By Wayne Cole
The euro hit a nine-year trough on Wednesday as collapsing oil prices and worries about the world economy drove skittish investors into the arms of safe-haven sovereign debt.
From Japan to Germany to Australia, government borrowing costs reached all-time lows as oil fell 10 percent in just two days and investors wrestled with the risk of global deflation.
The Turkish far-left group DHKP-C has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack at a police station in Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district on Tuesday that killed one officer and wounded another.
A female suicide bomber entered the police station saying in English that she had lost her purse before blowing herself up inside the three-storey building, across the square from the Aya Sofya museum and the Blue Mosque, which are among the main sites for millions of visitors to Istanbul each year.
In a statement posted on “The People’s Cry” website hours after the attack, the group said the bombing was against the ruling AK Party over the killing of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who died in March last year after nine months in a coma from a head wound sustained during an anti-government protest.
“It is the same state which shot Berkin Elvan and which protects the thief ministers,” the statement said, in an apparent reference to a Monday ruling of a parliamentary commission not to commit four ex-ministers to a higher court over graft allegations.
Turkey’s Dec.17 graft probe swirled around the inner circle of then-prime minister Tayyip Erdogan and led to the resignation of the ministers of economy, interior and urbanisation.
The commission, dominated by members of the ruling AK Party, voted on Monday not to send the four ex-ministers for trial, a decision that the opposition decried as a cover-up of one of Turkey’s biggest ever corruption scandals.
DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front) also claimed responsibility for a grenade attack on police near the Turkish prime minister’s office in Istanbul last week.
The group, which had since then pledged further attacks, was also behind a suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy last year as well as attacks on police stations.
The police issued a new bulletin earlier this morning regarding the condition of the road network due to the continuing bad weather.
In the Nicosia District there is light snowfall in the Palechori and Klirou regions. Roads though are for the time being open.
In the Limassol District the roads leading to Troodos from Karvounas, Platres and Prodromos are closed to all vehicles.
All other roads in the area are open but remain slippery.
In the Morphou district the following roads are open only for cars equipped with snow chains or four wheel drives:
Kakopetria- Karvounas/Pinewood/Pedoulas
Pedoulas – Prodromos
Prodromos – Lemythou/Platres
Pedoulas – Kykkos
Milikouri – Kykkos
Kykkos – Kampos
Kampos – Stavros tis Psokas
Moutoullas – Pedoulas
Lemythou – Ayios Dimitrios
Kalopanayiotis – Moutoulas
On the Orkondas-Kambos/Kato Pyrgos and Vyzakia-Kannavia roads drivers are urged to be careful due to rock slides.
In the Paphos district the Panayia-Statou, Peyia-Polis, Kathikas-Stroumbi and Yiolou-Polis are open only to cars equipped with snow chains or four wheel drives
The police are asking all drivers to be extremely careful and check police bulletins especially for travel in the mountain areas to avoid any unnecessary disappointment.
Thirteen people on board a skydiving plane, including the pilot, parachuted to safety in New Zealand on Wednesday moments before the aircraft crashed into a lake.
Witnesses saw a steady stream of people jumping from the plane, which authorities said experienced mechanical failure on its way to Lake Taupo, 280 km (175 miles) south of Auckland, for skydiving.
“I saw everyone deploy out of the plane and the next minute it was in the lake,” witness Bevan Johnhill told New Zealand’s TV3 network.
“I think the pilot he must have been the last one to get out because he ended up in the blackberries,” Johnhill said.
Television footage showed a small aircraft submerged in shallow water.
“It was nothing short of a miracle,” said Roy Clements, chief executive of Skydive Taupo, which operated the plane.
Everyone on board the plane got out and landed safely, he said.
New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Mike Richards told media it was miraculous no one was killed. An investigation into the cause of the accident had been launched, he said.
Mary Beth Goodman
A retrospective look at the conflicts dominating the headlines in 2014 presents a grim picture of escalating conflict and human suffering. Underneath the headlines is a common thread connecting the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Ukrainian protesters in the Maidan, and the Nigerian families still desperately seeking someone to #BringBackOurGirls.
That common thread is corruption.
Corruption contributed to the collapse of the Iraqi military, allowing the expansion of ISIS. It led to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s announcement that at least 50,000 “ghost soldiers” were discovered on the Iraqi payrolls, at a cost of approximately US$400 million in bogus salaries per year.
Corruption fueled ethnic and religious tensions in Nigeria and created a vacuum in leadership, allowing Boko Haram to gain a foothold and expand. And greed at the highest levels of leadership, institutionalized as kleptocracy, sparked the outrage and protests that have toppled regimes from Ukraine to Burkina Faso.
But blaring headlines only reinforce what is already patently obvious: Corruption poisons confidence in public institutions. It devastates the private investment climate, and it poleaxes poverty alleviation programs.
We see in countries around the globe that corruption – and the frustration it leads to – undermines democracy and the rule of law, fuels crime, and unleashes a host of security threats.
Until recently, corruption has largely been perceived like bad weather: Everyone has professed to hate it, but few have thought they could do anything about it. In far too many countries, corruption is normalized as an expected cost of doing business, and tolerated as a perk of entitlement for political and bureaucratic elites.
But views on corruption are changing. Citizens are increasingly standing up – and standing together – to challenge corrupt leaders who seek to plunder rather than govern. The global expansion of Internet access and increased mobilization on social media has made it easier for people to share reportage of graft and connect in their consequent outrage.
Around the world, those who felt powerless in the fight against corruption are finding new tools and new allies in the fight for transparency and accountability of governments, elites, and elected leaders.
The fight against corruption will not be won in the short term, but two movements are gaining noteworthy traction and providing additional tools for the anti-corruption arsenal.
Founded in 2011, the Open Government Partnership (O.G.P.) is a multilateral initiative founded on the premise of collaboration between government and civil society to promote transparency, fight corruption, and utilize new technologies to strengthen governance.
O.G.P. provides a framework enabling those within government, the private sector, and civil society to advance government accountability and effectiveness. Each participating country must commit to jointly develop and implement a national action plan in collaboration with civil society.
O.G.P. is unique in providing a framework for country-specific actions coupled with a supportive platform to leverage expertise from other countries and organizations. And it’s working: O.G.P. has grown to 65 participating countries, representing one-third of the world’s population and more than 1,000 open government reform commitments.
The approach of open contracting is also gaining traction with governments, civil society, and the private sector. Governments routinely sign trillions of dollars’ worth of contracts for services and infrastructure projects, but rarely do citizens know what their government is paying for, or what a particular contracted company is responsible for implementing. Aimed at increasing disclosure and participation in all stages of public contracting, open contracting efforts zero in on tendering, performance, and contract implementation.
Transparency in procurement is embedded in the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, but few of the 173 signatories to this treaty have taken any steps to implement such measures. Open contracting is helping to actualize this transparency, and gives both citizens and governments a platform for ensuring more effective delivery of public funds.
Governments in the United Kingdom, Colombia, Slovakia, Georgia, and elsewhere are now proactively publishing contracts. Other countries are publishing contracts retroactively or in specific sectors such as extractives. As the open contracting movement grows, citizens worldwide will have another powerful tool to inhibit graft, enhance effectiveness, and enforce accountability.
Citizen engagement is important in the fight against corruption, but political will is essential. Newly elected leaders such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India, President Ashraf Ghani in Afghanistan, and President Joko Widodo in Indonesia are setting examples in prioritizing the fight against corruption. In every country, implementation of critical reforms will require sustained political will and citizen engagement to help maintain the momentum.
The fight against corruption is a long and tedious battle that must cross borders and political fault lines. An active multitude of groups – from government, civil society, and the private sector – must band together to confront corrupt leaders and governments, and to draw the corrupt actors from the shadows.
Honest government will only come about when people demand it. Citizens are now issuing that call, resoundingly.
Mary Beth Goodman is a senior fellow for the National Security and International Policy team at the Center for American Progress. She previously served as the director for international economics at the White House and as a diplomat for the U.S. Department of State. She assisted in drafting the U.S. National Action Plan for the Open Government Partnership.
This article first appeared in THEMARKNEWS
Around 18 million cubic metres of water flowed into the island’s reservoirs over the weekend, lifting reserves from 27 per cent last Friday to 34 per cent by Wednesday Water Development Department official Andreas Manoli told the Cyprus News Agency.
The inflow was more than that of last year in total, which was 12 million cub metres, he said, adding that 2013 had been the worst year since 2007.
He also said they expected significant further inflows in the coming days with snow and rain continuing though not as much as flowed in over the weekend.
Both the Kalopanayiotos and Arminou dams overflowed in the past few days but both are small reservoirs. The former has a capacity of 360,000 cubic metres and the latter 4.3 million.
The bigger reservoirs remained low on supply, Manoli said.
By Gayatri Suroyo and Kanupriya Kapoor
The tail of a crashed AirAsia jet has been found upturned on the sea bed about 30 km (20 miles) from the plane’s last known location, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said on Wednesday, indicating the crucial black box recorders may be nearby.
Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java Sea on Dec. 28, less than half-way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors among the 162 people on board.
“We’ve found the tail that has been our main target,” Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue agency, told a news conference in Jakarta.
The tail was identified by divers after it was spotted by an underwater machine using a sonar scan, Soelistyo said. He displayed underwater photographs showing partial lettering on the sunken object compared with a picture of an intact Airbus A320-200 in AirAsia livery.
“I can confirm that what we found was the tail part from the pictures,” he said, adding that the team “now is still desperately trying to locate the black box”.
Indonesia’s Minister for Maritime Affairs, Indroyono Soesilo, told another news conference: “With the finding of the tail, six SAR (search and rescue) ships are already at the location to search within a radius of two nautical miles.”
Forty bodies and debris from the plane have been plucked from the surface of the waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves have been hampering divers’ efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.
Locating the tail has been a priority because the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that can provide vital clues on why the plane crashed are located in the rear section of the Airbus.
“I am led to believe the tail section has been found,” AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes tweeted minutes after the announcement.
“If (it is the) right part of tail section, then the black box should be there … We need to find all parts soon so we can find all our guests to ease the pain of our families. That still is our priority.”
In Pangkalan Bun, the southern Borneo town closest to the crash site, search and rescue agency coordinatorSupriyadi told reporters the bad weather that has dogged the operation for 10 days had abated and divers were in the water.
But, as ships with acoustic “pinger locators” designed to pick up signals from the black box converged on the scene of the find, he cautioned the tail section of the aircraft might not be fully intact.
“The location of the tail is relatively far from the point of last contact, about 30 km (20 miles),” he said.
“The black box is located behind the door, to the right of the tail. There is a possibility that the tail and the back of the plane are broken up.”
Until investigators can examine the black box recorders the cause of the crash remains a mystery, but the area where the plane was lost is known for intense seasonal storms. BMKG, Indonesia’s meteorological agency, has said bad weather may have caused ice to form on the aircraft’s engines.
Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by Fernandes’s Malaysia-based AirAsia budget group, has come under pressure from the authorities in Jakarta since the crash.
The transport ministry has suspended the carrier’s Surabaya-Singapore licence, saying it only had permission to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Flight QZ8501 took off on a Sunday, though the ministry said this had no bearing on the accident.
Fernandes however maintained that AirAsia had the required permission. “What happened was purely an administrative error,” he said in an e-mail. “The process has become clear now.”
AirAsia has said it is cooperating fully with the ministry’s investigations. That investigation would be completed by Friday evening, the transport ministry said on Wednesday.
Indonesia has also reassigned some airport and air traffic control officials who allowed the flight to take off and tightened rules on pre-flight briefing procedures.
Indonesia is one of the world’s fastest growing aviation markets and its carriers, such as Lion Air and GarudaIndonesia , are among the top customers for plane makers Airbus and Boeing.
But its safety record is patchy. The European Commission banned all Indonesia-based airlines from flying to the European Union in 2007 following a series of accidents. Exemptions to that ban have since been granted to some carriers, including Garuda and AirAsia.
By Angelos Anastasiou
A tanker damaged a jetty at Vassilikos port when it crashed into the trestle after unloading its gasoil cargo in VTT Vassiliko company’s storage tanks, the company said.
“In its effort to depart the port under extreme weather conditions, the tanker struck and damaged the jetty’s access frame,” a statement by VTT Vassiliko said.
According to the statement, a preliminary evaluation of the incident revealed that part of the jetty’s trestle, but not the oil pipelines, was damaged.
“Full evaluation of the damage will be carried out once weather conditions allow,” the company said. “This is expected to be on Thursday.”
After sustaining minor damage, the tanker was safely towed away from the jetty and anchored 2.5 kilometres away.
“No oil leaks or injuries have been incurred by the incident,” VTT Vassiliko said.
VTT Vassiliko’s oil-storage terminal, comprising 28 fuel-storage tanks that can accommodate over 540,000 cubic metres of cargo and a four-berth loading and unloading jetty, was inaugurated in November 2014 and represents a capital investment of €300 million.
Monday’s incident brings the issue of health and safety risks, stemming from the government’s vision of setting up an “energy hub” at Vassilikos area, which would accommodate VTT Vasiliko’s premises, all of Cyprus’ strategic oil reserves, and an LNG terminal (plans for which are currently on hold), back to the forefront.
Residents in surrounding villages have expressed serious reservations with regard to the prospect of concentrating so many potentially hazardous industries in the same location, with a focus on environmental and health and safety risks.
Questions have also been raised in connection with crisis-management operational capabilities and planning, especially with regard to the fire service (the closest fire station is in Kofinou, a 20-minute drive away under normal circumstances) and civil defence rapid-response scenarios.
By Marie Kambas
The total number of property transactions rose an annual 20 per cent in 2014 to 4,527, the department of lands and surveys said.
By Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s bid for a third term hung in the balance as Sri Lanka went to the polls on Thursday, with voters split between the “devil they know” and an upstart who has promised to root out corruption and political decay.
Rajapaksa won handsomely in the last election, surfing a wave of popularity that sprang from the 2009 defeat of ethnic Tamil separatists who had waged a crippling war against the government for 26 years.
Reminding voters of Rajapaksa’s triumph, state-controlled television showed clips of Wednesday’s attack in Paris by suspected Islamist militants at the offices of a satirical magazine and then switched seamlessly to old footage of the Sri Lankan war.
“When we see these images we also remember the history of terrorism in Sri Lanka,” one announcer said.
Although his popularity has waned, Rajapaksa called the election two years early, confident that the perennially fractured opposition would fail to find a credible challenger.
But he did not anticipate the emergence of Mithripala Sirisena, a cabinet minister who crossed to the other side to become the opposition’s candidate, triggering a flood of defections from the government.
“It has been a big shock for the president,” said a Western diplomat in Colombo, recalling Rajapaksa’s campaign-trail plea to voters to back “the devil they know” rather than an “unknown angel”.
Some 15 million people are eligible to vote in the election, and a result is expected to emerge in the early hours of Friday.
With more than 25,000 domestic and about 70 foreign monitors observing the vote, the election commission said it was confident the poll would be free and fair.
Nevertheless, rumours were rife this week that force would be used in some areas to scare Sirisena voters away, that the result would somehow be distorted or even that the military might be deployed if Rajapaksa looked set to lose.
A local observer group, the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence, said there had been “unparalleled misuse of state resources and media” by Rajapaksa’s party and that police inaction had given free rein to election-related violence in which one person was killed and dozens were injured.
A hand grenade was hurled at a house next to a polling station in the Tamil-majority north of the country but officials said no one was hurt by what appeared to be an attempt to intimidate voters. Election officials said voter turnout in the once war-torn northern district stood at 30 percent by noon.
Voting proceeded with few hitches elsewhere, but in Colombo the chief election commissioner visited a state-run television station to demand it correct a report that a prominent opposition leader had defected to Rajapaksa’s camp.
YEARNING FOR CHANGE
There were no reliable opinion polls ahead of the vote, but many believe Sirisena will benefit from a popular yearning for change after a decade under Rajapaksa.
The economy has flourished in recent years, and many voters – especially ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists who represent 70 per cent of the population – believe that sticking with Rajapaksa will keep living standards on an upward path.
However, many voters complain of high living costs, rampant corruption and an authoritarian style that has concentrated power in the hands of the president’s family.
On foreign policy, Rajapaksa has cold-shouldered neighbouring India. He has also fallen out with Western countries that want an international investigation of possible war crimes and criticise his record on human rights, turning instead to China as a strategic and investment partner.
Sirisena, who would lead a potentially fractious coalition of ethnic, religious, Marxist and centre-right parties if he wins, has pledged to abolish the executive presidency that gave Rajapaksa unprecedented power and hold a fresh parliamentary election within 100 days.
He has also promised a crackdown on corruption, which would include investigations into big infrastructure projects such as a $1.5 billion deal with China Communications Construction Co Ltd to build a port city.
Flu season is likely to bring on a number of cases of the H1N1 virus, which killed four out of the 27 cases recorded last year, the health ministry said on Thursday.
Since the last week of December an increasing number of people have been visiting hospitals islandwide with flu symptoms, according to Dr Maria Koliou head of the of Infectious Diseases Monitoring Unit at the ministry but so far the numbers were not alarming.
Koliou told the Cyprus News Agency that last year’s wave of influenza and H1N1 began in the last week of December. She said symptoms usually start suddenly and include high fever, aching muscles and joints, headache, extreme tiredness, runny nose, sore throat and cough (usually dry). The virus can last from two to seven days but the cough may persist for some time.
Most vulnerable to the H1N1 strain would be the elderly or those people with underlying medical conditions, Koliou said, adding that in the case of the four recorded deaths last year, this was the case.
She also urged people to avail of the flu vaccine, saying it was not too late for the jab.
By Cindy Silviana and Michael Taylor
Scores of divers plunged into the Java Sea on Thursday to search the wreckage of an AirAsia jet for the black box recorders that could reveal why the plane crashed, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said.
Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java Sea on Dec. 28, less than half-way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors among the 162 people on board.
The cause of the crash remains a mystery, with hopes centring on the so-called black boxes – the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder – providing vital clues. The plane which crashed was an Airbus A320-200, which carries the recorders near the tail section.
The tail of the plane was found on Wednesday, upturned on the sea bed about 30 km (20 miles) from the plane’s last known location at a depth of around 28-32 metres.
“After we found the tail, our plan is to do everything step by step,” Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue agency, told a news conference in Jakarta. “First we will (check whether) the black box is still at its place, in the tail, or if it has detached.”
A total of 84 divers are in ships in the vicinity and teams began searching the jet’s tail at 0645 local time (2345 GMT Wednesday), with visibility poor and strong currents still impeding efforts, Soelistyo added.
Should diving teams confirm the location of the recorders, the tail will probably be plucked out of the sea using a crane capable of lifting 70 tonnes.
Ships with acoustic “pinger locators” designed to pick up signals from the black boxes were at the location but were no longer being used, in a possible sign of confidence among Indonesian officials that the recorders will be found soon.
Two Japanese ships that were part of the international effort to find the plane would now leave the mission on Friday, Soelistyo added.
“Now that the tail is confirmed, we are confident,” Mardjono Siswosuwarno, the main investigator of the National Transportation Safety Committee, told Reuters late on Wednesday. “In my opinion, the pinger locators are no longer necessary to finding the black box.”
Forty bodies and debris from the plane have been plucked from the surface of the waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves have been hampering divers’ efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.
In Pangkalan Bun, the southern Borneo town closest to the crash site, Indonesian armed forces chief Moeldoko said he would personally lead any mission to lift the jet’s tail.
Weather agency officials warned on Thursday that although weather conditions at search areas had improved over the last two days, it was likely to worsen from Friday onwards.
Indonesia AirAsia, 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based AirAsia budget group, has come under pressure from the authorities in Jakarta since the crash.
The transport ministry has suspended the carrier’s Surabaya-Singapore licence, saying it only had permission to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Flight QZ8501 took off on a Sunday, though the ministry said this had no bearing on the accident.
AirAsia has said it is cooperating fully with the ministry’s investigations. That investigation would be completed by Friday evening, the transport ministry said.
By Erik Kirschbaum
Ukraine’s prime minister blamed Russian intelligence on Thursday for a hacker attack against German government websites, for which a pro-Russian group claimed responsibility.
The attack on Wednesday took place before Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk was due to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Russian group demanded Berlin end support for the Ukrainian government.
“I strongly recommend that the Russian secret services stop spending taxpayer money for cyberattacks against the Bundestag and Chancellor Merkel’s office,” Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk told ZDF TV when asked if pro-Russian hackers from Ukraine were responsible.
The attack included web pages for Merkel and for the German parliament. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibbert, said counter-measures were taken but failed to halt the attack, which left the sites inaccessible from 10 am (0900 GMT) Wednesday until the evening.
In a statement on its website, a group calling itself CyberBerkut claimed responsibility. “Berkut” refers to the riot squads used by the government of Ukraine’s former president, the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, who was ousted after violent protests last February. The claim could not be verified.
It was believed to be the first successful prolonged attack on German government websites, which intelligence agencies say face about 3,000 such assaults daily. About five of the daily attacks come from foreign intelligence agencies, the head of the BfV domestic intelligence agency said recently.
The attack comes after US investigators said they believed North Korea had probably hired hackers for a massive cyber attack against Sony Pictures. North Korea blamed the United States for internet outages it suffered soon after.
By Atul Prakash
European shares rose sharply on Thursday, tracking gains in the United States and Asia, as retail stocks rallied and the minutes from the Fed’s recent meeting reassured investors that it was not in a hurry to start raising rates.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 1.3 percent at 1,347.70 points by 0856 GMT, helped by a 1.4 percent rise in the STOXX Europe 600 Retail index.
The SBA Police’s Acting Chief Superintendent George Kiteos has been awarded the Overseas Territories Police and Fire Service Medal by Her Majesty the Queen in the New Year’s Honours List, making him the first Cypriot to have ever received such an award.
Kiteos, currently the highest ranking Cypriot police officer working in the SBAs, was given the award after serving the force with distinction since joining up as an 18 year old in 1985.
His work during the opening ceremony of Cyprus accepting the EU Presidency at Curium in 2012, where he took command of more than 200 SBA Police officers and had responsibility for 400 Cyprus Police officers, was highlighted as one of the reasons he was given the award, an announcement from the bases said on Thursday.
“His standing within the local community, where he is active as a police officer in forging closer relationships between the police and the public and his outstanding charity work ethic, were also cited as key contributing factors in him receiving the prestigious honour.”
Speaking about the award himself, the Acting Chief Superintendent said it was a great honour to have been given the awarded “and to be the first Cypriot to receive it is very humbling”.
“I actually received a call from President Anastasiades when I was at home to congratulate me which was a huge surprise. He told me he was proud of me and that I had made the whole of Cyprus proud and that means so much to me.”
Also, SBA Police Divisional Commander in the ESBA, Jim Guy, received the Queen’s Police Medal in the New Year’s Honours List and for his outstanding service to policing.
SBA Police Chief Constable Mick Matthews paid tribute to both men: “On behalf of the whole force I wish to formally congratulate both officers on this excellent achievement and very well deserved recognition.”
By Maria Gregoriou
Most of us have made a list of things to do this year to improve ourselves, whether it’s to have a fitter body, to expand our knowledge or to take more time for ourselves, doing things we like. Although the list may be stuck in the inside cover of a very fresh diary, we can still add to it and find more to do as the year goes by. So here are two events that may help you, or someone close to you, add a new personal experience to their 2015 list.
The first is a workshop entitled Inside the Sexual World organised by the Youth for Exchange & Understanding non-governmental organisation (YEU Cyprus). With this workshop and other events the organisation aims at giving young people a better understanding of the world.
As the talk about the birds and the bees is never an easy one, and as the world is now one where sexual identity is something which often needs to be identified, and may be confusing to young minds, the workshop is ideal for providing young people with information about sex.
The workshop will be given in a laid back environment by YEU Cyprus volunteers who will expose the myths of romantic love and provide information about how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. This information, along with discussions about alternative sexual practices, sexual diversity and human rights in the sexual context, will also be part of the workshop and may be given in the form of role-play games and stories.
The workshop, which will be delivered in English, is aimed at young people but it can also be attended by educators and anyone interested in the topic. Certificates of attendance will be given after the workshop but a limited number of places are being offered.
On January 21 the workshop will be followed by an 8pm screening of the 1999 film Boys Don’t Cry, about female-born Teena Brandon who adopts his male identity of Brandon Teena and attempts to find himself and love in Nebraska.
If feeding your mind is something that will be taking a back seat this year, and getting your body into shape is what you are aiming for, then Technopolis 20 Cultural Centre in Paphos will be hosting three free dance seminars by Nandia Georgiadoum, founder of the Motion Through Space dance school in Paphos, for different ages and levels throughout the month.
The first dance seminar, which will take place on Tuesday, is suitable for people from 25 to 70 and it will use practices from Nia, a sensory-based movement practice. The philosophy behind Nia is that through movement we find health and that exercising should be an action that makes you feel good.
The second dance seminar, on Thursday, will be on modern dance and is suitable for people from 14 to 17. By learning dance, teenagers can exceed their known boundaries, express themselves, and get to know themselves and their body.
The last dance seminar on next Saturday is for children from six to nine years old, and it is a creative dance class. These dance classes will enable children to improvise and express themselves using their imagination to create their own choreography.
Inside the Sexual World Workshop
A Non-Formal Education workshop on sexuality, diversity, health and rights. January 17. YEU Cyprus, 27 Ezekia Papaioannou, Nicosia. 10.30am-6.30pm. Tel: 99-573646. E-mail: life.evs.cyprus@gmail.com
Free Dance Seminars
A dance seminar with Nandia Georgiadou for people from 25 to 70. January 13. Technopolis 20, Paphos. 6pm-7pm. In Greek and English. Tel: 70-002420
Contemporary dance seminar with Nandia Georgiadou for people from 14 to 17. January 15.
Creative dance seminar with Nandia Georgiadou for kids from six to nine years old. January 17.
By Angelos Anastasiou
The trial of the case of corruption in the Paphos Sewerage Board (SAPA) involving kickbacks paid to municipal officials and misappropriation of public funds, was adjourned and rescheduled for January 23 by the Paphos Assize court on Thursday.
Court president Dora Socratous said the court accepted the six defendants’ request for a continuance so that they could offer their pleas after reviewing the prosecution’s body of evidence.
The six defendants are former Paphos mayor Savvas Vergas, suspended SAPA director Eftychios Malekkides, former DISY municipal councillor Giorgos Michaelides, former DIKO councillor Efstathios Efstathiou, former AKEL councillor Vasos Vasiliou, and sitting AKEL councillor Giorgos Shailis.
Among others, they are facing the charge of having conspired to extort money from private contractors awarded SAPA contracts.
The Paphos Assize court comprises president Dora Socratous, Senior district judge Lia Markou, and District Assize court judge Michalis Droushiotis.
In its ruling, the court ordered that the defendants be released on bail and under conditions, including handing their travel documents to the police, adding their names to the ‘stop list’ so they cannot leave the country, and present themselves to a police station daily.
Bail was set at €200,000 for each defendant.
Vergas’ attorney Giorgos Georgiou told the court that his client planned to plead guilty, but asked for additional time to study the prosecution’s evidence.
A similar request was submitted by Malekkides’ lawyer Costas Efstathiou, as well as Michaelides’ lawyer Giorgos Hadjineophytou and Efstathiou’s lawyer Loukas Karnos.
In addition to requesting a continuance, Vasiliou’s lawyers raised the issue of their client’s obligation to present himself to a police station daily, which they said they would raise at a later point.
Shailis’ defence, lawyers Alexandros Alexandrou and Costas Shailis, noted that several pre-trial issues would be raised in connection with the charge-sheet, and argued that they had yet to receive the prosecution’s full body of evidence.
For the prosecution, Xenia Xenofontos did not object to the defendants’ request, and added that the evidence would be delivered to them following additional statements.
In total, the defendants are facing 153 charges, including conspiracy to commit a crime, conspiracy to defraud, bribery of a public official, abuse of power, unjust enrichment, and others.
Of the 153 charges, Malekkides faces 67, Vergas 58, Michaelides 25, Efstathiou 15, and Vasiliou and Shailis 7 each.
By Alexandria Sage and John Irish
A policewoman was killed in a shootout in southern Paris on Thursday, triggering searches in the area as the manhunt widened for two brothers suspected of killing 12 people at a satirical magazine in an apparent Islamist militant strike.
Police sources could not immediately confirm a link with the killings at Charlie Hebdo weekly newspaper which marked the worst attack on French soil for decades and which national leaders and allied states described as an assault on democracy.
Montrouge mayor Pierre Brossollette said the policewoman and a colleague went to the site to deal with a traffic accident. A car stopped and a man got out and shot at them before fleeing.
Witnesses said the shooter fled in a Renault Clio car. Police sources said he had been wearing a bullet-proof vest and had a handgun and assault rifle. However, one police officer at the scene told Reuters the man did not appear to fit the bill of the Charlie Hebdo shooters.
Live French television showed around a dozen police dressed in protective wear and helmets massed outside a building near the scene of the shoot-out.
The new incident came as France began a day of mourning for the journalists of Charlie Hebdo weekly and police officers shot dead on morning by black-hooded gunmen using Kalashnikov assault rifles. French tricolour flags flew at half mast.
Charlie Hebdo is well known for lampooning Islam, other religions and political figures. Tens of thousands took part in vigils across France on Wednesday to defend freedom of speech, many wearing badges declaring “Je Suis Charlie” (I Am Charlie) in support of the newspaper and the principle of freedom of speech.
Newspapers across Europe on Thursday either re-published its cartoons or mocked the killers with images of their own.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph depicted two masked gunman outside the doors of Charlie Hebdo saying to each other: “Be careful, they might have pens”. Many German newspapers republished Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
Police released photos of the two French nationals still at large, calling them “armed and dangerous”: brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, aged 32 and 34, both of whom were already under watch by security services.
The attack has raised questions of security in countries throughout the Western world and beyond. Muslim community leaders have condemned the attack, but some have expressed fears of a rise in anti-islamic feeling in a country with a large Muslim population.
In a separate incident, police sources said the window of a kebab shop next to a mosque in the central town of Villefrance-sur-Saone was blown out by an overnight explosion. Local media said there were no wounded.
Security services have long feared that nationals drawn into Islamist militant groups fighting in Syria and Iraq could return to their home countries to launch attacks – though there is no suggestion that the two suspects named by police had actually fought in either of these countries.
Britain’s Cobra security committee was meeting on Thursday morning. London’s transport network was target of an attack in 2005, four years after 9/11. There have been attacks in Kenya, Nigeria, India and Pakistan that have raised fears in Europe.
Islamist militants have repeatedly threatened France with attacks over its military strikes on Islamist strongholds in the Middle East and Africa, and the government reinforced its anti-terrorism laws last year.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France faced a terrorist threat “without precedent” and confirmed the two brothers were known to security services. But he added it was too early to say whether authorities had underestimated the threat they posed.
“Because they were known, they had been followed,” he told RTL radio, adding: “We must think of the victims. Today it’s a day of mourning.”
A total of seven people had been arrested since the attack, he said. Police sources said they were mostly acquaintances of the two main suspects. One source said one of the brothers had been identified by his identity card, left in the getaway car.
Late Wednesday an 18-year-old man turned himself into police in Charleville-Mézières near the Belgian border as police carried out searches in Paris and the northeastern cities of Reims and Strasbourg. A legal source said he was the brother-in-law of one of the main suspects and French media quoted friends saying he was in school at the moment of the attack.
COURTING CONTROVERSY
Cherif Kouachi served 18 months in prison on a charge of criminal association related to a terrorist enterprise in 2005. He was part of an Islamist cell enlisting French nationals from a mosque in eastern Paris to go to Iraq to fight Americans in Iraq and arrested before leaving for Iraq himself.
Video captured during the Wednesday attack showed one of the assailants outside the Charlie Hebdo offices shouting “Allahu Akbar!” (God is Greatest) as shots rang out.
Another was seen calmly walking over to a wounded police officer lying on the street and shooting him with an assault rifle. The two men then climbed into a black car and drove off.
In another clip, the men are heard shouting in French: “We have killed Charlie Hebdo. We have avenged the Prophet Mohammad.”
Charlie Hebdo (Charlie Weekly) has courted controversy in the past with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders of all faiths and has published numerous cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad. Jihadists online repeatedly warned that the magazine would pay for its ridicule.
Around France, tens of thousands of people joined impromptu rallies and vigils on Wednesday night in memory of the victims – among them some of France’s most prominent and best-loved political cartoonists – and to support freedom of speech.
Both the magazine’s founder and its current editor-in-chief were among those killed in what emergency services called to the scene described as executions carried out at point-blank range.
Satire has deep historical roots in Europe where ridicule and irreverence are seen as a means of chipping away at the authority of sometimes self-aggrandising political and religious leaders and institutions. Governments have frequently jailed satirists and their targets have often sued, but the art is widely seen as one of the mainstays of a liberal democracy.
French writer Voltaire enraged many in 18th century France with his caustic depictions of royalty and the Catholic Church. The German magazine Simplicissimus in its 70-year existence saw cartoonists jailed and fined for ridiculing figures from Kaiser Wilhelm to church leaders, Nazi grandees and communist activists.
“Freedom assassinated” wrote Le Figaro daily on its front page, while Le Parisien said: “They won’t kill freedom”.
On Thursday the highest state of alert was still in place, with tightened security at transport hubs, religious sites, media offices and department stores.
The last major attack in Paris was in the mid-1990s when the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) carried out a spate of attacks, including the bombing of a commuter train in 1995 which killed eight people and injured 150.
By James Pearson and Ju-min Park
Exactly one year ago, flamboyant NBA hall of fame star Dennis Rodman stepped up to a microphone in the centre ring of a North Korean basketball court and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to leader Kim Jong Un, the world’s youngest head of state.
Kim is believed to have turned 32 on Thursday, but this year there have been no reports of celebrations or even any public mention of the event so far in the reclusive nation. His age is apparently a state secret.
China, North Korea’s only major ally, however offered birthday wishes. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a daily briefing on Thursday that China had “expressed congratulations” to North Korea on the occasion.
In the United States, which expanded sanctions against North Korea late last month after blaming Pyongyang for a hacking attack on Sony Corp, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she had no message for Kim for his birthday.
Kim’s birth date has long been a secret in North Korea, where information about his personal life is limited and part of a highly-managed state narrative.
Rodman’s song was the first time the date was confirmed at an event where Kim was present.
His gruff, low-pitched rendition of Happy Birthday was shown incessantly on state TV after the event, and quickly became a joke among North Koreans who sing the song in the same style, according to Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours, who has made over 140 trips to North Korea.
“In all the times I’ve been to North Korea, that is the single most bizarre thing I have witnessed,” said Cockerell, who was part of the 8,000 people at the basketball stadium last year.
“It wasn’t a birthday party until Rodman started singing,” said Cockerell, who was accompanying a group of Western tourists to the isolated country at the time. He said there were no signs or decorations at the basketball event that indicated it was Kim’s birth anniversary.
For years, the only clues about the young dictator’s age came from the testimony of his father Kim Jong Il’s chef Kenji Fujimoto, who remembers Kim Jong Un as a child, and says he was born in 1983.
That date is consistent with Rodman’s revelation in September 2013 that Kim was 30, but South Korean intelligence has said he was born a year later, in 1984.
Anniversaries and birthdays are important hallmarks of the North Korean calendar. The April 15 birthday of founding president Kim Il Sung, the young Kim’s grandfather, is the biggest holiday of the year and is marked with military parades, mass dances and performances.
It is also the start of the new year, according to North Korea’s own calendar system.
AN AGE THING
But Kim Jong Un’s birthday has not yet become an official celebration, in part perhaps because of his age, analysts say.
“He is relatively young compared to his father Kim Jong Il who was officially named as successor at 42,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute near Seoul. “Kim Jong Un may think he can just hold back from public birthday celebrations for a while.”
Ahn Chan-il, a former North Korean military official who defected to the South in 1979, said: “There are still many elders in North Korea’s party, cabinet and military, and Kim Jong Un is too young to celebrate his birthday in front of them.”
News organisations run by North Korean defectors in Seoul have reported in the past that North Korean workers have been awarded days off on Kim Jong Un’s birthday.
An official at South Korea’s Ministry of Unification however said it was “business as usual” at the jointly-ran Kaesong industrial zone on Thursday morning, as North Korean staff showed up for work as usual.
By Maria Gregoriou
Most of us reluctantly (or not) have put all the Christmas decorations away for another year. And possibly among all those baubles, tinsel and miniature snowmen, there was a nutcracker figure.
If there was it was doubtless not as impressive as the nutcracker coming to the big screens of K Cineplex Nicosia in Strovolos, Kings Avenue Mall in Paphos, and the cinemas in Larnaca and Limassol tomorrow will surely sing and dance.
The screening of the two-act ballet is a recorded performance from the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow with music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and libretto and choreography by Yuri Grigorovich.
The story behind the ballet is adapted from the German romantic author Ernst Thedor Wilhelm Hoffmann’s story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, and the ballet was premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia on December 18, 1892.
Although the ballet was not an instant success, a 20-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from it was. Today we all pretty much know the story and are enchanted by the music that almost makes us think that we can all dance.
On Christmas Eve, Marie’s godfather Drosselmeyer gives her a strange toy: a wooden nutcracker carved in the shape of a little man.
At midnight when the celebrations are over and everyone is in bed, all the toys magically come to life. The nutcracker grows to human size and takes charge of the tin soldiers, flying to the rescue of Marie, who is threatened by the Mouse King and his mouse army.
Tomorrow get ready for a spectacular choreographic version of the tale which touches on the universal themes of love, power and evil. The Bolshoi dancers will bring the magic of Christmas and give a gift the whole family can enjoy, proving that one is never too old to enjoy the notion of toys coming to life.
The Bolshoi ballet, which has been thrilling audiences with productions of classical ballet since 1776, will also be performing on the big screen for us with another three ballets throughout the year. Nicosia and Paphos can enjoy a live screening of Swan Lake on January 25, while every major city will get the chance to fall in love all over again with a recorded screening of Romeo and Juliet in March and in April Ivan the Terrible will be screened live in Nicosia and Paphos.
Nutcracker
Screening of the Bolshoi Ballet Performance recorded in Moscow. January 11. K Cineplex Nicosia, Paphos, Larnaca and Limassol. 3pm. €10/8. Tel: 24-819022
