MARCOS Baghdatis has crashed out of the Open 13 tournament in Marseille, going down 7-6, 6-4 to Michael Llodra yesterday.

The Frenchman hit a service winner to convert his third match point. The 2009 finalist broke the Cypriot in the previous game with a backhand return winner.

“It could have gone either way,” Llodra said. “I tried to be more aggressive and I seized my chances.”

The seventh-seeded Baghdatis had two set points in the tiebreaker but squandered them, allowing Llodra to take the opening set with a smash.

There was another shock when Mischa Zverev of Germany beat Spain’s Tommy Robredo 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 to reach the quarter-finals.

A 45-YEAR-OLD Nicosia man was yesterday remanded in custody on suspicion of scamming another man out of his first homeowner’s VAT cheque.

The same suspect is currently facing prosecution for a similar offence, the Nicosia district court heard.

The court heard that in December last year, the suspect telephoned a Psimolofou man and told him that he worked for the Finance Ministry and was handling his VAT reclaim form with respect to the purchase of his first property in Tseri village earlier last year.

“WE ASTOUNDED the world in 1990 and in 1994, and we shall do so again,” wrote former South African president F.W. de Klerk on the 20th anniversary of the day in February, 1990 when he announced the end of the apartheid system. But in 1990 and in 1994 the astonishment was about the fact that disaster had been avoided, and even now it is not astonishment at the country’s success.

South Africa has the second-highest murder rate in the world (after Colombia), the education system is one of the worst in the world, and AIDS accounts for 43 per cent of all deaths. It may be true that South Africa is doing better than was expected, but that only shows how low expectations were when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison twenty years ago this month.

THE STATE has decided to establish a Department of Rehabilitation Science at the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT). The decision was taken during yesterday’s meeting of the Cabinet.

Speaking after the meeting, Education Minister Andreas Demetriou said that the Cabinet decided to establish a Department of Rehabilitation Science at the Cyprus University of Technology, which will offer four degrees: in Logotherapy, in Ergotherapy, in Physiotherapy and a degree in Social Services.

Demetriou said that TEPAK will immediately begin the process for hiring staff for the department. He added that the department will be ready to receive the first students in the academic year of 2012.

THE PAPHOS mayor has lashed out at the archaeological services over the state of the area’s UNESCO sites, after a damning news report revealed people had been using parts of the site to go to the toilet.

While condemning the behaviour of people who treated world heritage sites this way, Savvas Vergas also pointed to a bureaucratic block that prevented municipality workers from entering the site but has seen no one from the archaeology department attend to the site.

The mayor to refer to the Tombs of the Kings as a “picture of shame”. The site itself has toilet facilities that are locked when the area is closed, which leads to the conclusion that after-hours visitors are leaving the sickening mess.

The question remains as to who will clean it up.

THE BAN on smoking inside public spaces came under renewed attack by pro-smoking MPs yesterday, who maintain that the law violates human rights.

DISY Deputy Andreas Themistocleous has so far enlisted six MPs from different parties in a bid to repeal the “harmful” law, which he says “goes against our culture and our human rights.”

Themistocleous told the Cyprus Mail yesterday, “This law does not just attack the tourist trade and bar and restaurant owners: it attacks all Cypriots. We hope to change the law by April and in any case before July.”

A 38-YEAR-OLD Nicosia district man was yesterday fined after he pleaded guilty to importing magic mushrooms for personal use.

The pony-tailed Dali villager was fined €500 and ordered to pay €950 in court expenses.

The defendant’s lawyer, Roberto Vrahimi, told the court his client enjoyed drinking tea and that he often imported different herbs to make various teas for his own personal use.

He said although his client was aware the substance, psilocybin, contained in the mushrooms were illegal, the fungi had been intended for no one other than himself.

INTERIOR Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis yesterday said there was not much he could do over the construction of a new church that many fear will overshadow the ancient Ayia Paraskevi church in Nicosia.

The Town Planning Department has issued a permit for the new church and the Strovolos municipality has no choice now but to give the okay for construction to go ahead.

“The Interior Minister has no right to intervene for a town planning permit to be issued or withdrawn without reason,” Sylikiotis said yesterday.

He explained that a town planning permit could only be withdrawn when proper procedure had not been followed.

However, the minister has asked the department to prepare a report so that he could examine the procedure that was followed.