Our View: Have-nots paying for privileges of the rich

2010-03-28

AS MORE information is made public about the pay and privileges enjoyed by workers at Cyprus’ semi-governmental organisations it becomes clear that one of the biggest achievements of the Republic in its 50-year existence has been to create a society of haves and have-nots.

Among the haves are civil servants, semi-governmental workers, teachers and all the employees of independent state agencies, who enjoy a comfortable, totally secure and generously rewarded professional life from the day they start work; in some cases the benefits continue after death. After a retired civil servant dies, his full state pension, towards which he had made no contribution, continues to be paid to his wife until her death.

Greek Prime Minister to visit

2010-03-28

GREEK PRIME Minister George Papandreou will visit Cyprus next month, on April 12.

According to an official announcement, during his visit, Papandreou will have a meeting with President Demetris Christofias. He will also meet the leaders of the parliamentary parties.

The Greek Prime Minister will also attend a luncheon hosted by the President of the Republic in his honour.

It his second visit to the island since being elected late last year. Papandreou visited Cyprus in October, his first official visit as Prime Minister.

Spring clean for old Nicosia

2010-03-28

IF YOU GO down to Nicosia’s old town today, you’re sure of a big surprise.

And if you set off early enough, you might even catch teams of volunteers as they finish their grand clean up of the Nicosia’s streets.

Starting at 7 am yesterday, around 45 people in two teams set to work sweeping, shovelling and clearing away litter and abandoned home goods from the Bishop’s palace to Paphos Gate.

“The streets are so clean, it’s brilliant!” said one resident from Athinon Street, near to Archbishopric. “They arrived at 9 and were sweeping up anything and everything. To see it all gone is great.”

Court orders blind man’s benefits restored

2010-03-28

A 29-YEAR-OLD blind father of two children with the same disability, who was stripped of his benefits, has had them reinstated by the courts.

The man’ benefits were taken away in May 2008. In fact the state asked that he return €49.96 to the Social Welfare Services for alleged overpayments.

The father of two was born blind. He was employed as a lottery seller before taking on a job as a phone operator for a government service.

In 2005 he married his second wife and the couple had two children, aged three and five, also blind and who receive state aid.

Furthermore the 29-year-old’s wife does not work and has never sought unemployment benefits.

Kiosks robbed

2010-03-28

AN ARMED robber yesterday held a Nicosia kiosk employee at gunpoint before making off with €600 in cash, police said.

The incident occurred at around 2.40am. Police said a stranger entered the kiosk holding a gun and stole the money from the kiosk’s two cash machines and ran off.

The assailant is described as normal build, 1.80 metres tall and was wearing a black hood, white mask and combat clothes.

Meanwhile an hour and 20 minutes earlier three youngsters entered another Nicosia kiosk and sprayed the female employee in the face before stealing €300 from the cash register and taking off.

Cyprus in bloom

2010-03-28

WITH the rains we had last winter and the weather warming up, this spring promises to provide wildflower enthusiasts and nature lovers of all kinds an outdoor experience they have not had in years.

The heavy rainfall has resulted in a profusion of plant life, with flower species such as purple arabis, rock rose and curry plant blooming in greater abundance than they have in recent memory.

“Of course the rains contributed to the germination of seed and the growth of flowers,” says Forestry head Andreas Christou. “Now is the flowering period and someone in the forest can see many plants. Even in the fields the plants germinating are greater.”

Canadians peacekeepers plan to relive the past

2010-03-28

IN THE winter of 1972 and 1973 Garry Best served as a United Nations peacekeeper in Cyprus with the 2nd battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. He and his colleagues patrolled the Green Line, maintained the integrity of the buffer zone, and undertook humanitarian activities. Now, after a 37-year absence, Best and his colleagues plan to return to the island this May to survey their legacy.

The trip, which is being organised by the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, of which Best is the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador division, will last ten days. Many of the former peacekeepers will make the trip with their families.

A think tank in honour of a former president

2010-03-28

CYPRUS will soon have its first home-grown, permanent think tank, the Spyros Kyprianou Foundation.

Founded this month it hopes open its doors to the public by May.

“The purpose of the foundation is to make historical studies, formulate political policy, give awards to students, engage in discussions and operate as a think tank,” said Achilleas Kyprianou, son of the late former President Spyros Kyprianou after whom the foundation is named.

“The establishment of the foundation honours the memory of my late father and former President of Cyprus. It will help the study of the recent history of Cyprus, especially during his presidency which can be said was the golden era of progress and development of our country,” commented Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou.

Gone are the good old days when criticism was a thoughtfully crafted letter

2010-03-28

Sticks and stones may break my bones and all that.

Last Sunday I was sitting in the company of compatriots reading the Sunday Mail. Several of the articles, notably those reporting on the latest developments in the Cyprob, lawyers, the IPC and our president’s conciliatory yet inconsequential speech,  evinced such vitriol from the gathering that I wondered whether the Sunday Mail had become an organ for the disaffected to express themselves thoughtlessly. Don’t they know that after 36 years of pointless negotiations that this is the country of far too much news (mostly conjecture) and far too little action?

Civil service: the root cause of deficit

2010-03-28

THE OPPOSITION was perfectly justified to attack the president’s inexcusable delay in taking measures to tackle the serious problems of public finances. Under current conditions this delay verges on criminal negligence, as with every day that passes the deficit grows.

The more time that passes before the government acts, the more painful will the remedial measures be, as Greece found out. At least in Greece Prime Minister Papandreou dared to take action. Here, almost two years have passed since the economic slowdown started and the only thing the government has done is to talk about some imaginary ‘package of measures’ that is supposedly under consideration.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.