OVER 10,000 Turkish Cypriots rallied in protest against an Ankara-inspired austerity package in northern Nicosia yesterday, amid fears that deep cuts in public sector jobs will spark a new wave of emigration.
“This package will lead to mass emigration over the next ten to 15 years,” Cagatay Karaer, a 42 year-old civil servant told the Cyprus Mail at yesterday’s demonstration.
ALTHOUGH we are not legal experts and cannot express an informed opinion on the legal intricacies of court cases, there is point raised in the judgement of the O’Dwyer vs Karayiannas Developers case that makes no sense at all. In her judgment, the judge noted that “the fact they (plaintiffs) submitted a sales contract to the Land Registry did not mean they automatically and in perpetuity have become the ‘owners’ (as they mean it) of the residence.”
This is a bewildering view that would suggest that the irrevocable right to property is not protected by the law in Cyprus. If a sales contract for a property that is submitted to the Land Registry does not mean the buyer has become the owner in perpetuity, then we have a serious problem with our laws.
A WAR of words has broken out between Cyprus Airways (CY) and the three biggest tour operators over a deal signed by the airline with Royal Holidays to carry out 130 charter flights to the Greek islands and other destinations this summer.
Louis Tours, Top Kinisis Travel and Let’s Go Tours by Amathus said they had approached CY at the beginning of last autumn “seeking cooperation to carry out charter flights to the Greek islands and other destinations in the summer of 2011 … but so far there was no response.”
The three tour operators said they were informed through the media of CY’s agreement with a single tour operator for the second year running and categorically denied claims the airline had had any consultations with them.
THE FAMILY and friends of a Paphos woman with life threatening melanoma are appealing to the public for help to raise money to send her for treatment in Germany next week.
Alethea Ayres, 35, the mother of a two-year-old boy, discovered only two weeks ago that her melanoma had spread to her brain.
Ayres had been suffering from severe headaches, dizzy spells and sickness. Doctors found seven tumours during a brain scan the day after she attended the Paphos Hearts of Gold ceremony as a nominee.
She was nominated for staging musical charity event to raise money for cancer charities, and for founding the Parenting In Cyprus website, www.parentingincyprus.com, which offers parents advice and information.
GOVERNMENT and opposition yesterday traded barbs over the news that Cyprus was one of four EU countries that needed to take no further steps to curb their budget deficits under rules on government finances.
While ruling AKEL and the government welcomed the news, and spoke of their economic policies being vindicated, opposition DISY’s Averoff Neophytou said nothing had actually been done to warrant the bragging.
THE PALESTINIAN families camped out for over a week on Mackenzie beach in Larnaca in protest at the lack of job prospects for asylum seekers yesterday agreed to dismantle their tents and leave the area peacefully.
The protestors agreed to leave after the reported intervention of Labour Minister Sotiroula Charalambous and visiting Foreign Minister of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Dr Riad Malki.
Representatives of the seven families and four individuals, making up around 30 men, women and children, originally told reporters they were forced to leave their apartments and set up tents on the beach because the District Labour Office had stopped their benefits. As a result they did not have money for rent and food.
CYPRUS is being touted as the perfect location for filming independent European films, with shooting starting as early as three months from now if proposals are accepted by the Ministry of Education and Culture.
“Cyprus has lots of advantages all in one place like the language, the climate, varied landscape and the modern along with the old,” said Silvio Muraglia, executive director for Bavaria Pool Film Production Company.
“Also you’ve got so many choices in a small area which is important in the movie business as you can move your crew in a matter of hours,” said Muraglia. Even with the slight rain coming down outside, the weather for the group of film experts was still practicable for shooting a film, they said.
A 24-YEAR-OLD man was yesterday remanded for eight days, after a 16-year-old girl with slight mental disabilities claimed he raped her.
Nicosia CID are investigating the girl’s claims, after she said the suspect – a man from India who worked as a caretakers at friends of the girl’s family – had been sexually abusing her since last August.
In a closed hearing at Nicosia District Court, the suspect was remanded for eight days and faces charges of rape, sexual exploitation, indecent assault and corruption of a girl aged between 13 and 17 years old. The 24-year-old denies all charges.
Meanwhile, the Social Services have also become involved, offering psychological support to both the 16-year-old and her family.
CYPRUS AIRWAYS’ pilots’ union PASYPI yesterday offered the final nod of approval to the government’s rescue plan for the airline.
With 67 votes in favour and 39 against, the pilots were the last of the CY unions to decide to support the plan, which calls for pay cuts and redundancies with the aim of saving €12 million.
The main provisions of the rescue plan concern actions by the company to save €30 million and the workers contributing another €12 million — €7 million through pay cuts and the rest through shedding 140 jobs from a total of around 1,200.
The plan was approved on Tuesday by PEO and the cabin crew union, and by CYNIKA – the biggest of the five unions – and the engineers’ union on Wednesday.
MARFIN Popular Bank (MPB) is to sell an 85 per cent stake in its Australian unit Laiki Bank to Bank of Beirut for €104 million.
MPB, which also operates in Greece, said yesterday the deal was in line with a strategy to focus on southeast Europe.
The sale should generate a profit of about €53 million. MPB has an option to sell its remaining stake in February 2013.
Completion of the deal was subject to approval by the central bank of Lebanon after approvals from the central bank of Cyprus and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority.
MPB said the sale was priced at about 1.67 times the book value of Laiki Bank as of end-September.
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.
