Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 03-04-12

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

Saturday, April 12, 2003

CONTENTS

[01] Cyprus UN resolution falls victim to post-Iraq bitterness

[02] WFP: still too dangerous to go into southern Iraq

[03] Trouble at DIKO over distribution of the spoils

[04] Cyprus seeks to harvest renewable energy through hefty incentives

[05] Hilton strike averted at the eleventh hour

[06] The battle to build: outrage at new zoning regulations

[07] Call this a postal service?

[08] Deportation process interrupts worker's battle for compensation

[01] Cyprus UN resolution falls victim to post-Iraq bitterness

While the United States and Britain backed a text designating a peace plan drafted by UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan as the basis for any future talks, Russia and China insisted the resolution make no mention of Annan's plan - or any other, the envoys said.

The disagreement “reflects the climate of confrontation prevailing in the council as a result of the fall-out from Iraq,” one envoy told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After three days of talks, diplomats remained deadlocked but agreed to try again yesterday to come up with a draft text that all 15 council members could support, the envoys said.

UN special envoy Alvaro de Soto told the UN Security Council that the failure to reach a solution of the Cyprus problem had been “deeply disappointing”.

De Soto said the failure was attributable to the lack of political will, rather than to the absence of favourable circumstances. It was truly a “lose-lose outcome”, he said referring of the collapse of talks in The Hague last month, when Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash refused to put the Annan plan to a referendum.

Looking to the future, De Soto said the Secretary-general did not intend to take a new initiative, unless and until he had solid reason to believe that the political will existed, which was needed for a successful outcome. That would come about if there was an unequivocally stated preparedness on behalf of the leaders on both sides, fully and determinedly backed at the highest political level in both motherlands, to commit to finalising the plan without reopening its basic principles or key trade-offs by a specific date, with United Nations assistance.

Government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said yesterday that the government considered the Annan plan to be still on the negotiating table. “It is important that the UN resolution apportions responsibility on the Turkish Cypriot side and advocates continuation of the efforts of the Secretary-general through the Council procedures and on the basis of Council resolutions,” he said.

Foreign Minister George Iacovou said the US and Britain had different perspectives on the reference to Annan's plan in the resolution than the perspective adopted by France, Russia and China. “The first two essentially are trying to give the Annan plan some kind of status whereas the other three believe the plan remains as a basis for negotiation,” he said.

But Security Council diplomats said they detected no interest in launching new talks any time soon on the part of either the Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot side, Reuters reported. And privately, both sides had also made it clear they did not want to be bound to any one plan - including Annan's - as the basis for fresh negotiations, whenever they might take place, the diplomats said.

On a visit to Istanbul, Denktash told reporters he would continue to fight for the survival of the 'TRNC' and would only accept a peace settlement on an equal footing. “We'll continue to defend ourselves”, he said at an event dubbed “Turkish Cypriots aren't alone”.

“If we defend that argument, if we courageously commit to defend our government, they (Greek Cypriots) will agree to genuine talks,” Denktash said.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2003

Saturday, April 12, 2003

[02] WFP: still too dangerous to go into southern Iraq

Speaking from the humanitarian centre in Larnaca's Flamingo hotel, WFP Public Affairs officer Caroline Hurford said 6,000 tons of food aid has been sent to Iraq through Turkey, but noted that the south of the country was still not safe for WFP staff.

“We have already sent 6,000 of wheat flour to the northern governance, that's the Kurdish controlled three provinces up in the north from Turkey and the food has already been distributed in Taouk,

Erbil and Suleymaniyah,” she said.

However, Hurford said the WFP was still waiting for the green light from its security teams because southern Iraq was still considered dangerous.

“Several assessment missions have gone into Um Qasr, but one that was there yesterday had to pull out because of a crowd that was gathering,” Hurford said.

“There is a general state of lawlessness so we were afraid that our team could fall victim to looters.”

Hurford said the port of Um Qasr was still inaccessible due to fears that the port had not been completely cleared of mines.

“The problem is not only with the mines that could still be (around the port), but also it appears that the whole area is quite small because it had been filling up. They had to go and dredge it in order for bigger ships to be able to go in,” she said.

Hurford said the procedure would slow the process of transporting food to the war stricken areas but that the WFP was examining other possibilities.

“We've got ships arriving in Jordan and we hope in the next 10 days to open up the corridors from Jordan into Iraq, possibly from Syria and eventually up from the south,” she said.

Hurford said it was still too early to tell when the south of Iraq would be safe for WFP teams to work but assured there was no food crisis in Iraq for the moment.

“We are still waiting to hear what the situation is,” Hurford said.

“But the food situation in Iraq is not critical yet, people still have food as far as we know. The critical areas of course are water and medicine, but food should be enough to sustain the people for the next couple of weeks.”

Hurford said the city of Basra was still very insecure and despite the presence of British troops in the area there was still looting going on, meaning WFP staff would have to wait until the situation on the ground was classed as safe.

“We would not be happy to put our staff in harm's way at the moment especially with the kind of quantities that we would be bringing in,” she said. “For now, it is only a case of waiting to see which of the corridors to the country can be opened.”

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2003

Saturday, April 12, 2003

[03] Trouble at DIKO over distribution of the spoils

TROUBLE is brewing within the ranks of ruling DIKO, whose members are angry because they apparently feel they got the rough end of the stick when it came to sharing the spoils with their two partners in the government.

On top of that, several DIKO members are at loggerheads concerning representation in the national council.

The spat has caused huge embarassment to the party after one of the aggrieved parties, Nicosia deputy Andreas Angelides, refused to attend the European Parliament on Thursday as an observer.

Angelides is apparently unhappy that Paphos deputy Nicos Pittokopitis was chosen to sit in the National Council meetings instead of him.

Angelides said the decision on who was to sit on the National Council had to be taken by the central committee and should not have been dealt with according to seniority.

President Tassos Papadopoulos is trying to distance himself from his party's internal strife, effectively leaving the warring officials to sort things out themselves.

But that is not all.

DIKO members are not particularly happy with their party's participation in the government, suggesting that the leading role is being played by AKEL, while the third partner KISOS, appears to be punching above its weight.

AKEL got four ministries out of the 11, and placed its man in at least one more -- the foreign ministry.

On the other hand only one ministry - finance -- went to a thoroughbred DIKO member while the other two went to a close friend of the president and a non-traditional member of the party.

Grass root members are accusing the leadership of not being assertive enough in establishing a leading role for the party in government.

And to add insult to injury, AKEL was now insisting that two of its members take the number one and two positions on the Cyprus Airways board of directors.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2003

Saturday, April 12, 2003

[04] Cyprus seeks to harvest renewable energy through hefty incentives

So far, the use of renewable sources such as photovoltaic panels for the production of electricity has been practically nil, but a bill passed by the plenum on Thursday aims to encourage the use of renewable energy sources by subsidising the installation of photovoltaic panels by 40 per cent.

The law aims to create a special fund, filled by a levy on electricity bills, that would be used to fund incentives for the exploitation of renewable energy sources and encourage energy saving.

According to the law, electricity consumers would contribute to the fund through a levy of about two per cent on the electricity they use per month.

Electricity Authority (EAC) spokesman Costas Gabrielides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday the move would encourage the public to use environmentally friendly energy sources.

“In most EU countries, there is a form of subsidy for what we call green energy from the total number of electricity users,” he said.

“What they are basically doing is they are subsidising the production of electricity through renewable energy sources.”

According to the law, 40 per cent of the cost of installing photovoltaic panels to use solar energy for the production of electricity would be subsidised by the government, and the energy produced would be bought by the EAC at an attractive price.

“You would be selling energy at a higher price that it costs you to produce it,” he said.

“This would encourage people to want to produce electricity through renewable energy sources.”

Gabrielides said the EAC had been a stringent supporter of renewable energy sources and plans had been submitted to the Town Planning Department for the creation of the island's first wind farm in the Kourris dam area near Limassol.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2003

Saturday, April 12, 2003

[05] Hilton strike averted at the eleventh hour

But Manuel Avila, General Manager of Hilton Cyprus, said strike measures had never been a real threat.

“When there is a labour dispute, striking is always an option,” he said. “We had a little dispute and a strike was mentioned, but fortunately it was resolved.”

Avila said the dispute had been with the unions regarding “some unpaid leave we wanted the staff to take”. However, “we discussed the issued and decided not to go ahead with it and the issue was resolved”.

Asked why the staff had been asked to take unpaid leave, Avila said: “It's not an issue any more so I wouldn't want to talk about something that is dead and buried.”

However, according to Lefteris Georgiades, who heads PEO's hotel employees' trade union, strike action had been a very real threat. On Wednesday, 113 out of 115 members of staff agreed to take strike action, he said. The threat had only been lifted after hotel management went back on its decision over unpaid leave. “At 9am, they were presented with a letter stating the staff's decision. After a brief discussion, the employers withdrew their decision and there was no longer any reason to strike,” said Georgiades. “They also said they would pay employees for the days they'd been told to take as unpaid leave at the end of the month.”

Because hotel bookings had been down for March and April, Georgiades said staff had agreed to work a four-day week and to take unpaid leave on the fifth day. However, this did not excuse the hotel's management from forcing permanent staff into taking further unpaid leave and then hiring temporary staff in their place at cheaper rates. Even worse, permanent members of staff were being told to take unpaid leave and then asked to come into work as extras for less money, he said. “The work was obviously there to be done and they needed the manpower to do it and yet they were trying to economise, ” he said.

Although the war in Iraq had affected the hotel industry, Georgiades said firing staff or not paying them was not a solution.

“The staff had been treated unfairly. Thankfully the situation was sorted out and we hope that there won't be a similar case at another hotel,” he said.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2003

Saturday, April 12, 2003

[06] The battle to build: outrage at new zoning regulations

The basic philosophy behind the decision was to try and concentrate development within approved town planning limits and put an end to the erratic and scattered construction of houses in land designated for agricultural use.

Two such areas on the outskirts of Nicosia - Yeri and Latsia -- have become the focal points of such development, with villas mushrooming from the rolling cornfields, causing various problems such as garbage collection and mail delivery, the authorities say.

The owners of such houses have dealt with the mail delivery problem by setting up post office boxes at the nearest main road, and it's likely they pay a bit more for their garbage to be collected by the municipality.

But perhaps the most serious problem would emerge if and when the authorities decided to change such areas into development zones, with the attendant need to build roads, pavements and the like.

Of course, the electricity and telecommunications authorities are more than happy to provide their services to these 'remote' areas because of the hefty fees they charge.

Electricity pylons cost the owners of such houses something in the range of £400 each.

But town planning official Markella Hadjida stressed that if the area was re-designated, the authorities would have to slalom around the properties to lay down their roads.

She added that with the uncontrolled dispersal of buildings there would be no land left for large projects that needed a lot of land.

Most houses in the Latsia and Yeri areas are built on plots ranging from 3, 000 to over 6,000 square metres.

But landowners and others with interests in such areas are furious about the decision, arguing it effectively wipes out land values.

But considering the letter of the original regulations, the value of land in such areas should never in fact have been so high.

According to Hadjida, the regulations were clear, though no one seems to know about it: “The Town Planning Authority would not allow, as a rule, development outside the development boundaries.”

The rule, however, had an exception in that the town planning authority had the discretion to allow the building of one house on a 4,000 square metre plot.

“The rule did not say you could build in housing zones or outside if you had a 4,000 square metre plot; as stated, it was a possibility, but it was up to the town planning's discretionary authority,” she said.

The exception, however, became the rule and everyone thought it was their right to build houses in such areas.

The building coefficient in these areas is 10 per cent.

This means that on a plot of 6,000 square metres, you could build a 600 square metre house.

And it seems even the town planning department did not think of preventing this.

Now the town planning council has decided to put an end to this, introducing stricter regulations, which landowners say makes building almost impossible.

According to the new regulations, the land needs to exceed 6,000 square metres and the area of the house cannot be over 240 square metres, while the plot must be at least 12 feet from the nearest public road.

That is not all: the applicant should be the owner of the land on the date the rules were published - March 21 - and should not own another house or housing plot in any area included in the Local Plan.

The new regulations have made many people unhappy, but owners of housing plots, especially in areas bordering the agricultural zones, are laughing all the way to the bank since their properties are now prime and values have skyrocketed.

The main argument used by the opponents of the changes is that these will hurt lower-income groups. But

Hadjida dismissed this argument, saying low-income people owning land in such areas and able to prove that was all they had would be allowed to build.

But many real estate agents beg to differ.

They claim the changes will not achieve their aims, and say trying to solve one problem could create many more.

They argue that from the moment that some people, who fulfil the conditions, are allowed to build, together with the special cases that get permission from the relaxations committee, the current scattered development will continue, even on a smaller scale.

Real estate agents also warn of bigger problems, the main one being that when millions of square metres of land lose their value it means the country's wealth is effectively diminished by millions of pounds.

They warn that many foreigners planning to buy land would now reconsider and Cypriots would look to invest abroad since land on the island, which has been a traditional investment, had lost its value.

To make things even worse, a lot of land used as collateral has now lost its value though banks would still demand their money from them, creating potential social problems.

Furthermore, low-income classes would be forced to sell at very low prices, which would be exploited by the rich who could afford to hold on to land for longer.

The estate agents charge the town planning council with not studying the issue in depth, stressing that with less development everyone stands to lose - even the state in the form of fees and taxes.

Hadjida, however, said the changes sought to achieve a balance in area development and would encourage other projects like medical centres, sports facilities and education centres to be set up in those areas.

The plans are also designed to safeguard various protected zones across the island where people used to build houses without restrictions.

It seems, however, that the main opponent of the plan is the Cypriot mentality of 'I own the land so why can't I do whatever I want with it?'

The current town planning council is now grappling to reverse the results of years of relaxations.

It has been accused of not looking into the issue properly and coming up with changes born of resentment towards the people who could afford to build villas in those areas.

In any case, those opposed to the changes have eight months to appeal.

After that the Interior Ministry will look at their arguments and decide what to do.

The whole procedure could take up to 18 months.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2003

Saturday, April 12, 2003

[07] Call this a postal service?

“There are many problems -- the quality of service is very poor. I insist that the only solution is to turn the governmental department into a state corporation… otherwise the problems will remain and the situation will deteriorate.

“EU directives state that three days is the maximum delivery time for any type of mail, be it from Belgium or London… In Cyprus we need one week to deliver domestic mail,” he said.

Neophytou added that the service was crippled by excessive red tape coupled with the intransigent position of the unions, which oppose the liberalisation of the postal service.

Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday Telecommunications and Postal Services Regulator Vassos Pyrgos echoed Neophytou's concerns over the state of the island's postal service.

“At the moment, they are offering a quality of service which is by their own measurement unacceptable.

“We have already written to the Minister with our expectations… for the improvement of the service.

“What we ask is that the postal services offer a quality acceptable to the EU and that there is a fair and open competition,” he added.

Vassos Vassiliou, Director of the Postal Services Department, admitted yesterday there were currently delivery problems at certain Limassol villages, due to resignations of postmen.

“There is a problem with the delivery of mail in Palodia, Finikaria and another village in the Limassol district… There are 176 villages to deliver mail to and occasionally postmen resign and we have to find others to undertake the delivery of the mail.

“But we are in the process of solving the problem.”

He added there were also difficulties with deliveries in the island's towns but said a new postal service development plan would remedy this.

“We have drafted a five-year development plan which was approved very recently by the Council of Ministers -- we are in the process of recruiting another 30 postmen and will recruit another 29 postmen in 2004.”

Vassiliou also said financial restrictions had limited the number of postmen wearing uniforms.

“We had a problem regarding the uniform. Only 50 of our 192 postmen are permanent staff and the rest are part-timers or temporary. The Finance Ministry will only allow us to give a uniform to permanent staff.”

He stressed that the efficiency of the postal service was hampered by bureaucratic excesses and time-consuming decision-making processes involving several Ministries.

“The main difficulty we face as a civil service department is that we are restricted - we don't have the flexibility or autonomy to take decisions.

“This is the reason the government has plans to transform the postal department into a new autonomous or semi-governmental organisation: so that there is more flexibility.”

Vassiliou expressed the hope that the liberalisation of the service would be achieved by next year, but warned that the service could not improve overnight.

“This will be done gradually - it will take some years to improve.”

Cyprus is one of a handful of Western countries where the postal service remains a fully-fledged government department.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2003

Saturday, April 12, 2003

[08] Deportation process interrupts worker's battle for compensation

Last Friday, police arrested the man, who was in the middle of a legal battle to get medical compensation from his employer, on the grounds that his residence visa had expired.

He had come to Cyprus to work in a factory in 1999, and in 2001, was injured in a work accident that damaged both of his legs, his bladder and his hip. Two operations later, doctors were still unable to mend his condition, saying he would need to undergo a third operation abroad.

When his employer turned down his request for further medical coverage, the man sued in response.

But last Friday, the judicial process was interrupted when police arrested the man for holding an expired visa, and he has been in prison since then.

“I spoke to his doctor yesterday and he said he is still in bad shape,” Christodoulou said.

She added that ISAG was now in the process of working with his lawyer to stop him from being deported, but that they are awaiting a response from the authorities.

Immigration was not available for comment.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2003

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