By Peter Stevenson

INTERIOR Minister Socratis Hasikos on Friday rejected the possibility of reducing the number of Municipalities from 39 to five following a proposal last week by the British National School of Government International (NSGI).

He met with the Union of Cyprus Municipalities (UCM) and the Union of Cyprus Communities to discuss the NSGI proposal and listen to the concerns voiced by Mayors and community leaders.

Hasikos said he did not believe decreasing the number to five could work in Cyprus.

He said there was plenty of time for all concerned to submit their recommendations as to how the proposal could be changed before it is approved later this year. Despite reports that the proposal could be implemented in June, Hasikos said that it may be September or October before that happens which “would not be a problem,” he said.

He said he would meet with the political parties to exchange views and that a public forum would be held soon which would involve all the relevant authorities and community residents.

Mayors and community leaders complained that officials from NSGI did not meet with them to ask them their opinion before submitting the proposal.

The proposal was submitted last week and looked into streamlining local administration with a view to cutting costs, improving the quality of offered services and devolving power from central government.

The report identified four restructuring scenarios but favoured the dissolution of all existing structures of local government and the creation of five new directly elected administrative bodies with district boundaries.

An NSGI delegation will visit Cyprus in March to hold further meetings and will depart with a shortlist of two options before submitting a final recommendation on March 31.

A second study by an Italian house, commissioned by the UCM with the blessing of the interior minister is expected in early March.

ANGLO-French differences over European Union reform were laid bare at a summit on Friday when Prime Minister David Cameron called for urgent treaty change while French President Hollande said such a move was not a priority.

The first summit between the two since Hollande won power in May 2012 announced joint investment in the latest phase of a combat drone scheme, cooperation on civil nuclear power research and an agreement on space and satellite technology.

But their warm words on strengthening cooperation were soon overshadowed by the prickly subject of E.U. reform, a long-standing bone of contention between the two countries.

Standing alongside Hollande inside a vast aircraft hanger near Oxford, Cameron set out his long-held position on the need for sweeping reforms to make Europe more open, flexible and competitive.

“My position absolutely remains that we want to see those changes, we want to see that renegotiation will involve elements of treaty change,” he said.

However Hollande said treaty change was not a priority for France.

“If there are going to be changes to the text, we don’t feel that for the time being they are urgent. We feel that revising the treaty is not a priority,” he said.

Cameron wants sweeping reforms in the EU to make the trade bloc more efficient and hopes his agenda will both persuade euroskeptic voters to back him at a 2015 election and quell dissent within his party.

He has promised a referendum on Britain’s EU membership by the end of 2017 and wants to have agreed reforms by then.

But yesterday, Hollande firmly resisted any changes to the treaties that could be interpreted as pandering to London’s domestic political agenda.

“Britain’s choice cannot weigh on all of Europe… France wants the euro zone to be better coordinated and better integrated. If the texts (of treaties) are to be changed, that to us is not an urgent matter,” he said

The official focus of the summit was on defence, where a £120m feasibility study into the technology behind an Anglo-French combat drone project was unveiled.

The focus on defence stems from a 2010 pact that paved the way for a joint defence force as well as collaboration on drones and other military technology development.

Friday’s summit also sealed a £500m joint purchase of anti-ship missiles developed by MBDA, a consortium of BAE Systems, Airbus Group and Italy’s Finmeccanica. An agreement was also signed to allow the early delivery of two Airbus A400M transporter planes to Britain.

A number of collaborations on satellite technology were announced alongside a programme for sharing research on civil nuclear power.

That scheme will include steps to involve small and medium sized British firms in the production of a nuclear power plant by French firm EDF at Hinkley point in Western England.

Bank employees’ union ETYK said on Friday employees at the Co-Op Central Bank (CCB) would be taking part in a one-hour strike on Tuesday, February 4.

The strike is in protest following the decision on Wednesday by Finance Minister Harris Georgiades to issue a decree setting pay cuts in the co-op sector.

The CCB wanted to slash its payroll by 15 per cent to comply with its restructuring obligations as per the terms of its €1.5bn state bailout.

ETYK expressed their deep disappointment and dissatisfaction following the behaviour of CCB management and the finance minister.

“We demand the immediate annulment of this unfair, unethical and undemocratic decree which has been submitted at the expense of our colleagues at the CCB and we have ordered our legal advisors to submit an appeal to cancel it.” ETYK said.

Despite this, the union added, it has called CCB management to the negotiating table so a solution can be found through a healthy and constructive dialogue.

The decree included 300 ETYK members at the CCB in the terms already agreed between the remaining 2,700 employees represented by other unions, and co-op bosses. Separate talks with ETYK had broken down.

“The decree had been planned for days, which proves that negotiations were a fixed game with marked cards,” ETYK said.

For that reason and as a reaction, ETYK, as a first measure has called employees at the CCB to take part in a one-hour work stoppage on Tuesday, February 4, between1.30pm and 2.30pm.

THE first scheduled NIKI service from Vienna to Larnaca airport touched down in Cyprus on Friday.

The Austrian airline, part of the airberlin group, will initially offer two weekly services from Vienna to Cyprus. A third weekly service departing every Wednesday will be added on 7 May 2014.

Before then, visitors from Cyprus can also fly from Larnaca to Vienna directly on Mondays and Fridays leaving at 15.25 and landing in Vienna at 17.40. The flight from Vienna International Airport to Larnaca takes off at 10.50 and arrives at 14.45 on those days.

The new route is aligned to the airberlin schedule, offering travellers from Cyprus optimal connections to the German group’s international network. Onward flights to Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich and Nuremberg are available with attractive layover times. Furthermore, connections to Milan, Moscow, Zurich and New York among others are also available.

“Vienna is an attractive destination for business and leisure travellers. The new nonstop service opens the door to even more connecting flights between Cyprus and a range of German and European cities. NIKI and airberlin’s excellent quality of service attractive fares have allowed the airlines to claim market leadership on routes between Germany and Austria,” said airberlin Area Manager Southern Europe, Susanna Sciacovelli.

Chief Executive Officer of Hermes Airports, Wes Porter said: “We welcome NIKI to Cyprus and we are delighted that Larnaca has been added to the NIKI route network. NIKI’s affordable fares, convenient flight schedule and excellent service will ensure the success of the Larnaca to Vienna route. Access to NIKI and airberlin’s extensive route network via NIKI’s Vienna will give the travelling public wider access to a range of destinations”.

Hermes Airports welcomed the first guests arriving at Larnaca from Vienna with a traditional water salute.

Direct flights from Cyprus can be booked with travel agents or on flyniki.com from €248 return.

By Bejay Browne

PEYIA COUNCIL in Paphos has voted to keep a two-tier payment system in place for municipal cemetery plots, which effectively sees foreign residents paying double.

Peyia councillor Linda Leblanc told the Cyprus Mail : “ This topic has been contentious for at least six months and now Peyia council has voted to keep the existing prices in place. This means there are two different prices for plots at the two municipal cemeteries.”

An older cemetery is traditionally used to bury Greek Orthodox residents and the newer one is used to bury foreign residents.

A space in the older cemetery costs €427, but at the newer one, which is already half full, a plot costs €854.
Leblanc said foreign residents are never offered a choice and are automatically allocated graves at the newer cemetery.

“In theory, residents should be offered a choice, but they’re not and in practice this means that the price is more than double for foreigners,” she said.

The council is justifying its action on the grounds that there were substantial costs involved in purchasing the land for the newer cemetery, although Leblanc said that no actual figures are available.

“I have requested a financial breakdown to include costs incurred, such as how much the land cost, but as it seems that proper records haven’t been kept, nothing has been forthcoming. I am questioning how they came up with the figure which is double,” she said.

Leblanc noted that although there is still space available at the old cemetery and although the municipality is saying it’s for everyone’s use, in practice, this isn’t the case.

“I have spoken to a number of residents who have enquired about plots and they weren’t given an option. This practice has been going on for years and its discrimination, but this is a view the municipality doesn’t accept.”

The Peyia councilor underlined that costs at the second cemetery were actually more than double, as the plots are smaller than at the older grave yard.

In addition, residents are not permitted to purchase plots in advance at the new cemetery.

“I have brought up the fact that couples may wish to purchase plots next to each other in advance, as they want to be together when they die. This is not permitted,” said Leblanc. “I then suggested that the grave could be dug deeper so that it would be possible to bury two people in one grave. They said this would be charged at €1,200 for the one plot.

By contrast, Leblanc said Cypriots only pay once for a plot at the old cemetery and if someone else wants to be buried in the same grave further down the line, they may be interred there at no extra charge.

“As I understand it, there is no extra cost. In Peyia the Cypriots pay once.”

The councillor added that she has been informed that other Paphos communities, such as Tala, Kissonerga and Emba were facing similar problems. In Tala, the subject is due to be discussed at a forthcoming community board meeting.

In the meantime, Leblanc says the subject will be open for discussion at this week’s monthly meeting of the Peyia Coalition of Independents.

“We will ask people what course of action, if any, they want to take such as filing a complaint with the Ombudsman,” she said.

The expat community in Paphos has long campaigned for the creation of a crematorium in Cyprus but the issue is still before parliament.

A 48-year old man was remanded by the Larnaca district court for six days on Saturday, following accusations of sexual assault against a minor.

The 48-year old, a musician from the Larnaca district, is accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year old boy on the night of January 22, after harassing him with indecent text messages.

According to a source inside the police, the man drove the young boy to Pentaschinos beach near the village of Ayios Theodoros in the Larnaca district, where he tried to take advantage of him. The boy reported the incident to the police who issued an arrest warrant for the 48-year old.

He was arrested late on Friday in his home. He is accused with indecently assaulting a minor and harassment by texting obscene messages.

By Peter Stevenson

THE GYPAS project aimed at protecting and increasing the numbers of vultures in Cyprus within the cross border project with Greece between 2007 and 2013 was completed successfully BirdLife Cyprus has announced.

The project took place between September 2011 and January 2014 with the Game Fund as leading partner in cooperation with BirdLife Cyprus, the Forestry Department, The University of Crete, The Museum of Natural History in Crete and Gortynas Municipality in Crete.

“The aim of the GYPAS project was to protect the birds’ population in Cyprus which has seen a dramatic decrease over the last few years,” BirdLife said.

Ten Griffon vultures arrived from Crete in November as part of the project.

The large birds were transported by Cyprus Airways and joined 15 others already here that arrived from Crete in an effort to enhance the vulture population, whose numbers are too low to ensure their survival.

Where there used to be at least 100 vultures in the 1960s, a population census in 2011 estimated there were only six to eight birds living in the wild in the south west, according to www.gypas.org, the GYPAS project’s website.

In the past, vulture numbers have diminished because they were hunted, killed by poison aimed for foxes and dogs, disturbed during breeding or because of intensified farming methods. They were declared an endangered species in 2003 and protected by law, but with only one or two couples breeding every year and even if their little ones did survive, the Cypriot birds were still vulnerable to diseases from inbreeding, as well as climate change.

“The recovery of the population is not considered feasible without enrichment with birds from other areas, preferably from geographically or genetically close populations,” BirdLife said.

The aim of the project was to increase the number of vultures in Cyprus with those from Crete as well as the creation of suitable facilities on both islands to help preserve and support the birds.

In Crete the major facilities created were a centre to help and rehabilitate exhausted and poisoned vultures undergoing recovery before their reintegration into the wild.

In Cyprus special cages were built to host birds from Crete to help acclimatise them before their release into the wild.

In addition to this there were public information and awareness campaigns about the depleted numbers of vultures which has been mainly caused by humans.

“Protecting vultures in Cyprus is considered to be very important for the island’s environment. The vulture helps to clean the countryside, helping to maintain healthy ecosystems and exempting farmers from the cost of incinerating dead animals,” BirdLife said.

Other than the financial benefits, maintaining vultures benefits eco-tourism and bird watching as well as environmental education, BirdLife concluded.

The GYPAS project is 80 per cent funded by the EU, with the rest coming from the National Game Funds of Greece and Cyprus.

Dozens of gunshots and at least two explosions raised tension amid anti-government protests in Thailand’s capital on Saturday, a day ahead of a general election seen as incapable of restoring stability in the deeply polarised country.

Six people were wounded in front of a suburban shopping mall in the north of Bangkok. Gunmen among the crowds were seen hiding their weapons before backing away from the shooting.

Sporadic gunfire continued as the sun began to set, with masked men openly firing handguns. Security forces fired warning shots in the air with M-16s to allow at least a dozen protesters taking cover under an elevated highway to escape.

“Authorities were able to control today’s clashes quickly and the situation has improved now,” National Security Council chief Paradorn Pattantabutr told Reuters.

It was not immediately clear whether those wounded were the government’s supporters or its opponents, some of whom want to block ballotting in an election almost certain to return Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to power.

The violence came amid generally peaceful protests around Bangkok and revived chilling memories of political unrest in 2010, when supporters of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck’s brother, paralysed Bangkok to remove a government led by the Democrat Party.

More than 90 people were killed and more than 2,000 wounded when current protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, at the time a deputy prime minister, sent in troops.

Saturday’s attack took place in Bangkok’s Laksi district, close to the Don Muang airport, a stronghold of Yingluck’s Puea Thai Party. Her supporters had gathered to demand Sunday’s ballot not be obstructed.

Ten people have died and at least 577 have been wounded in politically related violence since late November.

The protesters took to the streets in November for the latest round of an eight-year conflict broadly between Bangkok’s middle class, southern Thais and the royalist establishment against the mostly rural supporters of Yingluck and Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.

Suthep has called for a peaceful blockade of roads, but at the same time has vowed not to stop people voting.

“The people will not close the polling booths, but will demonstrate on the roads. They will demonstrate calmly, peacefully, without violence … We won’t do anything that will hinder people from going to vote,” Suthep said on Friday night.

BLOODY BALLOT?

Election Commission secretary-general Puchong Nutrawong said the commission has instructed staff to halt voting if there is rioting or other violence.

“We don’t want this election to be bloody. We can get every single agency involved to make this election happen, but if there’s blood, what’s the point?” Puchong told Reuters.

” … If there is continued obstruction, I pray only that there is no fighting and no coup.”

The military has stayed firmly on the sidelines so far, in contrast to the past. It has a history of having staged or attempted 18 coups in 81 years of on-off democracy.

Yingluck’s party is bound to win the election, though without enough members to achieve a quorum in parliament, guaranteeing further stalemate, at best, even if the election passes off peacefully.

The Democrat Party is boycotting Sunday’s poll and backs the protests.

Election commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn wrote on his Facebook page about the possibility of the poll being voided altogether.

“After the Feb. 2 vote, there will be people filing lawsuits for the election to be voided immediately, citing various reasons that they will put forward, such as the general election must be held on one day or violate the constitution, which would make it likely that 3.8 billion baht ($115 million) will have been spent for nothing,” Somchai wrote.

Puchong said the commission was doing its best to adhere to the law and any speculation about the vote being annulled was for the courts to decide.

The protesters, camped out at major intersections in the city and blocking key arteries, forced polling stations in 49 of Bangkok’s 50 districts to shut last weekend and voting could only go ahead in three of 15 southern provinces. Some voters were physically pulled away from the polling booths.

Suthep wants to rid the country of the Shinawatra family’s political influence and accuses Yingluck, who swept to power in the last election in 2011, of being Thaksin’s puppet.

The protesters say Thaksin is a corrupt crony capitalist who commandeered Thailand’s fragile democracy, using taxpayers’ money to buy votes with populist giveaways. Thaksin has chosen to live abroad since 2008 to avoid a jail term for graft.

He or his allies have won every election since 2001. His supporters say he was the first Thai political leader to keep campaign promises to help the poor.

Suthep wants to set up a “people’s council” of notable individuals before another election is held.

The prolonged unrest has hurt tourism and the central bank says the economy may grow only 3 percent this year, rather than the 4 percent it had forecast. ($1=33 baht)

The United States and Europe exchanged angry words with Russia on Saturday in a tug-of-war over Ukraine, with US, EU and NATO leaders saying Moscow must not strong-arm Kiev into an unpopular alliance.

At conference in Munich where Western diplomats met leaders of the Ukrainian opposition, United States Secretary of State  John Kerry said the protesters believe “their futures do not have to lie with one country alone, and certainly not coerced”.

“Nowhere is the fight for a democratic, European future more important today than in Ukraine,” he said. “The United States and EU stand with the people of Ukraine in that fight.”

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, outnumbered in Munich by supporters of Ukraine’s overtures to the European Union that were suddenly ditched by President Viktor Yanukovich last November, hit back with the same charge.

Lavrov said “political choice was preordained for Ukraine” when NATO offered Kiev potential membership of the western military alliance in 2008. Ukraine demurred but does cooperate with NATO on international peace missions such as Afghanistan.

“Here a choice is being imposed,” said Lavrov, accusing some EU politicians of fomenting anti-Yanukovich protests by people who “seize and hold government buildings, attack the police and use racist and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans”.

They were trading barbs at the annual Munich Security Conference. Differences between Russia and the western allies on Ukraine and Syria, where Moscow backs President Bashar al-Assad, made for a chilly atmosphere on the podium there.

On the sidelines, boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, an ally of jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as lawmaker Petro Poroshenko and pop star Ruslana Lyzhychko lobbied for support for the opposition.

PROTEST

They led a small protest in the streets of the Bavarian capital amid meetings with Kerry, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

“We expect support for Ukraine, support for a democratically peaceful movement because everyone wants to see Ukraine as a modern European country, which is our main goal,” Klitschko told reporters.

Demonstrators were saying “enough, enough waiting, enough corruption, enough of living without rules”, he said.

Yanukovich has signed into law an amnesty for protesters detained in the unrest and repealed anti-protest legislation.

But this looked unlikely to end the sometimes violent protests that began when he accepted a $15 billion Russian loan package late last year instead of a trade deal with Europe.

Kerry and other western diplomats put the burden of responsibility for the violence on the Ukrainian government.

“We strongly condemn the violence we have seen, not least the excessive use of force by the security forces in Ukraine,” said NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking of Yanukovich’s “special responsibility”.

“We insist on full respect for the fundamental principle that each and every country has an inherent right to freely choose its alliances,” added Rasmussen as Lavrov sat nearby.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy spoke of former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldavia being attracted to the European way of life. “The future of Ukraine belongs with the European Union,” he said.

THE Qatari Investment Authority (QIA) has shown interest into investing in property in the Limassol area, said Christodoulos Angastiniotis, head of the Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency (CIPA) on Saturday.

Speaking on a CyBC radio talk-show, Angastiniotis said that within the coming days a delegation from the QIA will visit the island to discuss the possibility of investments in the Limassol property market.

Angastiniotis also said that a group of private investors will also be visiting Cyprus, to discuss investing in semi government organisations (SGO) such as the telecommunications authority CyTA, the Ports Authority or the Electricity Authority.

The head of CIPA also told CyBC radio that a delegation from Kuwait will also come to the island to determine whether there are investment opportunities.

“These are all promising developments but we should keep a low profile so as to not repeat past mistakes”, advised Angastiniotis.

Also speaking to CyBC radio, the chief of the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry KEVE, Fidias Pilidis expressed his satisfaction that Qatar Airways began regular flights from Qatar capital Doha to Larnaca.

Pilidis argued that this was a positive for the economy because it would  provide Qatari investors with the chance to visit the island regularly. The KEVE chief added that the new flights would bring more tourists to Cyprus as Qatari citizens now had the option of vacationing in Cyprus.

Pilidis asked of the Cyprus Airways to examine the possibility of regular flights to Doha.

Earlier this week President Nicos Anastasiades ended a three-day official visit to Qatar to try and drum up investment interest. Several bi-lateral deals with signed between the two countries.

The Athalassa psychiatric hospital was evacuated on Saturday, according to the police, after a person called the facility and claimed there was a bomb on the premises.

The patients were immediately evacuated and police were called to perform a sweep in the area. Officers reported that careful investigation yielded no results and the patients were returned to the hospital.

Besides psychiatric patients, the Athalassa hospital is now home to a number of convicts who are having psychological problems. Their placement in the  facility was a measure announced by Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou, after a wave of five suicides and the rape of a young inmate in January shook prison system.

By Cosntantinos Psillides

CYPRUS Airways (CY) does not require further state aid, chairman Tony Antoniou said on Saturday after a meeting with technocrats from the troika of lenders.

Troika representatives are currently visiting Cyprus as a part of the island’s latest review following the bailout last March.

Antoniou also said the cash-strapped company might post profits for 2014. The national carrier posted losses of €55.8m for 2012, doubling its 2011 losses of €23.9m.

The CY chairman clarified that the issue of the company bouncing back would be clearer on Monday following a meeting of the ministerial committee appointed by the cabinet to address the dire financial situation of the national carrier.

The committee consists of Antoniou, Energy Minister Giorgos Lakkotripis, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades and Auditor -general Chrystalla Georghadji.

According to Antoniou, the committee will discuss possible strategic investors and also come up with a back-up plan in case the scheme to restructure the company isn’t approved by the EU Commission.

In March the European Commission said it was looking into whether Cyprus authorities were acting within EU law when they gave CY over €100 million, via a €73million rescue loan in December 2012, and a €31.3 million contribution to a capital increase in early 2013.

Authorities were told they could give CY no more state aid without prior approval.

The latest rescue plan provides for cutting the CY fleet from eleven aircraft to six A320 planes, one of which will be used as back-up, and calls for salary cuts and laying off 490 of the 1,040 people employed by the carrier.

Decision on both matters is expected within the year. It was supposed to be issued late 2013 but the Commission asked the CY bosses to file an amended restructuring plan, which they did in July 2013. If the Commission orders the company to return the money to the state, according to Antoniou, it would spell the end of Cyprus Airways as a state carrier, and the airline would have to be fully privatised.

CY was dealt a sever blow in January, when an almost done deal to sell a lucrative Heathrow Airport time slot to Qatar Airways fell through. The money was going to be used to provide the company with much needed liquidity for the summer of 2014.

The price was set at around €15 million but negotiations stopped after the national carrier was accused of violating a strict confidentiality clause by leaking information to the press.

Subsequently, another company offered a lower bid to Qatar Airways who promptly ditched CY. Qatar Airways and an aviation consulting company which was mediating the deal issued a scolding to Cyprus Airways, accusing them of violating the confidentiality clause, noting that the national carrier’s credibility was questionable.

Charlie Adam scored either side of half-time as Stoke claimed their first ever Barclays Premier League win over Manchester United.

Adam put the hosts in front with a deflected effort, then smashed home an excellent second to settle the 2-1 victory after Robin van Persie had levelled straight after the break.

It was the first time United had tasted defeat at the Britannia Stadium too, their eighth reverse of the campaign dealing a savage blow to their hopes of securing a Champions League berth for next season.

Earlier on Saturday, Alan Pardew was left alone to face a furious backlash as Newcastle succumbed to another humbling derby defeat by Sunderland.

Fans incensed by the club’s decision to sell Yohan Cabaye and not replace him vented their anger on Pardew as the Black Cats cruised to a second successive 3-0 victory at St James’ Park.

Sunderland’s third derby victory on the trot was secured by first-half goals from Fabio Borini and Adam Johnson, who struck for the seventh time in as many games, and Jack Colback’s late strike.

Late goals from Steven Naismith and Kevin Mirallas helped Everton bounce back from their Merseyside derby drubbing by Liverpool with a 2-1 victory over Aston Villa at Goodison Park.

Leandro Bacuna gave Villa a shock lead but Everton ramped up the pressure in the second half and got their reward when Naismith struck 16 minutes from time.

Cardiff’s new boys made an instant impact as Wilfried Zaha and Kenwyne Jones enjoyed dream debuts in a 2-1 win over Norwich.

The Bluebirds had trailed when Robert Snodgrass gave Norwich the lead in just the fifth minute at Cardiff City Stadium.

But substitute Zaha teed up Craig Bellamy for the equaliser just after the break, with Jones firing home the winner at the second attempt just over a minute later.

Andy Carroll twice set up goals for Kevin Nolan before being sent off as 10-man West Ham beat Swansea to ease their relegation predicament.

The England striker twice provided cushioned headers for Nolan to score in a 2-0 win at Upton Park but later received a straight red card for an altercation with Chico Flores. West Ham have immediately appealed against the dismissal.

Shane Long’s first goal for Hull saw them claim their first point of the year from a 1-1 draw which ended Tottenham boss Tim Sherwood’s perfect away record in the league.

Former West Brom striker Long put the Tigers ahead 12 minutes into his home debut but Paulino’s powerful 61st-minute strike drew Spurs level and salvaged a share of the spoils.

Elsewhere, the renewed optimism brought by Fulham’s late flurry of transfer activity quickly evaporated as Southampton became the eighth side to take three points at Craven Cottage this season.

Goals from Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert – who scored his 100th league goal for Saints – and Jay Rodriguez ruthlessly exposed Fulham’s soft underbelly and clinched a comfortable 3-0 away win.

Recent arrivals Lewis Holtby and William Kvist started for the Cottagers but were unable to stop their new club slipping to the bottom of the Premier League table.

The two sides in Cyprus are close to concluding a joint communique that would pave the way for the resumption of talks UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday.

Speaking to the press on the sidelines of a conference on security, in Munich, Ban was asked about a possible resumption of the UN-led peace talks on Cyprus and he said that he continued to work and hope for a prompt resumption of the negotiations in Cyprus.

“My special advisor, Alexander Downer, has been meeting the leaders of the two communities to help agree on a joint communiqué which can provide a good basis and parameters for the negotiations,” he said.

“Unfortunately, these negotiations [were] suspended because of a change of government in the Greek Cypriot community of Cyprus. After that, there was an economic crisis. This kind of a political and economic situation has not been helpful in resuming the negotiations,” said Ban.

Both leaders, he added were “very much committed” to continuing their negotiations, and had agreed to produce a joint communiqué. “The United Nations, through Alexander Downer, has really been coordinating and helping them. I believe that it is very close. They have agreed on most of the areas. [It is] very close. But this bridge should be filled,” said Ban.

Ban said he was also talking to guarantor countries like Greece and Turkey. “I met the Turkish leadership, and I am in constant consultations with leaders,” he added.

By Peter Stevenson

PADRE ANDREW Oliver, a 52-year-old British army chaplain from Northern Ireland is on the second day of a four day walk of the 180 kilometre long buffer zone to raise money for charity.

The fund raising-event, which started yesterday morning and is due to end on Tuesday, is in aid of two Nicosia charities, one in the north and one in the south of the capital, which help underprivileged children and battle against human trafficking.

Oliver who has raised money for charity in the past told the Sunday Mail that the terrain within the United Nations controlled buffer zone meant the walk was a real challenge.

“It’s an adventure, if you look at the distance, terrain and logistics it fits in with the British Army’s fitness regime and particularly with adventure training programmes,” he said.

He said he did not just want to walk the length of the buffer zone and not use it to benefit charity.

“I looked into which charities could support the walk and settled for one in the north and one in the government controlled areas,” he said.

“We have a fairly good idea what we have in front of us but time can be lost or gained depending on the terrain. If you divide 180km which is the buffer zone’s length, by four days you understand that we will need to walk quite a large distance,” he said.

“Through Virgin Money Giving, you can sponsor us and donations will be quickly processed and passed to charities,” he said

Virgin Money Giving is a non profit organisation and will claim gift aid on a charity’s behalf where the donor is eligible for this.

The first charity, SOS Children, has worked to help children in Nicosia since 1993. Its first project was a nursery with four classrooms and two assembly rooms and it serves children living in the town as well as those from the local area. In 2007, SOS Children began a family strengthening programme to support vulnerable families in need of support to remain together.

The second charity, Caritas Cyprus, is one of the smallest Caritas members worldwide but it has played an important role within the network, especially in the response to the conflict in Lebanon in 2006.

In the days after the July 12 outbreak of fighting in Lebanon, thousands of foreign nationals, many of them Lebanese holding foreign passports, fled to Cyprus en route to other countries. A staff of just two and 30 volunteers stepped in to help, providing translation services and whatever other assistance they could to the exhausted and often traumatised evacuees.

To make any donations to Oliver’s effort please visit:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/andrewoliver52

By Bejay Browne

ALTHOUGH the cash-strapped government slashed millions from Paphos’ budget for the cultural capital 2017 title, the project’s recently appointed artistic director is committed to its success.

Paphos born Marios Ioannou Elia was appointed to the daunting position four months ago and since taking office admits he has been disappointed with the lack of forthcoming funds promised by the government.

“By nature, Cypriots are a passionate culture; we do what we believe and we are stubborn, especially in difficult circumstances,” he told the Sunday Mail: “This is one of the advantages I see in the current situation. We must come together.”

In 2013, Paphos won the international competition to become the European Capital of Culture for 2017, a title it will share with Aarhus in Denmark.

Just over a week ago, mayor of Paphos Savvas Vergas, presented a €27m programme to members of parliament outlining various construction and infrastructure projects, which he described as “imperative for Paphos’ future”, as part of the town’s cultural capital 2017 winning bid.

The request seems highly unlikely when last year the funds for the cultural programmes were slashed to five million euros, from the original €15m euro price tag. And even this amount seems in jeopardy.

“The government said they would give us €5m, but even this seems difficult at the moment. We should have been given half a million last year, but unfortunately we were only given 150,000,” Elia said:

The project’s artistic director, who is based at the old district officer’s residence in Paphos, said funds are urgently needed as currently his ‘team’ only consists of him and one other, making it almost impossible to move forward with any real momentum.

“By now, we should have at least five or six people working here and we are only two,” he said.

“I’m not sure if it’s clear to everybody, but the cultural capital title is the most complex and the most prestigious initiative at a European level that is linked with culture. It’s on par with the Olympic Games in sports.”

Although Ioannou Elia is realistic about the uphill struggle he and his future team faces, saying that a phenomenal amount of hard graft and a working budget has to be organised as soon as possible.

“This project is so complex and it has to be done. I risked my career to be here. I’m positive but on the other hand, we have to be realistic about what we can do.”

The artistic director’s experience is extensive, and he admitted that he hadn’t envisioned moving back to his home town, after living abroad for more than 15 years. He did so after responding to a European open call for the position. After a gruelling selection process, he was unanimously chosen by the board of directors

Ioannou Elia’s parents are from Kyrenia and came to Paphos after 1974. He was born in 1978 and educated in Paphos until 1998 when he left to study music and musicology at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and then the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

He has also worked as a composer and researcher and written music for concerts and operas and his last project was in Mannheim in Germany and carried a €2.7 million price tag for a one hour production.

Although his current budget may seem like a drop in the ocean, Ioannou Elia says with the help of the entire community, Paphos’ moment to shine in Europe will be a success.

“There are some European capitals that spend €80m, solely for their artistic and cultural activities. To be honest, our budget is not enough, so we are looking for sponsorship and fundraising and we are also searching for possibilities from the European Union and from private sponsors.”

This next step towards securing funds will only be able to get underway when there is more staff on board.

“My vision for Paphos was different before undertaking this position. This is because I’m being more realistic and grounded. I worked in Germany and Austria with large amounts of money and of course things are different there.”

But he is determined to turn any disappointment into motivation.

“I have very good contacts in Europe and I want to try to use that to help Paphos. I love Paphos. This is my city and we want to make this the city where everybody would like to be, not only Pafians.”

The project’s artistic director says a new theatre for Paphos is vital but he believes there is only a slim chance a new building will materialse in time for 2017.

“I have no idea if a new theatre can be possible. In the past, Paphos invested very little money into culture, although it probably has the most culture compared to the size of other cities in Cyprus. Instead we invested into tourism. But now is a chance and we must invest.”

He said that he is refusing to let a limited budget limit his vision. “I want everyone to be in this together and get into the spirit of celebrating Paphos.”

Ioannou Elia is encouraging all sections and age groups of the Paphos public with ideas for events and initiatives to make an appointment to discuss possible collaborations with Pafos 2017.

“When I arrived here, there was a very negative and skeptical attitude. But I feel that this is now in the past, I feel the energy growing, and we must be accessible.”

Pafos 2017 Office tel 26932017, email: info@pafos2017.eu, 5 www.pafos2017.eu Address 5, Griva Digeni Avenue – District Officer’s Residence Paphos

By Peter Stevenson

RESIDENTS and businesses in Kaimakli and Pallouriotissa are mustering forces after receiving bills out of the blue for the creation of new pavements and the asphalting of roads outside their homes.

For most homeowners the bill comes in at under €200 but for some businesses it runs into the thousands. Nicosia municipality, in letters to residents that came with the bills during the week, says it could afford to pay the €32 million bill itself and is relying on residents and their understanding to contribute their fair share since the government, to whom people pay taxes to build roads and pavements, will no longer be covering the cost. Residents are being charged 10 per cent of the cost of pavements outside their homes and businesses.

The begging letter then goes on to invoke the law and offers a one-time-only deal of 20 installments at an interest rate of 7.0 per cent. It also mentions that it had published its intent – under the invoked law – in the official government gazette on January 9. Otherwise, residents could not have been charged. The charge is calculated according to the size of the house which spans the length of the pavement.

A woman in Kaimakli said she paid for a pavement when she renovated her house years ago. This was dismantled under the new works and now she’s been charged again.

Andros Fantis: leading the charge

One of those most affected is 55-year-old supermarket owner Andros Fantis and his wife Andri whose shop is situated on both Kyriacou Matsi and Vasilissis Frederikis in Kaimakli.

“They are claiming that they followed procedure by publishing it in the Official Gazette but who even reads that? Are they telling us we’re obliged to read it just in case the government decides to charge us for the air we breathe?” said Fantis. “When they want us to pay a bill they manage to send that through the mail but informing us [in advance] about charging for pavements couldn’t be done that way?” he added.

Fantis said he was charged €43,000 for the pavement and the road works and on appeal had it reduced to €32,000 but if he were to pay the money off under the installment plan, he would be footing a bill closer to €60,000. He said he could get better interest rates if he were to borrow from the bank.

Fantis held an initial meeting with local residents last weekend with around 30 people showing up but news is spreading he said, and other residents in the area and neighbouring Kaimakli have shown an interest in finding a way legally not pay.

“We have 75 days to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court from the day it was announced in the gazette on January 9 so we will see how many names we can get together because the more people we get on board the stronger our argument will become,” he said.

“They [the authorities] keep pushing us and pushing us. Mistakes were made [in handling the economy] and the people have been given the bill. There’s only so much anyone can take and the next step is simple. Army reservists have guns at home and they will eventually rise up if they keep getting pushed around and charged for things the government should be paying for,” he said.

One solution, according to 67-year-old local pensioner Giorgos Ketenis, is to block off the road and not allow anyone access seeing as residents have paid for the pavements and so own them. The former footballer lives on a road in Kaimakli in a poor neighbourhood that leads directly to the buffer zone.

The wheelchair ramp to nowhere. On the left there are plants followed by a too-narrow footpath and on the right cars, the bollards, then another narrow pavement

“How will these poor local residents find the money to pay for the pavement when they don’t have money to buy food?” he asked.

“The municipality is supposed to care about the people and show an interest. They shouldn’t be thinking about how they are going to charge for pavements, they should be asking whether the residents have money to put food on the table,” he said.

He questioned the thinking behind constructing pavements that in many areas of Kaimakli eventually lead people back to walking on the road. “The only use the pavements outside our homes have is for cars to park on and for cats and dogs to defecate on,” he said.

Suzanne Sacorafou’s house: she’s paying twice for a pavement

Suzanne Sacorafou, a conservator who owns a house on Vasileos Pavlou in Kaimakli has been forced to pay for pavement construction twice.

“The first time, 15 years ago, it was a condition for a house on the preservation list and then again they had to put flood draining under the pavement so it needed to be reconstructed,” she said.

She said that the pavement is so small that it serves no real purpose and anyone in a wheelchair would not be able to use it as they are mainly used for cars to park on and other sections are too narrow to walk on. “It’s a joke, charges should be spread out for everyone to pay along with rubbish collection and sewage bills,” she said.

Myroulla Alonefti, an administrative official at Nicosia Municipality told the Sunday Mail that she understands residents’ qualms but the town council had no other way to pay for the construction of the pavements as the municipality is being forced to operate with a smaller budget.

“The public are perfectly within their rights to complain and I hope they do end up going outside parliament to protest. Why are people charged road tax [by the government] if that money is not used to fix the roads?” she asked.

She explained that on main roads, any repairs or constructions are covered by the government (75 per cent) and the municipality (25 per cent) but on minor roads the bill is footed by the residents. In Kaimakli, once a small village on the outskirts of the capital, however, nearly all of the street could be classed as ‘minor roads’.

“It’s unfair and we understand one thousand per cent because the pavements aren’t only used by residents of those roads, they are used by everyone yet only the residents are being charged for it,” she said.

Alonefti clarified that if pavements are cracked and need repairs then that is the municipality’s responsibility but if pavements need to be built from scratch on a minor road that residents must pay for it.

Another Kaimakli resident, Yianna Polydorou said: “I wouldn’t mind if these were real pavements and the disabled could use them, all they’ve done is make it easier for the cars to park and created wheelchair ramps to nowhere. Some pavements were badly needed in Kaimakli but what they’ve done along part of my road… creating six-inch pavements is just a waste of money and then they charge me for it? No one sets foot on this so-called footpath… ever. There is no room for one person to walk on it never mind a mother with a pram or an old person with a walker. It’s rubbish”.

(Photos: Christos Theodorides) 

Don’t get drunk or you’ll fall off this super-narrow pavement

When Gavin Jones took legal action over the circumstances of his mother’s death in Paphos General Hospital he was subjected to a litany of administrative abuse spanning more than six years. Below is his account of a long fight for justice

By Gavin Jones

MY CYPRIOT mother, the artist Thraki Rossidou Jones, died in July 2007 in Paphos General Hospital in tragic circumstances. Despite vociferous protests from my wife and myself, a nurse force-fed my mother, an unconscious nil-by-mouth stroke victim. Within minutes she was dead.

Clearly, my wife and I were determined to get a thorough investigation and demanded an inquest. The first inquest hearing began in May 2008 but, by then, our lawyers had not been sent the police file of witness statements and other relevant papers. At the first hearing, the judge directed the lawyer representing the Attorney General’s (AG’s) office to release the file to our lawyers but no explanation was given for the 10-month delay. The second hearing lasting only a few minutes took place on June 12. The AG’s lawyer said that the file would be sent over later in the day. It wasn’t. Hearing number three a week later produced the same result, the state’s lawyer stating that more time was required to locate the file.

Luckily, in the court cafeteria we casually told a policeman who was acquainted with our case that the file was ‘lost’. He then coolly announced that the file was not ‘lost’ at all. It was in the filing cabinet in his office! Our lawyer then advised the judge that the ‘lost’ file was no longer ‘lost’. Strike one.

Hearing number four took place in July. You guessed it. Our lawyers had still not received the file despite the court knowing it had been ‘found’. The AG’s lawyer confirmed that the state had the file and that our lawyer would have it that very day. Delaying tactics par excellence. The judge ordered its release but, as the summer recess was upon us, September would be the earliest that hearing number five could take place, which was purely procedural.

Hearing number six took place on October 10. However, neither the state’s pathologist nor the hospital’s cardiologist were there, both having informed the court that they were otherwise engaged in seminars. We were not advised beforehand and had naturally turned up. Yet again, another adjournment. It’s not difficult to realise why Cypriots are disaffected with their judiciary. Further arbitrary changes continued throughout the inquest procedure which racked up a grand total of fourteen hearings, the last being in March 2009.

We naturally thought that the marathon inquest fandango was now over. Not a bit of it. We then had to wait a further ten months for the verdict despite a stipulation in the Cypriot legal system that an inquest verdict should be delivered within six months of the completion of the case. From start to finish, the process had taken almost two years. At least we were relieved that the judge had stated that asphyxiation was the cause of my mother’s death: in medical parlance, an unnatural death which implies a non-accidental cause.

Gavin Jones, fighting for justice

We then had to overcome the next hurdle. In order to launch a lawsuit against the state for medical negligence, I needed control over my mother’s affairs, something which I thought was a formality as I was an only child. Wrong. Our lawyers obtained the relevant file from Paphos District Court. The papers revealed that my mother’s lawyer had submitted an affidavit in which he’d removed me as an executor of her will by stating that I hadn’t been living in Cyprus, (as he well knew, my wife and I had been in Cyprus for some considerable time), that she’d died in England (she’d died in Paphos) and that she’d died in 1998 (she’d died in 2007). This affidavit with these false facts had been accepted and verified by the court, thus giving him control over her affairs and assets. Why did the court not check the death certificate which clearly states date and place of death? I was then forced to go to court to remove the false executor and reinstate me. Moreover, I filed a complaint to the Disciplinary Board of Advocates (DBOA) over the lawyer’s behaviour. A year later I received a letter from the DBOA which exonerated him, citing “common clerical errors” as an excuse and that there was no case to answer: apparently not even negligent let alone fraudulent!

Seeking justice rather than compensation, we launched a medical negligence lawsuit at the end of 2009 which reached court in February 2012. The appointed judge directed both sets of lawyers, ours and the state’s as represented by the Attorney General’s office, to try and settle out of court. This we agreed to and proposed a figure. We heard nothing more for eight months, only to return to court in October to discover that the AG wanted to take us on in court. A date in February 2013 was fixed for the process to begin but then the judge was transferred to another court and a lady judge took over. Three more court dates and two more judges came and went before finally in December it was honoured.

With me finally in the witness stand and preparing to be cross-examined by the AG’s lawyer, the judge asked me why I hadn’t agreed to settle out of court.  Assuming that he was unaware of the background to the case, I explained in detail what had transpired and that I had agreed to his suggestion almost two years ago. Furthermore, I also pointed out that he was judge number four in this long-running saga and that the delays were not of our making.

A painting by Thraki Rossidou Jones

He then warned me that despite the asphyxiation evidence and the fact that the cardiologist was at home instead of being on duty in the hospital building at the time of my mother’s death, I could be facing legal fees for the state of €20,000 with a similar amount for our own lawyers. As there are no juries in Cypriot courts, my fate was in the hands of this man who was spelling out in no uncertain terms which way the wind was blowing. Later, the judge again referred to his opening statement that I should settle. We left the court and our lawyer immediately advised us to settle. In such a prejudicial atmosphere, I reluctantly agreed. For me, it was a Pyrrhic victory with great emotional cost.

It’s hardly surprising that lawsuits involving medical negligence in Cyprus are far and few between. Proving one’s case is difficult at the best of times, despite overwhelming evidence in one’s favour. The maximum payout in Cyprus is €17,000 and is dependent upon the age of the victim and other factors bearing on loss.

Thraki in the WAAF in 1943

My mother was 87 so in legal terms she was deemed to have almost negligible financial ‘value’, even though the evidence pointed to culpable homicide. Life, it seems, is cheap in Cyprus and the judiciary are demonstrably biased against plaintiffs.

To put this in a first-world context, in the UK the average settlement in a case where clinical negligence damages have been awarded was some £280,000 in 2009-10. The UK National Health Service has set aside £22.7bn for current and expected claims. In the USA, individual medical negligence claims often run to millions of dollars.

Our costs for the lawsuit were relatively light and the final damages settled were €3,000. Our lawsuit was never about compensation per se but about justice. However, separately the fourteen inquest hearings racked up more than €15,000 for legal fees and medical advice. These charges were not part of the lawsuit and were therefore not eligible to be reimbursed, of which we were unaware. In order to obtain the right inquest verdict to enable us to proceed to the lawsuit, unbeknown to us we had to bear those earlier separate costs ourselves: a cruel irony and hardly just.

Over the years, many Cypriots have described to me disturbing incidents which have taken place in their hospitals. Without exception, they decided to take the matter no further as they felt that they’d be wasting their time and money and that the system was weighted heavily against them.

This is not a uniquely Cypriot phenomenon. In his famous book on government, society and freedom entitled The Man versus The State, Herbert Spencer (1884) recognised the scope for abuse of citizens.  However, in close-knit societies such as in Cyprus, there are also deep-rooted allegiances which bind families, friends and associates and these relationships tend to preclude any action being taken against one another which would upset the status quo. Backed by ministerial and judicial policy, hospitals, clinicians and administrators have come to believe that they are untouchable and unaccountable and any evidence of wrongdoing, even manslaughter, must be swept under the carpet, with any accusations denied and resisted.

There’s a serious downside to this state of affairs. This silence and acquiescence permeating health care in Cyprus stunts improvements in standards, keeps incompetents in post and more than likely condemns thousands to premature death. A former Ombudswoman’s report on public health cites poor quality of care, outright medical negligence, loss of medical files, and delay of emergency operations due to excessive red tape.

By agreeing to pay damages, however derisory, as a result of my mother’s death, the state has in effect admitted that problems exist in one of its key institutions. Will the new AG therefore investigate the hospital for force-feeding an unconscious stroke victim? Will he prosecute the hospital for ‘losing’ my mother’s medical notes? Will he ask why a doctor, who was supposed to be on duty in the hospital building during my mother’s trauma, was at home? I’ll let the reader guess what action he’s likely to take.

Gavin Jones’ e-book A Mental State ISBN 9781 78301 1353 expands upon much of this article’s contents. Available from www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk using either a Kindle or free e-reader software.

By Patroclos

EVERY so often we are treated to yet another case of human rights gone mad. We are, after all, the land of human rights in which we invent rights all the time.

Recently, we heard that free bus transport for school kids was a human right, although not recognised by our fascistic government, while we were the first country in the world to recognise the human right of the children and grandchildren of refugees to be treated as refugees by the state.

Human rights are not always universal, often customised for specific groups. For instance it is the right of high-ranking officials and deputies not to pay income tax on all the income they receive from the state. It is the human right of public employees to pay less for more when it comes to state pensions – they contribute much less than everyone else and receive much higher pensions.

One right that has not been officially recognised but is practised all the time is the right to violate other people’s rights. There was a landmark court case, not so long ago, which protected the right of people to park on pavements with impunity.

Drivers who parked their car on the pavement and denied having done so when fined, took Strovolos municipality – which decided to photograph the illegally parked cars as proof of the offence – to court, claiming their right to privacy had been violated by their car being photographed and they won.

Even the courts protect the right to break the law sometimes.

SORRY about the long-winded rant of an introduction. It is not like the absurd item I planned to write about deserved it, but I got carried away because the culture of excessive rights and zero responsibility that Kyproulla passionately embraces is a pet hate of mine.

Last week there was a big fuss because the Medical School of the University of Cyprus allegedly violated the rights of the disabled in its admissions policy. It barred admission to people with severe disabilities who could put a patient’s life at risk in the performing of a doctor’s tasks. These included people with severe visual or hearing impairment, with inadequate mobility such as paraplegics or with psychological problems.

These admissions criteria are standard in all medical schools in the world, for obvious reasons, but in the regional centre of human rights they were lambasted as blatantly discriminatory. The worthy campaign for the right of blind people to perform surgery was led by Limassol’s best-known bigot and DISY deputy Andreas Themistocleous.

Themistocleous issued a statement lambasting the university, but his most colourful outburst was placed on his Facebook page in which, exhibiting symptoms of mental disability, he said,

“Neither Hitler, neither Stalin, neither the Junta, neither Pinochet, neither Kim Il-Song, neither Kim Jong-Il, nor Pol-Pot could have reached in racism, fascism and totalitarianism, the leadership of the University of Cyprus and its rector.”

THEMISTOCLEOUS is a bit of a nut-case, as his rant about our friend the rector illustrates. And he has not always been the defender of the rights of minority groups. He is the bigot, who likened homosexuality to bestiality, not very long ago, but now he has christened himself a human rights crusader.

The question he needs to answer is the following: “Would he agree to a surgeon, suffering from severe visual impairment, removing his tonsils or carrying out an operation on his prostate?” Perhaps the gay-basher’s next campaign should be for the right of the visually impaired to be given a driving licence or for football clubs to stop the discriminatory practice of not employing one-legged footballers.

Themistocleous’ tirade sparked a reaction from the Cyprus Paraplegics Association (people in wheelchairs are also ruled out by the university), which labelled the university’s decision “a shameless disgrace” and demanded an apology from Rector Pol-Pot. Paraplegics should have the right to attend the medical school even if they did not intend to practise the profession said the association.

WORK to set up the Medical School is already encountering problems. The premises in which the clinical part of school would be housed – the nurses’ quarters at the Nicosia General Hospital – has a tenant who refuses to move out.

While the nurses have all been moved out, the person who has the cafeteria/restaurant concession refuses to do so, thus preventing any of the necessary building work from starting. He has a good deal and has been using the kitchen for his expanding catering business which is not restricted to the hospital.

The businessman got a very good deal from the former health minister and presidential candidate Stavros Malas, who gave him the concession for €3 per day. He must have been an Akelite to get such a dirt cheap deal and the University will have to pay a hell of a lot of money to get him out now.

SPEAKING of presidential candidates, Yiorkos Lillikas human right to moral superiority was grossly violated by Politis on Friday when the paper published that his election office had moved €350,000 out of Cyprus on March 15, one day before the Eurogroup meeting that decided the haircut of all deposits.

The Paphite denied that he had transferred any money out of Kyproulla, but the paper insisted that his name and ID number was next to the amount in the lists given by the Central Bank to the House Institutions Committee.

What makes this story so entertaining is that the holier than thou Paphite had been waging a passionate public campaign for the publication of the names of all Cypriots who had moved their money out of Kyproulla before the Eurogroup meeting, as if they had done something illegal. Asked for a comment by Politis, Yiorkos said:

“I did not take a cent abroad. I should have been dumb, to call for the publication of the list of deposit transfers abroad while my name was included on that list.” Yiorkos might be a pontificating Paphite populist but he is not dumb.

YIORKOS’ hypocrisy, at least with regard to the money transfers, is not yet proven, but that of the ETYK boss Loizos Hadjicostis is not in any doubt. He demonstrated it this week, when he was subjected to the humiliation on not getting his own way in his dispute with the Central Co-operative Bank.

The banking bully did not want the 300 members of ETYK working for the CCB to take the same pay-cuts as the rest of the 2,700 employees of co-ops and threatened to call a strike if management did not give in. Management inflicted the first defeat on Hadjicostis telling its ETYK members that they would have to sign personal contracts agreeing to the cuts or face redundancy.

Before the cheerleader of Vgenopoulos had finished making his strike threats, the finance minister issued a decree imposing the cuts on all co-op workers. ETYK has called a one hour work stoppage on Tuesday in protest against the decree which was “unacceptable, undemocratic, unethical, unfair etc.” In a statement the decree was described as “dictatorial”, which was a bit rich coming from the most fascistic of the union bosses.

Hadjicostis had staged a strike at a bank that lasted for weeks because he objected to two management appointments and blocked all credit card transactions for more than a week, during a Christmas period, over some trivial reason. When he was on top, unacceptable, undemocratic, unethical, unfair and dictatorial behaviour was perfectly acceptable.

Now that he is in a weaker position he wants to resolve the dispute “through a healthy and constructive dialogue,” that he never allowed in the past.

CYTA’s new board went into a collective sulk and gave up its membership of the Employer’s and Industrialists’ Federation OEV, after the latter’s general manager spoke out against the obscene redundancy compensation the Authority was offering its staff.

OEV chief Michalis Pilikos said that it was provocative of Cyta to offer such big compensation packages at a time such economic hardship for the majority of the population. He was right so why did the Cyta board get the hump. Cyta should not be a member of OEV because it is a worker’s co-operative run by the workers, for the benefit of the workers.

But Pilikos made a complete fool of himself subsequently arranging a meeting with the Cyta board to beg it to change its decision. How pathetic is that? Could it be because Cyta pays a big membership fee to OEV every year?

FOOTBALL clubs have not taken a stand against the privatisation of Cyta, but they should. When the SGO is sold off, clubs will lose one of their main sources of funding. Last month alone, the Authority signed cheques for football clubs totalling €350,000. And because it is state-owned it gives money to all the clubs. Once it is privatised this generosity will stop and some clubs will not even have money to buy kits.

THE GOVERNMENT’S decision to give permanent jobs to 470 teachers that were working on contracts and half of whom were not even needed by state schools was a reality check for all of us idiots who thought that state bankruptcy would stop the squandering of the taxpayer’s money. How naive we were.

This brings the total number of new appointments to the public sector to 800, as 300-plus graduates of the officer training school were earlier appointed in the National Guard. How many would have been appointed if there was not a government freeze on public appointments?

The worst thing was that not a single party said anything critical against the government’s disgraceful decision. Even Ethnarch Junior, also known as the Prince nowadays, approved of the move. Now he is DIKO leader with big presidential ambitions, he feels obliged to butter up the unions. If Tof had taken this decision the Prince would have raised hell, but now, bloating the public sector with more parasites is a sensible decision.

All our politicians are Akelites, deep down, from the Prez to the Prince.

Another long-haired, happy bunny made a public appearance last week. The new chairman of the EAC, Giorgos Pipis was all laughs and smiles when he met hacks last Wednesday, adding substance to the theory we advance last week that appointments to high profile positions is the key to eternal happiness, for long-haired nobodies yearning public attention.

Like his fellow happy bunny, the chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, Pipis was in a state of total bliss last Wednesday as he took centre stage at the EAC headquarters. He is a bit scruffy and unkempt (no tie) and does not take as much care of his long locks as his more narcissistic BoC counterpart – if Hassapis is the ageing rock star, he is the younger sound engineer – but he is also is suffering from compulsive euphoria.

Pipis was appointed by his koumbaros, Ethnarch Junior, a strident opponent of rusfeti, who figured that as a dentist he was ideally-suited to run a huge, financially-troubled organisation. Pipis has been laughing because he liked the joke.

WE WERE given depressing displays of the selfishness and lack of public spirit that afflicts modern Cyprus society this week, as if we needed reminding of the fact that everyone is out for himself. While these exhibitions of extreme self-interest are understandable in prosperous times, they are very difficult to tolerate at a time of an unprecedented economic and social crisis when everyone should be working together towards a common goal – the soonest possible recovery of the country.

Adversity usually can unite society, encouraging solidarity among people as everyone pulls together in the pursuit of a common goal. This was how Cypriot society reacted to the Turkish invasion in 1974 – everyone made sacrifices, everyone helped their less fortunate countrymen that had lost their homes and livelihoods and everyone tried to ease the pain of those who had lost friends and family in the war. Admittedly, the effects of the invasion were much more devastating and traumatic to our society than those of the economy’s collapse but there are also similarities. The old certainties have been shattered and hundreds of thousands of people are now out of work, living in poverty and depending on charity handouts to survive.

In these social conditions it was truly infuriating to hear state hospital doctors moaning and attacking the health minister last week about the small reduction in their overtime rates, decided by the government. We are not talking about dock workers, but highly-paid, educated professionals, with secure jobs and a very comfortable living, trenchantly refusing to make a small concession for the benefit of the country. They should have been ashamed – considered it beneath them – to behave so shabbily at a time like this. Then again, these doctors were abusing the overtime system for decades, some doubling their annual pay.

In the same week we had the bank employees’ union ETYK, rejecting the pay cuts, which had been accepted by 2,700 employees of the co-ops, for its 300 members and threatening strike action. Again, these were highly-paid workers, with secure jobs and a comfortable living that had no grounds to demand preferential treatment. ETYK has also been fighting to preserve the privilege of bank employees to pay only half a per cent of interest on their housing loans, when everyone else pays 10 times that in interest.

There are countless more examples of the rampant ‘me’ culture that afflicts our society – the officials refusing to surrender their state limousines, Cyta employees’ demanding a King’s ransom as redundancy compensation, students not wanting to pay bus fares, contract teachers fighting for permanent state jobs (and getting them), big developers with NPLs demanding political protection. Everyone is out to maximise their personal benefits, plundering what they can from the cash-strapped state, at the expense those who genuinely need support from it, such as the long-term unemployed and old age pensioners.

We should not be surprised by this selfishness when the morally bankrupt leadership still engages in cheap demagoguery, pandering to the interest groups instead of censuring them and telling them that in these times the interests of the country come first. On one side is the president assuring public employees that their privileges (he calls them rights) would be protected and on the other the opposition parties encouraging the shows of self-interest as a way of getting at the government, the objective being votes.

Unfortunately, the patriotism of our politicians is exhausted on their cheap and hollow Cyprus problem rhetoric. They have no interest in any other form of patriotism – the one that involves making sacrifices for the sake of your less fortunate countrymen and of your country as a whole. They all utter platitudes about safeguarding the Cyprus Republic in the context of Cyprus problem, which is the easy bit, but nobody dares mention the need to protect it from those who bankrupted it and are still making demands of it. It is as if the only reason they want to preserve the Republic is so they can carry on plundering it.

Perhaps we are expecting too much from self-serving politicians who are unwilling to give up any of their own privileges. Such people cannot ask anyone to make any sacrifices for the good of the country. Together with the public sector unions, the politicians have killed any notion of public spirit and with it the hope of a quicker economic recovery. They cannot, or do not want to, understand that a country working towards a common goal is more likely to achieve this than a collection of self-interested individual all pulling in different directions.