Turkey plans to supply drinking water to northern Cyprus via a pipeline running 110km between its coast and the Mediterranean island, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.
“The project should be completed at the latest within three years beginning in June next year,” he told a news conference in Nicosia alongside Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat.
“The [Turkish] government has given the necessary instructions to the environment ministry so the project can be finalized,” he said.
Talat, head of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Ankara, said his administration had also offered to provide water to the Greek Cypriots in southern Cyprus, under a project called “water of peace.”
“So far, we have had no reply to our offer,” he said.
The Turkish idea involves a high density polyethylene pipeline, with 80km of its 110km length running under the sea. It would be able to transport some 75 million cubic meters of water a year.
Cyprus is suffering one of its worst droughts in modern history.
The internationally recognized government of Greek Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has been trying to supply the southern part of the divided island through tankers bringing water from Greece.
The project has been dogged by snags and delays, sparking charges of incompetence. The water has not been distributed to households although the first of the huge tankers arrived off the south coast more than two weeks ago.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
EXTRADITION FEARS: The legislative changes come five years after a treaty was suspended in response to the territory’s crackdown on democracy advocates Exiled Hong Kong dissidents said they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the territory could put them in greater danger, adding that Hong Kong authorities would use any pretext to pursue them. An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to a government crackdown on the democracy movement and its imposition of a National Security Law. The British Home Office said that the suspension of the treaty made all extraditions with Hong Kong impossible “even if
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
RSS