April 1 pranks kept alive

DESPITE the absurdness of the times we live in making it ever harder to separate fact from fantasy, April Fools’ Day pranks are an annual tradition and this year the island’s media made no exception.
The astute reader will have noticed the Cyprus Mail’s Aryan homophobic humour, outlining that heterosexual Caucasian males can now join a group that allows them to unite against all others to their hearts’ content. Under a name vaguely reminiscent of Michael Moore’s 2001 smash hit quasi-political critique, the fictional organisation for the protection of Straight White Males’ rights already has its hands full.
Daily Politis had DISY MEP Andreas Pitsillides replacing Christos Stylianides as government spokesman – with Stylianides sure to win an MEP spot in the upcoming Euro-elections – and leaving deputy spokesman Victoras Papadopoulos (or ‘gentle giant’) fuming and roaring moans of injustice. According to Politis, President Anastasiades and DISY head Averof Neophytou decided to offer Pitsillides the spot as a reward for his polymathy and linguistic fluency, both written and oral – traits the young theologian most certainly possesses.
In a lie that drew some criticism of bad taste by readers, Alithia daily reported that the President’s meeting with Nikolas Papadopoulos last week included issues at least as important as their disagreements on the Cyprus problem, or their spiteful behaviour since the February 11 joint communiqué. The talk produced an important agreement to reinstate former Defence Minister Fotis Fotiou.
Simerini informed the world of a dramatic barrage of arrests relating to the banking meltdown. Twelve people were reportedly arrested by police during Monday night, of whom eight were former high-ranking bankers from the two giants with clay feet – Bank of Cyprus and Laiki – and four were politicians. The story was also uploaded to the paper’s affiliated online news portal but appears to have been taken down following reader charges of insensitivity to people’s despair in the comments section.
AKEL mouthpiece Haravgi said that the Archbishop’s comments on last week’s incident of violence at a bicommunal peace event in Limassol – he condemned it – caused ELAM to stage a protest outside the Arhbishopric, requesting that His Beatitude refuted his earlier assertions. The Archbishop had stirred up a controversy in 2010 when he said that he agreed with several of ELAMites’ positions, which are “crystal clear”, and has long been considered a sympathiser, but caught most in Cyprus by surprise when he not only condemned the violence but also personally called Mehmet Ali Talat – guest speaker at the Limassol peace event – to express his dismay at the “extremist action.”

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.