. Text and photographs: Nikki Dake Too much of the gracious traditional Cyprus hospitality has been lost over the decades, so it’s a joy to discover a place where the ‘kopiaste’ heritage still prevails; where the openhearted ‘join us for refreshment’ and ‘my house is your house’ elements are preserved in all their gentle generosity.
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Oil briefly topped $80 per barrel to hit its highest since October 2008, while gold neared record highs scored last week as a retreating dollar and anticipation of increased demand enticed investors. In soft commodities, the dollar's retreat to 14-month lows versus a basket of currencies saw ICE raw sugar futures set their sights on
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U.S. stock index futures rose on Tuesday after strong quarterly results from bellwethers Apple and Caterpillar pointed to a solid earnings season. Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) profits and sales streaked past Wall Street forecasts on Monday as sales of iPhones and Mac personal computers hit quarterly records, sending its shares to all-time highs after hours on
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Machinery maker Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N) posted stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings on Tuesday and raised its full-year forecast, saying it was seeing signs that a recovery may be under way. The news sent Caterpillar shares up 6 percent in trading before the market opened. The world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment and a closely watched
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Pfizer Inc reported higher third-quarter profit as aggressive cost-cutting helped offset the negative foreign exchange impact and declining sales of drugs, including those facing competition from cheaper generics. Despite slow growth of some newer drugs and declines for most of its established medicines, lower costs and job cuts allowed Pfizer to top Wall Street expectations
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U.S. producer prices dropped an unexpected 0.6 percent in September, mainly because of a 2.4 percent decline in energy prices, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. Analysts polled by Reuters had anticipated prices would remain unchanged after they rose an unrevised 1.7 percent in August. Prices paid at the farm and factory gate also fell
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New construction of U.S. homes rose by less than expected in September, held back by a plunge in ground-breaking activity for multi-family homes even as single family dwellings rebounded, according to a government report on Tuesday. The Commerce Department said housing starts rose 0.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 590,000 units, below
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The Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) and the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Commerce (TCCC) have announced a new initiative aiming at increasing economic activity across the UN-controlled buffer zone. A press release, issued today by the CCCI, notes that the business directory will gather the contact details of businesses in both communities interested
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Turkey must abandon its unyielding stance in order to pave the way for the solution of the Cyprus problem and the reunification of the country, House President Marios Garoyian has stressed. Garoyian had a brief meeting Tuesday morning with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in the presence of President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris
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Greece's new finance minister promised radical measures on Tuesday to cut the country's ballooning budget deficit and fix its statistical reporting, which has been harshly criticised by the European Union. George Papaconstantinou, whose Socialists won a general election this month, said he would bring Greece's budget deficit into single digits in 2010 from this year's
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