THE CLAIMS and counter-claims make it hard to discern the strategies behind the showdown in Najaf, and the language that is used blurs the situation even more. US military spokesmen, for example, always call the young men who are defending the rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr “anti-Iraqi forces,” although not one in a hundred of them has ever been outside Iraq.
NEW military commanders of the Turkish forces in Cyprus were appointed yesterday in Kyrenia, Turkish Cypriot radio Bayrak reported.
THE government has told UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan that the Turkish Cypriot side has recently intensified the construction of homes, villas and hotels on Greek Cypriot-owned land in the north, as well as the sale of Greek Cypriot property to foreigners.
U.S. STATE Department spokesman Richard Boucher is currently on a private visit to the island, but will not be having contacts with local politicians.
There was no official announcement on Boucher’s visit and the US embassy has remained tight-lipped. However, informed sources told the Cyprus Mail, there were no plans for official contacts.
PHILELEFTHEROS: “Turkish steps in September”. Ankara is preparing another package of proposals for thawing relations with Cyprus.
THE government has pledged to reduce the number of road accidents by 50 per cent until 2010, using an EU harmonising plan.
Around 100 people are killed in 22,000 accidents each year in Cyprus and 10,000 people are either seriously or slightly injured.
FAMAGUSTA police were yesterday investigating the alleged rape of an 18-year-old Swedish tourist in Ayia Napa on Monday.
According to a police bulletin, the tourist told investigators that she got into a taxi to go back to her hotel at around 3.45am.
THE news that the Bishop of Morphou is to celebrate the feast of Saint Mamas in his cathedral church in the occupied town of Morphou in September has caused quite a stir in political circles.
TURKEY is preparing to enter a customs union agreement with Cyprus before December, and possibly also open up the ghost town of Varosha, a Turkish Cypriot newspaper reported yesterday.
Turkish Cypriot ‘Prime Minister’ Mehmet Ali Talat flies to Ankara today with ‘Foreign Minister’ Serdar Denktash as discussions get under way on Cyprus with the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
EXPERTS from UN headquarters in New York are due on the island by the end of the month to carry out a review of operations of the peacekeeping force in Cyprus, UNFICYP, which was requested by Secretary-general Kofi Annan in June.
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.
