Новости за 30.09.2016

HIS remarks to the House watchdog committee on Thursday were not meant as a slight to the tax department’s civil servants, Tax chief Yiannis Tsangaris said on Friday. In a statement, Tsangaris sought to clarify the claims he made to parliament. Among other things, he likened the situation he found at the department when he […]

FINANCE Minister Harris Georgiades on Friday laid the foundation stone of the Ayia Napa marina which is expected to be completed in five years. Georgiades was standing in for President Nicos Anastasiades who had to travel to Israel to attend the funeral of the country’s former president Shimon Peres who died on Wednesday. Τhe €220m […]

EVEN as Cyprus’ energy future is looking bright, given the discovery and development of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, the government is intensifying efforts for the seamless transition to viable green growth, Energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis said on Friday. Addressing the organisers of energy-saving, water technologies, and construction expos – Savenergy, Envirotec, and Ecodomica, […]

The Kypria International Festival 2016 is coming to a close next week with three performances of the opera Ra…Patsia…Ou… by award winning Cypriot composer Andys Skordis. The opera, written in the Cypriot dialect and executed by nine musicians together with electronic elements and pre-recorded Gamelan music, introduces us to the world of a sculptress who […]

President Nicos Anastasiades said on Friday that the 56th anniversary of the island’s independence on October 1, presented an opportunity to look back and see that many times throughout the years, and particularly before 1974, instead of building bridges, the island’s two communities hid behind slogans and, sometimes, confrontational goals. In a televised address, referring […]

The European Central Bank and the European Commission said that while Cyprus has made some good progress in fixing its economy in recent years, this progress is still not good enough, citing a slowdown of the reform process and a lack of forceful application of tools to reduce bad loans. “Reforms undertaken by Cyprus during […]

The Nicosia district court will announce on Monday whether it will issue arrest warrants for four Greek nationals who failed to show up for a scheduled hearing in connection with the alleged bribery of the former Central Bank governor. The case concerns a €1m payment made to Christodoulos Christodoulou in 2007, which prosecutors allege was […]

Pakistan on Friday “completely rejected” India’s claim to have sent troops across its disputed border in Kashmir to kill suspected militants, as India evacuated villages near the frontier amid concerns about a military escalation. In a rare public announcement of such a raid, India said it had carried out “surgical strikes” on Thursday, sending special […]

Iceland raised its aviation alert by a notch on Friday after several earthquakes hit one of the country’s biggest volcanoes, the strongest tremors since a string of quakes last month raised concerns over a possible eruption. The alert only moved to the second lowest level of the four colour scale, but in 2010, ash from […]

Cyprus is in a race against time to avert the loss of money held by depositors in accounts at the FBME Bank (Cyprus) Ltd which could further damage the reputation of its banking system, sources said. The bank, a branch of the Tanzanian FBME Bank Ltd that had its licence withdrawn in December, for failing […]

Following a request by Diko chairman Nicolas Papadopoulos, the auditor-general on Friday launched an investigation into the procedures preceding the staging of an ancient Greek tragedy in occupied Famagusta, which turned out to be a huge success, attended by some 4,000 people. Papadopoulos wrote to the auditor basically asking him to clarify who funded the […]

Police managed to secure seven-day remand orders against eight suspects including two doctors and a physiotherapist in Limassol court Friday in connection with an allegedly staged car accident which took place in Paphos early last year. Seven of the eight appeared in court, as the 77-year-old orthopaedist had been transferred to a private clinic for […]

The Rosetta spacecraft ended its historic mission on Friday, crashing on the surface of the dusty, icy comet it has spent 12 years chasing in a hunt that has provided insight into the early days of the solar system and captured the public’s imagination. The spacecraft has stalked comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko across more than 6 billion […]

July was a record month for tourism with revenues reaching €402.2 million compared to €342.1 million in the corresponding month of the previous year, an increase of 17.6 per cent. For the first time this year, the increase in revenues exceeded the increase in the number of tourists which was 16.3 per cent up for […]

Environment ministers from all 28 European Union states agreed on Friday to a fast-track, collective ratification of last year’s UN Paris climate deal, the EU said. “All member states greenlight early EU ratification of Paris Agreement. What some believed impossible is now real,” tweeted European Council President Donald Tusk, whose home country Poland had been […]

The cabinet has unanimously approved an increase of €2.25 million for student grants in 2016, raising the amount from €3.75 million to €6 million. In addition, it approved a sum of €1 million for Greek students whose families reside in Greece and who attended academic institutions in Cyprus from 2015 to 2016.and Cypriot students from […]

Finance minister Harris Georgiades submitted the government’s €7bn budget to the parliament on Friday which provides for a fiscal gap of 0.6 per of the economy and dismissed rumours that the ministry is considering a tax amnesty, the Cyprus News Agency reported. “I have submitted the government 2017 budget to the House Speaker and conveyed […]

THE first Cyprus Open Studios gets underway across the island this weekend and gives the public an opportunity to meet both local and visiting artists, and offers an opportunity to buy original pieces. Founder of the event, Paphos-based artist Maria Etheridge, told the Cyprus Mail that along with her two Cypriot partners, they aim to […]

The state budget for 2017 creates the conditions for sound and sustainable management of public finances, which will assist and support economic growth, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said on Friday. Georgiades was speaking after submitting the state budget for 2017 to House President Demetris Syllouris, to mark the start of the examination and approval procedure by […]

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is open to managing England in the future but is currently committed to the Premier League side, the Frenchman said on Friday. “My priority is to do well here. This has always been my club,” Wenger, who will celebrate 20 years at Arsenal on Saturday, told reporters. “If I am free […]

Drawing attention to contemporary masterpieces in which human voice takes the lead, the eighth International Pharos Contemporary Music Festival opens on Wednesday with the performance of one of the most emblematic works of the twentieth century. Over a decade since the Pharos Arts Foundation presented the Cyprus premiere of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire with the London […]

THEO PANAYIDES meets a woman who sits on an incredible number of boards in Cyprus but in doing so is trying to change the world bit by bit I’m expecting an urgent phone call, explains Elena Tanou with a note of apology, sitting in her third-floor office at Top Kinisis Tower in Nicosia, so we […]

Missing the current opportunity for a Cyprus solution would be an historic failure, the UN secretary-general`s special adviser for Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide has said. He also said he had the full backing of the big powers and the UN Security Council who wanted to see the Cyprus issue of the table because they “have […]

The finance ministry has successfully raised €35,54 million, after issuing the 10th series of a six-year bond for natural persons. The Public Debt Management Office announced on Friday it received 66 applications for a total amount of €35,538,600, on September 20, 2016 when the period for submitting applications terminated. The entire amount was accepted. From […]

Eleven foreign employees of the company building the new Ayia Napa marina reported early Friday having been attacked by bouncers in one of the popular resort’s clubs. Police say the group went to Famagusta CID at around 5am where they made a complaint saying they were attacked by the security staff at the club around […]