Sunday Mail

MIND, BODY & SPIRIT

1974 AND 2013

INSIDE

Overview of upcoming wellness exhibition in Limassol

Two different kinds of crises: two different kinds of solutions

TV and lifestyle supplements to see you through the week

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April 7, 2013

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COFFEESHOP: CUNNING COMMIES AND THE USED-BANK SALESMAN PAGE 17 INSIDE Cyprus ‘Don’t fight the crisis, use it’ say psychologists 5

World Talks fail to end nuclear stalemate with Iran 8

Business Cyprus’ gas future burns brightly, says KRETYK boss 22

Property What to do in the garden this month 23

Sport Auroras Encore wins Grand National back

Failed economy looks to tourism Hopes being pinned on the industry to help rescue economy but are they realistic?

By George Christou

K

EY PLAYERS from the tourism industry say they have good reason to feel bullish about a successful summer season, but some industry watchers say it is not the magic bullet it once was and cannot save the island like it did after 1974.

Proposed upgrades have boosted confidence, with both the government and international lenders suggesting that investment in tourism has the best shot of plugging the gap left by the near demise of the financial services industry.

If forecasts are to be believed, the financial sector will likely be halved, with brutal consequences for related industries such as wealth management, trusts, foreign exchange trading, fund administration and insurance.

Now, after playing second fiddle to finance for two decades, hopes again rest on the holiday trade, which was once the mainstay of the economy but are these hopes really justified?

On paper the prospects for growth look promising last year nearly 2.5 million people visited the island, boosting revenue from tourism up 10.2 per cent, with revenues of €1.927 million - which equates to about 10 per cent of GDP. At the end of the nineties however that figure was closer to 20 per cent.

However, few deny that

since the bailout agreement a concerted effort is needed to tackle a whole raft of new headaches faced by tour operators, hoteliers and other related services.

One major concern is that many foreign travel companies have already paid hotels to reserve rooms, but the haircut on those uninsured deposits sitting in the Bank of Cyprus and Laiki raises serious questions about how hotels will function with a highly reduced cash-flow.

“It is a real concern,” says Zacharias Ioannides, the Chairman of the Cyprus Hoteliers Association. “It is something that we are working on and we are confident that there will be an amicable result to this.”

With government assurances that steps are being taken to address the issue, Ioannides anticipates that the banks and tourism sector will work closely to overcome any obstacles.

Not everyone is so confident. Unburdened from the shackles of high office, former finance minister Michalis Sarris said he understood the frustration expressed by tourism officials, but offered a blunt message that everyone must share the pain of the savings raid.

“I think with the tourism sector there will be problems, but they are manageable. I think the tourism sector has done well - it will do well in the coming year,” he told CyBC radio this week. “It’s not perfect,

Some industry observers say tourism is not the magic bullet it was in 1974 when it saved the economy. Back then, Cyprus had no competition in the region but I think under the circumstances, they also are paying something of their fair share of this problem,” he added.

Industry players say clarifications on the haircut on deposits need to come sooner rather than later, with Zacharias Manitaras from the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry

insisting that tourism be insulated from the worst effects of crisis. “Obviously the government should reimburse those in the tourism sector. As this is the biggest business we have - hotels and other related businesses cannot work without cash flow,” he added. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

with the international lenders focuses on tourism as a cornerstone for future economic growth, now that the financial services sector has been destroyed. “Since tourism is one of Cyprus` largest sectors and an important potential driver of future

TURN TO PAGE 3

2 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Home Weather

Nicosia

28

Troodos 24

23 2 LLarnaca

Limassol Paphoss

23

23

TODAY: Clear and sunny. Temperatures will reach 28C inland, 23C along the coasts and 24C over higher ground.

OUTLOOK: Thickening afternoon cloud may bring rain in the early part of the week. Temperatures will decrease slightly

President Nicos Anastasiades (centre left) with Archbishop Chrysostomos at a Makarios event yesterday YESTERDAY

Nicosia Larnaca Limassol Paphos Paralimni Prodromos

max/min temp 29 - 12 23 - 11 24 - 14 22 - 10 27 - 14 24 - 10

Humidity 31% 51% 60% 69% 36% 42%

Final haircut figure expected tomorrow Anastasiades slams false reports leading to co-op panic

By Peter Stevenson

SUNSET: 19.13 pm

SUNRISE: 06.25 am

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OFFICIALS at the Central Bank will work through the weekend to come-up with a final percentage for the levy on uninsured deposits of over €100,000 at Bank of Cyprus, it was reported yesterday.

An announcement is expected tomorrow.

The decision is dependant on calculations regarding the offset of loans against deposits according to head of internal audit at the Central Bank, Yiangos Demetriou. He expressed the belief that once measures were put in place it would breathe life back into

the market and to trading.

Most reports suggest depositors with over €100,000 with the bank will take a hit of 60 per cent.

Meanwhile reported rumours of a ‘haircut’ on deposits in cooperative institutions were labelled the work of irresponsible parties by President Nicos Anastasiades yesterday.

“During these critical hours, responsibility is demanded from everyone and what happened on Friday is the work of irresponsible people,” he said at one-day conference celebrating Archbishop Makarios as the political leader of the EOKA struggle.

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formed outside cooperative banks across the country on Friday with customers seeking ways to either get their money out or divide their fixed deposit accounts into smaller ones of under €100,000.

This was following the circulation of text messages claiming the government was about to impose a haircut on cooperative bank deposits.

Head of the Cooperative Central Bank Erotocritos Chlorakiotis reassured the public again yesterday that deposits at the cooperative credit institutions were safe, insisting that the rumours of a haircut were completely “unfounded”.

House President Yiannakis Omirou yesterday sought to ensure that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) deal reached with the troika earlier in the week would be presented to Parliament for

ratification. He said the MoU would be submitted to the parliaments of six eurozone countries.

They include, Germany, France, Holland, Finland, Slovakia and Belgium. Getting around having to present it to the Cyprus parliament would be unthinkable, he said.

Omirou said it could be argued that in paragraph one of Article 169 of the constitution it states that international agreements of a financial and trading nature with international organisations could be approved by the cabinet alone but he said he did not believe the MoU was an ordinary financial or trading agreement.

“No government and no President is authorised to make foundational commitments of such importance without consulting the House,” he added.

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3 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

CYPRUS TODAY Antiquities theft TWO MEN, aged 26 and 65 were arrested late Friday in connection with antiquities theft. According to police a 26-year Syrian man had three amphorae in his possession which he was planning to sell for €900. He told police he had stolen them from a house in Limassol which belongs to a 65-year Greek-Cypriot who was also arrested on suspicion of possessing them illegally.

Police found two more amphorae at the man’s house.

All five items were taken to an archaeologist who determined they dated from the early to mid Bronze Age. The 26-year-old was held for questioning while the 65-year-old was written up and released.

Woman mugged A 78-YEAR-OLD woman was beaten and robbed during the early hours yesterday in Limassol. Police received a report around 2.40am that the woman was found in her home by a neighbour, with head and hand injuries. She was taken to Limassol Hospital where she was kept for observation. After receiving an eye-witness report, police are investigating the possibility that two people entered the pensioner’s home and after attacking her and beating her, stole her jewellery. The value of the stolen goods has yet to be estimated.

Brawl prevented POLICE in Larnaca prevented serious trouble from kicking off on Friday outside a clubhouse. A police spokesman said that members of the force were outside a clubhouse in Larnaca on Friday at 9.30pm after being tipped-off that around 50 people had gathered there. The crowd dispersed quickly after police arrived. Officers found nine Molotov cocktails and four cylindrical firecrackers in the clubhouse’s surrounding area.

Home

Failed economy returns focus to tourism sector ‘A bigger volume of tourists will have to mean lower prices’ (continued from front page) growth, a reinvigoration of the competitiveness of this sector is warranted,” the MoU document states.

Yet critics say that the MoU’s suggestions as to how growth in tourism could be achieved are simply rehashed ideas that were first touted decades ago.

The ‘massive improvements’ to the current tourism sector business model the MoU suggests include lengthening the tourist season, increasing occupancy rates of hotels and promoting domestic vacations, especially during the winter months.

Other ideas tout upgrading the island’s image by convincing discerning and affluent tourists that Cyprus has much more to offer than just sun, sea and nightlife and taking another crack at tapping into thematic niches such as sport, cultural, medical tourism and individual tourism. All of these measures have been promoted by the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) many times over the years with varying degrees of success.

Best-practices on upgrading the quality of services provided and improving the role of tourism-related infrastructure investment were also suggested, all of which will require diversification, large scale investment - and ultimately may take years to come to fruition.

According to Noel Jose-

There is some optimism but numbers have to be boosted significantly phides, Managing Director of Cyprus and Greece specialists Sunvil Travel, who is an expert on the CyprusUK market, told the Sunday Mail the only way to make any inroads would be to bring in another one million arrivals.

“Cyprus will need to bring in lot more volume and more volume means lower prices,” he said. “We are not going to get that volume at current prices.

Prices must fall dramatically.”

Josephides also said Cyprus’ complacency towards the UK market over the past five years had led not only to a drop in arrivals from Britain from a peak of 1.6 million a decade ago to around one million now, but has resulted in the decimation of the structure which was in place in the UK to boost the numbers.

“Tourism to Cyprus from the UK is now almost entirely in the hands of TUI

and Thomas Cook. Cyprus also destroyed the UK market by paying no-frills carriers. They don’t fill hotels and are not necessarily cheap,’ he said.

As for hope of tourism saving the island like it did after 1974, Josephides said: “In 1974 there was no Turkey, no Tunisia, no Egypt nor Croatia in term of tourism. Now we have competition coming out of our ears. Tourism is not the magic bullet it once was.”

With economists also pointing to strong competition from Greece and Turkey, foreign investment and large scale upgrades seems an unlikely prospect, given the lack of confidence in the local economy.

“Just the uncertainty about the future tends to be a killer in terms of activity,” says ABN Amro’s Nick Kounis. “Who is going to invest in Cyprus now?”

Brushing the economic

considerations aside, CTO chief Alecos Orountiotis insists that Cyprus continues to be an attractive destination.

In an attempt to counter the potential fallout from weeks of negative foreign press headlines, Minister of Tourism George Lakkotrypis said he predicted an “exceptional touristic year,” adding that he had been in contact with major travel companies to reassure them about the future of the sector.

One lingering fear that has crept into news reports over the past fortnight is that Germans in particular will stay away, fearful of a hostile reception as a result of the savage austerity imposed in the EU-IMF bail-out.

Nonetheless, Sibylle Zeuch, Press officer at the Deutscher ReiseVerband, the leading lobby group of the German tourism sector, believes that hotel and restaurant owners will wel-

come holidaymakers from Germany, despite resentment.

“At the moment they might wait a little bit before booking and see how the situation develops, this is what we experienced in Greece. If things start to return to normal they will surely go back because the product hasn’t changed,” Zeuch told the Sunday Mail.

Prior to the bailout crisis, the CTO launched an “aggressive” policy to promote Cyprus as a destination for Germans.

“In 2009 there were 130,000 visitors from Germany, in 2010 it was 140,000 and in 2011 it was 160,000.

So it is becoming a more attractive destination for Germans, but 2012 saw 145,000 tourists - a bit less, but it doesn’t change that much,” says Zeuch.

Despite a dip for Easter holidays, forecasts suggest that the British market is expected to remain stable this year, with bookings recovering last week according to online travel agency Lastminute.com.

“The UK is by far the leading market to Cyprus, sending one million visitors a year. There is no reason for this to change. On the contrary, prices on the island will probably fall as recession bites,” says Ian Taylor from the Londonbased Travel Weekly magazine.

Taylor predicts the Russian market will suffer, despite an influx of Russian holidaymakers boosting tourist arrivals to a sevenyear high in 2012, with a jump of 42 per cent.

“It’s hard to see Russians continuing to visit on the same scale,” he said.

But CTO official Marios Hannides said he had sent a message to tourist agents and partners in Russia that “they can continue to operate in Cyprus without any problems”.

Speaking last week he said that many Russian tourist agents had invested millions in Cyprus already on hotel maintenance and booking advances.

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4 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Home

Confusion and frustration over banks’ capital controls Companies still unable to pay overseas staff By a Staff Reporter PUBLIC SHOCK about the tough terms of the international bailout is turning into anger as millions of euros remain locked in the banks under capital control regulations.

Anxiety is being deepened by confusion over how the hastily-imposed rules should operate.

Hundreds of bank workers protested outside parliament on Thursday, worried that they could lose much of their pension savings under the terms of the bailout deal which stipulates that some depositors will contribute towards part of the rescue’s cost if their accounts hold more than 100,000 euros.

“I am disappointed and angry,” said Iacovos Louca, 53, who works at Popular Bank, which is being wound down under the 10 billion euro deal with the EU and International Monetary Fund. “The politicians are out of touch with our problems and the big guys, who

had the information, managed to take their money abroad.”

One company in Nicosia which has several offices abroad has been caught in limbo as the central bank now has to approve transfers out of Cyprus over 25,000 euros. As part of the company’s payroll is managed from the island, payments to employees abroad are being delayed because of the vetting process and currency controls to avoid a bank run.

“We have held clients’ money for certain pre-paid jobs, and we have a cash flow issue now,” the owner of the services company said, on condition of anonymity. “We have to make payments of more than 1 million euros on behalf of our clients, and now we can only use 100,000.”

Lack of clear answers on where their money may end up is fuelling public frustration.

Andrew Georgiou, a 55year-old British consultant who moved to Cyprus a year ago with the earnings

from the sale of his home in London, says all four accounts he holds with Popular - even a sterling account containing just 22 pence are blocked.

These totalled 97,000 euros and under the bailout deal, deposits under 100,000 are fully insured.

Nevertheless, Georgiou is now unable to access any funds.

Georgiou, who is of Cypriot descent, said Popular Bank had justified its action on the grounds that he was also considered a beneficiary to an account held by his 78-year-old father. It also covered money held in a trust for medical expenses.

NO EXPLANATIONS “I wrote to the central bank and they came back saying that it was not their competence, so whose competence is it?” said Georgiou. “Nobody is explaining where anyone should go with a problem.”

As a result, Georgiou has been told he and his father

could eventually be entitled only to a combined 40,000 euros despite the 100,000 euro guarantee, a fraction of their savings in Popular.

“Absolutely nothing adds up,” he said. “They told us it was 140,000 last week.”

Georgiou and others like him are in for a long wait to figure out what went wrong.

Three judges appointed to look into the island’s financial collapse started work on Thursday.

With an extensive remit ranging from the business sense of Cypriot banks hoarding a mass of Greek government bonds while others were selling them and the prudence of government fiscal policies, the judges will need a small army of consultants.

Many, in the meantime, are resigned to years of hardship. Iraklis Paraskeva, 53, has three children to support, now studying in Greece. “I am going to find myself in the street with no future, only debts.

But we will fight to the end. We have nothing left to lose.”

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5 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Home

A time to reflect and change We can’t fight the effects of the crisis, so we should try to put them to good use psychologists say

By Maria-Christina Doulami

M

EDICAL experts are expecting a rapid increase in cases of depression and anxiety disorders as the extent of the economic crisis begins to register and impact on peoples’ lives.

The economic uncertainty, wage cuts and job losses of the last 18 months will now snowball as the effects of the tough conditions set by international lenders for a bailout are felt indiscriminately across society.

Psychologists all foresee an increase in depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol abuse and psychosomatic disorders - insomnia, fatigue and gastrointestinal illnesses - and even attempted suicides.

Severe, clinical depression is a biological illness and needs to be treated professionally, but those who might be suffering from milder forms are urged not to view what has happened as a tragedy, but rather as an opportunity to reform.

“The constant bombarding of talks about this crisis makes us focus on all this negativity, rendering us more vulnerable to any kind of illness,” said psychologist Dr Antonios Raftis. He likened the crisis and its burst of negativity with a river whose dividing channels have been blocked and the surge of the water downstream is such that it

lessness and hopelessness, may provoke a greater tendency for isolation, but we must realise that the biggest protective factor for all this is our social support.”

Psychologists all recommend distractions - going for walks, picnics, social gatherings. But also exercise as this helps reduce stress hormones and increases feel-good levels, enabling you to feel more in control. The routine also gives a structure to your day.

Above all, it is about attitude. “We should see the glass as half-full and not half-empty,” said Raftis, “because the former is easier to refill and hence recover from this crisis.”

overflows and destroys its surroundings.

All psychologists agree that worrying constantly is unhelpful. “We cannot control life. What we can do is accept the facts and see how we can best deal with the situation,” said Dr Achilleas Koukkides, likening the crisis to a parent (the government and politicians) who has now betrayed us.

“This spreads fear and instability,” he said.

Cypriots are likely to feel particularly badly hit because social status has played such an important part in people’s lives for so long. According to Dr Jacqueline Widmer Kalochoritis, this will be even more apparent for the younger generation who have grown up believing wealth and luxury is their birth right.

FORCING CHANGE

YOUNGER GENERATION “The older generations are more prepared for this crisis,” she said, “because they have experienced difficult situations in the past and know how to struggle. But the younger generation will potentially be the biggest victims of the crisis because they don’t know what it is like to fight.”

Men too will suffer, according to Widmer Kalochoritis, because in Western cultures men are still socialised to base their worth on their careers, income and wealth, and “losing that means losing their footing”.

But psychologists are ea-

Cases of depression and anxiety are set to increase significantly in the coming months ger to urge people to view the crisis as an opening to new possibilities for redefining who you are, without letting society and cultural values tell you what car to drive, what job to do, what house to live in.

Recent research indicates that the difference in the level of happiness between people who have suffered traumatic experiences and people who have, for example, won the lottery is actually statistically zero.

Widmer Kalochoritis explained that people nowadays focus such a large part of their lives on their careers that everything else gains less significance. “Once that is pulled away,” she said, “as has happened with this crisis, people are forced to pay more attention to the other facets of their personality, of who they are.”

In this, focusing on relationships, marriage, family and friends are essential to maintaining some sem-

blance of a positive attitude.

“These are the people who will support, boost and soothe you and this is the time more than ever to tend to these relationships,” said Widmer Kalochoritis. “Depression, feelings of help-

People suffering from depression need someone to validate their feelings of despair and fear, but simultaneously, they need someone to force them to change said Widmer Kalochoritis.

“Everybody has unexpected resources, that they have successfully used in past situations, and there is always something that can be done,” she said. “What blocks us is the pervasive hopelessness brought about by depression. We need to change our attitude to force ourselves to pull through and sometimes an absence of choice can be helpful for promoting change.”

The crisis has entered our lives as a shockwave, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to bring with it the misery, the doom and gloom many expect. It can also be a chance for people to redefine, rediscover and reinvent themselves.

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6 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Home ‘Scale of disaster cannot be compared to invasion. It’s horrible but it’s only money’ BUSINESSMAN and former DISY deputy Dinos Lordos lost everything in 1974 when he was forced to flee Famagusta. He went on to rebuild his business empire, investing in property, construction and hotels.

“It is a totally different situation and cannot be compared. In ‘74, we had a complete national disaster. It was much worse.

People died. We didn’t know where our friends and relatives were, who was alive and who dead.

“As refugees, we didn’t know where we could stay. In winter, there were queues for clothes. Around 120,000 people lived in camps. Many migrated. They went to Europe and the Arab countries, and came back educated and with technical knowhow. Today, it’s much easier,” he said.

Lordos argued Cypriots were a lot more to blame for the current disaster.

“We made bad investments as a state and created this financial monster, which was beyond our size and capabilities. We couldn’t support it.”

The government expanded the deficit and the banks made massive mistakes and both would have continued doing so if the crisis did not hit, he added.

Asked whether Cyprus is worse off now because it doesn’t have the international sympathy and aid that poured into Cyprus after the war, or a burgeoning tourism sector to pin hopes on, Lordos was emphatic.

“It’s wrong to assume it’s worse now. We have sympathy today as well, though it’s not tangible. Even while we had aid from Greece, the US and others in 1974, we still had people in camps for many years.”

It’s a crisis, Both President Nicos Anastasiades and the EU’s economy commissioner Olli Rehn have recently referred to 1974 to remind Cypriots of their resilience and how they once overcame adversity to perform an economic miracle, the thinking being that surely they could do it again.

The sheer scale of the current setback has yet to be felt, but politicians obviously feel the crisis is worthy of comparison to the Greek-inspired coup and Turkish invasion,

when almost 40 per cent of the island came under occupation, a third of the country’s population was displaced and most of the infrastructure for agriculture and tourism was lost.

The Sunday Mail’s Stefanos Evripidou spoke to refugees, economists and former politicians to see if the comparison can really stick. The result was mixed, with the general consensus being that it’s a classic case of apples and oranges.

Then and now: Children living in tents after 1974 (above). The Nicosia skyline today (right)

OWN CURRENCY One factor that worked in Cyprus’ favour at the time was that it had its own currency which it could manipulate while foreign governments turned a blind eye.

“The Bank of Cyprus was more bankrupt then than it is now.

We printed more Cyprus pounds and confidence returned quickly. But the scale of disaster today cannot be compared.

Let’s not exaggerate, it’s horrible but it’s only money,” he said.

“Sure, it’s a major disaster for any country, but we have our infrastructure intact, our assets, cars, tractors, households, hotels. In 1974, all our hotels were in Famagusta and Kyrenia.

“What we need now is to create jobs. That should be the number one objective of the government and the unions.”

The successful businessmen was critical of both, noting that the unions in ‘74 agreed to reduce all salaries and benefits, compared to now.

He called on the government to improve the regulatory environment, curb bureaucracy and encourage businesses to move forward. He referred specifically to the fiasco over title deeds in which 130,000 homeowners still don’t have legal ownership of their homes, even though they may have paid in full because their title deeds are held by banks as collateral for building developers’ mortgages.

“There are 130,000 houses that cannot be transferred to their rightful owners. Create the conditions so that those who lost the most in deposits now get put ahead in line to receive a loan, providing they have a good business proposition,” he said.

We must invest in young people and shrink the public sector LECTURER of economics and economic history Alex Apostolides warned against comparing “two very different kinds of disasters”.

While the economy was butchered after the invasion as it ate up all the country’s capital, the unintended consequence was to take farmers out of the fields and into factories and hotels, increasing their productivity.

Alex Apostolides “The first shoe factories were found in refugee tents. We had a huge, poor labour force ready to offer cheap labour. We became the China of the Middle East.

“In the current case, the crisis has arbitrarily killed banking and made the economy go from a very modern economy to a cash economy while rapidly reducing the ability of money to circulate quickly, which in turn reduces GDP income.”

At the same time, he argues, the government does not have many guns in its arsenal to fight the crisis. It cannot give money or land to invest in tourism as it did after the war.

“Here, we have a combination of a banking crisis, a government borrowing too much, and the Greek haircut which blew up part of our economy. It’s worse now.”

According to Apostolides, the solution is to liberalise the economy fully, open up closed professions, sort out the title deeds fiasco, shrink the public sector, and aim to put Cyprus in the list of top ten countries for doing business around the world.

“Did you know that there is no pharmacy in the Mall (in Nicosia) because the rules state that pharmacies have to be built using bricks and that 51 per cent of the pharmacy has to be owned by the pharmacist which is why you don’t see Boots in Cyprus?”

He added: “The government cannot be the driver here. We need to invest in young people and skills and find ways to invest in start-ups. We didn’t have venture capitalists before because it was more profitable to put money in banks.”

‘It’s time to rediscover the values of ‘74’ PROFESSOR of finance at the University of Cyprus Stavros Zenios says that while one cannot compare the suffering from a war and dislocation to now, the economic indicators are very comparable.

“Look at the economic impact. We lost something like 25 per cent of our wealth with the stroke of a pen,” he said referring to the €5.8bn bail-in Cypriot depositors had to come up with.

“It puts at risk between 9-25 per cent of the country’s GDP. Of course this kind of impact is of the same order of magnitude as what happened in ‘74.”

The only other country which suffered such an economic impact from political developments is Finland with the

collapse of the Soviet Union, and it recovered within three years, he said.

Regarding Cyprus’ prospects, Zenios argued: “This could be a slow death like a frog in a slowly boiling pan that does not jump out. But I’d like to think and already see signs of Cypriot society re-energising itself and rediscovering the values of ‘74 which helped us get out of that mess.”

It’s about shifting the economy to other directions, using Cyprus’ highly educated workforce, favourable tax regime, professional services.

“If we clean up our banks, and have an aggressive campaign we could still be a business centre, though not a banking centre,” he said.

And like after the invasion,

Stavros Zenios: worried about the political system Cypriots should be prepared to do jobs that they previously thought were dirty.

“We should stop exporting currency by looking for cheap labour. We should become

entrepreneurs and provide cheap labour.”

The professor was optimistic that Cypriots’ historically stoic response to trouble would see them through the tough times ahead.

“I’m worried about the political system though, and whether they realise we’re in this together. There is an attitude of playing the blame game.”

Zenios called on politicians to let the committee of inquiry do its work and get on with a strategy to fix the economy, improve competitiveness and create jobs as a first priority, not worry about salaries and benefits.

“If there is a hole in the boat, don’t worry about who’s getting wet, fix the hole.”

‘We’re not quite sure how to build a new model’ ECONOMIST and Sapienta director Fiona Mullen believes the economic impact of the current crisis will resonate with ‘74.

Like then, Mullen forecasts a three-year drop in GDP levels of around 15 per cent in the first two years, then a decrease of 5 per cent, taking Cyprus back to its levels at the turn of the millennium.

“There appears to be the same kind of shock to the psychology as well, in confidence, and to the normal functioning of the economy.

What we don’t have now

Fiona Mullen: new model like we did in ‘74 is the big bounce back. One of the reasons was that we had to build a lot of houses in a hurry. This accelerated the shift

from agriculture and light manufacturing to services.

“It came at a time when the Cyprus economy was already shifting from one model to another. Now, we got rid of one model and are not quite sure how to build another one,” she said.

“The only way to get something similar now is to start introducing some of the ideas going round for completely changing Cyprus’ growth model, introduce venture capital, make the most of solar panels instead of a quick buck from Russia.”

In terms of Cyprus making money out of its natural reserves, Mullen argued that Cyprus needed both Turkey and Israel’s cooperation.

Despite previously highlighting the savings that could be made by sending gas to Turkey via a pipeline, Mullen acknowledged that after the latest experience, “Cyprus will never want to be dependent on any big power again”.

To get Turkey on board, perhaps Cyprus could use its gas to produce and send electricity to the energy-hungry country, she said.

7 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Home

but no 1974

We were more adaptable as expectations were lower FORMER foreign and commerce minister Nicos Rolandis agrees that the Turkish invasion was a “much more serious event”, as was its impact.

Businesses lost all their tangible assets, the country lost its Rolandis: no capital airport.

However, recovery was made easier by the crisis in Lebanon in the mid-1970s which saw thousands of monied Lebanese move to Limassol.

He notes that society has changed a lot since then. “Society in those years was quite different.

There was not so much consumerism as there is today. So people will not adapt easily to the situation as we could adapt back then because their expectations are much higher.

“Also, today we don’t have capital to invest, and if we do, it’s not easy to decide how to invest and take chances in a very fragile economy,” he said.

Rolandis argued there was room for growth in tourism as current levels have dropped from the heyday when he was minister and Cyprus recorded 2.7 million tourists generating €2.2bn.

The only silver lining, said the former minister, is the prospect of exploiting Cyprus’ natural gas reserves though this won’t be possible for another six to seven years.

However, it will take a massive investment surpassing Cyprus’ €10bn bailout, and depend greatly on projected sale prices for 2020-2040 “My last point is the geopolitical factor. Turkey.

And this is quite serious. Most leaders don’t want to take this factor into account. It’s wrong.

Look what happened to us in 1974 when we ignored Turkey.”

Rolandis said the solution of the Cyprus problem and transportation of gas via Turkey to Europe was the best way to move forward and enjoy the benefits of the island’s hydrocarbon reserves.

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8 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

World

US plays down North Korea threat US officials have played down the threat of war on the Korean peninsula, after weeks of bellicose statements from Pyongyang.

A White House spokesman said the US “would not be surprised” if North Korea launched a missile, while a top US military officer said recent threats appeared to fit a familiar pattern.

Pyongyang has threatened to attack both US and South Korean targets.

It has told foreign embassies it cannot guarantee their safety in a conflict.

Diplomats in Pyongyang were asked on Friday to tell the foreign ministry by April 10 what help they would need in evacuating.

The warning prompted Russia to ask whether Pyongyang was offering help in the event of a conflict, or making a decision.

South Korean media reported on Friday that the North had moved two intermediate range missiles into position on the east coast.

The missiles are untested but it is believed they could reach as far as the Pacific Island of Guam, where the US has a military base, and where it has confirmed it will deploy a missile defence system.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, said two warships equipped with Aegis defence systems would monitor the situation.

North Korea has issued a

North Korea has appeared increasingly belligerent since the UN tightened sanctions series of unusually strong threats since it was sanctioned by the UN in March for having carried out a third nuclear test.

It has threatened nuclear strikes on the US, formally declared war on the South, and pledged to reopen a nuclear reactor in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said a missile launch would not be unexpected.

“We would not be surprised to see them take such an action,” he said. “We have seen them launch missiles in the past.”

Seoul has also played down

the North’s reported missile move, saying it may be planning a test rather than a hostile act.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the North’s nuclear threat “reckless”, but said it seemed to fit a decades-long pattern of escalation followed by accommodation.

“I wouldn’t say I see anything to lead me to believe that this is a different kind of cycle,’’ he told the Associated Press news agency.

Even so, Gen. Dempsey said the cycle was more unpredictable because relatively little was known about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who came to power after his father’s death in December 2011.

“Though we’ve always said that North Korea has been a bit opaque to us, in the past we’ve understood their leadership and the influencers a little better than we do today,” he said.

Many of North Korea’s angry statements have cited the annual military exercises between US and South Korean forces as provocation.

The US flew nuclear-capable B2 and B52 bombers over the South as part of the drill, and has since deployed warships with missile defence systems to the region.

Gen. Dempsey said US moves had been “largely defensive and exclusively intended to reassure our allies”.

Iran’s critics accuse it of covertly seeking the means to make nuclear bombs and say Tehran in the past has used diplomacy as a stalling tactic

Talks fail to end nuclear stalemate Iran, world powers remain ‘far apart’

By Justyna Pawlak and Yeganeh Torbati WORLD powers and Iran remained far apart after ending two days of intensive talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme yesterday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said, prolonging a stand-off that risks spiralling into a new Middle East war.

The failure to reach a breakthrough deal aimed at easing growing international concern over Iran’s contested nuclear activity marked a further setback for diplomatic efforts to resolve the decade-old dispute peacefully.

Underlining the lack of substantial progress during the meeting in the Kazakh city of Almaty, no new negotiations between the two sides appeared to have been scheduled.

“Over two days of talks, we had long and intensive discussions on the issues addressed in our confidencebuilding proposal,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

“It became clear that our positions remain far apart,” Ashton, who represents the six powers - the Unit-

ed States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany - in dealings with Iran, told a news conference.

Russia’s negotiator sounded more upbeat, saying the talks were “definitely a step forward” although no compromise had been reached, Interfax news agency reported, without giving details.

Iran’s critics accuse it of covertly seeking the means to produce nuclear bombs and say Tehran in the past has used diplomacy as a stalling tactic. Further inconclusive talks will not reassure Israel, which threatens air strikes, if necessary, to stop its arch-enemy from getting the bomb.

ENTIRELY PEACEFUL The Jewish state is widely believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal.

Iran says its nuclear energy programme is entirely peaceful but U.N. inspectors suspect it has worked illicitly on designing a nuclear weapon.

With all sides aware that a breakdown in diplomacy could shunt the protracted stalemate a step closer to war, no one in Almaty was talking about abandoning diplomatic efforts.

Ashton said that for the

first time there had been a “real back and forth between us when were able to discuss details, to pose questions, and to get answers directly ... To that extent, that has been a very important element” But, she added: “What matters in the end is substance.

We know what we want to achieve and the challenge is to get real engagement so we can move forward with this and that’s the ambition.”

With a presidential election due in Iran in June, scope for a breakthrough was slim in Almaty, when Iran declined to accept or reject an offer of modest relief from economic sanctions in exchange for curbing its most sensitive nuclear activity.

Without substantial progress in the coming months, Western governments are likely to increase economic sanctions on Iran.

The talks were held against a backdrop of flaring tension between big powers and North Korea, which like Iran is defying international demands to curb its nuclear programme. But unlike North Korea, which has carried out three nuclear tests since 2006, Iran says its nuclear energy activity is entirely peaceful.

9 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

World

China closes live poultry markets on bird flu fear Authorities slaughter birds to stop virus spreading

By Adam Jourdan CHINESE officials have found traces of a new bird flu virus in more areas in Shanghai and in the nearby city of Hangzhou, news reports said yesterday, as authorities slaughtered birds to stop the spread of the virus that has killed six people.

State-run Xinhua news agency said authorities planned to cull birds at two live poultry markets in Shanghai and another in Hangzhou after samples of the H7N9 virus were detected in birds at the three sites.

More than 20,000 birds have been culled at another Shanghai market where traces of the virus were found this week.

Officials in Shanghai, China’s financial hub, ordered all live poultry markets in the city closed yesterday, leaving food stalls empty.

Authorities also banned all poultry trading in Nanjing, another eastern city, although officials said they had not found any trace of

‘While the strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to human, authorities said they were taking extra precautions’ the bird flu virus and chicken on the retail market was safe to eat, official media reported.

The new strain of bird flu has infected 16 people in China, all in the east of the country. Six people have died and the outbreak has spread concern overseas and sparked a sell-off in airline shares in Europe and Hong Kong.

There were no signs of panic in Shanghai, where four of the six deaths have taken place, and people said they were not worried. But the culling, which has been widely publicised, did underline for some how close to home the issue had become.

“Now it’s just downstairs,” said Liu Leting, a user of Weibo, China’s version of Twitter which has more than 500 million users.

“Suddenly I discover that I’m living in an epidemic zone!”

In one city restaurant, a waitress said they planned to stop serving chicken because of the outbreak.

“After we sell out the chicken in stock, we will not buy new chicken and will stop serving chicken dishes for the time being,” said the waitress, who declined to be identified.

While the strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to human, au-

thorities in mainland China and Hong Kong said they were taking extra precautions.

Hong Kong’s government said it is intensifying surveillance of travellers and poultry coming into the city.

China’s Food and Drug Administration said it had fast-tracked approval for intravenous anti-influenza drug Peramivir, developed

by U.S listed biotechnology firm BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. Peramivir is in medical trials to prove its effectiveness against type-A and type-B influenza, the administration said in a statement. The H7N9 strain belongs to the type-A group.

Shanghai authorities have stressed the H7N9 virus remained sensitive to the drug Tamiflu and those who were diagnosed early could be cured. Tamiflu is made by Roche Holding AG. China and Hong Kong were badly hit by a 2002-2003 epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that started in China and killed about one-tenth of the 8,000 it infected worldwide.

Mandela released from hospital

“the informed choice for secondary education”

By Jon Herskovitz FORMER South African president Nelson Mandela was discharged yesterday after spending more than a week in hospital for treatment of pneumonia, raising global concern about the health of the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader (right).

“He has been discharged from hospital today, 6 April, following a sustained and gradual improvement in his general condition,” the South African presidency said yesterday.

It was the third health scare in four months for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who became South Africa’s first black president in 1994 and became a global symbol of tolerance and the struggle for equality.

He was in hospital briefly in early March for a check-

up and was hospitalised in December for nearly three weeks with a lung infection and after surgery to remove gallstones.

Mandela stepped down as president in 1999 and has not been politically active for a decade. But he is still revered at home and abroad for leading the long campaign against apart-

heid and then championing racial reconciliation while in office.

Mandela has a history of lung problems dating from when he contracted tuberculosis as a political prisoner. He spent 27 years on Robben Island and in other jails for his attempts to overthrow the whiteminority government.

ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY OF CYPRUS Interruption of Supply The Electricity Authority of Cyprus announces that electricity supply will be interrupted between 08:00 to 14:00 on Tuesday 9th of April 2013 in the following areas: Kyperounda (Part of – Sanatorium area) Spilia, Kourdali, Ayia Irini, Kannavia, Chandria (Part of), Lagoudera, Saranti, Livadhia, Polistipos, Alithinou, Alona, Platanistasa, Fterikoudi, Askas SINCE IT IS NOT CERTAIN THAT THE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY WILL BE INTERRUPTED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE OF THE PERIOD STATED, INSTALLATIONS IN ALL PREMISES MUST BE REGARDED AS BEING “ALIVE” DURING THESE HOURS. We regret any inconvenience which may be caused by the interruption of supply, but this is necessary due to work on the high voltage system.

The new strain of bird flu has infected 16 people in China, all in the east of the country, killing six

The Senior School Entrance Exam Wednesday 10th April at 1.30pm “Senior School Sports’ Day”

We are now accepting applications to Year 7 for academic year 2013-14, as well as for older year groups where there are places still available. Please feel free to call 2266 0156 or apply online at www.theseniorschool.com

Closing date for applications Monday 8th April 2013 Students wishing to study AS/A2 levels in our 6th Form are invited to join our vibrant student body in September We offer: > A wide range of AS/A2 level subjects: Maths, Literature, The Arts, The Sciences, Accounting, Business, Economics, Travel & Tourism, The Humanities, Greek, French, Spanish, PE, Computing and more. > A positive learning environment with well qualified and experienced teachers > Personalised and individualised student support > Computerised & supervised 6th Form Private Study Suite > The first School in Cyprus with a flourishing “Faculty of Arts” covering Drama, Music and Art at AS & A2 Levels > Careers and UCAS entry advice

10 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

World

King’s lover blackmailed him to avoid the gallows Sex, murder and conspiracy sheds new light on Britain’s Edward VIII

By Belinda Goldsmith BRITAIN’S King Edward VIII may be best known for giving up the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, but it wasn’t the first time his love affairs posed a threat to the British monarchy.

A new book by British barrister and former judge Andrew Rose unearths a littleknown affair with a French courtesan 20 years before Edward’s abdication, which ended in a rigged trial at the behest of the British establishment trying to protect a future king’s reputation.

The Prince, The Princess, and The Perfect Murder details how the then-Prince of Wales’ first great love, French courtesan Maggie Meller, blackmailed him to avoid the gallows after murdering her playboy Egyptian prince husband.

Meller was acquitted in a high profile trial at London‘s Old Bailey in 1923 despite the evidence stacked against her.

Rose said the acquittal was a shock but his research has now revealed an extraordinary story involving the mur-

Lover: Maggie Meller der trial, a secret cache of vanished letters and a coverup to save the reputation of the future king.

Six years before her trial, Meller had an affair with the British prince. She used evidence from that relationship to force the royal household to lean on the establishment in an effort to get her off the hook and cover up the scandal, Rose told Reuters.

“This affair had been carefully airbrushed from history so the connection between the murder and the Prince

of Wales was never drawn,” Rose told Reuters.

“The royal household took steps to make sure that the prince’s name did not come out in the trial to protect the reputation of the future king.

It is amazing that she got away with it.”

Rose’s book, published by Coronet this week forms the basis of a TV documentary, Edward VIII‘s Murderous Mistress, on Britain’s Channel 4 later this month.

The latest book was a follow-on work from Rose’s book about the trial, Scandal at the Savoy, published in 1991.

He was intrigued by Marguerite Alibert, better known as Meller, who, dressed in a Chanel gown, shot her second husband, Egyptian Prince Fahmy Bey, at London’s Savoy Hotel in 1923.

At the time her past reputation as a gold digger was brushed off and the focus was on her claim that she acted in self-defence to protect herself from her abusive husband.

But after his book was released, Meller’s grandson contacted Rose, informing him of her affair with the prince, love letters between the two, and a memoir she wrote in 1934.

Rose said it took several years to trace the relation-

Edward and Wallis Simpson: he was always susceptible to powerful women ship, accessing unpublished documents in royal archives and private collections but also finding a trail of destroyed documents.

Rose said the prince’s involvement came as a surprise but was in character as Edward, who abdicated in 1936 after less than a year on the throne, was a well-known womaniser.

“He was emotionally immature and feckless in his private life ... although he had enormous charm,” said Rose.

“But you can be approachable and amusing and also

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neurotic, self-centred and unreliable. He spent his time chasing woman, had a string of love affairs and was always susceptible particularly to powerful women.”

Rose said the prince’s protectors were quick to move once Meller was arrested, negotiating with her to return the prince’s letters that she had stored in Cairo.

The crucial part of the deal, however, was that she would not mention the prince in court and she stuck to that.

Her promiscuous past was never mentioned in court and

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the trial instead focused on the violent nature and perverted sexual tastes of her husband.

“Really this was a show trial,” said Rose, “The authorities wanted Marguerite to be acquitted. A murder conviction would have been catastrophic for the Crown.”

Meller was released and moved back to France where she lived the rest of her life in Paris, dying wealthy in 1971.

“This story really does show another side to Edward and how unsuitable he always was to be king,” said Rose.

Dangerous dogs ‘bred as assets’ DANGEROUS dogs are being bred by young men as a business asset in drug deals, debt collection and for their gang image, according to research published in Britain this week.

More young men were using mastiffs, pit bulls, akitas and other aggressive dogs as a “commodity” for security and making money in gangs, the study found.

Dr Simon Harding of Middlesex University London, who is behind the research, said: “For many young people, dogs are increasingly viewed as a commodity which can be traded up or down like a mobile phone.”

He said that through their reputation for aggression or ability to intimidate, bull breeds are also used in drug deals, gambling debts and loan-sharking, where their owners do not have recourse to law if the money owed is not paid.

11 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

News Review Investigate me

Bank employees demonstrating outside parliament on Thursday (Christos Theodorides)

PRESIDENT Nicos Anastasiades on Monday denied that money transferred out of Cyprus by some of his relatives just before a controversial EU decision to raid bank deposits took place because he had given them advance warning of a haircut on savings. He said that the three-member Committee of Inquiry set up to probe the banking sector and possibly allocate civil, criminal or political liabilities responsibilities for Cyprus’ financial crisis will also be instructed to investigate himself and his family.

Economy boost THE government will soon approve measures aimed at boosting the crippled economy that are expected to include casinos, fast-tracking permits for large projects, tax breaks and relaxation of measures to encourage foreign investment. President Nicos Anastasiades said the government’s drive would focus on incentives for growth. The first would be to fast-track permits concerning pending large projects, aiming to at least give the okay within 30 days. The government is also expected to advance the issue of creating casinos immediately.

Bullied PRESIDENT Nicos Anastasiades said

Tempers fray over bailout he was bullied into accepting a haircut on deposits under threat by the European Central Bank (ECB) that it would starve Cyprus’ banks of cash. In an interview, Anastasiades described fraught negotiations at the Eurogroup of March 15 that dragged on into the hours of the following day. The ECB was threatening to close down the banking system and force Cyprus to default and eventually exit the euro. Laiki Bank, in particular, would be declared insolvent once the ECB cut off emergency liquidity assistance.

Smuggling cash OFFICIALS have confirmed that a number of people have tried to sneak substantial amounts of cash out of the island over the past couple of weeks. Under strict capital controls designed to prevent a bank run since last Thursday when the banks re-opened, individuals have only been allowed to take out €1,000 (or the equivalent in other cur-

Large depositors in Laiki Bank who face losing most if not all their money have warned they will take the Central Bank’s top brass to court if even one cent is taken out of their accounts

rencies) per trip. But before the capital restrictions, as well as subsequently, a number of people attempted to take large amount of cash out via the island’s two airports, a customs officer said on Tuesday.

No Russian help THE RUSSIAN government will not aid businesses that have lost money in Cyprus, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said, underscoring Moscow’s resolve to clamp down on the flight of capital to offshore financial centres. Major account holders, many of them Russian, will lose up to 60 per cent of their deposits over €100,000 at Cyprus’ largest bank under a European Union bailout.

If Russians lose money “it’s a terrible shame, but the Russian government will not take any action in such a situation,” Shuvalov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying in a television interview.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK “They basically really accused us that we were sitting back and printing money, having a lot of foreign firms coming through Cyprus, offering them services and having a good time. I think that was unfair” nfair” Former Finance nance Minister Michalis Sarris “I never knew, ew, and it was never possible for me to wage war until Saturday aturday morning [March March 16] to avoid what hat they imposed on n us and at the same time ime supposedly tip-off people” President Nicos Anastasiades des “We need to understand d that we’re on our ur own. We have ave no friends. Just st like 1974. We are alone” A participant in the e CyprusAid d concert on n Monday

“Developments confirmed that it was all part of a well-devised plan to break up the entire banking sector and especially the Bank of Cyprus, which was in good financial condition at the time” Former BoC boss Andreas Eliades “Everyone knew the bank had problems, but no one thought it would come to this” A former Laiki board member

“Cyprus should find a way out of the asphyxiating embrace of the troika” AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou “Instead of speaking vaguely I about ‘a path away from the a troika’, the AKEL leadership tr who brought the troika here w should explain how they’re s going to kick them out without g leading the country to complete le bankruptcy” b Government spokesman G Christos Stylianides (left) C “Our computer forensic tech“O nologists have found that the n computers of two employees c (former CEO) Mr (Andreas) Elia(f des and (senior manager group d treasury and private banking) tr Christakis Patsalides, have had C wiping software loaded, which w is not part of the standard software installations at the BoC. w Mass deletion of data appears to have been undertaken on the Patsalides computer on October 18, 2012” Alvarez and Marsal report on banks

‘Better’ deal THE GOVERNMENT on Tuesday clinched a deal with the troika on a €10 billion bailout programme with ‘better’ terms than the previous draft memorandum, said government spokesman Christos Stylianides. The deal, which requires ratification from eurozone finance ministers and national EU parliaments, will see Cyprus receiving a €10 billion loan, carrying an interest rate of between 2.5 and 2.7 per cent. Listing the improvements achieved in the new bailout deal, Stylianides said the government was able to protect Cyprus’ sovereign rights over the planning, exploitation and management of revenue from its natural gas, ensuring that the above remain in state hands.

Inquiry THE three-man Committee of Inquiry into whether there were civil, political or criminal responsibilities attached to the near-bankruptcy of the economy, were sworn in on Tuesday. The committee comprises Giorgos Pikis, a former Supreme Court judge and former member of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and former Supreme Court judges Panayiotis Kallis and Yiannakis Constantinides. The Cabinet appointed the committee on March 28, just days after a harsh bailout deal was reached with Cyprus’ international lenders.

Donating food A MASSIVE crowd of 20,000 people turned up with an overwhelming amount of food and essentials at Monday’s Cyprus Aid concert in Nicosia. The donated items were taken to six large warehouses in Nicosia. “It is impossible to calculate how many items were collected because of the sheer amount,” said Maria Papapetrou one of the organisers. Volunteers, members of the Cyprus Scouts Association and other organisations are sorting out the food for distribution.

Blame game THE CLINCHING of a final deal with the troika of international lenders on Tuesday sparked a fully-fledged blame game between ruling DISY, and opposition AKEL on Wednesday, even prompting President Nicos Anastasiades to join in. Each side blamed the other for the

memorandum of understanding (MoU) and each said the other had brought the country to ruin. AKEL, when it was in government had agreed an initial MoU with the troika last November. The deal reached on Tuesday was with the new government led by Anastasiades. Each said the other’s deal was worse.

Lawsuits LARGE depositors in Laiki Bank who face losing most if not all their money have warned they will take the Central Bank’s top brass to court if even one cent is taken out of their accounts. The threat of legal action raises the spectre of the bailout programme unravelling in the courts, and slapping the state with massive sums in penalties. A lawyer representing a number of large depositors sent a letter to central bank governor Panicos Demetriades last Thursday warning that if a haircut of any size was imposed on their deposits held at Laiki Bank, depositors will file a private criminal case against the governor, board members, and certain CB officials.

New ministers PRESIDENT NICOS Anastasiades on Wednesday completed his first cabinet reshuffle in record time since he took office last month, introducing the first woman in a previously all-male cabinet.

Outgoing Finance Minister Michalis Sarris was replaced by Labour Minister Haris Georgiades who in turn was replaced by former permanent secretary of the Commerce Ministry Zeta Emilianidou. “Finally, I can greet a lady in the cabinet – you see it’s not only the memorandum we have improved significantly but also the composition of the cabinet,” said Anastasiades.

‘Mass deletion’ DELETION of data allegedly took place on computers belonging to senior Bank of Cyprus (BoC) executives, according to the leaked findings of a probe into the circumstances that forced the island’s biggest lenders to seek state assistance.

Alvarez and Marsal, the firm tasked with investigating why Bank of Cyprus and Laiki sought state assistance, said the information provided by BoC was incomplete and data deleting software were found on the computers of two senior executives.

12 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Opinion Anastasiades government has dashed hopes of a new start THE CHEAP rhetoric, demagoguery and populist policies that have blighted public life ever since the establishment of the Republic and take a big share of the blame for our desperate, current predicament are still going strong. The economy is sinking to new lows by the day, but our politicians are too busy engaging in the only thing they know – uttering platitudes, rabble-rousing, pandering to unions and demanding punishment of those responsible for the catastrophe.

They, of course, are blameless.

But it was not just AKEL which approved extortionate annual pay rises and outrageous benefits for public servants; it was not just AKEL that happily stood by while the unions of monopolistic semi-governmental organisations plundered the coffers for their members and passed the extra cost onto the hapless consumers; it was not AKEL that made Cyprus Airways employees the best-rewarded airline staff

in the world. All the parties were in it together, bowing to every demand of the unions, for fear of losing votes, and bankrupting the state in the process.

It was these very same pontificating politicians who never uttered a word about the insolvent Laiki Bank building a debt of €9.2 billion to ELA, even though they all knew about it.

But they did not want to alienate the bank’s employees and lose votes. Now that the bank has collapsed and its debt passed to the Bank of Cyprus, they are outraged that this was allowed to happen. It was these same, wise after the event politicians, who made fiery speeches against the deposits levy, decided at the first Eurogroup meeting, and heroically rejected it, thus paving the way for the infinitely worse second deal.

But they still persist with the cheap and vacuous rhetoric that leads nowhere. For the past 10 days they have been demanding that the Central Bank release

SundayMail the names of all those people and companies that had transferred money out of the Cyprus banks in the fortnight before the March 15 Eurogroup meeting.

Apart from this being a perfectly lawful act, what purpose would the release of the name serve other than allow our politicians to engage in rabble-rousing and, perhaps, spark a witchhunt.

In the last week we also witnessed the pandering to the bank employee unions, all the parties insisting that the provident funds that were deposited in Laiki Bank and Bank of Cyprus should be left intact.

They do not mention that for this to happen, the haircut of uninsured B of C deposits would have to bigger – in fact AKEL had the audacity to complain that the troika wanted a 60 per cent bail in. But populists never

care about the consequences of their despicable vote-buying antics, they just blame someone else.

Any hopes that Nicos Anastasiades’ government would have turned over a new page, setting a fresh political agenda far removed from the populism of the past proved nothing more than wishful thinking.

On Tuesday, the government spokesman was boasting about the improvements made to the memorandum, most of which were the satisfaction of demands of public employees – 500 less job cuts, scrapping of the extra hour per week for teachers, and state healthcare at a tiny cost and extension of fiscal adjustment period. Pay cuts to finance the improvements would be between 0.8 and 2 per cent.

The SGO unions were also given something to cheer as the government managed to put back the deadline for privatisations by two years. A cashstrapped government with no

funds for development would have brought the deadline forward, but that would not have had the approval of the unions or their accomplices, the parties.

The private sector could close down and its employees left to starve as far as our political establishment is concerned, so long as the public workers are happy.

Allowing the state sector to suck all state resources at a time when banks are illiquid and businesses have no cash is a bizarre way of ‘kick-starting’, in the government spokesman’s words, the economy.

The government is using scarce funds to save jobs in the overstaffed state sector and in the private sector jobs are being lost by the thousands, while the political parties are criticising it for not doing enough to protect public employees.

We never learn from our mistakes, which is why a second memorandum is only a few months away.

Letters to the Editor

Turn Larnaca Cyprus was let down into Las Vegas by everyone involved Turn the entire Phinikoudes seafront in Larnaca into a Las Vegas style strip with tacky novelty buildings, Elvis impersonators and neon signs that can be seen by incoming flights...hell... make that from space. Leave the cultural heritage to Paphos, and the natural gas to Limassol. Niche tourism will never bring in enough tourists or money, ever.

There is no other way to boost tourism at this point despite all the talk to the contrary. We have no Pyramids or Parthenons, and golf, marinas etc etc are now clichés. If these have not worked by now, they will not work in the future to any significant degree, and never

enough to get us out of this mess.

It’s no use talking all the time about being at the ‘crossroads of three continents’ unless you actually make the most of it. None of the three continents in question has anything similar to Las Vegas.

The results of former President Demetris Catastrophias’ ‘moral and ethical’ objections to casinos are now plain for all to see, poverty, poverty and more poverty.

He was ‘worried’ about the social consequences of casinos? What about the social consequences of abject poverty?

JM, Larnaca

People of Europe: you too must beware For the greed, incompetence and irresponsible behaviour of 0.2 per cent of the population, the troika decided in the most inhumane manner to punish a nation of 800,000 people, sending many thousands of families into financial destitution.

The European Union project began with great and lofty ideals to unite the peoples of Europe after the savagery of two world wars, and to bring peace, prosperity and solidarity by respecting and promoting cultural diversity.

And yet, in one night the current leaders, by their greed, selfishness and the turning of a blind eye at their own institutional failures, set in motion the unravelling of their great idea.

Why should anyone now trust them or believe in their ability to guide us into a better future.

The soothsayer had warned Julius Caesar “beware the Ides of March”, but no one had warned our President on the fateful night on March 15, and he walked into a well laid trap that has brought this country to a state of near ruination. But let Europe know that this resilient nation will once again stand on its own two feet and its people will prosper again.

People of Europe beware lest you suffer the same fate one early morning.

Barkev Mihranian, Nicosia

Blackmail is an offence punishable in the civilised world by imprisonment and in some Arabic countries hanging by the neck until death.

So this makes what has happened in Cyprus one of the most horrific and despicable offences that should not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Many times in the past we have seen people captured by terrorists blackmailing the government with their demands, and to my knowledge most of the time these governments prefer to have their own people killed by their captives rather than give into them.

Two weeks ago our new inexperienced President of Cyprus was invited with his ministers for a meeting, in order to discuss a bailout assistance of between €15-€17 billion, an insignificant amount in order to put our economy in a fairly strong position and to correct the mess that the eurocrats created for us when they pulled a dirty trick to Greece, with a haircut which devalued their shares, and that of our banks, which had invested heavily.

This eurocrats dirty trick affected us so badly financially, that we asked the guilty ones in Europe for a small amount of money to get us by until we found our feet again.

At the meeting the eurocrats, including the German finance minister, all of a sudden turned

into blackmailers. They announced publicly that unless our president agreed by Monday night to go back to Cyprus and order two main banks to steal the money from its own people they would start starving the population of Cyprus by closing down our banks by Tuesday morning.

Our inexperienced President who promised the people of Cyprus that he would never accept any haircut or even discuss it, let us down very badly.

He tried and persuaded his government that the best way was to give into the blackmailers telling them otherwise it would be catastrophic.

Mr President, you should have come back like a Spartan with your head held high and told your people: “I, Nicos Anastasiades, will not give in to blackmailers no matter what.

We may lose a little weight but I promise you that we shall stand on our own two feet with our own Cyprus Pound and enjoy the respect and the assistance that we should start receiving from the civilised European countries and especially from Russia and Great Britain.

Now you have to live with your mistake for the rest of your life unless you reverse this disgusting situation immediately.

Eric Paschalis, Limassol

It’s not a tax, it’s criminal Surely the taking of people’s “legitimate savings” is “criminal theft”. This action by the European Union is not a tax on earnings, nor does it limit itself to illicit or criminal bank account holdings, which undoubtedly need to be investigated.

The people of Cyprus should demand of the European Court of Justice that they order the immediate return of purloined monies, and the possible compensation to victims. They might also look into criminal charges against the perpetrators, whether domestic or foreign, and no matter how high their rank.

After WWII, the courts have already acknowledged that all property, whether real or financial, taken without consent by the Nazi regime, was to be restored as soon as possible.

Brian Lucas, South East Asia

Family can’t catch a break A new era of repossessions?

I run a small stall each weekend as a hobby. People aren’t spending. Three weeks ago, a boy stopped to look at my ‘jelly cake’, so I gave it to him and his family to share. No charge. The delight on their faces when they tasted it was amazing.

Later I was told a storm had taken the roof from their home, where they could not remain and were unemployed and living on food charity. So my gift to them was the first real fun they’d enjoyed in ages.

We stay in touch with them and share what we have.

The parents are very crea-

tive jewellers and the father has a large vehicle licence, is a talented metalworker, creative landscaper as well. Their last attempt to start their own business failed, however they do still have a sandwich van.

Everywhere they stopped and tried to trade they were told in no uncertain terms to get out. Not having any powerful connections and being peace loving folk, they don’t have somewhere to trade.

Could the event organisers for Kataklysmos forego the fee for them, as it would be a lifeline?

RY Larnaca

It has been stated that ‘non-performing’ loans are to be hived off into the ‘bad’ bank which is due to be liquidated.

We know that, prior to this point of restructuring, the ‘title deeds’ problem was compounded by developers’ re-mortgaging of properties they had already sold and that the issue of who had primary ownership was legislated by the previous government as being based on the contract of sale in order to begin remedying the situation.

But this wasn’t retroactive, meaning the original problem is still there and, to make matters worse, the troika were demanding that the banks reclassify ‘non-performing’ loans as those that had not been serviced for a much shorter time period than was being done so locally and to begin the process of repossession much sooner. So, these ‘bad’ loans that are due to be split off from the ‘new’ bank are either going to be classified the old way or the troika way and there is a big difference between the two. Could we be seeing a new era in Cyprus of mass repossessions?

Jamie Thompson, Parekklisia

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13 SUNDAY MAIL •April 7, 2013

Opinion Similarities between compromise independence and the terms of the bailout

Tough bailout has echoes in recent history A

S THE final terms of Cyprus’ financial settlement and bailout come out, an all-too familiar theme in Cypriot history is apparent. Cyprus’ destiny is not in the hands of Cypriots, but in the hands of powerful interests outside of the island.

Cyprus’ vulnerability to external events has been reaffirmed along with its vulnerability to putative partners whose interests may not align completely with Cypriot interests. Cyprus’ destiny has been shaped by the errors of the few and will be paid for by the many.

As Greek Cypriots commemorated on Monday the anniversary of the start of Cyprus’ struggle for unification with Greece, and as the pain of the bailout is realised, we can reflect on some disturbing connections between Cyprus’ birth and its present situation.

In 1955 when Greek Cypriot nationalists in EOKA spearheaded their violent campaign to end British control and achieve unification with Greece, they were broadly supported by Greek Cypriot society in general. Its ideology, however - nationalist, anti-communist, and ultra-conservative - held less universal appeal.

Although many Cypriots supported the idea of unification with Greece, EOKA’s design meant that Turkish Cypriots and leftist-Greek Cypriots were opposed to its methods if not its goals. The fundamental mistake of ignoring these large interests within the island’s population (18 per cent Turkish Cypriots, 30-35 per cent Greek Cypriot leftists) meant that the goal of union was a long-shot. At the same time, EOKA’s ideological focus blinded the struggle’s leaders to the relevance of powerful interests outside Cyprus who would also be skeptical about unification with Greece - most prominently, Turkey.

These limitations put real limits on what the movement could achieve and left Cyprus with the unsatisfying compromise of independence in 1960. British bases were maintained and Britain, Greece, and Turkey became guarantor powers for maintaining the new country’s complex and unwieldy constitution. In 1974, Turkey used this power to invade Cyprus.

Independence was not what the men and

Comment Andrew Novo woman of EOKA fought for, nor was it the desired political outcome for the majority of Greek Cypriots. The struggle had external consequences almost immediately. In 1955, the half a million Greeks living in Istanbul suffered riots sponsored by the Turkish government. By the end of the decade hundreds of thousands had fled the city.

In 1958, intercommunal violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots claimed dozens of lives, forcing Greece and Turkey to the negotiating table to avoid a war within NATO. Secret Greek and Turkish negotiations in 1959 settled on independence as an acceptable solution for the two “motherlands”.

Archbishop Makarios, who represented Greek Cypriot interests at later negotiations, was presented with a fait accompli sign the deal for independence or face the end of political and material Greek support.

Confronted with such a stark choice, Makarios did what politicians are frequently called upon to do and chose the less bad of the two bad choices facing him and accepted Cypriot independence.

OUTSIDE INTERESTS Greek Cypriot leaders like Makarios and EOKA’s commander, George Grivas, had not considered the real and powerful interest of Turkey in Cyprus. They had not calculated correctly the influence Turkey would exert on British and Greek policymakers in moving them away from agreeing to union with threats of a regional war.

They had not calculated that Cyprus would be unable to sustain a revolution without Greek support and that Greek support could be undercut by Turkish pressure.

Nor had they understood Greece’s fundamentally precarious position: weakened by German occupation, civil war and dependent on British aid for its survival. In such a state, Greece was poorly placed to devote resources to a struggle against British interests or to risk provoking Turkish hostility.

Greek Cypriot leaders had not considered

Archbishop Makarios at the ceremony announcing Cyprus’ independence that there would be real and painful costs to Greece if they chose to pursue union through violence.

Confronting the realities of the broader region, Cyprus was offered a unique solution within the canon of anti-colonial struggles: independence, foreign bases and foreign guarantor powers with the right of intervention. Subsequent events proved the solution to be an innovative but messy and unstable compromise.

In 2013, Greek Cypriot policymakers have once more confronted powerful interests presenting them with bad and worse policy options. As in the 1950s, they are there because of short-sighted and narrow-minded leadership which ignored the world around them. As in the 1950s, they have attempted to improve their situation by leaning on allies, particularly Greece, but those allies, especially Greece, have been in no position to help. During recent negotiations with the EU, for example, Cyprus approached Greece about releasing unused money from the Hellenic stability fund to help only to be flatly refused.

Greek Cypriot leaders have now attempted to negotiate the least bad option they can involving substantial depositor haircuts, privatisations, new taxes on income and interest and bank failures.

The policies Greek Cypriots will have to

live with, however, will not be those of their choosing. As in 1959 and 1960, choices are being shaped by others. Powerful foreign interests have once more dictated terms and Cypriot leaders have had to pick from the distasteful menu options.

As at Cyprus’ birth, more powerful nations have used this small island as a test case for an experimental solution designed to deal with profoundly complex problems.

There is fault enough to go around, but poor management of limited national resources has left Cyprus painfully exposed while international agreements seem to offer less protection than hoped.

As a small country, Cyprus has less room for error than its larger neighbours and the settlement terms have been correspondingly harsh. As these policies are put into place and all Greek Cypriot citizens become a little financially less secure, we have cause to remember the 1950s and the struggle that lead to a result few wanted but everyone paid for. It is hard to avoid the feeling that Cyprus has been in a similar situation before. We must all hope now that the future course will be less treacherous than the one dictated in the past.

Andrew Novo is assistant professor of strategic studies at the National Defense University in Washington DC

Suspect ‘truth’ over BoC buying of Greek bonds Comment Loucas Charalambous THE FORMER chief executive officer of the Bank of Cyprus Andreas Eliades - the man considered responsible for the destruction of the bank - decided to give his views about the crisis for the first time last Tuesday.

He issued a long-winded announcement with the aim, he wrote, of giving a picture of the absolute truth. It was titled ‘Truths and lies’. I am in no position to say how many truths were contained in his announcement, but I think that some of the things he wrote were blatant lies. I will restrict myself to one issue, the infamous sale and subsequent re-purchase of Greek government bonds that left the Bank of Cyprus with losses in the region of €2 billion.

He wrote that the purchase was made with “unanimous, on the record decisions by all the relevant committees and the board of directors” and the “claim that the purchase was made without the knowledge of the bank’s board of directors is a lie.”

These are the facts. On December 12, 2009, Yiannis Kypris, the first general manager of the group, told Stockwatch website that “the exposure of the bank to Greek bonds is very small.” He explained that from the start of that year until October, 1.7 billion bonds had been sold and the bank only held 100 million (106 million, on October 12, 2009 to be precise). “For us, there is no longer any danger,” he said.

Two days later, at a meeting of the bank’s board, at which Eliades was present, his trusted lieutenant Nicholas Karydas, after referring to the recent downgrading of

Greece’s credit rating, said, according to the minutes, the following: “The risk undertaken by the bank, in relation to the bonds of the Greek government, is low as the Bank of Cyprus significantly reduced its holdings of Greek bonds from the start of the year until October.”

This shows the culpability of Eliades and Karydas. While they were assuring the board that the bank had “significantly reduced” its holdings of Greek bonds and the “risk is low”, at the same time they hid the fact that on December 1 they had again bought 50 million bonds and on December 10, 2009 (the day before the above-mentioned board meeting) another 100 million.

This was considered calculated deception of the board by members, but even though this is gist of the matter, Eliades avoided addressing it in his announcement.

But this was not the end of the matter. Four days later, on December 15, the bank bought another 305 million bonds, on January 4 of the following year another 50 million, on January 5 45m, January 7 25m, January 8 25m, January 12 200m and January 14 100m.

The buying frenzy continued until March 19 by which time the total holdings had become 2.106 billion. There were two more purchases on July 4 and September 4 of 2010, by which time the whole world knew that Greece was, in effect, bankrupt. So, in October 2010, exactly a year after it had unloaded them, the Bank of Cyprus held 2,068,350,000 Greek government bonds.

Eliades claimed that all these crazy and insane ‘investments’ were unanimously sanctioned by the board of directors. He should provide some proof for his claim, because the truth is that the pur-

chases of bonds on December 1 and 10 2009 had not been mentioned at the board meeting of December 12. It is difficult under the circumstances to accept that Eliades has the monopoly on the truth.

I am not suggesting that the other members of the board are blameless, especially those who subsequently accused Eliades of autocratic behaviour and of imposing his wishes on the board by threats of resigning. The fact that they tolerated this behaviour makes them culpable.

Of course this does not change the strong impression that the former CEO does not give “a picture of the absolute truth”, with regard to what happened in December 2009. Hopefully, the truth will be revealed by the investigative committee appointed by the government, because we need to know how the biggest bank in Cyprus was driven to bankruptcy.

14 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Opinion

The year of the locust Comment David Officer and Yiouli Taki

I

N THE future, historians may very well look back on 2013 as the year of the locust. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries agricultural production was severely disrupted by locust swarms as they passed through the island. They left devastation in their wake, not only threatening the livelihoods of many farmers but the economy of Cyprus as a whole.

The locusts have returned and the demand for solidarity, the need to pull together in the face of the devastation they have left, has become the exhortation of the moment. This time it is not the lazy language of former President Christofias ventriloquising the ‘eurospeak’ of ‘social solidarity’ and ‘social cohesion’ in the European parliament. The concrete demand for solidarity in the face of catastrophe has displaced his empty rhetoric and re-entered the lexicon of local politicians as they seek to shore up a deeply traumatised society.

But this is not a rerun of the years immediately following the Turkish invasion in 1974. After all, Cyprus is a very different place now, transformed by the development strategy set in motion during those years which aimed at developing tourism alongside an opportunistic economic model through which to attract passing foreign capital by recreating Cyprus as a tax haven.

Solidarity proceeds on the basis of identifying a binding agent through which people, who may otherwise be very different from each other, find common cause. In the mid-1970s this was based on the exclusive principle of being a Greek Cypriot, a strategy that is simply not possible today. A demand based on this principle cannot have the same purchase in a society that is now far more complex and diverse. After all, 23 per cent of people living in the south are not of Cypriot origin but they have befallen the same fate as the majority population.

Rather than see us bound by an idea of commonly shared blood we ought to proceed by recognising that each and every one of us has befallen the same fate. And with that firmly in mind we should expect to share the burdens of our predicament, burdens which should be distributed on the basis of an acute sense of social justice.

This will be a considerable challenge in a country where the state has been treated as a public resource to be plundered for personal or party advantage rather than serving the citizen.

In short, the state we have experienced is better understood as being a factory of grievance, a grand mechanism through which everything from jobs to welfare benefits, planning permission and access to certain forms of health care have been distributed on the basis of who you know, the family name you possess or the party you belong to.

All of us have been subjected to a system based on what you were prepared to exchange (a vote, a returned favour or money) to gain access to what was, in many cases, rightfully yours. This was the social glue that bound people together, an unspoken system of corrupt exchanges which many felt compelled to engage in since, it was calculated, there was no use in being the only straight player in a corrupt game of poker.

A state and society mindful of social justice distributes public resources according to just and transparent criteria and treats each one of us liv-

Denying the right to wheelchair users to move freely by parking our cars on pavements while making the grand gesture of donating to the Radio Marathon is typical of our unjust society

The coming recession will bring to the fore the vicious circle of rising demands for fair distribution of adequate state services, but little trust in the state to deliver, and no desire to pay taxes to fund what is likely to remain only the pale impression of what could be

own lives or experience the dignity of being treated as no better or worse than anybody else.

We all need to take responsibility for our own actions. Let us not forget those occasions when we parked our car on the pavement to get that little bit closer to the coffee-shop and ended up denying the right of the wheelchair user to move freely.

Of course we should not delude ourselves that there remains a mountain to climb to realise anything approaching a just society. The biggest challenge will be reforming the state, reforms not only aimed at ensuring that each one of us is treated on an equitable basis but also that the welfare of its people extends beyond cash benefits and meagre public services.

In the absence of a national health service, comprehensive welfare provision and a well-resourced public transportation system people may still feel compelled to reach for private solution to what, after all, are public problems. In the past, many opted to send their children to private schools, seek treatment in private clinics and buy yet another car, resulting in Cyprus having the highest number of vehicle per head of population in Europe.

But that was then, and this is now. Whilst a comfortable, but evercontracting section, of the middle classes may be able to cocoon themselves from some of the worst effects of austerity, and resulting recession, the rest of society will face a common fate. What previously stopped the development of public education, health and transport provision is likely to remain in place. Many refused to believe that the state was capable of providing well targeted and cost-effective public provision to which all had equal access.

With this understandable belief firmly entrenched, the rationale to

‘There was no use

in being the only straight player in a corrupt game of poker’ In the 19th century farmers had to pull together to fight the devastating plagues of locusts which destroyed crops and livelihoods year after year. They have now returned in a different form ing here in an impartial way. When consistent polling data records that nine out of ten people judge our society to be deeply corrupt it was not necessarily a comment on the large sums of illicit money exchanging hands - apparently a particular prerogative of large swathes of our ruling elite - but more a widespread expression of a sense of injustice as to how the Cypriot system has worked.

Unfortunately, unless we seriously attend to the demands of social justice which ought to be offered by the state this sense of injustice will become increasingly loud and angry.

As more people become dependent on the poor and inefficient services offered by such institutions as the Welfare Department and the Labour Office the sense of unfair treatment is only likely to grow.

As state revenues dwindle a struggle over increasingly scarce resources will intensify and distinction will become clearly drawn between the deserving and the undeserving poor.

The pursuit of social solidarity will appear as a chimera, beyond reach and replaced by an incessant war be-

tween conflicting interest groups.

Rights and entitlements will be replaced by the giving of charity, a tendency which characterises the spontaneous response of sections of Cypriot society headed by the richest private institution on the island - the Orthodox Church.

Not only is this akin to handing a victim a plaster after they have been cut down by a machine gun, but it’s a poor substitution for the discharge of duties which we ought to associate with a modern, liberal democratic state.

This is not to dismiss charitable efforts as such. We have no doubt that large numbers of people on this island will respond by helping their neighbour and display all the commendable virtues of altruism, whether accompanied by the bells and smells of the godly or not.

However, a bigger and more valuable prize will be secured if we demand that the state acts to distribute burdens fairly, begins to treat people in an impartial manner and attends to human need, based on the principle of social justice. This would imply

treating each one of us as an equal bearer of rights who would be in receipt of help and assistance irrespective of who we are, the party we vote for, the family name we bear or the ethnicity or gender which marks us as different.

Back in January, Christos Nicolaides, the head of the Cyprus Confederation of Organisations of the Disabled (KYSOA), not only railed against the cuts imposed on welfare benefits but also complained about the lack of any serious consultation with the affected groups. He talked of people with rights, who just happened to be disabled, and delivered a pointed jab in the direction of the annual spectacle which is the RadioMarathon.

This well-aimed assault highlighted a society that tends to think that responsibilities are discharged by an act of beneficence, where the recipient is rendered as a mute victim, to be seen and not heard. The giver usually feels a whole lot better about themselves but the outcome does little to create conditions within which we take responsibility for our

avoid paying your taxes hoves into view. And so a vicious circle remains unbroken with rising demands for adequate services made, but little trust in the state to deliver, and no desire to pay our taxes to fund what is likely to remain only the pale impression of what could be.

Until the 1880s Cyprus was regularly afflicted by plagues of real locusts.

Because of the nature of the plague it could never have been solved by the actions of the lone farmer and no one trusted the other to contribute fairly to solving what was a common problem. As the economic historian Alexandros Apostolides has recently recorded, the colonial administration introduced a common tax, fairly applied, which provided a protected source of revenue through which to tackle this blight in a planned, controlled and efficient manner. In 1926 the tax was abolished and two decades later the locusts returned.

There is a very important lesson in there somewhere.

David Officer teaches sociology at the University of Nicosia. Yiouli Taki is senior researcher for INDEX: Research and Dialogue

15 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Opinion We must learn to exchange souvla for beans and cream cakes for heavy village bread

uotes of the week “We never fight. That is because I am Pisces and she is Libra. I am a fish moving horizontally and she is weighing scales going up and down, so there is no conflict”.

Entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth on his wife Wilnelia

The end of excess We are slowly beginning to realise the implications of the contents of the first troika memorandum

I

NOW consider the island’s economic outlook so dire that I have decided to write in support of my honest compatriots rather than perpetually and pointlessly attacking a ‘certain class’.

The blame for our forthcoming poverty rests squarely with those who presume to rule Europe by subjugating the weak, known collectively as PIGS, failing to include the letter C in that porcine anagram of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.

While I write, my wife and friends are shopping at Lidl with a siege mentality, stocking up to take food parcels to the next Cyprus Aid show while ‘les artistes’ are still, at least, singing.

Finding the ‘guilty’ and dragging them by the scruff of their necks through protracted court cases serves no purpose other than hiding the truth behind lies, damn lies and statistics.

The ‘guilty’ have no case to answer. All money transfers prior to restrictions were performed legally if not immorally and unpatriotically. Stop wasting our time and money on pointless investigations while the ever increasing poor starve and the rest of us live in the vain hope of an economic upturn which will never happen. We need, above all, to be told the truth. How bad things are and how much worse they will become!

We are a proud people that have been humiliated, and humility is something that doesn’t come easy to BMW and Merc drivers, who until now reserved it for third country nationals walking our streets, riding our blue buses and picnicking in our parks. But as we slowly begin to realise the true implications of the contents of the first and future memoranda, we will be obliged to cower lower and genuflect.

During the EOKA period Cyprus was dubbed ‘the asshole of the world’, but immediately after the republic’s presidency of the Council of Ministers of Europe, when we asked who was that man dressed from head to toe in white standing by Christofias on the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square, we have been belittled beyond insignificance.

We are variably accused of being the illegal human trafficking and money laundering centre of the Near East pronouncements denied by our politi-

Comment Hermes Solomon cians, elite businessmen and bankers.

We have been depicted as the lowest of the low and in turn are being well and truly stung by those WASPs, who disingenuously profess righteousness through the power of untold wealth perpetuated by police protection modelled after ‘Paris, le mois de mai, 68’ (Léo Ferré).

Archbishop Chrysostomos has fallen from the heights of Mount Athos to the depths of misery in a single month.

We are now treated with abuse, irreverence and contempt. Profanity flies above the Cyprus flag alongside her limp Greek mother. Some of my more outspoken compatriots have stooped to burning the EU flag as if it were an effigy of Herr Schauble und Frau Merkel, both not directly to blame for our present predicament.

I will not bother to question the contents of the first memorandum, but worry more about the likely contents of the second and third, our country having all but lost the benefits of physical air (gas), although this has been brazenly denied by government spokesman, Christos Stylianides and commerce minister, Giorgios Lakkotrypis.

But we no longer believe a word of what politicians say; their impotent promises and projections.

The words trust and distrust have become synonymous. If they were not, we would be told what to expect, not simply that 2013 and early 2014 will be a hard time for us all, thereafter an upturn! Those were the last words of Michaelis Sarris ahead of his resignation.

On Wednesday I watched a Co-op bank clerk failing to explain to my 75year-old ‘demented’ cousin that his life’s savings of less than 100,000 euros were no longer his property - to have and to hold from this day forth - no

longer to do with as he chose. He began shaking in disbelief and I took him home.

We honest but now impoverished citizens, financially imprisoned on this beautiful yet bankrupt island, will endure hardships known only to those compatriots born before 1945. Others must learn to survive on one meagre meal a day, learn how to occupy themselves usefully when unemployed, how to help each other, how to love their fellow man and to hate luxury cars and concrete palaces that they will no longer be able to afford to run, heat and light. We must exchange souvla for beans and cream cakes for heavy village bread, sushi for pasta, crème fraîche for home-made yogurt, and Brazilian mangoes or Chilean Ipomoea batatas (sweet potato) for Cyprus fruit and veg.

We must learn rapidly to be reasonable and reject excess as do four fifths of the world’s population by force of circumstance rather than by choice. And we will become whole again and successfully supplant today’s transparent exhibitionists!

The tragedy of Cyprus is that we have been led by a ‘certain class’, which have, for decades, taken us from one disaster to another. That ‘certain class’ (combined with intellectually and politically immature hoi polloi) has served us spiked cocktails which reached their apogee when we elected a so-called communist president in 2008.

Both north and south rely heavily on tourism, foreign aid and investment.

We are not the ‘assholes of the world’, just today’s flavour in asses.

Patriots! Do not cry for your beloved country. It is not the first to be broken.

Others will surely follow in our footsteps… tomorrow’s flavour could well be tax-free havens like Luxembourg and the Caymans.

BTW, has anybody bothered to calculate the total cost of 300,000 withdrawals of 300 euros per credit card per day? These monetary restrictions and controls are a nonsense that will cost the troika, and more particularly, the ordinary citizens of the south, dearly.

The troika must stop this insensate abuse of our human rights immediately!

“I had a nasty experience with a snowy white llama called Darren which Matthew Parris owns. It not only fancied his Aunt Vera, it took a shine to me, too”.

Tory MP Michael Fabricant after staying with the commentator and former Tory MP, the llama-owning Parris “I will talk exactly the same to the Queen, and have done many times, as I am talking to you or the woman cleaning the hotel room”.

Sir Michael Caine, talking to a reporter and saying he does not like people calling him “sir”

“There has been some snobbishness particularly among the much older generation. There’s class and then there’s the racial thing. It’s a jungle and I am going through it”.

Emma McQuiston, who is set to become Britain’s first black marchioness in June after her marriage to Ceawlin Thynn, Viscount of Weymouth, when he inherits the title of the Marquess of Bath “What on earth do you mean? I am most offended - I am not old”.

Gay actor Sir Ian McKellen when told that the original working title for a new TV sitcom was to be Vicious Old Queens

“The punishment of Cyprus reminds me of the comment made by an American army officer in Vietnam: ‘In order to save the town, it was necessary to destroy it’”.

John Harris, of Winchester, Hampshire, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph “I have been unemployed twice in my life so I have already done this. I know what it is like to be on the breadline”.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith hits back at the man who challenged him to live on £53 a week

“It focuses very much on the relationship between David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and it has a big opera feel to it - I mean it is a sort of love story that’s gone wrong” Composer and lyricist Olaf Dyliparos on his projected show The Coalition - The Musical

“Joan Rivers having a pop at Adele? She should take a look in the mirror herself - she looks like a melted plastic cat”.

Mrs GED King, of Tyninghame, East Lothian, on the comedienne who described the pop singer as “fat”

16 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

World in pictures

Activists of the women’s movement Femen demonstrate in front of the Great Mosque of Brussels (AFP) Soldiers of the US Army’s 23rd Chemical Battalion wear protective gear to give a demonstration of their equipment as iRobot PackBot moves during a ceremony in South Korea (AFP)

An Israeli soldier fires a tear gas canister during clashes with Palestinian stone throwers in the West Bank (AFP)

Street entertainer The Naked Cowgirl performs on Times Square in New York

(AFP)

Young Slovak men dressed in traditional costumes pour a bucket with cold water over a woman as part of Easter celebrations in the village of Trencianska Tepla (AFP)

Members of Grandmothers Against the War, Granny Peace Brigade, the Raging Grannies and other groups hoist a model of a drone in the air as they protest the US military’s use of drones (AFP)

A Palestinian teacher speaks in class at a school in Gaza City after a law banning mixed sex schooling in the Gaza Strip entered into force (AFP)

Uruguayan Nacional supporters cheer their team with a giant flag during a Libertadores Cup match (AFP)

A South Korean soldier closes a gate of a military guard area near the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas (AFP)

17 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Coffeeshop

Cunning commies and the used-bank salesman ANDREAS Vgenopoulos has been taking Cypriots for a ride ever since 2006 when he arrived in Kyproulla promising to turn Laiki Bank into a banking colossus that would make all its shareholders mega-wealthy and Kyproulla the banking centre of the Middle East.

Almost seven years later, Laiki has not even survived as a banking midget, the silver-tongued Athens used-bank salesman leading it to bankruptcy before it had a chance to grow up into the regional colossus he had promised its naive Cypriot shareholders.

And the guy is still taking us for a ride today - like his great friend the village idiot he is marketing his blamelessness - issuing statements blaming everyone except himself for Laiki’s bankruptcy, threatening libel actions against his few critics and seeking sympathy by claiming he was a wronged victim of slander and mud-slinging.

Vgen should be thanking the Lord instead of moaning, because after all the pain and misery he has caused Kyproulla, his victims should have been firing ballistic missiles at him, not just dirt, and demanding to drink blood.

The weird thing is that hardly any Cypriot has turned against Vgen. who took over our second biggest bank by giving its shareholders hugely overpriced shares in his Greek banks, made a big personal fortune out of the deal, invested Laiki billions in worthless Greek bonds and then completely bankrupted Laiki with billions of debts to cover the dodgy deals his Greece-based banks were making, like giving unsecured, low interest loans for investments in share-support scams.

We Cypriots are normally out on the streets protesting or taking legal action for the most trivial reasons, which makes you wonder why Vgen’s mega-contribution to the economy’s collapse has been ignored. He can’t have the whole population in his pocket.

THE AKEL mob has always offered protection to Vgen when it was in power and he was always welcome to the presidential palace.

We do not know what a ruthless banker could have done to earn mafia-type protection from idealistic communists but offering big amounts of money to the Party could have had something to do with it. The commies may have made the banking crisis at the centre of their blame-shifting, propaganda campaign, they may have talked about the greedy bankers, but Vgen was never mentioned, as if he had nothing to do with it.

The comrades had the nerve to recruit the help of the dodgy banker, in their unrelenting war against former Governor Orphanides, who according to AKEL was more to blame for Laiki’s insolvency than the man who actually caused it. They even cited comments made against Orph by the virtuous Vgen as proof that the Governor’s supervision was inadequate.

So inadequate that comrade Tof had once called Orph to ask him to bend the banking rules for Vgen’s sake. If Orph had not ignored the presidential request his supervision would have been more adequate THE RELEASE on Thursday of the findings of the Alvarez and Marsal (A&M) investigation into the causes of the banking crisis showed how the commies were offering protection to the banker, via their apparatchiks at the Central Bank.

While AKEL and the Central Bank Governor, Professor Panicos were claiming that an in-depth investigation would be carried out to establish who was to blame for the crisis in the banking sector, in the end, Laiki was not investigated properly at the request of the Central Bank, an admission made in the report by A & M. The report said: “The Mandate originally anticipated a robust investigation of the need for CPB (Cyprus Popular Bank) to have required State-aid and the rights offering by which the State became the 84% equity-holder. This was to have addressed the shifting of CPB Greek liabilities to the Cypriot balance sheet. We were advised early in the investigative process, that the CEO of CPB, Andreas Philippou, discussed with Senior Director at the CBC (Cyprus Central Bank), litigation being brought by the Stateowned CPB against Greece and the concern that an internal CBC of the same would impact or jeopardise any potential recovery. This began an internal dialogue that resulted in a narrowing of the CPB investigation. As a result, the investigation in respect of MPB (Marfin Popular Bank) was limited to the Laiki conversion and only from the perspective of the CBC’s supervision of this conversion.”

This paragraph reveals AKEL’s protection of Vgen and how it used its apparatchiks at the Central Bank to ensure his scams at MPB (this was how the bank was known during Vgen’s reign) were covered up, by not being investigated.

So the investigation of the banking crisis, ordered by the AKEL apparatchik masquerading as an independent state official, Governor Panicos focused almost exclusively on the Bank of Cyprus, which was in a much better financial position than Laiki – it was not insolvent and it had not taken €9 billion in ELA. THE INVESTIGATION, in respect to MPB, Professor Panicos wanted “was limited to the Laiki conversion and only from the perspective of the CBC’s supervision of this conversion,” wrote A&M. The A&M technocrats must have thought Panicos had a screw loose paying the firm millions for an investigation and then asking them not to bother investigating one of the two banks. He did not have a screw loose, but as an independent state official was merely following the AKEL diktats.

The cunning commies, in their war against Orph, had made a big issue out of the fact that he had allowed Laiki to convert its loss-making Greece-based subsidiary Marfin Egnatia into a branch. This merger meant that all liabilities were transferred to Laiki and Marfin Egnatia came under the authority of Cyprus’ Central Bank which would be responsible for covering its capital needs.

Vgen’s AKEL henchmen had been arguing that if Orph had not allowed the merger, Laiki would not have lumbered itself with the big losses of Marfin Egnatia which was also drawing billions of emergency liquidity from Laiki via our Central Bank.

Again, the comrades blamed Orph, for supposedly allowing this to happen, but not Vgen who took the decision, taking billions for his bank in Greece and leaving Kyproulla to pick up the ELA bill.

This was why Professor Panicos asked that the investigation was limited to the Laiki conversion and “only from the perspective of the CBC’s supervision of this conversion.” The professor did not allow an

investigation from the perspective of Vgen conning Laiki’s shareholders and authorities with the conversion, because it did not fit in with AKEL’s propaganda plans and its efforts to promote Vgen’s innocence.

I would not be surprised if Vgen did not have a direct input in the formulation of the A&M’s terms of reference, via his comrade protectors.

THIS WOULD also explain why last Monday Vgen issued a statement insisting he had done nothing wrong (it was April Fool’s Day) and urging the authorities to make public all investigative reports into the banking fiasco. He knew that the A&M investigative report would have nothing incriminating against him, as his protectors had explicitly ordered the investigators not to look into his scams.

ALAS, the investigation did not come up with the desired results, A&M displaying more integrity than the officials who gave it the skewed terms of reference. Orph could not have stopped the merger, according to the report released on Thursday.

“The structure of the regulations and legislation is such that under the Mergers Directive the bank (Laiki) did not require any authorisation from the CBC, this resulted in the bank being able to transfer the assets and liabilities (of Marfin Egnatia) to Cyprus without approval of the CBC “… it would appear that the current regulation and legislation does not provide sufficient support to the CBC where a Cypriot bank wishes to convert an existing foreign subsidiary into a branch.”

THE COMMIES must still be in control of the CyBC which on its main evening news on Thursday night declared “Clear responsibility of the Central Bank of Cyprus for the change of Marfin Egnatia from subsidiary to branch of Laiki Bank says Alvarez and Marsal report.”

Anyone who read the above paragraphs would know that the A&M report said the exact opposite. But the CyBC listed all the problems of Marfin Egnatia, which the Central Bank knew about “but did nothing to stop the transfer of the subsidiary to Cyprus.” The report then mentioned the two, above-mentioned paragraphs which made a mockery of its “clear responsibility” claim.

APART from AKEL, the other organisation that has given its unwavering support to Vgen was ETYK, the bank employees union, whose self-important leader, Loizos Hadjicostis, had been one of the most vociferous supporters of the Greek banker.

He even honoured Vgen in 2012, awarding him a commemorative ETYK plaque during a special ceremony. Hadjicostis’ love of the man who caused the loss of more than

Andreas Vgenopoulos: I didn’t do anything wrong... honest 2,000 banking jobs and subjected the provident funds to a big haircut, could be attribute to the fact that he agreed to have a member of ETYK on his bank board.

He may also have made a big contribution to the union. The fact that Vgen also gave a job to Hadjicostis’ daughter would not have influenced the union boss because he is a man of integrity.

VGEN had also given a highly-paid job to the then son-in-law of former Governor of the Central Bank Tttooulis Ttoouli, who was in charge at the time the banker came to Kyproulla offering his overpriced Marfin Egnatia shares in order to take over Laiki.

The outspoken, bash-patriotic Ttooulis, who has been appearing on TV and radio shows telling us that we should take a stand against the nasty Europeans, was, like Hadjicostis, a loyal supporter of Vgen. This loyalty was repaid in 2007 when Ttooulis’ term as Governor was reaching its expiry date and Vgen wrote to the president asking him to renew it.

Such was Vgen’s arrogance at the time that he felt he should choose his supervisor. But the Ethnarch, bless him, did not oblige.

OUR POLITICIANS have been making a lot of noise about the people and companies that moved money out of the Cyprus banks in the fortnight before the Eurogroup meeting, demanding that all names were released by the Central Bank. The implication was that the people and companies who had the sense to move money out in the first 15 days of March had insider information, from President Anastasiades or his inner circle. But did anyone really need insider information to move his money out of Laiki, a bank that had been insolvent for over a year, especially when all the eurozone bigwigs were publicly talking about a haircut of deposits?

Could it be that our deputies felt

sore that they had not had the sense to move their money out of Laiki and B of C before March 15 and wanted to publicly humiliate those who had? Or were they suggesting that it would have been a patriotic act for someone to leave his money in Laiki, and lose everything above 100 grand?

We did not hear any deputy asking how much money Vgen, who more than anyone should have paid for Laiki’s bankruptcy, had, patriotically, deposited in the bank.

PERHAPS deputies were hoping to start a witch-hunt to deflect attention away from their resoundingly stupid ‘no’ to the levy on deposits that was a much better deal than the subsequent one reached on March 25. This attempt to persecute people, who had done nothing wrong apart from acting rationally to protect their money, worked as the experience of the in-laws of President Nik’s daughter – Andys and Katia Loutsios – illustrated. Haravghi, the AKEL mouthpiece, reported last Sunday that the Loutsios family had moved money out of Laiki a few days before the Eurogroup meeting, the implication being that the in-laws had been tipped off.

The couple issued a apologetic statement explaining that they had withdrawn €21 million, half going to the B of C and the other half to Barclays in London, for the purchase of a property; they had not been tipped off by the president-in-law.

Such was the outcry against them that on Tuesday the maligned Mr and Mrs Loutsios felt obliged to announce that if the property purchase fell through they would bring back the €10.5 million from London, voluntarily haircut it and donate the haircut amount to a church charity that provides food to poor people.

The property purchase fell through, because the land opposite Kykkos monastery they were planning on buying is no longer for sale, so the voluntary haircut is inevitable.

18 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

special report

MindBody&Spirit Get a holistic listic view In these times of crisis, it is essential to be grateful for what we have. The Mind, Body & Spirit exhibition next weekend offers a wealth of people willing to help you achieve this HIS time of financial crisis could well be a blessing in disguise.

When the systems on which we think we depend fall apart it gives us the opportunity to realise what is truly of value – what is in our heart and between our ears – our heartfelt relationships and our personal knowledge and experience.

Money and possessions can be taken from us but friend-

T

ships and what we have learned and experienced are ours forever. Although it may seem desirable to have fancy things, many wealthy people will tell you that you cannot buy health or happiness. Of course, we need to make money to support ourselves and our families but by getting out of the fear of blame into an attitude of being grateful for what we have all sorts of new possibilities

and creative solutions begin to appear.

People who have invested their time and a bit of money developing their inner riches are in a much stronger position when it comes to weathering the difficult situations that we all must face. When we take responsibility for our own welfare, not putting the blame for our troubles on governments, banks or foreign powers, we can become

Benefit from the experience of yogis GARUDA Hellas publishing house was established in 2007 and is based in Thessaloniki, Greece.

It imports yoga books in English, primarily from the Bihar School of Yoga, India.

These books are written by masters and experienced teachers of the Satyananda Yoga tradition and cover a wide range of topics such as techniques for the physical body and breathing practices, relaxation and meditation practices, commentary on ancient texts of yoga philosophy etc. Most importantly, these books are not simply theoretical references but based on the personal experience of yogis who have applied the techniques and teachings, and

scientifically documented the beneficial effects of yoga in various sectors (health, education, sports, etc.).

Garuda Hellas also transDuring this year’s Mind Body Spirit Expo, Garuda Hellas will be at table 27

lates and publishes yoga books in Greek so that the wisdom of yoga can be objectively and scientifically presented to all Greek speaking people.

In addition, it produces audio files and CDs with meditation practices and kirtan (mantras) and visual aids for yoga teachers and students.

truly free, happy and able to help our friends and families. Helping people to reach this point has been the driving force of the Mind, Body and Spirit Exhibitions since their inception.

By learning to take responsibility for our own health and happiness we overcome the fears that cause stress and prevent us from living fully. If you have not visited the Mind, Body &

Spirit Expo in the past, take the opportunity to do so now. For just €8, the price of a cinema ticket, you can spend the whole day attending lectures and classes that will help you to take the first steps to personal freedom.

You will meet many people who are dedicated to helping you reduce stress and find your own path to happiness.

Now in its twelfth year, the

Mind, Body & Spirit Exhibition brings people together to share their knowledge about holistic and natural health, self-development and well-being. Over the years, interest and trust has continually risen on these subjects as more and more people realise the advantages of taking responsibility for their own health and

TURN TO PAGE 20

19

MindBody&Spirit

SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

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wanted was to meet him and start working with his company.

Today, Maria is a successful, passionate and devoted Thinking into Results facilitator. All she wants is to see more people reach their dreams and live a peaceful, joyful happy and abundant life.

She strongly believes that

Visit Maria at the Mind Body & Spirit expo. Presentations Saturday at 3pm and Sunday at midday. Tel: 70007888, info@menicoumaria.com

mation as soon as it receives it. In fact you will experience a quantum leap in results from the moment you begin this programme.

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Making dreams come true: Maria (centre) with Bob Proctor

20 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

MindBody&Spirit

Get a holistic view CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

happiness.

At the MBS Expo you can learn natural ways to combat the stress of modern life; experience hundreds of wonderful products and services aimed to get you glowing and feeling great about yourself, discover natural health, organic products, yoga, spirituality and much more and join the wellbeing experts as they share their experience and knowledge with you at one of the free seminars or workshops. Discover a new path to well being and living a life with a healthy balance - join in as much or as little as you feel like. Many people have said that a visit of the MBS Exhibition changed their life for the better!

A growing number of people are becoming aware of the benefits of holistic health and self-development. During this time of uncertainty, it’s good to take the opportunity to invest in yourself.

By taking responsibility for

your own health and wellbeing you are providing yourself and your family with a treasure that will be with you for the rest of your life, paying dividends in happiness – and also reduced health-care costs!

You can get an excellent overview at Dr. Igor Cetojevic’s presentation What is Holistic Healing? You’ll learn about the many factors that contribute to optimum health and see why prevention really is the best medicine!

Take time to chat with therapists and practitioners, many of whom have themselves been helped by complementary therapies. Helen Christodoulou overcame Multiple Sclerosis without medical intervention and then developed her own healing system, Fusion7 Healing, based on what she learned in the process.

Springtime is a time of rebirth, renewal and joy. Why not join in a Tai Chi or Yoga class and experience for yourself the power of moving meditation? Or dance away your worries with Alexandra’s Soulsa, the meeting of salsa and your soul, or with Eleftheria Biodanza a system of free – and freeing movement!

The Mind, Body & Spirit Exhibition takes place on April 13 & 14 at the St. Rafael Hotel from 11:00- 20:00. The daily entry fee €8 includes all classes and lectures. You will find a full schedule of presentations and list of exhibitors on www.mbscyprus.com.

WHAT’S GOING ON Saturday Megaron Alpha 11:00 - Costa Constantinides and Cathie Timotheou - The Lighthouse School The Lighthouse School An Example of Holistic Education 12:00 - Angela Egwim & Ludmila Marinova Explore and Discover Internal Resources for Better Health And Happiness 14:00 - Dr. Igor Cetojevic What is Holistic Healing?

15:00 - Maria Menicou Thinking Into Results 17:00 - Benny Vervliet Choosing Your Own Personal Crystal 18:00 Xanthi Tsiouka (In Greek ) Reiki - A Touch of Healthy Living and Love

Acupuncturists (In Greek) The Art of Acupuncture 19:00 – Neophytos Efstathiou (in Greek) How To Change What You Don’t Like In Your Life!

Saturday – Megaron Gamma 11:15 - Wil de Boer Self Forgiveness - Meditation 12:00 - Wil de Boer Meditation: Growing Awareness 13:00 - Sergei Kratinov (in Russian/ English and translated as necessary to Greek) The Benefits of a Gluten Free Diet on Our General Wellbeing 14:00 - Siri Shabd Singh - Aquarius Health Kundalini Yoga

19:00 - Kriszta Veres Healing the Atlantis Wounds

16:00 - Helen Christodoulou –Workshop Fusion7 Healing

Saturday – Megaron Beta 11:00 - Master Vasilious Firippis Tai Chi and Sacred Qigong, the Supreme Heart

18:00 - Transcendental Theatre Workshop (in English & Greek) Ideas That Become Theatre - The Illusion of Separation

13:00 - Howard Minton Aura Photography

19:45 - Alexandra Moya Gomez Latin Centre - LA VIDA (In Greek & English) Salsa + Soul = SOULSA (A Musical Equation)

14:00 – Dr. Christothea Antoniadou / ZITRONE Natural Life (In Greek) Veggimanna, Manna Fit & Manna Slim 15:00 - Susan Rudd Angelic Reiki The Healing for Our Time 17:00 - Caroline Carter Biograms and our Amazing Holographic Blood 18:00 – Charis Theocharous - Pancyprian Association of

Outdoor Activities (Weather Permitting) Saturday 12:00 & Sunday 17:00 Thomas Travers Kundalini Yoga Saturday 14:00 & Sunday 15:00 Master Vasilious Firippis & Sylvia Serena The Spirit Of Dance

Saturday 15:00 & Sunday 16:00 English & Greek Yiannis Ioannides - Dragon Hall Wing Chun Kung Fu Wing Chun Demonstration

as Catalysts of Transformation

Saturday 16:00 English & Greek Roulla Demetriou, Dramatherapist Labyrinth - Archetype, Ritual, Transformation

15:00 - The Lighthouse School An Example of Holistic Education

14:00 Evi Holroyd Healing Heart Song Workshop

14:00 - Caroline Evans - Heaven on Earth Herbals Fertility - Making Organic Babies

16:00 Universelles Leben (in Greek) Moments with Animals - Look Me in the Eyes 17:00 - Evi Holroyd Would You Like More Happiness In Your Life?

Sunday -Megaron Alpha 11:00 - Leoniads Flevarakis (In Greek) Enthalpy and Healing from the Source

18:00 - Thasos Panayi (in Greek) The 5th Dimension - Workshop

12:00 - Maria Menicou Thinking Into Results 14:00 – Grigoria Theodosiou. Lo Shu Feng Shui Shop (In Greek & English) Annual Feng Shui Analysis For 2013, Year of The Water Snake 15:00 - Helen Christodoulou (in Greek) Workshop - Fusion7 Healing

Sunday Megaron Gamma 11:00 - Sue Worwood, Aromatic Alchemy The Art of Natural Therapeutic Perfumery 12:00 - Sahaja Yoga The Next Step In Our Collective Evolution 13:00 - Barbara Jones Discover the Pathway to Your Purpose

17:00 - Eliana Eleftheriou (In Greek) Theta Healing Workshop - Soul Mates

14:00 - Thomas Travers Kundalini Yoga

19:00 - Hilary Christofides- Pranic Healing Your Hands Can Heal

16:00 - Susan Rudd Angels and Golden Atlantis, Showing us the Way to the 5th Dimension

Sunday Megaron Beta 11:00 - Angela Egwim & Ludmila Marinova Explore and Discover Internal Resources for Better Health And Happiness

17:00 - Antonis Antoniadou - / ZITRONE Natural life How To Balance High Cholesterol Levels Through a Natural Method

13:00 - Andrea Perneczky Crystalline Soul Crystal Essences and Aura Quartz

19:00 - Eleftheria Christou What is Biodanza

Get to know your unconscious mind WHEN asked What do you do?

Dr Igor answers, “I make people happy, better to say I help people find their own happiness.” How does he do that? By profession Dr Igor is an MD. His philosophy, in a nutshell, is: If someone is healthy it’s the first step to being happy.

Dr Igor uses holistic medicine.

“Medicine is one; holistic means one, all together. You cannot separate it. Official medicine is one part of Holistic Medicine. We can use different techniques, different approaches. That’s what I do. I see a human being from different perspectives – mind, body, spirit, environment and social life. By observing and evaluating these factors I can find the best way to help my patients.

“With a holistic perspective we acknowledge that every human being is individual and unique.

Holistic medicine focuses on the patient not only on the disease. It is one piece of the puzzle that in-

cludes food, environment, habits, genetic predispositions, symptoms, awareness, relationships and so on. They are all interactive and influence each other.”

After earning his medical qualifications, Dr Igor extended his knowledge to Traditional Chinese Medicine. “It opened my eyes and helped me to see the bigger picture, teaching me about energy, about life force, about balance.

I learned about the connection between organs, emotions and various bodily functions and how they support each other.”

Time and positive results convinced him that it was very effective. “If a system exists for over 4,000 years without any major changes and is still working well today, then there must be something to it! Only our ignorance can prevent us from seeing that this system works.

“The main principle of Traditional Chinese Medicine is balance. Your health is a dynamic

Healthy: it’s the first step to being happy

balance, not a frozen picture where everything is fine. We are changing every day, every second. We need to balance our daily needs: food, stress levels, relationships, mental development and so on.

“Your health is very dependent on unconscious memories. From the moment we are conceived our unconscious starts memorising everything that goes on in our life, pleasant or unpleasant, toxic or beneficial. All this information goes into building who we are in essence. Everything that is going on now as you read this newspaper registers in your unconscious memory. For example, if dust falls on your shoulder your unconscious memorises it. It is not strong information but it’s there.

But if you accidentally spill hot tea on your lap you will register this information on a higher level and react to it!”

Dr Igor is a world-wide recognised expert in the use the SCIO, an advanced technological tool that helps him to “clearly see all the pieces of the puzzle” in a relatively short time “by introducing you to your unconscious mind”.

“We are able to work on eliminating the various stressors that cause disease before the glass is full; before a disease can take root in the physical body. This is preventative medicine.”

“The body is smart. It gives us symptoms as signals, as messengers that something is wrong. Often official medicine mistakes the symptom for the disease rather than identifying and treating the cause. This can drive the disease deeper into the body causing more serious and damaging conditions. The SCIO allows us to find the causes of the symptoms and disease and works on eliminating them.”

The SCIO bio-feedback system

Meet Dr Igor at the Mind, Body & Spirit Exhibition at table 36. He will be offering sample sessions for a fee of €50 to benefit FunRaising a charity helping families in need.

He will give a talk entitled What is Holistic Healing? on Saturday, April 13 at 2pm in Megaron Alpha. His book Your Health: It’s a Question of Balance is available on Amazon.com. Tel: 25 342904, www.DrIgor.org, spitaki@ spidernet.com.cy works by using very subtle frequencies, measuring the stressors, prioritising them and then reducing or neutralising their negative influence. It also helps support the body’s natural process to detoxify itself. Toxins are not only pathogens (viruses,

bacteria, fungus, etc,) or heavy metals from a polluted environment. They can also be mental and emotional toxins, which are hidden. During therapy some patients release these toxins by talking or crying, which is very helpful for the healing process.

In conclusion, Dr Igor states, “The biofeedback system is helpful and supportive, but it is up to the patient to be aware of the changes that are necessary and to take responsibility for his or her actions. The healing process is co-operative. You cannot buy health. I can make suggestions but it is up to the patient to follow through and make the necessary changes that will reduce the stressors that cause disease and lead to a state of balance that will result in better and sustained health and happiness.”

21 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Business & Jobs

Looking after your heirs Planning ahead will avoid extra grief for your relatives Investment Bill Blevins Bill Blevins is Managing Director of Blevins Franks International. Tel: 26-912315 ILL YOUR spouse, or children or other nominated heirs, know what they need to do to transfer ownership of your assets on your death? Obtaining probate in Cyprus is a lengthy, complicated process. What taxes will they potentially have to pay? Is there anything you can do today to simplify and speed up the process for them and save them money?

You can make life much easier for your heirs by spending a little time now, establishing the facts and taking any steps possible to avoid the probate process on some assets, and reduce potential tax liabilities.

Here are some issues to consider.

Have you made a will? It is important to have a will covering your Cyprus assets, and possibly a UK will if you have any UK assets. You may also need separate wills for any other country where you have assets located. These should cross-reference each other to avoid conflict.

W

OBTAINING PROBATE Will you need to obtain probate in Cyprus or the UK? Many British expatriates remain UK domiciled (regardless of living in Cyprus for many years), in which case UK inheritance tax (IHT) will be due on their worldwide estate if valued over the nil rate band threshold (currently £325,000) at the time of death. The estate would therefore need to go through the UK probate system, during which time your heirs will not have access to your assets.

If you obtain probate in the UK, what would have to be done to transfer your Cyprus assets, particularly your house?

What would happen to your bank accounts (local and overseas), including any joint accounts? Accounts can be frozen until probate is obtained, making the monies unavailable for some time.

There are no inheritance taxes in Cyprus, but will some of your estate be lost to UK IHT? The tax free threshold has been frozen at £325,000

You may need to write more than one will if your assets are in different countries (potentially £650,000 for a married couple) since 2009 and will remain frozen until at least 2018.

The tax rate is then 40 per cent on the amount exceeding this nil rate band. You may be able to take steps to lower or avoid this tax liability for your heirs.

Are you aware of the potential 55 per cent tax charge on death on UK pension funds? If you have started drawing benefits from your pension when you die, where the sum is paid to your heirs as a lump sum, a tax charge of 55 per cent is generally imposed. If you have not started drawing benefits no tax is deducted if you are under age 75 when you die, but it is applied if you are over 75. If you are a non-UK resident and expect to remain one, seek advice about whether you can escape this tax charge.

Do you have a life insurance policy? Will it form part of your estate for UK purposes and go through probate before the funds are released?

Could it be written in trust to avoid this?

What about your pensions and investments?

Can they be written in trust? Holding an investment in joint names may not be enough. Enquire what happens to your investments when

you die - what will your heirs need to do to get them transferred to their name? How long will this take? Does the asset have to go through probate? Some investment arrangements allow you to nominate beneficiaries so the funds can be quickly and easily passed to your chosen heirs.

Professional advice is invaluable in such complex matters and you need to get it right. Don’t risk making life more complex and expensive for your heirs. Speak to a wealth management and tax planning firm like Blevins Franks which is highly experienced at advising British expatriates.

All advice received from Blevins Franks is personalised and provided in writing; this article should not be construed as providing any taxation and / or investment advice.All information is based on Blevins Franks’ understanding of legislation and taxation practice at the time of writing; this may change in the future. To keep in touch with the latest developments in the offshore world, check out the latest news on our website www.blevinsfranks.com

Chinese now world’s biggest spending tourists CHINESE tourists have overtaken Germans as the world’s biggest-spending travellers after a decade of robust growth in the number of Chinese holidaying abroad, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) said on Thursday.

Chinese tourists, known for travelling in organised tours and snapping up luxury fashion abroad, spent $102 billion on foreign trips last year, outstripping deep-pocketed travellers from Germany and the United States.

Chinese tourists spent 41 per cent more on foreign travel in 2012 than the year before, beating the close to $84 billion both German and U.S. travellers parted with last year.

Tourists from other fastgrowing economies with swelling middle classes, like Russia and Brazil, also increased spending in 2012.

In recession-hit Europe, however, French and Italian tourists reined in their holiday budgets.

“The impressive growth of tourism expenditure from China and Russia reflects the entry into the tourism market of a growing middle class from these countries,” said UNWTO SecretaryGeneral Taleb Rifai.

The German Travel Association (DRV) said it was to be expected that the Chinese would eventually overtake Germans in terms of spending, given that the country had more inhabitants than North America,Russia and Europe put together.

“But that they have overtaken us already is astonishing,” DRV president Juergen Buechy said.

The Chinese also make more long-haul trips than Germans.

22 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Business & Jobs

Gas future burns brightly Interview: Charles Ellinas, chairman of the state hydrocarbons company KRETYK

Six licensed blocks may hold 30 tcf of gas - building LNG plant first is a must Noble rebuffed Turkish demands to back away from exploratory drilling ‘Business as usual’ for oil and gas giants despite financial meltdown There’s been some confusion over the precise role of KRETYK, with suggestions that there is some overlap with the Natural Gas Public Company, DEFA. KRETYK is an oil and gas company. There’s no overlap with DEFA; we’ve met with them, and agreed we have no intention of getting involved in gas sales and distribution in the island. That’s not our job. DEFA is much like a utility company.

We are responsible for developing, managing, exporting and operating gas.

What’s the status of KRETYK? It’s a properly registered company. The state is the owner of the company. It should pay for the initial share capital, but parliament has not released that payment. The key is to make these decisions and ‘unblock’ KRETYK. The longer it takes to resolve these matters, the longer it takes to develop gas resources.

Can you explain the steps we need to take before we begin exporting gas?

Let’s start with the Aphrodite well in Block 12.

Noble have retained the services of a French consultant, a contractor called Technip, to do the pre-FEED (preliminary front-end engineering design). This concerns everything from the offshore facilities as well as the LNG plant. The pre-FEED should be completed by May. And it’s based on this work that we know the approximate cost of the project; the offshore facilities, including the subsea pipeline, will be in the order of $3.5bn (€2.7 bn), and the LNG plant about $6bn to $6.5bn.

Next, Noble plan to carry out appraisal drilling in Aphrodite during the summer. They confirmed this to me when I met with them in Tel Aviv on March 19. There I saw Terry Gerhart, Noble vice president for international operations, among others. I heard it from the horse’s mouth, if you will.

Once the appraisal drilling is done, we’d be able to assess more accurately how much gas we have, whether it’s 7 trillion tcf or more we hope it’s more - and declare commerciality. The production-sharing contract requires Noble to declare commerciality three months after appraisal. When that happens, we then proceed with the selection of the contractor to do the design proper, the FEED design, and

JOB DESCRIPTION CYPRUS - Oil & Gas Operations and Supply Base Manager The Company: AFS Cyprus Offshore Services and Supply Ltd The Role This is an exciting opportunity to participate in the planning, supervising and execution of the leading supply base in Cyprus to support both offshore deep water drilling operations and seismic activity in the Eastern Mediterranean.

we start looking for buyers for our LNG. The aim ought to be to complete the longterm sales of LNG, that is to say all the contracts, as well as the design, by early 2015.

Before that, we’ll meanwhile be looking for investors in the LNG plant project. As far as the offshore facilities are concerned (pipeline etc), Noble and their partners are obliged to pay for that, not us. What we do need is to build the LNG plant. Also, in 2015 after the FEED design is ready, we should be looking for the contractor to build the facilities. And we need to do that because they will submit a price for the facilities, so we have to know exactly how much it’s going to cost. It matters, because before the end of 2015 we aim to reach the final investment decision. Once that’s out of the way, we’d like to start construction by early 2016.

That in turn will create a lot of jobs at Vasilikos. A large number of people will be working there on construction, perhaps anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000. A lot of them will be foreigners, because we don’t have the people with the necessary skills. Still, quite of a few people with lower-level skills will be Cypriots.

There will also be Cypriot sub-contractors doing a lot of the work. For example, earth excavation and moving. Also, the utilities: power, water, catering, all that can be done by local contractors. You need to set up a labour camp where all these people from overseas can be housed. And that should start happening in early 2016.

Assuming we do all these things, we should be able to bring gas to the island for electricity generation by late 2018. That itself should reduce the price of fuel for electricity by almost 50 per cent. And in late 2019 we should be able to start exports of LNG. That’s the grand scheme of things. The offshore facilities should be completed in three years, the LNG plant in four.

Also, we have to prepare a final master plan for Vasilikos - a very preliminary plan was drafted five years ago. This is key, because currently there’s space just for three LNG trains, but we’ll probably need more than that, probably five to six trains, for the six blocks licensed so far. The six blocks combined, we hope, might contain five to six times the amount of gas there is in Aphrodite, which alone needs one train.

The position involves the management of the day to day Supply Base operations and coordination of the associated onshore logistic services with interfaces at local and international levels . Integrate the supply chain delivery with logistics execution for material/equipment and supplies movement and waste management during the course of the Wells execution program. Management of the services will be done by monitoring, and reviewing actual delivery of the logistics services provided; with optimum utilization of resources and cost. The position will be responsible for the management of HSSE performance of all local stakeholders associated with the supply base operations. They will work closely with Logistics Service Operations department to ensure efficient and on time delivery of these services.

What’s the latest on Noble’s plans for appraisal drilling at Aphrodite?

Starting date ASAP.

How much gas is there in the Cypriot fields?

Requirements/Qualifications Overall operational management Planning strategic direction of the company and services Extensive experience with computerised material control systems completely proficient with MS Office Suite of programs.

Manage vessel loading/offloading activities to meet drilling operations requirements.

Manage yard operations/utilization to meet drilling operations requirements Maintain/develop and mentor national staff with hands on and formal training initiatives.

Supervise staff and contractors to support vessel and storage yard activities.

Manage and develop relationships with 3rd party drilling service providers within OSC to enhance services and overall operations.

Perform other duties as required.

Fluent in Greek and English If interested please forward up-to-date resume along with details of availability All interested candidates should addressed to info@ellinas-energy.com

My estimation is that the six licensed blocks - including Aphrodite and a possible smaller prospect in Block 12 - could hold anywhere from 30 tcf.

We’re looking at the summer. Nothing has changed. One has to be careful not to set artificial dates. Provided Noble start this summer, before September, they’re sticking to their timetable.

Based on what?

Based on assessments by the Americans [US Geological Survey], as well as data from seismic surveys carried out in some of the blocks concerned. And also on the fact that in the part of the basin that we’ve already drilled, we’ve found - between us and the Israelis - 36 to 37 tcf of gas so far. That’s between a third and a quarter of the Levant Basin area. The USGC says the whole basin contains a total of 122 tcf. So the math works. But again, these are all conjectures; we’ve got to drill before we know what’s there.

It’s crucial to know how much gas there is so you can plan ahead. Take all the talk about a pipeline to Turkey... if there’s just one pipeline from Aphrodite, OK, that might be do-able, but if you’ve got four to five times as much

Charles Ellinas, chairman of KRETYK gas, then it’s not feasible, both technically and commercially.

Because of the pipelines’ capacity?

Yes. Because of the water depths, the diameter of a gas pipeline is limited to 20 to 24 inches maximum. A pipeline like that is just about enough to carry the gas from Aphrodite.

If you’ve got another five such gas fields, you need another five pipelines. So, what, you’d end up with a spaghetti of pipelines winding up in Europe? That leaves us with an LNG plant at Vasilikos. To those who doubt that a plant is Vasilikos is viable, I say: “Of course it’s viable, it’s the only way to do it.”

And Cyprus will export by ship.

Correct. We have to complete the gas sales first because no one will give us money to build the plant unless they know that we’ve sold the gas. The priority is building the LNG plant, I can’t stress this enough. Also, the LNG market is constantly changing. There now exists a window of opportunity to sell. If we wait for another year, we don’t know how the LNG market is going to shape out.

Have you concluded an MoU with Noble?

We reached an MoU with Noble, but haven’t signed it yet because of the elections here and all the aftermath. Noble had put forth a proposal to develop the whole project with us, all the way from the offshore facilities to the export of LNG (including the plant). But that’s been put on hold until the newly-instated government here decides its policy. An MoU with Noble still needs to be followed by a final project agreement.

How are talks with ENI and Total progressing?

During the last few weeks we had high-level meetings with ENI and KOGAS in Milan, and with Noble here in Nicosia and in Tel Aviv, and on March 21 with Total. And I can assure you they’re all determined to press ahead. They’re not even thinking about the financial crisis here. To them, it’s business as usual.

ENI plans exploratory drilling for 2015. If they do find gas, they’d then be able to add trains to the existing LNG plant, and could begin exporting perhaps a year later than Noble.

The companies are completely determined and committed. Turkish threats do not affect them in the least. For instance, just before Noble commenced exploratory drilling in Aphrodite, they were approached by Turkish officials who asked them to stop their operations. This took place in Tel Aviv. But Noble’s response was: sorry, but we have an obligation with the Cyprus government and we’re pressing on.

Will Total be searching for oil?

It’s part of their planning, yes. The blocks licensed to Total (blocks 10 and 11) are located between the EEZs of Cyprus and Egypt, lying more or less on the Nile Delta basin, and Total think one of the fields contains oil at the top. So they’re organising their surveys with that in mind. Also, any oil that is found can be immediately commercialised.

23 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Property

How wild is my valley If you brave the countryside there is a wealth of well hidden flora to be discovered

L

AST month I was asked if I would organise a wildflower walk in the valley that runs between the outskirts of Kalo Chorio through Ayia Anna, Psevdas to Mosfiloti where I live. I am a gardener and any wild flowers, which I usually refer to as weeds, are generally plucked out of my flower beds at first sight, other than wild poppies and a few others that I tolerate!

I spent three weeks on recce trips around the area, which I think I enjoyed more than the eventual walk, exploring pine forest edges where native orchids were to be found and tramping around the sides of fields seeking out interesting plants that might have escaped the onslaught of the local farmer’s tractor. As the weather improved more wild flowers began to pop out of the ground in what is a very exciting time in Cyprus, the very short period between the freshness of new growth and the burned out look we have for most of the summer as temperatures soar. Some say that in Cyprus we only have two seasons – winter and summer, but if you know where to look then spring is most delicious.

I was truly amazed at what I saw. In February and March the countryside

is awash with bright yellow flowers. Oxalis, a nightmare in cultivated gardens but strikingly wonderful on a hillside amongst the Crown Marguerites, blazed out and shared the same landscape with bright vermilion poppies. Bee orchids, Ophrys kotschyi, were in abundance and tiny Ophrys elegans growing close by, were both enjoying the same conditions of dappled woodlands.

I found Orchis anatolica in grassy shaded areas at the edges of fields. Banks of wild ranunculus opened and shut their petals as the sun came out after any cloud had passed over. Sheltering in long grass, wild irises appeared in small groups, quickly followed by the slender stems of gladioli, both fast disappearing from our countryside as more and more developments take over the land. Tiny peas, in a variety of colours from magenta to cream, climbed their way through the fast appearing grass looking for something to grasp onto to to attract the pollinating bees. The star-like white umbels of wild garlic, Allium neapolitanum, waved gently in the March breezes on their distinctive triangular stems.

Clumps of Cyclamen cypri-

um, our national flower, nestled cosily together round the roots of trees while geraniums sprawled over the ground, with their tiny

mauve flowers peeping out from among the foliage as the mallow flowers faded above them. And way above all of them the highly scented

perfume of the creamy blossoms of the Mosfilia trees, after which my village is named, perfumed the warm air on sunny afternoons.

What a wealth of natural beauty we have here in Cyprus – not just in my valley but all over the island. Let’s try and preserve it!

PLANTOFTHEMONTH Acanthus spinosus What better plant could you have in a Cypriot garden than an acanthus? Growing well in Mediterranean regions where it can tolerate high summer temperatures and even quite low inland winter temperatures, this extremely architectural plant is certainly a must for our gardens. Steeped in the history of Greek architecture, where acanthus leaves are used as a main feature on columns and archways, the distinctive design of the leaves was also widely used in jewellery and furniture.

Known by common names of Bear’s Breeches, the word acanthus comes from Greek and means thorny. Acanthus spinosus is widely grown and very attractive to bees which seek out the two lipped white flowers hidden beneath hooded bracts of white or pinky purple towering above the shiny, deep green, deeply-lobed leaves on tall stems.

Growing to just over a metre, it may suffocate other plants but is too handsome a plant hide away and should be given pride of place in the front of a border or in a spot of its own where it may be admired. It tolerates most kinds of soil as long as it is well drained

and loves the sun.

It can be grown in shade but then you may not have many flowers.

You may have to beg a piece from a friend if you want to grow it in your garden. Acanthus has a huge tap root so care should be taken when splitting the plant. Plants with deep tap roots tend to fare better here than those with shallow roots as they are able to draw on dampness deep down. It may well be that that new shoots will appear from any remaining roots left in the ground. It is generally pest free although snails love the new foliage as it unfurls in the spring time.

THINGSTODOINTHEGARDENTHISMONTH There is no time to relax and enjoy the sunshine yet as there are lots of jobs to be done this month. With so much growth everywhere encouraged by the warmer air not only are the garden plants thriving but so are the weeds. Mallows and oxalis are going over now, so pull them out.

It is never a good idea to put the latter in a compost heap or bin.

Every tiny bit of the white root of oxalis can generate a new plant eventually, so get rid of them some other way.

The strong Coptic winds which we had in March have abated now but some nights might still

be chilly, so be careful when planting out vulnerable bedding plants. Remember that they have been kept in greenhouses up till now and might find an open garden, with many fluctuations of temperature too much. I don’t plant sweet corn (left) until the third week in April just to avoid any die-back. If you sowed annual seeds in drifts earlier on you may find that that you have far too many seedlings now, so some thinning may be necessary to allow the remainder to thrive.

This goes for veggies as well.

These are better grown few rows at a time so as not to have vast amounts all ready at the same time.

I am always being asked if it is possible to grow peas and runner beans here as you can buy them in season in the greengrocers.

Commercial peas are sown much earlier than in gardens, so are able to be harvested much earlier

s can too. Runner beans d be grown but need p well-mulched deep e trenches if they are to do well, plus lots of water. I have grown them a couple of times but only managed ch to get one crop each time. They do not do res well in temperatures ter above 28C, so better prus to stick to the Cyprus sed beans which are used to higher tempera-tures. ng bulbs The foliage of spring d but don’t will still be around be tempted to pull it all off as the bulbs are making the new flower for next season before hibernating underground until the autumn. You may find that hyacinths left in the ground year after year will eventually have shorter flower stems with less and less flowers on them. This is the time to dig them up and replace them in the autumn with new fresh bulbs. The same goes for Dutch irises (right) which should be replaced every few years. Of course if you feed the bulbs after the flowers have faded, you may get another year or so out of them, but if they are flowerless then replacement is the only answer.

Start a regular regime for feeding

plants, especially roses (left, top), which are gross feeders. Pot plants which should plants, have had the soil refreshed by now or even re-potted, benefit from regular feeding. Remember that even decent potting composts have only a limited amount of nutriments in them – six weeks at most - so if plants are going to be left in pots all summer long then they will need something extra in the form of a slow release fertiliser.

Most plant foods have recommendations on them for feeding plants and potted plants can easily be fed with a soluble feed as you water.

If you have lawns take a good look at them and scarify them first – dragging a thin tined rake over the surface to remove the debris at the roots - and then feed with a good lawn fertiliser for a green sward later on.

Now that the regular rains have reduced, check over your watering systems. During the winter all sorts of dirt and muck gets into the nozzles, which can be cleaned by taking them off and soaking them overnight in malt vinegar, brushing off the debris with an old toothbrush. If they are very old then it is best to replace them before you need to use them.

Keep on dead heading especially those favourite plants osteospermums (inset)that do so well here, or they will seed everywhere.

24 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Property Aristo Developers issue of title deeds ARISTO Developers is delighted to announce that the title deeds for the following developments have been issued: Germasoyia Bayside 1 (Limassol) Anavargos Village 1 (Paphos) Gyros tis Rizas Phase A (Peyia) Coral Bay Village 11 (Coral Bay / Peyia) Regina Courts 2,4,5,6 & 9 (Limassol) Golf Villas Phase B (Ha Potami) Tala F No. 12 (Tala) Aphrodite Rock Village (Neo Chorio) Alinery Village (Peyia) Prodromi Court 3 (Prodromi / Polis Chrysochous) Golf Villas Ha Potami B Panorama 4 (Ha Potami) Vrisi Village 4 (Peyia) Prodromi Court 2 (Prodromi / Polis Chrysochous) Kissonerga Hills (Kissonerga) Owners are requested to contact the After Sales Department of Aristo Developers in order to arrange an appointment for the collection of their deeds. Tel: 26 841841

LEGAL ISSUES WITH GEORGE COUCOUNIS

Novation in tenancies

Offers on home alarm systems from Handy’s Security Systems IN RESPONSE to consumer demand, Handy’s Security Systems has announced the release of the GSM Jablotron Profi System offering unparalleled security to family homes for only €640 inclusive of installation and with a five-year guarantee.

Since the beginning of the financial crisis, demand for home alarm systems has increased significantly. In times of insecurity, families place their trust mainly in tangible assets such as jewellery, gold and valuable documents.

Ideal for residential homes, the GSM Jablotron Profi System is the first alarm system for Cyprus that is exceptionally uncomplicated with its distinctive features including ‘stress-free’ control and easy installation.

The GSM Jablotron Profi System consists of a set of wirelessly communicating devices, is configured for immediate use and is manufactured by a global leader in home alarm systems, Jablotron.

Designed to keep costs down for your home, with just one affordable payment,

and without having to pay extra for installation, Handy’s Security System’s latest offer is designed around the way you live and at a fraction of the cost of its competitors with no installation charge.

With a GSM Communicator, the GSM Jablotron Profi System allows for reemote control of your alarm system by mobile phone, allowing you to maintain control of your alarm system from wherever you are, and making it a proven, value-for-money and increasingly sought-after product.

The GSM Jablotron Profi System can be customized according to the possible risks of your family home with Handy’s Security Systems offering a further 30 per cent discount across all product lines including Closed Circuit Television, Fire Alarm Systems, Automations for gates and garage doors, and Video Door Phone Systems.

For further information on Handy’s Security Systems products and services, Tel: 77778787, www.handysecurity.com

Egyptians choose Leptos in Paphos THE GREAT success continues with the presence of Leptos Estates at international real estate exhibitions in various Middle East countries as well as the Gulf region, within the first month of this year with the participation in Cityscape Cairo, the largest Real Estate Exhibition in the area.

The dynamic presence of Leptos Estates along with its wide property portfolio in Cyprus and Greece, has managed to attract the attention of large real estate agents, investors and buyers consisting not only of locals but also expatriates who have resided in the region.

Cityscape Egypt once again delivered a strong turnout of serious home buyers and investors packing the exhibition halls for four days.

Group Marketing Manager of Leptos Estates, Sakis Hadjialexandrou stated that “we are making a great effort to promote not only our company and the Paphos region but our island as a whole in a crisis period that has also overtaken the real estate sector. We are trying to rebuild existing markets and create new ones.”.

WHAT YOU GET FOR

THE tenancy relation may change by substitution of the tenant who leaves the premises and is replaced by another person, physical or legal or even a business name, who pays the rent and carries out the business therein with the consent of the landlord. In such a case, an issue may arise as to who the actual tenant responsible for paying the rent is.

When examining the relation between a landlord and a tenant, the identity of the tenant must also be examined, as well as whether any substitution occurred, so the landlord knows who is responsible to pay any rents in arrear before taking any legal steps. The substitution which in law is known as novation does not concern only the contractual tenancies, but also a statutory tenancy, an issue which can be examined by the Rent Control Court.

The meaning of the term novation denotes the existence of an agreement in force which is substituted by a new agreement, either between the same parties or different ones, the mutual consideration being the discharge of the original agreement.

The aforesaid issue was examined by the Rent Control Court in a judgment issued recently, whereby the landlord claimed an eviction order, repossession of his shop, rents in arrears and means profits or damages until delivery of free and vacant possession of the premises.

The respondents in the application were the first tenant who signed the tenancy agreement and his guarantor.

As time passed, the tenancy became statutory, since the tenancy agreement expired, the shop was built prior to 31.12.1999 and is situated in a rent control area. Moreover, the guarantor took over the business in the premises, used to pay the rent to the landlord who issued the receipts to her business name. The court found the first tenant left the premises before the expiration of the tenancy agreement and the rents were paid by the guarantor while the contractual tenancy was in force. Consequently, the court held there was a substitution of the first

tenant by the guarantor, who ceased to be a guarantor and became a statutory tenant.

The court put it that there is no specific type for the novation of an agreement and the legislation contains provisions that when a promisee accepts performance of the promise from a third person, he cannot afterwards enforce it against the promisor.

In the above case, the court ascertained that the consent of both the landlord and the guarantor for the novation was given, the guarantor took possession of the premises and carried out the business therein and paid the rent. Therefore, it held that the consideration for the landlord and the first tenant was their discharge of the rights and obligations deriving from the tenancy agreement. The consideration on behalf of the guarantor was her promise to fulfil the obligations under the terms of the tenancy agreement. The guarantor became a contractual tenant for the rest of the tenancy period stipulated in the tenancy agreement and thereafter, she became a statutory tenant, since she remained in possession of the premises.

The court also examined the issue of the payment of the rent by a third person through cheques issued by the guarantor who used to take receipts in her name, stating that this fact alone does not imply the making of a new agreement or the substitution or novation of the first tenant. However in this particular case, it was judged the first tenant left the premises together with the business carried out with all relevant effects. As a result, the claim of the landlord against the first tenant was dismissed with costs and the court issued an order for the eviction of the guarantor who became a statutory tenant and substituted the first tenant, plus a judgment for the rents in arrears, means profits and costs.

George Coucounis is a lawyer specialising in the Immovable Property Law, based in Larnaca, Tel: 24 818288, coucounis.law@cytanet.com. cy, www.coucounislaw.com

€155,000 compiled by Peter Stevenson

How much: €155,000 What you get: This two-bedroom apartment in Ayios Dometios includes a separate modern kitchen, a sitting area and a spacious full bathroom.

From: www.foxrealty.com.cy Tel: 80080082

How much: €155,000 What you get: This two-bedroom apartment in Drosia has an open-plan kitchen, living and dining area with a fully loaded kitchen including an island, suspended ceilings and spot lights.

From: www.propertyincyprus.com Tel: 70003211

How much: €155,000 What you get: This three-bedroom apartment in Kissonerga is in a quiet location, close to local amenities and has a fully fitted kitchen.

From: www.buysellcyprus.com Tel: 80000222

ADVERTISER

SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

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Send your classified by fax or email and pay by credit card, cheque or cash. It couldn’t be simpler!

Nicosia - email: classified@cyprus-mail.com Limassol - email: limassol@cyprus-mail.com Paphos - email: paphos@cyprus-mail.com

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES NEED SECRETARY, full/part time English, Greek & Russian Lang. IT or computer Knowledge. Send CV to info@ citycellhotspot.com. Including personal photo. Citycell: www. citycellhotspot.com 25-341444 – 25-100999

AA member.

Ayia Napa Monday 97798043 Larnaca Tuesday (Polish spk) 96616589 Thursday 24645523 / 99259264 Limassol Tuesday / Wednesday / Friday / Saturday 25368265 / 99559322 Nicosia Wednesday/Sunday 99013596 Paphos Tuesday / Thursday / Saturday 99916331 / 99399240 Details of meetings are available on www.aa-europe.net

JOB WANTED

****************************

SERVICES LADY WITH PAPERS LOOKING FOR PART-TIME JOB, office, house, apartment, hotel, or just taking care of old people or children. Has own transport.

Living in Limassol area. Please call 96832474

MISCELLANEOUS SHARMA SATISH resident of India current working in Cyprus, Passport No K 9510759, has changed his name from Sharma Satish to Satish. All concerned may note.

OWNERSHIP: I am in possession of a Honda Civic saloon car first registered as BAG 839 in Cyprus in 1992. I intend to apply to the Ministry of Transport for Registration of this vehicle in my name. Any objections to this action are to be notified to the Ministry of Transport or me, Michael James Syme, (P.O.Box 65, Pareklishia 4520) with supporting evidence for an ownership counter claim by 5th June 2013 WANTED: COUPLES OF EU CITIZENS LIVING IN CYPRUS We are currently conducting research as regards European families living in Cyprus.

If both you and your spouse come from the same or a different country of the EU (except Cyprus and Greece, e.g. both from Germany, or Germany and France), if you have children over 6, and if you are interested in taking part in some research financed by the University of Cyprus please contact us 96530033. Participants will complete a questionnaire and participate in a face-to-face interview. They will also receive a symbolic amount of money. ***************************** ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS CYPRUS Is drink costing you more than just money? AA could be the answer.

Meeting at the following locations/days. Call to speak to an

PROFESSIONAL UPHOLSTERY CLEANING, also carpets, rugs and mattresses. Special offers now available. FREE STAIN GUARD FOR LIMITED TIME For a quote call Rickys Cleaning Services on 99131044 (all areas) info@rcs-cyprus.net / www.rcs-cyprus.net ***************************** K.D.FLYSCREENS LTD. We manufacture top quality sliding screens, opening doors and roller systems. We also do repairs. For a FREE QUOTE please contact Phone: 99119582 Website: www.kdflyscreens.com SWIFT SERVICE AND REPAIRS air-cons, commercial and domestic fridges and freezers, ice machines, cool rooms, supply and fit air-cons VRV S. Call Nik on 99579602 Limassol ***************************** DO YOU WANT A SHINY LOOKING FLOOR? Full repair & restoration of chipped, scratched, dull and stained, Marble, Terrazzo, Stone & Ceramic tiled floors and surfaces. Professional cleaning, repair & sealing of internal/external ceramic tiles & grout lines. For a free professional consultation & demonstration contact Mark at Premier on 70006766 All areas

PETS *****************************

LOST HUSKY – PAPHOS Answers to the name of Chico went missing on Monday the 4th of February around the International School area chipped

Nicosia - tel: 22 818583 fax: 22 676385 Paphiakos Animal Welfare have advised that many large dogs have been taken from the Mesogi/Anarvagos/Ttremithousa areas. Please call 99622678 if you have seen him ***************************** HONEY is a 3 month old pincher/ terrier mix. She is very small sized and very sweet and playful. Honey is looking for a loving family to be hers forever!

She will remain small sized so she is ideal for a family with an apartment! For adoptions call 99 520 511 Monday-Friday between hours 10-2 or email ndsadoptions@gmail.com *****************************

HEALTH & FITNESS FOR PRETTY WOMAN: anticellulite treatment, reflexology, aromatherapy massage against stress, back pains, headache. also spa for nails.

Tel: 99986991

PERSONAL GERMAN MAN, 50 years old, searching for a nice woman.

Mobile:00491736590562

FOR SALE MISCELLANEOUS ***************************** FOR SALE Full house of furniture etc. white goods – washing m/c, new fridge/freezer/ new water m/c, unit top Bosch dishwasher, lge fridge/freezer etc. NO Sensible offer ignored.

Please phone 99 847864 ***************************** ART AND WATCH collector purchases art works and watches in cash. Watches: only high end pieces with the original box and invoice. Art works: international artists for which the provenance can be clearly proved. Send details/pictures to laurentjones1@gmail.com ***************************** FOR SALE:

Electric Cooker, Bosch 4 ceramic hotplates and oven, used 1 1/2 year, €350 For further information contact phone 99757511 ***************************** FOR SALE – PAPHOS CATERING EQUIPMENT 1. Industrial freezer – CORECO Height 200cm, width 68cm, depth 58cm 2. Electrolux Freezer, model EUC3109X, width-595mm, height-1800mm, depth623mm, freezing capacity-24-

Limassol - tel: 25 761117 fax: 25 761141

kg/24hours, energy class A 3. CONVOTHERM OVEN modelOBG 6.10Combi Oven-Steamer with Gas Steam Generator Extra: Stand with stainless steel shelving, extractor fan, water supply system and gas installation connections, PLUS CHAFING TRAYS & THERMO BOXES, ALL IN EXCELLENT CONDITION AT REDUCED PRICES. PLEASE CALL : 99622678 *****************************

FOR SALE BUSINESS/ PROPERTY/LAND FOR SALE plot of land with sea view. In Chlorakas area. Very quiet and private location. Title deed. Tel. 99519370. ***************************** LIMASSOL 1) GREAT INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY PLOT OF LAND FOR SALE 1,789 sq.m, IN THE AREA OF AGIA ZONI BUILDING FACTOR 140% WITH TITLE DEED. The land is located at a central point in the city, very close to various amenities and has excellent accessibility.

Tel: 96885030 owner 2) RESIDENTIAL LAND FOR SALE GREAT INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY The plot of land is located in the area of Foinikaria Total area 5,686 with a 20% Building Factor Tel: 96885030 owner ***************************** PAFOS 1) PLOTS OF LAND FOR SALE ANAVARGOS AREA GREAT INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY The plots can be sold as a single unit or individually.

From 626 sq.m up to 776 sq.m with building factor 60% and title deeds. Mountain and sea view with nice villas developing around the area. Tel: 96885030 owner 2) COMMERCIAL PROPERTY FOR SALE IN KATO PAFOS 96sq.m The shop is within the ‘’Limnaria Complex’’ and faces the main road Melina Mercouri Avenue It’s in good condition with suspended ceiling, recessed lighting, VRV AC, fitted carpet, motorised shutters, CCTV and more. Tel: 96885030 owner ***************************** LAND FOR SALE MITSERO. 7 skalas. 10% build. South facing, unobstructed views. Access road, water, electricity. Fenced compound with 48sq.meter timber framed 2 bedroom unit, septic tank, grey water system, storage, workshop. €135,000 mobile 99594205 pumpitch@ hotmail.com ***************************** PLOT FOR SALE IN KATO PLATRES in a pine tree area. It comes with title deeds, 1095 square feet. Tel. 99881051.

Paphos - tel: 26 911383 fax: 26221049

***************************** FOR SALE LAND in Anthoupoli (half plot) 288 sq.metres. for information 99621554. *****************************

PROPERTY TO LET NICOSIA ***************************** APARTMENT FOR RENT BY OWNER: 3 bedroom, 2 and 1/2 bathroom, super luxury apartment 196 sq. m, all electrical appliances, 2 large covered parking places in a beautiful residential area in the most convenient location in Nicosia in Dasoupolis area behind Aretaieio Private Hospital. For viewing or price information call 99629213 ***************************** FLATS/HOUSES FOR RENT studio Makarios Av. €300, Kennedy furnished €300, 1 bdrm Str/ los €400, Hilton €400, 2 bdrm Lycavitos €480 fully equipped, Ag. Dometios ground floor + garden €450, Ag. Paylos rear house newly built €390, Acropolis furnished €450, 3 bdrm Ag. Omologites garden €700, Nikis Av. Furnished €500, Archangelos detached with pool €1,200, Acropolis independent ideal for office/residence €750, 4 bdrm Kwsta Theodorou new house €1,100, Mosfiloti unique villa with pool/landscaping €2,500.

99474839, 99646822.

21 PROPERTY FINDER LTD. Licenced & Registered Estate Agents A.M.627 A.A.108/E ***************************** FOR RENT a spacious two bedroom apartment, near Hilton and Central Bank. Living/dining room, sitting room, large veranda, kitchen, c/h, s/h, covered parking. Title deeds. Tel. 99519370. ***************************** HOUSES/FLATS 2 bedr. lux. flat, Ayioi Omoloyites, wooden floors €800, 3 bedr. Acropolis c/h a/c wooden floors €650, Mak/ssa 3 bedr., modern, open plan €1000 f/f €1200, Nicosia 3 bedr., f/f, luxury €1000 f/f, Latsia 2 bedr., pool €430, Strovolos f/f house 4 bedr €1300, Mak/ssa ground floor house detached €850 Photos www.markidesestates. com Markides 22- 378898 / 99464764 Reg.No. 487 E 16 ***************************** LUXURIOUS APARTMENT FOR RENT - A luxurious one floor apartment situated in central Nicosia in an area of exceptional Beauty at 3 Museum Street, is available to let. It has been recently renovated and consists of four bedrooms, two bathrooms, big dining and sitting rooms, kitchen and a huge veranda. Approximate covered area 250 sqm. Tel: 99622370.

Larnaca - tel: 24 652243 fax: 24 659982

classified contents Employment Opportunities pg 22 Employment Miscellaneous 25 Pets 25 Lessons 25 Health & Fitness 25 Personal 25 Services 25 For Sale Miscellaneous 25 For Sale Land/ Property Business 25 For Sale Motor vehicles 25 Properties Wanted -To Let Nicosia 25 To Let Limassol 28 To Let Larnaca 28 To Let Paphos 28 To Let Protaras, Ayia Napa, Paralimni -For Sale Nicosia 30 For Sale Limassol -For Sale Larnaca -For Sale Paphos 30 For Sale Ayia Napa -For Sale Famagusta Protaras 30 For Sale Athens -Property& Home Services display ads -Churches 30

abbreviations bdrm c/h a/c s/pool f/f apt pm pw sw nw st rd p/s c/l swb r/cass e/w

bedroom central heating air conditioning swimming pool fully furnished apartment per month per week south west north west street road power steering central locking short wheel base radio cassette electric windows

Please note tel nos. that begin with: 22 = Nicosia 23 = Paralimni/Protaras 24 = Larnaca 25 = Limassol 26 = Paphos

26 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Advertiser TO LET NICOSIA

TO LET NICOSIA

TO LET NICOSIA

***************************** TO LET 1 bedroom upper floor house, large veranda near restaurant Periyiali in Acropolis 5 Aeantos Street €300 call 99680208 ***************************** LUXURY HOUSES:

4. 3 bedr luxury semi-detached house with character, 200sq.m, central heating, full ac, sitting and dining room with fireplace, big kitchen with cooker and oven, dishwasher and refrigerator, nice mature garden with flowers, trees and small garden with grass, covered parking, 3wc, 2 bathrooms in a quiet neighbourhood. Available middle of January. Agios Andreas €1200 - H3AAD0001-R (photos on website).

5. 3 bedr luxury house, office space, attic room, with central heating, full a/c, separate kitchen, NICELY MODERN FURNISHED, 2 verandas, in a quiet area – Lakatamia €680 (H4LAK009-R), (photos in the website).

separate TV room, big sitting and dining area, big verandas around the house, bbq area, covered parking, private yard near the parking.– Strovolos €1200 (H4ST10048-R), (photos in the website).

9. New modern luxury very good quality finished semi detached house built in 3 levels. Upstairs 1st level 3 bedrs all en suite+ laundry room, 2nd level big attic room which can be used for office space or bedroom.

Ground floor with 2 sitting areas ,dining area and breakfast area, kitchen with all the electrical appliances, central heating, full a/c units. Basement with kitchen with cooker and oven, dishwasher, microwave and 2 refrigerators, sitting room with fireplace, and 2 bedrooms with one bathroom. Outside private fenced garden with artificial grass, bbq area and covered veranda. The house has blinds and shutters on all windows, false ceiling with spot lights throughout house, pressure system, covered parking, satellite dish, central music and network system, storage room, very good double glazed windows. Behind General flooring in the centre of Makedonitissa - €2000 (H4MAK0001-R), (photos on the website).

1. 4 bedr luxury detached house built in 3/4 of a plot, office space, central heating, full a/c, big sitting and dining area, separate big kitchen with family room and all the electrical appliances, blinds and curtains on all windows, aluminium shutters, big garden with grass, 3 wc, covered parking, in a quiet area – Strovolos €1000 (H4ST10051-R), (photos in the website) 2. 3 bedr luxury terraced house, 210sq.m,central heating, full a/c, marble floor in the sitting areas and solid parquet floor on stairs and bedrooms,4 wc,3 bathrooms, 2 en suite, big verandas, electrical appliances in the kitchen, 3 covered parking spaces, roof garden access, in a quiet neighbourhood on Mon Parnas hill – Engomi €800 (photos in the website).

3. 3 bedr detached house with extra room for office, 250sq.m, central heating independent, 4 a/c, big renovated kitchen with cooker and oven, big sitting and dining room with parquet floor and fireplace, 1 bathroom, 2 shower, 3 wc, 2 covered parking, double glazed windows and shutters in bedrooms, big verandas surrounded by trees and bushes off 28th October street IN the central part of Makedonitissa – €1100 (H3MAK0004-R) (photos on the website)

6. 3 bedr + attic room with shower and wc luxury detached house with central heating, a/c, fireplace, modern kitchen open plan with expensive electrical appliances, blinds, garden with grass, over flow swimming pool, covered parking in a quiet area. – Makedonitissa €1600 (H4MAK0023-R), (photos on the website).

7. 4 bedr luxury detached house with big sitting and dining room with parquet floor, separate big kitchen with family room and all the electrical appliances, small garden with grass and bbq area,3wc, central heating, full a/c, covered parking, in a very quiet neighbourhood – Archangelos €1200 (H4AR0017-R), (photos in the website).

8. 3 bedr +office space partially renovated detached ground floor house, 280sq.m, central heating with oil, full a/c, 3wc,

10. 4 bedr semi detached house with central heating, 4 a/c, 3 wc, 2 bathrooms, 180sq.m, electrical appliances, small yard, bbq area, off Kostantinoupoleos street near French ambassador residence.- STROVOLOS €700 (H4ST10043-R), (photos in the website).

11. 4 bedr new luxury finished detached house with central

TO LET NICOSIA heating independent, full a/c, 3wc, 2 bathrooms, big kitchen with cooker oven, dishwasher and big family room, aluminium shutters in all the house, separate big sitting and dining room with parquet floor, 2 covered parking, alarm system, big covered patio, SWIMMING POOL, in a newly built area near Falcon school – Strovolos €2000 (photos in the website).

12. 3 bedrs luxury 2 storey, FULLY RENOVATED LISTED HOUSE with high ceilings in the centre of Nicosia, 260sq.m, 2 small attic rooms, big sitting room upstairs, big sitting room and dining area downstairs, wooden floor, kitchen with all the electrical appliances, 2 bathrooms (one en suite),3wc,CH independent, A/C, big garden – Nicosia Centre €1400 (H4NIC0002-R), (photos in the website).

13. 3 bedr upstairs and 2 separate bedrooms in the basement luxury detached house (all the bedrooms with en suite bathrooms/shower), also separate kitchen and sitting room in the basement which also has separate entrance from the house, central heating, full a/c, solid parquet floor throughout house, big sitting and dining room with fireplace, big fully equipped kitchen with breakfast area and family room, big over flow, swimming pool with covered patio area with fully equipped bar (bbq, fridge, freezer, cooker), mature garden around the house,2 parking places, alarm system near the Cyprus Conference Centre – Platy Aglantzias €3500 (H5PAG0002-R).

TO LET NICOSIA

TO LET NICOSIA

14. 4 bedr very big luxury semi detached house 350sq.m, with big separate basement 80sq.m with 2 rooms, sitting room, kitchen and bathroom. Consists of big sitting and dining areas upstairs, big kitchen with big family room and breakfast area, big bedrooms, 3 showers, 1 bathroom, central heating, full a/c, black out blinds on all windows, cooker and oven in the kitchen, covered parking and patio with bbq in a very quiet neighbourhood close to Makarios football stadium.

CAN BE RENTED FURNISHED, PARTIALLY FURNISHED OR UNFURNISHED - Makedonitissa €1500 (H4MAK0032-R), (photos in the website)

1. 3 bedr luxury finished spacious floor apartment with very big sitting and dining areas with family room with fire place, solid parquet floor all through, central heating independent, full a/c, all the bedrooms with en suite shower/bathroom, 4wc, big kitchen with all the electrical appliances, blinds on all windows, big covered veranda, covered parking, big storage room, on a small 3 storey building in a quiet neighbourhood – Agios Andreas€1300 – A3AAD0005-R (photos on website).

2. 1 bedr spacious fully luxury renovated apartment,60sq.m, big sitting and dining room, big bedroom, fully newly modern furnished with LCD TV 32’, covered veranda, covered parking, storage heaters, full a/c, near Cyta, Laiki and Hellenic Bank headquarters – Dasoupolis €550 (photos in the website).

15. 4 bedrs new luxury detached house, all the bedrooms very big and all with big bathroom/ shower, sitting room upstairs, attic room with shower and wc, office space/maid’s room with shower and wc, central heating, full AC,450sq.m, big sitting and dining areas, big kitchen with sitting area and fitted cooker and oven, 6wc, 2 covered parking, yard with tiles and SWIMMING POOL, bbq area in a very quiet neighbourhood near CYBC ( RIK) station and near a neighbourhood park – Platy Aglantzias €2500 (H4AGZ0005-R), (photos in the website) For many more properties with photos visit our website at www.landtouristestates.com which is updated daily. LANDTOURIST ESTATES LTD 22422225/96-422225/96422226, www.landtouristestates.com ***************************** LUXURY FLATS:

3. 2 bedr penthouse apartment, 100sq.m + 80sq.m veranda with flowers and bbq, big sitting and dining room with big 60” TV, storage heaters, full a/v, 2 wc, en suite bathroom/ jacuzzi, roman blinds, cooker, oven, microwave, washing machine and refrigerator in the kitchen, covered parking, near Metro supermarket – Aglantzia €600 (photos in the website).

4. 2 bedr luxury ground floor apartment with central heatingindependent, full a/c, structure cabling internet and satellite network, FULLY MODERN EXPENSIVE FURNISHED, with 46”LCD TV, covered parking, double glazed windows, aluminium shutters, on Pericleous street near Klimataria

27 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Advertiser

TO LET NICOSIA traffic lights – Strovolos €650 (A2ST10054-R) (photos in the website)

TO LET NICOSIA 7.

1 bedr cozy luxury apartment,60sq.m,parquet floor, nicely furnished ,all fitted electrical appliances (cooker, oven, microwave, washing machine, dishwasher, fridge), roman blinds, provisions for home cinema, big covered verandah, storage heaters, 2 a/c ,covered parking in Dasoupolis near Alpha Mega supermarket and Areteion hospital. – Dasoupoli €470 (A1DAS0009-R) (photos in the website)

5. 4 bedr new spacious luxury finished floor apartment with floor heating independent, full a/c, 3wc, electrical appliances in the kitchen, blinds on all windows, very big 50sq.m covered veranda, fireplace, covered parking and big over floor heated covered swimming pool on the ground floor, on a small 3 storey building in a quiet neighbourhood near a playground and near Ippokration private hospital – Engomi €1500 (A4ENG0003-R) (photos in the website) 6. 1 bedr new luxury apartment in a modern building (TSENTAS),with central heating ind, 2 a/c, cooker and oven, refrigerator and washing machine in the kitchen, parquet floor, NICELY FURNISHED big covered veranda, big sitting room off Kyriakou Matsi street, 1 km from the centre €460 (A1AOM0002-R), (photos in the website).

8. 2 bedr spacious renovated apartment 100sq.m with separate big kitchen, air condition for hot and cold in all the rooms, covered veranda, nicely newly fully furnished , off Kyriakou Matsi street very close to the centre on foot– Agioi Omologites €500 (A2AOM0003-R) (photos in the website) 9. New top quality 2 bedr apartment, 93sq.m+20sq.m veranda, on a small modern building with 6 flats only. Central heating independent, full a/c, 2 bathrooms, 2wc, fully fitted kitchen with all the electrical appli-

FOR RENT

English-Painter & Decorator

2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment in Larnaca near new hospital. €400 per month including service charge and refuse collection Call 99358916

Fully Qualified 30 years’ Experience SUMMER OFFER 30% OFF ALL AREAS • External & Internal painting • Damp Damage Repairs • Spritez Repairs • Free Estimates + very clean work • All areas. All types of woodwork stained and preserved • All work guaranteed

Tel. Tony on 99176557

TO LET NICOSIA ances, water pressure system roller blinds and shutters on windows, big sitting and dining room, big bedrooms, covered parking and storage room, in a quiet neighbourhood near Akropolis park. AVAILABLE end of March – Acropolis €800 A2ACS0002-R (photos in the website) .

10. New luxury finished 1 bedr penthouse apartment with big verandah with nice view, in a small modern building,55sq.m,storage heaters,2 a/c, blinds on the windows, expensive electrical appliances (cooker, oven, extractor, refrigerator, washing machine, dryer), covered parking and storage room, off Kalippoleos street opposite Dessange Day Spa near the University – Lykavitos €420 (A1LYK0002-R), (photos in the website).

11. 3 bedrs luxury penthouse one floor apartment in a small building with 3 apartments,250sq.m plus big covered verandas, fire place, solid parquet floor,2

TO LET NICOSIA bathrooms,3 wc, cooker, oven, fridge, washing machine and dishwasher in the kitchen, CH independent, full a/c, big reception areas opening to the verandas, pressure system and 2 Pcovered with remote control entrance, walking distance to the centre very close to Debenhams €1300 (A3NIC0028-R), (photos in the website) 12. 2 bedr new modern luxury finished apartment with parquet floor, central heating independent, 2 a/c, modern kitchen with all fitted expensive electrical appliances, blinds on the windows, big covered veranda, FULLY NICELY FURNISHED, covered parking in a quiet neighbourhood off Kallipoleos Street - Lykavitos €700 (A2LYK0024-R) (photos on the website) 13. 3 bedr luxury penthouse apartment with central heating independent, full a/c, 2wc, big sitting and dining room with fireplace, separate kitchen, NICELY MODERN FURNISHED, big covered and uncovered veran-

SELECT Fencing & Decking Specialist For all your Garden and Security Fencing ♦ Quality approved workmanship ♦ 15 years experience + guaranteed work ♦ English workers ♦ also garden gates ♦ sheds ♦ chain link fencing ♦ free estimates ♦ all types of fencing & decking

Roofing flat & tired roofing repairs and construction Tel. SELECT fencing 99176557

TO LET NICOSIA da, covered parking, in Strovolos near the Municipal building - €650 (A3ST10014-R) (photos on the website) 14. 3 bedr spacious luxury finished apartment 150sq.m+30sq.m covered veranda, central heating independent with petrol, full wall a/c units, solid parquet floor, expensive electrical appliances in the kitchen, 3wc, curtains and blinds on windows, 3 COVERED PARKING, storage room, near Pizza Hut in Strovolos €1100 (photos in the website).

15.

3 bedrs luxury penthouse,165sq.m+80sq.m verandah with bbq, central heating ind, full AC, 3 wc, 2 bathrooms, solid parquet floor all the flat, big kitchen with dining area, fully MODERN

TO LET NICOSIA FURNISHED, covered parking off Athalassa Avenue near Stephanis Electrinics and English school – Strovolos €800 (A3ST10013-R) (photos in the website) 16. New luxury finished 4 bed PENTHOUSE apartment in a small modern building, 186sq. m+90sq.m big veranda with nice view, separate floor heating, fully air conditioned, 4wc, 2 en suite bedrooms with shower,1 bathroom, solid parquet floor all through, big sitting and dining areas with electric modern shutters opening to the veranda, fully equipped kitchen with expensive electrical appliances, 2 parking places (1 covered), in a very quiet neighbourhood ,near the Russian Embassy. AVAILABLE END OF MARCH –Engomi

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28 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Advertiser TO LET NICOSIA ₏1900 (A4ENG0005-R) (photos in the website) For many more properties with photos visit our website at www.landtouristestates.com which is updated daily. LANDTOURIST ESTATES LTD 22422225 / 96-422225 / 96422226 www.landtouristestates.com ***************************** 2 BDRM at in the centre of Nicosia. Rent ₏450. For information call 99453663, 99663927.

LIMASSOL ***************************** FOR RENT HOUSE IN AGIOS ATHANASIOS, ground oor, 3 bedrooms, 2w/c,1 bathroom.

C/H, A/C. Fully furnished. Fitted kitchen, full electrical appliances. Basement covered parking. â‚Ź600 negotiable. Tel 99331318 or 96590930 ***************************** FOR RENT ofďŹ ce of around 85m2, with partitions, kitchenette and parking in a peaceful, green yet central area at Helladion House (off. 302; 3rd oor), 5 Andrea Kalvou Str. For

Fun

TO LET LIMASSOL

TO LET LIMASSOL

TO LET LARNACA

viewing, please call Ms. Jenny on 25-340987(3rd oor of building; ofďŹ ce hours). For further details, please call 25-521873 after 8:00pm. ***************************** UN-DETACHED HOUSE for rent in Apshiou village, 2 bedrooms, kitchen, sitting room, bathroom with solar water heater. A/C, satellite, 15mins to roundabout. â‚Ź350. Tel 25369219, work 10.30-17.30 25542968 home 99773151 ***************************** TO LET Large 4 bedroom unfurnished house in the village of Asomatos nr Akrotiri Limassol.

Fully A/C & Heating (storage heaters). 5 wc’s, large kitchen/ diner, lounge and sitting room.

Large loft with own shower/wc (suitable for ofďŹ ce/playroom/ gym). Carport - prominent position in cul-de-sac - lots of parking. â‚Ź850 pcm (negotiable).

Available from April 2013. Tel. 99831431 ***************************** TRADITIONAL VILLAGE STONE HOUSE IN APESHIA. Very quiet village, 20mins from Limassol. Road to heritage school/ Troodos. 2 bedrooms, ofďŹ ce

available top oor with veranda great view of mountains. Small courtyard with trees. Electric solar water. A/C-toilet in main bedroom. Semi/full furnished.

Fitted kitchen with electrical appliances, ďŹ replace. Toilet/ shower. â‚Ź550pm negotiable.

Tel 96891800. ***************************** GROUND FLOOR HOUSE, furnished renovated this year.

Laminated parke oor, and big wardrobes in the 3 bedrooms.

Rent â‚Ź590.00 Tel 99497576 99886775

***************************** FOR RENT fully furnished 1 bedroom at near Larco hotel Larnaca. Price ₏370. Tel 99202543

Fashion E

LARNACA TO LET 3 bedroom house, 100m from beach, Dekelia road Oroklini area. 1 bed at Makenzie near sea and Petros supermarket. tel: 96693375 ***************************** IMPRESSIVE three bedroom ďŹ rst oor apartment, Pyla. Large lounge, balcony, separate kitchen, furnished. Flyscreens, ceiling fans, aircon. Upstairs three double bedrooms, balcony, sea views. Bathroom.

Downstairs toilet. Free internet.

Digi box. Garden, Patios, Gazebo, Pavilion. â‚Ź550 euros pcm.

Tel 99935294 www.improdiavilla.com/jr486

R

FAY

NICOSIA DOG SHELTER

Toys

OUR LOV EL WILL BE Y DOGS THERE FOR ADO PT 11:30 - 14 ION :30

Books and more

Childrens art competition Face Painting Snacks and bake sale

1 14th April Sunday 11:00 - 16:00 11:

Childrens games

NEW (Fashion samples from London) and Nearly new clothes

99868512 - 22357005

ESOGBA - Steliou Mavromatti 4 (behind Junior School)

3.

www.superiorrealestatelarnaca.com – LARGE RANGE OF RENTAL PROPERTIES. From studio apartments to 5 bedroom villa’s for rent, all properties have detailed descriptions, professional photographs. Interactive Virtual/ Video Tours. Please visit our website. www.superiorrealestatelarnaca.com 4. www.superiorrealestatelarnaca.com - License No. 419.

LANDLORDS AVERTISE YOUR PROPERTY WITH US FOR

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PAPHOS PEYIA, luxury villa, 3 double bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, fully or part furnished, private pool, quiet location, paved garden area, sea and mountain views.

Sky satellite, ₏550 ono, please call: 99771532 – no agents KISSONERGA, 3 bedroom villa, unfurnished, 2 bedroom upstairs one with en-suite+ extra w/c upstairs, 1 bedroom downstairs with en-suite, airconditoned throughout, garage for 2 cars, storage room, swimming pool, with established garden, quiet area, beautiful mountain and sea views, euro 600 p/m – ono call: 99553741 FOR RENT a selection of 1 to 5 bedroom houses & apartments F/F & U/F Universal, Peyia, Tomb of the Kings, Tsada, Timi, Kato Paphos & Kissonerga Landlord & Owners please call 99329357 Or please view at our website www.cyprussands.com Fully Registered Company in Cyprus CHLORAKAS: 3 Bedroom unfurnished villa private swimming pool, utility room, walking wardrobes, en suite shower 180 m2 covered area fenced garden fully a/c, ₏ 575 p/m For more information’s phone 99400697 ***************************** TREMITHOUSA- Modern 2 Double Bedroom Townhouse with Stunning Sea views, Large Secluded Terrace with Open Views, Roof Garden, Fitted Kitchen, A/C, U/F 350 Euros or F/F 400 Euros TREMITHOUSA- Superb Detached 3 Bedroom Villa with Large Pool, F/F to a very High Standard, Mater En-Suite, Family Bathroom with Jacuzzi, Beautifully Fitted Kitchen, Utility, Separate Shower room, Spectacular Mountain and Sea views, Quite Cul-De-Sac location 700 Euros

TO LET PAPHOS KISSONERGA- Beautiful Detached U/F 3 Bedroomed Villa ,Large Pool,2 Bedrooms Upstairs Master En-suite ,Family Bathroom, modern Fitted Kitchen ,Downstairs Bedroom with En-suite Shower room, Low maintenance Garden, Large Terraces and Separate Storage Room 600 Euros TREMITHOUSA- Purpose Built Ground and First Floor 1 and 2 Bedroom Apartments U/F and F/F, A/C, Parking From Only 150 Euros URGENTLY WANTED – 3 Bedroom U/F Detached Villas 600/700 MORE PROPERTIES AVAILABLE FOR INFORMATION PLEASE CALL 99862922 ***************************** TOK’s – 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, Immaculate, very high spec top oor apartment, Luxury furnished with Flatscreen TV’s in living room and bedrooms, lift, pool, beautiful development, fantastic location ₏425 pm Lower Peyia – 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom Modern Unfurnished Villa with beautiful sea views.

Spacious villa with wood burner, utility room, white goods, storage area, alarm system, low maintenance manicured garden & private pool ₏1100 pm Lower Peyia – Good size detached 3 bedroom Villa in lovely residential no through road, separate kitchen, well maintained, large balcony, private pool and garden with sea views ₏750 pm Universal - 2 bedroom fully furnished ground oor apartment, a/c, large bedrooms, communal pool, o/s parking ₏350 Please contact us whatever your rental requirements as we have many other properties available. LANDLORDS/OWNERS – We always require more properties to list for waiting clients.

Please call NOW: 96241965 ***************************** LOW COST, long term 3 bedroom bungalow, Polis area, Gialia village, on 3 acres of property, large variety of fruit trees, extremely private with

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29 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Advertiser

TO LET PAPHOS

TO LET PAPHOS

panoramic mountain and sea views, unfurnished, swimming pool, a/c and fireplace, fence around the property €550 per month ono – available from 1st of April For more info call: 99 442485 ***************************** MR RENT PAPHOS, THE LEADING PROPERTY RENTAL AGENCY IN PAPHOS OFFICE: 26271858 (00357) IF YOU HAVE A PROPERTY TO RENT WE ARE THE RENTAL AGENCY TO CONTACT OFFERING FULL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT & RENT COLLECTION SERVICE 1. PEYIA €500 PRICE REDUCED FOR QUICK RENTAL. Modern detached 3 bedroom villa situated in a quiet residential area offering stunning sea views. Low maintenance garden with private pool and off street parking. Available unfurnished. Photos to be added to the website shortly.

2. SECRET VALLEY €750 spacious modern detached 3 bedroom villa situated on a corner plot in a peaceful residential area. Offering large private pool with a low maintenance lovely garden with sea views.

Off street parking. Fully furnished with modern furniture and includes gas central heating throughout. Modern fitted kitchen with granite worktops.

One bedroom on ground floor with bathroom. Pets allowed at owners discretion. Viewings highly recommended. website reference number: RTL_561

ning detached villa offering 4 bedrooms plus office in a quiet & private residential area with large parking bay for numerous cars and covered off street parking. Offering spacious living accommodation and breathtaking views of the sea. This property includes a lift to all 4 floors. Luxury modern fitted kitchen with appliances. Lovely garden with spacious veranda & private pool. Available unfurnished. website reference number: RTL_669 6. KAMARES TALA €900 a unique property combining modern and traditional. Situated in the sought after area of Kamares on a large plot with mature gardens & stunning private pool, offering total privacy and breathtaking sea views. Separate annex with modern shower room & separate kitchen. Guest room offering bedroom & shower room at pool level. Large modern office. Main house offering 2 further bedrooms plus a number of sitting rooms.

Perfect for those who require something completely different from the norm. Available furnished or part furnished. website reference number: RTL_673 7. PEYIA €950 we are delighted to offer this ultra modern 4 bedroom villa with luxury furnishings & fittings. Offering spacious accommodation with breathtaking sea views.

Furnishings & fittings are of a

EMBA

3. UNIVERSAL AREA €750 spacious 4 bedroom detached villa situated on a quiet complex offering well kept gardens & communal pool. Spacious living accommodation with one bedroom on ground floor plus bathroom. Available fully furnished. Allocated parking at side of property. A great central location close to all amenities. website reference number: RTL_663 4. LOWER CHLORAKA €750 spacious detached 3 bedroom modern villa offering stunning unobstructed views of the sea.

Situated in a quiet residential area, opposite orange groves.

Gated entrance, a good size enclosed low maintenance mature garden with shrubs & fruit trees. a private pool with sea views. Spacious living area with real fireplace.

Downstairs guest wc. Master bedroom with ensuite. Available fully furnished. Viewings highly recommended. website reference number: RTL_550 5. KAMARES TALA €850 a stun-

TO LET PAPHOS very high quality. Spacious living area with modern fitted kitchen & utility area. One bedroom on ground floor with ensuite & kitchenette. Guest wc. Private infinity pool & enclosed low maintenance garden. A must to see! website reference number: RTL_670 8. CHLORAKA €2000 substantial luxury 4 bedroom villa, spacious (350 sq metres), beautifully designed with unique detail. Conservatory with views of landscaped gardens. Large modern fitted kitchen, living room with working fireplace. Circular dining room with vaulted dome ceiling. Stunning private pool area. Available unfurnished. website reference number: RTL_579 Tel: 97790883 Tel: 99133422 office: 26271858 visit our website for many more properties www.mrrent-paphos. net email: info@mrrent-paphos.net **************************** MANDRIA PAFOS 2 bedroom furnished bungalow within walking distance of the village.

Large bedrooms, kitchen, sitting room/dining area with fire place, large bathroom. Outside gated area and fenced off, pets welcomed Ref: 1217 €450

AYIA MARINOUDA PAFOS 2 bedroom furnished bungalow in lovely quiet complex with communal pool. Property has fireplace, off street parking,

UK House Offered in Exchange for Apartment or House in Cyprus A 100 sq. m. four bedroom Semi Detached house in the East Midlands, with a market value of £120,000, is offered in exchange for a 2 bedroom (minimum) apartment or house anywhere in Cyprus.

My house has been recently renovated at a cost of over £25,000 and is situated within less than three miles from Clumber Park.

If interested, please email Natalia at nzah50@hotmail.com for a detailed description of my property and please include the internal size in square metres and photos of what you are offering in exchange.

INDOOR MARKET & CAR BOOT SALE FRIDAY – SATURDAY – SUNDAY FRI 8:00AM – 2:00PM FRESH VILLAGE FRUIT AND VEGETABLES WATCH REPAIRS & JEWELLERY POTTED FLOWERS NEW & USED HANDBAGS & CLOTHES SECOND HAND BOOKS COMPUTERS & TELEPHONE ACCESSORIES SECOND HAND FURNITURE & ANTIQUES INDIAN TAKE AWAY HOME MADE FRESH CAKES & PIES

STALLHOLDERS & CAR-BOOTERS WELCOME ALL ENQUIRIES CALL: 96533839/99771532

TO LET PAPHOS nice stone features, character property. Ref: 1224 €500 MESOGI PAFOS 4 bedroom house offered furnished, near all amenities. Property has siting, dining area, kitchen, storage, downstairs bedroom, guest wc. Upstairs 3 additional bedrooms, master en suite, family bathroom. Off street parking, back garden with lawn Ref 1211 €690 SEA CAVES PAFOS modern bungalow offered furnished or unfurnished, 3 bedroom, master en suite shower, family bathroom, kitchen, sitting area, outside private pool, roof garden, outside shower/toilet, flyscreens nice location with sea views. Ref: 1213 €750 MELANOS/CHLORAKA PAFOS Part-furnished, modern 4 bedroom villa, with private pool and amazing sea views.

Has modern appliances, offstreet covered parking in a nice quiet location. Pets welcome. Ref: 1206 €800 PEGEIA PAFOS 3 bedroom unfurnished villa with great sea and mountain views. Property has sitting/dining area, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, master en suite, private pool, covered parking. Ref: 1214 €550 CORAL BAY PAFOS 3 bedroom Villa offered furnished or unfurnished in a lovely private and peaceful location. Property is cosy with a small kitchen, sitting room and dining area with a fire place, ac, guest wc, 3 bedrooms master en suite, family bathroom. Nice views Ref: 842 €750 CHLORAKA PAFOS 2 and

TO LET PAPHOS 1 bedroom apartments in a lovely modern complex offered furnished or unfurnished with fly screens, nice large kitchen, bathroom, communal pool, nice location. Ref 1219 from €300 Please call for a free viewing on Office 26600450 Mobile: 97614070 many more properties on our website at www. flowron.com - Your Vision is our Mission LANDLORDS IF YOU HAVE A PROPERTY FOR RENT, PLEASE CALL US!!!!!! **************************** PEYIA – 3 bedroom villa with modern quality furniture and finishes.

Central heating, sky, alarm, infinity pool and stunning sea and mountain

TO LET PAPHOS views €700 per month, call: 99389426 BRAND NEW APT, opposite Poseidonio Gym, near Carrefour, F/F, a/c, great quality, 1 bdrm, from €340 p.m.Tel 99403261

PROPERTY FOR SALE NICOSIA ***************************** FOR SALE a very nice, large, two bedroom apartment near Hilton and Central Bank. Living, dining room, sitting room, large veranda. Spacious kitchen,

30 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Advertiser FOR SALE NICOSIA

FOR SALE PAPHOS

c/h, s/h, covered parking. Title deed. Tel. 99519370. ***************************** FOR SALE OFFICES, ground floor space, suitable for offices or any other business. Centrally located, off Arch. Makarios Avenue, in the Commercial Centre of Nicosia, near Hilton.

Also mezzanine, basement, small kitchen, a/c, parking. Title deeds. Tel. 99519370. ***************************** STROVOLOS, Symi street, Tseriou new one bedroom apartment, 55 sqm, large sunny balcony, air-conditioned, private parking, lift, title deeds, reduced price €95.000 (including VAT) (no offers) tel: 99266282 (no agents) ***************************** FOR SALE upper floor house 210 sq.m built on 301 sq. m land, Lapatsa area, Pereous 1a. 4 bedrooms with attic room (not finished), c/h ,4 a/c, aluminium doors& window, covered parking and storage room. Price €310.000 pm call 22431095 99330632. *****************************

breakfast room, two fireplaces, built-in bookcases, electrical shutters, a/c, swimming pool, garden, patio, garage, store room. Option for second floor.

Title deed. Adjacent to above.

Sold separately plot of land, with sea view. Title deed. Tel. 99519370. ***************************** 2 BEDROOM top floor apartment built in 2006, 75 sqm, large sunny balcony with sea views, 2 bathrooms (en-suite), communal pool, air conditioning.

Small block of 9 apartments, located behind Darmart store, near the Debenhams roundabout, underground private parking, storage room and lift, reduced price: €98.000 (including VAT) with title deeds (no agents) please call: 99266282 *****************************

PAPHOS FOR SALE large, beautiful, nice designed, sea view house. In Chlorakas area, very quiet and private location. 4 en-suite bedrooms. Spacious living - dining room, sitting room, kitchen with all electrical appliances,

FOR SALE PROTARAS PROTARAS ***************************** FOR SALE special offer, €79, 000 first floor apartment in Protaras, fully furnished with 2 bedrooms and a swimming pool. Walking distance to the beach of Ayia Triada and all amenities. Tel: 97 608941. *****************************

SPECIAL OFFER In Kokkinotrimithia, 15km from Nicosia in a good area, (in the centre, opposite Maragos bakery, 41/2 acres or 7 plot with 90% building factor.

For more information please call 99673286

FOR SALE Semi-detached house in Archangelos area split level on a hill, no houses in front, 3 big bedrooms, 2 big bathrooms and TV room big lounge & dining area, fireplace, fitted kitchen, 40 sq.m. store room, C/H, A/C, solar.

For information call: 99496541

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31 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Compiled by Rosie Ogden

Motoring

Citroen releases first images of ‘Technospace’ C4 Picasso French car giant says C4 packed with innovative and high-tech features CITROEN has released the first images of New C4 Picasso, which will be launched this summer.

Using the new EMP2 platform, the car has a reduced overhang (-70mm at the front), a lower engine block and floor and wider tracks (+82mm at front and +31mm at the rear).

The front end features new look chevrons which extend out to neat hi-tech lights.

Slim LED daytime-running lights, positioned just above the headlamps, flank the radiator grille while the rear LED lights, inspired by Citroën’s concept cars, create a futuristic 3D effect.

Inside, Citroen aimed for an ‘uncluttered ambience’ so there’s a panoramic windscreen and large glass roof to bathe the cabin in light.

With the ‘Lounge Pack’, the French car maker says “travelling becomes a first class experience with front massage seats, a ‘Relax’ seat that lets the front passenger stretch out their legs and a Relax headrest on all seats for comforting neck support”.

The asymmetric dashboard combines several colours and materials: the driver’s side is mostly black, fading to a lighter shade on the passenger side with a ‘sparkle effect’ finish.

There’s a full digital driving interface with the dashboard structured around two screens – a 7-inch touchpad featuring seven touch-sensitive buttons that control all the in-car functions like dual-zone air conditioning, navigation, audio, telephone and driving aids and a 12inch panoramic HD screen which displays essential driving information and can be configured by the driver at any time to show data for either the navigation system or driving aids.

From 2014, drivers will also have access to Citroen Multicity Connect, a portal of connected applications controlled from the touchpad. The system provides information such as the nearest fuel station, hotel or restaurant, weather updates or traffic reports.

Useful everyday functions include keyless entry and start-up, motorised tailgate and reversing camera, but the new C4 Picasso also offers a range of innovations that Citroen says “makes driving easier and more enjoyable”.

360 VISION uses four cameras around the car to give the driver a bird’s eye view, a rear view or a panoramic front view. The system provides a complete view of the car’s immediate environment, enabling an extended field of vision that ‘makes for easier manoeuvres’.

PARK ASSIST is a valuable aid that provides automatic assistance when manoeuvring into a space, whether

Useful everyday functions include keyless entry and start-up, motorised tailgate and reversing camera, but the new C4 Picasso also offers a range of innovations that Citroen says ‘makes driving easier and more enjoyable’

There’s a full digital driving interface with the dashboard structured around two screens parking in reverse or at an angle. All the driver has to do is to manage acceleration and braking.

The new platform makes for a car that is more compact on the outside with more space on the inside than the previous model, and setting new benchmarks for the segment.

Boot space is increased by 40-litres to 537-litres VDA – the best in the segment – and expands up to 630-litres with the rear seats pushed forward.

The buzz word at the moment for many manufacturers is ‘modularity’, so the front passenger seat can

fold forwards to increase load space while extending the view for rear passengers.

Rear passengers also benefit from three individual, full size seats that can be folded flat or tilted for increased comfort or fore-and-aft adjusted for increased flexibility. Knee space, says Citroen, is on a par with the best-inclass.

There are a number of clever storage spaces around the cabin including LED illuminated compartments in the central dashboard with an AUX-in, USB port and 220V socket – “ideal for stowing devices whilst charging”. On clutch-less versions there is a

‘With the ‘Lounge Pack’, travelling becomes a first class experience with front massage seats, a ‘Relax’ seat that lets the front passenger stretch out their legs and a ‘Relax’ headrest on all seats for comforting neck support’ removable console, mounted between the driver and passenger seats, with numerous other storage spaces under the seats and in the doors.

The new C4 Picasso is 140kg lighter than its predecessor and this significant weight loss means the new car now weighs the same as the C3 Picasso and with the emphasis on aerodynamics (CdA of 0.71) and an optimised engine range efficiency improves significantly and emissions fall by an average 30g/km compared to the previous model.

This is the first compact MPV with a conventional engine to deliver sub-100g/km

CO2 emissions: the e-HDi 90 Airdream engine, mated to the new 6-speed clutchless gearbox, emits just 98g/km and offers best-in-class fuel economy of 74mpg.

Stop & Start technology is fitted on all diesel units except for the HDi 90 manual, and this will be the first Citroen with a BlueHDi engine meeting Euro 6 standards.

The BlueHDi 150 emits just 110g/km of CO2 and features an SCR module (selective catalytic reduction), currently the most efficient technology for treating NOx (- 90%) and cutting CO2 emissions in all situations.

Intelligent Traction Control

is fitted on all models, and safety equipment includes Active Cruise Control with a radar sensor in the front bumper maintaining a constant distance with the vehicle in front by detecting any slowing of speed and warning the driver. The system acts on the accelerator and engine brake to reduce or increase speed within a limit of 15.5mph. When the road is clear, the car automatically returns to the set speed.

Active driver and passenger front seatbelts have motors that pull the belt tight automatically in the event of danger. They also, in relation to LDWS (Lane Departure Warning System), vibrate to warn the driver if the car crosses a line.

There’s a miniature camera built into the rear view mirror, which manages automatic high beam operation, by automatically activating and deactivating high beam lights depending on lighting and traffic conditions.

An ultrasonic blind spot monitoring system with an orange light in the door mirror warns drivers if a vehicle is present in their blind spot.

Using four sensors in the front and rear bumpers, this system is active from 7.5mph – 87mph, scanning the area up to the exterior door mirror at the front, extending to around 5m behind the rear bumper and 3.5m on either side.

32 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Sport Doping: the darker side to the glamour of global sport

Greeks want wrestling kept in Olympics

By Graham Wood

Spate of troubling stories come to light

By John Mehaffey

IN BRIEF

UNPRECEDENTED levels of skill, intensity and endurance have transformed global sport into spectacular mass entertainment and handsomely rewarded its leading exponents.

Now that the euphoria of last year’s acclaimed London Olympics has dissipated, however, a spate of troubling stories in the first quarter of 2013 show an altogether darker and more disturbing side to a glamorous, multi-billion-dollar industry.

In January, American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted in a television interview that he had doped before each of his record seven Tour de France victories.

His confession after years of denial followed the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s (USADA) decision to strip him of the title and accuse him of being at the centre of the “most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”.

A report from Australia’s top criminal intelligence unit linked doping in sport with money-laundering and match-fixing after a yearlong investigation. Six leading rugby league clubs, from one of the country’s four football codes in a sportsobsessed nation, confirmed they were under scrutiny.

And Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, on trial in Madrid for allegedly running a doping ring in cycling,

Fallen icon: in January, American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey that he had doped before each of his record seven Tour de France victories said in his opening testimony that he also had clients in football, tennis, athletics and boxing.

Fuentes, who said outside the court this month that he might be willing to cooperate with anti-doping authorities, is appearing in court almost seven years after steroids and blood bags were seized in an investigation code-named Operation Puerto.

“The same people who are trafficking in steroids and encouraging athletes to cheat by doping are the ones who are engaged in illegal betting,” said World AntiDoping Agency (WADA) director general David Howman.

“This is essentially moneylaundering, bribery and corruption in relation to matchfixing and spot-fixing.”

At a WADA media symposium in London, Howman said at least 25 per cent of international sport was controlled by the underworld.

BLACK MARKETS “The black markets supply a lot of pharmaceutical products before they are out on the white market,” he said. “That’s run by the criminal underworld.”

Rob Koehler, the director of education and programme development at WADA, told an anti-doping conference inLondon this

month the drugs problem in sport reflected the problems of society as a whole.

“We are always trying to push the limit,” he said.

“Adults are cheating. Students are cheating, in fact they think they are smart if they don’t get caught.”

Koehler said one per cent of the population as a whole was rich while the middle class was shrinking and the lower class growing. The position was similar in sport.

Doping’s black heartland has traditionally been in the speed and strength sports of track and field, weightlifting and cycling.

But it has also become increasingly apparent that the nature of ball sports, which

rely on a unique set of skills peculiar to their disciplines, has changed.

WADA and its president John Fahey, whose six-year term ends this year, have never been busier and he told the London symposium there was no sign the bad news would end any time soon.

“As long as there is sporting competition there will be athletes who choose to cheat, and consequently a need to lead the fight against this global threat to sport’s integrity,” Fahey said.

“And, if the last eight months are anything to go by, that need is increasing in its urgency rather than receding.”

THE Greek athletics federation (SEGAS) this week joined the chorus of opposition to an International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board recommendation to drop wrestling from the Olympic Games.

SEGAS said it fully supported an official petition from the Greek Wrestling Federation and the University of Thessaly urging the IOC to keep wrestling in the summer Games.

Greek Wrestling Federation president Kostas Thanos has condemned the decision as a “sacrilege” of a sport which was practised in the ancient Olympics. The vote prompted an instant wave of protest and anger from the sport’s global community with the international federation calling it an aberration.

Wrestling featured in the first modern Games in Athens in 1896 and in every Games since apart from Paris in 1900 However, last month the IOC’s executive board voted to drop wrestling from the list of core sports for the 2020 Games, forcing it to join seven other candidate sports seeking one spot in a revamped programme.

The executive board will decide in St Petersburg in May which one of the eight candidate sports will be put forward to win the spot left vacant for the 2020 Games.

Wrestling has been in every Olympics except in 1900

Herbie Hide summoned in drugs investigation

Home run hero Davis the toast of Baltimore

Cyprus lead Benin in Davis Cup crunch clash

BOXER Herbie Hide has been summonsed to court over a drugs offence following a newspaper investigation.

Hide, 41, who lives near Norwich, will appear before the city’s magistrates on April 18.

It follows an investigation by The Sun newspaper in February when footage was handed to Norfolk police.

A Norfolk police spokesman said a 41-year-old man had been summonsed to appear in court to answer a charge of conspiracy to supply cocaine.

Hide has previously denied any connection to drugs. He held the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) heavyweight title twice, including a two-year reign from 1997 to 1999.

BALTIMORE Orioles first baseman Chris Davis is playing down his early season success despite putting up some eyebrow-raising numbers.

The 27-year-old, six-year major league veteran clubbed an opposite-field grand slam in the eighth inning to lead the Orioles to a come-from-behind 9-5 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Friday.

Davis joins Willie Mays (1971), Mark McGwire (1998) and Nelson Cruz (2011) as the only players to have hit home runs in the first four games of the season.

“It’s nothing magical,” Davis told reporters. “I feel comfortable and I feel like I’m being patient.”

MARCOS Baghdatis and Rares Cuzdriorean won their doubles match against Alexis Klegou and Magloire Yakpa 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 to give Cyprus a 2-1 lead over Benin in the Davis Cup Europe/Africa Zone Group II relegation playoff yesterday at the National Tennis Centre in Nicosia.

Baghdatis can secure Group II status for Cyprus in 2014 with a win over Klegou this afternoon in the fourth rubber. If the World No.38 comes out on top, it will be his 33rd consecutive Davis Cup singles victory, drawing level with the legendary Bjorn Borg for having the longest winning streak in Davis Cup singles history.

33 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Sport

New and improved Tiger on the prowl at Augusta World number one chasing his first major since 2008

By Steve Keating

The American superstar is chasing a fifth Masters title and first since 2005

THOSE expecting to see the old Tiger Woods back on the prowl chasing a fifth Masters title among the azaleas and majestic Georgia pines at Augusta National next week are surely to be left disappointed.

That is because this is the new Tiger Woods, complete with a new swing, new love interest and new attitude.

“I don’t want to become as good as I once was. No, I don’t. I want to become better,” declared Woods.

At a point in most careers where most athletes’ best years are behind them, Woods has set about redefining the parameters of his sport, insisting that his best is yet to come.

With the number one world ranking back beside his name and three PGA Tour wins from five starts this season, Woods’ play is certainly pro-

Cook has recipe for success

By Frank Malley ALASTAIR Cook is hoping to lead English cricket on an unprecedented surge to glory which he believes could end with them winning the World Cup in two years time.

The England captain is confident that despite a disappointing series draw against New Zealand his side possess the talent to win the Champions Trophy and the Ashes Test series this summer in what would be a unique double for English sport.

Cook said: “We haven’t won an ICC 50-over event so that is certainly a priority.

“We’ve got the tournament here in our home conditions which we hope to make the most of and then in two years’ time there is the World Cup (in Australia and New Zealand). We haven’t won that either.

“They are two big tournaments coming up and we have certainly got the team, if we keep developing, to have a chance of winning them.”

The Champions Trophy begins on June 6 and England play in Group A against Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

In a hectic summer, they warm up first with a Test series against New Zealand which begins in six weeks and Cook is confident his side will put behind them their lacklustre showing in the reverse series which ended in three drawn matches.

“We knew how tough it would be,” said Cook. “New Zealand have got some really good young players who we will hear a lot more about in

England captain Alastair Cook has big plans for his side

the future. The bottom line is we did not play as well as we could have done and if you do that in any international team you don’t deserve to win.”

Cook was speaking at the launch of the NatWest Cricket Force initiative, which is an ECB inspired project aimed at rejuvenating cricket clubs and getting facilities up to scratch before the new season begins.

The project involves an army of volunteers and Cook joined former England captain Mike Gatting, England women’s captain Charlotte Edwards and London Mayor Boris Johnson to launch the scheme in Harrow.

In an unseasonally biting wind Cook mucked in with the painting of the Harrow club house while casting his thoughts forward to the

summer when England will start as firm favourites in a home Ashes series against opponents battered 4-0 in India recently.

Cook said: “We’re the first England team to play backto-back Ashes series so close together so the potential and the opportunity to do something very special is there.

“I wouldn’t read too much into what happened in India with Australia. The conditions were very different to what we are going to experience in England.

“They are going to be a very tough side to beat. They have got some world-class players.

The Ashes is a unique event so hopefully it will bring the best out of both sides.

“The favourites stuff is all off the field. You can read all you want about that sort of stuff but it is irrelevant.”

viding very compelling evidence that this may indeed be true.

But while all signs point to Woods being back at his best after years of struggling with injuries, personal strife and a tedious swing overhaul his comeback will not be complete in many minds, including his own, until he wins another major.

It has been nearly five years since Woods celebrated his last major success at the 2008 U.S. Open and eight since he slipped into his fourth green jacket as Masters champion.

Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors that has been Woods’ ‘Holy Grail’ has stalled at 14.

But with the year’s first major set for April 11-14 at Augusta National, Woods appears to have his game back in top gear and ready to resume his quest.

“Jack did it (win) until he was 46,” said Woods. “I just feel like over the years he was the most consistent at

putting himself in position to win major championships and win tournaments.

“You start realising that it gets a little more difficult as you get older to balance.

“That’s just life.

“He was better at that than anybody else and hopefully over the course of my career, when all is said and done, I was pretty good at it as well.”

While Woods’ work on the golf course has been of the highest standard, his personal life has been more of a triple-bogey.

He saw his marriage unravel in a messy public divorce as the sleazy details of a string of extra-marital affairs were exposed, sending sponsors running for cover.

It was a shocking fall from grace with injuries and a twoand-a-half-year barren stretch without a PGA Tour win adding to his pain.

But after nearly four years of personal and professional turmoil the stars seem to be

realigning for Woods as he rebuilds his life and image.

Yes, life is good again for Woods, who enjoyed a whirlwind week at last month’s Arnold Palmer Invitational that began with him announcing a new love interest in Olympic skiing champion Lindsey Vonn and ended in victory with on top the world rankings for the first time since October 2010.

“He’s paid a heavy price from the standpoint when you live under that kind of intense expectations,” said Mark O’Meara one of Woods’ oldest friends. “He loves challenges.

Always a favourite at Augusta, Woods has been in brilliant form winning his last two events.

In both those victories Woods putting has been sensational while the swing changes he has made are finally paying dividends.

But the biggest change, says Woods, is that he is finally healthy again.

34 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Sport

Rodgers: quality Carroll may shine away from Anfield

Terry praise for controversial Di Canio

By Matt McGeehan

‘Through no fault of his own he arrived on the back of an incredible price tag’

By Ian Parkes LIVERPOOL manager Brendan Rodgers is convinced Andy Carroll can again become a goal machine, just not necessarily at Anfield.

Rodgers believes that at the age of 22, the £35 million price tag hung heavy around Carroll’s neck when he joined Liverpool from Newcastle in January 2011 when Kenny Dalglish was in charge.

After scoring 31 goals in one and a half seasons for his hometown club, Carroll failed to recapture such form after signing for the Reds.

Upon Rodgers’ arrival last summer, Carroll was farmed out on loan to today’s visitors to Anfield, West Ham, with whom he has scored five goals in 17 appearances during an injury-hit campaign.

Rodgers has this week made it clear he will not make a firm decision on whether Carroll stays or goes until the end of the season, but is convinced the 24-year-old still has a big future in the game.

“It was very unfortunate

for Andy when he joined this club because he had limited experience of the Premier League,” said Rodgers.

“Through no fault of his own he arrived on the back of an incredible price tag for someone so young and inexperienced, and the early stages were difficult for him.

“But there’s no doubt Andy has great qualities.

Look at one of his two goals last week for West Ham from the corner (in a 3-1 win over West Brom).

“There are not too many better sights in football when you’ve the big guy going and heading the ball like that.

“Three of his five goals this season have come from set plays, one from a cross and the other a penalty.

“As to his future, there are other things involved, it’s not as simple as him being here. There are other things we need to consider in it all.

“But do I think he can be a top player? Is he a top player? He certainly has that potential.

“If he gets that opportunity of playing in a team that suits his style, then there’s

always a chance.”

The last comment is arguably the key because the way Liverpool and Rodgers like to play, with the ball on the ground, is undoubtedly not to Carroll’s style.

With his Anfield days seemingly numbered, and with Liverpool understood to be happy to cut their losses if a club offers £17 million, speculation is rife as to a likely destination.

A return to Newcastle and a potential swap deal with Hatem Ben Arfa has been rumoured, although Rodgers has refused to bite.

“That’s normal, that’s the football world. There’s always gossip and speculation,” said Rodgers.

“The important thing is Andy is at a very good club with a very good manager.

“As I’ve said, it’s one where we will see it through to the end of the season and we’ll take it from there.”

Rodgers will at least not have to cope with Carroll today as the striker is not allowed to play against his parent club.

Going into the game, Rodgers’ only doubt is striker Raheem Sterling who is struggling with a thigh injury.

Andy Carroll has scored only five goals in 17 appearances during an injury-hit campaign for West Ham

Spurs without trio for two weeks

By Paul Hirst

Gareth Bale, who has scored 22 times for Tottenham this season, will miss only two games due to an ankle injury

TOTTENHAM have received a huge boost in their hopes for Champions League qualification with the news that Gareth Bale will return to training within two weeks.

Bale was carried off on a stretcher during the dying seconds of Spurs’ 2-2 draw against Basle on Thursday night, prompting fears the 22-goal striker could be out for a lengthy period.

The Welshman, Aaron Lennon and William Gallas - who also had to come off during the Europa League quarter-final first leg - all underwent scans and the news was positive for the London club.

A Spurs statement read: “The club can confirm that Gareth Bale (sprained ankle ligaments), William Gallas (calf strain) and Aaron Lennon (soft tissue contusion below the knee) all underwent scans on Friday after being forced off with injuries during our draw

with Basel.

“The results of these scans have indicated that all three players are expected to return to training within two weeks.

“Bale, Gallas and Lennon have all commenced their treatment and are responding positively.”

Many thought Andre Villas-Boas was just being optimistic when he claimed that Bale would be out for a short time of around three weeks.

The way that David Degen trod on the 23-year-old’s standing ankle, twisting it almost at a right angle to his right leg, led to a shriek from the player and Spurs fans inside White Hart Lane started to fear the worst.

Yet the results of the scan are even better than expected with the Welshman possibly missing two matches - next Thursday’s second leg against Basle, which follows today’s visit of Everton in the Barclays Premier League.

He is scheduled to return to training before Tot-

tenham’s crunch match against champions Manchester City on April 21.

There are many statistics that can be used to highlight just how important Bale has been to Tottenham’s success this season, the main one being that he has already found the net 22 times.

Many of those goals have been crucial ones that have decided the outcome of matches that seemed lost before he took them by the scruff of the neck.

Yet Lennon’s contribution on the right flank has been almost as important, with the England winger finding the best form of his career under Villas-Boas, whose team sit third in the league with seven games of the season left.

Spurs fans will no doubt be hoping Gallas is not rushed back in to action too soon.

The 35-year-old endured a torrid night against the Swiss and looked well off the pace in the previous round against Inter Milan.

JOHN Terry hopes Chelsea can inflict defeat on Paolo Di Canio’s Sunderland at Stamford Bridge today after praising the controversial Italian’s character.

Di Canio’s appointment as successor to Martin O’Neill has been the subject of much debate this week, with former foreign secretary David Miliband quitting as vice-chairman of Sunderland over the 44year-old’s past statements professing to be a “fascist but not a racist”.

Di Canio on Wednesday insisted he does not support “the ideology of fascism” as he seeks to mastermind Sunderland’s Barclays Premier League survival.

That quest begins today against Chelsea, where Terry’s side will be seeking to enhance their claim on a Champions League qualifying spot.

“I can only speak highly of him (Di Canio),” Terry said.

“I played against him when he was at Charlton. His movement was fantastic and I found he was just a real nice guy on the pitch.

“I was only young at the time when I was playing against him when he was at West Ham and sides like that.

“He always spoke to me after games and said ‘listen, maybe you should do this and do that’ which was really nice at the time.

“A two word sentence was enough and something I learned from.

“He always gave a battle. If there was a little tussle he’d get up and shake your hand after and that kind of thing.

“So very fair, very passionate, as we’ve seen with his character, and his ability was fantastic. He was a credit.”

Terry, who was not asked directly about Di Canio’s views, anticipates the Italian’s arrival will galvanise the Black Cats.

“He’s certainly going to have them up for it,” said Terry, who may return to the bench after starting in Thursday night’s 3-1 Europa League quarter-final first leg defeat of Rubin Kazan.

The FA Cup holders have a place in the semi-final against Manchester City and travel to Moscow next Thursday seeking to confirm their last-four spot in the Europa League, with Terry believing winning results in the Premier League are now imperative.

“We really need to push on in the league,” Terry said.

“Realistically he (interim boss Rafael Benitez) probably can’t rest too many in the league.

“We must win and keep winning games in the league and really push, because that is what this club feeds off, is the Champions League. We must be involved in that.”

35 SUNDAY MAIL • April 7, 2013

Sport SAINTS CELEBRATE ‘MASSIVE WIN’ LEAVING FORMER BOSS ON THE BRINK

Blatter stays cool on relegation, points deductions for racism

By Brian Homewood

Dejected: Reading goalkeeper Adam Federici knows his side are all but relegated from the Premier League after the defeat

Southampton push Reading and Adkins closer to drop Reading 0 Southampton 2 JAY Rodriguez was celebrating a “massive” win after Southampton beat Reading 2-0 at the Madejski Stadium to pull further away from the relegation zone and push former manager Nigel Adkins closer to the drop.

Although Reading began brightly and created a number of openings, Rodriguez got the first in the 34th minute and Adam Lallana made sure of the win 18 minutes from time.

The win lifts Southampton seven points clear of the drop zone, while Reading are seven points adrift of safety at the

foot of the table.

“It’s massive,” Rodriguez said of the result on Sky Sports 2. “Every game we’re coming to now is a big game and we just need to carry on working hard and improving to the end of the season.

“Reading put us under pressure and played really well but the timing of our goal was brilliant for us. It kicked us on.”

There was a little controversy about Rodriguez’s goal as he clattered in to goalkeeper Adam Federici after getting the vital touch, but no foul was given to the clear displeasure of Adkins.

However, Rodriguez said: “I only had eyes on the ball.

I didn’t see the keeper to be honest until it went in.”

While Southampton’s decision to sack Adkins and re-

place him with Mauricio Pochettino in mid-season was controversial, Rodriguez is certain it is paying dividends for Southampton now.

“I think he’s given us a belief,” he said. “He’s very passionate, he’s very good in tactical situations and the team spirit is there. It’s a great feeling to be on the winning side.”

But he also had words of praise for former boss Adkins.

“He’s a great manager,” he said. “He’ll do a fantastic job I’m sure at Reading but we can only concentrate on ourselves and it’s a great win for us today.”

The defeat leaves Reading in a desperate situation but Adkins insisted he would stay positive.

“We needed a win today,” he

Van Persie backed to end goal drought

By Alan Baldwin MANCHESTER United manager Alex Ferguson is backing Robin van Persie to end a nine-game goal drought as the Premier League leaders prepare for tomorrow’s derby clash with champions Manchester City.

“Robin doesn’t need a rest, that’s for sure,” the Scot told reporters. “He’s a strong lad with a great physique.

“The goals will come. All strikers have little dry spells - you always hope it ends quickly. It’s just part of being a striker.”

The Dutchman last scored for United in a home game against Everton in February and, with 19 goals to his credit, has fallen behind Liverpool’s Luis Suarez (22)

Robin van Persie has failed to score in his last nine matches as the league’s top scorer.

Ferguson said van Persie was unlucky not to be credited with the winner at Sunderland last weekend, when his shot took a deflection off

Titus Bramble’s thigh and was given as an own-goal.

The 29-year-old scored the winner with a late free kick in a 3-2 derby victory at City’s Etihad stadium last December. United are now 15 points clear of their rivals with eight games remaining.

Ferguson said striker Wayne Rooney and right back Rafael were back in training after missing United’s 1-0 defeat to Chelsea in an FA Cup sixth-round replay on Monday.

“Hopefully they will be fine

by Monday,” said the manager.

“Jonny Evans and Nemanja Vidic are not there yet but they will hopefully be ready.

We have a little bit of time on our hands to get most of the troops prepared for the game.”

said. “We were up against a good team but we’re at home and we’ve got to win the game of football. We’ve not done that, that’s the reality of where we are. We’ve got to keep working hard.”

Reading were left to rue a glaring miss by the usually reliable Adam Le Fondre when the game was still goalless, but Adkins was not pointing a finger of blame.

“He’s a great goalscorer in my eyes, a great finisher,” he said. “We’ve got him on the field for that reason so when the opportunity comes he can take it. It didn’t happen today but it will in the future.”

Reading now have six games to somehow overhaul a number of clubs if they are to play Premier League football next season.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has expressed misgivings about the idea of relegation and points deductions as punishments for racism, suggesting it could encourage fans to deliberately try and get matches stopped.

In January, the 77-year-old Swiss proposed the possible introduction of such sanctions for teams whose fans were guilty of racism but appeared to back away from that stance during a speech at an event in Zurich.

“Where does it end?” he asked. “How far can we go?

To what extent can we expect that a game is stopped, by players walking off the field?

“Can we stop it by deducting points or by relegating a team? Or will this lead to persons coming to the stadium wanting to stop the game intentionally? There is so much passion in football.”

Blatter said that, on the suggestion of the world players’ union FIFPro, a resolution would be put to the annual FIFA Congress is May asking for uniform sanctions worldwide.

Blatter also criticised the situation in Italy saying it was a “shame” that a former second division defender who

FIFA President Sepp Blatter spoke on a number of subjects, including the bailout in Cyprus

Premier League standings Team 1 Manchester ManchesterUtd United 2 Manchester Chelsea City 3 Tottenham Arsenal 4 Arsenal Manchester City 5 Chelsea Liverpool 6 Everton Tottenham Hotspur 7 Liverpool Everton 8 West Brom Stoke City 9 Swansea Bolton Wanderers 10 Fulham West Brom 11 Southampton Fulham 12 West Ham United Newcastle 13 Norwich Sunderland 14 Stoke Aston City Villa 15 Newcastle Blackburn Rovers 16 Aston Villa Wolves 17 Sunderland Birmingham 18 Wigan Blackpool 19 QPR Wigan Athletic 20 Reading West Ham United

denounced a match-fixing attempt had been shunned and could not get a new contract.

“We had the case of Simone Farina, and guess what happened? Italian clubs refused to sign him. He denounced football officials and they didn’t want to sign him any more... what a shame.”

Blatter also hit out at criticism of FIFA and turned to politics as he criticised the European Union’s handling of the financial crisis in Cyprus, Greece and Spain and the politics of austerity.

“Cyprus is a country with one million inhabitants, and in this country, in great financial difficulties, people devised a system where investors have to pay the bill directly.

“Do you think this would have been possible for 10 million Greeks or 50 million Spaniards, would anyone have had the courage? But with a small country, there they have done it.

“In my early studies, I learned that if I want to help someone, I shouldn’t pay his debts, I have to give him money so he can make investments to get the economy going again, to create jobs and stimulate consumption.

“Then the profit from this can be used to pay back debt, but if someone else pays my debt, I become dependent.”

P

W

D

L

F

30 37 30 36 31 36 31 36 30 36 30 36 31 37 32 36 32 37 30 37 32 36 30 36 32 37 32 36 31 37 32 37 31 36 30 37 31 36 32 36

25 22 18 21 17 19 16 19 16 17 13 14 13 12 13 10 12 10 12 9 10 10 11 7 11 7 10 9 10 8 11 7 8 8 10 4 7 5 7

2 11 8 7 6 10 8 7 12 14 9 15 5 7 11 10 9 10 10 15 6 11 14 11 13 12 6 10 9 7 10 15 6 9 11 15 8 12

3 4 4 8 8 7 7 9 7 12 5 8 9 10 14 16 11 15 11 15 13 11 14 11 15 12 14 16 17 15 19 14 13 16 18 16 14 19 17

70 74 55 67 53 69 61 55 59 47 51 59 50 42 46 43 52 43 53 46 45 35 51 30 42 28 45 41 43 35 44 33 36 36 53 28 36 36 41

A Pts 31 35 26 30 38 39 34 33 32 41 35 45 40 45 43 44 42 54 46 68 53 41 44 52 49 56 39 58 56 57 59 63 43 54 56 74 51 59 63 64

77 62 70 57 67 56 65 55 58 51 56 48 51 44 46 41 46 39 46 37 45 36 44 35 44 34 42 33 40 33 40 31 39 30 39 23 36 23 33

Premier League Results Reading Southampton

0 2

Norwich Swansea

2 2

Stoke Aston Villa

1 3

West Brom Arsenal

1 2

Playing Today Liverpool v West Ham, 3.30pm Tottenham v Everton, 4.05pm Chelsea v Sunderland, 5pm Newcastle v Fulham, 5pm QPR v Wigan, 6.10pm Playing Tomorrow Man United v Man City, 10pm Cyprus Championship Omonia APOEL

3 0

Anorthosis AEK

0 3

Apollon Doxa

0 0

Paralimni AEL

2 1

36 April 7, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL

Sport

Doping: the darker side to the glamour of global sport 32

Southampton push Reading and former boss Adkins closer to drop 35

Auroras Encore springs Grand National surprise

By Tom Peacock SUE Smith became only the third woman in history to train the winner of the Grand National as 66-1 outsider Auroras Encore claimed the Aintree spectacular.

Beaten by just a head in the Scottish National at Ayr a year ago, the 11-year-old had been well beaten in recent starts but came to challenge for the lead jumping the final fence.

While the complexion of the National has changed so many times on the long run-in in the past, the result was scarcely in doubt on this occasion as Auroras Encore galloped all the way to the line under Ryan Mania to score by nine lengths.

Cappa Bleu finished strongly to grab

the runner-up spot, with Teaforthree and Oscar Time third and fourth respectively.

Scottish-born rider Mania said: “There’s no words to describe it, I got a dream ride all the way - I couldn’t believe my luck.

“I couldn’t fault the old horse. He was second in the Scottish National last year and I thought I should stay loyal to him and thank God I did.

“I never really had an anxious moment.”

Bingley-based Smith said: “It’s unbelievable, he gave him such a good ride.

“I knew the ground was right for him and hoped everything else was. He stayed down the middle and had a bit of luck in running. He didn’t have a lot of weight and that helped, too.

“He’s such a grand little horse, you

can ride him anyway you like.

“I just feel sorry for the previous owners, who were wonderful and sold him because of ill health.”

Smith’s husband, former world famous showjumper Harvey Smith, said: “It’s superb, absolutely spot-on.

“All the horses have come back in one piece. Everyone has worked hard to get it as a safe course and that has proved it today.

“This race will go on forever, look at the public- it goes out worldwide and you can’t beat it.

Jenny Pitman became the first woman to train a Grand National winner when Corbiere won the race in 1983, and she went on to saddle a second winner with Royal Athlete in 1995.

Venetia Williams struck gold with 100-1 shot Mon Mome in 2009.

The 66-1 outsider, riden by Ryan Mania, romped away to an unexpected nine-length win in the world famous race

Rosicky at the double as Arsenal climb into top four Czech scores first league goals of the season West Brom 1 Arsenal 2

By Nemanja Bjedov OMONIA crushed archrivals APOEL 3-0 in the first round of the championship playoffs yesterday, but second-placed Anorthosis failed to close the six-point gap on the league leaders as they suffered a surprising 3-0 loss to AEK at the Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium in Larnaca.

Georgios Efrem scored twice, either side of Leandro’s goal, to help Omonia extend their winning streak to eight consecutive league matches and cut the gap on Anorthosis to four points.

Toni Savevski’s men remain in fourth position with 56 points, while AEK stay third with 58.

TOOK ADVANTAGE

By John Curtis

T

OMAS Rosicky’s double earned ten-man Arsenal their sixth win in the past seven Barclays Premier League games and increased the pressure on Chelsea and Tottenham in the battle for a Champions League spot.

Rosicky broke the deadlock at the Hawthorns with his first league goal of the campaign and then added a second early in the second period.

West Brom midfielder James Morrison reduced the arrears from the penalty spot after Per Mertesacker was red carded for bringing down Shane Long but the Gunners held on to claim the three points.

Victory enabled Arsene Wenger’s side to climb above Chelsea into fourth spot and they are now only a point behind Spurs with their two main rivals both in action today.

Arsenal were worthy winners despite the continued absence of injured duo Jack

APOEL and Anorthosis thrashed

Tomas Rosicky’s two goals moved Arsenal into the top four as the battle for Champions League places hots up Wilshere and Theo Walcott and have the momentum - and no European distractions unlike their main competitors - entering the final phase of the season.

Rosicky’s overall contribution was impressive but there were also key performances from Santi Cazorla and skipper Mikel Arteta.

Albion only came to life after the introduction of substitute striker Romelu Lukaku and Mertesacker’s red card but they are comfortably placed in mid-table.

Arsenal needed a goal-line clearance from Rosicky to prevent Albion taking the lead af-

ter 12 minutes. Chris Brunt’s corner picked out Claudio Yacob’s run to the near post and his glancing header beat Lukasz Fabianski only for Rosicky to head away.

Arsenal broke the deadlock after 20 minutes. Arteta’s long pass was seized upon

by Gervinho who turned past Gareth McAuley before crossing for Rosicky who headed home from close range.

After 51 minutes Rosicky doubled Arsenal’s lead with his second goal of the game.

Aaron Ramsey’s pass was volleyed by Rosicky with plenty of power and Ben Fos-

ter was unable to hold the shot. Rosicky was the first to react to the rebound and made no mistake from eight yards out.

Baggies boss Steve Clarke responded by bringing on strikers Lukaku and Markus Rosenberg in place of Graham Dorrans and Jerome Thomas respectively.

Laurent Koscielny was booked for bringing down Long but the Gunners were in control of the game and Lukaku’s weak freekick straight at Fabianski summed up Albion’s performance.

There was a rare moment of

danger for the Gunners when Fabianski blocked Brunt’s near-post effort.

Albion were given a lifeline after 71 minutes when last defender Mertesacker was sent off for bringing down Long in the box and the resulting spot-kick was converted by Morrison.

Wenger took off Gervinho and brought on Thomas Vermaelen to replace Mertesacker.

Albion came close to levelling when McAuley headed just wide from a Brunt corner. Lukaku curled a shot just wide and Long fired over the bar but Arsenal held on.

In the Larnaca derby, Anorthosis goalkeeper Mathieu Valverde was sent off after only 17 minutes for a foul outside his penalty area and the visitors immediately took advantage when Alex da Silva scored from the resulting free kick.

Jan Rezek missed a penalty early in the second half for Anorthosis and Paulo Jorge’s own goal piled on the misery shortly afterwards, as AEK took a 2-0 lead.

Spanish midfielder Joan Tomas set up the final score seven minutes from time.

Elsewhere, in playoffs Group 2, Miljan Mrdakovic’s brace was enough to give Enosis Neon Paralimni a 2-1 victory over AEL, while Apollon and Doxa Katokopia played out a goalless draw at the Tsirion Stadium in Limassol.