WHEELCHAIR users have been complaining for years now about the lack of facilities that would help them move around easily without any help. The lack of ramps at many buildings or access point on pavements is probably the most frequent complaint, as it greatly restricts their ability to move unaided.
SIMERINI: “Appeal over double homicide sentence”. Prosecution lawyer Savvas Matsas said he would be appealing the sentence handed down to 55-year-old Charalambos Afxentiou for the premeditated double murder of 60-year-old Andreas Skylourgiotis and his 38-year-old son Charalambos from Mouttalos in Paphos. The judge jailed Afxentiou for 20 years, a sentence Matsas deemed insufficient.
A MEMORIAL Service for well-known pianist Keghdsin Guebenlian, who died earlier this year, will be held on Sunday at the Armenian Church in Nicosia, presided over by His Eminence Archbishop Varouj Hergelian, the Armenian Community’s Prelate in Cyprus.
THE GOVERNMENT yesterday awarded its first private sector GSM licence to the Lebanese-backed Scancom group. In the island’s first foray into telecoms deregulation in October, Scancom placed a winning £12.75 million bid for the 20-year concession, more than double the minimum £5.7 million set by regulators when bidding began.
JUSTICE Minister Doros Theodorou yesterday stood by his claim that many women brought to Cyprus as artistes voluntarily engaged in prostitution, basing his comments on police data, and were not forced into it by cabaret owners, as reported by the Ombudswoman. The minister described the law on prostitution as hypocritical and called for radical changes in the sex industry in Cyprus.
DEPUTIES yesterday tried to enter the plenum in a wheelchair in an effort to demonstrate the difficulties faced by handicapped people in accessing Parliament. The move was an initiative by Green Party deputy George Perdikis, in a campaign to highlight the lack of accessibility to public buildings.
THE CHAIRMAN of the Cyprus Cement Company in Moni, George Galatariotis, said yesterday a temporary shortage in cement would soon be overcome, but warned of serious problems in the new year due to the massive boom in the building industry.
FORMER HOUSE President Alexis Galanos warned yesterday the intended government crackdown on secret accounts could put Cyprus at risk of losing hundreds of millions of pounds to banks in the Far East, if it was not preceded by a new tax amnesty incentive.
TORRENTIAL rainfall and strong winds yesterday caused flooding across the island, with the fire brigade receiving dozens of phone calls to pump out water from people’s homes and basements and to rescue drivers whose vehicles were trapped. The weather caused a five-car pile up in the tunnel on the Limassol-Paphos motorway.
EUROPEAN Union Enlargement Commissioner Gunther Verheugen has accused Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash of tampering with electoral rolls in an effort to engineer the outcome of elections in the occupied north on Sunday week.
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.
