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Helping small businesses beat the crisis

By Poly Pantelides 19/05/13
ENTREPRENEURS will tell you time and time again that crisis yields opportunity. Cyprus’ ongoing crisis - expected to get far worse before it gets any better - has been shaking some people into action, including one team bringing to Cyprus the notion of office sharing, and desk renting... 6 comments

A forlorn Polis campsite opens for the season

By Bejay Browne 19/05/13
THE campsite at Polis in Paphos is starting the summer season without any of the long-promised upgrades to ageing facilities and a new forestry programme under which around 60 of the trademark eucalyptus trees have been severely cut back. Some have been felled completely.The popular beachside camping spot presents a forlorn picture, with one whole section of the campsite now without the welcome shade the eucalyptus trees provide during the summer, and many of the trees in the main camping area cut back to their main trunks.Site manager, Lakis Matteou, said most of the trees had not been completely felled but instead have been cut “about half way up” and most have already started to grow... 8 comments

Moves to re-open popular Turkish baths

By Maria Gregoriou 19/05/13
FOR OVER a year now, the popular Turkish baths in the centre of old Nicosia have stood empty, waiting for the funds for minor but necessary renovations before it can re-open.Fans of the Ottoman era Omerye Hamam will be delighted to learn then that the tender procedure for the renovation began on Wednesday so the baths can re-open once new management has been found.The baths have been closed since February 2012, after the seven year lease of the previous management expired. “It was decided not to look for new management of the hamam until the inside of the building has been worked on to restore it,” said an official of the Nicosia Municipality this week... 5 comments

Fresh comedy from Paphos-based playwright

By Bejay Browne 19/05/13
Death of a PlayboyTOP comedy talent will be touring Cyprus in June with the latest offering by Rubber Ear productions and the Cyprus/Sunday Mail has two pairs of tickets to give away. Death of a Playboy is penned by award winning writer Kathleen Ruddy of Sex chips and Ouzo fame and follows hot on the heels of last year’s success, The Devil Wears Primark.The Paphos-based Glaswegian-born actress says is hoping to write two plays a year and says she already has “something else up her sleeve” for September... 4 comments

Pulling up a new activity

19/05/13
If you have a teenager stuck to the couch point them in the direction of Cybarz this summerBORED of going to the gym and looking for a new way to exercise then look no further than CYBarz, a new movement started by 17-year-old Paris Tofarides and 20-year-old Demos Christou. All that is needed to participate in the activity is a set of bars with which you can pull yourself up from. Words do not particularly do it much justice so for a better idea visit www.youtube.com/user/CYBarzTeam... 1 comment

Kurds outside the Ministry of the Interior [Video]

15/05/13
Around 150 Syrian Kurds – including many children – have been camped outside the Ministry of the Interior for the past two weeks, demanding that the government either give them ‘protection’ (i.e. the right to live and work in Cyprus) or help them move on to another European country... 6 comments

A life of beginnings

By Poly Pantelides 12/05/13
 ELSIE SLONIM’S book of almost a century of twists and turns is so incredible and poignant that it could be a work of fiction. But the 95-year-old whose Nicosia home - where she still lives - became engulfed in a restricted military zone in the Turkish-occupied part of the city in 1974 has quite simply lived an extraordinary life. A newly wed Elsie first arrived in 1939 in Limassol where her husband, David, managed a citrus farm in Fassouri. Through both choice and need, Elsie waded through the world and a long, difficult marriage, living in the USA, Romania, Austria, Palestine/Israel and France. But Cyprus was to become the returning point time and time again. ... 9 comments

The NHS really is on its way, minister insists

By Poly Pantelides 12/05/13
 SITTING around a stately oval table in his office last week, the health minister said that recent criticism from the medical association on the future of the National Health System has left behind a bitter taste. “The bitter taste is not there because they opposed the government’s or my own thoughts and goals,” Petros Petrides said.Rather, it comes because the medical association has not appreciated an important step on the long road to realising a National Health System (NHS) to which all workers contribute and all can use. That step, he said, is that public sector workers now have to contribute towards their healthcare... 11 comments

Gardening with Patricia Jordan: Hibiscus can make a stunning garden backdrop but beware of the bugs that are attracted to it

12/05/13
 I DO enjoy meeting up with other gardeners and at a garden morning recently while we were talking about hibiscus and all the problems that they have been giving gardeners I was gifted a book on Hibiscus, published in Australia. While there were lots of wonderful plants to gaze upon, there were also some useful hints on dealing with pests contained within the pages... 1 comment

Church proactive in a crisis

By Alexia Saoulli 28/04/13
 Five years ago, hunger linked to poverty was virtually unheard of in Cyprus. Today, over 2,000 families living in the 40 parishes under the Archbishopric of Nicosia, alone, would go hungry each month if it weren’t for the Archbishopric’s community grocery. Set up in May last year, by Archbishop Chrysostomos II, the community grocery went from feeding 500 families 11 months ago, to over 2,000 families today.Monthly the grocery supplies each family with pasta, bulgur wheat, cereals, orzo, UHT milk, corned beef, canned chopped tomatoes, flour, sugar, rice, lentils and haricot beans. Every two to three months, each family receives a litre of cooking oil, and at Christmas and Easter, two kilos of meat. ... 11 comments
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