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Tales from the Coffeeshop: Dreams of oil wealth shattered

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The president puts a brave face on the barrage of criticism he received over the joint statement

By Patroclos

DO NOT expect too much festive cheer, even though the season of goodwill is upon us and we are perilously close to Christmas Day.

Things might have been different if Phil’s Tuesday, front-page headline about the existence of vast quantities of oil in Block 12 that would have made us a cool €60 billion was correct. Unfortunately the killjoys of Noble Energy punctured our euphoria before we even had time to start dreaming of a life of affluent leisure, travelling the world, staying at the most expensive, plushest hotels and dining only at Michelin-star restaurants.

The government must have been relieved by Noble’s party-pooping, because if the story went unchallenged for more than 24 hours, public parasites would have been on the streets demanding pay rises and a chauffeur-driven limo each to take them to work at 10am every morning.

Our euphoria lasted only a few hours. By late afternoon Noble issued a statement saying that there was “evidence of multiple opportunities” in Block 12 with approximately 1.5 billion “barrels of gross unrisked oil potential” (another 1.5bn was in Israel’s block). However, exploratory drilling had to be carried before the quantities were confirmed and it was established that the oil could be extracted.

Energy Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis also acted as a party-pooper saying that we could only talk of proven oil reserves once drilling had taken place and this was scheduled in a year’s time.

 

THE LEADER of the Alliance of Citizens and hydrocarbons expert, Yiorkos Lillikas who has the same supernatural powers as Solon Kasinis – both men have the gift of being able to estimate the quantities of gas and oil reserves under the sea bed by instinct (no drilling required) – urged the government to pressure the companies that had drilling rights to get on with it.

“The procedure must be speeded up so that we can have the extraction of the oil and its exploitation as soon as possible.” If necessary “the government would have to offer incentives to the companies so that in a short period of time the Cyprus Republic would have revenue from oil.”

This would help us disengage from the memorandum, he said, suggesting we could be collecting cash for our oil before the assistance programme ends in 2016. Hearing Yiorkos, I almost started to dream of the life of affluent leisure, but then I remembered that he always was a cheap, false hopes salesman, masquerading as a great political mind.

The patriotic Paphite also wanted “to send a message to those who systematically try to downplay the value of our hydrocarbons, that they were not offering good services to the country and our national cause.”

Kasinis’ soul-mate and fellow psychic then gave the facts: “Cyprus has a very big wealth disproportionately big for our population, as long as there is the right strategy by the government ….”

 

THE FOLLOWING day Noble’s Energy Senior Vice President Keith Elliott held a conference call during which he said that the data gleaned so far is raw and therefore the company was in no position yet to assign any probability to the discovery of oil.

He then mentioned certain features (too boring to repeat) that had to be explored, explaining that “failure of any of these features to occur can cause the prospects of discovery to disappear”. He did not hear Lillikas’ message that downplaying the quantities of our hydrocarbons was a disservice to the country.

 

THE NEWS of the probable oil quantities in Block 12 must be the reason our government tried to secure a speedy approval from the legislature for wasting €100 million on two gunboats that it signed a contract to buy from Israel.

It also wanted approval for wasting €28.5 million on repairs to our 11 Russian assault helicopters. With our gunboats, that will feature light weaponry and assault helicopters any attempts by the bullying Turks to violate our sovereignty and stop our drilling for oil will be repelled.

There is also another very good reason I can think of, for depriving our cash-strapped economy of €128.5m, on defence equipment that will be of no use or value to anyone, but libel laws prevent me from mentioning it.

 

THE BREAKTHOUGH on the joint declaration that was expected last weekend never materialised and Downer headed Down Under feeling very down, having pissed us off big-time by meeting Turkey’s mousy foreign minister Ahmed Davutoglu, who was visiting Kyproulla illegally, at Turkey’s illegal embassy in the pseudo-state.

Apparently the government made official protests to the UN for Big Bad Al’s provocative behaviour but Ban Ki-moon has declined to tell us what his punishment would be. Our sources at the UN inform us however that Ban will not be sacking him because he is so fed up with everyone in Kyproulla he believes we deserve to have to deal with the bolshie Aussie.

 

UNFORTUNATELY our collective hatred for the Turk-loving Aussie did not keep us united for very long. Big divisions appeared at Wednesday’s meeting of the party leaders, during which Prez Nik presented his latest proposal for a joint declaration that was very similar to the proposal submitted by Al.

Worse still, Nik defended the proposal informing the moaning leaders that he would submit it to the UN and if Eroglu accepted it, start negotiations. The professional naysayers were apoplectic, with Ethnarch Junior, whose already sizeable arrogance was given an unneeded boost by his election to the DIKO leadership, leading the barrage of criticism on the poor prez.

Junior is turning out more hard-line than his late dad, if that were possible, said someone attending the meeting. The bash-patriotic resistance fighters of DIKO, EDEK, EUROKO and Perdikis left the meeting very disappointed and began calling for the preparation of a Plan B.

This cunning Plan B would ensure the solution of the Cyprob without negotiations with the Turks, because it would place the problem, as EDEK never tires of telling, “on its correct basis, as an issue of invasion and occupation”. And if Plan B does not work, we could prepare Plan C and then Plan D. And who knows there may be an agreement on the text of the joint declaration before we have exhausted all the letters of the alphabet.

 

IF ANYONE was wondering why so much fuss was being made about the joint declaration, the answer was provided by Movement of Lillikas supporters. In a sombre statement the party warned that before long there would be “another text based on the last one submitted by Mr Downer so that the problems caused by some words could, supposedly be overcome.”

It added: “We want to inform Cypriot citizens that these words are the whole essence of the Cyprus problem. These words will determine the content and the quality of the Cyprus problem.” And we have been wasting all these years thinking that lawyers and diplomats could help us solve the Cyprob, when a couple of semantics professor would have completed the job in a couple of days.

 

WE HAVE to take our hats off to Christos Orphanides the founder and major shareholder of the bankrupt supermarket chain with his name. Orphanides Public company went into receivership last January owing Laiki and B of C €140m and its suppliers €85m.

Having conned his suppliers, some of whom went bust as a result, Christos Orphanides is now behind a new supermarket, named Microstores that opened in Paliometocho. Leaflets with his amazing offers have been distributed to houses in the surrounding villages. Microstores is probably registered in someone else’s name, but everyone knows who the real owner is?

One would have thought that having stitched up so many suppliers, there would be nobody willing to supply Orphanides’ new supermarket with products, but this has not been the case because the dodgy businessman is not demanding credit, but paying cash up front. Where did he find the money to pay cash up front?

His company may be bankrupt but his personal fortune has not been touched and Mr Christos obviously enjoys reminding all the suppliers he duped out of millions that he remains a wealthy man.

 

IT GETS worse. One of our regulars, an importer who likes his skettos with a few drops of Scotch, could not contain his anger the other day, because Microstores asked him to supply it with products. He is owed about €1 million by Orphanides and did not want to supply him with any products, even if he would be paid in cash.

He was livid when he was informed by his lawyer that he could not refuse to supply Microstores, as it was offering cash on delivery. If he did, the law-abiding Orphanides could report him to the Commissioner for the Protection of Competition for violating some competition law by which all retail outlets have to be treated equally.

Our customer is obliged by law to do business with a guy who conned him out of one million euros.

 

BUSINESS web-site Stockwatch, the semi-official mouthpiece of Professor Panicos, posted a story last Thursday informing its readers that “the capital of the Bank of Cyprus is significantly lower than the average for the big banks of ‘memorandum’ countries according to the European Banking Authority.”

The report said the BoC core tier one capital stood at 10.5 per cent at the end of June. Greek banks were among the most well capitalised, Stockwatch reported, informing its readers that Bank of Piraeus, was top of the list with core tier 1 capital of 15 per cent. These media plugs for Piraeus are becoming very irritating, especially combined with the bombardment of its nauseating advertisements claiming it is motivated by selflessness and human values.

Was this another stab in the back of the BoC by Professor Panicos, who has it in for the bank, or was Stockwatch angling for advertising? On the day this item was posted the BoC was contacted by a web-site boss, demanding the renewal of the lucrative advertising budget for 2014. And as a gesture of goodwill the unflattering item was removed from the web-site.

 

A SHIPMENT of Islamic chicken bought by the defence ministry for the army caused uproar when the press got hold of the story and claimed that “infected chicken imported from Turkey” were being supplied to the National Guard.

The press had jumped to this mistaken conclusion because the packaging had the star and crescent symbol that featured on the Turkish flag. This was to indicate that it was halal chicken and therefore fit for consumption by Muslims, who have a bit of a fetish over how animals are slaughtered.

Defence minister Fotis Fotiou found a pretext to withdraw the batch of poultry, saying the chicken’s weight was not up to spec and there had been irregularities with the slaughterhouse seal and package labeling, presumably the star and crescent.

The chicken was not infected and did not come from Turkey but the Netherlands. But they were withdrawn because as Fotiou said, he would not compromise the health and safety of soldiers, by allowing them to eat chicken of the wrong weight supplied in the wrong packaging.

 

I HOPE that the chicken has not been destroyed or dumped because there are plenty of families that would be more than happy to have them for their Christmas dinner. I am informed by people in the know that Islamic chicken tastes as good as Christian chicken even on Christmas Day.

 

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Our View: Austerity budget approved but no lessons learned

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Voting for the budget on Thursday

THE ONLY positive aspect of this year’s debate of the 2014 state budget was that deputies stayed focused on the issue being discussed. It was a welcome change to hear deputies speaking on the economy, the consequences of the recession, the government’s austerity measures and so forth. For the first time in decades, the budget debate did not feature over-long diatribes about the Cyprus problem, by deputies seeking media attention for their uncompromising, patriotic views.

Thanks to an agreement by the party leaders, this was a Cyprus problem-free budget debate, with a 10-minute time limit on speeches which dealt with a very broad range of economy-related matters. Unfortunately, there were no positives of substance, as this was the first post-bailout budget which provided a 10 per cent cut in state spending (€700m), compared to 2013. Combined with the illiquidity of the banks this means there will be even less money powering the economy than there was this year, negatively affecting employment.

Everyone is aware that 2014 will be a more difficult year but unfortunately there is no alternative, given the dire state of public finances. AKEL, which voted against the ‘harsh austerity’ budget, criticised the low amount allocated to development and the welfare cuts, but this was cheap populism that ignored one minor detail – the lack of funds. Where would a bankrupt state, being kept afloat by international lenders, find the money for development projects that the deputies were clamouring for?

We did not hear any of them proposing bigger cuts to the public sector wage bill to use the money saved for development projects that would create jobs. In fact this would have been a fair redistribution of income as it would have reduced the earnings of the richest workers and provided work for our unemployed countrymen who earn nothing. But, as this column has said on countless occasions, none of the parties want to touch the privileges of the public sector fat cats.

The government is no exception as its budget showed. The public sector payroll, the biggest drain on public finances will be reduced by a paltry 1.5 per cent, with the state still spending €2.563 billion on it or 45 per cent of its total expenditure. A 10 per cent cut of state wage bill would have made €250 million available for development, but we did not hear any deputies mentioning this during the debate. Some things never change, not even at a time of recession, soaring unemployment and social deprivation.

But why should we expect any change from a government that wants to spend €100m for the purchase of two gunboats from Israel, at a time like this? While the House was debating the budget, the government submitted a bill to the defence committee, for the release of €128.5m, which it wanted urgently approved (the €28.5m would be spent on repair work on 11 Russian assault helicopters). It was an astonishingly provocative move by a government that had presented a tough austerity budget.

What is the justification of buying two gunboats at a time when families are depending on charity to feed and clothe themselves? Will they defend our EEZ? Certainly not – they could be sunk in a matter of seconds by an air force. But the government is in a hurry to have the expenditure approved because it is contractually obliged to pay half the amount before the end of the year. Commendably, DISY, despite belonging to the government camp, was the only party that refused to approve this monumental waste of money immediately, arguing that the matter could be discussed in the first three months of next year, when there would be a better idea about the state of public finances. If no payment is made before the end of the year the deal is off, according to press reports.

Predictably, no deputy raised this scandalous waste of money when talking about the budget, because defence spending is considered sacrosanct, even when it is on military equipment we do not need. Billions of euro have been squandered on defence over the years – a contributing factor to the state’s bankruptcy – but we refuse to learn anything from our mistakes of the past, happy to carry on repeating them. We may have approved an austerity budget, but as long as we refuse to abandon the practices that contributed to the state’s bankruptcy, the economy’s prospects will remain bleak.

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Public urged to protect homes, cars and cash

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Shoppers warned to limit the amount of cash they carry

By Peter Stevenson

POLICE patrols have been increased in the run-up to Christmas and the public has been urged to be extra careful during the holiday season.

“We have already begun implementing a preventative anti-crime programme during the holiday period as we expect an increase in certain crimes like pick-pocketing in busy places like the Mall or main high-streets, car thefts, illegal gambling, begging and illegal fundraising,” police spokesman Andreas Angelides said yesterday.

He said there would be a continuous yet discreet police presence in hotspots around the island to give the public a quality service and a quick response.

“Police officers will work continuously and tirelessly with increased patrols and checks on busy streets and public places to prevent crime and on main roads, to prevent any road deaths,” he added.

Despite the increased police presence, the public has also been called on to take preventative measures of their own.

In public places, on high streets and in malls, the public is advised to keep their cash and credit cards in their front pockets and to limit the amount of cash they carry on them.

Angelides added that begging is prohibited and considered a crime.

“It is likely that beggars already receive some kind of state benefit while others may be faking any illness so they can get money from people,” he said.

The police are also calling on the public to be wary of illegal fundraising.

“Some criminals take advantage of people’s charitable nature, especially during the holidays and carry out fundraisers without the necessary permits from the interior ministry,” he said.

The current period is considered to be ‘high-risk’ for burglaries so the police have asked the public to take extra measures to safeguard their homes and property.

Those who will be away are urged not make it obvious and make sure the house is locked and cooperate with trusted neighbours so they can look after each others’ houses.

Homeowners are also warned not to leave cash, jewellery, important documents or other valuables out in the open as they can become a target for burglars. Wherever possible such items should be kept in a safe.

Shop-owners are advised to leave their tills open but without any money in it when they close up.

“They shouldn’t leave large amounts of money in unsafe places, or their property exposed and should go ahead and install an alarm system, making sure it is modern, reliable and hasn’t been damaged,” the police spokesman said.

Angelides added that car thefts continue to be a problem and reminded the public that it is a crime to leave their vehicles unlocked and with their keys on the ignition.

“The public is asked to comply fully with the law and take all necessary and reasonable measures to ensure their cars are not used by any unauthorised people,” he said.

Bags, briefcases, mobile phones, laptops or other valuables should not be left in plain sight inside a car even if it is locked, Angelides added.

“Cars should always be parked in areas where there is sufficient lighting, keys should not be left in the door or in the ignition even if they are getting out for a brief moment,” the police spokesman said.

As far as illegal gambling is concerned, Angelides said that police have increased their efforts with a number of targeted operations around the island.

Club-houses, coffee shops and betting shops will be constantly checked during the holiday season to make sure no laws are being broken.

There will also be an increase in traffic police during the holidays in an effort to make sure no lives are lost on the road.

Angelides called on the public to be extra careful during the holiday season and to cooperate with the police.

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Another 25 chiefs removed, Turkish police use water cannons to disperse protesters

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Turkish riot police use water cannons against protesters during a demonstration against Turkey's ruling Ak Party (AKP) and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, in Istanbul December 22, 2013.

Turkish authorities have removed another 25 police chiefs from their posts, media reported, widening a crackdown on the force since it launched a corruption investigation that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has called a “dirty operation” against his rule.

Erdogan accused “international groups” and “dark alliances” on Saturday of encouraging the graft investigations and signalled the purge of people behind it would continue.

The furore has roiled markets and exposed deep rifts between Erdogan and his former ally Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Islamic preacher who wields influence in the police and judiciary.

Twenty-four people have been formally arrested under the corruption investigation, including the sons of two government ministers and the general manager of state-owned Halkbank . Scores have also been detained.

In response, about 70 police officers, including the powerful head of Istanbul’s force, have now been sacked or moved to different posts since the detention of bribery suspects began last week.

Erdogan’s position is under no immediate threat, but the row between his ruling AK Party and Gulen’s Hizmet movement could help decide local elections due in March.

The prime minister said on Saturday the crackdown on people behind the corruption investigation would continue.

“Those who want to establish a parallel structure alongside the state, those who have infiltrated into the state institutions … we will come into your lairs and we will lay out these organisations within the state,” he said in a speech in the northern city of Ordu.

Erdogan has refrained from naming Gulen, but years of disagreements between the two men spilled out into the open last month over a government plan to abolish private “Prep” schools, including those run by Hizmet.

The schools, part of a network with global reach, are an important source of revenue and bedrock of Hizmet’s influence.

One of the first moves by Istanbul’s new police chief, Selami Altinok, was to ban journalists from entering police stations across the country, local media reported on Sunday.

Later on police had to fire water cannon and teargas at protesters marching in Istanbul on Sunday against the Turkish government’s urbanisation plans and the corruption investigation in which scores of people, including the sons of ministers, have been arrested.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in a square in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, holding banners calling Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government to resign, Turkey’s Dogan News agency reported.

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Bomb explodes on Israeli bus, no one injured

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bus(1)

A bomb that Israeli authorities suspect was planted by Palestinian militants exploded in a bus near Tel Aviv on Sunday after passengers were evacuated, and police said no one was hurt.

“There were about 12 passengers on the bus. The driver stopped immediately when he was alerted to a suspicious object. It was a bag on the back bench, and he immediately ordered everyone off,” Eitan Fixman, a spokesman for the Dan bus company, was quoted as saying on the YNet news site.

Photographs from the scene, in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam, showed the blast blew out the vehicle’s windows.

“It seems that the bomb that exploded on a public bus near Tel Aviv was indeed a terrorist attack,” Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Twitter.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said: “We confirm the explosion on the bus today was a terror attack, based on assessments and evidence gathered at the scene.” Police were searching for suspects, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, the first such incident since Israeli-Palestinian peace talks – which have shown few signs of progress – resumed in July.

Violence in the West Bank has increased in recent months, and at least 19 Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed in the occupied territory since the negotiations got under way after a three-year break.

Rosenfeld said one of its bomb experts was examining the explosive “from a distance” when the bag blew up. He was taken to hospital for observation but was not listed as injured.

One of the passengers on the bus had alerted others to the bag, prompting them to leave the bus before the explosion, he said.

Israeli media reports said one person was slightly hurt.

The last time a bomb exploded on an Israeli bus was in November 2012, when 15 people were wounded near the Defence Ministry compound in Tel Aviv. An Israeli Arab pleaded guilty earlier this month to planting the bomb and said it was for political reasons.

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Bar review: Neverland Rock bar, Nicosia

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bar

By Constantinos Psillides

Inspired by the famed Metallica song Enter Sandman, which in turn was inspired by the fictitious Neverland in JM Barrie’s works, this loud rock bar is situated in the old town of Nicosia, just next to the Constanza moat.

Very much like the home of Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, Neverland is one of those places where time has stood still. Visiting the rock bar, one is greeted by classical rock and metal anthems, the soundtrack of rebellious youth and defiant adulthood.

Wood is the main decorative element in Neverland –like any self respecting rock den – with high, round tables and bar that almost runs the length of the establishment. In one corner there is a small platform, where a local band usually plays, as the owners are very supportive of the Cyprus rock/metal music scene.

A pool table decorates the far corner of Neverland, although it’s easier for one to get prompt and effective service from a public sector employee than to get a turn at it.

The bar’s dress code is casual. Long hair for head banging and beards are optional.

The bar’s clientele, like its selection of beers, diverse. Angsty students, goths and metalheads coexist harmoniously with the more mainstream community, united under the umbrella of the good rock music!

Beer is the main beverage, followed closely by whiskey. The bar offers some foreign brands, although the local brews, Carlsberg and Keo are chiefly in demand. Drinks are usually served with a side of popcorn or mixed nuts.

Neverland is a young bar, established in 2009. Doors open at 9pm and every Wednesday is Greek rock and punk night.

So, if you are into rock music, rock atmosphere and a fan of beer, Neverland bar in old town Nicosia is the place for you!

Neverland
Where: 1 Nikiforos Fokas street, Nicosia
Contact: 99 021362
When: from 9pm

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Famagusta man in serious condition after shooting (Updated)

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ΞΥΛΟΦΑΓΟΥ 1.

A 37-YEAR-OLD Famagusta businessman was in serious but stable condition on Monday after he was shot outside a gambling joint located in a village within the British military bases (SBA).

Michalis Shialos, who lives in Frenaros and is married and a father of two, suffered injuries to his abdomen and arm as he was leaving a coffeeshop in Xylophagou at 4.20am.

Two other people who were with Shialos at the time were not harmed.

“The victim was shot from a distance as he came out of the establishment with” two friends, SBA Dhekelia police spokesman Andreas Pitsilides said.

Shialos underwent surgery and doctors described his condition as “stable but critical.”

Two shots hit his abdomen and one his right arm.

Police could not immediately provide any information about he type and calibre of the fire arm used, but it was not a hunting shotgun.

Officers collected a number of shell casings from the scene and a special task force has been set up to investigate the incident.

Police are focusing their attention on the victim’s business dealings. Shialos is involved with pubs and internet cafes in Ayia Napa.

Pitsilides said they were working closely with Republic police on the case.

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CERA raises electricity price reduction to 8.0 per cent

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CERA EAC

THE ENERGY regulator, CERA, has decided to raise a temporary reduction on the basic tariffs of electricity from 5.0 per cent to 8.0 per cent, at the same time extending it for a further two months.

The original decision was taken in April this year, citing the dire economic conditions in the country.

CERA said it would re-examine the situation at the end of the two months.

A change in the decision will depend on conditions at the time, including the viability of the electricity company, EAC.

It will also take into consideration the EAC’s pledge to roll out a programme to cut operational costs, and implementing measures to increase productivity and reducing the cost transferred on consumers.

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Remand for officer suspected of loan-sharking

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loan shark cop

A POLICE officer has been remanded for two days by Limassol district court after a member of the public accused him of loan-sharking.
According to reports, the 53-year-old policeman had loaned a 66-year-old member of public €1,000 but in return had demanded €1,250.
After the man reported the incident to his local police station, the officer was arrested and taken to court on Monday morning.
Chief of Police Michalis Papageorgiou said that both a criminal and disciplinary investigation would take place to establish what exactly happened.
“We will show zero tolerance if a police officer is found to have been loan-sharking and the wheels have been put in motion to suspend the officer in question until a full investigation is carried out,” he said.
Papageorgiou called on anyone who has fallen victim to loan-sharking to come forward and tell police as it is a serious crime.

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Interior ministry donates €115,000

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feeding-the-poor

THE Interior Ministry will be donating some €115,000 to 25 separate organisations which operate food banks around Cyprus to cover their costs in the run-up to Christmas and New Year’s it was announced on Monday.
In a written statement the Interior Minister Socratis Hasikos said that the 25 organisations provide help for more than 10,000 needy families.
“The accounts department at the interior ministry has been ordered to share out in a fair way the money saved by the ministry. Each organisation will receive between €2,000 and €8,000 depending on the number of people it helps.
“The minister would like to thank these organisations for the help they give and all those who during these days are concentrated on helping their fellow man,” the statement said.

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Pancyprian food campaign handed out 9,000 packages

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hermes food collection

THE Pancyprian food collection campaign, under the name “Dynami Kyprion”, was completed successfully, Hermes airports announced on Monday.

“The campaign which lasted for about a month was the first significant public-private partnership in the context of a charity effort aimed at collecting food supplies for our fellow citizens in need of support,” Hermes airports said.

The campaign was conducted in collaboration with the education ministry and was supported by more than 35 institutions and organisations as well as by more than 1,000 volunteers all over Cyprus.

“The public was able to send specific types of food via their children to the schools around Cyprus. The school administrations then distributed these foods to the families of their students in need of support,” Hermes added.

It is estimated that during this collective effort 65 tonnes of food were collected at the schools participating in the campaign nationwide. It is also estimated that during the campaign more than 9,000 food packages were prepared by the schools and delivered quietly and discreetly to an equivalent number of families in need of support.

According to Hermes, due to the severe difficulties that Cypriot society is currently facing, it was not possible in the end to create significant surpluses in the schools, as in most cases the food which had been collected was barely enough to cover the needs of students from families in need of support.

“On the one hand this demonstrates how important and necessary it was to conduct this campaign, and on the other hand reminds us all that this effort of solidarity and support for our fellow citizens in need should be continued and further intensified,” Hermes said.

“Beyond the objective goal of collecting food, the campaign also aimed to reaffirm the determination of our people to overcome as one all the difficulties caused to our country by the economic crisis. In this context, we hope that the power of solidarity will be further reinforced in 2014 because if we are united nothing can defeat us,” Hermes added.

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Amnestied Pussy Riot pair criticise Putin after release

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Maria Alekhina

Two members of Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot freed from prison on Monday derided President Vladimir Putin’s amnesty that led to their early release as a propaganda stunt and promised to fight for human rights.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, shouted “Russia without Putin” following her release from a Siberian prison, hours after band mate Maria Alyokhina, 25, was freed from jail in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod.

The women had two months left to serve but walked free days after a pardon from Putin freed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky eight months before the end of his more than 10-year jail term, decisions widely seen as intended to improve Russia’s image before it hosts the Winter Olympics in February.

“It is a disgusting and cynical act,” Tolokonnikova, looking relaxed in a black coat and chequered shirt, told Reuters at her grandmother’s apartment building in the snowbound Siberian city of Kransoyarskwhere she was jailed.

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were sentenced to two years in prison for a profanity-laced protest against Putin in a Russian Orthodox church in 2012 after a trial Kremlin critics said was part of a clampdown on dissent in his third presidential term.

The case caused an outcry in the West, but there was much less sympathy for the women at home than abroad. They had been due for release in early March.

Putin, who denies jailing people for political reasons, has said the amnesty would show that the Russian state is humane.

The measure, however, does not benefit opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is barred from elections for years by a five-year suspended sentence on a theft charge he says was Kremlin revenge for his activism. Putin, in power since 2000, has not ruled out seeking another six-year term in 2018.

Alyokhina echoed critics who said the amnesty was far too narrow and not an act of mercy but a political ply by Putin.

“I do not think it is a humanitarian act, I think it is a PR stunt,” she said in comments to the Russian Internet and TV channel Dozhd. “My attitude to the president has not changed.”

Tolokonnikova, who staged a hunger strike earlier this year and drew attention to stark conditions and long hours of mandatory labour in the jail where she was previously held, said she would fight for prisoners’ rights.

“Everything is just starting, so fasten your seat belts,” she said, suggesting Pussy Riot - jailed for a “punk prayer” in the main cathedral of Russia’s dominant faith – would continue to use attention-grabbing protests to make their point.

“We will unite our efforts in our human rights activity,” Alyokhina said in Nizhny Novgorod. “We will try to sing our the song to the end.”

“I’M NOT AFRAID”

Bundled in a thick green prison jacket and with her long curly hair loose, Alyokhina said she would have rejected the amnesty if that been a option. She said she wants to focus on fighting for the rights of those still behind bars.

“I’m not afraid of anything anymore, believe me,” she said.

In an about-face, Putin unexpectedly pardoned Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos oil company chief who had been in jail since his arrest in 2003 and conviction in two trials that critics said were punishment for challenging the Kremlin leader.

Khodorkovsky, who was freed on Friday and flown to Germany, said Putin is seeking to improve his image while also showing that he is confident in his grip on power after weathering large opposition protests and winning a third term last year.

Putin wants to send “a signal to society and the world that he feels secure and is not afraid”, said Khodorkovsky, who supporters feared would remain in jail throughout Putin’s tenure, in an interview with Russian magazine the New Times.

The amnesty is also expected to spare from trial 30 people arrested after a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling. They face charges punishable by up to seven years’ in jail.

A pro-Kremlin lawmaker said he thought the amnesty and pardon would help to remove irritants in ties with the West.

“Political grievances against Russia will shrink somewhat,” Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia’s parliament, said.

But Putin has said the amnesty was not drafted with the Greenpeace activists or Pussy Riot in mind. In an annual news conference last week, he described Pussy Riot’s protest as disgraceful, saying it “went beyond all boundaries”.

Rights activists have estimated the amnesty will free fewer than 1,500 of the 564,000 convicts in Russian prisons. Another 114,000 people are in pre-trial detention, the government says.

A third Pussy Riot member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was freed last year when a judge suspended her sentence on appeal.

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South Sudan says it will attack rebel-held towns as peace efforts stall

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People displaced by recent fighting in South Sudan gather to receive emergency dry food rations distributed by  the  World Food Programme at a makeshift camp in the United Nations Mission in Sudan facility in Jabel

South Sudan’s government said on Monday it will start a major offensive to retake two strategic towns controlled by rebels loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar, deepening fears that the conflict is provoking broader ethnic bloodletting.

Western powers and east African states, which want to prevent the fighting from destabilising a fragile African region, have tried to mediate between Machar, who hails from the Nuer tribe, and President Salva Kiir, a Dinka.

But so far their efforts have been fruitless as clashes which started in Juba on Dec. 15 enter their second week, reaching the country’s vital oil fields and destabilising a state which won independence from Sudan only in 2011.

Hundreds of people have been killed, with reports of summary executions and ethnically-targeted killings.

Information Minister Michael Makuei said Machar has not come to the negotiating table so the government plans to attack and retake Jonglei State capital Bor as well as Bentiu town, the capital of oil-producing Unity State.

“We are making a major offensive,” Makuei told Reuters. “Today we will take over Bor.”

Joe Contreras, the United Nations spokesman in South Sudan, said on Monday there was sporadic fighting in Bor where about 17,000 people were seeking refuge at a UN compound.

Makeui said the government continued to control parts of Unity State, including its oil fields, even after the army divisional commander there John Koang defected and joined Machar, who had named him governor of the state.

“Government forces are also preparing to launch an offensive against rebel groups in Bentiu,” Makeui added.

Makuei denied reports that oil production has been disrupted in Unity State. “The oil at this moment is still flowing as no one is interested in the shutdown of oil.”

A US envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, Ambassador Donald Booth, arrived in Juba on Monday to meet Kiir and opposition groups.

Toby Lanzer, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, said during a recent visit to Bor that many of the humanitarian compounds there had been looted. “There was a lot of looting, a lot of gun shots and a lot of dead bodies,” he told the BBC.

Contreras said the UN was now sheltering about 42,000 civilians across South Sudan and would not leave the country despite worsening security situation.

“For those elements who are trying to intimidate us or who have attacked us, the message is loud and clear: we are here to serve the people of South Sudan and we are not leaving the country under any circumstances,” Contreras said.

While Juba remains tense but calm, Contreras added that there were reports of fighting between rival Sudan People’s Liberation Army factions about 25 km (15 miles) east of the capital.

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Kalashnikov assault rifle designer dies aged 94

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Mikhail Kalashnikov

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the assault rifle that has killed more people than any other firearm in the world, died on Monday aged 94, Russian officials said.

Kalashnikov, who was in his 20s when he created the AK-47 just after World War Two, died in his home city of

Izhevsk near the Ural Mountains, where his gun is still made, a spokesman for the Udmurtia province’s president said on state television.

The spokesman did not give the cause of death. Kalashnikov was fitted with a electric heartbeat stimulator at a Moscow hospital in June and had been in hospital in Izhevsk since November, 17 state media reported.

The AK-47, which rarely jams even in adverse conditions, went into service in the Soviet armed forces in 1949. Today, Kalashnikov rifles are still a mainstay of Russia’s armed forces and police.

Known as the weapon of choice for guerrillas, the gun and its imitations have been used in conflicts around the world for decades.

At a lavish Kremlin ceremony on Kalashnikov’s 90th birthday, then-President Dmitry Medvedev bestowed on him the highest state honour – the Hero of Russia gold star medal – and lauded him for creating “the national brand every Russian is proud of”.

Kalashnikov, a son of Siberian peasants who never finished school, said pride in his iconic invention was mixed with the pain of seeing it used by criminals and child soldiers.

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IMF: Cyprus’ growth may be hampered for a decade

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IMF

CYPRUS’ efforts to extricate itself from its massive debt could weigh on output for the next decade, the IMF warned yesterday in a review in which it said the island was well on track in its economic adjustment programme.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the EU have provided it with €10 billion in aid.

In its second progress review, the IMF said the programme was on track and Cyprus’ recession, although severe, was shallower than expected. A modest economic recovery in the euro zone was helping through increased trade.

The fund in early December trimmed its forecast for the island’s contraction to 7.7 per cent from 8.7 per cent. But it stuck by its initial forecast for a cumulative economic contraction of 13 percent for the 2013-2014 period.

Years of fiscal slippage and a banking system heavily exposed to debt-crippled Greece took Cyprus to the brink of financial meltdown. Its banks chalked up massive losses on an EU-endorsed restructuring of Greek sovereign debt, to make that country’s debt mountain more manageable, but exacerbating Cyprus’ problems.

Cyprus shut down one insolvent bank and confiscated deposits to boost the capital buffers at another when the IMF and the EU refused to use taxpayers’ money to recapitalise the lenders. It was the euro zone’s first such ‘bail-in’ process, in which depositors were forced to help bail out their banks. The €10 billion euros in aid is mainly for fiscal purposes.

The IMF said the fall in Cyprus’s gross domestic product was expected to be steeper, and the subsequent recovery slower, than in most other eurozone programme countries.

That reflects the need for both households and corporates to deleverage, it said, as their combined debt stood at 280 per cent of GDP at the end of 2012 – among the highest in the euro area.

“Deleveraging is expected to pose a drag on growth over the next five to ten years,” it said in its report.

Cyprus says it will embark on a privatisation plan for its telecoms, ports and electricity assets to raise about €1.4 billion by 2018. Domestic political support for some elements of the programme, including selloffs, was “spluttering” the IMF said.

But it also expressed some concern about simmering tension between the government and the governor of the central bank, an independent official. President Nicos Anastasiades has said publicly that he wants the central bank chief removed.

The issue was “complicating decision making” and was not conducive to a return of market confidence, the IMF said.

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Film review: Frozen *** (for kids ****)

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frozen

By Preston Wilder

How good is Frozen?

So good that I watched it dubbed into Greek (though there’s also an English-language choice) and in 3D (no choice there) and still found much to chuckle and marvel at. The 3D glasses are especially galling; it’s increasingly clear, at least to me, that 3D adds nothing to cartoons, and the only reason they’re made in that process is to reel in younger viewers so they’ll be accustomed to the glasses – and indeed expect them – when they grow older. Yet Frozen is still very pleasurable.

It’s great to look at, for one thing. Most cartoons are, especially if they come with a big budget (Tangled, also from Walt Disney Pictures, was apparently the second most expensive film of all time) – which is not surprising, when they have literally dozens of animators labouring at their computers for literally years. I’m always a bit reluctant to praise cartoons too fulsomely for what’s essentially painting rather than filmmaking; still, it takes imagination – and it’s there in Frozen from the very first shot, looking up from beneath a sheet of ice at lights coming closer. The lights turn out to be workmen lugging glittering blocks of ice, which builds into a song number (like Tangled, the film is a musical) – and we’re off, telling a tale of two sisters: a troubled older one with a dark secret (her touch turns everything to ice) and a carefree younger one (Anna, our heroine) wondering why her sis has withdrawn from her, unaware that it’s for her own protection.

Anna’s a princess, Elsa her sister is queen (the film is ‘inspired by’ the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale The Snow Queen). Anna is courted by Prince Hans, a charming fellow who wins her heart – but she teams up with mountain man Kristoff when Elsa flees the kingdom, labelled a “freak” for her magical powers, and Anna goes after her. The snow-clad landscapes are consistently beautiful, ditto the film’s eye for detail: Anna in a green dress and flowing purple cape, standing on a white slope with the snow falling; Elsa fleeing in the night, lacy whorls of ice appearing in her wake with every footstep. The comic detail is equally precise. Reaching a cabin in the woods, Kristoff taps with his stick and snow tumbles down to reveal a sign – “Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post” – then he taps again, and more snow falls from a smaller sign: “and Sauna”.

But it’s not just the look that makes Frozen intriguing, it’s also the gender roles. Disney seem to be targeting a specific niche with their cartoons (at least if half the population can be called a niche): the little-girl audience, often forgotten in the rush of animated monsters and action heroes. Wreck-It Ralph, despite its videogame milieu, had a female heroine – and of course Tangled was an old-fashioned Bette Davis ‘woman’s picture’ played as kids’ cartoon, with its abusive relationship between trapped daughter and manipulative, passive-aggressive mother. The two sisters here are female archetypes (Frozen is written by a woman, co-director Jennifer Lee) – Anna the headstrong, liberated modern woman, Elsa the (literally) frigid maid who can’t bear to be touched.

Indeed, my only reservation with Frozen is how female-centric it is, to the point of being un-romantic. It’s fair enough that Prince Charming gets revised (he’s been fair game since Shrek), and of course an independent heroine is always welcome – but the ultimate message seems to be ‘What use are boys anyway?’, which is almost as chilly as the film’s icy snowscapes. The common parental (mis)conception that kids’ cartoons are just harmless fun really needs to be re-examined; they’re pricklier than you think.

Still, it’s a worthy Message in its way – and of course it doesn’t matter when Olaf the snowman (the inevitable silly sidekick) is babbling away, or when Sven the reindeer is being almost as inspired as that brilliant horse in Tangled. There are so many clever touches in Frozen, from Anna’s bits of business during songs – shaking hands with a suit of armour, posing in front of various paintings – to the splendid meet-cute between Anna and Hans (it involves a horse and a precariously-balanced boat) or the rocks that turn into trolls.

Little boys may thrill to the mountain adventures and laugh at the goofy characters, but this is really a film for little girls – and of course big girls: much more than Brave, the recent cartoon by Disney subsidiary Pixar, Frozen should entrance chaperones as well as kids. When you get to the big confrontation between the two sisters – the past rekindled, old resentments aired, Anna’s pleas met with Elsa’s rebuffs – and the scene becomes more and more intense, then soars into opera (!) … well, not even 3D can ruin that.

DIRECTED BY Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee
WITH THE VOICES OF Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad
US 2013 108 mins

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The wonders of communication technology

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feature-commujnication

Being miles away from friends and family at Christmas no longer means you can’t share the holidays with them. ALIX NORMAN on why she’ll be glued to the computer this festive season

The difficulty, you see, is that my only sister lives in Alaska. Yes, almost exactly half way round the world. If I wanted to visit, it would probably be quicker to bore a hole through the centre of the Earth than fly round it. And cheaper too. So, at a time of year that’s really all about being with family, it can get quite lonely for both of us. But this isn’t going to be a sad Christmas story. No, it’s a tribute to communication technology, and how – despite the physics of time and space –there’s a myriad of ways to stay in touch.

With the plethora of platforms, apps and sites that are now, literally, at our fingertips, once futuristic technologies are bringing us together from the four corners of the globe: thanks to communication technology, we’re living in a shrinking world. “And it’s getting smaller all the time,” says David Townend, Chief Operating Officer at communications technology company Evanidus. “As internet speeds improve in years to come, worlds of possibilities will open up,” he says. “In the near future, open channels of communication will lead to whole families living in a much more visually connected way.” And with most of us using social media sites throughout our working day, it seems this exciting future is fast approaching…

Take Facebook, for instance: fantastic for up to the minute bulletins on what’s happening with friends and family all over the world. Then there’s WhatsApp, which is great if you want to send a quick – and free – text or voice clip. There’s Viber, Instagram, Twitter (the different methods of communication are growing so fast, it sometimes seems there’s simply no way to keep up with them all)… And then, of course, there’s Skype – a form of communication now so ubiquitous that it has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. So much of our actual conversation happens through gesture, expression and movement that a mere phone call always seems to somehow exacerbate the distances involved, so the video calling option on Skype is a lifeline for many, a way to truly share – if not in all five senses, then at least the two most important – in family life…

One such family is the Gregorious, who plan to Skype Nouna in Chicago on Christmas Day. “My three sons regularly use the internet to chat face-to-face with friends and family around the world; it’s far easier for a six-year-old than writing an actual letter!” says Anna Gregoriou. “Skype has been such a blessing in terms of staying in contact. Even my cyber-phobic father will use it to communicate with the family over the holiday season.”

And with this visual communication technology constantly improving, says COO David, it’s allowing us to be closer to loved ones than ever before: “Phone calls can be great, but Skype really is ten times better: it allows you to actually see the smile on someone’s face when they open your present, even though you may be thousands of miles apart. The only issue comes with mobile technology, which often doesn’t have the capacity to cope with Skype. In which case you can always use Snap Chat for a quick message, or leave a personal video in Drop Box for the family to open on Christmas morning.“

Thirty-something Max Stylianidou is an avid fan of these latest technologies, and plans to be online for much of the holiday period: “Many of my friends and family are based in the UK, so the social media revolution has certainly made it easier – and cheaper – to remain in contact,” he says. “Supposedly, it’s the season to be jolly, and for me that’s all about my people. For me, hanging out virtually on Skype or Facebook is the next best thing to actually being in the UK at Christmas.”

And the great thing is that it works the opposite way too: “I returned to Edinburgh for good in October,” says Ruth Brookes, who, at 73 years of age, lived for most of her life in Cyprus. “Even though I moved back to be closer to my family, it’s been very hard to leave my expat world. Especially at this time of year,” she adds. “I’ve always done the same things each December: helped with the Christmas productions, and the bazaar, been to the same church service and had Christmas lunch with the same group of friends. It’s certainly been a wrench to leave all that behind.”

Luckily, Ruth has embraced the latest forms of communication technology and manages to stay in touch in a way she could never have imagined forty years ago: “As soon as I got back to Scotland, my kids bought me a smartphone – they knew how much I’d be missing my friends abroad. I was quite worried about using it at first, but my grandchildren were very understanding and patient in explaining things to me, and it’s actually far easier than I’d imagined! Now I’m pretty happy using Viber and Skype to stay in touch; it’s like having the best of both worlds, family here and friends at the touch of a button.”

And that’s why, this year, no matter where I am, with the click of a mouse I can be halfway round the world enjoying Christmas with my sister. I may be plugged into my computer in a way not even Jules Verne himself could have envisaged, and I may not be physically able to pull the crackers or taste the gravy, but I’ll be able to see and to hear and – through the wonders of communication technology – to share in a family celebration. And for that, I’m very grateful. Anyway, there’s probably a great deal to be said for seeing an Alaskan winter without actually being there.

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Europe shares inch up in quiet pre-holiday session

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SPANISH IBEX35 RISES

EUROPEAN stocks inched up Tuesday morning, adding to a sharp rally in the past four sessions, although trading in the shortened session was thin.

Many stock markets such as Germany, Switzerland and Italy were closed for the Christmas break.

In early trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 index was up 0.4 per cent, France’s CAC 40 up 0.3 per cent, and Spain’s IBEX up 0.5 per cent.

After an hour of trading, volumes were extremely low, representing about 5 per cent of a daily average volume for both the FTSE 100 and CAC 40, and 12 per cent for the IBEX.

Britain’s top shares rose for a fifth session in what is likely to be a quiet day of trade with many investors out already for the Christmas holiday break.

The FTSE 100 was enjoying its longest winning streak since October, having risen almost 4.5 percent from last week’s low and is now in positive territory for the month, up 0.9 per cent.

The index notched a 13.7 per cent rise in 2013 in a year which has seen it scale 13-year highs, now 2.5 per cent above current levels. Traders saw scope for it to continue its ascent into year end.

“I see it drifting a little bit higher… (on) the tapering story that we saw in the U.S. The reaction to that was very positive,” Mark Priest, sales trader at ETX Capital, said.

Jordan Hiscott, senior trader at Gekko Global Markets, also reckons the index will eke out further gains this year, though could struggle to overcome 6,743.

Resistance could come into play at this level, he said, and the 14-day relative strength index (RSI), a momentum indicator, is moving back up towards overbought territory.

With just a few sessions remaining before the end of the year, European shares have gained about 15 per cent so far in 2013, mostly propelled by central banks’ massive liquidity injections as well as an improvement in economic data from both Europe and the United States.

“The rally should continue next year, Europe still has a big potential for a catch-up rally versus Wall Street,” Saxo Bank sales trader Andrea Tueni said.

While Wall Street’s Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 as well as Germany’s DAX trade at all-time highs, other euro zone stock indexes, hammered during the region’s sovereign debt crisis, are still well below highs hit in 2007.

France’s CAC 40 is still about 32 per cent below peaks seen before the global financial crisis, while Spain’s IBEX is down 39 per cent and Italy’s FTSE MIB down 58 per cent.

As fears over Italy and Spain receded in 2013 and volatility dropped, European equities saw a return of investment flows from global investors in the second part of the year.

According to data from fund-tracking EPFR Global, European equity funds have enjoyed net weekly inflows in the past 25 weeks in a row.

In the week ending December 18, even as investors pulled $3.4bn from global equity funds in the run-up to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to start trimming its massive stimulus, investors continued to pour in money into European stocks, EPFR data showed.

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Suarez dreaming as title race enters festive overdrive

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Liverpool vs Chelsea

By Mike Collett
Few players have undergone the transformation from sinner to saint that Luis Suarez is experiencing this season and the prolific Uruguay striker is now dreaming of winning the Premier League with Liverpool.

Liverpool went top of the table by beating Cardiff City 3-1 on Saturday, Suarez scoring twice to take his season’s tally to 19 goals from 12 league matches ahead of the busy Christmas holiday programme which offers no let-up in the title race.

The Anfield club visit fellow contenders and many people’s favourites Manchester City on Boxing Day before travelling to Chelsea on Sunday and Suarez, who missed the opening five matches of the season following a ban imposed last season for biting an opponent, is a man reborn.

“It is my dream, I hope to win the league and a big trophy with Liverpool,” he was quoted as saying on the club website (www.liverpoolfc.com).

Suarez signed a new four-year contract last week and according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper is scoring goals “to make the likes of (former Anfield greats) Ian Rush, Roger Hunt and Robbie Fowler appear like they were occasional marksmen”.

The race for the title reaches the halfway stage with four rounds of matches over Christmas and the New Year including last weekend’s programme which concluded late on Monday when Arsenal drew 0-0 with Chelsea at the Emirates.

Arsenal led the way from mid-September until Liverpool went top on Saturday, meaning they will head into Christmas as the top side for the first time since 2008.
Unlike Germany where there is an unofficial ‘winter champion’, no such accolade exists in England but historically it is no bad thing to top the table at this time of the year.
The top team at Christmas in the 21 completed Premier League seasons has won the title 10 times. Seven of the last nine champions, and all of the last four title winners, were first on December 25.
The last team to be first at Christmas and miss out on the title were Liverpool in 2009.
This time last year eventual champions Manchester United held a four-point lead over Manchester City going into Christmas and were 11 clear of third-placed Chelsea but this season the race is much closer.

Liverpool now have 36 points and the leading eight teams are separated by only eight points, down to champions United with 28.
Despite varying ups and downs in the first half of the season the top eight – Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea, Everton, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United all have realistic hopes of finishing in the top four.

Arsenal midfielder Mikel Arteta said last week: “Christmas is so important. Does it matter that this current team has not won the title before? No, it doesn’t.
“What is important is that you get as many points as you can over Christmas. That’s what counts.”

Arsenal visit relegation-threatened West Ham United in a London derby on Thursday, the same day as champions United travel to Hull City.
On Saturday Manchester City host struggling Crystal Palace and United go to Norwich City.
On December 29, Liverpool visit Chelsea while Arsenal make the long trip to Newcastle.

Everton have two home games to take a grip on a top four spot, against bottom club Sunderland on Boxing Day and faltering Southampton three days later.
Spurs, with Tim Sherwood taking charge following last week’s sacking of Andre Villas-Boas, follow up Sunday’s 3-2 win at Southampton with home games against West Bromwich Albion and Stoke City before playing at Manchester United on New Year’s Day.

Being bottom at Christmas almost certainly heralds relegation at the end of the season.
Since 1992-93, when the Premier League started, only one club bottom at Christmas has escaped the drop – West Bromwich Albion in 2004-05.
Sunderland have 10 points from 17 matches and face Everton and Cardiff City away before hosting Aston Villa on New Year’s Day.
“We need to turn things around soon if we are to survive,” said Sunderland manager Gus Poyet.

“We could do with Luis Suarez, he’s not bad is he?”, he joked after the Uruguayan bagged his 19th goal on Saturday – seven more than the entire Sunderland team have managed this season.

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Film review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug **

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hobbit

By Preston Wilder

What is there left to say about The Hobbit?

Most of the major talking-points – that Peter Jackson took a 300-page children’s book and turned it into a nine-hour saga; that he mostly (or partly) did it to make himself bankable again after his post-Lord of the Rings career foundered; that the films were shot in 48 (not 24) frames per second, though only projected that way in specially-equipped cinemas – were chewed over pretty comprehensively when the first film in the trilogy, The Unexpected Journey, came out last year. Now here’s the second instalment, The Desolation of Smaug, and one feels defeated, both by the scale of this mammoth enterprise and its sheer pointlessness: The Hobbit is simply there, like Mount Everest.

Still, there are a few things one could say – for example, that the film looks murky. Much of it, from the opening scene in the giggle-inducing Inn of the Prancing Pony to our climactic view of Smaug the dragon’s stupendous hoard of treasure, is shot in a rust-brown colour scheme that’s vaguely depressing (the New Zealand landscapes lift the spirit occasionally, but only occasionally). The treasure in particular feels like a missed opportunity; the orange-brown is memorable, just by virtue of being monochromatic, but a glitter of gold and jewels might’ve amplified the sense of a magical lair and stood out more from the rest of the movie. The dragon himself is a muffled creation compared (say) to Gollum, Middle-Earth’s most voluble monster; Benedict Cumberbatch (of Sherlock fame) does the voice – but his voice has been so pumped up with artificial boom and reverb that precise cadences are lost, and it feels like it could’ve come from anyone. The whole film is post-produced to within an inch of its life; the look is aggressively colour-corrected, the images tweaked, the sounds worked over. It feels unreal, in a plastic way.

Jackson’s made a few changes for this second part. There’s a new character, an elf named Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) who’s handy with a bow and arrow. She seems designed as a corrective to Tolkien’s very male world of warriors, par for the course now that even (or especially) Disney cartoons have ‘feisty’ heroines – just as the new emphasis on decapitations may bespeak a Game of Thrones influence. Efforts have been made, in other words, to keep the film relevant to 2013 – and it works well enough, yet something’s missing.

Take Tauriel, for instance. Tolkien buffs are apparently indignant that a new character has been added – but can you even call her a character? There’s a hint of an inter-species love triangle, insofar as she’s fancied by fellow elf Legolas but fancies a dwarf (Tauriel, dreamily: “He’s tall … for a dwarf”), but most of the time she just looks steely while battles happen around her. These characters are thin, even Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), our titular hobbit who looks for a while like he might be corrupted by his Invisibility Ring – we see him gleefully slaughter giant spiders, clutching the ring and going “Mine! Mine!” – but recedes into the background after an hour or so. The last hour is a problem in general, made worse by Jackson’s decision to cross-cut between three strands of action.

He’s done this before, of course, in The Two Towers (a middle instalment, like this one) – but it’s one thing cross-cutting in mid-quest, quite another to cross-cut after our hero’s met the dragon who’s the point of the whole story. The Bilbo-Smaug confrontation is the most important part of the climax here; it’s not even close. It’s daft to keep abandoning that to focus on some sick dwarf in Laketown, or Gandalf doing god-knows-what in some other place altogether – but the point, I think, is that Jackson isn’t really interested in the main plot of The Hobbit. What he really wants is to wallow for nine hours in Middle-Earth again.

There’s a certain thematic link here – because The Hobbit, like Lord of the Rings, is a tale of different factions (races, breeds, whatever) coming together. The elf king is isolationist, thinking only of his own kingdom, but Tauriel – sounding a bit like George W. Bush 10 years ago – warns that “With every victory, this evil will grow”; all must come together in a grand alliance. ‘Grand’ is the operative word in The Hobbit, a saga that works (or doesn’t work) in the opposite way to most films: most directors can’t see the wood for the trees – but Peter Jackson can’t see the trees for the wood.

The vision is grand, but the story doesn’t grip. The characters don’t grab us. Despite some flashes of fun, notably Stephen Fry as the corrupt Master of Laketown (“An election? I won’t stand for it!”), Smaug’s humour is mostly unintentional, having to do with contrived moments – the dwarfs just decide to give up and walk away disconsolately? oh please – and the usual portentous dialogue. Desolation of Smaug got surprisingly good reviews, and it does unfold more pacily than the first instalment; there are funny Spielbergian set-pieces (the escape in barrels) and the usual spectacular backdrops. But there’s really not much to say about this airless, all-but-endless saga. It’s there. It exists. Like Mount Everest, you can take it or leave it.

DIRECTED BY Peter Jackson
STARRING Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage
US/New Zealand 2013 161 mins

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