October 23: 25 samples from a Dromolaxia farm are sent to the local Veterinary Services lab to test for bluetongue disease, also known as catarrhal fever.
October 24: samples test negative for bluetongue.
October 25: samples tested for the presence of foot and mouth. Results positive. Area of 3km radius is quarantined.
A MAN fainted in court yesterday upon hearing that he had been found guilty of defrauding a bank and stealing around £450,000.
Renos Efthymiou and a clerk from the Kapedes village Co-op bank, Ourania Charalambous, were yesterday found guilty of theft, fraud and conspiracy after the vast amount of money went missing in 2003.
STOCKBREEDERS yesterday welcomed a temporary freeze on the culling of animals, although authorities warned against complacency pending the results of additional FMD tests abroad.
Over 500 animals have been slaughtered since Monday and another 1,500 inside the danger zone could be at risk to stop any possible spread of the disease.
DOCTOR Alberto Ladomada, from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection, has been helping the Cypriot authorities since the outbreak of the disease.
He yesterday told the Mail that due to Cyprus being an island, “the risk of transmission is less likely to other member states”.
PLANS TO build a new overpass in Nicosia have stalled, after experts said it would be operationally restrictive.
A SHIP registered in the north sank off the coast of Apostolos Andreas, the island’s most north-eastern point in the early hours of Thursday, leaving two of the ten crew members missing, presumed dead.
A third sailor was rescued. The remaining seven had abandoned ship on a lifeboat before it sank.
THE CENTRAL Bank of Cyprus’s monetary committee is expected to keep interest rates unchanged at 4.5 per cent at a meeting on Monday, despite accelerating inflation and credit growth, according to analysts.
In less than two months Cyprus will joint the euro area, and the island’s interest rates are currently 50 basis points above European Central Bank rates.
A MAN from Larnaca was the lucky winner of £5 million in the Joker lottery draw in Greece on Thursday night – though the ticket holder has reportedly not come forward to claim his loot.
The lucky ticket, worth just £3, was registered at Yenakriis Apostolou bookmakers in Larnaca.
A MAN was yesterday ordered to answer drug charges at the Nicosia Criminal Court after he was arrested for trying to sell cocaine to an undercover police officer last week.
The 25-year-old man will answer to charges of illegal possession of 297g of cocaine with intent to sell on Friday after a ruling today from the Nicosia District Court.
A MAN AND a woman were arrested by Limassol Police yesterday, in relation to an investigation of a car bombing that took place a few hours earlier in the seaside town.
The explosion took place at approximately 5am on Friday. The targeted car belonged to a Syrian man living in Limassol.
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.
