ALL WEEK regulars at our establishment have been arguing whether Commerce Minister Praxoulla Antoniadou should be charged with high treason for publicly showing a shameful lack of respect for a brave national hero, for having contacts with the bloodthirsty Turks and worst of all for being an unrepentant supporter of the A-plan and the wrong type of a federal settlement.
The abusive arguments raged because some of the regulars felt that you could not be 100 per cent certain the court would find her guilty, even though she was guilty as sin. There was always the danger a smart lawyer would find some technicality to get her acquitted not to mention the fact that at a trial she would be able to plead ‘not guilty’ and defend herself.
Pengeros, the glykis drinking patriot, wanted instant justice and punishment. He felt that although newspapers and TV stations had done their best to expose her treachery, belittling, mocking, humiliating, slandering her and treating her with less sympathy than they would show a child molester, the punishment was too light for the crime.
“Justice would be better served by organising a lynch mob,” said Pengeros, who had sounded out the political parties and was told that they would all participate. The only difficulty was agreeing on a media sponsor for the event, because too many newspapers and TV stations wanted the exclusive sponsorship and screening rights.
There was no disagreement about the venue for the lynching. It would be held at the Nicosia square which will be named after our fearless, Natural Gas Hero, Solon Kassinis.
THE HATRED and nastiness directed towards Prax, by politicians and journalists, is quite astonishing. Is it because she is a woman who has a mind of her own and is not afraid to defend her opinion despite facing a barrage of abuse from everyone?
She may be publicity-seeking, confrontational, politically ambitious and a bit batty, but hacks and politicians do not take offence when these qualities are displayed by men. The energy service nut-case, Solon Kassinis displays exactly the same qualities and he has been elevated to the status of national hero. Deputies have gone as far as drafting a law to safeguard his authority, which the minister had decided to take away from him.
A pathetic female could not possibly be allowed to politically castrate a macho nationalist, so deputies are re-writing the law to give him the power to do as he pleases regarding energy decisions, without having to suffer the humiliation of consulting a woman even if she is his political superior. The Kyproulla natural order, after all, dictates that women are inferior and we can’t have them publicly ordering around men. What example would that set for our children.
HER PRO-SOLUTION views have also been used against her with an outraged Phil publishing listing all her treasonous ideas and writings urging business co-operation and trade with the occupier. We were also reminded she met with Erdogan a couple of years ago, while more recently she saw a TC politician and scandalously informed him about the gas-drilling.
Apart from savaging her, the pack of media wolves and the politicians have also been portraying her as a dumb housewife who knew nothing (even if she was much better-educated than they) and should return to her kitchen to peel potatoes. ‘Kyria Praxoulla’ is how many refer to her as they would refer to a neighbourhood fishwife.
But mostly the media show their zero respect for this uppity female by referring to her as ‘Praxoulla’, something they would never do in the case of a man, no matter how stupid, clueless and incompetent, he was.
THOSE who were saying that the arrest of former finance minister Michalis Sarris in the north was a set-up may have had a point. It may have been related with his falling out with the Turkish Cypriot Serden Hoca sitting on the property working group.
Sarris had demanded that Hoca, an unlikeable character who does not even get on with his fellow TCs, was removed from the working group because of his personal interests – he was one of the biggest developers of Greek Cypriot properties in the north. The two had a major argument about the matter.
As most people know, Sarris was arrested late on a Thursday night by TC cops. Before the news was out, the following morning, the horrid Hoca, big smirk on his face, was telling everyone at the working group meeting, that Sarris had been arrested for allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old boy.
How did he even know that Sarris had been arrested? He may have had the news texted to him, as there is no hard evidence that the TC cops were working on his instructions. But people who know the hideously horrid Hoca could not completely rule out the possibility that he may have tipped off the cops about Sarris to get his own back.
THE COUNCIL of Ministers approved the bills that would enable the government to bail out the banks in the event of a financial crisis, less than 48 hours before the euro-zone summit bashed out its measures for dealing with the debt crisis.
One of the three measures, decided Thursday, was the re-capitalisation of the banks which would have to raise €106 billion in new capital by next June, apart for coping with the 50 per cent haircut of the Greek debt. Cyprus’ share in this effort amounts to €3.6 billion.
A collective sigh of relief was breathed at the BofC on Thursday morning when the bank’s head honchos heard that the haircut would be 50 per cent. The bank would not have been able to cope with a 60 per cent haircut and would have needed a government bail-out, which would have meant the sacking of the board and dilution of the shareholding, with the state becoming the biggest shareholder.
However, it looks like Marfin Laiki Bank, which has a lot more Greek government bonds, might not avoid the fate of falling into the hands of our anti-bank, communist government. It could still scrape the funds needed for its re-capitalisation, but its head honchos do not seem too confident.
They have already begun making phone calls to politicians urging them to amend the bills, when they go to the legislature for approval. They want the bail-out law to include a provision for compensating the shareholders of the banks for dilution of their shareholding, in the event the government takes over.
It is a monumentally ridiculous idea, but do not be surprised if our caring deputies include such a provision in the law to help out the small shareholders, like Dubai (18.7 per cent) and Marfin Investment Group (9.5 per cent).
FUNDS to rescue the banks will be provided by the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) which is just as well as our state is so short of cash it might need a bail-out itself by next year. The big weakness of the scheme, in our case, is that the appointment of the board of directors and top executives of the bailed out bank would be the responsibility of the commie government, as the main shareholder.
What hope of survival would any bank have with Akelites and brown-nosers of the comrade Tof as its directors and top executives? If the EFSF wants to save any Cypriot bank it should insist that it retains the right to appoint the directors and top brass, because a people-friendly, bank ran by Tof appointees would need another bail-out only a few months after the first.
THE CO-OP banks, which account for one third of the credit organisations, were left unaffected by the Greek short-back-and-sides boasted ‘Kyria Praxoulla’ because they did not have any toxic debts. “One third of the financial system remains well protected,” she told deputies on Thursday.
Was she having laugh, or is she as clueless as the sexst hacks are claiming? The co-ops are the second biggest lender to the Cyprus state, holding €2 billion worth of government bonds, which might not be as toxic as Greek bonds but they still qualify as junk bonds.
THE BATTLE for control of
the English School looked to have been won by the nationalist parents after they persuaded the political parties to draft a bill that would stop the government appointing the 10-member board.
The new bill provides that the school’s Old Boys and Girls Association would appoint four graduates, the Parents Association three members, the finance minister one and the education minister two. This would end the control of the school by the commies who are in alliance with the school-teachers’ union.
Parents meanwhile are divided into two factions – the patriotic Greek nationalists who want the school to have a Greek identity regardless of the presence of Turkish Cypriot kids and the bleeding-heart rapprochement liberals who want the school to embrace all cultures. The nationalists control the Parents Association, which would mean they would appoint three of their own to the board, while the liberals would be excluded.
IN A BRILLIANT tactical move, the Turk-loving faction decided to set up another Parents Association, which would also have to be represented on the board when the appointments, based on the new law, would be made.
This is why the House Education Committee chairman, Nicos Tornaritis, has been delaying discussion of the bill. He apparently wants to give the multi-cultural liberals the chance to form the renegade association so the law could stipulate that it would also be represented on the board.
Why would a true-blue, Archbishop-loving, ultra-Greek Orthodox deputy like Tornaritis help the Turk-lovers? For family reasons – he is related to one of the leaders of the dissident group – which is quite cute really.
THERE was not a very good turn-out for the United Nations Day reception at the Ledra Palace Hotel last Monday. The comrade president attended and made a brief and almost inaudible speech about the need for the UN to implement its resolutions and then rushed off to the Christofias Aid concert.
Of the party bosses only the AKEL chief Andros turned up. There was no Fuhrer, no Garoyian, no House president, no Perdikis and no Syllouris. Had they taken offence because they were not sent hard-copy invites and were invited by e-mail, something dictated by the cost cuts UNFICYP has had to make?
I do not think so, as they are not snobs. I suspect they snubbed the reception because the invitation was from Big Bad Al, the man we all love to hate. The much more popular Chief of Mission Lisa Buttenheim was also mentioned as a host, but they would not have read that far down the invitation.
As soon as they read that they were invited by the arrogant, pro-Turkish, anti-Greek, meddling, conspiratorial Aussie, they would have decided they were not going. They could not risk being seen at a bash thrown by Kyproulla’s most hated enemy, as their patriotism would have been questioned.
The irony was that Al, against whom the Ethnarch-era, cocktail party boycott was deployed, was not at the reception.
NEWS BOSS of CyBC, the self-regarding preacher Yiannis Kareklas, decided to be original last Thursday when he invited six young people to his evening TV show, to tell us what they thought about our society, politics etc.
He was so patronising, speaking to them like a teacher talks to his students, it defied belief. He would refer to the male guests by their surname (no Mr) just as teachers do in class or as ‘my friend’. At least it is not only women who are treated as second class citizens by our hacks – men under 40 also get this treatment.
Interestingly Kareklas said his six guests were between 23 and 32 years old. Not true, one of his ‘young men’ was 39. He also said they had no connection to parties. Again not true – one of them was a DISY activist.
POLITICAL parachutist, Constantinos Yiorkadjis, he of the Ethnarch’s clan, listed his plans for his candidacy as Nicosia mayor this week. He did not say anything worth laughing at during the news conference, but speaking to APOEL fans on Wednesday night he resorted to Churchillean rhetoric.
“Finishing, I would like to express the wish that November 1st 2011 at GSP (stadium) would be for Porto FC what Albania was for Italians in 1940.” For the Praxoullas of this world, Porto FC is the club APOEL are playing in the Champions League.