POLICE released a 44-year-old Bulgarian man yesterday after arresting him for attempted murder on Tuesday.

Petar Petrof was arrested and remanded for eight days by the Famagusta District Court when police found his wife unconscious and with a rope around her neck, in their house in Avgorou in the Famagusta area.

THE heatwave may have ‘come home to roast’ yesterday, but most tourists seemed to be taking it in their stride, enjoying the hotter than usual scorching Cyprus sun.

“The hotter the better!” said British visitor Sarah Prowdley, one of the tourists questioned in a Cyprus Mail straw poll on Nicosia’s Ledra Street at around midday yesterday.

A 24-HOUR air-conditioned ‘cool down’ centre near the Famagusta Gate in Nicosia will once again give local residents, especially the old and infirm, a place to escape from the stifling summer heat.

The Nicosia Municipality will be reopening the centre, which was set up last year, from tomorrow until temperatures begin to decrease.

VETERAN KISOS deputy Doros Theodorou yesterday warned that if the socialist party’s supporters did not elect Takis Hadjidemetriou as their next leader the party would probably get even smaller.

Theodorou charged that the communist party AKEL was using the crisis in KISOS to poach some of its centre-leftist faithful.

CYPRUS comes 25th on a list of 162 countries classified according to the quality of life enjoyed by its citizens.

The list was issued by United Nations Development Programne, and rates countries on a scale of 1 to 162, according to education standards, per capita income, and life expectancy.

The report considers the island to be highly developed.

AN IRANIAN man suspected of being a drug-runner has been released without charge. The 51-year-old man, who had been arrested on arrival at Larnaca Airport from Teheran on Friday morning, was freed on Tuesday.

THE Cyprus bourse sank to a new year low yesterday, shedding 2.34 per cent as heavyweights led by technology share GlobalSoft were hammered in a wave of selling.

GlobalSoft, the market’s third largest company, lurched to a double limit down and was suspended from trade after losing 27.5 per cent, or 46 cents to hit an all-time low of £1.21.

COMMERCE, Industry and Tourism Minister Nicos Rolandis says he has referred the issue of alleged irregularities in the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) budget to Attorney-general Alecos Markides for his legal opinion.

THE Cabinet yesterday decided to freeze work on the construction of a desalination unit at Paralimni and at the same time speed up the procedures to build a unit in the Akrotiri area.

THE ELECTRICITY Authority (EAC) yesterday said it favoured natural gas as an alternative to oil for running its power stations, flatly denying reports of a set-to with the government over the issue.