FOR WEEKS now, we had been searching for a sexy news story – with some sociological significance to justify its publication – in order to boost our coffee sales, and on Tuesday it was served to us on a plate by the much-maligned police force.
And what a story it was – a suspected Chinese prostitution ring operating in the heart of the immigrant ghetto in old Nicosia. More than 40 people were arrested in the police raid, including a senior cop working at the Immigration Department, a suspected Chinese Madam known as Nancy and two Cypriot pensioners suspected of pimping.
Nancy was married to one of the pensioners, while the other pensioner was renting properties to her and according to his statement, having sex with her once a month, without paying for it. For the Inland Revenue Department this would still be taxable as it was a benefit in kind, but this is beside the point.
Nancy’s 72-year-old husband was a good friend of the immigration officer which was the reason the lawyer of the latter gave the court for his client’s frequent visits to the Nicosia vice-den. The cop would go there to see his old friend, who did not share the same house as his wife. Do not ask why the cop would choose to frequently visit his friend at the house he was not living in.
BEFORE anyone accuses us of cheap exploitation of sleaze and sex, we will examine the sociological, psychological, political and metaphysical aspects of this news-story, which geographically affects us as our establishment is located in the immigrants’ ghetto.
Our customers, have always made remarks about the Chinese street-walkers they see on their way to the Shop but we all naively assumed that they were freelancers, having voluntarily chosen to earn their living in this way. This week’s arrests suggest much more sinister goings-on – perhaps the women were being forced to walk the streets.
The fact is that Chinese vice-girls have been working our streets for years now, without anybody wondering why and how? Were they coming to Kyproulla to attend college and being forced into prostitution? Were they victims of trafficking or working girls who heard that there was good money to be earned here and applied for student visas?
The weird thing is that you do not see so many Chinese streetwalkers in any other country in the world; not even in China where the communist authorities do not allow such behaviour. How has the crossroads of three continents become a regional centre for Chinese hookers? Only the immigration department can enlighten us on this.
HOW STRANGE that the only Third World workers that do not get a bad press and have never featured in the announcements of xenophobic organisations, anxiously warning about the threats posed to our society by immigrants are the Chinese ladies.
Not even the Eurococks have ever said anything about them. Is it because they are not threatening the jobs of Cypriots? I have another theory. Most of the anti-immigrant groups are run by old men, who are the main clients of these popular immigrants, because they charge prices affordable to pensioners.
A police officer involved in the Tuesday raids on the vice-dens, reported being told by an elderly bystander the following: “Why are you arresting the Chinese women who are actually offering a social service, instead of the Pontians who are dirty and causing all sorts of trouble?”
THE COMPETITIVE pricing has obviously won the hearts of our old boys. One elderly, metrios drinker made exactly this politically incorrect point a couple of years ago when the matter was being debated at our establishment.
“The Chinese girls are performing a valuable social duty because they are affordable to men from low-income groups,” he said in all seriousness. It just made you wonder whether their presence here could be a secret part of the comrade’s project to build a fairer society.
Chinese girls might not have stopped the profiteering by sex workers from the former Soviet republics who charge three or four times as much, but they have introduced competition and spared Tony Paschalides having to impose a plafond on sex rates.
The only possible downside of this social phenomenon is the negative effect it may have on national issue. If the communist rulers in Beijing hear what is going on here, China might abandon its principled stand on the Cyprob and do to our country what our randy pensioners are doing to its female citizens.
THE COMRADE’S historic visit to Israel proved a bit of an anti-climax as nothing of substance was agreed. His visit was preceded by a lot of talk about a strategic partnership with Israel, and he came back with an agreement for co-operation between the postal services of the two countries.
The Israelis pushed for a co-operation deal on natural gas, but the comrade fobbed them off, agreeing to low-level consultations exploring the possibility of co-operation. He was clearly not too comfortable exchanging pleasantries with representatives of what, in days past he, would slammed as the Zionist state which suppressed Palestinians.
He was much more relaxed when he visited Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, regurgitating the rhetoric he knows so well about respect of UN resolutions etc. Cyprus “could not accept the settlement of occupied territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, or the existence of a dividing wall,” he said in Ramallah.
To ease his guilt for flirting with the Israeli government, he pledged to give the Palestinian Authority a million euro towards the construction of a clinic. And in exchange, Abbas told the Palestinian immigrants living in Cyprus to behave themselves.
UN RESOLUTIONS and illegal settlements did not feature at all in the speeches, the previous day, when the comrade was exchanging pleasantries with the PM and president of Israel. Speaking to a business forum in Israel he said: “Let me assure you, that for the Cyprus government, Israel is one of our most important strategic partners.”
This rhetoric about a strategic partnership with Israel is very fashionable, even though it remains in the realm of the abstract. The Eurococks in particular are getting very excited about it. Leading Eurocock Rikkos Erotocritou reckoned the Israel visit was a very “important development.” Improved relations with Israel would “markedly increase the political significance of the Cyprus Republic within the EU….”
And as stability and security in the Eastern Mediterranean was dependent on a workable and lasting Cyprus settlement, “the solution of the Cyprus problems is not only of interest to Cypriots, but should also interest our neighbouring countries like Israel,” declared Rikkos. He failed to deliver the ‘European solution’ he was promising back in 2004 so now Rikkos and Eurococks will offer is the ‘Israeli solution’.
THE ENERGY issue also featured in the fire and brimstone speech made to the DIKO conference by party boss Marios ‘Rocky’ Garoyian, who has ably replaced Dr Faustus as the country’s leading windbag.
He said he was totally opposed to the proposed 20-year contract that would be offered to Shell to supply us with LNG. DIKO would never acquiesce “to the mortgaging of the country for 20 years nor would it accept arrangements serving the interests of some others but harming the interests of the Cypriot people.” A defiant Rocky added: “Therefore, they (the others) should look elsewhere for accomplices in this planned crime against the country.”
Who was he talking about? This “crime against the country” was negotiated by DIKO minister of commerce and industry Tony Paschalides and DIKO placeman, Costas Ioannou, the head of DEFA. Did Rocky not know this?
STAYING on energy issues, we hear that in the negotiations with Noble Energy, for the drafting of the contract on the drilling at plot 12, the government was represented by the accounting firm Kyprianides, Nicolaou and Associates. Interestingly this is a communist accounting firm which does all the auditing of the AKEL-owned companies.
Perhaps this was why Rocky was so livid about the government’s energy policy. It should have used a DIKO auditing firm.
THE BANKS must have thought they had done their bit in helping the government after buying €300 million worth of bonds at an interest rate of 4.5 per cent a few weeks ago. They could have bought Cyprus bonds with a much higher yield than that on the secondary market, but chose to screw their shareholders in order help the government.
Last week, the government took a bill to the House that would tax all bank deposits. If passed it would allow state to skim 0.95 per cent off all bank deposits, netting it €60 million each year. The money is needed in order to keep paying the princely salaries of the public parasites.
The bill for the government’s latest raid on the banks will be picked up by the rest of us. The banks will simply increase interest rates by another percentage point to maintain their profitability. And all the poor folk swimming in debts would have to pay even higher interest on their loans. These are the people that the clueless comrade has vowed would not be burdened with the consequences of the recession.
I CANNOT help bragging about our prophetic abilities. This is what we wrote last Sunday: “What is the betting that the government bill clamping down on internet casinos would not be passed by the legislature before May’s parliamentary elections? Our internet betting shop gives odds of 3 to 1 on it not being passed. We are also offering odds of 5 to 1 that the Eurococks will vote against the bill because it would increase the number of Greek Cypriot gamblers visiting the casinos in the north and financially helping the pseudo state.”
On Wednesday, at the House several deputies objected to the government bill, claiming that it would create a monopoly for the Greek gaming firm OPAP. And one of the deputies opposing the bill was Rikkos the Eurocock. The only thing we got wrong was that Rikkos did not cite patriotic reasons for his opposition to the bill.
WE WOULD like to welcome back the crazy doctor Marios Matsakis to the political scene. He will be standing in the parliamentary elections as a candidate of LASOK, an acronym for Popular Socialist Movement, I think. We wish him every success because a party called LASOK deserves to be represented in the legislature.
