By Costas Pitas;
Former aide to Margaret Thatcher and ex-treasurer of Britain’s Conservative Party, Alistair McAlpine, who was wrongly accused of child abuse in a BBC report that led to a major crisis at the broadcaster, has died aged 71, his family said on Saturday.

Prime Minister David Cameron led tributes to McAlpine, who, as a key fundraiser, helped secure Thatcher’s three election triumphs that made her Britain’s longest-serving leader in the 20th century.
“My thoughts are with Lord McAlpine’s family – he was a dedicated supporter of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative party,” Cameron said on Twitter.

McAlpine largely disappeared from public view after Thatcher’s fall from power in 1990 until a 2012 BBC report accused an unnamed “leading Conservative politician from the Thatcher years” of sexually abusing boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

McAlpine was widely named on the Internet as the subject of the report, which the BBC later admitted was wrong, sparking one of the worst crises in the British public broadcaster’s 90-year history.

The scandal caused the then Director General George Entwistle to resign after the abuse victim central to the BBC investigation saidMcAlpine was not one his attackers.
The publicly-owned broadcaster paid 185,000 pounds to McAlpine, who also received damages from others who had reported the story.

In a closely-watched Twitter libel case, the wife of a British parliamentarian paid damages to McAlpine after a court ruled her tweet, “Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*”, was defamatory.
Several other people with wide followings on Twitter, who had also repeated the false allegation, voluntarily settled out of court.
McAlpine, a property developer who was also a gallery owner and art collector, died peacefully at his home in Italy on Friday, his family said.

By Philip Pullella
Pope Francis will not show leniency towards paedophile priests because truth and justice are more important than protecting the Church, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor said on Saturday.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the most authoritative Catholic official on the Church’s abuse crisis, also told Reuters that the number of clerics defrocked by the Vatican was likely to have fallen to about 100 in 2013 from about 125 in 2012.

Scicluna said Francis, despite his merciful nature, would be very tough on paedophile priests after an abuse crisis that the pope on Thursday called “the shame of the Church.”
“I have met with Francis and he has expressed great determination to continue on the line of his predecessors,” said Scicluna, who served in the Vatican for 17 years before he was named an auxiliary bishop in his native Malta in 2012.
“His gospel of mercy is very important but it is not cheap mercy. It has to respect the truth and the demands of justice,” Scicluna said in a telephone interview.

The pope, who was elected last March, set up a commission of experts last month to address the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church, in his first major step to tackle a crisis that has plagued it for two decades.
The group will consider ways to better screen priests, protect minors and help victims in the face of charges the Vatican has not done enough to guard the vulnerable or make amends.

Scicluna, who served in Rome for 17 years, was the Vatican’s expert last Thursday in Geneva when United Nations child protection experts pushed Holy See delegates to reveal the scope of the decades-long sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests.

Despite the unprecedented grilling of Vatican delegation, he said the experience was very helpful for the Church.
“We have a great responsibility to our people … I think it was a blessing that we had this meeting before the commission is set up,” he said. The commission is still in the process of being formed and its members chosen.

Scicluna confirmed that published Vatican records show that in 2011 the number of priests defrocked hit a recent peak of some 260.
He said the rise was due to “contingent backlog problems with some historical cases” and that he expected the numbers were “stabilising” at about 100 in 2013.
Scicluna said the numbers for most years are made up of about 50 percent by priests who were actively defrocked and the rest by those who had asked to leave the priesthood after they “admit their crimes”.
“Dismissal is imposed and dispensation presupposes the request of the priest but the effect is the same,” he said.

In 2012, while he was still in his previous job at the Vatican, he created a stir when he uttered the word “omerta” – usually used to describe the Sicilian Mafia’s code of silence – in relation to the sexual abuse crisis in the Church.
He used it again on Saturday in response to a question.
“I think there is a clear signal that ‘omerta’ is not the way the Church should respond,” he said. “I am convinced that the best thing for the institution is to own up to the truth whatever it is.”

The Church has had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation in sexual abuse cases worldwide, bankrupting a string of dioceses. Last Thursday the pope said it was right to pay damages to victims.

Victims groups have said more has to be done to protect children and that bishops who have been accused of covering up crimes by shuttling priests from parish to parish should be held accountable.

Reports on Saturday evening said a man in Meniko village in the Nicosia district had attempted to murder his father with a knife.

Preliminary information said the incident happened just before 6.30pm at the family home. Police had cordoned off the scene, reports said, but no further information was available.

Sigmalive said the father had sustained three stab wounds and was taken to Nicosia General Hospital where he is said to be in serious condition. The son was arrested.

By Mike Collett
Arsenal stayed top of the Premier League with Manchester City breathing down their necks as the two front runners maintained their winning streaks with victories over Fulham and Cardiff City on Saturday.

Two goals in five minutes midway through the second half by Spain international midfielder Santi Cazorla set Arsenal up for a 2-0 win over Fulham, their fifth successive league victory leaving Fulham mired in relegation trouble.

Second placed Manchester City made it seven consecutive league wins as they beat Cardiff City 4-2 – also their 11th successive home win in the league – after Edin Dzeko’s opener took them to 100 goals in all competitions this season.

Cardiff, playing their second league game under new boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, equalised through Craig Nooneafter 29 minutes before Jesus Navas restored City’s lead four minutes later.
Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero scored late goals in quick succession to make it 4-1 before Fraizer Campbell scored a consolation for Cardiff.
The Welsh side, back in the top flight for the first time in 51 seasons, dropped to the bottom of the table behind Sunderland on goal difference after they hit back to draw 2-2 with Southampton having trailed 2-0.

Arsenal head the standings with 51 points, followed by City on 50, with third placed Chelsea (46) playing champions Manchester United, who are seventh, at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

Newcastle United kept in touch with the leading pack with a 3-1 win at West Ham United, who like their London rivals Fulham are deep in trouble at the wrong end of the table.
Yohan Cabaye and Loic Remy scored to put Newcastle in command while the Hammers pulled one back when Mike Williamson put through his own goal. Cabaye added a late second.
The one bright spot for the Hammers fans was the first home appearance this season of their England striker Andy Carroll, who came on as a second half substitute for only his second game of the season after a long-standing foot injury.

Crystal Palace moved out of the relegation zone when Jason Puncheon scored after 51 minutes to give Palace manager Tony Pulis a 1-0 win over his former club Stoke City.

Norwich City beat Hull City 1-0 at Carrow Road with an 87th minute winner from Ryan Bennett easing them away from trouble.
Hull’s misery was complete when Tom Huddlestone was sent off in the last minute for a second yellow card.

Liverpool were playing Aston Villa in the evening kickoff at Anfield.

By Nathan Morley

IT’S BEEN a funny old week. As Britain finally loosens its grip on the sovereign bases – the Russian military have been given the green light to use the Limassol port and the airbase in Paphos.

A complete reshuffling of the entire deck of geopolitical cards is in motion, prompting some commentators to scream that Cyprus is falling into a Russian orbit, whilst others celebrate what they see as the beginning of Britain’s long march home.

Whichever way you look at it – recent events mark a monumental crossroads in Cyprus’ relationship with two major powers.

Understandably pundits agreed that President Anastasiades popularity soared after Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides hammered out a surprise agreement lifting restrictions on commercial and industrial development in non-military areas within the British Bases.

Kasoulides knows it’s the time for delicate diplomatic bargaining, as the case for Britain keeping its expensive military bastions recedes.

The MoD is already shrinking its presence on the island, whilst they are also packing up from Germany.

Despite a 2011 white paper which outlined the UK’s enduring commitment to the SBA’s in Cyprus, the fact is that with new technologies and a dramatically reduced budget, Akrotiri is no longer viable as springboard for dealing with Middle East trouble spots as it was during the Suez and Iraq conflicts.

The bases are expensive and largely deserted remnants of the Cold War-era.

There was a time when thousands of people lived and worked at Dhekelia – it was seldom quiet.

The only action there nowadays is mainly provided by regulars cramming into Lambros Fish and Chip bar, or the old boys have a jolly on the golf course.

The sun is setting on the UK forces in Cyprus and it’s probable that more ‘friendly dialogue’ concerning their future will follow soon.

It is always hard to admit when the government plays a blinder, so it came as no surprise to some folks stoking the flames of dissent with rantfests about a new Gibraltar-like colony.

Meanwhile, the scaremongers and doomsayers inform us that any void which may be eventually left by the British will be filled by the Great Russian bear.

Nobody doubts that Russia is a good friend and strong ally of Cyprus, so why the information quotient on the new military agreement is so low remains a complete mystery – the lack of information also spurs on those that predict a full blown Russian presence is in the offing.

Despite having a rather leak-prone government, it is astonishing that any comment on this issue has skilfully avoided conveying anything substantive.

All we know is that an “unnamed defence ministry source” gave the rather vague assertion that the agreement is not something substantial or different to what is already being offered to Russia in terms of facilities at the airbase from time to time.

Why was it not debated by parliament? Will the offer of “certain facilities” to the Russian air force just be restricted to humanitarian and emergency situations? Will the specifics of this agreement be made public?

In making hard concessions in the interest of good relations, Cyprus had little elbow room at the bargaining table.

Moscow holds all the cards. Cyprus is in an exposed position, especially after Russian depositors that lost in the March bailout  – in addition to Moscow’s very generous €2.5bn loan to Nicosia.

It is no secret that Moscow has long-coveted a military foothold here, as the future of their naval port in Syria looks bleak. Their strategic ambitions are also well known.

Last year President Vladimir Putin described the Mediterranean as a “strategic region” in which Russia has its own interests. Moscow is also seeking the restoration of a permanent presence their fleet in the region, although the actual location of their base is yet to be announced…I’m not taking bets yet where it may be.

I will take bets that next year Cyprus continues to maintain its regular place in the top ten of most militarised nations on earth, along with Syria, Israel and Bahrain.

PSSS….WANT AN EU PASSPORT?

LAST WEEK the Maltese government rebuffed European lawmakers’ call to halt a plan to sell their passports to foreigners, which would automatically grant them access to the European Union.

Brussels can do nothing about this outrageous Maltese scheme, which offers passports at the bargain basement price of €650,000.

Nobody is under any illusion that Malta is simply flogging EU residency – the right to live, work or set up business in any of the 28 member states.

Their controversial initiative is simple – once vetted and approved, investors stump up the money in exchange for a passport. The Maltese government claims the scheme will raise €30 million this year alone – whilst boosting their economy and easing the deficit.

It comes as no surprise that the island has taken a pounding in the international press, with some commentators describing the scheme as dodgy and desperate.

The kerfuffle began when it emerged that there are no residency requirements, language or work skills needed.  In fact, successful applicants don’t even have to pay more than a fleeting visit to Valetta to sign on the dotted line.

An EU passport is a valuable document. It allows the owner visa-free entry to 163 countries, Schengen borderless travel, a United States visa waiver and numerous benefits including the right to live and work in any EU member state.

David Hanson is the shadow immigration minister with Britain’s opposition Labour party told me the scheme was basically a backdoor pass to Europe.

Even though the European Union cannot interfere with this scheme, Manfred Weber, vice-chairman of the European People’s party said there was a growing sense of frustration about the whole sham.

If a price had to be put on EU nationality – Malta is certainly the cheapest, even the local ‘citizenship by investment’ scheme has a passport price tag of €2.5 million.

VAROSHA

Elizabeth Taylor has been mentioned many times over the past week as Varosha’s most famous visitor. Don’t forget that Paul Newman was no stranger to Cyprus. He spent several months living and working on the island in 1960 during the production of the epic Hollywood movie Exodus.

Newman, along with Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson and Peter Lawford was primarily based in the old town of Famagusta during the film’s production, which stretched from April till August.

And just for fun…here is a picture of Benny and Frida from Abba on the Varosha beach in 1970! Do you have any vintage stars in Cyprus photos? Share them with us. Nathan@cyprus-mail.com

By Loucas Charalambous

LAST MONDAY the top brass of CyTA appeared before the House finance committee and explained its scheme for the voluntary retirement of staff. As was reported, the legislature was not only satisfied with the explanations given, but also praised the quick drafting of the plan.

Committee president Nicholas Papadopoulos expressed his satisfaction regarding the meeting and added that “irrespective of the privatisations, the organisations must go ahead with restructuring and becoming more productive.”

According to the three-year plan (2013-2015) it is estimated that 600 to 700 would leave CyTA the net financial benefit of which would be €263.5m, which is about €87m per year. The House committee was told that the total cost for the implementation of the plan would be €103m.

We should note here that in his message, published in CyTA’s annual report for 2012, then chairman Stathis Kittis mentioned that during that year the authority implemented a policy that cut its work force by 300 people. So if we add these to the 700 that will go now we can see that CyTA had about a thousand more workers than it needed.

The accounts for 2012 showed that CyTA made a net profit of €38.2m. The total labour cost (salaries, pensions, redundancy compensation) for that year was €159m. Of course the cost of the 900 to 1,000 redundant workers is paid by its customers who will now be called to pay the €103m to those that will leave voluntarily.

It should be borne in mind that this early retirement scheme has been pursued after intense pressure by the unions which have said the departure of employees would “reduce the labour cost and the organisation would become more productive”.

In other words, the union bosses, who have been shouting against privatisation because “profit-making” organisations that are public wealth would be sold off, are admitting that CyTA is the most corrupt of the semi-governmental kingdoms. A corrupt organisation, worse than Cyprus Airways, at which almost half the workers were overpaid, layabouts that were hired so they could enjoy the ultra-attractive wages, the hefty retirement bonus, the free (until recently) princely pensions.

And all this at the expense of its customers who pick up the bill for additional labour cost of about €87m every year that they will now be spared thanks to the costly, voluntary redundancy scheme. But why should its customers pay? Those who hired them should pay. The audacity of the CyTA union bosses is quite astonishing, given that despite all this they are still rabidly opposed to privatisation, in order to preserve their super-privileges.

But even greater is the audacity of the politicians who are the real culprits behind what has been happening at SGOs. The top brass and union representatives of CyTA went before the deputies of the House finance committee and told them that 300 workers had left while another 600 to 700 would leave soon because they were surplus to requirements and nobody thought this was worth talking mentioning.

No deputy dared to point out the following to CyTA’s representatives: You came here to tell us that almost half the employees are well-paid layabouts and should leave and at the same time you are beating your breast about maintaining this stable, because it is “public wealth”. And you feel no shame?

No deputy felt the need to ask this simple thing. On the contrary, all, including Papadopoulos, who poses as the prosecutor of corruption while wanting to maintain the filthy SGO kingdoms in order to do favours for his supporters, found a reason to congratulate CyTA’s representatives.

This answers the question why not a single deputy bothered to point out the provocative behaviour of the union bosses. How could they? After all, CyTA and the other SGO kingdoms are the creation of the politicians.

By Bejay Browne

A DESPERATE British mum of four has turned to the Sunday Mail for help as her twenty year long search for her Greek Cypriot biological father has so far failed to uncover his whereabouts.

Bev Gauntlett, 44, says she has been searching for her dad since finding out at the age of 24 that she was adopted. “I found out that I was adopted by mistake. I had a six-week-old daughter and I wanted to frame our birth certificates. My mother kept all of my paperwork and she said she couldn’t find it. I decided to save time and hassle, so I went to the local registry office and purchase a duplicate,” she told the Sunday Mail from Surrey where she lives.

She was told they couldn’t locate a birth certificate for her and suggested that she call another number in case she had been adopted

“I was mortified and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I went home and sat in disbelief that I may be adopted. I called the number; I was asked a few questions and put on hold. To my horror it was confirmed they had a file on my adoption.”

Although understandably shocked, she soon wanted to track down her birth parents. The adoption file revealed she was born on April 1, 1969 and that her birth name was Many Ann Millsom.

She managed to find her birth mother Linda Olive Millsom who told her that she had never told Bev’s father that she was pregnant.

“She seems to have blocked this part of her life out, which isn’t very helpful,” says Bev. As a result the details Bev has gleaned over the years are extremely sketchy.

She knows her dad was a Greek Cypriot, known as both Christopher and Christos. He was described as a good looking man, about 5’6 dark with straight hair, dark brown eyes and an olive complexion. He would have been 24 years old in 1969, and at some point he worked as a chef at the Wimpy restaurant in Ealing Broadway.

“In my adoption file, he is described as Greek Orthodox and a very nice man who liked to joke and was always smiling. He enjoyed playing cards at a Greek club and he had an older brother who was a taxi driver.”

According to Bev, her dad rented a room in the Shepherd’s Bush area and had a relationship with her birth mother for about six months.

“I am appealing to anyone in Cyprus who can help me to find my dad. He has four beautiful granddaughters whom he knows nothing about. If people were in London, in the West Ealing or Shepherd’s Bush area in the 1960s, they may be able to help me,” she says.

Despite her plight being highlighted in the local London press, so far she says she is no further forward in finding her dad. “I’m so sad about this and even if I could find some of his friends or discover his surname it would be really helpful. I desperately want to find my father and discover my roots.”

Bev says she has turned up a number of leads but so far they have all led to dead ends.

Christos may have previously owned a salon which is now called ‘Class’, he may also have lived in Whetstone in North London for a period of time.

“He is now believed to have left the UK and gone to live in Cyprus,” she says.

Bev says she would love to travel to Cyprus to try to track down her father herself, but she is not in a financial position to do so.

“I couldn’t afford to fly over to Cyprus, but I would very much love to have been able to come over and spearhead my search,” she says.

“If anyone can remember anything at all, or has any idea where my dad may be, please contact me.”

bevgauntlett@googlemail.com

By Peter Stevenson

THE ONLY information 28-year-old Senegalese professional footballer Gora Tall had to go on when making a choice about leaving Portugal to play in Cyprus was that of his agent.

His agent there told him that clubs in Cyprus paid on time and better than those in Portugal. Tall had no friends playing in Cyprus at the time and no way of checking whether he was being told the truth.

More than four years and stints at three clubs later, and Tall says he is still owed €60,000 from the first two clubs he played for. It is certain he will never receive that money.

Tall arrived in summer 2009 to play for APOP Kinyras in Peyia, and after a relatively successful first season decided to extend his stay on the island and signed for a second season at the Paphos club. Unfortunately for Tall though, the second season, despite beginning well, turned into a disaster.

“My first season was great, we played in the Europa League qualifiers and I received all my salary, but the second season, although it began well and we took our salary as usual, after two months we began not getting paid on time,” he said.

By the end of the season APOP owed Tall six months’ salary and he was unable to pay electricity bills, water bills or even buy food.

“Life became a real struggle, I had my electricity cut off, the water was cut off at times and I went from being comfortable to living day-to-day,” he said.

At the end of the second season Tall looked elsewhere but decided to stay on the island, hoping his experience with APOP was an isolated incident. He moved to AEP, another Paphos team that were trying to get promotion from the second division.

“Problems began from the beginning at AEP. Salary was not being paid on time and sometimes I would get given cash just to get by so I could buy food,” he said.

He stuck around at AEP for a second season after it was promoted, hoping that now the team was in the top flight, his salary would be paid. Instead, his situation got worse and he was sometimes forced to borrow money from friends just to make it through the day.

Tall’s experience was by no means an isolated case.

“I had friends who came to Cyprus hoping to make some money playing football but some were forced to give up the game because they were not getting paid,” he told the Sunday Mail. “The lucky few went to France and began playing there in the second and third divisions, trying to make a living.”

Although Cyprus teams had gained a terrible reputation for not paying their foreign players, it took until last summer before the world football players’ union FIFPro warned players to think twice before signing to play for clubs in Cyprus.

Greece and Turkey were also criticised, but Cyprus was deemed far and away the worst culprit.

“Cyprus has for years occupied the first position, by a wide margin, as regards the number of disputes submitted to FIFA’s dispute resolution chamber (DRC), while Greece and Turkey are vying for second position,” a statement from the Dutch-based organisation said.

Players were advised to be especially wary of clubs who were not playing in European competition, with FIFPro saying many of those teams have failed to keep their promises.

“In all three countries, the number of disputes increases every year. The only exceptions are those clubs that play in European football: these accept the UEFA club licensing system, which reduces the risks.”

With the condemnation came a list of regulations compiled by football’s governing body, UEFA, FIFPro and the EU, which all professional clubs must enforce from the 2014-2015 season onwards.

The minimum requirements include that players are insured, have a pension and provident fund, 12-month salaries which are paid on time, and a minimum of 20 days holiday a year.

But for the head of the local professional footballers’ union PASP, Spyros Neophytides, the damage has already been done.

“Cyprus has a very bad name when it comes to paying players but hopefully from next season when clubs will be forced to apply these minimum requirements that will slowly go away,” he said.

For Tall and others like him however, the new regulations have unfortunately come too late, Neophytides said.

“APOP Kinyras went bankrupt two seasons ago so any money they owed to players has been written off, while the contract Tall signed with AEP means he is no longer entitled to the money as it had various conditions allowing the club to not pay the player,” he said.

Previously clubs were giving players contracts to sign which had ludicrous conditions, allowing them to delay paying the players for months at a time, Neophytides said

“Some contracts even had conditions that would allow teams to cease payment completely and only give the player ten per cent of their monthly salary as compensation,” he said, adding that it was conditions like these which forced FIFPro to make its statement.

The former Olympiakos and Apollon player added that many players, without consulting PASP, would put pen to paper without fully understanding what they were signing.

“Players often fall victim to two-faced agents who are only after their commission,” he said.

On top of all the dodgy contracts players may have signed, the growing number of teams either bankrupt or facing bankruptcy means all hope of back payment is lost.

Neophytides is particularly angry with the Cyprus Football Association (CFA) which he believes should have acted sooner on insisting clubs were forced to guarantee players’ salaries before a season began.

Following FIFPro’s announcement, the CFA was supposed to carry out monthly checks on teams but has allowed them a grace period of 90 days to pay their players.

“They (the CFA) have done everything in their power to delay implementing the minimum requirements that will be in force from next season,” he said.

“The level of foreign players coming to Cyprus has also gone down. It will be years before players like Ailton Almeida (former Apoel player) return to our shores.”

But not all is lost for Tall. Last September he moved to Ethnikos Achnas where he is being paid on time and treated well.

“Up until now Ethnikos has been very different to my previous experiences. I am a lot happier, the guys at the club treat me well and generally it feels like a better environment,” he said.

By Constantinos Psillides

THE INDEPENDENT initiative, aiming at producing design proposals to turn Famagusta into a model reunited ecocity, is entering its fourth day today, with project members evaluating ideas ahead of a public presentation tomorrow.

The public presentation and discussion will take place at 2pm at the building of St. Peter & Paul (Bugday Cami).

Vasia Markides, who spearheads the project said she has been trying to address the reservations expressed by some Famagustians who asked that the city stays as it is.

“Probably what a lot of the Famagustians are longing for, when they talk about moving back to our city the way it was, is to go back to a time when people sat on their balconies, when there weren’t air conditioning units closing us off and people engaged one another, kids riding their bikes and people walking by,” she said.

“That’s what we are aiming for. A people-friendly, sustainable, modern city.”  She clarified that in the event of a Cyprus solution residents would have the option to refuse having their homes demolished and rebuilt from scratch.

Markides underlined that it would be a great success for the project if they were able to produce a blueprint that could be utilised not only for Famagusta but by any community in the world.

She warned however that without a pre-agreed plan for the rebuilding of the city, things could go terribly wrong in the event of re-opening.

The ecocity project is gathering a lot of support, especially after the BBC run an extensive coverage of the case on a story titled “Varosha: The abandoned tourist resort”.

According to Fiona Mullen, an economist and member of the ecocity project, the story gathered more than  two million hits on the BBC webpage.

Famagustians aren’t the only ones delighted in the project taking flight. According to George Lordos, an energy specialist who is also part of the project, a woman from Kyrenia stood up during one of the public discussions and admitted she was jealous of Famagustians who “are strides ahead from us Kyrenians”.

Lordos said that the ecocity initiative was a massive challenge that would help bring Famagusta and Varosha back to life.

“The principles of synergy, cooperation, coexistence and partnership will guide our hands and lead us to our goal,” he had said.

The project’s design studio is led by MIT professor and ecocity specialist Jan Wampler, who will work with 16 architecture graduate students from the University of South Florida, 11 Cypriot students, both Greek and Turkish-Cypriot, as well as dozens of stakeholders and experts from both communities.

Wampler laid out his vision of the city, while at the same time explaining that the city “is its people”, not the necessarily the buildings.

The entirety of this endeavour is documented by Markides for an upcoming documentary with money raised from a Kickstarter campaign. If you can contribute at (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/320929240/the-famagusta-ecocity-project-a-documentary)

By Patroclos

CONFUSION surrounds the future of the man we all love to hate Big Bad Al. Has he abandoned the golf courses of Kyproulla for good or will be returning for another round on the grassless greens of the buffer zone, in the not too distant future?

We have been hearing conflicting messages all week, with newspapers in the north first breaking the story of his departure on Wednesday, the day he returned to Kyproulla for some putting practice and to check how the lack of progress on the drafting of the joint declaration was progressing.

This information was preceded by press reports that Al was in a big sulk over the unflattering comments made by Prez Nik in interviews he gave to Antenna and Politis accusing the Aussie of being biased and having lost the trust of the majority of the people and political parties.

Hard to believe that a thick-skinned, bruiser like Al, who is no stranger to nasty political scraps, could have turned all sensitive and was behaving like a big baby. However hacks who love putting a melodramatic spin on the news were convinced that hurt feelings was the reason he had not arrived on Monday.

Big baby Al waited for nasty Nik to leave for London, before arriving because he did not want to meet him last Monday as had been scheduled, hacks reported.

THE UNFICYP spokesman, said nothing about Al’s alleged sulking or his fragile ego, but issued a rather lame denial about the Aussie’s reported walk-out. He said: “I have asked Mr Downer and he told me that his contract has just been renewed (for another six months).”

But what would stop him breaking his contract if a more attractive job came along? There has been talk that he would be given a top ambassadorial posting, with the Washington job soon to be available – the current ambassador will have completed four years in his post next month.

Ambassador to Washington is the dream job for every diplomat and there is no way Big Bad Baby Al would turn it down – if it was offered to him – in order to carry on being our whipping boy and conducting peace talks, with a warranty for failure.

The Cyprob may have enabled many local losers and opportunists to have glowing, lucrative political careers, but it has been “a graveyard for foreign diplomats”, as one foreigner astutely pointed out.

The choice between the Washington embassy and the Cyprob graveyard is a no-brainer. And this before he takes into account the higher pay, better social life and emphatically superior golf course of the US.

ALL THIS could be media speculation, a case of wishful thinking by Greek Cypriot hacks and politicians that have been calling for Al’s removal for years. Our Turkish Cypriot brothers, wasted no time in taking the moral high ground, blaming our side for forcing Al to give up.

But would a guy with an ego as big as that of Al’s quit and thus give the moral satisfaction to the pack of wolves that had been publicly abusing him and demanding his sacking? That would be an admission of defeat, which is not something you’d expect from a hard nut like the Aussie, even if he is prone to occasionally sulking.

Then again, leaving aside the press reports, there is one sign that suggests Al is leaving for pastures new – Nik’s merciless public attacks. He would not have been so scathing about the special envoy’s lack of impartiality if he did not know that he was on the way out.

He may have seen this as cheap and easy way to post his new-found, hard-line, nationalist credentials and impress the bash-patriots Omirou, Junior and Perdikis, who had been accusing him at National Council meetings of being too soft in his handling of the joint declaration. With his outbursts that hurt Big Baby Al’s feelings, Nik has now joined the Viagra hard-liners.

THE SPEECH he made at the London School of Economics during his triumphant visit to the UK hinted at the government’s brave new thinking. The Cyprob could go to hell, we have now discovered our geo-strategic importance and officially unveiled our plans to become a regional energy centre, that will bring together neighbouring countries in order to exploit hydrocarbons.

We could become ‘a catalyst’ for something or other declared Nik, repeating the grand theories about strategic energy alliances expounded by his foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides. Even government spokesman Christos Stylianides spoke about the “important geo-political role” Kyproulla would play in the eastern Mediterranean.

The great brains behind this genius plan belong to ultra-hard-liner, Ambassador Tasos Tzionis, former right hand man of the Ethnarch and currently in charge of the energy desk at the foreign ministry, who unveiled his theory in a an interview with Phil some three weeks ago. Tzionis reckons the Cyprob could be solved through strategic co-operations on natural gas, rather than through peace talks, by Kyproulla using its “geo-political position”.

This would be achieved by the forging of an energy axis with Greece, Egypt and Israel says Tzionis. And when this happens the Turks will be begging us to take back Kyrenia without any negotiations.

TZIONIS’ geo-political fantasies have made him the darling of the hard-line hacks, who have been extolling his intellectual prowess, ever since he unleashed his plans for regional domination, and bemoaning the fact that he had been marginalised for so long.

They were even crediting him for the deal struck with the British government over the bases, as he had negotiated the deal. The reality is that Tzionis would have been negotiating until his retirement if the government had not taken the political decision for an agreement and ordered him to finalise it. The negotiations had been going on inconclusively since the Ethnarch’s reign, neither the late Tassos nor the twit Tof wanting to sign a deal with the back-stabbing Brits.

ONLY Yiorkos Lillikas took a stand against the bases deal because he identified the possibility that Brits would buy up all the land, become the majority within the bases, then have a referendum and vote to become part of Britain, as happened in Gibraltar.

“The danger of turning the bases into a colony is visible,” warned Lillikas. Surely his bash-patriotic soul-mate Tzionis would have included provisions in the agreement preventing this from happening. There must be some competition between the two because on Friday Yiorkos came up with an alternative master-plan for bringing Turkey to her knees.

“We need a strategy that would render other strategic targets of Turkey unattainable, so that she would be forced into a dilemma and abandon her expansionist designs against our country.” It would be too easy to have a strategy directly aimed at forcing Turkey abandoning her expansionist strategy. At least, he did not mention the word geo-political.

IN THE END our fearless deputies were too scared to deprive the mega-parasites of their state limos and approved a pathetic bill, the regulations of which would be drafted by the finance ministry that would have to decide which officials would have a state limo and whether they could use them when not working.

It was deputies that made all the fuss in the first place, expressing outrage at the scandalous state of affairs but after the countless complaints they received from mega-parasites, terrified of life without a state limo, they decided to do change nothing. They did include one rusfeti provision – according to their law, the deputy Attorney-General was entitled to a state limo.

The deputy AG Rikkos Erotokritou lives in Limassol, so they decided it was only fair that the taxpayer paid for his transport to work and back. But by what logic does an assistant state official get a car but not a higher-ranking official like the Accountant-General? Is it because she is woman that is not from Limassol or because she does not have the rusfeti-power of Rikkos?

ONE OF the most outspoken critics of the limo scam, was Ethnarch Junior, but he has drastically scaled down his outrage since becoming DIKO leader, presumably because defending the privileges of mega-parasites is part of the job description.

On Friday he was speaking on the radio, defending the privilege of former presidents of the republic and of the legislatures to have a state limo. It is a form of respect for their services to the country, he argued, especially as former presidents still attended National Council meetings. Would they not be allowed into the meeting if they arrived in their own car?

So why do former presidents of the House, who do not attend National Council meetings, have a state limo? This was another rusfeti law approved for the benefit of leading mega- parasite Dr Faustus, who did not want to pay for his own car when he stepped down as House president in 1991. He also gets three grand a month for secretarial services and has a 10-strong security detail, because even at 94 he likes to play the warlord.

ALL OUR mega-parasites could do worse than follow the example set by France’s socialist president Francois Hollande. I am not suggesting they should find a gorgeous-looking and sexy mistress as Hollande has done (this would be beyond them and they would probably pass a law entitling them to sex services paid for by the taxpayer).

Hollande travels the busy streets of Paris on a moped. If a moped is good enough form of transport for the president of France it should be good enough for all the mega-parasites of Kyproulla. Sometimes he sits at the back of the moped with a cop at the front but occasionally he rides it on his own.

It just goes to show that you do not need a flash limo to pull a super-attractive woman, when you have Hollande’s looks.

SPEAKING of looks, we have to mention the Cyprus University academic Andreas Kapardis, who uses as much hair dye as RIK news boss Yiannis Kareklas. Kapardis, a criminologist, appeared on TV shows to give his views about the situation at the Nicosia Central Prisons.

I found it peculiar that he was never asked about his own experience as director of the Central Prisons. Kapardis had served as director in the early nineties but disappeared one day without informing anyone. After several days, it was revealed that he had returned to Australia. It is bit rich for someone who did a runner because he could not cope with the problems of the prison to now give lessons on how these should be tackled.

A CUSTOMER who always has a Nescafe with milk and two sugars, but rarely visits since moving to Limassol sent us a brief report of his experience at Hellenic Bank the other day.

Today I went into the branch I have been using for the past seven years to fill out a change of address form. (I’ve been using a PO Box number in Nicosia.)  The teller insisted I needed to provide a Cyta or utility bill to prove I live at the new address.

I asked why, given I’ve been banking with them for decade, the staff recognise me, they have my signature etc on file, and have allowed me to deposit/withdraw thousands of euros with no problem, the bank thinks I would lie and supply a false address for my statements.  And what would be the point?

“It’s the bank policy,” she told me.  Upon raising the issue with the manager who was listening, she pointed out that many businesses required proof of residence, adding: “I went to open a new video store account yesterday and they wanted proof.”

Now we see on what Hellenic bases its security decisions.

Our customer even came up with a headline for his story. ‘Hellenic. They put the Hell into banking.’

SPEAKING of banks, things are not looking good for Governor of the Central Bank Professor Panicos. He is suffering from vertigo, a condition that may be related to the rumours that the Attorney-General would press charges against him. The professor is aware of the situation and has a posse of lawyers advising him. Is Panicos paying their fees or will we end up footing his legal costs as well?

THE ASSOCIATION of Cyprus Travel Agents (ACTA) expressed concern over reports that the banks would be putting up for sale hotels unable to repay their loans. In an announcement it said that lists of hotels for sale, or likely to be put in administration, were already circulating and these “could only cause harm to the country”. These lists were seen by the big tour operators abroad who were wondering whether the hotels with which they had signed contracts would operate without problems in the summer.

“In the case of hotels that go into administration, banks should provide guarantees to tour operators that contracts would be honoured in full,” said ACTA. Failure to do this, could lead to operators reducing or cancelling the packages they were offering, it warned. These fears, which are perfectly understandable, are a direct consequence of the uncertainty that has been plaguing the economy for many months now. Nobody seems to know what will happen to struggling businesses that have not been repaying their loans and are at the mercy of banks, which in turn desperately need to reduce the bad debts on their books.

It is a big and complicated mess that does not look like being sorted out any time soon. On the contrary, the confusion grows by the day as a result of the mixed messages disseminated by the authorities, the different pressure groups, the media and the political parties. There are different agendas with a host of groups trying to protect their interests. There is the group of big developers with big loans arguing that the banks should go easy on them, a group representing individuals demanding rescheduling of loan repayments, a group representing depositors of Laiki trying to recover some of their money, not to mention the countless individuals that have filed law-suits against the banks.

Matters are made worse by the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) which instead of working at bringing stability to the banking sector appears to be doing the exact opposite. A month-and-a-half ago, the CEO of the Bank of Cyprus described the CBC’s definition of NPLs as “foolish” and argued that if it was not changed it would prolong the recession because it trapped vast amounts of capital.

This is not the only way the CBC’s Governor has been turning the screw on the banks. A little over a month ago, he told journalists invited to his office, for off the record briefings that he believed the banks would have to cut their loans in order to recover them (a voluntary hair-cut). This irresponsible prediction was immediately reported and encouraged people and businesses not to repay their loans in the vain hope that the banks and co-ops would give discounts when restructuring the repayments.

On Monday the head of the Borrowers Association accused banks and in particular co-ops of tricking customers with NPLs – through false promises – into agreeing to litigation, aimed at seizing their collateral, instead of first attempting to restructure the loan. This contravened the CBC’s directive on arrears management which set out the procedures to be followed by the banks in restructuring NPLs. The directive stipulated litigation as a last resort, after all efforts for restructuring of a loan had been exhausted.

Nothing illustrates the irrational thinking of the CBC better than this. It imposed a totally inflexible definition on NPLs that makes the operation of the banks difficult, has been pushing banks to reduce their NPLs but makes this as difficult as possible with its directives and by the Governor suggesting that borrowers would not have to repay their loans in full. This bizarre policy was articulated by the Governor on a TV interview last week, when he said: “The non-performing loans of the 30 big borrowers have to be treated differently than the loans of other businesses and households.”

Such is the confusion created that President Anastasiades felt obliged to become involved and state the obvious, that borrowers had to repay their loans. On Friday the AKEL chief met representatives of the big developers and said afterwards they were ready to “fulfil their obligations (to the banks)” as long as it was under “the right conditions”. This is tantamount to a drowning man setting conditions for being rescued, but it should not surprise us in this state of confusion and uncertainty we are in.

If we are ever to restore confidence and normalcy the authorities need to take a couple of decisions and stick to them instead of trying to satisfy every interest group and individual that want to get out of repaying their bank loans.

By Angelos Anastasiou

ALMOST too much has been said on the current situation in Cyprus Central Prisons over the last week. Contraband, corruption, a seriously controversial prison director, criminal negligence from prison staff, cruel punishment and discrimination toward inmates are just some of the issues that have surfaced.

As one would expect, not all of it is true – and for good reason. People lie when they have something to hide or something to gain, and in this story they had both.

We talked to a prison guard – we’ll call him Michael – willing to speak out on the issues raised this week, though most of them date back months and even years. And speak out he did.

“The inmates have many grievances, but the one thing we keep coming across over and over is phone time,” he says.

Incredibly, inmates are allowed just ten minutes of phone time a week. At the heart of much of inmates’ frustration, the ten-minute rule has been in place for decades, and no one has seen the need to update it – until now. ‘Facilitating more communication time of inmates with their families’ was part of the overhaul of the system announced on Wednesday by Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou.

Economics underpin most of human behaviour, and the ten-minute rule has abetted the development of an unregulated, illegal market for mobile phones inside the facility.

Scarce supply and high risk raise prices, so mobile phones in prison may well end up going for over €1,000 apiece. Prison guards have been accused of contraband – introducing phones into the prison and selling them to inmates – but the charge remains unsubstantiated.

“There’s no such form of corruption that I’m aware of; I want to believe that prison guards don’t smuggle phones in to sell to inmates.

“I suppose there could be someone who has done it, but it’s certainly not a widespread practice. It’s not easy to, anyway – I don’t see how it can be done, logistically,” Michael tells us.

But if it were found to be done, we ask, would it be tolerated? “Well, I only know of one case where a guard was paid to smuggle something in for a convict – under the previous prison administration. He got fired for it.”

Michael’s conviction begs the question of where the accusations came from. “Look, you have to understand, convicts aren’t the innocent victims they’ve been painted as this week,” he says wearily.

“Their easiest – rather, the only – target to hit is the prison staff.” When an inmate gets caught with a mobile phone he knows it’s not a good idea to give up his supplier, so he is more than likely to avail himself of the only other option: one of the guards did it.

Suggesting that snitching on fellow inmates isn’t a good idea is one thing, but it is quite another to say that it is preferable to falsely accuse prison guards of the kind of corruption that could get them fired. It sounds almost like acknowledging a power struggle that’s too close to call. Michael raised his eyebrows as if to signify understatement.

“Oh, absolutely. Like I said, convicts aren’t as victimised as they’ve been painted. Some of them are much smarter than me and you combined. Some of them are vindictive and dangerous. Some of them refuse to work or clean up, and sleep in instead, leaving the weaker ones with the chores. But what they all have in common is that they wanted to get rid of the director, which isn’t unrelated to the latest developments.

“The prisoners hated him,” he says with a chilling emphasis on the verb. “The death threats he invoked when he resigned are true and credible, and they were made more than once.”

Former acting director Giorgos Tryfonides

Former acting prison director Giorgos Tryfonides has been awarded the role of villain in the prison crisis. So quick were fingers to be pointed as soon as the crisis exploded that it seemed almost like a bulletproof pretext for critics to throw long-prepared accusations at Tryfonides.

“If he could take away the air the inmates breathe, I’m positive he would,” Michael jokes with only half a smile. “A firm stance would maybe have been understandable – like I said, the inmates aren’t angels – but this guy went too far. You know, after an inmate serves one-third of his sentence, he is allowed to be moved to the open prison. But Tryfonides would look at each case individually and authorise some requests, rejecting others; he’d say ‘the police spent all this time and resources to get him here, and I’m supposed to let him go?’”

Some of Tryfonides’ reported decisions seemed so outrageous that they were hardly decipherable, like the arbitrary water-cuts he imposed, or his obsession with inmates’ regular shaving and haircut.

One might suspect that he was being selectively hard on misbehaving inmates, but Michael has another theory. “You see, the previous director was too nice. He wanted to keep everyone happy and granted as many favours as he could. And he wound up in prison for it.”

Tryfonides’ predecessor, Michalis Hadjidemetriou, was suspended following the escape of lifer Antonis Kitas in 2008 from the private hospital where he was allowed to be treated under lax security, and recently convicted to two months in prison for dereliction of duty. “Tryfonides replaced him and went to the other extreme right from the start,” Michael says.

The ‘other extreme’ theory notwithstanding, it appears that the now-former acting director’s decision making might have been erratic. What could explain his authorising only some open-prison cases? “That’s down to who inmates know – who can make a call on their behalf. A friend or relative, a politician or an MP makes a call and asks that ‘his boy’ is taken care of.”

Influential relatives and MPs intervening to get a rule or two bent hardly qualifies as news in Cyprus. But the assumption was that prisoners couldn’t gain political influence because they don’t carry votes. As it turns out, they do – just not their own. And, of course, if ‘open-prison’ strings can be pulled, there could be a host of other areas open to similar manipulation.

Tryfonides may have been one of the major chapters of the story, but the spark that lit the fire were the alarmingly frequent incidents of suicide in the prison. Five suicides in the space of six months caused public outcry and even earned the government a scolding from the Council of Europe.

Michael says he can’t speak to the underlying causes of the suicides, or the fact that four out of five were committed by foreigners.

“Look, I’m not a doctor,” he says. “Some of them appear to have had mental issues, I don’t know. But we got blamed for how suicides could have happened on our watch, especially after the first one or two. Let me tell you, it’s inevitable. Did you know inmates drape their cell bars with curtains to keep the light out, so they can sleep? They have shoelaces, sheets, razors – and all they need to commit suicide is a split-second. If someone wants to do it, they will.”

A doctor though he isn’t, Michael has identified some possible deteriorating factors. “Inmates’ requests for the notorious psychiatrist visits that everyone’s talking about weren’t all sincere. Some just wanted to enjoy the ride to the hospital, and others were after pills that can be used as currency in prison. Of course, the doctors aren’t stupid, but the increased visits clog up the system, to the point where it’s hard to tell what’s real from what’s fake.

“Or, for example, take the third suicide – the convict from Syria. He had heard on the radio that the area where his family lived had been bombed and asked that he be allowed to call them. He made the call but for some reason couldn’t get through, so he was returned to his cell. He asked to try again but wasn’t allowed to. Later that night he took his life.”

While Michael argues that prison guards were wrongly targeted in the midst of the crisis, he’s not claiming that they execute their duties flawlessly. He acknowledges that corners are being cut, and that the proverbial book often gets tossed out the window.

“Sure, of course – for practical reasons. The prisons are wildly over-populated, and as a result inmates have to be placed in wings they’re not supposed to be in. There’s just no other way. Also, we’re heavily understaffed, not just because of budgetary constraints but also because the prison administration has allocated about 105 – out of the 400-strong prison staff – to office duties, meaning they’re exempt from the shift schedule and work office hours only. I can’t imagine that the prison’s office workload would require more than 40 people, but again, it’s who you know, who can make a phone call on your behalf and so on.” 

Still, our penitentiary system isn’t without hope. A new director is being installed, and Michael is certain that the job can be done properly in future, as long as those in charge want to do it.

“With everyone breathing down our neck and the minister personally involved, I don’t think we’ll have any problems in the near future. After that… I guess the prison needs someone moderate, not too nice and not too bad, at the helm. The old officers that surrounded Tryfonides need to be let go, fresh blood needs to come in. The real challenge is getting people who are educated on how a modern prison works.”

Speaking of officers, by the way, “the promotion system isn’t reliable either. The exams for promotion to warden are almost funny – just ludicrous. Which means that the director and his officers can get anyone they want promoted through the staff evaluations they prepare. It’s completely arbitrary,” Michael says before his eyes flash for a moment and he pauses briefly. “Again.”

By Nick Mulvenney
An inspired Ana Ivanovic blew the race for the Australian Open women’s title wide open with a stunning upset of overwhelming favourite Serena Williams in the fourth round on Sunday.
The 14th ranked Serb played the match of her life to come from a set down and secure the biggest shock of the tournament so far with a 4-6 6-3 6-3 victory over the world number one.

Fourth seed Li Na and Italy’s Flavia Pennetta, who both won fourth round matches earlier on Sunday, will have considerably more to play for in their quarter-final now the 17-times grand slam champion has been removed from their path.

Ivanovic, who will meet teenage sensation Eugenie Bouchard of Canada in her quarter-final, said she held nothing back against the top seeded American.
“It’s amazing, when I came onto court I was just hoping to play as well as I could,” she said. “I just went out there swinging at the ball and I did it really well.”
Williams admitted to not feeling her best but offered no excuses.
That was until she realised coach Patrick Mouratoglou had told reporters about a back injury she sustained before her third round match.
“So he’s the one that’s snitching?” she said to laughter.
“I don’t want to blame anything. I feel like Ana deserves all the credit. I feel she played unbelievable today. I think she went for her shots.
“It’s not like I gave her the match. I tried to fight the best I could today.”

Defending men’s champion Novak Djokovic was next up on Rod Laver Arena, and there was no chance of a similar upset at the hands of his friend Fabio Fognini, the Serb blowing the Italian away in straight sets.

Williams was riding high on a winning streak of 25 matches going back to the start of last year’s U.S. Open and had never even lost a set to Ivanovic in four previous meetings.
When Williams took the first set on Sunday it looked like the 32-year-old, who had lost just once in Melbourne in 52 matches after taking a 1-0 lead, would continue her march towards a sixth Australian Open title.
She looked a little lethargic in the opening stanza but has so often been able to count on her physicality and superior mental strength through such encounters without needing to be at her best.

Ivanovic won the French Open in 2008 but has done precious little in her sport’s four majors since then and looked destined to become the latest in a string of former world number ones who failed to present a sustained threat to the American’s dominance.
In the second set, though, the 26-year-old started to take the game to Williams, attacking her serve with success very few have managed and dictating the back court with her forehand.

Her tally of 20 forehand winners to two for Williams told its own tale but, most importantly, once ahead in the deciding set Ivanovic kept her head to keep Williams at bay before serving out to love for the match.
“I actually believed,” said Ivanovic, who last reached the quarter-finals of a grand slam in 2012 at Flushing Meadows.
“I had some confidence coming into today’s match. I really did certain things extremely well and I kept her under pressure I felt throughout the whole match.

“I just stayed in the moment physically. I didn’t think much about the occasion and who I was playing, because it can get overwhelming.”
China’s Li earlier gave Ekaterina Makarova not so much as a sniff of an upset as she set up meeting with Pennetta by demolishing the Russian 6-2 6-0 in just under an hour.

The former French Open champion, who reached the final here last year and in 2011, briskly saved two break points in the first set, another couple at 3-0 up in the second and sealed the win with a backhand volley at the net to serve out to love.
Pennetta’s journey to her first Australian Open quarter-final was a bit more complicated and she took 53 minutes longer than the Chinese to beat ninth seeded German Angelique Kerber 6-1 4-6 7-5.

Li had her own particular reason for being delighted to face the Italian.
“She’s one day older than me, so for once I don’t have to play a younger player,” beamed the 31-year-old

Samuel Eto’o's hat-trick lifted Chelsea to a 3-1 win over Manchester United on Sunday which all but ended the champions’ slim hopes of defending their Premier League title.

Two first-half goals and one soon after the restart by Eto’o took Chelsea up to third place with 49 points, two behind leaders Arsenal, and United remained in seventh place, 14 off the summit.

United defender Nemanja Vidic was sent off in stoppage time to complete a miserable day for David Moyes’s team.

United, and young attacker Adnan Januzaj in particular, started brightly but were undone by two poor pieces of defending that allowed Cameroonian Eto’o to score his first goals against United since the 2009 Champions League final when he was playing for Barcelona.

Eto’o opened the scoring after 17 minutes when allowed to shoot by Phil Jones, his deflected shot ballooning into the net, and he was left unmarked in the box just before the halftime whistle to double the advantage.

He completed his treble from close range when following up Gary Cahill’s header to secure a fifth successive league victory for Jose Mourinho’s side. Substitute Javier Hernandez pulled one goal back for United with 12 minutes remaining.

In the early match, Tottenham Hotspur secured a fifth successive away Premier League victory and moved up to fifth place after Emmanuel Adebayor scored twice in a 3-1 win at Swansea City.

By Nick Mulvenney
Rafa Nadal came through his first proper test to storm into the quarter-finals of the Australian Open on Monday but Maria Sharapova was ushered to the exit after a second big shock in as many days in the women’s draw.

Victoria Azarenka was left as the only top-three seed still standing in the last eight when Sharapova was scratched from the title race by Dominika Cibulkova, a day after Serena Williams had also tumbled out in the fourth round.

In the men’s draw, the ‘Big Four’ look poised to scrap it out for yet another grand slam crown over the next week after Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray all won on Monday to join Novak Djokovic in the last eight.

Spaniard Nadal led the way with a 7-6 (7-3) 7-5 7-6 (7-3) victory over Japan’s Kei Nishikori on Rod Laver Arena that was by no means as easy as the phrase ‘straight sets’ would suggest.
The world number one had to contend with a blister on his hand, a tumble, a time violation at a crucial moment and his first losses of his serve in the tournament but most of all with some inspired shot-making from the Asian number one.
“I didn’t play bad today, but I didn’t play as good as I did two days ago,” Nadal said, reflecting on his brilliant performance in the third round against Gael Monfils.
“But today’s victory has much more value than the victory of two days ago. Because when you are playing that good, the normal thing is to win.
“When you are playing normal and the opponent is a good one, and you are able to keep winning, that has much more value.”

While Nadal will meet Sharapova’s boyfriend Grigor Dimitrov for a place in the semi-finals, Federer and Murray’s quarter-final date ensures that at least one of the quartet of dominant men’s players will go home on Wednesday.

Federer’s quickfire 6-3 7-5 6-4 victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was the most impressive of the day, particularly given the French 10th seed had taken him to five sets in Melbourne and beaten him at Roland Garros last year.
“I definitely felt momentum was on my side, no doubt,” said the Swiss 17-times grand slam champion.
“I started the match well. Did I break first game? I think I did. I felt, alright, things are working for me tonight. Let me try to run away with it.”

Murray also looked to be racing to victory against Stephane Robert, the first lucky loser to reach the fourth round in Melbourne, but blew a couple of match points in the third set and was dragged into a tiebreak, which the Frenchman won 8-6.
The Wimbledon champion took out his frustrations on his a racket, changed his shirt and then whipped through the fourth set to record a 6-1 6-2 6-7 (6) 6-2 victory.
“I dominated 95 per cent of the match, and for 15 minutes didn’t close the match out,” said the fourth seed.
“But I still created chances, even when I wasn’t playing so well at the end of that third set. So it was pretty good for the most part.”

Like Murray, Sharapova missed the back end of last season because of injury and she admitted after her 3-6 6-4 6-1 defeat to Cibulkova that the tournament had probably come a little bit early for her.
“I certainly would have loved to have played a little bit more before playing a grand slam, but this is the chance that I was given,” said the Russian third seed, the 2008 champion here.
“It’s tough. I will be genuine about it. It’s never easy but it’s moments like this that ultimately shape you and make you who you are.”

Azarenka was utterly dominant as she swept into the quarter-finals with a 6-3 6-2 victory over American Sloane Stephens that extended her winning streak at Melbourne Park to 18 matches.
The win had none of the edge of last year’s semi-final between the pair, when Azarenka took a medical timeout after blowing five match points.
Both Azarenka and Stephens had played down the controversy and the second seeded Belarusian said she could not have felt more at home on the same Rod Laver Arena where she was booed last year.
“I just love playing here,” she said. “It feels so cosy. It feels like I’m in my living room, on my couch. I can have some chips and salsa – that’s how it feels.”
Azarenka denied the departure of Williams and Sharapova had made her a strong favourite for a third straight title.
“We’ve seen over the last couple of days that somebody can bring their best game on any given day,” she said.

Next up for Azarenka is fifth seed Agnieszka Radwanska, who beat rising Spanish talent Garbine Muguruza 6-1 6-3 in the final match of the day.
Cibulkova’s reward for beating Sharapova is a meeting with Simona Halep, who beat eighth seed Jelena Jankovic 6-4 2-6 6-0 to reach her first grand slam quarter-final.
“There’s no pressure on me so I can just enjoy the quarter-finals,” Romanian Halep said. “It’s my chance and I have to fight for it.”

Dimitrov, also entering unknown territory in the second week of a grand slam, beat Spain’s Roberto Bautista 6-3 3-6 6-2 6-4 to set up his last eight date with Nadal.
“He’s Rafa. We all know him,” said the confident 22-year-old Bulgarian. “But I’m quite happy with the way I’m performing so far. So I like my chances.”

Police raided a house in the village of Moniatis in Limassol on Saturday night and broke up what they said appeared to be an organised ‘sex party’.

Limassol CID chief Ioannis Soteriades told the Cyprus Mail that a police operation took place late on Saturday where around 20 people were found to be at a house party which had a €15 entrance fee.

“Police arrested the organiser who did not own the house and was charging people an entrance fee, and a charge for drinks – without the necessary permits. One of the party-goers was also booked for having a small amount of drugs on him,” he said.

The others attending the party were cautioned and released.

Local media reported 17 women, a mix of foreign and local were at the party and were heading to various bedrooms in the house with the guests when officers burst in.

Two undercover officers had managed to gain entrance to the party and once they noticed that men and women were going off to various bedrooms they called for back-up.

According to reports the majority of men at the party were from Larnaca.

Limassol CID is investigating.

Building permits recorded a 27.3 per cent drop during the period January to October 2013, compared to the same period in 2012, data released on Monday by the Cyprus Statistical Service showed.

According to the data, total building permits issued were 4,468 in the period January – October 2013 compared to 6,147 in the same period of the previous year.

The total value of permits issued in that period fell by 28.0 per cent while the total area fell by 29.1 per cent.

Τhe number permits for dwelling units recorded a drop of 28.6 per cent.

Building permits authorised by the municipal authorities and the district administration offices during October 2013 stood at 475.

The total value of these permits reached €113.3 million and a total area 113.100 square metres. They provide for the construction of 354 dwelling units.

Building permits constitute a leading indicator of future activity in the construction sector.

By Alix Norman

Cooking and contacts and chat – oh my! It’s certainly a curious combination, but then who wouldn’t relish the chance to connect with fascinating new friends over culturally exotic cuisine? Picture the scene: it’s a Saturday evening and 10 relative strangers are seated round the table in a cosy flat, regaled by an intriguing guest speaker while sampling the delights of a peripatetic cook with a passion for world cuisine. So if, like me, you’re finding the idea of gastronomical networking highly appealing, you need to set about securing yourself a seat at one of Mary’s Dinner Clubs.

Run by native Austrian Mary Anglberger, Mary’s Dinner Clubs have been delighting the ravenous both in terms of appetite, conversation and information since 2011 on a weekly (and sometimes biweekly) basis. “I’ve had over one thousand people to dinner, including some really fascinating guest speakers!” laughs the joyful and positive Mary. “It’s mind boggling, especially when you see the size of my flat!” Charming in manner and full of fascinating facts about her unusual life, her job as an English teacher has taken her to countries as diverse as Burkina Faso, Costa Rica and Kazakhstan, all of which have influenced her culinary talents.

“I’ve always travelled in an awkward way,” she explains, “reading up on the place, arriving and only then looking for a job. If I like it, I stay!” And it’s this unplanned, almost accidental, style of life that brought this remarkable woman to the island, where she settled in Limassol in 2010. “Cyprus has been very good to me,” she smiles, fondly recollecting some of the many kindnesses she has been shown, the sense of community spirit constituting a concept that drives not just Mary herself, but also her well-attended weekly gatherings.

“The idea of a Dinner Club had been lurking in my head for some time,” she recalls, revealing that the difficulty of meeting new people prompted, in part, her first forays into the world of social gastronomy. But with a guest list now numbering over a thousand, finding friends is clearly no longer an issue! “It’s allowed me to meet like-minded people who share my love of travelling, socialising and good food; I love pleasing people with my food, but I also really enjoy promoting and sharing others’ talents – making people happy not only with food but also through building new connections, and learning about new things. We’ve had all sorts of talks from the most interesting people,” she adds. “Everything from Laughter Yoga – you must try it! – to Goal Setting with personal career coach Arthur Magoulianiti. In fact, he was so successful and inspired so many of the guests, he’s been back three times now!”

As well as the Saturday evening dinners, Mary often concocts a Sunday brunch, with speakers frequently from the more spiritual side of life, and is now even holding the odd, larger event in other venues. “On Wednesday I’m hosting an event elsewhere for about 40 people,” she says, unphased by the idea of cooking for quadruple her usual guest list: “It’s food from Nepal; I wanted to do something that didn’t need to be served hot, something unique but easy to make – a real crowd pleaser.”

Basing many of her recipes on this straightforward formula, Mary admits that her cooking is all about keeping things simple: “There’s’ nothing magic about what I make!” she grins playfully. “I often cook with Google, especially if it’s a cuisine from a country I haven’t visited.” With menus stemming from places as diverse as Burma, Tunisia and Argentina, and the wonderful vintages of the Tsangarides winery complementing the food, each of Mary’s meals is a delight to the senses. And when she’s not creating her culinary masterpieces or planning exotic menus, this ardent epicure is to be found updating her award-winning blog, polishing the second edition of her soon-to-be-locally-released book On Healthy Cooking, or photographing her exquisite creations!

“Taking pictures of food really goes hand in hand with the cooking,” she explains. “If you want to share a recipe then you write it up and take a photo. When I started my blog, I was warned that I needed professional looking pictures to complement the writing. Luckily, I took a course with the most incredible photographer, Vasos Stylianou, who has really taken me under his wing – it’s allowed me to see colours and ingredients with a totally different eye. In fact, my poor little kitchen is now also turning into a studio, with props and backdrops and all sorts!”

With so much on her plate, it’s a wonder Mary finds the time to keep the Dinner Clubs going, but in actuality, they seem to be moving from strength to strength. “As always in Cyprus, it’s mainly word of mouth, though I do get many enquiries through my Facebook page, website and newsletters. I’m very flexible about the guest list: each dinner is a good mixture of regulars and complete strangers, usually people who’ve travelled a lot and have interesting stories to share. And there’s always a wonderful combination of nationalities at the table: sometimes 10 different people from 10 different countries all sit down together!

“I like to think that the Dinner Clubs are a very safe and welcoming place for people to come by themselves,” she concludes. “And though I see my events getting bigger and bigger as there is more demand for guest speakers, I will certainly be continuing the small dinners. It may be hard work, but it’s super super rewarding!” Let’s not hope it’s too much to ask that this passionate gastronomic nomad may at last have found her place in the world. Keep your fingers crossed that Mary stays in Cyprus, and book your seat now for an entertaining evening of new friends, innovative ideas and fantastic food!

Mary’s Dinner Club
A three course meal most Saturday evenings at 8pm, and often a 10am Sunday brunch. Although there is a recommended contribution towards the cost of the food, Mary is very flexible with regards to those who have to pay babysitters or pay petrol costs from other towns. To find out more visit www.marysworld.org, the Facebook site www.facebook.com/marys.dinnerclubslimassol or www.marysblog.org. You can also email Mary at mary@marysworld.org or call her directly on 96589022. For further information about her book, On Healthy Cooking, visit www.blurb.com

The health ministry on Monday announced that two patients at a private clinic had been diagnosed with influenza A (H1N1) also known as swine flu. The ministry did not name the clinic.

Swine flu is a relatively new strain of influenza (flu) that was responsible for a flu pandemic during 2009-2010.

It is sometimes known as H1N1 influenza because it is the H1N1 strain of virus.

On 10 August 2010, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that the swine flu pandemic was officially over.

“The relevant Health Ministry services are observing the current situation with the necessary attention and that there is no reason to worry as both cases are seasonal influenza which is circulating in other European Countries,” a health ministry statement said.

European project kicks off in Limassol

By Peter Stevenson

AN environmentally friendly European project aimed at reusing by-products from tyre recycling in expensive concrete structures was launched yesterday by Communications Minister Tasos Mitsopoulos at the University of Technology (TEPAK) in Limassol.

The Anagennisis project, “Innovative Reuse of All Tyre Components in Concrete”, funded by the last environment call of the Framework Programme (FP7), aims to develop innovative solutions to reuse all by-products of tyre recycling.

Mitsopoulos said that the project will see by-products such as rubber, steel and textile fibres being used in high value-added innovative concrete applications, “which would also have a positive impact on the environment, especially in Cyprus, where there are currently limited applications for end-of-life tyres.”

Mitsopoulos said his department is supporting Anagennisis which is expected to provide breakthrough innovation in novel technologies and products with high potential to achieve a greener economy. He said these include reducing waste production and pressure on raw materials from the construction industry, improved resource efficiency and reduced environmental impact, more sustainable consumption, substantial contribution towards the sustainable supply of raw materials of economic importance, and improved communication and transfer of knowledge to policy making, business and to the general public.

The minister said the €4.5m FP7-funded project will last for 42 months and the consortium includes 17 academic and industrial partners from eight countries, including the European Tyre Recycling Association and two Cypriot partners, TEPAK and Zebra General Constructions Ltd.

Mitsopoulos added that Cyprus has also taken part in “EcoLanes”, a three-year FP6 STREP project, that was completed in September 2009, which could be considered as Anagennisis’ predecessor, adding that the ministry’s Public Works Department (PWD) was engaged in that project.

He said Ecolanes’ main aim was to develop infrastructure for surface transport using cost-effective and sustainable long-lasting rigid road pavement, made with steel fibre reinforced concrete, rather than flexible (asphalt) pavements. The steel reinforcement was developed from fibre reinforcement obtained from waste (and user’s) tyres.

The PWD, he noted, was actively involved in exploring the potential of long-lasting rigid road pavement construction and its use in Cyprus.