Police ‘incapable’ of enforcing law at football matches

2011-02-15

POLICE OFFICERS are considering refusing to monitor high risk football matches, it emerged yesterday as recriminations flew thick and fast in the wake of Sunday’s sports violence in Limassol.

Disturbances before and after the Limassol derby between AEL and Apollon resulted in three injuries – two policemen and one fan. The scenes outside the Tsirio stadium resembled a battle ground as groups of supporters directed their rage against security forces, pelting police with rocks and metal screws and firing flare guns and makeshift pipebombs which they had managed to smuggle into the ground.

Our view: Weakness of police is clear to hooligans

2011-02-15

ONE OF THE victims of the latest outbreak of hooligan violence was Andreas Symeou, the leader of the police union SAK. Symeou, who was in charge of an anti-riot group of officers, was hit by pellets, fired by a sling-shot – the latest weapon used by hooligans – just below the eye. He needed several stitches, but was lucky that the pellets did not hit him in the eye.

Fertility clinic in north offering sex selection procedure illegal in the EU

2011-02-15

A FERTILITY centre in occupied Famagusta has found itself at the centre of a scandal after Britain’s Mail on Sunday revealed that the clinic provided “family balancing” treatments forbidden in the EU.

The scandal broke after it emerged that prominent UK gynaecologist Charles Kingsland regularly referred patients wishing to pre-determine the sex of their yet-to-be-conceived children to the Famagusta clinic. “Family balancing” treatments, which allow parents to select the sex of their unborn child, are illegal in the UK, the rest of the EU and Turkey.

Cyprus crops up in search for Mubarak billions

2011-02-15

AS THE dust settles on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, one of the many questions facing the country is how much wealth did Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak and his family gather during his 30-year reign and where is it now?

Within hours of Mubarak’s fall, Swiss officials ordered banks to search for and freeze any assets of Mubarak and his family. Following reports that companies connected to the Mubarak family operate in the UK and Cyprus, a question the Cypriot authorities may want to ask is whether any funds have been illegally or improperly transferred to Cyprus.

Cypriots most to take their mobiles abroad

2011-02-15

CYPRUS HAS among the highest rate of mobile phone ownership in the EU, and shares with Malta the highest rate of overseas travellers who take phones with them, according to the latest Eurostat report released yesterday.

According to the report, 94 per cent of Cypriots take their phone abroad, compared to an EU average of 81 per cent, and Cypriots are more inclined to make voice calls than other EU nationals when roaming, with 88 per cent predominantly using voice calls when overseas. This compares to an EU average of 55 per cent.

Greece and Cyprus co-ordinated action discussed

2011-02-15

THE FOREIGN Minister of Greece Demetris Droutsas and President Demetris Christofias yesterday discussed the two sides’ coordinated action regarding developments in the Cyprus problem.

Droutsas, on a 24-hour visit to Cyprus, will later this week visit London and New York, where he will have meetings with his British counterpart and the Secretary General of the UN.

Speaking to reporters on his departure from the presidential palace after a two-hour working dinner with Christofias last night, Droutsas said cooperation between Greece and Cyprus is “constant and very close”.

Referring to Christofias’ visit to Athens earlier this month, where he met the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, Droutsas said that both sides had a very good meeting.

Unions claim construction workers being exploited

2011-02-15

LEFT AND right-wing unions SEK and PEO joined forces yesterday to highlight the “unacceptable” conditions under which construction workers are hired, particularly for public projects, resulting in high unemployment among Cypriot workers.

Undeclared unemployment, “humiliatingly” low wages and failure to pay social insurance to mainly EU workers are causing unemployment to remain high among Cypriot construction workers, they argued.

PEO union boss in charge of construction workers, Michalis Papanicolaou said the situation on construction sites was “unacceptable”.

He argued a significant section of contractors were violating collective agreements and labour laws. He gave them a month to sort it out before promising to name guilty contractors.

New law aims to weed out draft cheaters

2011-02-15

TIGHTER PHYSICAL and psychological assessments of army conscripts are at the heart of the new National Guard law geared at weeding out draft cheaters.

The law stipulates that for conscripts who got an enlistment waiver on or after January 1, 1995 on any grounds, the Defence Minister “may” refer them for re-evaluation, and, if they are deemed fit they will be drafted to serve the full 24 months. Persons with a permanent disability are excluded.

If a person is deemed fit and eligible for re-enlistment, he may get a deferral for up to six years. Anyone with a deferral or enlistment waiver must undergo re-evaluation once a year until the age of 40. Failure to show up at a re-evaluation constitutes an offence punishable by law.

Laws to regulate title deeds could be voted through by May

2011-02-15

THE GOVERNMENT’S town-planning amnesty bills will be put to the vote in parliament early next month as MPs aim to conclude discussion of two other bills designed to regulate mortgage issues before the May 22 parliamentary elections, it emerged yesterday.

Chairman of the House Interior Committee, AKEL MP Yiannos Lamaris said discussion has been completed and the bills were going to be submitted to plenum on March 3.

“A chapter concerning thousands of people is closing,” he said.

Apart from town planning matters, the government has also drafted two bills to regulate mortgage matters, currently under discussion at the House Legal Affairs Committee.

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.