Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 99-06-16

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

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

CONTENTS

[01] Freak storm causes chaos

[02] Pourgourides accused of abusing position

[03] Former bishop likely to face fraud charge

[04] We spend more on cars than food

[05] Man held after teen stepdaughter alleges rape

[06] Officials say dioxin contamination not a major problem in Cyprus

[07] Cyprus coke is safe

[08] Eurobond issue successfully launched

[09] Eurocypria pilots say they will picket CY headquarters

[10] Narrow escape from falling masonry

[11] Cyprus enters world of barter trading

[01] Freak storm causes chaos

TORRENTIAL rains lashed Cyprus yesterday, causing chaos in Nicosia where flooding on some city streets reached a depth of up to one metre.

Emergency services said they clocked more than 300 calls in the two hours between 1.30pm and 3.30pm when the freak storm hit.

Police reported numerous minor accidents, power cuts, fallen trees, stranded motorists, and flooded basements in homes and shops.

The British High Commission was hit by lightning, cutting off electricity for several hours.

Severe hail showers also fell in Troodos, Platres and Agros.

A police spokesman said the worst hit areas of Nicosia were Aglandja, Kaimakli, Strovolos, Latsia, and Lakatamia, but the city centre did not escape the deluge.

"You could have surfed down Nikis Avenue," said one motorist whose car was almost submerged in the Acropolis area of the capital.

"I have never seen anything like it," said another who was caught on the Nicosia-Limassol highway. "Visibility was only the length of the car in front and the hailstones were the size of small pebbles."

He said dozens of cars had pulled off to the side of the highway to sit out the storm. "It was weird," he said. "Some sections of the highway were completely dry."

The motorist said that when he eventually reached Limassol the first thing he did was to check for damage to the paintwork on his car.

Met office director Cleanthis Philaniotis said the unusual stormy weather over the past week was because of accumulating humidity which causes instability at the hottest part of the day. "There is very low pressure prevailing over the East Mediterranean at the moment," he said.

This has resulted in some "serious storms" in mountain regions over the past few days and one over Larnaca on Monday.

"It doesn't happen every year. It might happen once every ten years," he said.

Philaniotis said there may be further storms today but that by the end of the week the weather will have returned to normal for June.

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[02] Pourgourides accused of abusing position

ANTI-CORRUPTION crusader Christos Pourgourides has been accused of using his position as deputy to get a law amended for the benefit of one of his legal clients.

The Disy deputy does not deny backing the bill to help his client and says he sees nothing wrong in that.

But prominent Nicosia advocate Pavlos Angelides yesterday demanded that the lawyer-deputy resign his position in the House over what he described as abuse of power.

Pourgourides, the chairman of the House watchdog committee, has grabbed the headlines in recent months with his persistent campaign to nail Dinos Michaelides for allegedly abusing his power as Interior Minister. Pourgourides's claims eventually forced Michaelides to resign -- but Angelides now alleges the Disy deputy is guilty of the same sort of corrupt practices he charges the former Minister of.

"I charge Pourgourides' legal practice with taking advantage of Christos Pourgourides' position as deputy to secure a change in the law concerning uncovered cheques with the aim of overturning a court conviction," Angelides stated in a letter sent to House president Spyros Kyprianou last week, and released yesterday.

On April 30, the House plenum approved a legal amendment that means the issuing of a dud cheque in payment for illegal goods or services is not an offence.

A few weeks before this, on March 8, the Supreme Court had overturned a District court decision acquitting businessman Savvas Kyriakides -- a client of Pourgourides' legal practice -- of charges of issuing dud cheques worth almost £65,000 to a doctor.

Angelides claimed Pourgourides' son Evangelos, who represented Kyriakides, secured two postponements to sentencing solely in order to allow time for the plenum to amend the law, believing this would get his client off the hook. The court had accepted that the dud cheques had been issued to repay debts incurred under conditions that amounted to illegal usury (interest of 42 per cent). Under the amended law, Kyriakides would not be culpable for writing a dud cheque for an illegal transaction.

"On March 15, 1999, the convicted appeared before the Supreme Court with his lawyer for sentencing, but asked for and secured a postponement till April 20 to allow him time to repay his debt. On April 20 he asked for a further postponement, again to repay his debts. Sentencing was set for May 17," the lawyer said.

On May 17 -- the plenum having meanwhile approved the law change -- Evangelos Pourgourides "triumphantly" presented the new law, claiming his client could no longer be sentenced, Angelides said.

The court did, however, sentence Kyriakides, stating that the issue was that bouncing cheques had been issued and it mattered not what for.

"I believe the lawyers' disciplinary board should take action against Pourgourides and the House should fully investigate his political responsibilities," Angelides stated in his letter.

Christos Pourgourides sent Angelides a letter in response to his claims yesterday, defending his actions and explaining his reasons for pushing the legal amendment.

He said the aim of the amendment was to avoid people being punished for actions that the House did not consider illegal.

"Where, under the circumstances, is the unethical conduct? When a deputy is handling a case as a lawyer and something unjust is happening at the expense of his client, is it unethical for him to try and stop this injustice?" Pourgourides asked in the letter, released late yesterday.

"My conscience is clear that I did what duty demanded. I would do the same without hesitation if it came up again tomorrow," the deputy stated.

He also said that Angelides had "political" motives for levelling accusations against him, and noted that Angelides represented the doctor in the court case.

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[03] Former bishop likely to face fraud charge

FORMER Limassol Bishop Chrysanthos could be charged with fraud when Attorney-general Alecos Markides decides his fate next week. The disgraced bishop is likely to end up in court to face charges of attempting to defraud a UK-based investor of $3.7 million now that Markides has the full case file in front of him.

"A decision will be taken next week relating to the case of the $3.7 million. I can't discuss procedure," Markides told the Cyprus Mailyesterday.

In January, the Attorney-general announced that there was only a five per cent chance that Chrysanthos would not end up in the dock.

Markides yesterday confirmed that Scotland Yard had issued an arrest warrant against the ex-bishop -- who has been linked to a handful of multi- million pyramid scams spanning the globe -- in connection with trying to defraud a London-based investor from New Zealand.

"It (the warrant) cannot be executed in Cyprus as Cypriot citizens cannot be extradited," Markides said yesterday.

Only if Chrysanthos tried to do leave the country could the British arrest warrant be enforced by Interpol, a police source said.

Chrysanthos is in any case on the stop list here in view of pending legal proceedings.

Last week, the New York-based Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud and broker-dealer registration violation charges against the ex- bishop's US lawyer Lewis Rivlin; Chrysanthos himself is named as a relief defendant.

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.

This included an Ecuadorean charity for underprivileged girls.

As relief defendant, Chrysanthos is alleged to have unlawfully received $4.5 million of the total $6.2 million of investors' funds.

The SEC's court action coincided with an admission by Chrysanthos' successor Bishop Athanasios that the Limassol bishopric was £4 million in debt.

Chrysanthos resigned last November and was suspended from any religious duties for two years by the Holy Synod, after the Church accused him of a string of misdemeanours, including greed, and profiteering through currency speculation.

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

The Chrysanthos affair came at a time when the Orthodox Church was reeling from other sleaze allegations, including homosexuality, sexual abuse of nuns and a married priest running off with a Romanian stripper.

The former bishop -- who has recently sounded out his friends in the church hierarchy on cutting short his exile -- currently enjoys a handsome £1,000- a-month salary, servants and a plush church residence.

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

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[04] We spend more on cars than food

CYPRIOTS are spending every penny that they earn and more money goes on cars than food, the latest five-year household survey reveals.

Average annual expenditure clocks in at £12,442 against an average annual income of £12,660.

One fifth of household income goes on housing, 19 per cent on transport, less than 19 per cent on food, seven per cent on clothing and footwear and on furnishing and household equipment, almost six per cent on education, the same amount on leisure and entertainment, five per cent on health and four per cent on hotels and restaurants.

Although income has increased across the board by 28 per cent, the gap between rich and poor has not changed over the five years since the last survey for 1990-1991.

The poorest 20 per cent of households in Cyprus have an income of less than £5,000 and the poorest 10 per cent less than £3,000. The better-off 20 per cent have an income of more than £18,000 and the top 10 per cent earned more than £23,000. Half of all households have an income of over £11,000, but households in urban areas spend more, £13,497 compared to rural dwellers who spend £10,422. They also have a lower income level than their city counterparts.

Spending, however, has increased by 55 per cent across the board, report said.

The biggest expenditure for most families was housing, electricity and gas, accounting for 19.9 per cent of expenditure, followed by the purchase and operation of cars at 18.97 per cent, and groceries a little less 18.5 per cent.

Around 80 per cent of Cypriot families now own a car, one in three households owns two cars, and one out of every 15 has three or more cars. This figure is up from one in 22 in the previous survey, bringing total expenditure on cars up from 14 per cent in 1990-1991.

The amount spent on food, drink and tobacco on the other hand has dropped from 21 per cent in the previous survey.

Since the mid-eighties, however, Cypriot households have more dishwashers (28 per cent), computers (13 per cent), microwave ovens (19 per cent), and mobile phones (19.5 per cent).

Over 97 per cent of Cypriots now own a TV and 67 per cent have videos, up from 11 per cent ten years ago. Some 20 per cent also have air conditioning.

The survey was based on a sample of 2,645 households over a 12 month period, 1.3 per cent of the island's total urban and rural households.

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[05] Man held after teen stepdaughter alleges rape

A British man who allegedly raped his 16-year-old stepdaughter and forced her into prostitution was yesterday remanded in police custody for eight days.

The natural mother of the British teenager was also remanded, for two days, by a Limassol district court on suspicion of physically abusing her daughter and causing grievous bodily harm.

Police said the couple were arrested after the young girl filed a complaint against them.

She accused the stepfather, 52, of raping her and forcing her into prostitution over a three-year period from 1996. The family moved from England in 1997 to set up home in Limassol.

A police source confirmed yesterday that an investigation involving rape and forced prostitution of a minor in Cyprus and the UK was under way.

The British couple appeared in court after the girl turned up at Limassol general hospital on Monday night claiming she had just suffered another beating.

The 48-year-old mother knew about the sexual abuse and beat the teenager when she protested against her treatment, according to the victim's allegation.

Names have been withheld by police for legal reasons.

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[06] Officials say dioxin contamination not a major problem in Cyprus

DIOXIN contamination is "definitely not a major problem" in the food chain in Cyprus, Dr Pavlos Economides, director of Veterinary Services in the Agriculture Ministry said yesterday.

"From the evidence that we have, from all the official reports, it seems that the problem is not as big as it appears," Economides told the Cyprus Mail.

The Republic today is asking the Belgian government to clarify what food products it has found to be dioxin-tainted, so Cyprus can destroy those items that are, and release for sale those suspect foods that have been pulled from store shelves, a government official said yesterday.

The Health Ministry has listed 103 food products and four types of animal feeds that are suspected of dioxin poisoning, and ordered them removed from sale. Merchants failing to withdraw the banned items face their confiscation and fines

The decision to query Belgium followed a meeting on the dioxin scare yesterday of the Special Technical Committee, which included representatives of several ministries and departments.

An official Belgian government communiqué to the Republic declared yesterday: "There is no indication whatsoever of systemic or general contamination" of Europe's food chain by dioxin, according to a government official who requested anonymity. The Belgian government at the weekend also declared its milk products were "up to (EU) standard."

The Belgian communiqué termed the problem "an incidental introduction into the food chain of one lot of animal fat containing a high dioxin concentration," the Cyprus official said.

The fat "was supplied to a limited number of foreign companies... between January 19 and January 31 of this year," the communiqué said. "Of the nine potential sources of this contamination -- direct clients of the sole producer -- only three companies have so far been positively identified as a positive source of contamination," it asserted.

The dioxin crisis centres on the Verkest fats and oils company, of Ghent, Belgium, which supplied dioxin-tainted fats to animal feed producers in Belgium, Holland and France.

Those companies supplied feed to poultry, pig and cattle farms in their own countries, Germany and Spain between what the Belgian government now says was only January 19 and January 31 (earlier this month it said the critical dates were January 15 to June 1).

The contamination prompted the European Union to ban the sale or transfer of Belgian-produced animal feeds, raw food and processed food products. Many European, Asian and African countries and the United States banned the import of various raw and processed foods from Belgium and other affected EU countries.

Cyprus followed the EU ban on the sale of all Belgian eggs or egg products; all live chickens, cattle and pigs, dressed poultry, beef and pork, and meat products made from them; powdered milk and baby food containing milk; butter, cheeses, other dairy products; chocolates, mayonnaise and sauces.

The Republic has impounded tons of food products and animal feeds from Belgium in the island's ports, and also ordered food stores to remove from their shelves all Belgian food products with January 15-June 1 production dates, and to hold them, pending testing, for possible destruction.

Since the Belgian communiqué now suggests January 15-June 1 might be too broad a time-frame, the Cyprus government today is asking Belgium for a complete list of all food products that Brussels has found to be dioxin- tainted, Dr Andreas Orphanides, Senior Veterinary Officer, told the Cyprus Mailyesterday.

If Belgian officials declare specific products dioxin-tainted, or are unable to say one way or another, those products will be destroyed, Orphanides said. Otherwise, they will be put back into circulation for sale in stores, he added.

Orphanides said the government does "not know yet" how it will destroy any dioxin-tainted items. He acknowledged Cyprus lacked facilities safely to destroy dioxins, conceding that burning them would pollute the air with the cancer-causing toxin, and dumping would ultimately poison ground-water.

The special technical committee is awaiting "further information" from overseas before deciding how to destroy dioxin-tainted foods, Orphanides said, adding the quantity of suspect food ordered pulled from Cyprus shelves was "not very big."

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

Its half-life of 12 years lets it build up in the body and pass down to human offspring, causing grotesque birth deformities. Children are especially vulnerable, as dioxin is transmitted in human breast milk and cow's milk.

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[07] Cyprus coke is safe

The company, bottlers of Coca Cola, said all the Coke sold in Cyprus was produced on the island and none used any raw materials from Belgium to manufacture the soft drink.

The Lanitis statement came as the Belgian government ordered the recall of some 15 million cans of Coca Cola from Belgian stores after about 100 people complained of headaches and stomach ailments after drinking it.

The Coke scare compounded the crisis of confidence in Belgian foods, sparked by revelations that an animal feed producer contaminated Belgium's food chain with dioxin, a cancer-causing toxin, and one of the most deadly of man-made substances.

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[08] Eurobond issue successfully launched

The seven-year international bond, the island's third since 1997, was issued last Thursday and was underwritten by Merrill Lynch and Warburg Dillon Read, according to a Central Bank statement. It has a coupon of five per cent and yielded 5.126 per cent at the issue, it added.

Cyprus, Europe's top rated non-EU country, is rated A2 by Moody's Investors Service and A+ by Standard & Poor's Corp. Its outstanding bonds are a 350 million euro/ecu issue launched in July 1998 and a $300 million five-year bond launched the previous year.

"The successful issuing of the bond emphasises once again the trust that Cyprus enjoys among foreign investors and underlines Cyprus's European prospects," said the statement.

One of six countries on a fast track to join the European Union, Cyprus has chosen to borrow abroad to avoid putting pressure on local interest rates and squeeze the domestic credit market. The government is forced to borrow to finance a fiscal deficit forecast to grow to 5.9 per cent of gross domestic product this year if no measures are taken to boost state revenues.

The deficit is particularly worrying because of the island's ambition to qualify for the European single currency simultaneously with its EU accession, which is not expected before 2003.

A maximum fiscal deficit of three per cent of GDP is one of the key criteria for joining the single currency and Finance Minister Takis Clerides said a package of taxation under discussion now with political parties would reduce the deficit to two per cent of GDP by 2002.

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[09] Eurocypria pilots say they will picket CY headquarters

In a brief statement, the Eurocypria pilots said they would protest outside CY's head office in Nicosia between 9am and noon.

They said the picket was a first gesture to pressure the CY Board of Directors into giving the green light for the long-overdue filling of a captain vacancy in the charter firm.

Eurocypria's pilots say they do not wish to resort to strike action, but have not ruled it out if the company does not respond positively in the next 15 days.

Their union has a clear agreement with the Board that captain vacancies in the charter firm should be filled by their own co-pilots and not from CY ranks.

There are 34 pilots in Eurocypria, ten of whom are members of CY pilots union Pasipy, which lays claims to the Eurocypria promotions.

The Eurocypria pilots believe CY is leaving the captain position unfilled so as to avoid a possible high-season strike by the powerful Pasipy.

CY has asked for a further delay in implementing the deal, which Eurocypria staff are not willing to give.

Asked to comment yesterday, a CY spokesman only said: "We will be taking some decisions."

[10] Narrow escape from falling masonry

"There I was enjoying my morning coffee when these great big rocks come crashing down on my table. It could have been my head!," the betting-shop owner told the Cyprus Mail.

The building in question, at number 39 Vassiliou Voulgaroctonou street in old Nicosia, is under a preservation order, a municipality official said. Sizeable parts of the sandstone blocks above one of the abandoned home's front windows came crashing down.

But municipality building inspector Yiannakis Lazarou - who inspected the scene of the near accident - said this had been the only unsafe part of the building.

"People on the street had seen the loose material and had meant to knock it down but had never got round to it," he said.

The municipality did not plan to take any action following the incident, he said. "The building is old but it is in good condition," he said.

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

[11] Cyprus enters world of barter trading

Evremia Manager George Strovolides said the company would offer barter services in Cyprus as the local branch of Tradewell, a New York-based company with an annual turnover of $600 million and a pioneering reputation in barter trading.

Elaborating on Evremia's future operations in Cyprus, Strovolides said the company would buy products and services at wholesale prices and pay for them in products and services of an equal value.

Barter trading has taken off in the United States in the 1990s as a solution to problems like tighter bank credits, recession, shortage of cash or the common problem of excess inventory. The usefulness of barter deals have been most visible among corporates, which use the method to expand sales, penetrate new markets, keep production lines going and as a means of low-cost financing alternative.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1999

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