A group of six swimmers have claimed a world record of 380 kilometres for open-water relay distance swimming after crossing the eastern Mediterranean from Cyprus to Israel.

The Israeli team left Paphos on October 5 and set the new mark on Friday when they reached the coast south of Tel Aviv but they remained on their support yacht and came ashore together on Saturday.

The six men achieved their goal at the second time of asking after aborting an attempt last year due to rough seas.

The swim was completed in 123 hours 10 minutes, the World Open Water Swimming Association said on their website.

The previous record of 367 kilometres was set by a U.S. sextet off the coast of California last year.

The six, ranging between 66 and 44, each spent an hour in the water and had to maintain the same rotation for the record to be recognised, said Udi Erell, 66, one of the swimmers.

“It wasn’t easy but (the other five) made it easy, they were all amazing … and not to forget that the goal was to bring to the attention of everybody that we need clean seas.”

CHAMPIONSHIP leader Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes on pole position for the first Russian Grand Prix on Saturday with team mate and title rival Nico Rosberg having to settle for second.

The pole was the 29-year-old Briton’s seventh of the season and 38th of his career, but he felt he could have done better on a new circuit that snakes around the Sochi Winter Olympic park.

“It wasn’t a perfect lap I think there was more time in it,” said the 2008 champion, who leads Rosberg by ten points with four races remaining.

“The track surface is great, very smooth but it’s got a lot of grip,” added Hamilton. “The kerbs are done nicely and the surroundings, being around the Olympic Park is quite an incredible place.”

Rosberg had to recognise that Hamilton, fastest also in practice, had been quicker all weekend.

Both were given a scare by Valtteri Bottas, whose Williams was quicker through the first two sectors before the Finn made a big mistake right at the end and was unable to improve on his third place.

“I didn’t know at that time it was close to the pole,” he said. “I risked it a bit too much in last two corners, went a bit wide and when you go off, it’s really slippery.”

McLaren’s Jenson Button completed the second row while Daniil Kvyat, the only current Russian Formula One driver, will have the home crowd excited after taking fifth place for the Toro Rosso team.

Ferrari, whose record run of 81 successive races in the points ended in Japan, and outgoing champions Red Bull had a difficult session.

Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen qualified eighth and ninth while Red Bull’s quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel managed only 11th.

Brazilian Felipe Massa fared even worse, with an engine problem dumping the Williams driver out in the first phase and leaving him 18th on the grid.

Hamilton will be chasing his fourth win in a row on Sunday, and ninth of the season, while Mercedes look set to wrap up the constructors’ championship for the first time.

“It doesn’t change much for me in the race but it will be a historic moment for us,” said Hamilton. “It’s going to be the first time so it’s going to be historic for the team, a very special moment.”

That might finally bring out the champagne after a tough and dark week, with French driver Jules Bianchi fighting for his life in hospital after crashing into a recovery tractor in last Sunday’s Japanese race at Suzuka.

The drivers are all carrying stickers of support on their helmets.

Your September 28 feature on unregulated funeral homes, and inter alia, the issue of cremation, stimulated me to write how strongly I agree with author Constantinos Psillides when he presses for the government to get on with the crematorium Bill.

After over ten years shilly-shallying and procrastination there is really no excuse any longer for delaying the passing of the relevant legislation. The endless bureaucracy enveloping the topic has become ludicrous. You couldn’t make it up.

As for the Church protesting about not being able or willing to perform funeral rites at a cremation, this aspect was overtaken by a former Attorney General making it clear in a ‘Cyprus Mail’ published comment that if and when the Bill is passed, the Church will be legally bound to perform rites at a cremation if requested.

Moreover, after three face to face personal assurances, together with public utterances from the Archbishop, I was told that he will never stand in the way of the cremation option. So what is his Holy Synod doing holding off on an issue of increasingly urgent importance?

Its Members agree individual wishes should be respected, along with Greek Orthodox practices, so why their discriminatory reticence to support this Bill? Getting on for ten thousand supporters surely have a right to be recognised. We stand all but alone in the EU in not having a crematorium facility.

The cemeteries are desperately overcrowded and badly under maintained. And unfortunately, as the article quoted, the cost of sending a body to a country where cremation is possible is horrendous, quite apart from the fact that embalming here is of a standard which you wouldn’t want to hear about.

Highlighted in the September 28 text was the police preference for any crematorium to be Government run, and that I can understand, but I can offer ideas and plans, architectural drawings, operating expertise, and research data available about where best to source the necessary equipment, if any Government department cares to ask. But first, for Heaven’s sake (sorry) let us get this Bill past the post.

Clive Turner, Paphos

For the last 25 years my wife and I have travelled to Germany in early June to spend our summer in our flat. For the last 11 years our little dog has led the way.

We needed to travel to Frankfurt in mid-week during the day and as Cyprus Airways provided the only suitable flight we used the flight. This year CY changed the flight to Monday and although it was inconvenient we had to accept it.

In April we booked and paid for our tickets and reserved a space in the hold as excess baggage for our dog. The chosen date was Monday June 16 and all our rather complicated arrangements had been made when CY called us on the afternoon of Friday June 13 to say that our dog could not travel because the aircraft had no pressurisation in the hold.

We overcame the problems of re-arranging all the details during the weekend and were able to secure another inconvenient flight for Friday June 20.

We checked at in Larnaca. I was in my wheelchair and we were in the passport control queue when we were called back. CY had just discovered that once again our aircraft had no pressurisation in the hold.

Our baggage and dog had to be recalled and the exorbitant price for our dog’s fare had to be reclaimed. The CY staff apologised with embarrassed grins but when I asked what they were going to do to rectify the situation they had no idea. A few strong words were exchanged.

Fortunately the airport staff found that a Lufthansa flight would leave for Frankfurt two hours later and we were able to secure seats for us and a spot for our dog in the pressurised hold. During the waiting time I was able to make new arrangements in Germany as our home there is in a remote area.

We were booked to return to Larnaca on another inconvenient flight on Monday, September 22 but two weeks before the flight I contacted CY in Frankfurt to try to ascertain if the aircraft would have pressurisation in the hold. I was told that they would not know until the aircraft left Larnaca for Frankfurt on the day.

I began to try to contact CY in Frankfurt on Sunday, the day before the flight, but the office was closed for the weekend. I then began trying to contact CY in Nicosia and was subjected to the torments of a call centre which leaves you stranded and then the next call connects you to another person. After six calls I was given an assurance that the aircraft would have pressurisation in the hold.

We have had several bad experiences on CY flights but each time we have been given weak excuses but no apologies or recompense. I am also sure that my complaints were not passed up the line so that action could be taken to avoid any repetitions.

Name and address withheld

It is legally possible to temporarily deprive a debtor of the use of a mortgaged property or motor vehicle until he makes good on his debt. Such alternative measures may be acceptable to the Troika, because the intent of any foreclosure legislation is not to dispossess Cypriots of their homes or cars, but rather to provide a guaranteed revenue stream to the banks.

My late mother worked as a debt-collector for various legal companies. She often submitted applications to the court on behalf of her clients for “sequestration” of property. That meant that a debtor was barred from the use of his home or car until his debt was settled. The houses had their locks changed by the sheriffs of the court and the cars were stored in a large parking bay owned by the banks.

The bank or creditor was not allowed to repossess or auction the asset unless the debtor failed to abide by payment terms ordered by the court. Usually the debtor agreed to the court imposing a “garnishee order” whereby a certain sum was deducted from his salary (or unemployment benefit) each month. Once the debt had been honoured to the satisfaction of the creditor, the debtor was allowed to reclaim possession of the asset.

The lowest divisions of the court had jurisdiction in such matters. More importantly, the lawyers who had not yet been admitted to the bar, who were doing their “articles” with law firms, were allowed to represent either the plaintiff or defendant in court.

This ensured that the sequestration process moved through the courts very quickly, as newly qualified law graduates were keen to build a good reputation.

The steps I have listed may be defined by another legal term, but this is the procedure that I recall from the 1960s. I suggest that it would be more reasonable to add this half-way stage to the process of repossessing primary residences, rather than for banks to move directly from default to foreclosure. It may well yield the desired results.

Additionally, such measures would avoid the need for the extra-judicial fast-track processes requested by the Troika, which could be challenged in the Constitutional Court. The banks might also be challenged in court when they sell the NPLs to vulture funds, having failed to exhaust all other remedies.

John Morgan, Oroklini

By Patrolcos

I OFTEN wonder what we would do if we didn’t have the Turks to bully and intimidate us whenever they get bored of just being intransigent.

Well actually, not that often, because I do have a life, but I caught myself thinking about this on more than one occasion in the last week after the Turks issued the maritime advisory (known as NAVTEX) about carrying out seismic explorations in our Exclusive Economic Zone and we flew into a collective fit of rage about the latest violation of our sovereign rights.

Journalists, politicians and the rest of guardians of the national interest, fed up of beating their breasts over the foreclosures law and primary residences, greeted the latest display of Turkish bullying with a big sigh of relief as it enabled them to drop the uninspiring memorandum and focus on their beloved Cyprob and related subjects once again.

Getting worked up over Turkish arrogance and indignantly demanding that the rest of the world intervenes to put the Turks in their place is our favourite activity, which we refuse to give up despite the fact that nobody ever intervenes. At best, a statement, urging restraint, is issued by foreign governments. This allows us to get worked up about the world’s lack of principles (with the notable exception of Mother Russia, which according to local folklore always takes a principled stand that even the Turkey approves of).

In the last week the unrelenting doom and gloom caused by the recession was forgotten as everyone’s spirits were lifted by the new declaration of a war of words on Turkey.

EVENTS like these inspire the imagination of the uber-nationalist newspapers to go wild. On Monday Simerini reported on its front page that “Ankara blatantly invades with an armada of its war(sic) navy in the exclusive economic zone of Cyprus with the apparent aim to put obstacles to the exploration and drilling for hydrocarbons, harassing exploration ships.”

And in Nicosia, the paper wrote, “the government appears not to understand the extent of Turkish aggressiveness and restricts itself to a soulless statement by the government spokesman about the possibility of the talks being affected.”

What did the paper want the spokesman to say that had soul? Announce plans to declare war over an invasion by a Turkish armada that existed only in its reporter’s imagination? On Tuesday Simerini forgot about the invasion and reported there was a Turkish frigate monitoring the drilling in plot 9 but from outside Cyprus’ EEZ.

The invading armada had disappeared, probably sunk by missiles fired by the National Guard’s submarines.

THE INVASION might not have taken place, but on Wednesday Simerini screamed on its front page that “Turkey imposed a naval blockade”. It reported that “Turkish vessels are roaming our seas undisturbed, monitoring every move and, in effect our southern shores are blocked, with the danger of a heated incident, with unforeseeable consequences, taking place.”

The heated incident could be triggered if the warships we do not have tried to get through the Turkish blockade that was another figment of the paper’s fertile imagination.

I do not know who is in charge of Simerini’s fictional front page, but his metaphors are even weaker than his facts. Thursday’s front page headline said: “Diplomatic poker on the Cyprus problem chessboard.”

PREZ Nik, who had to be seen taking a tough line, let it be known through his soulless spokesman that he was considering withdrawing from the peace talks and called a National Council meeting with the party leaders to discuss a plan of action.

After Tuesday’s meeting, everyone was celebrating and waxing lyrical about the unanimous decisions taken by the party leadership for dealing with the crisis. The news that Nik would be taking action approved by Perdikis, Lillikas and Junior, was no cause for celebration, but for packing your bags and emigrating.

In the end no such drastic action was needed because the unanimous decisions were pretty lame, of the type our politicians have been taking for 40 years without as much as provoking a shrug from the Turks by way of reaction.

The prez would be withdrawing from the talks and there would be no meetings between the negotiators either. In this way we would be punishing the Turks by preventing them exercising their intransigence. The next day Nik met the UN special advisor Espen Barth Eide and talked Cyprob, indicating that his withdrawal from the talks was a bit half-hearted.

OTHER actions agreed to be taken were the freezing of Turkey’s accession negotiations, legal action against the Turkish company carrying out explorations, the sending of deputies on enlightenment missions abroad (this will be very popular among our freeloader politicians) and the Prez writing a letter to President Obama.

The government would also consider a recourse to the UN Security Council. No decision was taken on this because a resolution condemning Turkey was far from guaranteed. But the most important decision taken by the National Council last Tuesday was that our prez would seek a meeting with President Putin in the coming week.

When we are in trouble we always turn to mother Russia. In March 2013, when the Eurogroup was turning the screw on us, Nik also asked for an urgent meeting with Putin to seek his help. Nineteen months later the prez is still waiting for a date.

SPEAKING of mother Russia and Putin, forgotten man Marios Garoyian, in his effort to re-build his shattered political career, made an amazing revelation a few days ago, explaining why he had voted against the first Eurogroup decision in 2013 which proposed a levy of between six and 10 per cent on all bank deposits.

Although he agreed this would have been much better for Kyproulla than the second Eurogrop decision, he rejected it because “the top leadership of Russia had sent a message that if we touched the Russian Commercial Bank (RCB), then we would have seen a reaction that we had never seen before.” He added that it was “a clear message to all of us”, that deposits in RCB, which is controlled by the Russian state, could not be touched.

Our patriotic deputies obeyed Mother Russia’s instructions paving the way for a decision that was much worse for the country and its citizens.

Garoyian gave a demonstration of his patriotism, in explaining why he had put Russian interests above those of his country. “Someone had to evaluate what it would have meant for Cyprus, in that difficult period, to jeopardise its relations with Russia, a country that supported us when our other so-called allies had abandoned us. I took this decision because I did not want to put at risk Cyprus’ relations with Russia.”

ANYONE with half a brain – admittedly there are not a lot of them around and Garoyian is certainly not one of them – would have realised that Mother Russia had not only abandoned us in that difficult period, but it also openly blackmailed us and we gave into to blackmail just to safeguard our master-servant relations with Moscow.

But for our wise politicians and hacks Mother Russia can do no wrong. Even this week, when Moscow issued a lukewarm statement about Turkey’s NAVTEX, that blamed both sides for the dispute, hacks and politicians were thanking their Moscow masters for once again standing by our side.

The statement was anything but supportive to our side as it concluded that “unilateral actions, the show of force are unacceptable, and entail risks of deterioration of the situation…” Turkey has been describing our drilling for oil as “unilateral action” and Russia was referring to the Greek Cypriots when it mentioned this in its statement; “show of force” referred to the Turks.

But this was presented as a triumph for our side by our papers and politicians who felt obliged to engage in the time-honoured, public Russia worship.

The above statement was made by a Russian deputy minister after meeting Nik’s special envoy Sotos Zakheos. Interestingly, Zakheos is an executive director of the Russian Commercial Bank, so it is unclear whether his loyalties are with the Republic or his employer the Russian state that pays him a princely monthly salary.

THE OFFICIAL statement, made by the spokesman of the Russian foreign ministry, was hushed up by our government so as not to disappoint us, because it urged both sides to avoid steps related to the EEZ (like drilling for gas) that would “cause damage to the negotiations process”.

The release of this statement would have devastated the Moscow-worshippers of Phil who claimed on its front page on Friday that “Moscow tells them (the Turks) off.” In an inside page the headline read “Russian ‘cannons’ on Turkey”, which makes as little sense in Greek as it does in English.

Russia “positioned itself in a very clear way on the developments” and issued “the strongest statement about what was happening in the Cyprus EEZ”. Phil’s hacks just love Mother Russia and will always champion it. Garoyian’s unflattering revelations were not carried by the paper.

This love affair stretches back to the days of the Soviet Union as the paper’s feature covering events it reported in the past perfectly illustrates. On September 11, 1964 it wrote that “Soviet warships, equipped with missiles sailed into the Mediterranean to repel any attack against Cyprus.” And two days later, it said “Russian paratroopers were ordered to be ready for immediate action.”

It is amazing that the paper is not embarrassed to remind current readers that it had published such crap. Maybe this was meant as a subtle warning that its reports about Russia should always be taken with a sack of salt.

THE CHAIRMAN of Bank of Cyprus Christis Hassapis must have turned into a very unhappy bunny when he read the list of people the new shareholders were nominating as candidates for the board to be voted in on November 20.

He has a little over a month left to enjoy the Kyproulla dream which involves a political party taking you from obscurity and making you a local celebrity by appointing you to a high profile public post you have no right to be in. He valiantly tried to hold on to the post, even attempting to scupper the capital issue but failed, so come December he will return to the painfully dull life of being a nobody again, known as the Kyproulla nightmare.

Nobody will shed a tear for the unhappy bunny as his proposed replacement, Josef Ackermann, is a high profile banker, who reached the top of the profession – he was CEO of Deutsche Bank – on his ability, without any assistance from unions or political parties. I suspect the B of C will be better off with a banker as its chairman.

ETHNARCH Junior could not suppress his rage however, speaking on radio about the candidates of the new B of C board, going on a rant about the government wanting to take control of the bank. As if it is possible the wily Wilbur Ross, who sunk 400 million euros into the bank would risk his investment by allowing clueless politicians to call the shots.

The immature Junior, who also had a dig at foreigners taking over the bank, was angry because his koumbaros Marinos Gialelis, whom he had appointed to the board last year, like the happy bunny was set for the chop. Only the clients of the president’s law office were kept on the board he moaned, referring to the Russian vice chairman of the bank.

He should have been happy that mother Russia would have at least one director to keep a check on the nasty Yanks, who might even want a settlement of the Cyprob in order to improve the bank’s profitability.

I think it is great that foreigners will be running the bank. Hopefully we will soon be able to hand over the running of the country to foreigners as well.

WE HAVE not heard if Prez Nik has held the meeting that was to resolve the pressing issue of CyBC TV news-reader Emilia Kenevezou’s salary. The CyBC board wanted to cut it but Kenevezou appealed to Nik, who stepped in as mediator.

However Emilia has been doing her best to prove that she has a great political mind and thus does not deserve to have her six grand a month salary cut. Presenting a chat show about Islamic State on Tuesday night, she reprimanded her guests for referring to it as ‘Islamic State’. “I do not like the term Islamic State; I prefer to call them jihadists,” she pompously declared and tried to correct a guest who refused to use the term ‘jihadist’ subsequently.

“But this is what they call themselves,” the guest protested, ignoring Emilia’s decree.

HAS HONDURAS left Central America and become part of Europe. This is what you would have thought reading the match schedule of the Cyprus national side for the Euro 2016 qualifying round, on the Cyprus Football Association’s website.

According to the website, on Sunday, November 16, Cyprus are at home to Honduras and will play them away in June 2015. Is this possible? Of course not – on these dates Cyprus will be playing Andorra, which some idiot at the CFA must have thought is called Honduras in English.

IN ONE of the interviews he gave in the last few days, Wilbur Ross who controls the biggest chunk of Bank of Cyprus shares, said that “investing in the biggest bank is like buying preference shares in the Cyprus economy”. To do this, he explained, “we had to be satisfied that there were good prospects in tourism and business services which are the main power engines of the economy.”

The fact that his company Tyrus Capital have nominated a top banker – Josef Ackermann, former CEO at Deutsche Bank – for the chairmanship of the Bank of Cyprus was “another sign of proof of the confidence of international investors in the prospects of the country and, particularly, in the banking sector,” said Ross. Nobody could dismiss these as platitudes as Ross had put his money – 400 million euros of it – where his mouth is. A billionaire financier invests this amount of money in a business only if he believes there will be a handsome return in the not too distant future; there is always some risk involved.

Ross’ investment, part of the one billion euro capital that was raised by the Bank of Cyprus, was the biggest vote of confidence in the prospects of the Cyprus economy and banking sector we could have wished for. No Cypriot has shown such faith in the country’s future, so it sounds mindlessly petty – if not blatantly xenophobic – when our all-knowing politicians complain that our biggest bank is being taken over by foreigners, interested in making a quick profit, with no regard for the interests of the country. Should we be complaining if the bank’s shares appreciate and give investors a quick profit?

DIKO chief and House finance committee chairman Nicolas Papadopoulos saw things differently. He lashed out against the government on Tuesday, the day after the new shareholders announced the candidates they were proposing for election to the BoC board, for allegedly engineering the shake-up at the bank. He had identified a heinous plot by the government to take control of the bank by ensuring the bank did not have adequate capital. It was a nonsensical argument. How would the government have control of a bank if the main shareholders are foreign investors, the majority of the board are foreign and the main decision-makers – CEO and chairman – are foreign?

Papadopoulos’ real gripe, although he was too embarrassed to say it, was that the political parties would lose their control of the bank. The board elected in September 2013 was a collection of party and union appointees who ran the bank as if it were a semi-governmental organisation. They often followed party diktats that were not in the best interests of the bank and openly undermined the foreign CEO they had hired when he refused to play the political game; they tried to employ a deputy CEO to bring him in line, but eventually abandoned the idea.

These same party-appointed directors did everything in their power to block the CEO’s plan to raise capital, which had the full support of the Central Bank as it would have significantly strengthened the bank. They went as far as to report the BoC to the Securities and Exchange Commission, on the day the book of offers was to be opened for publishing an allegedly misleading prospectus. The party appointees would rather have seen the bank sink than agree to a capital issue that would force them to surrender their board seats, something that, for any sensible person, made them unfit to be directors.

There will be a much healthier state of affairs at the bank once the new shareholders elect their candidates to the board at the November 20 AGM. It this will put an end to the rampant, political interference – by government and parties – the special treatment of big businesses with big NPLs and the easy access to credit for wealthy businessmen. This is probably what the politicians fear most but for the economy it will be a positive development. The country needs its biggest bank to be run by people with rich banking experience, proven track records, no links to the politicians and whose objectives are sound fundamentals and good profitability.

There is no guarantee the foreigners will be successful, but the prospects of the BoC becoming the driving force of the economy once again will be given a big boost once they take charge.

By Marie Kambas

AS CYPRUS’ economic crisis peaked last March, and with no money and no job, 24-year-old graduate Christina Melinioti, packed her bags and, like many compatriots her age, headed to greener pastures in Europe.

“The crisis made me leave Cyprus because I couldn’t find a job,”

Melinioti, who has a journalism degree, told the Sunday Mail.

“Luckily, since I moved to Amsterdam things have changed, I found a job in an insurance company as soon as I got here.”

Before leaving her homeland, she had worked for a time at a cafeteria in Nicosia for 800 euros a month. Her job in Amsterdam pays more than double she said, adding that she is also happier with the standard of living she enjoys in the Netherlands.

Cyprus which traditionally enjoyed full employment saw its unemployment rate rise after 2011 to two-digit figures for the very first time since the Turkish invasion in 1974. For two years now, the jobless rate has hovered persistently above 15 per cent.

Youth unemployment reached 37 per cent in June

Younger people are those hit the most. In June, Cyprus posted the fifth highest unemployment rate of people below 25 in the European Union, touching 37 per cent, according to the latest Eurostat data.

Other university degree holders, who are still at home working in Cyprus, have to take jobs that require less skill and so pay less like Giota Koumourou who works in the reception of a Paphos hotel typing letters and answering phone calls.

Koumourou, holder of a degree in economics, said she is also mulling going abroad if she could find a well-paying job.

“I can’t find a regular job here that could pay my basic needs,” the 26-year-old said. “I’ve being working since 2012 for less than 500 euros, so I wonder what the point of studying at a university is.”

Cyprus’ economy shrank 5.4 per cent in 2013 and will shrink up to a further 3 per cent this year before it rebounds next year, according to the finance ministry.

As a result, opportunities for unemployed youth in the foreseeable future are scant, with the International Monetary Fund projecting a 16.1 per cent jobless rate for next year.

Cyprus, which was the fourth euro area member to ask for an international bailout in 2012, is now in its fourth year of recession.

Not long ago, the island was a popular immigration destination for tens of thousands of East European workers after it joined the EU in 2004. The latest data on migration show a reversal of that trend.

There was a sudden spike of emigration in 2012 when the number of Cypriots leaving rose to 1,050. This was more than five times the number of the year before when unemployment was on average just below 12 per cent.

No information is available on the age of those who emigrated.

According to Cystat officer Demetra Kosta, it is also not known how far the trend concerns young jobless graduates.

But while the state appears to have no clear picture of whether the emigration wave is affecting mostly young graduates, a student union boss confirmed that there is a rising trend of young Cypriot graduates who opt to stay in the countries they studied in instead of returning to Cyprus.

“Before 2012, the majority used to return to Cyprus after they finished their studies, but since then, the majority stays in the countries they studied to work,” said Nasos Koukos, head of Proodeftiki which is affiliated to AKEL and represents more than one third of students.

“We are aware that we have lots of graduate students that leave Cyprus to find a job in another country, others never come back because they think they cannot find a job,” Koukos said, adding that he had observed some tentative signs of this while studying six years ago in the United Kingdom.

Chances that the wave of emigration may continue and mainly affect younger people in the foreseeable future are increased as parents are advising their unemployed adult children to seek employment abroad.

It is painful advice to have to give, harking back to the 1940s and 1950s when countless young Cypriots went to far-flung parts of the work to make a living, leaving behind tearful parents and siblings. For many, decades went by before they could see family members again. While cheaper flights, mobile phones, the internet and Skype now soften the blow of separation, the decision to leave can still be brutal.

Vaso Papetta is the mother of three university graduates and has already encouraged her 26-year-old son Marios, who was unemployed for a year before leaving the island two years ago, to find a job elsewhere. “My son works in Qatar as an engineer and he gets paid pretty well,” she said, adding that she is now advising her two daughters Athina and Gavriela, aged 23 and 30 respectively, to follow in their brother’s steps.

Gianna Demetriou, the 52-year-old mother of two, said that she too had encouraged her 27-year-old son, Adamos, and her 25-year-old daughter, Natassa, to seek better opportunities of work abroad.

“Adamos has been working for an international computer firm in Dublin for three years now, and he is earning around 2000 euros per month with bonuses and he is doing very well,” she said. “Natassa used to work as an accountant in a shipping firm here, earning about 900 euro per month. It wasn’t much, and this was before last year’s crisis and all the wage cuts that followed. I suggested that since her brother is in Ireland she might want to go and try.”

After Natassa saved up some money she too found a job in Ireland in an insurance firm. “It is not what she wants to do,” said Demetriou. “But she could not find any job in Cyprus that would pay her 2000 euros a month, not even in her dreams.”

Now, Natassa is in position to save every month “a decent amount of money”, even though she has to pay for a comparably more expensive apartment, her mother said. “Both of my children have realised that they cannot come back home until things get better, but they do plan to come back to Cyprus.”

Ireland was the second euro area country to ask for an international bailout four years ago and saw its unemployment rate rise to 15 per cent in 2011 and 2012. Last year, when the country exited its bailout programme, it posted an unemployment rate of 13 per cent, according to Eurostat. Ireland’s jobless rate was 11 per cent in August.

Frustration that can lead to emigration is also felt among young people with no academic degree when they discover that their entrepreneurial dreams have little chance to materialise.

College graduate Andreas Andreou who finished his cookery training in 2006 and usually finds work in hotels and restaurants preparing meals for tourists mainly during the summer seasons, also hopes to find a job one day in another country. His wish is now stronger than before after his attempt to set up his own business fell victim to Cyprus’ problematic banking sector.

“I’m one of the luckiest to be paid more than 800 euros per month, but still it is not enough money to make ends meet,” Andreou said, adding that even earning 1000 euros a month wouldn’t be enough.

Andreou was planning to set up an own business in Nicosia that would prepare and sell loukoumades, the popular Cypriot honey balls. He applied to his bank for a loan to buy the necessary equipment. To his disappointment, the bank rejected his loan application. As a result, the dream of the 30-year-old cook to start a family one day, may come true but only when he finds a job abroad, preferably in Australia or Canada.

Cyprus’ banks which lost 5 billion euros in Greece’s debt restructuring in 2011 have tightened their loan policy standards amid an increase of their non performing loan ratio to nearly 50 per cent in July.

Under the terms of the bailout which were agreed last year, its largest lender, Bank of Cyprus, had to merge with the second largest lender Cyprus Popular Bank, and convert a portion of its deposits into equity.

By Karolos Grohmann

World champions Germany will be desperate to bounce back with home win over Ireland next week to recover from a shock 2-0 defeat to Poland in their Euro 2016 qualifier on Saturday but in order to achieve that, they need to start scoring goals.

The Germans wasted a plethora of golden opportunities in Warsaw before slumping to their first ever loss to Poland, a stunning defeat that sent them tumbling down to third spot in qualifying Group D.

Failing to score is not a new problem for Germany, who encountered the issue as recently as this summer’s World Cup with coach Joachim Loew switching his formation midway through the tournament to promote Miroslav Klose as a lone striker.

The results were devastating for their opponents as the Germans raced to a fourth World Cup triumph.
But Klose cannot add to his record goal tally for Germany, having retired after the World Cup, and Loew has to figure out how his team can make their total domination around the rest of the pitch count in front of goal.

“We have to look ahead to Tuesday and Ireland and make sure we show a good reaction,” said Loew, who only had six players in his line-up from the side that started the World Cup final in July.
“We only played on one goal but could not score,” he said.

It would be far too premature to draw any conclusions on the state of the new German team given the large number of injury absences, including Bastian Schweinsteiger, Mesut Ozil and Marco Reus to name but a few.
The retirements of former captain Philipp Lahm, Klose and Per Mertesacker have also robbed the team of much-needed experience with 25-year-old Thomas Mueller being the most-capped player in the starting line-up on Saturday.

Loew started without an out-and-out striker on Saturday and with attacking midfielder Mueller up front. It was a similar situation in the early stages of the World Cup.

Newcomer Karim Bellarabi added plenty of pace down the flanks but failed to score from several good chances he carved out for himself. Mario Goetze, who also plays as an occasional forward, was equally as ineffective.

With only one natural forward, Borussia Moenchengladbach’s Max Kruse, in the squad but on the bench on Saturday, Loew will have to come up with a more effective plan if they are to beat Ireland in Gelsenkirchen.

“We just failed to score and given the amount of chances we had it was a joke,” Germany defender Mats Hummels lamented.
With three points from two qualifiers so far, Germany are well aware this is a long campaign and a maiden defeat to Poland, however damaging to their pride, is not a total disaster.

“It was just not our day,” Goetze said. “On Tuesday, we will win, get the three points and the table will look a lot different.”

Euro 2016 qualifying results from Saturday, October 11:

Poland 2-0 Germany
Finland 1-1
Northern Ireland 2-0 Faroe Islands
Albania 1-1 Denmark
Republic of Ireland 7-0 Gibraltar
Scotland 1-0 Georgia
Romania 1-1 Hungary
Armenia 1- Serbia

By Jatindra Dash

Cyclone Hudhud blasted India’s eastern seaboard on Sunday with gusts of up to 195 km per hour (over 120 mph), uprooting trees, damaging buildings and killing at least five people despite a major evacuation effort.

The port city of Visakhapatnam, home to two million people and a major naval base, was hammered as the cyclone made landfall, unleashing the huge destructive force it had sucked up from the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal.

Wreckage was strewn across Visakhapatnam, known to locals as Vizag. Most people heeded warnings to take refuge, but five were killed by falling trees and masonry, and thousands of homes were damaged, emergency officials said.

The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, the state that bore the brunt of Hudhud’s onslaught, said the extent of damage would only become known after the storm abates.

“We are unable to ascertain the situation. Seventy percent of communication has totally collapsed … this is the biggest calamity,” N. Chandrababa Naidu told Headlines Today television.

“We are asking people not to come out of their houses,” Naidu said, adding that damage assessment would start on Monday. “We are mobilising men and material immediately.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Naidu and promised “all possible assistance in relief and rescue operations”, his central government said in a statement.

The low toll reported so far followed an operation to evacuate more than 150,000 people to minimise the risk to life from Hudhud – similar in size and power to cyclone Phailin that struck the area exactly a year ago.

After a lull as the eye of the storm passed over the city, winds regained their potency. Forecasters warned Hudhud would blow strongly for several hours more, before wind speeds halve in the evening.

“Reverse windflow will be experienced by the city, which will again have a very great damage potential,” L.S. Rathore, director-general of the state India Meteorological Department (IMD), told reporters in New Delhi.

The IMD forecast a storm surge of one to two metres (three to six feet) above high tide that could result in flooding of low-lying coastal areas around Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam.

TERRIFYING WIND

A Reuters reporter in Visakhapatnam said the storm had smashed his hotel’s windows and flooded the ground floor. It was difficult even to open the door of his room, he said, as wind rushing through the corridors drove it shut again.

“I never imagined that a cyclone could be so dangerous and devastating,” said one businessman who was staying in the hotel. “The noise it is making would terrify anyone.”

An operations centre in state capital Hyderabad was inundated with calls from people seeking help, including 350 students stranded in their hostel without food or water, said K. Hymavathi, a top disaster management official.

Visakhapatnam port suspended operations on Saturday night, with its head saying that 17 ships which had been in the harbour were moving offshore where they would be less at risk from high seas. The city airport was closed and train services suspended.

The IMD rated Hudhud as a very severe cyclonic storm that could pack gusts of 195 kph and dump more than 24.5 cm (10 inches) of rain.

The cyclone was strong enough to have a “high humanitarian impact” on nearly 11 million people, the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS), run by the United Nations and the European Commission, said.

The evacuation effort was comparable to one preceding Cyclone Phailin, credited with minimising fatalities to 53. When a huge storm hit the same area 15 years ago, 10,000 people died.

Hudhud was likely to batter a 200-300 km stretch of coastline before losing force as it moves inland, forecasters said.

According to the IMD, peak wind speeds will drop to 60 kph by Monday afternoon. Hudhud is expected to continue to dump heavy rains in northern and northeastern India and, eventually, snow when it reaches the Himalayan mountains.

By Alan Baldwin

Lewis Hamilton won the inaugural Russian Formula One Grand Prix and extended his championship lead to 17 points on Sunday in a Mercedes one-two that clinched the team’s first constructors’ title.

The Briton, who started on pole position, chalked up his fourth win in a row and ninth of the season after German team mate Nico Rosberg locked up at the first corner and damaged his tyres in a costly error.

With 100 points still to be won from the final three races, thanks to double points in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton has 291 points to Rosberg’s 274 with everything still to play for.

Hamilton, the 2008 world champion, also became only the fourth driver in F1 history to win nine races in a single season and equalled Nigel Mansell’s British record of 31 career victories.

On a warm and sunny afternoon in the Black Sea resort, Rosberg kept himself firmly in contention with a fine recovery drive from 20th place after his second lap pitstop.

“Nico did a great job to return from his mistake,” said Hamilton. “To get the first championship for Mercedes Benz is amazing, a beautiful day.

“It’s very cool to have won the first race here.”

PUTIN PRESENT

Finland’s Valtteri Bottas finished third for Williams, and set the fastest lap, in a race watched by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a circuit snaking around some of the landmark venues from this year’s Winter Olympics.

Putin also presented the trophies, in what Hamilton described as a ‘kind of surreal’ moment, with the drivers making sure he had left the podium before spraying the champagne that had lain virtually untouched last weekend following Jules Bianchi’s horrific accident in Japan.

The one-two was the ninth of the season for Mercedes, one shy of McLaren’s 1988 record, and formally ended Red Bull’s run of four titles in a row.

“It will be going just up the road to Brackley and congratulations to Mercedes on what they have achieved this season, they have been phenomenal,” said Red Bull principal Christian Horner. “We will be working hard to take the trophy back the 12 miles to us in 12 months’ time.”

Mercedes returned to Formula One with a works team only in 2010, after pulling out in 1955, while the constructors’ championship did not exist before 1958.

Before the start, the 21 drivers had stood silently in a circle on the starting grid in a tribute to Bianchi, who remains critically injured, while the Russian national anthem sounded.

The 25-year-old Marussia driver was in all their thoughts following his crash into a recovery tractor at Suzuka and the sport breathed a collective sigh of relief that the race in Russia was uneventful.

While Hamilton had an easy afternoon on the track, others remained haunted by Suzuka.

Marussia entered only one car for the race, keeping Bianchi’s in the garage, with Britain’s Max Chilton lasting just 10 laps before returning to the pit lane and retiring.

Rosberg, who started alongside Hamilton on the front row, got ahead of his team mate at the start but then locked up and went wide, ‘flat spotting’ his front tyres in the process.

“It was just a mistake on my side…after that the tyres were just square, vibrating so much. I thought that was it,” the German told reporters.

Told to give the place back, the German informed the team he would have to pit.

After a change from the soft to medium tyres, he rejoined with only Brazilian Felipe Massa behind him in the second Williams, asking over the radio ‘what’s the strategy now?’.

“We think we need to go to the end on these,” came the reply and Rosberg did just that, making the tyres last for the remaining 52 laps.

McLaren’s Jenson Button finished fourth with Danish team mate Kevin Magnussen fifth.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was sixth, after a chaotic pitstop, while Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and four-times world champion Sebastian Vettel were seventh and eighth.

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen took ninth place, with Force India’s Sergio Perez 10th.

By Lisa Maria Garza

A Texas health worker has contracted Ebola after treating a Liberian who died of the disease at a Dallas hospital last week, raising concern about how U.S. medical guidelines aimed at stopping the spread of the disease were breached.

The infected worker, identified as a woman but not named by authorities as they announced the case on Sunday, is believed to be the first person to contract the disease in the United States.

Health officials said the worker at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital had been wearing protective gear during treatment of Thomas Eric Duncan. Duncan was a Liberian who died on Wednesday after being exposed to Ebola in his home country and developing the disease while visiting the United States.

The outbreak in West Africa, the worst outbreak on record of Ebola, has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The new case in Texas indicated a professional lapse that may have caused other health workers at the hospital to also be infected, said the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“We don’t know what occurred in the care of the index patient, the original patient, in Dallas, but at some point there was a breach in protocol, and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection,” CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden told a news conference.

“We are evaluating other potential healthcare worker exposures because if this individual was exposed, which they were, it is possible that other individuals were exposed,” he said.

The worker was in close contact with Duncan and initial testing shows that the level of virus in her system is low. The CDC will conduct a secondary test to confirm the results from a lab in Austin that showed Ebola infection, he said.

“Unfortunately it is possible in the coming days that we will see additional cases of Ebola,” he said.

Frieden said there was one person who may have had contact with the infected health worker when she could possible transmit the disease and that person is being monitored.

Frieden said the intubation of Duncan and use of a dialysis machine – measures taken while trying to save his life – posed high risk for transmission of the virus.

Duncan died in an isolation ward on Oct. 8, 11 days after being admitted. More than 50 people attended to his care. The hospital said it was decontaminating its isolation unit while health officials said Duncan’s body had been cremated.

‘FULL CDC PRECAUTIONS’

Dan Varga, the hospital’s chief clinical officer told a news conference that the infected worker “was following full CDC precautions … so gown, glove, mask and shield.”

The hospital has already faced criticism for at first turning away Duncan when he first showed up there on Sept. 25, saying he had been in Liberia and had a fever. About two days after he was discharged, he grew much sicker and was taken back by ambulance and put in an isolation unit.

None of the 10 people who had close contact with him or 38 people who had contact with that group have shown any symptoms, state health officials said.

Texas officials did not identify the health worker or give any details about the person, but CNN said it was a woman nurse.

The Texas case is not the first outside badly hit West Africa in which a health care worker contracted the disease after contact with a patient.

In Spain, a nurse who contracted Ebola after caring for two infected priests repatriated to Spain remained seriously ill but is showing signs of improvement. Teresa Romero, 44, is so far the only person who has tested positive for Ebola through a transmission in the country.

Fifteen people were being monitored in a Madrid hospital for signs of Ebola on Sunday, as the Spanish government tries to contain recriminations over how it has handled the case. None have so far shown any symptoms.

EBOLA PAMPHLETS

In Dallas, there was a yellow hazardous material drum on the lawn of the brick apartment where the Texas health worker lived and information pamphlets about the Ebola virus were stuffed in the doors in the surrounding blocks of the apartment.

Neighbor Cliff Lawson, 57, said he was woken at 6:00 a.m. by two Dallas police officers who told him “don’t panic.”

“I went back to bed after that. There’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t wrap your house in bubble wrap,” Lawson said.

A team is decontaminating the patient’s apartment and car, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said.

The hospital said in a statement that the new patient, who had not been working for two days, had been taking her own temperature twice a day. The worker informed the hospital of a fever and was isolated immediately upon arrival there.

A union for registered nurses said the Ebola case in Dallas shows that not enough is being done to educate health workers on how to manage patients who show signs of infection.

“Handing out a piece of paper with a link to the Centers for Disease Control, or telling nurses just to look at the CDC website – as we have heard some hospitals are doing – is not preparedness,” said Bonnie Castillo, a registered nurse and senior official with National Nurses United.

SCREENING AT JFK AIRPORT

News of the second patient in Dallas came as U.S. authorities step up efforts to stop the spread of the virus. New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on Saturday began the screening of travelers from the three hardest hit West African countries.

Liberia is the country worst affected by the virus with 2,316 victims, followed by 930 in Sierra Leone, 778 in Guinea, eight in Nigeria and one in the United States, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Some 4,033 people are known to have died in seven countries from the outbreak, it said.

Ebola is spread through contact with bodily fluids of an affected person or contamination from objects such as needles. People are not contagious before symptoms such as fever develop.

The United Nations said on Friday that its appeal for $1 billion to respond to the West Africa outbreak was only 25 percent funded. (Reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio, Frank McGurty in New York,

By Evie Andreou

TWO YEARS after she was run over by a car driven by former Commerce Minister Takis Nemitsas, 16-year-old Ekaterina Meshko from Russia suffers from permanent brain damage, is confined to a wheelchair and is unable to take care of herself, her mother has said.

Nemitsas, 86, who had failed to stop at a red traffic light, pleaded guilty to the charges, but the judge did not impose a sentence due to mitigating factors such as his age, his clean driving record, his remorse and the fact that he offered the plaintiff restitution, both through his insurance company and by settling in the ensuing civil suit. The amount of compensation has not been made public.

After the accident, Ekaterina was transferred to the Nicosia General Hospital where she was diagnosed with severe head injuries and underwent surgery.

The teenager was on holiday in Limassol with her mother and family friends when the accident took place, in July 2012.

“I will never forget that day. We were at the beach and Ekaterina along with the other two girls of my friend left the beach to go buy ice cream,” Ekaterina’s mother, Nadezhda Meshko, told the daily Simerini on Monday in a telephone interview from St Ptersburg.

She said that the girls waited at the pedestrian cross for the green light, before they crossed the street and it was then that Ekaterina was hit by the car.

“I was in shock. My child’s head was cracked open and was bleeding excessively, screaming from pain,” Meshko said.

She said that her daughter had been very good at drawing and had wanted to be a designer when she grew up.

Ekaterina Meshko is now confined to a wheelchair, her mother told a newspaper on Monday

“Now my little girl cannot stand up; she cannot talk and in general she cannot do anything by herself without my help or her father’s,” the 40-year-old mother said.

According to Meshko, who also provided the daily with medical documents on her daughter’s condition, Ekaterina also suffers from severe muscle weakness in all four extremities. Since the accident the teenager has been taken to hospitals in Russia, Germany and China for treatment.

“I am disappointed by the court decision, but I admit it doesn’t surprise me because we learned that the defendant is an important person. Russians and Cypriots are very religious. God will judge everyone,” she said.

The teenager’s mother told the newspaper that the family had given statements to the police, but alleged that no one from Cyprus had shown any interest in Ekaterina’s condition in relation to the court case.

The outcome of the case prompted Limassol traffic police chief Michalis Katsounotos to send a letter to chief of police Zacharias Chrysostomou at the beginning of this month, inquiring about Nemitsas’ and two other cases, which involve accidents that took place in 2011 and 2012 in which the judge appeared to have handed down extremely lenient sentences.

To allay any concerns over foul play Attorney-general Costas Clerides gave a review of each case file last week. Commenting on Nemitsas’ court penalty, he said that there was nothing new in connection to the teenager’s condition and that there is no mention anywhere that she is a paraplegic, as was reported.

Clerides had said last week that in the absence of a sentence, no appeal for ‘inadequate sentencing’ could be filed. Nemitsas could have faced up to a year in prison or a fine of up to €1,708, or both.

The other two cases concern two fatal road accidents, where the accused were fined €3,000, their driving licences were temporarily revoked, and five penalty points.

By George Psyllides

POLICE ON Monday secured permission to investigate the Paphos mayor’s phone records as part of an investigation into threatening text messages sent to witnesses in a suspicious land zoning case involving a prominent developer.

Force spokesman Andreas Angelides said Savvas Vergas’ phone records were expected on Tuesday, at the latest.

It followed Vergas’ marathon questioning on Friday about threatening text messages sent to four people, including himself, who are connected with the land zoning case involving Aristo Developers.

Vergas was questioned after it transpired that he had purchased the mobile phone used to send the messages.

The phone was in the possession of his close associate Maria Solomonidou, 33, who was arrested by police along with her father, Elias, 64.

Angelides said the two were to be released on Monday without being charged for the time being.

Threatening messages were sent to two people linked with the municipality, an employee and a councillor, and to a journalist.

Solomonidou is the sister of Aristo Developers designer Christos Solomonides, arrested along with his boss, Theodoros Aristodemou, the latter’s wife Roulla, and former municipal engineer Savvas Savva, in connection with forgery and fraud in the demarcation of 177 plots of land on behalf of the company.

It emerged that the plans for which the demarcation permits were issued were switched with new plans, which seemed to cede approximately 3,000 square metres, worth hundreds of thousands of euros, previously designated as green space, back to Aristo Developers.

Authorities were now looking into a separate case involving Vergas.

A councillor claimed that an events company linked with Solomonidou got a tax break from the local authority on condition of making a donation to charity but had failed to do so.

Vasos Demetriou reported to the auditor-general that the local authority had waived the entertainment for a concert given by Greek singer Sakis Rouvas on August 8.

The condition was that the company would donate part of the net proceeds to the municipal food bank. The decision was taken by the council.

Demetriou said no money had been donated to the food bank, “not one cent” and no explanation had been given.

He also revealed that the events company was controlled by Solomonidou’s husband.

There have also been claims of mismanagement and waste of public monies mainly relating to the construction of the town’s sewage system, which eventually cost €109 million instead of the estimated €78 million. Contractors had demanded an additional €35 million.

By George Psyllides

A CONSUMER group complaint over fuel prices prompted parties on Monday to question why they were so high when international prices were low.

On Friday, the consumer union said it was contemplating a lawsuit against the state claiming it deliberately allowed prices to be high in order to collect more taxes.

The union accused the state of “fraud and collusion” with fuel companies, suggesting that prices at present should be 12 to 15 cents lower per litre than they are.

Opposition DIKO MP Angelos Votsis called on the government to respond to the claim.

Votsis said the huge fall in international oil prices did not seem to have the respective effect on fuel prices in Cyprus.

He called on the energy ministry’s consumer protection service to say whether the companies were maintaining their prices at the high levels of past months.

“We expect the energy ministry and its services to take a position on the matter quickly,” Votsis said.

The DIKO MP added that they have often criticised the delay to adjust pump prices downwards when there was a reduction in world oil prices, as opposed to the immediate rise when they went up.

“In essence we have not had any reduction in prices beyond a few cents 10 days ago and this is of concern to us,” Votsis said.

He was echoed by Green party chairman Giorgos Perdikis.

Energy Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis conceded that prices had dropped but the value of the euro against the dollar had also dropped, offsetting any gains.

When necessary, the ministry will intervene, he said, but “there is no excuse at the moment.”

“Today, with the same amount of euros we buy less fuel and this is the reason we haven’t seen prices drop.”
 

THE Bank of Cyprus (BoC) announced on Monday the resignation of board member Constantinos Katsaros.

The resignation will become effective upon its acceptance by the board or within seven days from its submission, if not withdrawn.

Around 20 days ago, Central Bank (CBC) Governor Chrystalla  Georghadji sent a letter to the BoC board asking all of them to step down and called for a general assembly as soon as possible.

It followed recent change in the bank’s shareholding, after the lender raised €1.0 billion in fresh capital.

The bank’s AGM is scheduled for November 20.

American billionaire investor Wilbur Ross and hedge fund Tyrus Capital, which now control a combined 22 per cent of BoC, teamed have already proposed 10 individuals for the new board.

PRESIDENT Nicos Anastasiades on Monday received foreign officials who took part in the annual Morphou anti-occupation march on Sunday.

After the meeting, Morphou Mayor Charalambos Pittas said that the visiting foreign guests had “joined their voices with ours against the barbaric Turkish invasion and occupation of our country”.

Anastasiades, along with House President Yiannakis Omirou, MPs and MEPs, representatives of the political parties and visiting officials from the UK, Greece, Slovenia and Poland, attended the Sunday event.
A service was held the church in Astromeritis, by Morphou Metropolitan Neophytos, in memory of the fallen and missing persons. The Morphou mayor handed over a protest resolution to a representative of UNFICYP at the nearby crossing point, addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Jim Sheridan, a Labour member of the British Parliament, said it was “ironic” that the Turkish authorities opened their borders to take in refugees from Syria, but denied the people of Cyprus` right to return to their homes. British Conservative MP Roger Gale said it was “an absolute disgrace that a member state of the Council of Europe had been allowed to occupy the territory of another state for 40 years with impunity”.

By Elias Hazou

THE AGREEMENT between Cyprus and Greece fuses the two countries’ respective search and rescue regions (SRRs) into a continuous area stretching from Athens to the eastern Mediterranean.

The deal provides for the coordination of search and rescue operations by the JRCC (Joint Rescue Coordination Centre) of Larnaca and the JRCC of Piraeus, the exchange of information, as well as the conduct of joint search and rescue drills.

Under ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) regulations, a country’s SRR is virtually indistinguishable from its Flight Information Region (FIR).

Turkey, which does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus, claims that approximately half the size of the Nicosia FIR (also its SRR) falls under the FIR of the breakaway regime (the Ercan, or Tymbou airport, FIR).

The Cyprus-Greece agreement formalises and expands on already existing search and rescue cooperation. In case of an accident at sea, it allows the commanders of the two nations’ JRCCs to act immediately and independently. Previously, the JRCC commanders needed clearance from above to act.

For example, in the event of an accident or incident involving ENI’s drillship at the Onasagoras reservoir in Cyprus’ offshore block 9, Greece’s JRCC may now despatch search and rescue vessels and aircraft to the site. The ships despatched in search and rescue operations typically include military vessels.

Cyprus has concluded similar search and rescue agreements with Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Until now it did not have an official agreement with Greece, but the signing of the deal on Monday was clearly intended as a message to Ankara, defence sources said.

The agreement is not unrelated to the issue of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). Since EEZs are smaller than FIRs (or SRRs), merging the two countries’ respective FIRs establishes a far larger area of jurisdiction for search and rescue operations for Cyprus and Greece likewise.

The agreement establishes a common boundary between Cyprus’ and Greece’s SRRs. The boundary falls close to the Greek island of Kastellorizo.

By Elias Hazou

CYPRUS and Greece on Monday concluded a bilateral agreement allowing for joint search and rescue between the two countries.

The agreement was signed in Athens by Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides and his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos.

Its purpose, the ministers said, is to shield both countries from acts of aggression such as the recent Turkish actions in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

They said the agreement effectively brings under the two countries’ jurisdiction the sea area between them.

According to an official statement issued later in the day, the agreement “defines the common boundary between Cyprus and Greece”. This encompasses the western limit of the Search and Rescue Region (SSR) of the Cyprus Republic and the eastern limit of Greece’s SSR, a length of 287 kilometres.

The deal also provides for the coordination of search and rescue operations by the JRCC (Joint Rescue Coordination Centre) of Larnaca and of Piraeus, the exchange of information, as well as the conduct of joint search and rescue drills.

According to the same statement, the bilateral agreement is in accordance with the provisions of the 1979 International Convention on maritime search and rescue and its annexes and the 1974 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and its protocols.

The arrangement was modelled on an already existing agreement governing the airspace between the Flight Information Regions of Athens and Nicosia.

Kasoulides later told reporters that he felt he was returning to Cyprus with “something tangible”. The chief diplomat was due back on the island in the evening.

In a related development, the two ministers also announced a three-day summit of the heads of state of Cyprus, Greece and Egypt, beginning on November 9.

Venizelos referred to ongoing talks between Greece and Egypt on delineating the two countries’ respective EEZs. Joint technical committees would be meeting soon in Athens to continue deliberations, he said.

Turkey is not a signatory to the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, and has no EEZ agreements in place with either Cyprus or Greece. Likewise Cyprus and Greece have not delineated their EEZs with respect to one another, largely due to Athens’ reluctance to aggravate Ankara in a long-standing and thus far intractable dispute among the two nations in defining their respective territorial waters and continental shelves.

Kasoulides said the international community had not reacted to the latest Turkish provocations in the way Cyprus had hoped for.

One explanation for Turkey’s actions in Cyprus’ EEZ, he suggested, might be that Ankara is seeking the international community’s tolerance as a trade-off for its own active engagement in the coalition against the Islamic State.

But in remarks over the weekend Kasoulides had noted the “international disapproval” of Turkey’s actions, adding that both the UN Security Council and the EU recognise Cyprus’ sovereign right to exploit its natural resources in its EEZ.

“The international disapproval has been recorded. Diplomatic efforts will continue. Is this enough to stop Turkey? Maybe yes maybe not,” he said.

Kasoulides reiterated that Italian energy corporation ENI would press ahead with exploration operations inside the Cypriot EEZ.

Meanwhile on Sunday Turkey’s armed forces announced that the frigate TCG Gelibolu was observing ENI’s drillship at a distance of five nautical miles (approximately 9 kilometres).

ENI’s drillship is currently located in offshore block 9 of Cyprus’ EEZ.

Ankara is said to have asked the Italian government to halt ENI’s operations in Cyprus’ EEZ. According to Turkish newspaper Aksam, Turkey relayed to Italy that if it is sincere about contributing to peace talks in Cyprus, Rome should put a stop to ENI’s activities.

Turkey was addressing Italy as the current rotating president of the Council of the European Union. The Italian state is a stakeholder in ENI.

On October 3 Turkey issued a marine advisory reserving for seismic surveys off the island’s southern coast a large contiguous area encroaching into parts of offshore blocks 1, 2, 3, 8 and 9. The swathe reserved by Turkey comes between the Cypriot coastline and the areas where ENI is and will be operating. Turkish seismic surveys are set to begin on October 20. The move prompted the government to suspend peace talks with Turkish Cypriots.

Ankara has stated that it will not accept Greek Cypriot ‘unilateral actions’ with regard to offshore hydrocarbons prospecting, adding that the island’s natural resources should be shared between the two communities.

Turkish Cypriot ‘foreign minister’ Ozdil Nami told media that either both sides would carry out hydrocarbons exploration off Cyprus or both should cease their activities. He called the current situation an “artificial crisis”, hinting the Greek Cypriot side is using the planned Turkish seismic surveys as a pretext for freezing peace talks.

President Nicos Anastasiades said over the weekend that Greek Cypriots would not resume negotiations unless and until Turkish threats ceased.

By Angelos Anastasiou

THE House Finance committee decided on Monday to continue discussion on a bill tabled by DISY deputy Prodromos Prodromou allowing provident funds that were subjected to a haircut in March 2013 to offer shares to their members instead of cash.

The scheme would only apply to provident fund money lost in last year’s conversion of uninsured deposits into bank equity in Bank of Cyprus and now-defunct Laiki Bank.

Deputies also agreed to draft a letter to the finance minister, or even President Anastasiades, inquiring about the administration’s commitment to offer government guarantees for 75 per cent of any provident fund money an individual was entitled to before March 2013.

A representative of the Legal Services told the committee that the amended version of the bill addresses any constitutionality qualms, but added that the issue of combined remuneration – shares and cash – could be problematic and in contravention of a European Union directive.

Bank of Cyprus employees who opted to accept the lender’s voluntary exit scheme in August 2013, prior to the finalisation of the proportion of uninsured deposits to be converted, asked deputies to refrain from passing the bill as it would impact the class-action suits they filed with the Labour Disputes court asking for their full pre-haircut provident fund entitlements.

The court had set the first hearing for November 21.

But the chairman of the Administrative Committee of the Bank of Cyprus staff provident fund asked deputies to vote the bill into law before the bank’s share is introduced to the stock exchange.

After the session, committee chairman Nicolas Papadopoulos acknowledged the complexity of the issue, citing competing views among stakeholders and ongoing judicial proceedings.

“Perhaps we should examine alternatives, as well as efforts to support those most hit by the March 2013 haircut,” he said. “That is, the employees who had amassed entitlements, partly through their own contributions, only to see their deposits in the fund be haircut.”

Papadopoulos expressed concern at a finance ministry official’s response to questions of President Anastasiades’ commitment for government guarantees of 75 per cent of provident funds.

“He replied that this issue is not being examined,” he said.

Greens’ party leader Giorgos Perdikis charged that “there is an insistence by the ruling party to lend a helping hand to the leadership of [bank employees’ union] ETYK, which behaved inappropriately towards the employees who were forced to retire early in the summer of 2013.”

“It seems that some want to defend the unions’ mistakes at the expense of employees, and it really is unfair to burden them with the injustice of a second haircut,” he added.