STARTING tomorrow and for one week, Cyprus Airways will be offering 8,000 seats for €49 and €99 one-way, on flights to all destinations the airline flies using its own aircraft.
Tickets bought during the offer will be valid until March 24, the airline said.
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Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Tuesday that Turkey would not remain silent if he pursued a sectarian conflict in his country and said Ankara did not favour any ethnicity or sect in the region.
Erdogan’s warning was the latest in a war of words between the two neighbours that has added to already heightened regional tension. Turkey fears Iraq is heading towards a full-scale sectarian war while Baghdad has accused Ankara of meddling.
“Esteemed Maliki should know this, if you start a period of conflict in Iraq within a sectarian struggle, it will be impossible for us to remain silent,” Erdogan told his AK Party parliamentary group in the Turkish capital.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan attacked the French parliament on Tuesday for passing a “discriminatory and racist” bill which makes it illegal to deny that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was genocide.
However, Erdogan said there was still hope that NATO ally France “would correct its mistake” and that any retaliatory measures would be held back, depending on French actions.
The French Senate approved the draft law on Monday, which the lower house also backed in December, prompting a furious response from Ankara.
“We will not allow anyone to gain political benefit at the expense of Turkey; the bill which was passed in France is clearly discriminatory, racist,” Erdogan said.
TWO former ministers have been charged in connection with a deadly blast last year that killed 13 people, reports said.
Former foreign minister Markos Kyprianou and his defence counterpart Costas Papacostas are among several charged for the July 11 blast at the Evangelos Florakis naval base at Mari.
It was not immediately known what charges the two men would face.
Chief of police Michalis Papageorgiou confirmed that some people had been charged but did not give any details.
The blast was caused by munitions stored in 98 containers, which had been left exposed to the elements for more than two years.
A FIRED-UP Rafa Nadal survived a huge scare from big-hitting Czech Tomas Berdych at the Australian Open yesterday to prevail 6-7 7-6 6-4 6-3 and set up a mouthwatering semi-final with great rival Roger Federer.
A set down and facing set point in the second, Nadal dug himself out of a cavernous hole then roared to victory after a taxing four-hour 15-minute tussle under the lights at a frenzied Rod Laver Arena.
A suspect shoulder and creaky knees have been Nadal’s biggest worries in a fuss-free run at Melbourne Park, but the energetic Spaniard finished in full flight, bashing winners from all angles and encouraged by his best form in months.
Libya’s ramshackle government lost control of a former stronghold of Muammar Gaddafi on Tuesday after local people staged an armed uprising, posing the gravest challenge yet to the country’s new rulers.
Elders in Bani Walid, where militias loyal to the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) were driven out in a gunbattle a day earlier, said they were appointing their own local government and rejected any interference from the authorities in the capital Tripoli.
The town’s revolt will heighten doubts in the West about the NTC government’s ability to instil law and order crucial to rebuilding oil exports, to disarm tribal militias and guard Libyan borders in a region where al Qaeda is active.
Hedge funds are combing through the small print of Greece’s planned rescue deal with private creditors, readying a wave of potential litigation to squeeze a better payout from the country.
Most bondholders face an uphill battle in wringing a payment from Athens through the courts, but shrewd funds picking up specific bond issues with investor-friendly small print have a much better chance of succeeding.
This is so worrying those negotiating Greece’s private sector deal that many are trying to keep the final structure of a rescue package under wraps until it is done to prevent the funds from finding a legal edge, sources close to the talks say.
Larnaca businessman Antonis Fanieros was let go free today on the advice of the Attorney-general’s office following yesterday’s retraction in court of three testimonies by an equal number of prosecution witnesses.
Fanieros, 67, was arrested during a police raid on September 23 and formally charged on October 10.
On the first day of the trial on Monday, three prosecution witnesses withdrew their testimonies with the prosecution declaring them hostile.
Two of the witnesses said they had given their testimonies under police duress while a third said he had only testified against Fanieros so that the police would withdraw two pending cases against him.
A fourth witness was in the north and did not attend.
ROGER Federer toppled Argentine giant Juan Martin Del Potro 6-4 6-3 6-2 with some exquisite shot-making to reach the semi-finals of the Australian Open today.
The Swiss, chasing a 17th grand slam crown and sixth in Melbourne, was never seriously threatened in their first meeting in a major since losing to del Potro in the 2009 U.S. Open final.
In scorching heat at Rod Laver Arena, third seed Federer survived four break points before closing out the second set in his only wobble of an otherwise dominant display.
Normal service resumed, Federer broke the 11th-seeded del Potro twice to motor through the third set and sealed the match with an imperious backhand winner.
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.
