40,000 vehicles without an MOT…madness.

There is some good news for the many long suffering travelers that have to make frequent visits to Brussels. It’s finally been announced that Cyprus Airways will re-introduce direct flights to Brussels before the island’s EU Presidency in the second half of 2012.

So hopefully the days of hanging around for connections in Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Frankfurt and Athens are finally over.  It’s reported that the airline will operate six direct flights a week as from June.

Let’s just hope that when the Presidency is over, the airline can keep at least one or two direct flights, as opposed to scrapping the service altogether as they did last year.

 GOT AN MOT JOHN?

The police need draconian powers to clean up the roads of Cyprus. More than 40,000 vehicles have not taken the MOT test according to the director of road transport Sotiris Kolettas. Drivers on the Nicosia- Limassol highway know this already, as there seems to be a resurgence of crappy old cars with no indicators, dodgy headlights, exhausts spewing black smoke and a top speed of 60kms.

Surely the police have an obligation to start pulling over these deathtraps and clearing the motorways of their constant danger? 40,000 illegal cars on the roads, many of which are probably unfit to drive is completely unacceptable.

HELP

I feel sorry for Germany; Chancellor Merkel must be utterly exhausted. How many more humiliations and failures can her great nation suffer in trying to save a currency that is clearly close to extinction?

Germans have made it clear that they are fed up with throwing their hard-earned money at bankrupt countries and expending most of their energy trying to sort out the never ending euro shambles.

But maybe Merkel is box clever – is she playing for time?  Does she have a trick saved up for the end of the euro party as some commentators suggest?

Will the white rabbit be a re-introduction of that bastion of strength the Deutsche Mark?

Today, was business as usual as expected, she has vowed to defend the euro, which she said is stronger than Germany’s former Deutsche Mark, but warned that Europeans face a long, hard “marathon” to restore lost credibility.

Yet, as Merkel was speaking, global central banks united to stave off a new credit crunch as confidence in the banking system dwindled amid fears of a break-up of the euro.

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.