Sir,

A 38-YEAR-old man was yesterday jailed for four years after being found guilty on 21 counts of forging and circulating cheques and obtaining goods worth around £5,000 under false pretences.

The sentence did not go down well with Pavlos Sfongaras, alias Popeye, who spent the next half hour hurling abuse at police officers.

CYPRUS Airways will hear by April at the latest whether they will get an urgently needed cash injection guaranteed by the government, officials said yesterday.

The Cypriot government has sought European Commission approval to guarantee a 50 million euro loan sought by the carrier, troubled by heavy losses and cheaper competition.

THE ISRAELI embassy yesterday slammed a photographic exhibition organised by the Green Party comparing the Burgenstock hotel where Cyrpus problem talks were held last year with the Dachau concentration camp where tens of thousands of Jews were killed in the Second Wordl War.

INJURY and poisonings accounted for the biggest share of inpatients at general hospitals in Cyprus in 2003, according to a report by the Statistical Service released yesterday.

During 2003, 56,850 patients were admitted for treatment and discharged from the general hospitals, compared with 55,142 in 2002, an increase of 3.1 per cent.

THE prevention of the use of unauthorised computer software in the government and semi-government sectors is an element of vital importance in the fight against software piracy, anti-piracy activists said yesterday.

IN THE first official visit by a Polish President to Cyprus, Aleksander Kwaniewski said the European Union should play a more active role in efforts to solve the Cyprus problem.

ALITHIA: “Presidential relations”. The opposition daily was adamant yesterday that the Presidential Palace clearly intervened so that the Electricity Authority (EAC) would continue its co-operation with Suphire.

IT COULDN’T have been much clearer: a direct rebuke from the British government to the London Transport Authority for its decision to ban advertisements for holidays in northern Cyprus – a decision fully in line with the Cyprus government’s position that such advertising is ‘illegal’.