A bright future in a dark universe

2011-10-02

 

SWITZERLAND is famous for many things: triangular chocolate, holey cheese and discreet banks.

But what you might not know, however, is that it also houses both the hottest and coldest places in the galaxy, a camera that takes 40 million pictures a second and the fastest racetrack on the planet…

Welcome to charming and strange world of the CERN research centre, home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – and the subject of a lecture by its director general, professor Rolf-Dieter Heurer at the University of Cyprus on Thursday. 

The title of the lecture was “the LHC: Shedding light on the early universe”. 

What Mandela can teach us today

2011-07-17

It was 1990, a grey, wintry morning in Brussels, when my best friend in the city, Sally Swart, phoned and said only three words: “He’s coming out.”

“Who’s coming out?” I demanded. I spent the rest of the day with Sally and her husband Rian watching their television for the moment when Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela emerged from a prison outside Cape Town after 27 years behind bars.

South Africa was then an unhappy country. It was immersed in apartheid, the policy by which the white minority monopolised power and the black majority was voteless. There were riots, arson, killings and international sanctions.

Our View: Why are cabbies’ bullying tactics rewarded with any attention?

2011-06-22

COMMUNICATIONS and Works Minister Erato Kozakou-Markoulli is considering setting up a cab-share scheme that could be used by children and the elderly. The scheme would be presented to a delegation of taxi-drivers that the minister was scheduled to meet with today.

According to reports, the taxi-drivers were interested in hearing more about the ministry’s scheme, which is aimed at reducing the number of cars on the road.

Nobody doubts the minister’s good intentions, but we think that very little thought has been put into this scheme, which would not only require NASA-type logistics to work, but also a developed sense of community spirit on the part of the drivers; and community spirit is not something our cab-drivers are renowned for.

Our View: EU presidency chief may not be guilty of nepotism but the damage is done

2011-06-21

THE AUDITOR-GENERAL, will today present to the House Watchdog Committee the findings of her investigation into the procedures followed, for the awarding of a contract for events co-ordination in Brussels, during the Cyprus presidency of the EU. The two-year contract, worth about €120,000, was awarded to the boy-friend of the daughter of Andreas Moleskis, the head of the Cyprus presidency secretariat.

Our View: Political unity in Greece is crucial

2011-06-07

THE NUMBER of Greeks protesting in Athens’ Syntagma Square against austerity measures, reached an estimated 60,000 on Sunday, the highest of 12 consecutive days of demonstrations.

People arrived from as far away as Crete to join the group that calls itself the ‘Indignant Citizens’ and has no links to unions or the political parties.

Organisers had hoped to get as many as 100,000 people to Syntagma Square, outside parliament, on Sunday but although they failed to meet this target, the demo had enough of an impact for the Prime Minister to call a cabinet meeting yesterday. There must be serious concern about public anger and discontent in the PASOK government which must fear the possibility of protests getting out of control.

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.