Nadeesha hemamali and uditha lokubandara

03 August 2015

Thomas Cook buys Sri Lankan firm Luxe Asia
Acquisition of Luxe Asia will give Thomas Cook India significant presence in Sri Lanka with destination management capabilities and the Indian Ocean region
Tour operator Thomas Cook (India) Ltd on Thursday said it has acquired Luxe Asia Pvt. Ltd, a destination management company based in Sri Lanka.
The company did not disclose the value of the acquisition, made through Thomas Cook Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, its wholly owned subsidiary.
Luxe Asia will be operated as an independent entity, Thomas Cook said in a statement.
Thomas Cook India’s acquisition of Luxe Asia will give it significant presence in Sri Lanka with destination management capabilities and the Indian Ocean region besides synergies with its key business lines of outbound, inbound and corporate MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions).

New Technology

Disco-era spacecraft not dead, just out of gas

A citizen science effort to revive a middle-aged spacecraft has come to a close after the probe's rockets failed to fire.

But there may be life in Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White has a mixed track record. He was the first Apple watcher to reveal that the company planned to launch an iPad mini, though details were scarce at the time, and he also was the first with sources who pointed to an iPhone being made available in several new colors last year. White has also had some big misses though, and he famously suggested that Apple was working on an iTV controlled by an “iRing,” that would be worn on the user’s finger — which seems… unlikely. the old spacecraft yet, says Keith Cowing of space news site NASA Watch, who helped spearhead the rescue effort.

"It's not a zombie, it's not a Flying Dutchman, it just ran out of gas," Cowing says. "The stereo still works and so does the air conditioner."

The International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3) launched in 1978 as a joint US and European mission to study how the solar wind, a flood of charged particles from the sun, interacts with our planet's magnetic field. It originally orbited at the L1 Lagrange point – a spot between the sun and the Earth where their combined gravitational forces effectively cancel out so smaller objects can hold still.

But in the mid-1980s, ISEE-3 left its home base to orbit the sun and chase comets Giacobini-Zinner and Halley. The spacecraft was supposed to shut down in 1997, but surprisingly, the international Deep Space Network received a signal from it in 2008.

Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts get World Cup Satisfaction

The Rolling Stones’ Front man Mick Jagger and drummer Charlie Watts were introduced to the ICC Cricket World Cup trophy and given a private tour of the Bradman Museum at the Adelaide Oval by John, Don Bradman’s son.

The world-famous rockstars were full of excitement when they spotted the World Cup Trophy from a distance, and they later also held and posed with the trophy. Jagger joked that he was as close to the World Cup Trophy as any Englishman was going to get.

Jagger and Watts hoped for an England triumph in the tournament that will be held in Australia and New Zealand, starting from February 14, 2015. England is placed in Pool A along with Australia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Afghanistan and Scotland, and will play its first match against co-host Australia on February 14 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The Rolling Stones, one of the most famous and successful music groups of all time, are known for their passion for cricket. Jagger, a lifelong cricket enthusiast, set up Jagged Internetworks, a company that webcasted cricket matches, in 1997. In April last year during their North American tour, they asked for a snooker table and a television with ongoing cricket matches.

In a celebrity match in 1996, Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones took what he claimed was the first televised hat-trick at The Oval in England, with his victims being television newsreader Trevor McDonald, cricket presenter Charles Colvile and Gary Lineker, the retired football star.

The Rolling Stones arrived in Australia on October 19 and held their first show in the Adelaide Oval, venue of four matches in the World Cup, on Saturday night. They’ll also be traveling to Perth, Victoria, New South Wales and Brisbane during their Australia tour.

Vilanguwa Suwasetha

Brisbane man gets pranked by Australian-Sri Lankan comedian

A MAN from Brisbane’s southside unwittingly became the butt of the joke after posting an online advertisement with very specific requirements of a potential house mate.

A Gumtree member posted an ad for a room for rent in his family home at Eight Mile Plains earlier this month, which caught the eye of Legally Brown comedian Nazeem Hussain.

In the ad, which has since been suspended by Gumtree, the man stipulated he would “prefer like-minded people” to apply for the room.

“Sorry no backpackers, Indians and Muslims,” the ad stated.

The ad also touted the house’s size, cleanliness, modern conveniences and proximity to public transport.

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Nadeesha hemamali and uditha lokubandara