By Poly Pantelides

Despite a bit of initial grumbling about the changes in the health system and the introduction of hospital charges on Thursday, most visitors, to Nicosia General at least, were positive.
Just a few days in, the new measures seem to be working well. Health minister Petros Petrides reported a reduction in patients while Nicosia General Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer, Petros Matsas said on Thursday that the hospital had seen a 40 per cent reduction in visitors over all. Some outpatients did complain about the cost, even though the new charges are designed to be affordable across the board.
Others were fine about it. “They should have done this a long time ago,” a 70-year-old man told the Sunday Mail.
Andreas Eftychiou was queuing up to pick up a medicine prescription at Nicosia General Hospital on Thursday and said that paying a small fee was only fair. “All these old people would go away with bagfuls of medicines they didn’t need and ended up chucking half of them away,” he said. “This is better.”
Zena Lyssandrou, a 58-year-old teacher, praised the new system. “It is very important that we all contribute and help increase the state’s revenues,” she said. “Accident and Emergency (A & E) departments should be for those who really need them.”
Her husband had slipped and fallen, and needed to be admitted to hospital, and she was happy there was a tiny queue.
“People have been very helpful, and the service is good,” she said. At about 12.45pm on Thursday, she was one of less than a handful of people at the almost empty waiting room at the A & E. In the span of some twenty minutes, from 12.40pm to 1pm, there were very few visitors in the department. One couple walked in at 12.50pm, went up to pay the fee, and only waited for two minutes before being called in.
One man wanted to see a doctor for a non-emergency and was referred to the right department. A pharmacist at the hospital told the Sunday Mail that over the past few days, most people knew what they were doing and had come prepared with the stamps representing the nominal fees for their prescriptions already stuck on.
“A few did not know exactly what to do, so we did it for them,” she said. Some others needed to be sent away to one of the nine spots (the entrance’s main registration point and eight others in the hospital grounds), she said. Nicosia General Hospital only has specialist doctors and as such its traffic throughout the year tends to be more stable even though the summer can be quieter.
But many people tend to go to their local health centres. An 82-year-old from Nicosia said that sometimes she may need to wait for an hour or two before seeing someone, and sometimes she needs to wait less. But she knows one of the nurses who helps her jump the queue, she said. She might not be able to enjoy such privileges for much longer. One of the streamlined changes is the system’s computerisation, so that appointments and referrals can be made online. But until then, hospital fees may keep some patients away, and offer the overworked system a much needed breather.
The government have agreed with their international lenders to restructure public hospitals and implement measures to rationalise expenses. Because of austerity measures, the emphasis is on making better use of resources.
New changes were introduced on Thursday to discourage abuse of the overburdened system. Stamps – showing due fees have been paid – now need to accompany prescriptions and lab tests’ requests, which cost 50 cent per item but are capped at €10 per transaction. Beneficiaries now need to pay €3 to see a general practitioner, €6 to see a specialist doctor and €10 for using the state hospitals’ accident and emergency departments, which people tended to visit even in the absence of an emergency. The beneficiaries of the new system – with one health card across the board for Cypriot and other EU citizens permanently residing in the country – are civil servants in return for a 1.5 per cent contribution of gross salaries, and those who receive state pensions. Five-member families may be covered on the voluntary contribution of 1.5 per cent of their gross salaries. Some sufferers of chronic diseases, the dependents of beneficiaries, and certain vulnerable groups will continue being covered.
For the rest, there are sliding income criteria, while non-beneficiaries may also access the system on charges which compare favourable to the private sector and may even see a general practitioner for €15 and a specialist doctor for €30 to see specialist doctors.
The main reaction from the political front came predictably from opposition AKEL.
The party said that additional revenues from the introduction of hospital fees and wage contributions need to be channelled back into the health sector in order to bring about a much needed upgrade.
AKEL MP Stella Mishaouli said state hospitals and health centres needed new equipment and new units to extend or create facilities for dialysis, radiotherapy, and heart surgery. The estimated extra €50 million a year the changes are expected to fetch should go towards meeting those targets, she said.
Instead, the government plans to cut down health expenditure, she added. “The policy the current government are implementing will lead public hospitals to destruction. We believe state hospitals need to be the backbone of a national health system and in order to be capable of that they need to be upgraded and their infrastructure needs to be strengthened,” Mishaouli said.

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By Poly Pantelides

THE ATTORNEY-general said yesterday he was appealing against the leniency of the sentences handed out to a former minister and three senior firemen for the deaths of 13 people in the July 2011 munitions’ blast in Mari.
Former defence minister Costas Papacostas, 73, was given five years for manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of life. Former fire service chief Andreas Nicolaou, former deputy chief Charalambos Charalambous, and Andreas Loizides, the former commander of the disaster response squad EMAK were each given two years. They were found guilty of causing death due to a reckless and dangerous act, which carries a maximum penalty of four years.
In setting the sentences on Friday, Larnaca Criminal Court said it had borne in mind the history and contribution Papacostas had made to his country, while taking into account his health, which has kept him in hospital since the guilty verdict on July 9. The court also took into account the family situation of the other three men, it said.
Clerides said the court’s justification did not reflect the full extent of what had happened.
He also criticised the court’s reference to former national guard chief and Greek national Petros Tsalikidis, against whom a European Arrest Warrant was never executed on the grounds he would be standing trial in Greece.
The court said that it did not know “if and when prosecution in Greece would proceed”. “The fact Tsalikidis was not among the persons who are to be punished today, constitutes in one way or another unequal treatment and creates feelings of injustice among the accused and society,” the court had said.
The Cyprus government and its legal services could not be held accountable for the Greek authorities’ refusal to hand Tsalikidis over and for their delay in prosecuting him, Clerides said.
The attorney-general has already appealed the decision to acquit former foreign minister Marcos Kyprianou of the charge of causing death due to a reckless and dangerous act (Kyprianou also faced manslaughter charges), and appealed the decisions to acquit Loizides and Charalambous of manslaughter.
The munitions, confiscated in 2009 from a Cyprus-flagged ship sailing from Iran to Syria, had been stored at Evangelos Florakis base in 98 containers left exposed to the elements until the day of their explosion. The blast killed seven sailors and six firemen and damaged the island’s biggest power station, nearby. Relatives of the victims complained that the four guilty parties were not given severe enough sentences.

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By Patroclos

AT LAST our government got a well-deserved pat on the back from the troika for effectively implementing the conditions of the memorandum and meeting the targets that it set. Our authorities were “on track” and had “made good progress towards meeting their objectives” the troika graciously noted in its first review.
The theft of the deposits at the Bank of Cyprus was finalised, at a bargain rate of 47.5 per cent and the bank was no longer under the resolution authority. But it would still be under the control of the ECB’s local enforcer, the Central Bank Governor, because Laiki, which will remain under resolution authority for a few more years, is now the main shareholder with an 18 per cent stake in the BoC.
There was a stand-off over the bail-in percentage between the government and the troika last weekend, with the former arguing for a lower figure, in the region of 42.5 per cent that would still have ensure the bank’s capital adequacy, but only just. However the troika and Professor Panicos would not budge from the original figure.
While these critical negotiations were taking place last Sunday the Professor, who makes a habit of being absent when big decisions are being discussed, was holidaying in Paphos with his family. He did take part in conference call at one point, on Sunday to show that he was not completely disinterested in these boring negotiations.
But we should not be too harsh on Panicos, because while holidaying he still found time to leak information to his favourite medium – the Stockwatch website – claiming the hair-cut rate had been agreed, thus putting extra pressure on the government.

SPEAKING of Panicos, does he really have to take his musclemen wherever he goes, like some underworld boss with many enemies? Or does it make him feel more important, like our politicians, having a couple of heavies following him everywhere?
The other week he was at fashionable Nicosia restaurant Romantica with his wife and kids and his heavies sat at the bar for the duration of the meal, to ensure his safety. But Romantica is not a Wild West-type saloon, at which brawls and fights take place. It is ludicrous to think the restaurant’s well-heeled clientele would assault someone eating with his wife and kids.
Former finance minister, our good friend Charilaos, who unjustifiably has a lot more people baying for his blood than Panicos, regularly eats there without bodyguard protection and has not once been verbally or physically attacked.

ON A MORE positive note, on Wednesday we had the privilege of hearing the voice of the IMF’s elegant and attractive representative Delia Velculescu, who gave an exclusive interview to the CyBC. We had been watching her for the last year, regally strolling into government buildings with an air of aloofness and disdain for everyone, her refusal to say anything, adding to her star quality.
And on Wednesday we heard her speak. She said nothing remotely interesting, merely repeating the mundane words of the troika’s assessment, but her voice was a joy to behold. Sweet and gentle, with a hint of vulnerability and bit of an accent that showed English was not her first language, it was a gloriously sexy voice, which we hope we will hear a lot more of future visits.
I could sit and listen to the delectable Delia talk about fiscal consolidation in Nigeria and the restructuring of the Bank of Cyprus for hours, without being bored for a second.

OUR EU Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, whose voice is nothing like Delia’s, inspired a rather snarky comment on the website of Germany’s top circulation paper Bild, after she complained on twitter about the B of C haircut.
Her tweet said: “Not easy to accept that you pay 47 per cent of his (sic) savings for the mistakes of others.” As Bild speculated us, Androulla had lost €485,000 from the bail-in, because in her last capital statement, in July 2012, she had six accounts at the B of C, totalling €1,121,341.
Androulla should not complain too much about the mistakes of others, because she and her husband openly campaigned for the election of the village idiot who made it all possible. Then again, he appointed her Commissioner and the annual salaries she received more than covered the loss of her savings.

IN ITS EFFORT to persuade bank employees to agree to give up part of their monthly provident fund payment for the establishment of a solidarity/strike fund and agree to pay cuts, ETYK issued a melodramatic, self-pitying announcement, which said:
“In the last months we and our families are living nightmarish moments, as the uncertainty, the stress and anxiety about our professional survival constitute a dominant part of our daily life.
“We know that the tragic situation, in which we are in, is made worse by the bitterness from the fact that everything we are experiencing is the result of actions and criminal omissions by others, for which we bear no responsibility. On the contrary, for years, we had been warning about the coming catastrophe and were desperately urging for the necessary actions to prevent it, without being heard.”
This is an imaginative re-invention of history. ETYK never said a word about the pillaging of Laiki millions by Andreas Vegnopoulos, whom union emperor Loizos Hadjicostis had been praising and flattering from the first day he took over the bank and gave every employee a €2000 bonus to buy their loyalty.
Even after Vgen was kicked off the board, by the Central Bank, the loyal Loizos was at a special event to honour the silver-tongued crook. As for Loizos’ poodle on the board of the Bank of Cyprus, he never once warned about the ‘coming catastrophe,’ even though he knew what was going on, probably fearing it would affect his promotion prospects.

A FORMER commando, Hadjicostis felt obliged to give his statement a super-heroic tone. “Despite all this, showing the greatness of the proud banking people, we managed to stand tall, drown our bitterness and disappointment and, united, to face the tragic conditions and difficulties. United we also managed to stop the immoral and out of bounds attacks by all those who felt they could exploit the difficulties in which found ourselves in, in order to plunder, without resistance everything we created over the decades, with the ultimate aim of destroying our union, so that in the future, undisturbed, they would impose their anti-worker aims.”
In recognition of the greatness of the proud bank employees and their heroic defence of their salaries, their benefits and provident fund, we should create a public monument – a tribute to the unknown banker. Details about donations will be published next week.

ANOTHER autocratic, bank chief suffering from amnesia appeared before the geriatric investigative committee for the economy last Wednesday. Kikis Lazarides, executive chairman of Laiki at the time it was sold to Vgenopoulos, was as forgetful as the B of C’s Andreas Eliades had been nine days earlier when answering the panel’s questions.
The forgetful Kikis – the man who had built Laiki’s international reputation as a money-laundering bank – could not remember that he had written a letter urging the urgent sale of HSBC’s 21.6 per cent shareholding in Laiki, 31/1/2006.
Neither could he remember that he had pushed for the sale, despite serious questions pending about the buyers – Vgen-controlled companies Marfin and Tosca, which were supposedly unrelated. Another thing he could not remember was his document (3/2/2006) to the Laiki board urging it to back the sale of the HSBC shares in a closed period. And he did not remember meeting Vgen and Governor Ttooulis three days later.

IT WAS not only amnesia Kikis had in common with Eliades. He also lacked the balls to take any responsibility for bringing in the man who sank Laiki. In fact Kikis had the nerve to claim that he had warned of dangers Vgen was putting the bank in – he opposed the purchase of two Greek banks – and this was why he resigned as chairman in July 2006.
But who had arranged the sale of HSBC’s stock to Vgen? Kikis, who admitted he did not bother to investigate the two companies, Marfin and Tosca, which would take a 21.6 per cent share in Laiki. He arranged the sale of a controlling share in the second largest bank of the country without carrying any checks on the buyers, as if he was selling a crate of cucumbers to them.
Of course he was not to blame. As he said, it was the Central Bank’s responsibility to investigate the buyers. So why was he pressing for the sale to go ahead before the CB had completed its investigation? I bet he does not remember the reason.

AS A SERVICE to our impecunious Kyproulla, the Coffeeshop, from time to time, will make money-saving proposals. A significant amount of cash, for instance could be generated by selling the luxury New York apartment used by our permanent representative at the UN.
The apartment, in Manhattan’s exclusive Park Avenue for the super-rich, is estimated to be worth between 18 and 20 million bucks. A similar apartment that was refurbished was sold recently for $20 million. Meanwhile the monthly service charge for the apartment, paid for by the Cypriot taxpayer, is $9,000. We could sell the apartment and use the nine grand for renting another apartment for our perm rep.
Alternatively we could rent the Park Avenue flat and with the money pay the rent for a residence at a less exclusive address and have a significant amount left over for the government to hire a few more public servants.

THE CO-OPS we heard this week would be under the ownership of the state that would be putting up the €1.5bn needed for their recapitalisation. This lunatic decision was presented as a rational move that would ensure a bright future for the clapped-out co-ops. But would it?
The co-ops are bankrupt because they were being run by the incompetents appointed by the political parties. Now that the state will have total control, they will be run by the incompetents appointed by the political parties participating in the government. This will exclude AKEL incompetents, but the losers of the other parties are perfectly capable destroying the co-ops. After all, the man in charge for the last 30 years, Erotokritos Chlorakiotis was a Dikoite.

DEVELOPERS who have recruited the help of politicians in their efforts to prevent the sale of their assets used as collateral for bank loans they are not repaying, have found another supporter – DIKO chief and man principle, Marios Garoyian.
Like the rest of the politicians Garoyian is against the split of the B of C and the inevitable sale of developers’ assets, but he offered his support in coded language.
“The basic philosophy must be clear, that is, the viability of the Bank of Cyprus must first be secured, but there must be also all the guarantees that there would be no repossessions or sales of property of any citizens of the Cyprus Republic.”
Garoyian could not bring himself to mention the word ‘developers’ so he offered his protection to all citizens of the Cyprus Republic, not realising that he was advocating blatant discrimination against all other EU citizens.

BIG BAD AL, back in town last week, caused widespread disappointment when he announced that he would not be taking the post of Aussie ambassador in London or Washington, as our media had been reporting. The news caused the parties to resume their calls for Al’s immediate replacement because he was pro-Turkish. How long will it be before they call for the replacement of Andreas Mavroyiannis as our side’s negotiator? After meeting Mavroyiannis last week, Al was full of praise for him, which must make him totally unsuitable for the job.

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ON MONDAY the bank employees’ union ETYK issued a circular to its members informing them that it was proposing wage cuts at all the banks (except the Bank of Cyprus which had already implemented them), “with the aim of helping all banks and colleagues to survive in this difficult period”. While the proposal, which was overwhelmingly approved by union members on Thursday, drew a positive response from media and politicians, the reality was that it was nothing more than a tactical manoeuvre by the scheming union intent on safeguarding its ability to call the shots.
A condition was set for the ‘sacrifice’ ETYK was urging its members to make – the extension of retirement age to 65. Not much of a ‘sacrifice’ considering the union is demanding a big concession from the banks in exchange, a concession that would more than compensate for the pay-cuts by offering another five years’ service. It is all part of ETYK’s game to keep the upper hand, dictating pay structures, promotions and other work terms for bank employees.
The union even proposed the percentage of pay-cuts that should be imposed by the banks, as if this were its responsibility. It decreed that cuts for salaries between €2,000 and €4,000 would be 10 per cent, €6,000 and €8,000 at 20 per cent and over €10,000 at 30 per cent. It is the same formula that was unwisely agreed by the interim board of the Bank of Cyprus and very similar to the one applied in the public service. The unions dictated that the higher the salary, the higher the percentage cut, which on the surface seemed fair but it is not because it reduces wage differentials.
Why should a senior bank executive, who works long hours, has many more responsibilities and much more pressure suffer a bigger pay cut than someone in middle management with a much easier job? Only unions, the great levellers and enemies of excellence, would think this is good arrangement. In effect, PASYDY and ETYK are imposing an income tax policy, which they have no legal or moral authority to do, in the name of workers’ rights and nobody is prepared to challenge them.
Union bosses support ‘progressive cuts’ because the bulk of the union membership that vote for them are in the middle to low income groups. This is also why they make a big fuss about the banks’ ‘golden boys.’ Yet the reality is that the banks’ have absurdly high payrolls not because a three or four senior executives might earn an annual salary of €200,000, but because unskilled workers like messengers and drivers could earn €50,000, thanks to the union. In the free labour market, in which supply and demand determined wages, these workers would be fortunate to be paid a third of this amount. Members of middle management are also grossly overpaid, as is the case in the public sector.
While these union practices benefit workers, they make no business sense and are harmful to organisations, because they eliminate rewards for excellence and hard work, while protecting the mediocre, unmotivated and unproductive. At the banks the union even has say in promotions, always citing seniority instead of performance as the main criterion. In public sector the political parties ensure that excellence is not rewarded, by promoting mediocrities with no initiative or dynamism.
This union-sponsored rule of mediocrity must stop. It can only be stopped by preventing unions from dictating pay-scales. Proper rewards systems must be introduced – systems that reward good results, initiative and hard work and pay high salaries to those with big responsibilities. It is not bad practice to pay successful top executives big salaries, as the unions seem to believe, as long as they are judged on performance. Those who fail to achieve results should have their employment terminated – lack of job security is the risk that people who earn massive salaries should have to live with.
This is why it is an imperative for the bank boards to reclaim the right to decide the wage structure of their organisation. If the BoC board finds a top banker, with an excellent track record, it would be more than justified in paying a big salary to secure his or her services, because he or she could make all the difference to the struggling bank. ETYK would complain about the ‘golden-boys’, but paying a top professional, capable of turning the bank around, a super-big salary makes much more business sense than paying a messenger 50 grand a year.
It is high time that salaries in big organisations reflected performance and the value added by an employee, rather than what self-serving union bosses dictate.

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By Elias Hazou

THE GOVERNMENT aims to appoint a ‘fully political board’ to the national oil and gas corporation, giving it total control over the entity, the Sunday Mail is told.
The coming shake-up at the company will see the position of executive director abolished, and the people now serving as executives will get a different job title. In effect, they are to be demoted to department heads.
And that’s a key reason why a top energy official Solon Kassinis wants to quit as executive vice-chairman at the corporation, the Cyprus National Hydrocarbons Company (CNHC), sources said.
Currently, the board consists of three executives (one being Kassinis) on five-year contracts and four non-executive directors.
The outspoken official said he was resigning this week after being excluded from a team appointed earlier this month by the government to negotiate with Noble Energy and other companies for the earliest possible supply of natural gas from offshore block 12 and the construction of an LNG plant.
According to the official announcement at the time, the team members are: Stelios Chimonas (chairman), permanent secretary at the trade and energy ministry; Nora Nicolaidou, state’s attorney; Stelios Koundouris, treasury accountant; Eleni Vasiliadou, chairman of the Natural Gas Public Company; Odysseas Michaelides, head of the department of control, ministry of communications; and “a representative from the CNHC”.
During his chat with President Nicos Anastasiades on Wednesday, Kassinis got confirmation that the government intends to transform the entire board of the CNHC into non-executive directors – more likely than not political appointees.
The president showed Kassinis a paper – drafted by the energy minister – outlining how the three current executive directors are to become ‘department heads’ in a soon-to-be reorganised company.
The new board would still consist of seven members, but they would all be non-executive officers.
But Kassinis for one wants to hear nothing of it, and has said his decision to step down is final. Departing from the presidential palace, he also told reporters that other executives at the company are thinking of resigning as well.
Still, it should be said that Kassinis likely won’t be decamping for greener pastures any time soon: his contract states he needs to give a three-month notice.
But Kassinis’ own gripes at being snubbed are only part of the story.
Sources say it’s clear that the CNHC has been sidelined, and cite the fact that just one of the company’s members has been included on the team negotiating for the LNG project.
One of first clear signals that the leadership of the CNHC was being marginalised came when energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis rebuffed a proposal for all three executive directors to be put on the team.
Arguing their case with the minister, the CNHC leadership said that, given the company acts as the state’s representative and commercial arm, it made more sense for the entity to negotiate what are – at the end of the day – commercial agreements.
“How can you now ask directors who haven’t actually been involved in talks to put their signatures on deals?” a source said.
The next blow happened in June, when the CNHC was left out of a preliminary agreement on the development of an LNG plant on the island, despite it having done all the legwork.
Instead, the accord was signed in front of the cameras by the energy minister on behalf of the government, with the CNHC relegated to the status of observer.
At around the same time, the government commissioned a study into restructuring the energy sector. The consultants, a Norwegian law firm, recommended upgrading the status of the CNHC by making it the ‘command vehicle’ for the LNG project in Cyprus.
Among others, they recommended that the company take the lead in negotiating and concluding gas contracts. Another suggestion was the integration of the CNHC and the Natural Gas Public Company (DEFA).
The consultants’ findings were forwarded to the energy ministry.
What has happened, sources say, is that the government has taken on board the recommendations – but interpreted them in a way that can only be described as warped.
A case in point: the consultants recommended that the CNHC be modeled on Norway’s Statoil. But Statoil’s board is comprised exclusively of executive directors, that is, employees of the company who are responsible for the day-to day-running of the company within their respective spheres.
In stark contrast, the government here wants to structure the CNHC so that its board consists only of non-executives.
Non-executive directors typically – though not always – have less experience and knowledge, and are appointees, not employees.
The administration agrees with the Norwegians that the CNHC should be upgraded; but ironically, it has apparently reasoned that precisely because the company will play such a prominent role, it should come under political influence.
“Call it the Norwegian model with a Cypriot twist,” remarked the sources.
And therein lies the crux of the matter: what does it say about the government’s energy policy when the CNHC is being run by political appointees with limited experience?
“It’s no secret that, in Cyprus, experts in the field can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Take the team that will negotiate with Noble…only Eleni Vasiliadou, the head of DEFA, knows her stuff.”
The same sources say there is a heavy dose of truth to rumours that the energy portfolio was ‘assigned’ to coalition partners DIKO during the horse-trading with DISY just ahead of the presidential elections.
This, they said, can be tied to a bill co-sponsored by DISY leader Averof Neophytou. Among other things, the legislative proposal, drafted in November 2012, envisaged re-jigging the company’s board so that it consisted of just one executive director and six non-executive officers.
“It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the parties want to run the show,” the Mail’s sources said.
Also, under the change of policy, the CNHC now no longer talks shop with the energy firms, like Noble, Total and ENI. Since a few weeks ago, the companies’ official contact is the energy ministry.
All this, just as the LNG project kicks into a delicate phase. This coming week the negotiating team meets with Noble reps in Nicosia – one of the first in a series of discussions aimed at hammering out a deal for a final project agreement.
The government has given a deadline of late 2013 for the signing of the final project agreement, which is considered a milestone for the whole LNG endeavour. That deal will then pave the way for the setting up of a special-purpose vehicle – a joint venture between Cyprus and foreign companies that will seek gas contracts and investors for the multi-billion gas plant.
Further beyond beckons the final investment decision by Noble and its block 12 partners, which is what will really cinch the LNG deal.
A roadmap does exist. So while the shakeup at the CNHC won’t derail the LNG venture – on which Cyprus is banking for its economic recovery – signs of political meddling do not bode well for it.

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By Tabassum Zakaria

The United States extended embassy closures by a week in the Middle East and Africa as a precaution on Sunday after an al Qaeda threat that U.S. lawmakers said was the most serious in years.

The State Department said 19 U.S. embassies and consulates would be closed through Saturday “out of an abundance of caution” and that a number of them would have been closed anyway for most of the week due to the Eid celebration at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The United States initially closed 21 U.S. diplomatic posts for the day on Sunday. Some of those were to reopen on Monday, including Kabul, Baghdad and Algiers.

Four new diplomatic posts – in Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius – were added to the closure list for the week.

Last week, the State Department issued a worldwide travel alert warning Americans that al Qaeda may be planning attacks in August, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.

“There is an awful lot of chatter out there,” U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He said the “chatter” – communications among terrorism suspects about the planning of a possible attack – was “very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11.”

A National Security Agency surveillance programme that electronically collects communications on cellphones and emails – known as intercepts – had helped gather intelligence about this threat, Chambliss said.

It was one of the NSA surveillance programmes revealed by former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to media outlets.

Those programs “allow us to have the ability to gather this chatter,” Chambliss said. “If we did not have these programs then we simply wouldn’t be able to listen in on the bad guys.”

‘SERIOUS THREAT’

“This is the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the last several years,” Chambliss said.

U.S. military forces in the Middle East region have been on a higher state of alert for the past several days because of the threat, a U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The threat also has prompted some European countries to close their embassies in Yemen, home to an al Qaeda affiliate that is considered one of the most dangerous: al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Yemeni soldiers blocked roads around the U.S. and British embassies in Sanaa, while troops with automatic rifles stood outside the French Embassy.

Interpol, the France-based international police agency, on Saturday issued a global security alert advising member states to increase vigilance against attacks after a series of prison breaks in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.

“Al Qaeda is in many ways stronger than it was before 9/11, because it’s mutated and it spread and it can come at us from different directions,” U.S. Representative Peter King, a Republican, said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“And al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is probably the most deadly of all the al Qaeda affiliates,” he said.

Republicans and Democrats alike on Sunday television talk shows said the threat was serious and sought to defuse the controversy over the NSA surveillance programmes, which critics say are an invasion of privacy and civil rights.

“The good news is that we picked up intelligence. And that’s what we do. That’s what NSA does,” U.S. Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“We’ve received information that high-level people from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are talking about a major attack,” he said.

The threat information came just before the Eid celebration at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan later this week and just over a month before the anniversary of al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

A September 11 attack last year killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in Benghazi.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the actions taken to close the embassies and issue the global travel alert showed the Obama administration had learned lessons from Benghazi.

“Benghazi was a complete failure. The threats were real there. The reporting was real. And we basically dropped the ball. We’ve learned from Benghazi, thank God, and the administration is doing this right,” he said.

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Thirteen and a half hectares of wild shrub and trees were destroyed by three separate fires on Sunday, which were all eventually put under control before midnight.

Eighteen vehicles were scrambled at 8.30pm on Sunday to help tackle a blaze in the Yiorkaes area of Lythrodontas, authorities said.

The blaze was brought under control at around 11pm after it destroyed four hectares of wild shrub and pine trees in a state and a private forest, police said

Five fire trucks remained in the area overnight in case the fire re-ignited.

At around the same time, fire-fighters were trying to put under control a blaze that broke out near the village of Kyprovasa in the Limassol district.

The fire, which started at around 8pm, was put out around three hours later, the forestry department said.

It destroyed two and a half hectares of a private pine tree forest.

Seventy men from various departments, including volunteers from the area, and 20 vehicles were used in the operation.

Fire-fighters remained in the area as a precaution.

Earlier in the day seven hectares of shrubbery, hay and trees were burned down by a fire which broke out at around 3.30pm in Pyrgos in the Limassol district.

The blaze was extinguished around three hours later with the aid of twelve fire trucks from the fire service, forestry department and game fund.

Two helicopters and two forestry department planes were also used in the operation.

The causes of the fires are being investigated.

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You might tire of your children moaning about being bored over the long summer holiday, but it can actually be good for them says ALIX NORMAN

Type ‘I’m’ into Google and the first search that pops up is ‘I’m bored’. There are approximately 144 million hits for the search term. With any number of websites dedicated purely to overcoming lethargy, boredom is clearly an issue, and never more so than in the long summer months when the kids are out of school and want to be entertained 24/7.

But before you reach for the credit cards and sink yourself further into debt with more computer games, trips to the waterpark and endless hours as a glorified taxi driver, stop and consider this: boredom can be a good thing. It’s true. New research is proving that children are not programmed to be constantly on the go. In fact, overstimulation can have some seriously negative health impacts: higher stress levels, lack of focus and creativity and even an addiction to technology. If this sounds anything like your kids, then consider this: indulging in the odd spot of boredom can actually make children more productive in the long term – not to mention more creative and generally happier overall.

Just think back to those endless summer days of your youth – with no internet, no mobiles and precious few videos to keep us busy, the world was alive with possibility. “Twenty or thirty years ago, we just didn’t have the resources that kids do now,” says Irene Papasavva, who struggles to keep her two under-fives occupied during the summer months. “But boredom made us creative,” she adds, recalling how a toilet roll once kept her and her younger brother busy for weeks with a convoluted zombie game!

Boredom is a wonderful catalyst for the imagination, says Dr Laura Markham, Clinical Psychologist and founding editor of AhaParenting.com. “Unstructured time gives children the opportunity to explore their inner and outer worlds, which is the beginning of creativity,” she says. “This is how they learn to engage with themselves and the world, to imagine and invent and create. If we keep them busy with lessons and structured activity, or they fill their time with screen entertainment, they never learn to respond to the stirrings of their own hearts, which might lead them to study the bugs on the sidewalk (as Einstein did for hours), write a short story or song, or organise the neighbourhood kids into making a movie.”

Neuroscience research has proved that the daydreaming which happens during boredom involves the same processes that govern imagination and creativity. So instead of dismissing languor as a waste of time, think of it as a mental ‘restart’ that can refresh and rejuvenate young minds. Giving kids the chance to take a break from constant stimulation allows them to absorb new information, follow new thought processes and try new activities – all of which can boost creativity. Boredom can stimulate the imagination like nothing else!
Kids left to their own devices often default to videogames. But take away the computer and the Playstation, the smart phone and the mp3 player, and – if you can weather the initial outrage – you’re giving them a better chance at happiness. Constant mindless stimulation isn’t healthy: spending too much time using technology and social media has been linked to stress, depression, anxiety, poor academic performance and poor sleep in young adults, and they’d be far better off spending some ‘downtime’ with a bit of boredom.

“I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to ask parents to unplug their child!” says Emily Andreou, a teacher who often finds her students are losing focus and failing tests because they’re on the internet half the night. “I’d honestly far rather they spent their evenings doing nothing rather than staring mindlessly at a screen; I’m sure a spot of boredom would make them far happier in the long run – at least they’d be engaging their brains in wondering what to do next!”

When anxious parents overcompensate by providing their kids with a multitude of stimulating activities – usually related in some way to technology – they’re actually defeating the point, says Dr Markham. “Kids are always happiest in self-directed play. That’s because play is children’s work. It’s how they work out emotions and experiences they’ve had.

“Unfortunately, our society is raising a whole generation of children who are addicted to screens,” she continues. “That’s because electronics are designed to produce little “dopamine” rewards in our brains as we interact with them.” But if you can wrestle away your kids’ mobiles, leaving them without the technology they usually rely on, youngsters soon turn boredom into independent play. “Watch any group of children playing (outside, when screens are not an option),” continues Dr Markham, “and they will organise themselves into an activity of some sort, whether that’s making a dam at the creek, playing pretend or seeing who can jump farthest.”

If you take away their devices, kids will certainly complain of boredom, but this is often because they’re so used to screen entertainment that they aren’t practised at looking inside themselves for direction. And the tedium of a long afternoon without technology can soon have them turning to other, more fulfilling, pursuits. “Children need all kinds of other experiences, from building with blocks (motor skills, perceptual abilities) to engaging with other kids (learning how to get along and partner with others) to creative pursuits (becoming a doer, not a passive observer).

“Children also need to be physically active, or they can’t focus to learn.”
If you think about the times in your childhood when you were at your happiest, you’re unlikely to recall the moments you spent staring at the TV screen, or tapping away at your Nintendo GameBoy. As adults, the recollections that put a smile on our faces are usually those that involve the vast adventure games which ran for the whole summer, created entirely from our own imaginations and in our own backyards. As a result, no doubt, of being sent outside when we’d whined one too many times: “Mum. I’m bored!”

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By Sanjeev Miglani and John Chalmers

Five Indian soldiers were killed in an attack along the disputed border with Pakistan in the Kashmir region, a senior Indian official said on Tuesday, in an attack that comes as the two countries were moving toward resuming stalled peace talks.

The talks were called off in January following an attack on the border in which one Indian soldier was decapitated.

“Was briefed early this morning about news that 5 of our soldiers had been killed on the LOC. My heartfelt condolences to their next of kin,” Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in a Tweet, referring to the Line of Control dividing the two countries in the Himalayan region.

Indian media said the latest incident was an attack on an Indian military post.

It comes as the nuclear-armed rivals have been edging closer to restarting peace talks. Pakistan has proposed dates for resuming the talks, and India has been preparing a response.

“This is an extremely unfortunate incident. If Pakistan wants to have better relations with India this is not the way,” Indian junior home minister R.P.N. Singh said outside parliament in New Delhi.

A lasting peace between Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since both gained independence in 1947, has long proved elusive. With many fearing an upsurge in conflict in Afghanistan after Western forces pull out next year, it is even more important for India and Pakistan to ratchet down tension, according to some analysts.

Officials on both sides have said there may be a meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif – who made better ties with India a theme in his election campaign in May – and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.

India charges that Pakistan arms and harbours militants in Kashmir, the Muslim-majority territory claimed by both nations, and pushes them across the 740-km (460-mile) de facto border.

Pakistan denies arming the militants, saying it offers only moral support to the people of Kashmir.

There has been a spate of unusually deadly militant attacks on Indian security forces in Kashmir this year. Around 25 militants have been killed by India’s armed forces in the past month, according to Indian officials, an unusually high number.

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SUBSCRIBERS of local pay channel LTV remain in the dark as to whether they will be able to watch English Premier League football from next week.

The channel, which no longer shows Formula One racing, is in danger of losing a large number of subscribers if it does not renew its contract to show English football.

Following last week’s article in the Cyprus Mail, which informed readers that the channel might not be able to purchase the rights for the Premier League, a number of LTV subscribers called in to express their dissatisfaction.

Every caller said that they would be stopping their subscription if LTV did not secure the rights to the Premiership for the 2013-2014 season, stating it was the only reason they paid the fee every month to have the channel.

With no news so far as to what the plan is for next season and how close LTV was to securing the rights, the Cyprus Mail called LTV chief George Xinaris in an attempt to get to the bottom of the issue.

Following last week’s ‘no comment’ this week the Mail was told: “I cannot talk” before Xinaris hung up the phone.

However it is understood that the channel is doing its best to secure some form of rights, although it is not clear if it will have the rights to all of the matches like last season or just one or two every weekend.

Arabic subscriber channel Al Jazeera has recently regained the rights to show the Premier League in the middle-east and those with decoder’s and satellite dishes will be able to pick up the channel which is transmitted through Hotbird and Nilesat satellites.

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By George Psyllides

THE CENTRAL Bank of Cyprus (CBC) will hold talks with interested parties in a bid to come up with the best solution regarding the shares held by defunct Laiki Bank in the Bank of Cyprus (BoC), it was announced yesterday.

The announcement came after a CBC board meeting, which looked into the matter of the 18 per cent stake in BoC currently held by Laiki’s administrator.

The issue arose after BoC completed its recapitalisation last week and came out of administration.

Its largest shareholder turned out to be Laiki, represented by its administrator.

The EU decided in March to wind down Laiki and transfer certain assets to BoC, which, according to the same decision, had to seize 47.5 per cent of its clients’ uninsured deposits and use them for recapitalisation.

Depositors received equity in return.

It appears that the debate is part of a power struggle for control of the stricken lender, which is struggling to recover.

The Laiki administrator, now in possession of the 18 per cent, was appointed by the resolution authority, headed by CBC governor Panicos Demetriades.

With the new BoC’s annual general meeting on the horizon, there appears to be concern by some that Demetriades will have influence over the largest shareholder in the BoC, and thus over the bank itself.

All political sides voiced views on the matter yesterday, with former ruling party AKEL saying it should be left to the experts to decide.

AKEL, which is widely viewed as having the biggest responsibility for the collapse of the economy, said it was not the parties’ role to regulate such matters and decide on the details.

“It is a serious mistake by some political figures to intervene in issues that do not concern them,” AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou said. “Political parties cannot decide on what the CBC or the BoC board will do.”

Kyprianou said he was speaking about politicians who considered it their job to meddle in such matters.

Ruling DISY MP Prodromos Prodromou agreed but was quick to stress that a modern country must have the kinds of authorities that would exercise the necessary management through a transparent institutional framework.

“It is not possible for the regulator to appoint or exercise control of on the board of a bank, which he supervises,” Prodromou said.

Last week, reports said DISY leader Averof Neophytou was working on convening a special session of parliament during the summer recess to amend the resolution law passed in March, limiting the powers of the resolution authority, and either removing Laiki’s voting rights in the BoC, or dispersing the 18 per cent among Laiki’s shareholders (in their majority uninsured depositors whose savings were wiped out).

Banking sources have said that BoC shares cannot be legally transferred to and divided among Laiki’s creditors until Laiki enters into liquidation.

This cannot happen until the latter sells off its subsidiaries in Romania, Russia, Malta and Serbia.

If Laiki enters liquidation and has its licence revoked, without selling off its subsidiaries, measures will likely be taken by the national supervisory authorities in the countries where the subsidiaries are operating.

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By Maria Gregoriou

THE EUROPEAN University Cyprus has been given approval by the education ministry to start a medical school in the coming year, making this the first private university to provide a medical programme evaluated by the ministry.

The university received the green light from Education Minister, Kyriacos Kenevezos on August 1 after receiving recommendations from the evaluation committee of private universities on July 26.

Over the past year, the evaluation committee has been working with the university to get it ready for the final evaluation process.

This process is in three phases. The first is to be sure that the programme meets the modern medical standards, the second that the university has the appropriate resources and infrastructure, and thirdly that the practical training part of the degree is satisfactory.

“After seeing that the university is aligned with the European guidelines concerning medicine, we recommended it be able to run the programme as of October,” vice chair of the evaluation committee for private universities, Elpida Keravnou said.

The programme has been approved for a maximum of 30 students. Ten professors have been evaluated and approved to teach at the initial stage. The course will be taught in English, making it attractive for students from abroad.

“Many students from Amman are very interested in getting involved,” Keravnou said.

The programme has been approved for the first two years. After this time, the evaluation committee will evaluate it to make sure it is running smoothly.

The programme is a six-year course. The European University Cyprus has already made an agreement with Larnaca general hospital for the practical training part of the programme.
“In the third year students are expected to complete practical training. This is where they will be able to practice what they have learned so far in a real medical environment,” said the university’s Christoforos Hadjikyprianou.

According to Hadjikyprianou there has been a lot of interest in the programme from students in Cyprus and from abroad.

“Last week we interviewed the first 35 students who have already applied for the programme,” he said.

When asked about the medical school’s facilities Hajikyprianou said that a robot simulator had been brought over from America.

“This robot can be programmed to simulate different medical scenarios from which students can learn and practice,” Hajikyprianou said.

The University of Nicosia also runs a medical school but it is under the name of St George’s University of London. As the degree is awarded under the St George’s University title, the government is not expected to evaluate and approve its running.

A medical school is also due to begin running in September by the University of Cyprus.

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By Maria Gregoriou

THE GOVERNMENT has dropped a plan by the previous administration for the creation of a police unit for animal welfare.

The news was broken to animal lovers yesterday by Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou, who met representatives from Cyprus Voice for Animals, a non-profit organization.

The meeting came hot on the heels of a protest on Saturday outside an Aglandjia tavern accused of beating a kitten and kicking it into the road. Around 300 people protested against the alleged violent abuse, and dropped off a letter with their demands to end animal cruelty at police headquarters after the demonstration.

Cyprus Voice for Animals (CVA) said yesterday Nicolaou told them their long-standing demand for animal welfare police could not at this stage be established even though according to the group only 10-15 officers would be needed islandwide to run an effective unit.

“The minister understands the various problems that arise in the implementation of the Law but believes that these duties should be undertaken by ‘Community Policing’, in other words, neighbourhood police officers,” CVA said after the meeting.

“Community policing has not yet been established throughout Cyprus, and the minister promised that it would soon be expanded…instructions have been issued for the neighbourhood police to be specially trained on animal welfare and protection matters.”

Mary Anastasi, President of CVA and lecturer at the Police Academy since 2009 on subjects related to Raising Awareness on Animal Protection and Welfare as well as Law 46(Ι), 1994, was invited to prepare the content of the necessary seminars, which will be attended by 70 neighbourhood police. “We wish to assure you that despite the current lack of success, we will not give up and will continuously work towards the goal of establishing an Animal Protection Police Unit, however long it takes,” CVA said.

At Saturday’s protest over the kitten outside the Steki tou Kosti tavern – which remained closed that evening due to the demonstration- organised groups, animal lovers and members of the public gathered at around 8pm.

Many were holding banners saying: ‘Animals are not our slaves,’ ‘We are asking for animal welfare police now,’ and ‘Punishment for murderers.’ The placards were tame compared to the threats issued over the internet last week saying the alleged ‘cat killer’ should have his hands cut off, should be tied to a car and dragged down the street, or should be sent to the electric chair.

At the protest, co-founder of Animal Responsibility Cyprus (ARC), Kyriacos Kyriacou, read a letter addressed to Police Chief Michalis Papageorgiou, asking for the immediate and thorough investigation of the kitten incident.

“We ask that those responsible go to court and be charged for their crimes. These people will be made an example of. If these crimes are left unpunished, people are driven further to poison and mistreat animals,” Kyriacou said.

The letter demanded an animal welfare police force be created and also a neutering programme for cats and ways of protecting stray dogs, other than imprisoning them in cages.

The protest lasted around two hours.

According to Andrea Barlow, the organiser, it was very successful. After the protest, some of the people involved went back to the tavern and fed some of the cats and one person took a sick-looking kitten home with them, Barlow said.

The protest was not the end of the line according to Barlow.

“Some groups will prepare leaflets and give them out at locations near the tavern and outside the tavern. The purpose is to educate people on how to protect cats. They will also be there to watch the cats and be sure they are safe,” she said.

She said the protest was a message. “If people are being violent to animals, then who is to say they will not also be violent towards defenceless children?” she said.

ARC complained that no TV cameras had covered Saturday’s protest. State broadcaster CyBC was especially criticized as having an obligation to be there as it “receives millions of euros every year from taxpayers.”

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By Gwynne Dyer

“I WILL not go into exile like Bettino Craxi was forced to,” said Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as he awaited the outcome of his final appeal against a four-year prison sentence for tax fraud. (Craxi, another former prime minister and a friend and protector of Berlusconi’s, fled to Tunisia and died in exile after being convicted of corruption and sentenced to nine years in prison).

“If they convict me, if they take that responsibility upon themselves, I’ll go to jail,” Berlusconi continued. Brave words, but they would have been even more impressive if Berlusconi, who is 76, didn’t know that criminals over the age of 70 almost never get sent to prison in Italy.

Last week Italy’s highest court rejected Berlusconi’s last appeal and confirmed his sentence, although in practice it is unlikely to amount to more than a year’s house arrest. However, it did not confirm the lower court’s decision to ban him, as a convicted criminal, from holding political office for five years. That will be reviewed by a lower court, and may not be decided for many months.

So for the moment, at least, Berlusconi can go on being a senator, and the leader of his People of Freedom party, and in effect the co-leader of the coalition that now governs Italy. He has already been convicted and sentenced to jail for two other offences that are going through the appeal process now, but “lo psiconano”, the psychotic dwarf (as rival politician Beppe Grillo calls him), still dominates the Italian political horizon.

Silvio Berlusconi has been at the centre of Italian politics for the past twenty years, half the time as prime minister, but there is reason to believe that he first went into politics mainly to avoid various criminal prosecutions. You cannot be tried while you are prime minister, and if you stay in office long enough the cases expire because of the statute of limitations. (And while in office, Berlusconi changed the law to make them expire more quickly.)

So it was only when he lost power in 2011 that the many pending cases against him could go ahead. The results, so far, have been three convictions.

The first was for tax fraud, in a case where his Mediaset company paid false invoices, hundreds of millions of euros too high, for distribution rights to US films. (The excess money went into an overseas, tax-free slush fund.) The second was for leaking a police wiretap to one of his publications. And the third was for having sex with an under-age prostitute and abusing his prime ministerial powers to get her out of jail.

The prostitute, 17 at the time, was a Moroccan erotic dancer working under the stage name Ruby Rubacuori (Heart-Stealer). She attended one of Berlusconi’s notorious “bunga bunga” parties, and out of the dozen or so women there, she was the one who attracted the great man’s special attention.
So he took her upstairs, gave her 7,000 euros, and (in his version) sent her home untouched. Later on he also gave her jewellery, lots more money, and an Audi – and when she was arrested on suspicion of theft, he called up the police station and got her released by claiming, untruthfully, that she was the grand-daughter of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Charges were laid, and even though Berlusconi gave 127,000 euros to three key witnesses just before the trial began, he was found guilty last June. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and a lifetime ban on holding public office. That case has now also started its way through the lengthy appeals process, but one by one the doors are shutting against Berlusconi.

How did he get away with it for so long? One reason is a justice system so inefficient and overloaded that it’s easy for a rich man with good lawyers to string a case out until it dies of old age. Berlusconi is the richest man in Italy, and Italy has 9 million court cases pending. (There are only 60 million Italians.)

The larger reason is that Berlusconi, for all his sleaze and corruption, is a brilliant politician. His unique achievement was to create a coalition of north Italian racists, central and south Italian post-fascists, and just plain conservative Catholics, and hold it together for almost two decades.

That coalition is gradually disintegrating now, but it blocked the modernisation of Italian politics that should have followed the “Tangentopoli” scandals and the collapse of the old political parties in the early 1990s for a full two decades.

Berlusconi’s departure from politics will be good for Italy, but his long time in office has done permanent harm to the country’s economy and its political and legal systems. And what will he do when he is finally banned from politics?

Well, he may have to spend a year under house arrest, but he has lots of very big houses, and lots of young women will still come to the parties of such a generous man.

 Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries

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By Maria-Christina Doulami

IT IS often said that the Cypriot donkey has a greater tolerance than any other animal. And it tends to be admired by others, because you rarely see an animal endure so calmly so much hardship. That is what the people of Cyprus are like. They are fighting through the crisis patiently and serenely. That is what MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis saw. The MEP was recently in Cyprus for a very interesting lecture on the economic crisis and Europe.

In Cyprus there were no demonstrations or clashes, as usually occurs in other countries under a Memorandum, despite the fact that the Troika’s descent on the island is criticized on a daily basis. In fact, when the haircut of deposits was announced in March, it was the Spaniards who protested for Cyprus. Why didn’t the Cypriots? Maybe it is indeed due to composure. But so long as the donkey is not complaining, it will be beaten even harder. And what actually comes out, just as with voter abstention and the depreciation of political life, is simply apathy. A silent tolerance, as if no-one has yet truly understood anything. Or because they see no reason in protesting because “nothing will ever change”.

Chatzimarkakis stressed that we need to fight, to protest and to react to decisions taken outside democratic procedures. Participatory democracy, he said, is not only about voting every 4-5 years. It is about taking part in the country’s political life, about stating your presence, even if others try to exclude you.

This MEP is first in line to set an example. He speaks truths no-one dares to say (for example that Germany made a profit of €110 bln from the crisis). By saying things as they are, justifying them, and without paying attention to political affiliations and interests, he shines a light on how a true representative of the people should behave, someone who cares about the voters who trust him and not the seat in which they put him in. He himself even expressed disappointment with the EU institutions, stressing that Europe has lost its way. The European Parliament, in particular, he said, plays no role in managing the crisis as the majority of MEPs simply do not want to budge from their comfort zones, and do not even dare to stand up to a Commission that only sees what it wants.

Chatzimarkakis is right. He sees all this, he experiences it first hand, and yet he raises his voice. When asked why he does this, if he is optimistic that something will change, he replied that the reason is for his children to be able to live wherever they please. He thus sends the message to the new generation – the “me” generation – that sometimes life calls for mutiny. That this generation should look beyond itself, beyond what the previous cohort taught it – that it’s all about personal affluence often with blinders. In order for the world to change (for the better), we must first change from within, as people and as mentality. But first we need to comprehend that to some things we need to react and dare to differentiate. ‘Being cool’ is not just about raising your voice on the internet and among friends, but being bold enough to take action even beyond these.

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BETWEEN 200 and 300 people gathered on Saturday evening to protest outside the Aglandjia tavern, Steki tou Kosti, against the mistreatment of a cat by members of staff the previous weekend. It was a large number of people, considering it was a hot and humid August evening, not ideal conditions for a protest march. But the relatively large number was a reflection of the hysteria that was whipped up on the internet, through social media. The tavern stayed closed on Saturday to avoid any trouble.

The abuse and threats directed at the owners of the tavern through the internet were shocking – there were calls for inflicting a painful death on them, torturing them, harming their children and burning down the tavern. Such hatred and viciousness is difficult to understand from anyone but much less so from people who call themselves animal-lovers. It just seemed paradoxical that people who were outraged about the cruelty shown to a cat wanted to treat the perpetrator with even greater cruelty. There is no sense of measure.

People have every right to take a stand against cruelty to animals, demand police action, expose perpetrators in the social media and call for boycotts of their business, but advocating violence or organising a lynch mob is unacceptable. The owners of the tavern apologised for the behaviour of a waiter and a relative of the family who had kicked and hit the cat with a stick; the waiter was sacked and the relative banned. Nobody knows whether there was any truth in the internet stories, alleging the cat had been killed, as the eye-witnesses that reported the case to police made no such claim.

The reaction was not only out of all proportion but it did not offer any constructive solution regarding the cat problem in the capital. There are thousands of stray cats everywhere and restaurant-owners also have a duty to keep them out of their establishments – not everyone likes to eat in the company of hungry felines waiting to be thrown a piece of food, while some people are allergic to cats.

The animal lovers could do something constructive, instead of stirring up hatred, by advising restaurant-owners how to keep cats away from their establishments without hurting them. Perhaps they could also launch a fund-raising campaign for neutering strays in order to keep the cat population down. Allowing an already huge population of hungry, feral cats scavenging through rubbish and carrying all sorts of diseases to keep on increasing is also a form of cruelty, but it does not seem to concern anyone.

Increased sensitivity over the treatment of animals is welcome, but there must be a sense of perspective, which the latest campaign singularly lacked.

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By Bejay Browne

AS THE latest jobless figures were unveiled yesterday showing that 48,000 people were now unemployed, Paphos, which has been hardest hit, is hoping that opening the biggest mall in Cyprus will breathe new life into the ailing coastal town.

The landmark project – Kings Avenue Mall – costing over €110 million to build is on track to open in by the end of October, creating hundreds of jobs in the process.

“The new mall will be the largest in Cyprus and it will also be a complete destination, allowing people to spend the entire day there, as it will contain absolutely everything, ”business development manager for the project, Socrates Georgiades told the Cyprus Mail.

The state-of-the art building is being developed by a joint venture, Athiari Commercial Ltd (Paphos) and is one of the largest commercial developments ever to be built on the island.
Georgiades said that the total investment would exceed €110 million and the mall would serve as the ‘ultimate shopping experience.’

“Paphos is lacking in infrastructure and shops and outlets are spread out all over the place. In addition, it’s hard to find places to park. At the new mall everything will be under one roof and there will also be enough underground parking spaces for 1,250 vehicles,” he said.

The project comprises two underground parking areas situated in the basement of the modern architectural designed building and two floors for shopping, leisure, entertainment and other services.

On the ground floor there will be several department stores, banks, fashion stores for men and women, a supermarket, and a toy and homeware store. On the first floor there will be additional clothing shops, including those for children, and sportswear. There will also be shops selling, cosmetics, toys, gifts, jewellery, lingerie, fashion accessories, electronics, multimedia and optical products. In addition, there will be a mini market, a beauty salon and more.

“There will be three full service restaurants, including TGI Friday’s, Wagamama and Pizza Hut. There will be eight different fast food concepts and two cafes. There will be both indoor and outdoor seating areas and a covered verandah,” said Georgiades.

Entertainment will be provided by six state-of-the-art cinemas, a video arcade and a kids’ play-place (indoor and outdoor).

“In the underground parking areas, there will be service shops, such as: dry cleaning, shoe repairs, keys shop, tailoring and a flower shop.”

The building is 103,000 m2 and Georgiades says the net area available to be let would be 28,000 m2.The covered area- excluding the basement- is 41,000 m2, and all of the parking places are covered.

“The idea is to try to bring to Paphos the best services and products available to the Cypriot market, this is something lacking in Paphos, and what is there now is too spread out. Tourists will be able to walk from the harbour, for example, spend the day at the mall before returning to the harbour to continue their evening.”

The business development manager said that the location for the project was ideal, as it is only a few hundred metres from the harbour, and numerous hotels and apartments.

“Approximately 100,000 residents of the region of Paphos and 800.000 tourists annually will have easy access. Also, especially during summer time, there will be a significant number of visitors coming from other areas of the island,” said Georgiades.

He said once people parked their cars, they need not move for the entire day.

Georgiades added that for nine months of the year the mall will be accessible for extended hours, using the ‘tourist’ timetable for opening hours.

“We will be open from 10am until 10pm every day with the exception of the months of January, February and March when we will be open for the same hours as other shops.”

“We have a large number of crews working around the clock at the site at present to ensure that it is completed on time. We are about to install the roof which will enable the acceleration of the interior design. The project is due for completion at the end of October, plus or minus fifteen days.”

Stores due to open at the Kings Mall include: Zara, Zara Home, Jumbo, Bershka, Stradivarius, Lacoste, Swarovski, Pull and Bear, Beauty Line, Public and many more.
www.kingsavenuemall.com

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By Mary Robinson

Global warming and climate change present humankind with one of the greatest challenges in the history of our species. While there is now broad acknowledgment of this fact, for those of us in the world’s most developed countries, our awareness is often abstracted: We see climate change as just an environmental problem that will somehow be solved, or our view is shaped by the kind of horrific disasters that make for sensational headlines and gripping news footage. Then we forget all about it until the next disaster flashes across our screens.

What shouldn’t be overlooked is that the effects of climate change are cumulative. They do not always take the form of extreme natural disasters. Climate change is already having a profoundly adverse impact on poorer communities around the world, as they experience, for example, a heavy rainfall that destroys a farmer’s entire crop during the normally dry season. The people most affected – women, children, and the most vulnerable – are the least responsible for causing climate change, and also the least able to cope.

Putting aside the worst-case scenarios of a much hotter world, we need to face the present reality that climate change is already disproportionately affecting the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people in a way that jeopardizes their fundamental human rights.

I’ve become increasingly aware of this during my years traveling to many of the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped countries, where I’ve seen how climate change is threatening food supplies and sabotaging development goals.

Climate change is an issue of both human rights and fundamental justice. Developing countries’ fossil-fuel consumption is undermining the life chances of very poor people, and, unlike those of us in developed nations, those people are largely helpless in response to the climate shocks of severe droughts, catastrophic storms, and floods. They don’t have insurance, and their governments don’t have the means to provide climate adaptation strategies.

Considering climate change from a human rights and justice perspective compels us to recognize our own responsibility to support poorer populations in their efforts to adapt and become resilient. It lends greater urgency to the need for a true partnership of nations to limit global warming.

Fortunately, this human rights perspective is increasingly being embraced. The UN Human Rights Council first recognized the impact of climate change on human rights in 2008, and last year appointed John Knox, a distinguished American academic, as its first independent expert on human rights and the environment.

More recently, the UN High-Level Panel charged with advising the secretary general on an agenda for global development beyond 2015, the original target date for the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, released its report, “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development.” The report clearly links human rights and development, as well as development and the environment.

The climate agenda must be achieved by 2015. This agenda can only be truly effective if it’s seen to be fair and equitable, recognizing the legitimate development aspirations of developing countries and supporting the transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy.

Developing countries will not embrace an agenda that does not recognize climate change’s disproportionate impact on them. Climate change jeopardizes food and water security, limits access to resources, and exacerbates the effects of poverty. Poorer countries thus end up being more affected.

In order to achieve the climate agenda, we need to focus on the poor and most vulnerable, and recognize the importance of a rights-based approach. People’s rights must be protected. We must make sure nobody is left behind.

I’m infused with a sense of urgency. We must act now, or the world we pass on to our children and grandchildren will be almost unimaginably troubled. What will they think of us? We have the awareness, the knowledge, and the expertise to do something about climate change. Let us not be accused of failing to act while there was still time.

Mary Robinson was the President of Ireland from 1990–97, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997–2002. In July 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor. In 2010, Mary Robinson established The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. In March 2013, she was appointed UN Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region of Central Africa.

This article originally appeared at www.themarknews.com

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RESTORATION works being carried out at two Cypriot Middle Byzantine monuments both situated in refugee communities: Ayia Marina Kandou in Limassol and Panayia Kofinou in the Larnaca district have made significant progress, the Antiquities Department said yesterday.

The projects, begun in 2012, come under the Eumathios Philokales, promotion of selected middle byzantine monuments of Crete and Cyprus is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund via the Cross-Border Cooperation Programme us 2007-2013.

The restoration of the half-ruinous church of Ayia Marina Kandou were conducted following the confirmation of a graphic reconstruction.

Also between January 2012 and June 2013 a restoration team from the department of antiquities restored the Church of Panayia Kofinou. Extensive works took place for the restoration of the monument’s masonry -. removal of the old grouting and replacement with new grouting – use of reinforcing injections in the core of the masonry, replacement of worn stones, treatment of cracks, excavation beneath the church’s floor and treatment of the church’s foundations with a special material against humidity.

The same team undertook the preparation works for the landscaping of the surrounding area, which will be implemented by the private sector. In addition, the surviving frescoes have been cleaned, consolidated and conserved.

Since the beginning of the two projects €393.264 has been spent in total, and the European Regional Development Fund has already funded it to the tune of 80 per cent, amounting to €221.090.

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By Peter Stevenson

SMALL shopkeepers’ union POVEK will be taking its demand to revoke the decree on new shop opening hours to the Supreme Court it was revealed yesterday.

The union’s general-secretary, Stephanos Koursaris told the state broadcaster that only big chains were benefiting from the new relaxation on shop opening hours as opposed to the small businesses the move was supposedly designed to help.

The decree, announced in early July, allows shops to stay open longer, and on Sundays in a move aimed at helping the unemployed, and businesses.

“Our appeal is ready and we will submit it in the following days as we can only deal with this problem through legal channels,” Koursaris said.

He added that the new law had not had the desired affect of kick-starting the economy or relieving the growing issue of unemployment despite it only being in operation for less than a month.

“Believe me, 90 per cent of the shops are not open for any longer than they used to be following the issuing of the decree,” he said.

Koursaris added he believed that the new opening hours were confusing the public.

“Small businesses are choking at the expense of big shopping centres,” he concluded.

Head of the retailers union, Giorgos Aniliades said customers were happy with the new hours as they could shop until late at night or even on Sundays.

He added that the target set by Labour Minister Zeta Emiliandiou for unemployed people to make up 50 per cent of new employees who would work on Wednesday afternoons and Sundays at shops was being fully implemented.

“The decree was implemented without much warning and so businesses need to hire new employees on a gradual basis,” he said.

The retailers union, Aniliades added, believes the new hours were a positive move but the ministry would have the final say once it has all of the figures at its disposal.

“Shops have recorded an increase in sales but nobody is being forced to keep their shop open if they don’t want to, if it will only run-up their operating costs,” he added.

Head of the department of industrial relations at the ministry, Andreas Mylonas, said generally the results of the new decree had been positive.

“There have even been instances where we have noticed shops have stayed open longer than they are permitted,” he said.

Mylonas added there had been a few complaints from workers following confusion as to how much they would be paid for working on Sunday’s and Wednesday afternoons, when shops are usually closed.

“Inspectors from the ministry visit shops on a regular basis and have cleared up much of the confusion,” he added. Around 400 applications have been received by the labour ministry to hire personnel through the government scheme for unemployed people, Mylonas said.

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