At the start of this week, UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague felt the need to tweet. He thanked his supporters on Twitter for, well, being supportive in their comments over his predicament. And he said he hoped he had nailed the ‘big lie’ about him being gay. Well, I think the point is, who really cares whether or not William is gay and why is he discussing it publicly?
MORE THAN 30 fire-fighters, ten fire-engines and a team from the police rapid response unit MMAD were called out to tackle a massive chemical fire in a Linopetra industrial estate warehouse early yesterday.
Two fire engines initially responded to the callout to the former Lord Jeans building, which was being rented out as storage space to seven different firms, shortly after the blaze erupted at 4am.
However eight more units were eventually needed after flammable materials inside, including cigarettes, billboards, clothing and chemicals, caught fire and a series of mini explosions.
A thick black cloud of smoke and fumes erupted from the site and hung over parts of Limassol for hours.
IN THE first two months of its operation, the new public transport system served 41 per cent more passengers than in the corresponding period last year, said the Minister of Communications Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis. In numbers, this was an increase of 500,000, which is quite impressive, given the lack of advertising and promotion of the new service.
LOW-COST airline Ryanair announced the opening of the much-anticipated second route out of Larnaca yesterday, which will be to Barcelona in Spain, it said.
The new route will begin in December 2010 and follows the initial route to Charleroi Belgium which was announced last month.
Ryanair said yesterday they expect the two new routes to deliver over 60,000 passengers to Larnaca and create up to 60 new jobs.
Fares for flights to Barcelona start at €34.99 one-way, and are already on sale on www.ryanair.com.
THE MAJORITY of the opposition parties cried foul yesterday over perceived Turkish Cypriot proposals on the property aspect of reunification talks, and President Demetris Christofias stood accused of ‘deviating’ from long-held Greek Cypriot positions because he wanted to close a deal at all costs.
Media reports on Wednesday gave a glimpse of the Turkish Cypriot proposals, which included a minimal return of displaced Greek Cypriots to their properties, with a cap on the number that can settle in villages and municipalities.
There were also reports that refugees from Varosha, the fenced off part of Famagusta, would share some of their properties with those who would not return to their homes under a comprehensive agreement.
HOUSE prices in Cyprus fell at a slower pace in the second quarter of 2010, with locals starting to make a reappearance on the property market, data from the RICS Cyprus property index showed yesterday.
“Towards the end of the second quarter there were some early signs of stabilisation, with local buyers returning to the market taking advantage of lower prices for holiday homes,” said RICS in its third-ever index.
The RICS index is compiled by the Cyprus branch of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and Cypriot chartered quantity surveyors.
The results showed that home prices fell on average 2.5 per cent from April to June, compared to a 4.5 per cent drop in the first quarter of the year.
PRIMARY schools opened their doors yesterday to 8,130 new students, with the start of this academic year, promising important changes in the education system, according to the Ministry of Education and Culture.
While the number of first year students has increased this year by 250 to 8,130, the total number of primary school students has dropped. Early yesterday morning a total of 49,543 students showed up at primary schools, 550 less than last year. More specifically, there were 17,873 students in Nicosia, 9,430 in Larnaca, 12,864 in Limassol, 5,543 in Famagusta and 5,833 in Paphos, according to Nicoletta Orfanidou, an official at the Director of State Education’s office.
IN A move hailed as ‘historic,’ the Holy Synod yesterday approved the text of a new charter rendering the Church of Cyprus truly autocephalous.
The new charter will be endorsed by the body Monday at the Archbishopric, during a ceremony to be attended by the President, political leaders and VIPs.
An autocephalous church is one that enjoys total canonical and administrative independence and elects its own prelates and bishops. The Cypriot Orthodox Church was granted autocephaly by the Council of Ephesus of 431 and is ruled by the Archbishop of Cyprus, who is not subject to any higher ecclesiastical authority, although his church remains in full communion with the other Eastern Orthodox churches.
A JEWELLERY store in a mall in Larnaca was burgled at 6am yesterday in the presence of witnesses who did not react or even call the police.
The witnesses, who were enjoying coffee in a nearby shop, stated that they saw two men enter ‘Lefkara Art’ through a side door. The assailants proceeded to take jewellery valued at €150.000 and leave through the same door.
The alarm sounded in the shop and despite the fact it was ringing for three hours the police were not contacted until the owner arrived at 9am.
Police then discovered that the phone lines were disconnected so the alarm would not ring directly at the shop-owner’s home. Valuable traditional Cypriot works of art were left untouched by the thieves.
LAWMAKERS yesterday gave a nod of approval for a cooperation agreement between Harvard University and Cyprus’ technical university TEPAK.
“We can say that a more serious base has been set with the involvement of TEPAK and the cooperation between TEPAK and Harvard will have very positive effects on know-how and academic education,” said Giorgos Georgiou, chairman of the House Watchdog Committee.
The initial agreement with the American university was signed in 2004 during the Tassos Papadopoulos administration but was re-negotiated by the current government in 2008 after it was deemed to be unfavourable.
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.
