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Friday, March 1, 2013
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‘Cyprus will get back on its feet’ New President promises better times ahead but warns there is no magic bullet By Elias Hazou
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HE SEVENTH President of the Republic Nicos Anastasiades pledged yesterday to do all he could to put a near-bankrupt country back on its feet and to restore a sense of national pride. “The circumstances we face are no doubt extremely tough…but we shall get back on our feet,” the new President said in his confirmation speech shortly after taking the oath of allegiance to the Constitution. With the confirmation address broadcast live from the House, Anastasiades sounded a note of caution that tackling the nation’s economic woes would be no simple task: “There are no easy or immediate solutions,” he said, warning it would take time for corrective measures to have an impact on everyday life. Much of his speech expectedly focused on the upcoming talks with Cyprus’ international lenders and the obstacles so far to concluding a bailout deal. Anastasiades pledged to wage negotiations with the troika with a view to agreeing on a figure for the national debt that would make it sustainable.
And in a message targeted at listeners both at home and abroad, he promised the government would never consent to a haircut on bank deposits, as mooted by certain quarters in the EU and the press. “I want to be absolutely clear. Absolutely no reference to a haircut on public debt or deposits will be tolerated. Such an issue isn’t even up for discussion,” Anastasiades said. “We do not ask for special treatment, only for fair treatment,” he noted. Anastasiades next outlined his policy for the next five years, pledging to stamp out corruption in public life and reduce the red tape that often stifles entrepreneurial initiative. He alluded to a batch of some 50 bills which his team had prepared preelection, and which Anastasiades intends to bring to parliament this month. Among others, the bills purport to introduce criminal liability for state officials, expedite the delivery of justice by the courts and introduce e-government. Combined, these new laws would help restore the public’s shattered faith in political life, he said. On relations with the outside world, the President
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The outgoing first couple (on the left) greet their incumbent counterparts on the steps of the presidential palace last night for the official handover ceremony (Christos Theodorides)
Guam will airdrop poisoned mice to fight tree snakes DECLARING war against invasive brown tree snakes infesting the Pacific U.S. territory of Guam, wildlife officials plan this spring to bomb the island with dead baby mice stuffed with a common pain-killing medicine that is poisonous to the reptiles. Brown tree snakes, believed to have been inadvertently carried to Guam around the end of World War Two aboard US military vessels, have become major pests blamed for wiping out native bird populations on the island. Wildlife officials have worried for years that the snakes, which have no natural predators on Guam, could one day reach other Pacific islands, especially Hawaii, nearly 4,000 miles to the east,
raising further environmental havoc. “Guam is a very unique situation,” said William Pitt, a wildlife biologist at the US Agriculture Department’s National Wildlife Research Centre in Hawaii. “There is no other place in the world that has a snake issue like Guam.” The project is set to begin in March or April with dead newborn mice being dropped by helicopter over jungle areas where the snakes are most heavily concentrated. One initial target will be the vicinity of Andersen Air Force Base, which is surrounded by dense vegetation and is seen as a potential starting point for snakes that might end up as stowaways aboard departing aircraft.
Stuffed into the mouth of each infant mouse will be acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and other over-the-counter pain-relief medications, which is toxic to snakes “and not a lot of other animals”, Pitt said. In an attempt to keep the baited mice off the ground, each tiny rodent will be attached to a strand of ribbon between pieces of cardboard designed to drop in a loop and catch in the canopy of trees, he said. The goal of the aerial assault, which will eventually involve the dropping of some 2,000 mice in all, is not to eradicate but to curtail and control the brown tree snake population on the island, Pitt said.