HEALTH MINISTER Andreas Gavrielides yesterday stuck to his guns, maintaining that across-the-board price cuts for medicines would be implemented as announced, while downplaying speculation that consumers would eventually pick up the tab for the government’s quarrel with the protesting pharmaceutical companies.
CYPRUS Airways (CY) announced last night that the strike measures were due to affect 14 flights scheduled for today to and from Cyprus.
The company was making other arrangements in a bid to carry all affected passengers to their destinations with the least possible delay, the announcement said.
Court expresses outrage over handling of case
THE NICOSIA Assizes Court yesterday expressed disgust while acquitting a 36-year-old farmer accused of repeatedly sexually abusing and raping his nieces for eight years because of the lack of corroborating evidence.
The man was arrested in October 2003 after the sisters filed a complaint with the police.
POLICE announced yesterday it had detained 13 foreigners in connection with illegal entry, residence and employment on the island.
One employer was also arrested, police said.
The 13 were arrested during a 24-hour crackdown across the island, which was carried out jointly by various police departments.
A BRITISH High Commission spokesman in Cyprus yesterday said the idea of a Royal Navy ship exploring for oil in Cypriot waters was “utterly barmy”.
TRADE and Industry minister, George Lillikas issued an order setting the ceiling price of a ten-kilo cylinder of gas at £4.10 at the weekend.
Prices were judged as unjustifiably high, with gas cylinders currently selling for between 20 and 70 cents higher than they should have been.
TWO kilometres of the Nicosia-Larnaca Highway were closed off to traffic for nearly three hours yesterday morning, when a lorry spilt its load of gravel onto the road.
The incident happened at 6.10 am near Lympia, with a police spokesman saying the lorry’s back door wasn’t closed properly, resulting in the gravel falling onto the road.
TURKEY would sooner or later be forced to talk with Cyprus without necessarily recognising the state, President Tassos Papadopoulos said.
AN E.U. proposal aimed at easing telephone communications between the two Cypriot communities has failed to materialise, apparently after the government insisted on a greater level of integration that would entail the north also using Cyprus’ +357 country code.
POLITICIANS yesterday traded blows over who was to blame for the standstill in the Cyprus problem, with both President Tassos Papadopoulos and House Speaker Demetris Christofias turning fire on DISY boss Nicos Anastassiades over his recent trip to Turkey.
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.
