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Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 00-12-21
CONTENTS
[01] Back to normal, but no sign of Tsiakourmas
[02] Guns stolen
[03] Money laundering ring cracked open
[04] Man arrested on assault charges
[05] Manhunt for fraudster
[06] Doctors' strike action threat
[07] Christmas traffic crackdown
[08] Suspect lottery tickets seized
[09] Fifteen years for bank robbery
[10] Hospital gets new machine
[11] CTO budget for 2001 approved
[12] US issues damning report
[13] CyTA prepares for the future
[14] The cartoonist meets the president
[15] Market continues Christmas slide
[01] Back to normal, but no sign of Tsiakourmas
By Jean Christou THE SITUATION in Pyla was said to be returning to normal
yesterday as the stream of politicians into the village from both sides
ceased and the Turkish side appeared to have stopped their controversial
military work. However there were no signs that the Turkish Cypriot side
was willing to release Greek Cypriot contractor Panicos Tsiakourmas, 39,
who has been remanded in the north on alleged drugs charges. Reports from
Larnaca said the control point set up by the British bases on the Pergamos-
Pyla road where Tsiakourmas was abducted by the Turkish Cypriot
`authorities' over a week ago, would remain in place until further notice
to reassure motorists it was safe to travel on the stretch of road adjacent
to the occupied areas. Father of three Tsiakourmas disappeared on December
12 when he went to the Pergamos crossing point to pick up his Turkish
Cypriot workers. His car was found with the engine running, the lights on
and the doors opened. All evidence suggests he was taken forcibly from his
car. The abduction was in retaliation for the arrest on December 2 of a
Turkish Cypriot on alleged heroin charges. The Turkish side says he was
arrested in UN-controlled Pyla but the Cyprus police say it was outside the
mixed village. They had warned they would retaliate over the arrest unless
the Turkish Cypriot suspect was released. Yesterday the British High
Commission said it was working hard for the release of Tsiakourmas. High
Commissioner Edward Clay said earlier this week that the circumstances of
his disappearance were clear and that he had raised the issue with Turkish
Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash. Clay met Denktash again on Tuesday afternoon.
High Commission spokesman Jonathan Allen said Clay had imparted his serious
concern to Denktash at the meeting in occupied Nicosia. "The High
Commissioner raised our serious concerns over the Tsiakourmas case and he
raised them forcibly," Allen said. "Our main objective is to get him
released," he added. Allen said that the SBA police had not found any
evidence that Tsiakourmas was involved with drugs but noted however that
one must not rule out such possibility. "From the very beginning the SBA
police cooperated with the Cypriot police and the UN and throughout this
process the High Commission has been in touch with the Foreign Ministry,"
he said. "We have been working very closely with the government and we are
all working for the same outcome, to get him released." Britain has a
special interest in the case since all the indications are that Tsiakourmas
disappeared on bases territory and if this is proved, the bases will not
take lightly to Turkish troops violating its sovereignty. Turkish Cypriot
press yesterday quoted Clay as saying Tsiakourmas was last seen in his car
in Dhekelia base. "We have the responsibility for anyone who lives and
visits this region. Therefore we have a responsibility for this person and
Mr Denktash knows my special concern on this matter." Turkish Cypriot
`Parliament Speaker' Ertugrul Hasipoglu said the sovereignty of the British
bases should be debated. "I think the British have no sovereignty rights in
Cyprus," he said. "They have no citizens living here. Therefore the
sovereignty of the British bases should be debated.
[02] Guns stolen
By Athena Karsera A hunting goods shop on a main Nicosia avenue was burgled
in the early hours yesterday. Two hunting rifles, an air gun and a number
of cartridges were stolen during the break-in at Akropoleos Avenue's `To
Geraki.' A witness living in a flat above the shop told the police he had
heard a noise at approximately 2.40am and had looked out of his window to
see two men carrying the guns and leaving in a white saloon car. The shop
was one of five to be broken into in Nicosia in the period from Tuesday
night to Wednesday morning. No arrests had been made in connection to the
break-in by yesterday afternoon.
[03] Money laundering ring cracked open
By Athena Karsera PAPHOS POLICE are investigating a suspected illegal money
exchange ring with better exchange rates than the banks, through which at
least £300,000 has passed in the last few days alone. While arrests have
yet to be made, a woman from Salamiou village and now resident in Paphos
was taken in for questioning late on Tuesday. Police said she had been
named by a number of Pontian Greeks who said they gave her Cypriot money to
change into US Dollars without getting anything back. A police officer
yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that the Pontians said they had handed over
£300,000 in the last few days without being given an money in return. The
officer, who preferred not to be named, said that the police were
investigating where the woman got the money and were following up reports
that she had already exchanged huge unspecified amounts for other Pontian
Greeks, and how she benefited from selling the dollars so cheaply. The
woman on Tuesday told the police that her customers had threatened her life
after her not being able to give them the US cash for their £300,000.
[04] Man arrested on assault charges
By Athena Karsera A GREEK national was yesterday remanded for eight days on
suspicion of raping and physically assaulting a former girlfriend. The 36-
year-old victim was being treated in a private Limassol clinic yesterday
and told police that she returned to her home at 1.30am on Tuesday she
found the 34-year-old suspect waiting for her. The couple, who had been
living together for over a year until October last year, had an argument
which ended in the suspect allegedly beating the woman and raping her. She
went to the private clinic once the suspect had fallen asleep and later
told police. She has been examined by state pathologist Sophocles
Sophocleous who determined that she had suffered injuries to many parts of
her body and her head in particular. ENDS
[05] Manhunt for fraudster
By a Staff Reporter POLICE WERE yesterday searching for Kaimakli man in
connection to stolen cheques, the forging and circulation of money and
general theft amounting to a total of £54,802. A police report described
Pantelis Frangeskides, 40, as 1.70 meters tall, of a regular build, bald on
top with black hair and wearing glasses. Anyone with information on
Frangeskides' whereabouts has been asked to contact Nicosia CID or their
nearest police station.
[06] Doctors' strike action threat
By Melina Demetriou IN THE wake of a recent government decision to satisfy
school teachers' demands for a pay rise, the State Doctors' Union PASIKY
has threatened to go on strike demanding higher salaries for doctors.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday, PASIKY President Stavros Stavrou
said, "teachers earn as much as we do. We spend an average of 12 years
studying and we start working at 35 while teachers start at 23. Plus, the
pensions and providence funds we receive after retirement are 80 per cent
of what teachers receive." The starting salary for school teachers is £800-
900 per month, the same as unspecialised doctors. Doctors with a
specialisation get £950. PASIKY'S council is set to convene next week to
address the issue and decide on measures, possibly strike action, said
Stavrou. He blamed the Finance Ministry for the "unacceptable situation".
"The government promised two years ago to see that our demands for higher
salaries were met by 2000. But it has done nothing, taking advantage of the
fact that the nature of our profession makes it difficult (for us) to just
drop everything and leave. But we are not the government's servants and we
shall go on strike if it's what it takes to halt the state's manipulation.
They can put us in jail if they want," Stavrou threatened. Deputies from
across the political spectrum back the Union's struggle. Health Minister
Frixos Savvides says he understood doctors' position but failed to apply
any pressure on the Cabinet to address their problems. The minister is due
to address the union's General Assembly in mid-January to broach the
matter. Stavrou has pleaded with the state, the political parties, the
House of Representatives and non-governmental agencies, such as patients'
organisations, for support them. "Most deputies are on our side and have
already urged us to go on strike. But we ask for stronger support. The
House Finance Committee should convene to discuss our problems."
[07] Christmas traffic crackdown
By a Staff Reporter The traffic police yesterday announced the start of
their Christmas and New Year road safety campaign. Running from Saturday
December 23 up to and until Sunday January 7, the campaign will see
increased traffic police presence on all the intercity roads. Two people
were killed in traffic accidents over the Christmas and New Year period
last year.
[08] Suspect lottery tickets seized
By George Psyllides A 42-YEAR-OLD Larnaca man was yesterday remanded in
custody for eight days suspected of forging and circulating state lottery
scratch tickets. Police told the court that during a drug search operation
in the Michael Michail's basement in Ormidia on Tuesday, they found 3,000
scratch cards lying around. Five hundred tickets were hung from a string to
dry, while the rest were scattered around the basement for the same reason,
the court heard. According to the investigator between September and
December the suspect scratched the cards given to him to sell and cashed
those that won various amounts of money. The suspect allegedly then took
the cards that did not win and covered the scratched surface with a special
fluid which when dry, resembled the original material on the cards. Michail
denied everything, saying he had accidentally spilled petrol on the cards
and had hung them up to dry. But police said experts called in confirmed
the tickets had been tampered with. They said they had found several
documents in the basement with numbers on them, which later on turned out
to be the code numbers of the winning lottery tickets. The court heard
police would investigate the possibility of someone in the State Lottery
Department working with the suspect. Only the State Lottery has the code
numbers of winning tickets and no one knows which ones win or lose. The
suspect protested that the police had no plausible cause to search his
premises for drugs, but was promptly interrupted by the judge who told him
the case investigated against him was alleged lottery falsification.
[09] Fifteen years for bank robbery
By Athena Karsera THE CRIMINAL court yesterday sentenced Chrysanthos
`Athos' Ioannou to 15 years jail for robbing a Limassol bank earlier this
year. Sotiris Charalambous was sentenced to three years imprisonment in
connection to the same crime after testifying as a witness for the
prosecution. Ioannou and Charalambous, both 31, were last week found guilty
of illegally possessing firearms and explosives, while Ioannou was charged
with armed robbery. The court decision yesterday said that the fact no
violence was used in the robbery was taken into account but that the rise
in crime in Limassol meant a preventative sentence had to be handed out.
Ioannou surrendered to the police the day after the March 29 raid on a
Laiki Bank branch with Charalambous apprehended shortly afterwards.
Charalambous will begin his sentence after completing a five-year term for
drug trafficking. The two had made off with £51,000 and £20,000 worth of
foreign currency. Only £7,000 of the money has been retrieved so far.
[10] Hospital gets new machine
By Melina Demetriou CHARITY GROUP Cans for Kids donated a £5,000 machine
to the Makarios Hospital yesterday to enable doctors make accurate and
speedy diagnoses whilst minimising patient trauma. The donation brings the
value of equipment donated to the hospital by the group to £84,794 pounds,
which raises the money through collecting aluminium cans. "Our ongoing
policy is to improve facilities at the hospital and this machine will make
an examination of the throat much less troublesome for children," said Cans
for Kids Vice-President Rosie Charalambous. The Endovision Telecam and
colour monitor enables the doctor to examine the deeper recesses of the
throat, including the vocal cords, by means of a camera attached to a fibre
optic telescope that is slipped into the throat. There is no need to
extract the tongue as far as possible to get a good view of the area and
the picture of the throat is transferred to a monitor. The data could be
saved for future reference in the form of a video and comparisons could
then be made as the child grew. As he demonstrated how the system works,
chief surgeon at the Ear, Nose and Throat department of the hospital Dr
Christos Kommodikis said: "This machine and monitor will help considerably
in the department, giving accurate information which can be kept in our
records." With Christmas just days away, Charalambous asked people to
remember to take their cans to the hospital can bank over the festive
season.
[11] CTO budget for 2001 approved
By Athena Karsera THE CABINET yesterday approved the Cyprus Tourism
Organisation (CTO) 2001 budget. According to a government announcement, the
budget includes approximately £13 million for promoting Cyprus tourism
overseas and £3.2 million to develop winter tourism. The total budget was
not revealed yesterday while the current year's budget was for £20 million
and was only improved earlier this year after deputies initially refused
approve it questioning large parts of the fund being used to pay for May's
Miss Universe Pageant which was held in Nicosia. ENDS
[12] US issues damning report
By Melina Demetriou A WHITE House report has described Cyprus as a centre
of money laundering and gun trafficking. The report on international crime
was circulated yesterday. Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou,
commenting on the matter, dismissed the allegations about the island being
linked to money laundering but said the government would give its official
response to the report after it contacted the US government, "asking for
explanations." Central Bank Governor Afxentis Afxentiou has been in contact
with the American Embassy in Cyprus to find out more information about the
contents of the disputed report but said the Embassy did not know anything about the matter.
[13] CyTA prepares for the future
By Athena Karsera THE BALL has begun rolling for the Cyprus Telecommunications
Authority's metamorphosis into a private-run government concern, the
Communications and Works Minister said yesterday. Speaking to Reuters,
Averof Neophytou said, "We are trying to make the transition now to make
the Authority more flexible, get rid of the red tape and enable it to deal
with future competition." Under the new status, Neophytou continued, "The
shareholders will be the state and the employees. We consider them our
associates." A member of staff added that the government-appointed CyTA
board would remain unchanged. Neophytou said the government would soon be
tabling the legislation to parliament. "Right now if it wants to enter an
alliance with a strategic investor the procedure would last one or two
years, in the private sector it would be virtually the same day." The House
keeps a very close eye on semi-government organisations with CyTA having to
consult parliament whenever its pricing policies are reviewed. Cyprus'
telecommunications sector is due to be opened up to competition by January
2003 in line with the island's EU harmonisation process. The Cabinet had
been due to discuss the proposal yesterday but discussion was put-off for a
month so that labour unions would have time to review the plan.
[14] The cartoonist meets the president
By Jean Christou AWARD-WINNING American political cartoonist Ranan Lurie
who is on a brief visit to the island paid a courtesy visit to President
Clerides yesterday. The 68-year-old prolific cartoonist holds the record
as the most widely syndicated political cartoonist in the world according
to the Guinness Book of Records. As of July 1998, his work was published in
103 countries in 1,105 newspapers with a total circulation of 104 million
copies. His credits include high-circulation magazines, Life, Time and
Newsweek and newspapers the London Times, The Wall Street Journal, the New
York Times and Die Welt. Lurie, who was invited to Cyprus by the Press and
Information Office (PIO), spent three months in Cyprus in 1956 working on
the now defunct Times of Cyprus. On Tuesday night he gave a lecture at the
Hilton Hotel in Nicosia titled "News media and the political cartoon as the
ultimate editorial" organised by the Cyprus Union of Journalists. Lurie
says that the political cartoon can catch and transmit the essence of a
political message in a matter of seconds whereas written editorials need a
few minutes of reading for their message to come across. There are five
elements to the perfect political cartoon, he said: the art work which
catches the eye, a good likeness to the characters being portrayed, spot-on
journalism, humour, and most importantly a clear message. He said most
political cartoons contain three of the elements, the good ones have four
and the exceptional ones, the full complement. Lurie's work has been
recognised with awards from all over the world. He was voted by his peers
in the National Cartoonists Society of America as one of the three best
editorial cartoonists in the US for eight consecutive years. The US Senate
granted Lurie the unprecedented honour of a Senate exhibit of his political
art, sponsored jointly by Republicans and Democrats -- the only political
cartoonist to receive this tribute to date. Originally from Israel, Lurie
was "imported" to the US in 1968 by Life Magazine to become their first and
only political cartoonist and cover artist for five years and sponsored his
American citizenship. Lurie has interviewed, on a one-to-one basis,
seventy-two world leaders, among them President Clerides. He has also
interviewed US Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan,
President Idi Amin of Uganda, Presidents Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak of
Egypt, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India, President Turgut Ozal of
Turkey, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone of Japan, Prime Ministers Golda
Meir, Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres, Yitzak Shamir, Yitzak Rabin and Ehud
Barak of Israel, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Phillippines, United
Nations Secretaries General Kurt Waldheim, Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi
Annan, Prime Ministers William McMahon and Gough Whitlam of Australia, and
Prime Minister Junius Jayawardene of Sri Lanka. Among those who have taken
the time to sit for Lurie to have their caricatures done are were US
Presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush, and US Secretaries of State William
Rogers and Henry Kissinger as well as actors Charlton Heston and Paul
Newman.
[15] Market continues Christmas slide
By Jean Christou THE CHRISTMAS spirit was noticeably absent from the market
yesterday with further losses dragging the index back down the slippery
slope. Trading opened near Tuesday's close but the index see-sawed slightly
before heading into a decline which saw it hit 239 points towards the end
of the session. However some last-minute interest in GlobalSoft resulted in
a slight rally, which saw the index close at 241.1 points, a drop of 1.39
per cent from the previous day. Volume stood at a respectable £16.6
million. The FTSE/CySE dropped 2.77 per cent to 1,060 as blue chips took
another beating. "There was some pressure on Bank of Cyprus (BoC) and Laiki,
" said one Nicosia broker. "I think the negative trends in the banking
sector in Greece has had a big effect." The broker said general slide is
mostly due to investors cashing in for Christmas. "A lot of them are
selling 4-5 per cent of their portfolios," he said but added the index
might show some stability today and tomorrow before trading is suspended
for the holiday period. He also said had there not been a huge interest in
Kyknos shares yesterday, the general volume would have been quite low.
Kyknos, which is being courted by both Era and Sharelink, put on a star
performance yesterday clocking up a volume of £6.9 million, nearly 50 per
cent the day's total, all on its own as a whopping 8.9 million shares
changed hands. The stock gained nine cents to close at 80 cents. "Love is
in the air for Kyknos," the CSE web analyst said. "The majestic white bird
is breaking the hearts of Sharelink and Era as they are both smoking their
war pipes but the bird is completely ignoring them. The love triangle looks
like a story out of a Shakespearean play." The two banks came nowhere near
the Kyknos volume, each ending under the £1 million mark as the overall
banking sector was the worst performing of the 12 sectors losing 3.37 per
cent. BoC shed 11 cents to end at £3.37 and Laiki 14 cents to close at
£3.19. "Both our banking ladies have not been getting any attention lately
and this is causing the index to lose a lot of weight," the CSE analyst
said. BoC didn't fare any better on the ASE dropping 1.87 per cent to close
at 2,095 drachmas (£3.50) while the general index fell 0.24 per cent in
Greece and its banking sector lost 0.79 per cent. Last on the CSE's five
most active list yesterday was GlobalSoft, which appears to be losing its
title as the CSE's `one-man-band'. The share lost one cent and closed at
£5.16 on a volume of little over half a million pounds. Kronos also
appeared on the active list apparently out of nowhere with a volume of £674,
368 and closing at £1.04 with no price change. "All that volume for
nothing.just like being in orbit. Circling fast and getting nowhere," the
CSE analyst said.
Cyprus Mail 2000
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