Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 01-12-04

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

Tuesday, December 4, 2001

CONTENTS

[01] The good news about the rain

[02] Clerides: ready for anything Denktash may throw at him

[03] More than just a house

[04] Two appliance safety inspectors for the whole of Cyprus

[05] Cyprus split over plan to ban smoking at the wheel

[06] Tapes could identify hooligan ringleaders

[01] The good news about the rain

THE weekend's storms did not only bring destruction, they brought much- needed rain for the parched island.

According to Weather Service Director Kyriacos Theophilou, the front affecting Cyprus is now gradually subsiding, though the weather will remain unstable in the next few days.

" There is a possibility of localised rains, without ruling out storms, but phenomena will be substantially weaker compared to the weekend,"Theophilou told the Cyprus Mailyesterday.

He said last November had also seen a lot of rain but the difference this year had been the strong accompanying winds and the intensity of the rainfall.

Initial figures for Nicosia, Theophilou said, showed a record 77mm of rain in one hour, compared to the previous 71mm.

" The situation is similar for other districts, but we need to collect all the data before we have any conclusive results,"Theophilou said.

Total rainfall for November was 108 per cent of the average for the month, translating into 57.5mm, compared to the usual 53mm.

December got off to a good start too, with 63 per cent of the total average rain for the month falling in just two days.

Normal rainfall for December is around 105mm and 66mm have already fallen in the past two days, Theophilou said.

Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous said yesterday that around four million cubic metres of water had flowed into the island's dams, bringing them up to 20 million cubic metres.

" This is a very important quantity, considering that before this, the water in the dams was around 16 million cubic metres, which is 7.4 per cent of capacity,"Themistocleous said.

" Last year's capacity at the same time was 7.1 per cent,"the minister added.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[02] Clerides: ready for anything Denktash may throw at him

PRESIDENT Glafcos Clerides is prepared for any eventuality that may emerge from today's meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, the government said yesterday.

Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou told his daily press briefing that Clerides was contemplating all possible scenarios that Denktash might come up with at the meeting, to take place at the UN Permanent Representative's residence in the UN-controlled Nicosia Airport area. It will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since 1997.

"The President has made the appropriate preparatory work to be in a position

to tackle any eventuality," Papapetrou said yesterday.

He said the President was ready to face various scenarios - anything from " (dealing with) a totally negative Denktash to a constructive Denktash or even one pretending to be constructive in his approach."

Clerides would be ready to give answers there and then to questions, proposals or ideas that Denktash might put forward and decide on the spot whether he needed to consult his aides before replying, the spokesman added.

"These talks are not negotiations. It is a meeting to see how (UN) negotiations can restart," Papapetrou told Reuters later yesterday.

The President is expected to outline the issues to be discussed as part of the ongoing UN effort for a comprehensive settlement, which started on the basis of UN Security Council resolution 1250.

The UN Secretary-general's special adviser for Cyprus Alvaro de Soto, who arrived on the island on Saturday but has so far refrained from making public statements, will attend today's meeting as an observer.

However, Turkish Cypriot press said yesterday that De Soto had referred to the December 4 Denktash-Clerides meeting as the " potential turning point"in efforts for a solution of the Cyprus problem. Neither Clerides nor Denktash will see De Soto prior to today's meeting.

De Soto chaired proximity talks between Clerides and Denktash from December 1999 to November last year, when Denktash, backed by Ankara, withdrew from the negotiations demanding equal recognition and a new basis for the talks.

The entire process was in limbo until last month when Denktash, following a series of letters to Clerides, invited the President to face-to-face talks.

Political observers believe Denktash's invitation to Clerides was probably a tactical move to divert the attention of the international community from his September rejection of a formal UN invitation to return to the negotiating table.

However, at the same time as he was inviting Clerides to talks, Denktash also wrote to the UN Secretary-general, reiterating his intransigent stance.

" There is a lot of exaggeration about their personal relationship,"one observer told Reuters yesterday. " It may appear they are on good terms but politics comes first."

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[03] More than just a house

EVERY house has its history, but few more so than an imposing family home built close to Nicosia Airport in 1972.

Two years later, in 1974, the house was damaged and abandoned during the battle for the airport.

Little did the architects and contractors know when they were they were building the house that over the years it would repeatedly become the focal point for the future of the island's political problem, being the ideal location for meetings between the leaders of the two communities.

The 'Feissel house' - as it is generally known after Gustav Feissel its second and longest occupant (less of a mouthful than the 'UN Permanent Representative's residence') - is impressive, secluded, secure, can be accessed from both sides of the Green Line, and is more convenient than New York.

Today, the world's media will again descend on the house for the meeting between President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, but all they will see is the façade.

George Nicolaides, of Joannou and Paraskevaides (J&P) who built the house, said the six-bedroom house had originally been built for the daughter of Stelios Joannou.

" It was a dowry house built on four donums of land with a very large garden,"he said. " After the invasion it became part of no man's land and the roof was badly damaged by shelling."

The family, who spent under two years in the house - worth £1.5 million at today's prices - moved to the UK after 1974 and still live there, Nicolaides said.

He said that in the 1980s, the UN asked the government if it could rent the property to use as a residence for its permanent representative to the island, and in 1988, Argentinian Oscar Camilion moved in after his appointment.

When Camilion left the island in 1993, he was replaced by American Gustav Feissel, who lived in the house until 1998, when he was replaced by Dame Anne Hercus. Dame Anne, a New Zealander, spent only a short time in Cyprus and left the island in September 1999.

One old UNFICYP employee recalled the changes to the interior over the years.

" It used to change quite a lot because of the different people who lived there,"she said. " It was quite plain and simple during Feissel's time, although the dining room was changed on a regular basis."

The former employee said the two leaders used to meet in a separate sitting room kept for high-level meetings.

" During Camilion's, time it was beautiful. Suzanna Camilion, being Latin American, had the most beautiful touches. There were always lots of flowers and beautiful displays of plants and things like that there. Sharon Feissel kept it more in a very plain American style. But when Suzanna Camilion did it, it was so elegant. It's a really lovely house."

Although the house is quite simple in its design, it still represented " the big white house"of the UN-controlled airport area, she said, even though its occupants were only given a limited budget for decorating.

" Of course, they were all only here a certain amount of time and naturally were not prepared to put their hands in their own pockets to do very much with it,"she said.

The current UN representative, Zbigniew Wlosowicz from Poland, only moved into the house in June, a year after his appointment by the Secretary- general.

He told the Cyprus Mailhe had not moved in initially as the house needed some work after being empty for some time.

" It's a nice charming place with two fireplaces and a very beautiful garden with lots of trees around.

" It's a fairly quiet neighbourhood,"he added.

Wlosowicz said he was working on the interior and had brought some items with him from New York, which he " feels at home with" .

" It's always important to have something to remind you of home, so I have a couple of pieces,"he said. "I like decorating myself if I have the chance, but also I have a lot of advice from friends here. It's a big house and we have to take into account the space and the fact that I'm the only occupant. It's a friendly house, nice garden and lots of light, so whoever designed it did it brilliantly. I definitely feel well there and one can rest and work there."

Whether Clerides and Denktash feel the same remains to be seen.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[04] Two appliance safety inspectors for the whole of Cyprus

THE GOVERNMENT has are only two inspectors to check the safety of electrical appliances on the market, a senior official at the Consumers' Protection Department complained yesterday.

Marios Droushiotis said two people for the whole country was woefully inadequate to carry out the necessary inspections to reduce the risk of electrocution.

Imported electrical appliances are not released to the market unless they carry a CE label, which indicates that they meet EU safety standards.

" If they are not labelled, they remain at the Customs and Excise Office, "Droushiotis told the Cyprus Mail . " If they can't get in to Cyprus, some of them are then exported on to non-EU countries,"he added, noting he did not approve of the practice.

" But if suppliers can provide documents proving that unlabelled devices are in line with safety regulations then we allow them to bring them in, "Droushiotis said.

The Department official stressed, however, that CE labels on electric appliances were not always genuine, especially in the case of products manufactured in Asia. Because of this, the Department runs random inspections in shops to identify " suspicious appliances"and have them tested at labs.

" If they are not up to standard, then shops are ordered to stop selling them for two months to give time to the manufacturers to come up with an improved version of the product. If they fail to do so, then the product is banned from the market,"Droushiotis explained.

The official said safety measures taken by his department were exactly the same as those in effect in the European Union.

" However, we have a weakness and that is the number of people carrying out inspectionsin the market. There are only two of them for the whole of Cyprus so we are not able to minimise accident risks as we would if we had more inspectors,"Droushiotis admitted.

The official suggested that the Commerce Ministry, to which the Department is accountable, should create more such positions - citing a case of a man from Limassol who had died of electrocution because he used a defective device.

Dinos Ioannou, chairman of the Consumers' Protection Association told the Mail , he felt electrical appliances should be inspected randomly while still at Customs.

" One or two appliances from each container should be checked. If that does not happen, it means safety measures are lax,"he said.

But Droushiotis countered that this method could never be applied, as it would get in the way of the free market.

Ioannou had some basic advice to consumers and especially parents who bought their children electric toys: " Always check the wires. If they are hard or badly insulated then there is something wrong with the device.

" And be very careful with Christmas tree lamps,"he added.

Last year, 188 electrical appliances were found to be unsafe. From June to September of this year, 93 were ruled to be dangerous.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[05] Cyprus split over plan to ban smoking at the wheel

The results of the poll, carried out by SRI, were announced on Mega television on Sunday.

According to the survey, 51 per cent of Cypriots agree with the Cabinet proposal and 48 per cent oppose it.

However, it looks like women are more willing to accept the plan than men.

Most men, 54 per cent, oppose the proposal whilst most women - 57 per cent - favour it, according to the poll.

Predictably, the vast majority of smokers - 82 per cent - are against the bill while 63 per cent of non-smokers back it.

Last week's approval of the bill by the Cabinet prompted a flurry of protests from deputies, many of whom are smokers. The bill bans smoking in public places and includes penalties aiming to stop drivers puffing away at the wheel, for health and road safety reasons.

Health Minister Frixos Savvides, himself a heavy smoker but the sponsor of the bill, said on Sunday the results of the survey had been expected.

The minister reiterated the government's intention to submit the proposal to Parliament despite the angry reactions from deputies, but did not say when it would do so.

AKEL deputy Doros Christodoulides has described the bill as "ridiculous" and DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades has claimed it would cause more accidents as smokers would be driven to distraction by their craving, which would affect their driving.

"What happens if a driver is distracted by a girl in a mini-skirt? Will they ban them as well?" one unnamed deputy told Reuters news agency last week.

The anti-smoking bill is part of the government's EU harmonisation drive, but the driving ban goes well beyond EU requirements.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[06] Tapes could identify hooligan ringleaders

POLICE were yesterday examining video evidence to identify troublemakers who led a rampage of hooligan violence at the end of a football match at Nicosia's GSP stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The Cyprus Cup fixture between Nicosia's APOEL and second division Nea Salamina of Famagusta ended in a shock 1-0 victory for the visitors.

Furious to see their team knocked out of the cup after a poor performance, around 700 APOEL fans moved towards the north stand occupied by a few Nea Salamina fans, pelting them with stones and other objects, while trying to break down the doors.

Five people were injured, one seriously, police said.

Forty-one-year-old Salamina fan George Themistocleous was seriously hurt in the eye after being hit by a stone.

He was rushed to hospital for treatment, but doctors feared his injury was serious and his eye could be permanently damaged.

Rampaging hooligans also smashed two cars, one belonging to state television channel CyBC.

The police rapid reaction force, which was called for reinforcement, eventually managed to disperse the fans without trouble, but no arrests were made.

The stadium's Director Fivos Constantinides told the Cyprus Mailyesterday that there had been no damage to the stadium's facilities, apart from a hot unit used to keep pizza warm, which was smashed.

Pieces from the glass unit were later found on the pitch.

Constantinides said that the trouble had been recorded by the stadium's closed circuit television system and that the footage had been handed over to police on Sunday.

Police were not available for comment yesterday but reports said arrests, based on the footage, were imminent.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

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