Prison sentence for importing cannabis

2011-06-29

A LIMASSOL man was yesterday sentenced to seven years in prison after being found guilty of importing over 10kg of cannabis.

Socratis Kalavazides, 25, a tyre repairer from Ayios Demetrios, Limassol, was stopped by customs police as he arrived from Amsterdam at Larnaca Airport last March.

Checking his suitcase, officers found 10.760kg of cannabis. Drug squad YKAN arrived at the scene and arrested him on the spot.

The court yesterday took into account Kalavazides’ immediate confession that he planned to sell some of the drugs on.

He also admitted at the time that he had the opportunity to refuse transporting the suitcase from Holland for a fee of €3,000, but didn’t as he was in dire financial straits.

Larnaca airport’s ramp ‘too steep’ for disabled access

2011-06-29

LARNACA AIRPORT has steep access ramps and was designed without considering the needs of limited access individuals, the Cyprus Paraplegics Organisation (OPAK) said yesterday.

OPAK yesterday issued a list of complaints about the airport, top of which was the steep arrivals ramp.

The ramp has a ratio of one to twelve inches: for every 12 inches travelled horizontally a person on the ramp will go up one inch. This is at the limit of recommended standards.

In contrast, the departures ramps have a ratio of 1 to 20, allowing a person on a wheelchair to negotiate a gentler incline.

“The designers had an obligation to design and build an airport as friendly as possible to people with disabilities,” the OPAK statement read.

Motorcycle accidents high

2011-06-29

CYPRUS has one of the highest number of fatalities among motorcyclists, according to the European Transport Safety Council’s Road Safety Performance Index.

The report showed that there had been almost a five per cent increase in motorcyclists dying on the island’s road from 2001 until 2009.

Furthermore, Cyprus recorded the second highest number of road victims in residential areas.

“Regarding motorcyclists, Cyprus has one of the highest number of fatalities in the EU,” Head of the police headquarters traffic department Demetris Demetriou said yesterday.

“But there are certain positive comments for Cyprus too; for example, in non-residential areas, we have the lowest percentage of road deaths in Europe for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009.”

Unemployment steady

2011-06-29

THE NUMBER of unemployed in the first quarter of the year reached 30,200, or 7.4 per cent of the workforce, the statistical service said yesterday.

The majority, around 16,000, were men, the service said.

The number of employed people in the first quarter reached 379,700 – with 208,200 being men.

The employment rate for those aged 20 to 64 was 74.7 per cent – 81.3 per cent men and 68.1 per cent women – remaining at the same level as last year’s Q1.

The jobless rate in Q1 was 7.4 per cent with youths aged 15 to 24 constituting 20.7 per cent, the service said.

More illegal TV arrests

2011-06-29

LIMASSOL police yesterday arrested six men – including two foreign nationals – on suspicion of providing subscription television illegally.

Police believe they are connected to two other suspects arrested earlier this month for the same reason.

The men are suspected of illegally supplying subscription channels Sky UK, BFBS and Nova Greece for a fee.

They were arrested during a police raid yesterday during which officers seized six servers, a number of computers and other equipment.

“The servers seem to be connected together so that if one was put out of operation the signal would continue to be broadcast through the others without the subscribers noticing,” police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said.

China promises EU ‘helping hand’ with debt crisis

2011-06-29

CHINESE Premier Wen Jiabao offered Europe a “helping hand” with its debt crisis during a visit to Germany yesterday and said his country could buy the sovereign debt of some troubled euro zone nations if needed.

“China has expressed support for Europe at various times. In other words, when Europe is in difficulty we will extend a helping hand from afar,” the Chinese premier told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“We will according to need definitely purchase certain amounts of sovereign debt,” said Wen, who described the problems of highly indebted euro zone countries like Greece as being of only a “temporary nature”.

Up to 15 EU banks to fail stress test

2011-06-29

UP to one in six European banks is set to fail an EU-wide financial health check, according to euro zone sources close to the stress-testing, as officials scramble to set up backstops for those at risk.

The result, which the European Central Bank (ECB) and others hope will persuade investors that the EU is finally coming clean about the extent of its banks’ problems, will put pressure on reluctant states to prop up lenders if they cannot raise money themselves.

Euro zone sources said the European Banking Authority is set to announce within weeks that between 10 and 15 of the 91 banks being scrutinised in the tests had failed, with casualties expected in Greece, Germany, Portugal and Spain.

Japan utility gets to keep nuclear reactors despite shareholder ire

2011-06-29

THE utility at the heart of Japan’s atomic crisis, Tokyo Electric Power Co , won institutional shareholder backing yesterday to keep its reactors in the face of anger from rank-and-file stockholders seeking an end to nuclear energy.

A motion filed at the utility’s annual general meeting would have forced managers to scrap all nuclear reactors and stop building new ones, reflecting a wider debate in Japan and other countries over the future of atomic power generation.

Although put forward each year, the proposal this year took on greater resonance because radiation is still escaping from Tokyo Electric’s nuclear plant in Fukushima, 240 km north of the capital.

Three bed room apartment,…

2011-06-29

Three bed room apartment, with three balconies, c/h, a/c for sale in Strovolos at Patmos Str, for Euro 200,000
Please contact
Frosso at
[email protected]
Note I live in Canada, so I prefer e-mail for the first contacts

Property remarks provoke state ire

2011-06-29

 

THE FIRST ministerial visit from the current UK government ended on a sticky note yesterday after Europe Minister David Lidington made an “unfortunate” comment comparing property problems which exist north and south of the island, prompting a public rebuke from the Cyprus foreign ministry.

After meeting President Demetris Christofias on Monday, Lidington yesterday met Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou, DISY opposition leader Nicos Anastassiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu.

The early morning joint press conference between Kyprianou and Lidington offered no surprises, keeping relations between Britain and its former colony on a firm footing.

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.