THE BOTTOM LINE – News that matters most!

The Bottom Line, a brand-new midweek newspaper hit local newsstands today (August 8, 2007).

According to the introduction of the maiden issue, The Bottom Line will aim at giving a new face, feel and look for mainstream print journalism in its belief that as opposed to just providing information a newspaper should add value to every reader be it an ordinary citizen or a corporate leader. The Bottom Line will be a development, socio-economic-issues centered midweek newspaper with a promise to offer news that matters most!

The Bottom Line is published by Rivira Media Corporation which also runs the weekend newspaper The Nation.

This is the newest addition to the dedicated Midweek newspaper list which includes a host of other titles. The Bottom Line comes out every Wednesday.

The online Edition of The Bottom Line is up and running...
Log onto http://www.thebottomline.lk/

YES FM to air LIVE EARTH

The seventh month of the year 2007 has just arrived. And something very important is taking place on the seventh day of this month. It’s none other than the much-anticipated Live Earth. People from every corner of the world will get together to find an answer for the climate crisis...

YES FM has acquired the broadcast rights to air Live Earth in Sri Lanka. YES FM will join an international movement that will bring together more than 150 artists and two billion people worldwide in an effort to combat the climate crisis.

::LIVE EARTH::
Live Earth is a 24-hour 7-continent series of 9 concerts taking place on 7.7.07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to inspire a global movement to 'Answer the Call' and combat global warming. Official concerts will be staged at the following venues…

• Live Earth New York at Giants Stadium
• Live Earth London at Wembley Stadium
• Live Earth Sydney at Aussie Stadium
• Live Earth Rio de Janeiro at Copacabana Beach
• Live Earth Tokyo at Makuhari Messe
• Live Earth Shanghai at Oriental Pearl Tower
• Live Earth Johannesburg at the Cradle of Humankind
• Live Earth Hamburg at HSN Nordbank Arena
• Live Earth Istanbul at Inonu Stadium

Some of the artists confirmed to perform at "Live Earth" include Dave Mathews Band, Smashing Pumpkins, Bon Jovi, David Gray, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Duran Duran, Madonna, Damien Rice, Snow Patrol, Linkin Park and KT Tunstall. The concert series will kick off with the Australian leg. The newly re-formed Crowded House along with a host of homegrown acts will take the centre stage.

Live Earth will reach the worldwide audience through an unprecedented global media architecture covering all media platforms – Radio, TV, Internet and wireless. Live Earth is the first ever international concert event to be broadcast completely in High Definition and will be seen in more than 100 countries.

The live broadcast on YES FM will commence on 7.7.07 at 4pm onwards. The station will allow access to the full event including all 9 concerts. Tune into 89.5 in Colombo, 88.2 in Kandy & Down-South and 101 Islandwide. VH1 will carry the official Cable television coverage of the event. And Live Earth concerts will also be streamed live worldwide by MSN at http://www.liveearth.msn.com/

A full list of concert lineups, locations and more, including detailed information about the campaign, is now available at the official Live Earth Website
http://www.liveearth.org/

Sri Lankan lesbians need to see the reality!

Sri Lankan lesbian activists claim that the profile of participants at recent workshops held in different parts of the island goes to prove how many lesbians are living in Sri Lanka. Women from the age of 19 to 60 have been participated in the workshops.

Activists call upon the authorities to decriminalize homosexuality in Sri Lanka and allow lesbian and gays to enter into a marriage. In order to recognize the rights of lesbians the Government of Sri Lanka should repeal Section 365 of the Penal Code. The Sri Lankan legal system has made it extremely difficult for lesbians to lead normal lives in the real sense of the word. According to Section 365, having unnatural sex is a punishable offence. But lesbians question as to how many heterosexual couples indulge in ‘unnatural sex’. The Act came into force in December 2005. When other countries are recognizing the rights of homosexuals, Sri Lanka amended the Penal Code Act No.22 of 1995 and included the Lesbian act which stated that Lesbianism was an offence. Earlier the Penal Code covered only men having sex with men as an offence. Section 365 relating to unnatural offences stipulates that whoever performs a sexual act against the order of nature with a man, woman or animal could be punished with a maximum of a ten years imprisonment. However, these terms have rarely been used or not used at all.

Taking a case in point, a few years ago, a lesbian couple committed suicide in the coastal town of Kalutara because there was vehement parental objection to the affair. The social stigma and homophobic society in Sri Lanka have restricted the rights of Lesbian and Gays. They are subjected to public vilification, harassment, extortion and blackmail. In addition, family pressure mounts on Lesbian to enter into marriage and propagate family traditions. Activists further claim that homosexuals in Sri Lanka do not have the right of choice to select their partners. The right of choice should not be dictated by culture or family pressure but only by human rights…

For the record, the first ever Gay Pride event in Sri Lanka was held on July 20th 2005 - a date that will be remembered for years to come. More than 300 hundred people have packed into a leading club in Colombo for a very memorable celebration. The event was organized by Equal Ground which hails itself as the only organization in Sri Lanka serving the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning (LGBTIQ) community.

Main reports courtesy of The Nation & Sunday Lakbima News

Sri Lanka blocks access to TamilNet

Looks like Sri Lankan government has ordered all the local Internet Service Providers to block access to TamilNet. The website has been inaccessible from Sri Lanka for the past five days or so. TamilNet has later confirmed its site was filtered by the country’s main Internet service provider SLT and others.

TamilNet is one of the most widely surfed news sources on the web. The website mainly covers news and views related to the conflict situation in the North-East of Sri Lanka. It’s a well-known fact that a large number of Sri Lankans across the globe visit this particular website on a daily basis. The site has often been accused of supporting the rebels at LTTE.

According to reports, local ISPs have been blocking access to the website on the government orders since 15 June, Even though no official statement has been made available to the public by the authorities. It also revealed that the blockage came just days after the 10th anniversary of TamilNet’s creation.

Everything seems to be banning these days, from Movies to Newspapers to Cable TV. The corrupted Sri Lankan government is now stepping into the Internet which should be freely available for any individual to speak their heart out. This is probably the first time Sri Lanka banned an online content. So what’s the purpose of blocking TamilNet? Banning an English language website is unacceptable. This is another stupid move by our so called country to mislead the public. This is violation of online freedom. I don’t have a wide knowledge when it comes to this type of issues. But I was under impression that this controversial government is now in the process of preventing citizens from accessing reliable information which are otherwise not covered by local mainstream media. Can even consider it as hiding the truth!! This is the latest attempt to keep the people in the dark. Remember last year, they illegally shut down cable TV operator CBNSat just because it reaches a wide audience….

Even though TamilNet has now being blocked from Sri Lanka, you can still access the site by using anonymous services and proxies. So there’s no need to worry about. I just had a visit. There are a couple of articles on TamilNet regarding the situation.

The TamilNet website is still fresh and updated. The only problem is you can’t have normal access from the footprints of Sri Lanka unless you are connected through a foreign or satellite based ISP.

Report by Free Media Movement

http://www.freemediasrilanka.org/index.php?action=con_news_full&id=625&section=news

Website

http://www.tamilnet.com/

SUNDAY LAKBIMA NEWS arrives

A brand new English newspaper called SUNDAY LAKBIMA NEWS hits local newsstands today. This is the newest addition to the list of weekend newspapers.

The maiden copy of today contains six sections. And it has covered local, international, business, sports and lifestyle news.

There was a promo trailer going on media informing the public to switch to a new medium from 17th June. The buzz was all about the arrival of this newspaper.

Online Edition
http://www.lakbimanews.lk/

AL JAZEERA: Sri Lanka war claims civilian lives

First of all, I should mention that I’m not really interested in posting political and ethnic stuff. But a couple of days ago while I was browsing channels on Cable TV, I came across this interesting programme about Sri Lanka on Al Jazeera. This documentary mainly focused on Sri Lanka’s never ending conflict and children that abducted by Tamil Ealam and other unknown gangs. It’s really got me thinking how outsiders may look at our country. And when I logged onto the net this morning the particular report was all over the Sri Lankan news portals. So I thought of sharing it with you. Here’s the exact report which was later posted on Al Jazeera’s official website...

Al Jazeera:
Sri Lanka's ongoing conflict, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, has seen an increasing number of civilian disappearances. The government and the Tamil Tigers blame each other.

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley reports from Sri Lanka, where human rights groups say more than a thousand people have either vanished or been abducted in the past year alone, most of them Tamils.

In a police station in eastern Sri Lanka, six, seemingly ordinary teenage girls wait to be processed. Their short hairstyles mark them out as female fighters in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam. The girls say they were forced to fight for the Tigers.

"I was walking with my mother going to see my grandmother,” one of the girls told Al Jazeera. "Then the LTTE attacked my mother and took me away."

Pushpu, another of the girls, says she was taken three months ago as she tended her parents’ vegetable garden. Most of the girls are about 16-years-old. Pushpu is only 14.

The girls were trained to use machine guns and dig bunkers in an area called Thoppigala, bombarded daily by the Sri Lankan army. They say they ran away because they could not bear the hardships of life with the Tigers. They say they are innocent victims and that they just want to go back to school, but first they will either be sent to jail or for rehabilitation.

The girls' stories are part of a growing problem in Sri Lanka, where a wave of abductions and assassinations have swept the country, blamed on everything from politics to death squads and criminals.

Tony Birtley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQZVyFqKdmo

Meteorite crashes into Sri Lanka

A meteorite has crashed into Sri Lanka. A mysterious noise heard in several areas in the country including Kuliyapitiya, Nattandiya, Bingiriya and Puttalam last Sunday night (June 10) at around nine. Authorities later reported that there had been a loud sound with a simultaneous glow in the sky. But the cause of the incident has not been revealed until the Astronomy Unit of Colombo and Arthur C. Clark Centre confirmed last evening that it caused by a Meteorite explosion.

The meteoroid has exploded in the air above Sri Lanka illuminating the night sky. According to the Arthur C. Clark Centre the size of the meteoroid was around one meter. And some pieces from the exploded meteorite have fallen into a nearby house in Andiambalama. The areas affected by this natural incident had undergone disturbance at the time of the explosion.

Arthur C. Clark Centre further claims that there may have been a meteorite shower, because the centre had received information about unusual sightings from different areas. The organization is to do some research. Many meteorites fall throughout the year. But for the record, this is probably the biggest incident reported from Sri Lanka in recent times.

Know when to kiss her…

How often have you seen the perfect opportunity for that first smooch, just as it passes you by? Here’s how to prevent missing the moment again.

Judge her mood
Don’t trust the usual body language stuff. Hair twiddling, wrist and neck displays and the like can be highly misleading on their own. Women in particular make very ambiguous signals. Try to get at least four of these positive signals in rapid succession before going for a kiss.

Read when she’s flirting
Women have 52 non verbal solicitation behaviors to attract men. Most women can flirt. Some favourite signals that she’s interested are tilting her head to the side, tucking in her chin, pushing her hair behind her ears and narrowing her eyes, making them smoulder.

Make the move
Kissing is an invasion of personal space. Don’t just lunge or you’ll take her by surprise, and embarrassment and regret will ensue. Quickly testing how welcome you are just inches from her face is the goal and leaning in to speak into her ear works best. A safe distance can only be found by moving closer until the person leans away.

Have a back-up plan
Even if it looks like all systems go, the only sure signal of success occurs just a heartbeat before your lips lock. So it’s wise to perfect a move that can easily convert to complete innocence if you have to abort at the last moment. For example lean in whispering “Do you know what…?” before pausing a second. You can still save face, simply by finishing off the sentence.