By Blaise Robinson

European shares dipped in early trading on Wednesday, with Greek stocks extending their sell-off sparked by the victory of leftwing Syriza party in Sunday’s election.

Shares of Greek utility PPC and Greece’s biggest port, Piraeus Port Authority, fell by 6.6 and 8.3 percent respectively after the new government said it would freeze privatisation plans.

One of the first decisions announced by the Syriza government was stopping the planned sale of a 67-percent stake in Piraeus Port Authority. Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis also told Greek television earlier that the Syriza government would halt plans to privatise PPC.

By Jeffrey Heller and Sylvia Westall

The threat of a full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah increased on Wednesday after the Lebanese militant group fired a missile at an Israeli army vehicle along the frontier and wounded seven soldiers, the biggest escalation since a 2006 war.

The attack, which Hezbollah said was carried out by one of its brigades in the area, was in apparent retaliation for a January 18 Israeli air strike in southern Syria that killed several Hezbollah members as well as an Iranian general.

It came hours after air strikes by Israeli jets near the occupied Golan Heights overnight, which Israel’s military said was in response to rocket fire from Syria.

Tensions in the region, where the frontiers of Israel, Lebanon and Syria meet and militant groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are active, have been bubbling for months but have boiled over in the past 10 days.

There were initial reports on Lebanese media that an Israeli soldier was captured during the attack, but the Israeli army denied it, as did a Lebanese political source.

A member of a United Nations’ peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon was killed as Israel conducted airstrikes after the attack, a UN spokesman said. Officials in Spain said the peacekeeper was Spanish.

Israeli medics confirmed that seven Israeli soldiers were wounded but said none of the injuries were life-threatening.

The frontier has largely been quiet since 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war in which 120 people in Israel and more than 500 in Lebanon were killed.

Since the end of a 50-day conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza last year, Israel has warned about friction on the northern border, including the possibility that Hezbollah might dig tunnels to infiltrate Israel. In recent days it has moved more troops and military equipment into the area.

A retired Israeli army officer, Major-General Israel Ziv, said he believed Wednesday’s assault was an attempt by Hezbollah to draw Israel more deeply into the war in Syria, where Hezbollah is fighting alongside forces loyal to President Assad.

“Israel understands that we need to contain things,” he said. “Israel needs to protect its interests but not take any unnecessary steps that may pull us into the conflict in Syria.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made security his top priority ahead of parliamentary elections on March 17, said Israel was “prepared to act powerfully on all fronts,” adding: “Security comes before everything else.”

His office accused Iran of being behind what was described as a “criminal terror attack”. Iran is a major funder of Hezbollah, a Shi’ite group headed by Hassan Nasrallah.

In Beirut, celebratory gunfire rang out after the attack, while residents in the southern suburbs of the city, where Hezbollah is strong, packed their bags and prepared to evacuate neighbourhoods that were heavily bombed by Israel in 2006.

In Gaza, Palestinian militant groups praised Hezbollah.
It remains to be seen whether Israel and Hezbollah, having both drawn blood, will back away from further confrontation. With Israel weeks away from an election and Hezbollah deeply involved in support of Assad in Syria, there would appear to be little interest in a wider conflict for either side.

Designer wear, said to be worth over €100,000, was stolen from a store in Limassol in the early hours of Wednesday, police said.

Police said burglars broke into the Ayios Tyhonas shop through the front door at around 4am.

Three burglars lifted a section of an iron security grill, broke the glass door, and stole a large number of expensive leather jackets and suits.

The store is protected by an alarm system that did not go off, for unknown as of yet reasons.

The security cameras recorded three burglars with their faces covered.

Limassol police spokesman Ioannis Soteriades said that investigators are looking into a possible connection with other high-end clothing store burglaries, reported in Limassol and Nicosia.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised “radical” change on Wednesday as his new government swiftly moved to roll back key parts of Greece’s international bailout, prompting a third day of losses on financial markets.

A swift series of announcements signalled the newly installed government would not back down from its anti-austerity pledges, setting it on course for a clash with European partners, led by Germany, which has said it will not renegotiate the aid package needed to help Greece pay its debts.

Even before the first meeting of the new cabinet, ministers had hit the airwaves to reassure voters they would honour campaign pledges to roll back the tough economic policies imposed under Greece’s 240-billion-euro bailout programme.

The planned sale of a 30 percent stake in Public Power Corporation of Greece (PPC), the country’s biggest utility, was halted while ministers pledged to raise pensions for those on low incomes and reinstate some fired public sector workers.

“We are coming in to radically change the way that policies and administration are conducted in this country,” Tsipras told ministers at their first cabinet meeting.

Financial markets have looked on nervously, with Greek 10-year bond yields up 50 basis points at 10.30 percent, the main Athens stock index down 4 percent and bank stocks down 12.6 percent to extend losses into a third day.

Saying that the mood towards Greece was changing since his leftwing party’s sweeping election victory on Sunday, Tsipras said he would avoid antagonism with European Union and International Monetary Fund creditors.

“Our priority is also a new negotiation with our partners, seeking to reach a fair, viable and mutually beneficial solution so that the country exits the vicious circle of excessive debt and recession,” he said.

He said the government would pursue balanced budgets but would not seek to build up “unrealistic surpluses” to service Greece’s massive public debt of more than 175 percent of gross domestic product. He added that he expected a “productive” meeting on Friday with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the euro zone finance ministers’ group.

Priorities would be helping the weakest sections of society, with policies to attack endemic clientelism and corruption in the economy, reduce waste and cut Greece’s record unemployment.

After announcing a halt to the privatisation of the port of Piraeus on Tuesday, for which China’s Cosco Group and four other suitors had been shortlisted, the government said it would block the sale of a stake in the Public Power Corporation of Greece (PPC).

PPC,, which is 51 percent owned by the state, controls almost all of Greece’s retail electricity market and accounts for about two thirds of the nation’s power utility. Shares in the utility were down nearly 13 percent, while shares in Piraeus Port were down nearly 8 percent.

“We will halt immediately any privatisation of PPC,” Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis told Greek television a few hours before officially taking over his portfolio.

“There will be a new PPC which will help considerably the restoration of the country’s productive activities,” he said.
The previous government of former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had passed legislation last year to spinoff part of PPC to liberalise the energy market as part of a privatisation plan agreed under the EU/IMF bailout.

In a sign of the potential sensitivity of the move to cancel the privatisations, Tsipras met China’s ambassador toAthens, Zou Xiaoli on Tuesday to stress the importance of good relations with Beijing.

As well as announcing a halt to selling state assets, ministers have promised to reinstate laid-off public sector workers whose dismissal was ruled unconstitutional and restore cuts to pensions.

“What we have said during the election campaign will be our guide, starting with measures that do not have large spending impact,” Deputy Social Security Minister Dimitris Stratoulis told Antenna TV.

Novak Djokovic tamed Milos Raonic’s formidable serve before humbling the Canadian 7-6(5) 6-4 6-2 at the Australian Open on Wednesday to set up a mouth-watering semi-final against defending champion Stan Wawrinka.

Eighth seed Raonic, who pushed deep at the grand slams last year, was supposed to offer the first real test for the top-seeded Serb but was completely outclassed under the lights at Rod Laver Arena.

After being edged in the tiebreak, Djokovic broke Raonic early in the second set and twice in the third, without giving up a single break point on his own serve.

He closed out the two-hour match with a clinical volley and will play the man that ended his title defence at Melbourne Park in last year’s quarter-finals.

Cyprus ranks 20th on the 2014 world misery index because of high unemployment, according to data compiled by a public policy research organisation.

Some 48,000 were unemployed in December 2014, as the island struggles to find its feet after seeking an international bailout in 2012.

Greece was 19th.

The index, put together by the Cato Institute, includes 108 countries. Countries not included did not report satisfactory data for 2014.

The five most miserable countries in the world at the end of 2014 were, in order: Venezuela, Argentina, Syria, Ukraine, and Iran.

The top five least miserable were Brunei, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, and Japan.

The misery index is the sum of the unemployment rate, lending rate, and the inflation rate minus the percentage change in real GDP per capita.

Transport Minister of Egypt Hany Dahy will pay Cyprus an official visit this week, at the invitation of his Cypriot counterpart Marios Demetriades.

The two Ministers will hold a meeting tomorrow during which they will focus on issues relating to the prospects of a ferry connection between Cyprus and Egypt, the strengthening of cooperation in the field of shipping and any potential interest on behalf of Cypriot contracting companies in projects in the field of transport in Egypt.

During his stay in Cyprus Dahy will visit the port of Limassol and the Cyprus Ports Authority.

CNA

Pathologists examining the body of ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned with a rare radioactive isotope London in 2006, carried out the world’s most dangerous-ever post-mortem, an inquiry into his killing heard on Wednesday.

They also said they would probably never have discovered the way he had been killed had unusual tests not been carried out just before his death.
British police say Kremlin critic Litvinenko died three weeks after drinking tea poisoned with polonium-210 at a plush London hotel which they believe was administered by two Russians Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun.

At its opening at London’s High Court on Tuesday, the inquiry was told Litvinenko had told police Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally ordered his death.

His widow’s lawyer said this was to partly to cover up Kremlin links to the mafia which the former spy was going to help Spanish intelligence to expose.
Russia and the two suspects have repeatedly rejected any involvement in the death.

Litvinenko’s health deteriorated rapidly after his meeting with Lugovoy and Kovtun on Nov. 1, 2006 and he died three weeks later having suffered multiple organ failure.

The inquiry was told “an inspired hunch” by police led them to bring in atomic scientists who found Litvinenko tested positive for alpha radiation poisoning two days before he died.

Lead pathologist Nat Cary said without that, the cause of death would not have been discovered in a post-mortem, adding he was unaware of any other case of someone being poisoned with alpha radiation in Britain, and probably the world.

Co-pathologist Benjamin Swift told the inquiry: “It was probably the most dangerous post-mortem that’s ever been conducted.”

Those involved in the examination had needed to wear two white protective suits with specialised hoods fed with filtered air.

The controversy generated by Litvinenko’s killing plunged Anglo-Russian relations to a post-Cold War low.

As ties improved though, Britain rejected holding an inquiry in 2013, but then, as the Ukraine crisis unfolded, the government changed its mind last July although it said the political Ukrainian situation was not a factor.

Ben Emmerson, the lawyer for Litvinenko’s widow Marina, said the police’s main suspect Lugovoy had given an interview to Russian radio on Tuesday denouncing the inquiry as a “judicial farce”.

“When the situation in Ukraine had kicked off and the UK’s geographical interests had likely begun to change, they decided to dust off the mothballs and commence these proceedings,” Lugovoy said according to Emmerson.

Constantinos Psillides

A 43-year old who shot and injured his estranged wife and then locked himself inside his pub for 30 hours, threatening to take his life, has been remanded in custody for six days.

He is held in connection with attempted murder and illegally carrying a firearm with the intent to cause harm.

It all started on Monday morning when the man got into an argument with the 41-year-old woman over child support.

The suspect claimed he lost his temper and fired his shotgun twice in the air.

Two pellets hit her shoulder and one hit her abdomen.

The woman, a Moldavian national, went to the Oroklini police station to report the incident, while the suspect locked himself in the pub and threatened to commit suicide.

He surrendered after a 30-hour stand-off with the police.

Police told the court that the couple was having marital troubles. They were married and had a 15-month-old son, but split early last year.

The couple got back together over the summer and the 43-year old moved in with her.

In August he travelled abroad and returned to Cyprus in November.
The marital troubles re-emerged and on January 16, 2015 the woman filed a complaint to police that she had been abused by her husband and that she made him leave.

The woman told investigators that her husband had been abusing her since 2013.

A total of five domestic disturbance reports have been filed with the Oroklini and Larnaca police stations by the 41-year old woman, the investigator told the court.

During the last incident, the woman claimed he had threatened to kill her.

She claimed that they decided to meet at his pub in Oroklini at 9am on Monday to discuss child support issues.

The court heard that once she entered the pub he locked the door behind her and demanded to know whether she had had an affair.

The suspect was drunk and he was shouting.

Inside the pub at the time of the incident was a cleaning lady, who was later visited by her sister and a friend.

The 43-year old let the other two women in and resumed his quarrel with his estranged wife.

The woman initially refused having an affair but admitted to it eventually, police told the court.

The suspect threw a wooden chair at her but missed. He then chased her around the pub.

The other women tried to calm him down but the suspect grabbed his hunting shotgun and shot at his estranged wife who hid behind a wall.

The woman tried escape through a sliding door when he fired again.

The three other women left the pub too and headed for the Oroklini police station where they reported the incident.

The cleaning lady told police that when she came to the pub she found the 43-year old drinking.

Let’s take a look at the signings that would excite the fans.

For more articles and the latest soccer news, check out 90min.com

By Greg Stutchbury

Andy Murray overcame a blistering start from Tomas Berdych to advance to his fourth Australian Open final with a 6-7(6) 6-0 6-3 7-5 victory on Thursday.

Murray will meet either top seed Novak Djokovic or defending champion Stan Wawrinka, who play their semi-final on Friday, for the title.
It is Murray’s first grand slam final since he beat Djokovic at Wimbledon in 2013, and eighth of his career.

“I was obviously disappointed to lose the first set,” Murray said in a courtside interview. “But I started to feel better and stick to my game and I was more aggressive in the second set.
“I was trying to get him running more, which was important because I needed to change the momentum.”

The 29-year-old Berdych had ended a 17-match losing streak against third seed Rafa Nadal in the quarter-finals and looked in a hurry against Murray to reach his second grand slam final.

Berdych, who is now coached by Dani Vellverdu – a former member of Murray’s coaching team – started at a blistering pace that had the Scot hanging on by his fingernails as he scrambled all around court to save his own serve.

The Czech conceded just two points on his first four service games before Murray clawed his way back with Berdych serving for the set at 5-3 and then forced it into a tiebreak, which the seventh seed surprisingly won after saving a set point when Murray hit a forehand into the net.

A fired up Murray, apparently annoyed at something Berdych said to him during the changeover, raced through the second set in 30 minutes, the first time the Czech had lost a set this year at Melbourne Park.

Murray then broke in the sixth game of the third when Berdych lost a 40-0 lead after serving consecutive double faults, an advantage he consolidated and then seized control of the match as the Czech began to look fatigued.

Berdych rallied in the fourth and held two break points in the sixth game, the first opportunities he had to break since the first set, only for Murray to hold and like one of the boxers the Scot admires, he puffed his chest out in defiance.

Murray then broke Berdych in the 11th game and served out to love to earn his place in the final, punching the air several times in delight.

High quality counterfeit €20 bills have been passing around in the Nicosia and Limassol districts, police said, urging the public to be extra careful when dealing with cash.

According to police, most of the counterfeit bills are marked with the serial numbers V25888032140 and Τ55501929854.

Police advise the public to swipe bills through counterfeit currency detection gadgets –where such a gadget is available – or compare the suspect bill with one of equal value.

Euro notes have a number of safety features to discourage counterfeiters. The notes have a ‘raised’ print feature that is distinguishable by touch. Also, the initials of the European Central Bank, the value numerals and the motifs of windows and gateways will feel rough to the touch.

Also holding up the bill to the light reveals a watermark and a security thread. The features can be seen from the front and the reverse side of genuine banknotes.

Tilting notes reveals a hologram foil patch on the front and on the back. The tilting reveals either an iridescent stripe or the colour-shifting ink.
Police request that anyone who comes across a counterfeit bill notify the authorities by calling the toll free line 1460.

Limassol port’s privatisation process is on track, Communications, Works and Transport Marios Demetriades said on Thursday.

As part of its €10 billion bailout, Cyprus is due to embark on a series of privatisations, with the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority and the Limassol port to be privatised by the end of the year. Under the terms of the economic adjustment programme, the Electricity Authority will be privatised by the end of 2017.

Ministry officials have met with a Troika technical mission currently in Cyprus to review the programme implementation. Demetriades said the ministry had gathered a “very good” team of internationally-acclaimed advisors on the port privatisation that consisted of the Rothschild’s Global Financial Advisory, law firm Pinsent Masons who will work in cooperation with local firm Pambos Ioannides, as well as KPMG auditing.

The minister said the timeframes would be met, adding that a month’s delay would not matter.
“What`s important is that the project advances decisively and soon we will be in position to have more news,” he said.
Asked if they had determined the services to be sold to the investor, Demetriades said this was up to market interest. (CNA)

By Dan Williams and Laila Bassam

Israel and Hezbollah signalled on Thursday their rare flare-up in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border was over, after the Lebanese guerrillas killed two Israeli troops in retaliation for a deadly air strike in Syria last week.

Israel said it had received a message from UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, that Hezbollah was not interested in further escalation.

In Beirut, a Lebanese source briefed on the situation told Reuters that Israel informed Hezbollah via UNIFIL “that it will make do with what happened yesterday and it does not want the battle to expand”.

Asked on Israel’s Army Radio whether Hezbollah had sought to de-escalate, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said: “There are lines of coordination between us and Lebanon via UNIFIL and such a message was indeed received from Lebanon.”

A salvo of Hezbollah guided missiles killed an Israeli infantry major and a conscript soldier as they rode in unmarked civilian vehicles along the Lebanese border on Wednesday.

Israel then launched an artillery and air barrage, and a Spanish peacekeeper was killed. Spain’s ambassador to the U.N. blamed the Israeli fire for his death. Israel said on Thursday that its deputy foreign minister met the ambassador to voice regret at the death and promise an inquiry.

Wednesday’s clash was one of the most serious on that border since 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war. Quiet returned on Thursday, though Lebanese media reported overflights by Israeli air force drones.

Both sides appear to share an interest in avoiding further escalation.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a standstill in 2006, is busy backing Damascus in Syria’s civil war. It may also be mindful of the ruin Israel has threatened to wreak on Lebanon should they again enter a full-on conflict.

Israel is gearing up for a March 17 general election and gauging the costs of its offensive on the Gaza Strip last year against Palestinian guerrillas, whose arsenal is dwarfed by Hezbollah’s powerful long-range rockets.

REVENGE

In a separate interview, Yaalon described Israeli forces on the Lebanese border as being vigilant, but not on war footing.

“I can’t say whether the events are behind us,” he told Israel Radio. “Until the area completely calms down, the Israel Defense Forces will remain prepared and ready.”

Yaalon termed Wednesday’s Hezbollah attack “revenge” for the Israeli air strike on Jan. 18 in southern Syria that killed several Hezbollah members, including a senior operative, along with an Iranian general.

Israel has not formally acknowledged carrying out the air strike, but Yaalon said it had set back Hezbollah and Iranian efforts to “open a new front” against the Jewish state from the Syrian Golan Heights.

After the air strike, Israeli army installations and civilian communities in the north hunkered down in anticipation of Hezbollah reprisals. Sightings of suspicious movement on the Lebanese side of the border had set off several security alerts.

Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said Hezbollah fired Kornet anti-tank missiles in Wednesday’s attack from 4-5 km (2-2.5 miles) away – an extreme range for the weapon that apparently lent the launchers the element of surprise.

Lerner linked Hezbollah’s tactical skill to its Syria intervention: “This should not come as a great surprise given that they have gained so much live combat experience over the past two years.”

UNIFIL officials did not immediately confirm or deny passing messages between Israel and Hezbollah. UNIFIL says it has no contacts with Hezbollah but is in touch with the Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a part.

During Wednesday’s flare-up, Israeli troops launched a search for suspected tunnels that Hezbollah might use to send in guerrillas for a cross-border attack – a tactic employed by Palestinian Hamas fighters during the 2014 Gaza war.

“No tunnels have been found so far,” Yaalon told Army Radio.

By John Geddie and Marius Zaharia

German bond yields fell on Thursday as worries over Greece’s new anti-bailout government buoyed demand for top-rated assets from investors, who were also starting to think the U.S. Federal Reserve could hold back any interest rate rise.

Athens endured a fourth day of market jitters since Sunday’s election with its newly-instated government at loggerheads with international creditors as it begins to roll back austerity measures.

By Evie Andreou

THE Digital Cyprus web compendium will be available to the public in the coming months the island’s digital champion Stelios Chimonas has said.

The platform, inspired and developed by the non-governmental organisation Future Worlds Centre, will host all information concerning Cyprus.

“The goal is to create and maintain a web community of volunteers that love Cyprus and want to help concentrate material on Cyprus which will be available to everyone,” Chimonas said.

The project utilised the same principles and the same software offered by the global online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, he added.

“Digital Cyprus is an electronic encyclopaedia whose content is exclusively about Cyprus; the content will not be subject to censorship by unknown sources… since the platform will be run by Future Worlds Centre, which offers Cyprus the benefit of a complete and dynamic voice in a global society,” Chimonas said.
He added that the platform will contribute to promoting Cyprus and become a source of information for the island’s history, culture, and traditions.
Already participating in the project are the union of municipalities and the Education ministry, Chimonas said.

“The encyclopaedia will host anything that has to do with Cyprus, its people, objects, history, economy and the current state of affairs, and any citizen of the republic can upload a subject they find important with help from the volunteers to develop it properly and to classify it correctly,” said the head of Future Worlds Centre Yiannis Laouris.

He added that users of the platform will be able to make corrections on texts posted by contributors and that a very small degree of control will be in place so that contributors are gradually divided into access levels.

“People will earn the right to make corrections which will remain for a greater length of time because the changes they make are correct,” Laouris said.

By Marie Kambas

Telecom and Internet service provider Cablenet plans to continue to grow organically after gaining almost one fifth of the domestic number and will avoid getting involved in the privatisation of the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority, a senior manager said.

Based on published data of the Telecoms and Postal Services Regulator, the company, created in 2003, holds close to 17 percent of the domestic broadband market.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias stoked a brewing row with European partners over sanctions against Russia on Thursday, saying Athens would not be pushed into agreement because of its impending debt negotiations.

Just days after taking office, the leftwing government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been embroiled in a dispute with European partners after it complained that an EU statement on the crisis in Ukraine had been issued without its consent.

He said some European Union partners had tried to present Greece with an unacceptable fait accompli by issuing the statement without its agreement.

“Anyone who thinks that in the name of debt Greece will renounce its sovereignty and its active participation in European policy making is making a mistake,” he said in a statement issued as European Union foreign ministers met on the Ukraine issue in Brussels.

Earlier German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the debate on the Russia and Ukraine issue had not been made easier by the attitude taken by the new Greek government.

By Angelos Anastasiou

Implementation of the National Health Scheme (NHS) may be delayed as the software infrastructure – a necessary prerequisite for implementation – will most likely not be ready on time, sources cited by the Cyprus News Agency said on Thursday.

In a meeting on Wednesday, Health Minister Philippos Patsalis briefed Troika delegates on progress made on the NHS issue, the phased implementation of which is scheduled to take 12 months starting July 2015.

However, a host of obstacles threaten to throw the schedule off track, mostly relating to delays in the introduction of software necessary for the implementation of the long-awaited project.

According to the CNA, the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) recently informed Patsalis that the software hasn’t been prepared yet, and won’t be ready for the first or second phase of implementation – starting July 1, 2015 and January 1, 2016, respectively – thus pushing it back.

The same sources claimed that the delay is most likely due to political, as opposed to technical, reasons.
It is reminded that recent amendments to the original NHS plan sidelined the HIO – originally the scheme’s administrators – and transferred ownership of implementation and administration to the health ministry.

Negotiations with the Troika have also brought another significant change to the original plan – the potential of turning the single-payer scheme into a multi-payer one in future. According to initial planning, the HIO is the sole insurer handling the NHS budget, but subsequent amendments have left open the window for a multi-insurer system, which would engage private insurance companies.

In any case, implementation of the NHS cannot move forward without the software in question.
Nonetheless, and the HIO’s territorial disputes with the health ministry notwithstanding, the Troika delegates left Wednesday’s meeting pleased with the ministry’s best efforts to facilitate implementation of the NHS as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, two studies are currently being prepared in connection with the NHS.
The first relates to rendering public healthcare facilities financially independent and will be ready within 20 days. Financial autonomy of every public hospital is also a thorny issue and a prerequisite for NHS implementation, with some stakeholders claiming it a fantasy based on flawed assumptions.
The second relates to the possibility of a multi-payer system and is expected within one month.

The two studies are expected to significantly impact NHS planning and are being prepared by experts from the World Health Organisation and the European Commission.

On the issue of restructuring public hospitals and making them financially viable, the Troika delegation has recorded immense progress, as the matter has reached the stage of consultation, debate and voting by parliament.

A small delay due to the civil servants’ union PASYDY requesting the Attorney-general’s legal advice on the matter of transferring civil servants to a state-owned company under private law – as hospitals will operate under the new regime – is expected to have negligible impact on scheduling.
The bill on hospital autonomy is expected to be voted by parliament in time for implementation in the third quarter of 2015.

By Ian Ransom

Top seed Novak Djokovic ended Stan Wawrinka’s title defence on Friday with another five-set clash to book a third final showdown with Andy Murray at the Australian Open.

Though not quite the level of their thrilling marathons at the last two tournaments, the grinding 7-6(1) 3-6 6-4 4-6 6-0 win under the lights of Rod Laver Arena was riven by tension until the final one-sided set.

Both players had their chances, with Djokovic fluffing his lines when 2-0 up and closing in on victory in the fourth set.

Wawrinka clawed his way back, breaking the Serb and saving three break points with some brilliant play before roaring on to force a fifth set.

Fourth seed Wawrinka had a chance to break Djokovic in the opening game of the decider, but blasted a backhand long.

From there he promptly crumbled.

With Wawrinka double-faulting twice to gift Djokovic the break, the steely-eyed Serb marched on, setting up match point with a searing backhand down the line and closing it out when his opponent struck his 69th unforced error.

Though having played far from his best tennis, Djokovic will bid to become the first man in the professional era to win five titles at Melbourne Park on Sunday when he faces Murray, who he defeated in the final in 2011 and 2013.