THREE Russian warships will today be making a port call at Limassol, the defence ministry confirmed last night.Defence minister Fotis Fotiou has been invited aboard one of the vessels tomorrow, a spokesperson for the ministry said. He will be accompanied by the Russian Federation’s ambassador to Cyprus.The ships will remain here until next Wednesday.They include the destroyer “Admiral Panteleyev,” two amphibious warfare ships, the “Peresvet” and the “Admiral Nevelskoi,” as well as a tanker and a tugboat.The ships left the Far-Eastern port city of Vladivostok on March 19 to join Russia’s Mediterranean task force, which currently consists of vessels from Northern, Baltic, and the Black Sea Fleets... 18 comments

CYPRUS HAS finally requested the return of its very own piece of moon, originally gifted to the island around 40 years ago and lost during the chaos of the 1974 coup and invasion, according to the Associated Press.  The tiny moon rock, weighing 1.14 grammes and taken from the moon’s Taurus Littrow valley during the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, was supposed to be a gift from then US President Richard Nixon to the people of Cyprus as a symbol of “the unity of human endeavour” and “hope of the American people for a world at peace... 10 comments

Marcos Baghdatis’ loss to Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov in the opening round of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome was his first match under new coach Croatian Zeljko Krajan who, until recently, coached Croatia’s Davis Cup team and rising WTA star Laura Robson of Great Britain.“My wife knows him,” explained Baghdatis. “It’s not good that I change coaches all the time; I need stability. I asked Ivan Ljubicic if he could help me out and we thought of him (Krajan). He’s from the same city as Karolina, which helps when I am in Croatia... 1 comment

THE STORMS that have caused flash floods mainly inland and in the mountains will continue today and may last until tomorrow.From May 1 until 9am yesterday the total amount of rainfall was calculated at 15.1mm, which is 77 per cent normal for this period of the year, according to the meteorological services. “Because we had experienced high temperatures during the last couple of weeks, energy was built-up in the atmosphere and low pressure was created. This low pressure system is what caused these tropical storms during the last week in Cyprus,” meteorological officer Marios Theofilou said. “These storms begin suddenly around lunch time and end suddenly some hours later... 4 comments

CYPRUS has the highest percentage of workers in Europe who are suffering from work-related stress, at 51 per cent.This is three times higher than the European average of 16 per cent.These finding were published in the third edition of a European survey carried out by Ipsos MORI, a research company in the United Kingdom, on behalf of the European agency of safety and health at work.According to the survey job insecurity and work reorganisation are considered as the most common cause of work-related stress in Europe. Half of the European working population believes work-related stress is a normal phenomenon.From December 5 until 17 2012, 587 telephone interviews with full-time, part-time and self-employed workers, ages 18 and over, were conducted in Cyprus... 7 comments

THE RUSSIAN Commercial Bank (Cyprus) Ltd, subsidiary of the Russian state bank VTB, intends to maintain its operations in Cyprus.  According to Cyprus News Agency sources, the bank has decided to remain in Cyprus after initially considering relocating to Malta, due to the recent Eurogroup decision on Cyprus and the restrictions on the movement of capital. The same sources have told CNA that the bank’s decision is a token of its confidence in the Cyprus banking system... 3 comments

 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

 THE TROIKA haircut allied with draconian banking restrictions from a government which cannot confidently predict an upturn in the economy before 2016, concocting catchphrases like ‘together we can’, without telling us ‘what we can’, will return Cyprus to its pre-1950s Third World economy status. The new catchphrase, redolent of the 1974 ‘then xechno’ (I will not forget) is all our politicians have to offer while our economy nosedives. Many of us still have term deposits held ‘in trust’ by our banks, but even if we wanted to invest in an economic recovery, we can’t get at our deposits on maturity in any substantial way. Restricting depositors to ‘hand-outs’ is no less than theft... 4 comments

 THE ECONOMIC crisis could “open up” opportunities to end the frozen conflict on the island, said US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday, adding that hydrocarbon prospects in Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) could be a part of that solution.   Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides, in Washington to meet his American counterpart, countered that the three issues- economic crisis, gas and the Cyprus problem- were separate issues that could, however, be developed in parallel. ... 13 comments

THE FINANCE ministry yesterday issued a decree, exempting four credit institutions operating in Cyprus from the capital restrictions imposed on Cypriot banks. These institutions are BLOM Bank SAL, Lebanon and Gulf Bank SAL, OJSC Promsvyazbank which operate as branches in Cyprus and the VTB`s subsidiary Russian Commercial Bank (Cyprus) Ltd.It says however that these credit institutions are prohibited from servicing domestic customers that maintain accounts with their head office, or soliciting and obtaining new business from domestic customers or opening new accounts for domestic customers... 2 comments