Cyprus and Greece sign Sports Protocol

2012-02-10

The Cyprus Sports Organisation (CSO) and Greece’s General Secretariat of Sports (GSS) today signed the 2012 Cyprus – Greece sports protocol to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

The Protocol was signed by CSO President Pampos Stylianou and Sports Secretary General of Greece Panayiotis Mpitsaxis, and it includes cooperation between the two countries against doping, match fixing and illegal betting and also cooperation against violence in sports.

It also provides for cooperation in supporting high level athletes, women in sports and actions to promote moral values in sports.

Violence erupts in Athens as Greeks protest new wave of austerity measures

2012-02-10

Striking Greek workers denounced a new wave of austerity measures today as a demand too far by the IMF and EU, but Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told the nation it had to decide within days whether to take the pain and stay in the euro or not.

Meanwhile in central Athens Police fired teargas as black-masked protesters threw petrol bombs, stones and bottles. The biggest police trade union said it would issue arrest warrants for Greece’s international lenders for subverting democracy, and refused to “fight against our brothers”.

As public rage seethed, the leader of the far-right LOAS party, the smallest of three parties backing Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, said he could not support the harsh austerity programme.

Evra, Suarez to fan derby flames

2012-02-10

 

The focus will be on Patrice Evra of Manchester United and Luis Suarez of Liverpool when the arch-rivals clash in the Premier League at Old Trafford tomorrow/

It will be the pair’s first meeting since Suarez racially abused Evra at Anfield in October, earning an eight-match suspension from which he returned to the Liverpool side as a substitute in Monday’s 0-0 draw with Tottenham Hotspur.

Fitch downgrades two Cypriot banks' covered bonds

2012-02-10

The ratings agency Fitch has downgraded covered bonds of Cypriot Banks Marfin Popular Bank and Bank of Cyprus (BoC) to BBB- from BBB. 

Fitch announced it maintained Marfin`s programme one bonds to rating watch negative (RWN), while it removed Marfin programme two bonds from RWN. The agency also announced it maintained Bank of Cyprus` covered bonds under RWN. 

According to Fitch, the outstanding Cypriot covered bonds represent €4.2 billion of Fitch-rated debt on aggregate, including €2 billion of bonds issued by Marfin under Programme I (Greek mortgage pool), €1.5 bilion of covered bonds issued by Marfin under Programme II (Cypriot mortgage pool) and €700m of covered bonds issued by BoC (Greek mortgage pool). 

Profile: new mayor of Kyrenia Glafkos Kariolou

2012-02-10

 

The recently elected mayor of Kyrenia has spent most of his life battling, against various causes. THEO PANAYIDES meets him

 

Glafkos Kariolou – the newly-elected Mayor of Kyrenia, among other things – is conspicuously kind. He speaks slowly and gently, like a man telling a story. He looks, with his glasses and trim silver beard, like a kindly uncle. When we take his photo he politely asks me to come and sit beside him, as if he’s planning to keep the photo as a cherished souvenir of our meeting (I politely decline, of course). You’d never suspect, looking at him, that the man’s a fighter, and in fact has been battling assorted antagonists all his life.

In the name of the Drowning Man

2012-02-10

After three shorts, one local film maker is set to start shooting a full length film in Cyprus. He talks to ZOE CHRISTODOULIDES 

 

He sits rolling cigarettes one after the other while next to him stand two empty bottles of Perrier. He looks up at me almost suspiciously from amid a haze of smoke. “Do you want me to speak honestly?” he asks. The question comes as somewhat of a surprise, but the fact that I answer affirmatively seems to put him at ease. “Good,” he replies. “Because you know, some people don’t like it when you speak honestly.”

Not just popera

2012-02-10

Almost a year after forming, Cypriot vocal quartet Avanti 4 have just finished their first concerts. NAOMI LEACH meets them

“Why do we do this? For the fun we had last night. You want to be fulfilled and that is exactly what happened last night,” enthuses Alexis Sophokleous.

It’s the day after Avanti 4’s sell out gig in Larnaca, the culmination of 10 months of hard work for the Cypriot vocal quartet and their dedicated team. Avanti 4 are on a high, thrilled with the positive reception they received from young and old alike on home soil. I catch them on their day off before performing at Limassol’s Rialto, the following evening.

Film review: My Week With Marilyn****

2012-02-10

I loved it, my daughter loved it, the other six women that I went with loved it; in fact everyone in the cinema seemed to enjoy it. And the cinema was pretty full. Even though I loved it, at the beginning, I wasn’t sure about Michelle Williams as Marilyn. There was something not quite right. Her face? Well, she isn’t Marilyn. Her boobs perhaps? They are clearly nowhere near as impressive as the real thing. But by the time she gets naked (only twice, including once in Windsor Great Park), I was convinced she was just as seductive as Marilyn, and had captured her charm and vulnerability beautifully. The film reinforces the popular image of the troubled, often childlike, yet sexy icon. This is one man’s intimate, yet strangely innocent memory of her.

Film review: The Darkest Hour*

2012-02-10

 

I was told that it might be so bad that it was good. Well, I’ve heard that one before, and it is not true. In fact it’s not so bad that it’s good, it is just so, so bad, it’s unwatchable. A character in a novel that I am reading at the moment says, “life’s too short to listen to Leonard Cohen’s songs”, but he knows he doesn’t like them anyway, because he’s not impressed by the people who do like them. Personally, I am not a fan of Leonard Cohen either, but that is beside the point. As for this film, I have no idea who would like it but, whoever they are, I am not impressed by them. In my humble opinion, life is far too short to be wasting time watching movies like this!

Restaurant review: Cava, Paralimni

2012-02-10

I’m officially on a calorie-controlled diet and to make matters worse – I am also a newly signed up member of my local gym – it’s all part of the midlife dividend handed to me by God after years of self-neglect.

Now, before you picture me as the naturally ripped Adonis grunting nosily away at the weights, please think again. I’m the small fella looking uncomfortable on the treadmill rejoicing at having run 1.5km at 7.5kph in a super-human 12 minutes.

I’m told by the nice lady at the gym that come summer, I will be a skinny, but sporty hunk and will probably develop an interest in advising others how to keep them selves in shape.

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.