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Thursday, January 10, 2013

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Merkel: no special terms for Cyprus German parliament unlikely to back Cyprus bailout ‘at the present time’

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ERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday there could be no special bailout conditions for Cyprus that did not include the need for economic reforms such as privatisations, which have been ruled out by President Demetris Christofias.

At the same time, a senior member of Merkel’s centre-right coalition said the German parliament was unlikely to back financial aid for Cyprus at the present time due to concerns about transparency.

Merkel, who is expected on the island tomorrow for a gathering of European Union conservative parties, said yesterday there could be no special bailout conditions for Cyprus that did not include the need for economic reforms such as privatisations.

“We agree it is important that the troika should talk with Cyprus and that there can be no special conditions for Cyprus because we have common rules in Europe,” Merkel told a news conference.

“We are far from the end of the talks.”

She was speaking after talks with visiting Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who said that “privatisations were one of the key elements that allowed Malta to move forward” and make its economy more competitive.

Christofias has said that he would not agree to privatisations but it might

not be up to him in the end.

German newspaper Handelsblatt reported yesterday that Cyprus can only expect a bailout in early March after the presidential election next month as eurozone finance ministers want to wait to work with Christofias’ successor.

“The incumbent Christofias categorically rejects the sale of state companies.

“Without privatisation revenues the country cannot be reformed,” the paper quoted sources in Brussels as saying.

Earlier before Merkel’s comments, Rainer Bruederle of the Free Democrats (FDP), junior partner in Merkel’s coalition, told Bild newspaper: “There are many question marks regarding Cyprus. On the basis of what we know so far I do not see a majority (in the lower house Bundestag) for financial aid.

“If the impression exists that German taxpayers are to be liable for dirty money, the aid would not be manageable or acceptable.”

This was an apparent reference to concerns over Cyprus’ popularity as a tax haven for wealthy Russians.

Further complicating the outlook for the island, a senior member of Germany’s main opposition Social Democrats (SPD) was quoted yesterday as saying his party would not support financial aid for Cyprus. “As matters stand, I

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COLDEST DAY YET IN WINTER FREEZE

Two boys clean a heavy fall of snow from a car in the Nicosia village of Tembria yesterday after all districts experienced some snowfall and some schools and roads were closed (Christos Theodorides) STORY PAGE 3

London fetes world’s oldest underground railway at 150

By Paul Casciato BRITAIN’S capital began year-long celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the world’s oldest underground passenger railway yesterday with reams of newsprint and plans for exhibitions, books, poetry and a commemorative steam train ride.

The rail service known affectionately as the “Tube”, which began in Queen

Victoria’s reign, sheltered Londoners from Hitler’s bombs and has been a familiar friend to millions heading home from work and the pub, celebrated by announcing new trains, increased capacity and more frequent service.

“The Tube annihilates distance, liquidates traffic and is the throbbing cardiovascular system of the greatest city on earth,” London Mayor Boris Johnson said in a statement released yesterday by Transport for London (TfL), the authority that runs the

British capital’s buses, trains and the Underground.

Over the next 20 years London’s population is expected to grow by well over a million people, underlining the importance of continuing to improve and upgrade the Tube network, TfL said.

It said a major upgrade programme, one of the largest and most complex engineering projects in the world, was already providing tangible benefits for

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Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

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Home PICTURE OF THE DAY

Weather Paralimni

Nicosia 11

0

Troodos

12 12

Larnaca

12

12

Paphos

Limassol

TODAY: Sunny and cold, with frost over higher ground in places.

Temperatures will reach 11C inland, 12C along the coasts and 0C over higher ground OUTLOOK: Becoming more unsettled YESTERDAY:

Max Temp Nicosia 7 Larnaca 10 Limassol 11 Paphos 10 Paralimni 9 Prodromos -2

-

Min 1 2 4 4 1 -6

Humidity 43% 37% 39% 61% 40% 96%

SUNRISE: 06:55am

SUNSET: 4:53pm

Pollution Low/Low Low/Low Low/Low Low Low Low

Air quality in Cyprus is assessed with the aid of a network of nine advanced monitoring stations.

Data is recorded hourly.

Information provided by the Air Quality Section of the Department of Labour Inspection (DLI)

Worldwide Athens Budapest Bucharest Brussels Cairo Copenhagen Damascus Dublin Frankfurt Geneva Istanbul London

3 -2 -2 7 17 6 5 9 6 2 -2 11

Snow Cloudy Cloudy Cloudy Dust Mist Light Rain Cloudy Cloudy Mist Snow Clear

Madrid Manchester Moscow Oslo Paris Prague Rome Sarajevo Sofia Stockholm Tel Aviv Vienna

1 11 -7 -2 4 5 12 0 -5 1 14 -1

Mist Cloudy Cloudy Fog Cloudy Light Rain Cloudy Clear Rain Light Fog Light Rain Snow

EXCHANGE

€

1.3147

€

0.8192

For a full list of exchange rates, see page 10

CHEMISTS NICOSIA T. Nicolaou, 35 Stasinou Ave. Tel: 22345116, 22432916 (H) M. Menikos, 73A Larnaca Ave, Anglanja. Tel: 22332165, 22330865 (H) L. Varelia, 6C Achaion St. Tel: 22776861, 22770981 (H) G. Ploutarchos, 34C Tseriou Ave, Strovolos. Tel: 22311995, 22325995 (H) 102 V. Ch. Papaprodromou, 59, Ifigenias Acropolis, Tel: 22210303, 22491165 (H) LIMASSOL C. Constantopoulos, Thessalonikiis & Epikourou, Tel: 25365325, 25811858 M. Ierides, 2 Nicou Pattichi Tel:

25336242, 25334653 (H) P. Christoforou, 8 Makedonia Ave. Tel: 25725521, 25724501 (H) LARNACA Misiel, 24 Ermou St. Tel: 24621360, 24531859 (H) A. Clerides, 6 Patron St. Tel: 24622754, 24667765 (H) PAPHOS P. Savvides, 61 E. Pallikarides St. Tel: 26933568, 26934034 (H) PARALIMNI M. Pantelidou, Sigklitikis, Tel: 23823055

2 Mapias 23730111,

Cyprus Mail Established 1945. Number 21,424 NICOSIA 24 Vass. Voulgaroctonou, P.O. Box 21144, 1502 Nicosia Tel: 22-818585, Fax: 22-676385 email: mail@cyprus-mail.com LIMASSOL 5A Nicolaou, Pentadromos Centre, Thessaloniki St, Tel: 25-761117, Fax: 25-761141 email: cyprusmail@cytanet.com.cy LARNACA Tel: 24-652243, Fax: 24-659982 PAPHOS 62 Apostolou Pavlou Avenue, Office 2, 8046 Paphos, Tel: 26 911383 Fax : 26 221049 email: paphos@cyprus-mail.com

Classical dancers of the Latvian National Ballet perform during a dress rehearsal of Giselle at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville (AFP)

QUICK CROSSWORD 2281 Across

Down

6 Making vigorous actions (13) 8 Watch (7) 9 Musical instrument (5) 10 More modern (5) 12 Tiredness (7) 13 Soldier (7) 15 Broth (anag.) (5) 16 Stale (5) 17 Priest’s cap (7) 19 Coffee without a stimulant (13)

1 Egyptian goddess (4) 2 Looking-glass (6) 3 Sack-making fibre (4) 4 Good luck charm (6) 5 Country dweller (8) 6 Benevolent (4-7) 7 Be very enthusiastic (2,9) 11 Chancellor’s seat in House of Lords (8) 12 Conifer (3) 14 Produce results (3,3) 15 Growing weary (6) 17 Cordon (4) 18 London art gallery (4)

For cryptic crossword and answers to the previous quick crossword see page 18

ON THIS DAY JANUARY 10

WHAT THE MAIL SAID

49BC

28 years ago, Thursday January 10, 1985

On this day, Julius Caesar is thought to have crossed the Rubicon, signalling the start of the Civil War.

The preliminary inquiry was continued yesterday into the case against Demetris Hadjisavvas who is facing charges of killing barwoman Andri Miliotou last September. The witnesses yesterday were the two employees of Andri who said she and the suspect had frequently quarreled because of jealousy. Andri was last seen leaving the bar with the suspect.

1776 American writer and human rights advocate Thomas Paine publishes radical pamphlet, ‘Common Sense’.

1863 The London Underground, the world’s oldest underground railway, opens between London Paddington station and Farringdon station.

1920 The League of Nations is established; its purpose is to prevent another catastrophic war like the First World War.

1991 United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar sets off for Baghdad in a final diplomatic effort to avoid war with Iraq.

1996 King Hussein of Jordan makes his first public visit to Israel.

38 years ago, Friday January 10, 1975 There was a bitter exchange between left wing representatives and the socialist leader Vassos Lyssarides in the House of Representatives yesterday when emergency measures restricting workers’ rights in view of the current situation in Cyprus were discussed. The House finally approved an amendment to the legislation regarding the termination of employment.

48 years ago, Monday January 10, 1955 Police are today investigating the mysterious death of a 57-year-old Cypriot found in the giant refrigerator of the exclusive Savoy Hotel in London. His body was found in four feet of icy water pinned down by a steel block used to dip ice blocks in the cooling vat.

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

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Coldest day yet closes some schools and roads

Snow-covered homes in Tembria village in the Nicosia district yesterday

(Christos Theodorides)

Snow falls in all districts as temperatures plunge

By Peter Stevenson THE coldest day of the winter so far, yesterday saw the closure of roads and schools in several areas as snowfall reached as far down as the village of Tseri in Nicosia.

With varying degrees of snowfall in all districts – Famagusta reported its first snow in 40 years – a total of four mountain roads were closed yesterday with another 29 labelled by police as dangerous, while a total of eight primary schools and two secondary schools were shut, including several in the Paphos district.

Temperatures fell to 7C inland, between 10C and 11C on the coast and -2C in Prodromos. Overnight on Tuesday they had fallen to 1C inland, between 2C and 4C on the coast and -6C in mountain areas.

HAZARDOUS Yesterday would normally have been the first day back to school for many children but because of the hazardous roads a total of ten remained closed in snow-hit areas.

This meant that parents were unable to register their children but head of primary education, Elpidoforos Neoclous appeased any concerns from parents.

“The schools and the Education Ministry are flexible and understand that some children were unable to attend school due to the bad weather,” he said. “They can register them in the coming days when the roads clear up,” he added.

In addition to heavy snowfall in the mountains, the arrival of snow to lower lying areas also caused problems due to icy roads.

The Platres – Troodos, Prodromos – Troodos, Kar-

vouna – Troodos and Agros – Troodos roads were closed yesterday for all cars.

The Ayias Koronis – Farmakas – Palechori, Palechori– Agros, Askas – Fterikoudi, Alonas–Polystypos–Platanistassa, Lagoudera–Farmakas, Kakopetria–Karvouna roads were deemed to be dangerous with only those cars having chains or fourwheel drive advised to travel on them.

In the Limassol district the Erimis – Kyvides – Platres road was closed for the same reason while the Tsadas – Stroumbi, Asproyia – Panayia, Panayia – Pentalia, Trachypedoula – Ayiou Nikolaou Kelokardari – Salamis, Salamis – Ayios Ioannis, Arodes – Kathika, Pegia – Kathika, Kathika – Drousha, Kathika – Stroumbi and Tsadas – Stroumbi roads were also deemed dangerously slippery. The roads between Pachna and Kyvides and Tsada and Mesoyi were also deemed to be dangerous.

“Drivers heading towards mountainous areas are advised to use chains when possible if they do not drive a four-wheel drive car,” police spokesman Andreas Angelides said. “They are also advised to keep their cars in a low gear while also having their lights turned on in foggy areas,” he added. “The public is advised to be extra careful and should they get into an accident or notice adverse weather conditions they should call the citizens helpline on 1460,” he added.

The freezing temperatures have meant that many people in mountain areas have had to resort to burning wood to heat their homes according to Kyperounta community leader Giorgos Panayiotou. “Since the dissolution of the heating al-

lowance that people received from the state, many have had trouble heating their houses and have resolved to burning wood,” he said. The depth of snow at the peak of Troodos yesterday reached 40 centimetres while in Troodos square it reached 30 centimetres as community leader in the mountain village of Kalopanayiotis, despite the problems, hailed the weather as magical.

“These truly are magical moments as everything is covered in snow,” deputy community leader for Kalopanayiotis, Pambos Christodoulou said. “We invite those who are able to come and share these moments to join us,” he added.

Snow also covered the occupied northern peaks of the Pentadaktylos mountains yesterday with reports suggesting a depth of 10cm to 13cm. According to reports, roads in occupied Kyrenia were also shut due to the snowfall. Police in the north warned drivers to be especially careful.

WARMER The weather is due to warm up somewhat as of today.

“Despite it being the coldest day so far this winter, snow and ice will slowly disappear as the weather-front is moving northeasterly and from midnight [last night] onwards we should see an improvement in weather conditions,” said senior meteorological officer Kleanthis Nicolaides.

“From Thursday [today] we should see a gradual return to usual temperatures for this time of year,” he added.

According to the forecasts the temperature inland will rise to 11C today with 12C on the coast and zero in the mountains.

Two men strive to keep warm in Old Nicosia by burning rubbish in a tin can (Christos Theodorides)

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

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Home Mudslinging intensifies as elections Man runs off after Larnaca court draw near CYPRUS TODAY

sentences him to four months

A MAN tried to escape from Larnaca court yesterday on being sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for firing shots to intimidate electricity authority workers who had come to cut his supply off for non-payment last year.

The 22-year-old man’s father who was present at the hearing was arrested yesterday after verbally assaulting the police.

When sentence was handed down, the 22-year-old’s father started shouting: “you have destroyed a family”. The father was escorted outside the court room by police, while the son pushed a police officer who was escorting him and started running away. He ran for around half a kilometre before police caught up with him.

The court had sentenced the 22-year-old from Pyrga to four months’ imprisonment for firing two shots in the air when an electricity authority crew showed up in his home to disconnect his power supply because he had not been paying his bills. The incident happened last June.

Remand in jewellery shop robbery LIMASSOL court yesterday remanded two people for seven days who had given themselves up to the police on Tuesday evening after several missteps following a jewellery shop robbery.

A 25-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman, both from Iran, robbed a Limassol jewellery store on Monday morning but were chased by local shop owners and members of the public before getting into a car and hitting several parked cars during their getaway, police said.

The pair had gone into the shop asking to see various items. At some point, they asked for some water and the man then hit the 45-year-old shop owner when he turned his back, and subsequently threatened him at knifepoint.

They took jewellery worth €15,000 from an open safe and a pouch on the counter and made a run for it, but were followed by local shop owners and members of the public.

The two robbers managed to escape in a pick-up truck.

They gave themselves up on Tuesday, accompanied by their lawyer, and returned their haul.

By Poly Pantelides AS THE February elections draw near, members of AKEL brass, backing contender Stavros Malas, and EDEKbacked candidate Giorgos Lillikas, yesterday threw accusations at each other.

AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou said Lillikas was as “unreliable” a candidate as was main contender Nicos Anastasiades.

Lillikas accused the AKEL leadership of being more interested in playing speculation games.

“It seems Kyprianou is more interested in who will pass to the second round rather than who will win the elections. We are more interested in who will win,” Lillikas said during a press conference yesterday.

Polls have been consistently placing Anastasiades ahead of both Lillikas and Malas.

This has invited speculation over a possible scenario of a second electoral round, in the event that Anastasiades does not amass a majority vote from the first round.

In that scenario, people may be asked to choose between Anastasiades and either Lillikas or Malas. Kyprianou said yesterday that Anastasiades and Lillikas were equally “unreliable”. “[Lillikas] tries, just like Anastasiades, to give the impression that he has a magical solution for all problems,” Kyprianou said.

Lillikas is “trying to convince the left to support him,

Nicos Anastasiades (right) on the campaign trail at Limassol port yesterday claiming that only he can take on Anastasiades,” Kyprianou added.

Trying to prove his point, Kyprianou once again referred to Lillikas’ former guise as an aide to former president George Vassiliou, his career as an AKEL MP and to his subsequent post as commerce minister and later foreign minister during the

Papadopoulos administration in which AKEL was a coalition partner.

AKEL spokesman Giorgos Loucaides also issued statements in that vein. Lillikas used to be in favour of a Cyprus debt bailout whereas “over the past few weeks” he has been claiming that he will release Cyprus from the terms set by Cyprus’ international

lenders, Loucaides said.

Lillikas’ office accused Loucaides of trying “again to divide people into those who support a bailout and those who do not”.

“They unfortunately cannot understand the complexity of the whole issue and the necessity for a composite tackling of today’s challenges,” the announcement said.

Hike in gun licences to raise cash GUN licences are due to get more expensive for sellers and buyers, the House Legal Affairs committee heard yesterday.

The plenum is due to vote a series of bills aiming to increase the state’s revenue on January 17. This includes a proposal to increase a licence to sell guns from €341 to €410, and a licence to repair guns from €85 to €105.

Registering a shotgun is due to cost €40 rather than €34, and registering a collectible gun is due to cost €20 euro rather than €17. There are an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 hunters in Cyprus.

Gun licences are issued on a five-year basis, head of legal affairs committee, Ionas Nicolaou said.

Those interested in having a criminal record check done will be asked to pay €20, an increase of €3.0.

Nicolaou said that about 38,000 criminal background checks are done annually, which should bring in an additional €114,000 a year if the price increase is voted through.

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For more information please call 99218866

Orphanides rubbishes AKEL’s laptop claims ‘Allegations are not consistent with events’ , he said

By George Psyllides FORMER Central Bank governor Athanasios Orphanides yesterday accused the leader of ruling AKEL of lying about the circumstances that led him to hold on to a pair of laptop hard drives after he left the job.

The issue emerged last September with Orphanides being accused of withholding data and documents belonging to the banking regulator.

The former governor rubbished the allegations at the time and threatened legal action.

“Any allegations that are not consistent with the events (outlined in a September 6, 2012 statement) are false and completely unsubstantiated,” Orphanides’ lawyers said yesterday.

The announcement followed comments by AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou a few days ago, suggesting a

lot of information contained on the drives had been deleted.

This information should have been passed on to a professional firm investigating why the island’s two main banks sought state assistance, he said.

Daily Haravghi, the mouthpiece of the ruling party, yesterday ran a front page report saying Orphanides had refused to take delivery of a letter from the Central Bank asking him to return the drives.

The paper said a private bailiff visited Orphanides’ home in the village of Lefkara and despite there being someone inside, whoever they were did not open the door when they were told it was a bailiff.

Orphanides is currently in the USA and it could not be immediately confirmed if any members of his family were still in Cyprus.

Haravghi said “a member of the family refused to accept the letter” – although

Athanasios Orphanides the door was never opened.

After waiting for some time, the bailiff departed after sliding the letter under the door, the paper said.

Back in September, Orphanides said he had no docu-

ment belonging to the Central Bank in his possession.

The hard drives in question contained his personal correspondence, which could not be deleted, he said through his lawyers.

“That was the reason why, during talks between Mr Orphanides and bank officials prior to his departure in April 2012, it was decided that the hard drives would be removed from these laptops before the latter were to be returned to the Central Bank,” it was said at the time.

Orphanides served as governor between May 2007 and May 2012.

His departure triggered recriminations between himself and the government, with Orphanides blaming the administration for the ills of the economy. The government in turn blamed the banking crisis, and a weak regulatory framework on Orphanides, during his fiveyear stewardship.

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Merkel says no special terms for Cyprus in bailout talks More talk in Germany of ‘dirty money’ described as ‘unfair’ by the government (continued from front page) cannot imagine that German taxpayers save Cypriot banks whose business model is based on facilitating tax evasion,” SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.

The centre-left SPD, which hopes to oust conservative Merkel in elections due in September, has taken a hard line against tax evasion, including by wealthy Germans who squirrel away cash in Swiss bank accounts.

Merkel would need SPD votes to secure German parliamentary backing for a Cypriot bailout. “If Mrs Merkel wants SPD support for a Cyprus bailout package she will need good reasons. At present I do not see them,” said Gabriel, whose party is lagging well behind Merkel’s Christian Democrats in opinion polls.

Sueddeutsche Zeitung quoted German government sources as saying Merkel

would only seek parliamentary backing for a Cypriot bailout if Nicosia embraces “radical reforms.” Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou rejected the money laundering allegations later yesterday, describing the attacks as unfair.

The government has repeatedly said it fully conforms with international rules against money laundering.

Asked if the government was concerned about the possibility of the attacks being part of a plan to force foreign capital to leave the country – a belief held by many on the island – Stefanou said this should be everyone’s concern.

“Cyprus is a financial and investment centre and this is exactly the reason we always defend Cyprus, its economy and the procedures we follow,” Stefanou said.

“We are not seeking the expediencies, we are defending Cyprus from the attacks with the arguments that we have.”

Ancient floor at Nicosia site not exposed in the past 10,000 years AN ANCIENT floor which has not seen the light of day for 10,000 years has been uncovered at the Ayia VarvaraAsprokremnos site, the antiquities department said yesterday.

The department said new finds during the latest excavations had redefined the understanding of the kind of human occupation that existed at the Neolithic site in the Nicosia district, which has been radiocarbon dated to between c. 8,800-8,600 BC. The excavations took place in November 2012 and were run by Dr Carole McCartney on behalf of the University of Cyprus working in partnership with Cornell University and the University of Toronto.

According to an announcement, the floor which “was exposed for the first time in 10,000 years” exhibited a dished form, raised above the central area providing a rough bench that ran along the circumference of the interior wall.

The floor was made of trampled mud, refreshed by erosional washed sediments that appear to have collected during short term (perhaps seasonal) abandonment events.

“As seen in the northern side of the feature, ash heaps and stone tools were stratified in a sequence of repeated use events,” the department said.

The presence of buried artefacts (usable, but abandoned) and evidence of erosional episodes indicated the punctuated character of the structure’s

Excavations at Ayia Varvara-Asprokremnos occupation, while the nature of the artefacts demonstrated the domestic character of the building, it added.

Constructional features illustrated the significant degree of investment given to the building, including the deeply dished form of the building dug into bedrock and a 10-15 cm thick wall lining.

The department said the latter exhibited significant evidence of burning and was likely constructed of an organic super-structure of branches cemented in place by mud plaster.

It said the finds suggested a decline in the investment applied to the construction of shelters utilised at the site, and a shift towards a more temporary architectural form during later phases of oc-

cupation. A large carefully engraved teardrop-shaped picrolite pendant, representing a more developed form of ornament than those recovered previously, was also recovered.

Renewed excavation in another area of the site uncovered a unique arrangement of chalk slabs encircling a large hearth-like setting of burnt stone.

“This provides important information regarding the activities conducted at the site,” said the department, adding that the indications were the site may have been used for the tanning of animal, and specifically pig, skins as multi-coloured pigments, including red, yellow, orange, purple and grey ochre as well as bright green, terra verde, were found.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the media in Berlin yesterday

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Ex-diplomat had €7,000 in medical bills written off

By Stefanos Evripidou FORMER HEALTH Minister Stavros Malas yesterday confirmed that he wrote off medical fees worth over €7,000 for the former Syrian ambassador at the request of President Demetris Christofias.

Daily Phileleftheros reported yesterday that the Syrian diplomat failed to pay medical debts worth €7,373 in total, after receiving treatment on three different occasions at the Nicosia General Hospital while serving as Syrian ambassador to Cyprus.

According to the paper, Nicosia hospital wrote to the ambassador on October 10, 2010 seeking payment for two unpaid bills dating back to November 11 and December 3 of 2009

Former health minister says he did it on the instructions of President Christofias for a total sum of €6,337.

The Syrian diplomat also underwent treatment at the hospital on October 7, 2010, costing a further €1,036. None of the three bills were paid by the diplomat.

On December 6, 2011, two years after the diplomat’s initial treatment, the hospital letter ended up on the desk of Malas, who was serving as health minister at the time.

The next day, reported Phileleftheros, Malas gave instructions to his permanent secretary to write off the debts, explaining that Christofias had assured

the diplomat the debt would be erased in the public interest.

Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, Malas said: “The president had given his personal pledge to the Syrian diplomat to write off the debt.

“It is at the minister’s discretion to write off medical bills, and given the president’s commitment, I chose to write off his debts. He was not even working on the island anymore. He had already left the country.”

Asked what criteria need to be fulfilled for someone to receive preferential

treatment in not paying medical bills owed to the state, the AKEL-backed presidential candidate said: “I did the same for hundreds of citizens who were unable to pay their debts. I helped a lot of people while I was minister to write off their debts.”

Malas explained that there were three categories with regards to payment of medical bills.

Category A included people living under a certain low income and civil servants entitled to free health care. Category B covered families with two children earning in total between

€33,000 and €40,000 who were entitled to lower fees.

The third category was people earning above that threshold who were not eligible for concessions.

In any case, noted Malas, the troika had now abolished Category B and all exemptions for access to free public health care that are not based on income criteria except for persons suffering from certain chronic diseases depending on illness severity, while leaving the current income threshold for beneficiaries of Category A unchanged.

Asked whether the Syrian diplomat faced financial difficulties at the time, the presidential candidate replied: “It’s not necessarily about income, sometimes there are other issues at play.”

The new building just off the Limassol-Paphos roundabout is designed to be energy efficient, the EAC says

Electricity Authority in Paphos moving to new state-of-the-art ‘greener’ premises as of Monday THE ELECTRICITY Authority of Cyprus (EAC) in Paphos has moved to a new district office close to the city entrance, it said yesterday.

As of Monday, the public will be able to visit the new offices just off the Limassol-Paphos roundabout on 87 Eleftherios Venizelos Avenue. As of tomorrow afternoon – after office hours – customer service will be transferred to the new premises (Tel: 26206000) but the customer service department will operate as normal at the current building on Tepeleniou during EAC office hours.

The new complex, which will be fully operational from Monday, includes a substation, office space, a park and an above-ground pedes-

trian bridge. The park contains an educational energy centre and there are plans to install small renewable energy systems, the EAC said.

The building has been designed to be more energy efficient and is expected to cost up to 50 per cent less to run, the EAC said.

It will also house extravagantly priced furniture with chairs costing €490 a pop.

The EAC was forced to issue an announcement in September after local press said that the architect who won the 2002 competition charged the EAC €215,538 (before VAT).

The EAC said it had actually managed a “significant discount”.

Though it would not disclose what this came to, the EAC said that instead of paying €690

each for chairs it would instead pay €490.

The contract for the construction of the €16.5 million new offices was signed in 2009.

Paphos Mayor Savvas Vergas said at the time that the project would help towards the “rejuvenation of the town” as it would be one of the first things visitors to Paphos would see on their way into the town.

Ideas were also being floated about beautifying the area near the new EAC building.

The building was designed by architect Heracles Papachristou. The project includes a lecture hall, walkways, an outdoor park and green spaces.

The EAC yesterday apologised to customers for any inconveniences the move might cause.

New HIO chief is appointed

By Poly Pantelides TEN months after leaving empty a post that is essential to the implementation of a National Health Scheme (NHS), the cabinet yesterday appointed a new chairman to the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO).

Thomas Antoniou, a 43-yearold accountant, is the new HIO chairman, government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou announced after the meeting.

The HIO – the organisation tasked with setting up an NHS – has been headless since March last year when the previous chairman, Vassos Shiarly, left to take up the post of finance minister.

The HIO has been unable to take any executive decisions without a chairman, even though the cabinet told the health ministry in June to proceed with the NHS. Stefanou said yesterday that implementing an NHS was an “imperative need”.

But it was only last week that the government named a potential chairman after a silence of months, said member of the House health committee.

EDEK deputy, Roula Mavronicola yesterday questioned the move after months of inactivity on the issue from the government. “It’s been so long since Shiarly left. The government is changing in a month.

The question is why now?” she said.

Presidential elections will take place in February and the incumbent president will not be running. Cyprus – the only EU member state without a national health scheme – set up the HIO in 2001, more than 11 years ago.

The public system is now unable to cope with the numbers of people opting to use state hospitals for financial reasons, and Cyprus’ international lenders have also been putting pressure on to finally put an NHS in place, so that health expenditure can be better controlled.

Cyprus has agreed to delay awarding the tender for the necessary IT-infrastructure to manage the system, so that an actuarial study on the NHS can be updated this year.

Christofias on a visit to Lebanon PRESIDENT Demetris Christofias went to Lebanon yesterday for what was due to be a one-day visit to the capital, Beirut.

Christofias is accompanied

by Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, Commerce Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis, Defence Minister Demetris Eliades and the director of the president’s office, Christos Christofides.

They are due to meet today with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the president of parliament Nabih Berri. The two countries’ delegations are due to discuss a range of international and regional issues, including developments in Syria.

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

7

Home Dali municipal dog pound undergoes a makeover

By Natalie Hami DALI municipality’s dog pound has recently undergone a makeover with the setting up of spacious dog cages, along with CCTV cameras to catch people trying to dump pets and strays outside the pound, according to the municipality.

Last year the pound had come under fire by animal rights activists for its alleged lack of facilities, suggesting the dogs were not being properly cared for.

A report from the group of animal rights activists, was sent to the Cyprus Mail and reproduced in our edition of August 1, 2012. Mayor Leontios Kallenos says the allegations in the report were unfounded and contained a number of defamatory falsehoods about the lack of care for animals at the pound.

“We have to remember that it’s not a dog shelter....it’s not a hotel...under the circumstances we do our best,” he told the Cyprus Mail. Kallenos spoke of the recent addition of new cages for the animals at the pound, which would give them more room to move about. And to help run the pound more efficiently, the municipality has signed an agreement with the organisation Cyprus Voice for Animals to help maintain a high standard of care.

“The volunteers cooperate with us and they help with the cleaning and care of the animals and also getting them adopted,” he said. On a visit to the pound up in the hills surrounding Dali, the dogs appeared to be well-fed, with ample food and water and the new clean cages to wander around in. The caretaker, who did not want to be named, explained that the municipality had recently installed CCTV cameras as people had been dump-

ing animals, and even breaking in to steal pet food. Kallenos stressed that although the law states that stray dogs can only be held for 15 days and then they have to be euthanised, the municipality sometimes keeps them for months on end in an effort to have them re-homed. “Our aim is to have them adopted, and we do have the majority adopted,” said Kallenos.

He said they also end up taking in dogs from surrounding municipalities who cannot cope with the number of animals needing shelter and food. For more information on adopting a dog call Dali municipality on 22 444888.

The Cyprus Mail would like to apologise to the Dali municipality for reproducing any falsehoods relating to the treatment of the animals that were included in the original story ‘Dog pound failed in its duty of care’, which was published on August 1, 2012.

Over 2,000 breakfasts for needy children Shacolas Group makes good on its promise to schools

By Peter Stevenson AROUND 2,200 school breakfasts were picked up and delivered to primary schools around the island yesterday as part of the Shacolas Group contribution to the Education Ministry’s attempts to feed needy children.

It was the first day that returning needy pupils received their free breakfast.

“We are very happy with how things went and have received a positive first impression,” said former health minister Charis Charalambous who is chairman for the committee responsible for handing out the breakfasts. “Under our close supervision we have guaranteed the quality of food given to children is in line with the company’s reputation and we are sure that the programme will continue successfully,” he added.

The breakfast is in the form of a sandwich prepared at a Shacolas Group factory and then delivered to drop-off points in Nico-

sia, Limassol, Paphos and Larnaca where representatives of the education ministry pick up the supplies and deliver them to the primary schools.

In Nicosia the drop off point is Artopolis Bakery opposite the Mall of Nicosia, in Limassol at the Apollon Debenhams, Paphos at the Korivos Debenhams and in Larnaca at the Zinon Debenhams. The sandwiches are prepared the night before and stored in special fridges before they are delivered at 7.15am the next day.

“We are currently producing around 2,200 sandwiches a day as were ordered by the ministry of education but we can produce up to 5,000 if needs be,” Charalambous said.

“The ministry will do its best to make sure that no child goes hungry,” said a ministry official yesterday. The official number of needy children, according to the ministry is 5,000 but more than half of those already receive assistance from the Church and from parent committee donations.

THIS WEEK IN YOUR

Bishop Athanasios says people should try to be more positive as Cyprus has been through worse times

Charity cases double and triple in Limassol THE NUMBER of breakfasts given out by the Limassol Bishopric to needy schoolchildren has tripled compared to this time last year, and the number of meals given to the poor has doubled according to the Bishop of Limassol, Athanasios.

“The number of breakfasts being given to needy pupils this time last year was 480 but that number has increased to 1,312,” he said. “If you calculate the number of breakfasts given out by other parishes [in the Limassol district] that number reaches 1,450 a day,” he added.

He said the number of meals being given to needy members of the public had doubled from 300 this time last year to 600 this year. And, that doesn’t include the 200-300 people who also receive clothing, food packages and money according to the Bishop.

The Limassol Bishop was speaking at the launch of a series of charity events being organised by the Limas-

SundayMail

WIN A RASUL TREATMENT AT ST RAPHAEL ENTER OUR COMPETITION (living page 28)

sol branch of elementary teachers’ union POED and the Parents and Guardians’ association for elementary schools in the district.

“I hope the people will see all of this in a positive light during these difficult times because we have passed more difficult periods before,” he said. “We shouldn’t become pessimists as together we can face these difficulties with the help of God,” he added.

The new fundraisers will begin on Sunday with a blood donation taking place in the courtyard of the Church of Ayios Georgiou Havouzas after mass and will continue the following Sunday at 11am with a football match between teachers and parents at the Ayios Athanasios football pitch. On Saturday and Sunday, January 26 and 27, two plays will take place at the KZ Primary School.

For both the plays and the football match there will be a €5 entrance charge.

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

8

Middle East

Winter storms worst in more than 20 years

Forty years of Assad family rule is ‘too long’ says UN’s Brahimi

Floods and snow add to misery of Syrian refugees

SYRIANS believe that 40 years of Assad family rule is too long, the international mediator for Syria said, the closest he has come to calling directly for President Bashar alAssad to leave power.

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi appears to have been pushed to take a firmer stance by a speech Assad delivered on Sunday, which was billed as a new peace proposal but offered no concessions and included a vow never to talk to foes he branded terrorists and Western puppets.

Assad’s speech was firmly rejected by Western countries and the opposition, which described it as an attempt to cling to power and thwart mediation efforts.

“In Syria, in particular, I think that what people are saying is that a family ruling for 40 years is a little bit too long,” Brahimi told Britain’s BBC in an interview aired yesterday.

“So the change has to be real. It has to be real, and I think that President Assad could take the lead in responding to the aspiration of his people rather than resisting it.”

Brahimi’s remarks cast doubt about the future of his peace plan, the only major diplomatic initiative to end a war the United Nations says has killed 60,000 people.

Assad has ruled since 2000, taking over from his father Hafez who seized power in a 1970 coup. The uprising against him is backed mainly by the Sunni Muslim minority, while he is supported mainly by other members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, and other religious minorities.

In the past, Brahimi has been careful not to take a firm position on Assad’s future role, a stance that often angered the rebels fighting to overthrow the Syrian leader.

Brahimi met Assad in Damascus two weeks ago and has been convening senior US and Russian officials in an effort to narrow differences between the superpowers backing either side in the war. The next round of those talks are due next week.

By Erika Solomon and Oliver Holmes THE WORST winter storm in two decades has hit the eastern Mediterranean this week, bringing destruction and death to Syria and its neighbours who are already dealing with a refugee crisis from the country’s civil war.

Opposition activists in Syria, where war has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and cut off access to food, fuel and power for cities and towns, say dozens of people have died there in four days of relentless extreme weather.

At least 17 people have also died due to the storm in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Schools in some areas have been shut for days, refugee camps flooded and villages isolated by closed roads.

Meteorological agencies in Israel and Lebanon both called it the worst storm in 20 years.

Snowfall in the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo did not halt the fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, which has killed more than 60,000 people in the past 21 months.

Abu Othman, a Syrian opposition activist in the eastern Damascus suburbs where temperatures reached minus 6 Celsius on Tuesday night, said there had been no let up in street fighting and shelling, although the

A Syrian refugee woman braves icy conditions outside her tent during a winter storm in al-Marj, in the Bekaa Valley. Below: men play in the snowstorm in Amman

weather had at least halted air strikes by Assad’s forces.

“Our conditions are getting worse and worse with this storm. Everyone is freezing, there is nothing to heat ourselves with. There is a growing food problem because all the rain and now snow has made road conditions very dangerous,” he said, speaking over a satellite Internet connection.

In northern Syria, dis-

placed civilians were sheltering in caves to keep dry, said Fadi Yasin, an activist from the north western Idlib province, one of the first areas where peaceful protests turned into armed rebellion.

Some of thousands of people who lost their homes in shelling or had fled fighting have moved into Syria’s Dead Cities, 700 abandoned settlements from the Byzantine period, he said.

“They have taken plastic tarps and sheets to cover the frames of old buildings and have been living there but obviously it is dangerously cold to live there in a storm like this,” he said.

“Few people have anything like fuel for heating, and many just feel lucky to have blankets.”

More than 600,000 Syrian refugees have fled to neighbouring countries exposed to the storm. Many in Lebanon and Jordan were forced to move after their tents were flooded.

In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, a makeshift camp of around 400 people was flooded and tents were wrecked when torrents of rain surged into the area.

The Lebanese themselves are suffering, with many roads washed away. Much of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, wedged between high mountains that separate Syria from the coast, has lost electricity and phone service, and dozens of mountain villages have been cut off from roads due to snow.

Condemnation as Saudis behead Sri Lankan housemaid for killing of infant SAUDI Arabia beheaded a young Sri Lankan housemaid yesterday after rejecting appeals by her home country against her death sentence for the killing of an infant left in her care in 2005, Saudi and Sri Lankan authorities said.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement run by the official SPA news agency that Rizana Nafeek was executed in the town of Dawadmy, near the capital Riyadh, yesterday morning.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry said Nafeek was sentenced to death in 2007 after her Saudi employer accused her of killing his infant daughter while she was bottle-feeding. The Saudi Interior Ministry statement said the infant was strangled after a dispute between the maid and the baby’s mother.

The Colombo government appealed against the death penalty but the Saudi Supreme Court upheld it in 2010.

“President Mahinda Rajapaksa made a personal appeal on two occasions immediately after the confirmation of the death sentence, and a few days ago to stop the execution and grant a pardon to Miss Rizana Nafeek,” the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said in a statement sent by email.

“President Rajapaksa and the government of Sri Lanka deplore the execution of Miss Rizana Nafeek despite all efforts at the highest level of the government and the outcry of the people locally and internationally over the death sentence of a juvenile housemaid,” it said.

Amnesty International said the pass-

port Nafeek used to enter Saudi Arabia in May 2005 stated she was born in February 1982, but her birth certificate states she was born six years later, which would have made her 17 at the time of the infant’s death.

Saudi households are highly dependent on housemaids from African and South Asian countries. There have been reported cases of domestic abuse in which families mistreat their maids, who have then attacked the children of their employers.

Human Rights Watch condemned the execution.

“Saudi Arabia is one of just three countries that executes people for crimes they committed as children,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Some of the freed Iranian prisoners in Damascus

Iranians freed after five months in insurgent hands FORTY-EIGHT Iranians freed by Syrian rebels in exchange for more than 2,000 civilian prisoners held by the Syrian government arrived in central Damascus yesterday, a Reuters witness reported.

The Syrian government has not referred to the prisoner swap and the whereabouts of the civilian prisoners was not immediately known.

Opposition groups accuse it of detaining tens of thousands of political prisoners during Assad’s 12 years in office and say those numbers have spiked sharply during the 21-month-old civil war.

The Syrian rebel al-Baraa brigade seized the Iranians in early August and initially threatened to kill them, saying they were members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent to fight for President Bashar al-Assad.

The Islamic Republic, one of his staunchest allies, denied this, saying they were Shi’ite Muslim pilgrims visiting shrines, and it asked Turkey and Qatar to use their connections with Syrian insurgents to help secure their release.

The freed Iranians arrived at a Damascus hotel in six small buses, looking tired but in good health, each carrying a white flower, and they were welcomed by Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Reza Sheibani. They did not speak to reporters.

Bulent Yildirim, head of the Turkish humanitarian aid agency IHH which helped broker the deal, said that the reciprocal release of 2,130 civilian prisoners - most of them Syrian but also including Turks and other foreign citizens - had begun.

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

9

Britain

Tube celebrates 150 years

Tube facts The London Underground system has 275 stations.

The Metropolitan, or Met - opened on January 9, 1863 and the first stretch measured nearly four miles and ran between Paddington (Bishop’s Road) and Farringdon Street.

The Tube is one of the world’s deepest metro systems. Its deepest point is under Hampstead Heath in north London where it descends to 67 metres.

Year-long celebration of the world’s oldest underground (Continued from front page) passengers and would deliver others such as air conditioned trains.

The Guardian newspaper devoted part of its G2 section to the Tube, reavealing that US talk show host Jerry Springer was born at Highgate station and that mosquitoes in the Tube differed genetically from their cousins above ground.

The Times newspaper devoted a two-page spread to the facts and figures of a service which launched on Jan. 9, 1863 with a steam powered journey between Paddington and Farringdon Street and opened to the public the

next day.

Though revolutionary, it was not long before passenger complaints started rolling in for a service which now carries 1.1 billion people every year.

Times archivists uncovered what the paper believes may be the first complaint in a letter from Irving Courtenay in February 1863 which derides the service for over-crowding, misleading information and unhelpful staff.

The detailed missive, in which Courtenay becomes separated from his travelling party and misses his train because of the crowds, comes to an end with his frustrating

Paddington was one of the first underground stations. On the Tube in the 1950s (left) efforts to complain to a station porter who declines any responsibility.

Anyone jammed onto the Northern Line at rush hour on a week day might recognise his plight very well, though these days most commuters sit or stand mute and stoic through frequent delays and stuffy conditions.

Inside the Victorian facade of modern-day Farringdon station on Wednesday celebrations were modest, with only a handmade sign on the window of the station supervisor’s office.

Much like Courtenay’s porter, he refused to answer any questions about the anniver-

Probation services heads new wave of outsourcing for public services BRITAIN plans to contract out most of its criminal probation services in a move analysts say could be the start of a new wave of public services outsourcing to cut government spending.

Announcing the plan yesterday, the Ministry of Justice said that it spends 800 million pounds a year on probation services, the “majority” of which will be contracted out to private companies. The highest-risk offenders will remain under public sector provision.

Analysts had expected more government contracts in justice, defence and welfare

to be opened up to private companies after Britain’s coalition government came to power in 2010, intent on cutting costs to meet its budget deficit targets.

But the debacle when G4S failed to provide enough guards for the London Olympics last year, raised fears about the initiative and slowed the process.

Companies such as G4S, Serco and Mitie were disappointed in November when the Ministry of Justice scaled back plans to allow private firms to run prisons.

The process, however, now appears to be back on the government agenda.

Jessops calls in United States urges Britain administrators to stay within the EU fold CAMERA specialist Jessops called in administrators PwC yesterday, becoming Britain’s first high street casualty following a tough Christmas for retailers.

The group, which operates from 192 stores and has around 2,000 employees, has seen demand for its digital products come under pressure from the rising use of camera phones and online rivals.

Many British retailers have struggled recently as inflation, muted wages growth and government austerity measures squeeze household budgets.

PwC said Jessops core marketplace has seen a significant decline in 2012 and forecasts for 2013 indicate that this decline would continue.

THE UNITED States wants Britain to stay in the European Union and fears that a possible referendum on its membership of the 27-nation bloc would be divisive and make Britain inward-looking, a senior US official said yesterday.

The comments come as British Prime Minister David Cameron prepares to deliver a long-awaited speech on Britain’s ties with Europe and mounting calls for a referendum on whether to leave the European Union after 40 years.

“We have a growing relationship with the EU as an institution, which has an increasing voice in the world, and we want to see a strong British voice in that EU,” Philip Gordon, US assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters at a briefing in London, according to two journalists present at the meeting.

Cameron says he wants to renegotiate ties with Europe and to then seek the public’s “fresh consent” for a new settlement. In the coming weeks, he is widely expected to offer a referendum on Europe that could be held after the next election in 2015.

Cameron says he does not want to leave Europe, its biggest trading partner, but “euroscepticism” has increased among Conservative lawmakers and the public in recent years.

Urging Britain and the EU to focus on big issues such as economic growth and jobs, Gordon said that “referendums have often turned countries inward”.

sary.

On the platform, under the modern electronic signs sticking out from the ageing brickwork, passengers with iPods, newspapers and mobile phones stood waiting for the train.

Striking up a conversation on the Tube tends to be discouraged, but 21-year-old student from Essex Monique Daniels said she hadn’t considered the history of the Tube before beyond her own memory of a man on the Un-

derground who once stood up and began tap-dancing in front of her.

“It was quite weird, but quite amusing,” she said.

On Sunday the first Tube passenger journey from Paddington to Farringdon will be recreated with a series of specially restored trains including the Metropolitan Steam Locomotive No.1 and the Metropolitan Railway Jubilee Carriage No 353 - the oldest operational underground carriage in existence.

The Tube network has 253 miles of track and consists of 12 lines. At 34 miles the east-west Central Line is the longest.

Less than half of the network is actually underground. As the track heads out to London’s sprawling suburbs it emerges to run largely above ground.

More than three million passengers use the Tube each day. Passenger numbers exceeded 1.1 billion for the first time during the 2010/11 financial year.

Thursday, January 10, 2012 CYPRUS MAIL

10

World

India lashes Pakistan after Kashmir deaths

WORLD TODAY Chavez’s inauguration Most serious postponed incursion along de facto border since 2003 ceasefire VENEZUELA will postpone the inauguration of President Hugo Chavez for a new term due to health problems, the government said on Tuesday, another sign the socialist leader’s cancer may be bringing an end to his 14 years in power.

The 58-year-old former soldier who has dominated the South American OPEC nation since 1999 has not been heard from since surgery on December 11 in Cuba - his fourth operation since he was diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer in June 2011.

The announcement outraged opposition leaders who insist that Chavez must be sworn in before the National Assembly on January 10 as laid out in the constitution, or temporarily step aside and leave an ally in power.

“The commander president wants us to inform that, based on his medical team’s recommendations, the post-operative recovery should extend past January 10,” said Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor, in a letter read to the legislature.

Cyber fork will slow fast eaters A FORK that warns eaters if they are gobbling their food too quickly is under development by a French company.

It is one of the gadgets getting attention this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, an annual showcase of the latest TVs, computers and other consumer electronic devices.

The HAPIfork has a fat handle containing electronics and a battery. It is made by HapiIabs, which is based in the land of slow, languorous meals.

It contains a motion sensor, so it can calculate when it is being lifted to the mouth. If it senses that you are eating too fast, it warns with a vibration and blinking light. The company believes that using the fork 60 to 75 times during meals lasting from 20 to 30 minutes is ideal.

Between meals, you can connect the fork to a computer or phone and upload data on how fast you’re eating, for long-term tracking.

The electronics are waterproof, so you can wash the fork in the sink. If you want to put it in the dishwasher, you have to remove the electronics first.

Nutritional experts recommend eating slowly because it takes about 20 minutes to start feeling full.

By Ashok Pahalwan INDIA denounced Pakistan yesterday over a firefight in the disputed territory of Kashmir in which two Indian soldiers were killed, but the nuclear-armed rivals both appeared determined to prevent the clash escalating into a full diplomatic crisis.

India summoned Pakistan’s envoy in New Delhi to lodge a “strong protest”, accusing a group of Pakistani soldiers it said had crossed the heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir of “barbaric and inhuman” behaviour.

The body of one of the soldiers was found mutilated in a forested area on the side

Indian Army soldiers carry a coffin containing the body of their colleague in Rajouri controlled by India, Rajesh Kalia, spokesman for the Indian army’s Northern Command, said. However, he denied Indian media reports that one body had been decapitated and another had its throat slit.

“Regular Pakistan troops crossed the Line of Control ... and engaged the Indian

troops who were patrolling the sector,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement after Pakistan’s high commissioner to India had been called in.

“Two Indian soldiers were killed in the attack and their bodies subjected to barbaric and inhuman mutilation.”

India’s foreign minister

sought to cool tensions, however, saying that exhaustive efforts to improve relations could be squandered if the situation was not contained.

“I think it is important in the long term that what has happened should not be escalated,” Salman Khurshid told a news conference.

First labour unrest of 2013 in South Africa

By Wendell Roelf SOUTH African police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at hundreds of striking farm workers who blocked a highway in the grape-growing Western Cape yesterday, the first clashes of a year likely to be marked by fractious labour relations.

The strikers had piled burning tyres across the main highway through the town of De Doorns, 100 km east of Cape Town, to demand higher wages, a Reuters reporter on the scene said.

Four people were hospitalised for minor injuries from rubber bullets as police dispersed the crowd, an emergency worker said.

“I can confirm that 41 people have been arrested but that number could rise,” said police spokesman Andre Traut.

The strikers set bushes on fire and torched a bulldozer and a caravan, sending smoke billowing into the sky.

After the crowd had scattered, police removed large rocks that protesters had used to block the road. Empty rubber bullet cartridges littered the ground near the highway.

Africa’s largest economy saw waves of labour unrest last year that began in the platinum mining industry and swept through the trucking and agriculture sectors.

Police killed 34 miners at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine during some of the worst unrest in August, tarnishing

South Africa’s reputation among overseas investors and prompting downgrades of its sovereign debt ratings.

With gold and coal mines employing more than 250,000 people due to begin industry-wide wage talks in coming months, analysts expect labour relations to cast a shadow over an economy forecast to grow by around 3 per cent this year.

The government says South Africa needs annual growth of 7 per cent to bring down unemployment of around 25 per cent.

The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) said labour unrest could knock slowly recovering business confidence, which rose in the last month of 2012 but was still lower than the previous year.

Berlusconi angry with ‘feminist’ judges over divorce cash FORMER Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi has blamed “feminist, communist” judges for a 200,000 euro a day divorce settlement following the break up of his second marriage.

Berlusconi told the La7 TV network that he was appealing against the settlement with ex-wife Veronica Lario.

Italian media initially reported the settlement amounted to 100,000 euros a day. But Berlusconi said the figure, with arrears, was double that. He said: “These are three women judges, feminists and communists, OK? These are the Milan judges who have persecuted me since 1994.”

Lario filed for divorce in 2009, citing Berlusconi’s fondness for younger women.

The billionaire media mogul is currently on trial, accused of paying for sex with an underage Moroccan girl and using his office to cover it up.

He and the girl deny the charges.

Italian court officials defended the impartiality of their judges. The president of the Milan tribunal and the head of the appeals court “strongly rejected any insinuation of impartiality” of the tribunal’s judges, whom they described as “diligent professionals.”

Berlusconi also was convicted by another Milan judge of tax fraud last year and is appealing against that decision.

The decision in the pay-forsex case could come before elections next month. Berlusconi has been on a media blitz seeking to boost his party’s chances.

Polls currently give the lead to the centre-left Democratic Party, with Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party and the civic movement of premier Mario Monti vying for second and third place.

Boeing Dreamliner incidents raise safety concerns

By Alwyn Scott and James Topham CO’S 787 DREAMLINER jet suffered a third mishap in as many days yesterday, heightening safety concerns after a string of setbacks for the new aircraft.

Japan’s All Nippon Airways said it was forced to cancel a 787 Dreamliner flight scheduled to fly from Yamaguchi prefecture in western Japan to Tokyo due to brake problems.

That followed a fuel leak on Tuesday that forced a 787 operated by Japan Airlines to cancel take-off at Boston’s Logan International Airport, a day after an electrical fire on another 787 after a JAL flight

Japan Airlines’ Boeing 787 plane with a fuel leak arrives at New Tokyo airport to Boston from Tokyo.

Asian customers rallied behind the US planemaker, however, saying such teething troubles were not uncommon on new planes and confirm-

ing they had no plans to scale back or cancel orders for the aircraft, which has a list price of $207 million.

Japan is by far the biggest customer for the Dream-

liner to date, with JAL and All Nippon Airways (ANA) operating a total of 24 of the 49 new planes delivered to end-December. The aircraft entered commercial service

in November 2011, more than three years behind schedule after a series of production delays. Boeing has sold 848 of the planes.

JAL spokesman Kazunori Kidosaki said the carrier, which operates seven Dreamliners, had no plans to change orders it has placed for another 38 aircraft. ANA, which has 17 Dreamliners flying its colours, will also stick with its orders for another 49, spokesman Etsuya Uchiyama said.

State-owned Air India, which on Monday took delivery of the sixth of the 27 Dreamliners it has ordered, said precautionary measures were already in place and its planes were flying smoothly.

“It’s a new plane, and some minor glitches do happen.”

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2012

11

World

New strain of virus spreads Norovirus infection causes projectile vomiting

By Kate Kelland A NEW STRAIN of the winter vomiting disease norovirus has spread to France, New Zealand and Japan from Australia and is overtaking all others to become the dominant strain in Britain, health officials said yesterday.

The norovirus variant, known as Sydney 2012, was identified in a scientific paper last week and Britain’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) said genetic testing showed it was now causing more cases in England and Wales than other strains.

Sydney 2012 does not carry worse

symptoms than others but, like other norovirus strains, it can cause violent and projectile vomiting, diarrhoea and sometimes fevers, headaches and stomach cramps.

Norovirus cases have risen earlier than expected this winter in Britain, across Europe, Japan and other parts of the world.

Although norovirus mostly causes just a few days of sickness, it is responsible for millions of infections every year and is notorious for its ability to evade control.

In the United States, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention say norovirus causes 21 million illnesses a year, with 70,000 cases requiring hospitalisation and around 800 ending in death.

Ian Goodfellow, a scientist who has studied norovirus for 10 years, describes it as “the Ferrari of the virus world” and “one of the most infectious viruses of man”.

Latest HPA data showed a dip in reported norovirus cases over the Christmas period - something

scientists had predicted - but with 4,140 cases so far in England and Wales, infections are still 63 per cent higher than at this time last year.

For every laboratory-confirmed case, scientists estimate there are 288 unreported cases, since the vast majority of people affected don’t go to a doctor. This means the number affected so far in Britain is more than 1.2 million.

“The emergence of a new strain does not mean that it causes more serious illness, and managing out-

Greece’s MPs to vote on Lagarde tax cheat list GREECE’S parliament will vote on whether to investigate two former prime ministers for failing to take action over a list of possible tax cheats while in office, officials said yesterday.

The right-wing Independent Greeks party, backed by the far-right Golden Dawn, asked parliament to probe Lucas Papademos, a technocrat, and his Socialist predecessor George Papandreou over the so-called “Lagarde list”.

The list names wealthy Greeks accused of stashing money abroad. It triggered a political scandal after prosecutors disclosed last month that names of relatives of former finance minister George Papaconstantinou had been deleted from the list.

Greeks who have seen repeated cuts to salaries and pensions to avoid national bankruptcy are furious that the authorities have done little to crack down on tax evasion by a wealthy elite they blame for pushing the country into financial crisis.

“Mr Papandreou and Mr Papademos were aware of these actions since they were prime ministers and were responsible for directing the government,” the Independent Greeks said in a statement.

“But they did not do anything to pursue justice and bring this list to light.”

Parliament is expected to vote as early as next week on whether to probe Papaconstantinou and his successor as finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, over their handling of the list.

The vote on Papademos, who served as prime minister from November 2011 to May last year, and Papandreou, who was PM from October 2009 to November 2011, is expected around the same time.

At least 151 deputies in the 300-seat parliament must back the motion to force a parliamentary investigation.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ government, which counts on the support of 164 lawmakers, has only endorsed an investigation into Papaconstantinou, meaning the motion to probe the other three figures is not expected to pass. Papaconstantinou has denied any wrongdoing.

breaks and those with the illness remains the same,” said David Brown, director of the virology reference department at the HPA. “Noroviruses mutate rapidly and new strains are constantly emerging. At the start of the season it is normal for outbreaks to be caused by a range of different strains. However, as the season progresses, particular strains are more successful and become dominant.”

There is no specific treatment for norovirus infection other than to let the illness take its course and try to stay hydrated by drinking regularly.

Symptoms usually last around two days.

Cooler weather brings Australia fire respite

Reindeer are threatening king penguins

Herders to slaughter 3,000 reindeer on South Georgia ABOUT 3,000 reindeer on an island near Antarctica are to be slaughtered to stop damage to the environment by the descendants of a tiny herd introduced a century ago for food by Norwegian whale hunters.

A 16-strong team, mostly Sami reindeer herders, has arrived in South Georgia, a British overseas territory, and is preparing to round up and cull all the reindeer on an island that is home to penguins and seals and has no native grazing animals.

“The reindeer have become very destructive,” Reidar Andersen, director of the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate which oversees the team, told Reuters. Reindeer naturally live only in the Arctic or sub-Arctic regions at the other end of the globe.

The animals have trampled native plants,

such as tussac grass, caused erosion and pose a threat to South Georgia’s king penguins and local birds such as the pipit and pintail by destroying their nests.

The team was working this week to set up fences and a corral for the reindeer, based on Sami traditions, Andersen said.

The reindeer are part of a global problem of invasive species - animals or plants that take over new habitats, like European rabbits in Australia or Asian carp in US rivers. Invasive pests can spread disease and undermine food production.

One estimate a decade ago of the global damage caused by invasive species was $1.4 trillion a year, said Geoffrey Howard, global invasive species coordinator for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

RECORD temperatures across southern Australia cooled yesterday, reducing the danger from scores of raging wildfires but likely bringing only a brief reprieve from the summer’s extreme heat and fire risk.

Australia had its hottest day on record with a nationwide average of 40.33 Celsius, narrowly breaking a 1972 record of 40.17C. Yesterday was the third hottest day at 40.11C. Four of Australia’s hottest 10 days on record have been in 2013.

“There’s little doubt that this is a very, very extreme heat wave event,” Bureau of Meteorology manager of climate monitoring and prediction David Jones said.

“If you look at its extent, its duration, its intensity, it is arguably the most significant in Australia’s history,” he added.

With yesterday’s cool-down in southern Australia, the national capital, Canberra, dropped from a high of 36C to 28C and Sydney dropped from 43C to 23C. Jones expected that yesterday would also rank among Australia’s hottest days when the national temperatures are calculated. That is because the extreme heat has shifted from the heavier populated south to northern and central Australia.

The bureau forecast above average temperatures for the remainder of summer, compounding the fire danger created by a lack of rain across central and southern Australia over the past six months.

“It is going to be very challenging,” Jones said of the wildfire danger.

No deaths have been reported, although around 100 people have not been accounted for since last week when a fire destroyed around 90 homes in the Tasmanian town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart.

German Catholic bishops sack head of sex abuse study GERMANY’S Roman Catholic bishops sacked a criminologist studying sexual abuse of minors by their priests yesterday, prompting him to accuse them of trying to censor what was to be a major report on the scandals.

The independent study, examining church files sometimes dating back to 1945, was meant to shed light on undiscovered cases of abuse after about 600 people filed claims against molesting priests in 2010 following a wave of revelations there.

Bishop Stephan Ackermann, spokesman on abuse issues for the German Bishops Conference, said the hierarchy had lost confidence in the researcher, criminologist Christian Pfeiffer, and would look for another specialist to take up the study.

Pfeiffer told German Radio the bishops wanted to change previously agreed guidelines for the project to include a final veto over publishing its results, which he could not accept.

Injuries in New York ferry crash AT LEAST 50 people were injured, two critically, when a commuter ferry hit a dock in New York’s financial district during rush hour.

A corner of the ferry was ripped open, and passengers fell on each other, screaming and crying.

Passengers aboard the Seastreak Wall Street ferry said scores of people who had been waiting to disembark were hurled to the deck by the impact.

“We were pulling into the dock. The boat

hit the dock. We just tumbled on top of each other. I got thrown into everybody else. ...

People were hysterical,” said Ellen Foran.

Firefighters were still carrying people away on stretchers an hour after the crash.

More than 340 passengers and crew members were aboard the ferry from New Jersey, one of many that carry commuters to the island of Manhattan.

Dee Wertz was on shore waiting for the ferry and saw the impact.

“It was coming in a little wobbly,” she said.

An injured passenger from the Seastreak Wall Street ferry

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

12

Business Ireland sells one billion euros of Bank of Ireland debt

By Conor Humphries and Laura Noonan IRELAND has sold a larger than expected 1 billion euros of Bank of Ireland debt, cutting its exposure to the bailed-out bank amid growing confidence in the country’s economic recovery.

Private investors bought the 1 billion euros of contingent capital notes, known as CoCo bonds, at a slight premium, beating a target of at least 500 million euros.

IFR, a Thomson Reuters company, reported the outcome of the sale. A market source separately confirmed it to Reuters.

Bank of Ireland declined to comment and a spokesman for Ireland’s Department of Finance was not immediately available for comment.

The bond was priced at 100 to 101, IFR reported, suggesting that the Irish state received between 1 billion and 1.01 billion euros for the debt, which was forcibly injected into Bank of Ireland as part of its July 2011 bailout.

The state also holds a 15 per cent equity stake in the bank, the only Irish lender to avoid full state control after the country’s property market crash.

The CoCos sale comes a day after Dublin returned to the bond markets for the first time since its 2010 EU/IMF bailout. The 2.5 billion euros raised is a quarter of the 10 billion euros it aims to borrow in 2013 as it prepares to exit its EU/IMF bailout.

“This is optically good for the Irish government,” Danske Bank Ireland bond dealer Owen Callan said.

“They can say we made a decent coupon and a small profit - and we have unwound a little bit of the whole sovereign banking coupling.”

Rates These Bank of Cyprus rates for telegraphic transfer transactions (spot deals) apply to yesterday, but provide a good guide to today’s value against the euro.

Buying Selling Pound St

0.8192 0.8110

US Dollar

1.3147 1.3017

Australian $

1.2609 1.2297

Canadian Dol.

1.3076 1.2754

Swiss Fr

1.2163 1.2017

Denmark Kr

7.5537 7.3671

Japan Yen

115.1870 113.8130

Norwegian Kr

7.4141 7.2311

Polish Zloty

4.1608

4.0580

Romanian Leu 4.4968 4.3204 Russian Ruble 40.1861 39.1939 Swedish Kr

8.6864 8.4720

UBS says it’s cleaning up its act after Libor

France seeks to stop tax dodging by big business

‘We are very focused on recovering our honour’

By John Irish

By Steve Slater and Katharina Bart UBS HAS yet to fully purge itself of a global interest rate scandal that has cost the Swiss bank its reputation and put it at risk of a wave of costly civil suits, its investment banking chief said yesterday.

The once-venerable institution was fined a record $1.5 billion last month for manipulating Libor interest rates, the latest in a string of scandals including a $2.3 billion rogue-trading loss and a damaging tax avoidance row with the United States.

“We are very focused on recovering the honour and standing the organisation had in the past,” Andrea Orcel told Britain’s Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, set up in the aftermath of the Libor scandal.

“I am convinced that we have made a lot of progress.

I am also convinced that we still need to do more.”

Orcel said that UBS has fired 18 of the 40 people at the centre of the Libor rigging, which took place from 2006 to 2009. Libor, the London interbank offered rate, is used as a benchmark for pricing trillions of dollars of financial contracts.

Most of the remaining UBS staff implicated in the Libor scandal, including Tom Hayes, a trader who has been charged by US prosecutors with conspiracy, wire fraud and antitrust violation, had already left the bank, Orcel said.

Andrew Williams, UBS’ global head of compliance, told the committee that US bank Citigroup had headhunted Hayes from UBS before the Libor scandal broke, prompting laughter in the committee room.

UBS’ investment banking chief Andrea Orcel: ‘I have a high level of integrity’ “What kind of reference did you give him?” Nigel Lawson, Britain’s former finance minister, asked Williams.

“I believe he would have just got the standard reference,” Williams replied.

Hayes no longer works for Citigroup.

Italian Orcel, who joined UBS in July, has been investment bank chief since November and is overseeing 10,000 job cuts and a retreat from fixed income.

He blamed a decade-long expansion at UBS for creating an unwieldy organisation with sometimes rotten corporate practices.

“There are certainly elements of our cultures which are negative and which we need to root out and are in the process of rooting out,”

he said.

Orcel, deemed a “deal junkie” by one committee member, was previously at Merrill Lynch, where he was slammed for taking a $34 million pay package in 2008 after advising on the disastrous RBS-led takeover of ABN AMRO. Committee member Justin Welby, the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, asked Orcel if he was the right man to turn UBS around.

“I feel I have a high level of integrity,” the banker said.

Orcel said that UBS was working at simplifying the investment banking business to make it less risky and prone to scandal.

The committee, a crossparty panel of lawmakers headed by Conservative MP

Andrew Tyrie, is switching its focus to standards and culture after spending most of the past three months assessing structural reform.

Tyrie yesterday described the Libor rigging as “a shocker of enormous proportions”.

Former UBS chief executive Marcel Rohner will appear before the lawmakers today, flanked by Huw Jenkins, Jerker Johansson and Alex Wilmot-Sitwell, three former heads or coheads of UBS’s investment banking division.

Thomson Reuters, parent company of Reuters, has been calculating and distributing Libor rates for Libor’s sponsor, the British Bankers’ Association, since 2005.

Three years for top banks to snapshot risks THE world’s top banks have three years to build up a single picture of all their risks to help make the wider financial system safer, global regulators said yesterday.

“The financial crisis that began in 2007 revealed that many banks, including globally systemically important banks (G-SIBs), were unable to aggregate risk exposures and identify concentrations fully, quickly and accurately,” the Basel Committee on Bank-

ing Supervision said in a statement.

G-SIBs refers to the world’s top 28 banks like Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley which are required to undergo closer scrutiny and hold extra capital from 2016.

Such banks operate globally with many branches and subsidiaries, making it harder and costlier to have a single snapshot of risks.

The Basel Committee, which groups

regulators and central bankers from 27 financial centres, set out principles these banks must implement in full by January 2016 to strengthen their aggregation of data on risks.

“These principles are a significant step towards improving banks’ risk management capabilities and they will also contribute to G-SIBs’ resolvability, hence reducing the potential recourse to taxpayers,” Basel Committee chairman Stefan Ingves said.

THE FRENCH government has asked for a report that will outline ways to stop multinational companies dodging taxes, a practice that indirectly stifles local companies, culture minister Aurelie Filippetti said.

European countries have been stepping up efforts to clamp down on companies, mostly from the United States, which minimise their tax bills by channelling profit through low-tax regimes.

“It is easy for very big globalised companies to set up their headquarters in Luxembourg or Ireland to escape paying company taxes or VAT (sales tax) and, as a result, offer unfair competition to companies that have physical sites and jobs in France,” Filippetti told i>Tele television yesterday.

The report, expected this month, “will have proposals to fight against this bypassing of tax legislation”, she said.

Her comments came as books-to-music retailer Virgin Megastore France prepared to file for insolvency on Wednesday, becoming the latest victim of a slump in CD and DVD sales as consumers buy more content online.

“Companies (like Virgin Megastore France) are facing a revolution and unfair competition as a result of large firms like Amazon that do not have the same tax rules as companies that are physically based in France,” Filippetti said.

Amazon, which would not comment immediately yesterday, received a $252 million demand from French tax authorities at the end of last year for back taxes, interest and penalties in relation to “the allocation of income between foreign jurisdictions”.

The internet retailer, set to open its fourth distribution centre in France employing 2,500 staff later this year, minimises its tax bill in France and other European countries by channelling sales through Luxembourg which offers tax breaks to foreign companies based there.

Internet group Google is also under audit by the French tax authority about a structure which channels sales through Ireland.

UK goods deficit trade slowed economy in Q4 OFFSHORE C O M PA N I E S

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By Olesya Dmitracova and Peter Griffiths BRITAIN’S goods deficit narrowed slightly in November but held above its average for the past year, raising the chance that trade activity in the last three months of 2012 dragged on economic growth.

The Office for National Statistics said yesterday that the goods trade gap shrank slightly less than expected to 9.164 billion pounds from October’s 9.487 billion pounds, as exports rose faster than imports.

The overall trade deficit - including Britain’s customary surplus in services

- shrank modestly to 3.466 billion pounds.

“I suspect what (the figures) confirm is that trade will act as a drag on the Q4 (GDP) numbers,” said Peter Dixon, economist at Commerzbank.

“Uncertainty around the eurozone debt crisis has not only hampered UK exports, but there is also some evi-

dence that UK firms have turned down business in parts of the eurozone due to credit risk.”

But suggestions the data offers further evidence that the UK economy continues to struggle look unlikely to persuade the central bank to extend its stimulus programme at its policy meeting today.

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

13

Opinion

Another instance of leaving it all to the last minute MEMBERS of the House finance committee, reportedly, persuaded the Central Bank at a meeting on Tuesday night to try to push for a lower amount for the recapitalisation of the banks so that the debt Cyprus would require would be sustainable. As has been reported, if the recapitalisation amount decided by PIMCO – the company brought in to investigate the capital needs of the banks and co-ops – remained at €10 billion the Cyprus debt would be unsustainable, making the privatisation of semi-governmental organisations and a haircut of the government debt necessary.

Earlier on Tuesday, at a finance committee meeting attended by the Central Bank governor, deputies expressed bewilderment about the way the banking needs that were expected to be no more than €6 billion had risen to €10 billion. The governor was accused by opposition deputies of not objecting to the methodology, proposed by the troika, for calculating the financial needs.

They claimed that the Central Bank should not have allowed forecasts of the worst case scenario to have been included in PIMCO’s terms of reference and criticised the Bank for supposedly allowing the investigation to be based on ultra-pessimistic assumptions about growth rates, unemployment and property prices.

The belief that the government and the Central Bank wanted to bloat the financial needs of the banking sector, in order to shift blame for the poor state of the economy away from the government, is widely held among opposition parties. Even if this were the intention, it does not mean that the troika would have necessarily agreed to a different methodology and less pessimistic assumptions about the performance of the economy, being used by PIMCO. Irrespective of who is to blame, it has finally dawned on everyone – Central Bank, the government and opposition parties–that €10 billion would make the debt unsustainable.

We have been aware that this would be the amount, subject to PIMCO’s confirmation, since November, but nothing was done. On Tuesday night, just one week before PIMCO’s report is to be released and two weeks before the Euro group meeting to discuss our bailout, everyone has united in an effort to secure a lowering of the financial needs of the banks. As with everything, we have left something of critical importance to the last minute, thus minimising the chances of securing the desired result.

The Central Bank has commissioned a second study from another big consultancy firm, Black Rock, in the hope that its calculation of the banks’ needs would be significantly lower and use this to counter PIMCO’s figure. Apart from this, the governor told deputies there were also other ways of making the troika loan serviceable – extending of the repayment period of the €2.5 billion loan from Russia, turning all the convertible bonds issued by the banks into shares and privatising SGOs. We can only hope the Central Bank has not left everything too late.

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A church married to the wrong side of history A

FTER THE attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001, the evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell took some time to tell his fellow Americans that homosexuals (along with abortionists, feminists and pagans) were at least in part to blame. “I point my finger in their face,” he said, “and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

Later, in a “did I say that?” moment, he apologised.

It was a low moment, but not an unusual one. Falwell is in the hate-filled corner of the religious spectrum. But even those religious leaders at the mild and inclusive end must, more in sorrow than in anger, generally tell gay men and women that as much as they respect them, they can’t officiate at their marriages. That’s a bridge over too-troubled waters.

This past Christmas time has been an active one for those in the Catholic Church concerned that legislation in both France and the UK to permit gay marriage will hollow out their faith.

In a pre-Christmas address to fellow Vatican officials, Benedict XVI called for all faiths to come together against a practice that would cancel out the “authentic setting in which to hand on the blueprint for human existence.”

Picking up, more mildly, the theme from his Holy Father, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, said that creativity lay in the bond between husband and wife,and claimed in a BBC interview that the Conservative-led government had no mandate for legislation permitting gay marriage, now being brought forward. In Scotland, Nichols’ brother in Christ, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, argued that same-sex marriage was “a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right.”

They don’t hold a candle, however, to the viciousness of their brethren elsewhere – both in Christ and out of him. Victor Tonye Bakot, the Catholic Archbishop of Yaounde, in the central African state of Cameroon, put a harder spin on the Pope’s message on Christmas Day, arguing at a mass that homosexual marriage was “a serious crime against humanity.” In a reporting trip to Uganda some years ago to write about the rapid spread of evangelical churches, I found that many of the pastors were consumed with what they saw as a pervasive, deadly threat – and have put strong pressure on President Yoweri Museveni, whose wife is an evangelical Christian, to pass stronger laws against the “plague.” The

Comment John Lloyd pressure worked: A law that includes life imprisonment in some cases (and had initially included the death penalty) is in front of the parliament now.

Discovery of a gay relationship can be – and has been – the subject of a death sentence in Iran; in Egypt, where there are no laws explicitly banning homosexuality, those who are open, or are discovered, can face charges like “debauchery” and are imprisoned for years.

But there’s more movement forward than back now. More and more countries, and states within federal countries, are legalising same-sex marriage.

They include the Netherlands, Sweden, Argentina, South Africa and nine U.S. states plus Washington DC. In China, gay activists gather larger constituencies, and the argument for permitting marriage is heard even in the National People’s Congress, from the prominent sociologist Li Yinhe. There is much prejudice in Russia, but no criminal sanctions, and as in China, the gay lobbies are strengthening, if often in adversity. The Indian law criminalising homosexual relations was struck down by the Delhi High Court in 2009.

When the country’s Supreme Court heard a series of appeals against the law’s decriminalisation last February, its judgment was, to put it succinctly, live with it.

Even in Uganda, rights are inching forward. A New Yorker profile of the Ugandan gay activist Frank Mugisha showed a man much harassed by politicians and the press (in October 2010, a local tabloid called Rolling Stone outed him and “100 of Uganda’s top homos,” with the helpful injunction: “Hang them”) but able to work, to proselytise, and able even to get an apology from the chief of police in the capital, Kampala, for wrongful arrests at a Gay Pride march.

In 2012, Gene Robinson, the gay U.S. Episcopalian bishop who more than any other in the religious world put the issue of gay marriage at the centre of religious controversy, published his book God Believes in Love. It concluded that “being gay was no better and no worse than being straight. …

I was a child of God.” In the same year, Justin Lee, founder and director of the Gay Christian Network, published Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays vs. Christians Debate. Both books are notable for their confidence and their

Pope Benedict called for all faiths to come together against gay marriage calm acceptance of both their own natures, and the need for the Christian churches to follow them in their acceptance.

Robinson is retiring this month. His insistence on being openly gay and a bishop was endorsed by the U.S. Episcopalian church – though not by the Anglican communion worldwide, and it caused many in the United States to align themselves with a conservative current in Anglicanism, most common in Africa. His credo – that God’s love encompasses all forms of sexuality – chimes with increasing numbers of the religious everywhere, especially the young. Through polemics and with courage, he has made a difference.

Two problems remain. The churches have defined marriage unambiguously as the union of a man and a woman, with the large purpose of procreation. In the Anglican marriage service, the priest says something like “it is given, that as man and woman grow

‘To alter a rite that puts a human union in such a divine frame is not just to modernise, but to dynamite a structure of belief and custom’

together in love and trust, they should be united with one another in mind, body and heart as Christ is united with his bride, the Church.” To alter a rite that puts a human union in such a divine frame is not just to “modernise,” but to dynamite a structure of belief and custom. In that sense, the chaste old men are right: This is a siege, and they must be on the ramparts with the boiling oil.

But the larger problem is for the church. If tolerance is now the largest civic good in an increasing number of societies, intolerance – no matter how well founded in scripture – seems at best an irrelevance, and more often bigotry. All religions aspire to a monopoly of morality; none can now achieve it except, in some societies and through violence, Islamists.

In secular societies of the Christian tradition, the churches have had to adapt to a series of rearguard actions against the habits and pleasures of consumer societies. This one is a major battle.

Losing this – as presently they are – means what (considerable) influence they still have over the most intimate part of human life is dramatically reduced. This past Christmas saw a Catholic counterattack.

But the siege hasn’t been lifted, and there are ever more barbarians at the gate.

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

14

Showbiz

Lincoln biopic leads the BAFTA film nominations

Twilight, That's My Boy, Tyler Perry top Razzie nods

Skyfall and Les Mis also in contention

By Eric Kelsey

By Mike Collett-White LINCOLN, the story of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s battle to end slavery starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, won 10 BAFTA nominations yesterday, putting it ahead of the pack at Britain’s top film honours.

The biopic was shortlisted in categories including best film, actor, supporting actor (Tommy Lee Jones) and supporting actress (Sally Field), but director Steven Spielberg was not nominated.

Added to its domination of the Golden Globe contenders going into Sunday night’s awards ceremony, British critics said the film appeared to be in pole position to sweep Oscar nominations which are announced today.

Les Miserables, the movie version of the global hit stage musical, and shipwreck saga Life of Pi followed with nine BAFTA nominations each, while the latest instalment of James Bond, Skyfall, garnered eight.

Iranian hostage thriller Argo won seven nominations and Anna Karenina, an adaptation of the Russian novel, earned six.

Quentin Tarantino’s quirky slavery-era Western Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, were just behind with five nominations apiece.

Amour, Austrian director Michael Haneke’s moving

Daniel Day-Lewis (right) plays legendary American President Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s biopic portrayal of death, bagged four nominations, an unusually high number for a film in a foreign language.

Eric Fellner of Working Title Films, the company behind Les Miserables and Anna Karenina, said he was pleased that two potentially risky projects had been recognised.

Les Miserables, by Oscarwinning director of The King’s Speech Tom Hooper, was sung live on set, while Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law, was set against the backdrop of elaborate stage sets.

“We knew that it was a much-loved musical and there was a large part of the world’s population who were also aware of the book,” Fell-

ner said of Les Miserables after the BAFTA nominations were announced.

“But it didn’t stack up as a mainstream movie because over the past decades very few (musicals) have worked.

It was a big risk,” he told Reuters, adding that awards recognition could provide a big lift for a picture just hitting theatres now.

Of Anna Karenina, he added: “The minute you do anything different it becomes harder to get it made. But we really believe in our film makers.”

Skyfall’s Judi Dench was nominated for best supporting actress as Bond’s spymaster M and Spanish actor Javier Bardem was nominated for best supporting actor as the

villain Silva.

There is likely to be disappointment, however, that the movie which has become the most successful in British box office history, with critical acclaim to match, was not included on the most coveted shortlist - best film.

That award will be contested by Argo, Lincoln, Life of Pi, Les Miserables and Zero Dark Thirty.

Up for best actor alongside Day-Lewis is Ben Affleck (Argo), Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables) and Joaquin Phoenix in Scientology tale The Master.

The best actress award is between 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), Helen Mirren (Hitchcock),

Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) and Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone).

As well as Haneke and Affleck, Ang Lee is in the running for best director (Life of Pi) as is Tarantino and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty).

The BAFTAs have a patchy record in predicting which films go on to scoop the biggest movie honours, the Oscars, although last year the main winner in London, The Artist, also swept to success at the Academy Awards.

The awards ceremony for the BAFTAs, formally called the EE British Academy Film Awards, takes place in London on February 10.

Idol’s Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj play nice after feud

By Jill Serjeant New American Idol judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj shrugged off their widely publicised feud on Tuesday as a “trumped-up thing” that was merely a passionate difference of opinion over the TV talent show’s contestants.

In their first big media appearance ahead of the hit show’s return to Fox television on January 16, the two pop stars showered each other with praise while barely looking at each other.

A day after the airing of an ABC TV interview in which Carey said she hired extra security following threats reportedly made against her

by Minaj last year, the singer told reporters it was time to focus on the aspiring Idol stars.

“This is a very passionate panel. There are a lot of strong personalities,” said Carey, who is reportedly being paid $18 million to be an American Idol judge.

“The fighting is what it is. This is American Idol. It is bigger than some stupid trumpedup thing. It’s about the next superstar ... The whole thing is convoluted. It’s a distraction from the show and the contestants,” Carey said.

Minaj, an outspoken 30-year-old rapper, called Carey one of her “favourite artists of all

time.”

“She has really shaped a generation of singers and to be on a panel with her where contestants all aspire to be Mariah Carey ... I feel excited to see them, see someone they look up to so much,” Minaj said.

Carey, 42, recalled working with Minaj in 2009 on an album track, and knowing at the time that the rapper would be successful.

“Nothing to write about now!” quipped American Idol host Ryan Seacrest.

Carey, Minaj and country singer Keith Urban joined Idol as judges in September for the upcoming 12th season after the departures of Jennifer Lopez and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler.

Carey, with more than 200 million album sales, and Minaj, one of the most exciting voices in rap, are expected to revive the contest, which last year lost its eight-year crown as the most-watched show on US television to Saturday Night Football on rival NBC. A video of the pair arguing was leaked online from early auditions in last fall, and Minaj was reported to have said, “If I had a gun, I would shoot that bitch.”

Idol executive producer Trish Kinane said the new panel was chosen after fans said they wanted to see judges who were current and talented in their own right.

VAMPIRES, a man in drag and a deadbeat dad scored the most Razzie nominations for the worst films and cinematic performances of 2012, the annual Hollywood lowlight awards said yesterday, the day before the Oscar nominations are announced.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, the final instalment of the teenage vampire series, grabbed 11 Razzie nods, while the Adam Sandler comedy, That’s My Boy, about a father reuniting with his long-abandoned son, netted eight nominations.

Director-actor-writer Tyler Perry garnered multiple nominations, including worst actress, for his recurring role in drag as Madea in Madea’s Witness Protection, worst actor for Good Deeds and Alex Cross, and worst director for Madea and Good Deeds.

The Razzies, which hand out golden raspberry statuettes, were created in 1980 as an antidote to what organisers see as the backslapping love fest of the Hollywood awards season that ends with the Oscars each year in late February.

This year’s awards show will return to its traditional spot on the eve of the Oscars, February 23, after last year’s awards were held on April Fools’ Day. The winners will be determined by 650 members of the Golden Raspberry Foundation, and about 48,000 ballots on movie review website Rotten Tomatoes.

Sandler will be unable to replicate last year’s success, when comedy Jack and Jill, in which he played both the male and female leads, swept all 10 categories.

This year’s worst picture nominees include That’s My Boy, Twilight, science-fiction film Battleship, family film The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure and A Thousand Words, the Eddie Murphy comedy-drama in which the story renders the funny man practically mute.

A notable snub was sci-fi adventure flop John Carter, which Walt Disney Co. said cost the studio some $200 million.

Nicolas Cage landed worst actor nominations for two films, Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance and Seeking Justice, along with Murphy in A Thousand Words, Robert Pattinson as vampire Edward Cullen in Twilight, Sandler and Perry.

Oscar-winning actress Barbra Streisand picked up a nomination for worst actress in the comedy Guilt Trip, while it-girl Kristin Stewart was frowned on for her starring roles in Snow White and the Huntsman and Twilight.

Katherine Heigl (One for the Money), Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil: Retribution) and Perry rounded out the worst-actress category.

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CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

Noticeboard NUTRICIA offers aid to first newborn of 2013 Mr Constantinos Chiotis

New Abacus partner announced ABACUS, a prominent professional services firm in Cyprus, is pleased to announce a new partner as of January 2013.

Mr Constantinos Chiotis graduated from the Barret Honors College of Arizona State University. He holds a Bachelor Degree (BSc Hons) in Accounting, as well as an MBA. He worked for three years in the assurance and advisory services department of Deloitte & Touche LLP in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also qualified as a CPA. Upon his return to Cyprus, Constantinos joined PwC's Tax & Legal services department and later worked as the head of finance of a major private group of companies in Cyprus. He joined Abacus Ltd in March 2007 and has been heading one of the firm's International Business Advisory units.

He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus (ICPAC). He is also a member of ICPAC's International Companies, Shipping and Foreign Investments Committee.

Public - a haven for gamers with the new Wii U ATTENTION all gamers - at Public you can find the Wii U, the new home console from Nintendo.

The innovative console Wii U offers revolutionary touch-screen movements with absolute accuracy and high resolution graphics.

The console is already in stores at the Mall Of Cyprus in Nicosia and Limassol's MyMall.

Among its features, the Wii U boasts: • a built-in camera, allowing users to communicate with other Wii U owners in real time.

• a built-in browser so users with wireless can surf the internet.

• a brand new online communication system, the Miiverse, which allows interaction with players from around the world.

• internal flash memory and the ability to extend memory using either an SD card or USB external hard drive.

All this and more, so gamers should hop over to Public stores and see for themselves the electronic delights that await them.

THANKS to a generous gift

by NUTRICIA, a leader in early childhood nutrition, new parents Anzhelika and Sergei Korniychenko received €1,000 towards the care of their newborn - the first of 2013 in Cyprus.

NUTRICIA has financially supported the Republic's first newborn of the year for the sixth year running, which comes as an extension of its global ‘Supporting Life’ programme.

This year, the award went to baby Alexander from Limassol, born on the 1st of January, at 09.28, becoming the newest member of Polyclinic “Zoodochou Pigis” in Limassol.

For over a century worldwide, the brand NUTRICIA has been the epitome of early childhood nutrition, reflected through its vision of strengthening and assisting families.

Mr. Andreas Georgiades,

Sales and Marketing Manager for NUTRICIA in Cyprus, said: “We are thrilled to see our ‘NUTRICIA First Newborn of the Year’ campaign extend to a sixth successful year and are excited to be able to participate in the family’s joy with the beginning of a new life and the lovely new moments that await them.

"It is these relationships of trust that are absolutely crucial to our ongoing success, and our continued contribution to improving the quality of family life in Cyprus is of primary importance to us.”

For 2013, NUTRICIA continues to serve the Cyprus market via further development of its milk products and an introduction of new products later in the year, guaranteeing that each product contains the optimum nutrients needed by infants and toddlers at each stage of their development.

KEANITA gifts for overlooked children

NUTRICIA has now financially supported the Republic's first newborn of the year for the sixth year running

PROVING a great success once again, this year’s giftcollecting campaign “For the Children Forgotten by Santa”, came to a close in Limassol on December 27, with KEANITA having been a very active participant.

Organised by Kanali 6 for the 20th year, the campaign saw many presents given out that had been donated by the public, along with dozens more gifts collected at the KEAN factory, which were generously donated

by KEAN’s own employees and members of the KEANITA kids club.

With the presents going to young children, the campaign once again proved that Santa doesn't forget any child and showed that, through the love and generosity of the general public, all children’s wishes can be heard.

easyJet, UNICEF celebrate over €1m raised for charity The funds raised via 'Change for Good' programme EASYJET, operator of Europe’s No. 1 air transport network, and UNICEF, the world’s leading children’s organisation, have celebrated the launch of easyJet’s exclusive plane to mark their ‘Change for Good’ partnership - one which has raised over €1 million through passenger donations across Europe to help save children’s lives.

The €1 million total raised across easyJet’s 130 destinations will enable UNICEF to protect nearly 2.5 million children and mothers from deadly childhood diseases and maternal and newborn tetanus.

In addition, the money raised will help protect a further 3 million children from blindness, through vital vitamin A supplements, as well as training health workers to deliver life-saving support to

easyJet's aircraft is now the ambassador of UNICEF's Change for Good programme which runs across all of the airline's 600 routes

mothers in Africa.

Throughout the festive period, easyJet crew members across Europe, dressed in Santa hats, encouraged passengers to donate to UNICEF, offering them com-

plimentary chocolates as a thank you for supporting the ‘Change for Good’ programme.

The exclusively branded aircraft is now the ambassador of the Change for Good

programme, which runs across all of easyJet’s 600 routes.

Carolyn McCall, easyJet’s Chief Executive said: "We are absolutely thrilled to have raised €1m, it will help save

the lives of so many children.

I’d like to thank our passengers who have so generously donated to this worthy cause and everyone at easyJet who has supported the fundraising effort.”

Reuters, Rotaract back Kofinou Community Centre In keeping with their social responsibility commitment, Thomson Reuters and Rotaract Larnaca Kition have once again shown their community spirit by assisting those in need.

On Saturday, December 22, members of both organisations paid a visit to the Kofinou Reception Centre for Asylum Seekers with gifts to offer.

Donations of dry food, second-hand clothing, and toys for young children were handed over, and the visiting team spent

time with families who reside there.

The Kofinou Reception Centre is the only governmental reception centre for asylum seekers in Cyprus.

Its main purpose is to serve as a means of temporary accommodation and provision of reception facilities to asylum seekers for an initial period.

The Centre comes under the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior, but is run by the Community Welfare Council of Kofinou.

CYPRUS MAIL Thurs

16

Reportage

Fiscal cliff fracas: from sm A deal with lots of bad blood as signs of trouble appear for debt ceiling fight report Richard

I

T BEGAN so optimistically. On November 16, after their first “fiscal cliff” session with President Barack Obama, the four leaders of Congress had stood in the driveway of the White House shoulder-to-shoulder for what is a rare photo these days, Republicans and Democrats together, smiling.

There they were at the microphone, talking about a “framework” for tax reform

Vice president Joe Biden was key in negotiating a deal in the closing hours of 2012 and deficit reduction.

In hindsight, the shot of House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell - the Republicans - with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - the Democrats - seems like an old family photo, before things went bad.

From that day on the driveway, things went downhill, rather quickly.

There was a feeling on both sides that the other was not acting seriously to avert the “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending cuts that were set to occur at the beginning of this month. That was inflamed by public comments from ranking Republicans and Democrats, poisoning the atmosphere.

Many lawmakers and their aides fear that things may get more toxic through a series of bitter struggles expected in the next few months over the nation’s debt and deficit burdens - fights not just between the parties but within them, and between the White House, the Senate and the House.

At stake is not only the US government’s ability to get its finances under control but whether it might default on its debts, and suffer further downgrades in the nation’s credit rating.

While Obama is perceived the victor in the fiscal deal passed by Congress last week, he did not come close to getting the one thing he demanded that could have headed off the next potential crisis: freedom from a fight over the federal government’s debt ceiling, which is likely to occur in February when the Treasury Department must ask Congress to increase the government’s borrowing limit beyond the

current $16.4 trillion.

Any positive vibes started fading a few days after the photo. On November 20, at a meeting between Republican staffers and Rob Nabors, the White House director of legislative affairs, Nabors announced that he had a White House offer in hand but “didn’t want to be laughed out of the room and implied he would skip it because it was a waste of time,” according to one Republican source. The White House declined to comment.

What the White House was offering was Obama’s budget proposal from earlier in the year, long ago rejected by Republicans.

A Democratic source familiar with the negotiations said it was merely an opening bid that should have come as no surprise, but Republicans saw it as a red flag, particularly after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner touted it again nine days later.

Things didn’t get better in the final weeks of the year.

At a December 13 meeting between Obama, Boehner and their aides at the White House, Obama spoke for almost the entire 50-minute session, according to Republican sources. They said he warned that if he did not get an agreement to his liking, he would spend the next four years “campaigning against House Republicans,” starting with his second-term inauguration

Republican Senator John McCain responded in the Senate, wondering “whether the president really wants this issue resolved.” speech on January 21.

As far as the Republicans were concerned, Obama had effectively remained in campaign mode after his November 6 re-election, going on the attack in his “fiscal cliff” speeches.

One of the clearest examples of this occurred at a delicate point in negotiations last week, with a looming deadline and the risk growing that the Republican-controlled House would blow up any deal pulled together by the Senate. At a campaign-style event with “middle class” Americans in the background, Obama accused Republicans of trying to “shove spending cuts at us that will hurt seniors, or hurt

Family photo: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (second left), with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (right), Speaker of the House John Boehner (left), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell outside the West Wing after a meeting with US President Barack Obama on November 16 students or hurt middle-class families.”

The move angered House Republicans who were already divided on how to proceed, leading to more bad blood.

Republican Senator John McCain responded in the Senate, wondering “whether the president really wants this issue resolved.” The people Obama was talking to, McCain said, “were laughing and cheering and applauding as we are on the brink of this collapse.”

By that time, Boehner had ceased to be a force in the negotiations, thanks to his own miscalculation on December 20. That’s when he brought his own “Plan B” to the House - a bill to avoid the “fiscal cliff”

with minimal tax hikes on the wealthy - and then had to pull the bill when he couldn’t get enough Republicans to support it.

The defeat humiliated Boehner and, by depriving him of the ability to deliver on any commitments he might make, sidelined him in the final stages of the negotiations.

In the final days of the year, Republicans routinely accused the president of bad faith, saying he preferred to go over the ‘cliff,’ triggering the tax hikes and rattling the markets, because it would increase his ability to pressure them.

The same was said of Boehner by Democrats, including

Reid.

“He’s waiting until January 3 to get re-elected as speaker before he gets serious with negotiations because he has so many people over there that won’t follow what he wants.

That’s obvious from the debacle that took place last week,” Reid said in the Senate, referring to Boehner’s failed effort to get his own caucus in line on December 20.

He was operating the House as a “dictatorship,” Reid added in his December 27 speech, by refusing to allow a vote on a Senate bill to avoid the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts. Boehner was re-elected as speaker last Thursday.

After that goading, Boehner

Obamamania: US President Barack Obama shirts and other items are seen at the Souvenir World shop in Washington as preparations continue for his inauguration for his second term on January 21.

(AFP)

let loose the next time he saw Reid.

The occasion was the final White House meeting of the standoff, on Friday, December 28, as Obama and the congressional leaders were trying to figure out how to proceed.

Reid said Boehner was just mouthing “talking points,” according to a senior Democratic aide.

“The other folks at the table were engaged in a meaningful discussion. Every time the conversation got back to Boehner, he’d say ‘The House has acted; the Senate needs to act.’ It was like he arrived with a very short leash,” the aide said.

“They were walking out of the meeting,” the aide said, when Boehner turned to Reid and said, “Go f**k yourself.”

“What?” Reid asked, according to the aide, who said Boehner then uttered the profanity again.

Obama used the December 28 meeting to ask McConnell and Reid to work up a bipartisan bill in the Senate that might win approval in the House, and they agreed. McConnell made an offer to Reid, but grew impatient waiting for a response, according to a Republican aide.

The Senate Republican left a message at 1:20pm EST on Sunday, December 30 for Vice President Joe Biden: “Please call.”

“Does anybody down there know how to do a deal?,” McConnell told Biden, a former colleague of McConnell’s in the Senate.

“There doesn’t appear to be the level of understanding that you have about these negotiations” elsewhere in the administration, McConnell

sday, January 10, 2013

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Crossword

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Sport

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miles to distrust to rancour ranc Cowan and Thomas Ferraro told Biden.

“It’s a lack of experience.

Smart people but they don’t have a good sense of the trip wires,” he added.

Despite Reid’s 25 years in the Senate, he was out of the picture.

After the November 6 election, Reid had wondered whether Obama would cave or use his re-election as a hammer.

“We thought that it was a unique moment in time where we had enormous leverage over Republicans,” a senior Democratic Senate aide said, “and we were ready to play hardball.”

“This was our best opportunity to get something that’s acceptable at your point of maximum leverage in probably the eight years of his administration,” this official said.

The aide added that Wall Street experts were making a “strong case” that even if January 1 came and went without a deal, as long as ne-

gotiations were continuing, the stock market would hold fairly steady for a week or so into 2013.

The week after the election, Reid had travelled to the White House to try to determine whether Obama had the “spine” to stick to his guns in the negotiations, according to the aide. Reid then assured his fellow Democrats that the president, buoyed by his election win, would stand firm.

But by late December, Senate Democrats watched in amazement as Obama offered a higher, $400,000 income threshold for those who would see their taxes rise under his proposal compared to his original $250,000 figure, a willingness to cut cost-ofliving benefits for retirees and a temporary instead of permanent increase in the debt limit.

“It was disheartening to supporters. He just telegraphed to Republicans a willingness to move higher at the drop of a hat,” the aide said. “We got

Laughing and cheering: Senator John McCain

Debt ceiling: despite coming out as a winner Obama still has no backing for fighting the debt ceiling nickeled and dimed on everything,” he said.

Once Biden and McConnell cut their deal in the waning hours of 2012 - the one that kept lower taxes for everyone but those with high incomes the White House leaked to reporters that Reid had signed off on the pact.

According to the senior Senate Democratic aide, Reid had not given his backing yet. He simply told the White House that Biden was welcome to

come to the Senate, meet with Democratic senators “and try and sell the deal.”

Reid promised that if the caucus was convinced by Biden, Reid would do everything he could to deliver a strong vote. But now he was out of the loop too.

Why could McConnell and Biden bring off the deal when others couldn’t?

“They’re experienced hands,” said Trent Lott, a former Republican senator

from Mississippi who was majority leader from June 1996 to January 2001.

“They have respect for each others’ abilities and truthfulness,” he said in an interview with Reuters. “...They’re old bulls. They know how to get the deal done.”

Lott, who was a member of Congress for more than three decades, said it was “revisionist history” to see his era as some golden age of comity in Washington.

But “clearly the atmosphere has changed over the years.

I don’t know when it started drifting to the point where it is,” he said.

Lott said he was struck by the fact that an agreement of such magnitude was ultimately the work not of the president or the House speaker, but of the Senate minority leader and the vice president.

“A lot of people in Washington ought to be embarrassed,” Lott said.

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

18

What’s on

films

(K) All Audiences (12/15/18) No admittance to Under-12s/ 15s/ 18s (N/A) Not Available

NICOSIA Jack Reacher (15) K-Cineplex (Screen 4) at 5.25, 7.50 and 10.15pm, weekends also at 3pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 1) at 5.25, 7.50 and 10.15pm, weekends also at 11.30am and 3pm House at the End of the Street (15) K-Cineplex (Screen 5) at 7.55 and 10.20pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 5) at 7.55 and 10.20pm Cloud Atlas (15) K-Cineplex (Screen 3) at 7pm, weekends also at 3.30pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 4) at 7 and 10.15pm An… (12) K-Cineplex (Screen 2) (in Greek) at 7.55 and 10.15pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 2) (in Greek) at 7.55 and 10.15pm

Wreck-It Ralph (K) Times are subject to K-Cineplex (Screen 2) (in Greek) change, so check first at 5.35pm, weekends also at with cinemas before you 3.25pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 2) (in Greek) head out at 5.35pm, weekends also at 11am, 1.10pm and 3.25pm

Telephone nos:

Life of Pi (K) K-Cineplex (Screen 6) at 5.30, K-Cineplex: 7777-8383 7.50 and 10.15pm, weekends also at 3.05pm; K-Cineplex, Rio Limassol: 25-871410 Mall of Cyprus (Screen 5) at 5.30pm, weekends also at Rio Paphos: 26-207000 11.30am and 3.05pm

Arbitrage (12) K-Cineplex (Screen 3) at 10.20pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 3) at 10.20pm The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12) K-Cineplex (Screen 1) at 7 and 10.15pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 3) at 7pm Hotel Transylvania (K) K-Cineplex (Screen 1) (in Greek, in 2D) at 5.10pm, weekends only at 3.15pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 3) (in Greek, in 2D) at 5.10pm, weekends only at 11.20am, 1.20pm and 3.15pm Rise of the Guardians (K) K-Cineplex (Screen 5) (in English, in 2D) at 5.05pm, weekends also at 3.10pm; K-Cineplex, Mall of Cyprus (Screen 4) (in English, in 2D) at 5.05pm, weekends also at 11.15am, 1.15pm and 3.10pm Elles (in French, with Greek subtitles) Cine Studio, tonight at 9pm, presented by the Friends of the Cinema Society. Tel: 96420491, www.ofk.org.cy

LIMASSOL Jack Reacher (15) Rio 1 at 5, 7.45 and 10.10pm.

Tel: 25-871410; K-Cineplex

CINEMA WEBSITES: K-Cineplex: http://kcineplex.com, Friends of the Cinema Society: http://www.ofk.org.cy

(Screen 4) at 5.25, 7.50 and 10.15pm, weekends also at 3pm House at the End of the Street (15) Rio 6 at 5.30 and 7.45pm; Rio 3 at 10.30pm. Tel: 25-871410; K-Cineplex (Screen 5) at 7.55 and 10.20pm Cloud Atlas (15) Rio 5 at 10pm. Tel: 25-871410; K-Cineplex (Screen 4) at 7 and 10.15pm An… (12) Rio 2 (in Greek) at 8 and 10.10pm. Tel: 25-871410; K-Cineplex (Screen 2) (in Greek) at 7.55 and 10.15pm Wreck-It Ralph (K) Rio 2 (in Greek) at 6pm. Tel: 25871410; K-Cineplex (Screen 2) (in Greek) at 5.35pm, weekends also at 3.25pm Life of Pi (K) Rio 4 at 5, 7.45 and 10pm. Tel: 25-871410; K-Cineplex (Screen 5) at 5.30pm, weekends also at 3.05pm Arbitrage (12) K-Cineplex (Screen 3) at 10.20pm Zarafa (K) Rio 2 (in Greek) at 4.30pm, weekends also at 3pm; Rio 3 (in Greek), weekdays only at 6pm

Hotel Transylvania (K) Rio 3 (in Greek, in 3D), weekends only at 2.50pm. Tel: 25-871410; K-Cineplex (Screen 3) (in Greek, in 2D) at 5.10pm, weekends only at 3.15pm The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12) Rio 3 at 4.30 and 7.35pm. Tel: 25-871410; K-Cineplex (Screen 3) at 7pm Seven Psychopaths (18) Rio 6 at 10pm Rise of the Guardians (K) Rio 1 (in English, in 2D), weekends only at 3pm. Tel: 25-871410; K-Cineplex (Screen 4) (in English, in 2D) at 5.05pm, weekends also at 3.10pm The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (12) Rio 5 at 5.30 and 7.45pm

LARNACA Jack Reacher (15) K-Cineplex (Screen 1) at 5.25, 7.50 and 10.15pm, weekends also at 3pm House at the End of the Street (15) K-Cineplex (Screen 4) at 5.35, 7.55 and 10.20pm, weekends also at 3.30pm Cloud Atlas (15) K-Cineplex (Screen 6) at 7 and 10.15pm

An… (12) K-Cineplex (Screen 2) (in Greek) at 7.55 and 10.15pm.

Wreck-It Ralph (K) K-Cineplex (Screen 2) (in Greek) at 5.35pm, weekends also at 3.25pm Life of Pi (K) K-Cineplex (Screen 5) at 5.30, 7.50 and 10.15pm, weekends also at 3.05pm The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12) K-Cineplex (Screen 3) at 7 and 10.15pm Hotel Transylvania (K) K-Cineplex (Screen 3) (in Greek, in 2D) at 5.10pm, weekends only at 3.15pm Rise of the Guardians (K) K-Cineplex (Screen 6) (in English, in 2D) at 5.05pm, weekends also at 3.10pm To Rome With Love Tonight only at 8.30pm, presented by the Larnaca Cinema Society. Call for details of venue.

Tel: 99-658831, 99-462903. www.lfcinema.org

PAPHOS Jack Reacher (15) Rio 1 at 5, 7.30 and 10pm House at the End of the Street (15) Rio 4 at 7.30 and 9.45pm

Cloud Atlas (15) Rio 5 at 7pm An… (12) Rio 6 (in Greek) at 7.30pm; Rio 5 (in Greek) at 10pm Wreck-It Ralph (K) Rio 6 (in Greek) at 5.30pm, weekends also at 11am and 3pm Life of Pi (K) Rio 3 at 5, 7.30 and 10pm Arbitrage (12) Rio 7 at 10.30pm Zarafa (K) Rio 5 (in Greek) at 5.30pm, weekends also at 11am and 4pm The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12) Rio 7 at 7.30pm, weekends also at 4.30pm; Rio 6 at 9.45pm Hotel Transylvania (K) Rio 7 (in Greek, in 3D), weekdays only at 5.45pm, weekends only at 11am and 2.50pm Rise of the Guardians (K) Rio 4 (in English, in 2D) at 5.30pm, weekends also at 11am and 3.30pm; Rio 1 (in Greek, in 3D), weekends only at 11am and 3pm The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (12) Rio 2 at 7.30pm, weekends also at 5.15pm Skyfall (12) Rio 2 at 9.45pm

An...

listings Today Music Fusion Music Pop meets opera meets show-tunes with Tina Chester: Soprano and Andrew Oliver: Piano. January 10. Letymbou Tavern. Concert 7pm, dinner 9pm. €23 inc. dinner. Reservations - Tel: 26-642614

Other Events Cabaret and Stand Up Comedy Show The multi-talented George Christodoulides presents a unique show, with piano and saxophone and accompanied by singer and actor Margarita Zachariou, along January 10. Muse Cafe Kitchen Bar, Mousalla, Paphos. 9.30pm. Free.

Tel: 26-941951/99-372600 Vikomedy Stand-up Comedy Show Comedic educational show presenting daily life events from a scientific perspective. January 10. Casteliotissa Hall, old Nicosia. 8pm. €8. Tel: 99-673508. Email: vikengineering@ yahoo.com World Photo School Workshop Digital photography workshop designed for complete beginners as well as for those who want to cement their knowledge on DSLRs. January 21-25: 6.30pm-9pm with Wednesday

off for assignments. January 26-27: 10.30am-4.30pm. World Photo School, 5 Steliou Mavrommati Street, Yeri. €125 until January 10. (€200 after this date). Tel: 99-938023. email: worldphotoschool@gmail.com. www. worldphotoschool.com Coffee Morning Monthly meeting organised by the Women’s Friendship Group at St. Paul’s with illustrated travel talk by Carol Tyrrell. January 10. St. Paul’s Cathedral Hall, Byron Avenue, Nicosia.

9.30am. In English. All welcome. Tel: 99-924363

Tomorrow Music Celebrating with Musical Fireworks and Dance Music The Cyprus Symphony Orchestra celebrates the New Year with a programme that includes musical compositions and suites by G.F. Handel, polkas and more. January 11.

Strovolos Municipal Theatre, Nicosia.

8.30pm. €12/7. Tel: 22- 313010 The Russian Sun of Vertinsky Music performance with musician Aleksandr Skliar accompanied by a six member orchestra. January 11.

Rialto Theatre, Limassol. 8.30pm. €20/15. Tel. 77-777745

Yiannis Kotsiras Popular Greek singer performs live accompanied by Savveria Margiola.

January 11. Aloft Music Bar, 6 Makariou III Avenue, Ayia Napa. 11pm.

Tel: 99-637831

Theatre Nursing home The Cherubim Theatre Anemona celebrates its tenth anniversary presenting comedy

by Nearchos Ioannou. January 11 until March 17. Anemona Theater, 7 Archagelou Street, Latsia, Nicosia.

Every Friday and Saturday at 8.30pm and Sunday at 8pm. In Greek. Tel: 22-573031

Ongoing Other Events 7 films: Harun Farocki A selection of screenings by legendary German filmmaker, critic and teacher followed by discussion and talk with the artist. Within the framework of the opening ceremony of a new contemporary art centre. Until February 15. Point Centre for Contemporary Art Megaron Hadjisavva, 2 Evagorou Street, Nicosia. Every Wednesday through Sunday from 11am-5pm. Tel: 22-662053. Email: info@pointcentreforcontemporaryart.com. www. pointcentreforcontemporaryart.com

Bidoun Library A mobile library consisting of books, magazines and other printed matter about the Middle East. Within the framework of the opening ceremony of a new contemporary art centre. Until February 15. Point Centre for Contemporary Art Megaron Hadjisavva, 2 Evagorou Street, Nicosia. Tel: 22-662053. Email: info@pointcentreforcontemporaryart.com. www. pointcentreforcontemporaryart.com

Theatre The Blood Theater group Olvos presents play which deals with racism in society.

January 9-11. Larnaca Municipal Theatre. 8.30pm. €10. The proceeds from the performances will be given to charity. In Greek. Tel: 24-665795 Death and the Maiden Satiriko Theatro presents play by Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman. Until January 25. Vladimiros Kafkarides Cultural Centre, 11-15 Vladimiros, Kafkarides Street, Aglantzia, Nicosia. Every Wednesdays and Fridays at 8.30pm. €15/10. In Greek. Tel: 22-312940/22-421609 The Elephant Man Theatro Ena presents a play by Bernard Pomerance, translated and directed by Andreas Christodoulides.

Until January 27. Theatro Ena, 4 Athinas Avenue, Nicosia. Every

Friday through Sunday at 8.30pm. In Greek. €15/12. Tel: 22-348203 Social Security THOC presents a play by Andrew Bergman. Until February 3. THOC New Theatre Building, 9 Gregori Afxentiou, Nicosia. Friday through Sunday at 8.30pm, Saturday at 6pm and 8.30pm. €12/6 . In Greek. Tel: 77-772717/22-864300 Spring Awakening THOC presents work by Frank Wedekind, directed by Dimitris Lignadis. Until February 9. THOC New Theatre Building, 9 Gregori Afxentiou, Nicosia. On specific days at 8.30pm.

In Greek. €12/6. Tel: 77-772717/22864300 Kali-Kantzar & Co A musical directed by Lea Maleni with music by Dimitris Zavros. Until February 10. THOC New Theatre Building, 9 Gregori Afxentiou, Nicosia. Every Saturday and Sunday at 6pm. In Greek. The performances on February 9 and 10 will be with Greek and English surtitles. Tel: 22-864300 Misery Stephen King’s psychological thriller staged by Satiriko Theatre. Every Friday and Saturday. Until February 13. Vladimiros Kafkarides Cultural Centre, 11-15 Vladimiros Kafkarides Street, aglantzia, Nicosia. Every Wednesday and Friday at 8.30pm. In Greek. Tel: 22-312940/22-421609

For a full guide to the week’s events and regular meetings, make sure you get a copy of the Sunday Mail

Shakespeare in an Hour Pirasmos Productions presents a theatrical comedy directed by popular Cypriot actor and director Loris Loizides. Until March 29. Pantheon Art Cinema, 29 Diagorou Street, Nicosia. Thursday and Friday at 8.30pm. In Greek. Tel: 70-001910

Exhibition Ceramic Art Exhibition More than 60 works by Cypriot and Maltese ceramists. Until January 10.

Larnaca Municipal Gallery. MondayFriday: 9am-1pm & 3pm-6pm 12-12-12 Group art exhibition. Until January 12. Elefsis, 7 Aischylou Street, Laiki Yitonia, Old Nicosia. Opening hours: 10am-2am. Tel: 99-51679/99-870869 Unity – Unity Solo painting exhibition by Pavlos Samios. Until January 12. Apocalypse Gallery, 30 Chytron Street, Nicosia. Monday- Friday: 10.30am1pm and 5pm-8pm. Saturday: 10.30am-1pm. Tel: 22-766655 Women Solo sculpture exhibition by Dinos Michaelides. Until January 15. Gallery Gloria, 3 Zinonos Sozou Street, Nicosia. Monday-Friday: 10.30pm12.45pm and 5pm-8pm. Saturday: 10.30pm-12.45pm. Tel: 22-760286

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

19 To have your event included for FREE in our listings, send details to: Arts Editor, Cyprus Mail, PO Box 21144, Nicosia. Fax: 22-676385.

Email: whatson@cyprus-mail.com Please send your information as early as possible.

Include full details, a contact number and good quality photos

Review

Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom

Theatre A 120-year-old ‘Awakening’ restaged – but are we still asleep?

Director Dimitris Lignades vigorously takes on the controversial Spring Awakening (best known as the 2006 Broadway rock-musical version), as part of THOC’s 2013 New Stage productions. The original 1890’s script by German dramatist Frank Wedekind is rarely attempted, and was banned for many years due to its scandalous subject matter.

Yet what the staging of this unabridged 120-year-old script makes available to us not only still rings true, but, shockingly, still shocks.

The two-hour show touches upon just about every provocative subject the mind can conceive, including rape, homosexuality, masturbation, child abuse, abortion and suicide, all pivoting on the shift between child and teenager, when the truth behind whatever stories parents have told their kids to mask or reveal these subjects becomes inherently vital. The cast of 14 perform exceptionally well under Lignades’ direction; yet what steals the show are the fantastic directorial ideas, the kind rarely seen on a Cyprus stage.

The innovative staging includes the introduction of a ‘janitor’ character, who serves the simple purpose of introducing the characters and scenes with a microphone. The role, portrayed by actress Stella Fyrogeni, allows a production with many potential settings to be reduced to a single metal table enhanced by effective lighting techniques.

The ‘empty canvas’ of a stage is aesthetically complimented by the 19th Century outfits (and undergarments worn as every-

day clothes in the opening scene) designed with a unique sensitivity given to each individual character,

by Sose Nikolaides.

Aside from the length (many scenes could easily have been cut for the modern take), the play is clearly far ahead of its time, something further fortified by the fact that, even today, the play itself is staged with a 15+ rating, establishing the urgency we still feel to shield young people from the ‘truth’. The play itself implores us to see how hiding these facts can only lead to tragedy, yet even those telling the story 120 years down the line, are hesitant to live up to its vital moral message.

So if you’re up for a ‘rude awakening’, Spring Awakening is on at THOC’s new building every Friday and Saturday at 8.30pm until February 9, with surtitles provided for the performances on the 8 and 9.

Spring Awakening THOC presents work by Frank Wedekind, directed by Dimitris Lignadis. Until February 9. THOC New Theatre Building, 9 Gregori Afxentiou, Nicosia. On specific days at 8.30pm. In Greek. The performances on February 8 & 9 will be with Greek and English surtitles. €12/6. Tel: 77-772717/22864300

By Eleni Cosma

NIGHTLIFE Paphos gets A-Muse-ing with plenty of laughter and music Is it music? Is it comedy? Will you split your sides or tap your toes?

It’s a bit of both as the multitalented George Christodoulides takes to the stage tonight to present a unique concept, having at his side the voice of the singer and actor Margarita Zachariou, who will be familiar g to local theatregoers as she has performed in n numerous production productions such as Cabaret, Airport Direct a and Evelyn Evelyn Evelyn. The actr actress has become known for diverse roles m moving fr from dr drama, to com comedy, to musi musicals with relati relative ease.

The Cabaret and Stand Up Comedy Show is organised by Stazo Events Entertainment in collaboration with Muse Cafe Restaurant Bar and apparently the show is based on the premise that every joke sounds better with a musical note backing it up. For tonight’s show, the duo will also be accompanied by a piano and saxophone.

As for Christodoulides, following his successful summer appearance alongside Stamatis Kraounaki at the Paphos Ancient Odeon, he returns to Muse with a different look, one that is filled with laughter and unplugged live music.

Cabaret and Stand Up Comedy Show The multi-talented George Christodoulides presents a unique show, with piano and saxophone and accompanied by singer and actor Margarita Zachariou, along January 10.

Muse Cafe Kitchen Bar, Mousalla, Paphos.

9.30pm. Free. Tel: 26-941951/99-372600

Films with Friends Winter has well and truly set in with chilly weather and windy days and whilst it’s tempting to stay home, snuggled under the covers on the couch there are some other simple and heartwarming pastimes to indulge in. So don’t let winter hibernation drive you insane.

Its time to fight the winter blues with some good old fashioned fun, such as going to the cinema.

Far from the hustle and bustle of the multiplex, with their action packed blockbusters and loitering teenagers, there lies a more nourishing cinema experience. The Friends of Cinema Society has become synonymous with art house, world cinema, film festivals, low budget independent films, documentaries and classics from the archive - everything, in-fact, that you can be sure will not be playing at your local multiplex.

This month the Society are paying tribute to Tasos Anastasiou the former president of the Society (and one of the most knowledgeable cinephiles in Cyprus) who died in 2010. All the proceeds raised will go towards supporting the Pancyprian Anti-leukaemia Association Zoe. A total of five films will be screened at the Cine Studio cinema of the University of Nicosia (Intercollage) with shows starting at 9pm, expect on Sundays when they start at 8pm.

Each film will be screened four times on Friday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday leaving. Tonight you can catch the final screening of Elles a provocative exploration of female sexuality. It stars Juliette Binoche as Anne, a well-off Parisian journalist investigating the lives of two student prostitutes for a magazine article. Her encounters with these two fiercely independent and fascinating young women are profoundly unsettling and in stark contrast to her own bourgeois life.

As she gets more drawn into their world, Anne is forced to question her most intimate convictions about money, family and sex.

Next up, is Darbareye Elly by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi. Before A Separation won the Berlinale’s Golden Bear, Farhadi had already won the Silver Bear with this taut, suspenseful and incisive study. Three couples and their kids take a break by the Caspian sea; taking with them a young woman, Elly, who they hope will hit it off with a divorced friend. But things begin to go horribly wrong. When Elly disappears, concern soon turns to accusation as the fabric of these families’ worlds is torn apart.

From Michael Haneke we have Amour, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It accomplished an unprecedented sweep of the European Film Awards, taking best picture, director, actor and actress and is creating some serious Oscar buzz. The French-language drama tells the story

of an elderly couple dealing with the aftermath of a devastating stroke and has been praised as an unflinching look at old age and life’s end. Be warned though, this film is difficult and terrifying to watch, and yet it is a masterful example of cinematic art that imitates life. It may be too ‘real’ for some, but that’s what makes this uncompromising film so moving.

For something a little light-hearted don’t miss Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Rushmore) creates unique worlds within his films, with a storybook aesthetic that includes vintage costuming and a muted colour palette, populated with oddball characters confronted by heavy subjects: alienation, family dysfunction, mortality. His latest comedy is set in the summer of 1965 where a small community is mobilised is search of two runaway 12-year-old lovebirds.

As the townsfolk hunt for the vanished kids, a storm causes even more profound communal upheaval.

The last film to be screened is L’Enfant D’en Haut. Set in and around an affluent ski resort, the film is a portrait of an older-than-his years 12-year-old who spends his days stealing ski equipment from rich tourists to supplement his hard day-to-day existence with his looseliving sister/guardian. It’s their complex relationship that gives this exquisitely shot snowbound story its warmth.

Tasos Anastasiou Tribute Screening of five international top films. Until February 7.

Cine Studio cinema of the University of Nicosia (Intercollege). Friday, Sunday, Tuesday at 9pm and Sunday at 8pm. €4/3. All the proceeds will go towards supporting the Pancyprian Anti-leukaemia Association Zoe. Tel: 96420491. email: info@ofk.org.cy. www.ofk.org.cy

By Ledha Socratous

Programme Elles Thursday 10/1 Darbareye Elly Friday 11/1, Sunday 13/1, Tuesday 15/1, Thursday 17/1 Amour Friday 18/1, Sunday 20/1, Tuesday 22/1, Thursday 24/1 Moonrise Kingdom Friday 25/1, Sunday 27/1, Tuesday 29/1, Thursday 31/1 L’ Enfant D’ En Haut Friday 1/2, Sunday 3/2, Tuesday 5/2, Thursday 7/2

For a full listing of the day’s events, see facing page

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

20

Television CYBC 1 06.45 08.15

Proti Enimerosi Kali Sas Mera

CYBC 2 07.00 08.00

Kaftes Piperies (rpt) Istories Tou Horkou (rpt) Local comedy series, which happens to be the longest-running show on TV.

12.00

16.30

17.00

Entehnos Local cultrual show.

Mazi Sto CyBC

18.00 18.15

News Kaftes Piperies

Local talk-show.

Live cookery show.

18.45

18.00 18.50 19.00 19.10

Paizoume Kypriaka

Moiraia Fengaria Local drama series inspired by Maro Kranidioti’s book ‘Otan i Moira Apofasizei’.

20.00 21.15

News Patates 8 Local satirical show, using comedy sketches and embarrassing TV clips to skewer local politicians.

22.00 23.30 23.45 00.15 00.45

Presidential Elections 2013 News Moiraia Fengaria (rpt) Entehnos (rpt) More repeats

20.00 21.00

Biz/Emeis News In English News In Turkish Doctor Who (rpt)

07.50 08.40 10.25 11.15

14.50

NRG Zone FILM: IQ A woman is determined to find a husband as brainy as her famous uncle Albert Einstein. Romantic comedy, starring Meg Ryan. 1994.

22.35 23.05

05.30 06.20 06.50 07.00

12.10 13.00 13.20 14.00

Fourth season. ‘The Sontaran Stratagem’.

Part one of two. Former sidekick Martha Jones summons the Time Lord back to modernday Earth, where an old enemy lies in wait.

With mysterious Atmos devices spreading across the world, Donna discovers that even her own family are not safe from the alien threat.

New season of local game show, asking questions having to do with Cypriot dialect.

19.20

Kati Psinetai (rpt) Amateur chefs each stage a dinner party to find who will be crowned the winning host.

Apo Mera Se Mera

16.00

Euromaxx Magazine show bringing you the latest on lifestyle and entertainment in Europe.

Current affairs show.

15.30

NRG Zone Kids’ TV Fireman Sam, Pippi Longstocking, etc.

Shown till 12.30, then repeated till midafternoon.

Local variety show, with entertainment options, cookery tips and more.

11.00 11.30

ANTENNA

Motor Sports Repeats

15.45 16.40 17.40

Erotas (rpt) Proini Enimerosi Me Agapi Deliyianneio Parthenagogeio (rpt) Englimata (rpt) Lyke, Lyke Eisai Edo (rpt) Pansellinos (rpt) Ekeino To Kalokairi (rpt) Niose Me (rpt) News Mera Mesimeri Konstantinou Kai Elenis (rpt) To Kafe Tis Haras (rpt) Oneiropagida (rpt) Ergazomeni Gynaika (rpt) Vals Me 12 Theous (rpt) With News at 18.00.

18.30

Aiyia Fuxia Local comedy series, with village setting.

19.30 20.15 21.15 22.10 23.00 00.00 00.05 00.20 01.40 02.30 03.20 04.40

Niose Me News Vals Me 12 Theous Ekeino To Kalokairi Presidential Elections 2013 News Sports News Ola Bahalo Fetos Sinora Agapis (rpt) I Agapi Irthe Apo Makria (rpt) News Deal (rpt)

MEGA 06.00 06.15 06.40 07.00 08.00 10.00 12.45 14.00 15.00

Ta Epta Kaka Tis Moiras Mou Emeis Ki Emeis (rpt) Diktiotheite Kai Exelihtheite Koinonia Ora Mega Nea Mera Proino Mou Enimerosi Tora Klemmena Oneira (rpt) Eheis Meson Local investigative show.

16.00

Yia Sena

18.00 18.20

News Master Chef

Local talk-show.

Greek reality competition show where amateur chefs compete against each other in weekly challenges.

19.20 20.20 21.15

Eftyhismenoi Mazi (rpt) News Klemmena Oneira Greek drama series.

22.10

SIGMA 06.10 07.00 08.20 10.00 11.10 12.00 14.20 15.20 18.00 18.05 18.30 19.30 20.20 21.15

Efta Ouranoi kai Synnefa Alites News Pame Paketo

23.20

Las Vegas First season. ‘Semper Spy’. Ed decides to take a holiday in Hawaii, leaving Danny in charge of the surveillance crew - and unprepared to deal with a computer glitch which affects all the doors in the casino.

00.00 00.05 01.20 02.10 03.30 04.30

06.45 07.20 07.50 09.00 09.30 10.55

Star News Fotis - Maria Live Best Of Mesimeriani Meleti Best Of Exelixeis Sti Showbiz Mila (rpt) Nistikoi Praktores (rpt) Cookery show, with helpful tips on eating well and nutrition.

11.50 12.30 13.00 15.30 16.15 17.00

Kids’ TV Star News Mesimeriani Meleti Classic Cartoons More Kid’s TV To Kleidi Greek comedy series.

Talk-show that deals with human interest stories such as reuniting people, fulfilling dreams and connecting individuals who want to correct past mistakes in their lives.

Porta Kleidomeni Anonymous (rpt) News Fae Ti Sokolata Sou Yia Sena (rpt) Enimerosi Tora (rpt) Proino Mou (rpt)

The Del Monte Heirs (rpt) Protoselido Eleni Vasiliki (rpt) Efta Ouranoi kai Synnefa Alites (rpt) Mesimeri Kai Kati Aspra Balonia (rpt) Magazino News Ti Tha Fame Simera Mama The Del Monte Heirs Latin American telenovela.

Greek drama series.

23.10 00.00 00.10 01.00 03.00 04.20

PLUS TV

News Dekati Entoli (rpt) Alithinoi Erotes (rpt) Mila Mou (rpt) Otan Megaloso (rpt) Eleni (rpt)

17.50 19.40

Fotis Maria Live Mila Discussions about various issues based on a woman’s life (men, relationships, sex, kids etc.) with showbiz guests.

21.15 22.00

Exelixeis Stin Showbiz FILM: The Hunley Story following the submarine CSS Hunley’s crew through the siege of Charleston during the American Civil War. Fact-based drama, starring Donald Sutherland and Armand Assante. 1999.

23.30 00.30 01.10

LTV Sports News Kostakis Ki Yioi Star News

03.00

Repeats

Local comedy series.

CAPITAL 08.00 08.35 09.25 10.00 11.00 11.30 12.30 13.20 15.05 16.00 16.55 17.40 18.15

Magikos Kosmos S’Agapo (rpt) Akti Oneiron Ston Asterismo Tis Imeras Kouzina Me Apopsi Epi Topou (rpt) Milagros Kids’ TV Top Models S’Agapo Sabrina, To Koritsi Tis Agapis Akti Oneiron Pacific Blue With News at 18.30.

19.15 19.50 20.05 21.00

News Sports Time Rubi FILM: Framed For Murder A woman falsely convicted of murdering her husband is released from prison, and sets out to discover who framed her. Thriller, starring Elisa Donovan.

2007.

23.00

FILM: After Alice A detective develops psychic powers after an accident - which proves useful in the hunt for a killer. Dark thriller, starring Kiefer Sutherland. 1999.

00.35

FILM: Chasing Freedom An ambitious lawyer helps a young Afghan woman seeking political asylum in the US. Drama, with Juliette Lewis. 2004.

127 Hours (Novacinema2, 22.00)

06:15 The Weakest Link 07:00 3rd & Bird 07:10 Boogie Beebies 07:25 Tikkabilla 07:55 Me Too! 08:15 3rd & Bird 08:25 Boogie Beebies 08:40 Tikkabilla 09:10 Me Too! 09:30 Buzz & Tell 09:35 My Family 10:05 One Foot In The Grave 10:35 The Weakest Link 11:20 EastEnders 11:50 Doctors 12:20 Casualty 13:10 Bleak House 14:10 My Family 14:40 The Weakest Link 15:25 EastEnders 15:55 Doctors 16:25 Casualty 17:15 Bleak House 18:15 The Weakest Link 19:00 EastEnders 19:30 Doctors 20:00 Coast 21:00 Keeping Up Appearances 21:30 Gavin & Stacey 22:00 Waking The Dead 22:50 Blackadder Goes Forth 23:20 Taking the Flak 23:50 BBC Proms 2010: Rodgers & Hammerstein 01:40 Gavin & Stacey 02:10 EastEnders 02:40 Doctors 03:10 Keeping Up Appearances 03:40 Coast 04:40 Gavin & Stacey 05:15 Blackadder Goes Forth 05:45 Keeping Up Appearances

07:00 How It’s Made 07:25 Wheeler Dealers 08:15 American Chopper 09:10 Dirty Jobs 10:05 Deadliest Catch 10:55 Ultimate Survival 11:50 How Do They Do It? 12:15 How It’s Made 12:40 Extreme Engi-

neering 13:35 Rides 14:30 Wheeler Dealers 15:25 American Chopper 16:20 Mythbusters 17:15 Dirty Jobs 18:10 Deadliest Catch 19:05 Ultimate Survival 20:00 How It’s Made 21:00 Extreme Fishing 22:00 River Monsters 23:00 Hillbilly Handfishin 00:00 Trouble In Paradise 01:00 Surviving The Cut 01:55 Extreme Fishing 02:50 River Monsters 03:50 Hillbilly Handfishin 04:50 Trouble In Paradise 05:45 How Do They Do It? 06:10 Overhaulin’

09:30 Rally: Rally Raid Dakar 10:00 Ski Jumping: World Cup Poland 11:00 Biathlon: World Cup Germany 12:00 All Sports: Watts 12:30 Ski Jumping: World Cup Poland 13:30 Biathlon: World Cup Germany 14:45 Tennis: World Challenge Australia 16:45 Ski Jumping: World Cup Poland 19:00 Biathlon: World Cup Germany 20:45 Darts: World Championship Un. Kingdom 00:00 Rally: Rally Raid Dakar 00:30 Poker: European Poker Tour 01:30 All Sports: Watts 02:00 Rally: Rally Raid Dakar

05:40 Desperate Housewives 06:25 Castle 07:10 Modern Family 07:35 New Girl 08:00 Body Of Proof 08:50

Masterchef 09:40 Desperate Housewives 10:25 Castle 11:10 Modern Family 11:35 New Girl 12:00 Scandal 12:50 Castle 13:40 Body Of Proof 14:30 Tabatha’s Salon Takeover 15:20 Desperate Housewives 16:05 Castle 16:50 Modern Family 17:15 New Girl 17:40 Body Of Proof 18:30 Tabatha’s Salon Takeover 19:20 Desperate Housewives 20:10 Castle 21:00 Scandal 21:50 Castle 22:40 Modern Family 23:05 New Girl 23:30 Scandal 00:20 Castle 02:00 Desperate Housewives 02:45 Modern Family 03:10 New Girl 03:35 Rita Rocks 04:00 Body Of Proof 04:50 Tabatha’s Salon Takeover

07:00 Pawn Stars 07:30 Storage Wars 08:00 Mud Men 09:00 Pawn Stars 09:30 American Restoration 10:00 Pawn Stars 10:30 Storage Wars 11:00 Ancient Aliens 12:00 Swamp People 13:00 Storage Wars

14:00 Pawn Stars 14:30 American Restoration 15:00 Mud Men 16:00 Swamp People 17:00 Storage Wars 18:00 Pawn Stars 18:30 American Restoration 19:00 Mud Men 20:00 Pawn Stars 20:30 Storage Wars 21:00 Ancient Aliens 22:00 American Restoration 23:00 Ax Men 00:00 Pawn Stars 00:30 Storage Wars 01:00 Ancient Aliens 02:00 American Restoration 03:00 Ax Men 04:00 Mud Men 05:00 Pawn Stars 05:30 American Restoration 06:00 Ancient Aliens

07:30 Remember Me 09:30 Tourist, The 11:30 12 Men Of Christmas 13:15 Lionheart 15:15 Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 17:45 Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 20:00 LTV Sports News 21:00 Shutter Island 23:20 Assassination Games 01:05 Hustler Tv 02:45 Aspen Extreme 04:45 Men In Black (1997) 06:30 Ltv Sports News

07:00 Chowder I 07:25 Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack, The 07:50 Tom & Jerry Show, The 08:15 Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue! I 08:40 Loonatics Unleashed Ii 09:05 Superman: The Animated Series Ii 09:30 Superman: The Animated Series Ii 09:55 Looney Tunes Show, The 10:20 Tak & The Power Of Juju 10:45 Fanboy & Chum Chum 11:10 X’s, The 11:35 Ni Hao, Kai-Lan 12:00 Dora The Explorer 12:25 Spongebob Squarepants 12:50 Spongebob Squarepants 13:15 Mighty B!, The 13:40 My Life As A Teenage Robot 14:05 Hey Arnold! 14:30 Icarly 14:55 Icarly 15:20 Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue! I 15:45 Justice League Unlimited I 16:10 Legion Of Super Heroes I 16:35 Young Justice 17:00 A’ Division Cyprus Soccer Championship 2012-13 19:00 2011 World’s Strongest Man 19:30 2012 Pga Tour Highlights 20:30 La Liga World 21:00 Barclays Premier League World 21:30 La Liga Show 201213 22:00 Planet Speed 22:30 2011 World’s Strongest Man 23:00 Copa Del Rey 2012-13 01:00 Copa Del Rey 2012-13 03:00 Liga Bbva 201213 05:00 Liga Bbva 2012-13

Roughness 10:00 Friends 10:30 Gossip Girl 11:15 Ncis: Los Angeles 12:50 Pan Am 13:40 According To Jim 14:30 Necessary Roughness 16:05 2 Broke Girls 16:30 Chuck 17:15 Bones 19:00 Pan Am 19:45 Two And A Half Men 20:30 Friends 21:00 Closer, The 22:00 Harry’s Law 22:45 Southland 23:30 Shameless 00:25 Unknown (2011) 02:20 Trouble The With Dee Dee 03:50 2 Broke Girls 04:15 Chuck 05:00 Bones 06:30 Pan Am

07:20 Piranha 09:00 I Love You, Man 10:50 Brooklyn’s Finest 13:05 Switch 15:00 Happy Feet Two 16:45 Fast Freddie Widow & Me 18:15 Five Million Years To Earth 20:00 Christmas With The Kranks 22:00 King’s Speech 00:05 Daring! TV 03:45 Rite 05:45 Lethal Weapon 2

06:00 Choose 07:30 Happy Gilmore 09:05 Super 8 10:55 Action Zone 11:25 Tower Heist 13:15 Larry Crowne 15:00 Rumor Has It...

16:45 Cine News 17:15 The Double 19:00 Mad On Novacinema 19:40 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol 22:00 Margaret 00:35 One For The Money 02:15 Cine News 02:50 Cedar Rapids 04:20

07:15 According To Jim 08:00 2 Broke Girls 08:30 Necessary

07:15 Haevnen 09:15 Cine News 10:00 Johnny English Reborn 11:45 The Conspirator 13:50 The Vow 17:45 Hollywood 1 On 1 18:20 Gran Torino 20:20 Robinson Crusoe 22:00 127 Hours 23:40 A Perfect World 02:00 Colombiana 03:50 Cine News 04:40 Killer Elite

19:10 Limitless 21:00 The Siege 23:00 Magic City 00:00 C.S.I. 01:00 Adult Zone

19:05 Friends With Benefits 21:00 Morning Glory 22:55 In Love And War 00:55 Kate And Leopold

07:00 On the Town 08:35 Beau Brummell 10:25 Pennies From Heaven 12:10 Gone With the Wind 15:45 Bhowani Junction 17:35 Hot Millions 19:20 Raintree County 22:00 Poltergeist 23:50 Shaft 01:35 Wild Rovers 03:45 Some Came Running 06:00 TCM Presents Under the Influence: Bill Murray 06:30 TCM Presents Under the Influence: Sydney Pollack

By Preston Wilder

Five Million Years to Earth (LTV3, 18.15) Note to British readers of a certain age: Five Million Years to Earth is merely the US title of a film better-known as ... Quatermass and the Pit, the third of three British sci-fi classics featuring tweedy Prof. Quatermass! This is also the most ambitious, starting off with excavations in London unearthing what looks at first like an unexploded Nazi bomb - but the strange find is actually an ancient Martian spaceship, which turns out to have powerful psychic effects on everyone around it.

Very much a ‘film of ideas’, with literate talk and some really imaginative scenes - like the one where scientists actually tape (on the 60s equivalent of video) our

collective human memory of life on another planet, playing it back to show unearthly images - but also a low budget with some very dodgy special effects.

Youngsters may laugh and lose interest when they get a look at those alien crickets - which is a shame, because the script is superb. Made in 1967.

Margaret (Novacinema1, 22.00) My favourite film of 2011, and the finest American film in many years - though admittedly I saw the three-hour version, which isn’t what Nova are showing. This version runs two and a half hours, which is why the film was delayed for six years: the studio insisted on the shorter cut, writer-director Kenneth

Margaret

Lonergan (You Can Count on Me) refused, and the film languished unseen before being given a cursory release. That’s the kind of story that makes critics reach for superlatives, just to support a wronged artist - yet Margaret really is that good, starring Anna Paquin as a New York teenager who fears she may have caused an accident in which a woman died. She tries to work through her guilt - but Lonergan’s true theme is the impossibility of communication, the inadequacy of language (it builds an entire, amazing scene around misuse of the word ‘strident’) and the loss of empathetic emotion as we grow older (hence the title, from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins). The kind of film we thought they didn’t make anymore. Made in 2011.

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

21

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD 2281 1

2

3

4

PREVIOUS DAY’S SOLUTIONS

5

6

7

8

10

13

9

11

HOW TO PLAY: Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1-9. There’s no maths involved, you solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic.

With the ‘X’ sudoku, the shaded X must also contain the numbers 1-9.

12

14

16

15

17

18

EASY

EASY

MEDIUM

HARD

1 But it’s often the start to a children’s story (4) 2 Compel me to include this above the curtains (6) 3 North Dakota Flying Officer first was affectionate (4) 4 I’m in the river with nothing on – an Arctic dweller! (6) 5 Walked tiredly although Rita sped round (8) 6 Coshed quite badly at the club (11) 7 Faultless start to a game of tennis (4,7) 11 Ten react badly during the interval (8) 12 One who lacks the instincts of a gentleman is about these days (3) 14 Henry splashed paint on an ornamental clip (6) 15 Wait, say, for heavy load (6) 17 All hands on deck (4) 18 Average man? (4)

Rating EASY

6 Unsafe medicine? (9,4) 8 Cooked me instead! (7) 9 Jones announcing his entrance (5) 10 Open but covertly hidden (5) 12 Could his wealth have accrued from various sources? (7) 13 Developed some of that Cheddar (7) 15 Contraption I drew was more extensive (5) 16 Despite what is said, only half of it will go into a pint pot (5) 17 Wine from China? It was returned (7) 19 Stuff in the stable? (3,4,1,5)

Rating HARD

Down

Rating MEDIUM

Across

Rating MEDIUM

19

Answers to crossword 2280

HOROSCOPE

CRYPTIC: Across – 5 Fife; 7 Heptagonal; 8 Billet; 10 Strobe; 11 Iced; 12 Threnody; 14 Attended; 16 Brig; 17 Amiens; 19 Armagh; 21 Exorcising; 22 Sten. Down – 1 Chub; 2 Stolid; 3 Agitated; 4 Onus; 5 Florin; 6 Forbidding; 9 Incitement; 13 Radiance; 15 Eleven; 16 Bemuse; 18 Slog; 20 Hugh.

QUICK: Across – 5 Sack; 7 Cloudburst; 8 Occult; 10 Moppet; 11 Amen; 12 Unfurled; 14 Elevator; 16 Both; 17 Amanda; 19 Martyr; 21 Chessboard; 22 Stye. Down – 1 Echo; 2 Auburn; 3 Obstruct; 4 Grim; 5 Stupor; 6 Coherently; 9 Complement; 13 Foremost; 15 Venice; 16 Barrow; 18 Aped; 20 Rude.

ARIES March 21 - April 20

LEO July 23 - August 22

SAGITTARIUS November 23 - December 21

You may be keen to connect with people who are associated with your work or career path. It’s time to go for job interviews or to stake your claim to a promotion or new contract. A major focus on Capricorn suggests that it’s a good time to get really organised. Work out what you want to achieve over 2013 and create a sound strategy for success.

It’s all work, work and more work, especially today with a major focus on ambitious Capricorn. You may be aiming for a goal, or you may need to stick to rigid deadlines or targets. Whatever the reason, you may feel under pressure, even though the end result is possibly worthwhile.

However, a feisty and fun love life can help take your mind off it all!

Although you are generally upbeat and very buoyant, you seem to have a lot on your plate right now, and it may be making you tired. Finances seem to be a very hot topic today, and it’s something you seem very serious about. You may have a lot of red tape to deal with, or paperwork to do.

Whatever the scenario, get it finished so you can relax.

TAURUS April 21 - May 21

VIRGO August 23 - September 23

CAPRICORN December 22 - January 20

You seem keen to take on new challenges and to expand in such a way that you feel you are growing as a person.

You may decide to upgrade your skillset or perhaps to study - whether online or at college. Whatever your situation, you seem to have a zest for knowledge that could have a very positive outcome. Even a brand new direction is possible.

Time to get into your jogging gear, or Lycra if you prefer dancing or Yoga! The cosmos may be encouraging you to take up a form of exercise that helps you stay fit and keeps you feeling upbeat and positive. Your romance zone seems to be exploding with energy. If feelings for another have been developing, they may be about to burst into the open.

You seem to be the mover and shaker in your world today.

Your organising and managing skills may be put to the test as you co-ordinate various schemes or projects. But do be careful if you need to sign important documents as confusing influences reveal you may misunderstand an important issue. Make sure you know what you’re getting into.

GEMINI May 22 - June 21

LIBRA September 24 - October 23

AQUARIUS January 21 - February 19

Don’t think about signing anything important today, as you may miss an essential clause which may not be in your best interests. An aspect between Venus and Neptune suggests money may be at stake. Be careful if making major purchases too. Although you may be hard at work, the desire to take a break and do your own thing may be making you restless.

Home and family matters seem to be taking up a lot of time and energy. You may be busy decorating, or even thinking up ways to earn money from your home. Taking in a lodger, or starting your own business may be on your mind. At the same time, your love life may improve if you join a dating site or club. Take action and rewards will follow.

You seem to be in two minds at the moment. A focus on your spiritual zone suggests your intuitive desire is to escape from realities, and spend time in your own company. At the same time, you may be very excited about a scheme or plan that promises positive results. You may need to compromise, and give time to meditation as well as the drive to success.

CANCER June 22 - July 22

SCORPIO October 24 - November 22

PISCES February 20 - March 20

Relationships of all kinds seem very important today.

Whether it’s your co-worker, partner, new best friend or someone you only just met, you may feel that everyone wants more of you than you are prepared to give. On the other hand, if you get on the right side of key people you may find you achieve your goals faster and with much less stress.

If you work in the communication business, you certainly have your work cut out for you. Whether you’re in sales, teaching, writing or media, the good news is you’re in demand. This may be the time you decide to write your first book, or article. The desire to profit from your in-depth knowledge may give you and others food for thought.

You seem more in demand than you have been. Your presence may be required at various events or community meetings. Your social life may bring a few responsibilities with it, and being you, you may find it hard to say no, even if you already have too much to do. If someone tries to pile more work on you, you’re going to have to be very firm.

22

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

Advertiser

ADVERTISER helps you find what you’re looking for

Only

€14 (plus VAT)

a week for classifieds (up to 40 words)

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

MISCELLANEOUS ***************************** IN CONCERN OF: COUPLES OF EU CITIZENS LIVING IN CYPRUS We are currently conducting a 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 above 6, and if you are interested in taking part in a research financed by the University of Cyprus please contact us at the no. 96530033. Participants will complete a questionnaire and participate to a faceto-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 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 ****************************

SERVICES

Fabric Suites form 85€ - Leather Suites from 95€ - Mattresses from 25€. Curtains, Roman blinds, Vertical Blinds need to be surveyed. Collection Service available. For a free quotation call Mark on 70006766 All areas **************************** 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 or 96333961 All areas **************************** 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 **************************** WE UNDERTAKE REFURBISHING of houses or holiday homes, construction of pergolas, undertaking of plumbing, house painting, garden work.

For information call JIMMYS: 96587137, MELIS: 96547879 ****************************

LESSONS PRIVATE TUITION Experienced, UK-qualified teacher offers fulltime or part-time private home tuition in Maths, English, the Sciences, I.C.T., Geography, History, Business Studies and Economics, from KS3 to iGCSE, AS and A2 levels. 9 years experience in Cyprus; references available. Telephone 99318796 *****************************

Nicosia - tel: 22 818583 fax: 22 676385 MIKA is a beautiful and sweet female puppy, around 4 months, is looking for a loving home. She is very lovable and she will definitely be your best friend. At the Nicosia Dog Shelter, many more dogs and puppies like this one are looking for forever homes ! To provide a temporary foster home or to adopt contact on 99520511 mon-frid 10-2pm.

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

PERSONAL ***************************** GERMAN MAN, 50 years, searching a nice women. Mobil: 00491736590562 *****************************

HEALTH & FITNESS ***************************** CLINICAL PILATES. Personalised Clinical Pilates by Physiotherapists in Nicosia. Individual assessment and supervision of exercises. “Clinical pilates” is a modified form of therapeutic exercise used by physiotherapists to assist in the rehabilitation and prevention of musculoskeletal injury especially lower back pain, sacro-iliac pain and neck pain. More info on 22446988. *****************************

PENNY, a loving gentle female.

Will make a wonderful family pet. Around 3 years old.

Excellent temperament, very loving and well behaved. He will make an amazing companion. Worth Meeting! He is small size. At the Nicosia Dog Shelter, many more dogs and puppies like this one are looking for forever homes !

To provide a temporary foster home or to adopt contact on 99520511 mon-frid 10-2pm. ***************************

PETS **************************** BDL SHIPPING Worldwide animal transportation, Home removals including small loads Vehicle import & export, General collection and delivery (including IKEA), Rubbish removal plus general transportation & shipment. Competitive rates. Phone: 99239311 Web: www.bdlcyprus.com **************************** PROFESSIONAL UPHOLSTERY CLEANING, also carpets, rugs and mattresses.

Special offers now available.

For a quote call Rickys Cleaning Services on 99131044 (all areas) rickyscleaningservices@gmail.com **************************** UPHOLSTERY, RUG, BLINDS + CURTAIN Cleaning Rugs from 20€ - Carpets from 38€ -

Limassol - tel: 25 761117 fax: 25 761141

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

MOLLY is sweet and polite and very gentle. Aged around 2 yrs, she is a pinscher cross, small sized and will do best in a quiet home. She is good with other dogs. A bit scared/ shy around children and prefers peace, quiet and cuddles. At the Nicosia Dog Shelter, many more dogs and puppies like this one are looking for forever homes !

To provide a temporary foster home or to adopt contact on 99520511 mon-frid. *****************************

FOR SALE BUSINESS/ PROPERTY/LAND ****************************

Paphos - tel: 26 911383 fax: 26221049

direct access to Limassol – Paphos Highway. Water supply, electricity and telephones are readily available. Suitable for immediate development. Ideal for various health facilities and resorts, holiday centres, commercial and shopping centres, entertainment enterprises etc.

Information: Tel. 22 674338, 99621554 **************************** FOR SALE LAND in Anthoupoli (half plot) 288 sq.metres. for information 99621554. ****************************

FOR SALE MOTOR VEHICLES ***************************** ROVER 600. 1998. 126000 km. €1200. Price Negotiable. A Honda-Era Rover, so the engine is a Honda Accord. Has Never had engine problem. Any parts I found at both Rover AND Honda. Oil change, MOT included Tel No: 99564063. ***************************** FORD FOCUS GHIA (2006) diesel, 1600cc, 98000km, blue, automatic - tiptronic. dual zone climate control, power steering, electric windows, 6 airbags, central locking, cruise control, computer board, alloy wheels, and many extras. €6900 ono.

Contact: 99022779 - Nicosia *****************************

PROPERTY TO LET ‘PROPERTY BUSINESS FOR SALE’ ‘Unique Opportunity to purchase FREEHOLD stonebuilt village property currently operating as a Cafe, with fully equipped kitchen.Seating for 40. Potential for further expansion. Easily converted to residential dwelling.Viewing highly recommended. Greatly Reduced. Details ring Tel: 99864097’ – Paphos Area **************************** TIMI, PLOTS, a few selected available, seaview, near the 2 golf courses, Venus rock and airport. 60% Building factor, eu 99,000. Half registration fees till the 31.12.12. Tel. 99 621914 **************************** LARNACA, Alethriko, plots for sale, 525 sqm, 90% building factor, near highway Limassol-Larnaca, 5 min from airport, quiet residential area, eu 109,000. Half registration fees till the 31.12.12. Tel. 99 621914 **************************** PRIME LAND IS AVAILABLE FOR LONG LEASE IN LIMASSOL. 40, 000 sq.m., zoning Ka7 (80% -45% - 3 stories).

Regular amphitheatrical shape overlooking Ladies Mile. Close to New Limassol Hospital with

NICOSIA ***************************** FOR RENT or sell: 2 bed-room flat in Nikis Avn in Nicosia, 80 m. Completely renovated, with electric supplies. Excellent for office or flat. 3 bed-room flat with electric supplies and some furnitures in Nicosia near Central Bank, 140m. Completely renovated like new. For info call mob: 99460860. ***************************** STROVOLOS 4 bdrm., house, c/h, a/c from €1000 now €800, Mak/ssa f/f house, pool, 4 bdrm., 4wc, 2 shower €1700, Kornos villa, pool, mature garden €4000 (2) penthouse luxury Acropolis 1 bdrm, f/f, centre €450. For info www.markidesestates.com Markides 22378898, 99464764, Reg. No. 487, E16 ***************************** FLATS/HOUSES FOR RENT studio Acropolis €300, 1bdrm P/ ssa €450, Aglantzia €350, Str/ los €350, Acropolis €350 2bdrm Lycavito furnished €530, Acropolis €550, Ag. Dometios €500, 3bdrm Nikis av. €550 Str/los G/F €660, Tymbos independent €800, Ag. Omologites colonial listed building swimming pool maids room €2,500. PROP-

Larnaca - tel: 24 652243 fax: 24 659982

classified contents Employment Opportunities pg 22 Employment Miscellaneous 22 Pets 22 Lessons 22 Health & Fitness 22 Personal 22 Services 22 For Sale Miscellaneous -For Sale Land/ Property Business 22 For Sale Motor vehicles 22 Wanted -To Let Nicosia 22 To Let Limassol 25 To Let Larnaca 25 To Let Paphos 25 To Let Protaras, Ayia Napa, Paralimni -For Sale Nicosia 26 For Sale Limassol -For Sale Larnaca -For Sale Paphos 26 For Sale Ayia Napa -For Sale Famagusta Protaras 26 For Sale Athens -Property& Home Services display ads --

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

23

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

Advertiser TO LET NICOSIA

TO LET NICOSIA

ERTY FINDER LTD. 99474839 99646822 A.M.627 A.A.108/E ***************************** FOR RENT - Spacious one bedroom apartment, on second floor of small block of flats near the American Embassy, big veranda, bathtub (not shower) wood floors, concealed lighting in all areas, provision for surround system, granite counters in the kitchen, built-in oven, refrigerator, washing machine, ceramic hob unit, solar water heater, instant water heater in the bathroom, A/C in the bedroom, double bed with side tables, bar furniture, roller blinds on the windows and veranda doors, covered parking. Price €470.00 the month. For Information 99-660350 ***************************** STUDIO flat in Pallouriotissa (next to McDonald) furnished €280.

For info call 99606984. ***************************** TWO FLATS FOR RENT in central area of Ay. Omologites.

They consist of 2 bedrooms an extra dining room as a third bedroom. Furnished or not. Fire

place, covered parking and no common expenses. Rent €430 p.m. Information 99651156 ***************************** To let spacious 2 bdrm apartment in a small building in Strovolos area near ARETAIEION hospital (dead-end) with independent petrol heating, 3 a/c, water pressure system, satellite. Directly available. TEL.: 96275151 ***************************** FLATS TO LET - Nicosia: A wide selection of furnished & unfurnished in all areas of Nicosia.

NIKARIA ESTATE LTD Theo Loizides 22761616 / 99660050 nikaria@cablenet.com.cy

***************************** 2 BDRM flat (almost new, 4 years old) at Lycavitos with good area near University of Cyprus with fully equipment kitchen, a/c in all rooms. For info call 96530532. ***************************** TO LET 3 bedroom house situated on a dead end street next to a small quiet park near Falcon School. Has an En-suite master room, large study room, central heating, a/c and fire place in

SELEC 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

Tel. SELEC fencing 99176557

TO LET NICOSIA the living room. For enquiries tel 99660758

***************************** MODERN 2 BDRM, first floor flat in attractive building in Anthoupolis, very quiet area between the Grammar School and the European University, also very convenient for Pascal and Highgate Schools and the University of Nicosia. Large front veranda, all appliances, modern fittings, light and bright.

Furnished or unfurnished €550p.m. Call 99900177. ***************************** 2 ROOMS €125 each, near McDonald’s Engomi only Philippine girls. Call 99663927. ***************************** FOR RENT 3 B/R apartment fully furnished close to Central Bank.

3 W.C., fully air-conditioned extra storeroom, owned covered parking. Excellent condition.

Information: Tel. 99621554 ***************************** 3 BEDROOMS flat on second floor in a block of six flats, in a nice position at Strovolos area, fully a/c, c/h, covered parking

TO LET NICOSIA place for one car, recently painted. Rent €650pm. (furnished if required). Tel: 97773358.

***************************** LUXURY HOUSES: 1. 5 bedrs detached house, 550sq.m, built in 2 big plots of land, big garden with grass, big swimming pool with extra fence for children and big covered patio with bbq area, big reception areas with marble floor, fire place and bar, big kitchen with all electrical appliances and sitting room with fire place, maid’s room, floor heating, full a/c, blinds on the windows, master bedroom with en suite bathroom and shower, big bathroom for the other 3 bedrooms and extra shower in the 5th bedroom - Strovolos €2500 (H5ST10001-R), (photos in the website).

2. H3AR0004-R, 3 bedr luxury detached house with central heating, full a/c, 3wc, 2 bathrooms, parquet floor throughout the house, big sitting and dining area, big kitchen with family room opening onto the swimming pool which has big

TO LET NICOSIA covered area with wooden deck, bbq area, covered parking, in a very quiet area behind Apoel football training ground Archagelos - €1700 (photos in website).

3. 2 bedr fully renovated semi detached house 120 sq. m, a/c for hot and cold, small yard, FULLY FURNSIHED or not, double glazed windows with aluminum shutters, in a quiet area off Nikis behind Burger King - ACROPOLIS €600 (H2ACS0001-R), (photos in the website).

4. 3 bedr luxury semi-detached house with character, 200sq.m, central heating, full ac, sitting and dining room with fire place, big kitchen with cooker and oven, dishwasher and refrigerator, nice mature garden with flowers, trees and small garden with grass, covered

TO LET NICOSIA parking, 3wc, 2 bathrooms in a quiet neighborhood. Available middle of January. Agios Andreas - €1200 - H3AAD0001-R (photos in website).

5. 4 BEDR spacious luxury detached house with central heating, full a/c, 3wc, big sitting and dining area, big separate kitchen with electrical appliances and family room, big bedrooms, blinds, bbq area, garden, 2 parking(one covered), in a very quiet area near Apoel training field – ARCHANGELOS - €1200 – H4AR0016-R (photos in website).

6. 3 bedr+big attic room with shower and wc luxury new house, 210sq.m, central heating, full a/c, 4wc, blinds on all windows, cooker and oven in the kitchen, small garden, covered parking near Alpha Mega

24

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

Advertiser TO LET NICOSIA

TO LET NICOSIA

supermarket - STROVOLOS €1100 (H4ST10007-R), (photos in the website).

on the borders of Strovolos with Lakatamia - Lakatamia€1600 (photos in website).

7. 3 bedr detached ground floor house with separate maid’s room, with very big garden with grass(200sq.m) and covered patio with bbq and bar, central heating, full a/c, 180sq.m, FULLY FURNISHED or NOT, 2 covered parking, storage room, in a very quiet neighborhood opposite Acropolis park - Acropolis - €1000 - H3ACS0004-R (photos in website).

9. 3 bedr upstairs and 2 separate bedroom in the basement luxury detached house(all the bedrooms with en suite bathrooms/shower), also separate kitchen and sitting room in the basement which has also separate entrance from the house, central heating, full a/c, solid parquet floor all the house, big sitting and dining room with fire place, big fully equipped kitchen with breakfast area and family room, big overfloor, 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), (photos in the website).

8. H4LAK0002-R, 3 bedr + office space luxury detached house, built on a big plot, 350sq. m, big swimming pool with cover, garden with grass, big sitting and dining room, separate family room, central heating, a/c, curtains on all the windows, cooker, dishwasher and dryer, parquet floor throughout the house,3wc, 2 bathrooms, 2 covered parking in a quiet area LONDON TRAINED HAIRDRESSER **SPECIAL OFFERS**

10. 4 bedr semi detached house with central heating, 4 a/c, 3 wc, 2 bathrooms, 180sq.m, electrical appliances, small yard, bbq

TO LET NICOSIA area, off Kostantinoupoleos street near French ambassador residence.- STROVOLOS €700 (H4ST10043-R), (photos in the website).

11. 4 bedr luxury semi detached house with good size garden with grass, big covered patio with bbq area, central heating, a/c units, 3wc, 2 bathrooms, 2 covered parking, FULLY FURNISHED AND EQUIPPED, in a quiet area in a dead end close to all amenities and schools.

ANTHOUPOLIS €1300 (H4ANT0002-R), (photos in the website).

12. 4 bedr luxury detached house, 350sq.m,central heating, full ac, big garden with fruit trees, grass and swimming pool 6 X 12,2 covered parking, electrical appliances in the kitchen, 4 years old in a very quiet area 25 min from the centre – DEYTERA - €2000 – H4DEF0001-R (photos in website).

13. 3 bedr ground floor house with big separate 80sq,m room with shower and wc for multi

TO LET NICOSIA use, central heating independent, full a/c, 2wc, 2 shower,1 bathroom, fully furnished, small garden, bbq area, parking, on a small building in a very quiet area near Agios Vasilios church. Strovolos - €900 - H4ST10028-R (photos in website).

14. 3 bedr detached house with extra room for office, 250sq.m, central heating independent, 4a/c, big renovated kitchen with cooker and oven, big sitting and dining room with parquet floor and fire place, 1bathroom, 2 shower, 3wc, 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 - Makedonitissa - €1100 – H3MAK0004-R (photos in website).

For many more properties with photos visit our website at www.landtouristestates.com which is updated daily. LANDTOURIST ESTATES LTD 22-

English-Painter & Decorator

*Gents Cut & Style 8 euro*

Fully Qualified 30 years’ Experience

Find us -1 Venus Beach Hotel, Tomb of Kings.

Call Michelle: 99760543 or 26949200 (ext 350) Visit: facebook.com/VenusBeach HotelHairSalon for more info.

ALL AREAS • External & Internal painting • Damp Damage Repairs • Spritze 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

422225/96-422225/96422226, www.landtouristestates.com

150sq.m+big 25sq.m veranda with very nice view, big sitting and dining areas, big separate kitchen with all the electrical appliances, big bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, storage heaters, full a/c, shutters and blinds on the windows, covered parking in a quiet neighborhood off Prodromou close Ministry od Defence – Engomi- €600 – A3ENG0026-R (photos in website).

***************************** LUXURY FLATS: 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 throught, 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 neighborhood – Agios Andreas€ 1300 – A3AAD0005-R (photos in website).

2. AINIC0006- R, 1 bedr., fully furnished and equipped apartment, 50sq.m, 2AC for hot and cold, covered verandah, covered parking, nice view, off Makarios avenue between Hilton and DEBENHAMS shop.

Nicosia centre, € 450 (photos in website).

3. 3 bedr new luxury big apartment

*Free Cut & Blowdry (worth €25) with any Colour Service*

Claim your reward by simply quoting ‘Cyprus Mail’ (valid until 28th Feb ‛13) VENUS BEACH HAIR SALON

TO LET NICOSIA

CYPRUS VOICE FOR ANIMALS Thanks the public for their support to the ‘Charity Line Direct’ a social contribution

by CYTA. During 2011 a total of €1,255.78 was raised

4. A1DAS0010-R, 1 bedr luxury spacious apartment with big sitting and dining room, big bathroom, big bedroom with shutters, covered veranda, storage heaters, 2a/c, cooker and oven in the kitchen, covered parking in a quiet area in a small modern building near Acropolis Park. Dasoupolis €400 (photos in website).

5. 2 bedr new luxury modern furnished apartment , central heating ind, 2 a/c, big covered veranda and covered parking in a quiet area behind the Municipal building – Agios Dometios - € 660 - A2ADO0004-R (photos in website).

6. 2 bedr luxury spacious apartment on a small modern building with central heating independent(with petrol), full a/c, solid parquet floor, big bedrooms, big sitting room with open plan kitchen, big covered veranda, FULLY MODERN FURNISHED, covered parking off Makarios avenue in a quiet area near the centre – Nicosia Centre- € 800 – A2NIC0030-R (photos in website).

7.

4 bedr luxury floor apartment,250sq.m, office, maid’s room, central heating

25

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

Advertiser TO LET NICOSIA

TO LET NICOSIA

ind, full hidden wall unit a/c,2 showers, 1 bathroom, 3wc, parquet floor, big kitchen with cooker and oven, bbq on the veranda in the kitchen, big sitting area, roller blinds on all the windows, alarm system, big veranda on a small building off Athalasas avenue near Alpha Mega supermarket and Areteion hospital – Dasoupolis € 1100 - A4DAS0002-R (photos in website).

8. A1ACS0007- R, 1 bedr luxury spacious apartment with 2 a/c for hot and cold, electrical appliances in the kitchen, big bedroom, covered veranda, blinds, covered parking, in a quiet area near Acropolis park. NICELY FURNISHED. Acropolis €450 (photos in website).

9. 3 bedr new luxury finished PENTHOUSE apartment 150sq.m internal areas+120sq. verandas, solid parquet floor all the flat, big bedrooms, big sitting and dining room, big semi separate kitchen with electrical appliances, home cine ma with big screen, LCD tv, covered parking in a quiet neighborhood near CYTA, Laiki + Hellenic bank headquarters and French school. CAN BE RENTED ALSO expensive MODERN furnished – Dasoupolis - € 1200 - A3DAS0019-R (photos in website).

10. 2 bedr luxury apartment with 3 a/c for hot and cold, big covered veranda, covered parking and storage room, NICELY FURNISHED, near Acropoli park behind Tseriotis showroom – ACROPOLIS - €450 – A2ACS0033-R (photos in website).

11. 3 bedr luxury spacious ground floor apartment with separate entrance, big verandas and garden, big sitting and dining room, central heating independent, full a/c, 2wc, very big master bedroom, electrical appliances in the kitchen, aluminum shutters on windows, parquet laminate floor all the flat, covered parking, storage room, in a very quiet neighbourhood in a dead end street, off Athalasas Avenue behind Stephanis near English School €650 (A3ST10030-R), (photos in the website).

12. 2 bedr luxury apartment with central heating independent, full a/c, electrical appliances in the kitchen, blinds, big covered veranda, in a small 2 storey building in a quiet area behind Tymvos – MAKEDONITISSA - € 500 – A2MAK0008-R (photos in website).

13. 3 bedr luxury apartment with central heating independent, full a/c, 2 bathrooms, parquet floor, big sitting and dining area, big covered veranda, covered parking, storage room, blinds, shutters in the bedrooms, big kitchen with all expensive electrical appliances, off Makarios avenue near the centre – Nicosia Centre- € 800 – A3NIC0025-R (photos in website).

14. 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, fire place, covered parking and big overfloor heated covered swimming pool on the ground floor, on a small 3 storey building in a quiet neighbourhood near a

TO LET NICOSIA playground and near Ippokration private hospital Engomi €2000 - A4ENG0003-R (photos in website).

15. 2 bedrs new luxury apartment, sitting room open plan with kitchen which includes cooker, oven, refrigerator and washing machine, 2 wc, central heating, full AC, blinds on the windows, very big covered verandas, covered parking and storage room in a dead end off Athalassas avenue near Laiki popular bank and Hellenic bank headquarters. - DASOUPOLI €500 (A2DAS0006-R), (photos in the website).

16. 2 bedr luxury apartment with a/c for hot and cold, NICELY MODERN FURNISHED, covered parking, off Stavrou Avenue behind Coffee Beanery.

PRICE INCLUDES COMMON EXPENSES – STROVOLOS - € 550 – A2ST10051-R (photos in 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 flat in the centre of Nicosia. Rent €450. For information call 99453663, 99663927.

LIMASSOL GROUND FLOOR HOUSE, furnished renovated this year.

Laminated parke floor, and big wardrobes in the 3 bedrooms.

Rent €590.00 Tel 99497576 99886775 *****************************

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TO LET LARNACA LARNACA FLAT IN CENTRAL LARNACA, Stasinou St, f/f, a/c, one bedroom, Off street car parking.

Foinikoudes, Zenonos Kiteos shops 200 metres. Rent €350 p/m. Tel: 24 815104/9939 5954 **************************** ON THE PHINIKOUDES PROMENADE. An unobrstructed, panoramic view of the sea and the marina. An exclusive superb 1 bdrm on the 4th floor on the beach. Fully renovated, brand new. Has fitted new kitchen, w/m, fully a/c and sauna room!! Also suitable for office use. Must see to appreciate. Rent €450. Call 99222197, 99541828. **************************** LARNACA FLAT FOR RENT: Fully-furnished spacious 2-bedroom first floor flat in central location near Metro supermarket, A/C, private parking, intercom system, en-suite bathroom, small block. Phone: 99354789

**************************** 2 BEDROOM NICOLADES SEA VIEW CITY BLOCK, a/c’s in all rooms, private parking, sea view, walking distance to everything, can be used for office or residential. €750, minimum 12 months contract. 99320077 Larnaca

TO LET LARNACA FOR RENT 2 bed, 2 bath, new built apartment, in a quiet scenic location In Alethriko, Larnaca 5 min. to Larnaka, 5 min. to the beach Fully furnished, A/C, communal pool, under covered parking, Long term rent, €350.00 per month For more info pls call 99639378

**************************** FULLY FURNISHED one bedroom flat near Larco hotel Larnaca. Price €370. Tel: 99202543 ****************************

PAPHOS €290 /mnth Acropolis Heights Chlorakas (a) and € 380 / mnth Universal area (b) Both are 2-bed houses, beautiful locations, in Cul-de-sacs, 10 years old, 90 sq. mts, Furnished, Open-Plan Lounge/ Kitchen, Front Car-port, Garden, (a) is Ground floor, 1 W.C/ bath. (b) is 2-Floors, 2 W.CS/ Bath and part air-conditioned.

Call 99-632388.’

**************************** LONG TERM RENTALS 1. Geroskipou A large 2 bed apartment with large balcony facing the sea, fully furnished, covered parking, a/c €345 pcm 2. Tala 2 bed fully furnished apartment.

Stunning sea

TO LET PAPHOS views, large balcony, well kept gardens, communal pool, and quiet area. €350 pcm 3. Peyia Large 3 or 4 bed detached villas, secluded position, large private pool, a/c, and parking. Unfurnished or furnished. Very nice, well worth seeing. €650pcm & €750pcm 4. Kato Paphos Furnished 1 bedroom apartment, a/c, private parking, well kept garden, communal swimming pool, large balcony with sea view.

From €300 pcm REDUCED THIS IS JUST A SMALL SELECTION OF PROPERTIES THAT ARE AVAILABLE. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THESE AND MANY MORE PLEASE CALL EITHER 96 545 174 OR E-MAIL ON info@unique-consultancy.eu LANDLORDS; WE NEED YOUR PROPERTIES NOW. PLEASE CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY IF YOU HAVE A PROPERTY FOR RENT. **************************** KILI – PAPHOS, 3 bedroom villa, with swimming pool and garden, unfurnished, gas central heating, large verandas, lovely mountain views, very quiet and tranquil area, €500 per month o.n.o. Call: 99479006 **************************** PAPHOS / PEYIA VILLA, villa for rent in Peyia, 4 bedroom, 4 bathrooms, large sitting-dining area, fully airconditioned and heated, unfurnished, pano-

26

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

Advertiser TO LET PAPHOS ramic views, large parking, low rent contact: 99490953, 26815534

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

APHRODITE HILLS - Villa share at this amazing resort? Now available for discerning people, luxury double rooms, each with own en suite and heating unit and plus of large lounge/ dining/kitchen area, external patios, gardens and swimming pool. Fully furnished and equipped €800pm plus share of running expenses, min period 6 months or yearly contract renewal. To enquire (or view from January 2013) ring 99178141. A chance not to be missed!

**************************** 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. UNIVERSAL AREA €450 spacious 3 bedroom first floor apartment, master with ensuite. Situated on small complex with no pool. Fully furnished with modern furniture, fully equipped kitchen with dishwasher. Balcony leads to a large private roof terrace with shaded barbeque area offering views of the sea, storage & sunbathing deck.

2. SEA CAVES €500 we are delighted to offer this detached 2 bedroom villa situated on a corner plot in a quiet residential area offering sea views.

Gated drive for off street parking. Fully enclosed good sized low maintenance garden with private pool offering privacy and shaded areas. Available unfurnished or part furnished.

Pets allowed at owners discretion. Website reference number: RTL_482 3. KISSONERGA €550 modern detached 3 bedroom villa situated in a quiet residential area.

TO LET PAPHOS Master bedroom with ensuite, separate kitchen, downstairs guest wc. Enclosed garden offering private pool & off street parking. Available unfurnished though can include kitchen appliances. Pets allowed at owners discretion. Website reference number: RTL_501

5. CHLORAKA €750 modern detached 4 bedroom 3 bathroom villa with ground floor bedroom & bathroom. Beautifully furnished with good quality modern furniture includes sky satellite, fly screens & feature fireplace with modern gas fire. Private pool offering views of the sea. Off street parking.

Situated within walking distance of bus routes & shops.

Website reference number: RTL_611

**************************** A DELIGHTFUL AND SPACIOUS 1 bedroom apartment, F/F, top floor, new, located at a peaceful location just 500 from St. George hotel in Chloraka.

A+ quality apt. Within walking distance to amenities, part of a beautiful building with swimming pool, list and other amenities. Only €250p/m Other apts also available near Carrefour in the Centre of Paphos. Call 99403261, 26934650

6. KATO PAPHOS €800 large 4 bedroom detached villa situated in the sought after residential area of Limnaria. Walking distance to the beach and the many amenities of Kato Paphos. Spacious living accommodation offering an enclosed garden with c/pool. Fully furnished with modern furniture & solar panels. Website reference number: RTL_442

**************************** FLOWRON PROPERTY SERVICES LTD: PROVIDING AN EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE FOR TENANTS AND LANDLORDS: PROPERTIES AVAILABLE FOR RENT LONG TERM RENTAL, PROPERTIES WANTED: FULL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT WITH KEY HOLDING AND RENT COLLECTIONS OFFERED ANAVARGOS: 1 to 3 Bedroom apartments available near to the general hospital, furnished or unfurnished. All properties, have white goods and are modern. The building has a lift and off street parking. Prices from 300-400 Euros per month.

Ref 7777 Price 300-400 ANARITA: 3 bed nicely furnished villa in the centre of Anarita village with private pool, off street parking. Property has a modern kitchen with granite work tops, sitting and dining area, guest wc. Upstairs 3 bedrooms Master with en suite shower, separate family bathroom. Outside shaded pergolas. Ref 855 Price 600 SECRET VALLEY: 3 bed villa fully furnished 3 bedroom villa with private pool. Nice furniture, master bedroom with on suite shower, family bathroom, 2 bedrooms with twin beds.

Dining area, kitchen, guest

7. ANAVARGOS €895 we are delighted to offer this unique 5 bedroom 3 bathroom rustic country home offering spacious living accommodation with large gardens, private pool & stone built bbq & entertainment area. Fully furnished with log burner for those winter months. A real character home worth viewing. Pets allowed.

Website reference number: RTL_635 offers considered.

8. TALA €900 a charming detached 4 bedroom villa with character, situated on a corner plot in a quiet residential area with breathtaking sea views. Spacious living rooms with central heating & real fireplace. Separate kitchen & dining room. Good sized garden

HOSPITALS ........ 1400

Nicosia ........................22 802 020 Limassol ......................25 805 050 Larnaca .......................24 804 040 Paphos ........................26 806 060 Famagusta ..................23 803 030

Nicosia General .............22-801400 Nicosia Makarios ...........22-405000 Limassol Old ................25-305333 Limassol New ................25-801100 Larnaca Old...................24-630312 Larnaca New .................24-630300 Paphos ..........................26-821800 Famagusta ....................23-821211

Game Fund Service: (Wildlife and hunting) Central offices (Nicosia): 22867786, 22-867897 Nicosia: 22-664606, 99-445697 Limassol: 25-343800, 99-445728, Larnaca/Famagusta: 24-805128, 99-634325 Paphos: 26-306211, 99-445679

TEL: 97790883 OFFICE: 26271858 VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR MANY MORE PROPERTIES www.mrrentpaphos.net Email: info@ mrrent-paphos.net

**************************** FOR RENT A selection of 1 to 5 bedroom houses & apartments F/F & U/F Universal, Peyia, Tomb of the Kings, Tsada, Timi, Chlorakas & Kato Paphos Landlord & Owners please call 99329357 Or please view at are website www.cyprussands.com Fully Registered Company in Cyprus

POLICE DIVISION HQ

Rescue Co-ordination Centre ............................. 1441 (Immediate Response Service for Aeronautical or Maritime Accident & Incidents)

offering private pool and stone built barbeque area. Undercover parking. Available fully furnished. Website reference number: RTL_638

4. PEYIA €700 price includes pool cleaning. If you are looking for a villa with breathtaking views & privacy than this property is for you. This modern detached 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom villa is furnished with modern furniture, including satellite TV. One bedroom & bathroom on ground floor.

A spacious enclosed garden with private pool offering stunning views. Off street parking.

Website reference number: RTL_401

U SEFUL PHONE NUMBERS

Drug Law Enforcement Unit ......................................... 1498 (Confidential Information)

TO LET PAPHOS

• chafing trays

Police Duty Officer ......... 1499 (Confidential Information)

Forest Fires ..................... 1407 Airports Larnaca ..........................77778833 Paphos ...........................77778833

TIMI: 3 bed nicely furnished villa with large sitting and dining areas, fire place, full AC. Upstairs large family bathroom, 3 bedrooms, master bedroom having en suite shower and walk in wardrobes. Off street parking, private pool Ref: 722 Price: 600 PEGEIA: 4 bed villa with stunning situated in a lovely quiet location in Pegeia offered unfurnished. The property has 2 down stairs bedrooms, a large sitting room with fire place, central heating, kitchen with Stylish design, dining area.

Upstairs 2 bedrooms, large outside veranda. Outside stunning views Private pool. Ref: 765 Price: 900 MESGOI: large unfurnished villa situated in a residential area.

Property is very modern with fire place, downstairs bedroom with en suite, kitchen and separate utility room, 3 additional bedroom upstairs with master en suite, family bathroom. Outside private pool, fully fenced and private, nice views, pets welcome, suit family with children going to local international school. Ref: 783 Price: 750 TALA: A family home offered part furnished in a quiet residential area, property has off street parking, private pool, central heating and AC, modern kitchen, sitting/dining area, guest wc, upstairs 3 bedrooms with master en suite, family bathroom, sea views. Ref: 988 Price: 750 OFFICE: 120 MAKARIOS AVENUE, PAPHOS. OFFICE: 26600450 MOBILE: 97614070 many properties available on WEB: www.flowron.com Email info@flowron.com

**************************** PEYIA – 3 bedroom villa with modern quality furniture and finishes.

Central heating, sky, alarm, infinity pool and stunnning sea and mountain views €700 per month, call: 99389426 **************************** BRAND NEW APT, opposite Poseidonio Gym, near Carrefour,

• 2 stand up freezers

AIDS Advisory Bureau ................................ 22-302826

Cyprus Samaritans ... 77777267

SERCRET VALLEY: 4 bed beautiful furnished bungalow to the highest of standards, with large bedrooms - en suites, Modern large kitchen fully equipped, sitting and dining area with fire place. Outside heated pool, off street parking, landscaped gardens and great views. Ref: 1151 Price 1800

CATERING EQUIPMENT:

• industrial oven

Drug Info & Poison Control ............... 1401

WC, off street parking, private pool. Modern Villa. Ref: 1035 Price 700

FOR SALE – PAPHOS

Narcotics Helpline ......... 1410 (Outside hours.............. 22304160)

Domestic Violence Centre .......................................... 1440 (Emergency Centre for Victims)

TO LET PAPHOS

• stand up wine fridge • thermo boxes • catering tables • tablecloths with frills • glassware, cutlery • All in excellent condition at reduced prices

please call : 99532841

TO LET PAPHOS F/F, a/c, great quality, 1 bdrm, from €340p.m.Tel 99403261

**************************** RENTAL POINT - PAPHOS PROPERTIES AVAILABLE TO RENT IN THE PAPHOS DISTRICT. JUST A SMALL SAMPLE OF AVAILABLE PROPERTIES. ALL TYPES OF PROPERTY URGENTLY REQUIRED FOR LONG TERM RENTAL. CALL 97648440 FOR MORE INFORMATION. LANDLORDS CALL IF YOU HAVE A PROPERTY FOR RENT.!!!

1. MESA CHORIO – 2 bed 2 bath fully furnished ground floor apartment set on an elevated position on this prestigious development. Open plan living area. Good sized kitchen. 2 double, bedrooms, master with en-suite shower room. Family bathroom. Large patio areas with enclosed gardens and lovely sea views.

Covered parking and security gates.. Comm swimming pool. €425.00 or near offer 2 EMBA 3 bed 2 bath unfurnished villa in handy location close to the shopping areas.

Property also has separate 1 bed apartment on the lower level. Large open plan living area and dining area. Fully fitted dining/kitchen with appliances . Guest WC. 3 double bedrooms one with en-suite.

Family bathroom. Separate 1 bed apartment on lower level.

Perfect for dual living. Small garden & and parking. €550.00 a month.

3. GIOLOU – 5 bed unfurnished villa consisting of 3 bed, 2 bath main house (bungalow) with self contained 2 bed apartment with own entrance. Main house, open plan living area, beamed ceilings with feature fireplace. Dining space and kitchen. 3 bedrooms, master with en-suite and family bathroom. Covered balcony with sea and rural views, swimming pool and garden areas. Lower level apartment reached via the main house or separate entrance. Large open plan living area, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms. €850.00 per month 4. TALA – 3 bed 3 bath quality furnished villa. Set in enclosed gardens the villa consists of open plan living area with dining space. Fully fitted kitchen with all appliances, door to rear garden. Storage room.

Ground floor bed room with adjacent shower. Stairs to two double bedrooms both ensuite, one with Jacuzzi tub.

Small seating area with adjacent balcony. Pool and off street parking. Lnadscaped gardens €750.00 per month or close offers only 5. TRIMITHOUSA – 4 bed, 3.5 bath unfurnished villa set in quiet location. Open plan living area. Fully fitted kitchen.

Ground floor bedroom with ensuite shower. Guest WC. Stairs to 3 more bedrooms, one with en-suite and family bathroom.

Garden areas, large terraces and feature BBQ area and pergola. Private pool, garage.

Never been occupied. Available 1 Feb. €725.00 per month OVNO. 6. UNIVERSAL AREA – 2 bed fully furnished apartment.

Living area, fitted kitchen. 2 double bedrooms and family bathroom. A/C, Enclosed garden area. Comm pool and parking. €375.00 a month or offers. 1 & 2 bed apartments available on Universal starting at €250per month.

7. LOWER PEYIA – 3 bed, 2.5 bath part furnished villa situated in quiet cul du sac. Open plan living and dining area with doors out the to pool and

FOR SALE NICOSIA garden.. Very large breakfast fitted kitchen. Doors out to garden and pool. Separate guest WC. Stairs to 3 double bedrooms. Master bedroom very large with en-suite shower.

Family bathroom. Private pool, gardens, shutters. €550.00 per month or close offers only.

8. STROUMBI – 3 bed 2.5 bath large unfurnished villa in quiet village area. Spacious open plan living area with feature fireplace and dining space Good sized fitted kitchen and breakfast area. Guest WC with storage area.3 double bedrooms. Master with en-suite bathroom. Family bathroom.

Enclosed gardens, pool and off street parking. Realistically priced €550.00 per month.

OVNO FOR FULL LISTINGS OF APARTMENTS/TOWNHOUSES AND VILLA PLEASE CALL FOR DETAILS. ALL TYPES OF PROPERTY URGENTLY REQUIRED FOR LONG TERM RENTAL LANDLORDS/OWNERS PLEASE CALL. PLEASE CALL 97648440 or email:inforentals@aol.com

**************************** REFURBISHED stone-built village house located in Kili Paphos. Consists of 3 large rooms 1 small. Traditional wood burnt fireplace, fully tiled secluded yard and garage.

Tel: 99210610. ****************************

PROPERTY FOR SALE NICOSIA NICOSIA, FLAT FOR SALE: 2 bedroom flat with title deeds, 110 sqm, fully renovated, best central area, 800m from the european university,excellent view, eu 99,000. Tel 99 621914

PAPHOS **************************** UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY IN LOFOS/ TALA, 2 three bedroom detached villas on large plot.

House 1 with studio flat & pool.

Both open plan with A/C, provision for C/H, BBQ, pergolas, gardens, private drives, sea/ mountain views, SEPARATE DEEDS. Available together or separately.

Tel: 96718163/ 96366419 Price: €399,000 & €299,000 **************************** PAPHOS, FLATS FOR SALE OR RENT: kissonerga, 3 bedroom flat with title deeds, in a block of 4 flats only, fully renovated, 2 baths, 146 sqm closed area, ch, ac, covered parking, excellent view of sea and mountains, half registration fees till 31.12.12.Reduced to eu 135,000,or rent eu 450 pm. Tel 99 621914 **************************** 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. ****************************

FAMAGUSTA **************************** AYIA NAPA, studio for sale, 38 sqm, furnished and fully renovated, with title deed, in licensed complex, 500m from nissi beach, eu 49,000, tel. 99 621914 ****************************

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CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

Advertiser FOR PAPHIAKOS ANIMAL WELFARE SOS HELPLINE, 24 HOUR MEDICAL EMERGENCY SERVICE - CALL 99655581 CONTACT DETAILS FOR PAPHIAKOS. Paphiakos & C.C.P. Animal Welfare Education/Information Centre, No. 12 Dedalos Building, 8049 Kato Paphos PO Box 61272 8132 Kato Paphos Web. www.cyprusanimalwelfare.com www.facebook/paphiakos Email info@cyprusanimalwelfare.com Larnaca Emergency Service - The contact point for animal emergencies in Larnaca is Maria at the Paphiakos Animal Welfare Charity Shop, telephone 24623494 or 99325897 STOP, SHOP AND GIVE TO THE ANIMALS! ALL DONATIONS ARE WELCOME AT OUR CHARITY SHOPS! PAPHIAKOS & C.C.P. ANIMAL WELFARE Registered Charity No 1529 Contact our shops and we can take your clutter The Charity Shops are located at: Shop No.1 Agapinoros Street, Kato Paphos Tel 26910325 Shop No.2 Ap Pavlou Avenue, Kato Paphos Tel 26942894 Shop No.3 Gr. Afxentiou Avensia Court 3 Larnaca 24623494 Shop No.4 9 Ayiou Ioanni Street 3061 Limassol 25561695 Peyia Information Centre & Shop & T Rooms 26622828 Polis Information Centre & Shop & T Rooms 99223572 Book Exchange Shop Trimithousa 99771763 Our shops are always happy to receive your unwanted goods!

NOW YOU CAN HELP BY COLLECTING YOUR ALUMINIUM CANS AND HANDING THEM IN AT ANY PAPHIAKOS CHARITY SHOP OR THE CLINIC. SAVE AN ANIMAL AND SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT!!

PAPHIAKOS CAR BOOT SALE EVERY SATURDAY at the Ambassador Restaurant and outside in the grounds at Paphiakos. Free parking. Sellers from 7am, buyers from 8am. For information & bookings please call MIKE on 96702600.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS FOR PAPHIAKOS CHARITY NO. 1529 WORLD ANIMAL DAY. On Thursday October 4th Paphiakos will be micro chipping pets for only €20 including all the paperwork. For further information telephone 26953496.

To celebrate World Animal Day on Thursday October 4th Paphiakos will be offering free spaying/neutering for all feral and unwanted animals as they do throughout the year. Contact 26953496 for further details.

PAPHIAKOS SHELTER OPEN DAY The Open Day will be held on Sunday October 7th between 10am and 3pm. It will be a Family Fun Day out with a lot of different activities. There is car parking, toilets and refreshments on site so enjoy and join in the celebration of animals and what they bring to our lives. Entrance is €2 CHARITY HAIR CUT. On Thursday 4th October 09.30-17.30 without an appointment Andri at Atlantic Bay Hotel (2nd Floor) will be charging €5 for a haircut with all proceeds going to Paphiakos. Telephone Suzanne on 99151996 or Andri on 99604783.

PAPHIAKOS CHRISTMAS BAZAAR. Saturday November 24th 9am – 3pm at the Crazy Spoon Restaurant. For further details contact 99151996. Stalls, Santa’s Grotto, Donkey Rides, Pirate Pat and many more.

SATURDAY SERVICES NICOSIA St Paul’s Church Hall, Byron Ave LIMASSOL ‘Meeting Point’, 193A Christodoulou H’pavlou, opp Molos Park on beach rd BIBLE STUDY FOR ADULTS & CHILDREN 10.00 am Nicosia • 10.30 am Limassol FAMILY WORSHIP SERVICE 11.30 am Nicosia • 11.45 am Limassol Pastor: Branislav Mirilov 96702349 Info: Nsia 96207014 • Lsol 99322614 www.adventist.org | www.hopetv.org

AYIA NAPA and DHERYNIA (Anglican Church in S.E Cyprus) Sunday Worship 9.30am Morning Prayer every Sunday morning at St Constantinos & Eleni Chapel, Dherynia (near Hospital in Dherynia) 11am at Scandinavian Church, off Nissi Avenue (opp Tassia Maris Hotel), Ayia Napa nd 6pm at St Constantinos & Eleni (2 week) Chaplain : Revd Simon Holloway M.A. Tel: 97 839349 www.angsecyp.org Visitors especially welcome

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Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

Sport IN BRIEF Alonso and Red Bull kick off T-Wolves the Formula 1 mind games overcome lost Love

Rivals have a dig at one another

By Alan Baldwin Formula One’s pre-season mind games kicked off this week with Fernando Alonso having a dig at Red Bull after one of Sebastian Vettel’s main mentors accused the Ferrari driver of playing politics last year.

Helmut Marko, a close advisor to Red Bull’s billionaire owner Dietrich Mateschitz, contrasted triple world champion Vettel’s attitude to Alonso’s in an interview with the company’s in-house Red Bulletin magazine.

The Austrian said the 25year-old German, who beat Alonso to the title last year, was a phenomenon who “shuts himself off from the rest of the world, so that he can still call on reserves that other drivers might not have”.

Alonso, by contrast, was “busy with politics and funny comments”.

“I believe we saw the stress Alonso was under towards the end of the season. Saying things like, ‘I’m competing against Lewis Hamilton, not Vettel,’ and ‘I’m up against (Red Bull designer Adrian) Newey’,” added Marko. “These psychological skirmishes - we

Champions Red Bull claim Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso (above) was ‘busy with politics and funny comments’ said: ‘Just ignore him.”

Alonso had a 42-point advantage over Vettel at the mid-season break last year but ended up losing out to the Red Bull driver by three points.

As the battle heated up, so too did the psychological warfare and even as he celebrated the title Vettel spoke out about what he saw as ‘dirty tricks’ and attempts to unsettle him and the team.

Alonso, who was voted driver of the season by team principals for the way he took the fight to

Red Bull in a less competitive Ferrari, made light of Marko’s comments and turned them back on his rivals instead.

“I enjoy reading that redbull still think we will be the strongest rival for next year! And this even before start testing!! Flattered..;),” declared the Spaniard on his Twitter feed.

The first pre-season test of 2013 starts in Spain on February 5 with the opening race in Australia on March 17.

In other comments, Marko portrayed Vettel’s Austral-

ian team mate Mark Webber as a driver who could win races but struggled to handle the pressure when in with a real chance of the championship.

“It seems to me that Webber has on average two races per year where he is unbeatable, but he can’t maintain this form throughout the year,” he said.

“As soon as his prospects start to look good in the world championship, he has a little trouble with the pressure that this creates.

In comparison with Seb’s rising form, it seems to me

that Mark’s form somehow flattens out.

“Then, if some technical mishap occurs...he falls relatively easily into a downward spiral.”

Webber had the greater chance of taking the title in 2010 when he and Alonso were the top two going into the final race, but Vettel seized the crown instead for the first of three championships in a row.

That, Marko suggested, had been a psychological blow by the younger man that had gnawed at Webber’s confidence.

Clark back after 32-week ban

By Mitch Philllips

Northampton’s Calum Clark (right), 23, is a former captain of the England under-20 team

NORTHAMPTON flanker Calum Clark, who recently returned from a 32-week ban for breaking an opponent’s arm, and Gloucester centre Billy Twelvetrees were included in England’s 33-man Elite Player Squad (EPS) yesterday.

The uncapped duo were the stand-out names in the squad revealed by coach Stuart Lancaster as he continues his preparation for the Six Nations championship which begins next month.

Clark, 23, a former captain of the England under-20 team, seemed on course for his senior debut last year until his ban for breaking the elbow of Leicester’s Rob Hawkins in the LV Cup final.

Initially 64 weeks, the ban was cut after his guilty plea and he returned to action in November.

Twelvetrees, 24, has looked

good in his first season at Gloucester after moving from Leicester and his partnership with flyhalf Freddie Burns gives England a creative option too often lacking in recent seasons.

Lock Joe Launchbury, England’s player of the series in November when he made his debut, hooker Tom Youngs, prop Mako Vunipola and Burns were also officially added to the list having featured in November.

As their appearances show, inclusion in the EPS squad is not a necessity for selection and Lancaster has a great deal of flexibility when it comes to moving people in and out.

David Strettle returns in place of Charlie Sharples as Lancaster seeks to nail down a regular left winger, while James Haskell is also back in, taking the place of Phil Dowson, who made his debut a year ago in Lancaster’s first game in temporary charge.

Flanker Tom Croft is also back having recovered from long-term injury but as he is just feeling his way back into the game he is unlikely to feature in the Six Nations, at least the early rounds.

“This is a very important year for England, with the Six Nations and the Saxons games to look forward to so there are some great opportunities for the players to demonstrate their club form at international level,” Lancaster told a news conference in Leeds.

“The summer tour to Argentina will also be a great chance for those players pushing for a place, especially with some of our senior squad hopefully going with the Lions, and chances will undoubtedly arise as we hope to play two midweek games as well as the two Tests.”

England begin their Six Nations campaign at home to Scotland on February 2.

THE Minnesota Timberwolves coped with the absence of head coach Rick Adelman and All Star forward Kevin Love to beat Atlanta 108-103, ending a near seven-year winless run against the Hawks.

Timberwolves coach Adelman missed the game for personal reasons, while Love is out indefinitely after reinjuring his right hand last week, but the home team still had enough beat the Hawks for the first time since April 2006.

Nikola Pekovic scored 25 points and had 18 rebounds, Andrei Kirilenko added 21 for Minnesota (16-15), who had lost 11 straight to the Hawks before Tuesday night’s game.

“We were really motivated,” Pekovic told reporters. “I think everyone wants to step up and show more.”

Minnesota led 100-89 with four minutes remaining but Atlanta managed to cut the deficit to one in the final minute. Minnesota’s Dante Cunningham made a crucial jump shot with 15 seconds left and the Timberwolves added free throws to put the game away.

Minnesota’s Ricky Rubio returned from a fourgame absence with back spasms and had eight assists in just 19 minutes of action.

Josh Smith and Louis Williams each scored 21 for the Hawks (20-13), who have lost three straight.

Lochte gets reality show GOLD medal winning Olympic swimmer and party boy Ryan Lochte will get his own reality television series as he trains with one eye on the 2016 Summer Games and another looking for love, US network E! said.

What Would Ryan Lochte Do? will premiere in April and document the American swimmer’s late nights clubbing and early mornings training in the pool all while building a fashion line.

“Ryan Lochte captured everyone’s attention at the Summer Olympics with his athletic prowess and his utterly unique and unaffected approach to life,” E! President Suzanne Kolb said in a statement.

Lochte, 28, has won five gold medals, participating in three Games: Athens, Beijing and London.

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

29

Sport Tredwell calls for big England improvement

Rare home win is on the cards for South Africa

By Rory Dollard

World’s No.1 Test side take on New Zealand

By Jason Humphries SOUTH Africa will be looking to secure just their second home Test series win in over four years when they take on New Zealand in the second test at St. George’s Park tomorrow.

The Proteas have risen to the top of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Test team rankings thanks to their wonderful away form which has seen them win back-to-back series in Australia and England and remain unbeaten on their travels since 2006.

However, South Africa have won just one Test series at home since their 2-0 victory over Bangladesh in November 2008, a 2-1 victory over Sri Lanka in early 2012.

The Proteas will be confident of winning the second and final Test against New Zealand after demolishing the Black Caps by an innings and 27 runs inside three days in the first Test in Cape Town.

The visitors were shot out for just 45 runs on the first morning of the Test, a period of play that New Zealand coach Mike Hesson described as a “horror session”.

They will not face their first-innings tormentor Vernon Philander after the seamer was ruled out of the match with a hamstring strain and they showed some fight in their second innings with 275, so South Africa are expecting a battle.

“New Zealand put up a bit of a fight in the second innings and that’s the nature of the Kiwis. For what they might have lacked in the player pool, they make up for with determination and guts,” said left-arm spinner Robin Peterson.

“The conditions at St. George’s probably mean the game will go the distance instead of what happened at Newlands. I’m expecting the Kiwis to be a bit more at home here than anywhere else in the country,” added Peterson.

The pitch in Port Elizabeth is expected to be a low and slow track making it more like the pitches the New Zealanders are used to at home.

Philander, who has taken an incredible 74 wickets in just 13 Test matches, will be replaced by inexperienced fast bowler Rory Kleinveldt though batsman New Zealander Kane Williamson does not expect the hosts’s

attack to be any weaker.

“They have a lot of depth and that is probably why they are the best team in the world. They can call on blokes who will do the job.

We are looking at all their bowlers equally in getting ready for this next match,” said Williamson.

“They are all different bowlers and they complement each other well. Philander is probably one of the best bowlers in the world at the moment but his absence is certainly not a release in any way because there is Morkel and Steyn there that are also some of the best bowlers in the world as well.”

Pacemen Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel are ranked first and eighth respectively in the world Test bowling standings.

Williamson added that the Black Caps would be far better prepared for the challenge of playing South Africa after their comprehensive defeat in the first Test.

“The last Test was certainly a learning curve, especially for the blokes who hadn’t played against the South Africans, the best team in the world. That has certainly gone into our training to hold us in better stead for the next game.”

Firepower: the Proteas boast the world’s top-ranked bowler in Dale Steyn in their ranks

Johnson wins windswept PGA season-opener

By Steve Keating

Dustin Johnson is the first player since Tiger Woods to win at least one tournament in six consecutive years straight out of college

IT required a lot patience and overtime but American Dustin Johnson opened the PGA Tour season with a comfortable victory at the windswept Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.

Johnson, who had a threeshot overnight lead, fired a five-under 68 for a 16-under 203 total on another blustery day at the Kapalua Resort to finish four shots clear of defending champion Steve Stricker (69).

“Obviously it gives me a lot of confidence going into this year,” Johnson, the first player since Tiger Woods to win at least one tournament in six consecutive years straight out of college, told reporters.

“I’m very pleased to come out and get a win. I played very good golf the last two days.

“It’s tough when you have a three-shot lead to stay aggressive. I just hit a couple of bad drives that cost me a few shots but other than that I played really good golf.”

The weather-hit event was trimmed to three rounds and forced to a rare Tuesday finish because of relentless howling winds.

The elite field of champions from last year’s PGA Tour completed 36 holes on Monday after play had been abandoned the previous three days because of strong winds.

Stricker, who carded an error-free round, got to within a shot of his US Ryder Cup team mate with five holes to play but could not keep up the rally as Johnson went on to collect his seventh career win.

American Brandt Snedeker, last season’s FedExCup champion, had a solid start to his 2013 campaign, also closing with a 69, to finish alone in third, six shots back of Johnson.

Masters champion Bubba Watson (71) was a further shot back in a tie for fourth with fellow American Keegan Bradley (70).

Holding a four-shot lead through eight holes, Johnson

saw his lead chopped to two when he bogeyed the ninth and Stricker birdie the same hole.

Johnson’s roller coaster back nine ride continued with a birdie at the 12th before taking another nosedive with a double-bogey at 13 to leave the steady Stricker just one off the pace.

But Johnson immediately hit back in spectacular fashion, chipping in for an eagle two at the par-four 14th followed by birdies at 15 and 18 to close out a final round that was nearly as wild as the Hawaiian weather.

“I had some opportunities if I could have made some putts early in the round and a couple on the backside as well but all-in-all it was a pretty good round,” said Stricker, who battled a shooting pain down his left side all tournament and will take time off to have it treated.

“Johnson played well when he had to. ... I knew it was going to be tough today but I gave him a bit of a run for a little while.”

JAMES Tredwell is prepared for plenty of hard work before England start their one-day series against India tomorrow.

After securing a memorable Test series win before Christmas, the tourists’ preparations for the fivematch ODI series have been some way short of expectations.

They have lost both their warm-up matches, going down by 53 runs against India A on Sunday and following up with a sixwicket humbling at the hands of Delhi on Tuesday.

Aside from the form of Ian Bell, who has scores of 91 and 108 to his name, there has been little to cheer England.

The middle order collapsed in the first fixture before an improved showing saw them post 294 for five against Delhi.

But the bowlers were picked apart with ease by their unheralded hosts, and there are major concerns over the form of every seamer on tour bar Jade Dernbach.

Tredwell, deputising for the rested Graeme Swann, has performed admirably as lead spinner but acknowledges England need to improve before they meet India in Rajkot.

“It’s obviously not been ideal. We like to go in and win these games but we’ve not hit our skills in the way we’d have liked,” he said.

“We need to make some improvements in the next couple of days.

“We didn’t hit our lengths consistently enough to build pressure over periods of time. That’s what it boils down to.

“To be able to turn it around in the next couple of days going into the first ODI is crucial.

“We all have massive pride in our performances so when things don’t go to plan it’s disappointing. We can build on that disappointment and put it right going into the first game.”

England have been whitewashed in their last two one-day series in India and back-to-back defeats in the tour matches have done little to raise hopes of an improvement.

Tredwell has cautioned against placing too much emphasis on the warm-up fixtures though.

“The result is irrelevant, it doesn’t mean a great deal in the scheme of things but we’d like to have come out with some better performances,” he said.

“We like to win these games and that hasn’t been the case but it’s what we do now that’s important.”

30

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

Sport Life bans given to 41 South Korean players

Brazil’s winners awarded bonus 50 years late

By Brian Homewood

1958, 1962, 1970 WC heroes rewarded

By Andrew Downie BRAZIL’S World Cup winning players from 1958, 1962 and 1970 have been awarded a bonus and a pension from the government in a controversial move that has split public opinion.

Brazil’s sports ministry said the 54 players or their survivors will be given a oneoff bonus of 100,000 reais ($49,100) and will also qualify for a monthly stipend of 3,916 reais.

The country’s social security minister called the payments “an act of justice” that recognised the role Brazil’s World Cup winners played in the country’s development.

Some Brazilians believe those players put the country on the world map and also established Brazil as a football power.

The 1970 team in particular, thanks to the arrival of colour television and the brilliance of players such as Pele, Jairzinho, Rivelino and Tostao, captured the world’s attention and is still considered one of the greatest teams of all time.

“I think that the Brazilian people recognise the debt we owe to these athletes,” Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo said.

“It is worth stressing that football back then did not offer the salaries and sponsorship deals they do today.

The athletes were almost like

artisans and the country cannot conceive that these people who lifted the name of the country are going through tough times,” Rebelo added.

Many players said the money would transform their lives.

With the exception of Pele, very few live comfortably as their careers did not earn them the kind of riches enjoyed by today’s big names.

“About 85 percent of the players live middle- to lowerclass existences,” said Marcelo Neves, the son of twice World Cup winner Gilmar and now president of an association of former players.

“This money could be the difference between life and death. Felix (the goalkeeper in the 1970 team), who died last year, couldn’t get the medical attention he deserved because he didn’t have a very good health plan and the hospital he went to wasn’t the best. If he had had money he might be alive today.”

Neves stressed that some of the older players do not get a regular pension because football was not a recognised profession in the 1960s and they were not able to make social security payments.

“It wasn’t because they didn’t want to,” he said. “Most of them are over 65 years of age so this money will ensure the rest of their lives can be lived out in dignified circumstances.”

However, not everyone

agrees the veterans deserve a special pension half a century after their heroics, much less a fat bonus.

“This is a tremendous slap in the face to all those Brazilians who have worked their whole lives and don’t get that amount of money,” said Atila Nunes, a radio host who has criticised the award.

Nunes said if anyone should be assisting the old players it should be the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), and not ordinary tax payers.

Others have asked why only winners get the pension when other players who trained and played just as hard did not. And why only football?

What about champions in other sports?

One player has already rejected the money, saying even back in the 1950s and 60s football players earned higher salaries than most workers.

“At the time we were well rewarded for the title,” said Tostao, a striker in the 1970 team and now a respected columnist for the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.

“World Cup winners who are going through difficulties should be helped by the government, through Social Security, just like any other citizen, and by the existing government entities that help ex-athletes,” he added. “The CBF and clubs also have an obligation to help ex-players who need assistance.”

With the exception of Pele, very few players live comfortably as their careers did not earn them the kind of riches enjoyed by today’s big names.

No comment on Sneijder Galatasaray link, says agent

Get me out of here: the Dutchman has not played for Inter Milan since September due to a contract dispute

THE agent of unsettled Inter Milan midfielder Wesley Sneijder has refused to comment on reports linking his client with an imminent move to Galatasaray.

The Turkish club confirmed on Tuesday they have entered negotiations with Inter over a reported 10 million euro deal for the 28-year-old, who has not played for the Nerazzurri since September.

Sneijder has publicly rejected the possibility of accepting a two million euro pay cut to his annual salary at the San Siro, but Inter head coach Andrea Stramaccioni maintains the Holland international’s continued absence from his first team is solely a tactical decision.

When questioned about any potential switch to Istanbul, Sneijder’s agent, Soren Lerby, told De Telegraaf: “Every day there is a new club linked with Wesley.

‘Every day there is a new club linked with Wesley’ “For that reason I have decided not to answer any more questions.”

Sneijder has reportedly attracted the interest of Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham, as well as ambitious Ligue 1 outfit Paris St Germain, but Galatasaray this week became the first club to publicly confirm making an approach.

A statement on the Turkish club’s official web-

site, galatasaray.org, read: “Galatasaray announces it has begun negotiations with FC Internazionale for the transfer of Wesley Sneijder.

“The public will be informed of developments.”

Sneijder joined Inter in August 2009 after winning the Primera Division with Real Madrid during a twoseason stint in Spain, going on to claim the Champions League trophy, Serie A title and Coppa Italia at the first time of asking before reaching the World Cup final with Holland, only to lose out to Spain.

However, the departure of Inter head coach Jose Mourinho in 2010 saw Sneijder’s importance in the team steadily diminish under subsequent coaches, despite the fact he had signed a five-year contract in the summer, and the exAjax man has only made five league appearances under current boss Stramaccioni this season.

FORTY-ONE players from South Korea’s K-League have had their lifetime bans extended worldwide following a match-fixing scandal, although 21 of them have been offered a reprieve, FIFA said yesterday.

The 41 had already been banned for life by the Korea Football Association following the scandal which erupted in 2011 and involved matches played the previous year. The scandal led the South Korean government to threaten to wind up the K-League if action was not taken.

Ten other players involved in match-fixing were given worldwide bans by FIFA in June while in March, South Korea’s volleyball association banned 11 players for life in a bid to curb corruption in domestic sport.

FIFA said that a reprieve had been offered to 21 players who turned themselves in during the voluntary reporting period and expressed “grave regret” about their involvement in match-fixing.

The players would have to undergo a probation period of between two and five years, including periods of community service ranging from 200 to 500 hours.

“The probation is voluntary, which means that the respective player has to inform the K-League that he wishes to return to football,” said FIFA. “At this point, the player then has to commit himself to one of a variety of community services related to football.

“These services include the provision of coaching classes for local football clubs for youth and adult players, involvement in and support of football for those with disabilities, and the support of ongoing and future domestic anti-matchfixing activities.”

Cyprus Cup Last 16 First Legs AEP PAEEK

2 2

AEL APOEL

0 2

Ayia Napa A. Derynias

0 1

Ermis EN Paralimni

0 1

Anorthosis Alki

1 1

Ethnikos Achnas 0 Omonia 2 AEK Olympiakos

1 0

League Cup Semi-Final First Leg Chelsea Swansea

0 2

CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, January 10, 2013

31

Sport

Bradford prove there is life in the wilderness with Villa win

Green proposes Rangers quit Scotland

Impressive side cost a total of only £7,500

By Lisa Gray

By Martyn Herman BRADFORD City have spent most of their 110 years in English football in the shadows of the country’s northern giants but their continuing League Cup fairytale means the proud Yorkshire club are striking a much-needed blow for the also-rans.

Tuesday night’s 3-1 victory over top flight Aston Villa in the first leg of their semi-final rocked League Two (fourth tier) Bradford’s Valley Parade stadium to the rafters and warmed the hearts of football romantics up and down the country.

The relentless march of the Premier League, where clubs feast on television-fuelled riches, has put genuine cup shocks on the endangered list but Bradford’s feats in first beating Arsenal in the quarter-finals on penalties and then out-playing Villa prove there is life in football’s wilderness.

It also highlighted that success does not have to come with a multi-million pounds price tag with Bradford boss Phil Parkinson’s impressive side costing 7,500 pounds in transfer fees.

He knows the job is only half done and that Villa are still favourites when the second leg is played but his side

Bradford are tantalisingly close to becoming the first fourth tier side to reach the League Cup final since Rochdale in 1962 are now tantalisingly close to becoming the first fourth tier side to reach the league Cup final since Rochdale in 1962.

“We know we have a tough job in two weeks time and they are still the favourites but if Aston Villa are going to get to Wembley they know they are going to have to really earn it,” Parkinson told the BBC. Championship (second tier) Cardiff City reached the League Cup final last season, losing the Wembley showpiece to Liverpool on penalties, but should Bradford hold on to their advan-

tage it would rank alongside the most unlikely cup runs.

Just a few days before their stunning performance against Villa, Bradford were beaten 2-0 at Barnet in front of 2,317 fans - a result that left them eighth in the table.

On Saturday they get back to the nitty gritty of League Two football with a home game against Oxford United.

The euphoric scenes at Valley Parade on Tuesday are a stark contrast to the gloom that has hung over Bradfordsince their brief flirtation with the Premier League ended in 2001.

Promoted in 1999 under Paul Jewell, Bradford survived their first season in the Premier League on the final day of the campaign but the following season they were relegated with mounting debts as the dream turned into a financial nightmare.

Having built a new stand and saddled with players on Premier League wages, the club went into administration in 2002 leading to 16 players having their contracts torn up and manager Nicky Laws left with five professionals and 16 youth team players.

Bradford were minutes

away from going out of business in 2004 but the slide down the ladder continued on the pitch and since 2007 they have resided in the fourth tier.

It is a cautionary tale, and one that has been repeated several times by small-town clubs desperate to mix it in the Premier League, but the signs are encouraging that Bradford are now on the mend.

Whatever happens at Villa Park, Parkinson’s side have already stamped their name on the season and provided hope for the clubs the modern game has left behind.

Adebayor heading to Nations Cup

By Paul Hirst

Spurs striker Emmanuel Adebayor has finally agreed to play for Togo in the tournament

EMMANUEL Adebayor has been included in Togo’s African Nations Cup squad despite the striker hinting Andre Villas-Boas was not totally happy about him playing in the competition.

Spurs confirmed yesterday afternoon that after weeks of indecision, Adebayor had finally agreed to answer his country’s pleas and will play in the tournament, which runs from January 19 to February 10.

Spurs boss Villas-Boas has always insisted when asked about the situation that he would be happy to let Adebayor go to the tournament despite the fact that it would leave him with only one recognised striker in Jermain Defoe.

Yet Adebayor hinted in an interview with africatopsports.com - published on the Togo Football Federation’s website - that despite Villas-Boas’ public declaration of support, the Portuguese may not be happy with the 28-year-old’s participation in the tournament.

“That is what he said to the press, but not what he said to me,” Adebayor said.

“There is a difference between what you say to the press and what you say in private.”

Adebayor retired from international foot-

ball following the deadly gun attack on the Togo team bus at the competition in Angola in 2010.

He reversed his decision the following year, but he then retired again in 2012. Initially he said he would not compete for Togo due to a row over unpaid bonuses, but then claimed his refusal was down to fears the Togo team could be subjected to another horrific attack similar to the one in Angola.

Three people, including Togo’s assistant coach, were killed during the ambush when terrorists sprayed the team’s coach with machine gun fire. Adebayor hid under a seat and survived the attack.

After meeting with Togo president Faure Gnassingbe, Adebayor was convinced that security around the team had been improved, and that he would be safe during the tournament, which will this year be held in South Africa.

Adebayor added: “I have met the head of state on two occasions. We talked, I told him what was wrong with Togolese football.

“He must, at all costs, find solutions. We discussed it and he guaranteed that he will take charge of everything.

“In 2010 I wanted to go to the African Nations Cup to win and you saw all that happened, how that turned out. I hope this time will be better for me, for my team-mates, for all of Togo.”

RANGERS chief executive Charles Green believes the club should attempt to quit Scottish football if league reconstruction plans are approved.

The Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League yesterday agreed in principle to a restructuring plan that would see the organisations merge in a 12-12-18 structure.

If the new format was rubber-stamped for next season, Irn-Bru Third Division leaders Rangers would remain in the bottom tier of Scottish football regardless of any title success this term, albeit with the potential time frame for a return to the top-flight remaining the same.

Green told RangersTV: “I haven’t read anything other than what is in the press and if that is what we have sat here eagerly awaiting to transform Scottish football, my advice to the board of Rangers is the quicker we can leave Scottish football the better.

“I can’t see anything that is going to transform the finances, the status or the excitement.”

The SPL needs an 11-1 majority among its clubs but the idea has already been informally approved by all 12.

The SFL needs 22 of its clubs to back the plans, with a 16-10-16 plan previously being agreed unanimously by the 30 clubs.

Rangers, as associate members of the SFL, will not have a vote on the issue and yesterday expressed their unhappiness at not being invited to participate in the talks.

The article on the club’s website, written by new director of communications James Traynor, also described the reconstruction plans as an “abomination”.

According to Green, the remainder of Rangers’ season will be rendered meaningless if the proposals are accepted.

He said: “If this does happen what is the point of us finishing the season?

“Why should we send players out to get broken noses - like Ross Perry last week - or have players getting surgery when noone can get promoted and no-one can get relegated.

“We might as well have a winter break now ‘til next August.

“I can’t see any point in carrying on with meaningless matches.

“In what league do you win a division and then end up playing the same teams again the following season?

“There is no meaning to it, in reality.”

Thursday, January 10, 2013 CYPRUS MAIL

32 Alonso and Red Bull kick off the Formula 1 mind games 28

Sport Confident Baghdatis progresses at the Kooyong Classic

By Nemanja Bjedov MARCOS Baghdatis yesterday progressed at the Kooyong Classic after Serbian Janko Tipsarevic pulled out of the eight-man exhibition tournament with a wrist injury early in the second set.

Tipsarevic was trailing Baghdatis 1-6, 0-1 in their encounter when he was unable to continue. It is the third injury withdrawal of the tournament after Japan’s Kei Nishikori also pulled out with a knee problem yesterday and was replaced by Croatian Ivan Dodig.

Tipsarevic won last week’s Chennai tournament playing with painkillers, a luxury he did not allow himself at Kooyong in order to test the problem.

“I would have rather played the entire match against an opponent such as Tipsarevic in order to prepare better for the Australian Open, but unfortunately he got hurt and he wanted to save himself for the Grand Slam,” said Baghdatis in a media call with Cypriot journalists.

World number 12 Juan Monaco was the first player to pull out with a hand injury.

His spot was taken by world No. 58 Paul-Henri Mathieu of France who lost his first match to Baghdatis’ opponent tomorrow - Juan Martin Del Potro.

The 27-year-old Cypriot leads 2-1 in his overall headto-head series against the towering Argentine, with the last victory coming last January in the quarter-finals of Sydney.

“It is not a problem to play on Friday and then again on Saturday at Kooyong.

It is only ten minutes away from Melbourne so I am still practicing at the Melbourne Park facilities and just get to the match at Kooyong,” added the Limassol native who will play either Lleyton Hewitt or Tomas Berdych on Saturday.

Baghdatis has been seeded 29th at the upcoming Australian Open and will definitely be looking to bet-

ter last season’s showing when he was eliminated in the second round by Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka in four sets.

“It is good to be seeded so that I can avoid some of the top players early in the tournament. However, I’m feeling really good on court lately and am playing well so it does not really matter who is on the other side of the net as long as I can stay committed to what I want to do on the court,” Baghdatis concluded.

Elsewhere yesterday, top seed John Isner was knocked out of the Sydney International by compatriot Ryan Harrison but at least he got out on court on a day when injury withdrawals continued to ravage Australian Open warm-up tournaments.

World number five David Ferrer remained on course for his fourth Auckland Open title, albeit after a tough 6-4 2-6 6-3 battle against Taiwan’s Lu Yenhsun in his first outing of the year.

Agnieszka Radwanska, the women’s top seed in Sydney, set up a semi-final against China’s Li Na after both won their quarter-finals in much cooler conditions than the 40 degrees Celsius heat which threatened to suffocate the players on Tuesday.

Sydney men’s second seed Gilles Simon pulled out before his last 16 match because of a neck injury, joining Nishikori and Tipsarevic.

All are expected to play at Melbourne Park next week.

World number 13 Isner, however, was hampered by a bone bruise to his right leg in his 6-4 6-4 defeat to qualifier Harrison and was left thinking about pulling out of the year’s first grand slam.

“It’s better. Definitely better than I thought, but it’s not 100 per cent,” the American told reporters. “I don’t know.

I’ve got a decision to make shortly.

“Certainly I could win a match maybe, a match or two. I don’t see myself winning the whole tournament at this point, that’s for sure.”

Cyprus star Marcos Baghdatis is in good form in the build-up to next week’s Australian Open

Brazil’s World Cup winners awarded bonus 50 years late 30

AMERICAN WILL BREAK HIS SILENCE IN OPRAH TV INTERVIEW

Yellow peril: Lance Armstrong in his familiar Tour de France winner’s jersey before the American’s reputation was destroyed over evidence of his drug-taking

Shamed Armstrong could come clean

By Simon Evans

L

ANCE Armstrong will break his silence about his lifetime ban from cycling and the doping charges made against him in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey next week, the television chat show queen announced yesterday.

The interview, to be broadcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network on January 17, will be the first the American cyclist has conducted since receiving his ban and being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

The interview will take place at 9pm ET next Thursday (2am GMT on Friday, January 18) and is scheduled to last for 90 minutes.

“Armstrong will address the alleged doping scandal, years of accusations of cheating, and charges of lying about the use of performance-enhancing drugs throughout his storied cycling career,” the network said in a statement.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Armstrong, 41, had told associates and anti-doping officials he

was considering an admission of using banned drugs.

The newspaper said Armstrong hoped to persuade anti-doping officials to allow him to resume competition in athletic events that adhere to the World Anti-Doping Code, under which the Texan is currently subject to a lifetime ban.

However, Armstrong’s lawyer Tim Herman later told USA Today that there had been no talks with anti-doping bodies about any admission.

Asked whether he was set to come clean, Herman told the New York Times: “Lance has to speak for himself on that.”

Armstrong has always vehemently denied charges of doping and has never been proven to have tested positive.

An October 10 report from the US anti-doping body USADA cited Armstrong’s involvement in what it characterised as the “most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen,” involving anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, blood transfusions and other doping.

Less than two weeks later, Armstrong’s seven Tour de

France victories were nullified and he was banned from cycling for life after the International Cycling Union ratified USADA’s sanctions against him.

In November, Armstrong, a survivor of testicular cancer, stepped down as a board member of Livestrong, the cancer-support charity he founded in 1997.

There are thought to be a number of obstacles to a full confession though.

The New York Times claims Armstrong’s supporters are concerned he could face perjury charges if he confesses to using performance-enhancing drugs, because he made sworn testimony in a 2005 court case that he had never done so.

In addition, the cyclist faces a number of legal cases Armstrong meanwhile once offered to donate nearly $250,000 to anti-doping efforts, the head of USADA told 60 Minutes Sports in an interview aired last night.

Armstrong had a representative offer the agency a large sum of money in 2004, USADA chief Travis Tygart says in the wide-ranging interview.

“I was stunned,” Tygart tells

interviewer Scott Pelley, according to a statement issued by the program. “It was clear it was a clear conflict of interest for USADA. “We had no hesitation in rejecting that offer.”

Asked how much money Armstrong offered the agency, Tygart replied; “in excess of $150,000.”

Told by Pelley that 60 Minutes had learned it was $250,000, Tygart answered; “It was around that ballpark.”

Tygart also alleges Armstrong provided the International Cycling Union (UCI), a regulatory body for the sport, a gift of $100,000.

During the interview, Tygart describes Armstrong and his team of doctors, coaches and riders as similar to a ‘Mafia’ that kept their secret for years and intimidated riders into silently following their illegal methods.