Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 01-08-22

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

Wednesday, August 22, 2001

CONTENTS

[01] Second UK businessman echoes complaints of deported entrepreneur

[02] Court orders Logos to stop meddling in Mega matters

[03] Double strike threat at Cyprus Airways

[04] Anastassiades refuses to back down in row with spokesman

[05] De Soto sets dates for pre-talks visit

[06] Mystery of two business bosses held in Bahrain

[07] Cyprus closes tricky chapter on environment

[08] Police step up search for missing radiologist

[09] Man leaps from burning house

[01] Second UK businessman echoes complaints of deported entrepreneur

A BRITISH entrepreneur working in the alternative energy market yesterday spoke out in defence of deported colleague Graham Cockroft, slamming the Immigration department for allegedly abetting protectionist commercial practices in Cyprus.

Cockroft, 55 was deported from Cyprus with only the clothes he was wearing after three nights in police cells he says had inadequate hygiene facilities and one meal a day. He was denied consular access to British diplomats. He was director of a fledging property company, Rockpool Homes Ltd, which builds solar-electric made-to-measure homes in Pissouri.

Cockroft claims that early success and a flood of interest from UK buyers incited jealously amongst local developers, who allegedly asked immigration to get rid of him.

Immigration have refused to give a reason for his deportation, either to the Cyprus Mail or to his lawyer in a court hearing appealing the decision, held in his absence last Friday.

Yesterday, Eric Hawkins, a technology designer who specialises in solar equipment added his voice to Cockroft's complaints. Hawkins moved out to Cyprus in the 1990s and went into manufacturing with the two Cypriot partners who co-own Rockpool Homes with Cockroft.

From their factory in the free-trade zone of Larnaca, where the Rockpool houses are assembled, they produced solar system designs for buyers in the UK and America.

It was when UK exports began to lull that his partners latched on to Cockroft's idea of building solar-powered homes in Cyprus.

Hawkins also alleged that the government had refused to renew his work permit because locals disliked his attempts to improve the lot of British and EU expats working in Paphos.

"I warn many people about buying Cypriot property and that you have no rights if you step on somebody's toes. Human rights do not exist in Cyprus and never will for as long as uncompetitive businesses rip off those who decided to choose Cyprus to retire to," Hawkins said from the UK.

Although he's now a permanent resident in the UK, the Larnaca factory continues to manufacture the designs that Hawkins sells in Britain and the US.

He has just reached an agreement with four companies in China to develop new technology that will be imported to Cyprus, assembled and then shipped to the UK and the US.

Cockroft, still desperate to find a way to return to Cyprus, is now busy trying to drum up business sales in the UK in an effort to keep the company afloat.

It was business as usual in the Larnaca factory as well yesterday, with workers putting the finishing touches to the second home to be assembled for the Cyprus market.

The first arrived in Pissouri two weeks ago, and a second is due to be craned out in two halves next week.

A Cypriot entrepreneur has ordered three houses to let as holiday homes - the first a 120 square metre four-bedroom house, and two two-bedroom houses each covering 60 square metres.

A British couple have put in an order for a one-bedroom house with master suite, totalling 44 square metres.

Cockroft's lawyer Doros Kakoullis yesterday demanded the deportation order from Attorney-general Alecos Markides to determine the precise reason for his client's summary dismissal from the country.

He is still hoping to appeal against the sentence and get Cockroft removed from the stop list in recognition of his input to local industry.

British High Commission spokesman Jonathan Allen told the Cyprus Mail that consular access to Cockroft had been promised by police, but had not materialised.

Repeated calls were answered by police officers who said they were too busy to bring the detainees to the telephone.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[02] Court orders Logos to stop meddling in Mega matters

THE spat between Church broadcasting company Logos and Mega television took a new twist yesterday after a court issued an order prohibiting Logos from interfering with the running of Mega.

Mega's management was forced to appeal for the injunction after Logos unilaterally terminated a contract the two companies had signed two years ago.

It all started last Thursday when astonished Mega employees went to work in the morning only to find announcement from Logos claiming the Supreme Court had ruled the agreement between the two sides was invalid.

Logos said that, according to the decision, Mega Channel Management Ltd (MCM) could no longer run the channel.

Logos went a step further, urging staff to sign contracts with them because they were now the directors of the channel.

Sources at Mega yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that the majority of the staff had in fact signed contracts with Logos after the company promised to hire them with the same conditions as MCM had done.

But yesterday a Nicosia court issued an order banning Logos from interfering with the channel's management and approaching its employees.

MCM sources said the Greek Mega company, Tyletipos, which provides its name and programmes to the Cypriot channel, was hiding behind Logos' move to take over the station.

The sources claimed that somewhere along the way there had been a serious rift in relations between Mega Greece and Mega Cyprus, and Tyletipos apparently co-operated with Logos to pull the coup and get MCM out of the picture. Neither party admits to the conspiracy.

MCM lawyer Yiannakis Mylonas told the Cyprus Mail yesterday the relationship between Tyletipos in Greece and his client was finished.

"The divorce is inevitable," Mylonas said.

MCM has a 10-year contract with Logos and insists that the Church-owned company must honour its signature.

But Logos counters that the Broadcasting Authority has deemed the contract illegal and imposed a fine.

Logos even cited a Supreme Court decision, which upheld the fine imposed on the company.

But Mylonas said the contract was in no way void, it just violated the conditions needed to secure an operating licence from the Broadcasting Authority.

The authority and the court just considered the fact that Logos had not fulfilled the conditions needed for carrying a licence, Mylonas said.

"I have no doubt the 10-year contract is valid, and this is what I told my clients, "the lawyer added.

The problem could be sorted by amending the agreement to comply with the authority's regulations, he said. Alternatively, MCM could become shareholders in Logos and apply for the licence as one company.

The authority says it cannot issue the licence to one company while another operates the station.

But before the legalistic complexities could be sorted out, Logos last week swooped on the station and began signing MCM personnel to work for them.

Sources at the station claimed Logos had intimidated staff at Mega to sign over to them, threatening to sack those who refused if Logos took over the station.

Yesterday's court decision came as a shock to employees who signed over to Logos and are now left out in limbo.

But Mylonas said MCM management was not vindictive and would continue to employ all staff under the same conditions as before.

To make the situation more complicated, it turns out that Logos cannot get an operating licence without the help of MCM, and MCM cannot broadcast if Logos does not get a licence.

The main reason for this, Mylonas said, was that Logos had no buildings and equipment because they were leasing them to MCM for another eight years.

He added: "We have all the goodwill to find a solution."

"If Logos doesn't get a licence, no one has a station and 140 people will be left without work," Mylonas said.

He said MCM's main concern was that employees should keep kept their jobs and was willing to compromise so Logos could secure the licence.

In the meantime, Tyletipos has stopped feeding MCM with programmes and has demanded that the Mega logo be removed from the screen.

Mylonas said the company could not demand something to be done from one day to the next.

"A notice must be given for you to make alternative arrangements," he said.

"We have already approached other stations in Greece who are willing to co- operate."

He added: "The logo is not important: if your programmes are good, then people will continue to watch."

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[03] Double strike threat at Cyprus Airways

CYPRUS Airways pilots yesterday renewed their strike threat for September while engineers warned they could be striking as early as Friday if a Labour Ministry-brokered proposal is rejected by their union.

Engineer Union ASYSEKA Spokesman, Nicos Malaos, warned that if the proposal was rejected by the union's general assembly on Friday, then an immediate strike was possible since the decision was already in place.

The government proposal was tabled earlier this month, aiming at resolving a long-running promotions dispute.

"We hope we won't come to this point, but this dispute has been pending since 1995," he said.

Malaos said the union's intention was not to cause inconvenience, stressing that it was about time the company solved the employees' problems.

The engineers abandoned work for two hours on July 20, grounding CY flights and leaving passengers stranded at the height of the tourist season.

Meanwhile time pilots' union PASIPY yesterday reiterated its determination to take strike measures in September unless a permanent solution was found concerning CY's daughter company Eurocypria.

The union's spokesman George Charalambous said the company had promised to resolve the issue of insecurity felt by CY pilots about the way Eurocypria operates.

The pilots claimed Eurocypria was expanding on CY's back and therefore threatened their jobs and future development.

Charalamous said the pilots had made concessions in return for the company's promise to sort out the problem, but management not only did not do anything but was now refusing to return what they had given up.

"We agreed that new CY pilots would get lower wages, which are lower than in Eurocypria which is supposed to be a low cost airline," Charalambous said.

CY pilots have traditionally enjoyed promotion benefits within Eurocypria, but a deal brokered by the Labour Ministry in May set out limitations on common seniority practices, setting the ratio of captaincy promotions between the two carriers at 6:3 in CY's favour.

The deal provided for financial compensation to Eurocypria pilots in the event they lost their promotions.

CY pilots claim no similar provisions were made for them.

In July, PASIPY grounded the airline for two hours while it 'briefed' its members on the Eurocypria issue.

They claimed the measure was not a strike, but more than 3,000 passengers were left on the ground.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[04] Anastassiades refuses to back down in row with spokesman

RULING DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades yesterday complained that President Glafcos Clerides had put him on a par with Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou when he said neither of them would decide whether party leaders would accompany him to New York for Cyprus talks.

The government was thrown into turmoil on Monday when a long-running feud between Anastassiades and Papapetrou over whether party leaders should accompany Clerides to the talks reached a crescendo. Papapetrou is vice- chairman of United Democrats (UD), DISY's junior collation partners in the government.

Anastassiades, who says he and other party leaders should go New York, on Monday implied it might be better if Papapetrou - who says party leaders should not go, but will himself accompany the president in his capacity as government spokesman - stayed at home.

The DISY leader questioned the Cyprus problem line of Papapetrou, suggesting it was excessively conciliatory to the Turkish Cypriot side.

Anastassiades charged that Papapetrou's position on a settlement was "more advanced" than the President's. Papapetrou hit back, saying Anastassiades wanted to go the New York because he did not trust the President.

Clerides stepped in an effort to put an end to quarrel on Monday evening, saying it was up to him to decide whether party leaders would accompany him to New York and that "the matter will be discussed at the National Council in early September."

Anastassiades, however, turned a deaf ear to Clerides' words.

In a written statement yesterday, the DISY leader described the President's move "to put him on an equal footing" with Papapetrou as "unfortunate."

He charged that the President could not have been fully aware of the latest developments when he was commenting on the debate on his return from Greece.

Anastassiades also blamed the Government Spokesman for causing an unnecessary confrontation and for damaging the prestige of party leaders who felt the National Council should go to New York with the President.

House President and opposition AKEL leader Demetris Christofias on Monday agreed with Anastassiades that party leaders should join Clerides at the talks.

Papapetrou yesterday denied having "advanced" positions on the Cyprus Problem.

DIKO leader Tassos Papadopoulos joined the fray yesterday. "The spat between Papapetrou and Anastassiades has much deeper roots than it appears, " he said. "It looks as though Papapetrou has a different Cyprus Problem line than the President, although he has never come forward admitting it."

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[05] De Soto sets dates for pre-talks visit

UN Special Adviser to Cyprus, Alvaro de Soto yesterday confirmed that he intended to visit the island between August 29 and September 5, in preparation for the resumption of UN-sponsored proximity talks in New York on September 8 or 9.

De Soto wrote a letter to President Clerides, submitting the dates and a provisional schedule of contacts during his visit.

UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan will meet Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in Salzburg next Tuesday in an effort to persuade him to return to the negotiating table. De Soto arrives in Cyprus the following day.

Clerides said yesterday that the government would continue to work towards a solution of the Cyprus problem in the framework of UN Security Council resolutions.

Speaking of the Annan-Denktash meeting, he said that the Secretary- general's experience of the Cyprus question would allow him "to deal properly" with the Turkish Cypriot leader's "tactics before and during the resumption of UN-led talks".

Denktash abandoned negotiations last December over refusals to recognise the legitimacy of his breakaway regime.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[06] Mystery of two business bosses held in Bahrain

INTERPOL and the government are trying to discover why two prominent Cypriot businessmen have been detained in Bahrain since Tuesday.

Costas Polemidiotis, 50 and his colleague Andreas Papayiannis were in Bahrain on business when they mysteriously disappeared, along with Jordanian national Asim Almonami, who was accompanying them.

Alarm bells rang when Polemidiotis failed to get in touch with his wife, Avgi, after a last telephone call at 10am on Tuesday.

The couple had been in contact three or four times daily. His wife became concerned and reported him missing to Nicosia CID on Thursday morning.

Interpol was alerted.

According to preliminary reports, the two Cypriots checked out of their hotel only to be met in reception by a police officer and a representative from the Bahrain Foreign Ministry.

It is unclear when or why the businessmen were detained, but reports yesterday evening suggested that Bahrain authorities were investigating financial dealings over the import and export of money. Papayiannis and Polemidiotis reportedly went to Bahrain to collect money from business partners.

It is not even clear if the men are in police custody, prison or simply held by civil authorities in the Gulf state.

The Cyprus Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the honorary Cyprus consul in Bahrain was trying to get permission to visit them in jail -- if that's where they are. "The situation is very delicate at this stage. The least we say the better, everything is being taken care of," he said.

The men's lawyer, Lakis Themistocleous, told the Cyprus Mail that he had no details about his clients' predicament. "But it's a very serious issue. These men are very well known and well established businessmen in Cyprus," he said.

Avgi is considering whether or not to fly out to see her husband. She declined to speak to the Cyprus Mail yesterday.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[07] Cyprus closes tricky chapter on environment

CYPRUS yesterday provisionally closed the chapter on the environment, one of the most difficult in the accession talks with the European Union.

The move came during the 13th meeting of the Inter-Governmental Conference at deputy level in Brussels where Cyprus was represented by its chief negotiator George Vassiliou. The island has now completed 23 out of 29 chapters which have to be examined since opening accession talks in 1998, and Cyprus is still leading the other candidate states for EU membership.

The Greens' leader George Perdikis yesterday saluted the development, which, he said, "signals the beginning of hard work required to implement the provisions we have agreed on."

"The closing of the chapter means more responsibilities for the government and society. It means, for instance, that £600,000 has to be spent on recycling in the next 12 years, " he told the Cyprus Mail.

Perdikis said that the most important provision of the chapter on the environment was the one concerning recycling. Implementation means that the days of 'easy dumping' will be over within the next 13 years. By 2014, about 70 per cent of waste must be recycled.

As already happens in some European countries, every household will need to have about five different waste bins for different materials. And that's not all -- citizens will every week or so have to take their sorted waste to local recycling units.

Cyprus currently produces the largest amount of waste per capita in Europe.

Perdikis blamed the delay in closing the environment chapter on "all past governments' inactiveness".

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[08] Police step up search for missing radiologist

TENS of police officers combed Paramytha, Yerasa and Spitali with sniffer dogs early yesterday morning, but failed to find any clues as to the whereabouts of missing Limassol doctor George Kinnis.

Limassol CID ordered the search, with the co-operation of Limassol Fire Department, after unearthing new information over the past few days.

Officers, fire brigade mechanics and sniffer dogs scoured fields, wells, drainage systems and deserted property in the villages and surrounding area, but without luck.

They began in Paramytha, where Kinnis went on the day of his disappearance with business contractor Andreas Sophocleous, who was the last person to see him.

The fruitless search was a setback for police, who had hoped for a breakthrough in the case.

Sophocleous, 52, was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the case, but released 16 days later without charge.

Married and a father of two, Kinnis was head of the radiology department at Limassol General Hospital.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[09] Man leaps from burning house

A HOUSE FIRE in the Nicosia suburb of Agrokipia yesterday reduced furniture, a television and precious photographs to ashes, costing owners an estimated £5,000.

The blaze began at around 8.45am in the house in Michalakis Karaolis Street, while 32-year-old occupant Theodoulos Theodoulou was sleeping upstairs.

When he smelled smoke and realised the building was on fire, he jumped out of his bedroom window. Theodoulou was taken to the casualty department at Nicosia General Hospital, treated for light injuries and released.

Neither police nor the Fire Brigade suspect foul play.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

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