OUR ESTABLISHMENT would like to congratulate and express its unconditional support to deputies Averof Neophytou and Nicholas Papadopoulos, a.k.a. Ethnarch Junior, for their ongoing campaign to introduce an element of sanity to the public debate about state finances and to push the cowardly government into some rational decision-making.

Some might say they deserve no praise for doing their job, but how many other deputies have had the guts to speak out in public about the government’s lunatic policies and need to cut the public sector pay-roll and pensions? How many other deputies have publicly slammed the privileges of the public parasites driving the state to bankruptcy?

LONG SUFFERING residents of a block of flats in Paralimni that were left without electricity for 13 days in October are furious after developers built an illegal high voltage substation on their property – to supply another building.

The bizarre twist comes as the complex still remains without a legal supply, five years after developers promised to fix the problem.

Since 2005, a single electric cable, illegally plugged to a nearby house has supplied 24 apartments, resulting in the occupants suffering a constant stream of cuts and blackouts.

FIVE FIREFIGHTERS and three vehicles were stuck in the buffer zone yesterday after one of the fire engines rolled over a mine which exploded.

According to Fire Service spokesman Leonidas Leonidou, the vehicles were fighting a fire in the buffer zone outside the village of Denia when the largest fire engine drove over a mine, causing damage to the vehicle.

“Fortunately, there were no injuries,” said Leonidou as it was the back end of the truck which set off the mine.

Two men were in the vehicle that was hit, while two more were in another fire engine and one officer was in a jeep nearby when the explosion occurred.

CYPRUS HAS what it takes to become a core member of the eurozone if government partners and opposition just show a little understanding, President Demetris Christofias said yesterday.

Speaking at an event to mark the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, he said the government had done a lot to tackle the economic crisis without putting a massive burden on the most needy, adding that the public was being bombarded with misinformation.

LESBIAN, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights groups from around southern Europe vowed to work together yesterday at a “solidarity and networking conference” held in Nicosia.

The pioneering initiative, funded by the international lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex association (ILGA) Europe, aims to network the organisations in their battle towards achieving equality.

Yoryis Regginos, part of the organising committee, admits that “holding this event in a country that is one of the most homophobic in the EU” had not been an easy task but will allow “us to gather together, discuss our common future, our struggles, our battles and our strategies.”

A FIFTH man was remanded yesterday for six days after being implicated in the theft of religious artefacts from two Limassol churches.

A police spokesman said: “after acquiring a testimony we have proceeded to arrest a 31-year-old man, he has been remanded for six days and investigations are underway to get to the bottom of the case.”

The spokesman could not confirm if he expected further arrests.

The police spokesman confirmed that the 31-year-old has also been implicated in another unrelated theft case where €4,000 was stolen from a taxi driver on October 14.

A CAT was thrown off a second floor balcony and a 64-year-old British woman was allegedly glassed in the face by British soldiers in an incident at a Paphos hotel on Friday night.

According to a report, soldiers from the Duke of Lancaster Regiment were partying at a beach hotel in Paphos when one of them allegedly threw a cat off a second floor balcony. A group of tourists confronted the men and in the ensuing fracas the woman was allegedly attacked with a glass, which resulted in her sustaining facial injuries.