THERE was jubilation last night amongst supporters of British property buyer Conor O’Dwyer as a developer from Paralimni, his son and an associate were convicted of assault and actual body harm.

In a surprise outcome after hours of summation, Judge Evi Antoniou at Famagusta District Court ordered the three men into police custody pending mitigation and sentencing next Monday.

The case, which has been in court for several years, came after O’Dwyer reported being beaten up following an incident outside a disputed house in early 2007.

The father-of-two was forced to travel to Cyprus on more than seven occasions to be present at court hearings, only to be faced with a series of obstacles and adjournments.

IT WAS understandable that Paphos Mayor Savvas Vergas decided to walk out of a meeting with owners of bars and restaurants in the town’s tourist strip, also known as ‘Bar Street’.

There was nothing he could really have done to reverse the conditions caused by recession and a fall in tourist arrivals.

Vergas came under attack for allegedly doing nothing to help the revival of the strip which was no longer attracting customers.

More than half of the 50 clubs and bars on the strip had closed down, while the rest were fighting for their survival said a representative of the owners. While he insisted that the situation was not as bleak as the owners claimed, he admitted that these were difficult times.

TRADE union PEO yesterday called for an end to the public debates over the Social Security Fund (SSF), which it said would only succeed in spreading unnecessary panic among workers.

“The social security system is one of the biggest achievements of the Cypriot people especially for those who live off their labour,” PEO announced.

Accusing certain political powers of scaremongering and altering the facts, the union said the apparent goal is to spread panic among workers that supposedly in 10 years’ time “there will be no money left for pensions”.

IT is not unusual for Cyprus’ Central Bank (CB) – or any European CB – to have differing forecasts from its government, Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis said yesterday.

But he warned that political and party conflicts on the internal front could only cause psychological damage to investment and consumption.

The minister had been asked to comment on the recent row that broke out between DISY and DIKO, and the government, over the latter’s differing predictions from the Central Bank over their forecasts on next year’s state deficit. The CB predicts a 7.0 per cent deficit next year, compared to the government’s forecast of 6.0 per cent of the GDP, which is double the EU recommended ceiling.

THE Cyprus Institute is set to establish Cyprus as a High Performance computing centre with the launch of two major research projects this week, “LinkSCEEM” and “Cy-Tera” which will form the basis for a regional supercomputing centre, supporting training and educational activities in computational sciences.

The first project, LinkSCEEM, is an EU funded initiative to develop the institute’s strong scientific ties in the European and the Eastern Mediterranean high performance computing communities.

THE CAPITAL is once again set to jostle and jingle to the sights, sounds and smells of Asia, Africa, Europe and other parts of the world as migrant support group KISA stages its annual Rainbow Festival this Sunday for a 13th year running.

Under the motto ‘Cypriots and Migrants United against the Crisis’, the festival aims to use dance, music and food from around the world to highlight “the need to deal with the economic crisis together with migrants, who are its most vulnerable victims, and not against them”.

KISA representative Doros Polycarpou yesterday warned against holding migrants as the main ‘culprits’ of the crisis and creating a sense of competition with other vulnerable segments of society.

WHILE TURKISH EU Minister Egemen Bagis busied himself whipping up a storm among Cypriot MEPs in Brussels, President Demetris Christofias laid into Turkey’s lack of desire for a solution at this time.

In a speech given at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, Christofias told his audience that the peace talks have failed to yield the expected results, adding: “My experiences from the negotiations of the last two years make me believe that Turkey is not ready yet to make Cyprus a priority and to take the decisions that would lead to a solution.”

THE development of sport tourism is now one of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation’s main priorities, the CTO chairman said yesterday.

“The main aim of the organisation is to establish and promote Cyprus as a destination for sport teams and athletes for warm base training,” said Alekos Orountiotis.

Orountiotis believes that this aim will be helped by the parallel organisation of international athletic events.

“These events will not only promote Cyprus abroad but will directly boost the local economy and the tourist industry. In 2009 €15.5 million of revenue was generated through sport tourism,” Orountiotis said.

THE remains of 209 Greek Cypriot and 54 Turkish Cypriot missing persons have been identified since the tripartite Committee for Missing Persons (CMP) started operating in 2007, Parliament heard yesterday.

The Committee still has a long way to go, with another 1,473 Greek Cypriots and 450 Turkish Cypriots still missing.

Presenting the data yesterday, the Chairman of the House Refugees Committee, AKEL’s Aristophanis Georgiou, underlined the need for Turkey and the Turkish army to present all the information it has.