Current Events

According to Cyprus’ government spokesman, the island country has raised over 1.5 billion euros ($1.75 billion) from at an astonishing 2.4% percent interest rate.

The spokesman, Mr. Prodromos Prodromou said the 10-year-old bond issue has been oversubscribed to over four times and shows the amount of trust placed in Cyprus’s economy by the international financial community.

Notably, the groundbreaking cash-raising act was done only four days after Standard & Poor’s – an esteemed international credit rating agency, declared Cyprus as worthy of being in investment grade after six years of considering the country’s bonds as “junk.”

After the financial crisis in 2013, Cyprus required a multibillion-euro rescue deal from creditors in order to prevent bankruptcy.

An astonishing 120,000 number of primary, middle and high school students in the island nation have had to stay at home, courtesy school teachers going on a two-day strike to protest the government’s move “save money” – without having made any prior consultations with them.

According to the leaders of the teachers’ union, the teachers were virtually forced to do something as drastic as go on strike, thanks to the government’s ill-informed and rash decisions which have been and are continuing to affect the quality of education.

According to Kostas Champiaouris, the Education Minister, the measures, which include lower wages and longer hours for teachers — are vital to curtail what is seen as the some of the costliest systems for education in the European Union.

Private schools, however, remain unaffected by the strike and will operate as usual.

Shocking as it may seem for a rapidly progressing nation, a Eurostat report has recently revealed that Cyprus only 9% of its energy consumption comes from RES, which is quite the bleak situation considering its EU-mandated goal to at least 20 per cent RES share by the year 2020.

Cyprus ranks as one of four countries in the EU where less than 10 per cent of electricity consumed comes from renewable energy sources. The island country is fourth on the list, with Malta at the bottom at 6 per cent, and Hungary and Luxembourg thereafter at 7 per cent each.

The report also revealed the states which were using more than half their electricity consumption from renewable sources. This list included Latvia at 51%, Denmark and Portugal at 54% each, Sweden at 65 per cent, and Austria (73 per cent).

Notably, Norway stands as the sole European country to produces more than its consumption at 104.7 per cent. Hydropower makes of 99 per cent of this.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with President Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus at United Nations Headquarters.

The press service of the Armenian government has revealed that the meeting was pleasant, with PM Pashinyan attaching importance to the development of friendly relations between Armenia and Cyprus. He also expressed his happiness with the current situation of the same.

PM Nikol Pashinyan and President Nicos Anastasiades discussed several issues along with the possibility of making trade relations better. They also discussed NK issue and Cyprus problem, and agreed on how situations as grave as these can be settled with peaceful negotiations.

Their meeting ended with President Anastasiades inviting PM Nikol Pashinyan to visit Cyprus.

Banking on the success of the 1st Capital Link Invest in Cyprus Forum, the 2nd edition of the same is all set to take place at the Metropolitan Club in New York City.

The 2nd Capital Link Invest in Cyprus Forum is a conference which aims to increase public awareness on how Cyprus can work as an international investment and/or business destination to investors from all over the world.

The forum will feature a wide range of people and topics. Topics include Cyprus economy’s developments and reforms in recent years and the government’s program for economy and investments. People include leading political and business figures from both public as well as private sectors – including (but not limited to) senior US executives, international businesspeople and investors, and of course, CEOs of major Cypriot organizations.

Notable speakers from Cyprus at the Forum will include President Nicos Anastasiades, Harris Georgiades (Minister of Finance of Cyprus), George Lakkotrypis (Minister of Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism) and Natasa Pilides (Deputy Minister of Shipping)

Organized by Capital Link with cooperation from the Cyprus Union of Ship-owners as well as the Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency, the Lead Sponsor if the event is the Hellenic Bank, with Deloitte and EY as Grand Sponsors.

According to Halkin Sesi, a Turkish Cypriot daily, the number of visitors to northern Cyprus have continued to dwindle at an alarming rate, despite the authorities’ best efforts.

According to Fikri Ataoglu, Turkish Cypriot ‘minister of tourism’, the main reason for this is the reluctance of foreign tourist to have to travel via Turkey.

Mr. Ataoglu revealed that hotel occupancy in Turkish Cyprus from 72 per cent (for June, July and August) in 2017 to 63 per cent in 2018. He expressed their further attempt to help bridge this this gap, which includes a tour of Scandinavian countries, emphasizing on the fact that they could help raise the occupancy rate to over 80 per cent.

Other plans include creating the underwater museum in northern Famagusta and turning Vokolida village into an amusement center, along with introducing ferry services to tourists are discouraged to visit the north due to transport problems. Said ferry services will run between Famagusta and Vokolida will make some remote area hotels more accessible.

A boat carrying eighteen different migrants has been brought to land at Ayia Thekla, Sotira.

The boat, which was in dire straits, carried a few women and children, and eleven men were brought to shore by the port authority police.

Cypriot authorities have stated that the after being given medical checks, most of the migrants were transferred to the center in Kokkinotrimithia. Remaining migrants were taken in by members of the family.

According to the police, no trafficker was found on board, implying that the migrants must have got their hands on the boat in Syria and decided board the same to Cyprus.

Cyprus’ Makarion Stadium was ravaged by hooligans, who brutally vandalized the property and destroyed property extensively.

According to Kleanthis Georgiades, Chairman, Cyprus Sports Organization, the vandals littered the pitch with nails, screws, and broken glass, and painted all the goal posts.

This will – at least temporarily disrupt the upcoming game scheduled at the stadium between Doxa and Anothosis as referee Giorgos Nicolaou will first be inspecting the pitch to determine if all hazardous items have been removed and the field is indeed safe of playing.

Common consensus is that the actions were undertaken in retaliation for introducing sports cards – something that has been very badly received by most fans.

The hooligans are yet to be identified.

The American Hellenic Institute (AHI) has openly criticized the ongoing ban on arms sales from the US to Cyprus. The statement was made by the AHI in a new briefing on the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

The ITAR, which was originally signed in 1985, prevents Washington from supplying any kind of weapons as well as military technology to some countries, such as the island nation of Cyprus.

According to Nick Larigakis, President of the AHI, the embargo is unlawful and not justified at all. He went to urge the U.S. State Department to change said policy in the best interests of both US and of the Republic of Cyprus.

According to Egypt’s chief prosecutor, Cyprus has extradited the hijacker of an EgyptAir plane which was diverted to the island country in 2016.

Egypt’s chief prosecutor Nabil Sadek revealed the fact that that Egyptian police have found and taken custody of Seif Eddin Mustafa – the hijacker of the Egyptian plane – in Nicosia, the capital city of Cyprus.

The 60-year-old man had been on their most wanted list for hijacking a domestic EgyptAir flight in March 2016. He used a fake suicide belt to divert said plane to Cyprus.

According to Mustafa, his actions were in protest to Egypt’s government and its policies. Prosecutors in Cyprus, however, claims that Mustafa told the authorities that the only motivation of his actions was to reunite with his estranged family in Cyprus, whom he had not met for 24 years.

Cypriot authorities arrested him after the incident and have until recently been detaining him in Cyprus. The Supreme Court in Cyprus even went on to rejecting Mustafa’s appeal against his extradition.

In a surprising news for professionals and workers alike, a UK-based company’s survey has revealed that Cyprus stands at the top of EU countries as regards celebrating the number of bank holidays.

According to an interactive map produced by mapping software developing company Esri UK, the island nation and Slovakia have 15 bank holidays each – the largest among all EU member states. Additionally, the map revealed that the average working week in Cyprus is 41.6 hours long.

Besides, religious holidays like Christmas and Easter, and political holidays like Labor Day and Independence day, Cyprus observes several other bank holidays such as the Ochi Day, the start of the War of Greek Independence in 1821, and the anniversary of the launch of the Eoka struggle against British rule.

Following Cyprus and Slovakia are Lithuania, Malta, and Greece, which have 14 bank holidays.

While England and Wales are on the lower end of the number of bank holidays with only eight, they have the largest amount of work hours, averaging to 42.1 hours a week. Cyprus comes second to this with Austria, Greece and Portugal coming third and fourth with 41.3 hours and 41 hours respectively.

If Fitch Ratings’ recent announcement is anything to go by, the pace of ratings for Western European countries seems to be going on the up and up.

Fitch Ratings recently announced that all three of Cyprus, Greece and Andorra had upgrades in their ratings and that there have been no downgrades since April 2018.

The announcement was documented in the rating house’s Western Europe Sovereign Credit Overview (3Q18 report), which stated how Cyprus, like Finland and Austria are looking towards positivity whereas San Marino and the UK are going towards negative.

The UK downgrading has much to do with the downside risks of disruptively exiting from the EU.

Cyprus has indeed benefited tremendously by being upgraded by a total of five notches since mid-2015 thanks to European Stability Mechanism (ESM) programs. This growth is marked by an improvement in public finances, and an overall decline in general government debts and deficits.

Georgios Lakkotrypis, the energy minister of Cyprus has said that the island nation will re-negotiate its contract’s financial terms of its contract with a consortium regarding the exploitation of a gas field off the Cypriot southern shore.

Mr. Lakkotrypis announced the consortium, which has Royal Dutch Shell, Texas-based Noble Energy, and Israel’s Delek as its members – wished to renegotiate the Aphrodite gas field contract. According to a recent estimation, the gas field is holding around 4.5 trillion cubic feet of gas.

According to Mr. Lakkotrypis, the consortium desire to renegotiate comes from the undesirable effect of the lower global oil prices, which make the selling of Aphrodite gas to an Egyptian Shell-operated processing plant an unsuitable deal.

A man has been arrested in north Cyprus in connection to the murder of George Barker, who was stabbed to death at a gym in Bexley around two years ago.

The suspect, Charles Riddington, has been identified as the guilty party and is was on the police’s wanted list. Mr. Riddington is known to have used a total of 14 different names.

The police had issued Riddington’s image not much later after Mr. Barker’s death. They even put out a £10,000 reward for anyone who could give credible information that could lead to Riddington being arrested.

Riddington, however, remained in hiding until he was found by Turkish authorities and arrested in Northern Cyprus. According to said authorities, the man’s appearance was markedly different from his photo, with blonde, long and curly hair. All his fake ID documents were also found when the arrest was made.

In what is being considered a great news for the Cypriot and the European tech scene, Natasa Pilides, Deputy Minister of Shipping has announced that the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute (CMMI) along with other projects that will form the groundwork for Larnaca Municipality’s Blue Growth.

The projects will have experts from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the MaRITeC-X project team.

MaRITeC-X is a special project that has its focus on shipping and marine innovation and research and aims to establish the CMMI on the island country.

The ambitious project has been lauded by policy makers and academics from Cyprus and beyond. Besides Pilides’ elaborate description of the several social and economic benefits that Cyprus would stand to gain from this entire arrangement, Nicholas Makris from MIT emphasized on how Cyprus, with its superior offshore territory would be benefited not just economically and socially, but culturally and intellectually.

Constantinos Christofides, Rector of the University of Cyprus said that the project had great potential and should be funded by the government itself – if the EU fails to do so.

The constantly devaluing Turkish Lira has caused several Turkish Cypriots to spend their holidays celebrating the ‘Feast of the Sacrifice’ in government-controlled areas on the island nation.

According to Havadis, a Turkish Cypriot daily, Nicosia’s Ayios Dhometios crossing was dotted with long lines consisting of several Turkish Cypriots observing Kurban Bayramı spending their time in the government-controlled areas during the holidays of Kurban Bayramı. The paper reported a surge in traffic density at the crossing, though it did clarify that an increase in Greek Cypriots crossing to the north also contributed to the traffic.

The Lira’s devaluation has impacted travel agents as well, who have been adversely affected by the lack of demand for travelling abroad in what was previously considered the peak period of selling packages for trips abroad. This is since the average middle-class Turkish Cypriot can no longer afford to travel abroad thanks to successive price increases.

Countermeasures have been taken by the authorities, who have declared to deal strictly with any business found guilty of profiteering by overcharging for products. Not only will authorities slap such businesses with fines, they may temporarily close their businesses, and/or subject the owner and operators involved to imprisonment.

A 20-year-old man has been remanded in connection to the trident bakery robbery.

The man was remanded from Liopetri, Famagusta district on grounds of using a speargun trident to rob a prominent bakery.

The suspect, who was arrested a few days prior to being remanded, confessed to conducting a robbery at around 4am the same day the bakery was robbed. According to the police, the 20-year-old surrendered €75, which he said was the money taken by him.

According to the employee of the bakery who reported the incident, an unknown individual with his face covered with a hood had forcibly entered the shop. The man was armed with fishing trident and threatened various members of staff demanding for money. The man finally opened the drawer by force and took the small bag that contained the money.

In what is being considered a tragic accident Cyprus, 19 people have been reported dead after a boat had capsized off the northern coast of Cyprus.

The Turkish coastguard has said that while rescue crews did save 103 people, 25 more are yet to be found. The coastguard also shared footage of helicopter and a plane along with four rescue boats being dispatched to the accident scene.

The exact cause for the capsizing, which had occurred around 30km north of Cyprus’ Karpas Peninsula, could not be determined immediately. The nationalities of the people on board haven’t yet been confirmed.

The survivors have been airlifted Mersin, Turkey. At least one person has been treated for serious injuries there.

This incident is one of several that have taken place in the Mediterranean region, exacerbated by the migrant crisis that has thousands of refugees moving on often overloaded boats.

According to Thomas Cook Group, their annual profit will scale lower than their expectations, courtesy the adverse effect on late holiday bookings caused by the sudden surge in temperature weather all over Europe.

The British travel company usually makes most of its profit during the summer, when its northern European customers (especially those from Scandinavia, Britain, and Germany) go on holiday to southern European destinations like Greece, Spain, Turkey and of course, Cyprus.

The sudden surge in weather all over northern Europe, however, has led to travelers getting discouraged to make their booking, which has visibly affected late bookings. According to Thomas Cook, this new development will make the full-year underlying operating profit end up on the lower end of market expectations.

Thomas Cook, which runs an airline as well as a tour operator business, said in its third quarter statement that a strong airline performance in Germany helped to offset the impact of a warm summer. However, the “sustained period of hot weather” during the June-July period caused a delay in customer bookings in the tour operator, which in turn has restricted their ability make their intended profits in the late bookings market.

This news comes in contrast to Thomas Cook’s earlier statements made in May, which stated how the travel company was on its way to meet analysts’ expectations of a 7 percent rise in its post-operating profit to 352 million pounds ($462.04 million) for the 12 months to Sept. 30, on a constant currency basis.

In what is being considered an overarching action made by Cyprus, the island nation’s government has announced its plans to ask the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help it defend the two Turkish Cypriot journalists who are being detained and investigated in Turkey over an article that is being considered as “derogatory” to the latter.

According to Prodromos Prodromou, spokesman for Cyprus government, the OSCE has been asked to defend the “right of free speech and media freedom” of the journalists, which they have a right to keep by default. He further said the European Union is keeping a close watch on the case.

The two journalists – Sener Levent and Afrika columnist Ali Osman – must be defended as they “haven’t done anything wrong” and should not forcibly work with authorities.

The article which has led to the controversy was published in Turkey in January, and compared Turkey’s Syrian military operation to its Cyprus military occupation in the northern third. This is also the place where Ankara has been keeping 35,000 troops since as early as 1974.