Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 99-06-09

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From: The Cyprus Mail at <http://www.cynews.com/>

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

CONTENTS

[01] CTO cuts 'jeopardise strategic plan'

[02] Consumers Association slams government over dioxin scare

[03] Pound's decline against dollar, sterling poses no immediate concern

[04] Bank stocks take a beating

[05] The pregnant virgin and the bus driver

[06] Minister offers Akamas development freeze pending decision

[07] Hotel concern over new taxes

[08] Port workers postpone strike

[09] Builders protest against illegal workers

[10] Two charged with Larnaca bombings

[11] Transplant recipients all doing well

[12] Chrysanthos named in US court action

[01] CTO cuts 'jeopardise strategic plan'

BUDGET cuts to the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) are jeopardising a proposed ten-year plan, and the island's hopes of staging the Miss Universe contest in 2000.

Addressing the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Association of Cyprus Travel Agents (ACTA), CTO chairman Andreas Erotokritou criticised the government's move to reduce its 1999 budget from £11.3 million to £8.3 million and pleaded with members to help.

"I'm begging you all to help finance efforts to this end," Erotokritou said.

"This issue is of grave concern to us with regard to the efforts to implement the strategic plan and its advertisement which is due to begin next year. Unfortunately it seems this trend will continue for the year 2000."

ACTA chairman Panicos Apeyitos echoed the CTO chairman's gloom.

He said the cost of organising the Miss Universe contest, for which Cyprus is the favourite, would take another £3 to 4 million out of CTO's budget next year.

"We call on the government and parliament to reconsider their stand, and having in mind the contribution of tourism to the Cyprus economy, not only not to a approve reduction, but approve an increase," Apeyitos said.

He said that by cutting the CTO budget, the government had acted arbitrarily, "without thinking".

Erotokritou said that Cyprus invests only two per cent of its income from tourism into advertising, compared to other countries which on average spend ten per cent.

"I believe any further reduction in the budget for the CTO at this moment when there is a new plan for the next ten years will not help us at all," Erotokritou said.

Under the new strategic plan, which has just been completed by Irish experts, Cyprus could see an influx of over three and half million tourists by 2010.

Income from tourism, which currently stands at over £870 million, would rise to between £1.4 billion and £1.8 billion. If tourism continues on its present course without changes, income will reach only £900 million by 2010.

In 1998, tourist arrivals reached 2.2 million, compared to 2.08 million in 1997, a increase of 6.4 per cent.

An increase of around 12 per cent was expected this year, but the war in Yugoslavia has resulted in a stagnation in bookings

for the summer season.

Tour operators and hoteliers have adopted a wait and see attitude before declaring the year a tourism disaster.

Cyprus expects overall figures will still be up on last year, but the rise will not be as high as expected.

"Arrivals in the first five months of 1999 are up despite Yugoslavia and indications are that it will be a good year for Cyprus tourism," Erotokritou said. "But it's not certain whether this impressive rate will continue in the future. The performance to date should not allow us to sit on our laurels."

Apeyitos expressed concern over the effect the prolonged strike at the Lordos Hotels and strikes in other sectors were having on tourism.

"It is worth questioning why this strike continues when the competent Minister has proposed a proper way out of the dispute. And what is above all more tragic are the increasing tendencies and threats for strikes in the ports, the customs and the national carrier," he said. "We must all realise that if we do not change mentality and get away from the complex of self-destruction, then everything... will collapse like a paper castle."

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[02] Consumers Association slams government over dioxin scare

THE CYPRUS Consumers Association (CCA) yesterday complained that the Cyprus government had failed to publish a list of the brand names of all Belgian food products suspected of containing the cancer-causing poison, dioxin.

"(While) the government should give a list... it does not want to give any list of products," Demetrios Papadopoulos, manager of the Association, told the Cyprus Mail.

Without such a list, he said, "it is not easy for the consumer to have to search the constituents of foods to see if they come from animals that have been fed with feed containing dioxin."

Papadopoulos said the Belgian government had already published a list of the brand-names of 76 companies whose raw or processed foods are suspected of dioxin contamination, one of the most toxic of man-made substances. He said this list had been published in newspapers in Greece.

Sophocles Anthousis, Health Service head at the Ministry of Health, told the Cyprus Mailyesterday the Public Health Co-ordinating Committee had decided against publishing such a list because "we want to protect" the brand-name manufacturers.

"For the time being, we only have (a list of) categories of foods suspected of dioxin contamination, Anthousis said.

Papadopoulos acknowledged, "It's not 100 per cent sure that, if a product comes from Belgium, it contains dioxin," but a list of brand names would help consumers more readily identify potentially dangerous food items.

Anthousis said food stores and importers in Cyprus were being told to withdraw from sale all food items imported from Belgium that were on a European Union list of proscribed products "until further notice."

Both the government and the Cyprus Paediatric Association have advised that infants and toddlers not be fed baby food imported from Belgium for the time being.

While the EU has ordered these products destroyed, Anthousis said retailers should retain the withdrawn foods for government testing to see if they were actually dioxin-tainted.

The items on the EU's daily-growing proscribed list include all Belgian eggs or egg products, all live Belgian chickens, cattle and pigs, dressed poultry, beef and pork, and meat products made from them.

They also include eggs, all products containing eggs, powdered milk and baby food containing milk, as well as butter, cheese, other dairy products, chocolate, mayonnaise, all sauces and mozzarella cheese produced in Belgium.

Cyprus imports no Belgian eggs, chickens or pork, and has not imported any Belgian beef during the critical period of January 15 to June 1, when the dioxin contamination is believed to have occurred. However, it has imported many other of the potentially tainted food items.

The Verkest fats and oils company, of Ghent, Belgium, is believed to have supplied dioxin-tainted fats to feed producers in Belgium, Holland and France. They, in turn, supplied the feed to poultry, pig and cattle farms in their countries and Germany.

Verkest managers Lucien Verkest and his son, Jan, have been released, following their arrest by Belgian authorities for alleged fraud, after the authorities could not conclusively link the dioxin contamination to a particular Verkest plant where it was believed to have occurred.

Dioxin, a herbicide production by-product and one of the most toxic of man- made substances, can kill some species of newborn mammals and fish at levels of 5 parts per trillion (or one ounce in 6 million tons).

The dioxin contamination has plunged the farm and food industries in Belgium and several other EU countries into the worst crisis since "mad-cow disease" forced British farmers to slaughter tens of thousands of head of cattle.

At least two ministers of the Belgian government and one in The Netherlands have resigned over the affair.

Cyprus has banned the import of all Belgian-produced animal feeds, raw food and processed food products, and impounded tons of feed and food products already imported from Belgium.

Among the tons of these products impounded so far were large quantities of raw Belgian chocolate for use as flavouring in local food industries, Anthousis said.

He said agents from the Health and Commerce ministries were co-operating in making checks of retail outlets, advising them of which items to withdraw, and ensuring compliance.

Stores neglecting to withdraw banned items face confiscation of the items and fines.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[03] Pound's decline against dollar, sterling poses no immediate concern

THE DECLINE in the external value of the Cyprus pound, pegged to the euro since the January 1 birth of Europe's single currency, does not constitute an immediate source of concern and may actually have a silver lining.

Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, economists and a senior Central Bank official said the impact of the pound's decline in value against the US dollar and the pound sterling was of little significance at present, thanks to the fact that about 70 per cent of the island's foreign trade is with Europe.

Since the beginning of the year, the Cyprus pound has depreciated against the US dollar by nearly 12 per cent and against sterling by 7.5 per cent.

The decline in the external value of the Cyprus pound reflects the fortunes of the euro, adopted by 11 of the European Union's 15 member states on January 1, 1999. The euro has lost more than 10 per cent of its value since its historic launch, largely the result of a robust US economy and an exceptionally strong US dollar. It is now almost one for one to the US dollar.

The decision to peg the pound to the euro was in part a reflection of the island's EU aspirations. Cyprus opened accession negotiations in March last year and hopes to join the group by 2003 at the earliest.

"All indications suggest that these conditions won't last for very much longer," Takis Kanaris, who heads the Central Bank's Economic Research Department, said of the euro's performance.

"But it is not a problem for the time being and we just have to keep an eye on any inflationary pressures which may arise from more expensive imports," he said in reply to a question on whether the pound's performance against the dollar and sterling should be treated as a worrying sign.

Kanaris, however, said the pound's receding value against sterling was beneficial to tourism on the island. More than half of the roughly 2 million tourists who come to Cyprus every year are British.

Marios Clerides, chief economist at Hellenic Bank, offered an assessment similar to that of Kanaris, saying the pound's decline in value against the two major currencies had nothing to do with the Cyprus economy.

"You cannot infer anything about the Cyprus economy from the exchange rate against the dollar and sterling," said Clerides. "It does not have any implications for the economy."

In a separate development, banking sources in London yesterday said that Cyprus was scheduled to launch its third international bond this week, possibly today or tomorrow.

They said Cyprus hoped to raise 250-300 million euros through a seven-year bond issue via underwriters Merrill Lynch and Warburg Dillon Read.

The bond issue was first announced in Cyprus earlier this year.

Cyprus, Europe's top-rated country outside the European Union, is rated A2 by Moody's Investors' service and A+ by Standard & Poor's Corp. It has two bonds outstanding in the secondary market: a 350 million euro-ecu bond launched in July 1998 and a $300 million bond launched in 1997.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[04] Bank stocks take a beating

THE HIGHER you go the harder you fall. It is not a rule of thumb, but it appeared to hold true yesterday at the Cyprus Stock Exchange.

Share prices, which seemed to go nowhere but up since the year began, fell sharply, with bank stocks, heroes of 1999's spectacular climbs and the darlings of investors and traders alike, the worst hit.

The banks' sub-index fell a painful 4.53 per cent. Trade in the sector attracted £5.30 million, nearly half the day's volume.

Only shares listed in the "miscellaneous" sector escaped yesterday's onslaught. Their sub-index rose by 1.22 per cent to close at 93.99.

Yesterday's 3.60 per cent plunge in the official all-share index of the Cyprus Stock Exchange was the biggest one-day fall since it dipped by 4.60 per cent on February 12. It now stands at 145.07.

Shares of the Bank of Cyprus and Popular Bank, the bourse's engine who combine for more than half of the market's capitalisation, shed 25 cents and 22.50 cents to close at £6.37 and £3.55 respectively. The warrants of the two banks were also hit, with the Bank of Cyprus' 1999-2003 warrants down by 6.50 cents at £4.29, while the Popular Bank's warrants plunged 40.50 cents to close at £4.50.

Trade in the two banks and their warrants accounted for 63.2 per cent of all transactions.

Other banks fared no better. Hellenic Bank shed 13.50 cents to close at £4.03 and Universal Bank was down 12.50 cents to end the day at £2.19.

"It was expected for quite some time now, 10 or 15 days," said Koullis Panayiotou of CLR Stockbrokers Ltd, commenting on yesterday's drop. "But it is nothing to worry about, at least at this point where the correction is within expectations."

"The market reached very high levels at a very short time and that was not healthy," said Panayiotou, who predicted that prices would in a few months' time soar above the levels seen during last month's series of record highs.

Share prices in Cyprus gained about 60 per cent since the start of the year, a feat that places the island's small bourse among the world's leading emerging markets in terms of appreciation.

"What happened today was a very healthy scenario," said Yiannos Andronikou of Suphire Stockbrokers Ltd. "The shares of the two main banks have shown resistance at fairly high levels and I think the prices will resume climbing on Thursday or Friday this week."

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[05] The pregnant virgin and the bus driver

IN THE unlikely setting of a Nicosia housing estate, a teenage virgin is proclaimed pregnant, while a 63-year-old bus driver claims to be the father.

Fiction could not be stranger.

But the family has gone on national television to denounce the toothless bus driver as a demon who has bewitched their daughter.

"We have a doctor's certificate to confirm she is still a virgin but also pregnant. The doctor told us it was a mystery to him," the girl's mother Stavroulla Kouris told the Cyprus Mailyesterday.

In turn, bus driver George Minoshis says that he loves the 18-year-old, wants to be the father, and has spent many nights with her at the back of his single-decker.

But the mother confirmed yesterday that the three-month-old pregnancy had been terminated.

Minoshis has told Sigma TV that the young Constantina went with him of her own free will and that they were lovers since she was 15.

The parents allege, as does the daughter, that the 63-year-old has terrorised the family and that Constantina only went with him to prevent any physical violence.

"We are all traumatised, we are frightened. This man has been terrorising us and our daughter for three years," said Stavroulla.

The distraught mother added: "she goes with him out of fear, fear of what he might do if she doesn't, but there is no sex."

Moreover, Minoshis could face a jail term after the family, from the Strovolos suburb, filed a complaint accusing him of entering their flat via a ladder and pestering the daughter at 4 in the morning.

A Nicosia District court will sentence him on Monday, after he pleaded guilty to the charges.

The alleged harassment apparently started three years ago, when Constantina took the bus to her hairdressing classes.

"He (Minoshis) started to pester and harass her on the bus. When I heard about what was going on I started driving her to the lessons myself," said the mother.

Other complaints pending legal action include allegations of death threats, threatening behaviour and kidnapping the girl against her will.

"There was a time when she disappeared for two weeks as a captive on his bus and we had the police helicopter looking for her," said Constantina's 50-year-old father George.

But the family say they filed a number of complaints against the bus driver, which they say were ignored by the police.

Their appearance on TV may have changed all that.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[06] Minister offers Akamas development freeze pending decision

The government announced it was to declare the pristine area a National Park ten years ago, but has been dragging its feet ever since -- wary of local residents' opposition to park plans.

Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous told the House environment committee yesterday that his ministry wanted development banned in the three areas within the peninsula currently designated as tourism zones: Ayios Georgios Peyias, Asprokremnos and Neo Chorio.

The family firm of former Foreign Minister Alecos Michaelides has already built a massive hotel complex on the Asprokremnos coast, West of Latchi, after securing planning relaxations from the cabinet. Greens -- who have for years campaigned for the Akamas to be preserved as a wilderness area -- fear this development could be the first of many in the area should the government fail to grant it permanent protection.

Themistocleous said the "white zone" designation for the three areas would apply for 18 months, to allow a ministerial committee time to come up with a final management plan for the Akamas. The plan would then be sent to the cabinet for approval.

"For this period, these three tourism areas would be frozen as white zones to allow time for a final decision on the Akamas so we can move in the right direction," Themistocleous told deputies.

The House has already approved a World Bank proposal for preserving the Akamas as a wilderness park with tourism development restricted to within existing village boundaries in the area. The plan enjoys the support of environmentalists but is anathema to local villagers.

The House environment committee, which has consistently pushed for preservation of the Akamas, heard last week that a permit had been granted for a new 5-star hotel in the Asprokremnos area.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[07] Hotel concern over new taxes

The worries were raised at a meeting of members of hoteliers association Pasyxe with acting-president Spyros Kyprianou yesterday morning.

The meeting took place within the framework of a series of separate meetings between Pasyxe and party leaders. Kyprianou yesterday suggested that a meeting between the hotel association and all party leaders take place once the round of separate talks was completed.

Pasyxe said yesterday they were concerned that a planned rise in VAT from 8 to 10 per cent, coupled with the return of a CTO tax of three per cent and room taxes, would put the island's hotel industry at a disadvantage.

Speaking to CyBC radio after the meeting, Pasyxe's president Nikitas Argyrinos said that the CTO and room taxes alone would raise hotel costs by nine per cent.

He said this would damage Cyprus' ability to compete with neighbouring tourist destinations, and referred to a statement by Tourism Minister Nicos Rolandis that Cyprus was already 20 per cent more expensive than the majority of its main rivals, "and 40 per cent more expensive than Tunisia and Turkey."

Higher VAT and the other tourism related taxes are part of the government's proposed tax package currently under discussion.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[08] Port workers postpone strike

Workers at the loss-making port had been threatening to resume the all-out strike action which paralysed the harbour for weeks on end earlier this year. The porters and stevedores are unhappy about the £600,000 compensation package the government has proposed for 51 of their number facing redundancy.

The action began on Sunday morning but was called off after House president Spyros Kyprianou promised to mediate on the strikers behalf.

Yesterday morning, the port workers decided to hold fire till June 17, when the cabinet will meet to discuss a new compensation package for the workers to be dismissed.

The cargo port has been in dire straits for years now, unable to compete with cheaper, more efficient, ports in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[09] Builders protest against illegal workers

Some 150 builders met outside Nicosia's Peo union building at 11am, before moving on to the Labour and Interior Ministries.

The General-secretary of Peo's construction department, Michalis Papanicolaou, said yesterday's demonstration was the beginning of a series of measures planned by the industry.

He said that construction workers would also be demonstrating in Limassol today, Paphos on Thursday and Larnaca and Famagusta on Friday.

"It is known that there has been a serious crisis in the construction industry since 1993, something that has had serious consequences on the workers," Papanicolaou said. "The worst thing that has happened recently though, is that 10 per cent of our workers are unemployed, and that while this problem exists we see thousands of illegal foreign workers being employed without anyone taking measures against this phenomenon."

A statement issued by the unions called for a stop to the "illegal employment of thousands of foreigners," and said this had led to the unemployment of more than 10,000 local construction workers.

Papanicolaou warned of further action if the government failed to respond adequately to their concerns.

[10] Two charged with Larnaca bombings

Demetris Demetriou, known as Jimis, 36, and electrician Demetris Demetriou, 22, were charged with conspiring to commit a crime, illegal possession of explosives and attempting to destroy property. They will answer to the charges before the Larnaca Assizes court on June 21.

The bomb attacks -- on an Electricity Authority (EAC) sub-station next to the oil refinery, on May 21, and the district court, on May 23 -- caused only minor damage and no injuries.

Two other men arrested in connection with the attacks -- Andreas Antoniou Kitsios, 26, from the Limassol district village of Ayios Amvrosios and National Guardsman Iakovos Hadjantonis, 19, from Larnaca -- were later released without charge.

Police say Jimis was the "mastermind" behind the attacks, while Demetriou planted the home-made explosives. The electrician was arrested about 300 yards from the courthouse shortly after the early morning bomb attack after he was involved in an accident. Police say he crashed his motorbike in his rush to abandon the scene of the bomb attack.

Justice Minister Nicos Koshis has suggested the bomb attacks were part of an effort by the Larnaca underworld to "assert" itself in the coastal town.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[11] Transplant recipients all doing well

The 17-year-old's heart was given to a 36-year-old Limassol man in Israel, while his liver was transplanted into a Cypriot woman in London. Leonidas' kidneys were transplanted in Cyprus to two 45-year-old men, both of whom were said to be in excellent condition. A man aged 25 and a 32-year-old woman received Leonidas' corneas at the Makarios hospital.

A representative of the Paraskevaidion Transplant Centre said all were doing well.

Leonidas died on Sunday of injuries sustained in a road accident last Friday. The Limassol teenager was riding his moped when he went into the back of a car which stopped suddenly in front of him. The car had no functioning brake lights.

Seriously injured, Leonidas was taken from the accident scene in Kato Polemidhia to Nicosia General Hospital, where he died on Sunday afternoon. His funeral was held on Monday.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

[12] Chrysanthos named in US court action

THE legal ramifications of ex-Limassol Bishop Chrysanthos' alleged investment scams rumbled on yesterday when he was named in a court action by the US Security and Exchange Commission.

Fraud and broker-dealer registration violation charges have been filed against the ex-bishop's US lawyer Lewis Rivlin and Chrysanthos himself is named as a relief defendant, the Cyprus Mail has learnt.

"A relief defendant is an individual who received ill-gotten investor funds, " said yesterday's SEC press release received by the Cyprus Mail.

The SEC's legal action filed through the Washington DC District Court claims that Rivlin defrauded investors of $6.2 million in a bank scam between December 1997 and June 1998.

Rivlin is accused of selling at least $6.2 million worth of securities in a bogus trading programme to at least four groups of investors.

Including an Ecuadorian charity for underprivileged girls.

"The scheme involved the pooling of investors funds to purchase and resell deeply discounted bank instruments at a profit, under the auspices of Chrysanthos Chrysostomou, formerly the Metropolitan of Limassol," said the press statement from the New York-based SEC.

In addition the complaint alleges that investors were lured on Rivlin's "personal guarantee" of risk-free profits of around 300 per cent every month.

Chrysanthos resigned last November and was suspended from any religious duties for two years, by the Holy Synod, after the church accused him of greed, and profiteering through currency speculation among other things.

He had no option but to stand down before the Church instigated defrocking proceedings against him for irreparably damaging it's good name.

The Chrysanthos affair came at a time when the Orthodox church was reeling from other sleaze allegations such as when a married priest ran off with a Romanian stripper.

The former bishop - who has recently sounded out his friends in the church hierarchy on cutting short his exile - also faces the prospect of legal proceedings in Cyprus on charges of trying to swindle foreign investors out of millions in bogus get-rich-quick schemes.

Local police investigations into his business dealing have included countries such as Greece, England, Belgium and Spain.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1999

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