By Preston Wilder

Play a melancholy song, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) tells his computer. We’re in the future – albeit the near future – so he doesn’t have to click any links or push any buttons; he just stands there talking in a crowded lift, and voice recognition software carries out his commands. No-one around him bats an eye; they’re all busy talking to their own computers. Play a melancholy song, he instructs – and Her is also a melancholy song, the beautiful (if slightly mopey) tale of a man who falls in love with his operating system.

‘What’s an operating system?’ some will ask if they’re not computer-savvy – which isn’t a major stumbling-block, but it does point to something self-indulgent about the film. This isn’t just a case of First World Problems, it’s a case of Permanently Wired First World Problems; viewers who don’t know an iPod from an iPad may not recognise this vision of a world where technology has permeated every waking moment. Then again, those drawn by the sci-fi premise are unlikely to find what they’re looking for either. Her is undoubtedly ‘slow’, for those allergic to slowness. It’s very talky, and the talk isn’t always memorable. In a week when arthouse films came to town in the guise of Cyprus Film Days, it’s ironic that the artiest one of all is showing at the multiplex.

In fact, Her employs its sci-fi premise to ponder relationships – and, more ambitiously, our fragile sense of what makes us human. Theodore’s operating system (OS for short) is an “intuitive entity” that’s been programmed to respond to his needs. It speaks with a woman’s voice (that of Scarlett Johansson), but only because he selected that option; had he gone for ‘male’ instead of ‘female’, the romance might’ve turned into a bromance and the plot would’ve burst like a bubble. ‘Her’ name is Samantha (could it be a Bewitched reference?) and she’s clearly invaluable as a secretary, proofreader and personal organiser – but she also turns into a girlfriend, which is where things get weird. Are Theodore’s emotions “real”? Can a man have a meaningful relationship with a disembodied voice?

It’s a tough one. On the one hand, Samantha doesn’t exist; she’s just bits and bytes. When our hero first installs the OS and begins to bond, the film cuts away to show the objective reality – a man sitting at his computer, talking to himself. On the other, his love for her (and maybe hers for him) is profoundly real. On the one hand, the reason why she understands him better than any flesh-and-blood girlfriend is because she’s been specifically designed to understand him. On the other, does it really matter? Theodore is unhappy; he’s just separated from his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara). If a romance with an OS makes him happy, why shouldn’t it count? There’s an echo of that in an argument between his friend Amy (Amy Adams) and her husband, on the subject of juicing fruit. Don’t do it or you lose all the fibre, says the husband. Yes, but the taste of the juice gives you pleasure and that’s more important, counters Amy – who also gets the most poignant line in the whole movie: “We’re only here briefly, so I want to allow myself … joy.”

In that sense, Her is a film about choice, reflecting our choice-driven Western society. It also reflects society in a more obvious fashion, laying out a ‘magical’ scenario that’s only a small step removed from what’s already out there; is sex with an OS really any weirder than sex in a chat-room? (The only implausible part is that Samantha doesn’t have a visual avatar, though of course her voice is inescapably linked with Ms. Johansson’s starry glamour.) But there’s also more than that – because Her questions reality in subtler ways too. “Our past is a story we tell ourselves,” says Theodore, a line echoed in a scene where he watches random strangers and invents stories for them – and echoed too in the way he recalls his marriage, in montages of fleeting moments. The implication is clear: if what we call humanity is something we construct in our heads, why can’t a computer program be considered human?

For all its occasional sluggishness, Her is a wonderful movie – and I still haven’t mentioned the two best things about it (three if you count the superb lead performances). One is the look, a velvety, pastel-coloured smoothness that feels like the film is taking place in a giant womb. And the other is the bittersweet quality – because Samantha, in the end, is all too human. Theodore, devastated by his ruined relationship with Catherine – a girl he encouraged and mentored (they “grew up together”) only to see her evolve beyond him – finds the exact same thing happening again with his cyber-girlfriend. No matter how far we advance technologically, it says, the tale of men and women will always be a tale of disappointment, fading passions and wounded feelings. A melancholy song, indeed.

DIRECTED BY Spike Jonze

STARRING Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, the voice of Scarlett Johansson

US 2013                  126 mins

By Narae Kim

Rescuers struggled with strong waves and murky waters on Thursday as they searched for hundreds of people, most of them teenagers from the same school, still missing after a South Korean ferry capsized 36 hours ago.

Coastguard, navy and private divers scoured the site of the accident, about 20 km off the country’s southwestern coast.

Earlier, rescue teams hammered on the hull of the upturned, mostly submerged vessel, hoping for a response from anyone trapped inside, but they heard nothing, local media reported.

The vessel, carrying 475 passengers and crew, capsized on Wednesday during a journey from the port of Incheon to the holiday island of Jeju.

Nine people have been found dead and 179 were rescued, according to the South Korean government, leaving 287 unaccounted for and possibly trapped in the vessel.

One parent, Park Yung-suk, told Reuters at the port of Jindo, where rescue efforts are centred, that she had seen the body of her teenage daughter’s teacher brought ashore.

“If I could teach myself to dive, I would jump in the water and try to find my daughter,” she said. Her daughter was one of 340 children and teachers from the Danwon High School in Ansan, a Seoul suburb, on board the vessel.

The captain of the ship, Lee Joon-seok, 69, faces a criminal investigation, coastguard officials said, amid unconfirmed reports that he was one of the first to jump to safety from the stricken vessel.

One official said authorities were investigating whether the captain had indeed abandoned the vessel early and one of the charges he faced was violating a law that governs the conduct of shipping crew.

Many survivors told local media that Lee was one of the first to be rescued, although none actually saw him leave the ship. The coastguard and the ferry operator declined comment.

Although the water at the site of the accident is relatively shallow at under 50 metres, it is still dangerous for the 150 or so divers working flat out, experts said. Time was running out to find any survivors trapped inside, they said.

“The chances of finding people in there (alive) are not zero,” said David Jardine-Smith, secretary of the International Maritime Rescue Federation, adding, however, that conditions were extremely difficult.

“There is a lot of water current and silt in the water which means visibility is very poor and the divers are basically feeling their way around.”

The government said it was not giving up on the possibility of finding survivors, while the coastguard also turned its attention to what may have caused the disaster in calm seas.

“Today, we began looking into the cause of the submersion and sinking … focusing on any questions about crew negligence, problems with cargo holding and structural defects of the vessel,” senior coast guard official Kim Soo-hyun said.

There has been no official explanation for the sinking, although officials denied reports the ship, built in Japan 20 years ago, was sharply off its authorised route.

Although the wider area has rock hazards and shallow waters, they were not in the immediate vicinity of its usual path.

SAFETY DEFICIENCIES

The ferry was found to have three safety deficiencies in 2012, including one related to navigation, but passed subsequent safety checks in 2013 and 2014, according to international and Korean shipping records.

The ferry’s capacity was increased to more than 900 people from 800 when it was imported from Japan in late 2012, shipping sources said, but the expansion passed all safety tests. The ship, its passengers and cargoes are all under two separate insurances, according to industry sources.

State broadcaster YTN quoted investigation officials as saying the ship was off its usual course and had been hit by a veering wind which caused containers stacked on deck to shift.

The vessel was listing heavily to one side on Wednesday as passengers wearing life jackets scrambled into the sea and waiting rescue boats.

It sank within about two hours and witnesses and media showed that two life rafts from the ship successfully inflated and launched. Earlier reports said just one had inflated.

The operator, Chonghaejin Marine Co Ltd, based in Incheon, came under sharp criticism after its officials, for the second day, avoided many questions posed about the conduct of the captain and crew.

The unlisted operator, which owns four other vessels, reported an operating loss of 785 million won ($756,000) last year.

A company called Web Solus is providing an underwater drone free of charge to examine the interior of the vessel where survivors could be located.

“Families and rescuers have been just looking at the surface of the sea. We have to move fast and at least see some of the vessel under the water,” Ko Se-jin, the operator, told Reuters.

Among those on the ship were two Chinese citizens, according to Chinese media, one Russian and two Filipinos. The Philippines citizens were safe, according to Korean authorities, but the whereabouts of the others were not known.

Hope rests on whether passengers inside had been able to find air pockets, Jardine-Smith, the rescue expert, said. “It is not impossible that people have survived, but, tragically, it’s very unlikely that many will have done.”

By Ashutosh Pandey and Swetha Gopinath

Narendra Modi, the prime-ministerial candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been wooing voters with promises to rescue India from its slowest economic growth in a decade and create jobs for its booming young population.

In the latest large opinion poll, the BJP and its allies were forecast to win a narrow majority in the 543-seat lower house of parliament, compared to previous surveys predicting that they would fall short.

Yet a decision by the Election Commission to reprimand a senior Modi aide for making speeches deemed to stir tensions with minority Muslims underlined critics’ assertions that the party is a divisive force.

Voting took place in 120 constituencies across 12 states, from the fractious Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir – where election materials had to be airlifted to some remote polling stations – to the lush southern state of Karnataka whose capital is the IT and outsourcing hub Bangalore.

The world’s biggest ever election is taking place in nine stages from April 7 to May 12, with results due on May 16.

“We want Modi to win this time. That’s why we are here early in the morning, doing our best for him,” said Preetham Prabhu, a 32-year-old software engineer who was the first to cast his vote in a polling station in a residential suburb of Bangalore.

Modi’s image remains tarnished by Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, the western state where he is chief minister, on his watch 12 years ago. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the violence.

Modi denies accusations that he failed to stop the riots and a Supreme Court inquiry found he had no case to answer. In an interview with ANI television news on Wednesday, Modi accused reporters of smearing him over the riots.

“People have forgotten what Modi did to people of this country. I think saving people’s lives is more important than development,” said Shafina Khan, a 21-year-old Muslim teacher in Kamshet, a village surrounded by sugarcane fields in the large western state of Maharashtra.

Khan had just cast a vote for the Nationalist Congress Party, a Congress ally, in a polling station set up in a government school.

Election authorities on Wednesday issued an order rebuking Amit Shah, who runs the BJP’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and a key political battleground, over his speeches.

“The Election Commission is the supreme body and I abide by its decision,” Shah said on his Twitter account after the order.

The commission last week banned Shah from election rallies and meetings. The latest order did not mention the ban, or what new restrictions might now be sought.

TECH BILLIONAIRES AND ESTRANGED COUSINS

The Congress party, led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, is forecast to suffer its worst-ever defeat after a decade in power due to public anger over the economic slowdown, high inflation and a string of graft scandals. The party has ruled India for more than 50 of its 67 years of independence.

Congress has struggled in recent days with a former media adviser and a former coal secretary both releasing books that paint Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a well-intentioned but weak figure who answers only to party president Sonia Gandhi.

“It’s only a dynasty, like previously we had kings ruling,” said P.V. Padmanabhan, a 79-year-old retired electricity board official who has voted in every Indian election, and was lining up to vote at the eastern Bangalore polling station.

“They have to give it to somebody else. (Leaders) should not only come from Nehru’s family.”

Indian elections are notoriously hard to forecast due to the country’s diverse electorate and parliamentary system in which local candidates hold great sway. Opinion polls wrongly predicted a victory for a BJP-led alliance in elections in 2004 and underestimated Congress’s winning margin in 2009.

Thursday’s parliamentary candidates range from IT billionaire and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, running for Congress in Bangalore, to Maneka Gandhi, an estranged member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty standing for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

Voter turnout has been 68 per cent on average in the 111 constituencies that have voted so far, according to the Election Commission, a sharp rise on 60 per cent in the same constituencies and 58 per cent nationally in 2009.

“It is because of the people’s unrest against the establishment. It is the anti-incumbency,” Nitin Gadkari, a BJP leader and the party’s former president, told Reuters.

Pascal Fletcher

Authorities in Nigeria’s northeast Borno state denied on Thursday a statement by the armed forces which had said most of the more than 100 schoolgirls abducted by Islamist rebels had been freed in a military rescue operation.

“As I am talking to you now, only 14 of the students have returned,” an aide to Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima told Reuters, asking not to be named.

The assertion directly contradicted a statement issued late on Wednesday by national armed forces spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade in which he said only eight of the students were still missing after the military operation.

The Borno governor’s aide said the 14 girls found safe so far “escaped” and were not rescued.

An uncle of two of the teenagers who were snatched on Monday by Islamist Boko Haram militants from the government secondary school at Chibok in Borno state said the search was still going on.

“Two of my nieces, Laraba and Hauwa, are still missing, … twenty other girls from our village are missing,” Isaiah Rabo told Reuters by phone from Chibok. His daughter was among those who escaped from the abductors.

There was no immediate explanation for the contradictory versions regarding the mass abduction of the schoolgirls aged between 15 and 18, which has shocked Nigeria.

Monday’s raid on the Chibok school showed how the five-year-old Boko Haram insurgency has brought lawlessness to swathes of the arid, poor northeast, killing hundreds of people in recent months.

It occurred the same day a bomb blast, also blamed on Boko Haram, killed 75 people on the edge of the capital Abuja, stirring fears of violence spreading from the north of Africa’s No. 1 oil producer and most populous nation.

President Goodluck Jonathan was meeting his National Security Council on Thursday to review the security situation.

By George Psyllides 

THE Cyprus Football Association (CFA) has partially lifted a spectator ban from games held at Limassol’s Tsirion stadium after receiving assurances from experts that its stands were structurally sound.

The CFA said it has received a letter from the stadium’s engineer saying it was structurally sound and that the problems that appeared in the east stand were of secondary importance and were being tackled by the authorities.

The association said it has decided to allow spectators on the west stand and maintain a ban on the east side until the engineers assured the CFA that repair work had been completed.

Earlier this week, the CFA banned spectators from games held at the Tsirion following an announcement by the island’s technical chamber ETEK concerning the state of the spectator stands.

ETEK said on Thursday that it had been forced to go public with the issue after an April 10 letter to the authorities remained without response.

“Unfortunately no reply was received by lunchtime Monday, April 14, and it was decided, for public safety reasons, to publicise the matter,”  ETEK chairman Stelios Achniotis said.

The Limassol municipality, under whose jurisdiction the stadium falls, rejected claims about the stands’ structural adequacy and suggested there were other reasons behind the furore.

It said on Wednesday that it had been taken aback by the emergence of the matter at a moment that coincides with the end of the football championship.

The decision came at a critical point in the Cyprus league as title favourites AEL and contenders Apollon, which both play in the Tsirion, enter the final stretch, with seven games remaining.

The next game at Tsirion is scheduled for next Wednesday, April 23.

The CFA rejected claims that its ban was driven by other expediencies.

“The only expediency was the people’s safety and nothing else,” it said.

By Steve Gutterman and Alessandra Prentice

Edward Snowden, the fugitive former US spy agency contractor who leaked details of US intelligence eavesdropping, asked Russian President Vladimir Putin a question on Thursday during a televised call-in show

The exchange was the first known direct contact between Putin and Snowden since Russia granted the American asylum last summer after he disclosed widespread monitoring of telephone and internet data by the United States and fled the country.

Snowden, who has been given refuge in Russia, was not in the studio where Putin was speaking. He submitted his question in a video clip, and it was not immediately clear if he was speaking live or if it had been recorded earlier.

Snowden, wearing a jacket and open-collar shirt and speaking before a dark background, asked Putin: “Does Russia intercept, store or analyse, in any way, the communications of millions of individuals?”

He also asked whether Putin believes improving the effectiveness of investigations justifies “placing societies .. under surveillance”.

He was speaking in English, and Putin had to ask the anchor for help with a translation of the question.

Putin, a former spy during Soviet rule, raised a laugh among the studio audience when he said: “You are an ex-agent. I used to have ties to intelligence.”

Turning to Snowden’s question, Putin said Russia regulates communications as part of criminal investigations, but “on a massive scale, on an uncontrolled scale we certainly do not allow this and I hope we will never allow it.”

He said the Russian authorities need consent from a court to conduct such surveillance on a specific individual “and for this reason there is no (surveillance) of a mass character here and cannot be in accordance with the law”.

The televised exchange allowed Putin to portray Russia as less intrusive in the lives of its citizens than the United States and enabled Snowden to suggest that he is concerned about surveillance practices not only in the United Sates but in other countries, including the one that is sheltering him.

Putin’s refusal to hand Snowden over to the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges, added to strained ties between Russia and the United States that have now been even more badly damaged by turmoil in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Snowden was granted asylum for at least a year.

By Constantinos Psillides

Cyprus’ efforts to attract foreign investors will bear fruit, said President Nicos Anastasiades on Thursday, on his return from an official visit to Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The president said the United Arab Emirates was especially interested in investing in Cyprus, adding that the Gulf states always had good ties with the island.

He mentioned the fact that the UAE would be opening a diplomatic mission in Cyprus for the first time and also that the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, might be visiting the island shortly.

“With regard to the United Arab Emirates, beyond the excellent conditions that prevailed during my visit, we have ascertained an intense interest to create prospects for investors to visit Cyprus,” said Anastasiades.

The president promised he would continue persistently and relentlessly, “and with the hope that the advantages that Cyprus offers for investments, but also more generally in the growth of business activities as a European country, beyond Europe, are significant. And I believe that in the end, the arduous efforts that were made and are being made will be vindicated”.

Anastasiades spoke at a Business Forum in Dubai on Wednesday, attended by members of the United Arab Emirates’ Chamber of Commerce, urging UAE businessmen to explore the ways to invest in Cyprus and to cooperate with Cypriot businesses and to take “full advantage of the many opportunities offered in most sectors of our economy”.

EASTER Bunnies can leave raincoats in their burrows as the weather forecast predicts a fine day on Easter Sunday.

Meteorological service official Stavros Vasiliades said on Thursday that isolated showers could be expected in the mountainous regions and some spots inland on Friday but by Sunday, temperatures will rise to around 25 or 26 degrees Celsius.

Vasiliades said temperatures will drop on Friday and Saturday by two or three degrees to around 23 and 24 degrees Celsius inland, falling from Thursday’s 26 degrees Celsius.

Apart from a small possibility of isolated showers on Saturday, the weather will be mainly fine with some clouds expected.

By Easter Sunday and Monday, temperatures will rise slightly to 25/26 degrees Celsius with a few clouds expected, he said.

By Stefanos Evripidou

Resourceful entrepreneurs in the mixed village of Pyla have found a way to unite Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots using as a common denominator… gambling.

According to a front page article in Thursday’s Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika, a bicommunal casino has been set up in Pyla, operated jointly by Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

The paper writes that while a United Cyprus has yet to be established, the Cypriots in Pyla have created the first ‘united casino’, attracting great interest from punters, particularly those south of the buffer zone.

According to Afrika, the casino has been in operation for five months now, opening originally as an internet cafe. It now has ten croupiers allegedly working there. The majority of the customers are Greek Cypriots.

The owner of the casino is a known Turkish Cypriot businessman from Famagusta, said the paper, adding that he cooperates on a range of different issues with Greek Cypriots and has close ties with the Turkish Cypriot National Unity Party (UBP), representing the right-wing of the political spectrum in the north.

Afrika reports that when police of the breakaway regime go to the casino, the owner says it belongs to the Greek Cypriots, and when the Cyprus Republic police enter the casino, they say it belongs to the Turkish Cypriots.

The author of the article writes: “The smugglers, the gamblers are united… Gangs are being formed… The local mafia is united… But the forces of peace cannot be united!”

Cyprus will initiate a savings bond programme for retail investors every month starting in June, the finance ministry said on Thursday.

The 6-year bonds will bear a 5.75 per cent coupon until maturity but can be redeemable with a lower interest rate starting at 2.75 per cent two years after acquisition. The minimum subscription for the issue is 1,000 euros, the finance ministry said.

Cyprus has been shut out of international financial markets since May 2011, necessitating a bailout from the EU and the IMF in early 2013.

By Josh Reich

IT would be a brave gambler who wagered against Luis Suarez becoming the first Liverpool player to score 30 goals in a Premier League season when the leaders head to struggling Norwich City on Sunday.

The Uruguayan has played a major role in taking Liverpool – two points clear of Chelsea with four games left – to the brink of their first league title since 1990, with his 29 league goals one better than Robbie Fowler’s previous club best in the Premier League era.

He is also two goals shy of equalling the Premier League 38-game season record held by Alan Shearer and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Suarez has taken particular pleasure in tormenting Norwich, netting 11 times in four games including four goals in their last meeting, a 5-1 demolition at Anfield in December, and has scored hat-tricks in his past two trips to Carrow Road.

Former Liverpool striker Michael Owen said Suarez’s performances this season were on par with Arsenal great Thierry Henry.
“Suarez has been the best player in the Premier League this season,” Owen said.
“Yes, there are others who’ve done well – Yaya Toure, Steven Gerrard, Adam Lallana and Eden Hazard.
“But, when it comes to Suarez, I don’t think I have seen anything that good since probably Thierry Henry was playing in the Premier League. He has been absolutely outstanding.
“And it’s important to mention he has been absolutely exemplary this season. His discipline has been great.”

Sunday’s match comes at the end of an emotional seven days for the Merseyside club, with last Sunday’s 3-2 win over Manchester City putting them in the driving seat for the league crown, and Tuesday the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster which claimed the lives of 96 fans.

Liverpool will be heavy favourites against 17th-placed Norwich, who also have to play Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal as they bid to retain their top-flight status.
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard said they had to treat their lowly opposition like they did AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final.
“Every game is getting bigger because we are getting closer to the last game of the season,” he said.
“Man City was always going to be huge because they are in the race with us, but Norwich now become Man City. Norwich become Chelsea. Norwich become Manchester United. That’s how big it is.
“We have got to treat Norwich like we treated AC Milan in 2005. That’s just how football is. We can’t think about what colour shirts Norwich are wearing and the personnel in them. We have got to treat them like the best team in the world.”

David Moyes will return to Everton on Sunday for the first time since leaving to become Manchester United manager, hoping to build on consecutive league wins over Aston Villa and Newcastle.

United’s hopes of retaining their league title have long since gone and they are very unlikely to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
In seventh spot on 57 points, three behind Tottenham Hotspur with a game in hand, United are still in the running for the Europa League.

“There are still plenty of important games to play. We are Manchester United and it’s our duty to win every game we take part in,” Spanish goalkeeper David de Gea told the club website (www.manutd.com).
“That’s what we’ll try to do now because we want to finish as high as we can in the league, ensure we’re playing in a European competition next season, and show we are still around and that we will never give in.”

Everton, who suffered a shock 3-2 home defeat by Crystal Palace on Wednesday, are on 66 points, locked in a battle with Arsenal (67) for fourth spot and a place in next season’s Champions League.
The Gunners visit Hull City in Sunday’s other match, a dress rehearsal for next month’s FA Cup final.

Chelsea will seek to keep the pressure on Liverpool when they host Sunderland on Saturday, with the Black Cats’ hopes of an eighth season in the top-flight improved by a shock 2-2 draw at Manchester City on Wednesday

Third-placed City, six points behind Liverpool with one game in hand, host West Bromwich Albion on Monday.

Saturday’s other matches see 18th-placed Fulham travel to Spurs looking to continue their recent revival after two successive wins, and fellow relegation candidates Cardiff City host Stoke.

Aston Villa entertain Southampton, Newcastle play Swansea and Palace visit West Ham United.

CYPRUS will host for the first time the chess championship of small states of Europe. The championship will take place from next Tuesday until Wednesday April 30 in Larnaca.

The event is organised by the Cyprus Chess Federation in cooperation with the World Chess Federation and the European Chess Union.

Twelve chess players from ten small states of Europe will participate in the championship.

Cyprus, as an organising country, will participate with two chess players, 14-year-old champion Andreas Keliris and six times Cypriot champion Antonis Antoniou.

During the event many officials will visit Cyprus, including the President of the World Chess Federation, senior officials from other Chess Federations, Deputy Ministers for Sports and former world champion Garry Kasparov.

Through ‘psychology with a soul’ we can find inner peace and learn to live together, THEO PANAYIDES is told

A comfortable home on a quiet Strovolos side street, with photos of kids on the sideboards. There’s a welcome sign on the front door: “Live well … Love much … Laugh often”. Sue Lartides opens the door – blonde, coiffed, very elegant – and leads me upstairs to the small office where she does her counselling. I have a quick browse through the bookshelves while she gets a glass of water; most are books that relate to her work (she’s a psychosynthesis counsellor), mostly with titles like Romancing the Shadow: How to Access the Power Hidden in Our Dark Side. Also on the shelves is The Rainbow Journey by Brenda Davies – whose work Sue admires, and is keen to support as much as possible.

I don’t learn the full details of Davies’ philosophy; Brenda needs to speak for herself, says Sue piously (Brenda will be doing just that when she visits Cyprus next month, leading a series of workshops) – but the gist of it is that she combines the personal and political, the inner peace sought by individuals with the Cyprus settlement sought by successive governments for the past 40 years. “Brenda’s approach is dealing with the conflict within,” explains Sue. “I resonate with this, tremendously. If we can address the conflict within and find peace within ourselves, then we start to affect people we interact with, our community. We have that effect. But we have to start from within.”

Cypriots at peace with themselves will eventually foster peace in Cyprus, in other words. I make the obvious counter-argument: Greek and Turkish Cypriots have specific grievances and specific demands. Inner peace is all very well, but how can a refugee be happy if he doesn’t get his land back? “What makes us happy in life?” she replies rhetorically – which sounds a bit glib, but she has a point. In the end, contentment is all in the mind. Maybe the answer is to stop fixating on outside objectives and become conscious of “the self,” as she puts it. “The best we can do, Theo, is work on ourselves.”

After all, she’s not indifferent when it comes to the Cyprus problem. Sue isn’t a refugee herself – though her parents were building a house in Ayios Epiktitos, near Kyrenia, when the invasion took place – but it hardly matters: “I feel very, very strongly, very strongly, about what has happened here,” she tells me earnestly, adding that “I saw a lot during the coup”.She almost died, for one thing. She was in bed at her mother-in-law’s flat in Nicosia when her husband (then fiancé)’s cousin rushed in, warning her to get out. Sue scrambled to safety as the shooting started from outside – then went back a few minutes later to find the bedroom riddled with bullets. “Especially my bed,” she adds with a sheepish grin.

“I’ve never, ever known such fear,” she recalls of the invasion. Her face has a contemplative, rather patrician cast; her default expression – at least in interview mode – is a thoughtful concern, sometimes relaxing into a warm smile. “I’d never known what it is to have your mind working but your body paralysed. There’s no co-ordination. Your mind’s telling you to get the … out of there, but your body just won’t move”.

One assumes the trauma was partly due to the kind of person she was at the time, and the kind of childhood she’d had. She’s the younger of two sisters, born in London to a Greek Cypriot father (who’d moved to the UK as a teenager) and an English mother. It seems clear the family had money. Her dad was “a self-made man” and “a great philanthropist”; he owned a chain of small hotels, and opened the first German ‘bierkeller’ in London. Sue herself was educated in Switzerland – she studied French and Spanish, planning to become a conference interpreter – and describes herself as “well-travelled” by the time she was in her teens.

Did she have big dreams as an 18-year-old?

She laughs: “I don’t think I did have big dreams, actually. Probably got bigger dreams now!”

How would she describe herself? Was she bubbly, or morose?

“Oh no, I was never morose. I was bubbly. I was very active, I think I used to…” She lets the memory trail off, as if debating whether to toss it back in the mists of Time. “I think it was difficult for my mum to keep up with me, let’s put it that way.”

A picture emerges of a happy, unselfconscious, rather sheltered young girl who joined her parents on the move from the UK to Cyprus – an ill-timed move, since they started building their retirement home at the end of 1973. After a while, says Sue, she was getting restless and keen to go back to England – but then her sister had a birthday party “and that’s where I met my husband-to-be. I never, ever thought that I would live most of my life in Cyprus. I struggled in the beginning, living here, it was so very different – even though my father was Cypriot – so very different to what I was used to. But you know, the longer I live here, I have this great love for Cyprus. For the land, for the energy of Cyprus. And it hurts, I feel that I hurt with what happened here in 1974.”

That presumably explains why Brenda Davies’ work, a “new approach” to the Cyprus problem, speaks to her so strongly. It surely explains why Sue was active in a women’s bicommunal group, Hands Across the Divide, for six years (2000-06), Greek and Turkish Cypriot women meeting in Pyla – this was before the checkpoints opened – and trying to bridge their differences. “Then we had the referendum,” she recalls – and the ‘No’ vote, in her personal opinion, “was shattering for both sides of the group. And I slowly started to pull out of the group after that. I think a lot of us were quite disillusioned”.

Why did she join Hands Across the Divide in the first place? Here again her traumatic memories of 1974 play a part – because her elder son Andreas was in the army around that time (he’s now 33, putting Sue somewhere in her 50s; “Of course I had him when I was four and a half years old!” she protests), and thoughts of tensions between the two communities were preying on her mind. Andreas was on the Green Line, a more dangerous place at that time, with frequent low-level “incidents” between Greek and Turkish soldiers – and “I questioned as a mother how I’d brought him up, you know, to respect life, we don’t kill an ant or a fly just because it’s bothering us, and yet he was being taught how to kill, he was given a weapon!”. Sue was terrified that her son would “freeze” if he had to defend his own life, because of the way she’d raised him; “I felt I had created this agony within him”. It sounds a bit exaggerated (it’s not like National Guardsmen were getting shot on a daily basis), but her terror was real; she physically shudders at the memory. “I can still feel it now,” she says, and shakes her head. “I thought I’d worked through this…”

In fact, if there’s a word to describe Sue Lartides – or at least my brief impression of her – it might be ‘maternal’. “I believe the basis for everything is love,” she asserts at one point – then adds that she felt it most strongly when her sons went in the army, that fierce sense of loss (and love) as she drove away after dropping them off at the camp. Being a mother, she says, is “the most important thing a woman can do” (“I’ll probably get hammered by the feminists about that,” she adds with a chuckle) – though it’s also true that she felt something “missing” during her years of motherhood. “Basically, I needed to work. But I think it was also – I hope this doesn’t sound like a cliché – I think it was also a call to the self.” She went into psychosynthesis partly “for my own psychosynthesis”, her own self-development.

Psychosynthesis? How is that different from ordinary therapy? It does have its roots in psychotherapy, she replies, but Freudians “tend to work a lot with left-brain, which is analysis and looking at the problems” whereas “we work a lot with the right brain. We use meditation, we use gestalt therapy, we use imagery, drawing, music, movement” – tools that “bypass the intellect” to arrive at something else: “What I call the higher self, that all-knowing that is connected to the Divine, for me”. Her métier is often known as “psychology with a soul,” she explains. Sue started training in 1998 – and actually trained as a hands-on healer, at the College of Healing in Worcester, before switching to counselling.

Does that mean she also has a gift for hands-on healing? Sounds quite important, if so – but she doesn’t elaborate (“I don’t use it as such, let’s put it that way”). More significantly, perhaps, talking people through their problems – she deals with issues ranging from depression to menopause to bereavement to low self-esteem – fits her need to nurture and protect, that maternal vibe I mentioned earlier. After all, in addition to the counselling and bicommunal work, she also spent many years at the Association for the Prevention and Handling of Violence in the Family (initially as a volunteer on the help-line, then on the Board of Directors) and is also very passionate about animal welfare. There are two dogs in the house, a pug named Giuseppe and a frankly neurotic husky/terrier named Phoebe who yaps at me uncontrollably. Phoebe was rescued off the street, explains Sue, and must’ve been mistreated or attacked by people or other dogs. Phoebe has some issues. Then again, doesn’t everyone?

That’s the crux of it, as we sit in the comfortable house with birdsong filling the spring day outside. Everyone has problems, and everyone can make themselves better – partly with the help of someone like Sue Lartides, someone who believes in “empowerment” and “helping the voice that is maybe not strong enough, or maybe needs help to be heard”, but mostly just by looking within, becoming conscious of themselves. “If people can get to know themselves,” she urges, “get to know their essence, the centre, that part of them that is never wavering, it’s always there … If people learn to connect to that, that’s their guiding light”.

Sue also struggles to know herself, to become conscious, to connect with her essence. Her biggest challenge, she explains, has been to “recognise what is mine, as opposed to what I’ve been taught or how I’ve been influenced by role models in my life”. Like everyone, she seems to be trying to rebel against childhood certainties, to expand her definition of herself. Which aspect of her personality needs the most work? I enquire indiscreetly – and her face grows even more patrician, a certain hauteur tingeing her elegant features. Long pause: “I think that’s a very … personal question”.

Sue Lartides has a good life. She swims, she meditates, she sings in a choir (“It’s fun. It feeds me”). She has her dogs, her family, the big house in Strovolos. Some may dismiss her anxieties as ‘First World problems’ – but maybe one reason why so many people are unhappy (and why we haven’t come close to solving the Cyprus problem in 40 years) is precisely because so few people share her anxieties, or care as deeply about finding themselves and improving their energy. Positive energy breeds positive feelings, she insists; there’s a ripple effect. We can dwell on resentments and grievances – but at the end of the day we’re all the same, born with a link to the “all-knowing” and an innate understanding of what truly matters in life: Live well. Love much. Laugh often.

Paphos police have seized explosive materials meant to be used in the production of firecrackers for Easter.

Inside a bag hidden in a park in Lempa, officers found five kilos of potassium nitrate, a bag believed to contain sulphur, 26 metal pipes, two fire extinguishers, a gas canister, and a sledgehammer.

“Police managed to prevent the manufacture of these dangerous objects, which were apparently going to be used in Easter,” Paphos police spokesman Nicos Tsiappis said.

He said the force continued its intensified effort to stamp out the phenomenon and urged the public to help.

Meanwhile, Limassol police located 107 factory-made firecrackers in a cemetery, found to belong to two teenagers, 14 and 16.

Police also found €29 in cash stashed with the explosives.

The teens were arrested and charged in writing, police said.

Tottenham Hotspur legend and Argentina international Osvaldo ‘Ossie’ Ardiles will be in Cyprus next week, the team’s local supporters club has announced.

The club said that on Easter Monday, Ardiles,62, will appear at Murphy’s in Nicosia, the designated Spurs supporters’ bar.

At the Nicosia event, fans will present Ossie with a plaque and a video will be shown with the Argentine player in action at THFC.

It will start at 7pm and there is a €20 fee per person for a meal, drinks not included.

Born in 1952, Ardiles was one of the first foreign players who had a successful impact on the English game.

Ardiles joined Spurs in 1978, the same year he won the World Cup with Argentina.

He played for Spurs until 1988 before moving to Blackburn Rovers.

As a Spurs player, he won the FA Cup in 1981 and UEFA Cup in 1984.

Ardiles returned to Spurs as a manager between 1993 and 1994.

He had to leave England in 1982 because of the outbreak of the Falklands War.

During this time, he played for France’s Paris Saint Germain before returning to Spurs in 1983.

It was in the Falklands that Ardiles was injured in a car crash in January, needing 20 stitches to the head.

Reports said he was in the Falklands making a television documentary with former Spurs team mate Ricky Villa, also 62.

Bank of Cyprus said on Friday it had completed the sale of its Ukrainian business and stake in Banca Transilvania ahead of schedule.

In an announcement, the bank said the sale of the Ukrainian business enhances the Group’s liquidity position and shields it from further uncertainty in Ukraine

The sale of the Ukrainian business was achieved at a cost of 0.3 percentage points of core tier 1 capital ratio and represents real economic risk reduction at an acceptable price

The sale of shares in Banca Transilvania, it said, enhances the Bank’s core tier 1 capital ratio by 0.2 percentage points and provides an immediate improvement in liquidity of €82m.

“The combined impact of both transactions is to immediately improve the Group’s liquidity by approximately €185 mn at a net impact on core tier 1 capital ratio of 0.1 percentage points,” the bank said

“In closing these transactions ahead of plan the Group has demonstrated significant and tangible progress in its strategy of de-risking and de-leveraging the Group’s operations.”

The sale of the Bank’s loss-making operations in Ukraine to Alfa Group for €202.5m was revised downwards by 10 per cent from the original amount, BoC said, with an accounting loss of approximately €153m.

An amount of €102.5m has already been received by the Bank with the remaining amount of €100m due to be received in March 2015.

As for BoC’s stake in Romanian Banca Transilvania, the Cypriot lender has sold 220.461.952 shares that represented 9.99 per cent of the total issued share capital of Banca Transilvania. The sale consideration amounts to €82m “achieving a realised gain of approximately €47m”

In a statement regarding the two transactions, the Group’s CEO, John Patrick Hourican, said:

“We are making good progress with the implementation of our restructuring plan and today’s announcement marks an important milestone in our efforts to return Bank of Cyprus to a position of financial strength and stability where it is capable of supporting the recovery of the Cypriot economy.

“I am pleased that both transactions have been completed at a faster pace than anticipated and in particular that we completed the sale of our Ukrainian business at an acceptable price despite the country’s current uncertain economic and political environment.

“Overall, the Bank remains on track in the delivery of its broader strategic objectives, supported by a gradual improvement in the economic and operating conditions in Cyprus.”

By Oliver Holmes

A bomb went off in front of a mosque and killed 14 people in Homs, Syrian state television said on Friday, with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad looking close to wresting the symbolic central city back from rebels.

“Fourteen people were killed and dozens wounded in a terrorist bomb in front of the Bilal al Habshi mosque … as people left the mosque,” state television said. The mosque is in a government-controlled part of Homs.

Syrian authorities generally refer to attacks by rebels as “terrorist”, but there was no way to verify who was responsible for the blast. The Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV station, which has reporters in Syria, said it was a car bomb.

Hundreds of rebel fighters and civilians remain trapped in the ancient quarter of Homs, surrounded by government forces and pro-Assad militia. A deal agreed at peace talks in Geneva this year allowed some civilians to leave. But further negotiations broke down following heavy fighting this week.

A city with a mixed Sunni Muslim, Alawite and Christian population, Homs was the scene of early protests against Assad in 2011 that, after he tried to crush them by force, spiralled into an armed insurgency.

Homs has since evolved into a symbol of the destructive nature of Syria’s civil war, with many of its neighbourhoods levelled by army bombardment.

The state news agency SANA quoted a military source on Friday as saying the army had “eliminated” rebels in central Homs and taken control of buildings in Bab Hood and Wadi al-Sayeh neighbourhoods, both contested districts.

The opposition National Coalition, a political body in exile, warned on Thursday of a massacre if Assad’s forces were to push through into the small pocket of rebel-held Homs.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in the civil war, a third of them civilians, according to the anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Millions have fled the country.

The conflict has been broadly stalemated for months, with the government generally dominant in Damascus, the main central cities and western, coastal regions of Syria and the rebels holding wide swathes of the north and east.

By Dave Graham and Michael O’Boyle

A powerful earthquake struck Mexico on Friday, shaking buildings in the capital and sending people running out into the street, though there were no early reports of major damage.

The magnitude 7.5 quake was centered in the southwestern state of Guerrero, close to the Pacific beach resort of Acapulco, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Luis Felipe Puente, head of the Mexican government’s emergency services, said on Twitter there were no immediate reports of damage and the U.S. Pacific Warning Center said it did not expect the quake to trigger a destructive tsunami.

Nevertheless, residents of the capital were shaken by the quake, one of the biggest to hit Mexico in several years.

“I had to hold on to a tree, like a drunk,” said Pedro Hernandez, 68, a doorman working in central Mexico City.

The USGS said the quake was centered some 37 km (23 miles) north of the municipality of Tecpan de Galeana in Guerrero. It was relatively shallow, at a depth of 30.2 miles (49 km).

By Staff Reporter

TWO people claiming to be former executives of Neo & Bee have slammed the company’s head honcho Danny Brewster, accusing him of taking off with company money.

In a damning joint statement posted on reddit, Neo’s former COO George Papageorgiou and former Compliance and Risk Management Officer Øystein Aaby set to put the record straight.

The two explained their reasons for not speaking up earlier: “In the interests of preserving the potential that the company can be turned around, we had remained silent on the matter up to this point.”

“We were misled and the truth was obfuscated from us under so many layers, that combined with our workload, proved enough to allow the CEO to run rampant, without accountability and with full control of all the bitcoins, until it was too late,” the statement reads.

Their full post can be found here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23cjd9/the_full_picture_of_former_neo_bee_employees/

Initially responsible for raising 9,400 bitcoins, Brewster told a manager on his team they were down to 5,000 bitcoins on March 18. The very next day, Brewster informed the management team they were down to 140 bitcoins at a meeting.

“Mr. Brewster proceeded to give a very rough and incoherent breakdown of where the funds had been spent. After revealing the lack of funds to his employees he went on to raise the possibility of selling more ‘profit shares’ to increase liquidity. All employees sternly objected to this and the idea has since not been raised.”

“In defence of the sudden announcement on the 19th of March that the company only had 140 bitcoins remaining, Mr. Brewster stated in front of the same people that he had mis-accounted for 5,000 of his own bitcoins, bitcoins he thought he owned but after ‘checking’ a wallet, realised had actually spent them all.”

The staff subsequently moved to remove Brewster from his position as CEO on March 20. This is what happened next, according to the two company execs’ account:

“Mr. Brewster came to the office for one hour on Thursday the 20th and one hour on Friday the 21st. On Thursday the 20th it was made very clear to him that the whole of the management team wished Danny to be removed as the CEO. Danny agreed to step down after transferring control of the company to investors. He claimed he was flying to the UK to speak with investors the following week.

“After leaving on Monday the 24th, no one was able to get in contact with him until the 28th when he wrote to us that due to threats against his daughter’s life he should remain silent, and in England (despite his daughter being in Cyprus). The supposed threat email is dated 26th of March, while Mr. Brewster has been out of contact long before that. We mentioned this claimed threat to the local authorities here on the 28th as well, since any potential threat of any form should not be taken lightly. They said that this was the first time they heard of it, from us.”

According to the two execs, on March 31 staff sent Brewster a letter demanding that he return from abroad and explain his absence, giving him a deadline on April 2.

On the morning of April 2, a person claiming to be Brewster posted on reddit, denying allegations of wrongdoing and alleging that his family was threatened.

Brewster meanwhile is wanted by Cyprus police in connection to allegations he defrauded three persons of cash in exchange for bitcoins, which they never received from him. Again posting on reddit this Tuesday, Brewster sought to clear his name, offering to arrange to deliver the bitcoins via a lawyer in Cyprus.

By Constantinos Psillides

THOUSANDS of Greek Cypriots, most refugees, flocked to the Ayios Giorgos Exorinos church in Famagusta where they attended a Good Friday service at their historical place of worship for the first time in decades.

The service, the first since 1957 at the church in the medieval town, should send a message of hope and reunification, said leaders of both major parties AKEL and DISY on their way to the thronged church and its courtyard.

More than 4,000 people attended the service that started at around 5pm and was set to run for three and a half hours.

The organisers said that around 3,000 people reserved a bus seat but a lot of people just travelled there by car. The church was visited not only by Famagustians but also by other refugees as well as people who just wanted to witness the historic event including foreign ambassadors.

Volunteers began arriving at the church from 5.30am to decorate the ‘Epitaphios’, which symbolises the body of Christ in Orthodox tradition.

The service was broadcast live on all TV channels and by some foreign media.

Many of those attending the service were too emotional too speak to the television cameras but those who did, sent a message of hope and reconciliation.

“I cannot describe how I feel. I’m overwhelmed with emotion for having the privilege to be here, attend the Good Friday service in this church”, said one woman who said she was a refugee from Famagusta.

“I think that a solution must be found. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots can live together and our churches are longing for their bells to be tolled and for services to be held within their walls,” she said.

Another refugee, Zeta Stavrinou was similarly overwhelmed. “I’m so emotional I don’t think I can take it anymore. I never believed that in my lifetime I would ever see a service in this church again. My parents got married in this church and we used to live around this part of the town when I was a kid,” she said, adding that she was sorry that a lot of her relatives didn’t get to see the church again. “I would like to thank everyone that made this a reality. Thank you. Thank you”.

But it wasn’t just people living in Cyprus that attended the event. Vasilis Mavrou, a refugee from Famagusta travel from England where he now lives. “I come to Cyprus every year for the Easter holidays and this year I came specifically to attend this event. I’m thrilled to be here, it’s the second time I’m visiting Famagusta. I hope that the refugees from Famagusta return to their homes. Today’s message should be that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots should stick together so we can build a new Cyprus,” he said.

Leader of ruling party DISY Averof Neophytou also attended the event. Neophytou said that the service is a message of reconciliation and a path to trust between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots “the path that will lead us to salvation and to the resurrection of Cyprus, so we can see our country reunited once more,” he said.

“The road ahead is very difficult and steep, much like the road to Calvary. We have to trek it though, or else we will never reach the Resurrection,” Neophytou added.

The DISY leader admitted that it was his first time in Famagusta, despite being 53 years old. “Forty years ago, when the invasion took place, I was just a kid. Forty years of occupation is too many. If our generation didn’t get to see the whole country, one can only imagine what that means for our kids, teenagers and my three-year-old child. We must work hard. We must reunite our country,” he said.

Neophytou was joined by the leader of AKEL, the main opposition party, Andros Kyprianou. Kyprianou said that he was deeply moved to have come to the church and that the service should send the message that 40 years of occupation was too much. “Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots must work together to unite the island. This is the message we are sending by attending the Good Friday service. I’d like to believe that our message is being heard in every corner of the island,” Kyprianou said.

The church lies within the walled city of Famagusta, which is at very close proximity to the fenced off area of Famagusta, known as Varosha. Diplomatic initiatives are currently underway to have Varosha returned to Greek Cypriots as a confidence building measure. Several ambassadors attended the event as did the Turkish Cypriot Mufti , Dr Talip Atalay. The Bishop of Constantia and Famagusta, Vasileios, who officiated the service, presented the Turkish Cypriot religious leader with a copy of a lead seal, first commissioned by one of his predecessors bishop Akakios who lived in the 7^th Century AD.

Both clerics spoke of the peace that could be accomplished through religion, saying the Famagusta service was a testament to that.