Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 00-11-04

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

Saturday, November 4, 2000

CONTENTS

[01] BoC to open in Athens next week

[02] Slow day for tired market

[03] Non-papers and ideas at the Geneva talks

[04] Cyprus in 1999: more marriages and more divorce, fewer births and fewer deaths

[05] Matsakis plays up fears of asbestos cancer link

[06] Health Ministry investigating doping link to missing drugs

[07] Fanieros denies link to share scam

[08] Finance Ministry submits vehicle inspection bill

[09] EU measures aim to root out football violence

[01] BoC to open in Athens next week

The island's largest banking institution sold 39 million shares, or 12 per cent of its share capital, at 3,100 drachmas (£5.22) per share in its initial public offering (IPO) in Greece last month. BoC stocks closed at £5.39 on the Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE) yesterday, up 10 cents on Thursday's price.

Senior BoC official Charilaos Stavrakis told the Cyprus Mail that £5.22 would be the opening price on the ASE. “It's a very attractive price and it will only be a matter of time before it moves up,” he said.

“Investors here don't seem to realise the share price will be the same on the ASE and the CSE. If they were different, investors would buy there and sell here and vice versa.”

During the first three days of trading on the ASE, the bank's share will trade without any limit up/down restrictions on both the ASE and the CSE. Stavrakis said while it would be dangerous to make predictions, they were optimistic about the Greek flotation.

“We are hopeful and confident the share will do well,” he said. “If there is a big demand in Greece this will ultimately be translated as a higher price on the CSE.”

He added that the ASE was currently in a period of growth and that the bank had strengthened its capital base significantly with the Greek IPO. With a market capitalisation of some £2.5 billion BoC will be the sixth largest company on the Athens exchange and the fourth largest bank. BoC, which first expanded to Greece in 1991, now has 26 branches there and holds a market share of just over two per cent.

The bank plans to expand further to 120 branches by 2004, raising its market share to five per cent. Report yesterday suggested rumours that BoC was considering buying a small Greek bank had increased demand for the share.

But Stavrakis told Reuters the bank was not engaged in any acquisition negotiations. "We have been successful growing on our own, organically, and this is the model we shall maintain. But we have always said that if a good opportunity arose, we would look at it."

[02] Slow day for tired market

Sectoral gains and losses ranged from a marginal drop of 0.57 per cent in the IT sector to an increase of 3.27 per cent in the trading sector. Volume remained low at £15 million.

The banking sector ended 1.47 per cent in the red, amid some optimism on Bank of Cyprus (BoC) announcement that its Athens listing would finally become a reality on November 8.

BoC gained ten cents yesterday to close at £5.39 while Laiki added 12 cents to end at £6.93. Brokers predict the Athens listing will give the market a badly-needed boost.

“It’s all down to that now,” said analyst Christos Achillides. “Investors are waiting to see.” Others believe the market has reached a turning point and will finally stabilise after months of fumbling in the dark.

Yesterday’s small gain they said was a fitting end to a week in which the index suffered four year lows in as many days. GlobalSoft was the star performer yesterday stealing around 30 per cent of total volume.

Although the share lost two cents, closing at £5.97, over 700,000 shares worth £4.6 million changed hands. Tsokkos Hotels also made the five most active list with 1.7 million shares traded but the stock shed two cents to close at 35 cents.

[03] Non-papers and ideas at the Geneva talks

Speaking amid speculation about non-papers and ideas being bandied about by UN envoy Alvaro de Soto, Papapetrou said any papers the UN presented were not proposals and that talks had not yet reached the stage where proposals were being submitted.

"Mr De Soto even today clarified again and stressed that any non papers given during this process are not proposals," Papapetrou told journalists in Geneva on the third day of talks.

The non-papers, Papapetrou said, were general and random ideas to sound out the reaction of the two sides. "We are not at present at the stage where proposals will be given and I would ask those expecting proposals to be patient," he added.

According to reports from Geneva, the UN is expected to submit a package of ideas to the two sides after the parliamentary elections next May.

Meanwhile, meetings between De Soto and the two leaders continued yesterday, but will not resume again until Monday.

President Glafcos Clerides met De Soto for an hour and a half yesterday morning, but no statements were made after the meeting. Journalists asked Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, speaking before his meeting with De Soto, if he expected to get any 'homework' from the UN envoy.

"I don't know, but we may give him some homework,” he replied. After the meeting, he said no documents had been given or taken, and dismissed allegations that maps were being studied during the talks.

Asked if any non-papers had been given, Denktash said: "There are always non-papers in the sense that what we talk about we have on paper so that we don't take notes."

“We are working on all subjects,” he added. The director of the UN Section for the Press in Geneva, Jamel ben Yahmed, announced yesterday that UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan would be in Geneva on November 8 for the talks. Annan will remain in Geneva until November 11, when the talks will be wrapped up.

[04] Cyprus in 1999: more marriages and more divorce, fewer births and fewer deaths

MARRIAGES were on the rise in 1999, but so was divorce, while the general population was also on the up, according to the Statistical Service's demographic report for last year.

The number of marriages increased to 9,080, from 7,738 in 1998, with the number of civil weddings increasing from 4,091 to 5,148, and Church weddings from 3,647 to 3,932.

Indicating that most Cypriots remain traditionalists as heart, only 103 of the civil marriages took place between two Cypriots. But while more people were tying the knot, more were also undoing it, with the number of divorces significantly up, to 1,193 in 1999 from only 852 the previous year.

The total divorce rate, showing the proportion of marriages expected to end in divorce, was calculated at 208 per 1,000 marriages -- approximately one in five. In 1980, the divorce rate stood at only 42 per 1,000 marriages.

While the population in the government controlled areas rose by 0.5 per cent in 1999 bringing the figure to 666,800 at the end of 1999, the number of births went down, along with the mean number of children per woman.

The number of births in 1999 was 8,505 compared o 8,879 in 1998, providing a crude birth rate of 12.8 per thousand of population, compared to 13.4 in 1998.

The mean number of children per woman or total fertility rate, meanwhile, decreased to 1.83 in 1999 from 1.92 in 1998. The study said the fertility rate had over the last four years fallen below the replacement level of 2.10.

The number of deaths in 1999 was 5,070, compared to 5,432 in 1998, with the infant mortality rate estimated at six infant deaths per thousand live births. Life expectancy stood at 75.3 years for men and 80.4 for women.

A total 69.8 per cent of the population resided in urban areas in 1999 while the net migration balance at the end of the year was practically stable, with the number of Cypriot and foreign legal immigrants coming to Cyprus for settlement or temporary employment roughly the same as the number of emigrants from the island, at around 9,500.

[05] Matsakis plays up fears of asbestos cancer link

Matsakis had gathered evidence, which on Thursday he presented to the House Health Committee, backing the Ayia Paraskevi community's claims that the cancer cases -- 42 dead and 22 suffering - were connected to the asbestos water pipes supplying the Nicosia suburb.

The Health Ministry promised residents it would get to the bottom of the issue. The DIKO deputy yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that, although research suggested the level of asbestos in drinking water was too low to cause cancer, it was possible that using the water for cleaning might result in people inhaling asbestos fibres, which could cause cancer.

“When you wash your clothes or dishes or clean your furniture with pipe water it eventually dries out and evaporates. Inhaling those asbestos fibres is an undisputed cause of cancer.” Matsakis said that water samples sent to a laboratory for tests, which came back clean, did not include water from broken or repaired pipes.

“This would increases the level of asbestos fibres in the water,” Matsakis said, insisting the Health Ministry should launch an investigation into what was behind the spate of cancer cases in Ayia Paraskevi.

The deputy complained that, “although minister Frixos Savvides promised months ago he would conduct an investigation into the matter, he asked the Health Committee later to deal with it. At the end, Savvides gave an unclear answer of what his ministry would do about the issue.”

But Savvides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday his ministry would conduct a study to pinpoint whether there had indeed been an unjustified increase in cancer cases in Ayia Paraskevi.

“Once this has been established, we shall move on to find out what caused it.” Water Board executive engineer Dr Chrysostomos Kambanellas yesterday dismissed fears that asbestos pipes could be connected to cancer, and cited study results.

He told the Mail there was no need to worry as neither the World Health Organisation nor any government apart from the US had expressed any worries about asbestos pipes being a threat to health, stressing that many European countries used asbestos water pipes.

“For the last 30 years, we have been sending samples of asbestos pipe water from all over Cyprus to a lab in Canada. The US have ruled that if water contains more that seven million asbestos fibres in a litre, then drinking it could cause lung cancer.

Until now, Cyprus water has been found to contain just between one and two million fibres a litre.” He also cited the fact that Ayia Paraskevi patients suffered from various types of cancers, not specifically lung cancer, which could be caused by drinking from asbestos water pipes.

However, Kambanellas did admit that inhaling asbestos elements could pose a threat to health. He suggested the high number of cancer cases in Lakatamia could be blamed on emissions from a nearby industrial area.

[06] Health Ministry investigating doping link to missing drugs

Two medical officers have recently been suspended for trying to cover up the missing drug case by falsifying recipes for imaginary patients. Speaking before the House Watchdog Committee on Thursday, Savvides said:

“The matter is being investigated in depth, medication by medication, dose by dose, patient by patient.” Savvides said investigations were focusing on tablets, which were reported by deputies to have found their way to the Racecourse, sold for £100 per bottle, and to young people to get high.

Racecourse Authority director Eftihios Hadjieftihiou dismissed claims that the missing tablets were used to dope horses but admitted to the Cyprus Mail that in the last seven months, 17 horses had been found doped.

He refused to give details about which drugs were found to have been used for doping. He said winners always had urine specimens examined to find out whether they had been doped and with what substance.

But he said: “We do not deal with hospital cases. And we cannot prove that a drug used to dope a horse is linked to a hospital scandal. That's the job of the Police.” The Health Ministry is also investigating another case of expired medicine, which was still available in hospital pharmacies when it was supposed to have been destroyed.

The minister was asked why the officials that had signed the documents saying the tablets had expired and been destroyed had not been suspended.

Savvides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday the case was under investigation by the Attorney-general, who was expected to come up with some results in about 10 days' time. He said five pharmacists' jobs were on the line.

[07] Fanieros denies link to share scam

LARNACA club owner Antonis Fanieros was not in on a scam to take the proceeds from the sale of £143,000 worth of someone else's shares, the Larnaca Assizes heard yesterday.

Fifty-eight-year-old Fanieros' lawyer, Kyriacos Saveriades, told the three- judge bench that the prosecution had failed to prove that his client was in any way linked to the scam.

Fanieros, who survived a gang hit in May 1997, was arrested in April this year along with three other suspects. Police say he conspired with Georgios Stylianou, alias Arapis (the Arab), Petros Georgiou and Christos Hartoumbalos to cash shares belonging to Larnaca businessman Georgios Alexandrou.

The court has heard that two men posing as Alexandrou's relatives turned up at a Nicosia brokerage carrying a document authorising the office to sell shares belonging to the businessman.

The brokerage sold Alexandrou's shares and handed the money - £143,000 - to the two men. Fanieros, Arapis and Georgiou have all pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to defraud Alexandrou.

Hartoumbalos has pleaded guilty to similar charges. Lawyer Saveriades told the court yesterday that the prosecution had failed to present any testimony linking Fanieros to the scam. The trial continues.

[08] Finance Ministry submits vehicle inspection bill

Until now inspections were carried out by the relevant state authorities free of charge, but the amendment to the Mechanised Vehicles and Traffic Law would require car owners to submit a fee. In an announcement, the Finance Ministry said that, due to the scope of the programme, there were thoughts on initially allocating inspections to the private sector, with the state authorities only inspecting government vehicles.

The estimated cost of this programme stands at around £3-4 million. Already guidelines have been submitted on inspection fees: if the bill is approved, moped owners will be charged £15 pounds, while owners of vehicles carrying up to 8 passengers will be charged £25.

The announcement came as reports claimed more than 75 per cent of driving school vehicles tested so far this month had failed inspection. But the chairman of the Pancyprian Professional Drivers' Association Panayiotis Halkos yesterday told the Cyprus Mail the claims were “hugely exaggerated” and that “reality had been distorted.”

He said the majority of driving school vehicles called in for inspection so far this month were “probably older registered vehicles currently not in use by driving schools, therefore the sample obtained so far is not representative.”

He added that some 480 driving school vehicles were in use on the island, including buses, minivans and trailers. Halkos admitted that certain types of vehicles, such as trailers, were indeed old, “perhaps 25 years old”.

He went on to deny suggestions that driving school cars were not road safe, adding that, if such a rationale were adopted, then the vast majority of the 300,000 or so vehicles in Cyprus were unsafe for road travel. Road Transport Department official

Sotiris Koletas would not confirm the figures cited, saying the testing process was still ongoing. But he said the driving school vehicles failing inspection for reasons other than road safety would not be withdrawn, as that would effectively hinder the carrying out of driving lessons.

Driving school vehicles are listed under “public use vehicles” and are therefore inspected by state authorities.

[09] EU measures aim to root out football violence

European Commission directives provide for the setting up of such committees charged with regulating law and order issues in sports venues. The emphasis in Cyprus is on football, but the committee plans to include all team sports, including volleyball and basketball. Sports commissioner Panicos Evripidou explained:

“Our aim is to suppress violence through the use of technology and human resources. The committee will review a number of measures considered viable for implementation, and will at a later stage make recommendations to the Cyprus Sports Organisation (CSO).

While the focus is on football stadiums, we aim to examine measures to be implemented for all team sports.” Yesterday's session of the committee revolved around three main subjects: the installation of closed circuit TV systems in sports venues, the introduction of automatic pre-paid tickets and regulations governing the allocation of responsibilities for crowd control and security measures in sports grounds.

“Closed circuit TV systems have been used successfully in three stadiums, as a pilot programme, “ said Evripidou. He explained that despite this success, no arrests had yet been made because there currently existed no legislation for making such evidence admissible in court.

Compliance with the relevant European Council directives would entail passing such legislation. Evripidou said that closed circuit TV systems were “certainly not inexpensive,” and that the newly built GSP stadium, described by many as the “jewel” of the island's sports venues, still lacked such a system.

According to Evripidou, pre-paid ticketing is to be introduced in “a few months' time,” allowing the authorities of sports venues to monitor the crowd through allocation of seats, as is done in European stadiums. He added that this was also a costly project, as specialised computer systems needed to be installed.

Evripidou said that there were thoughts on making it compatible with WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology, making it possible to purchase tickets on mobile phones.

Other measures under consideration include introducing stewards into sports venues assisting police in maintaining law and order, and guiding fans to their specified seats or assisting fans out of the venue in case of an emergency.

In compliance with European directives, regulations also need to be passed regarding the infrastructure specifications of sports grounds and the allocation of responsibilities in so-called “high-risk games” regarding the various aspects of law and order.

Cyprus Mail 2000

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