President Abdullah Gul sought to salve Turkish furore over a high-level corruption case on Tuesday by assuring the public there would be no cover-up and that the courts were free to investigate.

The remarks by Gul, a unifying figure in an increasingly polarised society, followed fresh curbs on the police and judiciary by the government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who has blamed the week-long scandal on a shadowy foreign plot.

The sons of two cabinet ministers and the boss of state-run Halkbank are among 24 people in police custody on graft charges. TV news images of cash-filled shoeboxes allegedly seized at suspects’ homes have transfixed Turks still simmering from summer mass-protests against Erogan’s rule.

“Turkey is not the same place compared to 10 or 15 years ago. Many reforms have been carried out, in politics as well as in the law,” Gul said in his first remarks about the affair.

“In a country where such reforms have taken place, if there were corruption and mistakes they would not be covered up,” he told reporters. He added that “the independent, objective and democratic legal system (will) adjudicate the allegations in a manner that will not leave any question marks”.

Erdogan responded to the arrests by sacking or reassigning some 70 police officers, including the chief of the force in Istanbul.

At the weekend the government changed regulations for the police, requiring officers to report evidence, investigations, arrests and complaints to commanding officers and prosecutors. Journalists have also been banned from entering police buildings.

Erdogan has won three straight elections in Turkey, which has blossomed economically during his rule, and has transformed the country by curbing the power of the secularist military establishment.

He has also angered some Turks over what they see as an authoritarian streak, leading to mass demonstrations this year.

The Halkbank affair and his retaliation against the police have earned him newly vocal enemies, including an influential cleric with many followers in the police and judiciary.

RUSSIA told Ukraine on Tuesday it had transferred the first $3bn tranche of a $15bn bailout, part of plans to keep Kiev firmly within Moscow’s orbit and out of the European Union’s embrace.

President Vladimir Putin offered Ukraine the lifeline last week, along with a big cut in the price Kiev pays for vital Russian gas supplies, as he tries to persuade Russia’s Slavic neighbour to join a customs union of ex-Soviet republics.

“Yesterday … the first tranche of Ukrainian sovereign debt was acquired for $3bn,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told his Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Azarov at a meeting in Moscow.

President Viktor Yanukovich’s pivot back towards Moscow and away from an offer of closer trade ties with the EU has sparked huge protests in Ukraine, sometimes swelling to hundreds of thousands, and the creation of a tent camp in central Kiev.

The protesters accuse Yanukovich of selling out to Ukraine’s Soviet-era overlord with the deal on debt and gas prices.

The Kremlin said it had invited Azarov to join Putin and other leaders for a meeting of former Soviet republics taking part in trade alliances Russia is building, part of Moscow’s drive to restore its influence in its former empire.

Ukraine has so far resisted joining a Russia-led customs union that includes Belarus and Kazakhstan - a big step because membership would scupper any lingering possibility that Kiev might reverse course and sign a free trade deal with the EU.

Any signal that Ukraine might join the customs union would re-invigorate protests in Ukraine, which have started to show signs of flagging despite a constant crowd of a few thousand people at the tent camp in Kiev’s Independence Square.

About 100,000 people gathered at the square on Sunday to demonstrate for the fifth weekend in a row, but the number was the lowest this month, and around half the previous weekend’s turnout.

Putin has made closer integration among ex-Soviet states a priority of his third term after 14 years in power. He is using the customs union as a foundation for a Eurasian Economic Union, due to come into existence in 2015.

Putin has won victories with decisions by Kyrgyzstan and Armenia to move toward joining the customs union, but the leader of oil-producing Kazakhstan yesterday repeated a warning that Putin’s post-Soviet integration plans must not go too far.

“I don’t want to repeat myself, but the politicisation of the union that is being created is inadmissible,” Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at a meeting with Putin before the broader gathering.

Where do you live?
In Nicosia, alone

Best childhood memory?
Summer camp in Greece!

Most frequented restaurant and absolute favourite dish?
1900 art café in Larnaca, although I must admit my favorite dish is my mother’s koupepia!

What food would you really turn your nose up to?
I never managed to eat snails! French cuisine or not , je deteste les escargots!

What did you have for breakfast?
As always: oat, honey, coffee with milk

Would you class yourself as a day or night person? What’s your idea of the perfect night/day out?
Definitely a night person. Beer night with good friends would be my favourite!

Best book ever read?
Dictionary of the Khazars by Serbian writer Milorand Pavic. I discover new things every time I read it!

Favourite film of all time?
Probably the Zeitgeist documentary trilogy by Peter Joseph. Very… educating!

Best holiday ever taken? What’s your dream trip?
Germany, summer 2013… with a very special person! Dream trip? Well, as Sinatra once put it: “I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps!”

What music are you listening to in the car at the moment?
Two entirely different music records: Damien Rice – O and Greek composer Thanasis Papakontsantinou – Agripnia (Insomnia)

What is always in your fridge?
Beer!

Dream house: rural retreat or urban dwelling? Where would it be, what would it be like?
Definitely rural retreat, probably a peaceful place in the mountain region of Limassol. Preferably with a nice garden and mountain view. I love the countryside!

If you could pick anyone at all (alive or dead) to go out for the evening with, who would it be?
Well, I really miss my grandpa, so he would be the one.

If the world is ending in 24 hours what would you do?
I would pray for an extension!

What is your greatest fear?
That the world IS going to end someday and mankind will be entirely responsible!

Tell me a joke…
Here is a clever slogan I ran across the other day: “DO IT TODAY! It might be illegal tomorrow!”

Avanti4 will be performing on Makarios Avenue on Saturday as part of the Christmas celebrations

By Elias Hazou

AN ‘emergency’ meeting was convened in Nicosia on Tuesday to discuss the roll-out of a planned second tender for interim gas supplies.

The gathering was called by energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis, who summoned officials from all the involved parties – the Natural Gas Public Company, the Electricity Authority of Cyprus, the energy regulator and the Transmission Systems Operator.

Sources said the minister’s intention was to speed up the process so that a new tender could be announced as soon as possible.

According to the latest information, the new tender will be for seven years (2016 to 2022), with an option for up to three one-year extensions – potentially 10 years in total.

The quantities of natural gas will range from 0.6 billion cubic meters per annum (bcma) to 0.9 bcma. The imported gas – cheaper than heavy fuel oil – will be used to power the electricity grid.

The government had wanted the Natural Gas Public Company (DEFA) to finish the tender documents by this week; but concerns raised by the electricity authority – the eventual buyer of the gas from DEFA – temporarily put the move on ice.

The intention now is for the tender to be prepped by the first week of January so that it can then be sent for publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It’s understood that the document inviting expressions of interest has been drafted, but the annexes – including the Gas Sales Agreement, a key component – are not yet ready.

If and when a tender is decided and the competition results in the award of a contract, DEFA will conclude a deal with the supplier, and will sell the fuel to the EAC. Any contract thus requires back-to-back agreements – one between DEFA and the supplier, the other between DEFA and the EAC – that are in sync with each other.

The EAC, in the main, has pointed to a number of issues that need sorting out so as to render ironclad a possible contract for the purchase of natural gas.

Their worries relate chiefly to whether DEFA will retain its exclusive status as the sole lawful importer and distributor of gas on the island. If that doesn’t happen, and other importers are allowed to market gas here, the EAC might be left with more gas on its hands than it actually can burn in the midst of the contract period.

Sources explained that Cyprus already qualifies and is classed as an emergent market according to EU directives – granting the island a derogation to operate as a protected market when it comes to natural gas.

But, they said, Cyprus needs to ‘activate’ this emergent status, which however is a matter of routine: the government would announce its decision via the Cabinet, and then the tender documents put out by DEFA would make explicit mention of the fact that Cyprus is an emergent market.

Meanwhile the EAC insists that any contract must contain a price renegotiation clause for the gas after a period of three years.

Another concern relates to the possibility of an electricity link between Cyprus and Israel, which would decrease domestic demand for natural gas. The feasibility as well as the timing of such a project is unclear.

In short, the EAC wants the government to clarify its energy policy.

The first tender, launched in September 2012, was terminated in October this year after DEFA failed to reach agreement with any of the bidders.

THE Attorney-general has been handed the findings of a police probe into various allegations of misconduct at the Central Bank of Cyprus.

“In the case regarding the Central Bank, the inquiries concerning the Central Bank, the file has been delivered to the Attorney-general with recommendations; he will decide its further handling,” police spokesman Andreas Angelides told newsmen on Tuesday.

He did not elaborate.

In October authorities launched a criminal investigation into a controversial agreement between the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) and financial consultants Alvarez & Marsal to pay them a 0.10 per cent fee on any amount needed to recapitalise the banks, including when cash was seized from depositors.

At the same time, deputy attorney-general Rikkos Erotocritou said the probe would also look into allegations by CBC governor Panicos Demetriades that confidential documents had been leaked to the media, but also potential document forgery, and deception of board members.

Erotocritou said the probe would cover the CBC board and the governor, and possibly third parties.

Allegations flying from the Central Bank relate to, among other things, Demetriades backdating a specific document (correspondence with the consultancy). The CBC chief in turn has charged the board with leaking confidential bank documents.

The deal between the CBC and A&M was initially assigned to the CID but it was later decided to hand it over to a task force already investigating the causes of the economic downfall – mainly the bank activities.

By Poly Pantelides
CYPRUS, darling of sun seekers and beach goers, is also home to major spying facilities jointly funded by the UK and the US, ostensibly on pretext that knowing what everyone is doing will keep them safe.
Last week, a European Parliament inquiry on the mass surveillance of EU citizens discussed “restoring trust” between the US and the EU in the wake of reports the US National Security Agency (NSA) gather as much personal data as possible, including of EU citizens.
The draft report of the Civil Liberties Committee’s (LIBE) inquiry called for the US to do more to protect EU citizens’ personal data. The draft document called for “clear political signals” by the US to show it “understands the difference between allies and adversaries”. It also called for a code of conduct so that “no espionage is pursued against EU institutions and facilities”.
Experts warned the EU however that IT systems were deliberately vulnerable so that intelligence agencies can have access to data, which also makes them vulnerable to the very cyber-attacks we are told surveillance will prevent.
Declassified colonial files have already shown that when Cyprus became independent in 1960, British agencies including intelligence and security organisation GCHQ ensured they would be able to continue surveillance operations on the island. GCHQ has a listening station in Ayios Nikolaos, in one of the UK’s two sovereign bases in Cyprus. The colonial files also showed that Cyprus’ first president, Archbishop Makarios, had accepted British help in setting up Cyprus’ own security and intelligence agencies.

Edward Snowden

Decades later, half the cost of running the GCHQ facilities is paid by the US, according to documents leaked to British newspaper The Guardian by former NSA employee Edward Snowden. Leaked documents have been reported since June and make it clear the NSA and GCHQ try to glean as much information as possible, even if that involves intruding into people’s private lives. Carrying a mobile phone or being online enables these agencies to know many things about you: who you are, where you are, what you do and with whom.Press reports based on documents leaked by Snowden have shown that the US and its partners, including the UK, gather as much personal data as they can.

Last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly told US president Barack Obama the practice was akin to that of the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany serving the needs of a totalitarian regime. Merkel found out from German news magazine Der Spiegel her mobile phone may have been monitored since 2002, according to leaked NSA documents.
Last week journalists were invited by the European parliament’s directorate-general for communication to visit Brussels – expenses paid – and attend part of the inquiry on electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens. Most politicians tried to frame the discussion as seeking a compromise between civil liberties and national security, although four invited speakers told the EU there might be no middle way.
Four different security experts warned European parliament personal data could not be safe as long as governments and intelligence agencies insisted on deliberately engineering weaknesses into programmes so they could spy on others.
“Modern age technology is completely exposed,” said Stephan Lechner, director of the institute for the protection and security of the citizen, a European Commission joint research centre.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Lechner warned that online user agreements were so complex that thousands of people have agreed to “selling their immortal souls” by ticking “yes” to documents referencing layers and layers of agreements they never read. For this reason, the notion of “consent” was faulty, he said.
Chris Soghoian, senior policy analyst with the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project of the American Civil Liberties Union said mobile phone technology was decades-old and “quite thoroughly broken”. “Right now you have systems [that are] secure against no threat,” he said. But he warned that IT systems have been built with surveillance in mind making them unsafe “by design” because intelligence agencies and governments wanted access to data. German IT security consultant Christian Horchert said making IT systems deliberately unsafe was “completely the wrong way of going about it”. He warned the EU they needed to make a clear choice between making technology safe or saying “never mind” and allowing the situation to continue as is”. “There is no middle way. That’s the problem,” he said.
Compare this with the NSA’s standard response via their website to the question of which is more important: civil liberties or national security.
“It’s a false question; it’s a false choice,” answers NSA deputy director John Inglis.
“We have to find a way to ensure that we support the entirety of the Constitution – that was the intention of the framers of the Constitution, and that’s what we do on a daily basis at the National Security Agency,” Inglis added.
But a federal judge in the US ruled last week the NSA’s collection of phone records was likely unconstitutional.
The judge described the technology enabling the government to store and analyse the phone metadata of every telephone user in the US as “almost-Orwellian”.
The ruling is just the beginning of a legal battle, while further legal challenges to the NSA are expected in the near future.
Participating in the European Parliament inquiry discussion, Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House select committee on intelligence said the US and EU were under threat on multiple fronts. Those included Chinese economic cyber-espionage, terrorism, and losing Ukraine to the Russian bloc, he said. In this “very complicated world” where the European and American economy was under threat, “intelligence services have to be even better at trying to collect information to keep us all safe,” Rogers said.
About two years ago in January 2012, the Cyprus Mail reported on the European Commission’s efforts to update its personal data laws to give people the “right to be forgotten” and be able to delete their online personal data.
The Commission’s website on personal data http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/ describes the proposals – parts of efforts to reform data protection rules – as comprising the right to the protection of personal data. “Persons or organisations which collect and manage your personal information must protect it from misuse and must respect certain rights of the data owners which are guaranteed by EU law,” the commission says.
L’Espresso, an Italian news weekly said last month Cyprus – the hub of several submarine fibre-optic cables – was a natural site to spy on Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern communications. The report, which also relied on documents leaked by Snowden, said the British were able to monitor the cables because of their agreement with Cyprus when the island gained independence. The Süddeutsche Zeitung said that American spies were based in Cyprus at the bases. L’Espresso said, “American intelligence staff are required to dress as tourists because the UK has promised the Cyprus government that only British staff will work there”.

The British Base in Akrotiri

The UK and the US have been promising people they are keeping them safe. The GCHQ for example says on its website it “gathers intelligence to better understand new and emerging threats”.
The GCHQ is trying to gather personal information from mobile phones and apps so it can “exploit any phone, anywhere, any time,” the Guardian said in August, reporting on documents leaked by Snowden. The documents said the GCHQ held China and Russia accountable for most cyber-attacks against the UK and was working with the NSA on increasing their cyber-warfare capabilities.
Some of the GCHQ staff working on one, unspecified, programme reportedly said they were worried over “the morality and ethics of their operational work, particularly given the level of deception involved,” the Guardian said.
Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first reported on the documents leaked by Snowden told the EU inquiry there was one NSA/GCHQ objective emerging “over and over and over again” in the documents: “Collect it all.”

RULING party DISY appears to be having second thoughts on spending millions on military hardware right now, when thousands of people are unemployed and others are having a tough time meeting their basic needs.

Sources said the party wants to delay procurement of two Israeli-made naval craft that will be used primarily for patrolling the waters in the Exclusive Economic Zone.

The cost of the boats is €100 million and Cyprus would have to give €25 million as down-payment for the deal to go ahead.

“It would be a bit too much to pay €25 million,” a party source told the Cyprus Mail, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It bothers us even if it is justified.”

The source said the party wanted to push the decision further down the road, to see how the economic situation goes.

Media reports suggested that all parties had initially agreed to release the funds, and DISY’s about turn angered the others.

AKEL is now saying it too does not agree with spending so much money.

MPs would have to decide on some €30 million needed for the maintenance of the army’s Russian-made attack helicopters.

It is understood that that will also be discussed in 2014.

The two Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) will be built from scratch for Cyprus by Israel Shipyards Ltd.

According to Israel Shipyards’ website, the weapon-carrying, ‘combat proven’ OPV performs a wide range of coastal defence, security and law-enforcement missions, including open sea patrol and surveillance, interception of terrorist, smuggling or illegal activities and protection of offshore facilities.

IN his annual Christmas message, Archbishop Chrystostomos asks the people of Cyprus to support those in need, and each other so they can “welcome Christ in our heart, thus proving ourselves worthy of God’s love”.

The Archbishop went on to comment on the current financial situation, saying that everyone in Cyprus must now demand that inequality is obliterated, that government institutions operate in full transparency and that all wrongdoers are punished.

“Rampant unemployment, the inability of a lot of people to meet the challenges of life, corruption in public life and demeaning concessions to the troika of lenders, that put our sovereignty in danger, discouraged many people and drove them to despair. Our current tragic financial state is a reality check for all,” said the Archbishop.

But the financial crisis was not the island’s biggest problem, he said. Chrysostomos accused Turkey of wanting to take over Cyprus while he also accused refugees who appealed to the north’s Immovable Property Commission of “selling out” and “guilty of high treason”.

“We need to regroup. We need to heed the voices of our ancestors. As a nation we have been through a lot and we have survived. Not only did we survive but we thrived throughout the ages. Our heroic actions shocked the world. With such a history behind us, we aren’t allowed to give up and abandon the fight,” the Archbishop remarked.

Chrysostomos also appealed to president Anastasiades, asking him not to back down on the Cyprus problem. “Today’s holiday reminds us that we ought to fight to protect our freedom and dignity, traits of our “made in the God’s image” creation. Our fight is one of obligation to God and country,” Chrysostomos said.

By Bejay Browne

AFTER a harrowing year of helping to feed hundreds of desperate families of the Paphos district, a tireless charity worker is looking forward to spending precious time with her own family this Christmas.

Pavlina Patsalou started helping just one needy family in Paphos nearly three years ago, she is now helping to feed and clothe close to 900.

Pavlina was awarded the Paphos heart of gold award this month but feels undeserving of the recognition, as she is “only doing what anyone else would do”.

But the truth is, not everyone would do what she does.

The Paphos business woman heads up Solidarity charity- which was established about 18 months ago-along with Paphos councilor George Sofokleous. But the story of how this charity was formed all started with just one family asking Pavlina for help.

“A chance encounter with an Armenian woman who came into my shop made me realise just how bad the situation was in Cyprus,” she said.

The woman, 32, had come to live in Cyprus to be close to her mother. She visited Pavlina’s children’s clothes shop as she was passing with her mother and two children. They later found out that their homes backed onto each other. “I asked her if she would like to help out at my shop and she did.”

Pavlina soon realised that the family had next to nothing; no beds, chairs, or anything to cook on, and very little food.

“After that I realised that I had to help. We filled the house-I called friends to donate items and I also gave them furniture and things from my house. I thought she needed them more than I did.”

This led Pavlina to discuss the dire situation facing many families with a close friend who works at Paphos municipality

“We decided to hold an event so that people would know that the municipality social welfare were there to help. I began by helping the municipality. As the numbers grew, we decided that the municipality would help the people within their boundaries and I would help the people in the surrounding villages.”

For about eight months, Pavlina helped numerous families by operating a food drive out of her shop.

“I started with about 20 families and it mushroomed from there. I met George Sofokleous at the municipality and he said that he wanted to help, as he saw I was on my own.”

Since then, Pavlina’s life has been turned upside down. Up at 5.30am every morning to clean her house and prepare food for her family, her phone doesn’t stop ringing until late at night. Her entire life has been consumed by Solidarity which she says she now views as her third child.

“If the municipality can’t help some people, then we do. We registered as a charity about a year and a half ago and we don’t turn people away.”

Born in Paphos in 1966, Pavlina went to school there and met her husband George Menelaou, who is ten years her senior, when she was just 15; the pair got engaged the same year. Pavlina gave birth to her first child, daughter Xenia, when she was 18 years old. Son Andreas followed a few years later.

The first years of marriage and motherhood were tough economically, says Pavlina, which is why she empathises with the dire situation so many young families in Paphos are facing these days.

“It was very difficult for us because my husband didn’t have a job for the first year or so and my daughter grew up with only second hand clothes. That’s why I wanted to open a children’s clothes shop. I care so much about babies and what the families are having to cope with now;  I passed through some difficult times myself so I can understand how people feel.”

Pavlina opened her first children’s clothes shop in the centre of Paphos old town on October 1989.It has since moved to a new location.

“My mother helped us with money and food and initially, we lived with her and my father in their house in Paphos.”

Her 76-year-old father was more recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and is being cared for primarily by Pavlina’s 73-year-old mother. She says this is very tiring for her mother and she tries to help out her family as much as she can.

“My married name is Menelaou but I use my family name of Patsalou for my father. I have three brothers and sisters who I love very much but my father only seems to be able to recognise me now.”

The volunteer says she doesn’t get much time to spend with her own family and has to ensure that she organises herself well to be able to run her home, her business and Solidarity.

She says her family means everything to her. Pavlina finishes work every day at around 7.30pm and then cooks dinner for her family- her son lives at home and her daughter eats with them every day.

“I try to spend time with George, my husband, but he is busy too. He works at Yeroskipou municipally and also grows olive trees and keeps chickens-he likes to spend time at his land.”

Pavlina is a strong but sensitive woman and is often reduced to tears by the desperate stories of needy people she hears everyday.

“My husband and mother especially worry about me being stressed with the pressure that comes with what we’re doing at Solidarity, but I have God with me and I will always help anybody who needs it.”

She continued: “I never thought there would be this many families in need of help. Nobody could believe that Cyprus was going to be in this situation. Every family we see is desperate, it’s heartbreaking.”

This Christmas will be especially poignant for Pavlina and her family, as she says it may be the last they are able to spend with her father as he is so ill.

“I don’t know if my father will be with us next year, so the time we have together is very important to us all.”

The family will spend Christmas day at Pavlina and George’s house cooking up a feast of traditional Cypriot dishes including souvla and macaronia.

Pavlina has been forward planning and stockpiling items for the last six months to ensure that all of the 900 Solidarity families will have bags of essentials this Christmas, as well as fresh meat and traditional Cypriot sweets. All of the babies will have enough powdered milk and nappies.

She said :“I want to thank all of the people who have helped us so much this year, without them it wouldn’t be possible to continue, but we have to remember that its not just about Christmas, these people have to eat food every day.”

The modest charity worker admitted that she is “quite stressed” and never has time for a holiday or to relax.

“I just don’t have time for anything. I like swimming, walking and nature. I also used to like to go for a coffee with my friends but some of them don’t speak to me now because they think that I don’t want to see them, I do, I miss them very much but I just don’t have time these days.”

She has vowed that even as numbers of needy continue to grow every day, Solidarity will try to ensure every needy family of the district has at least something to eat.

“I think the numbers coming to us for help will continue to increase over the next two years. The last thing I think about at night is how I will accomplish helping them and how will I get enough food. I wake up in the night worried and in the morning this is the first thing I think of. This is my life.”

Pavlina says her faith is what helps her through the tough times.

“I strongly believe that I always have God with me. Sometimes when the Solidarity house is empty, something happens and we have what we need. I believe everything will be alright in the end.”

She said: “My hope for the future is that people will start to help out their neighbours if they are in a position to do so and also that the government of Cyprus will finally step in to help.”

IN THE GOOD old days, the period leading up to Christmas was an excuse for rampant consumerism. Everyone was conditioned to spend, spend, spend – on super-expensive presents, vast quantities of food, extravagant nights out and so forth. This is how Christmas has come to be celebrated in most western countries and we Cypriots, with our inclination for excess, financed by growing affluence and easy bank credit, fully embraced this modern, advertiser-inspired, not-so-religious, tradition.

We have been forced to break with this tradition in the last couple of years for reasons that need no explaining.  The town centres may still be heaving with people, but the shops are not doing the roaring trade of the past because money is tight. Even those who have it are much more careful how they spend it because all the certainties of the past have disappeared. Job security exists only for those employed by the state or SGOs, while for the rest of the working population life is riddled with uncertainty.

Who would have thought, three or four years ago, that there would be people in Cyprus depending on charity to put food on the family table and that several hundred houses would be without electricity because the owners could not afford to pay their bills? Apparently, 5.7 per cent of adults now depend on emergency food handouts from municipal and charity food banks, while schools have been undertaking food collections to help the families of poor students over Christmas.

According to a survey published today in this newspaper 79 per cent said they were cutting back on gift buying this year, and 52 per cent said they were spending less on groceries. More than half – 56 per cent – intend to exchange presents, marking a 6.0 per cent drop over last year.

Perhaps the difficulties faced by many people this festive period are helping us re-discover the true spirit of Christmas which is not about spending big amounts of money on expensive presents, luxury holidays or on large quantities of food, much of which is wasted.

In the words of one of the people interviewed yesterday for this newspaper, the crisis has affected the way we think about Christmas, “which in a way is positive because we are now concentrating more on how we spend time with our loved ones rather than what presents we will receive and what gifts we want”.

Maybe the current and next generation at least can once again enjoy the non-materialistic aspects of ‘Christmas past’ , relaxing, playing old-fashioned, zero cost, games and reflecting on the fact that even in these hard economic times, there are still people much less fortunate than ourselves in many parts of the world.

Merry Christmas.

By Peter Stevenson

WITH unemployment at record levels and those who do have jobs receiving lower wages, nearly 80 per cent of Cypriots have cut back on their spending this Christmas.

Ledra Street in the nation’s capital may have been thronged yesterday afternoon but very few people were carrying shopping bags.  Almost everyone the Cyprus Mail spoke to were cutting back on their spending but at the same time re-discovering that Christmas does not have to be about splurging.

According to the Season’s Pulse survey conducted by Pulse Market Research, which measures behavioural and spending patterns during the holiday season, comparing tallies to last year’s responses, 79 per cent of those polled said they were cutting back on gift buying this year, and 52 per cent said they were spending less on groceries. Last year 74 per cent said they had cut back on gifts and 47 on food shopping.

More than half – 56 per cent – intend to exchange presents, marking a 6.0 percent drop over last year, but 69 per cent of those who buy toys for their children planned to spend less this year.

Shoes and clothing were being bought as presents by 32 per cent of respondents, down from last year’s 35 per cent, and 26 per cent planned to give much-needed cash as a present, although this is 7.0 per cent fewer cash-givers than last year. Interestingly the only increase in intent was when it came to buying books as a gift – something which is unusual in Cyprus. Whereas only just over one in 10 bought a book as a gift last year, this has risen by 3.0 per cent.

With regard to holiday activities, 87 per cent said they would spend Christmas with friends and relatives – only 5.0 per cent planned to go abroad – and 77 planned to put up a tree, 5.0 per cent fewer than last year.

The Cyprus Mail thought it put faces to some of the statistics by asking the public on the streets of the capital  what their plans for Christmas were and how, if at all, the credit crunch has affected them or their loved ones.

Spending the days with his family and evening’s with his friends, 26-year-old Sakis Patikkis told the Mail that he was working with a reduced budget, spending less on presents.

“I haven’t really reduced my budget too much on going out because happiness and joy are in the moments we spend with friends and family and it’s important to fill our days with happy moments, regardless of the financial crisis,” he said.

Giannos Moditis, a 34-year-old musician said he would also be spending time with family and friends but said he believed the crisis has had more of a mental impact than a financial one.

“It has affected the way we think about Christmas, which in a way is positive because we are now concentrating more on how we spend time with our loved ones rather than what presents we will receive and what gifts we want,” he said.

Moditis, who has a 3-year-old son, told the Mail he doesn’t believe that young Panagiotis will notice that Christmas this year is different.

“You should see the amount of presents he’s getting, they hardly fit under the tree, but that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day, putting a smile on the faces of children,” he said.

One man who will be jetting away on Boxing Day for business is self-employed computer specialist Dino P but not before Christmas Day with his family.

“I’ll be flying out to Hamburg for four days for work, then come back for New Years,” he said. He said he has definitely had to spend less on presents and other items this year due to the financial crisis.

“What I haven’t done this year is bother with buying stuff for anyone as people prefer cash gifts as it’s more useful during these difficult times,” he said.

For 39-year-old photographer and father of two, Antonis Farmakas, Christmas is very much a family affair and has been for the last 30 years.

“Of course the crisis has affected our plans for Christmas as we are buying less and cheaper presents, more often than not going for discounted options. We will also be staying at home more and not going out as much,” he said.

An avid football fan, Farmakas will be enjoying the Christmas period watching his beloved Arsenal on the TV, as they play three times in the space of a week.

“It was the late Bill Shankly who said, ‘Some say football is a matter of life and death – but I say it’s much more than that’,” he jokingly added.

Andreas Charalambous, a 33-year-old civil servant will be spending his Christmas holidays like every year, getting together with family, having dinner and playing cards.

“I won’t be going out at all really, as I haven’t gone out now in years during the Christmas period,” he said.

Civil servants were all informed earlier this month that their traditional end-of-year celebrations will have to be put on hold as they have been warned that organising celebrations during working hours should be avoided throughout the holiday season and Charalambous said this has definitely had an effect on morale.

“The crisis has had an effect on our personal and professional lives but we carry on regardless. You need to buy something for everyone but just not as expensive as in previous years, but as they say, it’s the thought that counts,” he said.

One of the lucky former Laiki Bank employees who has been re-assigned to the Bank of Cyprus after the two banks joined, Androulla Xenophontos, 29, told the Mail that she has to think twice before buying any presents.

“There will be less presents under the Christmas tree unfortunately this year and celebrations will be more modest unfortunately,” she said.

Xenophontos will not be changing her plans for Christmas, spending it in the company of family and friends, “like every year.”

Nikolas Kyriacou, a 39-year-old teacher will be spending his Christmas with family and said that the crisis has not particularly affected his plans this year.

“I will be spending this year like most years. The three Fs – friends, family and food. I did receive a 13th salary but it was less than previous years,” he said.

Bakery manager, Andreas Patsalides, told the Mail he will be spending as much time as possibly with his family and friends.

“I want to spend time with the people who really want to spend time with me. The crisis hasn’t affected me at all to be fair and I’ve even already spent my 13th salary on gifts and going out!” he said.

Father of one, 35-year-old insurance broker, Antonis Antoniou said that he will be spending as much time as possible over the holidays with his 2-year-old daughter.

“Most of our time will be spent with family, having fun despite the crisis. It has definitely had an effect on us as we have had to buy cheaper presents and limit how much we go out,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Angelos Anastasiou)

Three Turkish ministers resigned on Wednesday, a week after their sons were detained in a sweeping corruption investigation that pits Tayyip Erdogan’s government against the judiciary and has rattled foreign investors.

Environment and Urbanisation Minister Erdogan Bayraktar

One of those stepping down, Environment and Urbanisation Minister Erdogan Bayraktar, urged the prime minister to follow suit – an unprecedented challenge to the Turkish leader, who has cast the scandal as a foreign-orchestrated plot and purged police in response.

“For the sake of the wellbeing of this nation and country, I believe the prime minister should resign,” Bayraktar, whose son was briefly detained in the case that erupted on Dec. 17, told NTV news channel.

Each of the other cabinet members who resigned, Minister Muammer Guler and Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan, has a son among the 24 people still in police custody on graft charges. They denied any wrongdoing by their sons or the government.

“I have resigned from my post of economy minister to help the truth to come out and to foil this ugly plot, which has impacted my child and my close work colleagues among others,” Caglayan said in a statement.

In a separate statement, Guler called the Dec. 17 arrests “a dirty set-up against our government, party and country”.

If the resignations of Caglayan and Guler were meant to help distance Erdogan from the scandal, the late timing and the public clash with Bayraktar could prove to be big hurdles.

Turkey has flourished economically during the Islamist-rooted premier’s three terms, though he has been accused of authoritarianism.

With international trading on hold for Christmas, the resignations were unlikely to have a strong market impact in Turkey. The lira had plunged to an all-time low of 2.0983 against the dollar on Friday but rallied to 2.0801 on Tuesday.

Thousands of Britons woke up to flooding and power cuts on Christmas morning after torrential rainfall and hurricane-force winds battered the country.

Three severe flood warnings are in place along with over 350 secondary warnings and alerts, largely across southern and central England, Britain’s environment agency said on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly in southern England, had no electricity late on Christmas Eve and engineers were working on Christmas Day to restore power.

Winds of up to 90 mph (145kph) hit both Britain and France on Dec. 23 and Christmas Eve, with heavy downpours causing cancellations of rail, flight and ferry services.

Five people – including a man who tried to rescue his dog from a river – have died in Britain over the last three days due to the high winds and heavy rainfall.

Police in Dorset, southwest England, evacuated over 100 residents in the early hours of Wednesday in two separate locations following fears of flooding from a nearby river.

At London’s second airport Gatwick, power cuts – which caused angry scenes between passengers and staff on Tuesday – continued as stranded travellers tried to catch flights on Christmas Day.

“Due to adverse weather in the last 48 hours there are still power outages in parts of our North Terminal, these are causing delays to departing flights,” said a message on the airport’s website.

Powerful winds and torrential rain also swept southern France on Wednesday, grounding flights and cutting off power to tens of thousands of homes.

About 120,000 homes across the country were without electricity on Christmas Day due to ruptured power lines and widespread flooding in the northwestern Brittany region, said France’s ERDF power distributor.

The international airport at Nice was shut, with all incoming and outgoing flights cancelled until at least 1200 GMT due to poor visibility on the runway, a spokesman said.

Hurricane-force winds lashed France and Britain on Tuesday, causing five deaths in Britain and one in France. Heavy downpours led to cancellations of rail, flight and ferry services.

The storm had subsided in the north of France on Wednesday but continued to batter southeastern France and the Mediterranean coastline, though winds were less powerful.

Meteo France, the national weather office, maintained an “Orange” alert level for weather-related danger – its second-highest – in parts of Brittany and southeastern France but declared other regions mostly calm.

It warned of powerful gusts in the Pyrenees mountain range and the possibility of high waves along the Mediterranean coast.

At least 34 people were killed in bomb attacks in Christian areas of Baghdad on Wednesday, some by a car bomb that exploded near a church after a Christmas service, police and medics said.

The car bomb killed at least 24 people, most of them Christian, when worshippers were leaving the church in the Doura district of southern Baghdad, police sources said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Violence in Iraq has risen to its worst levels in more than five years as hardline Sunni militants linked to al Qaeda step up attacks on the Shi’ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and anyone seen as supporting it. Many thousands have been killed in attacks this year.

The minority Christian community has been a target of attacks by al Qaeda militants in the past, including a 2010 attack on a church that killed dozens of people.

Two bombs also went off in a crowded market in a separate, mostly Christian area in Doura, killing another ten people, police and medics said.

At least 52 people were wounded in the attacks.

A series of car bombs, shootings and suicide attacks killed scores of Shi’ite Muslim pilgrims in the week before the Shi’ite holy day of Arbaeen, which coincided with Christmas Eve this year.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan reshuffled his cabinet on Wednesday after three members quit over a corruption scandal that has posed an unprecedented challenge to his 11-year rule.

The crisis erupted on Dec. 17 when dozens of people, including of the head of state-run Halkbank, were arrested on graft charges. Erdogan responded by purging police investigators. The ensuing feud with the judiciary reignited long-simmering street protests and rattled foreign investors.

Earlier on Wednesday, three ministers who had sons among those detained resigned. Two of them echoed Erdogan in depicting the inquiry as baseless and a conspiracy. The third, Environment Minister Erdogan Bayraktar, turned on the premier.

“For the sake of the wellbeing of this nation and country, I believe the prime minister should resign,” he told NTV news.

By breaking ranks, Bayraktar may have diluted any easing of pressure on Erdogan afforded by the ministers’ resignations, although some commentators thought their timing was off.

“These are very late and difficult resignations. They don’t have any value in terms of democracy,” said Koray Caliskan, an associate professor at Istanbul’s Bogazici University.

After nightfall, a spent-looking Erdogan announced he was appointing 10 new ministers to replace the three who quit and others planning mayoral runs in local elections in March.

The fact that the shake-up happened over Christmas cushioned the blow to Turkey on dormant international markets. But the stock index closed 4.2 percent and the lira weakened to 2.0862 against the dollar.

During his three terms in office, Erdogan has transformed Turkey by tackling its once-dominant secular military and overseen rapid economic expansion. He weathered anti-government demonstrations that swept Istanbul and other cities in mid-2013.

The gauntlet thrown down by Bayraktar set off fresh protests in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir. Erdogan was unmoved.

PROTOCOL, PURGES

In a speech earlier on Wednesday, he vowed no tolerance corruption. He argued that the work of the about 70 police investigators he had sacked or reassigned – including the chief of the force in Istanbul, Halkbank’s headquarters – was deeply tainted.

“If a verdict is made by the opposition party on the second day of the investigation, what’s the point of having judges? If a decision is made by the media, what’s the point of having these long legal procedures?” Erdogan said to provincial leaders of his Islamist-rooted AK party.

Alluding to TV news reports that have riveted Turks with footage of cash-filled shoe boxes allegedly seized at suspects’ homes, he asked: “How do you know what that money is for?”

The 14-month investigation was conducted largely in secret. At the weekend, the government changed regulations for the police, requiring officers to report evidence, investigations, arrests and complaints to commanding officers and prosecutors. Journalists have been banned from police stations.

The Hurriyet newspaper said up to 550 police officers, including senior commanders, had been dismissed nationwide in the past week by Interior Minister Muammer Guler, who has now resigned.

Erdogan’s critics see an authoritarian streak in his rule. The European Union, to which Turkey has long sought accession, on Tuesday urged Ankara to safeguard the separation of powers.

“The only way you can explain an interior minister removing the police chiefs working in an investigation regarding his own family is that the aim is to obstruct evidence,” said Caliskan, who writes for the centrist newspaper Radikal.

“The prime minister thinks Turkish people are not very clever (but) he will be slapped hard at the ballot box.”

Turkey’s next parliamentary election is not until 2015. But with the local ballots looming, pollsters say the scandal’s so-far modest erosion of AK’s popular support could quicken.

In a fourth resignation on Wednesday, AK lawmaker Idris Naim Sahin, a former interior minister, told the party he was also stepping down, according to sources in his office.

The scandal has laid bare rivalry between Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric whose Hizmet (Service) movement claims at least 1 million followers, including senior police officers and judges, and which runs schools and charities across Turkey and abroad.

While denying any role in the affair, Gulen described Erdogan as suffering “decayed thinking” after the premier portrayed himself as fending off a shadowy international plot.

In an apparent reference to Gulen, Erdogan said on Wednesday: “We would not allow certain organisations acting under the guise of religion but being used as the tools of certain countries to carry out an operation on our country.”

Thai police fired teargas and rubber bullets at anti-government protesters in the capital Bangkok on Thursday after demonstrators tried to disrupt planning for a February election, the first such incident in nearly two weeks.

The confrontation between police and about 500 protesters angry with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra came a day after the government again extended a special security law by two months.

The law, widened last month to cover all of the capital and nearby areas, allows police to ban gatherings, block routes, impose curfews and carry out searches, although such actions have been used sparingly.

Yingluck remains caretaker prime minister after calling a snap election for Feb. 2 in an attempt to deflate weeks of mainly peaceful protests that, at their peak, have drawn 200,000 people on to the streets of Bangkok.

National Security Council head Paradorn Pattanathabutr said the police response on Thursday did not mark a change of policy.

“We have warned them and informed them every time before firing teargas,” Paradorn told Reuters.

Seven protesters were taken to hospital with minor injuries, a public health official said.

The protesters draw their strength from Bangkok’s middle class and elite who dismiss Yingluck as a puppet of her self-exiled elder brother, former premier and telecommunications billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin and Yingluck have their power base in the rural north and northeast. Their opponents accuse Thaksin of manipulating the poor in those areas with populist policies such as cheap healthcare and easy credit.

The protesters gathered outside a Bangkok gymnasium where Thailand’s Election Commission is working through the process of registering candidates for the February election.

Media said representatives of a number of parties planning to contest the election were inside the building at the time. Calls by Reuters reporters to officials inside could not be connected.

Police warned the protesters not to try to enter the building and then fired several rounds of teargas and rubber bullets when demonstrators tried to break down a fence.

The protesters, some of whom had been throwing rocks, soon withdrew.

Protesters are well prepared for such clashes, the last of which happened about two weeks ago. Many carry goggles and masks to cover their faces and water bottles to wash out their eyes.

The clash came a day after the Thai cabinet voted to extend the Internal Security Act by two months.

Protesters, led by fiery former deputy premier Suthep Thaugsuban, have vowed to disrupt the election and hound Yingluck from office. They want an unelected “people’s council” to rule before elections are called.

The election has been made more uncertain by a boycott by the main opposition Democrat Party, which draws its support from Bangkok and the south, the same base as Suthep’s group.

Yingluck has proposed the creation of an independent reform council to run alongside the elected government, an apparent attempt at compromise that was immediately rejected by the protesters.

Yingluck has not been in the capital for most of the past week, choosing instead to shore up her support in her power base to the north, and will not return to Bangkok until the New Year.

Her Puea Thai Party is almost certain to win the election, just as Thaksin’s populist political juggernaut has won every vote since 2001. That run of success has come despite violent street protests and judicial and military intervention around previous polls.

Thaksin was overthrown in a 2006 coup and has lived in self-imposed exile since 2008, when he was sentenced to two years in jail for graft charges he says were politically motivated.

The first two years of Yingluck’s government were relatively smooth, until her party miscalculated in November and tried to push an amnesty bill through parliament that would have allowed her brother to return home a free man.

By Ian Ransom
Mitchell Johnson’s late double strikes fired up a world record test crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and left England a rocky 226 for six after Kevin Pietersen threatened to win the opening day of the fourth Ashes match for the tourists.

Roared on by a heaving crowd of 91,092, paceman Johnson steamed in to remove number six Ben Stokes (14) and wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow (10) in quick succession to put Australia marginally ahead at the end of a meandering Thursday’s play.

Coming in to the match under a barrage of criticism, Pietersen responded with a defiant half-century after being granted lives on six and 41, and went to stumps unbeaten on 67, withTim Bresnan hanging on desperately with one run.

With seamer Ryan Harris having Ian Bell caught behind by wicketkeeper Brad Haddin for 27 in the first of three wickets after tea, Australia’s bowlers worked hard to validate captain Michael Clarke’s surprise decision to field after winning his fourth successive toss of the series.

The hosts could have been in a stronger position, however, had they not let three catching chances go down, with two reprieving Pietersen. Their bowling attack also suffered a blow with all-rounder Shane Watson sustaining a groin injury.

Watson pulled up in his run-up and left the ground after lunch, and though he later returned to field in the slips, he did not bowl again.
“It was difficult, I think Michael (Clarke) wanted to lose this (toss),” Harris, who bowled superbly to finish the day 2-32, told reporters.
“We didn’t start as well as we liked … Once again we pulled it back and 6 for 220 the end of the day and with three chances down as well is a pretty good day (for us).”

Although quelling his usual attacking instincts, Pietersen was at his theatrical best in his 152-ball knock, slumping to his knees twice in an apparent bout of nausea after smacking a shot to midwicket where a leaping George Bailey put a tough chance down with the batsman on 41.

The crowd smelled gamesmanship as play was paused for a few minutes and Pietersen later enjoyed riling up the terraces again by holding up Johnson’s run-up in the final over.
“It’s a great sign to see him scrap it out and hopefully he’s one guy in world cricket that if it does click tomorrow morning could be some good cricket if he comes through aggressively,”

England batsman Bell told reporters of Pietersen.
Pietersen could have been due for another round of criticism when he slogged to deep backward square when on six, but after taking the catch, substitute fielder Nathan Coulter-Nile stepped over the boundary line in a comical reprieve for the South Africa-born batsman.

Pietersen went on to dig in for a defiant 67-run stand with Bell before the lion-hearted Harris struck. Harris unleashed a sublime delivery that jagged away off the seam and had Bell feathering an edge after he had become only the second batsman to surpass 1,000 runs in tests for the year with Clarke.
The Australian attack derived little from the drop-in pitch early but restricted England to 135 for three at tea with a disciplined line and length that saw the tourists’ run rate slow to a crawl.

Before coming off injured, Watson bowled opener Michael Carberry for 38 before a flat-footed Joe Root was caught behind by Haddin off the bowling of Harris for 24.
The catch was the revitalised Haddin’s 50th in a year in which he has also scored more than 500 runs with the bat.

Siddle earlier continued England captain Alastair Cook’s forgettable series by dismissing him for 27 in the morning, breaking a promising 48-run opening stand with Carberry.
Carberry nicked behind when on two runs, but a diving Steven Smith put down a difficult chance that he might better have left for second slip Clarke.

England, who have already lost the five-test series 3-0 to surrender the coveted urn, dropped wicketkeeper vice captain Matt Prior, who paid the price for a poor campaign with the bat and behind the stumps.
Yorkshire’s Bairstow, recalled for the first time since the northern Ashes series, lasted 19 minutes at the crease before being bowled by Johnson.

A Turkish prosecutor accused police on Thursday of obstructing his pursuit of a high-level graft case, adding to public scrutiny of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government as it hunkered down defiantly.

Three ministers had resigned after learning their sons were among dozens of people detained on Dec. 17 as part of the investigation into corrupt procurement practices, which has exposed Turkey’s deep institutional divisions and left the pugnacious premier facing arguably the biggest crisis of his 11 years in power.

Erdogan responded by replacing half his cabinet with loyalists on Wednesday while investors took fright, and the lira currency fell further on Thursday to an all-time low.

The new interior minister, Efkan Ala, will be in charge of Turkey’s domestic security and is considered especially close to Erdogan, who called the investigation a foreign-orchestrated plot without legal merit and responded by sacking or reassigning some 70 of the police officers involved.

In allegations disseminated to Turkish media in writing, prosecutor Muammer Akkas said he had also been removed from the case, which he described as compromised by police who had refused to comply with his orders to take more suspects into custody.

“By means of the police force, the judiciary was subjected to open pressure, and the execution of court orders was obstructed,” Akkas said.

“A crime has been committed throughout the chain of command … Suspects have been allowed to take precautions, flee and tamper with the evidence.”

The statement did not name any of those accused.

The government and police did not immediately respond. Turkey’s chief prosecutor Turhan Colakkadi said Akkas had been removed from the case because he leaked information to the media and failed to give his superiors timely updates about the probe as required.

Such regulations, tightened at the weekend on government orders, incense Turks who see an authoritarian streak in Erdogan and took to the streets in mass protests in mid-2013.

“Erdogan has a deep state, (his) AK Party has a deep state and Efkan Ala is one of the elements of that deep state,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the biggest opposition party CHP, using a term that for Turks denotes a shadowy power structure unencumbered by democratic checks and balances.

GETTING PERSONAL

During his three terms in office, the Islamist-rooted Erdogan has transformed Turkey, cutting back its once-dominant secularist military and overseeing rapid economic expansion.

But his response to the 9-day-old scandal has drawn a European Union call for the independence of Turkey’s judiciary to be safeguarded.

It has also rattled markets. The lira plumbed a record low of 2.1282 against the dollar at 1540 GMT on Thursday while stocks fell and government bond yields rose.

“The dismissal of half an entire cabinet is worrying enough. The corruption probe is escalating by the day, causing a further deterioration in market sentiment towards Turkey,” said Nicholas Spiro, head of Spiro Sovereign Strategy.

At an Interior Ministry handover ceremony earlier on Thursday, Ala said Turkey might have been targeted by neighbours jealous of its successes.

“When these developments are sustainable, attacks from various centres on the political stability of the country is not unexpected,” he said, without elaborating.

For Erdogan, the scandal is potent and personal.

It lays bare his rivalry with Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric whose Hizmet (Service) movement claims at least a million faithful including senior police officers and judges.

Another of the three cabinet members who quit on Wednesday over their sons’ detention, Environment Minister Erdogan Bayraktar, broke ranks by urging the premier to follow suit.

The Turkish leader, facing local elections in March and a national ballot in 2015, was unmoved. Vowing no tolerance for corruption, he said on Wednesday the graft investigation had been tainted by foreign interests.

“It would not be incorrect to say that, with this (Ala) appointment, Erdogan has personally taken the reins of domestic affairs,” Sedat Ergin, a columnist with the mass-circulation newspaper Hurriyet, told CNN Turk television.

Unlike the rest of the 20-member cabinet, Ala is not a lawmaker and thus does not answer directly to a constituency.

In his previous post as undersecretary of the prime ministry, political sources told Reuters, he urged a crackdown on demonstrators who flooded the streets over the summer in protest at what they see as Erdogan’s authoritarianism.

“Who would you trust other than your undersecretary, with whom you have been working closely for years?” said one government source, who characterised the new ministers as “surprise” picks conveying Erdogan’s desire for fresh faces.

By David Brett
England finally wrestled back some momentum on day two of the fourth Ashes Test on Friday but are yet to find an answer to Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin’s defiance with the bat.

The tourists may have surrendered the Ashes after a hat-trick of defeats but the second day’s play at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was classic attritional cricket as the English bowlers restricted the hosts to 164 for nine, to go with an unflattering run rate of 2.23, at stumps.

It was not pretty cricket to watch but it was clear that England had done their homework, made plans and, more importantly, their bowlers were sticking to them.
More to their credit, the MCG’s drop-in pitch played stubbornly straight for the most part on a sunny day.

“There wasn’t much there,” James Anderson, who took 3-50, told reporters.
Stuart Broad claimed 3-30 while fellow paceman Tim Bresnan took 2-24.
“There was some reverse and some point in the day, but there wasn’t really much seam movement or anything. So we had to work really hard, be patient and work with the guy at the other end,” said Anderson.

“We were all trying to bowl maidens and bowl dots, and as boring as it sounds that’s the way to go on that pitch and it worked well for us.”

The bowlers conceded just four extras in 73.3 overs, and only 58 runs off 29 overs in the middle session.

Having batted first, this was the first time in the series England sensed a lead of any kind to protect and their pacemen replied with a disciplined performance.
With their bowlers operating predominantly outside the off-stump to offside-heavy fields, England strangled Australia’s batsmen even more effectively than the hosts had stifled their own.
Australia’s number five batsman Steve Smith was starved of his favoured leg-side scoring shots – 80 percent of runs in his Perth century came on the leg-side – and was eventually frustrated into a rash cut shot that was snaffled in the slips.
Smith scored 19 runs off 77 deliveries at a strike rate of 24.67, compared to his 53-plus in the first innings at Perth.
The Australian batsman who remains a thorn in England’s side, however, is Haddin who finished the day unbeaten on 43.

Australia have been in trouble in each of their first innings so far. They were 83-4 at Brisbane, 174-4 at Adelaide and 129-4 at Perth before Haddin bailed them out on all three occasions.
Haddin has the second highest average with the bat in the series – his 73.60 bettered only by David Warner’s 77.66 – but with Australia still 91 runs behind, even he is unlikely to prevent England taking a substantial first innings lead.

England, desperate to prevent a series whitewash, will badly need it on MCG’s drop-in pitch where the lowest total defended is 142, while the highest run chase is 332.
“We’d have liked a few more runs this morning,” Anderson said of England’s 255, improbably, their highest first innings total in the series.
“But then having spoken to our batters last night we knew we could make it difficult for them to score because it’s quite a slow pitch. If we set the right fields and bowled in the right areas we could get some rewards – and we did that.

“It’s going to be difficult for us. We’ve seen how difficult it is to score on there.
“It might be slow going for us tomorrow, but if we get stuck in, hopefully we can get a reasonable lead.”

Constantinos Psillides

A 64-year old Limassol man was charged for animal abuse after allegedly tying his dog on his car and dragging it through the streets of Limassol on Christmas day, police said.

The animal died and the man was arrested by police officers who were in pursuit, after witnessing the horrific event.

The man was released and he will appear before court at a later date.

The incident sparked outrage and renewed calls for the creation of an animal police unit in Cyprus.

An online petition on Avaaz ( http://goo.gl/Z2lyCP ) under the title “President Anastasiades: Punishment for the 64-year-old who killed his dog-Establish Animal Police” had gathered almost 4,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon. The aim was to collect 6,000 signatures.

It also prompted a reaction from the Green party, which issued a press release asking for the exemplary punishment of the 64-year-old and the immediate creation of a specialized police force.

That was the second incident of animal abuse reported in the span of one week. On December 23 it was reported that a kennel in Limassol let its caged dogs starve to death.

The incident drew the immediate response of members of the Animal Responsibility Cyprus (ARC). ARC is staging a protest against the owners of the kennel on Saturday at 11:00 a.m., outside the Limassol General Hospital.

Incidents of animal abuse are currently handled by the Veterinary Services and any wrongdoing is reported to police.

Plans to set up an animal police force were dropped, with Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou saying in June that the demand could not be met at this stage.

The minister had told the NGO Cyprus Voice for Animals (CVA) in a meeting that animal welfare policing should be undertaken by neighborhood police officers.

CVA estimates that a task force of ten-fifteen officers would be more than enough to effectively police Cyprus on matters of animal welfare.

Community policing had not been established throughout Cyprus but the Justice Minister promised on June that it would be expanded and community officers would trained on matters of animal welfare.