PUPILS FROM Nicosia’s Pancyprian Gymnasium yesterday gathered at Eleftheria Square to demonstrate against animal cruelty in Cyprus.

The most recent public display of animal cruelty  that shocked animal rights activists and spectators  occurred last Sunday at the APOEL-Omonia football match.

An Omonia fan apparently sprayed a rabbit with orange paint in an attempt to taunt the APOEL team’s supporters whose color is orange.

It has been claimed that the rabbit’s legs were broken. Police verified that the rabbit died on the pitch during the incident, and that they are currently searching for the perpetrator to charge him with torturing an animal to death.

THE CHURCH yesterday insisted it paid its taxes, a day after a bitter war of words with the government over the issue.

“In 2007 and 2008 we paid €26 million in taxes (capital gains and immovable property tax) without accounting for the VAT,” Church chief auditor Yiannis Charilaou said.

On Tuesday, Archbishop Chrysostomos called President Demetris Christofias a liar and a populist over the latter’s call for the Church to pay its taxes.

The government responded through its spokesman, Stefanos Stefanou, who described the primate as an embezzler of public money and accusing him of living in opulence with the money of the Church and the faithful.

IN an article published in the last issue of the Sunday Mail the sheer folly of the government’s water policy was laid bare. It is a policy that could be used as a case study in the misallocation of natural resources for first year economics students learning the basic principles of the subject.

One of the first things economics students learn is how the market ensures the efficient allocation of scarce resources. The government’s water policy, in contrast, is a case of clueless bureaucrats allocating a natural resource in an arbitrarily irrational manner that would prove very costly to the average household.

DISY MPs walked out of the House Plenum yesterday, closely followed by EDEK, after waiting for over two hours for the plenary session to begin without being given an explanation.

In a first of its kind move, the opposition’s entire parliamentary team stormed out of the room and said they would discuss whether to return.

“This has turned into a joke,” DISY deputy Nicos Tornaritis was heard saying as he departed.

About half an hour later, EDEK deputies followed suit. The party’s MP Marinos Sizopoulos said it wasn’t so much the delay that had led to their decision, but the fact that no explanation had been given.

THE MINISTRY of Health has introduced new hospital rules at three clinics in the Nicosia General Hospital as part of a pilot program aimed at upgrading health services, Minister Christos Patsalides announced yesterday.

The new rules called ‘clinical protocols’ involve reorganising public hospitals, and implementing better management methods.

The pilot programme will be monitored at all stages in order to assess potential difficulties and implementation problems, at which point final improvements will be incorporated, said Patsalides.

THE INTERNATIONAL Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination should be a day for reflection and an opportunity for all of us to combat racism and every form of discrimination, Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis said yesterday.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Ombudswoman Eliana Nicolaou to mark the International Day – which is observed on March 21 – Sylikiotis said that despite significant progress made over the last fifty years, racism continues to blight the lives of so many people around the world. “It is clear that racism as expressed today is the result of a relative sharpening of problems in general and of social insecurity in particular, including in developed societies”, he added.

CYPRIOT employers are more often than not given the benefit of the doubt in labour disputes with their foreign employees, the Ombudswoman has said.

Iliana Nicolaou’s comments were made with reference to a report she prepared for the government on the situation of foreign workers in Cyprus.

“It is not just a few times that, on account of the lack of a clear procedural framework for the resolution of such disputes, instances of racism and unfair discrimination against foreign workers is observed,” said Nicolaou.

In her report Nicolaou noted that there was a disparity between the procedures in place for evaluating allegations made by the two sides in an employment dispute involving foreign workers.

A LARNACA mother and her teenage daughter yesterday escaped unharmed after a short circuit in their washing machine sent their two-floor apartment up in flames.

The fire broke out at around 8am in the apartment located on 1 April 1955 Avenue while the mother and her 18-year-old daughter were home. The two tenants were alerted to the blaze by their neighbours who told them their house was on fire. When the women opened the door the oxygen ignited the flames and sped up the fire’s progress. Although mother and daughter attempted to battle the blaze with a fire extinguisher they were unable to stop it from spreading. Thankfully only the second floor suffered extensive damage while the first floor remained untouched, reports said.