COMMON sense prevailed, temporarily, at Larnaca airport where air traffic controllers were threatening to go on strike in protest against the authorities’ insistence that they went through metal detector archways when they went to work. Their union representatives decided to give the communications minister a grace period to study the issue and come up with a solution.
Needless to say, if her proposal is not satisfactory, staff say they will carry out their strike threat which would close down Larnaca airport and cause complete chaos... 6 comments

IT IS GOOD to see that practical steps are being taken in the war against football hooliganism. For too long the authorities restricted themselves to verbal condemnation of violence at football matches, but they have finally realised that without tough, concerted action against the hooligans, stadiums would not become any safer.The police appear to have done their home-work for the new season which kicked off at the weekend. A manual has been circulated among officers giving detailed instructions about how high-risk matches will be policed – police will decide, in consultation with the Football Federation, how many tickets will be issued, how many visiting fans will be allowed to attend, kick-off times and so forth... Read on

IT IS BACK to business for the Cyprus problem commentators and doomsayers this week, as talks resume on Tuesday and we enter yet another period billed as ‘critical’ by the experts. The Cyprus problem has entered hundreds of ‘critical phases’ over the years, but always emerges intact. Despite the devious scheming by foreign powers and the blatant bias of UN mediators the status quo is always preserved, to the mutual satisfaction of the two sides, until the next ‘critical’ phase arrives... 88 comments

OUR BROTHERS of the Greek Cypriot diaspora were in town this week for the annual, high-level conference at which they briefed our government about the latest thinking on the Cyprob in the barber-shops of Astoria and Haringey, and try to squeeze more money out of the government for their organisations.
The August bash has been an annual fixture for decades, but despite the important decisions taken every year, we never hear a piece of good news from the participants, about the enlightenment campaigns in their countries of residence... 12 comments

 
I CANNOT tell whether President Christofias is being serious when he boasts that thanks to his much-trumpeted ‘package of proposals’ our side was “one step ahead” of the other side.
If he seriously thinks that such transparent gimmicks would fool the Turks or the international community, he is even more of a political bungler than originally thought... 21 comments

 
TWO WEEKS ago I wrote an article in this newspaper on the anatomy of nepotism. I argued that nepotism is very difficult to eliminate because it is self-sustaining. Both those who offer favours and those who seek them have strong incentives to perpetuate the processes, behaviour and expectations that feed nepotism. In other words, when nepotism takes hold, it creates an equilibrium that is hard to dislodge.
I also argued that, despite the fact that some groups gain, nepotism is detrimental to society at large. I explained what is wrong with the claim that the personal intervention of politicians is some times justified for “humanitarian reasons... 5 comments

 
SUPPOSEDLY keeping a close watch on their many grandchildren building sand castles or splashing around in the shallows, four granddads sprawled under umbrellas argued about the Cyprob, the bane of us all and a cause for intense outbursts.
During a quieter moment, one of the granddads reflected on the day he was summoned to the capital and warned by a certain archbishop’s right-hand man to quit the island post haste or expect to be ‘summarily dealt with’.
He was 19 years old at the time and working in a mountain village café, whereat he unwittingly overheard an off-duty bodyguard planning his employer’s Mahatma – four bullets, two in the head and two in the chest... 7 comments

 
The US government has now announced that direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will resume after a September 2 launch ceremony at the White House. In making this announcement, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stated that this new round of negotiations should be “without preconditions”, as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has insisted they should be. However, she also stated that both Mr. Netanyahu and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have agreed that the negotiations should be subject to a one-year time limit, which was not Mr. Netanyahu’s preference... Read on

THE POLICE are absolutely right in seeking to impose an automatic driving ban on anyone who has reached 12 points for traffic offences. That it is not standard practice, some 10 years after the introduction of the points system, is very strange indeed. In fact the existing law limits the effectiveness of the points system.
Under the current law, when a driver has reached 12 points he or she is taken to court and the judge decides whether the licence should be revoked. In other words, the driving ban is not a certainty when someone reaches or exceeds 12 points – a good lawyer may earn the driver a reprieve or a specific judge could be particularly lenient in dealing with traffic offenders... 11 comments

TOMORROW the packers arrive: my twenty-first move. You’d think it would get easier, like snakes shedding their yearly skin. It doesn’t. Every country, every home, every new life accumulates stuff.
Memory might be the diary of all we carry, as Oscar Wilde wrote, but in this household memory means junk. Each day, in each room two piles are made: stuff to go, stuff to throw... 2 comments