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THE TWO leaders yesterday agreed to have two all-day meetings and one ‘normal’ meeting before both depart for New York this month in an effort to reach some convergence on the property issue.
Speaking after their first meeting since the summer break, President Demetris Christofias said the two yesterday enjoyed a “cordial atmosphere”. Asked if the talks began with good omens, he cited a Cypriot proverb: “If it’s an apple, it will blossom”.
He said the two leaders used yesterday’s one and a half hour meeting to set out their next moves for the month including an exchange of documents on the property issue.
DEPUTIES once again discussed the high cost of living at the House commerce committee yesterday. This discussion takes place every few months and features deputies complaining about high prices, which they blame ‘profiteering’ businessmen, warning that standards of living were falling and demanding action from the government.
Now, they have stumbled on a new solution to the perennial problem – the appointment of a Commissioner for the Protection of the Consumer. The proposal was made by the EDEK leader and has the backing of most parties as they believed that government departments, despite the best intentions, were incapable of protecting the consumer from ruthless profiteers.
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s Legal Service is due to deliver its opinion on the legal basis of the hugely political and controversial Direct Trade Regulation (DTR) tomorrow in Brussels.
The opinion will be discussed at the Legal Committee tomorrow afternoon, though a vote on the issue will likely be postponed due to the absence of the German rapporteur, MEP Kurt Lechner, from Brussels this week.
The question under debate is whether the European Parliament (EP) has a say in the regulation allowing for direct trade between northern Cyprus and the rest of the EU under the new terms of the Treaty of Lisbon. The European Commission argues that the EP’s International Trade Committee is the competent body to decide whether to pass the DTR or not.
THE GOVERNMENT is being sued for millions for housing the Antiquities Department in a building in the capital owned by a Turkish Cypriot charitable trust.
The trust is now seeking rent in arrears, reinstatement of the property and compensation in a case billed by the trust’s lawyer as a “second Orams case” but for Turkish Cypriots.
Murat Metin Hakki, a Turkish Cypriot lawyer who passed the Cyprus bar exam last year, one of the few Turkish Cypriots to do so since 1974, yesterday filed the case in the Nicosia District Court against three defendants: the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), the Attorney-general as representative of the state and the Interior Minister as the Custodian of Turkish Cypriot properties.
FOLLOWING dinner at President Demetris Christofias’ holiday home last night, the leaders of the two communities highlighted the importance of social events in improving the climate in the negotiations to reunite the island, which in contrast to the banquet were not so smooth.
“I want to express a wish. To have such smooth negotiations as the dinners we offered each other and to have the understanding we have around the dinner table in the near future because our common target is to find a common, acceptable and viable solution of our problem,” Christofias said afterwards.
Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu, accompanied by their wives, spoke to waiting reporters at the gate of the president’s holiday home at Kellaki.
AS POLITICIANS bickered yesterday over the existence or not of high prices and profiteering, consumer rights groups voiced concern over the lack of regulation in the market.
“There are no extreme phenomena of high prices, rather, there are extreme phenomena of populism,” declared AKEL deputy Stavros Evagorou after a session of the House Commerce Committee.
Citing data from the governmental department of statistics, Evagorou went on to say that Cyprus is ranked 18 in the EU terms of consumer goods prices – meaning 17 other countries are more expensive.
DISY’s Lefteris Christoforou could not disagree more: “This government never got wind of the economic crisis, so I don’t expect them to get wind of the high prices,” he quipped.
AN AMERICAN-based lawyer has written to the agents of celebrity singers Rihanna and Justin Timberlake, warning them that Turkish Cypriots were attempting to stage concerts in the north to conceal their “dark history”.
In a letter to William Morris Agency dated August 26, Athan Tsimpedes, a Washington-based lawyer representing the Cyprus Movement for Refugees and Displaced Mothers, called on the agency to encourage its two clients, Robyn ‘Rihanna’ Fenty and Timberlake, to withdraw alleged plans to play concerts in the north.
Tsampides argued that “Turkish Gaza” was a more appropriate moniker for northern Cyprus “as Turkey’s actions have isolated its residents from the rest of the world”.
A 52-YEAR-OLD farmer was yesterday arrested on charges of worker exploitation, following a police sting at two sites in the Nicosia area.
During the operation, conducted around 4.30am jointly by the police’s human trafficking unit, Immigration, the CID and Labour Ministry officials, police located 32 foreign nationals in total.
Acting on a tipoff, police first raided a farm, owned by a Cypriot couple, where they located 27 foreign nationals living in shacks. Thirteen of the foreign workers – including nationals from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and Egypt – were determined to be residing illegally on the island.
LOW FARE airline Jet2.com has announced new routes from Larnaca and Paphos to Manchester from just €90.99.
The two new direct flights bring to six the total number of routes offered by the company from Cyprus, following the existing routes from Paphos to East Midlands, Newcastle and Leeds and from Larnaca to Leeds.
Tickets are on sale now for summer 2011 for all routes. The €90.99 offer applies to one-way tickets including taxes.
Flights to Manchester from Paphos will begin operating on April 6, 2011, flying every Wednesday and Sunday during the season. Flights from Larnaca to Manchester commence May 14 and operate once a week on Saturdays.
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.
