Cyprus

NICOSIA, Oct 15 (NNN-Xinhua) — The construction of an electricity link between Asia and Europe was launched at an event in Cyprus on Friday.

European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades attended the event in Nicosia, which marked the start of the 2.5 billion euro (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) project.

The EuroAsia Interconnector will link up the electricity grids of Israel, Cyprus and Greece, and will also transfer electricity from renewable sources in Israel to Europe.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A switch back to coal and other fossil fuels by several countries to weather an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine shouldn’t compromise efforts to curb greenhouse emissions, United Nations officials said Wednesday.

Sonja Leighton-Kone, a senior official with the United Nations Environment Program said lending a sympathetic ear to the energy “shock” many countries are suffering doesn’t mean the goal of a speedy switch to clean energy can’t be achieved.

NICOSIA, Sept 21 (NNN-Xinhua) — Cypriot rescuers saved at least 477 irregular migrants in two separate operations in unfavorable sea conditions in the past 24 hours, the Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) said.

It said that in one operation, the JRCC responded to a distress call for an 18-meter boat with more than 300 people on board, which was drifting about 110 nautical miles off the west coast of Cyprus.

A JRCC spokesman said that the call was received by JRCC’s Larnaca headquarters at 7 p.m. local time on Monday. The boat was experiencing engine trouble.

06 Sep 2022; MEMO: Climate change could have a devastating effect on the lives of millions in the East Mediterranean and Middle East, where temperatures are rising nearly twice as fast as the global average, an international team of scientists warned, Reuters reports.

The region could see an overall warming of up to five degrees Celsius or more by the end of the century on a business-as-usual scenario, a report prepared by the Cyprus Institute said.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The eastern Mediterranean and Middle East are warming almost twice as fast as the global average, with temperatures projected to rise up to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century if no action is taken to reverse the trend, a new report says.

The region will experience “unprecedented” heat waves, more severe and longer-lasting droughts and dust storms and rainfall shortages that will “compromise water and food security” for the region’s 400 million people, according to a summary of the report released Tuesday.

NICOSIA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus will oppose a proposal which is expected to be made by some member states of the European Union (EU) to impose a ban on visas for Russian citizens, a senior official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday.

The ministry's Permanent Secretary Kornelios Korneliou told the state-run Cyprus News Agency that the proposal is expected to be put forward by Baltic countries during the informal meeting of the EU foreign ministers (Gymnich) in Prague on Aug. 30 and 31.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Proposals put forward by the leader of Cyprus’ breakaway Turkish Cypriots are a new, “unacceptable” bid for the ethnically divided island’s permanent partition, the nation’s Greek Cypriot president said Wednesday.

President Nicos Anastasiades said in a statement that he considered the ideas to be “another attempt to entrench the unacceptable narrative for a settlement based on two independent states.”

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus is bringing back compulsory mask-wearing in indoor areas for everyone age 12 and over amid a surge of COVID-19 infections.

The government said Wednesday the infection spike is in line with a global trend that’s mainly owed to the BA.4 and BA.5 variants of the coronavirus.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The Earl and Countess of Wessex met Tuesday with the president of Cyprus as part of a three-day visit to the former British colony to underscore close bilateral ties and to meet soldiers serving with a U.N. peacekeeping force and those stationed at two U.K. military bases.

The Earl — the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth and her late husband Prince Philip — and his wife were received by Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and his wife Andri at the Presidential Palace in the capital, Nicosia.

NICOSIA, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus, an island country in the eastern Mediterranean, on Sunday re-established a regular sea-link with the outside world for the first time after 21 years.

Cyprus' President Nicos Anastasiades attended a ceremony at the port of Limassol to mark the launching of a ferry connection with Greece, hailing the event as "historic."