Where are the leaders? Will Christodoulides rise to the occasion?
As the visit of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Cyprus came and went, I found myself reflecting on how bereft the world seems of genuine leadership.
There was a time ...
Did Gueterres bungle the Cyprus Peace Conference in 2017?
Or was the problem that a bicommunal bizonal federation with political equality was a vote loser?
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been and gone. It was nice of him to ...
What’s yours is mine, what’s mine’s my own
The original Little House on the Prairie (1974-1983) was based on the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The new Netflix adaptation pays closer attention to the realities of the period.
...
The illusion of the unitary state and the inevitability of federation in Cyprus
The decades-long effort to resolve the Cyprus problem has reached a definitive turning point. Years of frozen diplomacy and shifting Eastern Mediterranean geopolitical dynamics have transformed a historical stalemate into ...
Adaptive federalism: a new constitutional design for Cyprus
As the United Nations Secretary General prepares to visit Cyprus, perhaps the most important question is not simply whether Cyprus can be reunited, but what kind of constitutional architecture could ...
Energy may be Cyprus govt’s biggest economic challenge
With the energy sufficiency problems and power cuts that Cyprus is currently facing, energy will be one of the defining issues for the next government. The challenge extends beyond individual ...
The truth about Cyprus’ forgotten war crimes
There is a Turkish Cypriot saying that goes, ‘The one who told the truth was driven out of nine villages’.
Perhaps no one in Cyprus embodied this more than the ...
Cyprus government policies are mean and unfair
Article 9 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus states that “Every person has the right to a decent existence and to social security. A law shall provide for the ...
Berlin’s wake-up call to Europe and Cyprus
The recent announcement by the coalition government of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz regarding the ‘Revitalisation and Employment Programme’ marks a significant shift in Europe’s economic policy.
Faced with years ...
What Cyprus gets right about summer heat
By Dina-Perla Portnaar
My phone almost exploded recently because of all those alarming weather reports in the Dutch media. Notifications screamed about a so-called Code Red, an impending apocalypse measured ...
Trump and the threshold of pain
It would be so easy for Donald Trump to escape from the trap he has built for himself in the Persian Gulf. Just declare a victory and leave.
So what ...
Beyond interest rates: a central bank for the future
As the World Cup comes to an end today, so will the euphoria that most of us have experienced start to fade. The distraction – similar to the Colosseum gladiator games ...
Courts are the last defence against tyranny
India and the United States are the world’s two biggest democracies, and both of them seem to be in danger. In each of them populist federal governments are deliberately ...
The anatomy of a geopolitical tragedy
Cyprus’ modern history is defined by missed diplomatic opportunities, ideological blindness and the cold calculations of regional powers. Since 1974, the events leading to the island’s partition have been clouded ...
A very British and a very Cypriot coup
With Andy Burnham about to take over as UK prime minister in a very British coup, Cyprus marked 52 years since the coup against President Makarios with sirens blaring at 8.20am ...
Shock, awe and lessons lost
Language is one of humankind’s finest achievements. Its progression led to swifter understanding of the actions our species needed while hunting or escaping predators, for expressing emotions, understanding each ...
It’s a shame they can’t both lose
The last time oil-tankers were being shot up in the Persian Gulf, back in the 1980s, it was Saddam Hussein’s brutal tyranny in Iraq versus Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary ...
The illusion of a safe pause and Holguin’s wake-up call
For nearly a decade since Crans-Montana, Greek Cypriot leaders have operated under the illusion of a risk-free status quo. However, UN envoy María Angela Holguin has shattered this complacency, ...
The Brexit decade: the gap between expectations and reality
The 2016 referendum on the UK’s departure from the EU is widely considered to be a milestone event. The purpose of this article is to assess its multi-level impact, considering ...
A World Cup to remember: war minus the shooting
This week I had planned to write a carefully argued article on economics and the creation of money. After sending it to a couple of friends for comment, however, the ...
A discredited Fifa at the beck and call of a petulant Trump
The international football federation (Fifa), the body responsible for the overall conduct and supervision of the 2026 World Cup, brought the beautiful game into disrepute earlier this week.
In an unprecedented ...
Why living with less made me love Cyprus more
By Dina-Perla Portnaar
Spend enough time with content for people moving to Cyprus and a pattern begins to emerge. Alongside questions about residency permits, where to find the best **** (fill ...
Cost of infrastructure the dominant LNG factor
For many years, the public debate has assumed that replacing oil with natural gas would automatically produce substantially lower electricity prices. That assumption was reasonable when the Vasilikos LNG import ...
Can Vasiliko LNG import project still achieve its original objective?
When Cyprus approved the Vasiliko LNG import project in 2019, the rationale appeared compelling. Importing natural gas promised to reduce electricity prices, lower carbon emissions, improve security of energy supply, diversify ...