Current Events

The Greek Cypriot father and son duo, who were previously arrested in Turkish Cyprus, have been released from police custody.

Charged and detained on grounds of illegally crossing into a military zone, 47-year-old Anastasis Martis and his 25-year-old son Michalis were fined for their “offense.”

The two, who a driving in the area of Strovilia on Saturday afternoon when they were arrested, appeared before a Turkish-Cypriot judge and were fined 1,500 Turkish Lira (215 euros) before being released from police custody.

Both father and son were on a mission to visit at their ancestral home, which is located in Turkish Cyprus. Theirs was one of the several families which was forced to leave the area during the period of Turkey’s invasion.

Cyprus’ Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has asserted that Turkey will continue to drill for gas off the Cyprus coast, regardless of any and all circumstances to make sure that resources are being shared fairly.

Speaking at a university in the Eastern Mediterranean on the topic of law and politics.  Foreign Minister Cavusoglu warned that Cyprus will not allow for the rights of Turkish Cypriots be infringed upon and that Turkey will not be allowed to pursue drilling activities unilaterally.

According to the state-owned Anadolu news agency, whose report documented the entire incident, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu went on claim that their only aim is to share resources on a fair basis, and not fight with people.

Cavusoglu also spoke critically on Turkey’s involvement in the Cyprus issue, saying how insensible for Turkey to sit down simply to restart negotiations on Cyprus reunification.

Nikos Voutsis, Parliamentary President of Greece presented the first 4 volumes of the “Cyprus File” to Prokopios Pavlopoulos, President of the Hellenic Republic.

Prepared for over two years, the volumes contain all notes of the Special Examining Committee, which was set up over thirty-three years ago to investigate the turn of events that culminated into the ultimate division of the island nation.

President Voutsis announced that the project, which had originally started in 2015 when would be available on the Greek parliament’s website in the near future. He added that having the material available to both the Greek and the international public will help ignite a movement to collect more similar material which in turn will help restore the historic memory of the island nation.

President Pavlopoulos, who was highly appreciative of the gesture, emphasized on the importance of an informed international public opinion. He spoke about how important it was for the details of something as traumatic as Cyprus’ division to be known to the public. He went on to congratulate both the Greek President and parliament, as well as the Cyprus’ House of Representatives on their initiative.

With the low-pressure system having wreaked havoc over Greece with constant storms, hail and lowering temperatures, Cypriot were fair to assume to have to face as similar fate.

As it turns out, however, that all Cyprus may have to face is its temperature going down by a few degrees.

According to Kleanthis Nicolaides, director, met service, it is completely safe to not expect any sort of extreme weather phenomena. At most, the island can expect moderate to heavily clouded skies and some rain. Even that will be expected to clear up soon with the weather going back to normal.

That being said, the met director added that despite not bearing the worst of the storms, Cypriots must prepare to experience colder temperatures for a few days at the very least.

Mustafa Akinci, Turkish Cypriot leader had allegedly threatened to resign over the Cyprus issue, rather than taking another course that would help resolve and reunite the divided island nation.

According to the daily Kibris Postasi, Mr. Akinci, who made the statement last April on a visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to the north, said that would not accept any solution that is not a federal system.

The fact was revealed by Erhan Arikli, chairman of the Rebirth party. Also present at the dinner, Mr. Arikli was the one who prompted the Turkish foreign minister to discuss a two-state solution and confederation, which in turn spurred Akinci to make his statement.

The Turkey-Cyprus-Ankara maritime relations are already very strained, and if the latest developments are anything to go by, they might not resolve as soon as expected.

According to several sources, the Turkish survey ship Barbaros was spotted off of Cyprus’ western coast, post Ankara’s issuance of navigational telex which stated the country’s intention to conduct gas exploration inside Cyprus’s special economic zone.

The vessel was spotted in a location that lies 70 nautical miles off the island nation’s western coast – somewhere between Crete and Paphos. Ironically, this happened less than a day after Washington urging Turkey to not take actions which would further exacerbate tension in the Eastern Mediterranean.

An armed robbery was completely foiled by it’s to-be victim store owner.

The Belgian store owner, in a bid to save his store, asked the thieves to return later as there was no money in the till. The gang of thieves, quite surprisingly, did return later – to be unwittingly arrested by police officers waiting for their return.

The event surprised all, including the police, as to the possibility of such things happen in this day and age.

A 29-year-old Somali woman and asylee in Cyprus reunited with her six-year-old daughter after over three years of being separated.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 29-year-old Samia was reunited with her daughter, Manar at Larnaca airport where the girl arrived to meet and live with her mother.

According to IOM Cyprus’ written statement, the woman’s journey to Cyprus was laden with difficulties. She has, however, managed to have secure a safer and brighter future for both her and her daughter.

This event is indeed landmark, being the first time ever of IOM Cyprus helping a Somali family, and the second time ever the organization facilitating a family reunification.

Ms. Samia, who had applied for – and received asylum in Cyprus, had applied for family reunification to bring her sole-daughter Manar to the island nation. Manar was previously staying with her grandparents in Mogadishu.

In the landmark attempt, both the IOM’s Somalia and Cyprus branches joined forces to assist her.

Two Russian tourists were killed due to their rental car having gone off a cliff in the Akamas.

The two, who were man and wife and aged 58 and 48 respectively, were killed due to their rental car going off a cliff and plunging straight into the Akamas area’s rocky coast in Paphos.

A boat from the marine police collected the bodies and took them to Latchi harbour and transferred them to Paphos general hospital. The hospital conformed them dead on arrival.

The couple, who were said to be holidaying after a long period, lost their lives days before their departure from the island nation, which they were touring. Their rental car was spotted by a passer-by, who soon informed the police, and directed them to a cliff in the Kakoskali area near the Baths of Aphrodite.

Andrey Turukhano, champion spearfisher and captain of the St. Petersburg team died in Cyprus while doing some underwater hunting.

According to Filleteferos, a Cypriot newspaper, Mr. Turukhano, 46, was found in the waters of Lara beach on the Akamas Peninsula.

Cyprus Police has said that Mr. Turukhano, had dived into the sea from his inflatable boat to spearfish as his wife remained on the boat. Quite notably, Mr. Turukhano did not use any oxygen bottles. At some point, he came to the surface while signaling for help and lost consciousness not much later. After his wife began to call for help, Mr. Turukhano was dragged out of the water by vacationers and transported to Paphos hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival by the doctors.

The autopsy later revealed that the Russian athlete has died due to asphyxiation from drowning

According to social networks, the individual who is no longer with us was a sports enthusiast, involved in many different areas of expertise including several world level contests in fishing as well as part of a national Russian team.

Nicos Anastasiades, the President of Cyprus, has arrived in New York to attend the UN General Assembly and meetings with Cypriot American organizations.

Anastasiades, who will stay for a week in New York, is scheduled to visit the UN keynote address and meet with the Secretary General of the UN as leaders of other nations.

Besides being involved with the General Assembly, President Anastasiades will also be participating in the upcoming Nelson Mandela Peace Summit. He will be addressing the 2nd Capital Link Forum before leaving for New York.

Accompanying President Anastasiades would be Nikos Christodoulides, Foreign Affairs Minister of Cyprus. The latter, however, won’t be with the President all of the way, and will be in separate meetings with counterparts from other countries, including (but not limited to Nikos Kotzias of Greece.

It has been found that the man in Turkish Cyprus who has been arrested on counts of espionage took 201 photos of Turkish soldiers in a time period of 16 days.

Mehmet Besimoglu, 70, was arrested and detained in Famagusta recently by the Turkish Cypriot police after they allegedly found evidence of him working as a spy for Greek Cypriots.

This came after Mr. Besimoglu admission in his police testimony explaining how the took photos of Turkish soldiers as well as the military base and delivered them to a Greek Cypriot.

The same was confirmed by other sources of the judiciary, who added that the photos were taken in a span of 16 days.

Besimoglu has been called out for providing images to a potential Greek Cyprus agent, and with which, according to phone records, he was said to be constantly communicating.

This incident is an added burden to the Cyprus situation. The island country has remained divided since 1974, after a Greek Cypriot coup and subsequent violence against the Turkish citizens along with the intervention of Ankara as a guarantor power.

The incident led to the declaration of an “independent” Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on Nov. 15, 1983, which is only recognized by Turkey as independent.

Attempts to reunite the two sides have only resulted in failure – the latest being the failure of a two-year negotiation that disintegrated in July 2017.

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.