Greek and Turkish Cypriots on Thursday pulled down barricades that have separated them for half a century, reopening Ledra Street, a potent symbol of Cyprus’s ethnic partition. The highly symbolic gesture comes as the two communities prepare talks to end the Mediterranean island’s division.
Leaders of Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish communities agreed on Friday to relaunch reunification talks and to open a barricaded street in Nicosia that symbolises the island’s division. It was the first meeting between Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat since Christofias was elected to the Cypriot presidency last month.
Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders may soon erase the most potent symbol of the island’s division, by reopening a bullet-pocked crossing between the two sides closed for nearly half a century. Hopes of ending decades of estrangement were revived after last month’s election of Cyprus President Demetris Christofias.
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/ 24 February 2008
Fears of a Soviet-educated communist emerging as the next leader of Cyprus — and the first in the European Union — has eclipsed the closest election in the island’s post-colonial history as voters cast their ballots on Sunday. Demetris Christofias, chief of the Marxist-Leninist Akel, has angrily rejected the charges.
Greek Cypriots razed to the ground a symbol of Cyprus’s decades-old division running through the heart of the capital Nicosia and challenged Turkey to respond by withdrawing its troops from the area. Demolition work on a concrete barrier in Nicosia’s Ledra Street ceased by dawn on Friday, exposing a corridor of crumbling buildings untouched for decades.
Two women have been arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of sorcery and fraud after allegedly swindling gullible victims by convincing them they were sick and cursed, local media said on Friday. In one case, a Greek Cypriot woman was arrested after bilking 496 000 Cyprus pounds (-million) from a bank clerk between May 2005 and July 2006 after convincing the woman she was cursed.
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/ 10 November 2005
An escaped ostrich attacked a car and took Cypriot police on a wild-bird chase after escaping from a farm outside the Mediterranean island’s capital of Nicosia, a report said on Wednesday. Police were alerted to the bird’s bid for freedom after it jumped on a woman’s Mercedes.
A man who stole two trays of cookies from a bakery in the Cypriot town of Larnaca caused a scare at the nearby airport when he drove on to the runway, forcing aircraft to slam on their brakes, police said on Thursday. The saga began when the man walked out of a bakery on Wednesday with 40 assorted cookies without paying.
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/ 15 November 2004
An American researcher claims to have discovered the site of the mythological city of Atlantis at a depth of 1 600m on the seabed between Cyprus and Syria , reported local media on Monday. Robert Sarmast, using sonar scanning, found remnants of ”roads, drains and enormous walls” on the bottom of the sea off Cyprus.
The ethnic Greek and Turkish leaders of Cyprus held crucial talks on Thursday in an effort to reunite the island ahead of the country’s anticipated accession to the European Union.
The Arab world is fuming over the landmark vote against a future Palestinian state by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s right-wing Likud party.
Dwindling volumes of the benchmark crudes used in Asian and European oil markets are forcing major players to bolster supplies in a bid to decrease the risk of prices being vulnerable to manipulation.
Cyprus has quietly crumbled to a Brussels ruling it can no longer call its feta cheese by that name, but local producers say they are not willing to go soft.
A pregnant Nigerian student was released from custody and given temporary stay in Cyprus on Wednesday after she applied for asylum, fearing death by stoning in her homeland for having a child out of wedlock.