Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 00-12-24

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

CONTENTS

[01] Callback firm takes a defiant line

[02] Makarios aide fires broadside at bird trappers

[03] ‘Tis the season to spend lolly

[04] Club owner’s car bombed

[01] Callback firm takes a defiant line

CALLBACK service providers were defiant yesterday in the face of a police probe into their operations, which the Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) insists are illegal.

Attorney-general Alecos Markides has backed the CyTA line and instructed police to track down all companies offering callback overseas phone calls, which cost a fraction of the price charged by the semi-government monopoly.

Ironically, it was a complaint by a callback service provider about CyTA blocking his operations that appears to have prompted the police crackdown.

On Friday, the owner of Limassol-based company New Telecommunications Systems, Achilleas Demetriades, sent a letter to Communications Minister Averof Neophytou protesting that CyTA was employing “a special device” to jam his services.

The issue was promptly taken up by the House human rights committee, which invited Markides to brief it on the matter on Friday afternoon. Markides told the committee that the law on telecommunications banned anyone except CyTA from providing phone services on the island.

The sector was due to be liberalised early in the New Year, the committee heard, but as things stood, CyTA had a monopoly. Markides said he had therefore asked police to draw up a list of all companies offering callback services in Cyprus.

Demetriades yesterday insisted callback services were not illegal, saying CyTA was simply out to protect its monopoly of the local telecommunications market.

“We do not believe it is illegal, it is something that has to do with free competition,” the New Telecommunications Systems boss said.

He vowed to fight his corner. “If I have to go to court over this, I will go,” he said, adding that the threatened police probe would not stop him providing the callback service.

Callback service providers and CyTA have been at loggerheads for months. The callback providers insist CyTA sanctioned their setting up shop on the island, noting that the equipment they use is CyTA-approved. They charge CyTA with jamming their services without prior notice, leaving their customers high and dry.

CYTA insists the law is on its side.

Offshore companies based on the island say using callback services cuts their phone bills by up to 75 per cent and some have threatened to abandon Cyprus if the CyTA monopoly holds sway.

With one eye on impending liberalisation, CyTA recently cut the cost of overseas calls by up to 70 per cent for some destinations.

[02] Makarios aide fires broadside at bird trappers

ARCHBISHOP Makarios’s former right-hand man, Patroclos Stavrou, has spoken out against the illegal slaughter of migrant birds on lime sticks and in mist nets and vehemently denied trappers’ claims that the late Ethnarch once described their pickled quarry as “manna from heaven”.

Stavrou -- who was Under-secretary to the President when Makarios was in office and for more than two decades after -- yesterday weighed into the rumbling bird killing debate by lambasting trappers in a strongly worded statement, saying they were dragging the island’s name through the mud. His uncompromising criticism is bound to raise the hackles of Famagusta area deputies and the Paralimni mayor, who have openly supported the illegal bird trapping.

The trappers, faced with increasing bad press at home and abroad, have claimed that their cruel practices are a ‘traditional’ activity and that Makarios, in 1956, partook of the fruits of their labours, likening their quality to that of a biblical godsend.

Stavrou ridiculed trappers’ claims about the national icon.

“I dispute that Makarios did any such thing and totally reject the idea that Makarios, as a conscientious nature-lover with a deep love for birds, spoke such nonsense,” Stavrou said. He pointed out that Makarios could not, as trappers claim, have been in Paralimni eating pickled migrants in 1956 as he was exiled to the Seychelles in March of that year.

Stavrou said the slaughter of birds on lime sticks and in mist nets was not so much a national tradition as a national disgrace. “We have turned Cyprus? into a bird slaughterhouse,” he said.

Damning reports about the annual slaughter of migrants appeared in three British newspapers and on Scottish television this autumn. “Horrific photographs of birds dying on lime sticks have appeared the world over,” Stavrou said.

Britain’s Daily Mail, among others, has encouraged its readers to write to President Glafcos Clerides to protest against the killing of Europe’s common bird heritage.

Stavrou said such protest letters were nothing new: “At the Presidential Palace, there are tens of thousands of letters from all parts of the world condemning us for such actions.”

Despite being banned in 1974, the bird trapping carries on blatantly, particularly in the Famagusta area, during the autumn and spring migrations. Police say they do what they can to prevent the slaughter, but ornithologists’ claims that officers turn a blind eye are backed up by the fact that trappers act apparently without fear of being caught, even using audio tape lures to attract the passing birds to their deaths.

The killing is a multi-million-pound industry, with the birds being served up for around £1.50 apiece as ‘forbidden’ ambellopoulia delicacies in local tavernas. It is estimated that some 20 million birds are killed in Cyprus every year through the combined efforts of bird trappers and trigger- happy hunters. More than half of these birds belong to species protected under European law.

“I honestly believe that the ambellopoulia-catchers can be proud of other traditions rather that the cowardly capture of small birds,” Stavrou said.

But the trappers enjoy support in high places. The unflattering British reports earlier this year prompted DISY deputy Christos Pourgourides to propose that the eating of ambellopoulia be made a criminal offence. His proposal met with opposition from his party, from Famagusta area deputies and from Paralimni mayor Nicos Vlittis. Vlittis and the deputies, with DISY’s Antonis Karas to the fore, openly supported the illegal trapping as “traditional”.

Earlier this month, the Famagusta area trappers called a mass meeting during which they threatened unspecified “action” if the state tried to stop them killing birds.

[03] ‘Tis the season to spend lolly

CHRISTMAS in Cyprus has little to do with mistletoe and wine – it’s all about presents to keep the children happy. And the season to be jolly is likely to cost a lot of lolly.

George Agathocleous, a married father of four, told the Sunday Mail he will have spent £600 on Christmas presents and children’s clothes by the time the festive spending spree is over.

“Most of the money goes on my children and on presents for relatives. My wife and I won't spend that much on us. We don’t party a lot in Christmas,” said the 38-year-old plumber, wearing a Santa hat in festive Ledra Street with his kids yesterday morning.

“Christmas costs more than it used to with growing children’s needs but salaries remain the same,” he added.

Mary, a 40-year-old mother of two, said she would spend about £500 altogether on Christmas this year.

“I and my husband spend a lot on presents for the children and less on ourselves. After all, Christmas is really for children. We also spend on decorations,” said Mary, who works with the United Nations.

A 65-year-old grandfather, Aristides said: “I spend about £300 on my four grandchildren every Christmas. I buy them presents, clothes and shoes. I will not spend a lot on my wife and myself. We plan on going to some traditional restaurants, not expensive ones because we cannot afford that.”

But Demetris, 40, a contractor, said his family would not be spending much this year.

“We have two children and we will surely get them some presents, but that’s about it. We won’t buy much else apart from food. I will not receive a bonus salary for Christmas either.”

Christos, a 16-year-old student, said he planned to spend about £70 going out with friends to have a good time on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

[04] Club owner’s car bombed

A BOMB exploded under a cabaret owner’s Mercedes in Limassol in the early hours yesterday, destroying the luxury car and shattering windows in nearby flats.

The blast also damaged other vehicles parked near Costas Constantinides’ car, but no one was injured.

Police say the device exploded at 3.55am in the car park of the Kanika Panorama apartment block in the Amathounda area.

Police say they believe “professional rivalries” may be behind the bomb attack. Bomb or arson attacks on cars are a regular event in Limassol.

Cyprus Mail 2000

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