FARMERS staged a one-hour mass demonstration across the island yesterday causing traffic chaos after they blocked key routes with their combine harvesters and tractors.

OPERATIONS Manager Gad Haran has been sent over by Israeli company IDE, the owners of the Pelagos desalination plant in Larnaca, in an effort to ensure production of water is not interrupted by the strike by PEO union members that started yesterday.

THE ELECTRICITY Authority (EAC) announced yesterday that electricity supply reached a new record high yesterday with 775MW. The last month saw the record high broken four times, with the last high of 773MW recorded on July 18. The EAC attributed the rise in supply to the escalating use of air conditioning units.

SAFETY issues seemed to have taken priority over tactics in the build-up to tonight’s Champions League second round qualifying match at the GSP stadium in Nicosia between Israel’s Maccabi Haifa and Belshina Bobrisk of Belarus.

THE NEW Paphos airport will start operating at the end of 2004, while Larnaca’s new airport should be up and running at the beginning of 2005, Communications Minister Averoff Neophytou said yesterday.

THE UNITED States has introduced import restrictions on Cypriot antiquities after a bilateral agreement between the two countries, making Cyprus only the second country in Europe after Italy to sign such an agreement, the Head of the Antiquities Department, Sofoclis Hadjisavvas, said yesterday.

THE PRESIDENTIAL election race degenerated further yesterday, with the two biggest parties, AKEL and DISY, shying away from policy statements to engage in a bitter exchange concerning allegations of phone tapping and secret agents.

A FIRE broke out in Ayios Epifanios yesterday morning, threatening the ‘Adelfi’ state forest in the Nicosia district, the forestry department said. The blaze erupted at around 11am and took fire-fighters 45 minutes to bring under control.

THE European Union is tightening the noose on Cyprus over the illegal trapping of millions of endangered migratory birds by mist netting and lime sticking.

A 50-year-old woman has been found dead on the roof of an apartment block in Limassol. Antastasia Soupidou was found at around 11am yesterday where she had been painting a water tank. She was rushed to Limassol hospital but was dead on arrival.