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31. Foreign investors rush to meet deadline

Days before Cyprus’ Citizenship by Investment Programme is set to go offline, interior ministry officials and paralegals kicked things into high gear to handle the last batch of petitions by foreign investors before the programme ends on Sunday...

32. Fresh total lockdown out of the question for Cyprus govt

Finance minister Constantinos Petrides on Monday strongly refuted the possibility of Cyprus entering a second lockdown, such as the one it was plummeted into in March as a result of the outbreak of coronavirus....

33. Attorney General calls Auditor ‘to order’

Cypriot Attorney General George Savvides issued a stern warning on Saturday, calling to order the state’s auditor general over his insistence on examining specific golden passport case files linked to a casino project on the island...

34. MPs reject dissolution of parliament amid passports scandal

After officially electing AKEL MP Adamos Adamou as the new House President following the resignation of Demetris Syllouris amid intense backlash against his involvement in the recent golden passports scandal, MPs on Thursday debated on whether parliament should be dissolved making way for early elections, with the proposal eventually rejected with 26 votes in favour and 30 against....

35. Opposition turns up pressure over passports

Parliament in Cyprus is expected to debate proposals over the passport scandal, including whether a new law can force the government to hand over files to the auditor general as well as a freeze on pending applications allegedly being squeezed through before the disgraced scheme is set to go on hiatus...

36. Reynders: 'golden passport' schemes must be abolished

The EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders briefed the plenary of the European Parliament on Thursday on the Commission’s decision to initiate infringement proceedings against Cyprus and Malta in view of their ‘golden passports’ schemes which appear to be in violation of EU law....

37. President defends block on audit office

President Nicos Anastasiades invoked the Constitution during a televised interview, saying the job description of the auditor general, who is currently seeking information on foreign nationals linked to a casino project, does not authorize him to 'have a say in everything'...

38. EC: Cyprus, Malta golden passport schemes in violation of EU law

The European Commission launched infringement procedures against Cyprus and Malta on Tuesday in response to their ‘golden passport’ schemes, and allowed a two-month period for the countries to respond in writing to the Commission’s warning letter....

39. Police get to work on passport scandal

Cypriot police appear to have their plate full with three different probes into alleged corruption in the golden passport scheme, with investigators facing their biggest challenge by a shocking Al Jazeera video that dealt the fatal blow in the country’s Citizenship by Investment Programme...

40. Golden passports pushed forward in Commission agenda

After the Al Jazeera revelations, the Cyprus Investment Program is being pushed into the European Commission’s discussion agenda....

41. Cypriot minister has one regret over passports

Finance Minister Constantinos Petrides, who oversaw Cyprus' disgraced golden passport scheme while he was serving as interior minister, says he should have pushed harder to end the program much sooner...

42. Game plan to circumvent passport rules

Meme culture enthusiasts in Cyprus upped their game this week following a passport scandal reported by Al Jazeera, with catchphrases such as “this is Cyprus” and name dodging tricks seen in a secret video prompting media to spot five ways a lawyer could circumvent the system in the golden passport scheme...

43. Commission slams Cyprus over passports, mulls infringement procedures

The European Commission expressed “disbelief” over new revelations concerning Cyprus’ investment for citizenship scheme, saying that the body is looking into infringement procedures for Nicosia. ...

44. Cyprus suspends golden passport programme

The Republic of Cyprus announced unexpectedly on Tuesday that the current Citizenship by Investment Programme would be abolished, following an emergency Cabinet meeting a day after Al Jazeera published a secret video alleging corruption in the island’s golden passport scheme...

45. Al Jazeera strikes again at Cyprus Papers

Al Jazeera’s investigative unit struck again on Monday with new Cyprus Papers material, involving a report accompanied by a one-hour video depicting undercover reporters who visited Cyprus and posed as representatives of an imaginary ultrarich investor, Mr X, who was convicted for palm-greasing and money laundering, to ‘test’ whether local authorities would still be willing accept his hefty investment and provide him with Cypriot citizenship....

46. Cabinet approves revocation of seven citizenships

The Cabinet on Wednesday gave the green light for the initiation of the process for the revocation of Cypriot citizenship granted to seven persons through the Investment Program. ...

47. Bad blood continues over golden passports

A prolonged and bitter dispute between the interior minister and auditor general, over probing Cyprus’ golden passports scheme, was renewed this week following a mini report with details on a number of applications through citizenship by investment...

48. Police request for 'golden passports' documents from Parliament unconstitutional, lawyers say

Lawyers from whom Parliament requested advice after law enforcement officials said they would crack down on the Cyprus Papers whistleblower(s) said Parliament’s non-compliance with police requests for documents relating to the investment scheme is reasonable, as such a request is “not constitutionally legitimate”....

49. Passports under the watchful eye of the Commission

50. Politics turn ugly over Cyprus Papers

The main left party opposition in the Republic of Cyprus is firing back at the government, after reports emerged over threats and a confidential letter about Cypriot golden passports a decade earlier...

51. Golden passports scheme to remain as is

The citizenship-by-investment program will not be terminated, nor will it be suspended for a short period as a way of managing the crisis developing crisis, the government decided during its Tuesday morning coffee at the Presidential Palace. What was strongly tabled was that a potential freezing or termination of the investment program at this point in time would send a message that the government is acting in light of the Al Jazeera publications, and that by extension, that it accepts them....

52. Curtain rising for citizenship-by-investment program

The Presidency has before it four scenarios for dealing with the issue of purchased citizenships. The most likely possibility is that of suspending the investment program for a short period, as revealed by Kathimerini on Sunday....

53. House President calls for suspension of 'golden passports' scheme

House President Demetris Syllouris has formally suggested to President Nicos Anastasiades that the Cyprus citizenship-by-investment scheme is paused until decisions for its improvement or even complete termination are taken, and called for a meeting of party leaders to discuss the scheme that has recently attracted international attention after a document leak led to a series of articles and videos published by the media network Al Jazeera....

54. EU mulls legal action against Cyprus 'golden passports'

The foreign media network Al Jazeera, that has this week been publishing a series of articles and videos on the murky side of the Cyprus ‘golden passports’ program after it was leaked classified documents, reported that the European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders is looking into the possibility of legal action against Cyprus....

55. Cyprus police looking into Al Jazeera document leak

Cyprus law enforcement officials have been investigating since June 3 how the foreign media network Al Jazeera, that has this week published a series of articles and videos on the island’s citizenship-by-investment program, got hold of the leaked documents on which it built its exposé....

56. Cyprus gets tough on golden passports

A House emergency bill that could allow authorities to revoke dozens of Republic of Cyprus “golden passports” is said to eliminate grey areas that so far prevented the state from revoking ill-gotten investor citizenships...

57. Cyprus 'golden visa' scheme returns to spotlight

Cyprus’ controversial citizenship-by-investment scheme was thrust into the spotlight once again after the investigative journalism platform Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) published an in-depth report on the granting of a ‘golden passport’ to a senior member of the Saudi royal family and six of his family members....

58. Cyprus 'golden passports' scheme a laundering risk, says watchdog

A European money laundering watchdog has cautioned that a secretive investment-for-passports programme run by Cyprus was vulnerable to money laundering and fraught with risk...

59. Cyprus' plan to strip citizenship stalls in legal vacuum

A legal technicality has led Cyprus to temporarily halt a process to strip citizenship from 26 individuals who benefitted from a secretive passports-for-investment scheme, lawmakers said on Monday....

60. Interior Minister says all have a duty to preserve Cyprus’ hard-fought reputation

We all have a duty to preserve Cyprus’ good name, Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides said on Thursday, adding that it took a lot of effort to reinstate the country’s fame under adverse circumstances....