Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 00-12-17

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

CONTENTS

[01] CY to head consortium bidding for Olympic Airways

[02] Seized man may be freed tomorrow

[03] More tension in Pyla

[04] Racism: government slammed for breaking international conventions

[05] Three remanded after Limassol thefts

[06] Denktash throws down the gauntlet

[07] Greens collect toys for charity

[01] CY to head consortium bidding for Olympic Airways

CYPRUS Airways is planning to head one of the consortiums tendering for the privatisation of Greek national carrier Olympic Airways.

A senior Cyprus Airways management source told the Sunday Mail that the company’s participation in a consortium would take place within the framework of its expansion plans.

“There was a Financial Times report last week which said that the company that now owns Olympic Airways was interested in selling part of its share,” the source said.

Cyprus Airways is not, at this stage, planning to purchase Olympic outright, “but we will in all probability be heading one of the consortiums interested in the project”.

According to the December 11 article in the Financial Times, the Greek government launched the official tender process to sell a majority stake in its struggling national carrier on December 8.

“Athens has asked for expressions of interest by the end of January 2001. The government wants to sell at least 51 per cent of the airline and cede management control to a group of local and international investors, including a foreign airline,” the FT said.

The paper said that Olympic’s privatisation process had been dealt a severe blow earlier in the year, after British Airways turned down an option to acquire a 20 per cent stake in the Greek carrier.

The Financial Times said that as a result, the Greek government had terminated its contract with BA's consultancy Speedwing, which had been hired to help turn Olympic around and prepare it for privatisation.

The Greek government then engaged Credit Suisse First Boston to help it in its search for investors.

Olympic Airways, which has only once made a profit in the past two decades, is saddled with debts of more than Dr40 billion (approximately £66.7 million) and is expected to lose at least another half of that amount this year.

European Union rules prevent the Greek government from recapitalising the company.

[02] Seized man may be freed tomorrow

Panicos Tsiakourmas, 39, was detained after the Turkish Cypriots said claim he was found in possession of 1.5 kilos of cannabis in the occupied areas.

The father of three was remanded in custody for eight days by a Turkish Cypriot ‘court’.

But Foreign Ministry sources yesterday speculated about an earlier return date on Monday, during a demonstration by Tsiakourmas’s family outside the Ledra Palace in Nicosia yesterday for his release.

AKEL chief Demetris Christofias joined family members in a show of support for their plight.

Mounting evidence suggests that Turkish Cypriots in fact abducted the Greek Cypriot on Sovereign Base Area territory – which, if proved, would constitute a serious breach of British security unlikely to be taken lightly by the SBA authorities.

Christofias yesterday gave his assurance that he was doing everything in his power to try to get Tsiakourmas freed.

“We are here to express our wholehearted support to the wife of Nicos, to their children, to his mother and his brothers. We will continue to take action, so that by the time Nicos’s little daughter celebrates her birthday, he’ll be back and this whole story will be just a memory,” Christofias said.

“Many steps have already been taken. We will continue to work through the authorities of the Republic and through the connections that we have with the Turkish Cypriot community,” he added.

Tsiakourmas disappeared at around 6am on Tuesday. The contractor had been on his way to collect six Turkish Cypriot workers and take them to Nicosia, as he did every day.

His pick-up truck was found on SBA territory, 400 metres away from the area controlled by Turkish troops. The engine was still running, the car door was open, and the lights were still on.

The UN yesterday told the Sunday Mail that they were unaware of a possible handover tomorrow. But Spokeswoman Sarah Russell said UNFICYP only needed to be informed just beforehand, in order to escort the man across the buffer zone.

[03] More tension in Pyla

UNFICYP Spokeswoman Sarah Russell told the Sunday Mailthat the Turkish Cypriot action was in retaliation for Greek Cypriot National Guardsmen building trenches south of the Pyla line.

“The UN met with the Turkish forces and as a result they have stopped digging,” Russell said. She said she had not heard reports that Turkish troops had been firing shots into the air near Pyla.

[04] Racism: government slammed for breaking international conventions

THE COUNTRY’S first ‘Racism in the Media’ conference ended in Nicosia yesterday afternoon with a call for changes to the law in the treatment of foreign workers, as required by international treaties signed by Cyprus.

The conference slammed the government for its treatment of the 275 illegal immigrants who were moored off the coast of Cyprus for three weeks before being sent back to Beirut, after their vessel sank near Paphos in September.

“Mass deportation is illegal. What happens every day goes directly against international conventions, which over-ride the law. Of course there are a lot of details that need to be sorted out, but we’ve just signed the agreements without amending the law,” said the chairman of the Journalists’ Code of Conduct Committee, Andreas Mavromatis yesterday.

The European Convention on Human Rights, signed by Cyprus, insists that all immigrants have a right to have their claims to asylum reviewed by a national body before being deported, and if turned down, the have the right to appeal.

Cyprus has failed to set up the required organisation and the UNHCR continues to process all applications for asylum.

Many cases of immigrants being deported before having their cases heard have come to light.

“Cyprus doesn’t have adequately trained immigration officials or policemen who can do this job. [The government] hasn’t set up a committee to review appeals. We haven’t got places to keep [immigrants], because you can’t keep them in prison,” said Mavromatis.

On Friday the conference denounced Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou’s intention to send migrant workers home before their cases are heard in court.

Mavromatis yesterday made an emotive speech on the urgent need to update the current law, which he labelled a “relic of colonialism”.

“All four powers, including the mass media, have not recognised that this law should no longer be applied to foreigners. Conventions and agreements that Cyprus has signed should be applied. Every foreigner in Cyprus, either legal or illegal, has the right to have his case heard and for a decision and appeal to be taken before he is deported,” he said.

He spoke of the huge damage Cyprus could suffer in the eyes of the international community.

“When they start realising that they have rights and take action in the court, including the European Court, it will not only embarrass Cyprus, but we will have to pay compensation.”

The racism conference was held to highlight what organisers have called an “unprecedented climate of xenophobia that has gripped Cyprus as a result of government propaganda”.

The conference was organised by the Immigrant Support Action Group, the Youth Board of Cyprus, and the Code of Conduct for Journalists Committee. Visiting experts from abroad also took part.

[05] Three remanded after Limassol thefts

POLICE remanded three people yesterday in connection with two separate cases of burglary and shoplifting in Limassol.

Police said that two Slovenians, aged 33 and 22, had confessed to stealing £12,000 worth of goods found in their hotel room from two shops in Limassol.

They stand accused of selling stolen goods in Limassol and Trachoni. Police say they are looking for another £5,000 worth of property.

In a separate incident, a 17-year-old Lebanese was remanded, suspected of stealing £617 from shops in Limassol. Police are also looking for a second person.

[06] Denktash throws down the gauntlet

TURKISH Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash said yesterday he could not attend United Nations proximity talks aimed at reuniting the island unless his self-declared statelet was recognised as an equal party in negotiations.

Denktash, whose ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ is recognised by Ankara alone, told a special session of ‘parliament’ in Nicosia that UN envoy Alvaro De Soto had to guarantee recognition in order to save the next round of talks, set for late January in Geneva.

De Soto is to visit Cyprus, Turkey and Greece next month to rally support for the latest round of talks, which follow five others that ended inconclusively.

"The dialogue will continue only if our sovereignty is accepted. The ball is in your court if you want a solution," Denktash said.

[07] Greens collect toys for charity

THE Ecologist and Environmentalist Movement yesterday began its third annual charity toy collection and campaign warning parents about dangerous toys.

The collections began at Nicosia’s Ledra Palace checkpoint and Larnaca’s Town Hall Square and will continue today at Eleftheria Square in Nicosia from 10am to 12pm, at Pentadromos in Limassol at the same time, and at the harbour in Kato Paphos from 11am to 1pm.

The aim of the ‘For All The Children of The World’, the Movement says, “is to send a message to the Cypriot people that all children, no matter here they come from, have the right to live and the right to a future.”

The toys and children’s books will go to Greek Cypriot children living in the Karpasia in the occupied north.

Members of the Movement are also handing out leaflets warning that some toys can be dangerous.

Cyprus Mail 2000

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