Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation: News in English, 04-01-14

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From: The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation at <http://www.cybc.com.cy/>

CONTENTS

[01] HEADLINES

[02] KLOSON US

[03] GOVT CYPRUS

[04] CABINET SOLUTION

[05] ERDOGAN

[06] MIDEAST

[07] IRAQ

[08] BIRDFLU JAPAN

[09] SARS

[10] BRITAIN ROYAL APOLOGY

[11] WEATHER WEDNESDAY 14 JANUARY 2004

[01] HEADLINES

-- The financial cost of a Cyprus settlement is estimated at 16.4 billion pounds, a report said today, according to local media.

--The Palestinian militant group Hamas said it used a woman suicide bomber for the first time today to counter Israeli security precautions and vowed to escalate attacks in a more than three-year-old uprising.

And -- Japanese officials, striving to halt the spread of bird flu, said today they had so far been unable to discover how the outbreak occurred.

[02] KLOSON US

Mr. Klosson noted that the UN Secretary General's peace plan ''is a very comprehensive plan that can be further improved, but there's an enormous amount of good work that has gone into it, and it's on the table in a way that previous UN proposals had been less fleshed out. This is a plan that after some further discussion and negotiation could be put to a vote,'' he added.

Referring to Europe the US Ambassador said ''it has been a catalyst to the extent that we've seen progress in recent years and remains a catalyst.''

Mr. Klosson said that what the US and others are trying to do is encourage the parties to make a commitment ''so that we can get these negotiations under way.''

[03] GOVT CYPRUS

In statements to CNN Turk, the Spokesman expressed his disappointment because Turkish cypriot leader Rauf Denktash remains negotiator because the scenario will only repeat itself.

Republican Turkish Party leader Mehmet Ali Talat, who was also on the same programme, reiterated his opposition to Mr. Denktash remaining negotiator. However, he said the reason is because of the so called "protocol" between RTP and the Democratic Party.

[04] CABINET SOLUTION

Finance Minister Marcos Kyprianou told CyBC this morning that the cost of a solution will be enormous.

The report, published today in "Fileleftheros" newsppaer, notes that the solution will cost 16.5 billion pounds. He said what is being examined is finding the sources which will fund the solution and the main concern will be to limit the cost of operation of a united state.

[05] ERDOGAN

According to Kibris newspaper, during the National Security Council meeting of January 23, officials wil also examine the stance which Ankara will maintain on Cyprus.

[06] MIDEAST

"For the first time (Hamas) used a female fighter and not a male fighter and that was a new development in resistance against the enemy," Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told Reuters, referring to a bomber who struck at Erez crossing point on the Gaza Strip boundary with Israel, killing four Israelis.

Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, jointly claimed responsibility for the attack, identifying the bomber as a 22-year-old mother of two from Gaza City.

Witnesses said the bomber set off a metal detector at a terminal used to screen Palestinian labourers en route to Erez industrial zone. She told soldiers she had a metal splint in her leg and then detonated her explosives.

Sworn to Israel's destruction, Hamas has spearheaded a Palestinian uprising that erupted in the West Bank and Gaza in September 2000. Its attacks have tapered off in recent months, a fact Israeli officials attribute to army crackdowns in the occupied territories.

[07] IRAQ

A police officer at the scene said he saw the car racing towards the police station seconds before it detonated about 50 feet from the entrance to the compound.

He said police had fired on the vehicle but the driver didn't stop. One policeman at the scene said it appeared the bomber had tied his foot to the accelerator to make sure the car would speed ahead even if he was killed.

U.S. officials blame loyalists to the former regime for most attacks on U.S. troops and local security forces. But they also believe that some foreign fighters have made their way into the country and may be responsible for suicide bombings.

[08] BIRDFLU JAPAN

Farm Ministry officials said it was the same strain, called H5N1, as has hit South Korea and Vietnam, wreaking havoc on their poultry industries.

But they have been unable to track down how the disease came to be found in the western Japan prefecture of Yamaguchi.

It is Japan's first outbreak of avian flu in nearly 80 years.

In 1997, the same strain of bird flu, also known as avian influenza strain A, killed six people in Hong Kong.

About 13,700 chickens at one farm in Japan's Yamaguchi were believed to have died of the disease by yesterday.

[09] SARS

The World Health Organisation was awaiting lab results to decide two suspected patients in the southern city of Guangzhou, it said, rebuffing Hong Kong media reports quoting doctors saying tests showed they likely had SARS.

A leading SARS expert at the University of Hong Kong said the present strain of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome was not a descendant of last year's virus, which infected 8,000 people in about 30 countries, and appeared less contagious.

Microbiologist Guan Yi said the virus this year is a new virus strain. It behaves like a virus in an animal and is not well adapted to humans, therefore its transmission ability is low. This is the reason why contacts of these victims in China have not been infected.

[10] BRITAIN ROYAL APOLOGY

Media said the Queen's husband Prince Philip, was one of the shooters on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, eastern England.

The children from St George's Middle School were shocked as dogs took the bloodied, dead birds back to the marksmen in full view of their playground.

Headmistress Carol De Witt told BBC radio today that the school has a very thriving bird-watching club and a lot of the children that were upset were members of this club.

The party moved away from the school after a teacher asked them to stop shooting because the children, on a mid-morning break, were so distraught.

Royal officials at Buckingham Palace declined to comment, and nobody was immediately available at Sandringham.

[11] WEATHER

Tonight it will be clear with passing cloud but gradually cloud will thicken to give local light rain in some areas. Winds will be westerly to north-westerly light, three beaufort and the sea slight. Temperatures will reach seven degrees inland, nine on the coasts and one over the mountains where frost will form.

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