Button fastest in Turkey, Vettel crashes

2011-05-06

 

 

* Vettel crashes in morning, misses second practice

* Alonso and Button lead sessions

McLaren’s Jenson Button set the pace in Turkish Grand Prix practice on Friday while Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel crashed in the morning and missed the entire second session.

Vettel, the championship leader after winning two of the first three races, gave his Red Bull mechanics plenty of extra work after spinning into the barriers at the rain-soaked Istanbul Park circuit.

The 23-year-old German, who has been on pole position for the past four races, spun at the exit of the challenging triple apex turn eight.

Merging the old and the new

2011-05-06

THE NEW Nicosia town hall will get underway next month, some 20 years after the decision was made to bring the municipal headquarters into the heart of the old town.

The announcement was made yesterday by Nicosia Mayor Eleni Mavrou during a presentation of the architectural plans for the building which will be constructed over the archaeological site that delayed construction for years.

Our View: Capitulation to refugee mothers a crude bid to buy AKEL votes

2011-05-06

THE REFUGEE mothers, who wanted the state to recognise their right to pass on their refugee status to their children, were partly satisfied by President Christofias, earlier this week.

After a meeting with representatives of the Movement of Refugee and Displaced Mothers at the presidential palace on Tuesday, it was announced the government would give assistance worth €10.6 million to youths whose mothers were refugees.

This was a 180-degree turn by the president who had refused to sign a law approved by the legislature last year giving refugee status to children whose mother was a refugee; the law allows only refugee fathers to pass this status to their offspring.

Cyprus mulling stop-gap natural gas option

2011-05-06

THE GOVERNMENT is considering an interim supply solution for natural gas as it ponders longer-term supply offers or the potential of tapping its own possible reserves, Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides said yesterday.

“The aim of such an interim solution is to bring natural gas to Cyprus as soon as possible,” Paschalides told newsmen yesterday after meeting Noble Energy’s CEO and President David Stover in Nicosia.

It was the first visit to the island by the Texas-based company, which has a concession to explore for hydrocarbons in an offshore field south-east of Cyprus.

‘Bird trappers have no real fear of prosecution’

2011-05-06

ALMOST 2,800 traps were seized or destroyed, dozens more reported and in excess of 100 birds released during the latest Cyprus campaign by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS).

CABS and Friends of the Earth Cyprus, in cooperation with responsible Cypriot law enforcement conducted a major campaign against song bird poaching, from April 13-25, the group said yesterday.

The ‘Spring 2011 Bird Protection Camp’, a major field survey and anti-poaching campaign, was focused in the Larnaca and Famagusta districts.

A total of 13 ornithologists, conservationists and environmentalists from Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Germany participated in the camp.

Hadjicostis murder was ‘sealed with a kiss’

2011-05-06

THE PLOT hatched to slay Sigma boss Andis Hadjicostis was “sealed with a kiss outside a rustic restaurant” in the Nicosia district, as a witness in the murder trial described it in court yesterday.

Fanos Hadjigeorgiou — who has received immunity from prosecution and placed in a witness protection programme in exchange for testifying against the other four defendants – said he personally witnessed the scene.

Under cross-examination in court yesterday, Hadjigeorgiou gave more details about a meeting of the alleged plotters that took place in late 2009 at the Tamasiana restaurant in the village of Pera Orinis.

Israel flights being diverted to Cyprus

2011-05-06

DOZENS of flights are being diverted to Cyprus for refuelling after Israel yesterday halted most departures from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion international airport due to contaminated jet fuel supplies.

Only aircraft that flew into Tel Aviv with sufficient fuel to reach their next destination were being allowed to depart as scheduled, a spokesman for Ben-Gurion airport told Reuters.

The spokesman, Adar Avisar, said the cause of the contamination in Israel was not immediately known, and that it had been discovered early enough in the day to ensure that no plane had departed with fuel that might have been contaminated.

“There are no planes in the air that have received an order to land,” he said

Design old GSP area and win €130,000

2011-05-06

THE TOWN Planning Department has launched a competition to design Nicosia’s old GSP stadium area.

The competition is open to all European architects and offers cash prizes of €130,000 for the winning design, €100,000 for second place and €70,000 for third, in order to attract entries from higher profile architects.

There will also be four runners up prizes of €20,000 each.

Several features that are to be included in the 13,500m² area have already been decided following a referendum of Nicosia residents in 2008.

These include an underground car park for some 1,650 cars, a large green area and a small number of shops and cafes to service visitors to the park.

Small step forward in reunification talks

2011-05-06

THE LEADERS took a small step forward step in reunification talks yesterday with an agreement on the international treaties that would bind a united Cyprus

“I am very pleased to announce that the leaders have agreed on guidelines on international treaties binding on a united Cyprus,” Lisa Buttenheim, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Cyprus, told reporters.

The leaders made no comments following their one-and-a-half hour meeting in the United Nations Protected Area in Nicosia. They next meet on May 12.

Buttenheim said the agenda of the next meeting was not fixed, but did not rule out the possibility it might include internal aspects of security, which the two leaders’ top advisors have been discussing.

Christofias ‘saddened’ by economy wrangle

2011-05-06

PRESIDENT Demetris Christofias was yesterday forced to defend his government’s financial handlings, saying he was truly saddened by the fact that some were celebrating the possibility of negative developments in the state’s finances.

The new economy spat started with a leaked internal document from the Finance Ministry, which painted a different picture of the economy than the one it publicly states.

Among other things, it predicts a 6.0 per cent deficit for this year, over 2.0 per cent higher than what the government recently announced.

Christofias was yesterday asked to comment on “alarm bells” that are sounding from the EU over Cyprus’ deficit.

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.