Cyprus Mail www.cyprus-mail.com
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
€1
CYPRUS
WORLD
REPORTAGE RTAGE
1,000 helmets for 1,000 children in Guinness attempt
Young Taliban victim in UK for treatment
Skydiver in n 38km leap p from space centre ntre
3
9
United front over troika bank plans DISY takes on Christofias over lucrative taxes from casinos By George Psyllides
T
HE government and political parties yesterday appeared to be united in their disagreement with proposals submitted by the island’s international lenders regarding Cyprus’ banking sector although differences still persist on fiscal and structural matters. Parties met in the morning with President Demetris Christofias in a bid to iron out the island’s response to proposals tabled by the troika on July 25. Discussions later moved to the finance ministry where after four hours it was decided to break and continue today. Parties and the government seem to have formed a united front against the troika proposals on banks. They also disagree with scrapping the 13th salary and wage indexation. “There are matters on which agreement and consensus can be achieved,” government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said after the meeting at the presidential palace. “This has to do with the banking sector and fiscal and structural issues.” The troika wants banks to raise their Core Tier 1 capital to 10 per cent and banks to be able to seize and sell properties, used as collateral on non-performing loans within 18 months. The troika also wants
problematic loans to be declared as non-performing after 90 days. If the Core Tier 1 and NPL clauses go through it would raise considerably the amount the banks need to recapitalise. Cyprus sought international assistance in June to help buffer its banks, hit by Greece’s debt crisis. The International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank have submitted draft proposals for €975 million in spending cuts by the tiny economy over the next three years. That would be in return for a bailout expected to exceed €10 billion, more than half Cyprus’ €17 billion output. Cyprus has instead sought an austerity drive generating more than €1.0 billion spread out over five years. Main opposition DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades, whom polls so far tip to be the next president in February 2013, said his party’s main disagreements were the high rate of cuts in the public payroll - 15 per cent - and the social cohesion tax. DISY yesterday tabled 101 proposals, which include a 7.5 per cent cut in the state payroll, a freeze in pay rises until 2016 and taxing pensionable allowances in the wider public sector.
TURN TO PAGE 5
Light installation entitled Chrysalide by French artist Yann Kersale on the facade of the department store Les Galeries Lafayette on the 100th anniversary of its Dome (‘La Coupole’), in Paris yesterday (EPA)
A diamond bigger than Earth, a mere 230 trillion miles away By Chris Wickham FORGET the diamond as big as the Ritz. This one’s bigger than planet Earth. Orbiting a star that is visible to the naked eye, astronomers have discovered a planet twice the size of our own made largely out of diamond. The rocky planet, called ‘55 Cancri e’, orbits a sun-like star in the constellation of Cancer and is moving so fast that a year there lasts a mere 18 hours. Discovered by a US-Franco research team, its radius is twice that of Earth’s but it is much more dense with a mass eight times greater. It is also incredibly
hot, with temperatures on its surface reaching 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,148 Celsius). “The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite,” said Nikku Madhusudhan, the Yale researcher whose findings are due to be published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. The study - with Olivier Mousis at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie in Toulose, France - estimates that at least a third of the planet’s mass, the equivalent of about three Earth masses, could be diamond. Diamond planets have been spotted before but this is the first time one has
been seen orbiting a sun-like star and studied in such detail. David Spergel, an astronomer at Princeton University, said it was relatively simple to work out the basic structure and history of a star once you know its mass and age. “This ‘diamond-rich super-Earth’ is likely just one example of the rich sets of discoveries that await us as we begin to explore planets around nearby stars.” “Nearby” is a relative concept in astronomy. Any fortune-hunter not dissuaded by “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz”, F Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz age morality tale of thwarted greed, will find Cancri e about 40 light years, or 230 trillion miles, from Park Avenue.