MOSEYING down Ledra Street in Nicosia towards the most recent check point, the last thing you’d think of running into would be…? Try Jack Sparrow and Albert Einstein. They stand outside the Tourist Information Bureau belonging to the Municipality of Nicosia. A sign reads, “Alex Show, Art Wax Exhibition, Greek Mythology and Modern Realities”.

IN AN INTERVIEW more than 15 years ago, criminologist and then Prisons Director Andreas Kapardis predicted that juvenile crime would become a major problem for Cyprus in the future.

PAVEL KANTCHEV could be described as the perfect example of what a young person can do with the right attitude and the freedom to get on with it.

While the vast majority of young people in Cyprus do walk the straight and narrow, it’s a rare few that would leave the comfort of home to live alone in a strange city at the age of 17 in order to pursue a dream.

WHEN Marios Soteriou got his first piercing at the age of 13 in 1976, society still believed that only homosexuals, gypsies or drug users engaged in such activities.

Now 45, Marios is the owner of Station Piercing & Tattoos, with two studios in Nicosia.

“Times of course have changed and piercing is considered normal now,” he said.

TODAY a new era is beginning for Harita Mantoles. No longer will she go to bed at night wondering what has happened to her husband, her father, her uncle, her cousin or her two brothers-in-law. Today she knows. Today she can rest her head knowing she has finally laid them to rest.

AS THE story of two little Dutch girls suffering years of abuse and neglect at the hands of their mother hit the headlines this week, more people have come forward with further shocking details.