TUCKED away in a narrow and overgrown alley in an industrial suburb of Nicosia is a row of ten waist-high white boxes.
At the base of each box there is a narrow slot around which a handful of bees are hovering, patiently waiting to deliver their nectar inside.
WHEN the comrade president had refused to attend a scheduled meeting with Dervis Eroglu over things the latter had said, some three weeks ago, we had warned that the ‘blame-game’ had kicked off.
If there were any doubts about this assertion, they were dispelled this week when the government officially launched its hate campaign against the UN mediator Big Al. The president’s comrade poodle, Andros
Kyprianou fired the first salvo last Sunday accusing, the Aussie of not “calling things by their name”.
With regards to your article ‘Open wetlands for waterfowl hunting, say hunters’, (Sunday Mail June 13) it seems that neither the HWP nor the Game and Wildlife Service are aware that Cyprus is a contracting party to AEWA since 2008.
AWEA is the African Eurasian Waterbird Agreement for the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds. http://www.unep-aewa.org/about/introduction.htm The idea is Waterbird conservation.
The action plan is clear and it includes amongst others:
* Promotion of eco-tourism
* Creation and expansion of protected wetlands
* Creation of disturbance-free zones in protected areas.
* Conservation and monitoring of risk species
It was refreshing to see in Sunday Mail June 20, that Cypriots are altruistic when it comes to blood donations, but they are not alone. I for one donated blood at the Evangelismos Hospital on the June 14, following an appeal from Rosemary Dodd of the UKCA, as did many other members of this club. The UKCA still has a large number of blood donors who donate blood for the Cyprus Blood Bank on a regular basis.
Peter G Davis, Drouseia
So once again the Government has done nothing about the problem that everybody knows is the root cause of the ever growing budget deficit, overpaid and under-worked un-civil servants! I am sure that if the Government increased the retirement age to sixty-five, made the pension scheme contributory, reduced entry-level pay scales, and stopped the automatic annual salary increases, the resulting strike by the PASYDY members wouldn’t be noticed by the general public for months!
Let’s face it, we take it in our stride when they are in their offices and not doing anything, so why should it be any different if they are not in their offices?
I’ll leave the semi-government organisations such as CYBC, CYTA, and EAC, for a later rant.
Not surprised of Aglangia.
I read with interest the letter from Annette Chrystostomou and wonder if she has ever visited India. I have, as recently as two month ago, and was served in every shop with a plastic bag to carry away my purchases! Furthermore the streets of Delhi, Agra & Jaipur were strewn with discarded plastic carrier bags. The Indians seem to ignore the communal refuse bins and instead pile their rubbish at the junction of major streets so that the wandering animals and stray dogs may sift through them for food during the day and a JCB clears the rubbish at the start of the next day.
If, indeed, there is such a fine as she describes perhaps it is taken just as seriously there as the laws in Cyprus regarding car seatbelts, motor cycle helmets and mobile phone use while driving.
I feel I must write to complain about the foul language used on the front page of your esteemed organ dated June 10 about the possible resumption of ferry services to Greece. To quote: “The Icelandic ash cloud grounded flights to Europe, leaving no way off of Cyprus….” ‘Off of!’ Oh dearie dearie me…”off of” is always wrong, either “off” will suffice or “from” will do. As in “The reporter jumped off of the bridge in remorse” would be wrong but should he jump ‘from’ the bridge he would be doing the correct and appropriate thing. That aside, it was a very interesting and cheering story. I will endeavour to get out more. Greece by boat would be good.
Robert G Brew
An excellent article in Living of June 13 by Richard Dickenson. He points out the differences between the two countries that actually mean something to the everyday tourist. The cost of eating out, public transport, taxi fares etc detailed in the article mean more to the average tourist than how many golf courses and marinas there are.
My son in law regularly visits and plays two or three rounds of golf and when I drive him to the courses you can count one hand the cars in the car park and sometimes we are the only ones in the bar having a beer after the round. There is no way your average tourist will pay €100 a round which seems to be the normal fee at places like Aphrodite Hills.
Maybe you should forward the article to the CTO, Police and the President.
I WISH to inform readers that one of my articles, “Failing a plague befalling our civil service, our economy is headed down the drain’ Cyprus Mail April 18, 2010 has been selected by the European Commission to compete for the Lorenzo Natali Prize 2010.
I was informed of this by a certain Mr John in an email from Brussels, which claimed that my journalistic work meets precisely the themes defended by this prize launched by the European Commission to reward journalists committed to Human Rights, Democracy and Development.
THE PROPOSED increase in the number of parliamentary seats took a new turn last week, as the smaller parties and some isolated deputies posted their opposition to the move.
The belated reaction of the Green party deputy Giorgos Perdikis lent weight to the theory that he kept quiet for so long, because he had been given assurances that the provision for ‘national candidates’ would have secured his re-election. I must admit that his possible exclusion from the legislature would be the only positive consequence of this story.
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.
