Новости за 08.03.2016

The House plenum will next week vote on abolishing unfair bank charges. Chairman of the House Commerce Committee DISY MP Zacharias Zachariou on Tuesday said the last details of the bill have been ironed out and it will go to a plenum vote on March 17. The bill abolishes a number of charges banks impose […]

Turkey and Greece vowed close cooperation on Tuesday on a plan to send back migrants rejected by Europe, laying aside historic differences in an agreement they hope will end illegal flows of people across the Aegean Sea. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told a joint news conference with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu that the […]

Cyprus can be a model for coexistence between Muslims and Christians for this entire region, US Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs Shaun Casey said on Tuesday. Casey was speaking during news conference following a meeting of Cyprus’ religious leaders at the residence of the Swedish Ambassador in Nicosia, within the framework of the […]

Though the government on Tuesday expressed its satisfaction with the outcome of the EU-Turkey summit, political parties on the island said Ankara’s demands to speed up its accession in return for help with stemming the flow of migrants showed it was unreliable as a partner. The parties also called on President Nicos Anastasiades not to […]

Discussions began on Tuesday at the Council of Europe (CoE) Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg on the issue of missing persons in Cyprus. Turkey recently circulated a memorandum at the CoE, reiterating its previous call for access to be granted in military sites in the government-controlled areas as “places where there is credible evidence that […]

At least one person was killed and nine others were wounded by a Palestinian wielding a knife in the popular Jaffa port area of Tel Aviv on Tuesday, authorities said, while US Vice President Joe Biden was in a meeting a few kilometres away. The attack took place along a boardwalk near a beach popular […]

The Syrian Kurdish militia YPG on Tuesday accused Islamist and other rebel groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces of shelling a mainly Kurdish residential district in the northern city of Aleppo with chemical agents. YPG fighters have been battling the insurgents for weeks on a heavily contested frontline that includes the district and countryside near […]

Significant discrepancies existed between loans paid out by now-defunct Laiki Bank in Greece and collateral backing them, according to a 2012 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), with losses estimated at least to €2.5 billion, Greek news portal To Kouti Tis Pandoras (Pandora’s Box) reported on Tuesday. According to the report, which features most of Greece’s financial […]

The WindCraft Music Festival will take place in August after two very successful festivals during the past two summers and organisers are on the look-out for talented musicians to share their music over the two-day festival. This year the festival will have a Funk ‘n’ Ethnic feel to it. So if you are a band […]

International Women’s Day was marked by officials around the island on Tuesday with speeches and positive words for the island’s female population. President Nicos Anastasiades on Twitter dedicated the day to “the woman-refugee who fights for her child. With respect, we wish strength for them to continue their struggle”. House speaker YiannakisOmirou too extended his […]

Finance minister Harris Georgiades said on Tuesday the government will not satisfy the demand of state hospital nurses to move up pay scales just because their qualifications are considered the equivalent of a university degree. DISY leader Averoff Neophytou meanwhile said if the nurses did not like the terms of their employment they should look […]

Greece’s international lenders expect to have finished verifying that Athens has carried out promised reforms by the time of the Greek Orthodox Easter in late April or early May, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday. A first review of economic reforms under the bailout plan agreed last August, which Greece wants concluded fast […]

Excursionists and holidaymakers were on Tuesday warned by the Civil Aviation department not to fly their kites near the airport areas of Larnaca and Paphos on Green Monday. In a statement, the department “informs the public and particularly excursionists that kite flying in the area of the runways of Larnaca Airport and Paphos may endanger […]

Cyprus might soon be excluded from the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme because its credit rating is below investment grade and it is likely to exit its bailout programme at the end of March, an ECB spokesman said on Tuesday. Cyprus is expected to conclude its bailout programme without maintaining a precautionary credit line, because […]

The Turkish Cypriot side is ready to discuss a system of guarantees for a post-solution Cyprus but not the fact that Turkey would be a guarantor as that would be a given, a spokesman was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Baris Burcu, the spokesman for Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci told Ada television: “We need […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday things were moving in the right direction after the European Union agreed a draft deal with Turkey to stem the flow of migrants to Europe, a touchstone issue for voters in state elections on Sunday. The deal is a crucial sign of progress for Merkel, who is battling […]

Around 10,000 Turkish settlers in the north are eligible to for a ‘white card’ that will give them Turkish Cypriot ‘citizenship’ but without the right to vote or be elected. According to Turkish Cypriot daily Detay, the number of applications for ‘white cards’ increased since February 17 when the price was dropped from TL2,000 (€622) […]

It’s time to renegotiate the contract that put the Middle East together. The “contract” is the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided up most of the Arab lands that had been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The world that document created exists now only on yellowed maps, and the issues left unsettled – primarily […]

LEICESTER’S success on the pitch has been sending shock waves through the city – with the celebrations of fans being picked up by equipment used to detect earthquakes. Supporters jumping up and down at the King Power Stadium when the Foxes nabbed an 89th-minute winner against Norwich caused a quake with a magnitude of 0.3, […]

By Angelos Anastasiou Regulations for the operation of a casino in Cyprus will be taken to Thursday’s plenary session, with a view to awarding the single licence by September and having it up and running within two years, it was decided on Tuesday. The regulations were discussed in a joint session of the House Finance […]

By Alastair Macdonald Confident of better ratings and cheaper funding as it exits a euro zone bailout, Cyprus is wary of planning major new borrowing to help fund any reunification and may not need it, its finance minister said on Tuesday. Harris Georgiades said Cyprus would make a “clean exit” from its 2013 programme, confirming the assessment on Monday […]

By Preston Wilder Worthy messages come thick and fast in Zootropolis, a skilful but oppressively didactic Disney cartoon which takes the studio’s sense of social responsibility (these are the people who refused to show Walt Disney smoking in Saving Mr. Banks) to a new high. Early reviews have been rapturous, which is no surprise: this […]

Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling is learning a lot from his team-mate Sergio Aguero as he bids to improve his killer instinct in front of goal. Argentine striker Aguero has scored 94 Premier League goals since his debut in 2011 while Sterling has bagged 11 this season, equalling his best return in a single campaign. […]

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) test-fired several ballistic missiles from silos across the country on Tuesday, state television said, defying recent US sanctions on its missile programme. The test happened two months after the United States sanctioned businesses and individuals linked to Iran’s missile programme over a test of the medium-range Emad missile carried […]

February this year has been one of the warmest and driest on record, the met service said on Tuesday. According to preliminary data some of the maximum temperatures recorded last month were extreme for this time of the year, making it one of the driest Februaries ever. The met office said that the extreme temperatures […]