US ocean fence aims to curb smuggling from Mexico

2012-02-08

US authorities are building a steel and concrete barrier 90 meters out into the Pacific Ocean south of San Diego to curb dangerous attempts by illegal immigrants and smugglers to slip through the breakers to California.

The new maritime fence is being built at a cost of $4.3 million at the point where the US-Mexico border plunges into the ocean between San Diego and the industrial powerhouse of Tijuana, in northwest Mexico.

The new “surf fence” is a steel-and-concrete barrier up to 18 feet tall that replaces a rusted and uneven line of posts.

“It was falling apart, it was out of alignment, it looked like a bad set of teeth,” said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio.

Met police task force declares war on London gang crime

2012-02-08

A new 1,000-strong police task force on Wednesday declared war on London’s street gangs and raided 150 homes across the city.

The Met squad will target the capital’s 250 gangs for the first time as part of Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe’s “total war” on crime.

Writing in the Evening Standard on Wednesday, Hogan-Howe pledged to use “all tactics, if legal and ethical”, to target the gangs.

The first assault was launched with dawn raids on suspected gang members across the city. Officers smashed down doors after weeks of intelligence gathering on the most violent gangsters, arresting 121.

Falklands 'are British out of choice'

2012-02-08

Britain has “nothing to fear” from an Argentinian complaint to the United Nations over claims of militarisation around the Falkland Islands, senior government sources said yesterday.

The Foreign Office insisted the islands were “British out of choice” and warned there would be “no negotiations” on sovereignty unless that changed.

Downing Street said it was “relaxed” after Argentina’s president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, raised diplomatic tensions by announcing the complaint. She accused Britain of acting like a colonial power by sending one of its most powerful warships, Type 45 destroyer Dauntless, to the South Atlantic, and posting Prince William to the islands as a search-and-rescue pilot.

Greece's broken promises anger EU partners

2012-02-08

Taxes go uncollected, deficit targets are routinely missed, job cuts from the state payroll are postponed, privatisations have barely begun and pharmacies still shut in the middle of the day.

Nearly two years into Greece’s bailout, so many promises have been broken that international lenders have largely lost faith in the country’s will to reform itself and are torn between imposing stricter outside control and cutting Athens loose.

European Union partners and International Monetary Fund officials negotiating a second financial rescue for the eurozone’s most indebted state say they are tired of asking for the same measures to be agreed or implemented, again and again.

Wrangling starts over natural gas

2012-02-08

 

THE government yesterday accused the opposition of trying to sideline it with proposed amendments to the hydrocarbon law that the state says would effectively wrest decision-making authority away from the minister and put it in the hands of technocrats.

Trade and Industry Minister Praxoulla Antoniadou warned lawmakers that this could also create uncertainty among potential investors days before Cyprus officially announces its second hydrocarbon exploration and development licensing round.

Our View: We need an action plan to tackle crime today, not merely in 10 or 15 years’ time

2012-02-08

CRIME is on the rise. On Monday morning, a 24-year-old Lithuanian was critically injured at the Strovolos garage he worked, after being shot by a man believed to be of the same nationality. On Saturday, a Cypriot man aged 22 was shot dead in a village a few miles outside Nicosia. On the same day, a hand grenade was thrown at the Limassol house of the former police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos.

EAC backs down on late payment levy

2012-02-08

UNDER pressure from both the government and parliament, the Electricity Authority of Cyprus said yesterday it would suspend charging consumers an extra charge on overdue bills.

The decision to drop the charge was taken at a meeting of the EAC’s board of directors. The EAC said actual implementation pended approval from the energy regulator – although that’s considered a formality.

“The Board of Directors, responding to appeals by the House Commerce Committee, has decided to ask for the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority’s approval to suspend the measure, and to recoup the loss of earnings which this suspension entails at a subsequent date,” the EAC said in a press release.

Israel to station military jets in Paphos?

2012-02-08

ISRAEL IS reportedly sounding out the government over a request to station military jets at the Andreas Papandreou airbase in Paphos. 

If the reports prove accurate, the first-time visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Cyprus next week may coincide with a ground-breaking shake up of geostrategic dynamics in the region. 

A number of online news sites yesterday highlighted a report by Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency which quoted unnamed Israeli officials saying that Netanyahu will discuss the request for an Israeli military station in Cyprus during his visit. 

‘Denktash nominated for Nobel Peace Prize’

2012-02-08

FORMER Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, who died last month, has reportedly been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, according to the daily Turkish Cypriot newspaper Kibris.

According to the newspaper, members of the Parliamentary Friends of Northern Cyprus, a British all-party group campaigning for the formal recognition of the occupied areas, backed the Denktash nomination.

Members include Lord Maginnis of Drumglass and Lord Northwood, while it is reported that several lords, barons and former ministers and MPs supported the nomination. 

Winners are announced in October, after almost a year-long selection procedure. 

AG to review presidential insult cases

2012-02-08

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Petros Clerides is taking a closer look at five cases of people who are facing charges after insulting President Demetris Christofias.

Clerides, as the head of the state’s legal services, has ultimate authority over whether a case should go forward or be withdrawn.

He is also legal advisor to the government although there are cases where the police can press charges without necessarily consulting the office of the Attorney-general.

The five cases of people charged after insulting Christofias “were investigated by the police who decided there were enough grounds, based on the witness material to press charges,” police spokesman Andreas Angelides told the Mail.

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.