Dede Sophie

Prime Minister James Marape has called out to landlords leasing their buildings to Government offices to be aware that his Government is moving into arrangements to own those buildings. James Marape says they will be moving into the build-operate lease transfer arrangements to own those buildings in the next 10 to 15 years’ time.  He said after paying out the outstanding leases they will be working towards owning those buildings. The Prime Minister made this bold statement in response to Journalists’ questions about government officials being locked out at Vulupindi and Revenue Haus respectively by landlord Nambawan Super Limited (NSL). This happened over non-payment of rental arrears by the Government. Marape was responding to the Journalists upon his arrival at the airport from his oversea trips. ”Much of those arrears are arrears we have been carrying over from many many years back but our government has been cleaning up these. ”The Landlords are business, the...

 PNG Prime Minister Hon. James Marape, MP has strongly condemned the National Airport Corporation (NAC) saga and has directed a full investigation into the sabotaging of Jacksons International Airport operations. The airport came to a complete stop in the morning of Saturday, November 12, 2022, when the airport security blocked off the airport – affecting daily operations of international and domestic flights. PM Marape directed the National Security Advisory Committee, in a National Security Council meeting the same day, to: • Take full carriage of the incident; • institute an independent investigation to ascertain exactly what had happened; and • Charge those involved in this incident. In a brief presented at the meeting, the incident had everything to do with the arrest of National Airport Corporation Managing-Director, Rex Kiponge.  PM Marape directed a full investigation into the mayhem and wants those involved to be charged forthwith. “I want a complete report on this gross ...

A distraught father from PNG’s Okapa District but now  living in Port Moresby has  reached out to the media to report that his daughter was physically and sexually abused by police men from Port Moresby’s Waigani Police Station, NBC news reports.  The alleged attack was over a lost phone, which the girl in her early twenties was said to have stolen. She and few others attended to clean up a police officer’s house which he moved into.  The victim with her hair cut-off by the  police officer  [Photo by NBC News] The report from the father is that the officer and others arrived in a private vehicle and took matters into their own hands after picking her up at her house yesterday in the morning.  She was physically attacked, her hair chopped of with a bushknife and she was sexually penetrated with objects. She was forced to open her mouth with one officer peeing into her mouth and she was forced to swallow it.  She was then dropped of at her house but her family forced the...

Heated seat belts are being claimed as another way to increase the range of electric vehicles, writes Brian Byrne. The issue is being promoted by the automotive components developer ZF, who say that in cold weather their use could add 15pc to an EV’s range. It is well established that heated seats are the best way to stay warm in an electric car, allowing less dependence on the normal heating-ventilation system which is a bigger draw on the battery system. The ZF heated seat belt is marginally thicker than the standard ones in use, with integrated heating elements in the fabric. No changes to the other elements of the seat belt system are required. So far, no car company has been named as a customer — but it’s not so long ago that heated seats were unknown in temperate markets like Ireland, now we almost expect them. So they’ll come, you can bet your winter jacket on it. 

The beloved author of such immortal classics as Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen was born some 235 years ago today on Dec. 16. In the recent years, Austen has surged back into popularity with a host of movies and spin-off books arising from her romance novels. Sourcebooks, a leading publisher of Jane Austen fiction, is offering a unique deal to readers who want to celebrate Jane by reading special editions of all six of Austen’s beloved novels in a 21st century format. Special e-book editions of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion and Mansfield Park will be available for free for *today and tomorrow* only. These celebratory editions include the full novels, plus the legendary color illustrations of the Brock brothers, originally created to accompany the books in 1898. In addition to the Jane Austen classics, readers can also enjoy these bestselling Austen-inspired novels: Eliza’s Daughter by Joan Aiken The Darcys & the Bingleys by ...