PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday unveiled plans to increase annual tourism revenue to 1.8 billion and arrivals to 3.5 million by 2010. The new vision is a revised version of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) strategic plan, but with a new emphasis on implementation. The 2003-2010 plan for tourism was yesterday unanimously approved at a meeting of all partners in the tourism sector.
PHILELEFTHEROS: “Civil war over football” The daily led with the scuffles between football club officials and players and police during a Saturday game. The fracas took a political twist, when opposition DISY leader claimed police used excessive force in the stadium. In turn, Justice Minister Doros Theodorou accused Nicos Anastassiades of interfering with police business.
RESIDENTS of the remote Paphos district village of Pyrgos Tyllirias have blamed inadequate emergency provisions for the death on Monday of a former Paphos school teacher. The Health Ministry yesterday insisted there was nothing that could have saved the man.
WOOLWORTH in Cyprus has concluded a two-part agreement with UK department store Debenhams, the group’s commercial director confirmed yesterday. Fintan Straughan told the Cyprus Mail the first part of the agreement involved obtaining operating rights for operating and trading a full Debenhams store on the island. The company’s target is to open the shop’s doors in Nicosia in March 2004, he said.
EUROPA Nostra, a pan-European federation bringing together more than 200 heritage associations, has asked President Tassos Papadopoulos to call a halt to controversial work on the chapel at the Apostolos Andreas monastery in occupied Karpasia.
FIFTY-SIX-year-old Charalambos Afxentiou was sentenced to 20 years in prison yesterday for the double murder of father and son Andreas and Charalambos Skyllouriotis outside their home in Mouttalos last year.
INSURANCE companies invested £500 million in the Stock Exchange between 1999 and 2000, and lost around 70 per cent of it when the index eventually took a plunge. Now, insurance policy holders are asking for payback for the £350 million lost, says the chairman of the association for insured people (PASEPA), Georgios Christoforou.
THE Cyprus Hunting Association yesterday offered a £3,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the poisoning of 18 hunting dogs on Sunday. The dogs were poisoned in the area of Lara in the Paphos district on the first day of the hunting season.
THE GOVERNMENT may yesterday have relaunched its strategic plan for tourism, but one of the least successful proposals from the original plan – the creation of a network of marinas – is still up in the air.
SEVENTY-NINE per cent of young Cypriots believe there are too many foreigners on the island, a survey conducted by the European Commission has found.
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.
