A 31-year-old man was shot dead in Limassol early yesterday in what police believe was a professional contract killing. According to eyewitnesses Pavlos Hadjicostas, otherwise known as Michalou, was gunned down by two men as he was walking towards the entrance of his apartment block in the Yermasoyia tourist district at around 5.15am.

GREEK and Turkish Cypriots joined forces yesterday in a demonstration against American and Israeli policies in the Middle East. Around 150 people, including Palestinian supporters, marched from Nicosia’s Eleftheria Square to the US embassy and from there to the Israeli embassy where scores of police in riot gear had been deployed. There were no incidents.

NICOSIA Mayor Michalakis Zampelas yesterday denied that two senior neurologists at the Neurology and Genetics Institute had received termination notices. Instead, Zampelas, who is Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Institute, said two doctors had been told to abandon their private practices by December.

A 39-year-old man has been arrested for crashing into a parked car while he was drunk, police said yesterday. They said that at around 5.40pm on Friday, the Irishman, a permanent resident of Cyprus, tried to move his car which was parked on Evagoras Pallikarides St in Oroklini in the Larnaca district, and crashed into another parked car belonging to Paraskevas Sophoclis from Oroklini.

A 30-year-old Nicosia man was killed yesterday in the fourth fatal road accident in the past five days. At around 1.30am, Charalambos Kekkos from Lakatamia was driving his motorbike along Athanassios Diakos Road when he lost control, collided with an electricity pole, and was thrown from the vehicle, police said. Kekkos was rushed to Nicosia general hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

POLICE yesterday arrested a 21-year-old Larnaca man after he allegedly beat up his 18-year-old girlfriend with the intention of making her miscarry. The couple had been staying at the Protea Hotel in Pyla on Friday night when the young man attacked her, police said.

LARNACA police have arrested three people after finding a 22-year-old man and 23-year-old cabaret artiste in flagrante delicto in a club in the town on Friday night. The officers visited the cabaret for a routine check at 10.45pm on Friday when they found a naked man and woman in a room shielded by curtains.

THE TURKISH Cypriot side yesterday remanded a couple for two days and were still holding a Greek Cypriot man after making four arrests during two separate incidents in the space of 24 hours. On Friday afternoon a Turkish patrol boat seized a man and a woman in a small pleasure craft off Paralimni, and later in the day Turkish Cypriots arrested two Greek Cypriots after finding shotgun cartridge

U.S. SECRETARY of State Colin Powell yesterday urged all sides in Cyprus to work for a solution before the island joins the European Union next May. Powell was speaking during a meeting with Foreign Ministers of EU member states and acceding countries, which took place on the sidelines of UN General Assembly in New York.

Sir, I have lost count of the number of times I have called in the people of the Paphiakos Animal Shelter to help me remove animals from neighbourhoods where they were being poisoned or because there were too many to survive on the amount of food available in the area. They never once said ‘no’.