CM Regular Columnist

Elif Shafak’s latest novel focuses on Cypriot identity Elif Shafak is Turkish novelist who writes in English and Turkish and lives in London where she is free to express ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE By Colette NiReamonn Ioannidou Flames and floods: a world dragging its heels on climate change is finally admitting something really serious is afoot. Once, when young ...

There are 150 new coal-fired plants under construction or already approved and funded in the world, so you can’t really say that we are taking global warming seriously yet. But ...

All the talk of tackling corruption in the lead up to May’s election has fallen silent The issue of corruption dominated the political scene during the long parliamentary pre-election ...

The Mediterranean will be particularly affected with higher summer temperatures, drought and fires says IPCC report The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a landmark report on ...

There’s something wrong when the street names of great philhellenes are replaced with those of lesser mortals When it comes to naming streets, we would expect them given in ...

By Gwynne Dyer “I will never kneel before such a destructive force (as the Taliban),” declared Ashraf Ghani, the soon-to-be-ex-president of Afghanistan. “We will either sit knee-to-knee for real negotiations ...

By Christos Panayiotides ‘They on that side and this side and we, somewhere else.’ I like this slogan, despite its bitterness. I like it because it condenses my fears and ...

By overturning a sham marriage decision this week, the Supreme Court proved itself independent of the executive in an area of law where the latter often rides roughshod over individual ...

At first I was going to write about the ‘Arab Problem’, because there is not a single functioning democracy in the Arab world. This week’s presidential coup in Tunisia ...

We can rediscover our common interests only after a reality check In the East Med we have been side-tracked by the fallacious promise or expectation of riches to come out ...

President Anastasiades has lost all credibility in his claimed commitment to a bizonal, bicommunal federation Aesop wrote that when, for the third time, the previously lying shepherd cried ‘Wolf! Wolf! ...

Following the announcement made by President Erdogan and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on July 20, about the opening-up (on a “pilot” basis) of a small segment of the fenced-off ...

The healing process takes time, patience and pastures new As we are just into the silly season, when I allow myself to comment on comments, I shall answer Nazaret Shamilian’...

By Richard Dickenson Some historical characters are famous, like Kilroy (who, once, really was here), Mickey Mouse, Robin the Hood, and Zorba the Clerk. Others remain inexplicably unrecognised. For example, ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE (AND WERE) Colette NiReamonn Ioannidou Nicosia, July 1972: my husband kissed his family goodbye and left for an army training camp. After his service, he found a ...

The events of this past week call for the most radical of actions: the president should resign Last Tuesday, Turkey announced the long-anticipated, much-discussed opening of part of fenced-off Varosha. ...

The extreme weather events of recent weeks have become a further wake-up call ‘Zeitgeist’ is a slippery word. At best it’s just a fancy German way of saying ‘the ...

The importance of Cyprus to the Turks President Erdogan has been and gone. His visit was done to show the importance of Cyprus to the Turks, but that does not ...

Such a leader would have to tackle the Cyprus problem, the pandemic and corruption By George Koumoullis Is there such a thing as a ‘benevolent dictator’? For Cypriots, the associations ...

Implementing these policies and policing their application will be a logistical nightmare for the EU The European Commission (EC) announced on Wednesday its ‘Fit-for-55’ package, with 13 new policies designed to ...

The position taken by Takis Hadjidemetriou, as stated in his recent book The Republic of Cyprus 1959-1964: The State and the Parastate finds me in full agreement. In the preface, ...

Sirens are sounded in the Republic of Cyprus every year at the exact time President Makarios was overthrown on July 15, 1974. Makarios was receiving some Greek Egyptian children at the presidential ...

Gas has been politicised in the region, losing sight of its commercial value By Charles Ellinas This was the subject of an online event organised by the International Crisis Group (...