EU tells Ankara to back off

2011-09-09

THE EUROPEAN Commission yesterday issued its strongest rebuke yet to Turkey over its threatening behaviour towards Cyprus’ efforts to drill for hydrocarbon reserves within its own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).  

Unfazed, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued to raise the stakes in his row with Israel and Cyprus over hydrocarbon explorations in the eastern Mediterranean, vowing yesterday to stop them from exploiting natural resources in the area while also pledging to send warships to escort aid to Gaza. 

Our View: Government's modus operandi may be crude, but it is also consistent

2011-09-09

THE CRUDENESS with which the Christofias government operates seems to know no bounds. On Wednesday evening the government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou issued a statement, changing the testimony of President Christofias to the investigative committee with regard to the instructions he had supposedly given to the head of his diplomatic office Leonidas Pantelides, about the munitions containers.

Why Bin Laden's 9/11 strategy ultimately failed

2011-09-09

Writing recently in the Washington Post, Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser at the Rand Corporation think tank, claimed that the 9/11 attacks 10 years ago were not a strategic success for al-Qaeda. He’s right. Osama bin Laden’s strategy did fail, in the end – but not for the reason that Jenkins thinks.

Jenkins argues that Osama bin Laden believed the US was a paper tiger because it had no stomach for casualties. Kill enough Americans, and the United States would pull out of the Middle East, leaving the field free for al-Qaeda’s project of overthrowing all the secular Arab regimes and imposing Islamist rule on everybody.

Palace aide did not inform his boss of ministers’ conflict

2011-09-09

A PRESIDENTIAL aide said yesterday he had not informed Demetris Christofias of the outcome of a meeting on confiscated Iranian munitions or of a disagreement between the foreign and defence ministers some five months before the ordnance exploded killing 13 men.

Leonidas Pantelides, the head of Christofias’ diplomatic office, said the problem with the February 7 meeting was that there was a disagreement between the two ministers and it did not go anywhere.

“I did not know what to tell him,” Pantelides told an inquiry. “The meeting was a non-event.”

The diplomat said that the last time he spoke with Christofias about the cargo before the blast was September 2010.

Pantelides ‘displeased’ with Christofias’ claim

2011-09-09

THE head of the President’s diplomatic office was displeased with Demetris Christofias saying he had instructed him to destroy the confiscated munitions, which eventually exploded killing 13 men, it emerged yesterday.

“After the President’s testimony (on Monday), I told anyone who asked me that it seemed, according to media reports, that the President said – I don’t know if it is accurate or not – he had given me instructions to destroy the cargo and this displeases me,” Leonidas Pantelides told an inquiry.

Pantelides’ statement came after Chris Triantafyllides, a lawyer who represents relatives of the people killed in the July 11 blast, charged that a statement issued by the government on Wednesday, was an intervention in the inquiry.

President a no-show at wine festival

2011-09-09

A GROUP of around 50 ‘Indignants’ gathered at Limassol’s Municipal Garden last night calling for the President’s resignation.

President Christofias was expected to attend a ceremony at the Municipal Garden to address the opening of the annual Wine Festival in the coastal city, but did not attend “due to a previous engagement.”

Attending the Wine Festival in his place was Commerce Minister Praxoulla Antoniadou.

Chanting slogans demanding that Christofias step down in the wake of the Mari disaster, the protesters dispersed shortly after gathering at the site.

Strike threat by semi-state unions

2011-09-09

EMPLOYEES of semi-governmental organisations have threatened to go on strike “without warning” if either the government or legislators unilaterally pass additional austerity measures affecting their earnings.

Trade union OHO-SEK, representing thousands of workers in SGOs, rejects a government proposal to freeze payment of the cost of living allowance (CoLA) for the next two years and a 25 per cent cut in the 13th salaries paid to employees of the broader public sector.

Union boss Nikos Tambas said they will not consent to the government proposals “as is.”

“In the event the [Finance] Minister does not heed our voice and sends to parliament any bills on CoLA and for a 25 per cent cut on our 13th salary, we shall react without warning.

Kazamias: no decision on ECB buyback

2011-09-09

FINANCE Minister Kikis Kazamias “clarified” yesterday that no decision has been taken by authorities here to ask the European Central Bank (ECB) to buy back government bonds.

The Finance Ministry released a statement noting that “no such decision” has been taken, adding that a bond buy-back was merely an idea mulled by the ministry and the Central Bank.

On Wednesday, Kazamias told reporters that the Finance Ministry along with Central Bank had “agreed it is an issue which is to be considered.”

He was responding to a question as to whether authorities might ask the ECB to buy back government bonds, in a bid to lower yields on government paper which have spiked on the secondary market in recent months.

‘Hey, come back with my solar heater’

2011-09-09

POLICE are battling to contain a new breed of criminal that has emerged on the island in the wake of the economic crisis, following a spate of audacious thefts including solar heaters and manhole covers.

In recent weeks, police and environmentalists said that thieves have stolen various items including statues, domestic solar panels, manhole covers from newly built roads and even debris from the Mari naval base blast.

The thieves are all after one thing: metal.

“This is a new invention, and you wouldn’t believe the things people are taking. They are taking the car exhausts and catalytic converters off parked cars and I have even heard of someone taking the solar heater off someone’s roof” Environment Commissioner Charalambos Theopemptou said yesterday.

Colocassiades stripped of DIKO title

2011-09-09

 

DIKO last night stripped Giorgos Colocassides of his office as party deputy leader.

By a majority vote, the party’s Executive Bureau voted to strike Colocassides from the position of deputy leader primarily on the grounds of insubordination.

Colocassides, who is likely to challenge the decision, will nevertheless retain his membership of DIKO as a party cadre.

He remains a member of DIKO pending the outcome of a court case.

Last month, the Supreme Court issued an interim order which temporarily reversed a prior decision by DIKO to expel Colocassides from the party altogether until a lawsuit filed by the deputy leader could be heard.

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.