Новости за 23.03.2016

GREEN Dot’s board members will hand their letters of resignation to the company shareholders during a general meeting set to take place next month, chairman Michalis Spanos said on Wednesday. Speaking during a press conference, Spanos told reporters the decision was taken because the board “does not accept any of the charges without proper investigation […]

A government bill granting those in the health sector who have worked for 30 months with open-ended employment contracts was unveiled by Under-secretary to the President – and Reform Commissioner – Constantinos Petrides to state-hospital employee unions on Wednesday. After successive meetings with representatives from trade unions of state doctors PASYKI, civil servants PASYDY, and […]

DEPUTIES on Wednesday once again expressed their concerns during a House Interior committee meeting about Greek television channels setting up shop in Cyprus,. Greek broadcaster Alpha TV is set to begin airing on the island on April 4 and more channels from Greece have enquired into taking similar steps. Deputies, however, said this would work […]

STUDENTS of the Latsia lyceum were the winners of a quiz on Europe which took place in stages during February and March. The final quiz took place on Wednesday in the form of multiple choice questions and tested students’ knowledge on European issues. According to an announcement, the four schools that qualified in each district […]

By Evie Andreou CYPRUS Airways was a private company operating with inflexible civil service procedures, the head of the parliamentary ad hoc committee tasked to investigate the national carrier’s demise, Nikos Tornaritis, said on Wednesday. The committee, which discussed in its latest meeting the developments during the period between December 2010 and August 2012, when […]

One of the attackers in the Brussels suicide bombings was deported last year from Turkey, and Belgium subsequently ignored a warning that the man was a militant, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday. Erdogan’s office later identified the man as Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of the two brothers named by Belgium as responsible for […]

A Cabinet approved plan set to be rolled out in April aims to help 1,000 unemployed persons find work, the Labour ministry said on Wednesday. Private employment agencies will be receiving up to €500 for any Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) recipient, young person or long term unemployed person they get employed. The agencies will be […]

Grand Prix drivers called on Wednesday for Formula One to change the way it is run and abandon ‘obsolete and ill-structured’ decision-making processes that they said could affect the sport’s popularity. The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA) set out their views in a strongly-worded open letter, signed by champions Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel as […]

DISY MP Rikkos Mappourides walked out of the House Legal Affairs committee in protest on Wednesday after its chairman, his party colleague Sotiris Sampson, refused to schedule the discussion of the bill on abortions. The bill aims to give women the right to terminate pregnancy at under 12 weeks without having to give explanations, or […]

The carnival may be over but why should that stop us from dressing up and having a magical time? And that is what will be on offer this weekend at the second Fairy Folk Festival at Cyherbia in Avgorou. Dress up as fairies, goblins, princes and princesses, knights, pixies or pirates – or anything you […]

A CAR went up in flames in Limassol in the early hours on Wednesday, probably due to arson. At around 3.20am, the car belonging to a 45-year-old woman in the parking lot of an apartment block, was set on fire. Fire fighters extinguished the blaze which caused extensive damage to the front of the vehicle. […]

A 4.1 earthquake on the Richter scale was recorded on Tuesday night at the Liopetri area in Famagusta, the geological survey department said in an announcement. The earthquake’s epicentre was Liopetri, the announcement said, 10 km west of Paralimni and its focal depth was 50 km deep. It occurred at around 10.24pm and “it was […]

Brussels resident Aurelie Cardon says she will avoid taking the metro from now on. Or maybe move abroad. Her eardrums were perforated when a bomb exploded in the metro carriage next to hers on Tuesday and doctors had to pull a piece of burned plastic out of the corner of her eye. “There will be […]

Many Bosnian Serbs believe their wartime leader Radovan Karadzic is innocent of war crimes and that his possible conviction by a UN tribunal on Thursday would inflict a grave injustice on all Serbs. Karadzic, first president of the self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic, has been charged by the Hague-based tribunal with 11 counts of war crimes […]

By Stelios Orphanides The economic sentiment index rose by 1.2 units to 109.8 in March, the highest value since September 2008, the month in which Lehman Brothers bank collapsed sparking a financial crisis that engulfed the globe, the University of Cyprus said. The improved economic sentiment in March resulted from improved business confidence in services […]

By Stelios Orphanides Hellenic Bank, Cyprus’s third largest lender, said that it will participate in the trade facilitation programme of its shareholder, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, with a €20m trade facility. The EBRD, which holds 5.38 per cent of Hellenic’s shares, “will issue guarantees in favour of international commercial banks, covering the […]

US officials on Wednesday sought to confirm the whereabouts of Americans missing in Brussels following Tuesday’s suicide bombings and Atlanta’s airport was briefly evacuated because of a suspicious package as travellers remained on edge. Public areas of the domestic terminal at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the nation’s busiest by passenger volume, were briefly evacuated on […]

The spouses of state officials and politically exposed persons will be included in a bill mandating the submission of asset and source of funds statements, it emerged on Wednesday. The bill was discussed by the House Legal Affairs Committee whose chairman said the only outstanding issues now were how to handle the judiciary, the army […]

UN Secretary-General Special Adviser Espen Barth Eide is expected in Cyprus on Wednesday to take part in next week’s meeting between the leaders of the two communities. UN Spokesperson Aleem Siddique told CNA that Eide will return on Wednesday and “plans to meet with the two negotiators and President Nicos Anastasiades tomorrow (Thursday)”. The leaders’ […]

Syrian government forces and their allies pushed forward against Islamic State fighters to reach the outskirts of the historic city of Palmyra on Wednesday, state media and a monitoring group said. Clashes raged around Palmyra after government forces took control of most of a nearby hill with air cover from Syrian and Russian warplanes, the […]

Former champions England survived a dramatic batting collapse to beat Afghanistan by 15 runs in a World Twenty20 Group One match on Wednesday and boost their semi-final hopes with a second successive victory. In a potential banana-skin match against the Afghans, Eoin Morgan’s team were in dire straits at 57-6 halfway through their innings before […]

By Stelios Orphanides President Nicos Anastasiades will make a last-ditch attempt in the coming days to convince electricity company unions to call off their strike, which could affect the supply of power, a presidential palace source said. “Despite the fact that the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) unions’ demands are unrelated to industrial disputes and […]

By Stelios Orphanides Limassol port workers voted on Wednesday in favour of continuing their strike even after parliament agreed to delay for a week the debate on the draft legislation for the ports commercialisation, a union spokesman said. “There were 66 votes in favour and 22 against” continuing the strike, Andreas Georgiou of the independent […]

No self-serving interests and no coercion will reverse the decision to implement the National Health System (NHS) and the modernisation of public hospitals, President Nicos Anastasiades said on Tuesday. Speaking at the book launch of Dr Lakis Anastasiades’ book ‘Works of Cypriot Doctors – Medicine in Cyprus 1950-2015’ at the Filoxenia Convention Centre, Anastasiades told […]

A friendly football international between Belgium and Portugal has been moved to Portugal from Brussels over security fears after Tuesday’s Islamic State attacks in the Belgian capital. The Belgian football association said the match would be played instead in the Portuguese city of Leiria on Tuesday at 1945 GMT, the same time and date as […]