By Maria Gregoriou

KENTHEA, a non-governmental organisation against addictions, is planning to start running a programme from September to educate parents and students in schools on alcohol consumption and responsible drinking.

The programme is based on the national drug strategy and action plan established by the European monitoring centre for drugs and drug addiction. The plan will start in September and will end in 2016.

The latest survey on teenagers and alcohol consumption in 2011 completed by the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) in collaboration with the education ministry showed that the number of Cypriot youths who consume alcohol was up 11 per cent since 2007.

According to the research one out of every two students in Cyprus between the age of 15 and 16 bought alcohol for their own consumption.

On average only 37 per cent of the study group in Europe bought alcohol to drink during the same time period.

“Alcohol availability is much more fluid in Cyprus than other European countries. This is one of the main reasons why half of youths drink, because they can easily get their hands on it, no questions asked,” neurologist, physiatrist and scientific director of KENTHEA, Kyriacos Veresies said.

“Before, Cypriots used to drink and eat but now they drink to get high. It has become a new lifestyle, a fashionable pastime for teenagers to with their friends,” Veresies said.

Another reason behind this upward trend was found to be the increased consumption and availability of alcohol pops such as, Bacardi Breezers and Smirnoff Ice, according to Veresies.

The change in alcohol consumption has also been noted by sociologist Giorgos Petrou.

“The problem is a double-edged sword. Even if alcohol is forbidden to young people, if they want it they will get it,” he said.

According to Petrou the important issue is to educate youngsters on why over-consumption may lead to addiction and therefore become dangerous. This starts in the home and follows into schools, he said.

“We should teach our young that you do not have to drink to have friends or to become part of a group,” Petrou said.

In Cyprus a glass of wine a day was considered good for you in the past, but now culture promotes the idea that in order to feel good you must drink, Petrou added.

The legal age for alcohol consumption in Cyprus is 17. According to police, checks in pubs, bars and clubs are done on a daily basis and complaints are followed up.

Bar owners are fined €59 for every under-age person found drinking on the premises. They are given 15 days to pay the fine and if they do not do so, the amount is doubled. If it is not paid within a month, the owner is sent to court.

According to police, if a large number of under-age people are found drinking, the owner is sent straight to court.

However a German mother of a 15-year-old boy in Larnaca, Ute Kallis, said that it is very difficult to stop pub and club owners from selling alcohol to teenagers.

“My son could go to some bars in Larnaca and pay €10 and drink as much as he likes as it is an open bar,” Kallis said, adding that parenting can only go so far when it comes to teenagers and their need to fit in.

“Teenagers are at a very delicate age and they want to meet with their friends. Parents can protect their children up to a point, but the law must be withheld for their total protection,” she said.

“If it is so easy for them to get alcohol, then they will be tempted and drink to be part of the gang.”

She said drunken teenagers walking along Larnaca seafront on weekends was a common sight.

They can just go to a kiosk, get some alcohol and drink on the beach,” Kallis added.

The ESPAD study is carried out every four years. In 2011, 36 European countries took part. School students between 15 and 16-years-old are given questionnaires in school in March or April. The ESPAD report is released in May of the following year.

The objective of the survey is to monitor and compare trends between countries. Student’s participation is voluntary and anonymous. The next survey will be carried out in 2015.

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By Bejay Browne

A COMMUNITY garden set up by a church in Paphos is helping to feed those in need as well as promoting a sense of self worth to volunteers.

Pastor Allan Hodgson of the Paphos Christian Fellowship International-PCFI – says that he hopes the idea will catch on in all communities in Cyprus, to enable people to get through the current crisis.

“On a recent trip to the UK, I saw something similar to what we are doing. I thought what a great idea it was and everything has gone from there,” said Hodgson of the project which was launched in February.

The project, called ‘Matthew 25’ after a chapter of the Bible, is manned by volunteers.

“We were very generously donated a field in Kissonerga in Paphos for free by a British couple which had been previously been used to keep horses. The couple also supplies us with water to irrigate our plants free of charge.”

The volunteers we grow vegetables, work on the land and eat what they grow.

“We are also giving the produce to needy families. We want to try and help as many people as possible, not just the members of our church,” the pastor said.

The pastor explained that as PCFI is an international church many members of the congregation originate from countries all over the world, as well as Cyprus.

“We have so many different nationalities such as people from Romania, Bulgaria, Egypt, the Philippines and Syria. In the current climate, many are finding it difficult to find work or to live here.”

The field which is around four acres is currently planted with tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. “As the season change so will the produce and everything is one hundred per cent organic,” he said.

There are currently three volunteers working the land plus and a church member who likes to go by just his first name, Ramzi, is in charge of them.

“Ramzi is wonderful and he loves what he is doing. It has been especially hard for some of the men, as they are no longer able to support their families and as they don’t have jobs their sense of self worth was low. But this project helps to give them back their sense of value.”

The pastor said that each year the church allocates a sum of money to charity and a budget of 2,000 euros was set for the new project.

He added that the tractor cost 1,500 euros and the irrigation system 400 or so euros, but further piping is still needed.

Matthew 25 has had a bumper crop of tomatoes and has already given away about 100 kilos.

“We also give what we can to support the Solidarity charity in Paphos which is helping needy families of the district,” Hodgson said.

In the future, Matthew 25 would like to have a small shop to sell some of the produce to the public to raise some more funds to purchase new seeds and a selection of fruit trees.

“We would not be selling for profit but to put the money back into trying to help feed people,” the pastor said.

“I think these types of projects in communities are the way forward to try and get through these difficult times and bring everyone together. Last week we gave our produce to 20 families and we would like to be able to help more.”

Pastor Allan Hodgson 96217416

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By Poly Pantelides

A CALL by the Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ urging Turkish Cypriots to seek property exchanges with Greek Cypriots via the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) is both legally and logistically problematic, a leading lawyer has said.

Sibel Siber was quoted in Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis on Tuesday as saying Turkish Cypriots could “reach an agreement with the pre-1974 owner of the property they are using in the north”. After they reach an agreement, “the Immovable Property Commission could approve this [agreement],” she said.

Siber said the move would support bizonality and clear the IPC backlog, adding the economy of the ‘TRNC’ would benefit from such agreements which would also resolve problems arising from Greek Cypriot “propaganda” presenting some properties in the ‘TRNC’ as “stolen”. Peace talks between the two communities are due to resume in autumn.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in the 2010 Demopoulos case that displaced Greek Cypriots who lost their homes and properties in the Turkish invasion needed to go to the IPC in the north which was deemed an effective domestic remedy for their claims. In theory, the body offers Greek Cypriots compensation, property exchange or restitution of their properties, although in practice only a handful of cases have been settled with restitution.

Lawyer Eleni Meleagrou, whose clients have pending cases with the IPC and recently took her own IPC case all the way to the ECHR, said Siber’s proposal had legal and logistical problems.

“The only people who can apply to the IPC are Greek Cypriots who were either the owners in 1974 or are the legal heirs of those properties,” she said. So in the case of potential property exchange, a Turkish Cypriot would need to find a Greek Cypriot willing to exchange property. For this to happen, the IPC would need to be prepared to find a Turkish Cypriot owning land of comparable value, she said.

Easier said than done. Meleagrou has a client who asked for a property exchange years ago, and is still waiting.

“The first thing the IPC asked was whether we had a Turkish Cypriot property in mind in the government-controlled areas,” she said. Meleagrou and her client did not, and the IPC has been looking into a possible property exchange for some two years. “Every time I go and ask about this, they say their land registry is overburdened,” she said.

“The idea to get Turkish Cypriots to do this by themselves is not feasible,” Meleagrou said.

And IPC applications take years, partly the reason why out of over 5,000 applications lodged so far, only 412 have been concluded. Once a Greek Cypriot files an application, the ‘TRNC’s’ land registry department needs to do a search to see who the owner is, Meleagrou said adding this could take at least two years. The IPC may require a lot of supplemental information, from proving that the person registered as the owner is indeed the applicant or that the applicant is indeed the daughter of the original owner, providing birth and death certificates to boot.

But say that nonetheless a Turkish Cypriot finds a Greek Cypriot who agrees to a property exchange of his property in the north with a Turkish Cypriot property in the government-controlled areas and it all goes through in the IPC. The government would not register the property in the Greek Cypriot’s name, which comes under the interior ministry’s Guardian of Turkish Cypriot properties, Meleagrou said.

The one and only known exception to this is the case of Mike Tymvios who – with the blessings of the ECHR first in 2003 and again in 2008 – had come to a friendly property swap deal by which he exchanged his property near Tymbou in the north with a Turkish Cypriot who had owned land in Larnaca. At first, the land registry had refused to allow the transfer of title deeds for the land in Larnaca on which the government had subsequently built. It was not until last year that the government eventually agreed to approve the transfer and then purchase the land from Tymvios. At the time, Attorney-general Petros Clerides was at pains to stress the move was a “special” one off case. Because Tymvios’ case preceded the 2010 Demopoulos decision, Clerides said no precedent had been set. “The road to the ECHR has closed with the Demopoulos case,” he said.

Nevertheless, Greek Cypriots are still free to go to the IPC.

However, the ECHR recently threw out an application by Meleagrou who wanted the court to review the IPC’s decision not to grant her restitution for her family home and property. The ECHR refused to look at the case’s merits, and told Meleagrou she could have asked for any of the other two remedies available at the IPC, compensation or property exchange.

“One has to wonder if what Siber is saying in effect is that there will be occasions when the only thing the IPT is offering is property exchange,” Meleagrou said.

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By Simon Bahceli

TURKEY’S High Court ruling on Monday sentencing twenty journalists – along with numerous military officials, politicians and university scholars – to prison terms ranging from six months to 34 years, dealt what many agreed was a final blow to press freedom in that country.

It is not only the culmination of the Ergenekon trials, in which hundreds were accused of seeking to overthrow the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government by illegal means, that sends shivers through the spines of Turkish journalists. Even before the High Court ruling Ankara had faced dire criticism for having more reporters in jail than any other country on earth. Moreover, its government’s successful endevours to wipe out remaining media opposition by intimidating individual journalists and threatening editors with legal action have been well documented both in and outside a country that was until recently seen as a model for other predominantly Muslim countries seeking to establish themselves as functioning democracies.

As Reporters Without Border (RWB) stated in a report on Turkish press freedom earlier this year, “In the name of the fight against terrorism, Turkey is the world’s biggest prison for journalists”. In the same report it added that, “the state’s paranoia about security…has a tendency to see every criticism as a plot hatch by illegal organisations”.

So appalling was its approach toward media freedom that RWB listed Turkey as the 154th safest country to be a journalist out of 179 globally – a listing that falls far below numerous countries no one would dare claim to be democratic models for their region.

In the light of such oppression and fear on the Turkish mainland, one has to ask what the implications of this might be for media freedom in what many see as Turkey’s colony in northern Cyprus.

At first glance, observers can easily get the impression that pretty much anything goes in the enclave. On Thursday, for example, the left-wing and unashamedly anti-AKP daily Afrika used its front page to accuse the Turkish government of carrying out a massacre against Kurds in Syria through its backing of Al Qaida militias operating there. The publication of such a front page by a mainstream national daily in Turkey would be unthinkable.

Afrika’s owner-editor Sener Levent is of course no stranger to legal action and other means to silence him. His journalistic work saw him briefly jailed in 2002 when he lost a libel case against the late Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, and his offices have suffered arson attacks and were even shot at as a result of his paper’s anti-establishment stance.

These attempts to silence Levent are now presumed to have been the work of Turkish “deep state” operatives working in Turkey and northern Cyprus; the same goes for the fatal shooting of Turkish Cypriot journalist Kutlu Adali in Nicosia in 1996. But with the “deep state” now supposedly behind bars for decades to come, having been placed there earlier this week by the Turkish High Courts, is it right for Levent to assume he can publish what he likes unhindered?

Head of the Turkish Cypriot Journalists Association (KTGB) Cenk Mutluyakali said he was yet to feel any fallout from the Turkish government’s onslaught against his colleagues on the mainland.

“At the moment Turkey’s problems with press freedom are not reflected here and we write what we like,” he told the Sunday Mail with only the slight concession that this “could change”.

Others are not so nonchalant. As one journalist who wished to remain anonymous told the Mail, “Most of our journalists fear [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan personally”, but added that the usual mouthpiece of Ankara’s disquiet toward Turkish Cypriot journalism was the Turkish ‘embassy’, which would “summon editors” and “call them into line”.

“Most journalists here do not have the guts to oppose it,” he said, citing intervention that got top-selling daily Kibris to “tone down” reports on a petty crimes being carried out by Turkish nationals living in northern Cyprus.

But it may not simply be about whether journalists have the guts to oppose Erdogan’s, Ankara’s or the Turkish ‘embassy’s’ wishes on Cyprus. It is more about whether owners of media outlets in Nicosia can financially afford to oppose them.

In the north virtually all newspapers and broadcasters belong to political parties and/or businessmen whose political affiliations are well known. This means that editors summoned to the ‘embassy’ arrive there as representatives of political parties or business interests. It is easy therefore to see how pressure can be applied when contracts for projects paid for by Turkey are being handed out.

Elaborating on this, head of the Turkish Cypriot Journalists Union (BASIN-SEN) Kemal Darbaz told the Sunday Mail that the Turkish government, like many others, was using tools it had acquired through installation of a neo-liberal economy that allows vast conglomerates to own the majority of mainstream media outlets.

“Globally, the problem with the media now is a matter of its ownership,” he said, highlighting that these same conglomerates bid for multi-billion dollar projects from the government, meaning that printing anti-government sentiment is simply not in their interests.

However, Darbaz says that the smallness of northern Cyprus and the subsequent closeness of its people, and of course the lack of conglomerates in the enclave, means the media can still afford to be critical when it wants to be. Nevertheless, he insists there is “a daily erosion of independence and editorial freedom,” and warns of a need to “remain vigilant and create alternative ways of making sure our news is heard”.

Indeed, if Turkey succeeds in carrying out its much feared economic restructuring of the north – a restructuring that is supposed to reflect Ankara’s neo-liberal model dominated by Turkish conglomerates – then such warnings will surely need heeding.

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By Stefanos Evripidou

AKAMAS RESIDENTS and landowners yesterday called on the government to save the state money it does not have by foregoing compensation promised landowners in exchange for allowing for the “mild development” of the once pristine peninsula.

Spokesman for the coordinating committee of Akamas communities and land owners Savvas Hadjiminas said yesterday the committee decided after a meeting in Neo Chorio that the solution to provide compensation and exchange affected property included in the EU Natura 2000 environmental protection programme is no longer feasible.

In April 2009, the cabinet of the Demetris Christofias government decided to provide landowners with compensation or state land in exchange for limiting their right to build on any land in the Akamas peninsula included in the Natura 2000 protection areas submitted to the European Commission.

According to Hadjiminas, this solution was no longer feasible due to the dire situation of the economy, which has left state coffers empty and tied up state land, which the government is obliged to put down as collateral to the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC).

As a result, the only feasible decision that will not require using taxpayers’ money is to allow a coefficient for mild development of 8 per cent for agricultural plots and 25 per cent for tourist plots, as it was pre-1989, and allow mild sustainable development within the Natura 2000 areas, said Hadjiminas.

He further argued that in a written opinion to landowners and the agriculture ministry’s environment department, the European Commission said low-level development within Natura 2000 was permissible.

For this reason, he said, “we request that cabinet amend its decision on zero development in the Natura 2000 areas and include mild development after environmental studies by the applicants, investors, and an examination by the management committee.”

The spokesman expressed hope that the new government under President Nicos Anastasiades would be able to take a decision on the matter by the end of the year “to finally provide a just and fair solution to the Akamas issue, which will protect the forest on the one hand, biodiversity and the Akamas Peninsula, while on the other solve the problems of landowners caught up in this long-lasting problem”.

The committee also decided yesterday to request the immediate examination by state services of licence applications for the development of sustainable tourism projects across the Akamas Peninsula, including in the Natura 2000 areas.

Hadjiminas said business people were in a position to invest millions in sustainable development projects that would bring real growth to the whole of the Paphos district and hundreds of jobs.

The issue of Akamas has long been a sore point between the government, local residents, landowners, property developers and environmentalists.

Landowners and local residents have long argued that it is unfair not to allow them to develop what has become prime real estate, while conservationists counter that Akamas is one of the last truly beautiful nature spots in the government-controlled areas which is already under threat by the gradual encroachment of development, with the tolerance of the authorities.

According to the website of the agriculture ministry’s environment department, Natura 2000 includes 61 sites in Cyprus, covering protection of habitats, types of flora and fauna, and birds sites.

Regarding implementation of the relevant EU directives on Natura 2000, twelve management schemes for the protection areas identified are in the final stages of preparation, said the site.

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By Patroclos

THERE is no more entertaining spectacle than watching two alpha males of Kyproulla’s ruling elite that contributed, in their own way, to the current economic catastrophe, taking swipes at each other in an effort to avoid personal blame and protect their standing in our easily-fooled society.

I refer to the once mighty Ttooulis Ttoouli, former minister and ex-Governor of the Central Bank who on Friday returned the fire he was under, a week earlier, from once-mighty Kikis Lazarides, former executive chairman of Laiki Bank. They both used the investigative committee for the economy as the platform for their respective attacks.

Their dispute is over who was to more to blame for the arrival of the destroyer of Laiki, Andreas Vgenopoulos to Kyproulla. Ttooulis was the head of the supervisory authority of the banks, as Governor at the time, while Kikis was the executive chairman of Laiki who laid the red carpet for Vgen.

These pillars of the dishonest society we live in, despite being in their seventies, have not lost their appetite for a fight, more than happy to land imaginary punches below the belt, for the lightweight title of innocence. The fight will be over now that Ttooulis also had his say at the geriatric committee and kicked Kikis ass.

The bout ended in a draw, neither able to convince that they were blameless. On the contrary, each made a very convincing case of the other’s guilt, in opening the doors to Marfin’s silver-tongued bankster.

IN FRIDAY’S appearance Ttooulis landed several blows, informing his fellow golden oldies on the panel that Vgen’s intention to buy 19 per cent of Laiki had created “euphoria and an atmosphere of enthusiasm among the Laiki leadership.”

He also mentioned his meeting in June 2005 with HSBC’s Europe CEO, who informed Ttooulis that the bank wanted to have more control in Laiki. If HSBC could not increase its shareholding to 50-plus per cent it would sell its 21 per cent holding. The CEO was ‘frustrated’ with lack of control HSBC had despite being the main shareholder; it only had one director on the board, Kikis and his allies refusing to give it second seat.

After the meeting Ttooulis contacted Kikis to tell him to try to satisfy HSBC, but in September he was informed that no deal had been reached and the bank planned to withdraw from Laiki by the end of 2005. If HSBC had not pulled out, Laiki would still have been in business today, lamented Ttooulis in another dig at Kikis.

He was absolutely right and although he did not spell it out, it was clear what he was trying to say – Kikis had rejected HSBC’s proposal, for his own reasons. Presumably, because he would cease being the numero uno, supreme ruler of Laiki if the foreign bank had the majority shareholding.

The autocratic Kikis would not even agree to HSBC having two directors on the board in case his absolute powers were diluted, despite its shareholding more than justifying a greater representation. The scheming Kikis, brought in Vgen instead, in the belief he would keep his powers but a few months after taking over, the bankster forced him out, which was poetic justice. The money launderer’s euphoria did not last long.

TTOOULIS may have done everything in his power to keep HSBC in Laiki, but he did not try as zealously to keep Vgen out. He told the committee that the Central Bank had prepared a “thorough and documented report” before Vgen was allowed to take his 19 per cent share in Laiki. Even though the report had not been completed, when Ttooulis gave the go-ahead, the information it was awaiting was of secondary importance.

But if the report was so “thorough and documented”, why had it not identified the link between the two Vgen-controlled companies – Tosca and Marfin – that were buying the shares in Laiki as separate and unlinked entities?

In June 2006, Kikis said in his testimony, Ttooulis sent a letter to Vgen informing him that he had “unconfirmed information” that Marfin was engaging in the purchase of Laiki shares during the closed period, which was against the law, and if he found this to be true he would declare the Marfin deal with Laiki null and void.

This was more like a blackmailer’s letter. Would a Governor of a Central Bank send a warning letter based on gossip, which is what “unconfirmed information” is? Surely he would investigate the information and if it was confirmed take action, instead of informing the suspect before he investigated him.

In the event, Ttooulis, despite doing his best, failed to get the confirmation he needed and could not take the threatened punitive measures against Vgen, with whom, he subsequently enjoyed very cosy relations.

THEIR RELATIONS were so cosy, that when Ttooulis’ term as Governor was nearing its end in April 2007, Vgen sent a letter to then president Tassos Papadopoulos urging him to extend it for another five years.

Only in Kyproulla would a bank boss feel he has the right to propose the identity of the man in charge of the banks’ supervisory authority, but this was because Vgen and Ttooulis seemed to have developed a bond.

This bond was strengthened in November 2006, a few months after Vgen took control of Laiki, he hired Ttooulis’ son-in-law as marketing executive at Laiki on salary well in excess of 100 grand (pounds) a year. “Of course, I had no involvement in the matter,” Ttooulis told the golden oldies on Friday.

Ttooulis’ family-owned banking school, which he set up when he was Governor, meanwhile, was also selling services to Laiki. In fact it was offering banking training courses to employees of all the banks. Of course, he had no involvement in the banking school, which was owned by his wife and daughter nor would a man of integrity like Ttooulis use his position to persuade the banks to send their employees there.

HIS DAUGHTER, Athina, who owns the banking school with the Mrs Ttooulis, was the same daughter whose company received €1 million, in consultancy fees, for 10 years, paid in advance, by a Greek shipowner and close associate of Vgen in June 2007.

Before opening the banking school, Athina worked at the Bank of Cyprus and was considered a very mediocre employee of very average intelligence by colleagues. It is still great mystery to her former colleagues how someone of her very limited abilities and knowledge could command €1 million as a 10-year retainer for consultancy services.

The idea of Athina as a highly-paid consultant of a shipowner was about as believable as Christofias becoming head of the European Central Bank, said one ex-colleague.

SO WHO is more to blame for Vgen’s takeover of Laiki, Kikis or Ttooulis? Kikis is definitely more culpable as he found the bankster and sold him to Laiki’s shareholders a the saviour of the bank, but then again Ttooulis, apart from ordering a “thorough and documented report” that, in retrospect, turned out to be not very thorough, did nothing to stop him apart from sending him a warning letter citing “unconfirmed information,” that was never confirmed.

AKELITE politicians were in mourning all week because the co-op credit banks would lose their identity and people-centric philosophy as a result of the deal struck between the government and the troika, whereby the co-ops would come under state ownership.

This was inevitable given that the state would be providing €1.5bn for the capital needs of the bankrupt co-ops. The commies, who should have been celebrating given AKEL’s dogmatic support for state ownership of everything, did nothing but cry all week because the co-ops would no longer belong to their members.

Deputies from other parties also lamented the passing of the clapped-out co-ops which have always been a sacred cow for the political parties. They all argued that the members should eventually be allowed to buy their shares back from the state, even though they all know this happy day would never come. What is the likelihood of members of the co-ops raising the €1.5bn to buy back their shares, this century?

EDEK deputy Giorgos Varnavas, in a statement, said that the co-op movement “must carry on operating on a different basis from the rest of the commercial banks and maintain its human face towards the Cypriot people.”

The “human face” and “people-centric philosophy”, the politicians are always referring to is a coded way of saying that the co-ops should carry on their policy of not putting any pressure on customers who were not repaying their loans. The co-ops had a human face because they gave loans that you never had to pay back.

This was officially confirmed at the House commerce committee on Friday when the Central Bank revealed that the non-performing loans at many co-ops were over 50 per cent of their portfolios. For medium-sized co-ops NPLs were 60 per cent but for many small ones the percentage reached 80 per cent.

The taxpayer will be paying €1.5bn for the human face of the co-ops.

CENTRAL Bank Governor Dr Panicos informed the House committee that the NPLs of the co-ops proved higher than had been forecasted by Pimco’s extreme-case scenario for the commercial banks. The percentage of the NPLs was lower for the commercial banks because they did not have a human face.

A year ago, when Professor Panicos was publicly lambasting the banks, he was categorically stating that the co-ops were robust and sound operations that did not require any support. But the truth was that they were in a much worse state than the banks. Had he based his findings on any concrete information or was the independent state official merely repeating what his Akel masters had ordered him to say?

SEVERAL regulars accused our establishment of a inconsistency and weakness, because last week it expressed its admiration for the IMF’s representative Delia Velculescu. They noted that in the past we had referred to her as Cruella and ‘deleterious Delia’, whereas last week we were praising her sexy voice and attractiveness.

Of course they were correct, and I would like ask for their understanding because members of the male species are fickle and superficial beings who are easily won over by a pretty face and sexy voice. So from now on our establishment will be writing only about the dishy, delightful, delectable and delicious Delia.

THE STANDARD of the education of many of the smaller colleges operating in Kyproulla might not be very high, but you have to admire the inventiveness and business acumen of their owners. When Noble Energy confirmed there was natural gas in our EEZ, the colleges started advertising courses on sea-drilling, hydrocarbons etc. In the last couple of weeks, one college has been advertising a degree course in ‘Casino management’. It probably organised the course before the government decided to grant just one casino licence, when we thought that a casino would open in every neighbourhood.

RYANAIR may be known as the budget airline, but when it comes to squeezing money out of its customers its ruthlessness is quite astonishing. A mother and daughter who were flying out of Paphos 10 days ago had arrived at the airport without their boarding passes and were informed that they could have new ones issued at the airport. The cost for each new boarding pass was €75 and if they did not pay they could not fly. On the return fight, from Stanstead, the mother’s suitcase weighed 15.7kg, exceeding the maximum by 0.7kg. She had to pay £30 penalty. There is nothing budget about Ryan Air’s penalty charges.

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WHEN the idea of charging people that used the state hospitals, including their A&E departments, there was public outrage. The politicians protested, public sector unions threatened strikes and journalists expressed fears that the poor would be ineligible to free healthcare. But the government ignored the opposition, as the reform of the system was included in the memorandum of understating, and introduced hospital fees, as planned on August 1.

Since then, everyone has been praising the charges because their introduction had decongested the hospitals. As soon as fees were introduced, for visits as well as prescriptions, people stopped abusing the system. According to the CEO of Nicosia General Hospital, there was a 40 per cent reduction of visits from day one, while visits to the A&E were down by almost 50 per cent.

It was an amazing improvement and exactly what a much abused system needed. There will be no people going into the A&E department complaining about a tummy ache or demanding their blood pressure was measured. Nor, as an elderly gentleman told the Sunday Mail, would there now be pensioners “going away with bagfuls of medicines they did not need and ended up throwing half of them away,” because there are prescription charges.

We have the troika to thank for the reform of a very poor system that was a big drain on resources, was easy to abuse and resulted in huge waste. If it were up to our politicians this waste would have continued; it was the political parties that increased the burden on state hospitals by making more and more people eligible to free healthcare ignoring the mounting problems this created for their operation.

The troika introduced some rationality to the system – it proposed the introduction of strict income criteria for free healthcare, suggested the introduction of affordable fees for the rest and insisted that public employees could no longer be entitled to free healthcare. In the end, despite the strike threat, PASYDY agreed that its members would have 1.5 per cent deducted from their gross monthly salary to pay for hospital care. It might not be a big percentage but public employees’ right to free care has now been abolished, thanks to the troika.

The memorandum is putting in place rational policies that we could never have expected our populist politicians to introduce, in case they alienated some interest group. The government’s ambitious plan to overhaul the mismanaged and abused social welfare system by next year was another welcome, troika-imposed initiative. No extra money would be spent (annual budget would remain at €2.8bn), but there would be a re-distribution of benefits that would be subject to strict incomes criteria to ensure only those in genuine need, including the long-term unemployed, received state assistance.

We may even have a national health scheme in place by the end of 2015, again thanks to the troika, which made its introduction a requirement of the memorandum. To overcome the difficulties of the complex logistics, it advised implementation in stages. Another sensible idea that our politicians and technocrats never thought of in all the years they had been preparing the plans for a national health scheme, because they were never committed to its introduction.

There will be other benefits to the country and its citizens from the troika’s involvement in the running of Cyprus – the privatisation of the wasteful and inefficient semi-governmental organisations, the radical restructuring of the bankrupt co-ops and their placing under real supervision, the clean-up and rationalisation of the banking system as well as a host of other reforms. None of these decisions would have been taken by our populist political parties, which measure the value of every policy proposal in votes.

By the time the troika is finished with us, we may have a solvent, properly functioning, rationally organised state that treats all its citizens as equals. Some could argue that the price we had to pay – depression, soaring unemployment, dysfunctional banks – for this was much too high, but they should bear in mind that it was the self-serving politicians and bankers that put us in our current predicament and not the troika.

The troika is now helping us put right most things we had done wrong in the last 50 years because our ruling elite was unfit to govern. And if there is one reason to be optimistic about the natural gas finds, it is because the troika’s technocrats would have a say in the policy-making.

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By George Psyllides

BANK OF Cyprus (BoC) may have officially come out of administration and look ‘healthy enough’ in black and white after seizing 47.5 per cent of uninsured deposits, but there is no knowing, despite all the talk, when or if people will ever trust the system again.

When people are told over and over by both Cypriot and EU officials that a haircut on deposits would not happen, and then it did, could there be any coming back from that no matter how many figures you push around on paper?

Trust, the foundation of banking was lost overnight.

Authorities are now struggling to regain the lost confidence but it will not be an easy task, and the social dimension will be the biggest challenge.

“It will certainly be difficult because the decision violated the foundation,” said sociologist Nicos Peristianis. “It was not just a detail. Banking is based on trust.”

In the five months following the decision, there have been stories of people stashing money at home – to the delight of burglars – others carry thousands of euros on them, and yet others turned to safety deposit boxes.

A lot do everything they can to take their money out of Cyprus but not many deposit cash, at least not in Cypriot banks and certainly not in the Bank of Cyprus, which seized 47.5 per cent of uninsured deposits – over €100,000 – to recapitalise.

Those depositors received equity in return.

At the same time, the island’s second biggest bank, Laiki, is in the process of being wound down.

The system is basically being held together by the “temporary” capital controls introduced in late March – the first time in the eurozone — which the government wants lifted soon.

Wishful thinking, analysts say. Iceland too introduced “temporary” controls following the collapse of its banking system. The measures remain in place today around five years later.

So how will the Cypriot authorities convince people to put their money back in the system?

How will anyone convince the man who went to his Laiki branch around a week before the haircut asking to withdraw half his €3.0 million but was convinced not to by his banker?

Peristianis says it all depends on how much the government will do to convince people but also a lot depended on the European Union and how it handled the aftermath of the crisis.

Comments from EU officials that the Cyprus bail-in was a template, meaning it would also be done elsewhere, just serves to “intensify concerns,” Peristianis said.

Cypriots tend to be “quite suspicious in general but when one wins their trust they do not lose it easily,” Peristianis said.

A senior banker agreed that it all depended on how the authorities would handle the situation.

And it all boiled down to rebuilding people’s trust in the Bank of Cyprus.

“You cannot have trust in the banking system unless you build trust in BoC,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

So far however, officials are not going about it the right way.

“How can you regain trust in BoC when the news of the day is who will control it?” he said.

To make matters worse, the people arguing about it are politicians – a group who enjoy the same level of confidence as bankers. Zero.

“The politicians realised that talking about the Cyprus problem is of no interest so they realised its good to speak about things they do not know,” the banker said.

For the past four months Cypriot and foreign depositors have witnessed a public debate on whether BoC will be saved, went through the saga of appointing an interim board, and the saga of appointing an interim CEO.

Then there were the President Nicos Anastasiades’ leaked letter to ECB President Mario Draghi about the difficulties faced by BoC, followed by their high-expectations meeting, which ended in anticlimax.

“Why should a depositor feel any trust?” the banker said.

BoC has recently exited administration and its Core Tier 1 capital is 12.4 per cent – higher than the compulsory 9.0 per cent capital adequacy.

This however means nothing whatsoever to an OAP whose only concern would be keeping their money somewhere safe.

So is there a way out?

“The way a bank establishes trust is based entirely on how the organisation acts and behaves from the teller to the CEO,” the banker said.

In this case, BoC needs to turn to its workers.

“They have a great influence in the market. The way they act, think and behave towards customers or their interaction with peers, family, and friends is the key determinant of whether you build trust or not,” he said.

BoC must first bail-in its personnel’s trust, before it reaches out to the public.

“There is no other way.”

The lender’s new leadership must build their trust towards the organisation from the bottom up.

Workers also have an additional motive to see the bank get back on its feet.

A large chunk of their provident fund has been turned into shares, turning them into stakeholders.

“Their wellbeing upon retirement is directly linked to the performance of the organisation. This is a strategic link,” the banker said. “The teller who receives a customer will know that if he behaves in a way to keep the deposit in the bank he will be protecting the liquidity of the organisation in which he has a stake – maybe not significant for the organisation but important for him.”

Of course the media also have a role to play. The constant bombardment with reports concerning the bank’s salvation do more harm than good.

Peristianis says the media must show restraint and an end must be put to speculation and rumours about the lender’s future.

The Central Bank of Cyprus must take the lead and draw a clear, coherent communications strategy in a bid to silence the cacophony of voices, many of which have other vested interests.

“It undermines the bank’s foundations,” Peristianis said. “They ought to draw a common line to regain trust.”

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A Romanian national, 31, has been detained in connection with the murder of a compatriot, found dead in Nicosia on Friday afternoon.

Authorities had initially ruled out foul play but the post mortem showed that 42-year-old Daniel Radu had multiple fractures on the right side of his skull.

He was found dead at 2pm in an abandoned house in Latsia.

A state pathologist put the time of death around eight hours after the injuries had been inflicted.

Police were told that the victim had been out with three other individuals on Thursday evening.

At some point someone hit Radu in the face and he fell on the pavement, police said.

Based on the information they received, police issued an arrest warrant against the 31-year-old who was remanded in custody for eight days.

The suspect told police he was at the scene but claimed that the victim had fallen off the chair by himself.

Police said they were seeking the two other individuals who were present at the scene on Thursday evening.

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By Jeffrey Heller

Israel on Monday named 26 Palestinian prisoners to be freed this week under a deal enabling U.S.-backed peace talks to resume, although Palestinians said these had been undermined by newly announced plans to expand Israeli settlements.

Some Israelis reacted angrily to the scheduled release on Tuesday or Wednesday of the long-term Palestinian prisoners.

“Shame on the government and shame on the prime minister and his supporters,” Zvia Dahan, whose father, Moshe Becker, was killed while tending his orange grove in Israel in 1994, wrote on Facebook. One of Becker’s three killers is to be freed.

The 26 prisoners are the first of a total of 104 Israel has decided in principle to free as part of an agreement reached after intensive shuttle diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to renew talks for Palestinian statehood.

Israel sweetened the deal for far-right members of its governing coalition on Sunday by announcing plans to build 1,187 new dwellings for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and parts of the territory it annexed to Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war.

“Those who do these things are determined to undermine the peace negotiations, are determined to force people like us to leave the negotiating table,” Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

Commenting on the latest projects, a spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said: “Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and threaten to make a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible.”

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the new construction would take place in areas Israel intends to keep in any peace agreement. “This in no way changes the final map of peace. It changes nothing,” he said.

Some 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem amid 2.5 million Palestinians. Israel withdrew in 2005 from the Gaza Strip, which is now governed by Hamas Islamists opposed to permanent co-existence with the Jewish state.

LOW EXPECTATIONS

Peace talks halted three years ago in a row over settlement building. They resumed in Washington on July 30, with a second round due in Jerusalem on Wednesday and later in the West Bank.

Few expect the latest negotiations to resolve issues that have defied solution for decades, such as borders, settlements, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Washington, which pressed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the table, wants a deal within nine months.

With neighbouring Egypt and Syria in upheaval and with Israel facing the threat of a nuclear Iran, Netanyahu decided he could ill afford to alienate the United States and led his pro-settlement government into the talks.

The decision to free the 26 prisoners, regarded as heroes by Palestinians and jailed as murderers by Israel between 1985 and 1994, was made late on Sunday.

A list of the prisoners, along with the names of the people they were convicted of killing, was published by Israel’s Prisons Service as part of a process in which opponents of their release have 48 hours to appeal to the High Court. Based on past decisions, the court is widely expected not to intervene.

“I cannot believe (it), no matter what anyone tells me, until I hold my son’s hand. When I touch him, then I can say my son has come home,” said Emtawe el Khor, whose son Fayez has been in jail since 1985, convicted of murdering an Israeli.

Fourteen of those going free will be deported or sent to the Gaza Strip, and 12 to the West Bank. Two would have completed their terms in six months, and six over the next three years.

Israel has a number of times freed Palestinians before they served out their time, but mostly in swaps for Israeli soldiers or their remains held by the Jewish state’s enemies.

For Abbas, who has vowed to seek freedom for all Palestinian prisoners, the prospective release is a boost after years of failed talks with Israel. Many of the inmates were said to have been linked to his Fatah movement or one of its allies.

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By Peter Stevenson

Referees have called for stricter punishments after football fans attacked a referee on Saturday following a pre-season friendly.

The attack against Leondios Trattos, the chairman of the referee association, took place after a game between Nicosia side Omonia and Aris of Limassol at Pelendri.

Omonia fans have held a grudge against Trattos since 2004, when he refereed a match that they believe cost them the title, drawing 1-1 with Paralimni.

Neither club had asked for police presence at the match, which is usually the case with friendly fixtures.

According to the referees’ association’s general secretary Marios Panayi, Trattos was attacked by several Omonia supporters

The referee had to leave the stadium in a police car and was later taken home by another referee.

Despite being injured, Trattos refused to go to hospital to receive medical attention, Panayi told the state broadcaster on Sunday.

Trattos gave a statement to police on Sunday, identifying three people who attacked him.

No arrests have been made yet.

Referees said hooligans were out of control.

“The hooligans’ actions have taken on an uncontrollable form, which is being tolerated by everyone, especially the state,” referees said in a statement.

The lack of strict punishment, indeed the absence of any punishment for such crimes, allowed hooligans to put lives at risk, the referees said.

“Hooligans on Saturday could not even be restrained by members of both clubs, and especially Omonia chairman Stelios Mylonas, who attempted to shield the battered referee,” the statement added.

The association called on the state to take the necessary measures to punish those who took the law into their own hands. It called on the Cyprus

Football Association (CFA) to take measures to also help prevent such incidents from occurring again.

“The CFA should not permit friendly matches from taking place at unsuitable pitches and should cooperate with clubs to find ways to rid the country from hooligans,” the statement added.

Omonia apologised to Trattos and condemned the incident.

The club said its board will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the events and has also expressed their readiness to discuss the matter with the referees.

The CFA said it would act decisively to contribute to the best of its abilities to help prevent acts of ‘terrorism’ which only cause damage to football on the island.

“During a period when clubs are making huge efforts to survive financially, behaviour like this only causes more problems and we hope police investigations will lead to those responsible being charged,” a CFA statement said.

Despite pompous statements frequently uttered by officials, little has been done on the ground to crack down on hooliganism.

Nine Apollon fans were arrested in July following trouble before a friendly game between their team and Anorthosis at the Antonis Papadopoulos stadium in Larnaca.

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A 39-year-old woman from Georgia reported to Paphos police that €10,000 cash and a credit card had been stolen from the glove compartment of her car.

The woman told officers that the money was taken between 6pm on Saturday and 6am Sunday.

The vehicle had been parked in the underground area of the apartment building where she lives.

Police said they did not find any evidence that the car had been broken into.

The theft is not covered by insurance.

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By Justin Palmer
Winning gold medals comes as second nature to Usain Bolt. But the sprint king who usually packs a punch in any stadium, in any city, was left pondering the “different feeling” he got from regaining his world 100 metres title on Sunday.
Bolt put his 2011 Daegu disappointment when he was disqualified for false starting in the final firmly behind him when he produced his best race of, by his own high standards, a less than stellar season.
The world’s fastest man took gold in 9.77 seconds, ahead of American Justin Gatlin, but admitted the blue Mondo track in Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium was unlike any other surface he had encountered in his period of sprint dominance.
“It felt different, I don’t know if it was bad different,” the Jamaican told a news conference.
“But it didn’t feel like a normal track that I’m used to running on. It was a little bit different. Personally I can’t complain about that really.”
In cooler air to the earlier muggy conditions, the track was made slick by a downpour that left beads of rain dropping off the eight finalists as they crouched in the blocks.
Bolt, aware that Gatlin, in the lane to his left and the man to beat, was unfazed.
“For me the rain is just the rain. We have run in rain before, We have run in colder weather. It didn’t really affect me in any way.”
With one gold secured, and with a repeat of his 2008 and 2012 triple Olympic gold haul firmly in his sights with the 200 metres and 4×100 relay to come, Bolt said he needed time to recover.
“I’m just going to look forward to running the 200 metres,” he said. “I can’t promise anything but I’ll always go and give it my best. Hopefully everything will come together.
“My legs are sore right now, I’ll get some ice baths, get my masseuse to work on them, I should be ok…”
The Jamaican, by his own admission “race rusty” coming into the championships after being dogged by a hamstring injury in the early part of the season, and suffering a rare defeat to Gatlin in Rome in early June, said he felt no pressure in the Russian capital.
“It’s all about if you want to put yourself under pressure. For me I don’t put myself under any pressure because I know what I want. I want the same thing everybody wants,” he said.
“So I go out there and compete. After I win or lose I’m always going to be happy with myself because I went out there and gave it my best.”
As befitting a Bolt post-championship winning news conference, he faced the usual barrage of questions on his love of football, Manchester United and his stated desire to play professionally.
“I think they’ve asked all the running questions, they’ve run out of things to ask me so they just ask football questions,” he said.
But striking a sincere tone, Bolt continued: “I’m always going to choose running, the talent I’ve got, it was a god given talent and that’s what I use.
“I try to inspire people. I try to motivate everybody, let them know that anything is possible.”

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MARCOS Baghdatis recorded his eleventh first round exit in twelve tournaments as he suffered 6-3, 6-2 defeat to Frenchman Julien Benneteau in the opening round of the Cincinnati Masters.
The 28-year-old Cypriot who is currently ranked 50th in the world, will play next at the Winston-Salem Open, which starts next Monday, before he heads to the final Grand Slam of the season at the US Open.
Baghdatis has made two previous appearances in Winston Salem. In 2011 he reached the quarter-finals, while last season he was eliminated in the first round by Thomaz Bellucci after retiring in the second set due to back problems.

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RESTRUCTURING of the national carrier Cyprus Airways (CY) continues, the communications minister said on Monday, as stock market authorities suspended trading of the company’s shares for failure to submit an annual report.

“We must say that the restructuring plan is progressing as we have been informed, consistently and reliably,” Tasos Mitsopoulos told reporters.

Implementation of the plan was important for Cyprus in order to convince the European Commission, the minister said.

The latest in a series of ‘rescue plans’ for CY, has been submitted to the Commission for approval.

The Commission is also investigating Cyprus in connection with possible violations of state aid rules for previous assistance given to the airline.

The restructuring plan provides for cutting the CY fleet to five A320 planes, plus a sixth A320 to be used as a back-up.
It also calls for salary cuts and laying-off 490 of 1,040 staff.

Meanwhile, stock marker authorities have suspended trading of CY – and  15 other public companies – over their failure to submit their annual financial reports by Monday’s deadline.

The other companies on the list of 16, include Athienitis Contractors, Ceilfloor, Charilaos Apostolides and Orphanides.

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By Gergely Szakacs and Marton Dunai

A 98-year-old Hungarian man has died awaiting trial on charges of torturing Jews and helping send them to Auschwitz in World War Two, his lawyer said on Monday.

Laszlo Csatary, who always denied the accusations, died of pneumonia in a Budapest hospital on Saturday, lawyer Gabor Horvath told Reuters.

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre named Csatary their most wanted war crimes suspect last year.

He was found guilty in absentia in 1948 of whipping Jews while serving as police commander overseeing a detention camp in the Nazi-occupied eastern Slovak city of Kosice in 1944.

Csatary went on the run for decades until Hungarian authorities detained him in Budapest in July last year. He was banned from leaving the city and told he would face a fresh trial.

He was taken to court but the case was suspended as authorities reviewed the life sentence given to him after the 1948 case. Prosecutors were challenging the suspension of the hearing when he died.

Hungarian prosecutors accused him of regularly hitting Jewish prisoners with a dog-whip and helping arrange their deportation in Kosice, which was then part of Hungary and is now in Slovakia.

Around 12,000 Jews were deported from Kosice to a number of death camps, most of them to Auschwitz.

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By Yasmine Saleh

Supporters of deposed President Mohamed Mursi urged Egyptians to take to the streets on Monday to thwart any police crackdown on two Cairo protest camps that thousands of Islamists have manned for weeks.

Security sources and a government official had said police action to close the camps would begin at dawn, despite the risk of a violent clashes with those seeking Mursi’s reinstatement, but nothing transpired, and the demonstrators vowed to stay put.

A pro-Mursi grouping, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood, called for nationwide rallies against the military, which toppled Egypt’s first freely elected leader on July 3.

“The alliance calls on the people of Egypt in all provinces to go out on marches on Monday and gather everywhere,” it said in a statement that also proclaimed plans for “a million-man march” on Tuesday against what it called a military coup.

At al-Nahda camp, centred round a traffic circle and extending down a palm tree-lined boulevard next to Cairo zoo, protesters lolled in the shade of tents away from the mid-afternoon sun. The mood was solemn, but not fearful.

Asked about the threat to dismantle the camps, Ahmed Shargawy, a 23-year-old translator, said: “They said that 15 days ago too. They always say they are going to finish it.”

After a six-week-old standoff, the authorities are keen to remove the sit-ins, where women and children are among the protesters, and accuse Brotherhood leaders of inciting violence.

Western and Arab envoys and some senior Egyptian government members have pressed the army to avoid using force as it tries to end the crisis in the troubled Arab nation of 84 million.

Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said the right to peaceful protest would be guaranteed and that every effort was being made to resolve the situation through dialogue, but he suggested there was a limit to the government’s patience.

“It is not reasonable for any democratic government to have to accept sit-ins where violence is being used and the security of citizens and the country is being threatened,” state news agency MENA quoted Fahmy as saying in an interview with the BBC.

One security official said the protesters would be removed gradually. At first, warnings would be issued and people would be asked to leave. Police would then use water cannons and tear gas to disperse those who refused to budge.

Another security official said: “Violence will not be used unless the protesters get violent.”

Mursi’s defiant supporters have fortified the protest camps with sandbags and piles of rocks in anticipation of a crackdown.

Thousands were still camped out at the biggest sit-in, near a mosque in northeast Cairo. At entrances to the sprawling site, men with sticks shouted “God is greatest” to keep morale high.

“RELIGION, NOT POLITICS”

“I have been here for 28 days and will stay until I die as the issue is now about religion not politics. We want Islam, they want liberalism,” said protester Ahmed Ramadan, who quit his job in a Red sea tourist resort to join the camp.

One security source said action against the protesters had been delayed because larger crowds had arrived at the protest camps after news broke that a crackdown was imminent.

Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted Mursi, has come under pressure from hardline military officers to break up the Brotherhood sit-ins, security sources say.

Almost 300 people have been killed in political violence since Mursi’s overthrow, including dozens of his supporters shot dead by security forces in two incidents.

Egypt has been convulsed by political and economic turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ended 30 years of autocratic rule by U.S.-backed President Hosni Mubarak, and the most populous Arab nation is now more polarised than any time for many years.

There is deepening alarm in the West over the course taken by Egypt, which sits astride the Suez Canal and receives $1.5 billion a year in mainly military aid from the United States.

Mursi became president in June 2012. But concerns he was seeking an Islamist autocracy and his failure to ease economic hardships led to mass rallies prompting the army to oust him.

Since then Brotherhood leaders have been jailed. Mursi is detained in an unknown location.

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By Poly Pantelides

ARCHBISHOP Chrysostomos is unable to control what comes out of his mouth, former president Demetris Christofias said on Monday, a day after the Primate accused him of much of the island’s banking system to the ground.

“It is about time [the Archbishop] stopped making populist statements about the poor people and instead really help with some of the millions he has accumulated as a businessman,” Christofias said.

Opposition AKEL, which was in government until February during Christofias’ term as president, also went on the defensive calling the Primate’s “assaults” as “unfortunate at the very least”.

Archbishop Chrysostomos II said on Sunday:  “I believe that whatever Mr Christofias has not managed to raze to the ground in relation to the banks and the co-operative institutions, he has left to the Central Bank governor to destroy.”

The Archbishop was talking at the end of a memorial service for the dead in the 1964 Tylliria conflict, in Paphos’ Pachyammos. The Primate criticised as flawed a due diligence report by investment managers PIMCO on bank portfolios to determine their recapitalisation needs. The Central Bank had been criticised by the opposition – now ruling party DISY – as allowing PIMCO to inflate the banks’ needs in order to confirm the Christofias’ administration position the banks were to blame for all of the island’s economic woes.

The Primate said some people were doing “whatever they wanted”. He did not name anyone but it was clear from the context he was referring to the Central Bank.

“They don’t respect people whose money they’ve taken [and] whose deposits they’ve raided. Rather than waiting for a new Bank of Cyprus board, a new chairman and new CEO so that shareholders can decide what to do, they go ahead and take decisions themselves.”

He was referring to the Bank of Cyprus (BoC), which recently exited administration status after 47.5 per cent of clients’ uninsured deposits were seized for recapitalisation. Depositors are getting equity in return, but Laiki bank – still under the administration of a Central Bank-appointed person as it is being wound-down, now holds 18 per cent of BoC’s stake. Laiki’s stake has provoked an intense discussion over who would control it.

The Church is a major shareholder in Hellenic bank but also has shares in the BoC, and its head – the Archbishop – even said earlier this week he should be nominated as a representative of BoC shareholders “to put things in order”.

“They are out to destroy our banking system and in the end it is the poor people who will pay for this. Not the governor, not I, not the President,” the Archbishop said.

“I am certain that disaster will strike in Cyprus,” he added.

Christofias said he was not surprised by the Primate’s statements and the way he referred to him “since he usually opens his mouth, unable to control what comes out of it”.

The former president – himself prone to spontaneous, uncensored, remarks – once again blamed the banks and its executives for the country’s woes.

“There’s a limit to patience, so [the Archbishop] should stop provoking the poor people,” Christofias said, who is widely blamed for refusing to accept a bailout agreement while allowing state finances to deteriorate under his watch.

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By George Psyllides

THE HEAD of the Central Co-operative Bank (CCB) yesterday sought to play down the scale of non-performing loans (NPL) in the sector, which will receive €1.5 billion in taxpayer money to recapitalise.

According to Central Bank (CBC) data tabled in parliament on Friday, NPLs in some small co-operative banks are so high that in one case they have reached 88 per cent.

The percentage of NPLs was the highest in Paphos, representing 63 per cent of €1.3 billion in loans given by the district’s 16 co-ops.

The Polemi co-op for instance reported 88 per cent NPLs. The unit’s total lending was €24 million.

Head of the CCB Erotokritos Chlorakiotis sought to defend the sector, which, unlike the island’s two commercial banks that were bailed-in, will be recapitalised through taxpayer funds.

Chlorakiotis said the €1.5 billion did not represent losses but it was the amount necessary to cover the co-ops shortfalls until 2015.

The cash is part of the island’s €10 billion bailout.

Chlorakiotis said when put against a total loan portfolio of €12 billion a tiny co-op bank’s NPLs may seem astronomical but this did not represent the entire sector.

According to the CBC data, the NPLs of the largest co-op banks, Strovolos, Makrasyka (Larnaca), and Limassol were 34 per cent, 35 per cent, and 37 per cent.

Total lending was around €4.5 billion.

In contrast, professional co-ops (public servants, police, army, teachers, electricity company workers, telecoms company workers) reported NPLs ranging from 1.0 per cent to 18 per cent.

Their total lending was around €3.3 billion.

Chlorakiotis said their rate of NPLs was better than the one predicted by an audit carried out by an independent firm.

In response to the public debate sparked by the publication of the data, the CBC said the reason they had been submitted was to show why co-operatives needed recapitalisation.

“The CBC repeats that co-operatives were deemed viable by our lenders and this why its recapitalisation and restructuring is going ahead,” the CBC said.

To receive the money, co-ops must drastically reduce their numbers while supervision will shift to the CBC.

The island’s 93 companies will merge into 18 new entities – 10 in Nicosia, including four professional co-ops, three each in Limassol and Larnaca, and one each in Paphos and Famagusta.

According to Chlorakiotis, at least 25 per cent of the sector’s 410 branches will close.

A “generous” early retirement scheme will also be offered to the 3,000 workers but no figures concerning staff reductions were given yet.

The Independent Commission on the Future of the Banking Sector said in June that the co-operatives’ days had passed as Cyprus is no longer the agrarian economy they were set up to serve 100 years ago.

“Specifically, we recommend that the co-ops be combined into a single institution with a joint

stock structure and a commercial culture, and that this institution be placed under the direct

supervision of the Central Bank of Cyprus,” the commission said.

It will be the third time co-ops are bailed out by taxpayers after receiving 22 million Cyprus pounds in the late 70s and a further 67 million Cyprus pounds in the late 80s.

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By Gwynne Dyer

EDWARD Snowden is safe from American “justice” for the moment, and he will certainly go down as the most effective whistle-blower in history. His revelations are going to cause a wholesale restructuring of the world’s most important communications system, the internet. And that, rather than his whereabouts and fate, is now the real story.

On 8 August Lavabit, a US-based email service provider that promised to keep its clients’ communications private, closed down. The US National Security Agency approached it about six weeks ago demanding the same access to its customers’ emails that it has already extorted from big American internet companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon and Microsoft.

The company’s owner, Ladar Levison, is under an NSA gag order, but he wrote to his clients: “I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people, or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.”

Jon Callas, co-founder of Silent Circle, another encrypted email service that has just shut down because it cannot protect its clients’ data, went even further. “Email (that uses standard Internet protocols)…cannot be secure,” he wrote.

The mass surveillance being carried out by the NSA not only gives the US government access to everything Americans say to one another. It also destroys everybody else’s privacy, because the standard Internet routing protocol sends messages not by the shortest route, but by whichever route is fastest and least congested. That means, in most cases, through the United States, and therefore straight into the hands of the NSA.

Snowden’s revelations so far have told us about two major NSA surveillance programmes, both probably illegal even under American law. The first collects the mobile phone records of over 200 million Americans.

Don’t worry your pretty head about that, darling, said Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee: “This is just metadata, there is no content involved.” The NSA isn’t actually listening to your calls.

Well, OF COURSE it isn’t listening to billions of calls. Machines can’t listen to calls, and who has the manpower to do it with human beings? But machines can quickly use the call logs (metadata) to identify everybody you ever talked to, and everybody they ever talked to, and so on out to the fourth or fifth generation.

If one of those thousands of people ever spoke to somebody abroad with a Muslim name (or somebody who works for Siemens, or Samsung, or some other industrial competitor of the United States), they may take an interest in you. If you’re an American who has never had direct phone contact with anybody abroad, they may then apply to access the content of your calls and emails under the Prism programme.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court which reviews such applications has refused precisely ten of them (out of 20,919) since 2001. Besides, the content of most Americans’ messages can probably be examined without recourse to the judges under one of the blanket authorisations issued by FISC. And if you’re not American, or an American resident who once spoke to somebody abroad by phone, then you’re in a free-fire zone.

If you are American, you probably don’t care about that, because you are mesmerised by the guff about a huge terrorist threat that the security barons use to justify the endless expansion of their empire (now almost a million employees). A recent opinion poll by the Pew Research Centre found that 62 percent of Americans think “fighting terrorism” is more important than worrying about personal privacy.

But if you belong to the great majority of internet users who are not American, are not in a perpetual sweaty panic about “terrorism”, and have no protection whatever under American law from the NSA’s spying, then you will want ways to avoid it. So the market, or other governments, will such create ways.

What’s needed is a big investment in internet switching capacity in countries where the spies are not completely out of control. Then non-Americans can just join one of the many servers that will spring up to meet an exploding demand for secure internet services.

Finnish internet servers are already emphasising the security of their services. Germany, whose memories of the Gestapo and Stasi secret police make it particularly sensitive about the NSA’s spying, may take the lead in building non-US internet capacity, or it may be big countries like Brazil and India that are relatively invulnerable to US pressure. But this is a huge market opportunity, and it will get done.

And the losers? The big US internet providers, who will find that few of their customers want to store their data in American “cloud” services. “If businesses or governments think they might be spied on,” said Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission, “they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be (American) cloud providers who ultimately miss out.”

As Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, put it recently: “America invented the Internet, and our Internet companies are dominant around the world. But the U.S. government, in its rush to spy on everybody, may end up killing our most productive industry.”

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

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