Current Events

The results of a study by Alexander College has revealed that over 24% of young Cyrpiots have internet addiction, while approximately 8% undergo social media addiction.

The study was carried out behind closed doors as a pancyprian survey with the support of the Cyprus Addiction Treatment Authority (CETA). Besides Alexander College and the CETA, the survey was handled the Hellenic Bank and the Youth Board.

The sample for the survey had a total of 1,059 individuals between the ages of 15 and 35. 465 of these were full-time students, 437 were men and 622 were women.

The study also revealed a correlation between the over-reliance on technology and the lack of social skills, a lesser attention span and lessened ability to remember information.

The island nation’s cabinet has approved the bill to ban the circulation and sale of of any type of disposable carrier bags made with thin plastic.

The new regulation shall apply on every usage point, including that of home and office deliveries.

Costas Kadis, the minister of Agriculture and the chief architect of the amendment, released his statement on the matter. The statement explained how the ban, though sudden, will help both citizens and visitors be more self-aware of their environmental footprint, which in turn will help benefit the future generations greatly.

The official cabinet announcement affirmed Minister Kadis’ statement, explaining how the approval is yet another step towards lessening the damaging impact plastic bags have upon the environment and the quality of lives of people in general.

The decision comes over 2.5 years after levying a charge on the use of said bags. In fact, it was part of the reason why this amendment was proposed in the first place. According to reports, the introduction of the charging system alone reduced thin plastic carrier bag usage by over 80%.

Nicos Anastasiades has failed to garner the a yes from lawmakers for this new 2021 budget.

It is being speculated that the rejection was made in the background of the fallout over the flawed investment-based citizenship program.

While 24 lawmakers did approve the budget, a vote of disapproval by 29 others meant that the budget would have to be thrown out.

Notably, the development has not been all that surprising, given as the Disy party, i.e. Anastasiades’s ruling party does not currently hold a majority in the Cypriot parliament.

In the latest incident, a residence in Nicosia was burgled, where the thieves in question broke in and took off with a safe containing jewelry and cash.

The break-in, which happened between the hours of 10:30am and 1:45pm, led to the theft of money and items worth a total of €150,000.

Nicosia’s Criminal Investigative Department are currently investigating into the matter.

The island nation of Cyprus will be lifting its travel ban on 56 different countries.

Many of these countries belong to the European Union and the European Economic Area in general.

The Cypriot government has also released new protocols and freshly divided arrivals from foreign countries into green, grey red and orange.

Both the ban lift and re-arrangement of protocols, which has been set according to the standards of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), will come into effect on the 15^th of January, 2021.

The island nation has reviewed its level of cooperation with India in a bid to improve their bilateral relations.

According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (IMEA), various fields were discussed in this process. This included culture, consolatory, economics and of course, politics.

This was the fifth round of Foreign Office Consultations between the two countries.

Held on December 10,2020 on a virtual basis, the meeting was chaired by Thessalia Salina Shambos, the political director of the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Neeta Bhushan, Indian Joint Secretary of Central Europe.

Appreciating their already cordial relations, the two went on to review the various terms of their cooperation in order to make substantial improvements where possible.

According to the MEA’s statement, both the Cypriot and Indian sides reviewed the MoUs and agreements.

Other than the above-mentioned topics, issues such as sports, defense, military and the arts were discussed. Culture-specific topics, such as Ayurveda was also discussed.

Last but not the least, they discussed pertinent political matters that affect both nations – including the Indo-Pak conflict, the Northern Cyuprus issue, and EU-India relations.

The Cyprus road transport department has announced that the renewals shall begin on the 7^th of January. The last date for said renewals will be March 11, 2021. Any renewals made after that will carry a surcharge.

Road tax renewals can be made for 3,6,9 or 12 months. All vehicles in said renewals are required to have insurance and an MOT.

In their announcement, the department encouraged vehicle owners to renew their road taxes in due course, and not wait till the last hour. They explained how such a callous behavior leads to a lot of inconvenience as the system gets overloaded.

They further added rgar those vehicle owners who had opted for renewals in 2020, but will not in 2021 are required to notify the department of such. They must complete form TOM12B and inform the government of their intent. Not doing so lead to surcharges and outstanding fees.

Vehicles left unrenewed in 2020 that have as of yet remained avoided being officially declared as immobilized will be taken of the registry. The only way to prevent this is for the owner to renew their road tax and pay off the outstanding fees before the March 11, 2021.

Finally, the department said that they will not be individually notifying owners to renew their road tax.

Vaccinations to prevent the virus from proliferating will be starting on Sunday, the 27^th of December.

According to an announcement by Olga Kalakouta, a senior health official, the first batch of Pfizer vaccine will arrive in Cyprus. She further explained that the vaccinations will take place through dedicated vaccination centers.

The goal of the health department is to carry out the vaccinations through all districts at the same time. The first to be vaccinated will be the health workers.

As of now, the consent forms have been sent to all the centers. Owners will be required to ask their staff for consenting to the vaccination. They will also be required to inform the ministry on the number of vaccines they need for their employees.

While Ms. Kalakouta has no knowledge of who will be the first person to receive the vaccine, reports suggest it may be the President Nicos Anastasiades. Moreover, his vaccination will be streamed live and filmed.

On the occasion of Christmas, President Nicos Anastasiades went on social media and wish the public good health, just as the first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s upcoming arrival on Boxing Day.

The President added that with the pending arrival of the vaccines, people should now be hopeful of things becoming “more tangible” in the coming days.

He went on call the vaccine the “the gift of humanity by the scientific community,” and stated that he will be getting the vaccine himself live on television in order to convince the public about the vaccine’s safety.

Proper inoculations will be starting on the 27^th, starting with elderly care home residents.

Cyprus currently has a total of 19,316 COVID-19 infections, with 107 deaths.

In the latest incident, a boat with over 21 migrants reached the shore of Cyprus.

This is the third boat full of migrants to arrive from Turkey in a single week.

According to the state radio, the police in Cyprus intercepted 21 migrants in the early hours of the morning. They were on a boat that was in all possibility transported by smugglers who travelled a total distance of around 70 kilometers.

Interestingly, the police did not find any trace of said smugglers.

The Cyprus police has arrested a Russian national, who has been suspected of fraudulent activities.

The man, 33, has long since been suspected by the Russian authorities for embezzlement and fraud.

The man was located from a tip by Interpol based on information by the Russian Federation. The police in Limassol placed him under arrest, subject to being shown before a judge for arraignment.

The man has allegedly conspired with several people, and defrauded many individuals of a total sum of 68 million Russian rubles.

The crimes seem to have been committed in Russia between the years of 2015 to 2018.

The Cyprus police found and seized 10 Kgs of cannabis and 0.5 Kgs of cocaine in Limassol.

Both varieties of narcotics were found in two separate incidents – one in the flat of a 20-year-old man, and the other with a 34-year-old man.

Both men were originally intercepted while driving in Limassol. The Narcotics police arrested them from their vehicles after they had received a trafficking-related tip-off.

In this case of the cannabis search, the 20-year-old consented his flat being searched. After being arrested for interrogation, the young man was remanded for 8 days at the district court in Limassol.

In the meantime, the 34-year-old cooperated with the police, and admitted to carrying 5 gms cocaine. He was released after being charged in writing.

Eric Schmidt, the former CEO, has his Cyprus citizenship application approved.

According to a report by Recode, as well as an October notice in the Cyprus publication Alithia, Eric Schmidt along with and his family have won the approval to become Cypriot citizens.

The report further added the repercussion of this move, one of them being that the new citizenship will allow Schmidt to move around several travel bans and go more freely within the European Union.

The Cyprus citizenship will also help him get some new tax benefits, given that he did apply via the “Citizenship by Investment” scheme. Unlike other methods, the investment scheme offers strategic tax breaks to foreigners who invest an amount of $2 to $3 million.

Schmidt served as the CEO of Google 2001 to 2011, and then stayed on as the executive chairman of both Google and Alphabet till 2018.

The much-awaited aeronautical military training exercise Medusa 2020 is all set to start on the 30^th of November, and is set to continue till the 6^th of December.

According to a statement by the defense ministry, the joint exercise will be conducted in 3 different phases. These will be dealing with marine formations, cyber warfare, search & rescue, and surface drills.

Held annually since 2017, the Medusa is conducted in honor of the trilateral cooperation between the countries of Egypt, Greece, and of course, Cyprus, Greece and Egypt.

In 2020, the level of cooperation will be further increased as the air forces of UAE and France will also be present.

The exercises shall be conducted in the Cairo FIR region.

The Cyprus Meteorological Service has issued a yellow weather warning in anticipation of intense thunderstorms, which are expected to stay for over a day.

According to them, isolated thunderstorms along with rain are expected, with the rainfall intensity to reach over 35 millimeters an hour.

They further added that for the Troodos Mountains’ peaks, snow can be expected.

Temperatures are set to go up to 9C in the mountains, 19C inland, and 21C at the coasts. During nighttime, they are set to drop to 2C in the mountains, 9C inland, and 11C at the coasts.

Further, albeit isolated – rain and thunder showers are expected till up to 2 days after the main thunderstorm.

In the latest incident, the island nation has canceled its mail service due to a worldwide air carrier shutdown.

With over 22 countries having fallen victim to the crisis, Cyprus has forcefully stopped its mail services to several countries, seeing as there are no carriers for pickups and deliveries.

The countries for which mail has been canceled include Finland , Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Argentina, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Norway, Hungary, Ukraine, Croatia, Belarus, Latvia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Poland, Slovenia, as well as some other European Union countries.

That being said, the country still has the more expensive Quickpost international courier available for all countries.

The police are currently investigating a case of minors being forced into marriages.

The case involved the discovery of 2 minor girls being forcefully married to adults belonging to the same nationality.

The girls were initially brought into the country on false pretenses and then married to the adults. The police went on to remove their “husbands” as they made the arrests.

The “husbands” have been booked under violation of the Law N° 91(I) of 2014 on Preventing and Combating the Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation of Children and Child Pornography.

A massive tornado hit Turkish Cyprus’ Girne (or Kyrenia) district, causing considerable damage to structures and particularly destroying the power grid.

The tornado caused roofs being ripped off of rooftops, trees being uprooted, and power lines being completely tangled and disturbed. Some people were also reported to be injured.

In particular, the areas of Lapta Hotels Region, Çatalköy, Karşıyaka and Ozanköy were badly affected.

The biggest damage of all, however, was that to the The Teknecik Power Plant – Turkish Cyprus’ largest electricity plant. A transformer got blown up due to the storm, which caused a widespread blackout in Girne and its nearby settlements.

A recent surge in COVID-19 cases has led to all of the island nation’s southwest being put under a 19-day lockdown period.

The lockdown entail a complete shutdown of all non-essential businesses, as well as non-essential people movement. This comes after the current set of restrictions failed to curb the surge in infection numbers.

According to Constantinos Ioannou, the Cypriot Health Minister, the lockdown was practically unavoidable given the circumstances, and after strategic consultations with the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, it was finally deemed as absolutely essential.

The alarming statistic that caused this development was the increase in infection rates in Paphos and Limassol by 70% and 28% of the national average in a period of six weeks.

In the meantime, the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients being treated shot up to around two-thirds.

As a part of the  lockdown, a curfew will be maintained between the hours of 8 p.m to 5 a.m. Movement to and from both the districts concerned will be banned bar emergency and essential goods and service-related trips. Religious services will conducted sans worshippers. Ever form of public gathering, schools, colleges, universities, malls, parlors, salons, gyms, pools, casinos, non-essential goods stores, will all be shut. Educational activities, private offices, and non-essential government office operations will all be conducted remotely. Like the three-month-long lockdown that happened this year, the aim of this one is to bring down the number of new novel coronavirus infections.

Cyprus is continuing to see its temperatures soar, even as the island nation is approaching winter season.

Said temperatures currently stand on an average of 36 degrees Celsius, which is over 10 degrees more than the season’ average.

And with Temperatures remaining steady at 40 degrees Celsius, October may turn out to be the hottest month for island nation.

It is currently only second to the 40.6°C record of 2^nd and 3rd October 1943.

The island nation has already recorded its hottest August and September, with 44.6°C and 46.2°C recorded respectively.