Fury over green levy
FURIOUS consumers are threatening to take matters into their own hands by refusing flat-out to pay the new three per cent tariff on electricity bills to cover at €10 million ‘green penalty’ imposed on the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC).
THE GOVERNMENT yesterday played down fears of a lung infection spread after pupils and teachers at a Nicosia gymnasium tested positive for the bacteria that causes tuberculosis a week after one of their classmates was diagnosed with TB.
THE ELECTRICITY Authority of Cyprus (EAC) insisted yesterday it had no choice but to pass the greenhouse emissions “fine” onto consumers—but shed little light on little else.
“We were always two steps ahead of everyone else, preparing for the advent of natural gas,” said a defensive Harris Thrasou, chairman of the EAC board.
THE MINISTRY of Commerce, Industry and Tourism has arranged for an extraordinary meeting with tourism stakeholders tomorrow after it was revealed that bookings from the UK this year are down by 25 per cent.
The crisis meeting will brainstorm ways to deal with the dramatic reduction in tourist bookings and the enforcement of measures to support tourism.
EMPLOYEES of the Antiquities Department yesterday called a four-hour work stoppage, demanding better restructuring and staffing of their department.
Failure to meet these demands could place the island’s archaeological heritage in direct danger of destruction, they said.
The strike was carried out between 7.30am and 11.30pm.
CYPRUS has moved up three places to 48th out of 144 countries on the Global Peace Index (GPI), but is still in second last place when it comes to the Western European countries coming in 18th after Greece in 19th place.
A 21-YEAR-OLD Nicosia man was yesterday sentenced to 80 hours community service after he was found guilty of driving over twice the speed limit in a residential area.
The young man was caught speeding on the SOPAZ road nearly two years ago. He had been doing 120 km/hour in a 50 km/hour zone, driving without headlights and failing to stop for police when flagged down.
IMMIGRANT support group KISA was yesterday demanding answers as to how a 31-year-old Congolese political asylum seeker had ended up in a police detention centre when he had been waiting to take an HIV test.
Executive director Doros Polycarpou said there were two versions of the story of how the asylum seeker had wounded up behind bars and that KISA wanted to get to the truth.
DISGRUNTLED property buyers believe that President Demetris Christofias has cancelled his appearance at the opening a new municipal park in Peyia this week because of their planned demonstration.
The peaceful action was to highlight the government’s inaction over delays in the issuing of title deeds.
THE MARFIN banking group remains fully committed to Cyprus and will increase its investment here, despite intending to move its headquarters to Greece, Efthimios Bouloutas, Chief Executive Officer of Marfin Popular Bank (MPB), said yesterday.
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.
