Endgame looms for Cyprus talks

2010-05-16

WITH TEN days to go before the two leaders sit at the negotiating table for the first time since the Turkish Cypriot election, one question hanging over the international community is what happens if nothing happens?
According to various sources, the end of the year has become an unofficial deadline for the talks to go somewhere serious. UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer has made it clear they cannot go on forever while sources suggest the Australian diplomat will not renew his six-month contract if there is no movement by December.
One diplomatic source said: “If things are going well, that is, the two sides agree on a settlement and to put it to referenda by that time, there’d be no reason for him to leave.

Our View: Leading the country down the same path as Greece

2010-05-16

EVERY day, it is said, an official from the Land and Surveys Department calls the finance minister’s office to inform him how much revenue had been collected from immovable property transactions. This is an indication of the desperate state of public finances. Every euro collected by a government department helps, and Charilaos Stavrakis is deeply aware of this. But while the finance minister is counting the cents trickling into state coffers, his boss, President Christofias is behaving as if he were running a booming economy.

Tales from the Coffeeshop: As obstinate as a Cypriot donkey

2010-05-16

THE TURKS’ communications games, which only we in Cyprus can spot, are becoming more sophisticated and ambitious all the time. The latest communications game involved the visit of Prime Minister Erdogan, accompanied by 10 ministers and more than 100 businessmen to Athens, where some 21 co-operation agreements were signed.
No expense is spared by the Erdogan government in its devious scheme to make the world think that it supports a settlement of the Cyprob, while remaining totally intransigent and uncooperative. We were deeply hurt that the government of mother Greece agreed to become an accessory to the Ottoman scheming, helping Erdogan to present himself as a man of peace and conciliation, while his occupying troops remain on our island.

Warning against Pope protests

2010-05-16

WITH POPE Benedict’s visit less than three weeks away, both Church and state are sending out a strong message to ward off any unruly protests against the Pontiff.
In an interview published yesterday in a Catholic publication, Cyprus’ ambassador to the Holy See, George Poulides was quoted as saying:  “The security measures will be particularly severe with all the security forces of Cyprus on alert.”
Poulides said preparations for the June 4-6 visit had “reached fever pitch” and the “vast mobilisation of all of Cyprus” was expected. “Both the government, the Orthodox Church and the Catholic community are working non-stop,” he said.

Bar Association advises lawyers after landmark ruling

2010-05-16

THE BAR Association has decided to advise its members on the broader range of duties placed on legal practitioners following last month’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on legal negligence.
The Supreme Court awarded a British couple around €120,000 in compensation as a result of their Paphos lawyer’s negligence in a property case, marking a first in Cyprus. 
Head of the Bar Association, Doros Ioannides, told the Sunday Mail yesterday that the landmark case was discussed during last Thursday’s monthly board meeting. 
“We discussed what are the liabilities and extra duties of lawyers arising from the judgement from a legal point of view and also how to advise lawyers,” said Ioannides.

Christofias: time not right for an international conference

2010-05-16

TALKS FOR a Cyprus settlement are “of Cypriot ownership” President Demetris Christofias said yesterday, responding to the Turkish Prime Minister’s proposal for a multi-party conference on Cyprus.
He added that an international conference could take place only on international aspects of the Cyprus problem.
On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined his Greek counterpart George Papandreou in an Athens press briefing to suggest an international  meeting with Cyprus’ guarantor powers – Greece, Turkey and the UK – as well a representatives from the UN and EU, to contribute to efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem.

‘We want an end to social injustice’

2010-05-16

PRESIDENT Demetris Christofias said yesterday he would likely meet next week with public servants union PASYDY to discuss the economy and reduction in public spending.
Christofias was to meet PASYDY immediately after Easter but the one meeting they did have was inconclusive.
Speaking at Larnaca airport before departing for London yesterday, Christofias said the matter of reducing numbers in the public sector was being handled by him personally.
“Most probably next week we will meet with (civil servants’ umbrella union) PASYDY, as well as the semi-state organisations’ unions, because I would like to believe that these measures also regard workers at semi-state organisations,” he said.

Decades of care

2010-05-16

To mark the historic papal visit to Cyprus next month, the Sunday Mail takes a weekly look at institutions that are the touchstones of the enduring Roman Catholic presence here

THE sun shines brightly on the colourful garden courtyard as the words of Edith Piaf’s ‘La Vie en Rose’ drift on the breeze from somewhere inside.
Following the sound to a light and airy sitting room, I’m greeted by a group of elderly ladies singing away to their favourite tunes, some of them raising their hands high in the air and swaying from side to side in time to the music.
The women are all residents of the Roman Catholic Terra Santa Rest Home in the heart of Larnaca, and I’ve arrived in the middle of one of their weekly social gatherings.

Preserving the past to build a future

2010-05-16

TRANSCENDING politics is no easy feat on this island, yet a team of “pioneering” villagers, engineers and architects have done just that.
Leaving political persuasion, ethnicity and property rights aside, the former Greek Cypriot residents of Kontea village on the southeastern plains of Mesaoria have spent the last three years collaborating with the current Turkish Cypriot residents to protect and preserve the cultural and natural heritage of a village that captured the hearts of the Crusaders and French Lusignans centuries ago.
This unprecedented collaboration culminates today in a celebration of the completion of the first phase of the project, the opening of the Carob Tree Peace Park which the organisers hope will serve as a meeting place for all Cypriots.

What prehistoric man can teach the modern world

2010-05-16

A VISIT to Cyprus by one of the world’s foremost paleoanthropologists has coincided with the release of fascinating evidence to suggest that interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals may have taken place.
“If you had asked me a month ago, I would have said they were too genetically different, and they are probably more similar to our common ancestor, Homo erectus, than us,” Dr Yoel Rak told the Sunday Mail in an interview ahead of a lecture at Nicosia University.
“However, last week a draft of the Neanderthals genome [genetic code] was released, and this shows a small amount of interbreeding took place.”

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.