By Evie Andreou
The sister and husband of a 78-year-old woman found dead in her yard in Kritou Terra on Wednesday night were on Thursday remanded for eight days.
The husband, 83, of Aliki Christophorou was admitted to hospital on Wednesday with wounds on his face. His remand hearing took place at the Paphos Hospital and he will be guarded there until he is well enough to be transferred to prison, police said.
Arrest warrants were issued for the two…
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By Michael Hann
Olympic and world long distance champion Mo Farah withdrew from England’s Commonwealth Games team on Thursday, saying he was not fully fit following a recent illness.
The 31-year-old Farah, who won the 5,000 and 10,000 metres titles at the London Olympics and the world championships in Moscow last year, was preparing to run both distances in Glasgow.
But he said he had decided to remain at his training camp in Font Romeu in Switzerland to concentrate…
By Stephanie Nebehay
Militant group Islamic State has ordered all girls and women in and around Iraq’s northern city of Mosul to undergo female genital mutilation, the United Nations said on Thursday.
The “fatwa” issued by the Sunni Muslim fighters would potentially affect 4 million women and girls, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Jacqueline Badcock told reporters in Geneva by videolink from Arbil.
“This is something very new for Iraq, particularly in this area, and is of grave…
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By Hamid Ould Ahmed
An Air Algerie flight crashed on Thursday en route from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Algiers with 110 passengers on board, an Algerian aviation official said.
There were few clear indications of what might of happened to the aircraft, or whether there were casualties, but Burkino Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedrago said it asked to change route at 0138 GMT because of a storm in the area.
“I can confirm that it has crashed,” the…
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By Giselda Vagnoni and Khalid Abdel Aziz
A Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death for converting from Islam to Christianity, then detained after her conviction was quashed, flew into Rome on an Italian government plane on Thursday and hours later met the Pope.
Mariam Yahya Ibrahim, whose sentence and detention triggered international outrage, walked off the aircraft cradling her baby and was greeted by Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi.
Soon afterwards, Ibrahim, her husband and two children had a…
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By Michele Kambas
ALMOST 20 companies have submitted non-binding expressions of interest in Cyprus Airways , a state-owned carrier that the government wants to privatise, Communications Minister Marios Demetriades said on Thursday.
Aegean Airlines, Ryanair and Israel’s Arkia were among those firms, Demetriades told Reuters.
Romanian low-cost carrier Blue Air said it had also submitted an expression of interest, which is a preliminary step before authorities invite binding bids.
“At least 25 percent of those companies which submitted an expression of interest are related to aviation companies,” Demetriades said.
…
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By Angelos Anastasiou
The government-sponsored foreclosures bill, aimed at speeding up proceedings when borrowers prove insolvent beyond salvation, has caused a wave of protests from political parties and other organised groups, with opposition poised to escalate from vocal disagreement to active resistance.
On Thursday, union of small businesses and self-employed individuals (SYMEA) head Stavros Alampritis announced his group’s opposition to any legislation facilitating foreclosures. SYMEA, he said, has offered a number of proposals to replace this “ill-advised effort.”
“We convened…
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By Ole Petter Skonnord
Militant Islamists with ties to Syria may be planning an attack in Norway, the head of the Norwegian police intelligence service said on Thursday.
“We also have information to suggest that any act of terrorism against Norway may take place shortly, probably within a few days,” said Benedicte Bjoernland, the director of the Police Security Service, declining to reveal the source of information. “The people (named in the threat) participated in the fighting in Syria.”
NATO-member…
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By Christian Lowe
The CIA ran a secret jail on Polish soil, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday, piling pressure on Poland, one of Washington’s closest allies, to break its long silence about the global programme for detaining al Qaeda suspects.
The court said it had been established that the CIA used a facility in a northern Polish forest, code named Quartz, as a hub in its network for interrogating suspected al Qaeda operatives rounded up after…
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By Raheem Salman
A shooting and bombing attack on a bus near Baghdad killed 52 prisoners and nine policemen on Thursday, Ministry of Justice and medical sources said, the latest in a string of assaults on prisoners in Iraq.
The motive for Thursday’s killings was not immediately clear but Iraqi security forces and government affiliated Shi’ite militias appear to have unlawfully executed at least 255 prisoners over the past month in apparent revenge for killings by Sunni militants, according to…
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By Sam Holden and Michael Hann
Glasgow welcomed a large part of the world and remembered recent tragedies as a diverse and colourful opening ceremony signalled the start of the 20th Commonwealth Games at Celtic Park on Wednesday night.
As the sun set on the hottest day of the year in Scotland’s biggest city, a vibrant display of tartan-clad dancers, pipe bands and kilted entertainers kicked off 11 days of sporting endeavour.
Famed singers Rod Stewart and Susan Boyle,…
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President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu will on Thursday discuss the methodology of how talks will continue and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs).
The meeting started at 10am in the UN Protected Area in Nicosia. Prior to the meeting, hosted by UNSG Special Representative in Cyprus Lisa Buttenheim, the two leaders visited the anthropological laboratory of the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP).
Anastasiades said on Wednesday that the Turkish side must cooperate, in goodwill and sincerity,…
The Cypriot authorities (Central Bank Governor and Finance Minister) will on Thursday meet the heads of the Troika (EC, ECB and the IMF) mission to agree on the updated memorandum of understanding, in the framework of the fifth review of the implementation of Cyprus’ adjustment programme.
Discussions will begin at the Central Bank of Cyprus over technical issues of the financial sector whereas the updated MOU will be agreed in a meeting between the Finance Minister Harris Georgiades, CBC…
A train slammed into a school bus in southern India on Thursday, killing at least 19 children and the driver, police said.
The bus crossed a railway track at an unmanned crossing in Telangana state without stopping to check if the way was clear, said Indian Railways spokesman Anil Kumar Saxena.
Police said the bus was carrying 32 children, 12 of whom died on the spot. Seven more died in a nearby hospital, where others are in critical condition.
“Doctors…
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By David Schwartz
An Arizona inmate took almost two hours to die by lethal injection on Wednesday and his lawyers said he “gasped and snorted” before succumbing in the latest botched execution to raise questions about the death penalty in the United States.
The execution of convicted double murderer Joseph Wood began at 1:52 p.m. at a state prison complex, and the 55-year-old was pronounced dead just shy of two hours later at 3:49 p.m., the Arizona attorney general’s office…
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Last year Paolo Di Canio won the Premier League’s sack race at a canter, lasting just five games into the season before Sunderland got rid of the eccentric Italian. Ten top flight managers were fired in total last season, which makes predicting who will or won’t be in a job come May as hard to predict as flipping a coin.
As the new season edges ever closer, bookies are already raking it in as to who will be the…
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams
Israel won a partial reprieve from the economic pain of its Gaza war on Thursday with the lifting of a U.S. ban on commercial flights to Tel Aviv, while continued fighting pushed the Palestinian death toll over 700.
A truce remained elusive despise intensive mediation efforts. Israel says it needs more time to eradicate rocket stocks and cross-border tunnels in the Gaza Strip and Hamas Islamists demand the blockade on the enclave be lifted.
…
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By Angelos Anastasiou
A WEEK after going live, the government’s Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) welfare scheme has already presented serious teething problems, with applications submitted from people whose monthly income indicates ineligibility, leaving many citizens frustrated with seemingly endless red tape.
Application forms have been delivered to 54 post offices around Cyprus for people to collect and fill out, with post office staff trained on the specifics of the scheme, and even an information hotline has been set up by…
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THE FORECLOSURES bill that was supposed to have been discussed and approved by the Council of Ministers yesterday was not ready by Tuesday night and will have to wait for the next meeting, whenever that is scheduled. It could be said that the government did what is always done when an unpopular and controversial measure needs to be approved – it postponed the decision in the hope that a miracle would make it unnecessary.
But not even a miracle could…
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By Angelos Anastasiou
THE association of Bank of Cyprus’ old shareholders, who were wiped out during the bank’s recapitalisation through the conversion of uninsured deposits in March 2013, yesterday announced their intention to seek appropriate compensation in court.
During a news conference, the association’s chairman Archbishop Chrysostomos told reporters that his board will soon instruct its members to file class action suits against the Resolution Authority, seeking the restoration of their rights.
The issue is to be decided at the…
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