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PARLIAMENT last night gave the nod to a €20 million cash injection for Cyprus Airways (CY), hours after now-defunct Eurocypria mounted a legal challenge that could upset government plans to bail out the ailing national carrier.
The €20 million is earmarked as compensation to CY for damages incurred due to the Turkish ban on the airline using its airspace.
Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis had previously urged the legislature to approve releasing the funds, warning that otherwise CY might go bankrupt by April. Even with this cash, Stavrakis had said, there were no assurances for the company’s long-term viability.
THE AMERICAN Heart Institute (AHI) opened its state-of-the-art building on Monday. Described as “the most technologically-advanced hospital in Europe”, by one of the men behind the project, Dr Marinos Soteriou, the hospital is testimony to what can be achieved by private initiative.
The new, private hospital cost €50 million and was funded entirely by private investors who believed in the project. Compare this with the construction and equipping of the Nicosia General Hospital, which the late President Papadopoulos described as the biggest scandal in the history of the Republic, and it is blatantly obvious that the private sector does things much better than the public sector.
Every day that goes by without the Cypriot government taking action to constructively remedy the economy is disastrous, tarnishing the reputation the island enjoyed for more than two decades (and worked so hard for) as a reputable business hub and financial centre. It is clear the recent downgrades by both S&P and Moody’s are not taken seriously by those in power, as their only consideration for action is related to the outcome of the coming elections.
Shame on both the government but also on all political parties and trade unions whose public declarations are unworthy of whatever they claim to be. These are times when every cent counts, that is, every cent that one spends, saves or invests.
THE TRIAL for the murder of media owner Andis Hadjicostis turned more intricate yesterday after a shocking revelation in court that at least one member of the police force knew of a plot to slay the Sigma boss and had even warned the victim prior to the hit.
Police constable Neofytos Shailos, a witness for the state prosecution and part of the team assigned to investigate the 11 January 2010 murder, said he arrived at the scene of the crime at 9.30pm, shortly after Hadjicostis was gunned down just outside his Nicosia home.
There, Shailos said, he met up with Christos Ioannou, a colleague of his, who told him he had known of the plans to kill Hadjicostis. Ioannou knew the Hadjicostis family, as the victim’s wife had stood as bridesmaid at his own wedding.
A RECORD 35,644 graduates are currently on the ‘teachers’ list’, which is being fuelled by the addition of thousands of names of Greeks seeking teaching jobs in Cyprus.
Cyprus has a unique system for teacher appointments where graduates in any field can add their name to a list and be appointed as a teacher at any point as their name moves up the list. It could even be 20 years later.
At the end of 2009, there were 28,591 people on this list, and the year before that 31,256.
According to the Education Service Commission, last year 6,295 applications were submitted, and 4,866 of those were added to the list.
The figure of 6,295 however is not necessarily individuals as one person may apply for a few posts at a time.
ACTIONS taken now will determine which way the tourism industry will go in 2011, hoteliers warned yesterday.
Speaking at the annual general meeting of the Cyprus Hotels Association (PASYXE), its chairman Haris Loizides said that even though prospects had been bleak at the beginning of 2010, the year had ended with a 1.5 per cent increase in arrivals and a 4.0 per cent rise in revenue.
“This indicates that cooperation between the competent bodies, and timely measures to support the tourism industry, a negative climate can be stopped,” said Loizides.
However, he said, 2011started with a decrease of 3.0 per cent in arrivals and only a marginal increase in revenue of 0.4 per cent.
CYPRUS HAS received nearly €4m from Libya to pay off some of its old debts in what may be the last payment made by the old political guard in the beleaguered North African state, it emerged yesterday.
Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides yesterday confirmed a report by state broadcaster CyBC that Cyprus recently received from Libya just under €4m for debts owed to the state and businesses.
“These debts have accumulated over the last 20 to 25 years. There was a difference of opinion over how much is owed to Cypriot businesses so for the last year and a half we have been trying to reach some agreement with them,” said Paschalides.
CYPRUS will not accept any EU changes to its attractive corporate tax rate, the government said yesterday, in the wake of reports that Germany has proposed a harmonised minimum rate.
“In essence, there is no specific proposal,” Antonis Paschalides said, adding that there was a leak whose aim was to gauge reaction.
Cyprus, whose 10 per cent tax rate is the lowest in the EU, opposes any changes that could negatively affect its comparative advantage in attracting foreign businesses.
“We support the positive business climate in Cyprus and we try to improve it,” the minister said. “A helpful factor is the low tax rate and both Cyprus and other countries will not accept changes that will undermine this.”
THE Supreme Court has ordered a re-trial of a fatal hit-and-run case that happened in Limassol in 2007, involving a 20-year-old woman who had been acquitted due to the falsification of vital evidence.
The 20-year-old faces charges of causing death through a negligent act and violating traffic lights in connection with the death of Emilios Ioannou, 17.
The woman had been acquitted of the first charge in 2009, but while preparing to appeal, the attorney-general’s office discovered discrepancies in the trial documents.
Authorities found out that an eyewitness deposition, which eventually led the court to acquit the woman, had been falsified.
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.
