Cyprus in the News!!!

Researchers: Cyprus winemaking oldest in Mediterranean

Friday, May 13, 2005 Posted: 11:48 AM EDT (1548 GMT)
NICOSIA, Cyprus (Reuters) -- Cypriots are the Mediterranean's oldest winemakers, beating the Greeks to the fermented grape's heady effects by at least 2,000 years, according to Italian researchers.

Despite references to wine in the works of the ancient Greek poet Homer, archaeologists have only now found evidence that winemaking on the island dates back some 5,500 years.

"We found two jugs used for wine and even the seeds of the grapes. It's amazing," Italian archaeologist Maria Rosaria Belgiorno was quoted as telling the Cyprus Weekly newspaper.

The island's winemaking tradition is already well documented, but the latest discovery proves that Cypriots were the region's oldest winemakers, the paper said.

Commandaria, a Cypriot sweet dessert wine, is believed to be the oldest wine in the world still in production. But the world's oldest known winemaking process dates back about 7,000 years to Iran.

The origins of wine are unknown. Greek mythology names Dionysus, or Bacchus -- god of wine and mischief -- as its inventor in the Mediterranean, while historians believe it was discovered accidentally when some grapes were left to ferment.
Source:http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/05/13/cyprus.wine.reut/

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UN aide to assess prospects for new Cyprus talks
18 May 2005 23:04:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
UNITED NATIONS, May 18 (Reuters) - A top U.N. aide is expected to go to Cyprus in early June in hopes of laying the groundwork for a revival of failed talks on reunifying the Mediterranean island, U.N. officials and diplomats said on Wednesday.

Kieran Prendergast, the undersecretary-general for political affairs, would travel to the region to meet with officials from the Greek Cypriot south, the Turkish Cypriot north, Greece and Turkey and assess the prospects for a fresh round of negotiations, they said.

A decision on whether to go ahead with new talks would be up to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, they said.

"Everyone wants to make sure that if the talks resume, that they get off on a good footing," said one U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the delicate nature of the ongoing efforts to revive the negotiations.

The initial talks collapsed after the Greek Cypriot side rejected a U.N. reunification plan in April 2004, then joined the European Union in the name of the whole island. The Turkish Cypriot side approved the U.N. plan, which proposes making Cyprus a federation of two ethnic states.

U.N. officials insist any new unification talks would be based on the earlier U.N. plan.

Prendergast's trip would follow up on a round of preliminary talks between Prendergast and Greek Cypriot diplomats held this week in New York. Those talks, intended to pin down the Greek Cypriots' intentions should the negotiations resume, began on Monday and are to continue through Friday, the officials and diplomats said.

Representing the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government in this week's meetings were presidential envoy Tasos Tzionis and U.N. Ambassador Andreas Mavroyiannis.

Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since mainland Turkish troops invaded in 1974 to foil an Athens-backed Greek Cypriot coup seeking to unite the island with Greece.

Turkey kept 30,000 troops there after the coup failed and is the sole government to recognize Turkish Cyprus.

Turkey is eager to see reunification talks revived, fearful that a stalemate and a Greek-only Cyprus in the European Union could harm its chances of joining the bloc. Turkey is to start EU negotiations in October, although it is not expected to join the bloc for another decade.
Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N18644089.htm