Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 00-04-07

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From: The Cyprus Mail at <http://www.cyprus-mail.com/>

Friday, April 7, 2000

CONTENTS

[01] Market roars back the past 500 mark

[02] Panel appointed to examine high leukaemia rate

[03] New ambulances arrive, but where are the paramedics?

[04] It’s time to change gear say top envoys

[05] New cracks emerge in Socio-Democratic Party

[06] Drug trafficker jailed for 14 years

[07] Four more harmonisation chapters in the bag

[08] Tourism body joins jet-ski protest

[09] Turkish Cypriot to seek land compensation in court

[10] March rains were down again

[11] Man pulls out gun after refusing to pay VAT on cigarettes

[12] Man accused of million dollar scam

[01] Market roars back the past 500 mark

BULLS were back on the Cyprus bourse yesterday as the all-share index took a 4.6 per cent spike upwards, clambering past the 500 point threshold for the first time since it was pierced in late March.

Driven by a strong performance in tourism and banking related stocks, the CSE all share index staged one of the highest climbs in weeks with a 22.14 point jump to 504.06 points.

"I think institutional investors have given up thinking the market will fall even further so they have started buying," said a floor trader.

Brokers reported that individual investors were also active yesterday, having partially overcome caution about a further correction to the market after the hammering of March.

For most of April until yesterday, the market was moving in horizontal mode on thin trading volumes.

However, the relatively closed nature of the market shielded it from the hammering of stocks on the European bourses and the Nasdaq this week, where traditionally stable markets have been looking decidedly wobbly from investors ditching high- tech stocks.

Traders reported investors were also closely following the close range performance of the Athens bourse this week ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election.

Many believe that the future performance of the Greek bourse could give an insight of what is in store for the CSE because of parallel listings that blue chip Cypriot firms have in the pipeline in coming months.

Traded value reached £30.1 million, higher than Wednesday by about £11 million, and the number of trades swelled to 8,358.

The market opened some five points, or 1.0 per cent, higher at 486.75, which was the session's intraday low, and struck a high of 504.29 before fractionally scaling back to its closing figure.

All seven sectors scored gains with the highest going to tourism stocks, which ended 23 points, or 5.9 per cent higher, followed by a stellar performance for banks, which ended 4.01 per cent up.

Laiki led net gains for banks with a 40 cent jump to £12.60 on a turnover of 120,168 shares, while Bank of Cyprus closely followed with a 36 cent jump to £8.16, but on a much higher volume of 501,622 shares. Universal Savings Bank, which had led gains of the sector in the past four trading sessions, was up six cents to £6.21 while Hellenic registered an 18 cent gain to £3.13.

Newcomer Chris Cash & Carry made its debut at £1.57 apiece, matching or exceeding traders' expectations that the company would float between £1.40 and £1.50. It closed at £1.68. The issue price of the share was 50 cents on a 20 cent nominal value.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[02] Panel appointed to examine high leukaemia rate

HEALTH Minister Frixos Savvides has kept his pledge and picked a panel of nine scientific experts, including one from Greece, to probe why so many childhood leukaemia cases have been reported in the Polemidia area, a state doctor confirmed yesterday.

The panel, headed by Health Ministry chief epidemiologist Dr Andreas Georgiou, will convene for the first time with Savvides early on Tuesday, and on Wednesday will discuss its plans and methodology before the House Refugee Committee, according to Georgiou and Deputy Marios Matsakis.

Pano Polemidia residents say seven - some news reports say 10 - village children have leukaemia, and blame their blood- cancer on the electro-magnetic fields from the high-voltage power lines passing through their village. They want the lines moved, and say they will bulldoze any new power pylons the state erects.

Georgiou said he was "not sure" how many cancer or leukaemia cases there actually were in Polemidia, so preferred to wait until "the first session of the committee to find out the exact number of cases... and then to disclose it in the press."

Georgiou told the Cyprus Mail his panel planned "to find out if there is any connection with electro-magnetic fields, or any other reason," including groundwater contamination.

Some residents claim an old chemical dump is still being used as a disposal pit by trucks that pump septic tanks, and they wonder whether toxins from that septic "lagoon" may have leached into Polemidia's groundwater.

"We are not limiting our boundaries only to the electricity. We are to search out whether there are clusters of leukaemia above the (statistically) acceptable average of the general population and the reasons why these clusters" have showed up, he said.

"We're going to search for all the reasons," Georgiou said, including the possibility cancer-causing chemicals may be in the groundwater, which the villagers say they pump from boreholes and use for drinking, cooking and washing.

Georgiou noted most scientific evidence suggested there was no causal connection between high-voltage power lines and cancer or leukaemia.

But he acknowledged that a small percentage of the studies left open the door of doubt, suggesting there may be some connection between power lines and the illness. The data "is contradictory," he conceded.

He said Savvides had assured him of the services of Professor Sounoglou of Metsovo Polytechnic in Greece to assist his Polemidia probe panel.

"There are many others (on it)," he added, "including Dr Loizou Loizou, a specialist on childhood oncology, and Dr Michalis Voniatis," a local epidemiologist.

Two studies by Voniatis of the blood of Ergates villagers first disclosed they had cancer, lead- and cadmium poisoning far higher than the Cyprus national average.

He blamed this on toxins in the smoke from nearby Marios & Andreas foundry, triggering a Health Ministry contract with British experts to re-test the villagers to see how badly their health may have been damaged by the smelter's smoke.

The Polemidia-probe panel also includes mechanical and electrical engineers from the Cyprus Electricity Authority (EAC) and the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA), and there is another doctor expert in CAT-scanning, Dr Sophocles Sophocleous.

"So the committee will have an overall multi-disciplinary approach so as not to be biased or misled by figures that will not be representative," Georgiou said.

He said the Health Ministry has a good cancer database "that was set up four or five years ago," and which would be used in baseline evaluation of the health problems of Polemidia, a suburb of Limassol.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[03] New ambulances arrive, but where are the paramedics?

HEALTH Minister Frixos Savvides yesterday added four state-of-the-art ambulances to the island's fleet, bringing the number of government- operated ambulances to 52 island-wide, ambulance chief Andreas Kouppis said.

MP Marios Matsakis, himself a physician, said he had inspected the four new ambulances and pronounced them "OK. They have all the equipment - defibrillators, and all the rest of it" that paramedic ambulance attendants need to raise the survival rate of emergency patients en route to hospital.

"(But) in my view," he said, "there is no proper personnel to use them properly. We still have no paramedics" anywhere on the island capable of utilising the new vehicles to their full potential, he said.

Asked if he thought Minister Savvides would be able to come through with his promise to put paramedics in Cyprus ambulances by December, Matsakis replied: "I don't know."

Savvides in October 1999 promised to open a paramedic training school this September, and have its first graduates in urban ambulances by mid-2001, and throughout Cyprus by 2003.

But on February 8, Savvides said he had advanced that timetable so the first paramedic attendants would be in ambulances in Cyprus "before the end of the year."

Matsakis said the island needed "another 30 ambulances" with the same equipment that came with the four Savvides took the keys to yesterday, "and I think it's a scandal that we're not getting them. They're £30,000 each, which means it would only be £900,000 to have 30 more ambulances tomorrow," he said.

Additionally, he said, "the radios are still not working" between ambulances and their base hospitals "in the whole of Cyprus, so they have communications problems," Matsakis said.

Finally, he said, "three of these four ambulances... were ready for delivery two months ago, but they were sitting in the yards in the EMS - the Electro-Mechanical Department - doing nothing, waiting to be ceremoniously handed over this morning."

The single four-wheel-drive ambulance among yesterday's four is slated to go to Kyperounda Village Hospital in the Troodos mountains.

The other three new ambulances are going to Larnaca and Paphos hospitals, and the Evrychou Health Centre, Kouppis said.

Most ambulances are based at urban hospitals. They have no permanent attendants; hospital nurses are dragooned into riding in them when an emergency call comes in. And their drivers' skills count little more than having a driver's license.

A 1994 World Health study flunked the current ambulance system and urged a paramedic one should replace it by 1995. A 1996 study by a British paramedic consultant concluded that, two years on, none of the WHO report's recommendations had been implemented.

Kouppis' eight-year, £5-million plan to create an independent paramedic service has been languishing in the Finance Ministry's Planning Bureau for at least five years for lack of official interest in funding it.

A government official, who requested anonymity, said the Finance Ministry's insistence on more meetings about Savvides' pledge to put paramedics in all Cyprus ambulances "before the end of the year" may make it impossible for him to keep that promise.

House Health Committee testimony on October 10, 1996, indicated 40 people died each year in Cyprus due to the island's poor ambulance service, and doctors have since said there is no reason to doubt that the number has fallen since then.

Matsakis has called the ambulance service "prehistoric," and little more than a "meat-wagon" transport that is often less likely to get someone to hospital alive, than if they were ferried in a taxi or private car.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[04] It’s time to change gear say top envoys

THE UN, US and UK envoys on the Cyprus problem all agree that the UN-led proximity talks must be upgraded, the government spokesman said yesterday.

Speaking during his daily press briefing, Michalis Papapetrou said President Glafcos Clerides had discussed such the issue with the US presidential emissary for Cyprus Alfred Moses in New York on Wednesday.

"(Clerides and Moses) discussed ways to upgrade the talks in the third round in such a way that they become more effective."

Without going into further details, Papapetrou said: "There is in general terms an understanding that the talks must be upgraded... there was a review of the situation at present and they discussed ways to upgrade the talks and render them more productive."

The government spokesman said the international envoys that met in New York earlier this week had for the most part "common views" on the need to make the UN peace talks more productive.

The envoys – Alvaro de Soto (UN), Alfred Moses (US) and Sir David Hannay (UK) – have also said that they intend to visit Cyprus before the resumption of proximity talks.

The need to move ahead in the talks was emphasised in New York yesterday by the UN Secretary-general's special advisor on the island.

Speaking after an informal meeting with Clerides in New York, De Soto said: "The sooner we can move to more concrete talks the better it would be."

De Soto made the comment in response to a question on whether he believed the Greek and Turkish side were willing to start substantial negotiations, accelerating the current proximity talks process.

De Soto attended a lunch given in Clerides' honour by Cyprus' permanent representative at the UN ambassador Sotos Zakheos, "The President was here and the ambassador had the good initiative that we should get together, an opportunity to talk."

De Soto added that the meeting had been casual and that no one, "could say any business was transacted... It was more a pleasant occasion in which we simply talked about how things are developing."

On the possibility of a fourth round of talks taking place at the end of June, De Soto said, "Let's concentrate on the goal at hand, the (third round of proximity) talks on May 23, and we will take it from there."

Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash agreed to participate in a third round of talks, to be held in New York.

The proximity talks aim at breaking a deadlock in the Cyprus problem and opening the way for substantial talks, which would lead to a comprehensive settlement of the problem.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[05] New cracks emerge in Socio-Democratic Party

THE WOES of the new Socio-Democratic party continue, with one of its founding partners apparently on the verge of jumping ship.

Members of the Renewal Movement, which merged with parliamentary party Edek to form the new party last year, are unhappy with what they feel is a "climate of mistrust" within the new party.

The party, formed only months ago, has already been rocked by the defection of an Edek contingent led by prominent lawyer and former deputy Efstathios Efstathiou. Efstathiou has announced he and his sympathisers will be forming a new party in the near future.

The Socio-Democratic party has been keen to play down the splintering and to insist that any rifts would be healed.

Party leader Vassos Lyssarides adopted this same approach in response to the new talk of division yesterday, saying former Edek members had "embraced" Renewal Movement members.

But Kypros Chrysostomides, of the Movement, did not see things that way.

He said the problem was not one of power-sharing but of former Edek members not trusting former Movement members.

"It is not an issue of leadership, it is an issue of conflict and has now become an issue of the climate that prevails," Chrysostomides said. He said this mistrust had always existed and was just not going away: "We said from the start that if this climate continued we would have to move to defining responsibilities."

But Chrysostomides also made it clear his faction might have to go its own way. "The effort to restructure the centre could continue independently," he said.

Socio-Democratic party co-ordinator Yiannakis Omirou, a former Edek member, said he saw no reason for the Chrysostomides group to leave.

"I believe that as we have agreed on the big things, as there are no political or ideological differences, it is not possible to get stuck on the small things," Omirou said.

He did not define what these "small things" were.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[06] Drug trafficker jailed for 14 years

Stelios Kattis, 60, a restaurant owner from Ormidia, was yesterday sentenced to 14 years in prison. His accomplice, Elias Akhanian from Lebanon, now living in Ormidia, married to a Cypriot and a father of four, was sentenced to 10 years.

The Larnaca court found the two men guilty of possessing and trafficking 30 kilos of hashish oil last June.

Kattis was arrested after SBA police found the drugs stashed away on property belonging to him.

Kattis initially indicated he wanted to co-operate with the Drug Prosecution Authorities, but tried to trick them, telling them the drugs had come from the occupied areas.

In reality, Kattis had arranged for the drugs to be transferred from Lebanon, through Akhanian.

Passing sentence, the court said Kattis' actions had shown he was a ruthless man, and it had a duty to protect young people from drugs.

The court said Akhanian should be judged with leniency since he had been used by Kattis at a time when he was unemployed and in urgent need of money.

As the two men were leaving court, they exchanged abuse, each blaming the other for the affair.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[07] Four more harmonisation chapters in the bag

Changes connected to the chapter had been completed by October 1998 but its closure was held up when four EU countries, France, Italy, Germany and Holland, issued a joint statement demanding that a solution to the Cyprus problem be found before the island was allowed full membership.

EU Summit decisions in Helsinki late last year that a solution to the Cyprus problem would be preferred but not required for EU membership, put paid to the four countries' concerns.

Also closed yesterday were chapters on fishing, business relationships and social policy.

The four brought the number of closed chapters to 15, almost half of the 31- part acquis communautaire, and keeping Cyprus ahead of all the other candidate countries.

Cyprus' chief EU negotiator George Vassiliou was meanwhile in Brussels yesterday on an official visit to meet with officials connected with Cyprus’ harmonisation process.

He met with the Commissioner on transport and energy, Loyola de Palacio, and the Commissioner on agriculture and fishing, Franz Fischler.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[08] Tourism body joins jet-ski protest

Communications Minister Averoff Neophytou has already lambasted a relevant proposal from the House communications committee as ‘pandering to private interests’. Neophytou repeated his attack yesterday.

For its part, Stek issued a statement claiming implementation of deputies' proposals would be a disaster for tourism. Lifting restrictions on jet-ski use would increase noise pollution and disturbance and only serve the interests of jet-ski owners, Stek stated.

An amendment approved last year bans jet-skis and speedboats from beaches between 1 pm and 4 pm. The communications committee is proposing that this ban be lifted, allowing the pleasure craft to ride the waves between 10 am and 6 pm uninterrupted.

The committee position is that jet-skis are not too noisy, and therefore do not disturb beach-goers too much. Deputies also see the pleasure-craft as an attractive addition to the island's tourism product.

Some 300 jet-skis are currently rented off local beaches.

Last summer, jet-ski owners protested wildly against state plans to limit their operations to certain beaches and specified boat lanes. Neophytou is currently on an island-wide beach tour aimed at finding a compromise on the boat-lanes issue.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[09] Turkish Cypriot to seek land compensation in court

THE CASE of a Turkish Cypriot woman demanding compensation from the Cyprus government for land worth £5 million in Pano Polemidia will come before a provisional court in Limassol on April 17.

The court’s decision will be final, and without appeal.

Muazet Etem Patsekoglou has been living in the UK with her husband and children since 1962. Her property of 72 building plots has been housing Greek Cypriots in a refugee settlement since the 1974 division of the island.

Patsekoglou's lawyer, Yiannakis Erotocritou, wants the government to re-examine the rent it is paying the woman for the property.

"The government acted illegally by handing over Patsekoglou's land to Greek Cypriots to build on. According to the law, the government can expropriate Turkish Cypriot properties for the common interest, but without allowing people to build on them," Erotocritou told the Cyprus Mail.

"The case of the Turkish Cypriot woman's property was first tried in 1986 and an amount was decided for the government to pay to her annually," Erotocritou said. But in 1994, the Attorney-general appealed for a higher rent, claiming the decision taken in 1986 was legally wrong. The case was then reopened, Erotocritou said, and will finally go to court later this month.

"On April 17, we will ask for free access to the property for Patsekoglou, since this is her demand. Nevertheless, the occupiers of her property, the people living in houses in the refugee settlement, are innocent victims and are not to blame for the government's mistakes; not just the present government but all the previous ones too. Maybe, if Patsekoglou gets free occupation, then she might come to an arrangement with the Greek Cypriot refugees. What we will ask for on April 17, is for the court to evaluate the annual rent given to Patsekoglou and decide whether or not it has been adequate," Erotocritou said.

The court’s verdict will be final, he added, without any further right of appeal. Some of the occupiers of the settlement houses have been called to appear in court to testify that they have been given land to build on, the lawyer said, though some did not like the idea and one had specifically said he would bring evidence that his properties had illegally been occupied by the Denktash regime.

"The Greek Cypriot refugees should complain to the government for mishandling the matter of Turkish Cypriot properties," Erotocritou said.

He insisted that just as Greek Cypriots, such as Titina Loizidou, had turned to the International Court of Human Rights in The Hague demanding compensation for their illegally occupied properties in the north, so Turkish Cypriots had every right to demand compensation for theirs from the government.

"What the Cyprus government should have done to be fair to its people was to turn to The Hague as a State and ask for restoration of human rights on the island, condemning the illegal occupation of Greek Cypriot properties," he said.

[10] March rains were down again

Meteorological Service records released yesterday show that average rainfall for the month was 39 mm, or just 63 per cent of normal.

This adds to the island's water worries and does nothing to improve the overall picture for the year so far. The Meteorological service statistics show that only 268 mm of precipitation, or 61 per cent of the average expected, have fallen since October last year.

Temperatures for March were slightly lower than average, prompting snowfalls on Troodos on March 1, 6, 7, 19, 22 and 23.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[11] Man pulls out gun after refusing to pay VAT on cigarettes

Skevi Cleanthous told police that the man on Wednesday morning bought five cartons of cigarettes from the BAT outlet on Stasinou Avenue in Nicosia. The cigarettes cost £37 plus an extra three pounds for VAT.

The man paid Cleanthous the cost of the cigarettes, but apparently refused to pay the VAT.

When she demanded the money, she said he pulled out a fake gun, grabbed the cartons, leaving £37, and fled.

The incident was reported to police at noon after Cleanthous told her husband what had happened.

In the afternoon police arrested the man based on a description given by the employee.

Reports say he admitted to threatening the woman and told police the gun was a fake.

The suspect has a previous conviction for stabbing a bank manager because he thought he was not paying him all the interest on money in a deposit account.

Friday, April 7, 2000

[12] Man accused of million dollar scam

A second Lebanese businessman believed to be the mastermind behind the operation is still at large.

Police are questioning the 44-year-old man arrested yesterday about his alleged involvement in forging and circulating counterfeit documents, and obtaining money under false pretences.

Police believe the 44-year-old was present during the scam, and that $50, 000 of the total amount was deposited in his account.

The man was arrested after the director of an Austrian company told police that his firm had agreed with a Limassol based offshore company the provision of 7,500 metric tonnes of Ukrainian steel worth $1,215,000 (around £600,000).

According to the agreement, the money to pay for the steel was to be transferred to an International Banking Unit on the island, once the buyers had been provided with the forwarders' certificate of receipt, issued by an official Ukrainian agency.

The Lebanese owner of the company sent the Austrian firm all the appropriate documents and they in turn transferred the agreed sum to the man's account in Cyprus.

But the steel failed to materialise, and the Austrian company found out through its Ukrainian agency, that the documents they had received were forged, since the real ones were still in Ukraine together with the cargo.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 2000

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