Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 00-11-05

Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

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

Sunday, November 5, 2000

CONTENTS

[01] Woman commits suicide by fire

[02] RSPB urges EU to block Cyprus

[03] Two held after welfare cheques scam

[04] Five Iranians in court as drugs suspects

[05] Hunt for hooded knifeman

[06] Minister under fire on foundry tests delay

[07] Four in court after piracy raids

[08] 49,000 settlers made ‘citizens’, says Kibris

[09] British soldier stabbed in Yermasoyia

[10] Incentives boost British bookings over winter

[01] Woman commits suicide by fire

A 63-year-old woman burnt herself alive in Mesana, near Paphos yesterday afternoon, after dousing her body in flammable liquid and setting alight to it.

Xenia Stylianou was found a few metres from her village home. She was clutching a candle in one hand. State pathologist Sophoclis Sophocleous, who carried out the autopsy, said she had committed suicide.

[02] RSPB urges EU to block Cyprus

“The RSPB will be writing to the European Union to call for a suspension of Cyprus from entry negotiations until the island’s authorities can stamp out this abhorrent practice. Bird trapping is outlawed by the European Birds Directive,” the RSPB said yesterday.

The RSPB, one of Britain’s most powerful conservation bodies, recently sent undercover investigators to Cyprus to investigate the extent of the slaughter of migrant birds.

Despite being banned since 1984, the use of mist nets and lime sticks to capture songbirds is both widespread and blatant, particularly in the southeast of the island. The RSPB investigators uncovered “carnage on a massive scale”, and the organisation estimated that the trapping led to the death of up to 20 million migrant birds a year.

“Trappers are using miles of ‘wall-of-death’ nets and lime sticks to ensnare millions of birds, including blackcaps, robins and song thrushes, to supply delicacies for the island’s tavernas,” the RSPB reports on its website (). The tiny birds, pickled or boiled, sell for around £1.50 apiece as ‘forbidden’ delicacies in tavernas, making illegal bird trapping a multi- million pound industry.

“The scale of the slaughter is sickening,” says the head of RSPB investigations, Graham Elliot. “Cyprus… is on a major migration route with millions of birds pouring through the island in Spring and Autumn. Seeing the extent of trapping it is amazing that any birds manage to get through at all.” The organisation is also urging people in Britain to write to President Clerides to complain about the bird killing.

[03] Two held after welfare cheques scam

A LARNACA court yesterday remanded a man and woman who allegedly stole welfare cheques worth a total of around £25,000 over a ten-month period.

The Larnaca District Court heard that the 44-year-old man and his 42-year- old woman accomplice stole a total of 150 welfare cheques from Limassol post-boxes between December 1999 and October this year.

The cheques were then cashed in shops in the Nicosia, Limassol, Paphos and Larnaca districts, police told the court. The two suspects were arrested in Limassol on Friday.

Four of the cheques were cashed in the Larnaca area and the District court yesterday remanded the two suspects for four days.

[04] Five Iranians in court as drugs suspects

THREE Iranians tried to sell 262 grams of heroin to an undercover police officer in Limassol on Friday night, police said yesterday. The three men, aged 21, 26 and 41, were arrested.

According to a police report, plain-clothes Drug Squad officers went to 28th October Street after receiving information that foreigners were pushing drugs there.

At about 7pm, the three Iranians reportedly approached one of the officers and offered him a quarter of a kilo of the hard drugs in a plastic bag.

After arresting the three, who were on the island as visitors, police searched their flat and found £500 and $3,250. Police said the sums were confiscated. The three suspects were brought before the Limassol District Court yesterday, and were remanded for eight days on suspicion of drug pushing.

In another Limassol drugs bust, two Iranians were arrested after a police search of two flats. Drug Squad officers raided the first apartment after receiving a tip-off that narcotics were being stored there.

According to a police announcement, the officers found 66 grams of cannabis resin. The occupant of the flat and a visitor, both Iranians, were arrested. Police then searched the visitor’s flat, where they allegedly found another 12.5 grams of cannabis.

The two suspects were yesterday brought up before the Limassol District Court and remanded for eight days on suspicion of drug possession and illegal residence.

[05] Hunt for hooded knifeman

NICOSIA police were yesterday searching for a hooded knifeman who chased two boys, aged 11 and 15, in separate attacks in Astromeritis village on Friday.

Neither of the boys was hurt, and police were yesterday uncertain what the motive behind the attacks was. The first attack occurred at about 6pm in the Nicosia district village.

According to a complaint made to police by the father of an 11-year-old boy, a hooded man wielding a knife chased his son down a village street. The father also told police that the same man had chased his employee’s 15-year- old son down another Astromeritis street an hour later.

Police were yesterday searching for the knifeman, who is described as thin and about 1.70 metres tall. He was wearing dark clothes at the time of the attacks.

[06] Minister under fire on foundry tests delay

The 200-strong Parents Committee of the Eighth Elementary School, which is just 300 metres from the foundry and dense smoke which regularly makes pupils ill, want an urgent meeting with the minister. Savvides has said he will shut the foundry, which provides some 200 jobs, if tests prove its emissions damage human health.

The delay has infuriated local residents. “It’s a scandal. It’s gone on for so long now, that the government seems to be aware that we’ve been poisoned all these years. How can they allow these delays to continue? We are not prepared to accept it if the matter goes to open tender again. There can be no logical reason for the delay,” local parent Bernadette Charalambous told the Sunday Mail yesterday.

In September a British team of scientists carried out tests at Ergates village in Nicosia, site of another foundry accused of causing health problems in residents. Co-ordinated by London-based Andis Leonidou, the same group was invited to apply to the Tender Board to investigate blood levels in Omonia on September 15.

Leonidou even lowered his price for the second project. He charged £142,000 to test 1,600 Ergates residents, but offered to test the 5,000 living in Omonia and Zakaki for £140,000. He has expressed incomprehension at why the government tender board is taking so long to approve the second batch of tests. Investigations carried out by the Labour Ministry a year ago put the level of emissions pollution at 300 milligrams per cubic metre – six times above the European Union maximum.

The Nemitsas foundry, owned by former Minister of Commerce Takis Nemitsas, promised in September to reduce levels to the recommended 50 milligrams in November. Residents are worried that their arguments will lose weight if delays mean the tests are unfairly influenced by drastic reductions in emission charges. “The body can’t excrete lead. It’s there for life.

Two teachers at the school miscarried in the past year. That’s got to be more than the average and they’ve since left the school,” Charalambous said. Leaked results from the Ergates tests indicate lead poisoning is far higher than the ‘safe’ levels approved by the World Health Organsiation (WHO).

Investigations by local epidemiologist Dr Michalis Voniatis show 62 per cent of Ergates villagers had contaminated blood over the WHO safety standards. He suggested brain, kidney and pancreas cancer there were three times the national average, lung cancer 50 per cent more prevalent, and leukaemia twice as common as elsewhere in Cyprus.

[07] Four in court after piracy raids

TWO suspected software and music pirates were yesterday remanded and another two charged and released after Friday’s police raids on music shops across the island.

Thousands of pirated software, video and audio tapes and CDs were seized from two vendors in Nicosia, one in Paphos and one in Ayia Napa. Police also confiscated equipment used for making illegal copies of CDs and tapes.

The owners of the four shops were arrested after an operation assisted by experts from international and local anti-piracy groups. Yesterday, the owner of the Ayia Napa store was brought up before the Famagusta District court and remanded for four days.

The court heard that 500 illegal copies of CDs, a CD writer and 18 cases of blank CDs were found at the 40-year-old’s establishment. The Nicosia District Court remanded the owner of one of the raided establishments in the capital in custody for four days.

The owner of the other Nicosia shop and the proprietor of the Paphos outlet were yesterday charged with piracy and released. The pirating of films and music was once widespread and blatant in Cyprus, but the introduction of a law banning such activities in 1994 has reduced such operations.

But industry insiders say pirated music and films are still available -- particularly in tourist resorts – at a fraction of the cost of originals. If convicted of pirating, the arrested shop owners face a fine of up to £1, 500 or up to two years’ imprisonment. For repeat offenders, the fine can be up to £2,000 and imprisonment for up to three years.

[08] 49,000 settlers made ‘citizens’, says Kibris

A TOTAL of 49,000 Turkish settlers have been granted Turkish Cypriot ‘citizenship’ by the occupation regime since 1974, the Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris reported yesterday.

The paper said the information was contained in a special report presented to the so-called parliament in the north on Friday. The Greek Cypriot side says the flood of settlers to the north is a deliberate Turkish plan to alter the demographic character of the occupied area.

[09] British soldier stabbed in Yermasoyia

He was rushed to the Limassol General where surgeons operated on him. Doctors said yesterday he was recovering well. Two Scottish soldiers suffered minor injuries during the attack.

They received first aid at the Limassol General, before being moved to the Princess Mary Hospital at Akrotiri. The two alleged attackers ran off from the scene of the crime.

Police have described them as between 30 and 33 years old, one 1.88 metres tall and slim, the other 1.65 metres and of medium build. Limassol police are investigating the case.

[10] Incentives boost British bookings over winter

The move is part of the Commerce Ministry’s commitment to boosting quality tourism, while encouraging growth for the country’s main GDP earner. Bookings from Britain, the island’s main market for foreign holidaymakers, are up 23 per cent already.

The chairman of the Hoteliers’ Association, Avgerinos Nikitas, has heralded the news as “highly encouraging”, given the five per cent drop in British bookings for overseas destinations this winter. The target is to raise winter tourism from 20 per cent of the year’s total to 30 per cent.

The package commits each municipality to devising and publicising its own programme of musical and theatrical events, to create interest. Cyprus Airways has axed the £7 airport tax per passenger and offered tour operators a £20 reduction for every extra passenger from Germany and the UK.

To kick-start tour operators into doing their legwork, they earn an extra £12 for each additional tourist flown in above the average number of winter visitors. In addition, every eleventh hotel room will be complimentary.

“We have created the sought-after new dynamic push. But we shouldn’t rest on our laurels,” Nikitas said. “We must make sure everyone goes home happy and we must develop as a quality winter destination.” He stressed the need to “enrich the product” through entertainment and sporting facilities because the Cyprus sun and sea lose their appeal compared to tropical climates during the cooler winter months.

The Cyprus Tourism Organisation expects to meet its 10 per cent growth target for 2000, boosting the number of tourists to 2.7 million this year. The official winter season, for which the measures apply, runs from November 15 to March 31.

Cyprus Mail 2000

Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article