And the point of grammatical gender is?

2010-10-22

In the middle of the Inter Milan v Spurs Champions League match the other night, my daughter called to tell me about her new French class. This was just after Spurs mounted their come-back from 4-1 down; Gareth Bale had scored his first fabulous goal and the Spurs fans in the stadium were optimistically chanting, “we’re gonna win 5-4”. It was very exciting and not the time to be discussing French grammar. But then what does she know about football-watching etiquette?

Our View: Green Line Regulation is having the opposite effect

2010-10-22

EARLIER this week we read in the press that the Green Line regulation which allows trade between the two sides was posing a threat to Greek Cypriot manufacturers. Brick factories, mattress-makers, plastics factories and mosaic tile manufacturers were facing unfair competition from manufacturers in the north, said the Federation of Employers and Industrialists (OEV) in a statement issued a few days ago.

UN’s Ban ‘worried’ about the talks

2010-10-22

UN SECRETARY-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday telephoned the two leaders to express his concern at the “slow” pace of the talks in recent weeks and urged them to make “concrete advances”.

According to a UN spokesman, Ban called President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu separately to discuss “the state of the UN-supported talks on Cyprus”.

The spokesman said Ban was closely following developments in the negotiations through his Special Adviser Alexander Downer ahead of the progress report due next month.

Oil talks with Lebanon progressing well

2010-10-22

LEBANESE Prime Minister Saad Hariri said yesterday his country would soon define its offshore boundaries with Cyprus and Syria, and would move ahead with licensing exploration for oil and gas, as Turkey simultaneously announced it would start searching for oil off the island’s northern coast.

Hariri, on a one-day visit to Cyprus, was speaking after talks with President Demetris Christofias at the Presidential Palace, where the two leaders also decided to further expand bilateral relations.

”We are finalising the [exclusive] economic zones with Syria, and hopefully soon we will be sending to parliament the whole area for ratification,” Hariri told newsmen.

Police accused of terror tactics in bird wars

2010-10-22

 

POLICE were yesterday accused of acting as if they were raiding a Taliban hideout instead of a village full of women and children in the Larnaca district where they had gone searching for poachers.

Police in turn accused the villagers of throwing rocks and stones, and using their wives and children as human shields during a brawl late on Wednesday between 90 officers from the Rapid Reaction Unit (MMAD) and half of the residents of Ayios Theodoros village.

Six people were arrested and ten were injured, among them two minors aged 14 and 15.

The two youngsters were injured enough to need medical attention at the Larnaca General Hospital.

Thieves with plastic sword steal €25,000 from Limassol bank

2010-10-22

A PLASTIC SWORD, a plastic bag and two pantyhose were the tools used by a pair of criminals to rob a Hellenic Bank branch in Limassol of €25,000 yesterday.

At around 10.20am the two villains entered the bank on Frank Roosevelt Avenue,  and after putting pantyhose on their heads, one pulled out a plastic sword and the other a plastic bag.

According to reports the man holding the plastic bag was holding it in such a way as if he was concealing a weapon.

Speaking in broken Greek the pair then threatened the seven staff members and four customers in the bank,  forcing the employees to give them money from three separate tills.

After taking the money the pair fled through the back door into a white van parked 200 metres behind the branch and sped off.

Asian boy ‘was turned down by three kindergartens’

2010-10-22

THE COMMISSIONER for Children’s Rights pledged yesterday to investigate reports that a four-year-old boy was turned down by three kindergartens in Limassol because of the colour of his skin.

The boy’s parents – a Pakistani father and Sri Lankan mother – are failed political asylum seekers but have been granted special permission for temporary residence from the Minister of the Interior on humanitarian grounds.

The family – who in addition to four-year-old Ali have a seventh-month-old toddler – live in a rundown house in the Ayios Ioannis area of Limassol. As they are not entitled to welfare, the family relies on financial assistance help from friends.

Supermarkets gearing up for LiDL opening

2010-10-22

BIG PLAYERS in the retail market are sharpening their knives ahead of the imminent launch of LiDL stores on the island.

The German discount supermarket chain, which operates some 9,000 stores worldwide, will be opening for business on November 4.

The company recently unveiled its 21,000m² distribution centre in Aradippou, Larnaca, but has been extremely tight-lipped over its planned operations.

Media reports, however, indicate LiDL will be operating 10 stores, in addition to the distribution centre, spread out among all districts except Paphos.

Collector wants to donate his dinosaur relics to proposed new museum

2010-10-22

OVER €3 million worth of dinosaur relics are being offered to the state by Angelos Tsirides, a well-travelled private collector and owner of Tsircon Co, on the condition that the state builds a museum to house them.

Tsirides said he wished to put Cyprus on the map by donating around 600 artefacts to a future museum, including the complete skeletons of dinosaurs, such as the Protocetus and the Oviraptor, as well as several dinosaur heads, including the hefty 1.60m head of a Triceratops.

Some of the heads also come from what he describes as “beasts of the sea” such as a Plesiosaurus, dating back to the Jurassic period, which according to Tsirides is what is believed to be the Loch Ness monster.

Christofias asks Barroso to withdraw direct trade proposal

2010-10-22

PRESIDENT Demetris Christofias has sent a letter to the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, calling on the Commission to withdraw a regulation on direct trade between the EU and the breakaway regime in the north of the island.

The call comes in the wake of a decision by the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee questioning the legal basis on which the Commission had proposed direct trade between the EU and the occupied areas.

That decision coincided with the position of the Cyprus government that the occupied territories cannot be regarded as a third country with which EU members can trade since they are considered part of the Republic of Cyprus under the island’s treaty of accession.

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.