Baghdatis digs deep to start the year with Brisbane win

2011-01-04

MARCOS Baghdatis was made to work hard in his 2011 ATP World Tour opener, battling past Florent Serra of France 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 in the first round of the Brisbane International.
After going an early break down in the first set and trailing 3-0, the Limassol native immediately fought back but his serve was broken again in the sixth game by the experienced Frenchman, who then went on to take the first set.
Baghdatis was strong on serve in a close second set, firing down eight aces and not facing a single break point.
The Cypriot took his chance on Serra’s serve in the 12th game, breaking his opponent to level the match and force a decider.

VAT rise puts 250,000 jobs at risk – Miliband

2011-01-04

THE 2.5 per cent VAT rise coming into effect today will cost families almost £400 a year and put 250,000 jobs at risk, Labour leader Ed Miliband warned yesterday.

Campaigning in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, Miliband cited a Liberal Democrat poster from last year’s general election, which warned that a “Tory VAT bombshell” would cost households £7.50 a week.

He said there were now only two choices for voters in the January 13 by-election – between the two coalition parties which both support the hike in VAT to 20 per cent and Labour, which thinks the government is cutting spending “too far and too fast”.

Hungary and EU at odds over taxes and media law

2011-01-04

HUNGARY’S EU presidency, already clouded by a press freedom row, stumbled further on its first working day when the European Commission said it was investigating the legality of “crisis taxes” imposed by the centre-right government.

The Commission said yesterday it was looking into the special taxes on the telecoms, retail and energy sectors, as well as complaints by a number of affected foreign companies.

It was the latest in a series of conflicts between Hungary and the European Union since Prime Minister Viktor Orban rejected austerity measures, cut ties with the International Monetary Fund and opted for unorthodox fiscal steps to cut the budget deficit and boost economic growth.

Australian floods submerge towns

2011-01-04

MILITARY aircraft ferried supplies to an Australian town slowly sinking beneath swollen rivers yesterday, as record flooding in the country’s northeast severed roads and ports, curtailing coal exports and devastating farmland.

Floods covering an area the size of France and Germany combined submerged the Capricorn Highway, the major traffic artery through Queensland state. High waters surged into homes in the sinking town of Rockhampton, sending furniture and refrigerators cascading down torrents of floodwater.

Storm warnings were issued in southern Queensland late yesterday, with heavy rain and new flash floods forecast.

China boasts breakthrough in nuclear technology

2011-01-04

CHINESE scientists have made a breakthrough in spent fuel reprocessing technology that could  potentially solve China’s uranium supply problem, state  television reported yesterday.

The technology, developed and tested at the No.404 Factory of China National Nuclear Corp in the Gobi desert in remote Gansu province, enables the re-use of irradiated fuel and is able to boost the usage rate of uranium materials at nuclear plants by 60 fold.

“With the new technology, China’s existing detected uranium resources can be used for 3,000 years,” Chinese Central Television reported.

Puzzle as 1,000 birds fall dead from sky

2011-01-04

WILDLIFE officials in the US are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 blackbirds to die and fall from the sky over an Arkansas town.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said it began receiving reports about the dead birds in Beebe, 40 miles from Little Rock, at about 11:30pm on Friday night. The birds fell in an area of about two kilometres and an aerial survey indicated that no dead birds were found outside that area.

Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe said the birds showed signs of physical trauma and speculated that “the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail”.

Mother killed as son slept next door

2011-01-04

POLICE are investigating a case of suspected premeditated murder, after a Greek Cypriot man yesterday reportedly admitted to killing his Bulgarian partner at their home in Alethriko village near Larnaca.

Police suspect the 42-year-old victim – Spaska Karamarinova – was strangled by her builder boyfriend, after finding marks on the dead woman’s neck as well as scratches on his face and torso, indicating that the victim had put up a fight. Their suspicions are expected to be backed by the post-mortem today.

The incident took place while their seven-year-old son was asleep next door. The 52-year-old suspect then left Karamarinova’s lifeless body at home, with their young son sleeping in the room next door, while he went to the police to say he thought she was dead.

Our View: Ministers must earn respect, not demand it

2011-01-04

 

Over the past few days accusations have been leveled against Education Minister Andreas Demetriou, who was slammed by the opposition for wasting taxpayer’s money by opting for VIP services during stopovers at German airports while on state business.

According to reports, Demetriou racked up a €1,065 euro bill for a total of four hours of VIP lounge services at Frankfurt and Munich airports on three separate flights.

The amount of money involved is not exactly a shocker when compared to what’s being handed out in multiple pensions to some deputies and ministers every month. But what is scandalous was the minister’s response.

Seatbelts would have saved new year’s dead

2011-01-04

JUST three days into the new year yesterday and already three people had died in traffic accidents.

Two of the dead could have been saved if they had been wearing their seatbelts, police said.

Andreas Thoma, 30, from Larnaca, and 45-year-old Paphos resident Tryfonas Ioannides, were killed in the early hours of New Year’s Day in a head-on collision on the Ayios Georgios to Mamonia road.

And Tryfonas Ioannides, 85, died just after midnight yesterday from injuries suffered in a traffic accident in the Nicosia suburb of Engomi on the afternoon of January 1.

A 23-year-old woman injured in the same accident remains in serious condition.

The Paphos accident was a repeat of New Year’s Day, 2009 when two people again lost their lives.

Larnaca fire department inundated with flood help calls

2011-01-04

LARNACA’S Fire Services had responded to over 130 calls by late last night from people whose premises were flooded by over four hours of torrential rain.

Roads, car parks and land plots were turned into small lakes, while both of Larnaca’s Fire Service stations were inundated with calls from residents in the town’s coastal area all the way up to the old airport.

According to the Fire Services last night, the services responded to 132 calls, of which 15 involved cars that had become trapped on flooded roads.

Fire Services spokesman Leonidas Leonidou said firemen had responded to over a hundred of the calls. “We hope that by late tonight, we will be able to respond to the rest of them,” he added.

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.