Current Events

A gas cylinder explosion led to a 56-year-old-man sustaining major burns.

A spokesman for the police revealed that the fire service received a call about an apartment fire at 7 in the evening.

After a preliminary search, the fire department determined that the reason for the fire was the explosion, which in turn was the result of a gas leak.

The fire department also found the man, unconscious and with major injuries, and had him rushed to Paphos General Hospital, where he was treated with first, second as third-degree burns.

He is currently recovering in Nicosia General Hospital’s burns unit.

The European Union has allocated a sum of 657 million euros to complete the construction of a major power cable.

The 2,000-megawatt power cable will run under the sea and connect the power grids of Greece, Israel and of course Cyprus.

According to Natasa Pilides, this is the biggest funding that the island nation has ever participated in. Cyprus is contributing to a large section of the money allocated by the EU.

She further added that the money will allow construction crews to begin the construction of the part of the cable supposed to connect Cyprus with Crete in Greece – a project that comes with an expense of about 1.6 billion euros. As of now, negotiations to transfer said funds are underway.

Cyprus’ northwestern coast was struck by a low impact earthquake.

The European Mediterranean Seismological Center detected two successive earthquakes hitting the region – one occurring at 3:37am and the other at 5:57am.

The first earthquake stood at 2 on the Richter scale while the second was stronger at 4.9 points on the Richter scale.

The earthquakes occurred at a depth of 2km and 10 km underground respectively.

Scientists are not ruling out the possibility of these being aftershocks after the January 11 earthquake that hit near the west coast of the island nation.

Cyprus has detected a new variant of the virus.

According to various medical reports, the variant named “Deltacron” is similar to Delta whereas its genetic makeup is concerned, but also has 10 different mutations of the Omicron variant.

25 people in the island nation have tested positive for the variant so far.

Dr. Leonidos Kostrikis, who serves as the University of Cyprus’ head of the laboratory of molecular virology and biotechnology, says that out of the 25 samples that were taken and tested positive for the new variant, 11 were previously hospitalized.

He says that the hospitalized patients having more mutations could mean that the new variant might have something to do with the hospital’s atmosphere in the first place.

The Cyprus Police has arrested a woman driving over the alcohol limit.

The woman, 39, was stopped by the police to make a routine check as she was driving near Anglisides and on the Kofinou-Larnaca motorway.

The police then gave her an alcohol test, where it showed that she had a blood alcohol level of 104μg, well above the 22μg level.

Seeing the undesirable result, the police confiscated her car. The woman, on the other hand, is set to appear in court.

Veteran Cypriot archeologist Vassos Karageorghis has passed away at the age of 92.

Born in 1929 in Trikomo in what is now Turkish Cyprus, Karageorghis was known for massive contributions to the field of archeology.

A man of many talents, his achievements included conducting excavations at Kiton and Palaepaphos, serving as a fellow of the British Academy, as a Professor Emeritus of Greek and Roman Archeology of the University of Cyprus, and also as an adviser to the President in the year 1990.

He has also authored several well-regarded books on archeology in both French and English.

Karageorghis passed away after a long spell of illness. He was in poor health, especially in the past year.

The Cyprus Meteorology Department has issued an orange warning in anticipation of thunderstorms and heavy rain.

They have announced that the precipitation can go to higher levels – up to around 85-110 millimeters every 24 hours.

Parallel, the Civil Defense has issued its own set of safety instructions for the public. This includes making sure that outdoor wells are the cleared out, basements are not vulnerable to flooding, seeing to it that all persons, animals and expensive and valuable products are moved to a safe place.

They have also asked the public to stay indoors as much as possible.

As of recently, some scammers have been swindling money from people pretending as Cyprus Post officials.

They ask for “tax payments” through fraudulent emails, and rob people of their money.

The Cyprus Post has responded to these incidents with a statement of its own clearly mentioning that these emails and fake and that the Cyprus Post cannot and does not send any messages. They further added that they are not responsible for any people who have been duped by scammers unlawfully using their name.

Veteran Cypriot journalist Yiorgos “Kokos” Leonida passed away in Cyprus. He was 87.

Regarded as one of the stalwarts of the journalism scene in Cyprus, Leonida was a founding member of the Cyprus Union of Journalists.

He has a long and illustrious career, working at various positions, including Agon, Eleftheria, To Vima, Mesimvrini, and Kathmerini. He was also was a correspondent for the Athens New Agency between 1974 and 2004 and worked for the New York edition of the Greek diaspora Proini.

The Cyprus Police has arrested a man over possessing illegal drugs.

The man, 24, was arrested after the police found the drugs during a search of his residence in Larnaca.

The police, acting off an anonymous tip, arrived at the home of the suspect to investigate. They caught the man, who was trying to escape via the back door, and threw out 2 nylon bags.

The police apprehended the man and the confiscated the bags. They found 29 gms of cannabis and 15 gms of cocaine.

They also found traces of cocaine and cannabis at other places in the house.

The Cyprus Police has arrested a man over the hit-and-run which led to the death of a 60-year-old woman.

The victim, Androula Papachristoforou was going across Paphos’ Priamou street in the evening when she was hit by a car. She was taken to the Paphos hospital in an ambulance, but ultimately succumbed to her injuries in the hospital. The driver of said car fled the scene.

Upon investigation, the police arrested a 44-year-old man. He is now under investigation for manslaughter and fleeing the scene of the accident.

The Cyprus Cabinet of Ministers are currently discussing ways to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Headed by Michael Hadjipantelas, the Health Minister, the cabinet met with the Scientific Advisory Committee to discuss these issues.

According to various sources, various topics were discussed, which included extending school holidays, the duration of the validity of tests, the protocol for rapid testing for the vaccinated.

So far, no major changes have been made – the restriction on social gathering remains capped at 20 people, and required all vaccinated and unvaccinated to test negative 24 and 48 hours prior to the test respectively.

The Cypriot government authorities have transferred a group of irregular migrants to a new location.

The migrants, who were at Pournara reception center in Kokkinotrimithia, were moved to a new camp located in Limnes, near Kofinou in the Larnaca district.

It is being assumed that the shuffle was made to reduce the load of overcrowding at the Pournara camp, where the refugees were living in increasingly darn conditions.

According to several reports, over 80 of their camp residents tested positive for COVID-19 in the span of 48 hours.

The facility in Limnes, on the other hand, was empty up until recently.

The Cyprus Police fined 18 individuals and 6 businesses over the violation of COVID rules – out of a total of 2,952 number of conducted checks.

According to a statement from the police made to the Cyprus News Agency, those fined includes a man at a cafeteria without a SafePass, and one where the owner did not have it. Yet another business was fined for having more people than allowed, while a fourth one had an employee without their SafePass.

A total of 1,452 inspections were done in Nicosia, where one business manager and one customer were fined. Larnaca saw 482 inspections, and 6 people fined. 215 checks were conducted in Limassol, where 8 members of the public were fined.

Paphos had 136 checks and 2 reported violations, while Famagusta had 390 checks and 2 people fined. Morphou was the only area that did not have any reported violations after over 196 checks.

Zero violations were also reported from the 81 checks made by the port and traffic police forces.

The Cyprus police has arrested a 19-year-old man over the assaulting 2 others with a knife.

The victims, both men aged 18 and 21, reported the case to the police, explaining how they got into an argument with a man unknown to them at Limassol’s old port.

The man injured them with his knife, but they eventually managed to get hold of the weapon. The man then fled – walking away to an unknown location.

The injured men received treatment at the district general hospital.

Police investigations led them to the teenager, who has been arrested and will stand trial for his actions.

To ease the burden on Cyprus as regards the refugee crisis, Pope Francis has announced that all asylum seekers will get refuge in the Vatican itself after the Pope has completed his visit to the island nation.

This is the second instance of such an action – after 2016, when the Pope has offered Syrian refugees from Lesvos a chance to live in the Vatican.

According to news platform Deutsche Welle, both the Pope and his staff as well as the Interior Ministry of Cyprus are making arrangements for travel.

Pope Francis is set to visit Cyprus along with Greece from December 2-6.

Cyprus’ ground stations in the Air Quality Monitoring Network have detected an unusually high concentration of dust in the air.

To that end, the government has issued a warning, explaining how the vulnerable groups (like children, older persons, and others with comorbidities) – should stay in shelter and away from dust.

They further added that the dust contains several micro particles, which if breathed in will have a detrimental effect on human health.

The warning also urged employers to take adequate technological and organizational measures – especially for those employees who work in open spaces.

Dust is this case refers to any particulate matter in the air that has a diameter of less than 10 μm.

6 individuals are set to stand trial over the alleged plot to attack Israeli citizens.

All of the six in question are facing serious charged – including document forging, terrorism, illegally carrying firearms and taking part in a criminal enterprise.

While the police have not revealed the subjects’ identities, it is widely believed that four of them include a Lebanese-origin Cypriot and a Pakistani national.

All of the four were said to work as food delivery drivers prior to their arrest.

The case originally started when an Azerbaijani hitman was found possessing a silencer and a pistol.

The trial will be held behind closed doors due to security issues, and the suspects shall remain under strict police custody until that point.

The new restrictions to curb the spread of the new Omicron variant has had everyone uneasy, and parents are no exception to this rule.

In yet another incident related to this, the Cyprus police arrested a parent who was protesting outside their child’s school.

The protest, that had been going on for more than 3 days, had a group of parents protesting outside Limassol’s Education Ministry district office on Franklin Roosevelt Avenue – calling out the new measures in place for schools.

The parent in question was arrested after they were found obstructing traffic and the police, and even threatened a policeman after the fact.

The police have arrested a 24-year-old man trying to leave Cyprus on a fraudulent passport.

The man, an Afghan national, was arrested from the airport at 8:30 pm, after the authorities detected fraudulent features on his security documents.

Upon further checking, it was determined that the man was in fact had presented what was a fake Spanish passport.

The man was charged with forgery – his statement to the police revealed that he was in fact an asylum seeker.