Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 01-12-11

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

Tuesday, December 11, 2001

CONTENTS

[01] Cut off from the outside world

[02] New law would bar billboards from motorways

[03] Stray dogs savage lambs

[04] What do you think about Europe?

[05] Refugees facing risk of eviction

[06] Man killed in motorway crash

[01] Cut off from the outside world

CYPRUS was isolated from the world at the weekend, after someone opened the floodgates on a village dam and thousands of tonnes of water gushed down the hill and flooded a Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) sub- station.

A full-scale administrative and police investigation is currently under way to determine the extent of the damage, said deputy manager of CyTA Photis Savvides, who refused to disclose the precise location of the centre.

The Authority is now coping with a full clean-up operation, while the total cost of damages has yet to be calculated.

People were up in arms all weekend, unable to call friends and relatives abroad, frustrated by a " network busy"message.

Neither were callers in other countries able to dial through to Cyprus numbers, fixed as well as mobile.

And with CyTA's 132 customer service helpline keeping a normal working week, it was impossible for subscribers to get a clear picture of the problem.

" Of course we had a lot of complaints because for a long time people couldn't communicate with the outside world,"said Savvides.

Some 100 engineers worked through the weekend to free up connections, starting with lines to Greece and the UK, where the vast majority of foreign traffic is dialled.

" Greece and the UK was the first route to be restored, but because only a few lines were available, they quickly became congested,"the deputy manager added.

By yesterday, 72 per cent of international dial destinations were connectable and all national lines were back in service.

Savvides said that of the 180 or so foreign countries, only five or six were still unreachable yesterday, such as Latvia or Columbia where the traffic was low.

The leftover problems will be tackled today.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[02] New law would bar billboards from motorways

THE GOVERNMENT is to submit legislation restricting the placement of advertising billboards within the next 10 days.

Communications and Works Minster Averoff Neophytou yesterday told the House Interior Committee that billboards had become a menace and " have sprouted like mushrooms all over the island since the political parties were allowed to erect small billboards during the General elections in May."

" The legislation that will be approved by the Cabinet will cover both existing billboards and new billboards,"said Neophytou.

The minister added that the existing law, which dates back to 1956, would prevent billboards from being erected within 75 metres of any motorway or in any spot that could distract drivers. Giant billboards currently line whole stretches of the island's motorways.

Representatives of the Cyprus Professional Association of Outside Advertising, who won a court case preventing the state from tearing down any billboards without a court order, also attended the meeting.

The President of the Association, Rolandos Loizou, angrily told the Committee that advertisers paid thousands of pounds every year for billboards that had been licensed by the Municipalities and the Public Works Department.

The President of the Committee, Nicos Katsourides of AKEL, had to warn Loizou to calm down when he raised his voice and accused Neophytou of being unfair in his campaign to tear down all billboards, whether legal or illegal.

According to the Association, only eight per cent of all billboards have been erected in agreement with local authorities. They added that in the past two years, 823 billboards had sprouted up.

Green Party deputy George Perdikis told the Committee that billboards were being erected without any consideration to the environment and questioned why illegal billboards, such as those blocking pavements, had not been torn down.

Billboards have become an eyesore, with thousands lining the island's roads. Police blame them for up to 20 road deaths a year, claiming drivers are distracted by the posters and fail to concentrate on the road.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[03] Stray dogs savage lambs

STRAY DOGS over the weekend killed 83 lambs and injured 12 after entering their pen in the village of Pachna in the Limassol district.

The scene was visited by the veterinary services, who determined that the animals, worth around £4,750, were savaged to death by dogs.

Though not frequent, stray dog attacks against domesticated animals do take place from time to time.

Many attacks occur near the buffer zone and involve stray dogs, who have crossed from the occupied north.

But Senior Veterinary Officer Kleitos Andreou also said such attacks appeared after the first hunting outings.

He said some hunters might take four or five dogs with them and abandon any one they felt did not perform.

" The largest percentage of stray dogs stems from this practice,"Andreou said.

He insisted, however, that dogs, as a rule, did not attack humans unless they felt threatened.

" Usually they will instinctively pray on other animals,"Andreou said.

Andreou blamed the problems on the lack of legislation obliging dog owners to register their dogs with the veterinary services.

A bill, drafted in 1995, has been travelling back and forth from the House to the Interior Ministry because of disagreements among the various groups involved and foot-dragging at the House.

According to the bill, all dogs would have to be registered at a central registry and tagged by the veterinary services.

The owners of abandoned registered dogs could then be easily tracked down and slapped with a hefty fine, Andreou said.

If the dogs caused damage anywhere then their owner would have to foot the bill, he added.

But with an estimated population of 100,000 dogs and no central registry, the situation would continue to spiral out of control, Andreou said.

Existing laws only force owners register dogs with local authorities, but this has proved inefficient, especially in rural areas.

Andreou said the situation concerning diseases was under control, but it would have been better if the bill were passed, as it would force owners to get their dogs checked and there would be a health record for each individual animal.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[04] What do you think about Europe?

But if it came to a referendum, 62 per cent of Cypriots would vote for membership.

The survey, co-ordinated by the Hungarian Gallup Organisation, is part of a project called the Applicant Countries' Eurobarometer.

The results suggest that only 51 per cent of Cypriots welcome EU membership and that 31 per cent don't care, leaving more than one in 10 opposed to the move.

The number of Cypriots who welcome EU accession lags eight per cent behind the candidate average, matched by Turkey at 59 per cent.

Some 15 per cent of Cypriots classified EU membership as " very"or " fairly"negative - compared to a candidate average of 18 per cent.

But only a quarter said they would vote against EU membership in a referendum, compared to an average of 35 per cent in places like Malta, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Nevertheless the statistics go some way to counterbalance the seemingly unanimous political support for Brussels.

Awareness of EU institutions could also be improved. Although 99 per cent of Cypriot respondents knew about the EU, only 68 per cent had heard about the European Parliament and only 54 per cent of the European Commission.

A fifth said they didn't trust the EU and some 67 per cent claimed they were not well, or at all informed about EU enlargement.

The identical questionnaires were filled in by a proportional segment of the population in all applicant countries this October.

In Cyprus, this means the answers are based on the responses of 500 people. The survey was carried out locally by Cymar Market Research.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[05] Refugees facing risk of eviction

Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou has tried to appease the refugees, saying no one had the right to evict them from the property, since they had an agreement with the Custodian of Turkish Cypriot Property.

But AKEL deputy Kikis Yiangou charged that it was the Interior Ministry, through the Larnaca District Administration, which had sent the eviction letters to the occupants of the property in the district.

Christodoulou, who was apparently caught unawares, said he would look into the issue and determine if the Legal Adviser of the Turkish Cypriot Property Management Service, Haris Kyriakides, had given the green light for the evictions without the minister's approval.

Christodoulou said that if it was found that Kyriakides had given such instructions, then he would investigate whether he had the authority to do so.

But Kyriakides defended himself yesterday, saying it was all perfectly legal.

He said that if there was no legal problem in the transfer of the property and if the custodian gave instruction to the Land Survey Department to accept and allow the transfer, then there was nothing wrong.

The district officers were notified about the transfer and were asked to take measures for relocating the refugees and replacing the property they occupied, Kyriakides said.

Yiangou said one refugee had invested over £700,000 on the property and now he was being forced to leave it.

" I believe the government's responsibility is great because it did not find a way to stop the transactions and I dare say with its tolerance it encouraged them, leaving thousands of refugees exposed,"Yiangou said.

DISY deputy George Georgiou went even further suggesting there was an organised plan behind the dealings.

He said he had proof that certain individuals, including former police and army officers and former senior Larnaca Land Survey department officials, were involved in the matter, acting as middlemen and receiving commission on the transactions.

DISY deputy Lefteris Christoforou said many refugees occupying Turkish Cypriot property in Larnaca had invested heavily on it were in danger of being victimised for the second time.

He said the occupants were being blackmailed daily by the Turkish Cypriot owners and their lawyers to abandon the property.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

[06] Man killed in motorway crash

Charalambous Panayiotou, 35, lives in London and had been on holiday in Cyprus.

Driving back from his father's in Paphos at about 4am, he suddenly lost control of his Toyota Rav 4 about 500 metres after the tunnel, on the Limassol side.

The four-wheel drive vehicle crashed into the cliff-face, rolled on to the roof and skidded upside down for another 50 metres before stopping in the middle of the motorway.

Fire brigade officers had to cut the body free from the wreckage and a British Bases doctor pronounced him dead at the scene.

The motorway was blocked for over five hours with all traffic diverted along the old Paphos road until 10.30am.

The causes of the accident were still unclear yesterday evening and SBA Police appealed for any witnesses to come forward.

Charalambous is survived by his Cypriot wife and three children.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2001

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