Sunday, June 21, 2026
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| Summary | ⛅️ Mostly clear until night. |
|---|---|
| Temperature Range | 20°C to 28°C (67°F to 83°F) |
| Feels Like | Low: 72°F | High: 92°F |
| Humidity | 73% |
| Wind | 11 km/h (7 mph), Direction: 215° |
| Precipitation | Probability: 18%, Type: No precipitation expected |
| Sunrise / Sunset | 🌅 05:35 AM / 🌇 08:04 PM |
| Moon Phase | Waxing Crescent (24%) |
| Cloud Cover | 16% |
| Pressure | 1013.74 hPa |
| Dew Point | 66.82°F |
| Visibility | 6.17 miles |
Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas has defended Cyprus’ expanding network of military partnerships, insisting that the republic would not seek anyone’s approval over defence agreements and arguing that Turkey should instead focus on its own conduct and the continuing occupation of the island.
In an interview with The Cyprus Mail, Palmas reserved some of his strongest language for criticism directed at Cyprus’ growing defence ties and the signing of Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs), including the recently concluded agreement with France.
“The Republic of Cyprus is a recognised state and has every right to conclude agreements, develop relations and forge alliances with any member of the international community it considers appropriate,” he said.
“We will not ask anyone’s permission for the agreements we make, whether they concern the country’s political activity, defence or security. The security of our citizens is non-negotiable.”
Rejecting suggestions that closer ties with countries such as France, Greece, Israel and the United States could make Cyprus a target or provoke Turkey, Palmas said international cooperation was essential in the current geopolitical climate.
“The modern era is one in which states need synergies, friendly relations and cooperation with other countries in order to safeguard the prospects and future of their people,” he said.
He added that Ankara should engage in “self-criticism” over what he described as the illegal occupation of Cypriot territory.
“I would say that Turkey should address issues relating to the illegal occupation, for the past 52 years, of European Union land, and in this case that of the Republic of Cyprus,” he said.
Palmas argued that agreements such as SOFAs were only possible when underpinned by strong political relations, noting that France was both a strategic partner and one of the European Union’s leading member states.
SAFE and defence spending
Palmas also outlined how Cyprus intends to make use of the European Union’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) mechanism, through which the country has secured access to up to €1.18 billion in long-term loans.
He stressed that the facility consisted of borrowing rather than grants and said decisions on drawing down funds would continue to be taken jointly with the finance ministry in order to preserve fiscal stability.
“What this means is that every time we draw capital from SAFE to strengthen our defence and our defence industry, it will be reflected in the state’s public debt,” he said and stressed that the burden would not be transferred directly to the public.
Significantly, the minister underlined that Cyprus was under no obligation to utilise the entire amount approved by Brussels.
“We may draw €800 million, we may draw €700 million, or we may use the full amount,” he said.
The ministries of defence and finance have already received pre-approval for the drawing down of €170 million during the second half of 2026, with the first procurement orders expected before the end of the year.
While refusing to discuss individual weapons systems, Palmas also played down speculation surrounding the possible acquisition of Leopard tanks, saying there had been no substantive discussions between the governments concerned regarding such a transfer.
He said Cyprus’ priorities had been shaped by lessons from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Particular emphasis, he said, was being placed on drones, counter-drone capabilities, surveillance, the protection of critical infrastructure and strengthening air defences.
The acquisition of four Kentavros anti-drone systems forms part of that effort.
Upgrading key bases
The minister confirmed that the planned modernisation of the Andreas Papandreou air base in Paphos and the Evangelos Florakis naval base at Mari formed part of a broader strategy aimed at enhancing Cyprus’ operational capabilities and supporting humanitarian and crisis-management missions in the Eastern Mediterranean.
He added that the United States was playing a key role in plans for the air base upgrade and expressed hope that construction work could begin by spring 2027. France, meanwhile, has shown particular interest in the development of the Mari naval base.
According to Palmas, the upgraded facilities would also help Cyprus continue to act as a hub for humanitarian and evacuation operations.
“We decided that we need these kinds of modern facilities so that, despite being a small country, we can continue to play a substantial and high-level role in the region,” he said.
Nato membership remains aspiration
Palmas reiterated that the government’s strategic objective remained eventual membership of Nato,, provided political conditions permitted.
“The Republic of Cyprus is ready to become a member state of Nato, provided political conditions allow it,” he said.
However, speaking candidly, he acknowledged that Turkey’s opposition represented a major obstacle and said the government was realistic about the prospect.
For the time being, Cyprus was placing particular emphasis on strengthening the European Union’s strategic autonomy and expanding cooperation with partners contributing to regional stability.
Pushing Article 42.7
Palmas also shed light on Cyprus’ efforts to strengthen Article 42.7 of the EU treaty, the bloc’s mutual assistance clause.
He said the mechanism had effectively been tested “on a small scale” during the recent crisis involving Iran, even though Cyprus had not formally invoked it and responses had come from individual states rather than the EU itself.
According to the minister, President Nikos Christodoulides raised the issue during the summit hosted in Ayia Napa, highlighting the importance of solidarity among member states when security threats arise.
Palmas acknowledged that developing the mechanism further would require extensive discussion because many EU member states were also members of Nato.
“There are two parallel articles – the European Union article and the Nato article – which means that a great deal of work, discussion and a clear roadmap are required,” he said.
The minister argued that recent crises had exposed weaknesses in Europe’s security architecture and pointed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and instability in the Middle East as evidence that the EU needed stronger defence capabilities.
Building a domestic defence industry
Palmas said the development of a domestic defence industry had become a strategic priority for the government, with efforts focused on integrating Cypriot companies into European defence programmes and gradually creating a local production base.
He said initiatives such as the EU’s SAFE mechanism and the national Athena 2030+ programme were intended to strengthen cooperation between the public and private sectors and link innovation with production.
According to the minister, the long-term objective was not only to develop technologies but also to enable Cypriot companies to produce systems capable of meeting some of the National Guard’s operational requirements, thereby enhancing the autonomy and resilience of the country’s defence architecture.
But Palmas said the government’s ambitions extended beyond strengthening the armed forces.
He said Cyprus hoped to gradually develop a defence sector capable of contributing to economic growth and creating a new pillar of the economy.
“The defence ministry is traditionally seen as a ministry that only consumes and costs the state money. We want it to become a ministry that also returns money to the economy,” he said.
At the same time, Palmas stressed that the government would encourage the participation of local firms in European supply chains without interfering in commercial decisions.
Syops and women in the armed forces
Turning to personnel issues, Palmas said reforms aimed at improving the status of Syop contract soldiers were already under way.
He said the first 250 contract soldiers are expected to become permanent non-commissioned officers, with examination results due before the end of the month.
He acknowledged that the loss of experienced personnel could affect operational readiness and said the issue was being continuously monitored.
The minister also conceded that voluntary military service for women had failed to produce the expected response, following only one woman volunteering.
While describing the initiative as a positive step for gender equality, he admitted participation had been considerably lower than anticipated.
At the same time, he acknowledged longstanding grievances among female non-commissioned officers and said the government was examining ways to address inequalities inherited from previous years.
The reasons behind the removal of former bishop Tychikos were “neither superficial nor the result of personal conflict”, Archbishop Georgios said on Saturday after attending the first clergy meeting of the newly enthroned bishop of Paphos, Gregorios.
“There are certain things being circulated,” he said, adding that the decisions taken “were not superficial, nor were they due to personal conflict or financial considerations”.
The archbishop said he attended Gregorios’ first official clergy meeting not only to offer a greeting but also to address questions which had arisen following the recent changes in the Paphos bishopric.
Georgios said he would provide the new bishop with any assistance required and again rejected suggestions that financial issues played a role in the decision regarding Tychikos.
“The people of Paphos know me. If there were any financial mismanagement, it would be known,” he said.
Referring to the shortage of priests, the archbishop said the problem affected all metropolitan districts but was particularly acute in Paphos because of the large number of villages and communities in the district.
“Not every community can have its own priest,” he said.
Asked about Tychikos’ future, Georgios said there were no new developments.
“If he insists on remaining where he is, the matter will be reviewed by the Holy Synod, which will decide whether any further action is necessary,” he said.
For his part, Gregorios said said the gathering underscored the importance of cooperation among the clergy and described pastoral work as a shared responsibility.
He said the Paphos bishopric would continue the mission it began when Christianity was first preached in the district.
“The most precious thing we have is the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus,” he said, adding that ongoing disputes would not be allowed to overshadow the spiritual needs of the faithful.
The Paphos bishopric had effectively remained vacant since May 2025, when the Holy Synod voted to depose Tychikos over ecclesiastical disputes and alleged breaches of church protocol.
His removal sparked significant controversy. While church authorities cited unacceptable conduct and a physical altercation, Tychikos’ legal team argued that the decision was linked to disputes over the financial administration of the bishopric.
Police in Famagusta seized more than seven kilograms of narcotics on Saturday, including what they described as a large quantity of kief in a first for Cyprus.
The seizure followed a search of land belonging to a 49-year-old man in the Famagusta district.
During the operation, police arrested a 28-year-old man who was residing illegally in the Republic.
Officers discovered 6.37 kilograms of cannabis resin concealed inside a plastic toolbox, along with one kilogram of kief, a fine powder consisting of the resin glands of cannabis flowers.
Police said such a large quantity of kief had never before been detected in Cyprus.
Both the 49-year-old and the 28-year-old were arrested and are expected to appear before the Famagusta district court on Sunday.
Investigations are ongoing.
President Nikos Christodoulides met a bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers on Saturday, with discussions focusing on the growing strategic relationship between Cyprus and the United States, as well as regional and international developments.
According to a statement issued by deputy government spokesman Yiannis Antoniou, the meeting took place at the presidential palace and included US representatives Nathaniel Moran, Jim Costa, Brendan Boyle and Craig Goldman.
The US lawmakers were here as part of the 91st Transatlantic Legislators’ Dialogue which took place on June 19 and 20 in Nicosia.
During the meeting, both sides underlined the importance of further strengthening the upgraded bilateral relationship between Cyprus and the United States within the framework of the strategic dialogue between the two countries.
Christodoulides also referred to Cyprus’ efforts to deepen transatlantic ties, describing this as one of the key priorities of the country’s presidency of the Council of the European Union.
“Discussions focused on Cyprus-US cooperation in the fields of energy, investment, defence and security. The two sides also reviewed developments in the Cyprus problem, the situation in the Middle East, and a range of regional and international issues,” Antoniou said.
According to the statement, the visiting lawmakers also praised the role of the Republic of Cyprus in promoting security and stability in the wider region.
In a post on X following the meeting, President Christodoulides described the talks as a “great exchange” with a bipartisan delegation of US Congressmen on the “strong and ever-growing Cyprus-US strategic relationship, the enduring importance of the transatlantic partnership and developments in our region.”
The Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue is an interparliamentary meeting between members of the European Parliament and members of the US Congress which is typically held twice a year either in the US or in the capital of the European city currently holding the EU Council presidency.
The summer is expected to be hot and dry, accompanied by summer thunderstorms which appear not to be linked to climate change, met office spokesman Andreas Chrysanthou said on Saturday.
“These summer thunderstorms are a common occurrence, especially in mountainous areas,” he said.
Chrysanthou stressed that according to studies by the met department, weather instability was a common phenomenon in the region, particularly in the higher mountains and inland, where such instability traditionally occurs and may last until mid-July, while the hottest time of the year is expected from mid-July until mid-August.
“Any instability caused by the dry atmosphere is limited to that period,” he said.
He added that June is expected to come to a close with high temperatures following a particularly cool first half as temperatures are expected to reach an average of 37 degrees Celsius inland, ranking slightly above the seasonal average of 33 to 34 degrees.
“We’re 2–4 degrees above average in some cases. Nothing extreme. We’re wrapping up a very cool June, with plenty of summer showers in our mountainous regions,” he said.
Chrysanthou said that the cool June follows a patter of what he described as a “very good year” in hydrological terms that began in December 2025 and continued until today, stressing that the increased soil moisture was crucial for the prevention of forest fires.
“The rainfall acts as a deterrent both to the outbreak and the spread of wildfires,” he said.
He added that from now on, a dry and hot summer was expected, with temperatures expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius, particularly in inland areas, just as in previous years.
“There are no indications that things will be any different,” he said.
Regarding the weather forecast for the weekend, he said that temperatures are expected to rise, while rain is forecast for mountainous and some inland areas, particularly on Saturday, with unstable weather conditions expected to continue throughout Wednesday.
“Possibly in some inland areas, we will see some rain, and possibly some thunderstorms. This is especially true today, as well as on Monday and Tuesday,” he said.
He added that the weather is expected to be mostly clear from Wednesday onwards.
Raw and unrelenting, the documentary series Pleiades: Victims of the Serial Killer is a long-form investigative dive into the crimes of Nikos Metaxas, the first recorded serial killer in the history of Cyprus.
Directed by Andreas Sheittanis and Paris Prokopiou, the true crime project explores a dark chapter of the island. The idea originated after Prokopiou spent several months quietly gathering files on the Mitsero murders before discussing the concept with Sheittanis.
“We are both film directors,” Sheittanis notes. “We met when I came back from my studies in the UK and the first job I got was to be his assistant. Since then we have been friends. And the timing was perfect since both of us were out of a job when one day we were just talking and he said ‘look, I have been researching this case for about two months now and I’m thinking of doing something with it.’ I looked and because I love true crime stories I got hooked immediately. So this is how we began, from a conversation we had in 2022.”
The series tackles the horrifying case of Metaxas, a 35-year-old former National Guard oficer who, between September 2016 and July 2018, targeted, abducted and murdered five migrant women and two young children.
When Prokopiou approached Sheittanis with the project, the two filmakers were faced with a choice – either adapt it into a Hollywood-style drama or produce a remorseless documentary series. And even though the ultimate dream for most independent filmmakers is to write and direct that massive, big-budget feature, the two were fully aware that the medium must always serve the narrative and that in this case, this was what they should aim for.
“Fictionalising this story wouldn’t be as impactful,” Sheitanis explains. “Approaching it as a documentary, and having the actual people who went through this experience speak and tell their stories, is more true, more emotional, and more real. That’s why we decided to do it this way.”
Pleiades, the documentary’s title, is itself a somber tribute to the victims. In Greek mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas, transformed into a cluster of stars. In the context of the series, the name represents the seven lives extinguished by Metaxas in the shadows of an indifferent system. The documentary unfolds its story in linear fashion, each of its six episodes named after a victim (one episode has two names as a title) whose body was found at the exact point of the investigation that episode covers. It is not until the final episode the story breaks away from the narrative’s rule. The conclusion, titled Orion, invokes another constellation named after the supernaturally strong hunter from Greek mythology who claimed he would kill every animal on Earth, and focuses more on the serial killer himself.
To fully grasp the weight of Sheittanis and Prokopiou’s documentary an analysis of the true timeline of the Mitsero murders is needed. The case came to light entirely by accident on April 14, 2019 after a period of exceptionally heavy rainfall. Water levels rose in a disused, flooded mine shaft near the village of Mitsero when a group of Cypriots and Germans photographing the historic site spotted a naked, bound body floating near the surface of the shaft. The recovered remains were quickly identified as those of Mary Rose Tiburcio, a 38-year-old domestic worker from the Philippines. Tiburcio and her six-year-old daughter, Sierra Grace, had been officially reported missing by her roommate nearly a year earlier, on May 5, 2018.
When the mother first vanished, her friends actively petitioned police to track her phone data and investigate her sudden absence. However, they were largely dismissed, with officials operating under the institutional assumption that foreign domestic workers frequently break their employment contracts and migrate to the north.
The discovery of Tiburcio’s body initiated a massive homicide investigation that quickly centred on a digital profile. Investigators discovered that Tiburcio had been communicating via the online dating platform Badoo with a user using the pseudonym Orestes35. The digital trail led straight to Metaxas. Following his arrest in mid-April 2019, Metaxas initially refused to cooperate. However, once digital forensics linked his personal electronic devices to the victim’s accounts, his defence collapsed.
He eventually submitted a comprehensive, 10-page handwritten confession detailing a two-year campaign of abduction and premeditated murders. All in all, he confessed to killing five foreign women – women he initially met online – and two children.
The nightmare began in September 2016 with the murder of Livia Florentina Bunea, a 36-year-old mother from Romania, and her 8-year-old daughter, Elena Natalia. The deadly rampage continued throughout 2017 and 2018, with the killing of four Filipinas: Maricar Valtez Arquiola, Arian Palanas Lozano, Tiburcio and her daughter, as well as a Nepalese woman.
Over a period of three agonising months in 2019, emergency crews systematically combed the rust-colored waters of the Red Lake near Mitsero as well as Lake Memi near Xyliatos. The notoriously toxic Red Lake, a remnant of historic copper mining operations, presented unprecedented challenges for local recovery teams and international forensic experts, among them specialised divers deployed from Scotland Yard. Five bodies were found in the lakes and one buried at a military firing range, in addition to the initial body found in the mine.
Metaxas chillingly justified his killing of the young children to a shocked three-judge panel during his trial as a necessity. He claimed he had to strangle the young girls because he suspected their mothers were planning to exploit them. He said he wanted to “punish” the women and “free” the children. The court flatly rejected any notions of psychological mitigation, labeling his actions a cold, calculated campaign. In June 2019 he was sentenced to an unprecedented seven consecutive life sentences (each 25 years).
Pleiades does not merely rehash the grim mechanics of Metaxas’ crimes; it directly interrogates the structural complacency that permitted them to happen. The documentary highlights how immigrant rights activists and foreign community leaders had spent years warning that cases of missing migrant women were being entirely ignored by the Cyprus police.
When Bunea and her young daughter vanished in September 2016, friends provided concrete leads, but the reports were filed away without active follow-up. Had police accessed phone records, geolocated IP addresses, or cross-referenced dating app profiles back in 2016, the lives of the subsequent five victims could have been saved.
“From the very beginning, we decided that even though we’re huge true crime fans, we didn’t want to sensationalise the crimes or the serial killer or the case in general. We wanted to have a more humane approach to the story. So we never said that we were doing a documentary about ‘Orestis’ i.e. Nikos Metaxas. It was always going to be a documentary about the victims and related important topics.
“About how we see the domestic workers that work in our homes. Most of them live with us as if they were our family members but we know nothing about them. We know nothing about their families, husbands, kids, financial situation… Sometimes, we don’t even know their real names,” Sheittanis says.
From the very beginning, he points out, the killer was targeting this one very specific social group, knowing full well that it would give him an almost 100 per cent chance of literally getting away with a murder.
“So how much responsibility do we, as a society, have for this? If there was more support for these women would he have had the space and the ability to kill so many without anyone looking? Did we, as a society, create this target group for him? Because I can’t imagine that had those women been Cypriots, it would have taken so long for someone to look for them. You know and I know, the moment a Cypriot is missing, everybody is looking.”
The series is packed with interviews. The film makers gained unprecedented access to the police staff involved in the investigation, the crime scene videos and photos and individual testimonies. They met with one of the Cypriot men who discovered the first corpse and members of the fire services and divers who recovered the bodies. They travelled to the Phillipines, Nepal and Romania to talk to the families of the victims to better understand who they were and why they came to Cyprus.
They interviewed forensic experts, anthropologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, criminologists and lawyers. They even managed to persuade some members of the Metaxas family and his friends to share with them some details of his childhood and later life (Metaxas himself, Sheittanis says, was not interested in meeting them). They reached out to the foreign domestic workers community in Cyprus and experts and activists in the fields of gender equality and violence against women.
“Had we known how big this project was going to be, we probably wouldn’t have started,” Sheittanis admits. “We thought it would maybe take about a year and maybe we would make a feature film or a two-to-three episode series. But then as more doors were opening and one person led to another, it was growing and growing.”
The project was self-funded which meant the film makers spent all their savings on it, They acknowledge how very lucky and grateful they were to have so many friends and colleagues who trusted them and agreed to help them out.
“Most of them worked on this project with the agreement that they will get paid once they project gets sold. So I have a big Excel sheet. With all the names and all the times and everything. And next to it are the numbers that make me stay up all night,” he laughs.
The series, with English subtitles, premiered at Nicosia’s Pantheon Cinema on May 16 and 17 and was bought by two TV channels, ERT Greece and one in Poland. Those who watched it applauded. Unfortunatelly, at least until now, no Cypriot TV channel has indicated interest in showing it.
“We approached all our broadcasters as soon as we had the pilot ready but up to now to no avail. If nothing changes we will try to find a way to self-distribute online.But I think once it is shown in Greece the situation will change because it’s going to create more pressure for broadcasters here. Once it’s been shown there, people are bound to start asking questions like, ‘Why is it there but not here?’. Word of mouth will also make a difference.”
So what are the positive take aways for these two film makers who spent so much money and devoted years of their lives to making this series and have yet to find a commercial release that covers their outlay and rewards their dedication?
Sheittanis does not hesitate: “It was an unforgettable, life-changing experience. I’m glad I went through it and came out on the other side. We finished the project, regardless of whether we sell it. As an artist, I believe we all have this need to leave a legacy behind us, to create something that’s gonna have some significance. And I feel that with this documentary I’ve done my part.”
Three people were arrested during overnight police operations at nightclubs in the Famagusta district on Friday, including two for illegal employment offences and one for drug possession.
The operation was carried out on Friday night and continued until shortly after midnight on Saturday.
Police said a number of cars and motorcycles were stopped and inspected during the operation, leading to 12 traffic complaints for various offences.
At one of the nightclubs, officers identified and arrested two people for illegal employment. A third person was arrested for the unlawful possession and use of drugs.
The situation regarding the outbreak of the foot and mouth disease (FMD) remains stable, with vaccinations ongoing and no new cases detected, veterinary association chairman Demetris Epaminondas said on Saturday.
“All samples taken from Limassol and the most recent ones from Nicosia were negative,” he said.
Epaminondas announced that an island-wide surveillance campaign would be launched to determine antibody titres from the vaccines and establish whether the virus is present elsewhere.
Meanwhile he said that vaccinations were proceeding throughout the Republic and were expected to be completed by the end of August or early to mid-September.
Asked whether there was a shortage of vaccines, Epaminondas denied, stressing that supplies were sufficient to complete the current vaccination circle and that further vaccinations for pigs were currently underway.
Regarding the cullings, Epaminondas said that they had all been completed where necessary, except for the fat-tailed sheep and red cattle.
“At this time, the situation has stabilised,” he said.
Epaminondas added that the upcoming summer season would be another benefit, as the hot weather would reduce the virus’ ability to survive in the environment and thus reduce the risk of transmission.
“Combined with all the other measures being taken – namely, adherence to biosafety protocols, the vaccinations that have been administered, and the climatic conditions – this will certainly help stabilize the situation for a while and ensure we are ready for the fall,” he said.
When asked about efforts to replace culled animals, Epaminondas said that no organised efforts in this direction had been launched yet, noting that this is a matter being handled by the special scientific committee for the reconstruction and upgrading of the livestock sector.
“If we remain at these numbers, we may need to import a small amount from abroad, but again, it will be very small – and may even be avoided,” he concluded.
The deputy migration ministry on the occasion of World Refugee Day on Saturday reaffirmed its commitment to “an effective response to migration challenges”, stressing that the day served as a reminder of the international responsibility to protect those fleeing from war or serious human rights violations.
“The Republic of Cyprus remains steadfastly committed to a policy that combines, on the one hand, the protection of those who are truly entitled to it with the rule of law, and, on the other hand, responsibility and an effective response to migration challenges,” the deputy ministry said in a corresponding statement.
The ministry said that it aimed to strengthen relevant mechanisms, improve procedures and promote the timely examination of applications for international protection as per the Republic’s obligations, operational needs and public interest.
In its remarks, the ministry underlined the importance of the new European pact on migration and asylum which entered into force on June 12, describing it as a “significant institutional development” for the European Union.
“For the Republic of Cyprus, the new framework is directly linked to the need for meaningful European solidarity, a balanced sharing of responsibility, and effective procedures, particularly for Member States on the front lines of migratory pressures,” the ministry said.
Concluding its statement, the ministry highlighted its commitment to a “comprehensive asylum and migration policy”, grounded in international frameworks and with consideration given to public interest, legality and human dignity.
Deputy migration minister Nicholas Ioannides had earlier hailed the new EU migration pact as a “move from agreement to action”, saying it opened a new chapter for the bloc and described it as one of the major achievements secured during Cyprus’ EU council presidency.
“Effective returns are an indispensable part of a functioning migration and asylum system,” he said.
Live cameras and meteorological stations will be installed at organised beaches in the municipality of Paralimni-Deryneia as part of efforts to upgrade services for beachgoers, the municipality said on Saturday.
“Through this innovative application, bathers and visitors will have the opportunity to be informed live about the image of each beach from a distance, the weather conditions, the water temperature, as well as other useful information that will facilitate the planning of their excursion,” it said.
The municipality had recently been awarded with 18 Blue Flags for its beaches, the most of any municipality on the island.
Police on Friday arrested two men, aged 21 and 23, after seizing a total of 2.1 kilograms of opiates in Limassol.
According to the police, the 23 year old was stopped by police officers while walking on a street in Limassol on Friday afternoon.
A subsequent search of his bag later revealed two nylon packages containing a number of dried poppy pods of the plant Mykonos or Hypnophoros, with a total gross weight of 418 grams.
The police then searched the suspects home, where they found the 21-year-old, as well as a cardboard box containing eight nylon packages with dried poppy pods = with a total gross weight of one kilogram and 682 grams.
Both men were later rearrested pursuant to court warrants and taken into custody.
A 40-year-old man was remanded on Saturday in connection with a stabbing incident in Limassol which left another man seriously injured.
Police said they were informed of the incident at around 12.30am after a 45-year-old man was admitted to Limassol general hospital with serious injuries caused by a sharp object.
According to investigators, the 45-year-old received a phone call from the suspect, who invited him to his home to resolve personal differences.
When the 45-year-old arrived at the house accompanied by two relatives, the suspect allegedly attacked them with a knife, seriously injuring the 45-year-old.
The victim underwent surgery and remains in a serious condition.
Police investigations are ongoing.
Dimitris Vassiliou from Limassol has died in a motorcycle accident that occurred on the Limassol-Paphos highway on Saturday morning.
According to the police, the 29-year-old collided a minibus driven by a 57-year-old man at around 3.15am. Following the collision, he was taken to the hospital where doctors confirmed his death.
The 57-year-old minibus driver underwent breathalyser and drug tests, both of which returned negative results.
Investigations into the case are ongoing.
On Saturday, cloudy weather is expected, with a possibility of afternoon rain or storms, particularly in inland areas and higher mountain regions.
Temperatures will rise to 33 degrees Celsius inland, 28 degrees on the west coast, around 30 degrees in the remaining coastal areas and to 24 degrees in the higher mountains.
Light winds will blow at 3 to 4 Beaufort. The sea will be calm to slightly rough.
Tonight, there will be a temporary increase in low clouds, mainly in the west and north, while later there is a possibility of local light fog or mist formation.
Temperatures will drop to around 18 degrees Celsius inland, around 20 degrees on the coast and to 14 degrees in the higher mountains.
Winds will blow mainly northwest to northeast at 3 Beaufort. The sea will be calm to slightly rough.
On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, localised cloud cover is expected to produce isolated rain or thunderstorms, mainly in the higher mountains.
Temperatures will gradually rise until Monday and not change significantly until Tuesday.
Every corner of the island is set to enjoy the music this weekend as celebrations for World Music Day take place. Paphos Municipality joins in on the fun as it invites the public to enjoy a unique musical route through the city centre this Sunday.
The programme will begin at 4pm at the Municipal Garden, behind the Municipality, with the Vox Venus Equal Voices Choir and the Harp Ensemble of the Pafos Music School.
The Vox Venus Choir, the Girls’ Choir of the Music Schools of Paphos and Limassol, will present arrangements of Cypriot traditional songs, including Aspri mou Triantafyllitsa – Aspron Triantafyllo, Ayia Kotsini and Myrtia. The choir will be accompanied on piano by Ivelina Rouseva, piano teacher at the Paphos Music School, and conducted by Eleni Kyprianou.
The Harp Ensemble of the Pafos Music School will present, among others, The Waltz of Lost Dreams by Manos Hadjidakis, the traditional song To Yasemin, Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Passacaglia in G Minor by GF Handel, the traditional English song Greensleeves, and other works.
The musical route will then move to the Sleeping Eros Fountain, at Kostis Palamas Square, where at 5.30pm, in collaboration with the Alliance Française de Paphos, Ermina Kalogirou on vocals and Ilias Koutlis on guitar will present the musical afternoon From Paris with Love.
This is a musical journey through French song, featuring beloved melodies that have marked different eras. The programme includes classic and contemporary songs such as La Vie en Rose by Edith Piaf, Sous le Ciel de Paris, Je Veux by Zaz, and other well-known French chansons that highlight the romantic and timeless charm of French music.
The route continues at Ivi’s Maliotou Park, in front of the Municipal Art Gallery, at 6.30pm, with the music and storytelling performance The Cicada’s Apology, suitable for the whole family, featuring Alexis Goudas as narrator and the Quintus Ensemble.
Children and adults are welcome to bring their blankets and enjoy the performance in a relaxed and welcoming setting, seated on the grass under the shade of the park’s trees. It will be a special experience for the whole family, where music, storytelling and nature meet creatively.
Against the backdrop of the summer sunset of Paphos, at Dioikitiria Square, the musical route continues at 7.30pm with the Chara Miller Jazz Quintet, presenting a programme of well-known international and Greek songs through the distinctive sound of jazz.
The ensemble combines Greek and English jazz and Swing standards, as well as arrangements from various musical genres. It features Chara Miller on vocals, Emilios Patsalides on guitar, Kostas Challoumas on double bass, Giorgos Kylilis on drums and Mustafa Esenyel on keyboards.
World Music Day will conclude at 9pm at the Amphitheatre of the Historical Documentation Centre with Rumba Attack. On stage, Konstantinos Lyras and Memnon Arestis on guitars, together with Savvas Thomas on percussion and vocals, will present their distinctive sound, combining the fiery energy of flamenco-rumba with Mediterranean and Eastern influences.
World Music Day Paphos
Live music performances around the city centre. June 21. Municipal Garden, Kostis Palamas Square, Ivi’s Maliotou Park, Dioikitiria Square, Amphitheatre of the Historical Documentation Centre, Paphos. 4pm-9pm. Free admission. Tel: 26-822313
A drive by comment someone dropped set me up on the rabbit hole digging path. The comment was
sync.RWMutexis rarely the right choice, because it hurts writers more than it helps the readers.
How can this be true? In the past I would have just wondered for a day and then dropped it, but nowadays the barrier to entry for experimentation is extremely low. So, one fine Friday afternoon, I measured performance for sync.Mutex, sync.RWMutex and friends. The full blog post is at https://strebkov.dev/posts/shard-your-locks/ but the key takeaways:
sync.RWMutex is truly worse in practice than I expectedsync.Map is not the gold standardsync.Mutex scales backwards - add more threads, get less performanceThe winner? Sharded map (and the plain-old sync.Mutex per shard) .
The code and one-command sweep to see the results on your own hardware is at GitHub.
Is sync.RWMutex performance (or lack thereof) a common knowledge? I was surprised.
Hi everyone, how are you all managing non-sensitive runtime config these days?
From experience (9 years , but I’m very much new to Go, so please be kind to me), I’d assume one can similarly use 3rd party solutions such as AWS AppConfig, ApolloConfig, and so on for Go services.
So I’ve checked older posts as well to see if there’s a common way to go about it (found some that use Consul KV specifically for this.)
I was particularly looking for an approach where config files are managed in a git repo, and since I didn’t find one, I tried implementing my own: https://github.com/emyasa/tools-to-go/tree/main/realtime-config
- loads the config files from Git into Redis
- Redis publishes an event
- Client/s get notified and reload their config
I’m kinda happy with what I came up with, but can’t help but wonder if there’s already an established module that I should be using instead.
And now looking back (more than a year ago), I wouldn't have started it if I was trying to learn any other language.
something about the language and the `charm` stuff!
I'm looking for solutions for tail latency spikes in a Go trading system. Our gRPC calls to an order management service are synchronous, and then we await the execution response from NATS (which we migrated to from Kafka) to send the response back. Our migration has made P95s very good at 7-8 ms, but we are observing random P99 spikes with higher load and are completely out of ideas. Is there anything specific to Go, such as garbage collection settings or tricks, or any architectural patterns that you've used that help with making P99 latency more predictable in scenarios like this?
Open-source webhook gateway: durably captures inbound webhooks, immediately returns a 2xx response, then delivers events asynchronously with retries, dead-letter queues, fan-out, and replay support.
A few implementation details that may be interesting:
modernc.org/sqlite, so the entire application ships as a single static binary (CGO_ENABLED=0). PostgreSQL is available as an alternative backend through a shared Store interface.SELECT ... FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED, allowing multiple workers and instances to share the same queue safely.net/http with Go 1.22 routing). No web framework. Database migrations are embedded and applied automatically at startup.SIGTERM, the service stops claiming new work while allowing in-flight deliveries to finish using a context independent of the shutdown lifecycle.Repository: https://github.com/edaywalid/whook
Feedback, code reviews, and "you should have done X instead" comments are very welcome.
| submitted by /u/Charming_Skin_8549 [link] [comments] |
🚀 Zordon is a development environment orchestrator that combines ideas from Docker Compose and Terraform. It lets you provision and run multiple isolated environments while efficiently sharing dependencies across them.
A few things that make it different:
• ⚡ Low latency by design — no containers. Services and provisioning scripts run directly on the host, with DAG-based startup orchestration and fine-grained control over execution order.
• 📝 Expressive configuration with HCL — define services, provisioning steps, dependencies, and workflows using a familiar, declarative language that stays readable as environments grow in complexity.
• 🔌 MCP-first — Zordon exposes itself as an MCP server (zordon mcp), and every provisioning step or zordon command can be invoked through MCP, giving agents a native interface to your development workflows.
• 🧪 Designed for evaluations — agents work against actual local services, allowing them to write, execute, and iterate using end-to-end and integration tests instead of relying on mocked environments.
• 🛡️ Operational guardrails — agents don’t need unrestricted CLI access. By exposing only approved actions and scripts through Zordon, teams can enforce a golden path and reduce the risk of unsafe operations.
• ♻️ Efficient multi-environment workflows — spin up multiple environments in parallel while extracting and reusing shared dependencies instead of duplicating them for every setup.
• 📚 Documentation and examples — available at https://gofunc.pl/zordon
If Docker Compose manages containers and Terraform manages infrastructure, Zordon brings similar ideas to local development environments and agent-driven workflows.
GitHub: https://github.com/piotrkowalczuk/zordon
Docs: https://gofunc.pl/zordon
If you are using Go at scale and doing performance tracking, what does your continuous profiling stack look like?
I would love to hear about your environment and workflow.
I am also curious which profiles you keep turned on by default. Modern Go tooling has become a lot better, and keeping CPU, heap, and the flight recorder on continuously has minimal performance impact now.
Also, besides eyeballing the data, how do you analyze it? Do you have performance regression tests? Not talking about micro bench marks that run alongside unit tests - rather than tests that catch broad sprectrum perf regressions. What do they look like?
Mostly asking because I am trying to get a sense of the different ways people typically do this. No commercial purpose behind this. Maybe I will write a short blog post about the common workflows at best.
been playing with agents calling some backend stuff and the go side feels simple until you get to the “tool” part.
like the handler already exists, the openapi spec might already exist, but then you still need some extra layer so the agent can call only the right things, with auth, logs, rate limits, smaller responses, etc.
i keep ending up with random wrapper code around normal api endpoints.
anyone found a clean way to do this?
are people just writing the tool definitions manually, generating from openapi, using mcp, or not bothering with this yet?