Things That Matter...

“Burden of virginity” is the first Uzbek documentary unveiling Uzbek traditions on female pride and honour. The movie was issued on March 5 and raised an important issue not only for Uzbekistan, but also for all oriental countries. The film focuses on the preservation of virginity by the wedding ceremony. The controversy of the topic promised higher attention of the public. The movie was produced by the director of Tashkent Cinema Museum and film-maker Oleg Karpov and his wife Umida Ahmedova. According to the old tradition, the relatives of the groom want to demonstrate the bed sheet with blood spots as evidence of the fiancé’s virginity after the wedding night. It is a big shame for the girl if the bed sheet is clean. The majority of people in Uzbekistan, particularly in the rural areas, support the old tradition. The relatives of the groom often insist on medical examination of the bride prior to the wedding. Moreover, this custom is supported by prominent scient...

Twelve Dorset schools performed on the spectacular show "C2R Dorset Police Rock Challenge "in Pavilion yesterday night. Each school created their own eight-minute "mini-West-End" performance in electric competition. The event is drug and crime prevention vehicle that comes in the form of a friendly performing arts competition. Achieving a natural high through performance rather than through the use of substances was the aim of the event. Dorset Police in their statement said "the police proud of local students and delightful to support the event, which aimed to improve the quality of life for all of society by encouraging young people to take an active role in building safe and healthy communities." Scholars presented variety of social issues in their programmes such as slavery issues, clones phenomenon, credit crunch, madness of reality TV and others. There were other great pieces concerned youth directly. So, Testbourne Community School made a great per...

Pottery and philosophy have been combined in a new exhibition at the Russell-Cotes Museum. Mosaic artist Cleo Mussi blended different ceramic styles, forms and colours in her new collection 'A-Z Hand Book'. The image of a hand is a symbol and the idea of a hand book developed a guide through an alphabet of images. Pieces were presented in traditional A-Z format, set alongside a series of inspiring text created by the writer, Paul Patterson. The art exponents presented not only hand images and letters, but deep philosophical meaning. The exhibition started with A, which stands for alphabet. Two mosaic palms containing letters and patterns. Paul Patterson describes its philosophical meaning: "Letters of the English aphabet, a system of vowels and consonants capable of combining to move men to tears, force change, give us meaning, capture a moment, put in print and tell a story." Human feelings, characteristics and acts such as love, care, wisdom, kissin...

The number of Bournemouth elderly people interested in a computer literacy project has almost tripled. Only a year ago Bournemouth Age Concern started a programme, Purple Project, to help the elderly to gain basic computer skills. Today it provides sessions at West Howe, Christchurch, Winton and Ferndown. There are more than 10 million elderly people in the world that use internet to check e-mail and read news. According to internet users statistics, the amount of users who are over 55 is increasing rapidly in the UK. Bournemouth is renowned for its aged population, which is almost 40% of all residents. Kerith Wyllie, Purple Project Coordinator, said: "The Project provides various activities in the community for the over-55s to help them keep active physically, mentally and socially. The increasing number of people attending these courses shows that older people are really interested in new communication opportunities. Retirees have lots of free time, they want to...

Dorset businesses hoping to fight back against the recession got together to enhance their public relations skills at a workshop yesterday. The Dorset Chamber of Commerce & Industry organised the two hour training session entitled "How to make PR work for you." Speaker Emma James from Tasty Marketing explained to local businessmen how to achieve free publicity, press coverage and profile building. She also spoke about the importance of developing a relationship with media and how to maximise appeal for press releases. Miss James assured the panel that having good communications with the media and the general public would provide 'the icing on the cake for business - new customers, returning customers and recognition.' "It can help local businesses by increasing their understanding of what PR is and the potential of what it can achieve for them. If you don't talk to the public, someone else will. Businesses, here and now, need to engage with t...

Religious communities in Bournemouth have followed the events in Gaza with a huge interest, providing different opinions, criticising or supporting Israeli actions. Bournemouth Imam and Muslim community leader Mr Yassin Majid, said: "The Muslim community is very sad for the people of Gaza and empathises. There is not problem between Muslims and Jews, the problem is who occupied land. "I do not support Hamas, but I believe that Palestinians resist Israel in order to get back their country which has been taken a long time ago. "Hamas won a democratic election with the 70% of votes. This represents a real picture and real wish of Palestinians not to not just be guests on their own land, but owners. For too much time Palestinians have lived in extremely poor life conditions, there is no food, no medicines and even no electricity. Enough is enough," said Mr Yassin. Many believe this was no spontaneous operation, no mere response to the recent firing of rockets...