By Jeff Mason

US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama exchanged greetings but did not meet directly at a religious event in Washington closely watched by Beijing, which has warned against any meetings with Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader.

Both figures were at an annual prayer breakfast in Washington where Obama was scheduled to speak about the importance of religious freedom. The Dalai Lama also attended, seated at a table in the front row across from the president.

Obama nodded and smiled at the Dalai Lama, waving after clasping his hands together in a bow-like gesture toward the Buddhist monk as the event began. Organisers also recognised the spiritual leader, prompting applause.

Senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett was seated at the table with the Dalai Lama, a sign of White House support for his presence.

The exchange may still rile China, which bristles at politicians meeting with the Dalai Lama. After the breakfast event was announced, Beijing said it opposed any country meeting with him under any circumstances.

Before the event, an English-language commentary issued by the state-run Xinhua news agency, which while not a formal statement offers a reflection of Beijing’s thinking, strongly warned against any encounter.

“Chumming with a secessionist is playing with fire,” the agency said.

“If Obama meets the Dalai Lama, he will simply reverse the positive trends established by China and the US in the development of their relations. For all that, any possible meeting or encounter with the Dalai Lama planned by Obama will dampen the hard-won positive momentum in China-US relations,” it said.

The Dalai Lama fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and has infuriated Beijing, which. He has said he simply wants autonomy for Tibet and does not advocate violence.

Obama, who the White House has said has a “great relationship” with the Dalai Lama, has previously met with the spiritual leader three times, most recently in February 2014.

By Estelle Shirbon

A bomb has exploded under a car in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, but no one was injured, while part of a major train line has been suspended in a separate security alert, police said on Thursday.

In another two incidents, police were investigating suspicious objects in separate places in Belfast and have evacuated nearby premises.

“We believe at this stage that a device may have exploded, or partially exploded under a parked car, causing extensive damage to the car,” the Police Service of Northern Ireland said in a statement.

The explosion occurred on Wednesday night, police said. Officers were still at the scene examining an object. Part of the road has been closed and a number of residents evacuated.

Separately, police said they had been made aware of suspicious activity around a railway crossing in Lurgan, outside Belfast, on Wednesday night. They received reports that a device had been left on the railway line.

All services on the railway line between Belfast and Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland to the south, were suspended until further notice.

In each of the other security alerts in Belfast, police had closed roads and evacuated residents following the discovery of a suspicious object.

Northern Ireland was plagued for decades by violence between Republicans wanting to split from the United Kingdom and become part of the Republic of Ireland, and Unionists wanting to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The conflict was largely brought to an end by the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998, although some dissidents continue to reject the power-sharing settlement.

Gerry Adams, the leader of Republican party Sinn Fein, called on those behind the suspected car bomb in Belfast to stop their violence and seek peace.

“Clearly whoever is responsible should desist,” Adams told Reuters in Dublin. “If you want to keep the union or you want a united Ireland, there’s now a peaceful and democratic way so these actions should stop.”

The threat level for Northern Ireland-related terrorism is currently set at severe, meaning an attack is considered highly likely.

The head of Britain’s MI5 security service said last month that dissident Republicans continued to pose a threat in Northern Ireland.

“Whilst there has been great progress in Northern Ireland, dissident Republicans continue to carry out terrorist attacks aimed at the police, prison officers and others,” Andrew Parker said in a rare speech. “There were more than 20 such attacks in 2014, most of which, thankfully, were unsuccessful.”

FUEL prices will go up slightly in the next few days in response to higher oil prices, the head of the consumers department at the energy and trade ministry Pambos Charalambous said on Thursday.

Speaking to Sigmalive, Charalambous said that in recent days companies have been importing slightly more pricey fuel as a result of the rise in international crude oil prices over the last two weeks.

“The increase will be very small, one or two cents per litre,” Charalambous said.

Responding to fears that fuel companies may take advantage and sell stock they bought previously when oil prices were lower at the new, higher increased price, Charalambous said that the ministry would monitor the situation closely.

“I am certain that all stakeholders will act reasonably and within a spirit of social responsibility to avoid any grievances in the market,” Charalambous said.

He said that the price of the unleaded 95 petrol is currently between €1.08 and €1.10 per litre.

After complaints from consumers associations that fuel prices did not respond to plummeting oil prices last year, since October fuel companies had started since to gradually decrease prices.

The Greek and German finance ministers could “not even agree to disagree” at their meeting on Thursday about the new government in Athens’ plans to renegotiate Greece’s debt and halt austerity measures prescribed by Berlin, the Greek minister said.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said after talks with Greece’s Yanis Varoufakis in Berlin that they had different views but had agreed to disagree – but Varoufakis directly contracted him in their joint news conference.

“We didn’t even agree to disagree,” said Varoufakis, adding that they did not discuss Greece’s debt repayment schedule or the possibility of debt “haircut” but did discuss Athens’ proposal for a “bridging programme” to last until May.

By Faith Hung and Michael Gold

Taipei’s mayor hailed the pilot of a crashed TransAsia Airways plane a hero on Thursday for narrowly avoiding buildings and ditching the stalled aircraft in a river, likely averting a worse disaster.

At least 31 people were killed when Flight GE235 lurched between buildings, clipped a taxi and an overpass with one of its wings and crashed upside down into shallow water shortly after take-off from a downtown Taipei airport on Wednesday. There were 15 known survivors and 12 more unaccounted for.

“He really tried everything he could,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je said of the pilot, his voice breaking with sobs.

Amateur video recorded by a car dashboard camera showed the plane nose-up as it barely cleared the buildings close to Taipei’s Songshan airport before crashing into the river.

“The pilot’s immediate reaction saved many people,” said Chris Lin, brother of one of the survivors. “I was a pilot myself and I’m quite knowledgeable about the immediate reaction needed in this kind of situation.”

Aerospace analysts said it was too early to say whether the pilots intentionally pulled the plane above the buildings, and noted that the crew may have been aiming for the river to reduce casualties.

A more conclusive picture will emerge only when authorities release details from the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders, which were recovered on Wednesday.

“He’s missed the buildings but it is premature to make an analysis of what happened on this flight. We have to wait for the data from the cockpit voice recorder and flight recorder,” said aviation analyst Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of airlineratings.com

The pilot and co-pilot of the almost-new turboprop ATR 72-600 were among those killed, Taiwan’s aviation regulator said. TransAsia identified the pilot as 42-year-old Liao Chien-tsung.

Taiwanese media reported that it appeared Liao had fought desperately to steer his stricken aircraft between apartment blocks and commercial buildings

The head of Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration, Lin Tyh-ming, has said Liao had 4,914 flying hours under his belt and the co-pilot 6,922 hours.

Taiwanese media reported that Liao, the son of street vendors, passed exams to join the air force. He later flew for China Airlines, Taiwan’s main carrier, before joining TransAsia.

The aviation regulator ordered TransAsia and Uni Air, a subsidiary of EVA Airways Corp, to conduct engine and fuel system checks on the remaining 22 ATR aircraft they still operate.

TransAsia’s shares closed down 6.9 percent on Wednesday, its biggest percentage decline since late 2011, and were down another 3.3 percent on Thursday. The crash was the latest in a string of aviation disasters in Asia in the past 12 months and TransAsia’s second in the past seven months.

Macau’s Civil Aviation Authority said the engines of the plane had been replaced at Macau Airport on April 19 last year, during its delivery flight, “due to engine-related technical issues”.

It said the engines were replaced by TransAsia engineers and the plane left Macau airport two days later.

Lin from Taiwan’s CAA said the aircraft last underwent maintenance on Jan. 26.

The plane was powered by two Pratt & Whitney PW127M engines. Pratt & Whitney is part of United Technologies.

The last communication from one of the pilots was “Mayday engine flameout”, according to an air traffic control recording on liveatc.net.

A flameout can occur when the fuel supply to an engine is interrupted or when there is faulty combustion, but twin-engined aircraft can usually keep flying with one engine.

Taiwan’s United Daily reported that a flight attendant, identified only by her surname of Huang, told her family she had crawled out of the rear of the plane and found herself in the water. “I thought I was going to die,” she said.

It also said a family of three who survived the crash had changed seats before take-off to the right of the plane, most likely saving their lives.

A TransAsia official said the airline would give the families of those killed T$1.2 million ($38,198) for funeral expenses and T$200,000 to each of the injured. Two people on the ground were also injured, it said.

The plane was bound for the Taiwan island of Kinmen.

Zhang Zhijun, a Chinese official forced to cut short his trip to Taiwan last year after he was pelted with paint by anti-China protesters, will delay a trip to Kinmen planned for Saturday because of the crash, the Taiwan government said.

By Philip Pullella

Pope Francis on Thursday ordered Roman Catholic bishops around the world to cooperate as a matter of priority with a commission he set up to protect children from sexual abuse by clerics, even if it unearths new scandals.

The pope, who met victims of abuse last year, sent the letter to the bishops and heads of religious institutions a day before the commission was due to hold its first full meeting.

“Everything possible must be done to rid the Church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors and to open pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused,” the pope says in the letter.

“Families need to know that the Church is making every effort to protect their children … priority must not be given to any other kind of concern, whatever its nature, such as the desire to avoid scandal, since there is absolutely no place in ministry for those who abuse minors.”

One of the members of the commission, Marie Collins of Ireland, herself a victim of sexual abuse, told Reuters that commission members had asked the pope for a letter to thwart any resistance from bishops, which she said some members expected.

“Bishops’ conferences have various views on abuse, as we know. In my own country, Ireland, there was a great deal of resistance to change, to putting in all the correct, necessary prevention measures and treating survivors in the right way,” she said by telephone.

“You must pre-empt that. If the commission wants cooperation … then I think a letter from the Holy Father indicating that they (bishops) should cooperate certainly lends the backing necessary to our work,” she said.

Part of the task of the commission, which is made up of 17 clerics and lay people from around the world, is to help dioceses put in place “best practices” to prevent abuse and work with victims in a process of healing. Eight members are women and two were sexually abused by clergy. The other victim is Peter Saunders of Britain.

The worldwide scandal, which came to global prominence in Boston in 2001, has seen known abusers shunted from parish to parish instead of being defrocked and handed over to authorities.

In a number of developed countries, particularly in the United States, the Catholic Church has paid tens of millions of dollars in settlements.

It has put in place new measures in recent years to protect children, but victims’ groups say it must do more, and make bishops who allegedly covered up the abuse accountable.

By George Psyllides

WORKERS at Aqua Sol and MarisMare hotels held a protest outside parliament on Thursday because they have not been paid for months amid a legal battle between Bank of Cyprus and the holding company.

The workers, around 650, said they have not been paid since September and they were also owed the 13th salaries for 2013 and 2014.

“People are living in uncertainty; they have not been dismissed to be able to seek work elsewhere,” PEO trade union representative Andreas Zahariou said. “Apart from being unpaid with the risk of not making ends meet, they cannot find work elsewhere since they haven’t been released from their previous job. If they find work elsewhere they will lose their compensation.”

The dispute started in October 2014 when the Bank of Cyprus (BoC) put Aqua Sol under receivership for unserviced loans, but in the meantime the company had transferred eight of its 10 hotels and some €200,000 in cash to MarisMare.

BoC secured court injunctions freezing MarisMare’s fixed and liquid assets but the latter was later reversed.

The court said it lifted the injunction on the liquid assets because the company would otherwise be unable to meet its financial obligations.

The company has since spent the €200,000 and can no longer pay the workers who had previously signed papers saying they worked for MarisMare.

Only two of the hotels are currently open – the rest have either suspended their operation for the winter or due to the dispute, according to unions.

However, it is unlikely they will be able to reopen since tour operators will not send tourists as long as there was a dispute putting their clients’ holidays at risk.

And no bank will be willing to finance the company’s operations under the current state of affairs.

The case is not expected to be dealt with by the courts any time soon either.

STATE electricity company (EAC) unions are once more threatening measures over plans to privatise the organisation and changes to the way the market operates.

Unions claim the energy ministry was trying to reduce the size of the EAC, sale off its assets and lease its most productive units to third parties.

Workers have decided to hold general assemblies to discuss the privatisation and decide what measures to take.

“It’s unacceptable for the ministry, which should have been the guardian of the EAC, to arrange the sell off of its units abroad, and even worse, to lease the most productive units,” EPOPAI chairman Andreas Panorkos said.

Having the best interest of the Cypriot people in mind, the unions will ask parliament to put an end to the goings on he said.

“At the same time, we have been authorised to hold general assemblies and take any measures we deem necessary,” he said.

Unions claimed that the government was trying to remove powers from parliament and transfer them to the finance minister.

By Lesley Wroughton and Richard Balmforth

The leaders of Germany and France announced a new peace plan for Ukraine on Thursday, flying to Kiev with a new proposal they would then take on to Moscow.

The importance of reaching a deal was demonstrated by a dramatic collapse in Ukraine’s hryvnia currency, which lost nearly a third of its value after the central bank halted daily auctions at which it sold hard currency to banks.

Nearly bankrupt Kiev is trying to negotiate a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, but many analysts think securing loans is impossible as long as no ceasefire is in place in the war zone in the east.

The coordinated trip by Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande comes as rebels advanced on a railway hub held by Ukrainian troops after launching an offensive that scuppered a five-month-old ceasefire.

With Washington talking of arming Ukraine for the first time, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also visited Kiev on Thursday. He had no plans to go to Moscow and was not involved in the Franco-German initiative, although he supported it.

Moscow said it hope talks with Merkel and Hollande would be “constructive”. A Ukrainian presidential aide awaited them with “restrained optimism”.

The Franco-German plan looks like an eleventh-hour bid by Europe’s core powers to halt the escalation of the conflict ahead of diplomatic deadlines likely to make east-west confrontation even worse.

German and French officials gave few details in public of the substance of their new proposals for fear of damaging the delicate diplomacy involved. Kiev and its Western allies want all forces to return to lines agreed in a September truce. The rebels, who have advanced since then, want to keep their gains.

Peace talks collapsed on Saturday in Belarus. EU leaders are expected to consider new sanctions against Moscow next week, and Germany hosts world leaders at a conference over the weekend at which Ukraine will head the agenda.

“Together with Angela Merkel we have decided to take a new initiative,” Hollande told a news conference. “We will make a new proposal to solve the conflict which will be based on Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”

He and Merkel would meet President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev on Thursday and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Moscow the next day.

“For several days Angela Merkel and I have worked on a text … a text that can be acceptable to all,” Hollande said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier played down the prospect of a breakthrough: “I don’t want to talk about the chances (of success). At this stage there is hope, rather than chances.”

NATO says Russia has sent weapons, funds and troops to assist the rebel advance, negating a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine where war has already killed more than 5,000.

Moscow denies involvement in fighting for territory the Kremlin now calls “New Russia”.

Speaking after meeting Poroshenko in Kiev, Kerry said Washington supported diplomacy, but would “not close our eyes” to Russian tanks and troops crossing the border.

“We are not seeking a confrontation with Russia. No-one is,” Kerry said. “We are very hopeful that Russia will take advantage of our broad-based, uniform acceptance of the notion that there is a diplomatic solution staring everybody in the face. That is what we want.”

In Washington, President Barack Obama’s nominee for defense secretary gave the clearest signal yet that the United States could arm Ukraine. Ashton Carter told his Senate confirmation hearing he would “very much incline” toward supplying some arms.

Moscow said it would consider any U.S. arms sent to Kiev to be a security threat.

“RESISTING THE AGGRESSOR”

Ukraine’s Poroshenko told a German newspaper it was time for NATO to send “modern weapons for protection and for resisting the aggressor.”

The rebels have been concentrating on Debaltseve, a rail hub where a government garrison has held out despite being nearly encircled.

On Wednesday, the rebels appeared to have captured Vuhlehirsk, a nearby small town where government troops had also been holding out. The army said it was still contesting the town, but Reuters journalists saw no sign of areas under army control. Four dead Ukrainian soldiers lay in a garden.

“Someone should come to remove these corpses, it is inhumane to leave them here to rot,” said Sergey Kopun, 50, a metal worker, emerging from a cellar where he had been sheltering with his wife and quadriplegic mother from days of fighting.

In Kiev, the military said on Thursday five soldiers had been killed and 29 wounded in the past 24 hours. Troops had fended off two attempts to storm Debaltseve.

War and corruption have nearly bankrupted Ukraine, and Western sanctions and falling oil prices have also hurt Russia, with the rouble and the hryvnia now two of the world’s fastest-crumbling currencies.

But Ukraine is by far the poorer of the two, and the collapse in the hryvnia was stunning. The central bank auctions scrapped on Thursday had enabled banks to set a value for the hryvnia, and without them traders had trouble finding a floor. A dramatic hike in the main interest rate to 19.5 percent from 14 percent did nothing to stop the plunge.

By Estelle Shirbon

A British tribunal ruled on Friday that some aspects of intelligence-sharing between security agencies in Britain and the United States were unlawful until December 2014, in a ground-breaking case brought by civil liberties groups.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that Britain’s GCHQ had acted unlawfully in accessing data on millions of people in Britain that had been collected by the US National Security Agency (NSA), because the arrangements were secret.

Campaign groups Liberty, Privacy International, Amnesty International and others brought the case following revelations about mass surveillance made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

It was the first time in its 15-year history that the tribunal, which deals with legal challenges to Britain’s GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, had issued a ruling that went against one of those security agencies.

The legal challenge forced the British government to reveal some details about the previously secret rules governing how GCHQ accessed data collected as part of the NSA’s Prism and Upstream programmes, first revealed by Snowden in June 2013.

The tribunal ruled that “the regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by U.S. authorities pursuant to Prism and … Upstream” contravened human rights laws until the government’s disclosures about how the arrangements worked.

A spokeswoman for Prime Minister David Cameron said the rules on intelligence-sharing were now fully lawful, adding: “The judgment will not require GCHQ to change what it does.”

“VIOLATED OUR RIGHTS”

Material revealed by Snowden and cited by the civil liberties groups showed Prism allows the NSA to access data handled by the world’s largest Internet companies, including Google, Yahoo, Facebook and others.

The groups hailed Friday’s ruling as a major victory.

“We now know that, by keeping the public in the dark about their secret dealings with the National Security Agency, GCHQ acted unlawfully and violated our rights,” Liberty’s legal director James Welch said in a statement.

Friday’s ruling followed on from a judgment by the same tribunal in December that Britain’s legal regime governing mass surveillance of the Internet by intelligence agencies did not violate human rights.

The tribunal’s concern, addressed in the new ruling, was that until details of how GCHQ and the NSA shared data were made public in the course of the court proceedings, the legal safeguards provided by British law were being side-stepped.

“Today’s IPT ruling reaffirms that the processes and safeguards within the intelligence-sharing regime were fully adequate at all times,” a GCHQ spokesman said. “It is simply about the amount of detail about those processes and safeguards that needed to be in the public domain.”

The civil liberties groups are preparing to challenge the December ruling in the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the limited safeguards revealed by the government were not enough to make GCHQ’s activities compliant with privacy laws.

By Mike Collett

Things might well get a lot worse before they get any better for relegation-threatened Aston Villa and Hull City who face title-chasing Chelsea and Manchester City in the Premier League on Saturday.

Villa, who host leaders Chelsea, were accused of being “gutless” by former Villa striker Stan Collymore when they were beaten 5-0 at Arsenal on Sunday, an unwanted club record sixth successive league game without a goal.

They have only scored 11 times in the league all season, and after being second in September are now 16th, three points above the relegation zone and in danger of going down for the first time in 27 years.

Manager Paul Lambert was given the full support of American owner Randy Lerner last week, but an unlikely win over Chelsea would do more to help get the fans off his back.

Similarly, a shock victory over City would be a huge boost for Hull boss Steve Bruce, whose team are in an even worse position than Villa – in the bottom three with two wins in 16 games and no goals or points from their last three.

They were crushed 3-0 by Newcastle United on Saturday and unless they improve soon, their second season back in the top flight could well be their last for a while.

It would be a major upset if the top two did not collect three points each after sharing the spoils in a drab 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge on Saturday that left Chelsea, on 53 points, five clear of City.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho added Colombian winger Juan Cuadrado to his squad for 26 million pounds from Fiorentina on transfer deadline day and he could feature on Saturday.

City’s major new acquisition, striker Wilfried Bony, is on African Nations Cup duty with Ivory Coast but even without him City look too strong for a fragile Hull side seemingly bound for the drop.

Saturday’s programme gets underway at lunchtime when Tottenham Hotspur, who are sixth, face arch-rivals Arsenal, who are one place and two points above them in the north London derby at White Hart Lane.

Everton host Liverpool in the Merseyside derby with the visitors seeking a fourth successive league win to keep in the hunt for a Champions League spot after battling into the FA Cup fifth round with a last-gasp 2-1 win at second tier Bolton Wanderers.
Everton need a win to distance themselves from the battle at the bottom.

Third-placed Manchester United on Sunday visit West Ham United where Wayne Rooney scored one of the goals of the season from the halfway line last March.

Last year’s Radiomarathon charity drive collected €631,000, the Bank of Cyprus said on Friday.

The money has been deposited with the charity’s management committee, which has the sole responsibility of deciding to which children it should help.

“The success of the 2014 Radiomarathon is particularly important given the difficult economic conditions under which it was carried out, the bank said.

Last year was the 25^th annual Radiomarathon. It normally takes place in October or November.

The charity collects donations primarily for children with special needs.

The Bank of Cyprus undertook to organise the annual charity event upon the demise of its original backers, the now-defunct Laiki Bank.

By Maria Gregoriou

In case you haven’t realised it yet, this year Valentine’s Day falls on a weekend, making it double the fun and even more of a thrill for all of us who are looking for any excuse to get away for a few days.

Before going on, just so you know, we won’t be suggesting anything for the grown-ups to do for the weekend (although that doesn’t mean we won’t be doing so in the near future, nor that you shouldn’t keep reading). We will be suggesting something for the kids, and if you are planning to leave them with granny for the two-day fiesta of love, then we are sure she will be more than happy to get them out of the house and help them explore their creative side.

First of all, we have a treat for all kids over the age of seven who like to sing, dance and act.

The Dane Katz Performing Arts centre in Nicosia is organising a two-day Musical Theatre workshop. So far, so normal, especially if your children like to stand in front of the mirror, holding a brush and singing into it. Now, with this next bit of information, things will begin to get interesting. The workshop will be run by West End performers Kieran Jae and Steven Moonz Oliver.

Between the two of them Jae and Oliver have stared in some of the best known musicals on the West End, including Gypsy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Cats, Mamma Mia, and Billy Elliot.

The two professional performers will be bringing to Nicosia their experience and talent to start training our young ones, who may someday be not only the stars of our hearts, but also stars of the stage.

If all that name dropping isn’t enough to get you booking your kid’s place at the workshop, then maybe the words of the founder and director of the Dance Katz performing arts group will persuade you to want to wish that your child would break a leg (only figuratively of course).

“This is a fantastic opportunity for local children of Nicosia, whether they choose Musical Theatre as a career or hobby, this is an opportunity to experience a true West End phenomenon.”

Registration has started at the stage school’s head office so you have a whole week to book a place for your children, but a word of advice, do it towards the beginning of the week rather than the end because if professional training is what you seek for your children, this chance is the perfect one.

Now if your children are happier getting the glue, scissors and paper out and sticking something sparkly on the paper while drawing whatever comes to mind, then this next event will probably get them jumping up and down for joy.

Firstly let’s stick to the capital. At the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation in the old town from 12pm, kids from four to ten years old can join in a craft-making carnival workshop. Nicosia is not really considered the carnival city and, unless you go play around in Jumbo for a while, the kids might not be feeling the carnival vibes as much as those in Limassol. That being said, this carnival crafts morning will keep their minds and hands busy in creating some great art work to get them in the dress-up mood.

Moving onto Paphos, Technopolis 20 Cultural centre will be welcoming all artsy children to a carnival mask workshop at 11am. The morning of creativity and fun for the whole family will be coordinated by artist Stella Karageorgi.

Karageorgi will teach the children some art techniques, which she uses in her own work and which she picked up during her fine arts and art history studies in America, and at the De Montfort University in England.

West End Musical Theatre Workshop
A workshop for dancing, singing and acting for seven-year-olds and up. February 14-15. Dance Katz Performing Arts Studio, 4 Pindou Street, Engomi, Nicosia. 10am-5pm. €100. Tel: 97-828730

Craftmaking Workshop
A workshop to do with the carnival for children from 4 to 10 years old. February 14. Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, Nicosia. 12pm. Tel: 22-128157

Carnival Mask Workshop
A fun day with the kids, making carnival masks. February 14. Technopolis 20, 18 Nikolaou Nikolaidi Avenue, Paphos. 11am. €5 for kids, parents free. Tel: 70-002420

By Jean Christou and Stelios Orphanides

Tensions over the foreclosures bill rose on Friday when opposition parties slammed Bank of Cyprus CEO John Hourican over comments he made in a leaked internal email criticising the “bemusing politicisation of the insolvency law”.

Apart from the snippets published by Sigmalive when the email was leaked on Thursday in which Hourican called out Cypriot politicians, suggesting that some at least were playing a double game on the controversial issue of foreclosures, the email  – seen by the Cyprus Mail on Friday – also reveals that the bank has restructured more than half of the housing NPLs held by unemployed people.

And although a bank source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they could not respond officially to a leaked internal document, the Bank of Cyprus had already restructured 57 per cent of non-performing housing loans to retail clients while in the case of unemployed clients, the respective rate was 51 per cent, the source said.

The source didn’t rule out that the parties’ reactions might be related to the “loss of [political] control” over the BoC board, which was changed last November.

Hourican’s email had said: “To the extent that some politicians are, indeed, pretending to be protecting the more vulnerable in society against the ‘bad banks’ when really they are protecting the larger businesses in Cyprus, this is a scandal.” Opposition MPs recently suspended – for a second time – implementation of foreclosures legislation to March 2.

Hourican went on to describe the bank’s policy in dealing with mortgaged properties: “You are also right that the prospect of mass foreclosures of small homes and apartments makes no financial sense to us. We need to start pointing this out so that it starts to be better understood.

“But do remember that we have a clear ‘no quarters’ policy on the big spenders who will have to start recognising that they took big obligations and they need to honour them.”

The BoC CEO said the bank had “come a long-long way towards restructuring /dealing with the big loans that the press was calling ‘the big thirty’”.

“But from the negotiations, as they appear now, it’s clear to me that the delays in the  foreclosures law and the bemusing politicisation of the insolvency law are hurting the process.  I completely agree with XXXXX that the political comments about ‘mass foreclosures’ are absurd. XXXX needs to start explaining the numbers more forcefully to them in hope that they will understand that such a possibility is a product of their imagination,” read the email seen by the Cyprus Mail.

Hourican says numbers showed the way in which the current situation was serving two categories of borrowers: the very large ones in recoveries and the strategic defaulters who refuse to pay because they do not feel they have to.

I understand the argument made ​​in the discussion that some politicians do not want to understand that ‘mass foreclosures’ are out of the question because they have ulterior/electoral politics and they actively want to hurt the bank. But we have come a long way and I do not think we can function on such a premise. Explain the numbers and I am optimistic that they will understand even if it does hurt their personal agenda,” the email said.

The parties laid in to Hourican after Sigmalive had published its article on Thursday based on the snippets posted from the  leaked email.

Opposition AKEL spokesman Giorgos Loucaides said on Friday that Hourican, and banks in general needed to be more careful before criticising the attitude of the political parties “not only because the banks are solely responsible for the collapse of the economy… but because throughout the issue of foreclosures, Mr Hourican seems to forget that while banks publicly proclaim that their goal is not to target small borrowers, they continue to disagree with any initiatives we undertook to protect the same small borrowers.”

DIKO said that assurances from Hourican that the bank was not interested in going after homeowners and small borrowers could not be relied on whereas the mission of the party was to “protect the public and particularly those who have paid dearly for the mismanagement of the banking system”.

“Mr Hourican needs to clarify what he means because so far, the  reluctance to substantially restructure loans, shows no evidence that banks are working in the direction of supporting the real economy,” it added.

Responding to comments by EDEK deputy chairman Marinos Sizopoulos who alleged the lender was “terrorising borrowers” ahead of the impending implementation of the foreclosures law, the BoC source said the bank sends letters to customers not servicing their loans because the bank is “obliged” to do so by regulations.

“Letters have nothing to do with foreclosures, but inform people about arrears and open up the restructuring procedure which is our first priority with smaller clients,” the Bank of Cyprus official said.

Sizopoulos also said in his statement: “Does Mr Hourican realise or not that the banks recapitalised at the expense of depositors and old shareholders?”.  He called on the BoC CEO to clarify whether the bank planned to package and sell bad loans to a third party. He also questioned how much time Irish-banker Hourican “spends in Cyprus in order to understand the problems in the economy”.

The Green Party and Citizens Alliance also weighed in.  The latter said it had repeatedly called for borrowers to be separated into categories; big and small borrowers. The banks should then look at those in terms of who can pay but won’t, “who have taken advantage of the system,” and those who genuinely cannot meet their repayments.

It asked that BoC provide information on the formula being used for restructuring loans in the latter case and how much interest was being charged in those instances.

“We expect the BoC to inform us whether the Central Bank’s Code of Conduct facilitates or hinders their work and what suggestions they have in this regard,” the party added.

There have been a number of reports from borrowers associations that the banks are not only slow to restructure loans but often do not even respond to borrowers who ask.

The Green Party said it was ready to remove its opposition to the foreclosures law if the BoC immediately reduces interest rates to the levels of other European countries, removes unfair and punitive clauses in loan agreements, and agree to come under the provisions of the criminal code for usury.

“But because none of them will do these things we will continue to insist on the implementation of an efficient insolvency framework that will protect citizens against the wolves,” the party said.

By Stelios Orphanides

The International Monetary Fund said the implementation of a modern legislative framework on foreclosures and insolvencies remain “key programme commitments” for Cyprus.

“These steps aim at reducing the high level of non-performing loans, which is essential to restoring growth and job creation in Cyprus,” the IMF said in a statement on its website today.

By George Psyllides

There was more controversy regarding DIKO chairman Nicolas Papadopoulos on Friday, after a report that he had done work for the stock exchange (CSE), which had retained the services of the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm.

Daily Politis said that in 2012, Papadopoulos had taken part, on behalf of the CSE, in the preparation of legislation on mutual funds for which the firm was paid €80,000.

The bill was then passed by parliament after it was discussed by the House Finance Committee, which is chaired by Papadopoulos, on May 14 and 21, the daily said.

The firm responded by publishing a letter from CSE director Nondas Metaxas, which supposedly rubbished the newspaper’s allegations.

In his letter, Metaxas said Papadopoulos – an MP since 2006 and the Chairman of the House Finance Committee since 2009 — handled a different matter and not the mutual funds, which had been handled by his sister Anastasia.

Metaxas said the Tassos Papadopoulos law office was working with the CSE but it was Anastasia who handled the mutual funds legislation. The fee paid was €25,000 plus €3,750 VAT.

The law firm said the letter clearly refuted the “blatant lies” reported by Politis.

Metaxas said the other job given to the firm was the preparation of a study into Depositary Receipts, which was completed early in 2011 at a cost of €60,000 plus €9,000 VAT.

“This job was handled by Nicolas Papadopoulos on behalf of the office,” Metaxas said in his letter.

Metaxas added that the work constitutes a decision taken by the CSE board that is published in the Government Gazette following the approval of the securities and exchange commission (CySEC). Parliamentary approval was not required, he said.

The letter said the draft had been sent to CySEC for approval on April 6. Two meetings between the firm and CSE officials were then held on June 1 and June 20, 2011, to make the final amendments to the text.

Papadopoulos, who has been highly critical of President Nicos Anastasiades regarding his former law firm’s involvement with Ryanair during negotiations to acquire national carrier Cyprus Airways, has been taking flak for similar reasons in recent days.

By Stelios Orphanides

Bank of Cyprus said it will increase provisions for the fourth quarter of 2014 to reflect deteriorating economic conditions in Russia where the lender has operations.

“The charge for the fourth quarter of 2014 is expected to be a little over two times the average of the previous quarterly charges for 2014,” the lender said in an emailed statement today. “This charge will bolster the bank’s prudence, improve provisioning coverage levels and better align some of the bank’s methodologies to take account” of the European Central Bank’s asset quality review observations.

By Tulay Karadeniz

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu pulled out of a security conference in Munich at the last minute on Friday, saying he did not wish to attend a joint session with an Israeli delegation.

Relations between the formerly steadfast allies remain strained since a major rupture in 2010, when Israeli marines killed nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists in clashes aboard a ship that tried to break the blockade on the Gaza Strip. A tenth Turk later died of injuries from the incident.

“I was going to attend the conference but we decided not to after they added Israeli officials to the Middle East session at the last minute,” Cavusoglu told a news conference in Berlin, where he has been meeting Turkish ambassadors based in Europe.

Withdrawing from the meeting was nothing to do with Turkey’s relationship with Germany, he said in the remarks broadcast by Turkish state television TRT.

Israel’s delegate to the Munich conference, Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, said that by staying away from the conference, the NATO power was “effectively identifying with radical Islam and terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas” and “heavily clouding Turkey’s future and character”

“I intend proudly and honourably to represent Israel at this important discussion of the future of the Middle East,” he said in a statement.

Despite being major trading partners and despite U.S. efforts to broker a reconciliation, Israel and Turkey frequently engage in bitter verbal exchanges.

President Tayyip Erdogan, whose ruling party has Islamist roots and who is an outspoken advocate of the Palestinian cause, said Israel’s war in Hamas-controlled Gaza last year “surpassed Hitler in barbarism”. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by accusing him of anti-Semitism.

Last month Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu likened Netanyahu to the Islamist militants who killed 17 people in Paris – among them four Jews at a kosher supermarket – saying he had also committed crimes against humanity.

UNDER-secretary to the president Constantinos Petrides will hold a press conference on Tuesday to announce changes to the Palace personnel, according to government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides.

Staff changes at the palace will kick-start a set of wider reforms, the government spokesman said.

Christodoulides clarified that the changes relate to personnel, structures and functions of the presidential palace.

Everton and Liverpool have come together more than 200 times to vie for local bragging rights in what is the longest-running top-flight derby

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