One more day to go before the 2023 FASHION FOR PEACE runway show will take place at the Stanley Hotel in Port Moresby hosted by PNG Fashion and Design Week Limited. Since its establishment in 2016, this will be the first time that this year’s runway has collaborated with the Creative Arts and Design students and lecturers from the University of Papua New Guinea with the aim of promoting the need for greater recognition and opportunities for youths who graduate from this course into the real world. Speaking at a press conference this week held at Stanley Hotel, Founder and Director of PNG Fashion and Design Week, Mrs. Janet Sios, said all preparations have been made and are now awaiting tomorrow night for when the show will take place. Sios welcomed all designers, including student designers, established and emerging ones to this year’s runway and to the platform. “We have been going at it for eight years now and every year we run this event mainly to continue the work that we started and bring about awareness and advocacy for the industry in the country.” As this is the first time that PNG Fashion and Design Week has announced its collaboration with the UPNG students, Sios has expressed how exciting this year will be as she has already seen great potential from the students themselves during a runway show they hosted back in June just for the students. “We are happy to partner with the University students as we went through the Student Representative Council (SRC) at UPNG and hosted a runway just for the students on the 29th of June at the campus which opened up our eyes to the potential of the students that they could tap into such an industry.” “We teamed up with the students because we felt that the creative arts students need to be aware of what we are doing in the industry, creating a culture creative industry in PNG.” “We have many cultures and traditions and so we want to carry out awareness in bringing this industry forward.” For this year’s lineup, a total of fourteen designers will be taking part including seven student designers, six established and three emerging designers who all will be portraying their collections based on the theme, Fashion for Peace. Sios expressed that the theme was a very serious topic that they selected as there are many serious issues that the country is currently facing. “Our country is going through a lot and therefore we feel that such a platform can be a powerful tool to bring forth the message of positivity.” “We’ve challenged the designers to create their designs to reflect the various aspects of peace; no to tribal fights, no to domestic violence, no to many things that affect us in a negative way but embrace our country if we all choose to have a peaceful PNG.” Sios further encouraged all other youths out there to come forward and join the sector if they think they know what it takes to be a videographer, a photographer or someone who can be able to sew to get into the industry and make money out of it which is the message they have been advocating for the last eight years. Meanwhile, Sios thanked the hardworking committee and everyone else who had worked hard into putting together a show in which they are now looking forward to.

PNG’s international talent, Anslom, has won the Band of Year award at the 2023 International Singer Songwriters Association (ISSA) annual ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States of America (USA). The win opens doors for many opportunities not only in the USA, but around the world including recording contracts, tours, radio and TV airplay, promotions and networking with big industry players in music. Finalists flew in from across America and around the world to attend the awards ceremony held at the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Centre in the heart of Atlanta, Georgia. Anslom was accompanied by his producer and keyboardist Emmanuel Muganaua aka Toxicmhan. “Winning my first international award is special. I dedicate this win to my fans in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific. To my mum, thank you for being by my side through it all. I love you mama. I am indebted to Dave Segal and the One People Band in South Africa and Emmanuel Muganaua for the engineering and mixing genius on the songs.” “I’d also like to thank my record label Big Records and management team at Bassline and others who have contributed to this win and my music career.” Anslom is also grateful to East New Britain Governor, Michael Marum, East Sepik Governor, Allan Bird and Jokema who supported him on this trip. The ISSA is a platform that honors excellence in individual singer songwriters and musicians worldwide. Anslom will be touring the USA in the later part of the year.

The Basketball Federation of Papua New Guinea (BFPNG) has thanked the Australian Defence Forces and FIBA for the success of the recent workshops held in Port Moresby and Madang. In most sports, there is a technical official who plays an important role in ensuring that the action takes place according to the rules. To ensure that the game is played in a fair and safe way, our basketball referees play an integral role. The Australian Defence Forces (ADF) and FIBA coaching and officiating workshop ended on a high note with over one hundred participants graduating with FIBA Level 1 Start Coaching and Officiating Course. President of the Basketball Federation of PNG (BFPNG), Emma Waiwai, thanked, ADF & FIBA for making this a reality. “This has been one area that has been lacking in the last few years and for these organizations to come up and run these basic courses in coaching and refereeing, sets the foundation for us to build on; and identify coaches and referees that we can take to the next level. So, hopefully it’s not the last.” “We thank all those involved for taking this training workshop outside of National Capital District (NCD)”. With NCD and Madang Town as the central hubs, the workshops saw participants from the Southern, Momase and the Highlands region of PNG participate. The training program was funded by the ADF, FIBA and BFPNG. Meanwhile, FIBA Oceania Development Manager, Annie Le Fleur expressed how amazing it was when some participants had to travelled within three weeks just to get to this workshop. “This was fascinating because it tells us that the demand is there, and participants want to learn and contribute meaningfully to basketball development in PNG.” The Training workshop ran concurrently between coaches and referees, with coaches starting in the classroom and referees starting on court and switching on day two of the workshops. Participants were also given start-up kits such as start coaching/referee resource handbook, and uniforms, to take with them. Furthermore, Eunice Wapi, a Madang participant added that the training was refreshing as before in the village, they would make up the rules as they went along and is therefore thankful that BFPNG, FIBA and ADF came forward to inform and upskill their officiating skills and knowledge. “I have been elevated to another level, now I have the confidence to run a basketball match and I love the sport even more.” The BFPNG thanked FIBA Oceania and ADF with special mentions made to Jay Clarke (ADF Captain), Royal Australian Navy Lieutenant Jo, Major Daniel Swifty ADF Army Officer, Operations Officer for ADF and Flight Sergeant Tatum, Annie Le Fleur FIBA Development Manager, and Peter Topp, Manager of Basketball for Good.

Preparations for the 2023 Trukai Fun Run (TFR) on Lihir Island are progressing well with local business houses and community groups supporting the event through the purchase of t-shirts. This includes Petro Oil, Lihir Athletics, Nationwide Scaffolding Services (NSS) Lihir Civil Construction (LCC), Anitua Retail, Lihir Auto Services, Monadelphous, Lihir Police and Anitua Protective Services (APS). Event Lead, Nancy Gah expressed that Anitua Limited is grateful for the support shown by these local businesses as well as the sports association, as the funds will go towards supporting two worthy causes. “We are fundraising to support the Kavieng General Hospital’s cancer screening clinic, as well as Team PNG to attend this year’s Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands.” “The positive response from these companies is a testament of their values to help local people in the area in which they conduct business.” From the purchase, LCC donated a total of 330 t-shirts to Sekunkun primary school while NSS donated 139 t-shirts to Lakuplien primary school and Anitua Retail will be sponsoring ten students from Lihir Secondary with a t-shirt each. In addition to this, Gah also stated that Monadelphous is another company that is known for giving back to communities through donations to local schools and clean-a-thon campaigns, so their support is appreciated. Other companies have also supported the Lihir event including Kina Bank, Nasfund and PNG Air. “There is a lot of enthusiasm to participate in the Trukai Fun, hence the mad rush from the public to purchase t-shirts. It’s exciting to see people already wearing the TFR shirts in town and even in the villages we’ve visited in the past week.” “We are anticipating at least a thousand participants at the event on the 20th of August and with two weeks to go, we encourage the wider public to purchase a shirt before the limited stock we have runs out.” Meanwhile, General Manager of NSS and Balasie, Steve Parsons, stated that their business has always been active in the community, supporting health and education and this event ticks both boxes. “Not only did we want to support Kavieng Hospital’s cancer screening clinic, but it also gives us the opportunity to involve the local children to be part of this worthy cause. So, with this, we decided to buy shirts for the entire grade seven and eight students of Lakuplien primary school, so they can participate in the Trukai Fun Run.” “We hope the rest of the community turn out in numbers along with the students and everybody has a great day.” This is the first time the landowner company is hosting the Trukai Fun Run on Lihir Island.

A fundamental element of health care delivery is accessibility, whether impaired by an illness, injury or living with a disability, being able to access and navigate a health care facility is the first step to receiving good care. For this reason, from the very start, the Australia-funded ANGAU Hospital Redevelopment, incorporated universal accessibility guidelines into the design. This includes access for people who are physically immobile; color contrast around doorways to provide contrast between frame, door, ceiling, wall; touchable signage for people who are visually impaired and a sound loop for people who are hearing-impaired; it has appropriate signage for people with vision impairment and low literacy and has implemented a Wayfinding Plan to improve the navigation for patients, especially with low mobility or literacy. Former employees of over twenty years of the National Orthotics and Prosthetic Service center at ANGAU, Martin Tiden and Eric Julai have witnessed an incredible evolution at the Hospital. According to Eric Julai, the old ANGAU Hospital wards were built on short posts and the walkways had timber flooring which sometimes makes access for wheelchair users difficult. “The new, redeveloped ANGAU Hospital facilities are now very user-friendly as the buildings are built on ground level and the walkways are cemented making it very easy for people using wheelchairs to move around and access the whole hospital area.” There are seven new wheelchair-accessible bathroom facilities located across the hospital with great maneuverability space. In these bathrooms, the room dimension, toilet pan, tapware, and basin height were designed to Australian standard for greatest ease of use by people with accessibility issues. In addition to this, Martin Tiden stated that the toilet doorways are wide enough, and the space has reachable grab rails. Bathrooms are also very spacious with no tub on the floor area. The ANGAU Hospital Redevelopment is an example of a successful partnership between the Government of Papua New Guinea and the Australian Government. The redevelopment is part of Australia’s commitment to support and strengthen healthcare in PNG.

Snapchat users were alarmed on Tuesday night when the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot posted a live update to its profile and stopped responding to messages. The Snapchat My AI feature — which is powered by the viral AI chatbot tool ChatGPT — typically offers recommendations, answers questions and converses with users. But posting a live Story (a short video of what appeared to be a wall) for all Snapchat users to see was a new one: It’s a capability typically reserved for only its human users. The app’s fans were quick to share their concerns on social media. “Why does My AI have a video of the wall and ceiling in their house as their story?” wrote one user. “This is very weird and honestly unsettling.” Another user wrote after the tool ignored his messages: “Even a robot ain’t got time for me.” Turns out, this wasn’t Snapchat working to make its My AI tool even more realistic. The company told CNN on Wednesday it was a glitch. “My AI experienced a temporary outage that’s now resolved,” a spokesperson said. Spotlight on AI concerns Still, the strong reaction highlighted the fears many people have about the potential risks of artificial intelligence. Since launching in April, the tool has faced backlash not only from parents but from some Snapchat users with criticisms over privacy concerns, “creepy” exchanges and an inability to remove the feature from their chat feed unless they pay for a premium subscription. Unlike some other AI tools, Snapchat’s version has some key differences: Users can customize the chatbot’s name, design a custom Bitmoji avatar for it and bring it into conversations with friends. The net effect is that conversing with Snapchat’s chatbot may feel less transactional than visiting ChatGPT’s website. It also may be less clear that you’re talking to a computer. While some may find value in the tool, the mixed reaction hinted at the challenges companies face in rolling out new generative AI technology to their products, and particularly in products like Snapchat, whose users skew younger. Snapchat was an early launch partner when OpenAI opened up access to ChatGPT to third-party businesses, with many more expected to follow. Source: CNN News

Madonna is feeling good. The singer has rescheduled the “Celebration Tour” dates she postponed following a health scare at her home in New York in June. The queen of pop was hospitalized in the ICU due to a bacterial infection and was later discharged to continue recovering at home. Madonna’s longtime manager Guy Oseary announced at the time that she would be postponing the launch of her tour that was scheduled to begin in July. On Tuesday, Live Nation announced that the North America rescheduled dates will take place immediately following the originally announced UK and Europe dates. Tickets for the previously scheduled shows will be honored on the new dates. A few shows will be canceled due to scheduling conflicts. “Madonna regrets the inconvenience to fans and hopes to make it up to those markets in the future,” Live Nation said in a statement Tuesday. Canceled shows include July 27 in Tulsa, Dec. 22 in Nashville, Jan. 15 in San Francisco, Jan. 18 in Las Vegas, and Jan. 20 in Phoenix. Those ticket buyers will get refunded. The tour officially kicks off with four sold out shows in London this October, followed by shows across Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands throughout the remainder of 2023. The North American leg starts on Dec. 13 in Brooklyn at Barclays Center. Source: CNN News

“Barbie” has broken numerous records since its July 21 opening and the summer blockbuster is close to breaking another one. Trailing behind “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” by an estimated $48 million, writer-director Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” appears destined to gain the top spot for highest grossing domestic film of 2023. “Barbie” raked in a stunning $155 million domestically in its opening weekend and last week joined the $1 billion club in global box office sales – a feat only achieved by about 50 films in history, adjusted for inflation, Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, told CNN. While “Pink Fever” has slowed in the last week, “Barbie” is estimated to have earned $33.7 million this weekend to maintain its stronghold in the theaters. The comedy about the iconic doll is estimated to have reached $525 million domestic and nearly $1.2 billion worldwide. “Barbie” took in $10 million Friday alone, earning an average above $11.3 million per day from August 5-11. “Barbie” passed the $500 million domestic mark in the middle of its third week, while “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” needed more than five weeks to reach the milestone. The combined release of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” dubbed “Barbenheimer,” has become a pop culture sensation and one that might revive the struggling movie theater industry. Together, Barbenheimer was the fourth highest-grossing industry weekend of all time in North America, totaling $302 million. Most top-grossing films often involve elaborate action scenes and special effects, unlike “Barbenheimer.” “I’ve been in this game for 30 years and the ‘Barbie’ and ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon is as unprecedented as it was unpredictable,” said Dergarabedian. He added the movie’s marketing campaign was the first hint “Barbie” would be a box office smash. “The marketing campaign for ‘Barbie’ set into motion a chain of events that led to the word ‘Barbenheimer’ being added to the popular lexicon by virtue of its shared release date with ‘Oppenheimer,’ and that’s when we all knew something very special and unique was going to create a much bigger than expected outcome for the film not only for the opening weekend, but for its global run in theaters,” said Dergarabedian. In an interview with Collider last month, Margot Robbie, who produced the movie in addition to playing the titular character, shared a premonition she had at a greenlight meeting with studios. “I think I told them they’d make a billion dollars which, maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make!” she said. “Barbie” is distributed by Warner Bros., which is owned by CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. Source: CNN News

South Pacific (SP) Lager is delighted to announce its nationwide promotion where four lucky individuals can be lucky winners of a 25-seater coaster bus from collection of six SP Large promo red caps to enter. Senior Brand Manager Miriam Lama in a statement said that a winner will be drawn from each of the four regions. “Local SP Lager consumers now could win one of four 25-seater buses in the Highlands, Momase, New Guinea Islands and Southern.” “The promotion started this month, August and will run for three months, ending on 31st October.” The promotion also includes minor draws in each region to win these prizes; first prize, a SP Lager Esky (70L), second prize a SP Hunter Club Hoodie, third prize a SP Hunters Jersey, fourth prize a SP Lager carton and fifth prize is a SP Lager Outdoor Beach Umbrella. “This is our first national promotional campaign, and we are excited to reward and retain our local consumers.” Each minor draw schedule will take place on the 24th of August to the 19th of October before a major draw is made. As for the Southern region, the draw will take place in Port Moresby, Popondetta and Alotau. For Momase, the minor draw will be made in Lae and Vanimo and for Highlands, will be in Goroka, Kainantu, Mt. Hagen, Jiwaka, Wabag and Kundiawa and finally for the Islands region will be made in Kokopo, Kavieng, Kimbe and Bougainville. Followed by this, the major draw will be made on the 10th, 13th, 14th, and 15th of November in Port Moresby (Southern), Lae (Momase), Goroka (Highlands) and Kokopo (Islands).

The Office of Censorship recently hosted its first of its kind Music Forum Workshop themed, "Respect and Decency in PNG Music," aimed at bringing together music artists, recording companies and the public to deliberate on the proposed General Guidelines for the classification of song lyrics by local musicians in Papua New Guinea (PNG). According to Chief Censor, Jim Abani, the National Censorship Policy II aspires to protect, promote and uphold moral and ethical values of society. The Office of Censorship is pursuing this by ensuring that the type of information content disseminated through films and publications including mass media, are descent and appropriate for public consumption. As music is an integral part of people’s social and cultural lives, it is the way the artists express themselves in a form and it is a form of art that defines who and what we are. They express their views, ideas by writing songs. However, with the content of music changing over time due to the advancement of technology evolving and many western influences, different styles of music are being created and this has also played a negative part in the music industry. With that, Abani stated that some songs are considered inappropriate nowadays for general consumption. “The Office of Censorship have received numerous calls and complaints regarding the content of the song that young artists of today have sung.” “As a government agency, we are responsible for the content in many forms either motion, written, pictorial or sound we have responsibility to ensure that the content is appropriate and suitable for public consumption by the people of Papua New Guinea.” Therefore, the office hosted this forum to gauge views from everyone who play a part in the industry. “This forum is for us to engage with artists to get what we want and hear from them so that we develop a good guideline to help them." "We want to hear from our songwriters, studio owners, composers, music artists and tell us what they want, and we return tell them what the government wants as well.” Furthermore, the forum also aimed to create awareness on music ethics by encouraging production of respectful and descent song lyrics and videos by the music artists. In-line with the Vision 2050, the Office of Censorship proposed guidelines is intended to regulate the production, sale and promotion of gender discriminatory songs, profane and sexually explicit lyrics, images and videos. These guidelines are fundamental for the spiritual cultural and social development of the country. Most importantly, the Office of Censorship is not intending to destroy the local talents, and creativity, but then again it is not prepared to stand and watch the moral values and Christian principles of the country deteriorate for the money and the benefit of a few people. In terms of the general guidelines for classification of song lyrics and music videos, the Censorship has made mention of pointers offensive in songs such as explicit languages, sexual themes, violence, use of drugs and alcohol, blasphemy, sedition and hate speech.

Warriors hooker Wayde Egan was sent to hospital in Hamilton after suffering a throat injury midway through the first half of his side’s clash with the Wests Tigers on Saturday night. Egan went down after being hit by the elbow of Stefano Utoikamanu, which saw the Wests Tigers prop put on report, while attempting to make a tackle in the 23rd minute. While Egan passed a HIA and was set to rejoin the bench, the call was made to instead send him to hospital as a precaution. "At this stage he is fine, he has gone to hospital for a check-up... when you are hit in the throat [if] something goes wrong you want to be in hospital," coach Andrew Webster said. The Eels have confirmed Mitchell Moses suffered a suspected fractured eye socket with scans to possibly rule him out for up to six weeks The injury is likely to rule Moses out for the remainder of the season and to compound the blow, the side also lost forward Andrew Davey in the 46th minute to a failed head injury assessment. Source: NRL.com

Instagram may have some new features up its sleeves for its users within the coming days. The social media platform is testing a feature that will let users tag a group of people on Instagram Stories via just a single mention. With the creator economy booming on Instagram at an international level, the platform keeps updating its feature palette to cater to a diverse range of user requirements. As of August, this year, the platform is estimated to have over 2.3 billion active users from around the world. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, disclosed some information about this upcoming feature on his broadcast channel titled ‘IG Updates'. Describing the feature, Mosseri said users would soon be able to add multiple followers to create one group, and instead of having to tag people individually on Stories, they would be able to just tag the group. Mention notifications, as part of the group tag, will be sent to all the members of the group and they will be able to re-share the post on their Stories as well. “We're testing a way to tag a group of people in a Story using a single mention. Once you create a group mention, it can be reused by anyone in the group to automatically tag everyone in any new Stories,” Techlusive quoted Mosseri as saying on his broadcast. For now, the timeline for the arrival of this feature remains undisclosed. The feature could be rolled out in the US before it reaches other regions, the Techlusive report added. Last month, the Meta-owned platform rolled out a Twitter-like application called ‘Threads'. Threads, which is integrated with users' Instagram accounts, quickly racked up 100 million sign-ups, posing a serious threat to Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter. Threads has been rolling out new features for its userbase, including a chronological ‘Following' feed on iOS and Android. Mosseri has also said that a Web version of the platform is in the works. Meta, in its stride towards adopting Metaverse features on its platforms and services, is allowing Meta avatars of users to be used during video calls on Instagram and Messenger. The company is also reportedly testing in-app AI chatbots that would give users at least 30 personalities to choose from. Instagram will turn 13 years old this year in October. Source: Gadgets360.com