Cyprus Mail: Press Review in English, 98-05-14

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From: The Cyprus Mail at <http://www.cynews.com/>

Thursday, May 14, 1998

Clerides under fire for 'vote-grabbing ploy'

NO SINGLE story dominated the front pages of the local dailies yesterday.

Haravgi, mouthpiece for left-wing Akel, concentrated on the President's decision to shelve his appeal against amendments passed by the House to block a government plan to issue title deeds to refugees.

The paper quoted Akel leader Dimitris Christofias charging President Clerides with deliberately deceiving refugees. Christofias claimed Clerides knew very well his legal challenge of the amendments stood no chance but still went ahead with the appeal in an effort to win the refugee vote in the run-up to the February presidential elections.

The paper also gave ample column space to an Akel announcement condemning the government scheme as a mere vote-grabbing ploy.

Right-wing Machi ran a story about the Diko party leadership saga. Should the party's embattled leader Spyros Kyprianou fail to heed calls to step aside, the paper stated, then plans were afoot to create an "anti-Diko" party. Heading the new party would be Diko parliamentary spokesman Tassos Papadopoulos and Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides -- who broke from the party ranks over its decision to back George Iacovou in the February elections.

Agon gave pride of place to a debate about the state of Limassol's Ayia Napa church at the House works committee. Under the banner headline "Criminal Neglect", the paper recounted how the committee heard that the Limassol bishopric had failed to maintain valuable wall-paintings in the church after they were damaged in the 1996 earthquake. In fact, the bishopric had sanctioned the destruction of the remaining wall-paintings to make way for an ill-advised revamp of the church, the paper reported.

Simerini reported that repeated rumours of a pending military incident on the island were the reason behind a recent dramatic fall in share prices on the Cyprus stock exchange. The paper said the spreading of such rumours was a deliberate US ploy to force the government to give ground on the Cyprus problem.

The paper also carried a report on a hooligan assault on the Limassol branch of the Anorthosis club house. About one hundred fans of Limassol club Apollonas besieged the club house, releasing a hail of stones at windows and terrorising the occupants, Simerini reported.

Apollonas and Anorthosis are to meet in the local cup final tomorrow night.

Phileleftheros reported from the House education committee that none of the 64 schools situated next to the buffer-zone had any sort of properly worked out plan for facing war emergencies.

Even where such plans did exist, they had been drawn-up by teachers and not by experts, the paper reported.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1998

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