AN ELECTION pledge to allow refugees to sell building coefficient on occupied properties to developers in the south could lead the island’s planning system to collapse, critics warned yesterday.
President Tassos Papadopoulos’ camp has been accused by opponents of trying to buy refugee votes ahead of next month’s elections with the proposal.
OVER SEVEN million passengers passed through Larnaca and Paphos International Airports in 2007, a 3.94 per cent increase on 2006, and a new record for passenger traffic at Cyprus airports.
Figures for last year break the previous record set in 2005 of 6,781,643 passengers. Over 5.2 million passengers travelled through Larnaca airport in 2007, a 7.16 per cent increase on 2006.
THE LIMASSOL Medical Association (LMA) yesterday issued a statement expressing its disappointment and frustration at the decision to demolish the former Tritoftides clinic on Makarios Avenue in Limassol.
AROUND 700 off duty police officers will today march on the Presidential Palace in an effort to have their demands taken seriously.
The Cyprus Police Association (CPA) called the protest after what they see as years of their demands being ignored by successive governments.
“WE HAVE been taken into the past, to times brimming with nepotism and swelling with scandals,” Presidential candidate Ioannis Kasoulides proclaimed yesterday.
EIGHT asylum seekers yesterday remained on top of a rooftop on the British base in Episkopi, refusing to come down until they received British passports.
SBA authorities yesterday stepped up security after a tip-off from Cyprus police that a group of about 100 Iraqi immigrants was on its way to Episkopi to express their support for the demonstration.
POLICE arrested 15 illegal immigrants, all Palestinians, who entered through the north of the island on Thursday.
The group, of seven men, four women and four children had come from Syria through Turkey to the north and crossed over on Wednesday, police said.
They were arrested on the Larnaca-Dhekelia road on Thursday.
MATSAKIS is the only candidate who tells it as it is. This was the gist of MEP and presidential candidate Marios Matsakis’ press conference yesterday. He proffered his candidacy as “an escape route for the citizen away from the existing political folds”.
As the Mail reported yesterday, Matsakis outlined his plan for the solution of the Cyprus problem.
LIMASSOL’S Chamber of Commerce (EBEL) has expressed concern over the delays in the creation of a new passenger room at Limassol Port, while unconfirmed sources talk of ‘Nicosia circles’ pushing for the new passenger room to be placed in Larnaca instead of Limassol Port.
THE MINISTER of Communications and Works has started the procedure for disciplinary action against officers of the Antiquities Department who have allowed construction on top of a significant ancient site at Erimi outside 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.
