SOCIAL democracy has become rather fashionable in Cyprus in recent years. It all begun a few years ago, when the socialist party EDEK decided to rebrand and rename itself. The ‘socialist’ tag had become rather old-fashioned, especially after the former communist parties of eastern Europe started contesting elections as socialist parties.
THOUSANDS of Greek Cypriots crossed the Green Line to the occupied areas over the Kataclysmos holiday weekend, police said yesterday. Almost 9,500 Greek Cypriots visited the north on Sunday, while 5,551 Turkish Cypriots had crossed from the four Green Line checkpoints of Pergamos, Strovilia, Ledra Palace and Ayios Dhometios by midnight.
CYPRUS has until the end of the month to respond to a 2001 Council of Europe (CoE) report inviting the island’s authorities to show that they have implemented recommendations to combat corruption.
A 21-YEAR-old Bangladeshi man has been remanded for eight days in connection with the premeditated murder of his cousin, police said yesterday.
A GREEK Cypriot man living in the United States killed his former Greek-American partner of 10 years and shot himself at a diner in New York state on Sunday. Demetris Zodiatis, 39, shot and killed mother of three Archontoula Yiannacopoulos, 47, at the ‘Oasis’ diner that she owned in a town called Patchogue, shortly after 6.30am.
MAINLAND Turks (settlers or naturalised Turkish Cypriots, depending on your point of view) have for the past two months been left on the fringes while their Turkish Cypriot friends and relatives cross the Green Line freely into the free areas of Cyprus. Many mainland Turks settled on the island shortly after 1974 in an effort by the Turkish government to bolster the population in the north.
TURKISH Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash said yesterday that UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan’s plan could not be revived and that he knew nothing of a US plan to resume talks in September. Denktash was speaking after a 90-minute meeting with US State Department Special Co-ordinator for Cyprus, Thomas Weston, whose visit fuelled recent reports of an American plan for a resumption in talks.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
