U.N. SECRETARY-general Kofi Annan will urge members of the Security Council to turn their attention to ending the economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriots who voted to accept his reunification plan in April’s referendum when he presents his long-awaited report into the failed effort to reunify the island today.

KOFI ANNAN’S report said that the outcome of four-and-a-half years of effort on the Cyprus issue represented another “missed opportunity” to resolve the problem and said the Greek Cypriot side could have achieved more had it engaged in any give and take throughout the final stages of the process.

FUEL companies yesterday assured motorists they would not yet increase their prices, despite a record rise in international crude oil prices.

THE FOREIGN Ministry has ordered embassies around the world to hire local staff to replace transferred Cypriot employees in order to cut down on expatriate allowance costs.
Otherwise, the ministry warned they would not send any replacements to the embassies and that they would have to do with existing staff.

PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday signed an agreement in Boston with Harvard University to set up a regional research institute in Cyprus to a mixed reaction back home.

ACTING DIKO head, Nicos Cleanthous, yesterday played down calls for constitutional changes to put Cyprus in line with the EU’s acquis communautaire, arguing that now was not the best time for such alterations.

FIVE Turkish Cypriot journalists and the secretary of the Kibris Media Group have been notified that they will be summoned by a Turkish miliary court over reports and editorials they published more than a year ago about a symbolic referendum that took place in the village of Elia (Doganci).

If prosecuted and convicted, the six could face jail sentences of between 21 and 88 years.

THE editor of Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika, Sener Levent, said yesterday he had filed a case with the Supreme Court over the government’s refusal to allow him to stand as a candidate in European Parliament elections on June 13.

THE government does not consider the row between DISY and its rebels regarding the Euro elections in any way cause for concern, the Government Spokesman said yesterday.

The problem appeared after former DISY (Democratic Rally) deputies and rebel supporters decided to form their own party and name it Rally for Europe.

U.N. SECRETARY-general Kofi Annan yesterday called for a review of his Cyprus peacekeeping operation UNFICYP, amid speculation that his aim was to drastically reduce the 1,200-strong force.