TWENTY YEARS after the World Health Organisation (WHO) removed homosexuality from its list of diseases, the first ever group seeking to promote the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) people in Cyprus was announced yesterday.
To mark International Day Against Homophobia, the newly-formed group ‘Accept LGBT’ Cyprus was formally launched yesterday at the EU House in the capital.
A spokesman for Accept, Giorgis Renginos said the group was set up to promote and protect the equal rights of all citizens in Cyprus, particularly against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender.

VOLCANIC ash from Iceland has once again disrupted European flights when it settled over UK and some European airports yesterday, affecting 23 flights to and from Cyprus.
Hermes Airports PR Manager, Adamos Aspris, said: “In total 23 flights were affected. This does not necessarily mean cancelled, but also delayed or rescheduled. For example, one flight to Cyprus that was due to depart from Newcastle left from Leeds instead.”
Larnaca airport saw 19 flights affected (10 departures and nine arrivals) while two departures and two arrivals from Paphos were affected.

HANS-JURGEN Merten, the German captain of the Cypriot jet that went down in hilly terrain near Athens nearly five years ago, was sacked by a British airline three months before being employed by Helios Airways for repeated failure to comply with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
Nicholas Heyden, a business consultant for Channel Express Services, now known as Jet2, said in court yesterday he was the person who informed the German captain of the termination of his contract.
Channel Express Services had hired Merten in mid-April of 2005, but in the space of a month the company decided to let him go.

POLITICAL parties are next week expected to offer their final positions on a bill regarding the release of state-owned land, as a means of cementing Cyprus’ investment deal with Qatar.
The bill aims to prepare the legal framework for future investments as well, a propsoal which has caused great unease among deputies worried about state land falling in to private hands, and the repercussions in the event of a dispute with private investors.
During the bill’s closed discussion at the House Interior Committee yesterday, the Attorney-general committed to exploring ways of implementing a law just for the Qatari deal.

THE NUMBER of registered unemployed fell in April by 11.0 per cent compared to the previous month, but the seasonally-adjusted figures show an increase of 0.6 per cent, the latest Labour Department study has shown.
The biggest reductions out of the overall fall from 24,336 to 21,633 occurred in the hotels/restaurants category (1,112) and services (1,111), reflecting the start of the tourist season. The seasonal adjustment reflects the fact that the positive effect of tourism sector activity occurred in February/March last year.
Geographically, the biggest reductions occurred in Larnaca/Famagusta districts (1,476) and Nicosia (607).

CONVICTED murder Antonis Prokopiou Kitas and his brother, Mamas, yesterday denied any involvement in last December’s grave robbing of former president Tassos Papadopoulos’ remains.
The two brothers yesterday pleaded not guilty to 13 and nine charges, respectively, including desecration of a grave, insulting religion and insulting the memory of the dead. Antonis Kitas is facing four more charges related to masterminding the grave robbing and convincing his brother and another Indian man to commit the criminal offences.

A 36-YEAR-OLD man was yesterday referred direct to trial in the Nicosia Assize Court after he was accused of posing as a financial investor and swindling almost €3 million from his ‘clients’.
Christos Efstathiou, who is expected to plead not guilty to 27 charges, has been accused of stealing €2,724,250 from various clients between September 2006 and July 2008. According to the charges the Kakopetria man told his ‘clients’ his could invest their money and managed to talk them into entrusting him with hundreds of thousands of euros.

LEGAL proceedings to charge eight police officers who were ordered to face retrial by the Supreme Court for their role in the beating of two students in December 2005 were suspended again yesterday.
The eight, who include Andreas Efstathiou, Haris Haritou, Andreas Panayi, Georgios Pavlou, George Kililis, Costas Toumbas, Iordanis Iordanous and Christianna Antoniou, appeared relaxed and at ease minutes before the Nicosia Assize Court convened.
However the proceedings were postponed until the morning of May 21 after the team of defence lawyers said they wanted to discuss a number of substantial legal issues with the state prosecutor.

A NICOSIA man was yesterday fined €300 after he reported his gun stolen in February last year.
The 41-year-old Kaimakli man, who was effectively punished for reporting the missing rifle, told the judge that he had never expected to find himself in the dock over the incident.
“What should I have done? Not report it? I didn’t know I’d end up accused,” he told Nicosia district judge Charalambos Charalambous.
Charalambous told the father-of-three that he had done well to report the stolen weapon but explained that it was a felony to keep a gun unattended.
The accused said the hunting rifle, which was Russian manufactured, had been in bad condition and he had been planning to take it to be fixed after he got off work that day.