Centre of European Politics. Why Sergey Lavrov and EU ministers arrived in Cyprus?
Cyprus became the centre of European politics. Representatives of all EU countries gathered in Nicosia to attend the meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
With Cyprus presidency in the EU getting over, the leaders gathered to discuss future developments. However, the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Lavrov has attracted much more interest in the political circles. His official Cyprus visit started on Thursday.
At the meeting with his colleague Ioannis Kasoulidis, Russian Foreign Minister noted that Moscow appreciates the position of Cyprus “which does not allow to be influenced by Russophobic sentiments, which European Union is trying to impose, and stands for overcoming the current challenging period in relations between the EU and the Russian Federation.”
As Lavrov has noted at the final press conference, Cyprus is a reliable partner of Russia and it is not just about the economic cooperation, but also about close cultural and religious ties between the two countries.
Police and volunteers’ search continues. New details regarding the Nicosia kidnapping case
The story of kidnapping of a four-year-old girl from a kindergarten in Nicosia got a new development this week.
As reported earlier, Marie-Eleni Grimsrud was abducted by men in masks and taken away. The main suspect of organization of the crime is the father of the girl, a Norwegian citizen who got into a conflict with his ex-wife.
On suspicion of involvement in kidnapping of the girl, Cyprus police arrested another suspect, who has kept Marie-Eleni’s picture and passport copy on her computer.
Whereabouts of the child is still unknown. Activists even created a Facebook group called “Help us bring her home”. Several thousands of users of the social network have already joined the search.
The newest Russian frigate dropped its anchor in Limassol Port
Admiral Essen frigate, being the newest ship in the Russian Navy and representing the Black Sea Fleet of Russian Federation is visiting Limassol.
The frigate is carrying ‘Caliber’ rockets onboard, the missiles, which were used to tackle the terrorist attacks in Syria.
In Limassol, the crew of the frigate replenished the supplies of water and fuel, as well as had a chance to rest and see the local sights.
Why Cyprus was not affected by cyberattacks?
Cyprus stayed unaffected during the most recent computer hacker attack. Police reported that there were no cybercrimes registered during this period.
Earlier, many countries around the globe, including Germany, Britain, the United States and Russia were targeted with simultaneous cyberattack. The computer virus affected the operations of computer systems of large companies and even government offices. In addition, several hospitals fell victims of computer hackers, and were forced to postpone planned operations.
Malware called WannaCry was the one causing the blockage of computers and entire network servers. The State Department of Information Technology of Cyprus has notified its departments and provided the instruction on how to avoid and handle the cyberattack.
In the meantime, regular users are advised not to open suspicious messages received by e-mail, as well as install the anti-virus programmes.