APOEL: a fitting place to end our journey

2012-04-05

 

ON July 12, as APOEL kicked off their Champions League campaign in Albania to lowly Skenderbeu, had you suggested what was to come next, your mental sanity would surely have been questioned.

Had anyone told APOEL fans or players that they would be boarding a flight back from Madrid having just played Real in the last eight of the Champions League they would have laughed. Laughed long and hard, asked for a repeat of what they had just heard and kept on laughing.

Electricity supply to remain erratic

2012-04-05

 

A MAJOR power outage left 80 per cent of the country without electricity for five hours yesterday, leaving the police, fire service and electricity authority (EAC) scrambling to deal with the knock-on effects of the blackout.  

The near shutdown of power generating units at Dhekelia in the early hours of the morning resulted in a limited supply of electricity on the grid from 4.45am until around 10am, highlighting the island’s fragile reliance on secondary units since the destruction of the Vassilikos power plant last July.  

Police spokesman Andreas Angelides said police responded immediately to the blackout, sending traffic police to replace the non-operational traffic lights at main intersections across the island.  

Our View: What do the pilots hope to achieve with their actions?

2012-04-05

CYPRUS Airways pilots grounded the airline’s planes for four hours yesterday so that they could all meet and sign legal suits against the company board, for unilaterally cutting their wages by 9.0 per cent this year. Their union PASIPY argued that it had agreed to the pay-cut for 2011 and was not consulted by the board before it decided to keep it in force this year.

Top Turkish Cypriot aide dangles Varosha return

2012-04-05

TOP AIDE to the Turkish Cypriot leadership Kudret Ozersay yesterday emphatically added to speculation that the ‘ghost town’ of Varosha will be opened to Greek Cypriot residents under Turkish Cypriot rule if the peace talks fail.

In an interview with English-language Turkish Cypriot paper Cyprus Today, Ozersay was quoted saying that if the talks fail, the authorities in the north will push forward with plans for the fenced off area of Famagusta. 

“We will be taking action in parallel with UN parameters and the expectations of the international community. These actions will not hamper peace and stability in the region. 

“However, we do not need to get the approval of the Greek Cypriot side to put these plans into practice,” he said. 

Pilots to sue those who cut their wages

2012-04-05

CYPRUS Airways (CY) pilots yesterday said they would sue those who decided to cut their salaries without permission as they staged a strike which affected four flights.

The pilots’ union, PASYPI, held a four-hour strike to protest the management’s decision to continue cutting 9.0 per cent of their salaries in 2012, when they had only agreed to the measure for 2011.

The airline said the measure affects all employees.

Following a general assembly yesterday, the pilots said they would  file lawsuits “against the members of the CY administration who had decided or approved cutting our salaries.”

A new era begins for Paphos

2012-04-05

THE INAUGURAL flights of low-cost airline Ryanair are due to touch down in Paphos this morning. 

The flights are from Frankfurt in Germany and Stockholm in Sweden and are scheduled to land at around11.40am and 11.50am respectively.

Nassos Hadjigeorgiou, the head of the Paphos regional board of tourism said the load factor on both flights is 85 per cent.

“In cooperation with Hermes Airports and Ryanair, we have organised an event to be held at Paphos airport from 11am-1pm,” he said.  “The welcome event will coincide with the first-ever flights from Ryanair to land in Paphos.”

Hadjigeorgiou said the town was thrilled to see that the flights had got off to a good start.

Cross-border car registration to be made easier

2012-04-05

EACH YEAR, EU citizens and companies have to move some 3.5 million vehicles to another member state, and need to get them registered according to the national legislation. 

However, what should be a simple registration procedure, the Commission said remains a cumbersome and lengthy administrative procedure because of the diversity of rules and the various conflicting requirements. It takes on average five  weeks to complete the procedure and the cost is estimated at €400 for citizen and for businesses. 

Four on remand for army TNT theft

2012-04-05

LARNACA District Court remanded four people in custody for three days yesterday in connection with the theft of army explosives from a controlled destruction of ammunitions site at the National Guard’s (NG) firing range in Kalo Chorio. 

On Tuesday morning, the four suspects were seen speeding away from the Kalo Chorio firing range in a jeep, the court heard. They were chased by a NG car, with which they collided. Two of the suspects – two men aged 23 and 35 – got out of the car and were arrested, but the other two sped off and the car was found abandoned later in the afternoon in Larnaca suburb Klavdia.

‘Statistics department can't do its job’

2012-04-05

THE island’s statistical service has stopped conducting certain surveys because parliament has not released the necessary funds to hire seasonal staff who typically carry out the task.

Most of the surveys constitute obligations towards the European Union.

“Unfortunately, because parliament has not approved the funds to hire seasonal staff, we cannot continue our surveys,” said senior official Dora Kyriakidou. “Due to this, especially as regards March, all surveys involving seasonal personnel have been interrupted.”

Last December, parliament froze new hires in the public sector in a bid to keep an eye on government spending.

The freeze has also caused widespread problems in the health sector.

World’s oldest copper mine passes 50,000-tonne mark

2012-04-05

THE WORLD’S longest producing copper mine, at Skouriotissa, yesterday marked the production of 50,000 tonnes of copper.

“Due to its rich copper resources, Cyprus gained an important place in history from around 2000 B.C and developed economically, commercially, socially and culturally,” said Agriculture Minister, Sophoclis Aletraris at an event to mark the occasion.

He said copper mining constituted one of the biggest industries on the island…and is solely owned, managed and run by a Cypriot company.

Skouriotissa copper mine in the Nicosia area, is owned by Hellenic Copper Mines Ltd and is the only metal-producing company in Cyprus involved in copper production.

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.