This week in history
rubbish still floating in the water, and a newly paved walkway subsiding, two months after storms which also caused the collapse of a lighthouse. Inaction by authorities prompted fears that tourists will be turned off by the scene – and raw sewage said to be still flowing into the harbour — with just weeks to go before the start of the holiday season.
This week in 2013, swine flu tests on samples sent to Turkey confirmed that a 57 year-old policeman who died in hospital had contracted the disease. The Health Ministry said in a statement that Dörtyol deputy inspector Kemal Öner Erüreten, a diabetic with chronic bronchitis and a gall bladder infection, had tested positive for the flu strain H1N1. It gave viral pneumonia as the cause of his death.
This week in 2008, reunification of Cyprus could have meant an extra 5,500 euros per household on the island, according to a report by the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO). It claimed a peace deal would mean an extra 510 million euros in trade to Turkey, plus an additional 316 million euros for tourism on the island. The annual boost to business would grow from 283 million euros in year one to 3.9 billion euros in year seven, suggested the PRIO.
This week in 1998, Greek Cypriot fury over plans to restore an historic Armenian monastery in the TRNC for future use as a hotel was challenged as cultural “disrespect” using heritage as a political tool. South Cyprus’s former United Nations representative, Soto Zackelos, protested to the UN SecretaryGeneral in the wake of a TRNC Council of Ministers decision on the 10th century Sourp Magar Monastery near Alevkayası.
On this very day, March 3, 1974, a Turkish Airlines DC10 crashed near Paris killing all 345 people on board. The plane was on a regular flight from Ankara to London via Paris. It came down just minutes after take-off. No-one was killed on the ground, although the forest was popular with walkers.
On March 7, 1965, state troopers and volunteer officers in the southern US state of Alabama broke up a demonstration of black and white civil rights protesters, (above) injuring at least 50 people. Since 1963, Selma had been the focus of civil rights activists attempting to register black voters in Dallas County, Alabama.