Новости за 06.12.2016

The post office is offering a free service allowing parents to make sure their kids receive a letter from Santa. The free Santa2me service allows parents to electronically prepare a letter from Santa to their children. The post office will then print the letters on a festive letterhead and mail them to the children before […]

A Bahamian man was sentenced to five years in US prison on Tuesday for hacking into celebrities’ email accounts to steal unreleased film and television scripts, personal information and sexually explicit videos in order to sell them. Alonzo Knowles, who maintained a list of 130 celebrities’ emails and phone numbers, was sentenced by US District […]

Greek Cypriot Dinos Kilaniotis and Turkish Cypriot Mehmet Civa, once close friends who were violently separated 42 years ago, reunited on Tuesday when Kilaniotis was finally able to contact his friend through Facebook and return family items Civa had left with him after being taken a prisoner of war in 1974. Flanked by his wife, […]

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (Cysec) was an invalid body, and thus its rulings cannot form the basis for criminal proceedings against the defendants, defence lawyers argued on Tuesday in the trial of the Bank of Cyprus and six of its former top officials over investments gone bad. In addition to the lender itself, […]

Opposition MPs on Tuesday laid into the government’s economic and welfare policies during the second day of the budget debate in the House. Dozens of lawmakers took to the podium to slam what they called an ‘austerity budget’ for 2017, complaining of cutbacks in targeted welfare spending as well as on expenditures geared to boost […]

Greece welcomed the euro zone’s offer of short-term debt relief on Tuesday but urged Germany and the International Monetary Fund to abandon their demands for harsher austerity once its bailout programme expires in 2018. Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos called Monday’s eurozone finance ministers meeting “a significant success” and pressed for the swift completion of a […]

If you are working your way through an advent calendar you will know that there are 18 days until the big day. And there are only two weekends in that sum, so if you haven’t done all your Christmas gift shopping – and you would like to go with something a little different – then […]

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan may be more willing to back a deal to reunite the island following Turkey’s failed army coup in July, Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said on Tuesday. He said July’s failed military coup, which led to the arrests and sackings of many army officials, could free Erdogan to accept a withdrawal of […]

US President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday costs for a new Air Force One – one of the most prominent symbols of the US presidency – were out of control, and urged the government to cancel a contract with Boeing Co for the jet. Trump, who takes office on Jan 20, griped during his unconventional […]

Political online daily politico.eu has named Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci one of the 28 most influential politicians of the year, according to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA). In their ‘Politico 28’ instalment, inaugurated last year, editors of the daily choose one person from each European Union member state, and after that they rank each […]

Larnaca airport has purchased new equipment for people with reduced mobility and disabilities. The Eagle Passenger Lifter is designed to lift passengers from their own wheelchair into an airport wheelchair or aisle chair and vice versa, thus avoiding manual handling. “The system does not replace wheelchairs since its role is supportive by facilitating the travelling […]

The European Union’s chief negotiator set a target of agreeing a Brexit deal with Britain by October 2018, assuming London keeps a promise to formally launch the process of leaving the EU by the end of March. Michel Barnier, at a news conference on Tuesday , said the two-year deadline for final withdrawal fixed in […]

Sammy Lee has left his role as England’s assistant manager, the FA said on Tuesday. Lee, who first worked with the England national team during Sven-Goran Eriksson’s reign as manager, began his second stint in July as Sam Allardyce’s assistant. He also served as assistant to new England manager Gareth Southgate, when he was put […]

A Greek court decided on Tuesday to extradite three Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece after a failed coup against President Tayyip Erdogan in July, one of their lawyers said. The three pilots were among a group of eight Turkish soldiers who fled to northern Greece in a helicopter and sought political asylum, saying they […]

By Stelios Orphanides Cyprus will have to convince the European Commission that a naturalization scheme that fetched €3.3bln and kept the economy afloat was not a passport selloff, Interior Minister Socrates Hasikos said on Tuesday. The minister added that the figures do not include a total of €615m of deposits affected by 2013 banking crisis, […]

Angela Merkel laid out her case for a fourth term as German chancellor on Tuesday, seeking to energise her conservatives with a call to ban full-face Muslim veils and the promise of a tougher stance on immigration after a record influx of refugees. Speaking to a party congress of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in […]

Roger Federer and Serena Williams have pulled out of the International Premier Tennis League ahead of the tournament’s Indian leg next week due to economic “uncertainty”, organisers said on Tuesday. India has been gripped by a cash crunch after the government withdrew high denomination from circulation last month. “We have had challenges this year, and […]

Free haircuts, scientific funding, fish and tombstones are among the incentives being offered to Turks who answer President Tayyip Erdogan’s call to convert their dollars to lira. Casting recent weakness in the Turkish currency as a plot by outside powers to destroy the economy, Erdogan has urged Turks to convert any dollars “under their pillows” […]

More than 470 new cases of oral cancer were recorded over a 15 year period, the state health services said on Tuesday, as they launched a campaign to prevent the disease. According to an announcement, 472 new cases of cancer involving the lips, tongue, mouth, salivary glands and the oropharynx were recorded in Cyprus between […]

Reports said a boat carrying some 30 people has been located 3.5 nautical miles off the coast of Pyrgos Tyllirias and marine police were trying to guide it safely to shore amid rough seas. The boat is carrying men, women, and a couple of children. Civil defence personnel are standing by to provide assistance. More […]

The head of Europe’s police agency said it would “look again” at the largest migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean this year after an investigation by Reuters and BBC Newsnight exposed a gap in the response by law enforcement. Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said his agency would reconsider the shipwreck, given “the absence of any […]

Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci wished President Nicos Anastasiades a happy name day on Tuesday, on Saint Nicholas’ day. “On your name day my friend Nicos Anastasiades, I wish you all the best, with health, peace, and happiness,” Akinci wrote in Greek in a twitter message sent to Anastasiades. Anastasiades responded the same way: “Warm thanks […]

The Pallas theatre in Nicosia will be filled with works by Felix Mendelssohn and Carl Maria von Weber on Friday when the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra is joined by soloist Dionysis Gerammenos on the clarinet under the baton of Georgios Vranos at 8.30pm for a concert titled German Romanticism. It was a visit to Scotland in […]

Italy could have an election as early as February, a minister in Matteo Renzi’s outgoing government said on Tuesday after speaking with the prime minister, but a Constitutional Court intervention suggested a vote was further off. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano’s comments may heighten support for a quick vote as the only way to avoid protracted […]

This coming weekend sees one of the most important days of the year. Yes, it’s the day on which the first Nobel prizes were awarded (back in 1901, for those of you who enjoy historical trivia) and the day on which, in 1953, Hugh Heffner published the very first Playboy. But these come close to […]