Wales secure thrilling Triple Crown

2012-02-25

SCOTT Williams scored a breakaway try five minutes from time to give Wales a 19-12 victory over England at Twickenham to secure their 20th Six Nations Triple Crown on Saturday.

An inexperienced England side had looked set to upset the odds and secure their own third win of the championship as they led for most of the second half before Williams, on as a second-half replacement for Jamie Roberts, stripped the ball from Courtney Lawes and ran 50 metres to score the only try of the match.

More misery for air travellers

2012-02-25

 

AIR TRAFFIC controllers (ATCs) yesterday announced four strikes for March, accusing the state of lacking the will for substantive dialogue to resolve a pay dispute.

The controllers announced they would be shutting down Larnaca and Paphos airports for four hours each day from 12pm on March 2, 7, 12 and 15.

ATC union PASEEK said it was left with “no other choice than to repeat and escalate strike measures” in the face of the communication ministry’s insistence.

The controllers accused the ministry of rejecting compromising proposals tabled by various sides.

But they did express their regrets to passengers who will be affected by their strikes, asking for their understanding.

Our View: Consumer tastes must ultimately determine shopping hours

2012-02-25

THE DISPUTE over the shop opening hours, which had been forgotten for the last couple years, is back on the public agenda. It was re-kindled by a call by the Chamber of Commerce and the Employers Federation for the liberalisation of opening hours on the grounds that this would help stimulate business activity and create jobs.

Inevitably, the association of owners of small shops POVEK, which has traditionally supported regulation of opening hours, immediately responded. Its representatives argued liberalisation would constitute the final blow to small-to-medium businesses. Liberalisation would increase unemployment as it would add the owners of small shops to the ranks of the unemployed, a POVEK announcement said.

New gas law ‘downgrades a supremely political issue’

2012-02-25

BY PASSING a law excluding the commerce minister from negotiating gas deals, parliament has downgraded what is a supremely political matter, the government said yesterday.

Spokesman Stefanos Stefanou yesterday said he hoped the new law didn’t affect the second round of licensing for offshore explorations, which was announced earlier this month.

“We hope it doesn’t; we can’t know for sure,” said Stefanou. “But one would wonder if there could be more problems, when a country or company is interested in exploring for hydrocarbons, with Turkey’s threats, stance and actions to prevent countries from showing an interest in the second round of licensing looming in the background.”

‘Contemptuous’ defendants acquitted in ‘Chinese vice’ trial

2012-02-25

THREE people, including a high ranking police officer, on trial in relation to a prostitution ring were acquitted yesterday because of what the judge called the  “contemptuous” attitude of the witnesses and their unwillingness “to tell the truth.”

The defendants were the police migration department’s deputy commander Nicos Theodorou; Mingxia Hua, a Chinese woman known as ‘Nancy’; and Panayiotis Cosiaris, a pensioner who owned the flats where 46 Chinese immigrants were rounded up from the police during a raid on March 15 last year.

The defendants were facing a number of charges in relation to pimping, maintaining a house of prostitution, exploitation, abuse of power, corruption, indecent assault, bribery, money laundering, among others.

Family’s cannabis network busted

2012-02-25

A 42-YEAR-OLD father and his two sons, 19 and 20, along with their cousin, also 20,  and two women aged 21 and 26, were remanded for eight days yesterday by the Nicosia District Court in connection with drug possession and trafficking.

According to drugs squad (YKAN) spokesman Stelios Sergides, officers seized 830 grammes of cannabis in total, although it was not the amount of drugs found that was the issue, he said but the breaking up of the network.

“[The whole case] is considered very important as the drugs were separated into measured amounts so they could be made available on the market,” said Sergides, adding that the majority of users are young people.

‘Scholarship scams cheat the really needy’

2012-02-25

SOME Cypriots claim lower incomes to secure financial help and scholarships for the education of their children abroad, the head of the Cyprus State Scholarship Foundation (IKYK) said yesterday.

Income criteria exists for both scholarships and grants to ensure that the money goes to those who need it the most, IKYK head Thasos Michaelides told the Mail yesterday.

“But when you get a company director claiming he earns €7,000 while his employee earns €8,000 and this for a company of eight, something’s wrong isn’t it?” Michaelides said.

IKYK has caught 72 false statements since getting set up in 2009. All have been referred to the police who are investigating, Michaelides said.

Child porn cases only the tip of the iceberg

2012-02-25

AT LEAST half of the incidents of online child pornography are not reported due to how close-knit Cypriot society is, according to Cyber Crime Unit investigator George Karkas.

“We live in a very closed society still where people feel ashamed to report certain things,” said Karkas, speaking at a safer internet training course on Thursday.

In 2011 alone around 24 people were found in possession of child pornographic material, compared to 9 cases in 2010. 

Another categorisation made by the Unit is the number of people ‘invited into child pornography’ which involves cases where children – under the age of 18 – were coerced into taking their clothes off in front of a web cam.

In 2011 there was only one such case, however in 2010 there were six.

Gender stereotypes still abound among teenagers

2012-02-25

MISCONCEPTIONS, stereotypes and myths are rife among Cypriot youth,  further fuelling gender inequality and gender-based violence (GBV), a study by the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) has shown.

According to the project’s coordinator, Georgina Christou, the aim of the study was to cover a gap in Cyprus’ education system on matters concerning the two sexes and GBV. The study was presented at a news conference in Nicosia yesterday. 

The survey – carried out with the participation of 453 secondary school pupils from two private and four public schools – also hoped to find a correlation between popular misconceptions and GBV. The average age of those polled was 15 years.

Greek course for foreigners hugely successful

2012-02-25

OVER 6,000 people from 92 countries are taking part in the Greek language learning course organised by the Education Ministry in the past two years.

Under the motto ‘Learn Greek’ the course aims to help immigrants and foreigners residing in Cyprus, to integrate, Minister George Demosthenous said, describing the course as a successful and an innovative one. 

The number of participants in the first two years reached 6,078, from 92 countries and it is estimated that it will rise to 15,000 by 2015, the minister said.

The Greek language learning course is co-financed by 70 per cent from the European Social Fund and its budget amounts to €3.2 million.

“The course has so far been extremely successful” Demosthenous said. 

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.