Free Republic

The discovery of pottery from the ancient Lapita culture by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) has shed new light on how Papua New Guinea (PNG) served as a launching pad for the colonization of the Pacific—one of the greatest migrations in human history.The new study makes clear the initial expansion of the Lapita people throughout PNG was far greater than previously thought.The study... is based on the discovery of a distinctive Lapita pottery sherd, a broken piece of pottery with sharp edges, on Brooker Island (200km east of mainland PNG) in 2017 that lead researcher Dr. Ben Shaw...

They are some of the biggest names in the Republican national security firmament, veterans of past GOP administrations who say, if called upon by President-elect Donald Trump, they stand ready to serve their country again. But their phones aren’t ringing. Their entreaties to Trump Tower in New York have mostly gone unanswered. In Trump world, these establishment all-stars say they are “PNG” — personae non gratae. Their transgression was signing one or both of two public “Never Trump” letters during the campaign, declaring they would not vote for Trump and calling his candidacy a danger to the nation. ... During...

SIMMERING tensions mixed with alcohol have been blamed for Papua New Guinea's media night of nights turning into an all-in brawl. The 2008 PNG Media Council awards ceremony on Saturday night erupted in a fight requiring Port Moresby hotel security to step in and pull apart scrapping guests. The fight came late in the proceedings, after speeches on the importance of media freedom and accurate reporting. Fighting between staff at PNG's Post-Courier newspaper, owned by News Limited, and colleagues from PNG's National Broadcasting Corporation marred what was generally considered a successful evening. "It is embarrassing," one attendee said. "This stuff...

Today I was working on a PowerPoint file for a client presentation, using PowerPoint 2002 on a computer running XP Home with SP2. I sent them the file, and they sent it back to me, substituting one of their own images, in PNG format, for a JPG image I had used. When I opened the file they sent me, it stayed open for about five seconds, then I got the dreaded "PowerPoint has encountered an error and must close." This happened a few more times. Then, after opening the file one more time, I right clicked on the PNG graphic...

AS thousands of old Diggers march today, hundreds of thousands of Australians too young to remember the Vietnam War will read of the bravery of our troops in the two world wars, 1914-18 and 1939-45. But one group of brave allies from World War II will be nearly ignored again. The unexpected box-office success of the Australian movie Kokoda, which started screening across the country on Anzac Day last year, highlighted the unexpected resolve and fighting skills of the so-called "chocolate soldiers" of the home-based Citizen Military Force and their role in stopping the Japanese advance on the Kokoda Track...

A STRONG earthquake hit Papua New Guinea today. The US Geological Survey said the 6.5 magnitude quake hit at 9.25am local time, with an epicentre 577km from Port Moresby.

NEW YORK — The scandal engulfing the United Nations Procurement Department () now appears to be bottomless. It also shows signs of growing more sinister, especially where it involves a mysterious private company called IHC Services (), which did big business with the procurement department until it was removed from U.N. rosters in June. New details of how dark the scandal could prove to be have emerged from the private sale of IHC on June 3, 2005, just as the procurement scandal was about to break. It now appears that while doing business with the U.N., IHC had links both to Saddam...

Apparently some version of AOL Browser does not handle PNG graphics at all, and instead prompts to download them. Either the same browser, or another, invokes RealDownload on the PNG graphics each time they're displayed. I removed the PNG graphics from FreeRepublic until I can find a more acceptable format. GIF graphics are encumbered by patents, the patent holder requires a royalty payment for each graphic generated, so that isn't a go. Will probably end up with JPG graphics. Sheesh.