A Turkish court blocked a government attempt to force police to disclose investigations to their superiors, officials said on Friday, in a setback for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s attempts to manage fallout from a high-level corruption scandal.

After months of secretive graft probes, police on Dec. 17 detained dozens of people, among them the sons of three ministers and the head of state-run Halkbank.

The ensuing crisis has been unprecedented in Erdogan’s three terms, triggering cabinet resignations and a reshuffle and spreading speculation he may call snap elections next year.

Denying wrongdoing and portraying the case a foreign-orchestrated plot, the Erdogan government responded by purging police officers involved and on Dec. 21 issued a new rule requiring police to share their findings from the graft investigation with their superiors.

The Council of State, an Ankara court that adjudicates on administrative issues, blocked implementation of the regulation, a Justice Ministry official told Reuters.

On Thursday, a Turkish prosecutor, Muammer Akkas, said he had been removed from the case and accused police of obstructing it by failing to execute his arrest warrants.

Turkey’s chief prosecutor responded that Akkas was dismissed for leaking information to the media and failing to give his superiors timely updates on progress.

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.

The High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, a Turkish body which handles court appointments independent of the government, threw its weight behind the criticism on Thursday.

The latest requirement that police investigators keep their superiors informed amount to “a clear breach of the principle of the separation of powers, and of the Constitution,” it said.

Syria’s army ambushed Islamist fighters in the Qalamoun mountains north of the capital Damascus on Friday, leaving as many as 60 people dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The attack happened between the Christian town of Maaloula and the town of Yabroud, where government forces and rebels are fighting, said the Observatory, a British-based, pro-opposition monitoring group with sources across Syria.

Syria’s civil war between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and mostly Sunni Muslim rebels fighting to topple him has killed more than 100,000 people since March 2011.

Syrian state television showed footage of dozens of bodies lying in a mountainous area, with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades next to them.

“There were about 400 of us including Saudis, Chechens and other nationalities,” a badly wounded fighter who was lying on the ground told a state television reporter who was asking him about numbers and nationalities.

The fighter said he belonged to Liwa al-Islam, a Salafist jihadi group that is one of the biggest and best organised rebel units fighting to topple Assad.

The government television reporter said the army tracked the fighters overnight and ambushed them on their way to the town of Jayrud, 20 km (15 miles) southeast of Yabroud.

It was not possible to verify the report independently due to restrictions on the media in Syria.

By Mike Collett
Exactly a year to the day since losing 7-3 at Arsenal, resurgent Newcastle United can move into the top four of the Premier League if they exact revenge for that painful defeat at St James’ Park on Sunday.

The Gunners head to the north-east to face Alan Pardew’s in-form side as league leaders after winning 3-1 at West Ham United on Thursday.
Newcastle’s 5-1 demolition of nine-man Stoke City on Boxing Day was their eighth win from their last 10 league games and Pardew expects a cracking encounter.

“Arsenal are top of the league. That is deserved as they have been the best team in the first half of the season, but we are in great shape, our place will be rocking and rolling and Arsenal know it won’t be easy to turn us over,” he said.

Arsenal ended a run of three league games without a win with a come from behind victory at Upton Park to revive their title hopes as the closest race for years keeps up its relentless pace through the Christmas and New Year holidays.

The season reaches the halfway mark this weekend with Arsenal top with 39 points from 18 games, with eight teams still harbouring hopes of either a push for the title or the top four.
Manchester City are just a point behind the Gunners on 38, followed by Chelsea (37), Liverpool (36), Everton (34), Newcastle (33), Manchester United (31) and Tottenham Hotspur (31).

Arsenal were boosted by the return of long-term absentee Lukas Podolski at West Ham and the German marked his comeback with a goal to seal the win.
The league leaders suffered a big blow, however, after Aaron Ramsey, their outstanding player this season, suffered a thigh injury.
“It looks serious, the Christmas period is certainly over for him but I don’t know how long he will be out,” said Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

If Arsenal should falter at Newcastle, Manchester City, Chelsea or Liverpool could all go top.
City, who have won all their nine league games at the Etihad with a goal tally of 37-6, are at home to Crystal Palace, who have improved since Tony Pulis took over as manager and climbed out of the relegation zone for the first time since August with a 1-0 win at Aston Villa on Thursday.

But City underlined their title aspirations with a 2-1 win over Liverpool, a defeat that sent the Anfield side falling from first to fourth.
Liverpool face another tough task on Sunday when they travel to Chelsea who scored a nervy 1-0 win over Swansea City at Stamford Bridge.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers was angry with the officials after defeat at the Etihad and he could be in trouble with the FA for criticising the appointment of referee Lee Mason.
Mason lives in Bolton, near Manchestrer and Rodgers said: “I was surprised we were playing in Manchester with a referee from Greater Manchester. I didn’t think we got any decisions going for us.

“I will ask the FA the question. I don’t think we would get someone from the Wirral (near Liverpool) refereeing a Liverpool-City game.”
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was also upset after Thursday’s game – but with his players, not the referee.

“This team never lets me relax,” he said, “They kill me every game. Every week I am tired. We should have been relaxed at halftime with a comfortable result guaranteed, but we weren’t.”
Everton, who lost the chance of going through 2013 unbeaten at Goodison Park when they had goalkeeper Tim Howard sent off and surprisingly lost 1-0 to bottom club Sunderland, will look to bounce back immediately at home against Southampton.

While the leading pack are all jockeying for position, the two teams hovering just below on 31 points appear to be heading in different directions.
Champions Manchester United chalked up their fifth-straight win in all competitions after coming from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Hull City where Wayne Rooney scored his 150th Premier League goal for United.

They visit Norwich City on Saturday and can continue their climb up the table with another three points against a side who lost 2-1 at home to Fulham on Thursday.
Spurs, playing their first match since Tim Sherwood was appointed full-time coach following the departure of Andre Villas-Boas, will need a big improvement on Thursday’s 1-1 home draw with managerless West Bromwich Albion, when they play Stoke City at White Hart Lane on Sunday.

VAT will rise one percentage point from 18 per cent to 19 per cent from January 13, while the reduced rate of VAT will go up 1.0 per cent to 9.0 per cent.

The increase does not affect products and services which are subject to the reduced rate of 5 per cent VAT or to anything currently zero-rated VAT, the VAT services said in a statement.

Legal persons affected by the change are obliged on the day before the increase to make an inventory of their stock. The inventory should be recorded in a special registry and kept for a period of six years, the services said.

THE total sales of petroleum products in November 2013 decreased by 18.6 per cent compared to the previous month.

Figures released by the Statistical Service showed a decline in the provisions of aviation kerosene and gasoil for marine use, as well as in the sales of heavy and light fuel oil, motor gasoline and gasoil low sulphur.

By contrast, a rise was recorded in the sales of kerosene, gasoil and asphalt. The total stocks of petroleum products at the end of the month recorded an increase of 9.2 per cent compared to the previous month.

During the period January–November 2013, the total sales of petroleum products recorded a decrease of 8.3 per cent compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

A singer from Limassol with a voice that moved the judges of Britain’s got talent also has a shocking back story. THEO PANAYIDES finds out more

“When you came on, I thought ‘I hope your voice is as beautiful as how you look’ – and it was, it was incredible!” says judge David Walliams, and the young woman flutters her arms in a flattered, words-fail-me gesture: “Thank you!”. The time is last May, the setting is Week Six of Britain’s Got Talent (you can see the whole clip on YouTube). The woman is Aliki Chrysochou, a sparkly-eyed blonde with a soaring soprano voice.

“I’ve been singing ever since I was a little baby,” she tells the judges in her pre-song introduction. “This has been my dream, I just can’t believe I’m here today.”

“Do you think you can win this show?” asks judge Alesha Dixon.

“I will do my best. I’ve always learned to fight through different circumstances I’ve gone through.”

“Like what, Aliki?” puts in BGT supremo Simon Cowell.

“A few years ago I was diagnosed with focal encephalitis,” she replies. “It’s an inflammation of the brain which meant that I couldn’t speak, read, write, walk. My mum would do everything for me, she would feed me, bathe me…”

The audience erupts in sympathetic applause. The judges look stunned. Poignant piano music starts up, and we go to a short video interview with Aliki’s mother. “It was a very frightening time … It was like everything that she’d known had been rubbed away,” recalls Mum, brushing away a tear.

The piano is joined by strings as the story of Aliki’s illness is recounted – especially the night in the hospital room when Mum started to hum Aliki’s favourite songs and her daughter, miraculously, joined in, the first real sign of recovery. Music, it seems, could still reach her, even in the depths of her delirium. “I’m very proud of Aliki. She deserves the world, and I hope she gets it,” says her mother shakily. Then we’re back in the studio and Aliki launches into ‘Bring Me to Life’ by Evanescence, giving that rather drab pop song the full weight of her clear, strong voice. The audience goes wild; the camera shows people smiling, clasping their hands, shaking their heads in wonder. At the end, they give her a standing ovation.

Aliki on BGT

‘They really turned it into a sob-story,’ I note, sitting opposite Aliki at Glykolemono – a superb Limassol café with delicious bougatsa – and she stiffens visibly (granted, I could’ve phrased it a bit more tactfully). “That was not my intention,” she replies, looking unhappy. “I felt very embraced, mostly, by everybody”. ‘Sob-story’ sounds wrong, she protests, as though they were “making everything up” when it’s all completely true. She claims the judges genuinely didn’t know about her back-story – though her byplay with Dixon and Cowell seems designed to get to the encephalitis as quickly as possible, and of course she’d mentioned it when applying for the show. “You get a questionnaire where they ask you these questions,” she explains. “Like ‘What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?’, ‘What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?’, ‘What’s the one thing in your life that you would change if you could?’.”

For Aliki, the one thing she’d change happened 10 years ago, when she was barely out of her teens (she’s now 30, having hit that milestone on May 31, the day before her BGT semi-final). She was studying Music at the University of Sheffield, and came home to Cyprus for the summer. “In a matter of about 10-15 days I went from how I am now to how I was then, with encephalitis,” she recalls.

“During those 10 days, things started happening. Like, my speech would start to slow down, or I would get the toothbrush and the toothpaste and I wouldn’t really know what I should do with it.” She shakes her head: “Driving, that was out of the question – I would get in the car and absolutely not know what to do. I would pour hot kettle water on my hand – I mean in a cup, [but] it would just go all over and I wouldn’t move my hands. My brain wouldn’t give a signal for me to react”. She wasn’t paralysed as such, but her movements were clumsy and unco-ordinated. As the illness progressed, she became confined to a wheelchair and stopped speaking altogether – yet her brain hadn’t shut down, it simply wasn’t able to control her body: she remained fully aware of everything that was happening to her.

That may have been the most traumatic part, especially for her parents who thought they’d lost her; she couldn’t communicate that the person they loved was still there, behind the disease. “Every morning I would practise to myself, ‘Your mum’s going to come in and you’re going to say Good morning mum, Good morning mum…’ and I would repeat that in my head. And when she’d walk in, I couldn’t!”. Aliki shakes her head again: “The brain is just magical,” she says. “If it decides to stop working, it will stop. There’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing”.

Strangest of all, after about three months the encephalitis began to retreat (the story about her mother humming at her hospital bed and Aliki responding is absolutely true); I’d assumed she had brain surgery, but in fact it was just medication and endless MRI scans – it was like all the doctors could do was wait for her brain to come back of its own accord. It took a full year to recover, but by Christmas she was definitely better. “Sometimes it just comes, like that,” she shrugs helplessly, sipping her coffee at Glykolemono. “And when it’s time for it to go, it will go.”

She seems at peace with that – but it’s quite a scary thought, that misfortune can rain down from Heaven and clutch us in its grip till it chooses to let go. “It could happen to anyone,” says Aliki simply. Then again, maybe she’s used to being somewhat helpless in the face of Higher Forces – because music is another such force, a God-given gift that was simply bestowed upon her.

She’s an ordinary girl who happens to sing like an angel (though of course it takes hours of practice to maintain that golden voice). She’s bilingual – Dad is Cypriot, Mum is from Nottingham – clean-cut, and very pretty. Photos don’t do her justice; what really makes her beautiful is the way her face flows and eddies expressively as she talks. The family are musical, in a non-professional way, and apparently close; her career may be taking off but Aliki is happy to call Cyprus home, at least for now. Her parents are here, she explains, her brother is here, her fiancé (a local composer) is here; “That’s why I like it when I’m in Cyprus. I kind of find my Zen with the people around me, get my strength, and then I fly out again”.

What’s she like as a person? Quite restrained, by the sound of it. She likes going out, but not too late (“It’s not good for my voice”). She likes shopping – “What girl doesn’t like shopping?” – but not for hours on end. She plans to spend Christmas at home, probably singing carols in the living-room “with my dad playing the guitar and my fiancé playing the piano”. She’s sociable but likes staying in even more, hanging out with friends or watching movies. Pressed for a favourite film, she picks The Notebook. Asked for the piece of music that affects her most intensely, she picks ‘Ave Maria’ by Caccini. She asks for sweetener, not sugar, in her coffee, then politely sends it back because it’s too strong.

In short, there’s nothing fundamentally remarkable about Aliki Chrysochou – except for the crystalline sounds that emerge when she opens her mouth, and except for the illness that took her away for three months, then brought her back. Did the encephalitis change her as a person? A little bit, she replies. “I try not to take things for granted. I try to take each day at a time, as much as I can. And I’m very grateful for every day that I have.” She hesitates, unsure how to put it: “I think all these [problems] are little reminders that life’s too short, so don’t waste it on silly … nothings, really.”

Did being sick – and recovering – make her more spiritual?

Yes, but she’s always been spiritual. It’s hard to live your life around music and ignore its transcendent aspects. “We all have angels, I think.”

Literally?

She nods: “I think we’re all born with an angel next to us, that’s there to guide us wherever we go. We’re never alone.”

What if she could talk to her angel? Would she be angry about the encephalitis, and accuse him/her/it of slacking off?

She shakes her head dreamily. “I’m sure there’s a reason,” she replies. You can plan all you want, but things take their own course – and if “a hiccup happens sometimes, and you get disappointed, there’s always a reason why it happens, and something else will come up. Always.”

In a way, of course – though it sounds rather cynical to say so – the ‘reason’ why she got sick is obvious. The traumatic illness got her on Britain’s Got Talent, giving her a narrative (or indeed a sob-story) that allowed her to stand out and made her a good fit for a TV talent show – and BGT has opened many doors for her, even if she ‘only’ made it to the semi-finals. The months since June have been hectic, filled with “many different proposals: New York, Australia, stuff in England. I’ve been talking to different agents and managers, trying to find the best deal that I can get”. Aliki may live ‘each day at a time’, but she did have an overall plan – to find “a platform” that would introduce her to a wider audience by the time she was 30. Looks like things are going according to plan.

Earlier this month she sang at the Rialto Theatre, a seasonal programme called ‘Christmas Magic’ that sold out a week in advance. She’s becoming quite a celebrity – and there’s something else too. Just before our interview, she says, just as she was coming to Glykolemono, she was recognised in the street (apparently this happens quite often, both in Cyprus and the UK) by an older woman. The woman explained that she’d watched Aliki’s BGT audition with her husband, when they were in Israel last June – and they were in Israel because her husband had leukaemia, which unfortunately proved terminal. Not only did she recognise Aliki, in other words, she also felt able to share details of her husband’s illness with her, clearly assuming that Aliki – having been there herself – would understand. Her personal life has become almost as well-known as her talent.

“I never expected it to make such a big impact. Never,” she tells me earnestly, sipping her replacement cup of coffee – ‘it’ being the encephalitis, which she’s now being asked to “dig up” after having consigned it to the past for many years. She’s been made an ambassador of the World Encephalitis Society, lends her presence to fundraisers, knows the date (February 22) of World Encephalitis Day. In a way, it’s only fitting – and indeed it’s even possible that having gone through the trauma of that awful year made her voice better, richer, more emotional. Maybe she had to gaze into the abyss of losing the world in order to express and celebrate it.

“There’s something about your energy, Aliki, which is just incredible,” pronounced Simon Cowell at the end of that BGT audition – and it’s all about energy, that subtle something which makes one voice inspirational when another is merely proficient. “I think a voice has a lot to do with somebody’s soul,” says Aliki Chrysochou. “So a voice is not just [about] being perfect in every tone, every pitch, every note. I think it has a lot to do with the spiritual side of what comes out”. Her own voice is coloured by her own intrepid spirit, as she smiles and takes another sip of coffee. Limassol’s Got Talent.

NADEZHDA Tolokonnikova, one of two freed members of punk protest band PussyRiot, said on Friday their release was aimed solely at improving Russia’s image before it hosts the Winter Olympic Games and was not a humanitarian gesture.

Tolokonnikova, 24, and Maria Alyokhina, 25, walked free under a Kremlin amnesty on Monday after serving more than 21 months of a two-year prison term for performing a profanity-laced “punk prayer” protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox cathedral.

Tolokonnikova said the Winter Olympics, due to be held in February in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, were Putin’s pet project and that anybody attending them would be supporting him.

“With the Olympics approaching, Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) does not want his favourite project ruined,” Tolokonnikova said.

Last week, Putin also pardoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, viewed by Kremlin foes as a political prisoner, after he spent more than ten years in jail.

“The thaw has nothing to do with humanism. The authorities only did this under pressure from both Russian and Western society,” Tolokonnikova told a live televised news conference with Alyokhina at her side, adding she feared “there could be more repression after the Olympics”.

“Whether one likes it or not, going to the Olympics in Russia is an acceptance of the internal political situation in Russia, an acceptance of the course taken by a person who is interested in the Olympics above all else - Vladimir Putin,” Tolokonnikova said.

Alyokhina said the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader has cast their February 2012 protest in Christ the Saviour Cathedral as part of a concerted attack on Russia’s main faith, had played a role in the jailing of three band members. The third jailed woman was released last year.

Both amnestied women said they would remain in Russia and would shift their focus to efforts to improve prison conditions in Russia.

A PORTUGUESE footballer playing for a second-division Paphos team was forced to sleep in his car and live off borrowed money because the club has not been paying him, the island’s footballers’ association (PASP) charged on Friday.

Hugo Coelho, 33, acquired by AEP five months ago, has not been paid consistently and has been “impoverished,” PASP said in a written statement.

“During this time, he has changed 11 to 12 places of residence … and had to sleep in his car fore one night,” the statement said.

The footballer said he felt imprisoned because he was not given any money so that he could buy a ticket and leave Cyprus, PASP said.

The association added that it was providing the player with legal assistance.

In theory, rationality should always be at the centre of government decisions and policy-making. In practice, however, this is not always the case as the government’s decision to purchase two gunboats illustrates. When it comes to defence matters rationality is, more often than not, suspended because the entire political establishment embraces the idea that all defence spending is intrinsically good. So deeply-rooted is this idea, that very few would dare challenge it.

In the case of the gunboats, which would cost the taxpayers some €100 million, DISY, to its credit, has blocked the transaction, but only temporarily. Its line was that the proposed purchase could be re-examined a few months into 2014, when there was a better picture of how the economy was going. It was wrong to approve an arms purchase at a time when so many people were unable or struggling to make ends meet its deputies have argued.

It stopped short of declaring the proposed purchase an irrational and needless waste of funds, because then it would be accused of not preventing the strengthening of Cyprus’ defence capability, which everyone supports. Even its half-baked suggestion for a ‘wait and see’ approach was slammed by other parties, including AKEL, which subsequently had a change of heart, presumably because it felt there would be no political cost, and tacitly backed DISY.

The truth is there is not a single rational argument to justify this waste of money we do not have. No military expertise is required to know that two lightly-armed gunboats cannot protect hydrocarbon exploration in our Exclusive Economic Zone in the event that the Turks decided to attack it, so the main reason for buying them is invalid. Government sources have also claimed that the purchase would help us maintain good relations with Israel, as if Israel’s allegiance could be bought, or strategic objectives changed, by €100m purchase.

The only argument that DISY had used against this expenditure was that it would be a provocation at a time when families were struggling. There is another more compelling argument that nobody mentioned. Apart from the illiquid banks, next year there will be €700m less money in the economy because of the government’s spending cuts. How stupidly irresponsible would it be to withdraw an additional €100m from the economy at this time and transfer it to Israel, for gunboats we do not need. The economy would benefit much more if the amount was distributed among the unemployed (they could be given community work to do) because they would at least spend it in Cyprus thus benefiting the economy, in a small way.

If rationality featured in government decision-making, the idea of buying two gunboats at this time – or any time for that matter – would never have made it to the agenda of the Council of Ministers. Unfortunately, it does not, and DISY had to intervene to block this waste of money, at least temporarily.

By George Psyllides

President Nicos Anastasiades yesterday met coalition partners to try and tackle the thorny issue of appointments to the new boards of the semi-government organisations (SGOs), which he has pledged to shake up by ending the nepotism.

The government says the appointments should no longer be influenced by political parties as has been the standard practice up until now, often with the results that SGOs were being run by unqualified people.

Anastasiades said he convened the meeting with coalition partners in a bid to “tackle what in the past was a disadvantage; to avoid, as much as possible, party influence in semi-state organisations.”

He added that from now on, only the most capable would be selected.

Semi-state companies like the electricity authority (EAC) and state telecoms CyTA have always been used by parties as vehicles to provide public posts and employment to supporters.

In the past, administrations shared out the seats on their boards having the party affiliation as the only criterion.
Anastasiades had pledged to change this though it will not be easy to allay the public perception of ‘jobs for the boys’, a system that has always been in place.

Also with the privatisation of the semi-state bodies on the way, an additional challenge will be to appoint people capable of handling the major changes that are afoot, and not just the day-to-day running of the SGOs.

Ruling DISY said it would not submit a list of names.

“This task will be carried out by the cabinet together with the president,” spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said, adding that the aim was to seek and find people who were capable.

Government partners DIKO said it would recommend people but it “will be based solely on qualifications, their status, and ability and willingness to work hard.”

Party spokeswoman Christina Erotocritou said the secretariat will convene today to be briefed by leader Nicolas Papadopoulos about discussions with the president.

The administration has said that its effort would be to achieve wide representation on the boards. Reports suggested that people affiliated with the opposition would also be approached.

Main opposition AKEL said it would not put any names on the table but did not reject the idea of having people from outside the coalition on the boards.

MP Giorgos Georgiou said people fulfilling the criteria could be found outside the coalition, leftists and socialists, and possibly people who did not belong to any party.

The new boards, expected to be in place on Monday, will be called on to handle the privatisation of the state entities, the main ones being CyTA, EAC, and the Ports Authority.

Privatisations are part of terms in the island’s bailout agreement. Cyprus must raise €1.4 billion through privatisations between 2016 and 2018.

Earlier this month, the cabinet approved the roadmap for the privatisations, with the first organisation slated for privatisation being CyTA.

At least 23 people were killed on Saturday in a fire on a train in southern India, authorities said.

The train was on its way from the city of Bangalore to Nanded in the western state of Maharashtra. The driver stopped the train when he saw flames coming out of an air-conditioned coach, media reports said.

“The fire has now been brought under control but there are casualties … the authorities have gone inside the coach,” Arunendra Kumar, the chairman of India’s Railway Board, told Reuters Television.

He said 23 bodies had been found.

England lost their last five wickets for six runs to be bowled out for 179 as Australia finished day three at the MCG needing another 201 to take a 4-0 lead in the Ashes.

Only captain Alastair Cook (51) and Kevin Pietersen – falling one short of his second half-century of the match – gave England anything worthwhile to bowl at, after they had taken a first-innings lead of 51.

Between the efforts of captain and senior batsman, England descended first from 86 for one to 87 for four and then terminally from 173 for five as Mitchell Johnson (three for 25) took his series tally past 30 wickets and Nathan Lyon (five for 50) reached 100 Test victims – only the sixth Australian off-spinner to do so.

There was time before stumps for Australia to move to 30 without loss, in pursuit of 231 to put themselves one more win away from a whitewash.

All was going uncannily well for the tourists, in this series where so little has been, as they reached 65 for none.

Yet again, though, they were to founder first of all against Johnson – as fielder as well as bowler this time.

Cook dominated the scoring in his opening stand with Michael Carberry, after Brad Haddin (65) had first piled a little more frustration on England as he and Lyon added 40 for the last wicket in Australia’s 204 all out.

Cook was immediately fluent either side of lunch.

But for Carberry, after an involuntary single first ball, there were 36 dots before a back-foot boundary past cover off Shane Watson.

Cook had already become the sixth Englishman to pass 8,000 Test runs by the time he reached a 60-ball 50 with his seventh four, a cut off Watson.

The return of Johnson eliminated the England captain, though, caught only half-forward lbw.

Aleem Dar soon made an instant call to send Carberry on his way too, gone again to a bowler operating round the wicket, when Peter Siddle ended his 81-ball struggle for just 12 runs – lbw on the back foot.

That was the moment which kick-started England’s first wobble, Joe Root trying to scamper a single off Lyon wide of mid-off only to be run out by Johnson’s athleticism and accuracy with a direct hit at one-and-a-half stumps.

When Ian Bell then chipped his first ball from the off-spinner straight into the hands of Johnson in the same position, the tourists were already in danger of imploding again on this tour which has exposed their vulnerabilities so often.

There was very nearly another self-inflicted blow too before tea, Pietersen escaping on nine only because Siddle missed the stumps from cover with the batsman well short of his ground responding to Ben Stokes’ faulty call for a single.

Lyon had Stokes mistiming an attempted big hit to deep mid-off in early evening, but Michael Clarke then gave Jonny Bairstow a 21-run start before unleashing Johnson on him again.

The left-armer had made especially short work of the young Yorkshireman in the first innings, and Bairstow – who had twice struck Lyon for sixes down the ground – could not muster another run before edging a fast-and-full delivery behind to become Johnson’s 30th victim of the campaign.

Johnson was fired-up, bowling downwind as Pietersen stopped the game for a distraction behind the arm and then 40mph gusts kept blowing litter over the square.

It was to be Lyon, however, who would take the next two wickets in four balls – Tim Bresnan missing a pull and losing his off-bail and then Stuart Broad edging to slip on the front foot.

Then when Pietersen got underneath an attempted big hit at Lyon to be caught at long-off, James Anderson and Monty Panesar could add no more runs before Johnson finished the job when he pinned England’s number 11 lbw.

Haddin had earlier passed 50 for the fifth time in the series, having hit six fours and a six.

Australia’s top-scorer eventually went, trying to pull out of a hook at Anderson (four for 67) and looping a simple catch to wicketkeeper Bairstow.

But by then, in a passage of play which lasted almost three quarters of an hour of a glorious morning, Haddin had once more punctured England’s momentum just when it seemed they might be on a roll.

Egyptian students loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood fought police at the Cairo campus of Al-Azhar University on Saturday and set fire to two buildings, state television reported.

A student activist said a supporter of the Brotherhood, designated this week as a terrorist organisation by the state, had been killed, although a security source denied this.

State-run newspaper Al-Ahram said the clashes began when security forces fired teargas to disperse pro-Brotherhood students who were preventing their classmates from entering university buildings to take exams. Protesters threw rocks at police and set tyres on fire to counter the teargas.

State TV broadcast footage of black smoke billowing from the faculty of commerce building and said “terrorist students” had set the agriculture faculty building on fire as well.

Al-Azhar, a respected centre of Sunni Islamic learning, has for months been the scene of protests against what the Brotherhood calls a “military coup” that deposed Islamist Mohamed Mursi as president after a year in office.

Shaimaa Mounir, a member of the pro-Brotherhood “Students Against the Coup” movement, said that Khaled El-Haddad died of a wound, though it was not clear whether he had been hit by birdshot or another kind of ammunition.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the student’s account, and a security source denied there had been any deaths.

The violence followed a day of clashes across the country that left five people dead.

Supporters of the Brotherhood took to the streets on Friday after the government designated the Islamist group a terrorist organisation – a move that increases the penalties for dissent against the government installed after the army ousted Mursi in July following mass protests against his rule.

The widening crackdown against the movement that was elected into power after the toppling of veteran leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011 has increased tension in a country suffering the worst internal strife of its modern history following Mursi’s ousting.

CONSTITUTION VOTE

The army-backed government appears bent on clamping down on dissent ahead of a referendum next month on a new constitution, a step that will pave the way for parliamentary and presidential elections.

Thousands of Brotherhood members have been arrested. More than 250 Brotherhood supporters were arrested on Friday alone using the new classification.

Human Rights Watch said on Saturday that the government’s designation of the Brotherhood as a terrorist group was “politically driven” and intended to end all of the movement’s activities.

“By rushing to point the finger at the Brotherhood without investigations or evidence, the government seems motivated solely by its desire to crush a major opposition movement.” said Sarah Leah Whitson of the New York-based rights group.

A conservative estimate puts the overall death toll since Mursi’s fall at well over 1,500. Most of those killed were Mursi supporters, including hundreds gunned down when the security forces cleared a protest vigil outside a Cairo mosque.

At least 350 members of the security forces have also been killed in bombings and shootings since Mursi’s downfall. The state has declared them martyrs of a war on terrorism.

An adviser to interim president Adli Mansour said in comments published on Saturday that he believed Egypt would not return to a state of emergency even if the violence continued.

Authorities lifted the state of emergency in November, three months after the army enforced the measures amid the bloody turmoil that followed its overthrow of Mursi.

Mustafa Hijazi told London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that the designation of the Brotherhood as a terrorist group was not political. “Instead, it is the use and application of existing laws,” he was quoted as saying.

Under the anti-terrorism law dating back to the presidency of Mubarak, those convicted can be jailed for life. Authorities said this week that the movement’s leaders could face the death sentence.

A Thai protester was killed and four wounded on Saturday, an emergency official said, when an unidentified gunman opened fire on demonstrators whose efforts to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have flared into violence in recent days.

The shooting came 48 hours after clashes between police and the protesters, who are determined to disrupt a snap Feb. 2 election called by Yingluck, outside a voting registration centre in which two people were killed and scores wounded.

The violence is the latest in years of rivalry between Bangkok’s middle class and royalist establishment and the mostly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former premier who was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and lives in self-imposed exile.

Petphong Kamjonkitkarn, director of the Erawan Emergency Centre in the capital, Bangkok, told Reuters one man in his 30s had been shot dead. Four suffered gunshot wounds.

The protesters have been rallying for weeks in their attempt to topple Yingluck, who they see as a puppet of her brother, and they have vowed to block an election that Yingluck would most likely win.

Yingluck, who draws her support from the rural north and northeast, is determined to go ahead with the poll. On Friday, her government asked the military for help to provide security for candidates and voters.

However, the chief of the heavily politicised army declined to rule out military intervention, responding that “the door was neither open nor closed” when asked if a coup was possible.

Several hundred protesters are camped out in tents around the walls of Yingluck’s Government House offices, one of several rally sites around the capital. Witnesses said they were sleeping when gunfire rang out at about 3.30 a.m. (2030 GMT Friday).

“I was sleeping and then I heard several gunshots. I was surprised,” said one 18-year-old protester, who identified himself by his nickname “Boy”.

Other witness said the shots could have come from a car as it drove past the protest site. Reuters television pictures showed bullet holes in a concrete barrier and a generator, as well as bloodstains inside a tents.

Protesters showed several small-calibre slugs they found.

SOUTHERN CENTRES BLOCKED

Registration for the election was to continue on Saturday, although the Election Commission (EC) has asked that the poll be delayed after Thursday’s violence until “mutual consent” from all sides was achieved – a very unlikely scenario.

EC Secretary-General Puchong Nutrawong told Reuters the commission had temporarily closed registration centres in six southern provinces because the sites had been blocked by protesters and candidates hoping to register could not enter.

Media reported that protesters had cut water and electricity to some of the sites.

The protesters draw much support from the south, as does the main opposition and pro-establishment Democrat Party, Thailand’s oldest party. It has further muddied the waters by saying it will boycott the poll.

With the street protests escalating, any delay to a poll that Yingluck’s Puea Thai Party would otherwise be expected to win would leave her government open to legal challenges or military or judicial intervention.

The military has staged or attempted 18 coups in 81 years of democracy, making Friday’s comments by General Prayuth Chan-ocha more chilling for Yingluck and Thaksin.

The protesters draw strength from Bangkok’s conservative middle class, royalist bureaucracy and elite, many with ties to the judiciary and military, who resent the rise of the billionaire Shinawatra family and their political juggernaut.

They accuse former telecoms tycoon Thaksin of corruption and manipulating a fragile democracy by effectively buying the support of the rural poor with populist policies such as cheap healthcare, easy credit and subsidies for rice farmers.

Instead of an election, the protesters want an appointed “people’s council” to oversee reforms before any future vote.

Thaksin’s enemies also accused him of trying to undermine King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Thaksin denied that.

The first two years of Yingluck’s government had been relatively smooth until a blunder by her party in November, when it tried to push through an unpopular amnesty bill that would have exonerated Thaksin from a 2008 graft conviction he says was politically motivated. Thaksin fled into exile shortly before he was sentenced to a two-year jail term.

By Constantinos Psillides

AN EARTHQUAKE shook Cyprus around 5.20pm on Saturday, which was felt all over the island. No casualties, injuries or damages were reported but many people were frightened, tying up police phone lines, the force said.

According to the European-Mediterranean Seismology Centre (EMSC), the epicentre of the 5.9-Richter quake was 208km North West of Nicosia off the coast of Turkey, in the bay of Antalya.

Geological Survey Department (GSD) head Eleni Georgiou-Morisseau told the CyBC that aftershocks could follow later on Saturday and on Sunday. “Aftershocks are a common occurrence after earthquakes. We are monitoring the situation closely,” said Morisseau. According to the EMSC, at least four aftershocks were immediately registered, reaching 3.0 in magnitude.

Morisseau added that the earthquake probably had a shallow focus point, a fact that, she said, would explain why it was felt all over the island. Earthquakes occurring at a depth of less than 70 km are classified as ‘shallow-focus’ earthquakes.

The EMSC reported that the earthquake depth to be 64km.

Thirty-seven seismic activities were registered in the region during 2013.

Morriseau contested the figures reported by the EMSC, saying that quake probably wasn’t a 5.9 on the Richter scale. “We are closer than the European-Mediterranean Seismology Centre and our measurements will be more accurate. It’s definitely over 5, said the head of the Geological Survey Department.

Associated Press reported that the Istanbul-based Kandilli seismology centre said the earthquake occurred at 5:21 pm, and was centered some 84 kilometers southwest of the holiday resort of Alanya.

Police in Cyprus reported no casualties or injuries. “Just a lot of calls from frightened people trying to figure out what’s happening,” a police official told the Sunday Mail.

Cypriots hit the social media websites the moment the earthquake occurred. A woman living on the fifth floor of an apartment in Larnaca tweeted that “living on the 5^th floor is no joke when it comes to earthquakes” while a Larnaca man told the Mail jokingly that “the Christmas tree started dancing and the lights were twinkling”. A man in Paphos said that he was so scared he ran outside once the tremors started.

Saturday’s was the strongest earthquake felt it Cyprus since October 9 1996, when the island was hit with a 6.5 on the Richter scale. The earthquake epicentre was the same as Saturday’s – northwest of the island, and resulted in extensive damages to buildings in Paphos and Limassol. Two people lost their lived and it caused widespread panic in all districts. Around 20 people were lightly injured.

A 5.7 earthquake hit the island on February 23, 1995 and resulted in two casualties. Several houses collapsed in the villages of Pano Arodes and Miliou in Paphos.

A 5.6 earthquake was recorded on August 11 1999 with the epicentre near Yerasa village in Limassol. The quake was strongly felt across the entire island. It caused damage to buildings in Limassol and the north part of the district. Some 40 people were lightly injured mainly because of panic. A large number of aftershocks continued for months.

The most recent earthquake reported was on October 21 this year, 10km off the coast of Paphos. The earthquake was of 3.7 local magnitude.

Iraqi security forces arrested a prominent Sunni Muslim lawmaker and supporter of anti-government protests in a raid on his home in the western province of Anbar, sparking clashes in which at least five people were killed, police sources said.

The violent arrest of Ahmed al-Alwani is likely to inflame tensions in Sunni-dominated Anbar, where protesters have been demonstrating against what they see as marginalisation of their sect by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government.

Alwani belongs to the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc and has been a strong critic of Maliki and an influential figure in the protest movement.

Police sources said a two-hour firefight broke out on Saturday when bodyguards and members of Alwani’s tribe resisted police and army forces who went to arrest Alwani on charges of “terrorism” from his house in the centre of the city of Ramadi.

They said those killed in the fighting included three of Alwani’s bodyguards, his sister and his brother.

“Army troops with police special forces were trying to arrest Alwani from his house, but fierce fighting erupted. Five bodies, including one woman, were taken to Falluja hospital,” one police source said.

No members of Alwani’s family could immediately be reached to give their version of events. Parliament speaker Usama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, called the operation a “blatant violation” of  Iraq’s constitution and a “dangerous precedent.”

Lieutenant-General Ali Ghaidan, commander of Iraqi ground forces, told state television that security forces had also tried to arrest Alwani’s brother Ali, whom he accused of involvement in attacks that killed Iraqi soldiers in Anbar.

Ali was killed in the fighting, as well as one Iraqi soldier, Ghaidan said.

“We treated Ahmed al-Alwani well. We told him that we had a warrant for his arrest, and arrested him,” he said, adding that two of Alwani’s bodyguards were wounded.

VIOLENCE RISING

Violence in Iraq is at its worst levels since 2006-7, when tens of thousands of people were killed in fighting between Sunnis and Shi’ites. Bombings, shootings and suicide attacks, many staged by al Qaeda militants, are a near-daily occurrence.

Saturday’s clashes may undermine Maliki’s efforts to put an end to the protests in Anbar ahead of April elections.

In a statement on state television on Friday, Maliki said it would be the “last Friday” the protests and sit-ins would be allowed to continue.

Many Sunnis in the region are likely to see the incident as another example of what they portray as a crackdown against minority Sunni leaders.

In September last year, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, one of Iraq’s most prominent Sunni politicians, was sentenced to death in absentia for murders committed by sectarian death squads. Hashemi, who denies the charges, fled to Turkey.

Finance Minister Rafie al-Essawi’s bodyguards were arrested in December, sparking the Sunni protests.

A raid on a protest camp in the northern town of Hawija in April sparked fighting that killed over 40 people. Hardline al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants have since stepped up attacks against Iraq’s government and anyone seen as supporting it.

One such attack in Anbar last week killed at least 18 Iraqi soldiers, including a military commander who oversaw the crackdown.

A Syrian army air strike on a vegetable market in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 25 people on Saturday, a monitoring group said, continuing a campaign of improvised “barrel bombs” that has drawn international condemnation.

A video posted on the Internet by local activist group Insaan Rights Watch showed residents pulling mangled corpses out of scorched and twisted car frames.

One road hit by the strike was covered with debris from nearby buildings and was lined with bodies, as young men shouted for cars to help transport the wounded. The content of the video could not be independently verified.

Hundreds of people have been killed by air raids around the city of Aleppo in recent weeks, scores of them women and children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group based in Britain.

On Saturday, the Observatory said 25 people, at least four of them children, were killed by barrel bombing that also destroyed part of a hospital. It said the death toll was likely to rise as dozens more were wounded in the attack.

Syrian authorities say they are battling rebels controlling large portions of the city, once Syria‘s business hub.

Human rights groups and the United States have condemned the use of the improvised bombs – oil drums or cylinders which are packed with explosives and metal fragments, often rolled out of an aircraft’s cargo bay. They say it is an indiscriminate form of bombardment.

President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been regaining territory southeast of Aleppo in recent weeks and have made gains in suburbs around the capital Damascus as well.

The move is likely an attempt to strengthen Assad’s position against the opposition ahead of planned peace negotiations in Geneva next month.

An army ambush in the Qalamoun Mountains north of the capital killed at least 60 people on Friday. The Observatory said the dead were rebels. But the Syrian National Coalition, an umbrella group representing the opposition abroad, said the dead were civilians.

Well over 100,000 people have been killed in the 2-1/2-year conflict, which began as peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule. A fierce security force crackdown sparked an armed insurgency that has now spread civil war across most of Syria.

Manchester City took over at the top of the Premier League on Saturday when, with Arsenal not playing, they took advantage with a hard-earned 1-0 victory over stubborn strugglers Crystal Palace.

A solitary 66th minute strike from Bosnian Edin Dzeko earned City all three points to extend their home record to 10 wins out of 10, but their ascent to the summit was achieved with none of their familiar free-scoring swagger.

That was left, instead, to mid-table Hull City who hammered relegation-threatened Fulham 6-0 while champions Manchester United continued their steady improvement with a 1-0 win at Norwich City, courtesy of England striker Danny Welbeck’s fourth goal in four games.

Aston Villa struggled again in a 1-1 draw at home to fellow mid-tablers Swansea City after West Ham United had earlier been held 3-3 by drop zone rivals West Bromwich Albion in a thriller at Upton Park.

Manchester United’s win lifted them to sixth behind City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton.

On Sunday, Liverpool visit Stamford Bridge, Everton host Southampton and the Gunners go to Newcastle United.

Greek bank deposits rose slightly in November after a five-month decline but private sector credit kept shrinking, central bank data showed on Friday, as deep recession saps demand for loans.

Hit by austerity and record unemployment, Greek households have been tapping savings to cope with economic hardship as banks struggle with growing amounts of non-performing loans.

The Bank of Greece expects the economy, about a quarter smaller after a six-year slump, to recover this year with national output expanding by 0.5 percent, and has said credit expansion will be crucial in fueling growth.

Data showed businesses and household deposits rose to 161.04 billion euros ($220 billion) from 160.38 billion euros in October, the rise mainly the result of interbank deposits.

Bank lending to the private sector shrank 3.8 percent year-on-year, the pace of contraction slowing slightly from 3.9 percent a month earlier.

Credit to the private sector has been in decline since mid-2011, aggravating the country’s worst postwar economic slump.

Falling deposits and tough capital requirements have weakened Greek banks’ capacity to provide fresh loans to businesses and households.

High borrowing costs have also dampened firms’ and citizens’ demand for credit as average real interest rates on new loans hit 7.5 percent in October, the highest level since Greece joined the euro and despite record-low ECB benchmark rates.

Loans to businesses, a narrower measure in the private sector overall figures, declined 4.7 percent after a 4.8 percent drop in October, the Bank of Greece said.

Lending to households and private non-profit institutions shrank 3.5 percent, unchanged from the previous month.

Greek banks lost around 90 billion euros or a third of their deposit base after the country plunged into a debt crisis in late 2009, partly due to capital flight on fears the country would have to quit the euro zone.

About 17 billion euros returned to the banking system in the months following a mid-June 2012 election, which led to the formation of a new government and eased fears that Athens would give up the single currency.

On another note Greece will auction 1.25 billion euros ($1.71 billion) of six-month treasury bills on January 7 to refinance a maturing issue, the country’s debt agency PDMA said on Friday.

The settlement date will be January 10. Only primary dealers will be allowed to participate and no commission will be paid.

Monthly T-bill sales are Greece’s sole remaining source of market funding. Athens has a stock of about 15 billion euros of T-bills that it regularly refinances with the help of crisis-struck Greek banks

By Peter Stevenson

THE CHIEF of police has ordered an investigation into the circumstances which led to the sudden death of a 36-year-old Iranian man being held by police in Limassol for questioning after he had been found on Thursday with a small amount of drugs.

Officers from the drug squad stopped the 36-year-old on Makarios Avenue in Limassol at around 7.30pm on Thursday and found two grammes of what police believe to be the drug, crystal ice.

Head of Limassol CID, Ioannis Soteriades told the Cyprus Mail the man was a known dealer of the drug and that he had been questioned by police in the past.

The Iranian was taken to drug squad headquarters where he was questioned by officers. According to Soteriades the suspect was co-operating fully with the police. His home and car were searched but officers did not find any illegal substances.

The 36-year-old has been in Cyprus since last August but was illegal, Soteriades said.

“On his way to the holding cell he began to have what appeared to be a panic attack so it was deemed necessary that he be taken to hospital,” Soteriades said.

After arriving at Limassol GeneralHospital the 36-year-old lost consciousness and doctors were unable to revive him.

“The cause of his death is being investigating and the chief of police has asked for a detailed report on the matter,” he said.

State pathologist, Eleni Antoniou carried out a post-mortem and said the cause of death was an acute pulmonary oedema. She said she found 48 grammes of an unknown substance in a small plastic bag inside the suspect’s stomach which had caused the pulmonary oedema.

“He most likely ingested what appears to be drugs when he was arrested which then lead to his death,” she said.

Pulmonary oedema is a condition in which the lungs fill with fluid. When this occurs, the body struggles to get enough oxygen. The most common cause of pulmonary oedema is congestive heart failure. Substances were found in the suspect’s body which have been sent to the state laboratory for testing to establish the cause of the pulmonary oedema, Soteriades said.