IT IS BACK to business for the Cyprus problem commentators and doomsayers this week, as talks resume on Tuesday and we enter yet another period billed as ‘critical’ by the experts. The Cyprus problem has entered hundreds of ‘critical phases’ over the years, but always emerges intact. Despite the devious scheming by foreign powers and the blatant bias of UN mediators the status quo is always preserved, to the mutual satisfaction of the two sides, until the next ‘critical’ phase arrives.

TWO MEN from the Nicosia district are being investigated in connection with separate paedophilia cases, after two girls aged four and 12 said they were being sexually abused by male relatives within their immediate family environment.

The first incident came to light when the four-year-old girl’s father contacted police to say his daughter told him that his ex-wife’s brother – the toddler’s uncle – was sexually abusing their child.

In the second case, a 12-year-old girl’s mother reported her boyfriend to police, after the girl confided that he was sexually abusing her.

Both children were yesterday expected to be examined by a pathologist, while statements were to be taken via video link.

NICOSIA village Paleometocho was yesterday plunged into mourning, after a pensioner accidentally ran over his 14-month-old granddaughter.

According to the police, 14-month-old Eleftheria Ioannou was being looked after by her grandparents when at a little after 9 am, she escaped her grandmother’s attention and went through the basement onto the road outside and sat on the ground behind her grandfather’s parked car.

Her grandfather then started up the car and reversed, running over the toddler. As soon as he realised what happened, he rushed his granddaughter with a neighbour to a private hospital, where doctors attempted for over three hours to save the little girl’s life. She passed away a little after noon.

A WOMAN was injured on Friday night after a motorist snatched her handbag as she walked along the street in Limassol.

According to police, the 35-year-old woman was walking along a busy road when a car approached her and the driver snatched her bag, which she was carrying on her shoulder.

In her attempt to fight him off, she lost her balance and fell to the ground, injuring her right arm and foot.

The driver, meanwhile, made off with her bag, containing €50, her mobile phone and personal documents. Limassol CID is investigating the case.

In another incident, a 52-year-old man told police he had been injured and robbed of €600, when a man attacked him at his home in Nicosia yesterday morning.

FOUR people were remanded for eight days yesterday, after police found clothing, electrical appliances and other goods in their apartments, believed to be the product of a number of break-ins in the capital recently.

“A large quantity of objects – clothing, electrical appliances, alcohol and others – believed to be the result of break-ins and thefts, were spotted (on Friday night) during searches that were carried out on a court warrant, on three flats in Nicosia,” the police announced.

The flats’ residents were arrested during the sting: a 21-year-old woman and three men aged 20, 29 and 30. Further investigations showed the 29-year-old had been illegally residing in Cyprus since September 2007.

AN ARMED robber yesterday made away with around €1,800 after holding a kiosk owner at a gunpoint in Nicosia.

According to the police, the incident took place at a little after 3 am, when a man wearing a balaclava stormed into the kiosk brandishing his gun and grabbed the shop’s two tills, while the young female employee looked on, before running out into the night.

The employee told police the robber was of small build and around 1.65 metres tall. Nicosia CID is investigating the case.

JUST OVER 20 years ago, in August 1990, I broke the Asil Nadir Polly Peck story in a Sunday newspaper. I had discovered that there was a massive Inland Revenue inquiry into the personal tax affairs of the tycoon who was then ranked   as the 36th richest man in Britain.

From his opulent base in one of London’s most exclusive squares, he controlled a conglomerate that included the Del Monte fruit packing business and sansui electronics, as well as a clothing business from which the company derived its name.

Dubbed the sultan of Berkeley square, he employed more than 40,000 people worldwide, had rich and powerful friends and had been a massive donor to the Tory party, giving more than £500,000 to the party.