Nicosia - Island Talks

Decode Cyprus – Episode 5: Decoding the presidential campaign (2/10/2022)

Cypriot journalists Lefteris Adilinis and Esra Aygın provide an informative analysis on candidates and their strategies in the presidential elections of Republic of Cyprus, 2023. While former Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides continues to lead the polls; Andreas Mavrogiannis and Averof Neofithou, of AKEL and DISY respectively, trail behind. Other independent candidates are searching ways to unite their forces under a single candidate. We are fast approaching toward the end of 2022 and there seems to be a general belief that no candidate will secure enough votes to pull the plug in the first round.

Sesta – Episode 4: Constructing a culture of peace with Buffer Fringe: An interview with Ellada Evangelou (8/4/2022)

Sesta-embracing the colours of culture! In this fourth episode of Sesta, Meltem Burak talks to Dr Ellada Evangelou who is the Executive and Artistic Director of the Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival since 2019. Throughout the podcast, Ellada elaborates on the relationship between arts, culture and conflict transformation, and the role of Buffer Fringe in multifaceted peacebuilding. She explains how Buffer Fringe helps communities co-create and re-imagine the future in an inclusive way against the dominant, exclusionist, nationalist and patriarchal narratives in Cyprus. Buffer Fringe is currently looking for Cyprus-based or internationally based Cypriot artists to join the Festival which will run from 7 October to 9 October. If you have any creative ideas, you can apply to the Festival until 24 April from the link. More about the Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BufferFringe/ – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bufferfringe/

Sesta – Episode 2: Review of Andreas Karayan’s Dark Tales (6/2/2022)

Sesta-embracing the colours of culture! In this second episode of Sesta podcast, Meltem Burak reviews Andreas Karayan`s award-winning book Dark Tales. Andreas Karayan is an author, artist and critique from Nicosia. Dark Tales is the second book of Karayan`s literary autobiographical pentalogy in English. Dark Tales is a bildungsroman elaborating on the harmonised artistic and sexual self-realisations of the author. It was translated to English in 2014 by Irene Noel-Baker, and won the National Prize for Literature in the same year. Dark Tales was published by Armida Publications which is a Nicosia-based publication house specialising in Eastern Mediterranean literature.

Nicosia Uncut – Episode 20: EU Council conclusions, US-TR relations, carrots & sticks (27/3/2021)

Podcasting from both sides of the divide in Nicosia-Cyprus, Andromachi Sophocleous & Kemal Baykallı are producing the popular politics podcast - Nicosia Uncut. In this episode, they discuss the conclusions of the latest EU Council meeting and provide a background in the global and regional politics. While the new US Administration is trying to restore the American foreign policy around containing Russia, Turkish-American relations are likely to face various tests including the one in the East Med. Europeans are still lacking a coherent and unified foreign policy, a gap that might be filled by post-Trump USA. Cyprus, however, is still a chip in the bigger game. As the date for the informal 5+1 summit on Cyprus is fast approaching, Nicosia Uncut producers discuss various scenarios for the meeting that will take place between 27-29 April in Geneva.