Blast from the future: imagining the news in a reunified Cyprus

2011-09-23

AN unrealistic vision of the future or one that is in fact still quite tangible? 

These were some of the questions raised by the 20-minute bi-communal mocumentary The Nine O’Clock News in the Year 2030 that premiered on Wednesday night at Chateau Status in Nicosia.

The fake news bulletin, anchored by Greek and Turkish Cypriot news presenters, is set 19 years in the future post reunification, with its main aim to plug the economic benefits of such a solution.

In this scenario, the reunited island has a female president and a plethora of bi-communal businesses, with the buffer zone having been turned into an enviable wildlife park destined to be the best in the Mediterranean. 

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.