Merkel visit fuels election acrimony

2013-01-13

 

THE VISIT by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, and her and others’ clear support for presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades, sparked a pre-election spat yesterday over the allegations of money laundering coming from Germany in recent weeks.

Clearly miffed by their opponent taking centre stage at the high-profile European People’s Party (EPP) summit Limassol, AKEL candidate Stavros Malas, and EDEK-backed Giorgos Lillikas laid into the DISY leader, accusing him of failing to defend the island’s good name to his EU buddies.

Tales from the Coffeeshop: Clapped out commie rulers come out of the closet

2013-01-13

 

WITH ONLY a few weeks left in office and their puppet candidate having no chance of winning the elections, our clapped-out commie rulers, have come out of the closet, no longer bothering hiding their Stalinist mind-set.

AKEL’s apparatchiks at the Central Bank (CB) decided to step up their ongoing character assassination attempts against the former Governor Athanasios Orphanides, by bringing up, once again, the ridiculous matter of the hard disks, which they have insisted, he was keeping illegally.

State backs off from cuts to disabled benefits

2013-01-13

 

THE labour ministry has called off plans to cut benefits for disabled people although reductions will go ahead on a car allowance and the holiday grant scheme, the umbrella organisation for the disabled has said.

“The reductions have been called off,” said the head of the Cyprus Confederation of Organisations of the Disabled (KYSOA), Christos Nicolaides.

The government originally planned to cut benefits for the severely disabled and to the blind by 9.0 per cent.

Disabled groups protested, arguing that the measures would be hard to bear for many of their peers who are already on the poverty line.

Over 5,000 ‘green jobs’ to be created

2013-01-13

 

SOME 5,500 new job posts will be created this year in sectors dealing with the environment, labour minister Sotiroulla Charalambous said yesterday.

Another 5,500 jobs will be made available because of the need to replace outgoing people, bringing the figure of available jobs to 11,000, Charalambous said referring to an unpublished survey by the Human Resource Development Authority (AnAD).

The AnAD survey will be published at a later stage, Charalambous said but did not specify when.

She said that a number of programmes were in place targeting youth unemployment, including schemes from AnAD, and called on people to make use of available resources.

Stepping up to the task: a look back at Cyprus’ EU presidency

2013-01-13

 

IT’S DONE. The Cyprus EU presidency ended on the last day of 2012 without any major mishaps, collateral damage, or blowback expected.  

On the contrary, the Cyprus government and its Europeanised mandarins passed the reins over to Ireland with their heads held high amid praise from the centres of EU power, confirming Cyprus’ coming of age as an EU member state. 

Swedish Member of the European Parliament Cecilia Wikstrom said before the Committee on Legal Affairs last month: “We will feel the effects of the Cyprus presidency for the decades to come. (The) Presidency did a groundbreaking work.” 

Satisfying customers is not enough

2013-01-13

 Customer service has never been the strong point of Cyprus businesses. In good times, most companies have survived despite poor to non-existent customer service. Now that times are tough Cyprus businesses are closing down one after another.
A few companies have always offered an okay customer service, tracking it with customer satisfaction surveys. However, even this level of customer service is not good enough at any time. In bad times it is suicidal.

Troika terms for privatisation make sense

2013-01-13

PIMCO, the firm appointed to look at the requirements for bank restructuring, appears to be estimating their recapitalisation needs at €10 billion. This has brought to the forefront the issue of privatisation as a way of helping repay the bailout. Given the strident reaction of political parties to this development and the urgency of the issues raised, it seems appropriate to correct some of the impressions given and to suggest a framework for analysing the subject.

Finally, the state of Palestine exists

2013-01-13

ON JANUARY 3, Mahmoud Abbas, acting in his capacities as president of the State of Palestine and chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, signed “Decree No 1 for the year 2013”. While he did so with minimal ceremony or fanfare, and while the change formalised by this decree should surprise no one after the UN General Assembly’s overwhelming vote on November 29 to upgrade Palestine’s status at the United Nations to “observer state”, this change is potentially historic.

DISY leader’s blurry vision of the NHS

2013-01-13

 

As the polls show Mr Anastasiades will be the next President of the Republic. Whether he will succeed or not in his new role no one can predict, though some preliminary thoughts can be made on the basis of his announced positions.

Mr Anastasiades’ positions regarding the health sector, as recorded in his election programme, contain a very good and comprehensive diagnosis of the problems of the sector, primarily recognising the absence of a national health system. 

There must be a way to stop parking on pavements

2013-01-13

 

I refer to the letter by Philip Allen, ‘An absolute disgrace’.  These were such tragic circumstances and my heartfelt sympathy also to the family of the Filipino victim who was hit by a car while she was on the pavement.

Earlier this evening I was with friends on Makarious Avenue in Limassol and the number of cars parked on the pavements meant that as pedestrians we had to walk towards heavy oncoming traffic, in dark and wet conditions, while the owners of these parked vehicles sat in coffee shops.  The latest one to open has no parking facilities whatsoever, yet it seems acceptable to block off the pavements, creating a risk to life.  

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.