NICOSIA and Tehran yesterday stuck to their guns in their conflicting definitions of the term “arms” regarding the ship being detained off Limassol harbor.
Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou said the Cyprus-flagged Monchegorsk is carrying “conventional material” that falls under the relevant UN resolutions prohibiting arms exports from Iran.
In a letter published in the Sunday Mail (February 1), Renos Lavithis sets out to persuade us that “Marinas Are the Way of the Future”. I wonder… For many years this particular magic bullet has been hailed as a solution to some of this island’s ills, and has been embraced enthusiastically by politicians and businessmen alike.
ALL FORMS of abortion are illegal in Cyprus and unless the law is revised both doctors and their patients could technically face imprisonment, the House Legal Affairs Committee Chairman said yesterday.
Ionas Nicolaou said that as the current law stood, all terminations were illegal and both doctors and their patients risked prosecution.
A CANADIAN couple was yesterday sentenced to two and half years in prison for growing cannabis plants.
The wife, however, received a three-year suspension of her sentence, because their son is just 15 years old.
The teenager had also been charged in the case, but was later cleared of all charges.
POLICE had to set up a road block in Nicosia yesterday to stop a drunken Polish bus driver from killing his passengers, including a group of schoolchildren.
After he was arrested the 52-year-old Pole was found to be four times over the legal limit, police said.
A 34-year-old policeman was found dead in a field in Latsia on Tuesday afternoon died from a heart attack according to the autopsy conducted yesterday.
Kyriacos Kizas was found on the ground in Latsia where he went to walk his dogs at 4.30pm. A passerby found Kizas when he heard the dogs barking.
FINANCE Minister Charilaos Stavrakis yesterday did not rule out that Cyprus could hit a zero per cent GDP growth by summer but he hoped the year would average out at around 2.0 per cent.
“At the moment we are still seeing some momentum [in GDP growth], which is largely a spill-over from the last quarter of 2008,” Stavrakis said at a business lunch hosted by PeopleAchieve.
THE Ombudswoman’s office will soon be able to monitor the treatment and living conditions of criminal and political detainees under extended powers, due to be approved today.
The change comes under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), which Cyprus has signed but not yet ratified.
POLICE are holding a one-day road awareness campaign for pedestrians and cyclists today as part of wider efforts to reduce and prevent traffic accidents on the island.
WATER BOARD officials yesterday confirmed that the water situation has improved to the point that reducing water cuts is a feasible option. The issue could be discussed as early as next month.
“It is possible to reduce water cuts,” Kyriakos Kyrou, Senior Water Board Officer told the Cyprus Mail.
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.
