PUPILS from schools around Nicosia were yesterday roaming the capital’s shopping districts instead of learning in their classrooms.

THE OPENING of a new crossing in the Green Line at Ledra Street in central Nicosia appeared a step closer as Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat crossed into the buffer zone for a viewing of the proposed crossing yesterday.

Talat’s renewed efforts to see a crossing at Ledra Street come in the wake of the opening of a checkpoint at Zodhia in the west of the island last August.

THE BISHOP of Morphou indirectly suggested that most of the Cypriot clergy was unchristian when he told a Turkish Cypriot newspaper earlier this week that the ‘no’ vote that the majority of Greek Cypriots gave to the Annan plan was inconsistent with Christian teachings.

FIVE people drowned and 27 persons were missing yesterday after a fishing boat carrying asylum seekers sank off the northern coast of Cyprus.

The boat was believed to be transporting 39 asylum seekers when it went down, some 3.5km off the coastal town of Yialousa.

CANOEING in the Yermasoyia dam, water skiing in the Polemidhia dam and rowing in the Kourris dam are just a few of the new proposals to upgrade sports tourism in Cyprus, Tourism Minster George Lillikas said yesterday.

Lillikas was speaking as Cyprus tourist industry bosses marked World Tourism Day by focusing on the development of sports tourism on the island.

A LACK of government studies into the amount of radiation emitted by the proposed Hellas Sat satellite station and an organised protest on part of concerned residents that thwarted construction plans for the station has prompted Hellas Sat to ask the government to exempt it from its obligation to build a satellite station on the island, according to Phileleftheros.

DEPUTIES are calling on President Tassos Papadopoulos not to cave in to pressure to scrap this year’s Nikiforos military exercise in October.

Since 2001, the Nikiforos exercises have been cancelled every year in a bid not to raise tensions in the region.

THE problem of ‘slime’ in the waters of Ayia Napa has resurfaced, with people complaining that it ruins their beach experience.

CYPRUS Airways (CY) vice-chairman Frixos Savvides pledged yesterday that no pilots would be axed as part of a strategic plan to make the airline a viable enterprise.

The reassurance came after Savvides met with pilots union PASYPI, the first concerned group to be shown the text of proposals for the restructuring of the debt-ridden national carrier.

A yacht yesterday sank off the southernmost tip of the island under circumstances being investigated by the police. All people on board were in good health.

According to the police, the vessel went down off Limassol’s Zevgari Akrotiri shortly after 9pm.
The five crew members on the yacht, which was flying the Italian flag, were picked up by the Coast Guard.