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Reports say Samantha Fox to perform in the north

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EIGHTIES pop icon Samantha Fox is scheduled to go to the north hoping to “tear down the embargo” according to Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris.

Fox, who was famous for posing topless in the Sun newspaper at the age of 16, is hoping to sing at a concert during the celebrations for Ramadan at the Malpas Hotel in Ayios Epiktitos.

It is not the first time a prominent artist has planned a concert in the north though and Fox should be prepared to face the fury of Greek Cypriots who managed to get Jennifer Lopez to cancel a scheduled concert there in 2010.

“Jennifer Lopez would never knowingly support any state, country, institution or regime that was associated with any form of human rights abuse,” the statement said. Julio Iglesias claimed to have also been ‘duped’ into performing in the north before pulling out on the grounds that the territory was “illegal”, according to a statement at the time.

Fox signed her first record deal at the age of 15 but followed a route into modelling, propelling her into the public eye in the early eighties. She gave up modelling at the age of 20 to concentrate on her music career and released her first single in 1986 named ‘Touch Me’. It reached number 3 in the UK charts. She has currently sold over 30 million records worldwide.

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Shacolas declares new opening hours a success

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Large retailer says extended hours give shoppers more flexibility

 

By Maria Gregoriou

LEADING retailer Nicos Shacolas said yesterday that extended opening hours, and Sunday openings had improved business and given consumers more flexibility.

In a written statement, Shacolas, whose business group includes Debenhams, Next, Peacocks, IKEA and the Mall of Cyprus, said the government’s decision to extend opening hours as a means of helping the sluggish economy, had been the correct one.

The labour ministry issued a decree on July 9 for shops outside tourist areas to stay open until 10pm on week days and from 9am until 9pm on Sundays.

According to Shacolas’ statement, on the first Sunday when shops stayed open – July 14 – there was a vast amount of buying being done all over the island.

“This was even seen in Nicosia, from where a large section of the population goes to the seaside or to mountains over the weekend,” he said.

Shacolas referred to satisfactory revenue made by the group, especially at the Mall of Cyprus and IKEA through the extended hours.

“Certainly in the future results will be better as many small, medium and large businesses did not have the time to organise the opening of their stores on the first Sunday,” Shacolas said.

“All this will generate revenue for the state by extending the exchange of money by one extra day, significantly reducing unemployment by creating jobs to cover the extra working hours,” he added.

He also said the Shacolas Group had recruited a large number of unemployed individuals who were currently being trained.

“The group estimates that 60 per cent of workers in stores on Sundays will be new recruits. This includes young people who seek employment during the summer. Priority will be given to people who speak Greek,” the statement added.

Apart from staff to be employed within the stores, the Group will also hire extra guards, cleaners and maintenance workers, Shacolas said, adding that the decree would also lead to a reduction in prices.

Income from tourism would also increas.

“These new shop opening hours will serve thousands of tourists throughout the island and enable them to spend more,” he said.

Pointing to data from Europe, Shacolas said that in many European countries where shops are open on Sundays, the weekend turnover was greater than that of other days during the week.

“Statistically, 50 per cent of consumers who live in countries with this kind of shopping timetable,take the opportunity to shop on Sundays,” he said.

Commenting on the rights of workers, he said the news hours should not impinge on them, adding that the authorities would be performing systematic checks, and that workers had the right to report any violations.

He said it was only a matter of time before the new opening hours were accepted by everyone.

Small shopkeepers union POVEK has said the new opening hours would not bring about the desired results of “rejuvenating the market and supporting employment”.

Rather, it was large businesses and owners of malls and chains that would benefit at the expense of small businesses, said the union.

“In practice, implementing this decision will close down businesses, increase unemployment and will not help the real economy,” POVEK said.

Major trade union PEO also criticised the move, saying it would hurt workers who would be pushed into working irregular hours. Personal and family lives would become unsettled by implementing the decision which would mostly affect women, who tend to be employed in the retail sectors, said the union.

 

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Egypt’s army raises pressure on Islamists with call for rallies

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Opponents of ousted Egyptian President Morsi in a rally

By Asma Alsharif and Tom Perry

EGYPT’S military chief called for mass rallies on Friday to give him a mandate to tackle violence that has surged following the overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, ramping up pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood.

General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who deposed Mursi on July 3 and installed an interim administration in the wake of huge street protests, said on Wednesday he did not want more bloodshed and urged national reconciliation.

But Mursi’s Brotherhood, which accuses Sisi of leading a coup, said the call for nationwide demonstrations raised the spectre of a military crackdown, and warned of possible civil war. Underscoring the potential for trouble, Mursi’s backers announced plans for 34 marches in and around Cairo on Friday.

Speaking after days of sporadic street clashes that have left more than 100 dead, Sisi said ordinary Egyptians should rally to strengthen the hand of the army and police.

“I request that all Egyptians next Friday … go down (into the street) to give me a mandate and an order to confront possible violence and terrorism,” he told a military graduation ceremony in remarks broadcast live by state media.

Citing the “current situation”, the United States said President Barack Obama had decided to delay delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to the Egyptian army, signalling deepening concern in the West over the course taken by the Arab world’s most populous country.

Crowds on the streets have played a crucial role in Egypt’s faltering transition to democracy, triggering the downfall of US-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011, forcing concessions from the generals who took power from him, and then rallying on June 30 to denounce Mursi’s troubled first year in office.

Since the fall of Mubarak as the Arab Spring revolutions took hold more than two years ago, Egypt has been in turmoil, raising concern among allies in the West and in neighbouring Israel, with which Egypt has had a peace treaty since 1979.

Brotherhood supporters have also taken their woes onto Egypt’s sun-baked streets, setting up a round-the-clock vigil in northeast Cairo, close to key military installations.

“This is an invitation to civil war and the spilling of the people’s blood in the streets,” the Brotherhood said in a statement published on Facebook, denouncing Sisi as head of a “military dictatorship”.

Sisi’s speech followed an overnight bomb attack on a police station in Mansoura, 110 km (68 miles) north of Cairo, that killed one person and wounded two dozen others. A government spokesman condemned it as a terrorist attack.

Two soldiers were also killed in attacks by militants in the lawless North Sinai region shortly after Sisi spoke, security sources said, while state television said three “terrorists” had died in a car bomb near a police training centre in the area. Twenty-four people were reported hurt in clashes in the Nile delta cities of Damietta and Menoufiya.

In overnight bloodshed in Cairo, two people were killed and 23 wounded when a march of Mursi supporters came under fire, security sources said. It was the latest in a line of assaults targeting Islamists.

“We think that after what Sisi has said, there will be violence on Friday. He is encouraging thugs to come and attack our peaceful protest,” said Mohammed Hamdi, 24, an engineering student attending the Brotherhood’s Cairo vigil.

“We have no guns and don’t want violence. We will keep protesting the bloody military coup,” he said.

The authorities have accused the Brotherhood of inciting trouble and Mursi supporters of using weapons.

The army has denied orchestrating a coup, and Sisi, wearing dark glasses and full of confidence, rejected on Wednesday accusations he had betrayed Mursi, who has been held at an undisclosed location since being shunted from power.

Sisi said he would stick to a political roadmap drawn up by the military that envisions fresh parliamentary elections within about six months. The Brotherhood has said there can be no political reconciliation until Mursi is restored to power.

“The coming elections will be decisive. If you have real weight and public opinion supports your movement, then that will be reflected in the coming vote,” he said, wearing full military uniform.

Many ordinary Egyptians say they are tired of the constant tensions, which have kept tourists away, and some people openly welcomed Sisi’s announcement on Wednesday.

“Thank God! We were wondering when the army would make its move and release us from this chaos and horror the Brotherhood is causing,” said Ahmed Mohamed, a 76-year-old pensioner, in central Cairo.

State news agency Mena said the interior ministry planned “unprecedented security” to protect the Friday rallies.

The Tamarud (Rebel) youth group, which earlier this year launched the campaign to unseat Mursi, accusing him of partisanship and mismanagement, said on Facebook that it was throwing its weight behind a fresh round of demonstrations.

“We call all the great Egyptian people to gather in the squares of Egypt this Friday and to call officially for the prosecution of Mohamed Mursi and to support the Egyptian armed forces in its coming war on terrorism,” the movement wrote.

Yasser El-Shimy, an Egypt expert at the International Crisis Group, said escalating tensions jeopardised the prospects for establishing political stability.

“Both the authorities and the Muslim Brotherhood should recognise the urgency of negotiating a compromise out of this ever-escalating impasse,” he said.

 

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New-born royal baby named George Alexander Louis

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William and Kate with the new baby on the hospital steps Tuesday night

 

PRINCE William and Kate have named their new-born baby boy, George Alexander Louis, William’s office said on Wednesday. The baby is Britain’s third-in-line to the throne.

Kate gave birth to a baby boy weighing 8 lbs 6 oz (3.8 kg) on Monday, announced officially via a notice pinned to an easel outside of Buckingham Palace.

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At least 35 killed as train derails in Spain

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Rescue workers pull victims from train crash near Santiago de Compostela

 

By Miguel Vidal

The Spanish government’s main working hypothesis concerning the derailment of a train killing over 30 people in the northern region of Galicia is that it was an accident, a government spokeswoman told Reuters.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was due to visit the site of the derailment, on the outskirts of the city of Santiago de Compostela on Thursday morning, the Spanish government spokeswoman also said.

“Rajoy is in an emergency meeting with the deputy prime minister, the interior minister and the public works minister,” she said. “He will visit the site tomorrow morning

At least 35 people were killed and 50 injured when a train derailed on the outskirts of the northern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela on Wednesday in one of the country’s worst rail disasters.

Bodies covered in blankets lay next to carriages as smoke billowed from the wreckage a few hundred metres away from the entrance to the city’s main station.

The train derailed on the eve of the ancient city’s main Christian festival when thousands of pilgrims travel in to pack the streets.

“It was going so quickly … It seems that on a curve the train started to twist, and the wagons piled up one on top of the other,” passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station.

“A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realised the train was burning … I was in the second wagon and there was fire … I saw corpses,” he added.

Another witness told the radio station she had heard an explosion before seeing the derailed train.

A spokesman for the regional government’s office described the derailment as an accident. But the wreckage will stir memories of 2004′s Madrid train bombing, carried out by Islamists, that killed 191 people.

“We can confirm there was an accident, but we cannot confirm mortalities as yet,” the official told Reuters.

The head of the surrounding Galicia region, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said at least 35 people had died and it was too early to say what had caused the derailment.

The crash happened a day before the city’s main festival paying tribute to the remains of St James, one of Jesus’ 12 disciples.

The apostle’s shrine in the city is the destination of the famous El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, followed by Christians since the Middle Ages.

The city is also the birthplace of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

No one was immediately available to comment from Spanish train operator Renfe whose logo was visible on the wrecked carriages.

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Another bomb hoax at parliament

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ANOTHER bomb hoax led to the evacuation of parliament again at 9.45am on Thursday. Police spokesman Andreas Angelides said the bomb threat was called in to police, leading to the immediate evacuation of the parliament building in Nicosia.

A subsequent search by bomb experts concluded that the threat was a hoax.

Earlier this month, on July 11, a bomb threat at parliament, called in while the plenum was in session, also turned out to be a hoax.

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Stolen cash register worth more than its contents

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Thieves stole the cash register worth €500 from a tavern in the village of Tsada in Paphos on Wednesday night, police said. The incident was reported by the tavern owner after he noticed the front door of his establishment had been broken down.. According to the owner, the till only had €80 in it.

Officers from Stroumbi police station visited the scene and took evidence. Investigations are ongoing.

 

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First results indicate solider may not have TB

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Tests will continue on Friday , the NG said

 

INITIAL examinations would appear to rule out the possibility of a case of tuberculosis in the National Guard, its health department said, following investigations carried out at Limassol boot camp (KEN).

On Wednesday investigations were under way to establish whether a new conscript had contracted tuberculosis but findings yesterday indicated it was most likely not the case according to the National Guard’s health department head Christos Kyprianou. He said that the soldier would undergo more extensive examinations to confirm he was not suffering from the infectious disease.

“The laboratory analysis was negative which indicates that any disease the soldier might be carrying is not contagious but we are still investigating the case,” he told the state broadcaster.

He explained that following medical screening that all new conscripts go through it was found that the soldier showed initial signs of having the disease and was taken to Limassol general hospital for precautionary measures and so tests could be carried out.

“Tests will continue on Friday with which we hope to conclude the first stage of examinations which will give us a clearer idea of what we are dealing with,” Kyprianou said.

 

 

 

 

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Paphos police investigate case of domestic abuse

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POLICE are investigating a case of domestic violence after a 25-year-old Bulgarian woman in Paphos visited a medical centre on Wednesday night having suffered a facial injury.

The woman who lives with her 26-year-old husband, of the same nationality, in a village in the Paphos district visited a medical centre around at 8.30pm in Polis Chrysochous where doctors established she had suffered severe bruising to the face and reported it to police.

After being questioned, she told officers that her husband had punched her in the face the previous Sunday. Police asked she be transferred to Paphos general hospital so a state doctor could examine her. She received first aid and was later released. Her husband was arrested while police investigate a case of domestic violence.

 

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Deposits fell 7.6 per cent in June

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Money is still flowing out of the banks

 

CONSUMERS and companies withdrew deposits from banks in Cyprus in June, where big account holders in the two largest lenders were forced to take a hit as part of an international bailout.

Private-sector deposits fell by 7.6 per cent to €37.6 billion after a roughly 2.0 per cent fall in May, European Central Bank data showed on Thursday.

Capital controls are still in place on the island, with limits on how much people can transfer from their accounts. Cyprus is gradually easing the controls.

The data showed that deposits in another southern European country mired in the debt crisis remained relatively stable.

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Sarris: we fought to the point of tears

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Michalis Sarris testifies at the inquiry

 

By Poly Pantelides

THE FORMER government’s delay in agreeing to an international bailout and the rejection of an original bailout proposal for Cyprus in March, sealed the fate of the now defunct Laiki, an inquiry heard on Thursday.

Laiki’s systemic importance as the island’s second biggest bank, its massive liquidity problems and “problematic Greek portfolio” endangered the banking sector as a whole, Michalis Sarris told the inquiry into the economy’s near collapse.

Sarris served the current government as finance minister during the March banking crisis. Previously he had headed Laiki.  He took over as non-executive chairman for the bank in January 2012, until he was ousted in August that year by the recently-appointed Central Bank governor after the state took over control of the bank.  He resigned as finance minister in April in the wake of fallout from the bail-in in March and because the inquiry would be looking into his time as Laiki chairman.

“We fought to the point of tears,” Sarris said of the Eurogoup meetings that ended in the unprecedented  bail-in for depositors. He said there were no friends to be found during the Eurogroup meetings.

In the end, Cyprus had to agree to shut down Laiki and restructure its biggest bank, the Bank of Cyprus, forcing major losses for the depositors of those banks.

Laiki lost €3.5 billion from a writedown on Greek sovereign debt. It also posted a €4.1 billion loss in 2011, partly because the new board had realised had realised the risks and damage from the bank’s Greek exposure were “much worse than the official bank data”.

But despite knocking on doors and visiting Greece’s then prime-minister, Lucas Papademos, as well as Greece’s Central Bank governor, Sarris failed to convince them to take on Laiki’s Greek branches on a package of some €50 billion the eurozone had agreed would go towards alleviating the impact of Greek banks’ losses during a Greek sovereign debt write-down.

“We argued that as a bank we had a strong presence in Greece and in Greek lending and we should also be part of a similar treatment.” Eurozone and IMF brass also said they would not help Cyprus’ banks directly unless the government took austerity measures to control its deteriorating finances, Sarris said. But as long as Laiki had a presence in Greece, there could be little interest from investors, Sarris said. Eventually, the state was forced to bail out the bank in May last year to the tune of €1.8 billion, acquiring 84 per cent of the bank.

In the run-up to Laiki’s state bailout, Sarris was one of the people assessing the real damage the bank had incurred from a massive expansion in Greece. Former Laiki bank strongman Andreas Vgenopoulos was forced to leave in November 2011, and other executives and board members followed suit. A new leadership started assessing the situation at hand, with the help of forensic experts. Laiki’s balance sheets for example showed in 2010 some €200 million in non-performing loans related to the Greek portfolio, but “recognising that the Greek portfolio was very problematic,” the new management set the 2011 figure at €1.6 billion, Sarris said.

There was a lack of “the necessary objectivity and courage” evident in the figures previously released by the bank, which the newly appointed Laiki board tried to correct, Sarris said.

There were also questions raised over some €600 million that Laiki lent to Vgenopoulos’ Greek investment company, Marfin Investment Group and questions about “the great risks and strange ways” in which lending took place in Greece, Sarris said. He was warned by the inquiry’s head, Giorgos Pikis, not to elaborate since the committee has decided not to touch matters relating to criminal investigations.

“A healthy bank needs a strong board that can ask difficult questions,” he said. When executives dominate the board or when there is no clear distinction between board and executives you have a “recipe for disaster,” he said. Internal checks within a bank fall apart and the Central Bank’s supervision becomes more important, Sarris said. But he added steps the Central Bank would take to control bank lending were deemed as interference with the then-booming property market and “infuriated businesspeople”.

Nonetheless, the prevailing belief was that the bank’s serious problems “could be handled,” Sarris said. This, despite a May 2012 statement by then President Demetris Christofias during an official visit to Vienna which spooked investors who heard from Cyprus’ head of state, the island was trying to help a non-viable major local bank.

But that faith relied on the belief a memorandum would be signed “soon” in 2012, Sarris said.

Despite the delay, during which Laiki amassed over€9 billion in emergency liquidity assistance – over half of the country’s GDP –  an original eurozone agreement in March was better if unpalatable, of spreading out a bail-in or haircut across all deposits – insured or not – in all local banks, Sarris said.

The former World Bank director, a man with a reputation for being sensible and cautious, had to dive right into negotiating a bailout amid foreign press reports “assumed to have been leaked by the IMF or the eurozone” of a potential bail-in.

 

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Ayia Napa: cheaper than some destinations but far from the cheapest

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Prices are lowers than some destinations but they have still risen since last year

 

AYIA Napa ranks in the middle of a list produced by the UK Post Office as regards the cost of 12 holiday essentials this summer in ten of the most popular European resorts for Britons.

The yearly survey compares the prices of products and services such as suncream, a three-course meal for a family of four, a glass of wine and a pedalo ride.

The total cost in Ayia Napa would be £98.46, amounting, a 5.5 per cent increase in comparison to the summer of 2012.

Corfu had a cost of £99.91, Crete £107.75, Bournemouth in England £139.28 and Sorrento in Italy £176.

Sixteen of Britons’ favourite destinations were found to be more expensive than Ayia Napa.

In all destinations prices had increased since last summer, with the exception of Crete. The Greek island has dropped its prices by 18.8 per cent, more than any other rival destination.

On the other hand, the cost of the 12 products and services was lower than Ayia Napa in Marmaris in Turkey (£96.57), Algarve in Portugal (£96.27), Spain’s Mallorca (£91.02) and Costa del Sol (£77.68) and Bulgaria’s Sunny Beach (£76.35).

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Bolt wants to inspire fans weary of doping

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Jamaica's Bolt and Britain's Dasaolu visit the Shard ahead of the Sainsbury's Anniversary Games in London

By Mitch Phillips
USAIN Bolt rocked his huge frame back into his too-small chair, wrapped his arms behind his head and prepared to deliver his well-worn defence after another bombardment of doping-related questions at his news conference on Thursday.
Ahead of his return to London for this weekend’s Diamond League meeting the script was supposed to be all about his happy memories from 12 months ago when the Jamaican lit up the Olympic stadium with another superlative triple gold medal performance in front of 80,000 dazzled fans.
Yet the number one topic was the recent positive dope tests on his fellow Jamaicans Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson as well as that of American Tyson Gay, leading one journalist to ask Bolt if the public could trust the fastest man in history.
“How long have you been following Usain Bolt – maybe since 2008?” he said.
“If you’d been following me from 2002 you would know I’ve been doing phenomenal things since I was 15.
“I was the youngest person to win the world juniors at 15, I set a world youth junior record at 17, I’ve broken records in every race I’ve ever done so I’ve proven myself. You could say I’m underperforming right now!
“I was made to inspire people and to run I was given a gift and that’s what I do. I’m going to continue running and using my talent and help the sport.”
Bolt is long used to his role as his sport’s beacon of hope and with every failed test his position becomes more important to athletics’ credibility.
Next month he will race the world championships in Moscow where his main rival is likely to be American Justin Gatlin, a twice-convicted doper now back in the big time.
Powell and Gay, the fastest man in the world this year, will be watching from afar and working on their defence that their failed tests were the result of inadvertently taking contaminated supplements.
Bolt was cagey when asked about the latest batch of positive tests and though he stopped short of condemning his rivals, he did issue a reminder of the principle that every athlete is responsible for what they put into their body.
“I think there are a lot of details that are still to be discussed, a lot of things that haven’t been said so I’m just waiting to see what happens,” he said.
“In life things happen and people make mistakes but as an athlete you have to be very careful and aware, it’s hard but that’s why you have a team to have to help you out with these things.”
Powell was said to be on an incredible regime of 19 supplements, including some injectable, but Bolt, who said he had spoken to his compatriot and told him to “stay strong” said he trod a far safer path.
“I have vitamins that I take, every athlete does, but I don’t really take supplements,” he said.
“I work hard every day go out with one focus and don’t worry about other athletes.
“I’m not going to stress about it (doping). I know I am clean and I just want to improve the sport and that is what I am going to do.
“Definitely it’s going to set us back a little bit but I can’t focus on this I still have the worlds ahead of me and everyone is stepping up their game.”
Bolt will run the 100metres on Friday in the final event of the night (20.48GMT) and return on Saturday as part of a Jamaican 4x100m relay squad.
His best time of the year so far is 9.94seconds – pedestrian alongside his 2009 world record of 9.58 – but he has looked sharper over 200m where his 19.73 is world-leading.
He says he is unconcerned as he seeks to regain the 100m title he lost to Yohan Blake in 2011 after he was disqualified for false-starting in the final.
“I could have run faster at the national trials, the main aim was to go there and qualify,” he said.
“I’ve had three weeks of solid training, technique work, speed endurance, working on my core. I’m feeling in great shape.
“This year I wanted to try to break a world record but its been an up and down season. Hopefully tomorrow will put me on the right path to run fast at the worlds.”

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Driver in custody after 80 killed in Spain train crash

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A train derails in this series of still images from the video of a security camera near Santiago de Compostela

By Teresa Medrano and Miguel Vidal
POLICE took the driver of a Spanish train into custody in hospital on Thursday after at least 80 people died when it derailed and caught fire in a dramatic accident which an official source said was caused by excessive speed.
The eight-carriage high velocity train came off the tracks just outside the pilgrimage centre of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain on Wednesday night. It was one of Europe’s worst rail disasters.
The source had knowledge of the official investigation into a crash which brought misery to Santiago on Thursday, the day when it should have celebrated one of Europe’s biggest Christian festivals. Authorities cancelled festivities as the city went into mourning.
The Galicia region supreme court said in a statement that the judge investigating the accident had ordered police to put the driver in custody and take a statement from him. He was under formal investigation, the court said.
Dramatic video footage from a security camera showed the train, with 247 people on board, hurtling into a concrete wall at the side of the track as carriages jack-knifed and the engine overturned.
One local official described the aftermath of the crash as like a scene from hell, with bodies strewn next to the tracks.
The impact was so huge one carriage flew several metres into the air and landed on the other side of the high concrete barrier.
Some 94 people were injured, of whom 35 were in a serious condition, including four children, the deputy head of theregional government said.
“We heard a massive noise and we went down the tracks. I helped get a few injured and bodies out of the train. I went into one of the cars but I’d rather not tell you what I saw there,” Ricardo Martinez, a 47-year old baker from Santiago de Compostela, told Reuters.
The train had two drivers, the Galicia government said, but it was not immediately clear which one was in hospital and under investigation.
Newspaper accounts cited witnesses as saying one driver, Francisco Jose Garzon, who had helped rescue victims, shouted into a phone: “I’ve derailed! What do I do?”.
The 52-year-old had been a train driver for 30 years, a Renfe spokeswoman said. Many newspapers published excerpts from his Facebook account where he was reported to have boasted of driving trains at high speed. The page was taken offline on Thursday and the reports could not be verified.
El Pais newspaper said one of the drivers told the railway station by radio after being trapped in his cabin that thetrain entered the bend at 190 kilometres per hour (120 mph). An official source said the speed limit on that stretch of twin track, laid in 2011, was 80 kph.
“We’re only human! We’re only human!” the driver told the station, the newspaper said, citing sources close to the investigation. “I hope there are no dead, because this will fall on my conscience.”
Investigators were trying to urgently establish why the train was going so fast and why security devices to keep speed within permitted limits had not worked.
The train, operated by state-owned company Renfe, was built by Bombardier and Talgo and was around five years old. It had almost the maximum number of passengers.
Spain’s rail safety record is better than the European average, ranking 18th out of 27 countries in terms of railway deaths per kilometres travelled, the European Railway Agency said. There were 218 train accidents in Spainbetween 2008-2011, well below the European Union average of 426 for the same period, the agency said.
Firefighters called off a strike to help with the disaster, while hospital staff, many operating on reduced salaries because of spending cuts in recession-hit Spain, worked overtime to tend the injured.
The disaster happened at 8.41 p.m. on the eve of a festival dedicated to St. James, one of Jesus’s 12 disciples, whose remains are said to rest in the city’s centuries-old cathedral.
The apostle’s shrine is the destination of the famous El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across the Pyrenees, which has been followed by Christians since the Middle Ages.
Instead of a joyous festival, masses were held every hour in the cathedral. “The main mass was transformed from a mass of joy into a mass of mourning,” said Italian pilgrim Irene Valsangiacomo.
One U.S. citizen died in the crash and five were injured, the State Department said in Washington. Mexico said one of its nationals was among the dead.
At least one British citizen was injured, a British embassy spokesman said. Several other nationalities were believed to be among the passengers.
Neighbours ran to the site to help emergency workers tend to the wounded. Ana Taboada, a 29-year-old hospital worker, was one of the first on the scene.
“When the dust lifted I saw corpses. I didn’t make it down to the track, because I was helping the passengers that were coming up the embankment,” she told Reuters. “I saw a man trying to break a window with a stone to help those inside get out.”
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia region, visited the site and the main hospital on Thursday. He declared three days of official national mourning for the victims of the disaster.
King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia also went to Santiago and visited the injured in hospital.
Passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station the train approached the curve at high speed, twisted and the carriages piled up one on top of the other.
“A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realised the train was burning. … I was in the second carriage and there was fire. … I saw corpses,” he said.
Both Renfe and state-owned Adif, which is in charge of the tracks, had opened an investigation into the cause of the derailment, Renfe said.
Clinics in Santiago de Compostela were overwhelmed with people flocking to give blood, while hotels organised free rooms for relatives. Madrid sent forensic scientists and hospital staff to the scene on special flights.
The train was travelling from Madrid to Ferrol on the Galician coast when it derailed, Renfe said in a statement. It left Madrid on time and was travelling on schedule, a spokeswoman said.
Allianz Seguros, owned by Germany’s Allianz, owns the insurance contract for loss suffered by Renfe passengers, a company spokeswoman told Reuters. The contract does not cover Renfe’s trains. The company had sent experts to the scene, she said.
The disaster stirred memories of a train bombing in Madrid in 2004, carried out by Islamist militants, that killed 191 people, although officials do not suspect an attack this time.
Spain is struggling to emerge from a long-running recession marked by government-driven austerity to bring its deeply indebted finances into order.
But Adif, the state railways infrastructure company, told Reuters no budget cuts had been implemented on maintenance of the line, which connects La Coruna, Santiago de Compostela and Ourense and was inaugurated in 2011.
It said more than 100 million euros a year were being spent on track maintenance in Spain.
Wednesday’s derailment was one of the worst rail accidents in Europe over the past 25 years.

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Omonia and Anorthosis crash out of Europa League

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Omonia website

By Nemanja Bjedov
ANORTHOSIS threw away a 3-0 first leg lead against Gefle IF as the Swedish side recorded an unlikely 4-0 win on Thursday night in the second leg of their Europa League second qualifying round tie, with Mikael Dahlberg scoring the fourth goal for the hosts three minutes from time.
Omonia also crashed out of the competition at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia after a 2-1 defeat to Romanian side FC Astra Giurgiu, following a 1-1 draw last week away from home.
Jakob Orlov opened the scoring in the 25th minute and Alexander Faltsetas doubled Gefle’s lead midway through the second half. Orlov then scored again five minutes before the final whistle before Dahlberg stunned the Ammochostos side two minutes later as he sent them out of Europe.
After scoring a hat-trick in the opening round of the Romanian championship on Sunday, Constantin Budescu netted twice against Omonia to help his side reach the third qualifying round with a 3-2 aggregate victory over the Nicosia giants. Budescu scored his first goal of the night six minutes before the interval, but the hosts levelled ten minutes into the second half through Polish striker Lukasz Gikiewicz.
However, Budescu scored again in the 69th minute to set up the final score.

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Crystals stolen in smash-and-grab

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blue-purple-red-amethyst-crystals_l

 

CRYSTALS valued at €500 were stolen in Paphos early on Friday when burglars used their car to break in by smashing the shop window, police said.

According to reports the shop’s alarm was set off at around 4.20am on Nikodemou Mylonas Road near the Paphos District offices.

Despite the alarm, the burglars managed to get away, stealing a number of crystals in the process, police said. Paphos CID is investigating the case.

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President announces ‘Guaranteed Minimum Income’ for all citizens

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Anastasiades: reform of social policy

 

PRESIDENT Nicos Anastasiades on Friday announced the complete reform of social policy based on the principle of securing a Guaranteed Minimum Income for all citizens.

It should be fully in place by June 2014, he said.

“Beneficiaries will be all of our fellow citizens who have an income below that which can assure them a dignified living, irrespective of age, class or professional situation,” Anastasiades said in a statement.

He said the level of the Guaranteed Minimum Income would take into consideration the needs of every citizen and every household concerning nourishment, clothing, consumption of electricity and other indispensable items.

At the same time, it will guarantee the right for housing of the economically weaker groups of the population, he said. This will be done either through the subsidisation of the rent if the beneficiaries don’t own their own residence, or through the subsidisation of the interest on housing loans in the cases where people own a house but face problems in paying instalments.

“Also covered will be unforeseen expenses, which unfortunately come up in every household, such as, for example, absolutely necessary construction and repairs to houses, municipal taxes, etc,” he said.

“What I want to stress emphatically is that the Guaranteed Minimum Income will also be provided to thousands of our fellow citizens who, in spite of their needs, are not covered to this day by the existing system and they did not receive any substantial assistance from the state,” the president said.

He said these would include unemployed graduates of schools and universities, working people with particularly low earnings will have their income supplemented to reach the Guaranteed Minimum Income, and the self-employed, who have found themselves out of work and who, until now were not covered.

“Many of the pensioners with low pensions, without adequate contributions to the Social Insurance Fund, will also receive higher payments than they receive today,” said Anastasiades.

He said the general principle of the plan was that there would not be any citizen who was “not guaranteed the minimum needs for a dignified living in a European Country”.

The Guaranteed Minimum Income will replace, but will also be financed by a large number of allowances have been until now not targeted and often arbitrarily, given by different ministries and different services of the state.

“The policy of non-targeted and scattered allowance is terminated,” Anastasiades said.

“ A policy which, in spite of  burdening significantly the public finances and the taxpaying citizens, did not manage to reduce the inequalities and often ignored fellow citizens who are truly in need.”

The new policy of social welfare will from now would be concentrated under the same authority – in other words, there will be a merging of services that until today were giving subsidies, whether these refer to the Ministry of Labour and social Insurance or the Ministry of interior or the Ministry of Finance.

Allowance that concern students will remain under the Ministry of Education.

The president said the level of the Guaranteed Minimum Income would be determined in an objective and scientific way by the Statistical services, with the International Labour Office playing a catalytic advisory role.

At the same time, the new policy provides for the continuation of the unemployment allowance at the level and duration that applies today, in other words six months.

“For the first time, however, with the introduction of the new system, our fellow citizens who continue to be unemployed will be able to continue to live with dignity, since they will be receiving the Guaranteed Minimum Income,” Anastasiades added.

“The single but absolutely necessary precondition is that they don’t refuse to accept offers for employment and to participate in the policies of continuous employment that are determined by the state,” he said.

The policies of active employment will be financed mainly by the European Social Fund, and they will aim to encourage and to facilitate the unemployed in their effort to find employment. They will concern programs for education, practical training or subsidized employment.

Beyond the Guaranteed Minimum Income, the Unemployment Allowance, and the policies of active employment, the new social welfare policy of the state will be supplemented through separate allowances that concern other groups of the population which have certifiable needs, such as, for example, paraplegics and the children with special needs and a stack of other similar categories.

He said the troika had accepted the government’s proposal “for a modern conceptualization on the policy of social welfare and prosperity”.

He said dialogue would start immediately for implementation of the new system by June 2014.

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Omonia and Anorthosis reflect on night of horror

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Omonia crashed out of the Europa League after losing 2-1 at home to Astra

By Nemanja Bjedov
OMONIA and Anorthosis were on Friday reflecting upon the wreckage of their Europa League campaigns after both clubs were sent packing from the competition on a night of horror for Cyprus football.
The Nicosia giants had gone into the second leg of their second qualifying round tie against Astra on Thursday with a precious away goal after a 1-1 draw in Romania last week but went a goal down at the GSP Stadium after 39 minutes when Anthony Scaramozzino netted an own goal which was initially given to Constantin Budescu.
“After all that happened, it is really difficult to say anything. We hoped we would be a bit luckier and if were more clinical in front of their goal we would have qualified. Unfortunately, this is football. We are clearly disappointed, but I believe that we did everything we could to win,” said Omonia coach Toni Savevski.
After Omonia equalised ten minutes after the interval through Lukasz Gikiewic, Astra then went down to ten men when Vincent Laban, who played for Anorthosis for six seasons, was sent off, and it seemed as though it was only a matter of time before the Greens would score a second goal to send them through.
However, they were left stunned when Budescu, who scored a hat-trick last weekend in the opening round of the Romanian championship, found the net to set up the final score.
“We could have qualified today, but they had a player who was very inspired and who scored a goal from a very difficult position. They were better prepared than us although it is not the right time to analyse that.
“When you do not fulfill your dream then clearly you will feel somewhat bitter about it. However, all we have left now is to look ahead. The dream is finished and we need to move on,” added Savevski who did not name a single Cypriot player in his starting line-up.
“We all feel very disappointed. We have an excellent group of players, great president, great coaching staff, great fans and after this defeat it feels like we are at a collective funeral. We have to overcome this situation and prepare ourselves for the domestic championship,” he concluded.
Anorthosis meanwhile threw away a 3-0 first leg advantage as they suffered a 4-0 defeat against Swedish outfit Gefle IF on the artificial turf of the Stromvallen Stadium, conceding twice in the last five minutes.
“Despite the good result in the first leg, things went badly for us. The responsibility is mine,” said dejected Anorthosis coach Christakis Kassianos.
“It was very hard to play on the artificial turf, but there are no excuses for this humiliating defeat. We have conceded the last three goals out of literally nowhere,” he added.

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Two more suspects arrested for 2012 Ayia Napa murder

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The scene of the crime in Ayia Napa last year

 

FAMAGUSTA police arrested more two men on Friday in connection with the multiple murder case which took place in Ayia Napa in June 2012.

They will appear on court on Saturday for a remand.

The two men, aged 39 and 28, are from Paralimni and are suspected of having been involved in the case, police said. They were arrested after authorities obtained records from a mobile phone that another defendant Demetris Mamalikopoulous had hidden in his cell.

Mamalikopoulos, 29, and Anastasios Tsehelides, 41, have been accused of five counts of murder, one for each victim on the night of June 23 two years ago. They are accused of the premeditated murder of Philippos Loucaides, 33, Marios Karaoli, 28, Giorgos Georgiou, 35 and Romanians Georgian Katalin Koman, 25 and Marcel Aourel Koleasa, 33, in a central square of Ayia Napa. Four of the victims were working for local businessman Phanos Kalopsidiotis, who Famagusta police believe was the culprits’ real target.

During a session of the Criminal Court in Larnaca on Friday, prosecutor Andreas Aristides said he believed the two men were the defendants’ accomplices.

According to Aristides, following a search on Thursday at the central prisons a small mobile phone device was found in Mamalikopoulous’ possession. He added that five different SIM cards were also found which the defendant had been using and that they had a large catalogue of information on them that was being processed.

Authorities at the central prisons had found a mobile phone last week which was also believed to have been used by Mamalikopoulos, the prosecutor said.

Three hand-written sheets of paper were also found in Tsehelides’ possession and were confiscated. According to reports, as the CID officer was confiscating the paper, the defendant attacked him and tried unsuccessfully to snatch it from his grasp.

Tsehelides’ lawyer Vasilis Bissas, told the court the papers were notes his client was taking from a book on psychology.

The prosecution’s response was to reveal to the court that police headquarters had been informed that a plan was being hatched to help the defendants escape from the Larnaca court.

The prosecution asked the court for an adjournment and the next court date was set for July 30.

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Was “recklessness” to blame for Spanish train crash?

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A train passes next to the wreckage of the train that derailed 24 July killing 78 and injuring over a 100 passengers in Santiago de Compostela, northwestern Spain

By Teresa Medrano and Tracy Rucinski

Spanish police were investigating on Friday if the driver of a  train that crashed in Santiago de Compostela killing dozens had been driving at reckless speed when he took a tight curve.

Spain’s worst train wreck in decades on Wednesday evening killed at least 78, with six bodies still unidentified and 95 people in hospital, immediately raising questions about why an experienced driver was travelling so fast into a sharp bend.

The driver, Francisco Garzon, 52, was under arrest in a hospital in the city in northwestern Spain and was due to give a statement to police later on Friday.

Garzon was being investigated for criminal behaviour in causing the accident and “recklessness”, regional police chief Jaime Iglesias said.

A spokeswoman for the supreme court in the Galicia region said Garzon had not yet been charged and evidence including the train’s “black box” was being assembled.

“We’re collecting elements to be used as evidence, videos, audios and all the technical work that is being done on the train,” she said.

Renfe, the Spanish state train company, said Garzon was a 30-year company veteran who had been driving for a decade. He was highly qualified and had been driving on the line where the accident took place for about a year.

On the morning of the tragedy, he had driven a train on the same line, which connects La Coruna with Madrid, and a Renfe spokesman said he knew every twist and turn of the route.

It has been widely reported that he took a sharp curve with an 80-kmh speed limit at more than twice that speed.

The driver was not available for comment and Reuters was not able to locate his family or determine whether he has a lawyer.

Another train driver on that line told Cadena Ser radio that the blame should not be put on his colleague.

“There is no security warning for the speed, it’s pure human factor, you have to slow down manually and you have no assistance in the cabin,” said Manuel Mato.

“When you exit the high-speed section you start slowing down … you have like 4 km (2.5 miles) to the curve,” he added.

While police and a judge were looking into potential negligence on the part of the driver, the Public Works Ministry launched a more technical investigation. Renfe and Adif, the state track operator, began their own probes.

Investigators wanted to know why was the train going so fast? Did the driver fail to heed speed limits? Did brakes fail? What about the safety system meant to force the train or the driver to slow down if going too fast?

Security video footage showed the train, with 247 people on board, hurtling into a concrete wall at the side of the track as carriages jack-knifed and the engine overturned.

The impact was so strong that one carriage flew over a wall and landed on an embankment several metres above.

The train involved, made by Bombardier and Talgo, was a series 730 that Renfe uses for its Alvia service, which is faster than conventional trains but not as fast as the AVE trains that criss-cross Spain at even higher speeds.

The train was built in 2007-2009, but remodelled in 2012 to use diesel.

The train is designed to operate on conventional and high-speed tracks that make use of two different types of safety systems that are meant to regulate excessive speed.

On high-speed lines, trains use the European Train Control System, or ETCS, which automatically slows down a train that is going too fast.

On slower lines, trains operate under an older system called ASFA, a Spanish acronym for Signal Announcement and Automatic Braking, which warns the driver if a train is moving too fast but does not automatically slow it down.

At the site of the disaster, just 3 km (2 miles) before reaching the Santiago de Compostela station, the train was passing through an urban area on a steep curve. At that point of the track, two railway experts said, it uses the older ASFA safety system.

Professor Roger Kemp, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in Britain, said in an e-mailed comment that as the driver was leaving the high-speed line to join a much slower route before entering the station, there must have been at least prominent visual warnings to reduce speed, if not audible warnings and an electronic speed supervision system.

A source close to ADIF said the safety system was apparently working correctly and a train had passed an hour earlier with no problems.

The train, packed with families visiting relatives and revellers on their way to a religious festival, was not running late.

It began its seven hour journey to the northern region of Galicia right on time: at 15.00 CET on the dot. It crashed at 20.41, two minutes before it was due to arrive.

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