Wednesday, August 12, 2026
1d639e55-1bb2-40aa-a551-9698620c4a99
| Summary | ⛅️ Clear until afternoon, returning overnight. |
|---|---|
| Temperature Range | 24°C to 33°C (76°F to 91°F) |
| Feels Like | Low: 80°F | High: 103°F |
| Humidity | 68% |
| Wind | 11 km/h (7 mph), Direction: 262° |
| Precipitation | Probability: 20%, Type: No precipitation expected |
| Sunrise / Sunset | 🌅 06:06 AM / 🌇 07:39 PM |
| Moon Phase | Waning Crescent (99%) |
| Cloud Cover | 10% |
| Pressure | 1008.17 hPa |
| Dew Point | 72.18°F |
| Visibility | 6.08 miles |
Safety in aerial firefighting missions should be the top priority and continuously improved, aviation expert Chrysanthos Hadjichrysanthou said following a recent firefighting helicopter accident in Greece in which two people were killed.
Hadjichrysanthou, chairman of the Flight Safety Foundation Mediterranean (FSF-MED), whose slogan is “safety is a shared value”, said it was too early to determine exactly what had happened in Greece, as the investigation was still under way.
“However, every such incident serves as a reminder that safety in firefighting missions demands being alert continuously. Helicopters operating in such missions must have a valid fight capacity certificate, be maintained according to the manufacturer’s specifications and the prerequisites of the aviation authority, and be manned by properly trained and experienced crews,” he said.
He added that possible causes of an aviation accident could include human error, technical failure, adverse weather conditions or a combination of factors.
On August 2, two helicopters collided while fighting a wildfire near Psatha, 65km west of Athens. A Danish pilot and a Greek fire brigade liaison officer were killed when one of the helicopters burst into flames and crashed into a ravine.
The second helicopter, although damaged, was able to make an emergency landing, with its British pilot and Greek coordinator surviving.
“Prevention is based on the strict adherence to procedures, quality training, proper maintenance and effective risk management,” Hadjichrysanthou pointed out.
He said all aircraft operating in Cyprus must meet the demands of the Civil Aviation Authority and, where applicable, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
Cyprus, he said, has a satisfactory inspection framework, however “there is always room for improvement” in training, coordination between services, state-of-the-art technology and the exchange of experience with other countries.
Weather conditions such as extreme heat, strong winds and smoke are taken into account in accordance with manufacturers’ specifications, while the final decision on whether to fly rests with the aircraft’s captain, with safety the overriding consideration.
Hadjichrysanthou said the main lesson from the accident in Greece was that authorities should never wait for the findings of an investigation before seeking to improve safety culture.
“Every incident is an opportunity to reevaluate procedures, training, communication and operational planning, so that we can continuously reduce risks. That is what our organisation is trying to promote,” he said.
FSF-MED, he explained, organises seminars and workshops to discuss safety issues, take action and help prevent accidents.
Hadjichrysanthou also expressed his respect and appreciation for those operating firefighting aircraft.
“Their mission is invaluable, but no mission is worth more than human life. There is a great responsibility here for the operators. If the captain of a flight sees fit, either due to the technical adequacy of the aircraft or due to adverse weather conditions or the closing of the airspace, he has the right and legal obligation to refuse to carry out that flight. The operators must be fully protected by their employers when they take such decisions,” he added.
He also called on the public to “have faith in the professionals who are operating, follow the instructions of the authorities and remember that behind every firefighting aircraft there are people who are working under particularly taxing and dangerous conditions”.
Apollon crashed out of the Conference League after suffering a 4-2 extra-time defeat to Norwegian side Brann at the Alphamega Stadium in Limassol on Tuesday.
The Cypriot side had taken a winning result from the first leg but were unable to protect their advantage as Brann overturned the tie.
Ingason put the visitors ahead in the 16th minute before Apollon levelled through Ljubitz in the 85th minute.
Brann regained the lead in the sixth minute of stoppage time through Holm, forcing the match into extra time.
Apollon responded quickly after the restart, with Weisbeck restoring parity in the second minute of extra time.
Brann then struck twice to settle the tie.
Holm scored again in the 94th minute before Eriksen added a fifth goal overall for the visitors in the 105th minute.
The result ended Apollon’s European campaign at the third qualifying round stage, while Brann advanced to the next round of the Conference League.
Arrest warrants remain in force for suspects wanted over the murders of Tassos Isaac and Solomos Solomou, including both past and present senior figures in the north’s administration.
According to an investigative report conducted by Sigma, some eight arrest warrants issued over Isaac’s murder remain active and are accompanied by Interpol red notices, which are renewed every five years.
Among those named are Hasim Yilmaz, a former Turkish intelligence official, Mehmet Mustafa Arslan, identified in the report as a senior figure in the Grey Wolves, and Turkish settler Erhan Arikli, the current ‘transport minister’ in the north.
The original warrants for Isaac’s murder, issued in 1996, were cancelled in 2013 for procedural reasons and replaced by eight new warrants issued by the Famagusta district court.
The investigation also found that five warrants were initially issued over Solomou’s murder, although Interpol red notices were secured for only two suspects.
The remaining three requests were rejected because investigators had not provided sufficient evidence, according to police authorities.
The two suspects currently subject to red notices in the Solomou case are Kenan Akin, a former ‘agriculture minister’ who served in Dervis Eroglu’s cabinet, and Erdal Haciyali Emanet, a former commander of its special forces.
According to the report, European arrest warrants are also in force against them.
Arikli’s case has drawn attention to the difficulty of enforcing the warrants, for he was arrested in Kyrgyzstan in 2012 but was released after Turkey intervened and he was not extradited to the Republic.
He also travelled unhindered to Tunisia in 2017 without being arrested.
Isaac, 24, was beaten to death after becoming trapped in barbed wire in the UN buffer zone at Deryneia during an anti-occupation demonstration in August 1996.
Three days later, 26-year-old Solomou was shot dead after climbing a flagpole at a Turkish military position in an attempt to remove a Turkish flag.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in 2008 that Turkey was internationally responsible for violations of the right to life in connection with the killings, yet crucially the ruling did not remove the individual criminal responsibility of those involved.
The investigation comes as the 30th anniversary of the killings is being marked, with the families continuing to call for the suspects to face justice.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused Turkey of hypocrisy over its criticism of Israeli military operations, pointing to Turkey’s control of 36 per cent of Cyprus and its military presence in the region on Tuesday.
“Turkey has the audacity to criticise Israel. But what are the facts on the ground?” the ministry said in a social media post.
It said thousands of Turkish troops were stationed outside Turkey and that Ankara maintained military bases and outposts in Cyprus, Syria and Iraq.
The ministry said Turkey “occupies 36% of Cyprus, 5% of Syria and approximately 2,000 square kilometres of Iraq”.
The Israeli ministry contrasted Turkey’s military presence with its own deployment in Syria, saying Israel “temporarily controls 0.1 per cent of Syrian territory” in what it described as a “security zone” intended to “protect Israeli citizens”.
Israel’s captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau, from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and effectively annexed the territory in 1981.
The UN regards the territory as occupied and continues to support the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement, which established a UN monitored buffer zone between Israeli and Syrian forces.
A lane on the Nicosia Limassol highway has been reopened after a truck suffered a mechanical failure near the Ayios Tychonas exit on Tuesday evening, police said.
The left lane was closed after the truck stalled on the highway, affecting traffic approaching the exit.
The lane has since been reopened, with police urging drivers to reduce their speed and maintain a safe distance from vehicles ahead.
The online fundraiser launched by journalist Makarios Drousiotis to cover his legal costs has been referred to police for investigation, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said on Tuesday.
Ioannou said the ministry had instructed police to examine whether the campaign breached legislation governing public fundraising.
Drousiotis launched the campaign on Monday under the title ‘I ask for your help to defend the truth’, saying the funds would be used exclusively for his legal defence, independent forensic examinations and other costs arising from the proceedings.
The campaign has raised some €47,000 from 724 donors by Tuesday afternoon, according to figures displayed on the GoGetFunding platform.
“There is a clear procedure for anyone wishing to conduct a fundraiser,” the minister said, under which an application must be submitted to the competent fundraising committee for consideration and approval or rejection.
He said instructions had been given for a letter to be sent to police, asking the competent authority to investigate “any possible commission of a criminal offence” under the fundraising legislation.
Ioannou’s intervention followed discussion on social media over whether a permit was required for the campaign.
He cautioned against drawing conclusions about the ministry’s actions before the investigation had taken place.
Later on Tuesday night, Drousiotis outright rejected the ministry’s position, remarking on social media that “they’re chasing me with the criminal code in their hands” and arguing that his campaign did not fall under the fundraising law.
He said legal advice he had obtained supported his position and accused the government of seeking to deprive him of legal support.
Drousiotis said his legal advice was supported by previous crowdfunding campaigns in Cyprus, citing an Apoel appeal which raised €484,529 from 3,957 contributors without, he claimed, requiring a permit.
He questioned why the interior ministry and police had not intervened in that case.
Ioannou rejected Drousiotis’ allegations, stating that the ministry “is not hunting anyone and does not seek the extermination of anyone”.
He said the investigation would establish whether the fundraiser fell within the fundraising law and stressed that “no one will be prosecuted or charged” if it did not.
Drousiotis is facing criminal proceedings which arose from publications concerning the Sandy affair.
He rejects the allegations and has described the prosecution as “vindictive in nature”.
He has also said the funds raised would be accounted for publicly, with expenditure to be disclosed.
The fundraiser was launched after Drousiotis said he faced significant legal costs and described himself as being close to “financial annihilation”.
He has separately said police opened a second criminal investigation concerning alleged personal data offences arising from his book Mafia State.
He has rejected the allegations and said the investigation was intended to discredit him in connection with his reporting and research.
The separate Sandy case involves Drousiotis, and a woman known publicly as ‘Sandy’, with the pair facing a total of around 101 counts.
Drousiotis has vowed to contest the allegations in court.
There will be no reductions in pensions under the planned pension reform, and all pensioners will receive an increase, Labour Minister Marinos Mousiouttas assured on Tuesday, as the government works towards submitting the legislation to parliament in September.
“There is no such possibility,” Mousiouttas stressed when pressed on reports that certain higher pensions could be reduced as part of the reform.
He explained that an option considered during the early stages of the process had involved cuts of around 5 per cent to the highest pensions paid by the Social Insurance Fund.
However, Mousiottas admitted that the proposal was abandoned following opposition from social partners.
“We immediately ruled out this possibility,” Mousiouttas said, adding that the options now under consideration contained “no element of reduction”.
“Everyone will have some increase. Some smaller and some larger,” he said.
The minister said the draft bill was being finalised following consultations with Finance Minister Makis Keravnos last Wednesday and President Nikos Christodoulides on Friday.
He said he hoped the bill would be ready by Friday, yet if that timetable was not met, he said it would “certainly” be handed over before the labour advisory board meeting next Wednesday and released for public consultation at the same time.
The government intends to submit the first pillar of the reform to parliament during its first plenary session after the summer recess, expected on September 20.
The first pillar concerns the Social Insurance Fund, including pensions, the minimum pension and the 12 per cent penalty for early retirement.
The timetable has been criticised by trade unions, who have questioned whether there is enough time to examine and discuss the bill before it proceeds to the House.
Mousiouttas said the divergences between the government and unions were “not insurmountable” and that the ministry remained open to proposals that stayed within the framework of the reform.
“If there is something that moves within the philosophy of the legislation and does not change the economic data, we are ready to adopt it,” he said.
He warned that proposals requiring additional spending would have to include corresponding savings elsewhere, saying the Social Insurance Fund’s resources were “not inexhaustible”.
Discussions are also continuing on the second pillar, concerning provident funds, with the next technical committee meeting scheduled for September 1.
Mousiouttas said the government hoped to reach a framework agreement on the second pillar but stressed that such an agreement was not a condition for the first pillar to proceed.
Doctors contracted with the national health system (Gesy) are reportedly scrambling to modify patients’ prescriptions following a mass recall of pharmaceutical products by Remedica.
According to Phileleftheros, patients are also having difficulty getting in touch with their physicians, while at the same time many pharmacies are shut ahead of the mid-August holiday.
For some of the recalled products, Gesy has stocks of equivalent medicines as replacements.
The recalls were announced by Remedica on Monday.
The Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) – the agency administering Gesy – is striving find a technical means for Gesy-contracted pharmacists to substitute these directly, without requiring an immediate change to prescriptions.
An even bigger problem exists when it comes to medicines where no equivalent alternatives are available. For these products, doctors will need to change patients’ treatment, at least until the HIO completes a process – already underway – to secure stocks from other sources.
For one such product, the paper reported, stocks of the equivalent medicine have been found.
The HIO is expected to issue an announcement sometime this week with detailed instructions for each product on the recall list.
Remedica, manufacturer of generic medicines, had earlier announced a ‘voluntary’ recall of certain batches of drugs. The company said this was done as a precaution, and that there are no safety concerns for patients taking the products.
A voluntary recall is an action where a company chooses to remove or fix a defective or unsafe product on its own initiative.
The affected batches related to nine pharmaceutical products. These included Carvidex, a prescription beta-blocker medication used to treat high blood pressure, heart-related chest pain (angina), and heart failure; and Clonotril, primarily used to treat seizure disorders (epilepsy) and panic or anxiety.
A 26-year-old woman in Paphos lost more than €4,800 after entering her bank card details on a fraudulent website, which she reported to police on Tuesday.
The woman informed Paphos CID that she received a text message on Monday which appeared to have been sent by the GOVCY platform, which said she had an outstanding fine.
The message directed her to a link where she was told she could settle the alleged fine. She followed the link and entered her bank card details on the website.
She later discovered that more than €4,800 had been withdrawn from her bank account.
Police are investigating the circumstances of the fraud and are seeking to establish how the money was taken.
Members of the public are urged not to open links received by text message, email or messaging applications when they come from unknown or suspicious sources.
Police also advised people not to enter personal or banking information on websites reached through such messages.
Anyone who receives a message claiming that they have an outstanding matter involving the police should verify it through the force’s official channels.
Two people, aged 20 and 36, were arrested on Tuesday in connection with a shooting at a store in Limassol on March 31 and later remanded by Limassol district court for eight days.
The shooting took place in the early hours of March 31 at the company’s outlet in Limassol when shots were fired from a large motorbike.
Investigators traced the movements of the motorcycle, in addition to a Mercedes, through dozens of closed-circuit cameras.
The Mercedes was later identified as belonging to the 36-year-old suspect, while police reportedly received information in June identifying the 20-year-old as the alleged shooter and owner of the white motorcycle.
Arrest warrants were issued for the two suspects, who were located and arrested on Tuesday.
Their mobile phones were seized during the operation, while a pair of gloves was found in the 20-year-old’s vehicle.
Both reportedly denied involvement. Police are also seeking another person and are expected to take around 40 further statements.
At around 4.30am on March 31, about 20 minutes after the shooting, the Mercedes was seen parked in an open area near a cafe, with the driver leaving the vehicle.
A cleaning worker discovered damage to the glass doorway at the store at around 7.30am and reported the incident to police.
The scene was cordoned off while officers examined the building and collected evidence. Initial reports said several gunshots had damaged the company’s facade.
Larnaca is set to be twinned with Bahrain’s capital Manama after the Bahraini cabinet approved the proposal, Mayor Andreas Vyras announced on Tuesday.
The twinning would make Larnaca the second Cypriot city to establish such an arrangement with a Gulf city, with Nicosia having been twinned with Doha, Qatar.
Announcing the decision on social media, the mayor said it represented “another important step for our city” and described the development as creating new prospects for cooperation.
He said the initiative formed part of Larnaca municipality’s strategy to strengthen the city’s “international presence”, establish new channels of cooperation and reinforce its position in the wider region.
The development comes as Cyprus and Bahrain expand bilateral ties in areas including defence, shipping, investment, tourism and technology.
Cyprus ambassador to Bahrain Andreas Eliades said on Monday that closer cooperation between the two countries was being pursued amid wider regional security developments.
He said maritime security and freedom of navigation were strategic priorities for both countries, while economic cooperation could focus on financial services, fintech, technology, logistics and tourism.
The met office has issued a yellow warning for tomorrow, with temperatures expected to reach around 40C.
The warning will be in effect from 1pm until 3.30pm.
Maximum temperatures in Nicosia are forecast to rise to around 40C, while conditions elsewhere are expected to be less severe.
Residents are advised to limit prolonged exposure to the sun during the hottest part of the day and to take precautions against the heat.
A major trade union on Tuesday poured cold water on the idea that pension reform legislation could be tabled to parliament in September, also expressing concerns over the government’s dual-track approach.
Head of SEK, Andreas Matsas said they have yet to receive from the government the draft bill governing the so-called ‘first pillar’ of pension reform.
The first pillar concerns chiefly the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) but also deals with other matters such as minimum pension and the 12 per cent ‘penalty’ for early retirement.
The second pillar concerns provident funds.
Separate bills have been drafted for each of the pillars.
The process is currently in the consultation phase. Two meetings have been scheduled for the labour advisory board – comprising of representatives of the unions and employers’ organisations – for August 19 and 28.
Once the consultation stage is over, the legislation goes to parliament. The government intends to table the bill for the first pillar by September 20.
But the unions say there is not enough time for consultations by that date.
Matsas recalled that at the last meeting of the labour advisory board, it was agreed that they would have about two months to scrutinise and discuss the government bills.
As it now stands, he said, that timetable is not feasible. The unions have yet to receive a copy of the draft bill on the first pillar.
Meanwhile the government is keen to drive through the legislation quickly, so that certain aspects of pension reform can be implemented as of January 2027.
But other than timing considerations, trade unions are wary of the government’s approach of slicing up pension reform into two tracks. The syndicates want the whole package agreed at the same time.
“If the planning does not cover everything, and we say that the second pillar will get decided two or three years later, nobody can guarantee us that it will be part of the reform,” Matsas cautioned.
He added: “Governments come and go, priorities change.”
What SEK wants is for the second pillar to be agreed from now – even if in practice it’s implemented subsequent to the first pillar.
In the meantime, media reports suggest that a great deal remains to be resolved regarding the mechanics of the planned reform.
Citing sources, daily Phileleftheros said the idea of cutting pensions on the higher end, to fund increased pensions on the lower end, is back on the table.
This is despite recent public denials by both President Nikos Christodoulides and the labour minister. Unions have indicated their strong opposition to such an arrangement.
But the newspaper said technocrats are now tinkering with a modified version – namely, that the reductions to pensions on the higher end will affect only future pensioners, not current ones.
In addition, any cuts on these pensions would be made only to the proportional part of an annuity.
A pension consists of two parts – one fixed/basic, the other proportional.
However, in Cyprus only private-sector workers contribute to the proportional part of the SIF; government workers do not.
This would mean that, if pensions on the higher end are slashed, it would apply only to the private sector.
Another complication is how to determine which pensioners are on the high end – and therefore subject to possible reductions. For example, someone might not declare their real income, making less contributions, but is in fact wealthy.
Yet another issue relates to the government’s stated intention of halting the decades-long practice of borrowing from the SIF.
The state currently owes the SIF some €12 billion overall.
If the state stops borrowing from the fund, it will have to make up for it from somewhere else – from the money markets. If it does, that would increase the public debt.
A 69-year-old man who was jailed for eight years over the 2021 Arakapas fire has been acquitted on appeal, with the Court of Appeal unanimously overturning his conviction on Tuesday after finding that the evidence did not prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
The man had already served three years of his sentence when the appeal court overturned the conviction. He had denied the charges.
The fire broke out on July 3, 2021, killing four Egyptian labourers and burning around 55 square kilometres across 10 communities in the Limassol and Larnaca districts.
The man had been convicted of deliberately setting fire to trees in Arakapas and of starting fires in the countryside without a permit.
The criminal court found that he had been working in his orchard before the fire, had access to the area where it started and had left shortly before the fire was discovered. Two lighters were also found in his car.
The court also considered his actions after leaving the orchard, for he went to a kiosk in Arakapas and reported that reeds were burning before later travelling to Eptagonia for coffee whilst the fire was spreading.
The Court of Appeal found that these circumstances were not enough to establish that he had indeed started the fire.
It also questioned the original court’s reasoning regarding how the fire had begun.
A deputy fire brigade chief had concluded that the fire was probably started by an open flame, possibly a lighter, after other possible causes had been excluded.
The appeal court said this however remained a possibility rather than an established fact.
The original court had then connected that possibility with the two lighters found in the man’s car.
The appeal court said, “speculation is not permitted to fill gaps in the testimony of the prosecution”.
The judges also rejected the suggestion that his decision to leave Arakapas and go to Eptagonia could automatically be treated as evidence of guilt.
They said the original court had not properly examined what he knew about the fire or the emergency response when he left.
The appeal court concluded that the evidence showed only that the man had been in the area, had the means to start a fire and had behaved in a way that could be considered questionable.
“These three elements, however, are not sufficient” to establish that he started the fire, the court said.
The court stressed that guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt and that an accused person is not required to prove his innocence.
The 69-year-old, was therefore unanimously acquitted of the charges relating to the Arakapas fire.
Turkish F-16 fighter jets have been flying over Cyprus with increasing frequency, with residents reporting sightings and hearing the aircraft over Nicosia on Tuesday.
The aircraft are understood to have taken off from Tymbou airport in the north before flying towards the Pentadaktylos range and subsequently returning to their base.
A source within the defence ministry informed the Cyprus Mail that Turkish F-16 flights from Tymbou had become particularly frequent in recent months.
Residents in Aglandjia and Pallouriotissa contacted the Cyprus Mail after seeing and hearing the fighter jets over the capital.
Similar reports have been received from Larnaca, however, the same source said there had been no confirmed Turkish F-16 flights over the area.
The ministry has itself also recorded an increase in Turkish fighter activity within the Nicosia Flight Information Region in recent days.
Turkey deployed some six F-16s to the north on March 9, accompanied by air defence systems, in response to Greece having stationed four F-16s at Andreas Papandreou air base in Paphos on March 2.
Roadworks on the section in front of the Paphos district administration building have been completed, Paphos municipality announced on Tuesday.
The area was also cleaned and tidied as part of the works. The road was reopened to traffic after final coordination and the necessary checks.
The occupational therapists’ association on Tuesday called on the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) and the health ministry to explain changes to plans for bringing occupational therapy into the general health scheme (Gesy).
The association said it had become aware of information suggesting that “parallel arrangements” and changes to key parts of the proposal had been made without prior notification.
It is seeking clarification on what information professionals are now being asked to consider and whether any new arrangements could affect the outcome of the consultation.
“Consultation cannot be conducted on moving ground,” association president Despina Kaimi said.
“When an institutional interlocutor is called upon to evaluate a proposal, its data cannot be changed without prior official notification,” she said.
The association said the integration of occupational therapy into Gesy had followed years of discussions involving two governments and successive political leaderships.
It said it submitted a detailed proposal to the HIO in March, accompanied by a technical memorandum and a technical and economic study.
Following a further request from the organisation, it said it prepared a counterproposal after committing significant scientific, financial and legal resources to reach a consensus.
The association said the HIO knew that its counterproposal was nearing completion when it became aware of new information concerning changes to the original proposal.
“On what exact data is the industry ultimately called upon to consult?” it asked.
Kaimi said the association had participated in the process “in good faith” and responded to requests from the organisation, while issues raised by the profession had been recognised as important during the discussions.
The association said the appearance of new elements at the final stage of the process had raised concerns over whether the consultation remained based on the same terms that had previously been discussed.
It also raised concerns over access to occupational therapy through Gesy, stressing that the principle of universal healthcare meant access should be based on documented therapeutic need and objective clinical criteria, rather than exceptions.
It further argued that the same rules should apply to all professionals legally practising the same regulated profession.
“We are not asking for preferential treatment. We are asking for equal rules for everyone,” it concluded.
Diko on Tuesday welcomed the introduction of a new applied learning stream in lyceums, while calling for parliamentary oversight to ensure its pilot implementation meets students’ needs.
The new programme, known as Direction 5b – Applied Learning in Commerce and Services – will be introduced on a pilot basis from September in one state lyceum in each district. It is designed to provide students with more practical skills and stronger links to the labour market.
House education committee chairman and Diko MP Chrysanthos Savvides described the initiative as one that could offer young people “more choices, practical knowledge and skills”, responding to the changing needs of the labour market.
“Our education system must continue to evolve and create different pathways for students according to their interests, abilities and goals,” he said.
At the same time, Savvides stressed that every educational reform should be implemented with careful planning, transparency and continuous evaluation to ensure it genuinely serves students’ interests.
He said he had registered the issue for discussion before the House education committee, where MPs will seek detailed briefings from the education ministry on the programme’s design, curriculum, criteria for selecting participating schools, teacher preparation, student participation and the methods that will be used to evaluate the pilot scheme.
Savvides also said it was important to ensure that the new stream remains an additional option rather than limiting students’ future educational or professional opportunities.
Under the programme, students will follow the existing core curriculum while selecting practical subjects focused on areas such as office administration, applied information technology, marketing and sales, health and wellbeing, green transition and applied biology, and applied technology and skills.
The programme also includes two-week work-related learning activities and training for more than 1,000 teachers.
The pilot will be introduced in five schools: Idalion Lyceum in Nicosia, Lanitio Lyceum in Limassol, Livadia Regional Lyceum in Larnaca, Paralimni Lyceum and Archbishop Makarios III Lyceum in Paphos, with the education ministry monitoring its implementation before any wider rollout.
A cultural diplomacy research office will be set up to serve as the scientific and research centre of the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts for matters of cultural diplomacy, international cultural relations and cultural policy, it announced on Tuesday.
Marios Ioannou Elia, who has been appointed head of the office, said the aim was to “link research to diplomacy, cultural creation to international networks, creating new opportunities of cooperation and Cypriot presence in the world”.
Elia told the Cyprus News Agency that cultural diplomacy is a field of knowledge, creation and international action.
According to the academy, the office will develop cooperation with academies of science, universities, research centres, cultural organisations and international agencies, and will closely cooperate with the presidency of the Republic, the foreign ministry, the deputy culture ministry and respective institutions abroad, with the aim of promoting cultural diplomacy and intercultural dialogue.
The office will carry out scientific studies and surveys, develop international cooperation and networks, organise conferences, lectures, exhibitions and cultural activities, publish scientific books and studies, and participate in European and international research programmes.
Through its work, the office aspires to contribute to showcasing Cyprus’ cultural heritage and contemporary intellectual and artistic creation.
A student with severe visual impairment was not shown to have been discriminated against during a University of Cyprus teaching placement, although the human rights commissioner on Tuesday said there was uncertainty over whether she was allowed to receive the necessary support.
The student was completing a programme for pre-school teachers and was accompanied on the placement by a person to help her due to her visual impairment.
The complainant said university supervisors stopped her companion from assisting her during lessons.
She argued that the assistance she was allowed to receive was not properly adapted to her disability and this made it markedly more difficult for her to complete the placement and ultimately affected her final grade.
Human Rights Commissioner Maria Stylianou-Lottides investigated the complaint and examined 24 assessment forms which criticised the student’s knowledge of lesson content, preparation, lesson planning, feedback to children and time management.
They did not, however, mention the occasions when her companion had tried to help and was stopped by supervisors.
Thus, the commissioner could not establish whether those incidents had affected the student’s marks.
The investigation also produced conflicting accounts of what happened.
Two university supervisors said they had stopped the companion because they believed she was doing more than she was allowed to do as a support person.
The mentor at the Tseri public preschool gave a different account, saying that no supervisor had intervened and that the placement had proceeded normally.
The commissioner also found that the mentor had failed to mention that two children in the classroom had disabilities and were accompanied by support persons.
The mentor had graded the student but could not recall the mark she had given her.
There was also disagreement over whether the student had told supervisors that her disability was making some activities difficult.
Lottides said the evidence was inconclusive, although the student had asked for more time to complete lessons, supporting her account that she had raised difficulties.
Despite the conflicting evidence, the commissioner said there was no way to establish that the student’s final assessment would have been different if her companion had been allowed to provide more assistance.
She therefore found that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the student had been discriminated against because of her disability.
However, Lottides recommended that the university take greater account of the student’s practical difficulties if she repeats the placement and consider reassessing her grades where possible.
She also called for compulsory training for university supervisors and preschool mentors on disability rights and the individual support that students with disabilities may require.
GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) 3.22 is now available and introduces new capabilities across the platform. Here are a few highlights in the 3.22 release:
Enterprise Teams, previously in public preview, is now generally available. Enterprise owners can use Enterprise Teams to manage users and their access across the entire enterprise, including organizations and repositories, from a single, centralized team structure. This reduces the operational overhead of managing user access across multiple organizations within an enterprise.
Security analysts can now sort secret scanning push protection bypass requests and secret scanning alert dismissal requests by date, in ascending or descending order, using the filter bar at the repository, organization, and enterprise levels. Previously, sort order for these requests could not be adjusted, which made it difficult for teams managing high volumes of requests to prioritize their review.
Repository rulesets now support bypassing by individual users. This gives administrators more granular control over rule bypass permissions, such as adding a service account to a bypass list without needing to create a dedicated role or team.
Organization owners and repository administrators can require specific reviewers for pull requests by adding a required reviewers rule to a repository ruleset, targeting specific branches, files, and folders using pattern matching, and can set the minimum number of required reviews per team. This rule works alongside CODEOWNERS and is particularly useful when changes need sign-off from teams beyond the code owners (e.g., security, QA, or design). For example, administrators can require a data platform team review on all *.sql changes, security team members on the default branch, or product and design reviewers on feature branches.
Developers can now see release status directly in the issue sidebar. When a linked pull request has been included in a release, the sidebar displays a “Latest release” or “Pre-release” badge, making it easy to tell whether a fix has shipped without leaving the issue.
Maintainers can now see contributor role labels, such as “First-time contributor,” “Contributor,” and “Member,” directly in the pull request list view for public repositories. This gives maintainers at-a-glance context about each author’s relationship to the repository without needing to open individual pull requests to check the comment box for this information.
Release candidates are a way for you to try the latest features early and help us gather feedback. Read more about the release candidate process. To learn more about GHES 3.22, check out the release notes, or download the 3.22 release candidate now.
If you have any feedback or questions about the release candidate, please contact our support team.
The post GitHub Enterprise Server 3.22 release candidate appeared first on The GitHub Blog.
This update brings persistent memory, local model access, and more enterprise controls to GitHub Copilot for JetBrains. It also improves everyday chat workflows and resolves reliability issues across MCP servers, terminals, customizations, and cloud agents.
Administrators have more server-based controls for managing GitHub Copilot across their organizations. These enterprise managed settings cover plugin availability, MCP server access, permission bypass behavior, and OpenTelemetry settings.
Read more about enterprise managed settings.
Copilot memory can now retain and recall useful information across agent chat sessions. This helps you maintain context between conversations instead of repeatedly providing the same project details or preferences.
You can manage the feature with the Copilot Memory toggle in the Copilot settings portal. For more information, see About Copilot memory.
You can now use Ollama as a BYOK provider in GitHub Copilot for JetBrains. The integration supports provider configuration and model selection throughout the JetBrains experience, giving you another way to work with models that fit your development environment.
Codex sessions are now visible in agent debug logs. Codex workflows also support updated permission modes and customizations through instructions and skills, helping you adapt agent behavior to your project.
GitHub Copilot for JetBrains can now automatically install Copilot CLI from integrated terminals on macOS, Linux, and Windows. This reduces setup steps and makes it easier to start using terminal-based agent workflows directly from your IDE.
This release improves common account, model, and agent interactions:
# references in Copilot, Claude, and Codex chat inputs.This release improves reliability for MCP execution and approvals, terminal output and auto-approval, customizations, cloud agents, and diff-based editing. It also fixes ANSI escape rendering and makes terminal scrollbars more predictable.
User-facing product strings now use “Copilot” instead of “Copilot CLI.”
Try the latest version of the GitHub Copilot plugin and share your feedback.
Your feedback drives improvements. We’d love to hear about your experience in the following channels:
The post Copilot memory and Ollama in GitHub Copilot for JetBrains appeared first on The GitHub Blog.
You can now convert your existing branch protection rules to repository rulesets directly from your repository settings. This helps you migrate to GitHub’s more flexible and scalable policy framework without manually recreating each rule.
As we continue investing in rulesets as the foundation for repository governance on GitHub, this tool makes it easy to bring your existing policies forward.
Navigate to Settings → Branches in your repository, find the classic rule under Branch protection rules, and click Convert to ruleset. GitHub maps your existing branch protection configuration including required reviews, status checks, and push restrictions into equivalent ruleset rules.
Rulesets offer several advantages over classic branch protections:
This feature is available for all repositories where rulesets are available. Learn more about repository rulesets.
Join the discussion within GitHub Community.
The post Automatically migrate branch protection rules to repository rulesets appeared first on The GitHub Blog.
With the launch of MAI-Code-1.1-Flash, we will deprecate MAI-Code-1-Flash across all GitHub Copilot experiences on September 10, 2026:
| Model | Deprecation date | Suggested alternative |
|---|---|---|
| MAI-Code-1-Flash | 9-10-2026 | MAI-Code-1.1-Flash |
Please update your workflows and integrations to use the new model before September 10. Copilot Enterprise administrators may need to enable access to the alternative model through their model policies in Copilot settings. As an administrator, you can verify availability by checking your individual Copilot settings and confirming that the policy is enabled for the specific model. Once enabled, you’ll see the model in the Copilot Chat model selector in VS Code and on github.com. No action is required to remove the older model once it has been deprecated.
GitHub Enterprise customers with questions or concerns are encouraged to reach out to their account manager for further assistance.
To learn more about the models available in Copilot, see our documentation on models and get started with Copilot today.
Join the GitHub Community to share your feedback.
The post Upcoming deprecation of MAI-Code-1-Flash appeared first on The GitHub Blog.
MAI-Code-1.1-Flash, Microsoft’s latest small-tier coding model, is now rolling out in GitHub Copilot. Building on MAI-Code-1-Flash, it adds native vision support for image understanding and delivers improvements across coding quality, instruction following, tool use, and performance.
Alongside these model enhancements, continued advances in model and serving efficiency have enabled a 73% lower list price than MAI-Code-1-Flash, making it a cost-effective option for lightweight coding workflows that require a balance of capability and cost efficiency. For annual GitHub Copilot subscribers, the model is charged at a 0.25× premium request multiplier.
Read the MAI-Code-1.1-Flash announcement for a deeper look at the model’s vision support, coding performance improvements, and efficiency gains.
This model is billed at provider list pricing under usage-based billing. See GitHub Copilot’s pricing for models and requests for details.
MAI-Code-1.1-Flash will be available to Copilot Free and Student users through auto model selection. Copilot Pro, Pro+, Max, Business, and Enterprise SKUs will be able to manually select this model in addition to having auto model select it.
You’ll be able to select the model in the model picker in:
Copilot Enterprise and Copilot Business plan administrators must enable the MAI-Code-1.1-Flash policy in Copilot settings. The policy is off by default.
To explore all models available in GitHub Copilot, see our documentation on models and get started with Copilot.
Share your feedback on this model in the GitHub Community Discussion.
The post MAI-Code-1.1-Flash available in GitHub Copilot appeared first on The GitHub Blog.
You can now see a per-model breakdown of the tokens behind your AI credits in the usage report. For each model, the AI usage report shows the input, output, cache read, and cache write tokens alongside the AI credits it consumed.
Before, the report showed AI credits without the token detail underneath them, so it was hard to explain a charge or find ways to bring it down. Now you can trace exactly how input, output, and cached tokens add up to each model’s cost, and share those details with your stakeholders.
The token breakdown is available to admins on Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise, and to anyone on Copilot for individuals.
To get the breakdown, download the AI usage report from the AI usage page in your billing settings. For more information, see Billing reports reference.
The post Per-model token breakdown in the usage report appeared first on The GitHub Blog.
I recently read Google’s post arguing that Go may be an ideal language for AI-assisted software engineering:
https://developers.googleblog.com/why-go-is-an-ideal-language-for-ai-assisted-software-engineering/
Their argument is that as coding agents generate more code, the bottleneck shifts from writing code to reviewing, validating and maintaining it.
And Go has some interesting properties in that context: strict typing, fast compiler feedback, gofmt, a relatively small language surface, and a standardized toolchain.
That made me curious about a slightly different question: does the same argument make Go more attractive for ML/AI engineering?
Python obviously dominates training, experimentation and most of the ML ecosystem. But a lot of production code around models is not really ML-specific: serving, APIs, orchestration, retrieval, feature services, queues, monitoring, infra, etc.
So for people here working with ML/AI systems: do you use Go alongside Python today?
If yes, what parts of the stack are written in Go, and where has it actually been a better choice than Python? If not, what keeps you on a Python-only stack?
And more broadly: have coding agents made you more willing to introduce Go into a Python-heavy ML stack than you would have been a few years ago?
I’ve been building ZATRANO, a Go web framework, and one thing I wanted from day one was a production-ready auth system out of the box.
Most Go examples stop at “login + JWT”. ZATRANO ships a much more complete identity layer:
The goal is to keep the developer experience simple while staying explicit and idiomatic to Go (no heavy magic container).
I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from Go developers:
GitHub: https://github.com/zatrano/framework
Docs: https://zatrano.com/docs
Happy to answer implementation questions.
| While this is a tad bit preaching to the choir, among all the AI noise, I enjoyed reading this grounded take. An excerpt:
The timing is perfect. Next time I need to clarify why I default to Go for everything these days, I can just send people this one. [link] [comments] |
I've been learning Go and backend engineering for a while, and I wanted something more structured than jumping between blog posts, videos and documentation.
So I started building a small learning platform for myself.
It started as a Markdown-based Go course and gradually turned into a much larger project.
The Go section currently has a 100+ chapter course covering everything from the basics through backend development.
Some of the things I've added around it:
The AI tutor is probably the part I'm most interested in experimenting with. Instead of asking it "explain goroutines", the idea is that it should figure out what I already understand and teach the next small concept.
The whole thing is still very much a work in progress.
I'd particularly like feedback from people who use Go professionally:
I built it mainly because I wanted this kind of environment for myself, but I've made it public in case it's useful to others.
I have to switch from Goland to VsCodium, what are the settings/plugins you use to make the experience similar?
(No paying tools & no AI tools, please)