Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 99-06-18

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

Friday, June 18, 1999

CONTENTS

[01] Party leaders bristle at US 'meddling'

[02] Amnesty blasts gay law and treatment of immigrants

[03] You can buy the seeds, so why can't you grow the plant?

[04] Callebaut chocolates removed from dioxin list

[05] Government promises full redundancy pay if Philoxenia staff laid off

[06] Market hits new high as interest shifts away from banks

[07] Vassiliou: EU harmonisation to cost £568 million

[08] Shots fired in Limassol chase

[01] Party leaders bristle at US 'meddling'

PARTY leaders yesterday said they were not satisfied with the explanations offered by US ambassador Kenneth Brill over letters he sent to two party leaders.

Their comments came after acting Foreign Minister, Finance Minister Takis Clerides, briefed party chiefs on the outcome of a meeting he had with Brill the previous evening.

The embassy has come under concerted attack for comments criticising Diko and Akel for their vocal opposition to Nato's air war in Yugoslavia.

A US embassy spokesman statement issued yesterday said there was "no truth to the speculation." It was referring to allegations that letters sent to Akel and Diko threatened a "re-evaluation" of US efforts over Cyprus in the face of public outrage over Nato actions.

Both parties have been at the forefront of protests against the Nato bombings in Yugoslavia.

The US embassy statement added: "These private communications dealt solely with the situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. There was absolutely no reference in either letter to US diplomatic efforts related to Cyprus."

Party leaders, meanwhile, yesterday authorised House president Spyros Kyprianou to relay their opinions to President Glafcos Clerides and to impress upon him "the need to take relevant action to protect the standing and reputation of Cyprus".

Last week, Diko and Akel expressed dissatisfaction with a US embassy statement that party leaders had been loathe to accept invitations to embassy-sponsored events, while being prominent in anti-Nato demonstrations.

Speaking after yesterday's meeting, Kyprianou, who was recently denied an audience with Brill to discuss the issue, said the House was not content with Brill's explanations.

He said two issues had arisen from the affair: one was a "violation" of the institutions of the Republic, and another the fact that the embassy was interfering with the domestic policies of Cyprus.

He said an embassy should not refuse to meet with the president or acting- president of its host country.

On the relationships between embassies and political parties, Kyprianou said that these could be good or bad but that it was unacceptable for an embassy to try to sanction parties for their beliefs on particular issues.

"I believe that everyone came to the same conclusion, that the explanations given by the Ambassador were not satisfying," Kyprianou told reporters after the meeting.

He said Brill had admitted to Takis Clerides that the statements quoted in a recent newspaper report on the US and Cyprus had indeed been made by an embassy employee. The report had voiced concern that Cyprus' unofficial stance on the Yugoslavia issue could prevent the US from taking an initiative on the Cyprus problem.

But the acting Disy president, Panayiotis Demetriou, said yesterday his party felt that the whole furore was "unnecessary", while right-wing Alithiayesterday referred to the whole issue as "comical".

Edek president Vassos Lyssarides on the other hand said the embassy's explanation could not be accepted. He said the issue had three levels -- one of a breach of protocol, the second, interference by US officials in party political activities, and the third level Cyprus' own behaviour.

"I won't say more than this: even at our airports we act exactly like a colony. While they don't open their VIP lounges for any of our people, we have ours available for even the last embassy employee."

Lyssarides said Cyprus was not a colony and that the size of a country should not play a role in the way it acted in such matters: "Whether you are Cyprus or whether you are the US, the ethics are the same."

Akel secretary-general Demetris Christofias yesterday called a news conference on the issue and said his party felt the government should take action on both the letters and the fact that Kyprianou had not been granted a meeting with Brill.

On the letters, Christofias said his party had expected an apology after the embassy employee's statements in the local paper but had instead been sent a letter asking both Akel and Diko party leaders and their parties to clarify their position on the Nato bombings in Yugoslavia.

Friday, June 18, 1999

[02] Amnesty blasts gay law and treatment of immigrants

HOMOPHOBIC legislation and police brutality against illegal immigrants earned Cyprus the condemnation of Amnesty International's 1999 Report on human rights around the world.

The report essentially blasts Parliament's amendment of Article 171 of the Penal Code as a failed attempt to cleanse the Republic's laws of their homophobic content and align them with the Council of Europe's European Convention of Human Rights.

"Because of its very restrictive definition of privacy, the amended article could still lead to imprisonment of up to five years for consensual sexual relations between male adults in private," Amnesty said.

The amended article also discriminates on the basis of sexual preference, it said, noting the law sets 18 as the age of consent for sexual activity between homosexual males, while allowing heterosexual sex at age 16 by males and females.

Not only this, but the amendment's "wide scope" permits a one-year jail term for what police or the courts might decide was "indecent behaviour or invitation or provocation or advertisement aimed at performing unnatural acts between males."

Amnesty declared this amounted to permitting "imprisonment of people solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and to freedom of assembly and association."

Achilleas Demetriades, a respected human rights lawyer in Nicosia agreed that, "Amnesty is absolutely right in making trouble for... the failure of the Cyprus government to enact legislation" conforming to the European Convention of Human Rights.

He called Cyprus law "a blatant exercise in discrimination that has been covered up" with the window-dressing of amendment, especially regarding private consensual sex acts and the law's prohibition against sexual activity in public.

"For the heterosexual, the notion of a public place is where the public has access. For the homosexual, a public place means where more than two people are," Demetriades said.

"So, if in your house, you are there (with a male homosexual partner) and there is a maid, your house becomes a public place, and you are liable to conviction. This violates European Convention of Human Rights, Article 8, the right to privacy."

"This is unreasonable," Demetriades said, suggesting the government delete Article 171, "which gives a restrictive interpretation of the word 'privacy'. Then the definition of 'publicly' that is used for all other offences will apply."

The Cyprus government, within the system of the Council of Europe, still has an obligation to change this law," he said.

Amnesty also took on Cyprus for alleged serial police brutality against many of the 113 boat people from Africa and the Middle East who pitched up in Cyprus in June 1998.

Last August, Amnesty noted, "at least four" of some 30 of the boat people who sought asylum in Cyprus, "were beaten by police officers while a police inspector was watching," during their transfer from the Pefkos Hotel in Limassol to jail cells in the old Famagusta jail.

Despite their injuries, the four "were initially denied access to hospital, " the report said, adding that one of them was "kicked in his genitals" as he opened his hotel door, only to be beaten and kicked "for up to 15 minutes" by five police officers who entered his room. He required stitches to close his wounds.

Then in October 1998, the report said, police from the rapid reaction force (MMAD) tear-gassed 48 of the boat people in their cells in the old Famagusta jail to force them out of their cells and into the jailhouse yard in quelling a riot by them.

Police were shown on TV footage "kicking and stamping on the asylum-seekers and hitting them with truncheons," sending at least 10 to hospital for treatment.

Amnesty noted that last June it had "called on the government to revise" the law so as to equalise the age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual relations and to eliminate the jail term for what law enforcement authorities might construe as soliciting homosexual male sex.

And the group noted that, as of yesterday, it still had received "no answer" to its request that the Republic ensure all asylum-seekers get a full and fair hearing, and not be forcibly returned to countries where they might face human rights violations.

Friday, June 18, 1999

[03] You can buy the seeds, so why can't you grow the plant?

A MAN accused of growing cannabis yesterday asked a Larnaca court why he was being prosecuted when hemp seed was legally available at pet shops and supermarkets.

Yiannis Kouroushis, a 27-year-old builder, was hauled up in court and remanded for four days for allegedly growing 12 cannabis plants in his garden.

According to the suspect's logic -- which did not impress the court -- he should be allowed to plant the seeds rather than be forced to buy the end product.

"Why is cultivating the seed forbidden when any corner shop you go to sells it and why should I be forced to buy it off anyone else?" Kouroushis told a shocked district court.

The drug squad dismisses the fact that cannabis seed is freely available in Cyprus, but pet shop owners and consumers have stated otherwise.

"These seeds are not openly available in shops, otherwise we'd know about it and stop it," one drug squad officer told the Cyprus Mail.

But a Nicosia pet shop owner freely admitted he was peddling the seed to a variety of birds.

"Yeah, sure we sell cannabis seed; it's imported with the bird food, come have a look," said pet shop owner Costas Iracleous.

Other locals even confessed to buying the seeds roasted and salted as a meze to be washed down with beer or whisky.

"It's good for my cholesterol and it tastes great," said a cannabis seed fan.

Some prominent lawyers were stumped by the question of whether cultivating the seed locally for the birds was actually kosher.

"Nobody would believe you if you said you were growing cannabis to sell the seeds and not to smoke it," said a criminal lawyer.

However, Cyprus' stringent drug laws says that eating the seeds is one thing, but planting them as a crop is quite another, according to senior counsel of the Republic Petros Clerides.

"Even if you could grow plants from these seeds, it is not a sound legal argument," Clerides told the Cyprus Mail.

"It's like saying knives are free to buy in the shop, but that doesn't mean you are free to stab a man," said Clerides.

"Or you can buy various substances from a pharmacy but if you put them together to make an explosive that's illegal."

So, for the moment, the "legalise cannabis" campaigners will have to stick to chewing seeds instead of smoking the weed.

Friday, June 18, 1999

[04] Callebaut chocolates removed from dioxin list

THE HEALTH Ministry yesterday removed several types of Callebaut brand-name chocolates from among 103 products of Belgian origin suspected of contamination by dioxin, a highly toxic compound that causes cancer.

The removal represents the second such action by the Ministry this week. On Monday, it removed Lu brand's Choco Prince and Pim's biscuits from the list of 104 suspect brand-name products it published last Friday.

Health Department officials have said dioxin contamination is not a major problem in the Cyprus food chain.

The Callebaut chocolates include its 50 gram box of milk chocolates, batch #LA8292A, expiry date 19.01.2000; 50 gram box of Wit-Blanc, batch #LB8324A, expiry date 21.01.2000; 47 gram box of Kokos-Coco, batch #L8281, expiry date 03.10.1999; and its 55 gram box of Hazelnuts, batch # L83031, expiry date 24.12.1999.

Barry Callebaut industrial raw chocolate in nine differently numbered batches with nine separate expiry dates were also removed from the suspect list. Manufacturers using Barry Callebaut raw chocolates can contact the Health Ministry for a list of the relevant batch numbers and expiry dates.

Lu brand biscuits were removed from the list because their date of manufacture did not fall within the period of January 15 to June 1, the dates during which Belgium believed dioxin contamination to have occurred. The Belgian government has since revised the suspect dates to between January 19 and January 31.

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

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 on the list with January 15-June 1 production dates, and to hold them, pending testing, for possible destruction.

Merchants failing to withdraw the banned items face their confiscation and fines.

The Cyprus Chamber of Commerce & Industry yesterday urged the government to send to Belgium a list of all products that Cyprus importers claim to be dioxin-free, so these can be promptly checked, and those found free can be released for sale.

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.

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 in promulgating its list.

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.

Friday, June 18, 1999

[05] Government promises full redundancy pay if Philoxenia staff laid off

THE COUNCIL of Ministers yesterday approved paying a total of £265,000 in severance pay to 44 employees of the state-owned Philoxenia Hotel if they are laid off because the facility is leased to new tenants, Commerce Minister Nicos Rolandis said.

"If they opt to be appointed on a daily basis (to a government job) then they will loose this privilege," Rolandis told the Cyprus Mail. But if they are laid off on June 25, they will each collect some £5,000 from the hotel and be entitled to unemployment compensation benefits as prescribed by law, he said.

Tenders for the Philoxenia Hotel close on June 25, Rolandis said, adding the government had received 10 tenders from bidders interested in occupying the threadbare government-owned facility.

The government has sought new tenants for the Philoxenia, and would entertain leasing it as either a hotel or an office building. If no private tenants successfully bid, the government will house a ministry or a semi- governmental organisation in it.

Rolandis said that, from the return addresses on the 10 bids received so far, it appeared most bidders were interested in leasing the facility as a hotel.

However, as the bids are sealed, neither the bidders' intent or the amount of their bids was known for certain at this time, he said.

Rolandis said the Council of Ministers also approved and sent to the House of Representatives the regulations for private contractors to submit bids to build up to seven new marinas around the Republic.

He has said he hopes to break ground on some of the new marinas as early as June, and have work well under way by December.

Quick action by the House before its July recess would permit this, he said yesterday, otherwise, the matter will have to be put off until the House returns in the autumn.

Currently Cyprus has only two marinas, the government-owned Larnaca Marina, and the privately owned San Rafael. Rolandis plans to spread a total of 5, 000 berths among six, perhaps, seven marinas.

Friday, June 18, 1999

[06] Market hits new high as interest shifts away from banks

SHARE PRICES ended at an-all time high yesterday, with the official all- share index closing at 155.34, 1.54 per cent up on Wednesday's close.

The previous all-time high was 153.61, reached on May 24.

The value of yesterday's trade was a modest £8.53 million, of which £2.27 million went to bank titles, while the unusually high sums of £1.41 million and £1.14 million went to tourism and miscellaneous sectors respectively.

Traders said the interest in non-banking shares after months of near-total focus on bank titles was responsible for yesterday's rally.

"It seems that there is a tendency to go to what we call the peripheral shares at the moment," said Adonis Yiangou of Expresstock Ltd. "Now that the bank shares have somewhat stabilised, money is moving to the shares which had not moved much in recent months."

Yiangou said such shares included Libra Holidays Group, the printers Cassoulides and technology company Avacom.

A total of 343,870 stocks of Libra Holidays worth £1.02 million changed hands yesterday, but the stock closed at £2.96, down by 4.0 cents. Salamis Tours, another tourism giant, had nearly 233,216 of its shares changing hands, closing one cent up at £1.18.

In the "other companies" sector, the usually sluggish Cyprus Airways stocks appreciated by three cents to close at £0.54 with an astonishing 294,500 shares changing hands. Other shares in the sector which saw unusually heavy trading yesterday included K & G Complex Ltd (260,025 shares) and Cyventure Capital Ltd (552,100 shares).

Despite the shift in interest to the so-called peripheral shares, the lucrative bank titles had a good day, with all but one of the four listed banks finishing the day in positive territory.

The Bank of Cyprus closed at £6.76, up by 12 cents and the Popular Bank closed at £3.76, up by 3 cents. Hellenic Bank ended the day at £4.26, up by five cents, while Universal Savings Bank closed down at £2.23, down 2 cents.

All seven sub-indices of the market closed higher yesterday except for insurance companies which finished three per cent lower at 83.06.

Friday, June 18, 1999

[07] Vassiliou: EU harmonisation to cost £568 million

CYPRUS' drive to join the European Union will cost it an estimated 946 million euros, or £568 million, in the four years ending in 2003, chief EU membership negotiator George Vassiliou said yesterday.

He said the costs, most of which will go to the modification of environmental and energy infrastructures, will absorb two to three per cent of the island's gross domestic product.

The cost in proportion to GDP will be among the highest of the five other applicants on a fast track with Cyprus to join the EU, he said.

Former President Vassiliou, also a prominent businessman, said that, while not 100 per cent accurate, the figures on the cost of EU harmonisation were presented to the European Union to support the argument that Cyprus needed more pre-accession aid from the EU.

"These figures are not 100 per cent accurate but gives an insight on the costs of this," said Vassiliou. "They were given to Europe to prove our point that we would like as much help as possible because, relatively speaking, the cost of harmonisation as a percentage of the gross domestic product is somewhat high," he told a news conference.

Cyprus applied for EU membership in 1990, when Vassiliou was in office, but only opened accession negotiations in March 1998. It is not expected to join before 2003. It has been pressing for an increase in its pre-accession aid for some time now, arguing that its growing fiscal deficit, forecast to reach 5.9 per cent by the end of this year, was partly caused by loss of revenues from phasing out import duties on EU goods.

The EU is the island's largest trade partner.

Cyprus is currently receiving 74 million euros, or £43.02 million, under a five-year financial protocol that expires at the end of 1999. Some of the funds are directed specifically towards pre-accession projects.

Almost 70 per cent of the costs Cyprus will incur as it harmonises with the EU relate to changes needed to modify its environment and energy infrastructure, particularly sewerage projects.

The upgrading of existing institutions and the establishment of new ones, like quality control, will absorb almost 15 per cent of the costs. Support schemes for the private sector will absorb some 11 per cent of costs.

Friday, June 18, 1999

[08] Shots fired in Limassol chase

A 17-year-old and 15-year-old were arrested after the hour-long chase on Wednesday night.

Police said warning shots were fired when the youths seen in the car refused to stop and ran through red lights.

Five shots were fired in all, one of them hitting the back of the stolen vehicle.

One off-duty policeman was hurt when he was hit by the car, while walking along the pavement. He was not seriously injured.

The other policeman was injured when one of the youths pushed him to the ground after the car finally came to halt.

The 17-year-old was later released from custody without charge, police said yesterday.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1999

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