Новости за 19.10.2017

European Union leaders sought to minimise Spain’s crisis with Catalonia on Thursday and avoid encouraging separatists across the bloc, describing Barcelona’s secession bid as a domestic issue and declining a mediation role. Leaders did not hold a discussion of Catalonia’s bid to break away from Spain and judged they had nothing to gain by angering […]

Arsenal beat 10-man Red Star Belgrade 1-0 in Europa League Group H in an intimidating atmosphere thanks to an acrobatic late goal by Olivier Giroud on Thursday. Both sides missed chances as Theo Walcott came close for Arsenal in the first half while Richmond Boaqye hit the woodwork at the other end and Petr Cech […]

Police are urging the public not to answer missed calls to their mobiles made from unknown overseas numbers. Since Wednesday noon, some 350,000 such calls were placed to Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (Cyta) mobile subscribers, with the organisation busy blocking several foreign numbers. The calls are made late at night – starting from around midnight up […]

The mooted Anti-Corruption Authority is to be vested with sweeping powers to investigate phenomena of fraud or corruption in decisions involving the public sector, while any person or legal entity not fully cooperating with it may be liable to imprisonment or a fine. Moreover, the authority will have full and unimpeded access to any information […]

House President Demetris Syllouris on Thursday said the receipt of watches by five Cypriot MPs as gifts from Kuwaiti officials was a non-issue. Syllouris was commenting on an article in Politis suggesting a major issue of ethics had arisen from the receipt of the expensive watches from the head of the Kuwaiti National Assembly during […]

Police believe a bomb that killed a prominent journalist in Malta was attached beneath her car and triggered remotely, a government spokeswoman said on Thursday, giving the first details of the investigation. Daphne Caruana Galizia, a renowned blogger and fierce critic of the government, died on Monday in a blast that wrecked her car as […]

Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci said on Thursday the Turkish side has left open the door for dialogue for a new effort involving a balanced package that will focus on getting one result. Speaking at the Technical University in the north, Akinci said the condition was that ‘there will be a serious change in mentality […]

Paralimni Mayor Theodoros Pyrillis on Thursday threw his weight behind supporters of song bird trapping, warning activists against the practice that if they continue their operations in his area people will take matters in their own hands. The outburst followed a protest in Paralimni on Wednesday where more than 3,000 people gathered to voice their […]

President Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of trying to squeeze Russia out of European energy markets, saying the latest round of US sanctions was designed to force Europe to buy US liquefied natural gas instead. Speaking at a policy forum in southern Russia, Putin launched a withering critique of US foreign policy […]

The supreme court on Thursday held off on making a decision on the appeals filed against convictions in a public corruption case involving a quid pro quo between former deputy attorney-general Rikkos Erotokritou and a prominent law firm. The court deferred judgment to a later date, having heard closing arguments from the prosecution who argued […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged her fellow leaders on Thursday to cut European Union funds to Turkey that are linked to Ankara’s bid to join the bloc due to concerns about the country’s growing authoritarianism. While praising Turkey for taking in Syrian refugees, Merkel stuck with the tougher tone she adopted during her reelection campaign last month, although she […]

A letter dated October 3 from the Permanent Representative of Cyprus to the UN about Turkey’s attempts to impose a wider, political, economic and social agenda in the north has been circulated as a UN document, CNA reported on Thursday. In the letter, Kornelios Korneliou conveys grave concern regarding the alarming deterioration of the human […]

Chinese officials on Thursday heaped praise on President Xi Jinping‘s political ideology, unveiled a day earlier at a key Communist Party Congress, a sign that it could be enshrined in the party’s constitution and further cement his power. Some ruling Communist Party officials were moved on Thursday to song, dance and tears in adulation of Xi, a day […]

A potential deal with the United States to upgrade dozens of Greece’s F-16 fighter jets is not expected to harm its fiscal progress and should not worry its EU lenders, a Greek government spokesman said on Thursday. Defence spending has been reduced during Greece’s seven-year debt crisis, which shrank the size of its economy by […]

A report by the auditor-general on potential wrongdoings in the acquisition by the state of Larnaca’s land registry building will be conveyed to the attorney-general to look into, it emerged on Thursday. The House watchdog committee asked Auditor-General Odysseas Michaelides to send his report to Costas Clerides after it appeared that a series of criminal […]

By Christos P. Panayiotides I GENUINELY respect the views of Alper Ali Riza, who regularly writes in the Sunday Mail.  As he rightly points out in his article on October 15, the EU thinking on Cyprus, as exemplified in the 2004 Treaty and Protocol of Accession, was based on the idea that a comprehensive settlement […]

Marcos Baghdatis has lost in the last 16 of the Stockholm Open, the Cypriot going down two sets to one to Japanese seventh seed Yuichi Sugita of Japan. Baghdatis lost the opening set 6-3 but fought back to claim the second 6-3. Things were looking good when he broke early in the third set, but […]

A 37-year-old man was jailed for nine years on Thursday after he was found guilty of possessing and trafficking one kilo of cocaine. The man was arrested in June last year following a chase that involved shooting by officers who tried to stop him. Drug squad officers tried to stop the man, who was driving […]

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has called on mayors of three major cities to resign, including the high-profile mayor of the capital, Ankara, the Hurriyet newspaper reported on Thursday, in a push to revitalise his ruling party ahead of 2019 elections. The comments mark Erdogan’s most explicit demand yet for a shake-up of veteran politicians – […]

Auditor-general Odysseas Michaelides has once more raised the issue of mayoral pensions, urging the finance and interior ministers, as well as MPs, to review the 2011 regulations put in place on the initiative of the Union of Municipalities (UoM), which more than doubled the pensions of local government heads, it was reported on Thursday. According […]

Prime Minister Theresa May said she would tell fellow European Union leaders on Thursday of “ambitious plans” for progress in Brexit negotiations in the coming weeks. Arriving at the summit in Brussels, she told reporters: “We’ll … be looking at the concrete progress that has been made in our exit negotiations and setting out ambitious […]

A Monaco judge is investigating AS Monaco football club owner Dmitry Rybolovlev over allegations of complicity in invasion of privacy as part of a dispute with an art dealer, a source close to the Russian billionaire said on Thursday. Being put under investigation in Monaco is not equivalent to being charged. It is the first […]

The Limassol Water Board on Thursday urged residents of the district to restrict water usage as the Episkopi desalination has plant has stopped temporarily due to damage. In an announcement, the board said that it is currently being allocated reduced volumes of water from the Water Development Department (WDD) due to damage in a substation […]

China’s central bank chief on Thursday issued a stark warning about asset bubbles in the world’s second-largest economy, which looks set to clock its first acceleration in annual growth since 2010, driven by public spending and record bank lending. Speaking on the sidelines of the closely-watched, twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress, People’s Bank of China Governor […]

It’s October and in keeping with the Oktoberfest mood we headed to Beer and Beer. This really is prime weather for beer as well, not too sweltering so your beer turns into soup if it is not consumed fast enough, and not cold enough that chugging down an ice cold beer will make you even […]