If the mountains catch fire we are very happy to allow helicopters and military personnel from the British Bases to help douse the flames.
When it comes to helping stop an illegal activity like bird trapping, however, suddenly the same forces are “colonial remnants” according to our illustrious politicians.
Since your correspondent Mr Mike Klokkou (Sunday Mail, November 28) doesn’t live in Cyprus he absolutely proves my point that untold damage has been done needlessly to the property market in terms of overseas perceptions. And if he will read again the second paragraph of my November 21 letter he criticises he will see I made entirely ample mention of the problems here.
Moreover I reiterate it again below. But on a personal level my wife and I have bought two properties and sold one, both through one of the developers constantly under attack. And by using commonsense, patience, normal care – and civility – have suffered none of the horrors described by the doom-mongers. And that goes for many, many friends and contacts.
I refer to the two articles in the last edition of the Cyprus Sunday Mail, November 28, referring to a previous article written by Clive Turner which was published the preceding week.
The articles concentrated on the issues surrounding the Cyprus property market and failures by Developers and Builders in their legal responsibility to their customers. My own experiences, with my own developer, is that if you treat them with respect and fight your corner in a patient and reasonable manner then things get done eventually. I accept that there are some builders/developers who may not act in such a manner and I understand the frustration and anger that this must cause to buyers.
THE GOVERNMENT should be congratulated for its plan to scrap the absurd system for appointing secondary schools teachers that has been in place for decades and which political parties were afraid to touch. We refer to the criminally irrational system by which any university graduate is eligible to be appointed a secondary school teacher in their subject as long as they put their name on a register and waited their turn to come.
RULING AKEL and coalition partners DIKO yesterday formally endorsed an economic recovery package agreed earlier this week between the parties and the government
By unanimous vote, the communist party’s Political Bureau approved the package, which is to be incorporated into the 2011 budget.
Meanwhile DIKO’s Executive Bureau also gave the nod to the measures. Party spokesman Fotis Fotiou said the party organ had voted overwhelmingly in favour.
The decision, Fotiou went on to say, proved “yet again that DIKO is a responsible force and that it plays a player in the country’s politics.”
The party said it would go into more detail after the Finance Minister’s presentation of the 2011 budget.
THE UNIVERSITY of Nicosia and St George’s, University of London, are set to open Cyprus’ first medical school in September 2011, offering a four year graduate entry MBBS course to international students.
Around 80 students are expected to enroll this year, rising to 100 the next. The course will be taught in English and follow St George’s pioneering ‘problem based learning’ (PBL) model.
The fees are set to be around €25,000 per year, and students will spend most of the first two years in Cyprus and the second two at the Sheba Medical Centre in Israel to gain clinical experience.
While this is significantly more expensive than the same course in the UK for EU students, the cost is comparable for non EU students, who will make up the majority of the students.
POLITICIANS yesterday slammed a British bases anti-poaching operation in the Famagusta district, which involved troops rather than police officers.
The operation took place on Wednesday at the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area (SBA), a known hotspot for bird trapping, netting loads of poaching equipment but failing to make any arrests.
EDEK leader Yiannakis Omirou condemned the operation and called upon the government react to the British move to use troops.
He said troops stationed at the Dhekelia garrison “raided Greek Cypriot properties inside the SBA to carry out a mission … that could at least have been done by police and not Her Majesty’s armed forces.”
STABILITY in the Eastern Mediterranean will remain hostage to full settlement of the Cyprus dispute, but the property issue, — one of its most intractable knots – could be solved now if Greek and Turkish Cypriots compromised on new proposals currently before them, the latest report of the International Crisis Group (ICG) said yesterday.
The report titled ‘Cyprus: Bridging the Property Divide’, examines the fate of tens of thousands of buildings and parcels of land that Greek and Turkish Cypriots own on either side of the divide.
“As Cypriot politicians and Turkey fail to come to terms, the property question is increasingly being atomised by individual actions and the courts – a process that will be more expensive, slow and inefficient for all,” the report says.
PRESIDENT of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso said yesterday the time was ripe to end the division of Cyprus, and pledged the commission’s full support to the ongoing negotiations.
In a statement issued after a meeting of the Cyprus Steering Group yesterday, which assessed the situation in Cyprus, Barroso assured that the Commission was ready to provide full support for efforts to reach agreement on EU related issues.
The Group assessed the situation in the ongoing talks following the recent meeting of the UN Secretary General with the leaders of the two communities and his report on the Good Offices Mission presented to the UN Security Council on November 30.
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.
