Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 01-06-20

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

Wednesday, June 20, 2001

CONTENTS

[01] Losing DISY candidate calls for a recount

[02] The EU's biggest and one of its smallest applicants

[03] Clerides in clinic for two days of routine tests

[04] Development Bank strike could spread, union warns

[05] Minister and unions spar over airports

[06] Cypriot 1974 victims could have been mistakenly reburied in Greece

[07] Help find the perfect fit for Cypriot women

[08] EU delegation in town for harmonisation talks

[09] Bar association backs existing libel laws

[10] Olympic strike affects one flight to Cyprus

[01] Losing DISY candidate calls for a recount

LOSING parliamentary candidate Andreas Parisinos of DISY is appealing to the Electoral Court demanding a recount of the preference votes secured by two winning candidates from his party.

Parisinos, a deputy in the previous parliament, has disputed the May 27 result, charging that biased civil servants working for the election service might have compromised the objectivity of procedures.

The election process was marred by technical glitches, which caused confusion and delayed the announcement of winning candidates until after midnight.

The fax machines hired to transmit the results from the counting centre in Nicosia to the Central Election Service at the Interior Ministry could not handle the huge volume of paperwork, resulting in around 10,000 pages getting 'lost'.

Chief Returning Officer Kyriacos Triantafyllides said the fax machines at the counting centre were indicating that the pages had been delivered when in fact they never reached the Election Service. When the glitch was discovered, exhausted counters, who had been up all night, had to check the results again before they could be forwarded.

Parisinos' lawyer Eleni Vrahimi told reporters yesterday: "We ask that preference votes secured by Maria Kyriacou and Andreas Papapolyviou, be recounted."

The two deputies were the last on DISY's winning list, squeezing out Parisinos.

"I have also asked the Chief Returning Officer to give me the names of the civil servants who worked at Nicosia's counting centre," Vrahimi said.

Parisinos' lawyer said she had information that people who had worked at the office of Kyriacou, a former Ombudswoman, and others who worked at the office of Papapolyviou, a former Nicosia District Officer, were among the civil servants at the counting centre.

"There could be an issue of objectivity here. And also, because of the technical problems and the long hours, some results were issued again and again," Vrahimi said.

Triantafyllides said yesterday this was not the first time that a failed candidate had asked for a vote recount.

"I will give Vrahimi the names of the civil servants who worked at the International Conference Centre after I get the legal service's approval," he said.

Three days after the elections, the Election Service issued the result of a recount of preference votes, which differed slightly from the initial result.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[02] The EU's biggest and one of its smallest applicants

RELATIONS between Cyprus and Poland the largest, most populous applicant in the current round of European Union enlargement, were the focus of a public meeting at the Polish embassy yesterday.

In attendance were Ambassador Tomasz Lis and Commercial Counsellor Wiktor Anselm, both of whom were upbeat about forging further economic and social ties between the two countries. But they admitted there was much room for improvement.

"In Poland, the business society knows very little about the possibilities available in Cyprus," said Anselm.

"I would like to encourage Cypriots to come to Poland. For business, Poland is one of the so-called tigers in the world and we are increasingly dependent on foreign trade," he said.

He also stressed the importance of mutual understanding between the two nations.

"The average Cypriot does not know very much about Poland and the same is probably true about Poles. The majority of Poles know of Cyprus only as an exotic, not-very-expensive tourist destination".

But a least a few do seem to know the island. Tourist arrivals from Poland are increasing in number and Cypriots appear to be waking up to the possibility of courting the tourist market in this country of 38.7 million people.

This year, the Cyprus Tourism Organisation decided to establish a full representative office in Warsaw and Cyprus Airways in April began twice weekly flights to the Polish capital.

In 2000, 30,000 Polish tourists visited on the island, only a few thousand less than arrivals from Ireland and France, who contributed 36 and 37,000 respectively.

Tourism, however, has only been a partial compensation for a trade balance that leans heavily in Poland's favour.

Cyprus imported $45.5 million in Polish goods last year, while exporting only $0.8 million to the central European nation.

Since the early nineties, the level of trade had hovered around $30 million, although 1998 and 1994 were exceptional because in these years Cypriot customers received tailor-made container ships from Poland's Szczecin and Gdansk shipyards, reputed to be the most modern and efficient in the world.

Poland's main exports to Cyprus include heavy machinery, electronics, tyres, plastics, metals, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Cyprus exports to Poland have been on a slow decrease in the past years and include mainly agricultural products such as citrus, fruits, nuts and olives, and also footwear, leather products and pharmaceuticals.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[03] Clerides in clinic for two days of routine tests

A MEDIA scrum accompanied President Glafcos Clerides s he was admitted to the Evangelistria Clinic for routine tests yesterday lunchtime.

TV cameras, radio and print journalists gathered outside the clinic to await the President's arrival shortly before 1pm and grill him about the state of his health.

The two days of standard tests come a year after Clerides underwent an operation to remove a polyp from his large intestine in May 2000.

Work commitments and other activities have delayed the tests by a month, but doctors told the President it was impossible to wait any longer.

Clerides chaired a Cabinet meeting yesterday morning and announced that he would keep abreast of all presidential duties while at the clinic.

He joked with the assembled crowd, protesting that he couldn't put the tests off any longer, given that he always listened to his doctors.

Slightly put out by his doctors' insistence that he swim an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon rather than two hours in one go, the President joked about his alternative exercise schedule designed to keep everyone happy.

"In order not to upset my doctors I get into the sea at 12. My morning swim lasts until 1pm, then my afternoon swim is from 1pm to 2pm," he said.

The President has been careful to keep his figure trim, shedding 20 kilos after the operation, bringing him down to a neat 85 kilos.

Three doctors will treat Clerides until he is discharged at lunchtime tomorrow. His intestines will be cleaned out and doctors will run a bowl scan.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[04] Development Bank strike could spread, union warns

BANK workers could join their colleagues at the Development Bank on strike in protest at a government decision to sell off a chunk of the bank without briefing staff about the terms of the agreement.

The Development Bank's employees, who are members of bank workers union ETYK, have been on strike since Monday, demanding to be briefed about the content of a deal to sell 38 per cent of the Development Bank's share capital to Greece's Piraeus Bank. The government announced the deal in late April. The agreement with Piraeus Bank will cut the government's stake in the Development Bank from 88 per cent to 45 per cent.

Prodromos Charalambous, co-ordinating secretary of ETYK, told the Cyprus Mail yesterday "we might go on strike if the demands of our members at the Development Bank are not met in the next few days".

Charalambous said he suspected the fact that the union had been kept in the dark about the framework of the agreement "means the deal serves interests of people outside the two banks."

"The deal provides that the Bank's staff will get five per cent of the shares. But we don't want this matter to be handled by the new board of directors, which will be mainly made up of Piraeus Bank representatives. We want to deal with this with the government," Charalambous said.

But Ioannis Strogylos, president of Development Bank's Council, yesterday described the strike by bank employees as damaging and unnecessary, arguing that the terms of the buy-up had been made public long ago.

But on Monday Strogylos said "the bank's employees will be briefed about the agreement after a meeting of the Council on July 25."

The House Finance Committee is expected to table the matter for discussion in its meeting with Finance Minister Takis Klerides next Monday to examine weather the right procedures were followed to reach the deal with the Piraeus Bank. However, he has made clear that Parliament cannot interfere in the debate as the Development Bank is a private company with the state as its main shareholder.

The buy-up will cost the Piraeus Bank group some £27.9 million for 37.87 per cent of the Development Bank's share capital. The agreement with the government also provides for the Development Bank's floatation on the stock market in Cyprus, Greece or elsewhere.

The Development Bank has always been limited to investment activity but the Central Bank recently granted the institution license to expand its operations into all aspects of banking.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[05] Minister and unions spar over airports

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Averoff Neophytou yesterday said he expected work on the development of Larnaca and Paphos airports to begin by the end of the year and finish in about three years from now.

But Democratic Labour Federation of Cyprus (DEOK) slammed the government's decision to "privatise" the airports, charging that the state had kept the Parliament in the dark about an official report suggesting another method of developing the airports.

Larnaca and Paphos airports were paralysed for two hours last Thursday by striking employees who protested at the government's decision to tender for a partner to develop the airports at Larnaca and Paphos.

But 23 companies have already been short-listed and the winner, expected to be announced later this year, will get the rights to run the two airports for a period of between 15 and 20 years so they can recoup their investment before the state takes over again.

The relevant government bill has been tabled before the House plenum and is pending parliamentary approval. The House Finance and Communications Committee will hold a joint meeting on Monday to discuss the proposal.

The two big unions, PEO and SEK, have threatened to step up industrial action if the government goes ahead with its plans.

Diomidis Diomidous, secretary-general of DEOK, which is affiliated to the Social Democratic Party KISOS, yesterday told a news conference: "We are launching a campaign to raise awareness about the wrong choice the state has made in regards to the development of the airports."

Diomidous claimed a study commissioned by the state in 1995 and conducted by the Development Bank in co-operation with the Cranfield University's Department of Air Transport and S.G Warburg had suggested "the development of the airports by a private company with the state as the only shareholder. This way, the state remains the owner and the manager of the airports."

Diomidous said many European airports, like Vienna, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, had been developed by that method.

"The government omitted to brief the House about the content of the report and put forward its own proposal instead. We cannot rule out the possibility that the government is serving certain interests." Diomidous charged.

Minister Neophytou later dismissed Diomidous' accusations, arguing: "we have presented the full report to the Finance Committee."

Committee chairman Marcos Kyprianou was not available for comment yesterday.

The last Parliament, which dissolved before the May 27 elections, appeared to favour the state bill. But it's now up to the newly elected House, to have the last word. DIKO has already backed the scheme.

DEOK's secretary general warned that taxpayers' pockets would be affected by the plans, which would cost a lot to the state.

"Services and facilities at Spata airport in Athens cost carriers using it 30 to 800 per cent more than before because it's run by the private sector. The flow of tourism is down by 22 to 35 per cent because ticket prices have increased by 10 to 20 per cent," he explained.

DEOK invited the government and other trade unions to talks to discuss the matter.

And Diomidous described Neophytou's claim made last week that the unions only cared about workers' interests as "populism."

"The airports belong to the workers and to the people," he said.

When asked to give his response to Diomidous' charge, Neophytou said: "We don't mean to boast, we have not discovered the wheel. We are just pushing for modernisation and calling for less statism."

The minister told the Cyprus Mail that if the House gave the green light to the plan, work on the airports' development would start by the end of the year and finish in about three years.

Neophytou pledged that the airports' modernisation was what the people called for and insisted that, "workers' rights will be affected by the deal."

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[06] Cypriot 1974 victims could have been mistakenly reburied in Greece

REMAINS belonging to Cypriots killed during the 1974 invasion could have been incorrectly identified as those of Greek war victims and sent for burial in Greece, Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides admitted yesterday.

It appears Greek families may now be forced to dig up what they believed to be their loved ones' remains so, they can be returned to Cyprus for further tests.

Cassoullides said the possible confusion concerned remains exhumed from unmarked graves in Cyprus by Greek teams between 1979 and 1981. He said these exhumations had been carried out in a "non-scientific" manner and more recent diggings by a Doctors of the World team had identified potential mistakes. Cassoulides said the use of DNA fingerprinting techniques following exhumations at Nicosia's Constantinos & Eleni cemetery two years ago had shown that Greek and Cypriot remains were often buried together in 1974.

"We have now determined that there is a real possibility that remains that do not belong to the persons it was believed they belonged to have been dug up and sent to Greece," the Foreign Minister said. "All necessary measures are being taken so than, if remains of Cypriots have been handed over to Greek families, these can be identified and returned to Cyprus," Cassoulides added.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[07] Help find the perfect fit for Cypriot women

CYPRIOT women are proving reluctant to come forward and help a PhD student to assemble the first-ever national size chart, which could ease the pain of badly fitting clothes in Cyprus.

Manchester Metropolitan University graduate student Peri Vronti needs to measure 800 women between the ages of 18 and 54, taken proportionally from the Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca, Paphos and Famagusta districts in order to compile the study.

Although the project runs until September, so far just 50 people have volunteered to offer themselves up to the measuring tape.

Vronti needs to take 37 different measurements from each woman, all taken by other women in complete confidence.

But the situation is getting so desperate that Yiannoula Nathanael from the Fashion Resource Centre, who is helping Vronti, told the Cyprus Mail that they were scouring for female employees in the government departments already involved in the project.

Officials have given permission for them to measure women working in the Finance, Labour and Justice Ministries.

Clothes made abroad conform to their respective national size charts - fine for domestic wearers, but often problematic for different shaped consumers further afield.

Vronti believes that borrowing sizes from other countries is a poor second to carrying out a proper survey here.

Particular problems in Cyprus occur from German and Greek clothes, too long and big in the chest as German women are taller and mainland Greek women bustier than their Cypriot sisters.

Vronti then intends to sell her national chart to the government or clothing companies in Cyprus once its finished.

If incorporated into the local fashion industry, then Cypriot women should find it easier to buy clothes that really fit.

Vronti is attached to the Department of Clothing Design and Technology at MMU. Once she finishes her PhD, she hopes to carry out similar national size charts from Cypriot children and men.

An earlier MMU graduate conducted the first national size chart for Cypriot children 27 years ago, but Vronti thinks these calculations are now out of date.

Any woman who is a Cypriot national interested in helping her should contact the Fashion Resource Centre, 204-205, 56 Stavrou Avenue, Strovolos, telephone 49 79 16.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[08] EU delegation in town for harmonisation talks

A 15-MEMBER team from the European Commission arrived in Cyprus yesterday for a fresh round of talks with the government on the state of the island's EU harmonisation process.

The chapters to be discussed are Taxation, Environment and Agriculture, Free Movement of Goods, Telecommunications and Information Society, and Customs Union.

The chapters are under negotiation during the current Swedish Presidency or will be up for discussion during the forthcoming Belgian Presidency.

The EU's Cyprus team leader Leopold Maurer heads the delegation. The group will conduct a series of meetings with top-level civil servants at the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Finance, Communications and Works and Labour and Social Insurance.

Maurer will address a conference on taxation in an EU Cyprus, organised by the University of Vienna and Deloitte & Touche at the Nicosia Hilton today.

Vienna tax professors have drawn up a proposal that recommends Cyprus adopt a 0 per cent corporate tax when it joins the EU, to level the current imbalance between offshore and local companies.

The EU has approved their proposal and the conference aims to sketch out their ideas to the government more clearly.

The EU mission will also meet President of the House Committee for European Affairs Tassos Papadopoulos and debrief ambassadors from EU member states working in Cyprus.

Cyprus has provisionally closed 22 of the 29 chapters. Those yet to be concluded, other than Taxation, Environment and Agriculture are Competition, Regional Policy, Justice and Home Affairs and Financial and Budgetary Provisions.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[09] Bar association backs existing libel laws

LAWYERS yesterday backed their colleague Loukis Papaphilippou in his much- publicised showdown with Politis newspaper over reports about the activities of CT Tobacco Ltd.

The Bar Association defended Papaphilippou's right to secure a court injunction banning the newspaper from continuing its allegedly libellous reports about the company. Politis has ignored the injunction, claiming it constitutes censorship, especially as courts are yet to rule whether the reports do constitute libel against Papaphilippou's client, CT Tobacco boss Christoforos Tornaritis.

The paper's defiance, backed by the Journalists' Union, prompted Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou to express his personal opinion that the 1930s law allowing for the issuing of court injunctions on potential libel was long overdue for review. Papapetrou also said he personally considered there was no grounds for the current injunction against Politis.

With an announcement yesterday, the Bar Association insisted it was "vitally important" that libel laws remain unchanged.

"Possible amendment or limitation of the libel law could very likely lead to unacceptable situations and undesirable developments," the lawyers stated.

The association argued that a court injunction against potential libel was a citizen's only way to stop the continued publication of slanderous or defamatory material.

"It is our opinion that the law covering libel has functioned and has been implemented by courts in a quite satisfactory way. We find that there is no substantial or serious reason arguing for the amendment of the existing legal framework," the lawyers stated.

The publicity over the alleged cigarette smuggling also prompted the government to ask the Greek Financial Crime Department (SDOE) for information on the matter. Politis says it has based all its reports on SDOE findings.

Reports about the island's alleged involvement in the multi-million pound illicit movement of cigarettes have been circulating for a while. SDOE last year intercepted a ship off Crete carrying seven million packets of cigarettes allegedly loaded in Cyprus.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[10] Olympic strike affects one flight to Cyprus

A SURPRISE strike by Olympic Airways technicians yesterday affected only one flight to Larnaca Airport, as the angry workers protested the imminent sale of a majority stake in the ailing Greek national carrier.

The technicians' union said the strike would only end at midnight yesterday, during which time they would allow only one flight per destination for both domestic and international flights.

In Cyprus, this meant that an 8.35 pm flight into Larnaca was cancelled, while the flight scheduled to arrive at 7.55pm was to go as scheduled.

The union opposes the sale of a 51 to 65 per cent stake in Olympic and is demanding additional staff for its technical bases, it said in a statement.

Cyprus Airways is one of four companies bidding for a majority share of the debt-ridden carrier, the others being Axon Airlines, the Golden Aviation Services group headed by Greek ship owner Stamatis Restis and Australian venture capital firm Integrated Airline Solutions.

The Greek government is expected to announce a preferred bidder in the next 10 days.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

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