A 47-year old Limassol woman was mugged on Friday night while she was trying to get into her car, police said.

The 47-year old told police that at around 8pm, at the moment she got into her car, an unknown man opened the door on her side and tried to grab the bag that was on the passenger seat.
The woman grabbed the bag and stepped out of the car. The assailant then hit her on her hands and face in an attempt to pry the bag off of her, she said.
The mugger was then reportedly joined by a second man, who also started hitting her. The two men finally grabbed the bag off the woman and left the scene, police said.
According to the police report, the bag contained €300 in cash, credit cards and personal documents.
The woman drove herself to the Limassol General Hospital where doctors treated her for multiple bruises and lacerations on her hands and face. She was released shortly after.
Police are looking for two men.

By George Georgiopoulos and Alastair Macdonald

GREECE’S left-wing government insisted on Saturday it had avoided being “strangled” by the euro zone, which agreed in principle to extend a financial rescue deal as nervous savers pulled huge sums from Greek banks.

Athens said the deal struck late on Friday in Brussels should calm Greeks who had feared capital controls might be imposed as a prelude to leaving the euro. But some weary voters questioned what their new leaders had achieved in weeks of testy exchanges with euro zone hardliners led by EU paymaster Germany.

After often ill-tempered negotiations, Greece secured late on Friday a four-month extension to euro zone funding, which will avert bankruptcy and a euro exit, provided it comes up with promises of economic reforms by Monday.

“We won time,” said government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis. “The Greek economy and the Greek government weren’t strangled, as was perhaps the original political plan by centres abroad and within the country,” he told Mega TV, without naming the euro zone hawks who forced the government into a climbdown at the Brussels talks.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has won wide support at home for what Greeks see as their leaders finally getting tough instead of going to Brussels cap in hand and taking orders from Berlin. But it was also under intense pressure at home.

About 1 billion euros flooded out of Greek bank accounts on Friday, a senior banker told Reuters, due to savers’ fears that the talks would fail and Athens might have to halt such withdrawals or prepare to reintroduce a national currency.

This added to an estimated 20 billion euros that Greeks have withdrawn since December, when it became clear that the radical Syriza party of Tsipras was likely to win power in last month’s parliamentary elections.

Faced with the risk of a chaotic bank run on Tuesday after a long holiday weekend, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis stressed that the deal should calm savers.
“It is quite clear that the reason why we had a deposit flight was because every day, even before we were elected, Greeks were being told that if we were elected and we stayed in power for more than just a few days the ATMs will cease functioning,” he told reporters in Brussels on Friday. “Today’s decision puts an end to this fear, to the scaremongering.”

Seeking to calm Greeks worried about Monday’s public holiday, a source at the European Central Bank said after the Brussels deal that capital controls were out of the question.

Last month’s election of Syriza on promises to reverse austerity policies dictated by Greece’s EU/IMF bailout programme raised huge expectations among the public.

But under Friday’s deal with euro zone finance ministers, Athens agreed to an extension of the bailout it had promised to scrap, and accepted oversight by the hated ‘troika’ of officials from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, albeit under a new name.
“We went through two months of agony, emptied the banks, to realise we are still a debt colony,” 54-year-old electrician Dimitris Kanakis told Reuters. “The paymasters call the shots.”

However, the deal did open the possibility of lowering a target for Greece’s primary budget surplus, which excludes debt repayments, freeing up funds to ease what Tsipras calls the nation’s “humanitarian crisis”.

Spokesman Sakellaridis acknowledged that the deal, which is conditional on euro zone ministers accepting Greece’s economic reforms plans on Monday, was only a first step. He also admitted the difficulty for a government which is less than a month old in negotiating with heavyweight European ministers.

“These last three weeks were tough weeks for a new government which – let’s not kid ourselves, we’re not trying to fool anyone – hasn’t got the relevant experience,” he said.
“The real battle begins now,” he added. “It is a battle that will be extremely critical for the course of the country over the next few years.”

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Greek politicians used to being in opposition had to wake up to the demands of office.
“Being in government is a date with reality, and reality is often not as nice as a dream,” the conservative veteran said, stressing Athens would get no aid payments until its bailout programme was properly completed. “The Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters.”

Athens must now negotiate a long-term deal with the euro zone before the extension runs out in the early summer.
European Union officials said one reason Greece had to cut a deal now and not delay was that confidential calculations showed the banking system had risked running out of money when it reopens on Tuesday. Extra emergency funding authorised by the ECB on Wednesday would not have been compensated for this.

Tsipras had called for a emergency summit of EU leaders on Sunday if the finance ministers had failed to agree. However, this idea was rejected by European Council President Donald Tusk, increasing pressure for a deal before the banks reopened.

Sources close to the talks said Greece’s creditors had lost confidence in Varoufakis and preferred to deal directly with Tsipras. Merkel, who had her first long conversation with Tsipras by phone on Thursday, had been instrumental in ensuring a deal was done, overcoming some resistance from Schaeuble who had taken a hard line from the outset

A 36-year old pawn shop owner was remanded by the Nicosia District Court for five days on Saturday, after police found stolen jewellery in his store and home.

Police arrested the 36-year old man in Nicosia on Friday, following information that his store was accepting stolen goods.
According to the police report, the man was arrested in his pawn shop after failing to explain how the jewellery he sold in his store came to his possession.
Police officers searched the 36-year-old’s apartment, seizing a safe that contained more jewellery, watches and some golden coins.

A 23-year old man was remanded for four days in custody on Saturday in relation to a child pornography case, police said.
According to the police report, the 23-year old from Larnaca is suspected of contacting a 17-year old girl on Facebook and asking for nude pictures and video.
The 23-year old pretended to be the same age as the girl, according to the police.
After the girl reported the incident, police raided the man’s apartment and seized a computer and a mobile telephone.

A six-month old boy was seriously injured in a car crash in Limassol on Friday, police said on Saturday.

The boy suffered head injuries and is currently being cared for in the Makarios Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
According to the police report, the boy was injured when his mother crashed with a car driven by a 23-year-old, near the Polimidia area in Limassol.
The boy was in his car seat but according to Aimilios Kkafas, traffic accident police official, he was not strapped in.
Kkafas said had the boy been strapped in, he would not be injured.
Neither the mother nor the man were injured in the accident.

By George Georgiopoulos and Karolina Tagaris

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Saturday that a funding agreement struck with euro zone ministers cancelled austerity commitments made by a previous conservative-led government to international creditors.

After often ill-tempered negotiations, Greece secured late on Friday a four-month extension to euro zone funding, which will avert bankruptcy and a euro exit, provided it comes up with promises of economic reforms by Monday.

“Yesterday we took a decisive step, leaving austerity, the bailouts and the troika,” Tsipras said in a televised statement. “We won a battle, not the war. The difficulties, the real difficulties …are ahead of us.”

Tsipras and his Syriza party won power last month on promises to end Greece’s EU/IMF bailout programme and end cooperation with the hated ‘troika’ – inspectors from the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF who have monitored Greece’s compliance with its austerity and reform commitments.

Instead Athens was forced to accept the conditional extension of the bailout and still deal with the troika, renamed in the deal as “the three institutions”.
Nevertheless, he said: “Yesterday’s agreement with the Eurogroup … cancels the commitments of the previous government for cuts to wages and pensions, for firings in the public sector, for VAT rises on food, medicine.”

Tsipras, a radical left-winger, had been under heavy pressure to secure a deal as Greeks have been pulling huge sums out of the country’s banks, fearing the talks with euro zone finance ministers would fail and Greece would be cast adrift as the bailout had been due to expire on February 28.

Without naming names, he attacked conservatives at home and in the euro zone. “Yesterday we averted plans by blind conservative powers, within and outside the country, to asphyxiate Greece on February 28,” he said.

About 1 billion euros fled Greek bank accounts on Friday, a senior banker told Reuters, due to savers’ fears that Athens might have to halt such withdrawals or prepare to reintroduce a national currency. Greece says Friday’s extension should calm such fears.

“Greece achieved an important negotiating success in Europe. We showed determination and flexibility and in the end, we achieved our basic goal,” said Tsipras.

By Lesley Wroughton

THE United States and its allies are discussing imposing more sanctions against Russia for undermining a European-brokered truce in eastern Ukraine, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.

Kerry made the comments as he began talks with his British counterpart Philip Hammond in London, accusing Moscow of “extraordinarily craven behaviour at the expense of the sovereignty and integrity of a nation”.

The Kiev military accused Russia on Friday of sending tanks and troops into eastern Ukraine despite a ceasefire that went into force last Sunday, brokered by France and Germany in a bid to end a conflict that has killed more than 5,000 people.

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to the allegation but has always denied accusations in the past that its forces are fighting in Ukraine.
Kerry, however, said the United States “knows to a certainty” of Russia’s involvement in the conflict and support it was giving to the separatists.

“Russia has engaged in an absolutely brazen and cynical process over these last days,” the Secretary of State said.
“We are talking about additional sanctions, about additional efforts, and I’m confident over the next days people will make it clear that we are not going to play this game,” he added.

“We’re not going sit there and be part of this kind of extraordinarily craven behaviour at the expense of the sovereignty and integrity of a nation.”
Pro-Russian separatists are building up forces and weapons in Ukraine’s south east and the Ukrainian military said on Saturday it was braced for the possibility of a rebel attack on the port city of Mariupol.

A rebel attack on Mariupol, a city of half a million people and potentially a gateway to Crimea, which Russia annexed last March, would almost certainly kill off the ceasefire that aimed to end the 10-month-old conflict.

The ceasefire has already been badly shaken by the rebel capture on Wednesday of Debaltseve, a railway junction in eastern Ukraine, forcing a retreat by thousands of Ukrainian troops in which at least 20 Ukrainian soldiers were killed.

British Foreign Secretary Hammond said the ceasefire had been “systematically breached” and he would discuss with Kerry how Europe and the United States could remain united in tackling the challenge in Ukraine.

US President Barack Obama’s administration has previously said it is considering deepening sanctions against Moscow and is also weighing the possibility of providing weapons to Ukraine’s military, although officials stress the priority is to find a political solution.

While Ukraine is expected to dominate the talks in London, Kerry and Hammond said they would also discuss the threat from Islamist militants in Syria, Iraq and Libya.

Hammond repeated Britain’s view that a unity government was urgently needed in Libya “so that the international community can put its weight behind that government in order to squeeze the terrorists out.”

A US official said Kerry would also discuss Nigeria’s upcoming election and the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
The Secretary of State travels to Geneva on Sunday for two days of talks with senior Iranian officials on Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme as the sides try to resolve differences before a March 31 deadline for a basic framework agreement.

US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will also attend the talks, the first time he has participated in the Iran negotiations, the US official said.

Negotiations between the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, Britain and Iran have reached a critical stage. The US official said Moniz’s involvement was due to the technical nature of the current talks.

By Constantinos Psillides
Political parties and government officials on Saturday greeted the previous day’s Eurogroup agreement with Greece with relief, with some demanding of the president go ahead and renegotiate Cyprus’ bailout terms.
Finance minister Harris Georgiades took to Twitter to express his opinion on the matter. With a late night tweet Georgiades said the Greek deal was a very positive development.
“Greece remains in the Eurozone and on the path to reform,” tweeted the minister.
Ruling party DISY issued a statement welcoming the agreement saying that the deal struck has a twofold meaning.
“On the one hand it ensures that Greece keeps the effort of restoring its economy within the boundaries of the Eurozone and in cooperation with the rest of Europe. On the other hand, the agreement proves that with goodwill and responsibility we can deal with our problems through the EU institutions,” it said.
Main opposition party AKEL, which has criticised the government, accusing president Nicos Anastasiades of accepting the troika terms without putting up a fight, said the deal proves that every government can gain something for the people if it is willing to negotiate.
“Our government conceded to the bail-in and selling off the Greek branches of our banks, accepted damaging privatisations and number of other needless measures. He did not fight on behalf of the Cypriot people but instead succumbed to pressure,” AKEL said.
The rest of the parliament parties also railed against the government. DIKO said the Greek deal “proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the problem is the government doesn’t want to re-negotiate with the troika,”. Socialist party EDEK demanded the government renegotiate the privatisation of semi-govermental organisations, reconsider foreclosures and ask the European Central Bank for better lending terms.
EVROKO, the Citizens’ Alliance and the Greens also called upon the government to renegotiate the terms of the Cyprus agreement, the way Greece did.
Euro zone finance ministers reached an agreement on Friday to extend Greece’s financial rescue by four months. The agreement removes the immediate risk of Greece running out of money next month and possibly being forced out of the Euro.
Cyprus
Cyprus agreed with the troika of international lenders – the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – a €10 billion bailout in 2013.

By Toby Davis

Chelsea offered a chink of light to Manchester City in the Premier League title race after a stormy 1-1 home draw with Burnley on Saturday that gave more ammunition to their outspoken manager Jose Mourinho.

Branislav Ivanovic’s knack of scoring crucial goals had seemingly set the hosts on their way to another routine victory, but Chelsea’s Nemanja Matic was sent off and Ben Mee headed an equaliser for Burnley in the 81st minute.

Chelsea also had two strong penalty claims rejected and their lead at the top can be cut to five points if City beat Newcastle United in Saturday’s late game.
Manchester United’s top-four hopes were dented in a 2-1 defeat at Swansea City, who completed the double over Louis van Gaal’s side having claimed three points at Old Trafford in the opening game of the season.

Bafetimbi Gomis deflected in Jonjo Shelvey’s long-range strike for Swansea to send United down to fourth in the table, 13 points off the top and one below Arsenal, who beat Crystal Palace 2-1 at Selhurst Park.

Tim Sherwood’s first match as Aston Villa manager ended in disappointment as his new charges squandered a first-half lead to lose 2-1 at home to Stoke City, who scored a stoppage-time penalty from Victor Moses to snatch the points.

At the bottom of the table, Hull City moved four points clear of the relegation zone with a 2-1 win over fellow strugglers Queens Park Rangers. Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion drew 0-0.

By Gwynne Dyer

“WE’RE not waiting around here to die,” said Johan Dumas, one of the survivors of the siege at the kosher supermarket during the “Charlie Hebdo” terrorist attack in Paris in January. He had hidden with others in a basement cold room as the Islamist gunman roamed overhead and killed four of the hostages.

So, said Dumas, he was moving to Israel to be safe.

It’s not really that simple. The seventeen victims of the terrorist attacks included some French Christians, a Muslim policeman, four Jews, and probably a larger number of people who would have categorised themselves as “none of the above”. It was a Muslim employee in the supermarket who showed Dumas and other Jewish customers where to hide, and then went back upstairs to distract the gunman. And the Middle East isn’t exactly safe for Jews.

Dumas has been through a terrifying experience. He now feels like a target in France, and no amount of reassurance from the French government that it will protect its Jewish citizens will change his mind. But Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu didn’t help much either.

What Netanyahu said after the Paris attacks was this: “This week, a special team of ministers will convene to advance steps to increase immigration from France and other countries in Europe that are suffering from terrible anti-Semitism. All Jews who want to immigrate to Israel will be welcomed here warmly and with open arms. We will help you in your absorption here in our country, which is also your country.”

He was at it again after a Jewish volunteer guarding a synagogue in Copenhagen was one of the two fatal victims of last week’s terrorist attack in Denmark. “Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews,” he said, “and this wave of terrorist attacks – including murderous anti-Semitic attacks – is expected to continue.

“Of course, Jews deserve protection in every country but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe.”

As you might imagine, this did not go down well with European leaders who were being told that their countries were so anti-Semitic that they are no longer safe for Jews.

It is true that five of the nineteen people killed in these two terrorist attacks in Europe since the New Year were Jewish, which is highly disproportionate. But it is also true that the killers in all cases were Islamist extremists, who also exist in large numbers in and around Israel.

French President Francois Hollande said: “I will not just let what was said in Israel pass, leading people to believe that Jews no longer have a place in Europe and in France in particular.” In Denmark Chief Rabbi Jair Melchior rebuked Netanyahu, saying that “terror is not a reason to move to Israel.”

The chair of Britain’s Parliamentary committee against anti-Semitism, John Mann, attacked Netanyahu’s statement that the only place Jews could now be safe was Israel. “Mr Netanyahu made the same remarks in Paris – it’s just crude electioneering. It’s no coincidence that there’s a general election in Israel coming up….We’re not prepared to tolerate a situation in this country or in any country in Europe where any Jews feel they have to leave.”

It is crude electioneering on Netanyahu’s part – but it is also true that even in Britain, where there have been no recent terrorist attacks, Jews are worried. Statistically, Jews are at greater risk from terrorism in Israel, but it’s much scarier being a Jewish minority in a continent where Jews were killed in death camps only 70 years ago.

Given Europe’s long and disgraceful history of antisemitism, it’s not surprising that such sentiments persist among a small minority of the population. But at least in Western Europe (which is where most European Jews live) the great majority of people regard antisemitism as shameful, and most governments give synagogues and Jewish community centres special protection.
What European Jews fear is not their neighbours in general, but radicalised young Islamists among their Muslim fellow citizens. The Muslim minorities in the larger Western European countries range between 4 and 10 per cent of the population. If only one in a hundred of them is an Islamist then Jews do face a threat in those countries.

But it is a very small threat. Nine Jews have been killed by Islamist terrorists in the European Union in the past year in three separate incidents (Belgium, France and Denmark). The Jewish population of the EU is just over one million, mostly living in France, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Nine Jewish deaths by terrorism in a year in the EU is deplorable, but it hardly constitutes a good reason for encouraging mass emigration to Israel. Still, Netanyahu has an election to fight, and this sort of thing goes down well in Israel.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries

By Hermes Solomon

Minister of Finance Harris Georgiades wants no part of Grexit for Cyprus.

Admonished by the president and opposition political parties for speaking his mind, Cyexit is not for us if we meet MoU conditions he insists.

All the gimmicks lenders press on borrowers to maintain the artifice that the loan is being serviced are financial frauds. They are simply new frauds piled on the initial fraud of issuing a visibly imprudent loan.

The borrower (Greece) was never creditworthy and the lender should never have offered her loans of that magnitude and at that low interest rate. The losses belong to the lenders, but the troika would have us believe otherwise.

EU sorely needs to reform its institutions and financial policies.

Most of us know that the IRS/VAT, banks, etc. are preferential creditors during any bankruptcy/receivership – employees come last.

When the foreclosure/insolvency laws are finally passed many employees in both the private, and to a lesser degree, public sector will be faced with personal bankruptcy – repayment of mortgage, school fees, car and other debts becoming unsustainable, just like Greece, where the unemployed refuse to pay bills because they simply can’t.

First electricity supply is cut, then water, main line telephone, etc. and the unemployed sit ‘chewing the cud’ in unheated gas lit homes that are about to be repossessed – a return to the Dark Ages like Eastern EU member and Baltic states, which claim they live on less than the average Greek with the same cost of living.

Are we being fed contradictory facts and figures about the state of our economy in today’s newspaper – tourism income up, unemployment stable, bank interest rates down, cost of shopping basket less, heat, light and fuel cheaper, etc – then followed by fall in GDP, incomes and growth, increase in number of unsustainable NPLs and bankruptcies in tomorrow’s newspaper?

London’s Irish demonstrated outside their Embassy as An Garda Síochána (Irish national police) at home arrested promoters of a pro-Tsipras demo planned for Dublin!

Media hardly focused on pro-Greek demos after Jean Claude Juncker embraced Tsipras (il Padrino kiss of death?) and took him by the hand, fingers entwined, along Brussels’ corridors of power.

Dark Star is what I call today’s EU HQ – a crew of bumbling astronauts on a mission to destroy rogue planets, SYRIZA, Spain’s Podemos, etc. leading Club Med back to the Dark Ages. The twenty eight ‘equally treated’ member states are rather like Orwell’s Animal Farm, wherein the Pigs believe, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Ordinary Greeks simply want food on tables, heat and light in their homes and work for the unemployed. Is that really asking too much of the ‘more equal than others’ as MEPs salivate foie gras aux truffes accompanied by fine Sauternes?

Unfortunately for the Greeks, former thieving governments have already wasted away 240 billion euros of loans. The Greeks are now destitute, and frankly, according to the majority of other ‘animals’ on this EU farm, deserve to be.

Earlier imprudent loans were ‘snatched-up’ by a corrupt, inefficient and grossly overstaffed civil service, which has since been halved in size along with salaries. But loan debt increases daily rather than the reverse.

Greece is insolvent, and has already defaulted in all but words. The ‘bravado’ of Greece’s minister of finance and prime minister are Greece’s only bargaining tools. And Dark Star knows it!

Cyprus claims it’s on target, meeting MoU obligations so far – apart that is from failing to enact foreclosures/insolvency law, introduction of a national health scheme, privatisation of SGOs and ‘meaningful’ reduction in civil service numbers, pay and pensions.

Exactly! What is the House of Reps messing about at? Restarting the Cyprob talks has become secondary to sorting out the economy.

Perhaps Cyprus has seen what happened after the previous Greek government applied crippling austerity measures in 2012 and wants no part of it. But at the end of the day, Cyprus has no choice and even fewer bargaining tools – Harris is no Yanis and Nicos is no Alexis!

Drawing out negotiations for as long as possible in the hope Dark Star would explode or become a bottomless black hole dishing out endless dosh has not worked for Greece, which has been put firmly in her place by iron fisted German finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble.

Is SYRIZA about to implode? Unlikely, given the untold damage a Grexit would cause the euro, and subsequently world stock markets. An ‘arrangement’ will be found.

But Dark Star is already knocking at our door: Hello! Is there anyone there?

Of course not; we are waiting to return ‘those troublemakers’, AKEL/DIKO to power and inflict the same suffering on Cypriots that is now endured, and will be for decades to come by PIIGS, Baltic and East European states.

The wheels of bankruptcy and receivership move excruciatingly slowly, but they move, and for us, in a hopeless direction.

Extreme poverty is the outcome of extreme lending; both lenders and borrowers are equally guilty of extreme greed. But it’s those left holding ‘the baby’ that pay the bill, rich rats having jumped ship and bought up areas of Knightsbridge and Kensington, where fixed assets grow daily in value – unlike here in Cyprus and Greece, where the reverse is true.

When big money sleeps in vacant and unsaleable real estate there are no ‘real’ jobs.

Opposition parties should stop making promises that cannot be kept and pass MoU bills through the House fast lest we end up in the same boat as Greece.

As for the rest, ‘Tell it to the marines!’

By Loucas Charalambous

With the tragicomic dimensions it took, the confrontation between the new Greek government and the country’s lenders and partners in the EU left our own political jokers greatly moved. It was another opportunity to display their great minds.

They became passionate Hellas-lovers, put on the national costume, raised the Greek flag, ordered a national mobilisation and sounded the trumpets of war, urging us all to join the struggle against Germany declared by Alexis Tsipras, Yanis Varoufakis and Panos Kammenos. This is how our political lunatic asylum operates.

Finance Minister Harris Georgiades, one of the very few serious members of the Anastasiades government, was made the target of our enraged political demagogues – Nicolas Papadopoulos, Giorgos Lillikas, Giorgos Perdikis, Yiannakis Omirou – not to mention the leadership of AKEL, the self-appointed agents of Tsipras in Cyprus.

Papadopoulos, over and above his party’s silly announcements on the need to “support” Greece in her “struggle” against her lenders, called on the government “to get serious and abandon the role of a standard messenger of the Troika”. House president Omirou described Greece’s treatment at the Eurogroup as like the “ultimatums of other nightmarish eras”.

The AKEL leadership spoke of “improper behaviour” by Georgiades and accused the government of being a “servant of the Troika”. Lillikas, the fiercest of all our warriors, accused the minister of “adopting the German rhetoric” because he said he had not understood what Greece wanted. He also said the government “does not believe in the justness of the Greek demand and cannot disappoint its friend Merkel.”

As I had not understood what Greece wanted either, I carefully read the whole of what is known as the ‘Varoufakis file’ – the 29 pages that contain the two speeches made by Greece’s finance minister at the Eurogroup meetings of February 11 and 16 as well as the two non-papers submitted by the Greek government which were a summary of what Varoufakis had said.

Having read the file, I can safely say that neither Georgiades nor a clairvoyant could understand what Greece wanted or actually proposed. In those 29 pages I could not find a single serious and practical proposal. The contents were a silly play on words plus vague promises about the future, lessons in democracy, national dignity, etc and a lot of boasting. There were also some malicious digs of the type, “we know that you were disappointed that we radical leftists won the elections but you will lose out if you view us as enemies,” and other nonsense.

The contents of the file can be summarised in the few lines: “Partners, we know that you lent us all those billions of euros so that we would not starve to death, and we know we signed an agreement with you to put our house in order so we can return it. This agreement though means nothing to us because we were given a popular mandate on January 25. After six months we will give you another programme so we can make a new agreement.

“But as we need an additional 17 billion euros to make our payments until the end of this year, put your hands in your pockets, give us this money and in six months we will tell you if and how we will repay you, as long as we are in a position to do so.”

If this peculiar reasoning is allowed to pass, from now on every new government of a heavily indebted state would have the right to refuse repayment of its loans and rip up the agreements with its lenders on the grounds that it has a new “popular mandate”.

This is the thinking of Tsipras and Varoufakis. The brave struggle they are waging aims at securing agreement to this nonsense by other EU member-states which, quite understandably, are outraged. This is the fight against Merkel, the supposed struggle of Greek dignity which our political jokers want Georgiades to support.

And because the man does not want to make a fool of himself in Brussels, he is being disparaged as a “messenger of the Troika” by Papadopoulos – himself the most miserable messenger of political demagoguery in this country.

By Evie Andreou

PRIVATE HIGHER education institutions are demanding faster procedures to process student visas to third country nationals, saying Cyprus is losing the chance of becoming a regional education centre.

DISY MP Kyriacos Hadjiyiannis told the House education committee earlier this week that the government needed a strategic plan.

When university tuition fees, accommodation, food and transportation are taken into account, students spend twenty times more money than tourists, Hadjiyiannis said.

“A student contributes to the whole economy of a country, in comparison to tourists who spend mainly in tourist establishments,” he said.

He argued that the rapid increase of foreign students in the north is pushing the government controlled areas out of the regional education map.

“In contrast to the Republic, where bureaucracy and the lack of policies have stagnated the arrival of foreign students, we observe that the occupied areas have started to evolve into an education centre,” Hadjiyiannis said.

In the north they have understood the importance of the education sector and have implemented effective policies, he said.

Among the 72,000 students that attend colleges in the north, 27,000 are from Turkey and 18,000 from 127 other countries, bringing in US $1billion in 2014 alone.

He added that the breakaway regime has increased its numbers of foreign students by 335 per cent and that they aim to raise the number to 100,000 students this year.

After Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, the government tightened regulations on student visas for third country nationals because of the high numbers of those entering Cyprus to study, only to abandon their studies and to either remain in the country and work illegally or seek political asylum.

The interior ministry’s regulations required students coming from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka to acquire a visa from the Cyprus consul in their country of residence following an interview with a unit of policemen sent from Cyprus to the country.

Following a cabinet’s decision last July, these procedures have been simplified, a move which has been welcomed by the association of tertiary education institutions (PASISTE) that represents private colleges.

Its chairman Demetris Christophorou told the Sunday Mail that interviewers at consulates were not trained for the job and that they were dropping student visa applications for trivial reasons.

He also gave the example of students from African countries where there are no Cyprus consulates who had to travel to the Cypriot consulate in Egypt to apply for visas.

Under the new regulations, when a prospective student from a third country applies to a school, if the school decides that they fulfil admission criteria, students have to present the documents to be certified at their nearest Cypriot embassy or consulate.

The certified documents are sent to Cyprus to the interior ministry which reviews the documents and sends the ones concerning academic criteria on to the education ministry.

Following July’s Cabinet decision, applicants must achieve a minimum of 50 per cent in their school-leaving English language exam, or 50 per cent general pass-mark on their school-leaving certificate and at least a 5 on an IELTS certificate.

If the ministry gives the green light, they inform the interior ministry, which has the final say. If they grant the applicant a student visa, then he or she is notified that they can proceed with registration and make arrangements to travel to Cyprus.

Despina Martidou, director of higher and tertiary education at the ministry of education, said that the new regulations have helped as applicants no longer have to travel to Cypriot embassies or consulates for interviews.

But private colleges, while welcoming the changes, point out that students still need to travel to the nearest Cypriot embassy to have their documents verified.
“It is not easy since we don’t have consulates in every country or every city,” said George Kazantzis, head of admissions at Frederick University in Nicosia.

He said that even the new procedures concerning third country nationals that wish to study in Cyprus are too demanding and time consuming. Students considering a higher education degree in Cyprus are discouraged by the processes and find alternative destinations, he said.

“Let’s face it; it is highly unlikely that students from all over the world dream of studying in Cyprus, so even those that decide to choose the island for their studies, which might not be their first choice, when they encounter these difficulties they turn elsewhere,” Kazantzis said.

Only between 1 and 1.5per cent of Frederick University students are from third countries, Kazantzis said.

“It is not a negative thing to control who enters the island but with this complete control, it makes things more difficult for those that truly wish to study here,” Kazantzis said.

He said that the government should control the private universities and colleges to see which institutions register students only on paper.

According to the data of the statistical service, foreign student numbers steadily increased despite the tougher regulations introduced after 2004, although not as much as the private colleges would have liked. From around 2,000 in 1999-2000, the number rose to more than 11,000 in 2009-10, and then it started to slowly decrease.

The latest data available are for the 2012-13 academic year show that of the 31,965 students attending the government controlled area’s higher institutions, 8,375 were foreign students – 4,600 from EU countries and 3,775 from third countries.

“The reduction in numbers was due to the economic crisis, but it seems that the new regulations have started to show improvements in the numbers of applicants from abroad,” Martidou said.

The House education committee hear that this year 850 applications have been filed for the spring semester from third country nationals, compared to the 315 of the equivalent period last year.

“With the limited budget we have in our disposal, due to the economic crisis, we have taken several steps to promote our private universities and colleges abroad,” Martidou said.

She said that the ministry organises educational fairs and information days in various countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

“The last few years, our annual info days in Greece have helped attract many Greek students,” she said.

The education ministry is also signing mutual recognition agreements of higher education with other states and memorandums of understandings in the fields of higher education and research.

Martidou said that a bill is also being prepared that will enable state universities to offer some courses in English to attract more foreign students.

By Bejay Browne

NO LONGER the domain of seedy strip clubs, pole dancing is now widely recognised as a form of performance art and a growing fitness trend with ‘regular’ women of all shapes and sizes flocking to learn the combination of dance and acrobatics.
Stella Christodoulou, 32, has been teaching pole dancing in Cyprus for the last three years and now has more than 50 students taking part in regular pole dancing lessons in both Paphos and Limassol at the Theofilos and Stella dance studios. She said it’s a great way to get fit and have fun at the same time.
“I have all sorts of students from all different backgrounds, nationalities, ages and sizes. I also have a number of more mature ladies; this is a fun and challenging way to keep fit,” she said.
Christodoulou, who is also an experienced Latin dance coach, said she only discovered the sport by coming across a video on YouTube by accident.
“I was amazed and found it very inspiring. I was looking for something to do which was exercise and didn’t depend on a man,” she said. “Although I had my own dance partner, it can be difficult for women in Cyprus to find men to dance with. With pole dancing you don’t have to depend on anyone else.”
Christodoulou had no intention of teaching others to pole dance when she started out. She said she bought a professional portable pole and put it up in her dance studio to practise on. However, when her female dance students saw it, they were intrigued and wanted to learn themselves.
“Pole dancing is about confidence and women feeling sexy in themselves. They like how it feels when they dance. We start with bare feet and then dance in heels. Women love this, it makes us feel good and the dance moves are a lot of fun.”
The dance professional said she has experience with people of all fitness levels and that she teaches classes from beginners to advanced, as well as private groups and individuals.
“There is a programme which we follow and slowly they will progress. It takes about six months to be able to ‘invert’ or turn upside down. We work on core muscles and arm strength to do this.”
Christodoulou has no interest in breaking down barriers or taboos still associated with pole dancing and says she isn’t trying to change how it is viewed. She believes time and education are already doing this.
“China has a national pole dancing team – that should mean something. It’s not about women shaking about and whatever else goes on in some men’s heads, this is an art. It involves acrobatics, tricks, flexibility and strength.”
Christodoulou was interested in sports and gymnastics from an early age but first trained and worked as a beautician and flight attendant before changing careers to do what she loves.
“I changed my career path when I met my husband Theofilos. I became his assistant for salsa and Latin dance, I had always loved to dance.”
The dance teacher has four or five pole dancing students which she describes as really good and perform in Limassol at weekly organised events.
People wanting to learn pole dance should wear comfortable clothes to lessons – as if attending a gym – but with tight shorts underneath. They will also need a pair of high heels. Christodoulou says she can teach anyone, regardless of size or fitness level. Pole dancing is a good way, she says, to help change an unhealthy lifestyle.
“It’s getting more and more popular. Women like to feel fit, sexy and feminine. Learning to pole dance is a great way to achieve that.”

n Stella Christodoulou 99042886

CTO BOSS Marios Hannides is fast developing into a true Cypriot legend. Having thwarted one attempt by the CTO board to terminate his contract a couple of months ago he has again been forced to put up a courageous fight to hold on to his job.

It will not be a fight to the death as this would make it difficult for him to keep his much-loved job, but he has indicated he is prepared to do anything, apart from giving up his life, to carry on improving the Cyprus tourist product and increasing tourist arrivals.

On Tuesday evening the CTO board, which had made a complete cock-up of its decision to sack Marios and was forced to rescind it, took the decision again, this time following the correct procedure. It had written to him with a list of irregularities that had taken place at the organisation and asked him to appear at a board meeting to give explanations.

Instead of appearing, Hannides sent a 239-page letter a few hours before the board meeting defending himself and presumably blaming someone else for the irregularities. His magnum opus made no difference as the board decided to sack him anyway, reportedly by the smallest possible majority.

The board wanted him out because he “was performing his duties inadequately” and he had committed a series of disciplinary offences, neither of which had ever been acceptable reasons to sack someone from a top public sector job. Most top managers in the public sector perform their duties inadequately and nobody has ever considered sacking them.

TO BE FAIR, Marios was not made CTO boss by comrade Tof in 2012 under any illusion that he would perform his duties adequately. He had zero experience of the tourism industry and zero experience of managing a big organisation and no leadership qualities, having served for 11 years as director-general of something called the Cyprus Heart Foundation.

Obviously, the pay at the Foundation was not enough to sustain his lavish lifestyle and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get elected to parliament the CTO job came along for which he was totally unsuitable. But it paid well, offered him social status and allowed him to pursue his passion for foreign travel at the expense of the taxpayer.

Comrade Tof, who was also performing his duties inadequately because he was totally unsuitable for his job, decided Marios, who desperately needed a high-salaried job and would never get one in the open market, was the ideal man for the top CTO job and exercised his constitutional rusfeti right to appoint him.

Hannides has a nerve claiming that he was being persecuted for his political beliefs and that his sacking was politically motivated. Someone who gets a job exclusively on the strength of his politics should be prepared to lose it for the same reason, or as the bible would have said if it had been written in Kyproulla, “he who lives by rusfeti, shall die by rusfeti, if he is not a DIKO supporter.”

HAVING declared himself a victim of political persecution, martyr Marios waged war on the board, threatening all its members with legal action for defamation. Only in Kyproulla would a top executive insist that he has the right to hold on to a job after his board decided it wanted him out because he was doing a crap job.

In normal businesses, if the board as much as expresses a lack of confidence in the CEO, he submits his resignation and leaves out of pride. In this case the board has sacked the guy, told him he was rubbish at his job and he still won’t go. He is a Cypriot legend.

The board decision was illegal, he maintained while claiming its members could not possibly have read his 239-page letter before taking their decision as it had only been delivered an hour or two before they met. He cited other legalistic arguments against the decision that are too boring to repeat here.

All is not lost yet and Marios could still keep his job. The Council of Ministers has to ratify the CTO board’s decision which is why Marios has written to prez Nik requesting an audience. Nik is a soft touch on such issues as he likes to please everyone and if Marios plays his cards right at the meeting he could keep hold of his dream ticket.

At the meeting Marios should cry a little, lavishly flatter Nik and ask for his pity. And if this fails he should get down on his knees, embrace the prez’s legs and beg him for mercy.

FORMER marketing manager of the CTO Michalis Metaxas, who had been suspended and subsequently re-instated, was not mentioned at last Tuesday’s board meeting. Metaxas, who had been handling the organisation’s multi-million advertising budget and was the subject of an investigation by our friend Odysseas the Auditor-General, has been put in charge of another department at the organisation.

Will he be suspended or has he used his powerful political connections to have the investigation into his dubious spending decisions closed? Perhaps he has already had a meeting with Nik the merciful and sorted everything out.

POOR old Haris Georgiades is fast becoming the minister everyone loves to hate. This is because he does not pander to public sentiment and tends to be more honest when expressing his views than the average politician. He also avoids the heroic rhetoric and grand-standing so loved by his fellow politicos.

The moral majority, also known for its low intelligence, was baying for Haris’ blood last week because he dared to say after last Monday’s Eurogroup meeting that he did not know what the Greek government actually wanted. The opposition parties were outraged by this betrayal of Greece, and accused him of adopting the German rhetoric, being a servant of the Troika and a spokesman of Merkel.

Everyone joined in the fun of heaping abuse on hapless Haris and one super-patriotic columnist called for his immediate resignation. You can’t have ministers of the Cyprus Republic speaking honestly in public and allow them to remain in their job.

PHIL’S Giorgos Kallinikou, presumably after conducting an opinion poll, wrote that after Haris’ comments “the overwhelming majority feels only shame; and insulted.” He had “brought shame upon every citizen of this country” and it was a “disgrace” for a minister “to speak like Schaeuble or Dissjelbloem,” he wrote.

If Haris spoke like Lillikas or Perdikis, mouthing off heroic nonsense about Greece’s right not to repay its debts, there would be no grounds for the spokesman of the overwhelming majority to demand his resignation.

PREZ NIK, who wants to be loved by the overwhelming majority that Kallinikou represents and goes out of his way to please everyone at all times, was alarmed when he heard the theatrical over-reaction to Haris’ comment, as this could reflect badly on him.

To show that he did not share his minister’s view and that he was firmly by the side of Greece, he ordered his spokesman Nicos Christodoulides to appear on the Trito radio show the next morning and inform listeners that the prez was fully supporting Greece’s demands at the Eurogroup.

Christodoulides informed us that on Monday night Nik was on the phone to the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to send him the “right messages” and to explain that “negative developments for Greece would be negative developments for the eurozone”.
Christodoulides stressed that Nicosia’s support for Greece was “a given” and “absolute”, even if we did not know what Greece wanted. I bet it was Nik’s call to Juncker that persuaded the Eurogroup to take a softer stance at Friday’s meeting.

GREECE’S Hotel California-quoting, motorbike-owning finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was very pleased with the deal achieved at Friday’s meeting. Perhaps he will celebrate by investing in a new jacket, because the one he has been wearing looks suspiciously like it was taken from Chairman Mao’s wardrobe.

I was wondering whether the red strip at the back of the collar that is always turned up was intended to make a political point or it was just part of the quirky design. He had left the Burberry scarf at home on Friday because there were comments on social media that it was an expensive accessory that no self-respecting socialist should wear.

WHEN he visited the UK a couple of weeks ago, Varoufakis was invited to give a speech to a group of

Red stripe, no tie

investors and hedge fund managers at the Reform Club in central London. On his arrival there he was told by the receptionist that he could not go inside without a tie.

The receptionist brought out a rack of ties for Varoufakis to choose one, so he could be allowed into the club. But the minister was adamant that he would not wear a tie, so the receptionist told him that he could not enter.

Members of the party accompanying him ran in different directions to find another venue for the presentation and in the end managed to hire two function rooms in a nearby hotel at which the wearing of a tie was not compulsory. I thought the refusal to wear a tie is a silly act of youth rebellion that most men get over by the time they reach 50, but I was wrong.

SPEAKING of sartorial taste, I have to say something about the jackets worn by the former head of the Paphos Sewerage Board Eftychios Malekides who on Wednesday was sentenced to six years in jail for corruption. Malekides sported some of the most tastelessly garish, cheap-looking jackets I have ever seen and it made me wonder: the guy stole all that money and he still could not pay for a half-decent, properly-fitting jacket. Money always seems to go to the wrong people, even when it is stolen.

ON A RECENT visit, the Troikans were quite appalled to find out the glacial speed with which the Lands and Surveys Department issued title deeds. They were discussing the privatisation of the Cyprus Ports Authority, examining its assets and discovered that the Authority had no title deeds for the land on which the Limassol Port was built.

Back in 1972, the government had asked for a loan from the World Bank for the building of the port. The Bank said the Authority would have to have assets to use as collateral for the loan and so the government transferred the state land to it. Forty-three years later, the Lands and Surveys Department had still not got round to issuing the title deeds.

THE TWO-DAY meeting of the National Council that was supposed to have formulated the new strategy for not solving the Cyprob ended in disagreement. We hope to have something about the dead-end strategies proposed by the more patriotic of our parties in next week’s shop although I am not making any promises.

What is worth mentioning from the meeting was Junior’s assertion that “the strategy of the good child has failed.” By ‘good’ he means ‘well-behaved’. The implication is that now we have to adopt “the strategy of the badly-behaved child”. I think the National Council is making progress – the acceptance that we are following the strategy of a child (whether he is bad or good is irrelevant) is a step in the right direction.

Once the strategy of the bad child fails as well, there is hope our politicians might follow the strategy of the grown-up, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

PRESIDENT Anastasiades flies to Russia on Tuesday for his eagerly-awaited official visit at the invitation of President Putin. No other official visit by a Cyprus head of state has had the build-up, attracted such attention or been talked about as much as this Moscow trip. Party leaders, politicians, newspaper columnists and radio-show presenters have all been talking and writing about the visit since it was first announced – before the date had even been set – last October, telling Anastasiades what he should be discussing and what type of agreements he should sign with Putin.

Our political and media establishment have always considered Russia – and the Soviet Union – a great friend and supporter of Cyprus, which could always be relied on to help us out when we were in trouble, in stark contrast to the hated Americans and British that were always siding with Turkey. The official narrative, from the time of the Cold War, was that Moscow took a ‘principled stand’ on the Cyprus problem, whereas the US and NATO were responsible for all the harm caused to island. This simplistic approach has been the biggest and most long-lasting success of AKEL propaganda; the party that took its orders from and was funded by the Kremlin during the Soviet era.

This ‘special relationship’ continued after the collapse of the Soviet Union because of the establishment of Russian businesses in Cyprus and the big boost this gave to the economy, even though it had nothing to do with the Moscow government which, a few years ago, placed the island on black-list because of the failure of the tax authorities to provide it with information. There is no doubt that the presence of Russian businesses has been very beneficial to the economy, but if it were up to the Moscow government they would all have re-located to the Federation by now as part of Putin’s de-offshorisation drive.

But the unfounded belief that Russia would always help Cyprus pre-dates the growth of business relations. In the ’60s newspapers were regularly being fed misinformation by the Makarios government about Soviet troops coming to help the Greek Cypriots when Turkey was making threats; they never came. This myth is still alive. After the first Eurogroup meeting, two years ago, the then finance minister went to Moscow to seek financial assistance while our politicians were assuring us that Russia would help us out. No assistance was given and why should it have been? Putin had already loaned the Christofias government €2.5 billion and had no obligation whatsoever to bail Cyprus out again.

Our politicians once again assured us that Russia would come to the rescue in October last year when Turkey issued the navtex and sent the Barbaros into the Cypriot EEZ. Moscow, understandably, sat on the fence and issued a statement that urged both sides to show restraint and avoid actions that threatened the peace process. Its position was very similar to that of the US and Britain that had been lambasted for their stand. Immediately the politicians put across the simplistic view that we had lost Russia’s support because the Anastasiades government had decided to forge stronger relations with the US and had been seeking NATO membership.

This was why in the build-up to this visit some politicians have called for the signing of a defence agreement and urged the government to offer Russia military facilities and ‘align its interests with Moscow’s’ whatever that meant. Some newspapers reported that military bases could be offered and only a statement by the foreign minister, a couple of weeks ago, put an end to the speculation. There will be a defence agreement but it would be nothing more than the renewal of a much older one relating to the maintenance of military equipment and the provision of spare parts.

Anastasiades, who will be accompanied by three of his ministers, and Putin will also sign co-operation agreements on trade, energy, tourism, education, commercial shipping, telecommunications and agriculture, among other things. These are the type of issues that states which enjoy good relations sign agreements on. But our politicians and journalists should compare the Anastasiades visit to Putin’s visit to Turkey at the end of last year which demonstrated how the foundations of strong and deep relations between states are built.

Putin was accompanied by 10 ministers, he offered to lower the price of gas sold to Turkey, proposed the building of a gas pipeline that used Turkey as a transit point and set a target, with President Erdogan, of increasing two-way trade, currently at $33 billion, to $100 billion in the next six years. Strong relations between states are built on common interests, mutual benefits and thriving trade, not on myths, propaganda and wishful thinking.
This is in no criticism of Russia, which like any other country is pursuing what it considers its national interests, but an attempt to give Cyprus’ relations with Moscow a sense of perspective, the lack of which was depressingly evident again in the build up to Anastasiades’ visit.

By Constantinos Psillides
TREATMENT requests for cannabis use have tripled in Cyprus in the last six years – with a potent strain of the drug that is easily available here posing a serious mental health risk to a younger generation of Cypriots.
Skunk, as it is known, bears little resemblance to the relatively harmless narcotic that their parents might have experimented with.
An alarming new study by Kings College in London, and published in The Lancet, raised the alert this week, revealing that regular skunk users are effectively playing Russian roulette with their mental health. Daily users are five times more likely to be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder than non-users.
Skunk can make them more susceptible to or even induce depression, bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia. Many users suffer from paranoia. And the damage can be irreversible.
In an investigation into the increased use and dangers of skunk, the Sunday Mail has spoken to health officials, drug enforcement officers, psychiatrists, parents and users themselves.
A psychiatrist in Limassol told us it is now vital that parents educate themselves about the drug and open lines of communication to their children.
“One of my patients, a middle-aged successful businessman who was being treated for anxiety, accidentally came across in my office a young girl I was treating for abusing skunk. She was almost completely lost in her world, reacting to things that were in her head when he saw her,” the psychiatrist said. “He was so scared that the very next day he brought his two kids around and asked me to talk to them on the dangers of drugs.”
The report from scientists from the Department of Psychosis Studies of the Kings College in London and led by Dr Marta Di Forti showed a striking difference between the effects of skunk and the weaker, older form of cannabis, hash resin.
Hash seemed not to add to a person’s risk of psychosis – even if smoked daily.
Skunk is shorthand for around 100 strains of cannabis that contain a high proportion of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the drug’s primary psychoactive compound. But the levels of another compound, cannabidiol – which may have anti-psychotic effects – are the reverse, high in hash and virtually zero in skunk.
The researchers speculate this could be due to the differing chemical make-up of the two forms: “The presence of cannabidiol [in hash] might explain our results, which showed that hash users do not have any increase in risk of psychotic disorders compared with non-users.”
While experienced cannabis users can tell when they are presented with skunk rather than hash, the same can not be said for younger, first time users.
According to the Cyprus Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, first time users – as young as 14 – nowadays run a much higher risk of being exposed to the high-potency skunk that is now more widely available.
The Drug Squad (YKAN) is fully aware of the high-potency cannabis now available and the challenges that poses.
“The cannabis that we seize today has very little to do with the cannabis used before. Our lab analysis on the cannabis confiscated indeed shows a much larger concentration of THC than before,” said YKAN spokesman Stelios Sergides.
“This is a far more potent drug and perhaps parents don’t realise that this is not the same drug they used when they were younger.”
While requests for opioids treatment have been declining since 2004, those for cannabis use have skyrocketed. According to the latest figures from the Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, requests for treatment for cannabis use almost tripled from 210 in 2009 to 597 in 2012.
It is important to note that these figures include those who either voluntarily checked in for treatment or were forced to do so by police to avoid incarceration. Since 2010, instead of locking up younger drug users (14 to 24), and especially those caught using cannabis, police have ordered them to complete a rehabilitation programme. Upon completion of the programme, the offender is released without any ramifications from the court.
Officially, cannabis use in Cyprus remains low compared to the rest of Europe, but it has risen significantly in recent years. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 9.9 per cent of Cypriots over 15 say they have tried cannabis compared to the European average of 23.2 per cent. That is a 3.3 per cent rise from the 6.6 per cent reported in 2006.
Another sign is the huge increase in the quantities of cannabis seized by police which jumped over 100 percent in a single year. Some 202 kilos of cannabis were confiscated in 2014 compared to 99 kilos in 2013.
“We are concerned by this sharp increase and because of that and the apparent increase in drug use, we will commission a study on drug use in Cyprus for 2015,” said YKAN’s Sergides
Tonia Bayada, executive secretary of the Cyprus Anti-Drug Council (CAC) told the Sunday Mail that the far more potent varieties of cannabis now available is taken into consideration when drafting the national strategy on drugs.
She said that the CAC informs all authorities tasked with informing the public – such as the education ministry and police – that skunk-like cannabis is becoming increasingly potent.
But why do people turn to skunk? According to one 34-year-old male, who is a frequent and long-time user, “the taste, smell and effects of skunk are far superior to that of the regular stuff.”
Asked if he can tell between skunk and regular cannabis, the user said that any experienced user can, mainly because skunk -as the name suggests – has a far stronger smell.
The Limassol psychiatrist, who has treated many substance abuse cases, said that for a long-time user, transitioning to more powerful forms of cannabis is a natural progression.
“Frequent, long-time users build tolerance to the drug. Seeking new, more powerful varieties is only to be expected,” he said.
The psychiatrist, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that the findings of the Kings College study did not surprise him at all.
“They describe things that I come across all the time. Indeed, using high potency skunk can have an effect on your brain and I’m sad to say that some times the damage is irreversible.”
While the psychiatrist said that frequent use of more potent strains of skunk increases the chances of a psychotic episode, he warned that even the “one time thing” can be harmful.
“This is what unfortunately most people don’t understand. Of course chronic and frequent use greatly increases the risk but even smoking high potency skunk once can be harmful.”
The psychiatrist urged parents to educate themselves on the drugs available and open lines of communication with their children.
“Children need to feel that they can confide in their parents about stuff like this. They need to know that they can talk to them and not be afraid. The vast majority of first time users fall victims to peer pressure. It is important to know what they are getting into and even if they do, to be able to get their parents’ advice,” he said.

High potency cannabis or skunk

A generational ignorance

A 55-year-old mother from Limassol describes how she failed to see the signs of her son’s skunk habit

I come from a generation that smoked dope. It never particularly appealed to me, but I took it periodically at university and afterwards. It’s what you did.
When I had children I never viewed cannabis as a substance that I had to fear as they grew into teenagers. I was far more concerned about cigarettes and alcohol and it was there I focused my messages.
So when my son, now 23, started becoming moody, withdrawn, unreasonably angry, unwilling to go to school from the age of 17, I assumed it was him being just a teenager.
As the months wore on and important exams loomed, he did less and less work. The arguments grew along with his anger. By then he had admitted he had tried dope, and yet because I still viewed it as a relatively harmless, occasional drug, I totally failed to make the connection between the drug and the behaviour. I put his attitude down to computer games, staying out too late and the classic male teenaged laziness.
He did better in his exams than he deserved and got into a very good Scottish university. At first things seemed to go well, but in reality he had gone from one set of dope-smoking friends in Cyprus to a similar group in England. By the middle of his second term it was hard to contact him. When I did, he admitted he hadn’t been attending lectures, that his sleeping patterns were all over the place and that he was smoking a lot of cannabis.
More worryingly he insisted on talking quietly, convinced that people were listening to what he was saying. He spoke of friends in an increasingly paranoid way. He felt he had little control over his daily life and no hope for the future. As the weeks wore on he became increasingly isolated, going for days and barely leaving his room because of the way he thought people were looking at him. He was utterly miserable. I was distraught.
He barely scraped through his first year and came back to Cyprus morose, deflated, depressed and with weird tales of people hiding his things that didn’t make much sense.
It was the signs of paranoia that scared me. I couldn’t put that down to him just finding it difficult to adjust to a new life abroad. By then, I had done my reading. Skunk – the malign and dangerous form of cannabis my son had access to – bore little resemblance to the stuff I smoked years ago. I had no doubt his state of mind was largely down to the cumulative effects of the high-potency cannabis he had smoked. Neither, of course, did the doctor we took him to.
The doctor convinced my son he had to stop. Immediately and completely. It meant changing his friendships and lifestyle. He didn’t find it easy. He still doesn’t, yet he went back to university, has apparently turned his life around, and graduated last year with a good degree.

Traditional marijuana

‘I had a panic attack’

A very occasional cannabis smoker recalls her first experience of skunk

Most people probably have memorable weddings. Mine – the civil wedding at least – in the eighties was followed by a reception with five other people piled into my now-ex husband’s Volkswagen Beetle somewhere in Nicosia as it filled with marijuana smoke. A little late to become a hippy, but in those days there wasn’t much else for young people to do in Cyprus. Nicosia had around three pubs, one cinema, one nightclub, one Wimpy’s and one TV channel.
I had never smoked before coming to Cyprus let alone smoked marijuana, so I was dragged a little unwillingly into a group of around four other mixed-nationality married couples in their twenties whose life revolved around it. My ex always had a couple of plants on hand that he grew in the shed behind his mother’s house. At the time I wasn’t working so I tried it out of boredom. As a drug, it had no effect at all. Unfortunately the tobacco it was mixed with did and I became a smoker instead, had no interest in pot after that and didn’t touch it for around 20 years.
In the last ten years or so I have tried it again a couple of times to help with some back pain and found what was now on offer much stronger than what my ex grew. I did feel the effects though all it did was put me right to sleep. I had not used any for years but over Christmas my 27-year-old son, who lives abroad, left behind enough for one cigarette.
One Saturday late in January, feeling tired and stressed with an achy back, I decided I might as well use it up. It was very, very strong. I headed off to sleep but within minutes felt the onset of a panic attack caused by fearful thoughts. Luckily, I defeated them by distracting my mind. I won’t be trying it again, back pain or not.

By Mary Milliken

Former child star Kirk Cameron tried “Saving Christmas,” but he more likely killed a career comeback with the movie that ruled at this year’s Razzies, the awards for the worst achievement in film.

Cameron, 44, was declared the big winner at Saturday night’s 35th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony, taking four of the six categories in which he and his Christian family comedy “Saving Christmas” were nominated: worst picture, worst actor, worst screenplay and worst screen combo – for him and his ego.

The tongue-in-cheek answer to Sunday’s Academy Awards poked fun at another Cameron, as in Diaz, who won the $4.97 gold spray-painted berry trophy for worst actress for two comedies, “The Other Woman” and “Sex Tape.”

But in a sign that there can be redemption after a Razzie, actor/director Ben Affleck won the inaugural Redeemer award, going from his Razzie-earning role in 2003’s “Gigli” to 2013 Oscar best picture winner “Argo” and box office hit “Gone Girl.”

Affleck was deemed more redeemable in a popular online vote than fellow nominees Jennifer Aniston, Mike Myers, Keanu Reeves and Kristen Stewart.

Director Michael Bay might have gotten off lightly. His special effects spectacle “Transformers: Age of Extinction” led all movies with seven Razzie nominations, but was only worthy of worst director and worst supporting actor for Kelsey Grammer.

Megan Fox won worst supporting actress for her role in the reboot film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

The award for worst remake, rip-off or sequel went to “Annie,” the modern telling of the Broadway classic that hackers leaked online before its December opening after attacking Sony Pictures.

The Razzies are handed out at a ceremony in the heart of Hollywood on Oscar eve, although those honored seldom show up.

The ignominious awards are chosen by 811 members in 47 U.S. states and 20 foreign countries who pay a minimum annual fee of $40 their first year and $25 thereafter.

As the Razzie organizers noted, their society is not alone in panning “Saving Christmas”. Users of the international movie database IMDB.com rated it the No. 1 worst movie of all time, while it scored a rare perfect “Zero” rating on critic aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

In the film, the child star of television’s “Growing Pains” who later became an evangelical Christian tries to “put Christ back into Christmas.”

By Piya Sinha-Roy

Dark showbiz satire “Birdman,” and coming-of-age tale “Boyhood,” took the top honors at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, a day before Hollywood’s biggest night when both will face off in the top Oscars categories.

“Birdman,” nominated for nine Oscars on Sunday, won three Spirit Awards, including the top prize of best feature.

“We’re threatened as a species into extinction,” Alejandro Iñárritu, director of “Birdman,” said of independent filmmakers in his acceptance speech. “These kinds of awards are where we can celebrate the cinema that is being forgotten.”

“Birdman” led the nominees with five nods along with jazz drama “Whiplash,” which won two accolades, and civil rights drama “Selma,” which left empty handed.

“Boyhood,” filmed over a span of 12 years and nominated for six Oscars, won the best director award for Richard Linklater and best supporting actress for Patricia Arquette.

All four acting categories were won by Oscar-nominated frontrunners, including Michael Keaton for best actor for “Birdman.” In his acceptance speech, he called the film “bold cinema,” and a “game-changer.”

Julianne Moore was named best actress for her portrayal of a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in “Still Alice.”

“I was lucky enough to come in at the beginning of the independent film movement and its really shaped my life and career,” she said in an emotional acceptance speech.

The 30th annual Spirit Awards, hosted by Film Independent, honors the best achievements across movies made under $20 million and are often an indicator of Academy Award winners, with drama “12 Years a Slave,” taking top honors at both the Spirit Awards and Oscars last year.

Unlike the formal glitz of the Oscars, the Spirit Awards opts for a relaxed, boozy lunch in a Santa Monica tent on California’s coast. The show, hosted by Kristen Bell and Fred Armisen, was broadcast live for the first time on cable network IFC.

“Hollywood movies may be keeping the industry afloat, but the people in this room are keeping the industry alive,” said “Boyhood” star Ethan Hawke as he presented the best supporting female award to Arquette.

J.K. Simmons won best supporting actor for “Whiplash,” and thanked his fellow nominees in the category.

Poland’s “Ida” won best international film, while “CitizenFour,” about National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, won best documentary. Both are nominated for Oscars.

Dan Gilroy, nominated for the best screenplay Oscar, won best screenplay and first feature for “Nightcrawler.”

By Toby Davis

Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane stoked controversy with a goal six minutes into added time to rescue a 2-2 home draw with West Ham United while Liverpool’s top-four hopes were boosted by a 2-0 win at Southampton on Sunday.

Kane’s status as the Premier League’s man-of-the-moment looked fully justified when he burst into the box to win a last-gasp penalty at White Hart Lane and stepped up to convert on the rebound after his initial effort was parried.

As well as sending the home crowd into raptures, it completed a superb comeback for the hosts who had trailed 2-0 to goals from Cheikhou Kouyate and Diafra Sakho, before Danny Rose’s scrappy effort heralded a late cavalry charge.

There was no need for late heroics by Liverpool, who took the lead after three minutes at St Mary’s through Philippe Coutinho’s stunning curler that caught the underside of the crossbar on its way past Southampton keeper Fraser Forster.

The match was dripping with controversy, however, as the hosts had three penalty appeals turned down in the driving south coast rain while Liverpool keeper Simon Mignolet handled outside the area and escaped a red card.

The three points that lifted Liverpool into sixth above Tottenham were wrapped up when Raheem Sterling converted from close range with 17 minutes remaining.

Liverpool are now a point clear of Tottenham on 45, one behind Southampton and two off fourth-placed Manchester United who occupy the final Champions League qualifying spot.

SPURS’ PROTESTS

After a bright start at White Hart Lane, Spurs fell behind, as they have done frequently this season, when Kouyate drilled his header past Lloris midway through the first half.

The visitors doubled their lead when Sakho arrived at the far post to squeeze Mark Noble’s cross back across goal and into the net after 62 minutes.

Spurs, however, have now recovered 16 points from losing positions this season and the fight back began when Adrian fluffed a punch clear, allowing fullback Rose to send a bouncing effort looping into the net.

Spurs were rewarded for their late siege when Alex Song put his arm on Kane as the forward burst into the box, giving him the chance to tumble for a penalty, which he dispatched at the second attempt.

The controversial part of Tottenham’s leveller was that it arrived after the allotted five minutes of injury time, leaving West Ham manager Sam Allardyce to fume.

When asked if referee Jonathan Moss should have blown for full-time as soon as Kane missed the initial penalty Allardyce told reporters: “The answer to that is yes. But he wouldn’t be brave enough to do that.”

DUBIOUS DECISIONS

Dubious penalty decisions were the order of the day at Southampton where Liverpool got the benefit of three contentious calls.

Filip Djuricic was twice felled in the area either side of Coutinho’s sublime opener while the sense of injustice among the home fans intensified when Mignolet appeared to handle outside his box and yet survived unpunished.

The game had not needed any extra spice as Liverpool started with former Southampton players Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovren, who both left in acrimony in the close season and whose every touch was loudly booed.

A third penalty appeal, this time for handball by Liverpool’s Emre Can, was turned down before the break and the game was wrapped up when Sterling made the most of a Matty Targett slip to drill low into the net, allowing Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers to heap praise on his players.

“To win the game was a giant step,” he said on Sky Sports. “We’ve beaten Southampton home and away, that’s a sign of how well we’re playing.”

Earlier. bottom club Leicester City came painfully close to pulling off a surprise comeback win at Everton but were pegged back to draw 2-2 when Romelu Lukaku’s header was deflected in by Matthew Upson with two minutes remaining.

Steven Naismith had given 12th-placed Everton a second-half lead before goals from Leicester’s David Nugent and Esteban Cambiasso turned the match around but they could not hold on and are now four points adrift at the foot of the table.