Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 99-07-23

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

Friday, July 23, 1999

CONTENTS

[01] BoC gets green light for Athens listing

[02] Central Bank gives stern warning given on fiscal deficitBy Hamza HendawiTHE CENTRAL Bank said yesterday that it expected the economy to grow by 4 per cent this year, down by 1 per cent from 1998, but it warned that the island's economic stability and its EU accession course were put at risk by a growing fiscal deficit.It said "full employment" conditions were expected to prevail in 1999 and that inflation would hover at around 2 per cent. Unemployment, it said, was expected to register a marginal decline to about 3.2 per cent of the economically active population.Tourist arrivals, it said, were expected to increase by 7.1 per cent in 1999 over last year, while a recovery in the export of goods was also seen."The fiscal deficit has been rising at a fast rate since 1996, and to the extent that if this imbalance is not addressed soon, both the internal and external stability will be endangered," said the report."Moreover, with (European Union) accession negotiations being at a critical stage, diverging from the fiscal criteria will prove detrimental. For these reasons a fiscal consolidation package is currently under preparation and will be very soon tabled before the House of Representatives."This package should be adopted as soon as possible in order to improve public finances and relieve pressures on the balance of payments," said the bank.The government of President Glafcos Clerides has for months now engaged opposition parties in a dialogue over a package of economic reforms and taxes, but, judging by public statements made by politicians, it appears to have made little progress in narrowing differences.The fiscal deficit, which the bank said was likely to reach 6.5 per cent of GDP this year from 5.5 per cent in 1998, was mainly the result of continued excessive growth of government expenditure associated with high defence spending and interest payments on government debt, it said.A slowdown in domestic demand is anticipated after the recovery in 1998 when expectations of an increase in Value Added Tax boosted private consumption significantly, it said.The deficit on the current account is expected to decline to 4.2 per cent of GDP compared with 6.7 per cent in 1998, reflecting an anticipated improvement in both the trade and invisibles accounts.

[03] Deputies demand new deal on defence

[04] Unions split over harbour overtime ban

[05] ‘Trusted friend’ jailed for molesting girl, 6A FATHER of two was yesterday sentenced by a British Bases court to 12 months’ imprisonment for sexually assaulting a girl of six and indecently exposing himself on a public beach.Andreas Krambis, 38, had pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting the child at the Romanzo beach, within the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area (SBA), on June 26.The SBA court heard of five specific incidents of sexual abuse of the same child by Krambis.The court heard that Krambis, from Ormidia outside Larnaca, had exposed himself to the six-year-old girl who was with her 11-year-old brother at the time. He had fondled the child and had made her touch him, while distracting her brother by telling him to stare at the sky and count to 100.The court heard that the man was a trusted acquaintance of the children's family and that is why their parents, who were fishing just 100 metres away, did not suspect what was going on. Krambis assaulted the girl over a four-hour period, the court heard.But the girl mentioned the incident to her parents when they left the beach at about 8pm, and they immediately went to the police.Krambis was arrested soon afterwards.He will serve his sentence at the Dhekelia SBA prison.

[06] Canadian Cypriot detained by Turkish soldiers

[07] British soldier charged with raping tourist

[08] Hospital probe confirms kidney drug shortfall

[09] Builder remanded as bank raid suspectA 32-year-old Aradippou builder was arrested yesterday in connection with the July 15 raid on the Ora Co- operative Bank in Larnaca.Charalambous Moskovias was remanded in custody for five days by Larnaca District Court. He was previously questioned on July 18, but was subsequently released.However, a friend of Moskovias later told police he had seen the builder acting suspiciously in the Ora area at the time of the crime, and two other friends came forward and said Moskovias had asked them to tell police he had been with them in Paphos at the time the crime was committed.Two houses owned by Moskovias were subsequently searched, but police found nothing there, the court was told.The raid on the bank in Larnaca took place at around 8.30 am, when a hooded man burst into the building. He demanded the keys to the bank safe from secretary Phanoulla Kyriakou Demetriou, 31, the only person there at the time. She didn’t have the keys and when she then started to scream, the would-be robber attacked her before fleeing empty-handed.Police have said that they intend taking a further 22 statements in addition to the 20 they have already taken.

[10] Woman, 75, killed by taxi

[11] Chrysostomos plumps for Skai to run LogosBy Andrew Adamides, TV CorrespondentIN A SHOCK development yesterday, it emerged that control of floundering church TV channel Logos will probably pass to Skai TV and not to Mega Channel as had previously been expected.Media insiders had popularly thought that Greece’s Mega Channel would snap up Logos, and that the signing of contracts between the two was a mere formality. But it emerged yesterday that at the last minute Archbishop Chrysostomos plumped for the deal with Skai, also of Greece, which he said was financially more lucrative.The Archbishop has signed the deal, with Skai and Yiannis Papadopoulos, publisher of Politisnewspaper, giving them control of Logos for the next ten years in return for a cool £500,000 a year. The agreement went before the Holy Synod yesterday and is expected to be finalised in the next few days.Launched to high hopes in 1992, Logos has in recent years become something of a joke, largely thanks to its strict censorship policies. Viewers have deserted the station in droves as censors rigidly remove anything which they consider to be offensive with little thought for the plot inconsistencies which may result.TV critics have also expressed unease about exactly what Logos censors consider offensive, as most of the material removed from films and TV series is sexual in nature, while scenes of sickening violence inevitably left intact.Recently, criticism of this habit grew sharper when classic films like Midnight Expressand Blazing Saddleswere butchered by the channel’s censors.The station’s habit of recycling the same films every few weeks in different timeslots has also been greeted with derision, as has its penchant for showing the first few episodes of popular new series like the Brooke Shields comedy Suddenly Susan, then inexplicably dropping them from the schedules.As might be expected, the channel also places a strong emphasis on religious programming, much of which has received a critical drubbing, with complaints about dull, turgid series about obscure monasteries which drag on for weeks.But Skai won’t be buying into a completely dead dog, as Logos does boast modern premises and broadcasting rights to a few hit shows, including sci-fis Seven Daysand Sliders, detective show High Tideand acclaimed spy series La Femme Nikita.But viewers should not expect a total makeover under the new management -- the Archbishop has insisted that one condition for the deal is that Skai-owned Logos will run religious programming for at least one hour a day, every day.

[12] Final touches put to golf and marina plans

[13] Christofias to have kidney transplant

[14] ’Chop-shop’ suspects released

[01] BoC gets green light for Athens listing Market on fire again

IN A GIANT leap toward full liberalisation, the Central Bank yesterday raised the foreign ownership limit on the island's commercial banks, paving the way for the Bank of Cyprus to achieve its eagerly-awaited goal of listing on the lucrative Athens Stock Exchange.

Under the new limit, the Bank of Cyprus will now be able to disburse up to 50 per cent of its share capital abroad, meeting a key requirement set by Greek laws for the listing of foreign companies whose shares are traded in another exchange.

The previous ceiling on foreign ownership of banks stood at 15 per cent.

The Bank of Cyprus, which has applied for the foreign ownership ceiling to be raised, will waste no time in taking advantage of the new limit. It plans to issue 10 per cent of its share capital, or about £100 million, in Greece during the last quarter of 1999.

The issue, which top bank officials said would easily be snapped up by investors, coupled with five per cent already held by non-residents, will meet the minimum 15 per cent listing requirement of the Athens Stock Exchange, according to the bank's Executive Chairman Solon Triantafyllides.

"My ambition is to see the Bank of Cyprus traded on the Athens Stock Exchange in the first month of 2000," a visibly ecstatic Triantafyllides told a hurriedly convened news conference at the bank's Nicosia headquarters.

The Bank of Cyprus foray into the Athens Stock Exchange, a bourse that is closely watched by investors in Cyprus, will most probably be followed by the Popular Bank, which operates in Greece through a subsidiary, European Popular Bank. Hellenic Bank, the island's third largest, only began operations in Greece last December.

The Bank of Cyprus issue in Greece will need the approval of shareholders, and an extraordinary meeting will be held in the first two weeks of September for this purpose. The price of the issue will be discussed with the bank's Greek consultants, Triantafyllides said.

Addressing concern that the bank might eventually fall into the control of foreign hands, Triantafyllides told yesterday's news conference: "You will never see a non-Cypriot sitting here."

The Bank of Cyprus and its rivals Popular and Hellenic have for nearly a decade viewed Greece as the obvious market for expansion considering the limitation of business on an island of some 700,000 people and a GDP of a little more than £5 billion.

The Bank of Cyprus was first in Greece in 1991. Its operations there now account for about 20 per cent of the group's profits. Further expansion in Greece, Triantafyllides said yesterday, would be aided by the flotation on the Greek market rather than absorbing funds from Cyprus.

The Bank's share in the Cyprus Stock Exchange yesterday shot up by 67.50 cents to close at a record £9.64 on a volume worth £10.36 million. Its 1999- 2003 warrants had a slightly better day, rising by 68 cents to close at £6.34 on a volume of £3.29 million.

The market as a whole resumed its strong showing yesterday after a one-day breather when shares shed 0.57 per cent of their value. The market closed on a new all-time high of 223.79, up 5.76 per cent on Wednesday.

Volume was worth £33.37 million, of which £15.44 went to the banks.

The Popular Bank rose by 35 cents to close at £5.12 amid trading worth a decent £3.53 million. Its warrants rose by 37.50 cents to close at £6.95.

Hellenic Bank, whose performance on the market has of late been nothing less than extraordinary, notched up 66.50 cents to close at a record £7.25.

Trading in the banks' shares and warrants accounted for about 60 per cent of yesterday's entire volume. All seven sectors of the market finished the day up, with the blue-chips of the banks the biggest winner. Their sub- index closed 7.13 per cent up at 293.43.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[02] Central Bank gives stern warning given on fiscal deficitBy Hamza HendawiTHE CENTRAL Bank said yesterday that it expected the economy to grow by 4 per cent this year, down by 1 per cent from 1998, but it warned that the island's economic stability and its EU accession course were put at risk by a growing fiscal deficit.It said "full employment" conditions were expected to prevail in 1999 and that inflation would hover at around 2 per cent. Unemployment, it said, was expected to register a marginal decline to about 3.2 per cent of the economically active population.Tourist arrivals, it said, were expected to increase by 7.1 per cent in 1999 over last year, while a recovery in the export of goods was also seen."The fiscal deficit has been rising at a fast rate since 1996, and to the extent that if this imbalance is not addressed soon, both the internal and external stability will be endangered," said the report."Moreover, with (European Union) accession negotiations being at a critical stage, diverging from the fiscal criteria will prove detrimental. For these reasons a fiscal consolidation package is currently under preparation and will be very soon tabled before the House of Representatives."This package should be adopted as soon as possible in order to improve public finances and relieve pressures on the balance of payments," said the bank.The government of President Glafcos Clerides has for months now engaged opposition parties in a dialogue over a package of economic reforms and taxes, but, judging by public statements made by politicians, it appears to have made little progress in narrowing differences.The fiscal deficit, which the bank said was likely to reach 6.5 per cent of GDP this year from 5.5 per cent in 1998, was mainly the result of continued excessive growth of government expenditure associated with high defence spending and interest payments on government debt, it said.A slowdown in domestic demand is anticipated after the recovery in 1998 when expectations of an increase in Value Added Tax boosted private consumption significantly, it said.The deficit on the current account is expected to decline to 4.2 per cent of GDP compared with 6.7 per cent in 1998, reflecting an anticipated improvement in both the trade and invisibles accounts.

Friday, July 23, 1999

[03] Deputies demand new deal on defence

BESIEGED Defence Minister Yiannakis Chrysostomis found himself in the firing line again yesterday, with the House Watchdog Committee demanding that a deal to buy ammunition from Greece be renegotiated.

The committee was displeased to hear the minister confirm that the National Guard had paid over-the-odds to buy bullets from Greek firm Pircal. Deputies demanded that new price be agreed.

Chrysostomis protested that the deal with Pircal, a Greek government-owned firm, was done to satisfy an urgent army need for ammunition. Nicosia had a special agreement with Athens to satisfy such emergency needs, the minister said.

The minister has been having a hard time of late, with a succession of National Guard ‘scandals’ hitting the headlines. First he was forced to admit the wrong fuel had been used for the army's T-80 main battle tanks for three years. Then there came the revelation that the army was running dangerously short of ammunition.

And last week, it emerged that Chrysostomis had accepted £10,000 worth of hospitality from a Swiss armaments firm which sold the army Aspide missiles.

The ammunition saga was on the agenda for an extraordinary session of the House Watchdog Committee yesterday, and Chrysostomis was called to account for his actions.

He said Pircal had already been beaten down from their starting price. The Greek firm's final price was "only" 9.2 per cent higher than the cheapest offer received -- from a Chinese firm -- after the army sought tenders for 7.62 millimetre bullets, Chrysostomis said.

This price difference was considered acceptable, given that ministry policy was to prefer to buy from Greece in "emergency" cases, the minister told the committee.

If the ammunition order had to be put to out tender again, then valuable time would be lost, he warned. He conveyed a message to deputies from army command: "We do not have bullets to fight with."

The committee was of the opinion that the ammunition should cost no more than the Chinese tender.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[04] Unions split over harbour overtime ban

THE UNION Deok, which represents some of the Ports Authority workers, has called on its members not to take part in a strike planned for this weekend. But Limassol and Larnaca harbours still run the risk of being paralysed after normal working hours after Port Authority workers announced on Wednesday that they would not be working overtime.

The Authority Workers' Union had also said it would meet other harbour- connected unions on Monday to discuss further action if their demands for renewal of their current collective contracts were not met.

Workers' Union secretary-general Andreas Patalos on Wednesday told reporters the union had not ruled out the possibility of an all-out indefinite strike if their demands were not met.

Yesterday Ports Authority President Costas Erotocritou said that the strike was unwarranted as a meeting had been scheduled for next Wednesday to discuss the workers' demands.

The workers want their current contracts, which say work after 2.30pm is overtime, to be renewed. But the Ports Authority and government want to implement a shift system and overtime abolished.

An independent study has shown that 80 of the 185 Ports Authority workers at Limassol harbour were surplus, Erotocritou said.

Patalos yesterday said that the union would attend the meeting but that the strike would proceed because previous meetings had not had the desired results, and the union was not optimistic about this one.

He denied that most of the workers were highly paid: "Someone just appointed gets a net salary of £350 a month. Most technical staff at Limassol harbour (80 to 90 people) have to work until 12 at night overtime, 150 hours overtime a month."

He added that someone receiving a salary of £5,000 a year would get another 7-8 thousand in overtime pay.

Patalos also said there were not many Deok members on the staff, so their not joining the strike would have little affect on the outcome.

But Deok secretary-general Diomides Diomides said his union's members comprised more than ten per cent of the workforce. He said Deok did not feel strike action was necessary because of the scheduled talks on the collective agreements.

Diomides said that the union did not want the public to suffer, and he believed other unions would soon have second thoughts about striking.

Up to 15,000 cruise ship passengers are expected to be affected by the strike. However, tour operators have assured customers that cruises would be unaffected, especially since Deok had decided not to take part.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[05] ‘Trusted friend’ jailed for molesting girl, 6A FATHER of two was yesterday sentenced by a British Bases court to 12 months’ imprisonment for sexually assaulting a girl of six and indecently exposing himself on a public beach.Andreas Krambis, 38, had pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting the child at the Romanzo beach, within the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area (SBA), on June 26.The SBA court heard of five specific incidents of sexual abuse of the same child by Krambis.The court heard that Krambis, from Ormidia outside Larnaca, had exposed himself to the six-year-old girl who was with her 11-year-old brother at the time. He had fondled the child and had made her touch him, while distracting her brother by telling him to stare at the sky and count to 100.The court heard that the man was a trusted acquaintance of the children's family and that is why their parents, who were fishing just 100 metres away, did not suspect what was going on. Krambis assaulted the girl over a four-hour period, the court heard.But the girl mentioned the incident to her parents when they left the beach at about 8pm, and they immediately went to the police.Krambis was arrested soon afterwards.He will serve his sentence at the Dhekelia SBA prison.

Friday, July 23, 1999

[06] Canadian Cypriot detained by Turkish soldiers

Royiros Georgiou, a 48-year-old Canadian national, was stopped by four Turkish soldiers on the road near the buffer-zone village and apprehended, police said.

It was not clear from the report whether Georgiou, who lives in Kalo Chorio in the Limassol area, had been in the government-controlled or Turkish-held areas when he was detained.

Police said an Unficyp officer had informed them that the Turks were holding Georgiou in occupied Nicosia on "charges of illegal entry".

Unficyp spokeswoman Sarah Russell said Georgiou would be visited by the UN today. "I can confirm that Unficyp will visit the Canadian Greek Cypriot tomorrow," she said.

Greek Cypriots or tourists straying into the occupied areas are usually returned to the government-controlled areas within days.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[07] British soldier charged with raping tourist

Private Glenn Steven Chambers, of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment, was formally charged on two counts in connection with the alleged sex attack.

After being released from police custody yesterday the 21-year-old was handed over to the British base of Dhekelia.

"We can confirm he is now in our custody," said Bases spokesman Rob Need.

No date has yet been set for Chambers to appear in a Larnaca district court to answer the charges because the police file has to be studied by the Attorney-general's office first.

The incident allegedly took place at an empty beachside restaurant in Larnaca, at around 4am, after the two had met in a nearby pub hours earlier.

According to the girl's accusation, the two started kissing at the restaurant after the 21-year-old soldier asked to go for a walk on the beach.

When the soldier wanted intercourse the teenager refused, and the accused is then said to have raped her twice.

Chambers denies raping the girl, saying she consented to intercourse, police told a court on Monday.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[08] Hospital probe confirms kidney drug shortfall

HEALTH Minister Christos Solomis yesterday confirmed that there had been a 26 per cent shortfall in Nicosia general hospital's supply of a life- enhancing kidney drug.

Speaking at a press conference called to announce the results of an inquiry into the hospital running out of erythropoetine in June, Solomis said that two parallel investigations were still under way.

He said that the vanished drug's value to the state was £22,000 but it had been a much higher value on the black market.

Solomis also said that a computerised medicine audit system would soon be introduced and that this should help prevent similar problems occurring in the future.

The Minister said that this first inquiry into the issue had been carried out to confirm that there had been a deficit and if so, to discover its size. Solomis said that the report had been given to him on Wednesday and that its aim had not been to uncover who, "if anyone", was responsible.

The investigation was carried out jointly by the Health Ministry and the police, and involved checking the files of the 127 erythropoetine-taking patients at Nicosia general.

It covered the seven months preceding the medicine running out, from November 1998 to May this year and uncovered the deficit.

Erythropoetine is used to improve kidney patients' quality of life and is usually administered after they have undergone dialysis. The amount of medication given varies from patient to patient.

Solomis said that even if some doctors may have forgotten to update patients’ files after prescribing them the drug, this could not account for such a large deficit.

He also said that if this amount had not disappeared, supplies of the drug would have been sufficient to cover the quota for at least two and a half months after the medicine ran out.

The second inquiry is being carried out at the suggestion of ombudsman Eliana Nicolaou, with head of the pharmaceutical services Costas Mallis investigating how the deficit technically came about. Solomis said that results were expected by the beginning of August.

"We have to ensure that public funds are used properly," the minister said. If it was discovered who was responsible, "you have my personal guarantee along with the Ministry's that we will expose the guilty if they exist".

A third probe is being conducted exclusively by the police, and involves investigating whether the tender process to order the medicine was carried out legally.

Tenders were put out in February with March 19 as the closing date. However the contract was only signed on June 15 after the medicine had already run out in Nicosia.

Rumours that the missing erythropoetine was being used to dope race-horses and athletes were also being investigated by the police, Solomis said.

He said that the public were encouraged to give any information they had on the issue to the police.

Ombudsman Nicolaou examined the issue after a complaint was submitted to her by the New Horizons party. Her report said that the Ministry had been slow to secure fresh supplies of the drug even though it was aware of the urgent need. She also noted that the medicine was not legally available in the private sector.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[09] Builder remanded as bank raid suspectA 32-year-old Aradippou builder was arrested yesterday in connection with the July 15 raid on the Ora Co- operative Bank in Larnaca.Charalambous Moskovias was remanded in custody for five days by Larnaca District Court. He was previously questioned on July 18, but was subsequently released.However, a friend of Moskovias later told police he had seen the builder acting suspiciously in the Ora area at the time of the crime, and two other friends came forward and said Moskovias had asked them to tell police he had been with them in Paphos at the time the crime was committed.Two houses owned by Moskovias were subsequently searched, but police found nothing there, the court was told.The raid on the bank in Larnaca took place at around 8.30 am, when a hooded man burst into the building. He demanded the keys to the bank safe from secretary Phanoulla Kyriakou Demetriou, 31, the only person there at the time. She didn’t have the keys and when she then started to scream, the would-be robber attacked her before fleeing empty-handed.Police have said that they intend taking a further 22 statements in addition to the 20 they have already taken.

[10] Woman, 75, killed by taxi

According to a police report, Andriani Tzizari, from Tersefanou village in the Larnaca district, was hit by a taxi on Gregoris Afxentiou Avenue at around 6.40am. The victim was rushed to Larnaca hospital where she died three hours later.

The driver was breathalysed and found to be sober. He was later arrested in connection with the fatal accident.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[11] Chrysostomos plumps for Skai to run LogosBy Andrew Adamides, TV CorrespondentIN A SHOCK development yesterday, it emerged that control of floundering church TV channel Logos will probably pass to Skai TV and not to Mega Channel as had previously been expected.Media insiders had popularly thought that Greece’s Mega Channel would snap up Logos, and that the signing of contracts between the two was a mere formality. But it emerged yesterday that at the last minute Archbishop Chrysostomos plumped for the deal with Skai, also of Greece, which he said was financially more lucrative.The Archbishop has signed the deal, with Skai and Yiannis Papadopoulos, publisher of Politisnewspaper, giving them control of Logos for the next ten years in return for a cool £500,000 a year. The agreement went before the Holy Synod yesterday and is expected to be finalised in the next few days.Launched to high hopes in 1992, Logos has in recent years become something of a joke, largely thanks to its strict censorship policies. Viewers have deserted the station in droves as censors rigidly remove anything which they consider to be offensive with little thought for the plot inconsistencies which may result.TV critics have also expressed unease about exactly what Logos censors consider offensive, as most of the material removed from films and TV series is sexual in nature, while scenes of sickening violence inevitably left intact.Recently, criticism of this habit grew sharper when classic films like Midnight Expressand Blazing Saddleswere butchered by the channel’s censors.The station’s habit of recycling the same films every few weeks in different timeslots has also been greeted with derision, as has its penchant for showing the first few episodes of popular new series like the Brooke Shields comedy Suddenly Susan, then inexplicably dropping them from the schedules.As might be expected, the channel also places a strong emphasis on religious programming, much of which has received a critical drubbing, with complaints about dull, turgid series about obscure monasteries which drag on for weeks.But Skai won’t be buying into a completely dead dog, as Logos does boast modern premises and broadcasting rights to a few hit shows, including sci-fis Seven Daysand Sliders, detective show High Tideand acclaimed spy series La Femme Nikita.But viewers should not expect a total makeover under the new management -- the Archbishop has insisted that one condition for the deal is that Skai-owned Logos will run religious programming for at least one hour a day, every day.

Friday, July 23, 1999

[12] Final touches put to golf and marina plans

CYPRUS yesterday moved closer to the goal of having six marinas and as many golf courses, with the Commerce, Industry and Tourism Ministry's final approval of plans to develop both types of facilities, Minister Nicos Rolandis said.

He said his ministry put the final touches on the marina element of his 12- point plan to improve the tourism sector so he can take the completed proposal to the House of Representatives as scheduled in October.

His master-plan calls for building five more private marinas, able to berth a total of 4,800 boats, so Cyprus can compete with its Mediterranean neighbours for yachting tourism.

The House wanted clarification of what areas Rolandis sought to develop. "Everything seems to be OK, with the exception of some pending matters (about property) connected with the Ports Authority, which we are trying to resolve," he said.

Rolandis said international tenders will go out for construction of the marinas "in the last quarter of the year", after the regulations get the expected House approval.

The regulations would provide for privatising the state-owned Larnaca Marina and allowing private entrepreneurs to run all six marinas, including the already privately owned San Rafael marina outside Limassol.

Rolandis' master plan calls for 1,200-berth marinas, each, in Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca; a 500-600-berth marina in Ayia Napa; and 300-berth marinas, each, in Protaras and San Rafael.

The island's third golf links, an 18-hole course that is part of a large Lanitis-family recreational project outside Limassol, also got the minister's nod yesterday, and two more are nearly off the drawing boards, Rolandis said.

Cyprus now has two golf courses, both in the Paphos District, and the Lanitis links, near the Rock of Aphrodite, would make three. A fourth is planned for Oroklini near Larnaca, a fifth for Ayia Napa-Protaras, and a sixth near Limassol which is still pending, Rolandis said.

Rolandis said the six links he envisions are "completely private sector"

Asked how Cyprus can build golf courses in the middle of a drought, when water is being rationed, Rolandis replied that the six links "will require (a total of) two million tons of water per year, in the region of 300,000 tons of water per year per golf course."

The island’s total water requirements per year are 200 million tons, he said. "This means that the (six) golf courses would use the equivalent of one per cent of the water requirements of Cyprus."

Recycled water would be used whenever possible, he said. "But even if it was fresh water, it would mean that we would need only one per cent of our total requirements to service the golf courses, which are a must for tourism. So, as far as we are concerned, we consider it important to have them."

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[13] Christofias to have kidney transplant

Christofias said yesterday that he would be travelling to Britain on July 31 for preparatory tests and expected to return by the end of August with a new kidney.

Poor health has kept 53-year-old Christofias away from the political scene for a good part of the year.

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Friday, July 23, 1999

[14] ’Chop-shop’ suspects released

The men, all from Limassol, had been arrested for alleged illegal import of stolen sections and parts of luxury BMW and Mercedes cars for reassembly into "death-trap" vehicles for sale on the local market. But the court said the reasons police presented for wanting to continue holding the men were "irrelevant" to the ongoing investigation.

Two of the suspects released yesterday - Christakis Christodoulou, alias Chris, 49, and Adamos Zakheou, 41 - had been arrested and remanded last month following late night raids on garages in Limassol's Turkish quarter. The raids turned up shell sections and engines of luxury vehicles, thought to be stolen.

The third suspect released yesterday had been arrested late on Wednesday.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1999

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