DISCUSSION raged yesterday over the president’s rejected applicant for the office of Ombudsman, the academic Andreas Kapardis.

The House of Representatives rejected on Thursday the Cabinet’s decision to appoint Kapardis. 17 AKEL MPs voted in favour of the post and 35 MPs from the rest of the parties voted against.

A key sticking point for the house was the issue of Kapardis’ neutrality.

“Someone who takes so many important decisions has to be completely impartial. Kapardis has co-operated with the police and prisons and supported the president’s candidacy – this fact would have given a portion of the population the impression that he wasn’t autonomous,” DISY’s Christos Pourgourides said.

One Palestinian and five Greek Cypriot pupils will be charged for the violent clashes that took place at Larnaca’s Vergina High School on Wednesday, Police Spokesman Michalis Katsounotos announced yesterday.

He added that more arrests could follow, as police investigations were ongoing and fresh information was still flowing in.

Katsounotos also condemned an “unsubstantiated claim” that was projected on Facebook on Thursday night saying an attack was being planned against Greek Cypriot pupils yesterday, which resulted in the majority of pupils not turning up to school until just before noon.

He called on everyone to “tone it down and end any acts that only cause more upset”.

ATTORNEY-general Petros Clerides yesterday said he was told by police to investigate statements by Nicosia football club APOEL’s spokesman and that he didn’t just decide to do it after hearing the statements in the media.

The AG launched an investigation into statements by APOEL’s Panicos Hadjiliasis after his team lost in the second leg Cup game with Apollon Limassol back in January. The police deemed the statements “inflammatory” and called on Clerides to investigate whether the law had been broken.

THE ANGLICAN Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf will now be able to ordain women as priests, appointing them to serve in churches in the region, and one of the first could be in Cyprus.

The announcement was made at the annual Synod of the diocese in Larnaca last week, and was warmly welcomed by members. Rt Rev Michael Lewis, bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, reported that his request to have permission to ordain and appoint women had been granted by the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. The other dioceses of the Province: Egypt, Iran and Jerusalem will not be affected by the change.

Police yesterday excluded racism as the motive behind a fight that broke out between Pontian and Greek Cypriot pupils at Nicosia’s Pancyprian Gymnasium on Wednesday, which resulted in minor injuries for the latter.

According to police yesterday, the violent scuffle was over control of a bench the Greek Cypriot students had moved to a part of the school yard at the start of the day.

During the final break, they arrived to find five Pontian classmates and two others not from the school sitting on the bench playing cards.

According to what the two third-grade pupils told police, when they went to claim the bench as theirs, the group of seven attacked them.

Three football fans were sentenced for between three and six months in jail yesterday for their role in violence that broke out after an AEK-AEL match in November 2008 which left one policeman injured.

In a sign that courts are starting to take growing football hooliganism more seriously, yesterday’s sentencing at Limassol District Court is the first time that a court has handed down a jail sentence for football hooliganism that has not been suspended.

Two of the men aged 25 and 27, from Limassol, were sentenced to six months in prison, while the 33-year-old also from Limassol was sentenced to three months as he played a lesser role in the violence. All three of them are AEL fans.

THREE shots were fired at a car parked in Kato Paphos in the early hours of yesterday morning.

According to Paphos police spokesman Nicos Tsappis, the 44-year-old Cypriot owner of the vehicle reported to police that his car had been damaged by gun shots whilst parked outside a nightclub called ‘Doh re mi’.

The vehicle owner, who works as a waiter at the club, finished his shift and left the venue at around 2am, when he discovered the damage caused to his vehicle.

Tsappis said that the shots had come from a pistol and one shot had been fired at the front right hand side of the car and the other two were at the centre of the vehicle. He added that damage to the car was slight and that an estimate as to the cost had not yet been made.

CYPRUS and Germany have signed an agreement for the avoidance of double taxation on income and capital, which replaces an older agreement of 1974 between the two states.

The agreement was signed yesterday by Minister of Finance Charilaos Stavrakis and German Ambassador in Nicosia Gottfried Zeitz. Both of them pointed out that this new agreement further enhances ”the very good” economic and commercial ties between Cyprus and Germany.

The Cypriot Minister described the agreement as very important, noting that negotiations had begun in 2005, taking into consideration the new economic facts in both states.