Acting President and House President Yiannakis Omirou on Saturday rejected a proposal submitted by Turkish Foreign Ministers Mevlut Cavusoglu that he and his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos visit Cyprus together and hold separate meetings with President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu.
Press reports suggested that Cavusoglu proposed he and Venizelos visit Anastasiades after he returns to Cyprus from New York where he underwent heart surgery, but also cross to the north to meet Eroglu.
Commenting on press reports, Omirou rejected the proposal noting that this aimed to portray an image of separate entities in Cyprus as well as to give the impression that the Cyprus problem was a dispute between Greece and Turkey.
“Therefore Cavusolgu`s proposal is categorically rejected as the intended visit to the north and the south, as they say, to aims to present the existence of two entities, that is, to equate of the Republic of Cyprus with the illegal regime in the occupied areas,” he said.
“This proposal is not new, it has been tabled by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that he and his Greek counterpart Antonis Samaras should visit both north and south and this is rejected in the most strong manner,” he concluded. (CNA)

Farmers on Saturday postponed a planned protest for Monday after Agriculture Minister Nicos Kouyialis promised to meet with them after next week’s budget debate.
They had planned to split Nicosia down the middle on Monday as a sign of protest for not yet receiving their due subsidies.
The farmers said many of them could not even afford to pay utilities and that they would not allow a fellow farmer to spend Christmas penniless.
They were going to protest with their tractors from the presidential palace down to the Finance ministry and from parliament to the agriculture ministry, effectively splitting the capital.
Apart from the due subsidy, which Kouyalis promised would be paid immediately, the farmers also want compensation for losses from drought, exemption from direct payment of VAT and exemption from the taxation of agricultural land.

Forces loyal to Libya’s recognised government on Saturday conducted air strikes on targets near the eastern oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es-Sider to stop an advance by a rival force, officials said.

The clashes are part of a wider struggle in the North African country between competing governments allied to armed factions over control of the vast oil reserves, three-and-a-half years after the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi.

The recognised prime minister Abdullah al-Thinni has been forced to work out of a rump state in the east since a group called Libya Dawn seized the capital in August and set up its own government and parliament.

The oil ports Ras Lanuf and Es Sider, two of Libya’s biggest, accounting for more than 300,000 barrels a day of exports, were working normally, an oil official said.

Saqer al-Joroushi, an air force commander allied to Thinni, said his aircraft had attacked positions near Sirte, a costal city in central Libya.

He said a rival force from Misrata, a coastal city west of Sirte and the ports, had advanced towards the terminals with a large number of vehicles. “We bombed them to stop them from entering the ports,” he said.

A Sirte resident said two air strikes had targeted an air base in the city.

Forces loyal to a rival government in Tripoli launched an operation to take the oil ports and fields and expel forces of former army general Khalifa Haftar allied to Thinni, commander Tarek Eshnaina told Reuters.

“We are a third force commissioned by the chief of staff Abdulsalam Jaddallah and commander-in-chief Nouri Abu Sahmain,” he said. Abu Sahman is head of the General National Congress (GNC), a rival parliament based in Tripoli.

“We were about one km from the main gate of Es Sider oil port but we had to withdraw about two kilometres after Haftar’s warplanes carried out air strikes which killed two of our members and wounded three,” he said. “The clashes are sporadic at the moment and we are waiting for supplies from the general chief of staff.”

Last month, Libya Dawn took over the big southern El Sharara oilfield.

The eastern oil ports are controlled by troops led by Ibrahim Jathran, who could be seen directing troops during Saturday’s clashes, according to a video posted on websites close to his group. Jathran has threatened to call for eastern secession should world powers recognise the GNC in Tripoli.

The Afghan Taliban killed a Supreme Court official, a dozen mine clearers and several national and foreign soldiers but also suffered heavy losses from intensifying violence ahead of the withdrawal of most international troops in the next two weeks.

In Kabul on Saturday, a bomb ripped through a bus carrying soldiers in Kabul, killing at least six of them, mangling the vehicle and sending a column of black smoke over the capital.

“A suicide bomber on foot detonated his explosives at the door of a bus carrying army soldiers,” said Hashmat Stanekzai, a spokesman for Kabul police chief.

Earlier gunmen shot dead senior Supreme Court official Atiqullah Raoufi as he left his home in the city.

The Taliban, ousted from power by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001, claimed responsibility, but did not say why it had killed him. The hardline Islamist insurgents run their own courts in parts of the country and consider the official judiciary to be corrupt.

Heavily fortified Kabul has seen multiple attacks in recent weeks, including several on army buses and a suicide bomb that killed a German citizen in a French cultural centre during a performance of a play that denounced suicide attacks.

Fatalities and injuries among Afghan security forces and civilians peaked this year to the highest point since the U.S.-led war began in 2001, as foreign forces rapidly withdrew most of their troops from the interior of mountainous nation.

About 5,000 Afghan police and soldiers have been killed, and more than 1,500 civilians were killed in the first half of the year. A rump of about 13,000 foreign soldiers will remain in Afghanistan next year, down from a peak of more than 130,000.

Fighting has extended long beyond the traditional summer season, with the Afghan government also inflicting heavy casualties on the Taliban. The army and police say they killed more than 50 militants nationwide in the past 48 hours.

The Taliban have been fighting a guerrilla war ever since their 5-year regime was toppled. They now have a strong presence in most of the provinces surrounding Kabul.

BAGRAM BLAST

Just outside the city and close to the U.S.-run Bagram airfield, the Taliban detonated a roadside bomb on Friday night, hitting a convoy of foreign troops and killing two soldiers.

The blast left a 3 metre (10 feet)-long blackened fissure in the road, a Reuters witness said. Helicopters buzzed overhead on Saturday morning.

“Two International Security Assistance Force service members died as a result of an enemy forces attack in eastern Afghanistan on Dec. 12, 2014,” a coalition press release said on Saturday.

The Bagram attack came two days after the United States closed a prison that held foreign detainees on the airfield, which is in Parwan province, the only province adjacent to the capital that is usually relatively peaceful.

It also followed a NATO air strike on Thursday that killed five people in the same province. Afghan officials said the casualties were civilians. The coalition said it was investigating the allegations, but that they were identified from the air as militants before the “precision” strike.

By Michael Taylor and Chris Nusatya

A landslide destroyed a remote village in Indonesia, killing at least 17 people, an official said on Saturday, as rescuers used their bare hands and sticks to search through the mud for scores of missing in the absence of heavy-lifting equipment.

Hundreds have been evacuated from around Jemblung village in the Banjarnegara regency of central Java, about 450 km (280 miles) from the capital, Jakarta, where media pictures showed a flood of orange mud and water cascading down a wooded mountainside after Friday’s disaster.

Mudslides are common in Indonesia during the monsoon season, which usually runs from October until April. Large swathes of forest land, power lines and houses were buried.

Hampering the rescue effort was a lack of a telephone signal and earth-moving equipment in the isolated, rural area.

“There was a roaring sound like thunder,” Imam, who lives in a neighbouring village, told television. “Then I saw trees were flying and then the landslides. People here also panicked and fled.”

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said 17 people had been killed, 15 rescued, 91 were missing and 423 people from the surrounding areas had been taken to temporary shelters.

He said there was a history of similar disasters in the area.

Eleven of the 15 rescued were receiving hospital treatment, he said. A government agency official added that the rescue effort had been suspended as light faded and would resume on Sunday.

Five of the dead were found in one car, television reported. It showed rescuers using bamboo stretchers to carry bodies away.

“Jemblung village was the most affected,” Nugroho said. “The challenge is that the evacuation route is also damaged by the landslide.”

A rescue team of about 400 people, which included police, military and local volunteers, used their bare hands and makeshift tools to search for people and clear the area.

A second resident said there had been no warnings of the likelihood of a landslide.

By Maria Gregoriou

It’s beginning to cost a lot like Christmas, but not everywhere we go tomorrow will have that kind of feel.

On the ground floor of the City Plaza in Nicosia there will be clothes on sale for €1 a piece along with a glass of wine from 11am until all the clothes have been sold.

The event, entitled Clothes for All by All, is organised by the Youth Green Party, who are giving everyone a chance to celebrate the season and be able to buy some gifts for their loved ones. By buying clothes you are not only getting a present to keep the recipient warm this winter season, you are also helping people who need it most to celebrate during the time of year when cheer is clearly in the air.

All the money collected from the sale will go towards buying food for families who are in need, so make a day of it and give a little hope to those for whom hope is in short supply.

Clothes for All by All
Sale of clothes for €1 a piece to raise money for needy families. December 14. City Plaza, ground floor, Nicosia. 11am. Tel: 22-518074

A high-powered explosive device installed on a car was deactivated by the police bomb squad on Saturday.
The device, which experts said was an improvised explosive device, was spotted by a 67-year-old man from Vrysoulles who saw it on his car’s hood connected to a wire.
Police said the car was parked outside the 67-year-old man’s house and the device was installed between the front hood of the car and the windshield.
Until the device was deactivated, the area was closed off for safety reasons and evidence was collected that will be sent for scientific examinations.
Famagusta CID is investigating.

Three men have been arrested in Xylofagou for allegedly possessing drugs.
The three men from Avgorou, aged 21, 22 and 28 were arrested late Friday when during a search of their car, police said they found five grammes of cannabis and two half smoked joints.
Police said when they tried to stop the car for a routine check, in their effort to escape, the suspects initially locked themselves in the vehicle and subsequently collided with two police vehicles, which halted their getaway.
Famagusta drug squad is investigating.

Arrest warrants were issued on Saturday for two men suspected of stabbing a dog, whose owner had differences with one of the suspects, police said.
The dog, a three-year-old German Shepherd was stabbed in the neck, early Saturday at Eptagonia in Limassol while trying to protect his owner from one of the men who tried to enter the yard holding a knife.
The dog’s owner who wished to provide only his first name, Constantinos said he heard his pet barking at around 6am. When he went outside he saw two men he knew, standing outside the gate, each holding a jerry can of what he believed to contain petrol. One of the men – the person with whom he had the dispute – was drunk and holding a knife, he said.
“He was trying to get onto my property and my dog, who was at the gate, was barking and jumping at him to prevent him from entering. He got angry and stabbed the dog,” Constantinos said.
“I rushed him to the vet. He lost a lot of blood. The vet said we were lucky that the blade missed the carotid artery, either wise he would have died,” he added.
The dog is now out of danger and after having his wound stitched he was taken home.
Constantinos said the two perpetrators had asked others to mediate so that he would not report the incident.
“Just because we had a dispute, is that a reason to stab my dog?” Constantinos said.
The head of the Animal Party Kyriacos Kyriacou, who went to the police station, the vet and to visit the dog at his owner’s house, said that his party would remain on top of the case.

Chelsea and Manchester City tightened their stranglehold on the Premier League title race on Saturday, recording victories over struggling clubs to stretch further clear of their increasingly forlorn pursuers.

Normal service was resumed at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea maintained their three-point lead over City at the top with goals from Eden Hazard and Diego Costa sinking 10-man Hull City 2-0.

Champions City maintained their ever more convincing chase, sealing their fifth successive league win at bottom club Leicester City 1-0 courtesy of a 40th-minute goal from the evergreen Frank Lampard.

City’s delight, though, was tempered by the likelihood of another spell on the sidelines for captain Vincent Kompany who, on his return after a three-game absence with a hamstring problem, limped off again with the same trouble.

Fourth-placed West Ham’s progress was checked by a 1-1 draw at Sunderland and Southampton lost 1-0 to an Ashley Barnes goal at Burnley.

That left the chasing pack, headed by third-placed Manchester United and West Ham, 11 points behind Chelsea and eight adrift of the champions.

It also put pressure on Louis van Gaal’s United before their match against Liverpool on Sunday.

Arsenal host Newcastle United in Saturday’s late kickoff.

Chelsea, smarting about their first defeat of the season at Newcastle last weekend, responded with a performance which satisfied manager Jose Mourinho. “It was not a special performance,” said the ‘Special One’. “It was just a good enough performance.”

Much more had been expected when Hazard headed home Oscar’s seventh minute cross but Chelsea were initially sloppy and Steve Bruce ended up unhappy that Chelsea defender Gary Cahill, already on a yellow card, was not sent off after what the Hull manager felt was a blatant dive.

Only after Tom Huddlestone was dismissed for a nasty second half stamp on Filipe Luis did Chelsea seal the deal, Costa scoring his 12th goal of the season from a Hazard assist after 68 minutes to make it eight home wins out of eight.

Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini, already without his injured totem Sergio Aguero, was forced to hand a start to Spaniard Jose Pozo, the 18-year-old striker being hailed as the ‘Mini Messi’, after Edin Dzeko pulled up injured in the warm-up.

The youngster, however, found it hard going against Leicester’s committed defenders and it was left to the remarkable Lampard to make the breakthrough.

The midfielder timed his run into the box with predictable efficacy to sidefoot the ball home simply after fine work from Samir Nasri.

The 36-year-old’s latest crucial intervention will not have escaped his old disciples at Chelsea as Lampard’s 175th goal took him to fourth equal on the all-time list of Premier League scorers, an astonishing achievement for a midfielder.

West Ham manager Sam Allardyce was left raging by the award of a 22nd-minute penalty to Sunderland, after Adam Johnson had tumbled rather too easily for his liking. He was even angrier when Jordi Gomez converted.

“It was not a penalty and it is as simple as that,” Allardyce told the BBC. “It was given by the assistant referee and he got it horribly wrong.”

Even though Stewart Downing equalised seven minutes later, the Hammers missed their chance to win when Andy Carroll shot wide in the dying seconds.

After a tremendous start to the season, Southampton’s woes continued with a fourth consecutive defeat. They paid the price after Tom Heaton saved Dusan Tadic’s penalty on the hour and Burnley jumped out of the bottom three with Barnes’s winner.

Crystal Palace’s James McArthur and Stoke’s Peter Crouch swapped early goals in the space of two minutes in a 1-1 while West Brom’s Craig Gardner scored a 72nd-minute winner against his old club Aston Villa, who had Kieran Richardson sent off.

By Bejay Browne

TOURISM officials in Paphos are cautiously optimistic for the winter season and say more than half of the tourist beds in the area are in full operation. They were quick to quash rumours that ninety per cent of hotels are closing for the winter, saying it simply wasn’t true.
Evripides Loizides of the Paphos branch of the Cyprus Hotels Association (PASYXE) said: “Bed capacity is reduced in Paphos during the winter months, as with other areas of the island due to a number of seasonality issues, but its nothing like the figures which are being bandied about. Furthermore, if we can come up with a masterplan now, increasing annual visitor numbers to Cyprus to 5 million isn’t difficult.”
Head of the Paphos regional board of tourism, Nasos Hadjigeorgiou said: “Figures show that over 50 per cent of tourist beds in Paphos are in full operation, with a capacity to accommodate around 250,000 travelers between December 2014 and March 2015.”
He said huge efforts were being made to increase visitor numbers for these months and extend the summer season to the end of November, and to have it begin as early as March.
“We are making concerted efforts to attract more airlines to Paphos and increase the numbers of flights and destinations,” he said.
Figures show that the number of British tourists to Cyprus stabalised last year and all signs for 2014 suggested an increase, said Hadjigeorgiou.
Loizides said that further improvement in expanding the summer season could be achieved with forward planning.
“At present, some hotels are forced to close during the winter months in an attempt to curb inevitable losses,” he said.
He explained that a hotel with a capacity of 220 beds which closes for five months – from the end of November to April – would make a loss of between €100,000 to €150,000. But if it remained in full operation it would make losses of around €400,000. He said he believes the government could step in and prevent closures from occurring.
“If the government was ready to give the 9 per cent VAT charges away, it could use this money to create an incentive to airlines. If the average ten day holiday costs €600 that’s €54 in VAT. That could be offered as an incentive.”
Loizides said that many more hotels would remain open if there was an increase in visitor numbers, and staff would have jobs all year round, so it would cost the state less.
Eleftherios Georgiades, the general secretary of the union for hotel employees said hoteliers had to take some risks as well as taking incentives from the state.
“The situation depends a lot on the hoteliers to be successful and it would be a vast improvement if they manage to stay mostly open and only close for one or two months,” he said. “Last year the employees gave back many benefits in an attempt to help the situation and we remain open for dialogue.”
He added that even though there were some hotel closures this season, “with all of the efforts being made to enhance the accessibility of Paphos and the new flights which will commence from March 2015, we feel there is a real move towards positive change and results, especially concerning off season and spring time visitors.”
Loizides agreed: “We are on the right track to see increases in the number of winter visitors and we have to ensure that no market ‘dies off’, as it will be hard to kick start again.”

By Jean Christou

As we find ourselves in the middle of yet another Cyprus talks hiatus, the past may be no bad thing to delve into, especially for a recuperating president who promised to reflect on the future of the country as he recovers in New York.

At home, former President George Vassiliou – 1988 to 1993 – has just published the English-language version of his book ‘Reflections on the Past and Future’, a 132-page interview with University of Cyprus Turkish Cypriot academic Niazi Kizilyurek.

Vassiliou told the Sunday Mail he wants the book to be a primer of sorts for diplomats or anyone who wants to quickly get the gist of the Cyprus problem over a single weekend. “I felt there was a need,” he said.

I took up the challenge on that promise of a speedy read. Although much of the material Vassiliou covers is well known in terms of history, there are also a number of gems to be found; his roving childhood as the son of committed socialists, the ‘inconvenient’ event that led to his career in business, how he entered politics at the age of 56, and the almost accidental way AKEL chose to back him as a presidential candidate. Vassiliou also exposes some of the failings of his predecessors and successors and recounts how so many opportunities to solve the national issue were lost.

Originally destined to be a doctor like his father, Vassiliou was studying in Geneva during the fifties when the family circumstances changed. There is much more to the tale, but what is important was how subsequent events both shaped his outlook and career.

Without finances, his father told him that friends, and the Communist Party, would take care of it, but they let him down and he ended up studying in Budapest. The change helped him learn not to become fixated on the past, he says, something he believes to this day.

Vassiliou said at 19 in Hungary he was an idealistic young man who had been brought up in a family that believed “to the point of self-denial in the idea of socialism”. The years that followed were a period of “slow but gradual realisation of the extremely harsh realities that lay behind the slogans and fine words”.

Working through university as a labourer, Vassiliou took the decision to abandon medicine and study economics. He was expelled from the Hungarian Party in 1959 for trying with others to put a human face on the socialism of the time and decided then to never join another party again.

“I saw with my own eyes the tragic consequences of dogmatism and postponing decision making. Postponement always costs much more and may ultimately lead to what we wish to avoid,” he added, clearly believing the same applies to Cyprus.

Vassiliou came back to Cyprus in 1962 and built up his marketing business here and in the Middle East. His first role in politics came after Spyros Kyprianou’s first term in office in 1983, which was perceived as a failure even though the wily DIKO leader managed to get re-elected.

By 1987 Vassiliou had become convinced Kyprianou had to go because his presidency was a danger to the country with his policy of ‘talks with preconditions’. AKEL had decided to support George Ioannides in the upcoming elections in 1988, but a miffed Kyprianou sent a photo of Ioannides in Masonic robes to the late AKEL leader Ezekias Papaioannou “who nearly had a heart attack”. They chose Vassiliou instead.

Among those for whom he had some harsh words, Vassiliou mentions the Greek leadership during the EOKA struggle for Enosis, which he said they knew was unfeasible. On the one hand they were agreed on the need to reach a compromise with Turkey, and on the other hand they were “selling patriotism to the Cypriots”.

The Cypriot elite in cahoots with the church were also playing this double game, saying one thing to the international community and the opposite to Greek Cypriots. Cyprus failed as a state because “we did not make it happen”, Vassiliou said.

Vassiliou has no doubt that if the coup had not happened, there would have been no invasion, though he was clear that Turkey’s response was disproportionate.

“The post-war shock was so great that we focused on this and forgot everything that had happened before,” he added.

The first thing Vassiliou did as president in 1988 was to ditch Kyprianou’s ‘talks with preconditions’ policy. This stance forced Turkey back to the table in August that year in Geneva and Vassiliou found himself up against Rauf Denktash who was only ever interested in a two-state solution, even though Turkey was pulling the strings.

Eventually, the Ghali Set of Ideas and Confidence Building Measures emerged from the talks, but by that time it was the end of 1992 and Vassiliou’s term was almost up. He believes that if there had been a referendum at that time, 70-75 per cent of Greek Cypriots would have accepted a solution.

Enter DISY’s Glafcos Clerides in 1993, supported by DIKO. “DIKO acted the same way as it does today,” said Vassiliou, referring also to its later support for Demetris Christofias in 2008. “Withdraw your proposals [on the talks]” was the party’s mantra each time it supported a candidate from another party.

“To be frank, I didn’t expect Clerides to remain so true to his word to Kyprianou on disengagement from the Set of Ideas. I had always hoped what he said was for pre-election purposes and that in the end he would continue to follow the course that we had been on together,” Vassiliou said.

He said it took until the end of his first term in 1998 for Clerides to realise his mistake, and he then set in motion a new process that culminated in the Annan plan, which DIKO still managed to scupper.

“Everything happens so that certain people remain in power or if you prefer, because they are seeking an unattainable solution. The singular problem of the Greek Cypriot community is the lack of consistent collaboration between AKEL and DISY who see a solution on the basis of what is feasible,” said Vassiliou.

Eventually, he said, negotiations under Clerides led to the Annan plan but once Tassos Papadopoulos was elected in 2003, “he began a systematic effort” to extricate Cyprus from it. But first he wanted to make sure the EU would still accept the Republic as a divided country by being able to blame the Turkish side for lack of progress.

“He simply hoped, without saying as much, that Denktash would always be there to reject it,” said Vassiliou, which is precisely what happened. The plan then was for the EU to open the door for Cyprus on the assumption that Turkey, which favoured the Annan plan, would remove Denktash from the equation, which it did before Burgenstock in 2004 shortly before the referendum.

Vassiliou said Greece’s Costas Karamanlis then played Pontius Pilate at the Swiss negotiations, giving Papadopoulos a blank cheque to push for rejection of the plan and to blackmail AKEL into saying ‘no’ or they were out of the coalition. “Unfortunately Demetris [Christofias] decided that the party should stay in the government and he made a 180-degree U-turn,” recounts Vassiliou.

Later after Christofias was elected, instead of picking up with the Annan plan, he ditched it, again on DIKO’s insistence, which sounded the death knell for new talks with Mehmet Ali Talat.

Despite all the lost opportunities, Vassiliou appeared optimistic for the new talks but said that without forgiveness and compromise they would not come to anything.

“It is very easy to say no. After all you gain the halo that comes with being a patriot. Such ‘no’ votes take us in the opposite direction. Opting for a ‘yes’ means shouldering one’s responsibilities and many politicians choose either not to shoulder them or to leave them for the next person,” he writes. “There are many who undoubtedly like to give fine speeches and to speak about national vindication because they know that after a solution they will have nothing to say.”

In having to decide whether ‘Reflections on the Past and Future’ can be recommended as meeting its purpose as a ‘weekend primer’, I am going to have to admit that faced with a 24-hour deadline, my intent was to skim through it with a highlighter in hand. Instead I read every word in two and a half hours without my eyes glazing over once. Definitely worth a look, for Cyprob junkies and novices alike.

By Jean Christou

FOR A country that never stops hammering home the ‘destruction of the island’s cultural heritage’, Cyprus has remained strangely silent over Greece’s outrage that a piece of the Elgin Marbles has been loaned to Russia by the British Museum.

Even Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu publicly supported the return of the marbles, taken by British diplomat Lord Elgin from the Parthenon 200 years ago. “The return of works of a nation’s cultural heritage is very important,” he said.

Given the looting of artefacts in the north since 1974, Davutoglu’s comment is ironic to say the least. Yet, so too is Cyprus’ silence. For while Greek Cypriot politicians shout the loudest when it comes to looting by the Turks, the thefts of recent years pale into insignificance compared to the 1860s and 70s when probably the greatest robbery of antiquities in the island’s history took place.

Cyprus’ own ‘Elgin Marbles’ – as they were once described by former Antiquities Director Pavlos Flourentzos – consisted of over 30,000 artefacts dating from 2500BC to 300AD, which were looted from all over the island by just one man during ten years starting after 1865 and ending before the British took over in 1878.

Luigi Palma di Cesnola

He was American Consul Luigi Palma di Cesnola, an Italian who married an American woman and was given the post in Cyprus during the time of Ottoman rule. Another 5,000 items shipped out to the US were lost at sea and never recovered.

The ‘Cesnola Collection’ ultimately ended up at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art – sold to them by Cesnola who had tried to flog them elsewhere first.

The museum might never have come into existence without him and his ill-gotten gains, and though only 600 items are actually on display, the collection formed the backbone of the Met when it opened in 1880. Cesnola was made director for life.

In all these years, despite the constant bleating that the island’s cultural heritage belongs here, and in sharp contrast to Greece, successive Cypriot governments have declined to rock the boat when it comes to the Cesnola Collection. Little wonder then on the muted response to the Elgin Marbles.

Although no doubt there is tacit support for their return to the Parthenon, the Cyprus government clearly can’t make a fuss about the Elgin Marbles without being called to answer why Cyprus doesn’t fight for some of its stolen unique and priceless artefacts.

There are two prevailing perspectives. One is that the Cesnola collection, like the Elgin Marbles, were exported with the consent of the Ottomans and that Cyprus does not have a legal case for their return. The second is that having the collection at such a prestigious location as the Met puts Cyprus’ civilisation on the map.

This was the view of the late President Glafcos Clerides who was the last to be grilled about it 14 years ago when he went to inaugurate an exhibition of Cypriot artefacts in New York.

He drew further criticism when he said Cyprus had enough artefacts of its own to display, which contradicted his speech where he had referred to the post-1974 looting saying the government was determined “to pursue the return of each and every object of our heritage removed illegally from this area of Cyprus”.

Opposition politicians accused him of condoning the fact that the major New York exhibition was founded on ‘colonialist theft’. The biggest criticism came from then AKEL leader and future president Demetris Christofias.

“I don’t think that the tourists to the Louvre or some place in the US or anywhere else immediately think about the Cyprus problem when they see a statue,” he said, as if that was the point.

Limestone head of a bearded man, ealry 6th century BC. Said to be from Golgoi

Fourteen years later, nothing has changed and although Cyprus would love to see the Cesnola Collection returned, no one sees it as a possibility in the foreseeable future, nor is there going to be a fight for that to happen… unless the Clooneys take up the cause.

Former director of the Antiquities Department, veteran archaeologist, author and scholar Vassos Karageorghis told the Sunday Mail that 100 museums around the world possessed Cypriot artefacts, some of which were also very important pieces. But, he said there was no international legislation obliging foreign museums to repatriate pieces to their country of origin.

“This has been the fight for the Elgin Marbles for years,” he said. “We have all expressed our wish that one day UNESCO or other international organisations will urge museums to collaborate for the repatriation of objects of national significance but there is no actual legislation.”

He said Cyprus had on numerous occasions expressed the wish for the return of the Cesnola Collection, but he said by the laws of the time, they were legally exported and there is no way at present to fight that.

Current antiquities chief Despo Pilides echoed Flourentzos’ view that the Cesnola Collection and the Elgin Marbles were comparable, other than the fact the Parthenon was still standing and the marbles were an essential element of the structure while the Cesnola Collection was a mish mash of artefacts from all over the island.

“In a way they can still be compared,” she said. “What is similar is the fact they were both exported under the same laws… laws in inverted commas… meaning it was under a law being implemented by a country occupying another country and giving a licence to export for items belonging to the occupied country. Both are similar in that way and the philosophy behind it [their return] is also the same.”

Limestone statue, first century BC. Said to be from Golgoi

Pilides said the number of items taken in general from Cyprus over the centuries was inestimable. “We can’t ask for them back because they were legally exported by the law of the time so legally we don’t have a good case,” she added.

As for any notion of goodwill to repatriate on the part of the museums holding such pieces, she said: “Museums don’t have [that kind of] goodwill but maybe attitudes will change.”

Although the Cyprus Museum and a hundred others around the world are teeming with Cypriot antiquities, Pilides said the Cesnola Collection had some very unique pieces some of which might not have a duplicate anywhere. “They chose the best objects to sell to museums,” she said of people like Cesnola.

Cyprus does receive some pieces from the collection on loan or exchange and it is linked to the collection digitally so that Cypriot scholars can study the items.

If Cyprus were to launch a fight for the collection, Pilides said the authorities would have to be aware of how realistic the prospects of winning would be and not just jump in head first into a gigantic legal battle with the Metropolitan Museum.

“There is a philosophy that objects should belong to their country and one day this will be accepted,” she added.

In the private world of Cypriot historical research, Rita Severis, Executive Director of the Centre of Visual Arts and Research said she did not see a need to pursue the repatriation of the Cesnola Collection in particular. Severis said the Venetians had also taken “masses of stuff” from Cyprus earlier on and Cyprus still had plenty of important items of its own, she said.

Limestone statue end of early 6th century BC

Also, Severis said the Cesnola Collection was controversial in itself because it was not altogether “clean” in the professional sense. Cesnola was not an archaeologist but someone who was buying items from ordinary people and even sticking different pieces of items together, which means the cataloguing may not be historically accurate. “There were no laws on this until the British came,” she said. “It [the collection] is well exhibited where it is”.

President of the Metropolitan Museum John Taylor Johnston believed the same 100 years ago, though for a very different reason. He wrote then: “By his researches he [Cesnola] rescued these treasures from time and an unappreciative race.”

WHAT THEY HAVE

According to the Met’s website the Cesnola Collection is by far the most important and comprehensive collection of Cypriot material in the Western Hemisphere. The objects illustrate the unique character of Cypriot art and highlight the exotic blend of Greek, Near Eastern, and Egyptian influences in Cyprus throughout antiquity.

It is the richest and most varied representation, outside Cyprus, of Cypriot antiquities, it says. The works rank among the finest examples of Cypriot art from the prehistoric, Geometric, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. Among the objects are monumental sculpture; weapons, tools, and domestic utensils; vases, lamps, and ritual paraphernalia; dedicatory figurines; engraved sealstones and jewellery; and luxury objects. They represent every major medium worked in antiquity – stone, copper-based metal, clay, faience, glass, gold and silver, ivory, and semiprecious stones. “The pieces testify to the quintessentially Cypriot amalgam of indigenous traditions and elements assimilated from the ancient Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans who, one after the other, controlled the island.” It said special emphasis is placed on the Metropolitan Museum’s collection of Cypriot limestone sculpture, which includes impressive sarcophagi from Golgoi and Amathus and is the finest in the world.

‘UNABASHEDLY MOTIVATED BY GAIN’

According to Stuart Swiny, who wrote a foreword on behalf of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute in the 1991 reprint of Cesnola’s 1878 book Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities. Tombs and Temples, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, soldier and diplomat turned antiquarian, was prone to a little hyperbole.

“Seeing that Cesnola’s life reads like a novel, there is perhaps little wonder that this, his major publication, should adopt the same tone,” Swiny wrote.

“Indeed, it is a tantalizing web of fact, fiction and hyperbole that researchers have laboured to disentangle for well over a century.”

He said the line between reality and imagination was so thin and tortuous that many of Cesnola’s statements should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Swiny added that late 19th Century antiquarian enthusiasm should be set in its social and scholarly context and not judged by the more rigorous moral standards of today. Archaeology was not yet a science and Cesnola’s pursuits had “always been unabashedly motivated by gain”. “He wished to sell to the highest bidder,” Swiny wrote.

In the first chapter of his book, Cesnola describes his arrival on the island on Christmas Day 1865 with his wife and baby.

“Larnaca looked the very picture of desolation,” he wrote. “I admit my first thought was to stay on board [the ship] and not to land on such a forlorn looking island.” If he had, what would have become of those thousands of antiquities? Would any other amateur archaeologist have gone after the island’s treasures as relentlessly as Cesnola, or would many of those 35,000 artefacts have remained buried and when unearthed, come under the more protective British laws a mere ten years later?

By Patroclos

WE WERE delighted to hear Prez Nik speak publicly, from his New York hospital, earlier this week, even though he still looked a bit under the weather. However the fact that he spoke to hacks and played host to Vice President Biden, only a week after major surgery, showed that our prayers were answered – our leader was indeed making a speedy recovery.

In his two-week absence from the madhouse, political life has been much quieter and calmer. There have been no big political rows, no issuing of endless statements exchanging puerile accusations and no fiery speeches at village-fair openings that dominate the news.

While this political calm has been anathema for the news business and columnists seeking something to rant about, it must have been welcomed by ordinary folk, fed up of listening to daily stream of colossally meaningless political rows between the prez and the opposition parties.

Given how quiet political life has been in the last fortnight, we can only deduce that the main cause for never-ending political bickering is Nik who, apart from his heart trouble also seems to suffer from a compulsion to respond to all criticism levelled against him. This sparks the rows that have become a trademark of his presidency.

Only a psychologist would know whether his knee-jerk reactions to the mildest criticism are caused by some deep-rooted insecurity or are just an excuse for him to always be the centre of public attention. What we know is that we should enjoy the few days of political peace and quiet left, because Nik said he will be back before Christmas.

CENTRAL BANK governor Crystal may have kissed and made up with Nik before he left, after his scathing public attack over the changes she deviously sneaked into her contract, but her troubles are far from over.

She may have signed the original contract with the provision about the conflict of interest and slightly lower pay but deputies are still demanding that there is an investigation into the matter. Whether there will be one is not known, but Crystal seems to have quite a talent for bad decisions that land her in trouble.

Some 10 days ago Phil reported that Crystal had decided to send her predecessor’s poodle, the gormless George Georgiou (better-known as GG), who served as the head of the Governor’s office and of communications during the Akelite professor’s calamitous reign, as the Central Bank’s representative at the EU.

The CBC’s man at the Republic’s permanent representation in Brussels is due back having spent the maximum five years there and Crystal had to send a replacement. This is an eagerly sought posting for overpaid CBC staff as it offers generous allowances on top of their fat salary. For unknown reasons she chose the gormless GG, whom a few months earlier she had put in charge of the Publications Unit – a professional graveyard.

Most interesting of all was that she decided to send GG to Brussels without following the proper procedure of advertising the post in-house and inviting applications from interested staff. She did exactly what she used to publicly censure heads of government departments for doing when she was Auditor General – violating state procedures.

THE BOARD of the Central Bank had a meeting with Crystal earlier this week and raised the GG issue. Directors wanted to know why she was rewarding a member of the Panicos regime, who had spent his time as the professor’s poodle arranging for hostile and unflattering reports about the government to appear in the foreign media, with such a dream posting.

Directors were left speechless with her response. She had just told Harris (Georgiades) a joke she said, and wondered why the directors took it seriously. Crystal’s management style includes announcing joke appointments to the finance minister, perhaps in recognition of what is beginning to look as the mother of all joke appointments – her appointment as governor which is becoming funnier by the day.

The board was unimpressed and demanded that she followed the proper procedures before sending a CBC representative to Brussels.

Meanwhile, poor old GG, we hear, was devastated on being told that the dream posting with loads of extra cash he thought was his had been taken away from him so cruelly. He is much more gormless than usual, walking around the bank like a zombie, one of his colleague’s informed us. Not having a sense of humour, GG did not get Crystal’s very funny joke.

THE SHARE of much-maligned Bank of Cyprus resumes trading this week, we are pleased to report as it indicates our leading financial institution is returning to normalcy. However it still faces countless problems in recovering money it is owed.

Executives thought they had made some progress when they reached an agreement to rent the Orphanides building in Polemidhia, which had been empty since the supermarket chain went bankrupt two years ago, to Jumbo stores. Things however were not as straightforward as they seemed because the building never had a final approval of operation from the authorities.

Although it was operating as a supermarket since 1994, it had never obtained the required permit of use which is essential before a building obtains the so-called final approval. Orphanides Supermarkets may have been a CSE-listed company but its main shareholder was too powerful and rich to have to obey the law.

So now the BoC cannot rent the building as there is no permit of use and the Limassol authorities are not too keen to issue one, because they are under pressure from local shopkeepers that fear the aggressively competitive Jumbo store would take away a lot of their business.

SPEAKING of the bankrupt Orphanides Supermarkets, we hear there has been a clash between the receivers working for two of the bankrupt chain’s big creditors. One represents the Cyprus Development Bank and the other the Bank of Cyprus. The quarrels between them became so nasty that they ended up suing each other. The funny thing is that the warring receivers work for the same auditing firm – Deloitte.

THE NICOSIA headquarters of the B of C has become a regular venue for angry demonstrations. It is now the second most popular venue for protests after the House of Representatives, which attracts a broader spectrum of protesters.

Last week the bank welcomed the angry staff of Aqua Sol Hotels who were protesting because they had not been paid their wages for three months. But was the B of C to blame for this? Being in deep financial trouble and knowing that the bank would put his business under administration, the owner of the Aqua Sol chain had transferred several of the chain’s hotel’s to another company, under his wife’s name.

These hotels were not placed under administration. Those that were have been paying staff’s wages promptly. It was a bit crazy for the workers of the hotels that were not under B of C administration to demand that the bank paid their wages. Were the union reps that organised the demo not aware of this minor detail?

NOBODY likes to see people losing their jobs, but I have to admit that I will not feel the slightest bit of sympathy for the pilots of Cyprus Airways when the national carrier finally closes down sometime next month. Let’s not kid ourselves, the finance minister included €10 million spending provision in the 2015 budget as compensation for the airline’s staff.

By far the best-paid workers on the island, the pilots refused to take a pay cut to help their company survive. Instead they sued the company and won. They are now owed €2.5 million in back-pay and until recently were moaning because the company had not paid them. They also have the nerve to accuse the government of not doing enough to save the airline, when they were not even prepared to give up 10 per cent of their salaries that are in excess of 100 grand a year (half of it non-taxable) to help save the company they care so much about.

As part of the campaign to save the princely wages, the pilots commissioned an opinion poll which found that 87 per cent of respondents considered CY a safe airline! “Even global airlines cannot boast such numbers,” said union chief Petros Souppouris.

Was he being serious? Was he suggesting that less than 87 per cent of Germans considered Lufthansa a safe airline? What were the pilots trying to tell us, that safe airlines did not close down when they were bankrupt and nobody wanted to buy them? I can name a dozen very safe and reliable national carriers that are no more.

One question the survey failed to ask was the following: ‘Do you approve the taxpayer pouring millions into a company, whose highest paid employees are on €100,000 plus a year and unwilling to give up a cent of this to help the company?’ I bet 100 per cent would have answered ‘no’.

WE ALL love a little bit of Cyprob drama, so it was no big surprise when comments by Turkey’s tyrannical president Erdogan about plans to drill for oil in the Black Sea in January were adapted and turned into another act of aggression against poor old Kyproulla.

The authoritative Greek web-sites were responsible for this, reporting that Turkey would set up an oil platform to drill in the Cyprus EEZ; the Cypriot media which immediately picked up the story and made a big issue out of it. It was the same Greek web-sites that reported about a month ago that a Turkish drilling rig was headed to Cyprus. A drilling rig was indeed heading to Cyprus but it was not Turkish and it was coming here for repair work.

However, even after it became apparent that Erdogan was referring to the Black Sea our hacks were asking questions about Turkey’s planned drilling in Cyprus waters and our politicians were answering as if this were a real possibility.

AKEL chief Andros Kyprianou was very worried because “Turkey has made a habit of carrying out the threats it makes.” In this case however it would be inaugurating a new habit – carrying out threats it did not make.

A METRIOS drinker, who had read last Sunday’s Shop about Kyproulla being abandoned by its two mother countries, both of which were openly flirting with Turkey, saw this as a positive development, especially compared to what was happening in the north. As he said “the Turkish Cypriots have not been abandoned by their mother country but she is so controlling and oppressive she will never let them grow up, always treating them as kids and never letting them do anything without her permission.”

A TAXI driver, speaking on a radio show about the reasons for the four-hour strike held last Wednesday that caused traffic chaos in the capital, said the profession had hit very hard times. There were too many taxis, demand had fallen and they were not making any money he said.

“We walk into our house and start rowing with the wife, because we have not earned enough for our needs,” he said. You have to feel some sympathy for the poor guys, but it is not a very sound economic argument to back the drivers’ demand for subsidised fuel.

Instead of blocking the roads the cabbies should have commissioned a survey to find out what percentage of people think Cypriot taxis were safe, but they are not as rich as Cyprus Airways pilots to pay for such opinion polls. And I doubt the pilots start rowing with their wives over money as soon as they enter the house, despite working for a totally bankrupt company.

FINANCE MINISTER Harris Georgiades, presenting the state budget for 2015, was entitled to feel a sense of pride for putting public finances in order this year. The public debt was brought under control, the deficit targets set by the troika were met, the government was able to return to the markets and some stability was re-introduced to the banking sector. The fiscal discipline would continue next year, with the deficit forecasted to fall below the 3 per cent limit set by the EU and a small primary surplus being recorded.
Commendable as these achievements are, there was nothing in the budget to support Georgiades’ claim that “2015 will be a year of economic recovery”. Rate of growth is forecasted to be positive, but at less than one per cent it would be an unnoticeable recovery, when we consider by how much the economy had contracted in the last couple of years. The truth is that for the wealth- and job-creating private sector the budget contained nothing to cause even mild optimism, although Georgiades talked up the government’s decision not to impose new taxes in 2015.
This was presented as a big positive, but was it? We think not, given the taxes businesses and individuals are currently paying. They have been burdened with higher VAT, higher tax on fuel, higher social insurance contributions and the annual property tax among others. A real positive would have been the lowering of some these taxes – not all of them introduced by this government – as this would have given a small boost to businesses, raised confidence and, possibly, sparked a small recovery of the economy which everyone would like to see.
But in Cyprus, in which AKEL/union economic thinking has prevailed, none of the parties dare suggest anything as radical as tax cuts for businesses as a way of stimulating the economy, because they all believe that the only way to put the country on a growth path is by the state pouring money into the economy. The four parties –AKEL, EDEK, Alliance, Greens – who have said they would vote against the 2015 budget have all expressed the same main objection to it. It was not an expansive development budget, as spending on development projects was too low, they all said.
The idea was that the government should have wasted two or three hundred millions on building more roads we do not need or sewage systems in order to kick-start the economy (presumably, even the backhanders would have gone into circulation), because for the Cypriot parties only the state can create jobs. This is a correct conclusion given how the state has operated in the past, but it is also the reason for its eventual bankruptcy.
It is interesting to note that none of the parties which have been clamouring for a ‘development’ budget have suggested where the money for these projects would come from. They misleadingly imply that the funds are available, but the troika had instructed Georgiades not to spend them, something we know is not the case. If they were not such shameless populists, they would have suggested from where funds for the development budget could have been generated. For instance, they could have proposed cutting public sector wages and pensions by another 10 per cent as this would have raised more than €200 million for development projects.
In fact, Georgiades should have cut the public sector payroll by 10 per cent and announced tax reductions. This would have provoked a political storm and unrest in the public sector but it would have been welcomed by businesses and private sector workers who have felt the full force of the recession. Cutting taxes would also have had a positive impact on demand as it would have reduced costs of businesses and increased the disposable income of low-income groups, but it seems that not even the right-wing Anastasiades government is prepared to take such a daring step and challenge the socialist economic thinking of the parties.
The truth is that nobody in the political establishment is prepared to challenge the discredited and failed way of running the economy, in which the big, interventionist state is the main agent of growth and development. Meanwhile business and free enterprise – the real agents of growth – will continue to be stifled by heavy taxation, bureaucracy and high interest rates. Opposition parties are correct in doubting Georgiades’ recovery claims for 2015, but for the wrong reasons.

By Evie Andreou

A ‘GANG of four’ headed by former Paphos Mayor Savvas Vergas allegedly “threatened and blackmailed” the CEO of MEDCON constructions with whom a contract was signed for phase E of the Paphos sewage system, demanding €300,000 in kickbacks in return for the project running smoothly, the court heard yesterday.

The allegations were heard during one of two separate remand hearings. Vergas, the head of the Paphos Sewage Board Eftychios Malekkides and former DISY municipal councillor Giorgos Michaelides were re-remanded for eight days for the third time.

The second remand hearing concerned the fourth suspect Efstathios Efstathiou a former DIKO municipal councillor and heads of the Paphos Medical Association, who was arrested on Friday and remanded for eight days yesterday.

One of the officers investigating the case, Sergeant Yiannos Constantinou, told the Paphos court that MEDCON CEO Andreas Chimarides had told police in his statement that Vergas had called him into his office around 2010 during Phase E of the project, and in the presence Malekkides told him that he had to pay €300.000 to a group consisting of Vergas, Malekkides, Efstathiou and Michaelides.

Constantinou added that Chimarides, in his statement, said that after consideration, and “feeling threatened and blackmailed” over possible obstacles to the execution of the contract, agreed to pay up.

“They wanted to have their cake and eat it” was the phrase Chimarides used, according to Constantinou.

The court heard that Vergas had handed a piece of paper to Chimarides with the the name of the ‘team of four’ next to each one, the sum they were to receive; €100,000 each for Vergas and Malikkides and €50,000 each for Michaelides and Efstathiou.

In 2010, after the contract was signed, Chimarides, Constantinou said, had been taking money from the company’s bank account and had visited each of the four men in turn delivering envelopes stuffed with cash at different times.

In the case of Efstathiou, who police told the court was refusing to cooperate, Chimarides had gone to his practice at the Ayios Georgios clinic three or four times to take him envelopes with money.

The police investigator also told the court that during a search of Efstathiou’s house and office they found documents with money transfers abroad including a bank account in Greece where between 2004 and 2009 transfers were made amounting to €90,000.

A new warrant is expected to be issued to reveal his personal bank accounts, his companies – he was a director in at least four – and his family members. Constantinou said that police would also try and locate bank accounts or property in his name abroad.

Efstathiou, 65, is facing 14 charges including committing a felony, conspiracy to defraud and fraud among them. The doctor had been named by Vergas in connection with the sewage board scandal.

Police told the court they expected more arrests following additional statements they planned to take from members of the supervisory committee responsible to oversee the board’s affairs and others who were aware of Efstathiou’s bribe taking.

Without any objection from their lawyers, Vergas, Malekkides and Michaelides were re-remanded also remanded at a different court hearing for eight days for the third time.

The judge justified the remand by saying that based on Vergas’ testimony, 46 new statements needed to be taken.

During their hearing yesterday the court heard from police investigator Inspector Eleftherios Kyriakou that Vergas had told them in his testimony that he was approached by Malekkides who suggested the formation of a group that would act as mediators to give contractors projects in exchange of financial benefits.

He also allegedly proposed that the group be formed by municipal councillors from each of the four main political parties.

Vergas also said in his testimony, Kyriakou said, that when MEDCON had signed the contract for phase A of the construction of the sewage system in 2007, Chimarides had visited him in his office to inform him that Malekkides had asked for money on behalf of the group of four, to ensure the process would go smoothly.

Vergas allegedly replied that he had just been elected as mayor and was no longer part of the group, that he had reprimanded Malekkides for using his name and that if he did that again he would report him to the police.

The former mayor said later however, that he had received money from MEDCON between 2008 and 2010 for various cultural events and also €50,000 for his personal benefit, Kyriacou told the court.

Chimarides himself, along with AKEL’s Paphos municipal councillor Giorgos Shailis and Nemesis Construction’s managing director Kyriacos Chrysochos were arrested last week but the Paphos court refused to remand them. The state legal service filed an appeal with the Supreme Court against the remand rejection.

Turkish police raided a television station and a newspaper close to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen on Sunday, detaining some people, media reports said, two days after President Tayyip Erdogan signalled a fresh campaign against Gulen’s supporters.

Police launched simultaneous operations at various addresses in Istanbul and provinces across Turkey, detaining people including a top executive of a television channel close to Gulen, state broadcaster TRT Haber reported.

Gulen and Erdogan are bitter rivals.

Media reports said arrest warrants were issued for 32 people.

“The free press cannot be silenced,” a crowd chanted at the Istanbul offices of newspaper Zaman as editor Ekrem Dumanli made a speech to them broadcast live on television, defiantly calling on police to detain him.

The raids come a year after the emergence of corruption investigations targeting Erdogan’s inner circle, which he said were a plot to topple him orchestrated by a “parallel structure” of supporters of Gulen. The cleric, a former ally of Erdogan, denies the charge.

The investigation, which became public with police raids on Dec. 17 last year, led to the resignation of three ministers and prompted Erdogan to purge the state apparatus, reassigning thousands of police and hundreds of judges and prosecutors.

By Steve Tongue

Dec 14 (Reuters) – The difference in fortunes since Liverpool won 3-0 away to Manchester United in March was illustrated when Louis Van Gaal’s team reversed that scoreline on Sunday.

Nine months ago the Merseysiders were challenging strongly for the Premier League title and United, having their worst season for many years, would shortly sack manager David Moyes.

After a slow start to the campaign United appear to have been revitalised by Van Gaal and goals from Wayne Rooney, Juan Mata and Robin van Persie sealed a sixth consecutive league win to keep them in third place.

Liverpool are languishing in mid-table, dropping to 10th after Tottenham Hotspur climbed above them with a 2-1 victory at Swansea City in the day’s other fixture.

That said, it was a flattering margin for United, with many observers making United’s keeper David De Gea man of the match.

The Spaniard pulled off a succession of important saves, mainly from Raheem Sterling in the first half and substitute Mario Balotelli in the second.

It was a typically feisty contest between the old rivals, ending with seven yellow cards, four to United before halftime.

Other statistics showed Liverpool had more shots and corners as well as plenty of possession but crucially they could not convert their chances, and made mistakes in conceding each goal.

Liverpool could claim luck was against them, with the second goal clearly offside but as manager Brendan Rodgers admitted they contributed to their own downfall.

“We created enough chances to win but we made defensive mistakes, which is what cost us,” he told Sky Sports.

“I thought we did enough to win the game. But you can’t concede the goals we did.”

For the first one in the 13th minute, Joe Allen allowed Antonio Valencia to push the ball through his legs and had no cover behind him as the Ecuadorean played a square pass for Rooney to beat goalkeeper Brad Jones with ease.

Australian Jones was brought in as replacement for Simon Mignolet to start his first Premier League game since March 2013, but he was beaten again five minutes before half-time.

As Ashley Young cut back to cross, Mata was not offside but he was by the time Van Persie flicked the ball on.

Rodgers sent on Balotelli for Adam Lallana at the interval and Liverpool continued to see plenty of the ball.

Sterling should have scored five minutes into the second half after latching onto Jonny Evans’s weak back pass but, one-on-one with De Gea, he allowed the keeper to deny him.

The young England international did better midway through the second half in setting up Balotelli, but De Gea pushed the Italian’s shot onto the crossbar.

BAD DEFENDING
United’s third goal stemmed from a classic counter-attack but was still helped by bad defending.

Mata sent Rooney away and Dejan Lovren should have cleared his cross. Off-balance, he skewed it straight to Mata, whose perfect pass was drilled in by Van Persie for a seventh league goal of the season.

There was still time for De Gea to make two more quality saves from Balotelli.

Van Gaal said that his goalkeeper “had a big influence” but was also critical of United for the number of chances they allowed the opposition.

“We have to improve that,” he told reporters. “We are winning now – six matches in a row is fantastic – but we still have to improve our playing style.”

Tottenham’s 2-1 away to Swansea moved them into seventh position, two places above the Welsh club.

Harry Kane headed Spurs in front in the fourth minute, Wilfried Bony equalised early in the second half with his eighth goal in the last 10 games but Christian Eriksen scored the winner just before the end.

The President of the Republic Nicos Anastasiades was discharged from Mount Sinai hospital in New York on Sunday, at 1130 local time, after a heart surgery he underwent in early December.

He will stay in a Manhattan hotel for some more days before he travels back to Cyprus.

In statements to the press, cardiac surgeon David Adams, who performed the operation on December 2, said that the health problems which Anastasiades faced have been fully addressed and that the President is ready to return back to his duties. He said however that his doctors recommended him to rest for one week and spend some time with his family.

In his statements, President Anastasiades thanked everyone and especially his doctors and Mount Sinai hospital for their support.

Last Wednesday the President met at the hospital with US Vice President Joe Biden, who wished him well. On Tuesday, Anastasiades will have a meeting at his hotel with Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and on Wednesday he will receive UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

CNA

The U.S. State Department called on Turkish authorities to protect media freedom and other democratic values in response to media raids and detentions in operations across Turkey on Sunday.

The State Department was closely following reports of the raids and arrests, and media outlets that have been openly critical of the current Turkish government appeared to be among the targets of the actions by Turkish law enforcement, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

“Media freedom, due process, and judicial independence are key elements in every healthy democracy and are enshrined in the Turkish constitution,” Psaki said in a statement. “As Turkey’s friend and ally, we urge the Turkish authorities to ensure their actions do not violate these core values and Turkey’s own democratic foundations.”

Turkish police raided media outlets close to a U.S.-based Muslim cleric and detained 24 people including top executives and ex-police chiefs in operations against what President Tayyip Erdogan calls a terrorist network conspiring to topple him.

The raids on Zaman daily and Samanyolu television marked an escalation of Erdogan’s battle with former ally Fetullah Gulen, with whom he has been in open conflict since a graft investigation targeting Erdogan’s inner circle emerged a year ago.

The European Union had earlier condemned the raids in EU-aspirant Turkey. In an unusually strongly worded statement, it said the raids were incompatible with media freedom and ran counter to European values.