What’s really on your plate? Check in a few clicks

2013-01-27

A WEBSITE that will allow consumers in Cyprus to find out about the different ingredients that go into the food they eat has been developed by the Food Safety Council.
The site was presented at the health ministry this week in the presence of Minister Androulla Agrotou. “As a link between Europe and the Middle East and as the EU’s most eastern point, Cyprus has a serious responsibility to secure safe and healthy food by creating a method to check the import of foods,” she said.
Agrotou explained that the system in place was mainly for preventative and proactive reasons, adhering to EU policy by covering the chain of production up to the point where food is placed on the plate.

Not-so hidden agenda behind money-laundering claims

2013-01-27

The issue of money laundering in Cyprus has been raised by the finance ministers of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Finland in recent weeks. Articles in the German press, meanwhile, have built up into a crescendo, just at the time that Russia implemented an agreement with Cyprus that took the island off their black list of countries that Moscow discouraged investment in.

Birds found

2013-01-27

Thirty protected wild birds were found by the Larnaca game fund and police in two restaurants, where a fine dodger was also arrested.
During a police campaign against poaching police arrested a person who had an arrest warrant to his name for due payments worth €31,000, police spokesman Andreas Angelides said.
Restaurants often offer songbirds or ambelopoulia as delicacies, despite their protected status.

Lillikas comes up trumps again, this time with CyTA

2013-01-27

A LOT of nonsense is being said by politicians, trade unionists and others about the issue of the privatisation of semi-governmental organisations (SGOs). As always, demagoguery and populism are the means through which this very serious problem for the country is being faced. They have learnt nothing from what has happened to us.
The issue, in the last few days, has been restricted to CyTA with all the candidates and parties declaring their strident opposition to its privatisation, believing that in this way they will secure the votes of its employees. Two of the presidential candidates – Anastasiades and Lillikas – say they would accept CyTA becoming a public company and propose that some of the shares be given to its employees and some to the state.

Rare glimpse into Ottoman rule

2013-01-27

AS THE Ottoman era drew to an end in Nicosia death was a common event, people used mules to travel, camels as work animals, and visitors to Larnaca were put up in a church because there was no inn, the newly released memoirs of a Bulgarian revolutionary exiled here in 1877 reveal.
In a rare glimpse into life in Nicosia at the time, Atanas (Tancho) Shabanov details how he was among 43 people exiled here as prisoners for their role in the revolution against Ottoman rule in Bulgaria in 1876.
“At 8am in the morning (September 8, 1877) we approached Cyprus and they told us we would disembark,” Shabanov’s opening line says. 
The authorities told the exiles they would be transported to another city and told them to rent a mule, if they could afford one.

Mosque charges

2013-01-27

THREE youths, aged 17, 18 and 21, have been charged with vandalising an 18th century mosque in Denia last week, authorities said.
In their testimonies the three Greek Cypriots said they had demolished the north and south walls of the mosque that had only started being restored earlier in the month.
The trio have been charged and released.

European Union: the way forward

2013-01-27

In the face of major challenges in the past four years, European leaders have demonstrated their determination to tackle and resolve the adverse consequences of the banking and sovereign debt crisis and restore economic stability and growth.

Dragging our heels and losing the treasure

2013-01-27

A MILLIONAIRE uncle taught me that any fool can make promises and pots of money; only a wise man keeps both.
I have chosen JS Bach’s, Matthäus-Passion – with alto, Rene Jacobs singing the aria, ‘Erbarme dich mein Gott’ – as our president’s swan song: ‘Have mercy, Lord, on me. Regard my bitter weeping. Look at me, heart and eyes both weep to Thee, bitterly.’
But as the Germans know, our passionate ‘Christoffhäus’ is way too proud a president to entertain such humility. After his past five year reign of terrible blunders, he seems convinced that ‘immense hydrocarbon deposits’ rumoured in our ‘Waters of Oz’ will be the saviour of our economy.

Deportee arrested

2013-01-27

A 38-year-old man followed a man in a car and threatened him in Protaras on Friday night, ran away, and later attacked police with a broomstick and a kitchen knife, authorities said.
The Bulgarian man was deported from Cyprus in 2010 “for a number of crimes” but is thought to have made his way back via the occupied areas, Famagusta police spokesman George Economou said.
At about 11pm on Friday night a Greek Cypriot employee at a hotel in Protaras told police that as he was driving into work he realised he had been followed by another car. When he parked at the hotel, his pursuer got out and threatened to kill him with a knife unless he gave him money, he said.
The hotel employee hit him on his hand and the man dropped his knife, running away.

Providing warm days in an economic winter [WITH VIDEO]

2013-01-27

It can be said that you never truly appreciate the importance of a charity until you’re on its receiving end. When it comes to the charity organisation, Alkionides, hundreds of families a month now know that to be true.
In recent months as the crisis has worsened, and unemployment soared, single-parent and large families in particular have turned to charities such as Alkionides to ask for help.
Since its founding in 1998, Alkionides – its name taken from Halcyon days, the warm sunny days given by the Greek gods to the kingfisher during January to lay its eggs – has helped hundreds of people every year with their electricity bills and food coupons. Since last year it has also donated clothes, shoes, furniture and heaters.

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.