Residents of Tala village in the Paphos district were forced to fight for their homes with their hosepipes as a blazing fire threatened the whole area yesterday.

CANCER patients and relatives yesterday demonstrated outside the Presidential Palace demanding an answer as to what would happen to cancer patients when the old Nicosia general hospital transfers to the new hospital next year.

The Bank of Cyprus (BoC) Oncology Centre has already said it does not currently have the capacity to take on more patients.

THE 10 Pakistanis deported from the island on suspicion of terrorist links were wrongly detained by the police, their lawyer in Cyprus Sotiris Drakos claimed yesterday, backing up a complaint by the Pakistani human rights organisation, the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International and Prisoners Aid Society.

POLICE are investigating four cases of attacks on officers between Monday night and the early hours of yesterday.

The first incident occurred at around 8pm on Monday in Nicosia, when a police officer stopped a 17-year-old who was driving a motorcycle with no licence plate.

THE WOES of the Church did not end with the completion of a nine-month investigation into mismanagement of its finances, but appear to have just begun as the Bishop of Kition Chrysostomos yesterday pledged to give up his seat if it could be proved that the minutes of the Holy Synod setting out the investigative committee’s mandate were not altered.

PHILELEFTHEROS: “The Americans return” US Secretary of State Colin Powell will be sending a State Department senior official to Athens, Ankara and Nicosia to examine the situation regarding the Cyprus problem after the rejection of the Annan plan by the Greek Cypriots last April.

WHILE Cyprus may be a component part of the European Union, you have to wonder how far this new state of affairs has entered the consciousness of our politicians. Take the recent ill-tempered outburst by the Justice Minister, Doros Theodorou.

WITH temperatures soaring into the 40s yesterday, and no sign of the heat wave abating, government health services warned the public to keep indoors as much as possible and avoid the sun at all costs.

DIKO MEP Marios Matsakis has not yet responded to an Antiquities Department request to ascertain whether or not he is in possession of undeclared antiquities.