I HOPE our establishment will be excused for not joining the public mourning for the passing of Cyprus Airways, which had been on the life support machine for the last decade.

We believe it would be better to celebrate its 68-year life during which it made quite a few of our countrymen very rich, provided well-paid, unproductive employment to thousands of losers who could command only the minimum wage in the open market, gave social standing to countless nobodies appointed to its board and allowed union bosses to secure privileges for their members that would have been unheard of in any sane country.

It was very successful as an employment agency even though it cost the taxpayer in excess of €100 million to keep going in the last few years, not to mention the rip-off air-fares we were forced to pay in the pre-open-skies days when it engaged in price collusion, as a matter of policy, with other airlines. But the Cypriot taxpayer has always been stupidly generous and feels no resentment over his money being wasted on one of the world’s most badly-managed airlines.

It was, after all, our national carrier and the millions we paid so that its pilots could receive monthly salaries higher than those of the president of the Republic for as long as the European Commission allowed was money well-wasted.

OUR POLITICIANS were inconsolable, having lost not just a reliable vote-buying agency but also the privilege to travel business class on an economy ticket. Like the chorus in an ancient Greek tragedy, they all voiced moving laments about the death of the national carrier, in front of the cameras, and cursed the government for their loss of business-class upgrades.

In an unprecedented move, comrade Tof took a small share of the responsibility for the closure of the company. It was the first time in his career he had taken responsibility for something, but he used it to praise himself.

“It is said we violated the regulations of the EU and gave assistance to the national carrier of Cyprus to keep it alive,” he said and added: “This responsibility I accept.” The comrade was always quite brilliant at wasting the taxpayer’s money (€100 million in the case of Cyprus Airways) and posing like a public benefactor and protector of the workers.

THE 550 airline employees who lost their jobs were one of the main themes of the CY autopsy that has been playing in the media for the last 24 hours. Workers were on the telly heaping abuse on the government for leaving them jobless.

Their complaints were repeated on CyBC radio yesterday morning with presenter Soulla Hadjikyriakou roasting the communications minister for not thinking about the workers. “The pilots may find work elsewhere, but where will the rest of the workers find jobs,” asked an unusually surly Soulla.

CyBC presenters are particularly sensitive to the plight of workers of state-owned organisations because their corporation exists thanks to the generosity of the taxpayer who pays some €30 million a year to keep them in their cushy jobs. Nik’s evil government might one day decide that we do not need a public broadcaster.

SOULLA’S message to the minister was that the government should have kept the airline going not only for the sake of the workers, but because we are an island under occupation. To push home the latter point she came up with what could be the sound-bite of the year.

“We are a country with special needs,” she declared. This was the first time I found myself agreeing with a view expressed by Soulla. If we were not a country with special needs we may still have a national carrier.

IT WOULD not be fitting to close our celebration of the long and eventful life of Cyprus Airways without mentioning its pilots – the most selfish, arrogant and greedy group of workers Kyproulla has ever had.

Back in the glory days of the airline, when it was employing more than 2,000 people, the pilots were always causing trouble, threatening and taking strike action at the peak of the tourist season, in order to push their pay demands and working to rule in order to remind us of their power.

I still remember the time when a pilot refused to take off, leaving passengers waiting for a couple of hours, because the Chief Steward had assigned a stewardess to work in the economy rather than the business class section, against the orders of the pilot who wanted her to have an easy flight as she was his girlfriend.

There was also the time when a pilot landed a plane flying to Larnaca at Paphos airport, forcing the airline to arrange buses to pick up the passengers, on the grounds that if he landed in Larnaca he would have exceeded his flight time by a few minutes.

You can do this sort of thing when working for the national carrier of a country with special needs. I bet former CY pilots do no such things in Saudi Arabia where dozens of them are currently working.

WHO WOULD have thought that the closure of the national carrier would have caused a problem to the dear old Bank of Cyprus? The bank had been issuing the Sun Miles American Express card which, every time it was used, gave the holder points. When the holder amassed a huge number of points (after payments of several thousand euro) he or she was entitled to a free ticket on a Cyprus Airways flight to Athens (for a flight to London you had to buy a car on card). Now, thousands of holders who used their Amex Sun Miles card in order to get a free air ticket will end up with nothing. They could join the next bondholders’ protest outside the HQ of the B of C.

A WORD of sympathy for Prez Nik who has put himself in a hole with his impulsively defiant reaction to the first Turkish NavTex and now cannot get out. He quit the talks back in October because of the NavTex, to the applause of all the Cyprob demagogues, but when it expired he decided he wanted negotiations to resume.

On Monday he announced that he was willing to return and to discuss the share of the hydrocarbons with the Turks, something he had impulsively ruled out a few months ago. This allowed the freedom fighters to go on the offensive, Junior accusing him of crossing his red line and Lillikas referring to a presidential humiliation. He had given a new gift to the Turks, said MEP Eleni Theocharous.

By Tuesday, the Turks made matters worse by issuing another NavTex, although the Barbaros had not embarked on any violations of our EEZ. Not knowing what to do, Nik decided to indulge in a little theatre. On Friday he had four separate meetings to discuss his sad predicament. First he met the two former presidents, then former foreign ministers, followed by the negotiating team and finally the Geostrategic Council.

If he still does not know what to do before the arrival of Espen Barth Eide on Tuesday he could call in a medium to arrange a séance and seek the advice of deceased presidents as well. I am sure Spy Kyp would offer him sound advice.

WHAT a true hero former Paphos mayor and EDEK deputy Fidias Sarikas turned out to be. When his name was mentioned in connection with the Paphos Sewerage Board scandal, Sarikas wrote to the Attorney General about the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and said: “I have no objection, nor do I intend to raise any objection to a possible demand by the legal services for the lifting of my parliamentary immunity… I notify my consent to the lifting of my parliamentary immunity.”

On Thursday, when the Attorney-General’s application was heard at the Supreme Court Sarikas’ lawyer objected to the lifting of the parliamentary immunity on the grounds that the documentation accompanying the application in relation to his client’s alleged involvement in the scandal was inadequate.

His lawyer told the court that Sarikas felt “he has an obligation to protect institutions.” He could not possibly consent to the lifting of his immunity if the application was not accompanied by adequate documentation. Such is the dedication and commitment of Sarikas to the protection of institutions he would rather be known as a bare-faced liar than allow the lifting of parliamentary immunity without adequate documentation.

THE LIAR Sarikas, unlike his other EDEK colleagues who constantly advertise their moral superiority and give sermons about correct behaviour to all of us, seemed a quite reasonable socialist until Thursday.

Interestingly, his party which rants and raves about scandals, demanding the punishment of the culprits has kept very quiet about the Paphos Sewarage Board scam. Could this have anything to do with rampant rumours suggesting that the person who was calling all the shots in the scam was a recently deceased lawyer that happened to be the brother of the squeaky clean EDEK chief Yiannakis Omirou?

These may be just vicious rumours with no truth in them, but we thought we should pass them on as you cannot libel a dead person.

EVERYTHING appears to be back to normal at the CTO after the board’s bungling attempt to get rid of the general manager Marios Hannides and the head of the marketing department Michalis Metaxas. In fact Hannides has rewarded Metaxas by moving him from marketing and putting him in charge of two other departments – Administration as well as Strategy.

Metaxas, who must have strong political backing, likes to strut around the organisation boasting that nobody can touch him. He has come a long way since his employment at the Romania office of KEMA (the George Vass company) was terminated in rather suspicious circumstances, but despite his political backing the investigations into his activities as head of marketing are set to continue.

Metaxas has been responsible for some very dubious moves that are not in the best interests of Cyprus tourism. He recently decided to close down the CTO office in Vienna and keep open the organisation’s office in Warsaw despite the fact that visitors to Cyprus from Vienna are three times as many as those from Warsaw and have a much higher average net spend.

So why has Metaxas decided to close down the office in Vienna while keeping that in Warsaw open? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the CTO man in Vienna had repeatedly questioned the irregularities, dubious decisions and violations of procedures ordered by Metaxas?

THE WAY the media played up the forecasts for bad weather for the start of the week they created the impression we were going to be hit by some devastating storm that leaves nothing standing in its wake. Cold weather is big news in the sunshine isle and subject to journalistic exaggeration.

On Monday morning when the rain had begun, radio show hosts were calling the fire service spokeswoman to ask her if extra firemen had been called in to help deal with the problems that would be caused by the heavy rainfall and thunderstorms forecast.

She answered negatively, as the fire service could not know in which part of the country its men would be needed. At the time she was talking there was some heavy rainfall in Paphos and Limassol, while in Nicosia and Larnaca it was drizzling – not exactly the biblical storm the media had been touting

In the end there was some flooding of houses in Limassol (because these were built on a river-bed), some people were trapped in their cars and a few trees were uprooted by the strong winds, but the big-scale disaster that our panic-peddling hacks feared did not happen. Kyproulla was not immersed in water and the political parties could not accuse the government of failing to arrange for the arrival of Noah’s Ark to save us from the biblical catastrophe we were all expecting.

IT DID SNOW however, giving an excuse for TV crews to go to the mountain villages and ask elderly residents if they were cold. They also bored us with the usual cliches about the ‘magical scenery’ and ‘mountains covered in veils of snow’.

There was very little snow in the north (someone saw a little on the Kyrenia mountain range), and I expected Dervis Eroglu to demand that the distribution of snow was included in the Cyprob talks because the Turkish Cypriots were not getting their fair share.

SIXTY-EIGHT years of history were wiped out on Friday when the European Commission issued its decision about Cyprus Airways. As had been widely expected, the Commission deemed that part of the funds in excess of €100 million paid to the airline by the state in the form of assistance and through the issue of new capital was in fact a subsidy – €66 million of it had to be paid back. Unable to do so, there was only one choice left to the company – closing down.

Although older than the Cyprus Republic, the national carrier had become a symbol and flagship of the new state when the former was established. Its main shareholder was BEA (British European Airlines), but on independence the Republic took control of the majority stake. By 1991, when British Airways gave up its shares, the state controlled 80 per cent of the shareholding with the rest distributed among individuals. Despite the foreign participation, the national carrier had been run by successive governments and their placemen ever since independence, which is why it has closed down.

In fact the company has followed a very similar path to the state on its way to bankruptcy. It was subject to self-serving decisions by board members, incompetently run by unqualified party-men and sucked dry by the unions with the blessing of the politicians who had turned it into a dumping ground for unemployable party members; there was a time, not too many years ago, when it employed in excess of 2,000 staff on wages and benefits that profitable airlines did not pay. Its payroll, like the state’s, was unsustainable but even after the airline was bailed out by the taxpayer the wage cuts were too small, while the overpaid pilots took the company to court for cutting their princely salaries and won.

There was no troika to impose the painful cuts that could have increased the chances of survival when the airline was bailed out by the taxpayer in 2012. The Christofias government’s action plan at the time included pay rises for the lowest paid of the airline’s workers! By then, it may have already been too late to save the airline after so many years of mismanagement and waste. Tens of millions were lost on ill-advised aircraft purchases, like the Airbus 330, the setting up of Hellas Jet and operation of Eurocypria, not to mention the regular early retirement schemes with ultra-generous compensation packages.

It could not have been any other way at a company that was run by politicians and unions. Business principles were anathema to them as the former tried to maximise votes (and invisible benefits) and the latter the income of their pampered members who were accustomed to wages that were the envy of the rest of working population. The benefits they squeezed out of the company over the years were absurd, but the politicians never said ‘no’ to them. One chairman agreed to annual pay rises of four per cent when the airline was recording millions in annual losses.

And now, the 550 workers that were still employed by the company will join the ranks of the jobless. Some were protesting outside the company HQ on Friday night claiming that the government wanted the company to close down. The truth was that the company was beyond saving. The European Commissioner for Competition said in a statement on Friday: “Cyprus Airways has received large quantities of public money since 2007 but was unable to restructure and become viable without continued state support… injecting additional public money would only have prolonged the struggle without achieving a turn-around.”

Cyprus Airways was doomed because it was never run like a business and the main reason of its existence was to serve the interests of the political party establishment, its directors and its underworked, overpaid employees. Never in its history was there an ethos of customer service or a policy of building customer loyalty, because the paying passengers were always an afterthought. How could it have survived after the introduction of the open skies and the arrival of competition when it could no longer use its monopolistic power to charge high fares and offer poor service.

It never adapted to the competitive environment it found itself in after 2004. The workers were not willing to give up their ‘conquests’, the politicians were happy to carry on wasting the taxpayer’s money so as not to anger the unions and successive boards did nothing, obeying the orders of the government. Such reckless irresponsibility and incompetence could only have ended in bankruptcy.

By Bejay Browne

AS Cyprus is battered by a spate of bad weather British expat residents have reacted angrily to the news that thousands will lose their winter fuel allowance as the British government tables legislation before parliament to introduce a benchmark temperature test.

In recent days, Cyprus has been coping with freezing temperatures, snow, hail, heavy rain and strong winds, and yet, the British government’s new test will see pensioners living in Cyprus, France, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain lose the right to claim their winter fuel allowance payments. The new legislation is expected to come into force next week in time for winter 2015-16.

The new test, which expat residents say is ludicrous, is aimed at stopping payments being made to British residents of countries where the average annual temperature is higher than the warmest region of the UK – the South West at 5.6C (42F). Around 8,000 expats living in Cyprus look set to lose their allowance, which will reportedly save the British government £1.4 million in payments.

Over the past few days, Cyprus has been hit with sub-zero temperatures in many areas and according to the met office, daytime temperatures of only around 2°C were experienced inland.

Colm Connolly, originally from Dublin, worked for many years in the UK before moving to Cyprus 12 years ago. He is urging the British government to rethink the move to abolish winter fuel payments to retired expats living in Cyprus, warning of serious repercussions. He said the new legislation is ridiculous and could result in deaths due to hyperthermia.

“This move is crazy and shows a lack of knowledge of how cold Cyprus is during the winter months. At the moment it’s cold even by UK standards,” he said.

Connolly warned that pensioners would be forced to choose whether to buy food or heat their homes.

“State pensions are small and can’t cover everything, there will be fallout and it may even lead to deaths. There will be cases of hyperthermia and if people are found in time, this will put pressure on hospitals. There aren’t adequate care facilities for people here.”

Connolly received the winter fuel allowance for the first time last year and said he feels he is entitled to continue claiming the payment.

“We have paid into the system for years and for the government to say we don’t need it is ridiculous, it’s perishing here in the winter.”

Alexander Mclaine, a retired expat living in Anavargos village in Paphos agrees.

“We have paid our taxes and should be given the choice whether we need the payment or not. Those with enough money wouldn’t take it.”

He described the weather in Cyprus as bitterly cold during the winter and pointed out that homes are not built with sufficient insulation as they are in the UK.

“The past few days have been very cold here and until now I have received this allowance which is very helpful. I get 200 pounds sterling a year which is paid into my UK bank account.”

The winter fuel allowance is £200 for the over-62s and increases to £300 for the over-80s.

Many expat residents say the temperature test is irrelevant and that as they have paid into the system for years, the winter fuel allowance is an entitlement which shouldn’t be stopped.

Disappointed, Kate and Richard Dean

Richard and Kate Dean are in their 60s and retired to Paphos in 2012. Since then they have received an annual payment of £200.

“We have both paid into the system in the UK for 47 years and have taken nothing out. We are entitled to this money and we are still paying taxes in the UK.”

Dean said the couple feels especially riled as the British government allows people entering the UK to claim state hand-outs without ever having paid into the system.

Dean noted that the payment only goes some way to paying for the couples winter heating bills and this year’s payment has already been swallowed up.

“It’s cold in Cyprus in the winter, and I think some people believe this is always a warm country and so everything must be hunky dory all the time and it isn’t. We have high ceilings and tiled floors; homes here are built for the summer. It’s very cold and a gas fire will only heat a small space.”

Another expat resident who resides in the hills above Paphos said the subject should be taken to the European Court of Human Rights. Brian Clark retired to Cyprus ten years ago and said that the British government have got their priorities wrong and that once again pensioners are being forced to bear the brunt of penny pinching.

“Stopping this fuel allowance to Brits living abroad is discrimination. If it’s colder in the UK, so what, if people have paid into the UK system they should be entitled to the same benefits from the pot they have topped up as people still living there. The government seems to forget that we have worked and paid all our lives. They’ll be stopping our pensions next.”

He added that the situation is made worse by the way in which others are treated.

“Scroungers from the UK and other countries get hand-outs all the time – this all from our hard earned money. The state of the country is a disgrace and is why so many Brits have left.”

The British Works and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is quoted as saying the payments are absurd and an obscene waste of tax payer’s money. He said the winter fuel payments are for British pensioners to help keep them warm.

He is quoted in the British press as saying: “It’s absurd and offensive that taxpayers are funding these payments for people who have retired to the Mediterranean and enjoy warmer weather.”

Following the implementation of the new legislation, the payments will still be available to expats in: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland.

By Constantinos Psillides

A TOTAL of 18,203 registered Paphos voters will be heading to the polls today, to decide who among the record eight candidates will take the reins of the disgraced municipality and try and steer it towards a better future.
The election will commence at 7.00am and wrap up at 6.00pm with a one hour break at noon. Results are expected no later than 8.00pm.
While the election has been much publicised, the scandal-weary Paphites are apparently showing little sign they are eager to leave their homes on a cold, winter Sunday to exercise their voting rights.
Polls conducted over the last week showed an abstention level of nearly 40 per cent, compared to 17.6 per cent in the 2013 presidential elections.
One cannot blame the disillusioned Paphos residents. Events that forced the early mayoral elections have shocked the public as they learned of a deep seated corruption system that lived off the town’s taxes for years.
Worst of all, people from all major parliamentary parties are accused of being involved, further strengthening the notion that nothing will essentially change once the new mayor gets voted in office.
The elections were announced by Interior Minister Socratis Hasikos in December, after former mayor Savvas Vergas stepped down on December 2. Vergas resigned his post following an avalanche of alleged scandals including a shady land deal, death threats sent to municipal councillors and a reporter, a tennis court built on public property and the town’s Sewerage Board (SAPA) scandal, in which contractors admitted to bribing officials so they could secure government contracts. The officials then would inflate the project’s budget, taking in some of the profit.
The former mayor, SAPA manager Eftychios Malekkides, former municipal DIKO councillor Efstathios Efstathiou, former DISY councillor Giorgos Michaelides, former AKEL councillor Vasos Vasileiou and current AKEL councillor Giorgos Sialis are currently on trial on corruption and bribery charges.
Despite the public’s discontent, political parties opted to revert back to type instead of pushing for a real change in their choice of candidate. While initial reports said that parties would present a unified front and choose a common candidate, they ended up splitting among opposition lines. On the one side, main opposition parties AKEL, DIKO and

DISY have backed Fedonas Fedonos

EDEK backed one candidate – Aristos Vasiliades – leaving governing party DISY with the only option of backing a candidate – Fedonas Fedonos – of their own.
The other parliamentary parties, Greens and the Citizens’ Alliance went ahead with their own candidates, rejecting the notion of a common candidate from the start.
The two biggest issues faced by the municipality now is clearing all nests of corruption and getting the town ready for 2017, when the town will receive the mantle of Europe’s cultural capital. The latter is a daunting task since out of the initial 36 projects included in the town’s bid, only eight have been green-lighted. The cost for these projects is estimated at €26 million, €22 of which has still not released by the interior ministry, which handles European funding.
The candidates in unison have also pledged to fix the town’s roads that are in shambles following the work done on the sewerage system.
All of the candidates have put these issues top of their agenda. But, as they told the Sunday Mail, they do have others.
Andreas Chrysanthou, a municipal councillor who is standing as an independent candidate, says that close to the top of the agenda should be getting the municipality mechanism working again.
“The whole system is now in shambles. Nobody answers to anyone. It’s chaos right now. We need to show that someone is in charge. We need to get the town back on track,” says Chrysanthou, jokingly adding that the second thing he will do is set up a tent outside the interior ministry until the funding for Paphos 2017 is released.
“Paphos desperately needs this. It will create jobs, boost tourism and increase the town’s revenue so we are willing to do anything to get it,” explains Chrysanthou.
Another Chrysanthou, Chrysanthos – no relation to Andreas – notes that revamping the old town of Paphos will be in his priorities. A well-known TV and theatre actor -currently appearing in The Stone River, a historical period drama broadcasted by CyBC – Chrysanthou argues that the 28 of October Square is “unparallel in beauty in the whole of Europe and not showcasing that beauty is a grievous mistake”. Chrysanthou also pledges to utilise the Paphos ancient theatre by establishing an international theatre festival, similar to that of the Greek Epidaurus theatre festival.
DISY backed Fedonas Fedonos has pledged to set up safeguards so that the SAPA scandal can never be repeated.
“I will push for an 8 per cent maximum limit on budget increases, after the contracts are signed. Contractors who want to work with the municipality will have to submit bids that are as accurate as possible because anything more that 8 per cent, will come out of their pockets,” said Fedonos.
The DISY candidate told the Sunday Mail that he would also push for an improvement in services offered so Paphos could attract “a better quality” tourism.
Asked to respond to the criticism that he is essentially a party candidate, Fedonos argued that he clashed with his party on a number of occasions during his three years as a Paphos councillor and that he had been battling alone when he tried to blow the lid off the corruption scandal. Fedonos, a local reporter for daily Politis and a municipality employee all received death threats from Vergas when the case first started unravelling.
Sophia Hambiaouridou, a former model and journalist is the only woman candidate. Hambiaouridou told the press that she is running for mayor because she had had enough of corruption and never wanted to have to say to her children that “there was once a town called Paphos.”
Andreas Masouras, the Greens’ candidate and at 34, also the youngest, places transparency above all. In an interview he gave to the Sunday Mail last week he pointed out that even if the town gets back on its feet financially, it will accomplish nothing without full transparency.
Masouras’ strongest card appears to be with the around 12 per cent of voters who are non-native Cypriots, since he is the only one hosting events in English. The young lecturer at the Neapolis University never misses an opportunity to remind voters that the Greens were the only parliamentary party that did not have a seat at the Paphos municipal council and therefore cannot be tarred with the brush of corruption.
Vangelis Mavronikolas, a well-known architect based in Paphos is perhaps the candidate with most detailed plan.
“I have put forth a 49-point plan, explaining what my intentions are for the city in detail. Also included in the plan are specific projects that I think will boost local economy and revitalise the city centre and the sea front,” said Mavronikolas, who also made a tangible contribution to the municipality. His office has drafted the blueprints for the new municipal building free of charge.
“And this is not just in the case I am elected mayor. The blueprints will be handed over to the municipality regardless. We have been working together with the municipality in a number of projects and we won’t stop now,” he told the Sunday Mail.
EVROKO candidate Doros Pafitis, who holds a doctorate in oceanography from the university of Cyprus, has focused his campaign message on rejecting any ties to big parliamentary parties, which he holds responsible for everything that happened in Paphos. “Party alliances happening in the name of so called ‘consent’ is merely a façade, an attempt at a cover up by the establishment,” he said in an interview.
Aristos Vasiliades, a chartered accountant with a degree in economics from the London School of Economics, is perhaps the candidate with the toughest task despite the support of three political parties. While Vasiliades maintains that his candidacy is an independent one, he is backed by AKEL, DIKO and EDEK.
Asked to respond to the links of most parties to the recent scandals, Vasiliades says that it is not parties that have to answer to the court but individuals.
“Party members are suspected of corruption and for that they will be tried in court. That’s what’s happening in Paphos. Parties didn’t just came and set up a corruption ring to get kickbacks. Individuals are suspected of that, who happened to be party members,” argued Vasiliades.
The candidate said that he will be focusing on three items if he is elected mayor: eradicating corruption, getting the town ready for 2017 and getting back the money squandered on the sewerage project.

A building of German newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost was the target of an arson attack and two suspects were arrested, police said on Sunday.

Like many other German newspapers, Hamburger Morgenpost has printed cartoons of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo after the deadly attack on Wednesday in Paris.

A police spokeswoman said that an incendiary device was thrown at the newspaper building in the night and documents were burned inside. Two suspects were arrested near the crime scene because they behaved in an unusual manner, she added.

The newspaper said on its web page that there were no people inside the building when the attack happened. Whether the arson attack was connected to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons was still under investigation, the paper added.

Police said state security had taken over the investigations.

By Nazih Siddiq

A suicide bomb attack on a cafe in the Lebanese city of Tripoli killed at least seven people on Saturday, the latest violence to hit a region repeatedly buffeted by violence linked to the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

The Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s official affiliate in the Syrian civil war, said it carried out the double suicide attack in the predominantly Alawite district of Jabal Mohsen “in revenge for the Sunnis in Syria and Lebanon”. The statement appeared on a Twitter feed operated by the group’s media arm.

Lebanon’s National News Agency gave the names of two suicide attackers it said were from Tripoli, an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim city whose long-standing sectarian tensions have been exacerbated by the Syrian civil war.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the attack killed seven people. Other officials put the death toll at nine. Three dozen people were wounded.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam said in a statement the attack was “a new attempt to spread the seeds of strife” in Tripoli and would not “weaken the determination of the state and its decision to confront terrorism and terrorists”.

The army said the attack was carried out by a lone suicide bomber, though its investigations were still underway. The National News Agency said the second bomber had blown himself up as people gathered in response to the first blast.

Lebanon’s security has been repeatedly jolted by the Syria crisis, which has also helped paralyse its government: the country has been without a head of state since May.

Tripoli, Lebanon’s second biggest city, has historically been a bastion for Sunni Islamist groups, making it a concern for Lebanese security agencies that have warned of plans by Islamic State and the Nusra Front to destabilise the country.

Militants linked to Islamic State and the Nusra Front mounted an attack on the Lebanese border town of Arsal last August. They are still holding around two dozen members of the security forces taken captive in that incursion.

CALLS FOR UNITY

The last major flare-up in Tripoli was in October, when at least 11 soldiers and 22 militants were killed in fighting between Sunni Islamists and the army.

The targeted cafe was on a street dividing Jabal Mohsen from the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh, which has often turned into a frontline for conflict between Sunni and Alawite communities over the years, particularly since Syria’s civil war erupted – pitting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite, against an insurgency dominated by Sunni Islamists.

But its communal tensions were eased by a security plan brought into force last year.

Leaders from across Lebanon’s political divide called for unity. The powerful Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside the government in Syria, responded to the attack by saying terrorist groups must be isolated.

It urged the people of Jabal Mohsen, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, not to “be dragged towards reactions that would achieve the criminals’ vile aims”.

Former prime minister Saad al-Hariri, an influential Lebanese Sunni politician backed by Saudi Arabia, said the attack aimed to fuel discord in Tripoli.

At least 40 people are dead after a bus crashed head on with a fuel tanker in southern Pakistan.

It happened just past midnight on Sunday morning on a highway on the outskirts of Karachi. Officials say there were about 55 people on board the bus, including women and children, when it collided with the tanker.

Both vehicles immediately burst into flames. The bodies were taken to a medical center in Karachi, but officials said many were burned beyond recognition.

Road accidents are common in Pakistan where poorly maintained roads and vehicles plus reckless driving have caused at least 4500 deaths per year since 201

By Geert De Clercq

Hundreds of thousands of French citizens will be joined by dozens of foreign leaders, among them Arab and Muslim representatives, in a march in Paris on Sunday in honour of the victims of this week’s Islamist militant attacks.

The march, which is to start at 3 p.m. (1600 local timr) and be made in silence, will be a show of solidarity and also reflect the profound shock felt in France and across the world over the worst Islamist assault on a European city in nine years.

Seventeen people, including journalists and policemen, lost their lives in three days of violence that began with a shooting attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday and ended with a hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket on Friday. The three gunmen were also killed.

Security forces will be on the highest alert for the event, which will attended by about 40 heads of state and government.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italy Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will march with President Francois Hollande. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu are also expected to take part.

“It will be an unprecedented manifestation that will be written in the history books,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls said.

“It must show the power and dignity of the French people, who will cry out their love of liberty and tolerance,” he said.

Meanwhile, Turkish and French sources said that a woman hunted by French police as a suspect in the attacks had left France several days before the killings and is believed to be in Syria.

French police launched in an intensive search for Hayat Boumeddiene, the 26-year-old partner of one of the attackers, describing her as “armed and dangerous”.

But a source familiar with the situation said Boumeddiene left France last week and travelled to Syria via Turkey. A senior Turkish official corroborated that account, saying she passed through Istanbul on Jan. 2.

A senior Turkish security official said Paris and Ankara were now cooperating in trying to trace her but that she had arrived in Istanbul without any warning from France.

“We think she is in Syria at the moment but we do not have any evidence about that. She is most probably not in Turkey,” the Turkish source said.

Across France on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people took part in rallies to demonstrate against the attacks. Many people carried signs saying “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) in reference to the magazine where 12 people, including its top cartoonists, were killed on Wednesday.

“I want my child to be born in a better world,” Pierine, 29 and heavily pregnant, said at a march in the Mediterranean city of Nice.

On Sunday, public transport in the Paris region was to be free. In a huge security operation, plainclothes policemen were to protect leading personalities with snipers posted on rooftops along the route from Place de la Republique to Place de la Nation.

“Everything will be done to make sure that those who want to come to this meeting can do so safely,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

However, right-wing National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who is expected to receive a boost in the polls due to the attacks, said her party would shun the Paris demonstration and instead take part in regional marches.

She accused the Socialist government of trying to take advantage of the event to win greater support.

Voting, which commenced early on Sunday morning in Pafos continues without any incident as citizens are set to elect the city`s new mayor in a by-election, after the resignation of Savvas Vergas, the previous mayor now facing corruption charges.

Polls opened at 7.00am local time (05.00 GMT) and will close at 18.00. There was an hour long lunch break from 12.00 until 13.00. Results are expected to be made known around 20.00 on Sunday night.

According to Yiannakis Mallourides, the chief returning officer in Pafos, voting proceeded smoothly and in line with the relevant legal provisions.

By 12.00 noon, when voting stopped for the one-hour break, 3,849 voters or 21,3% of registered voters had cast their vote.

In total, 18,023 citizens have the right to vote, 12% of whom are EU citizens residing permanently in Pafos.

A record eight candidates are running for the office, including independent candidate Aristos Vassiliades, backed by three opposition parties AKEL, DIKO and EDEK, municipal councillor Fedonas Fedonos, who is supported by the ruling DISY party, Citizens’ Alliance-supported Doros Paphitis, Green Party-supported Andreas Masouras and independent candidates Sophie Hambiaouridou, Chrysanthos Chrysanthou, Andreas Chrysanthou and Vangelis Mauronikolas.

In their statements, all candidates called on fellow citizens to participate in the voting and referred to the immediate challenges that lie ahead for the Municipality of Pafos, which is the European Capital of Culture 2017.

The Police are assisting the voting procedure, reinforcing patrols in the city, with 65 members of the Force staffing the operations` center at the Pafos Divisional Police headquarters.

CNA

By Julian Linden

With 17 grand slam titles under his belt, Roger Federer has made a habit of smashing barriers and passing milestones but even he was moved by his latest achievement.

On Sunday, he chalked up another watershed, registering his 1,000 ATP career match win by beating Milos Raonic6-4 6-7(2) 6-4 in the final of the Brisbane International.

Only Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl had achieved the feat before and Federer was clearly moved.

“It feels very different to any other match I’ve ever won, because I never thought about anything, reaching 500 or 800,” he told a news conference.
“All those numbers didn’t mean anything to me, but for some reason 1.000 means a lot because it’s such a huge number. Just counting to 1,000 is going to take a while.”

The stars aligned themselves perfectly for Federer to reach the milestone. By sheer coincidence it came in a final in a country where the Swiss maestro has enjoyed some of his greatest triumphs.

He received the tournament trophy from Roy Emerson, an Australian great who won 12 grand slam titles, and also a special framed photograph from Rod Laver, the only player to complete the calendar-year grand slam on two occasions.

Raonic almost spoiled the party after coming back from losing the opening set and going down a service break in the second but the epic nature of the contest only added to Federer’s accomplishment.

“Looking back, it’s almost nicer winning this way through a tight match with nerves and humid conditions against a great player in a final,” Federer said.
“It means so much more than just running away with it with the score maybe winning 6-4 6-4, which was looking very likely at one stage.”
Federer said the win had boosted his confidence of adding to his tally of grand slam wins, which has been stuck on 17 since his last major win at Wimbledon 2012.

At 33, he has no plans of retiring but conceded that the all-time record for ATP wins – which Connors holds at 1,253 – may be beyond him.

“Never even thought about it,” he said. “It’s not been a goal of mine to reach any of those guys.
“I know how well they’ve played over the years, how much they’ve played, and how successful they’ve played but it’s not a goal of mine in any way.
“Clearly, at this point, I doubt that it’s going to happen, but you never know.”

By Charlotte Greenfield and Kanupriya Kapoor
Indonesian navy divers retrieved the black box flight data recorder from the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet on Monday, a major step towards investigators unravelling the cause of the crash that killed all 162 people on board.
Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather on Dec. 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.
“At 7:11, we succeeded in lifting the part of the black box known as the flight data recorder,” Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, the head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters at a news conference.
The second so-called black box, containing the cockpit voice recorder, has been located but not yet retrieved, Madjono Siswosuwarno, the main investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC), told Reuters.
The black boxes, found near the wrecked wing of the plane in the northern Java Sea, contain a wealth of data that will be crucial for investigators piecing together the sequence of events that led to the airliner plunging into the sea. The national weather bureau has said seasonal storms were likely a factor in AirAsia’s first fatal crash.
The flight data recorder was brought by helicopter to Pangkalan Bun, the southern Borneo town that has been the base for the search effort, and then flown to Jakarta for analysis.
The black box looked to be in good condition, said Tatang Kurniadi, the head of the transport safety committee.
Investigators may need up to a month to get a complete reading of the data.
“The download is easy, probably one day. But the reading is more difficult … could take two weeks to one month,” the NTSC’s Siswosuwarno said.
Over the weekend, three vessels detected “pings” that were believed to be from the black boxes, but strong winds, powerful currents and high waves hampered search efforts.
Dozens of Indonesian navy divers took advantage of calmer weather on Monday to retrieve the flight recorder and search for the fuselage of the Airbus A320-200.
Forty-eight bodies have been retrieved from the Java Sea and brought to Surabaya for identification. Searchers believe more bodies will be found in the plane’s fuselage.
Relatives of the victims have urged authorities to make finding the remains of their loved ones the priority.
“I told our soldiers that the search isn’t over yet,” Armed Forces Chief Moeldoko told reporters. “I am sure the remaining victims are in the body of the plane. So we need to find those.”
Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by the Malaysia-based AirAsia budget group, has come under pressure from authorities in Jakarta since the crash.
The transport ministry has suspended the carrier’s Surabaya-Singapore licence for flying on a Sunday, for which it did not have permission. However, the ministry has said this had no bearing on the crash of Flight QZ8501.
President Joko Widodo said the crash exposed widespread problems in the management of air travel in Indonesia.

Nicosia Municipality began a series of road works in the old town on Monday that will continue until January 22 except weekends.
The works will be conducted in the following streets:
January 12 – Vasileiou Voulgaroktonou
Diversion: V. Voulgaroktonou will be closed from its junction with Rigainis (included) until Megalou Alexandrou. Traffic will be channeled through Arsinois and Palaion Patron Germanou.
January 12 and 13 – Pygmalionos and Nikokleous
Diversion: Pygmalionos and Nikokleous will be closed from the junction with Ariadnis and Perikleous until the junction with Faneromenis. Traffic will be channeled through Perikleous, Megalou Alexandrou, Ledra, Lykourgou, Onasagorou and Sofokleous.
January 14 – Faneromeni and Lefkonos streets
Diversion: part of Faneromeni from its junction with Nikokleous until Lefkonos, and Lefkonos from its junction with Faneromeni until Trikoupi will be closed. Traffic will be channeled through Ledra and Megalou Alexandrou.
January 15 and 16 – Aischylou Street (Part A & B)
Diversion: Part A – Aischylou will be closed from the crossing with Trikoupi until the crossing with Sofokleous. Traffic will be channeled through Lefkonos, Trikoupi, Diogenous, Isaakiou Komninou and Peiraios.
Part B – Aischylou will be closed from the crossing with Sofokleous and Platonos. Traffic will be channeled through Sofokleous, Onasagorou, Ledra and Megalou Alexandrou.
January 19-22 – Aischylou street (Part C) – Ippokratous – Thermopylon
Diversion: part of Aischylou from the crossing with Platonos until Ippokratous, part of Ippokratous from its junction with Aischylou until Thrakis and Thermopylon will be closed. Traffic will be channeled through Agiou Savva, Thrakis and Trikoupi.

France will have more than 10,000 soldiers mobilised on home soil by Tuesday after 17 were killed in attacks carried out by Islamist militants in Paris last week, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday.
Speaking a day after the biggest French public demonstration ever registered, held to remember the victims, he said France was still at risk of further attacks.
“The threats remain and we have to protect ourselves from them. It is an internal operation that will mobilise almost as many men as we have in our overseas operations,” Le Drian told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
The victims, including journalists and police, lost their lives in three days of violence that began on Wednesday with a shooting attack on the political weekly Charlie Hebdo, known for its satirical attacks on Islam and other religions.
The Charlie Hebdo attackers, two French-born brothers of Algerian origin, singled out the weekly for its publication of cartoons depicting and ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad.
The bloodshed ended on Friday with a hostage-taking at a Jewish deli in which four hostages and another gunman were killed.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that 4,700 police officers would be deployed at all 717 Jewish schools across the country.
The first two attackers were also killed on Friday after a siege north of the capital. Police said all three men were part of the same Paris-based militant Islamist cell.
Over 1.2 million people marched in Paris on Sunday and 2.5 million more in the provinces. The Paris march was led by dozens of heads of state. Some commentators said the last time crowds of this size were seen in the capital was at the Liberation of Paris from Nazi Germany in 1944.
The co-ordinated assaults amounted to the deadliest attack by militant Islamists on a European city since 57 people were killed in an attack on London’s transport system in 2005.
A suspected female accomplice of the gunmen crossed into Syria on Jan. 8 from Turkey, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in comments posted on state-run news agency Anatolian’s website on Monday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was holding an emergency security meeting of his cabinet on Monday in light of the French attacks, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi were among 44 foreign leaders marching with French President Francois Hollande on Sunday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he would travel to Paris this week to express solidarity with the victims of the Islamic militant attack on a satirical weekly newspaper.
In another security initiative, Cazeneuve said on Sunday European interior ministers had agreed to boost cooperation to thwart further militant attacks.
He called for the creation of a European database of airplane passenger names and said Europe should fight against abusive use of the Internet to spread hate speech.

By Angelos Anastasiou
The Assize Court on Monday postponed the trial relating to a suspicious land-zoning case, for which Aristo Developers founder Theodoros Aristodemou, his wife Roula, Aristo’s designer Christos Solomonides, and former Paphos municipality engineer Savvakis Savva, are facing charges of – among others – forgery, conspiracy to defraud, abuse of power, and legalising moneys obtained from illicit actions to January 27.
According to the charge sheet, the facts of the case date back to 2010, when Aristo applied for a zoning permit to demarcate its land in Skali, Paphos and was granted demarcation rights for 177 plots.
At a later stage, it appeared that the Land Registry’s records of the approved permit were falsified by replacing the approved architectural plans with amended ones, which ceded the company an additional area of some 2,730 square metres for development – estimated to be worth around €1.1 million – at the expense of the legally mandated green space and road network.
According to the charge sheet, Savva was also paid off to assist the company in carrying out its plans.
Assize Court president Dora Sokratous accepted the continuance request by the defence, which argued that due to increased workloads from other high-profile and complex cases it has undertaken, such as those of Dromolaxia and TEPAK, warranted a two-week continuance. The court noted that adequate preparation by counsellors is not only a necessary element of proper defence, but will also contribute to expediting the process.
Sokratous pointed out that although the Court itself was facing increased workloads, it found the defendants’ request justified.
But, she noted, this would be the first and last time the Court accepted a continuance request.
The four defendants were released on bail of €100,000 each and under conditions, including adding their names to the stop-list – meaning they would not be allowed to leave the country – and handing in their travel documents.
The prosecution did not object to the continuance request, acknowledging it had been notified of the defence’s intention to argue for it beforehand.
Theodoros and Roula Aristodemou, as well as Solomonides, are facing 32 charges each, while Savva is facing four additional ones relating to his capacity as a public official. The four defendants pled not guilty to all charges.
They are facing trial by the Assize Court, comprising its president Dora Sokratous, Senior District Court judge Lia Markou, and District Assize Court judge Michalis Droushiotis.

By Stelios Orphanides

Cyprus saw its revenue from tourism slump 12 per cent in October compared to a year ago to 217 million euros, the statistical service said. In October, arrivals fell an annual 8.1 per cent to 251.453.

Pope Francis on Monday condemned the killings by Islamist militants in Paris last week and urged Muslim leaders around the world to condemn fundamentalist interpretations of religion which attempt to justify violence in God’s name.
“Violence is always the product of a falsification of religion, its use a pretext for ideological schemes whose only goal is power over others,” the pope said.
The Argentine pope, 78, made his comments in his annual meeting with diplomats accredited to the Vatican in a speech that has come to be known as his “State of the World” address.
Francis said the killings in Paris showed how the rejection of the beliefs of other people could lead to “the breakdown of society and spawning violence and death.
“We see painful evidence of this in the events reported daily in the news, not least the tragic slayings which took place in Paris a few days ago.”
Seventeen people, including journalists and police, were killed in three days of violence that began on Wednesday with a shooting attack by Islamist militants on the political weekly Charlie Hebdo, known for its satirical cartoons about Islam and other religions.
“I express my hope that religious, political and intellectual leaders, especially those of the Muslim community, will condemn all fundamentalist and extremist interpretations of religion which attempt to justify such acts of violence,” the pope said in a section about the Middle East.
Francis has several times in the past months condemned Islamic State fighters who have killed or displaced Shi’ite Muslims, Christians and others in Syria and Iraq who do not share the group’s ideologies.

By Alix Norman

Settle back with a cup of tea, because today we’re going to learn about something that’s – as Stephen Fry would put it – Quite Interesting: The Alphorn. It’s a musical instrument few have heard of and, unless you’re a musical aficionado of the highest order, it’s highly unlikely you’ve ever actually seen one, let alone heard it played; as the name would suggest, it isn’t something one’s liable to come across very often on our little Mediterranean island. So the upcoming performances from the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, which feature The Sound of the Alphorn and the Rhythm of the Waltz should be rather novel.

Featuring Alphorn virtuoso Carlo Torlontano, it looks like the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra are welcoming in the New Year with, if not a bang, then certainly a loud noise. Because the sound can carry (if you’ve got a healthy set of lungs and a following wind, I’m assured) up to 10 kilometres: the Alphorn was originally used, it’s believed, as a method of communication between the mountain villages in the Alps – much like the Native American smoke signals, one suspects, only rather more noisy.

Though the Alphorn’s origins remain indeterminate – similar wooden horns have been used in most mountainous regions of Europe for several centuries – its relatively small range of notes (consisting of about 10-12 natural tones in comparison to, say, the piano, which boasts over 100) allows for beautiful melodies mainly orientated on the major key triad. Fundamentally, the pitch of an Alphorn is defined by its length, and while it can be helpful to play the Alphorn for music, it isn’t necessary, as herdsmen have improvised on it for centuries often using the instrument to call in the animals each evening. In fact, all the instrument demands is good, natural breathing and persistent training of lips and breathing musculature along with, one suspects, a dollop of musical ability.

So, these melodious tones of the Alps will soon be gracing our shores, the natural harmonics of the instrument (the 7th and 11th harmonics are, apparently, known as ‘God’s Notes’) used to great effect in a programme that includes works by everyone from Holst to Brahms. Consisting of a trio of concerts (on January 15 in Limassol, January 16 in Nicosia and January 17 in Larnaca), the programme features the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra led by Greek conductor Alkis Baltas, and showcases the immeasurable talents of Italian Carlo Torlontano, renowned as the greatest Alphorn soloist in the world.

A true devotee of the instrument, Torlontano travels the world dedicating his time to the promotion of the music and traditions associated with the Alphorn, ensuring its wondrous timbre is heard in some of the most unlikely places, from Hong Kong to Australia. Having performed as a soloist with numerous symphony and chamber orchestras in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America, when at home he’s the Principal and Solo Horn player with RAI-Italian Radio Television Symphony Orchestra and Teatro di San Carlo in Napoli, as well as Horn Professor at the Conservatory of Music A Casella in L’Aquila, Italy.

But his talents don’t stop there: Torlontano has played in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls and international festivals around the globe, from the St Petersburg Philharmonic to the Salle de Concert Pollak de Montréal, the Proms Prague Festival to the Tokyo Muza Symphony Hall, and has broadcasted for Italian Radio-TV, RTV Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Deutschland Radio Kultur Berlin. He’s also famed for his work with any number of prestigious conductors, numbering Gatti, Berio, Koopman and Semkow among his collaborators. And now, of course, the great Alkis Baltas, who – as an internationally-renowned award-winning conductor and composer – will be leading Torlontano and the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra in local theatres for the first time.

With eight specially selected waltzes from different composers of the 19th century, the concerts promise to maximise the expressive potential of the genre from a time when the waltz was extremely popular in European high society, bringing a delightfully romantic touch to the eastern Mediterranean. So if you’re looking for something a little bit different to start your musical year, take the bull by the horns (sorry) and get booking those tickets for The Sound of the Alphorn and the Rhythm of the Waltz.

The Sound of the Alphorn and the Rhythm of the Waltz
The Cyprus Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alkis Baltas and featuring Carlo Torlontano presents three concerts. Performances will take place at the Rialto Theatre in Limassol on January 15, the Strovolos Municipal Theatre on January 16, and the Larnaca Municipal Theatre on January 17. All performances start at 8.30pm. Tickets cost €12 and €7 (18-26 years old and pensioners) / free for under 18, and are available from the theatres’ box offices on 77777745, 24 665794 and 22 313010. For more information call 22 463144, or visit www.cyso.org.cy

Turkish Cypriots will go to the polls on April 19 to elect a new leader, it was announced on Monday.
The campaign will begin on March 24, with nominations being submitted on March 13. Political parties have until March 10 to decide on their candidates.
Election polls will be banned after April 4 and campaigning ends on the evening of April 18.
The candidates so far are: Dervis Eroglu, the current Turkish Cypriot leader, Sibel Siber, Mustafa Akinci, Kudret Ozersay and Mustafa Onouner.
It was also announced that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu would be paying a visit to the north on Wednesday.

By Barbara Lewis
Environment campaigners are calling for curbs on mercury emissions from human cremations as part of pollution controls that EU authorities will debate this month.
Increased cremation as shortage of land makes burial expensive has coincided with a rise in emissions of the toxic metal from fillings in teeth. An average cremation releases 2 to 4 grammes of mercury, data compiled by U.S. researchers shows.
Mercury is associated with mental development problems. After entering the air and then falling in rain it becomes concentrated in fish that, if eaten during pregnancy, can cause harm to unborn children.
Some 200,000 babies are born in the European Union annually with mercury levels harmful to their development, public health researchers have found.
The European Environment Bureau (EEB), which is coordinating non-governmental organisations in Brussels in an increasingly polarised debate on air quality, says crematoria should be included in new standards on incinerating waste.
One option would be removing teeth from corpses before cremation, although the campaigners acknowledge that may raise ethical issues.
“What matters is to deal with protecting the living environment from extremely hazardous pollutants,” Christian Schaible, a senior EEB policy official, said.
Of the 28 EU states, so far only Germany has a mercury emissions limit, although the EU has regulated large coal power plants – the biggest source of mercury pollution. Sweden and Denmark have banned mercury in dental fillings.
Draft EU air quality legislation from 2013 included national ceilings for pollutants and emissions from medium-sized combustion plants (MCPs), theoretically including crematoria.
The new European Commission, the EU executive, last year proposed abandoning national targets and debate on MCPs, at the request of member states, excludes crematoria.
Keen to counter Euroscepticism, particularly in Britain, which has objected to national targets on several issues, the Commission says it is preventing over-regulation.
The EEB will take part in debate on the waste issue with representatives of the Commission, EU nations and industry between Jan. 19 and 22.
Separately, the European Parliament votes on Thursday on an objection to the Commission’s plan to scrap some environmental proposals, including on waste and air quality.
Even before the Commission’s new plan, the NGOs say the national ceilings were inadequate and did not deal with mercury.
Data from the Cremation Society of Great Britain show that in Europe in 2012, the highest rate of cremations was in non-EU Switzerland, at 85 percent, followed by Denmark with 77 percent and Britain with 73 percent.

By Alessandra Galloni

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano will step down in hours, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on Tuesday, opening up a delicate political process to name a new head of state.

The 89-year-old Napolitano, who reluctantly agreed to a second term in 2013 after a deadlocked election threatened to leave Italy politically adrift, said last month he would resign soon because of age-related ailments.

“I would like us to salute Napolitano, a committed Europeanist who in these hours will leave his post … having confronted difficulties in Italy with intelligence and wisdom,” Renzi said in a speech to the European Parliament to mark the close of the EU semester.

Napolitano had been widely expected to step down after the end of Italy’s six-month presidency of the European Union, which ends on Tuesday.

Voting in parliament to name a new president is expected to begin by the end of January. A two-thirds majority of lawmakers in both the lower and upper house of parliament is needed to choose the president in the first three rounds of voting.

Hence, the selection will be an indicator of how strong a grip Renzi has over lawmakers in his ruling centre-left Democratic Party.

The Italian head of state has broad political powers. He can appoint prime ministers, dissolve parliament and call early elections.

Potential candidates to succeed Napolitano include Romano Prodi, the former prime minister and European Commission president, and former Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. Both have been candidates for the presidency in the past.