-called "low exposure atolls" averaged 270 milligray (mGy), 60 percent more than the 50,000 people of Pripyat near Chernobyl who were evacuated (170 mGy) after the 1986 accident there, and roughly double the average thyroid exposures in the most exposed counties in the United States due to testing at the Nevada Test Site. Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Giff Johnson Despite this, "only a small fraction of the population has been officially recognized as exposed enough for screening and medical attention; even that came with its own downsides, including people being treated as experimental subjects," the report said. "In interviews and one 1980s country-wide survey, women have reported many adverse pregnancy outcomes," said the report. "They include stillbirths, a baby with part of the skull missing and 'the brain and the spinal cord fully exposed,' and a two-headed baby. Many of the babies with major birth defects died shortly after birth. "Some who lived suffered very difficult lives, as did their families. Despite extensive personal testimony, no systematic country-wide scientific study of a possible relationship of adverse pregnancy outcomes to nuclear testing has been done. It is to be noted that awareness among US scientists of the potential for major birth defects due to radioactive fallout goes back to the 1950s. Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivor data has also provided evidence for this problem. "The occurrence of stillbirths and major birth defects due to nuclear testing fallout in the Marshall Islands is scientifically plausible but no definitive statement is possible at the present time," the report concluded. "The nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands created a vast amount of fission products, including radioactive isotopes that cross the placenta, such as iodine-131 and tritium. Radiation exposure in the first trimester can cause early failed pregnancies, severe neurological damage, and other major birth defects. This makes it plausible that radiation exposure may have caused the kinds of adverse pregnancy outcomes that were experienced and reported. However, no definitive statement is possible in the absence of a detailed scientific assessment." Scientists who traveled with the Rainbow Warrior III on its two-month visit to the Marshall Islands earlier this year collected samples from Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap and other atolls for scientific study and evaluation.
