When 14-year-old Mehmet Buğra Köker met Princess Diana at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital early in 1997, he had already overcome a dozen major operations, including two kidney transplants. A chronic kidney disease sufferer, Mehmet campaigned relentlessly to raise awareness about the illness and the need for more organ donors, becoming a poster boy for […]
The senseless and shocking murder of British Parliamentarian Sir David Amess has devastated not only his family, friends and colleagues, but also the very many communities his life and work touched. The 69-year-old Conservative Member of Parliament for Southend West was stabbed to death during a constituency surgery at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, […]
Two Turkish Cypriot sisters booked to fly on Emirates airline to the United Arab Emirates from Cyprus last month have complained of ‘discrimination’ and ‘racist abuse’ by the airline’s check-in staff at Larnaca Airport. Nilufer and Gulnaz Nejmi want to see the staff members responsible for the alleged abusive behaviour to be “retrained or removed”. […]
On the eve of the Cyprus talks at the United Nations in New York, Turkish Cypriot President Ersin Tatar will be buoyed by the results of a new survey about the type of political model Turkish Cypriots view as “most realistic” to resolve the long-running dispute. The most popular response by a long way was […]
A massive oil leak from a faulty power plant in Syria continues to threaten the eastern coastline of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. The Turkish Cypriot government has turned to Turkey for help, while side-stepping offers of assistance from neighbouring South Cyprus. Although the situation appears under control, changing wind and sea currents have […]
For the past three weeks, travellers from North Cyprus leaving the island via an airport in the south have faced nervous trips across the Green Line border, unsure whether their PCR tests will be accepted at Larnaca and Paphos Airports. Dozens have been randomly turned away by airport officials when trying to check-in, prompting accusations […]
Kudret Özersay has reprimanded the Turkish Cypriot government for paralysing the vital work of the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) by failing to appoint key personnel. The former foreign minister of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) wrote on his personal Facebook page on Monday, 2 August, that the IPC “can’t even hold a meeting, […]
The British government has moved the goalposts over its ‘disembarkation rule’, giving a completely different reason in Parliament about why the policy was introduced for flights between the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) and the United Kingdom, angering Turkish Cypriots, who have accused the government of ‘dishonesty’. Back in 2017, the UK government claimed […]
Ordinarily, an announcement by an embassy that its consular team is visiting their nationals abroad would not generate much excitement, but a Twitter post on Saturday, 10 July, from the Embassy of Pakistan in Ankara did just that. The embassy said it would be “undertaking a 3 days [sic] visit to Turkish Republic of Northern […]
British Turkish Cypriot activists have launched a campaign to end the flights embargo on North Cyprus. Calling themselves DFN Cyprus (short for Direct Flights to North Cyprus), the group’s first action is a letter-writing campaign to British Members of Parliament, and it’s already generating results. Over 130 MPs – some 20% of the 650 MPs […]
