By Eveline Danubrata and Nguyen Phuong Linh
The disappearance of a Malaysian jetliner is an “unprecedented aviation mystery”, a senior official said on Monday, with a massive air and sea search now in its third day failing to find any confirmed trace of the plane or 239 people aboard.
The head of Malaysia’s Civil Aviation Authority, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said a hijacking could not be ruled out as investigators explore all theories for the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370…
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By Lidia Kelly
Russian President Vladimir Putin defended breakaway moves by the pro-Russian leaders of Crimea on Sunday in a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, according to the Kremlin.
The three leaders spoke amid tensions on the Black Sea peninsula since the Moscow-backed regional parliament declared the Ukrainian region part of Russia and announced a March 16 referendum to confirm this..
“Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin underlined in particular that the steps taken by…
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By Stephen Wood
Manchester City’s hopes of an unprecedented quadruple were in tatters on Sunday after holders Wigan Athletic repeated their FA Cup heroics with a stunning 2-1 victory in their quarter-final at the Etihad Stadium.
Jordi Gomez’s first-half penalty and a tap-in by James Perch gave Wigan, who beat City 1-0 in the FA Cup final at Wembley last May, a place in this year’s semi-finals against Arsenal.
City, who won the League Cup last Sunday and need to…
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INTERPOL SAYS “EXAMINING ADDITIONAL SUSPECT PASSPORTS” USED TO BOARD MISSING MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT
International police agency Interpol said at least two passports recorded as lost or stolen in its database were used by passengers on board a missing Malaysia Airlines flight, and said it was “examining additional suspect passports” on Sunday.
Interpol said no checks of its database had been made by any country on an Austrian and an Italian passport between the time that they were stolen and…
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By Ali al-Rubaie
A suicide bomber driving a minibus packed with explosives killed at least 32 people and wounded 147 on Sunday in the southern Iraqi city of Hilla, police and medical sources said.
The attacker approached a main checkpoint at a northern entrance to the largely Shi’ite Muslim city and detonated the minibus, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.
At least 50 cars were set ablaze with passengers trapped inside and part of the checkpoint complex was…
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By Alissa de Carbonnel
Russian forces tightened their grip on Crimea on Sunday despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy in a tense East-West standoff.
Russian forces’ seizure of the Black Sea peninsula has been bloodless but tensions are mounting following the decision by pro-Russian groups that have taken over the regional parliament to make Crimea part of Russia.
The operation to seize Crimea began within days of Ukraine’s…
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By Angelos Anastasiou
GAY RIGHTS’ activists have condemned Archbishop Chrysostomos’ latest tirade against homosexuality and said the church is irredeemably alienating itself from the real world.
Speaking at an Orthodox gathering in Istanbul on Friday, the Archbishop urged Orthodox churches to take a stand against homosexuality and accused secular Christian governments of “weakening moral integrity” through acknowledging equal rights to homosexuals.
“We should, in my opinion, position ourselves on issues of relaxation of morals increasingly promoted by secular, mostly Christian…
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DEPUTIES are always on the look-out for worthy causes to embrace and thus show they are the real protectors of the people. Given the low regard politicians are held in at present, finding a worthy cause has become more of an imperative. One has been found in what is popularly known as the ‘protection of the primary residence’.
With banks obliged to reduce the very big number of non-performing loans (NPLs) on their books, foreclosures have become their only option….
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By Patroclos
BEING principled and sensitive souls, we Kyproullians were quite shocked by the totally hypocritical stance of the detested West, which includes our duplicitous EU partners, towards Mother Russia’s bloodless invasion and occupation of Crimea.
Mother Russia may have violated the territorial integrity and sovereignty (where have we heard that before?) of the Ukraine, but this was primarily a humanitarian operation aimed at protecting the ethnic Russians, who are the majority of Crimea’s 2.3 million population that was never…
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By James Ker-Lindsay
THIS WEEK saw the fiftieth anniversary of a true milestone in the history of the Cyprus problem – the establishment of UNFICYP, the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.
While the force is a fixture of the Cypriot political landscape, few now remember the difficult political circumstances surrounding its creation. It is a fascinating story that unfolded against the backdrop of the Cold War and British imperial decline.
The breakdown of the constitutional order in Cyprus, in…
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By Sam Holden
Two goals from late substitute Olivier Giroud and one apiece by Mesut Ozil and Mikel Arteta secured Arsenal’s place in the FA Cup semi-finals with a 4-1 win against Everton at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday.
Ozil gave Arsenal a seventh minute lead, after a precise through ball from Santi Cazorla but Everton equalised after a surging run from Ross Barkely resulted in a Romelu Lukaku tap-in after 32 minutes.
Arsenal regained the lead in the 68th…
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By Bejay Browne
AN AWARD-WINNING winery set in the heart of Paphos’ wine-producing region is in the midst of expanding its operations by opening a wine bar at its impressive new facility in time for Easter.
Vasilikon winery, a family run concern in Kathikas, has been producing wine for more than 20 years, winning a raft of top awards at international wine competitions.
Vasilikon winery, which is owned by three brothers – Heracles, Georgios and Yiannis Kyriakides – moved to…
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By Zoe Christodoulides
IF YOU happen to be a regular user of Facebook, then it’s more than likely that you’ve come across pictures of friends, acquaintances or well known local personalities holding up a sign that boldly reads: ‘I Am The Economy’.
This is no random fad. The images are all part of an attempt to break a world record in the midst of the current economic crisis as public consciousness is stirred and people are urged to take control…
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Cyprus needs to clean up its car rental industry
Have you rented a car in Cyprus recently? I have. Here is my story:
I booked a car for a week through a UK-based firm that does its business from the www.RentalCars.com website.
When I went to Avis to pick up my car- I was informed I would have to pay a non-refundable 73 euro fee for petrol which I had not yet used, and if there was any petrol left…
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By Lynn Parramore
WHEN 81-year-old actress Kim Novak walked out on to the Oscars stage last Sunday night to present the award for best animated feature, titled, unfortunately for her, Frozen, she looked very different from the screen siren of old. Her face looked distorted by plastic surgery.
Novak had not managed the trick of altering herself just enough to be considered “natural”. The response was as rapid as it was vicious. Twitter exploded in snark over the frozen look…
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By Philippos Stylianou
I GAVE A lot of thought as to whether I should respond to my old Enosis colleague and dear friend Loucas Charalambous who, in a recent comment in the Sunday Mail, tried to justify the secret Turkish Cypriot designs in 1963 to break away from the newly founded Republic of Cyprus and set up a separate entity.
In the end – rather than continue harping on the deliberate myth of “bad Greeks-poor Turks” as Loucas Charalambous, of…
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By Hermes Solomon
IN ALMOST every public speech so far, our president has promised an economic upturn by the year 2015, although all present economic and banking indicators point in the opposite direction. Simply talking an upturn doesn’t create jobs or attract investment, and he has yet to tell us how this ‘miracle’ will happen.
It is rumoured that the Bank of Cyprus will ‘fold’ unless foreign investors can be found, and that unemployment will peak at 19 per cent…
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By Loucas Charalambous
I HAD CLAIMED in a previous article that Nicolas Papadopoulos was proving worse than his father.
Like the late Tassos, he is an incurable word obsessive, with the political brain of a child, also immersed in the sterile misery of our political culture which perpetuates our official mythology. The mythology that claims the whole world is plotting against us and that all our woes were caused by the Americans, English, Europeans, the UN, NATO and everyone else…
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A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew went missing off the Vietnamese coast on Saturday and was presumed to have crashed.
There were no reports of bad weather and no sign why the Boeing 777-200ER would have vanished from radar screens about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. There were no signs of sabotage nor claims of a terrorist attack.
However, in Europe, news reports and officials said at least two people on board may have been carrying stolen…
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ENERGY minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis reaffirmed the government’s commitment to constructing a natural gas liquefaction terminal on Saturday, and noted that the new cabinet will be called on to make very important decisions.
Commenting on criticism voiced earlier by his predecessor Neoklis Sylikiotis, Lakkotrypis said that “the strategy for exploiting our natural gas reserves remains focused on constructing the liquefaction terminal.”
He conceded that “we are slightly off course over the past six weeks due to the internal crisis”, but clarified…
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