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Thursday, 12 December 2024 | ||
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Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation: News in English, 01-05-08Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation at <http://www.cybc.com.cy/>CONTENTS
[01] Headlines--- Minister of Foreign Affairs Ioannis Kasoulides urged the Turkish side to realise that international law cannot be set aside by the Turkish invasion and the illegal declaration of the pseudostate.--- Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs George Papandreou said Cyprus would accede to the European Union within the next couple of years. --- Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler in the West Bank today, a day after a four-month-old Palestinian baby killed by Israeli gunfire became the youngest victim of more than seven months of violence. --- Pope John Paul headed to Malta today to beatify two priests and a nun after a landmark journey to Syria in which he became the first Pontiff to enter a mosque. And --- What may be the largest dinosaur backbone ever found has been airlifted from a remote wilderness area in Big Bend National Park in far western Texas. [02] KasoulidesMinister of Foreign Affairs Ioannis Kasoulides urged the Turkish side to realise that international law cannot be set aside by the Turkish invasion and the illegal declaration of the pseudostate.Mr. Kasoulides told CyBC this morning that the Turkish side should review its policy, as what it is trying to impose on Cyprus is unorthodox paradox. Referring to Cyprus' European Union accession course, Mr. Kasoulides said everything was well and that certain countries' reservations had been lifted. [03] PapandreouGreek Minister of Foreign Affairs George Papandreou said Cyprus would accede to the European Union within the next couple of years.Speaking at Columbia University in the United States, Mr. Papandreou said this prospect was agreeable to the vast majority of Turkish Cypriots, as 90 percent of the residents in the Turkish occupied areas favoured such a development. Referring to the situation in the Balkans, Mr. Papandreou stressed Greece's important role in these countries' European course. During his stay in the US, Mr. Papandreou is expected to meet with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. [04] PassportsDeputy Immigration Officer Giorgos Theodorou has said that applications from Turkish Cypriots to obtain passports of the Republic of Cyprus are on the increase.Mr. Theodorou said that during the first four months of the year, 250 passports had been issued to Turkish Cypriots, and 400 last year. He added that there was no discrimination between Greek and Turkish Cypriots for issuing passports. Mr. Theodorou told CyBC that most applications from Turkish Cypriots were made in person at the Republic's embassies abroad. [05] StockThe Cyprus Stock Exchange All Share Index rose today, closing at 204,98 units, recording gains of 1,01 percent.Traded value reached 15,5 million pounds. [06] MideastPalestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler in the West Bank today, a day after a four-month-old Palestinian baby killed by Israeli gunfire became the youngest victim of more than seven months of violence.Hours after the settler was shot and stabbed to death, Palestinian police said Israeli forces and bulldozers had entered 150 metres into a Palestinian area near Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip and destroyed a water well. The United States criticised such incursions yesterday and the new bloodshed prompted former US senator George Mitchell, head of a commission that investigated the violence, to urge Washington to keep up the search for Middle East peace. Each of the warring sides accuses the other of increasing the violence that has killed 408 Palestinians, 77 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs since the Palestinians began an uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. [07] PopePope John Paul headed to Malta today to beatify two priests and a nun after a landmark journey to Syria in which he became the first Pontiff to enter a mosque.The Pope, 80, will wrap up a hectic three-country pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Paul that began in Greece on May 4. It was a trial for his frail health but he completed his schedule during the first two legs without apparent problem. The Pope retraced the steps of Saint Paul the Apostle, prayed for Middle East peace on the frontline Golan Heights and, perhaps most significantly of all, became the first Pontiff to go into a mosque in Islam's 1.400-year history. [08] DinosaurWhat may be the largest dinosaur backbone ever found has been airlifted from a remote wilderness area in Big Bend National Park in far western Texas.The 10 pieces of articulated vertebrae measure almost 9 metres in length and weigh nearly 4.500 kg. They are to be shipped to the Dallas Museum of Natural History for study. Paleontologists from the museum and the University of Texas at Dallas believe the pieces constitute the largest fossil excavated of the largest animal ever to walk on earth - the Alamosaurus species of sauropod dinosaur. Two years of study will be required to confirm the fossils are from the Alamosaurus, a long-necked plant-eating creature from 21 to 27 metres long, weighing 30 tonnes, that lived 65 to 75 million years ago. [09] WorldAnd now for a look at other developments around the world in brief- - - - Leaders in FYRoM have agreed to form a government of national unity including all main ethnic Albanian and Slav parties -- seen by the West as a key move to counter an ethnic Albanian insurgency threatening civil war. Hong Kong has slammed its door on more foreign followers of China's outlawed Falun Gong spiritual group trying to reach the territory to join planned protests against President Jiang Zemin during a two-day visit. The US military resumed intelligence-gathering flights by electronic surveillance aircraft off China in defiance of demands by Beijing that such patrols be halted. In another embarrassing debacle at the United Nations, the United States was voted off the International Narcotics Control Board, a move the State Department called regrettable. Bosnian Serb police evacuated nearly 300 people including top Western diplomats to safety after they were trapped in a building by rioting Serb nationalists. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in his debut performance in parliament, pledged to take politics to the people to restore their battered trust and to enact painful reforms to fix Japan's long-stagnant economy. About 50 black demonstrators marching in the rain chanted "We Want More Justice" after a grand jury leveled relatively minor charges against a white policeman in last month's shooting of an unarmed black man, a case that sparked days of rioting. In London, "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs spent his first night behind bars after returning to Britain a frail shadow of the criminal folk hero who spent 35 years as a party-loving fugitive. |