Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 98-10-10

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From: The Cyprus Mail at <http://www.cynews.com/>

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

CONTENTS

[01] 75 land in Cyprus from a `floating coffin'

[02] Report on Michaelides ready by end of the month

[03] 'The stakes are too high for us to walk away' - US

[04] Austrian minister upbeat on EU prospects

[05] Local experts not impressed with US water advice

[06] War of words between Paphos deputies

[07] Tourist denies negligence in jet-ski death

[08] National Council fails to decide on recourse

[09] Clerides pledges more women in public life

[10] A good citizen

[11] We're running out of chickens

[01] 75 land in Cyprus from a `floating coffin'

Baby born at sea, immigrants guided ashore' by red cross

SEVENTY-FIVE illegal immigrants, including a two-day old baby born at sea in what has been described as a "floating coffin", have been detained by the British bases in Cyprus.

Bases authorities believe the immigrants, mostly Iraqis, who were abandoned by captain and crew, were "guided ashore" by the large metal Red Cross on the side of the cliff-top Princess Mary hospital at Akrotiri where they attempted to go ashore on Thursday evening.

"They were zig-zagging. First they saw mountains and then they saw the red cross. It was like a beacon to them," said bases spokesman Rob Need.

The plight of the immigrants has also raised a new question over the sovereignty of the bases as they wrangled with the Cyprus authorities over who is responsible for the refugees.

The issue had still not been decided last night as the 41 men, ten women, 19 children and five infants settled into the arrivals terminal at RAF Akrotiri following more then two days at sea.

They are lucky to be alive, said authorities at Akrotiri. Bases spokesman Rob Need said they believe the immigrants started out from Lebanon on October 6 and appeared to have each paid some $2,000 to be brought to Italy for a better life.

The numbers included 62 Iraqis, four Lebanese, four Sudanese, two Egyptians, two Palestinians and an Algerian.

"The conditions that these poor souls were transported in were terrible," said bases chief custom officer Andy Livingstone. "It is no exaggeration to call this vessel a floating coffin. It leaks badly, is mechanically unsound and would have foundered if the weather had been any worse."

All of the immigrants have been examined by medical staff and are in good health, apart from mild dehydration resulting from their two-day ordeal at sea.

Bases personnel spent most of Thursday night bailing out the boat which was filling with water. According to the bases, the group was seen coming ashore at around 5pm on Thursday, near the hospital. They had been dumped at the bottom of the cliff from the boat.

The unnamed vessel was detained with a further six persons on board. They alleged that the crew left in a rubber dinghy when the boat broke down and that they had managed to restart the engine. "They were left to their own devices in the middle of the Mediterranean," said Richard Chidley, the bases' divisional police officer.

"It is thought they were hoping to get to Italy but they were lucky to get to Cyprus. I would say there were pretty lucky to be alive," said a bases troop commander.

The immigrants were all described by the bases as being in "fairly good condition". The baby born at sea was found to be healthy and was said to be "lustily breast-feeding".

But the bases' authorities said the immigrants themselves were shocked by their plight and afraid for their future, which is currently under discussion between the bases and the Cyprus authorities which appeas unwilling to take responsibility for the immigrants.

A Cyprus police spokesman told state radio yesterday that the government would be willing to help out in any way it can in relation to the issue of travel documents.

Cyprus has been bracing itself for in influx of immigrants being shipped through Lebanon after 113 immigrants were found drifting off the coast in June. Authorities believe that at least 5,000 illegal immigrants are waiting for a `ticket' out through Lebanon.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[02] Report on Michaelides ready by end of the month

THE AUDITOR-general's report on allegations against Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides will be presented to President Glafcos Clerides by the end of October, it was announced yesterday.

The Auditor-general, Spyros Christou, said his investigations into allegations that Michaelides had unlawfully amassed wealth during his term of office were formally completed yesterday.

Christou said he would begin his appraisal of the findings on Monday, admitting that "more evidence may turn up and would need to be investigated".

He refused to comment on allegations also pending against President of the House of Representatives, Diko leader Spyros Kyprianou, saying he did does not feel the issue fell within his jurisdiction.

Michaelides faces 14 allegations of bribery drawn up by the Chairman of the House Watchdog Committee, Disy deputy Christos Pourgourides.

Kyprianou faces allegations that his family bought land on the cheap.

It was announced yesterday that Party leaders would meet to decide whether these allegations should be investigated by the Attorney-general or by the Watchdog Committee.

Disy deputies are insisting that the Watchdog Committee should investigate the charges against Kyprianou, after Attorney-general Alecos Markides had earlier told the committee the House was in no position to investigate one of its own, merely to apportion political responsibility - a stance given unanimous backing by party leaders, including Disy leader Nicos Anastassiades.

Anastassiades said yesterday he had not been surprised by his deputies' stance, saying they had not been informed of the party heads' unanimous decision when they spoke out on Thursday.

But Pourgourides, himself of Disy, yesterday stood firm: "we will insist on this decision," and will continue to do so as long as this is "in the interest of Cyprus", he said.

He added that he believed the party heads had come under pressure to take the stance that they did.

And Prodromos Prodromou, another Disy deputy, believes there should be an investigation into the Kyprianou allegations, if only to prove there has been no cover-up.

Pourgourides has said the allegations involving Kyprianou and his family as more delicate than those stacked up against Michaelides, as the Committee only has possession of a single unsigned document indicating Kyprianou's sons had obtained land at prices below the market value.

Deputies have agreed on some penalties drawn up in an anti-corruption bill currently before the House, which would oblige public figures to state their sources of income and wealth. Penalties under the bill would be five years imprisonment and/or a £10,000 fine.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[03] 'The stakes are too high for us to walk away' - US

In a review of US-Turkish relations on Thursday, Parris said America was "frankly disappointed that Ankara has not been more supportive" of American efforts to bring the two sides to the negotiating table.

The team of Richard Holbrooke and Thomas Miller were "capable, dynamic and effective", and were confident a common ground on which both sides could negotiate could be found, Parris said.

But despite this, he added, Turkey had supported the last-minute preconditions for further talks set by the Turkish Cypriots last May.

"All concerned" knew the preconditions could not be met, and neither side would concede, he added ominously.

But he said that the high stakes meant Cyprus would "not walk away" from the Cyprus question.

And Parris concluded that the movement towards ever-higher stakes meant the status quo was neither static, nor moving in a direction that was good for either Turkish or Turkish Cypriot interests.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[04] Austrian minister upbeat on EU prospects

Cyprus "will enter a new phase of its history" with the EU Council of Minister's decision to begin "substantial" EU membership talks with Cyprus and five East European countries, Fasslabend said after a meeting with President Glafcos Clerides.

This decision will bring the Republic "much closer to Europe, increase this process, and speed it up quite a bit," he said, while cautioning that, though difficult, the accession process is worthwhile.

"After two years of having become a member of the EU, Austria is in the presidency now, and we can see the difference of working outside and working inside the EU," he said.

And while "most European countries" want Cyprus to join the 15-member Union "on the basis of the whole island... there cannot be a veto from anybody from outside" the Union to the Republic's bid to join, he said.

The Austrian defence chief acknowledged that he and Clerides had discussed "the missile question so often mentioned in the past weeks" by the United States, which views them as destabilising in the region.

Austria, he said, was interested in "lowering tensions" on Cyprus and "finding solutions" to the Cyprus problem, but otherwise believed that "everything else is the sovereign right of a country to decide."

This not only would include the purchase of the anti-aircraft missiles from Russia, but their deployment, which Turkey has threatened to respond to with military force.

Despite the controversy centring on the missiles, Fasslabend said he was convinced of the government's and the Greek-Cypriot's "great interest that peace is kept on, and that tensions should be lowered and not increased."

As to the UN-led "shuttle talks" due to resume between the two Cyprus communities, Fasslabend said that, while not easy, the process is "a very serious and positive trial to find solutions" to 24 years of Turkish occupation of 23 per cent of the island.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[05] Local experts not impressed with US water advice

TWO US-based water experts yesterday discussed the drought with the crème de la crème of Cyprus' 'water establishment', but offered no new notions for solving it, and most of what they said seemed to some out of phase with the worsening water crisis.

The US experts spoke by closed-circuit television hook-up from the United States to some 40 Cyprus water experts at The American Centre in Nicosia, among whom were Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous and US Ambassador Kenneth Brill.

Their suggestions included pricing water to its "full value" to encourage conservation, "harvesting" rainfall to recharge dwindling aquifers, and more cuts in farm irrigation water - already reduced by 54 per cent this past year - to give more water to the island's urban centres, rationed this year to 27 per cent below normal.

Several Cyprus water experts said they felt the US experts' suggestions begged the drought's crux question: not enough rainfall in the first place.

However, Themistocleous agreed with one suggestion: "further cuts (to farmers) in case there is no rain this winter. There is no other way," he said. "First we have to give water to the people to drink, and then to agriculture."

Marjorie Ann Bromhead, a World Bank water expert, and Peter Rogers, a Harvard University professor of environmental engineering, both dismissed desalination as a long-term solution to the drought, pegged as the island's worst this century and now ending its third straight year. Both urged various other "cures".

Rogers noted that desalinating seawater was so expensive that even such oil- rich countries as Kuwait may one day not have enough oil to continue the practice, prevalent among the oil-rich Gulf states.

Cyprus' sole desalination plant, at Dhekelia, uses electricity generated by burning oil to de-salt 40,000 cubic meters of water per day - about the daily needs of Nicosia.

Tenders are under evaluation for a second such facility, with identical output and power source, but this is not expected on-line before 2000 - and some experts say not before 2001. Meanwhile, the government is seeking bids to build two "mobile" desalination plants to help the island get through next summer.

To the dismay of several Cyprus water experts, Rogers also suggested "harvesting" rainfall to recharge the island's aquifers, and using fresh water to remove salt that has seeped into over-pumped aquifers from the sea. Both "cures" require the very rainfall whose absence is causing the drought, they noted.

Bromhead endorsed rationing irrigation water as "probably your best long- term solution." This was predictable, as she helped author a 1996 World Bank study of the island's water problems that not only urged rationing water to farms, but also suggested eliminating such water-intensive crops as citrus.

According to several Cyprus water experts, the two US experts appeared to be less aware than they might have been of the extent to which the drought has bitten into the island's water reserves, and its potential to replenish them.

As of yesterday, the island's reservoirs were 93.3 per cent empty - holding only 18 million cubic metres of water - where they held 32.8 million cubic metres of water at the same date last year, when even then they were at only 12.2 per cent of capacity.

Last year's rains were only 75 per cent of normal, and much of what fell did not run off into the island's reservoirs, Water Development Department (WDD) sources have said. This prevented the recharging of the island's aquifers, already dangerously overpumped, according to WDD sources.

Despite the island's dwindling groundwater supplies, the Turkish occupation regime in northern Cyprus is drilling for more underground water, Bayrak Radio reported this week. It hopes by this to add to the fresh water Turkey is supplying the regime by giant water 'balloons' towed by sea from the mainland.

As to Rogers' suggestion that Cyprus price water to its "full value," WDD Senior Water Engineer Dr. George Socratous said yesterday his proposed 14 per cent increase - from 33.5 cents per cubic metre to 38.5 cents - in the price at which the WDD sells water to local water boards would cover the full production cost.

That proposed increase, however, must first be approved by the Council of Ministers before it even gets a hearing in the House of Representatives, he said, adding he had no idea when either might occur.

One idea that generated some audible audience endorsement was the "water bank" that California used during its drought earlier this decade. This involved the state's temporary purchase of water rights from farmers at one price, and selling that water to urban areas at a higher price. The plan not only worked, but produced a water surplus by the time the drought ended, Rogers noted.

However, some local water experts suggested this would solve one problem only by worsening another, as it would involve a "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" shifting of water from farmers - who are already heavily over-pumping the island's groundwater - to urban areas, with no net gain in overall water resources.

Even Bromhead agreed that this would produce only a nominal "surplus" of water for the cities, in the face of what she characterised as the island's already admirably efficient management of its irrigation water supplies to farmers.

The course Cyprus chooses to tackle its water problems depends, in the end, on "what kind of country you want have," Rogers told his audience: one heavily dependent on agriculture, or one more tourist-oriented and service- focused. The former is water-intensive, the latter much less so, he said.

Whatever choice is made, both Rogers and Bromhead said, the choice will require the kind of political decisions beyond the scope of mere water experts - to which several of those Cyprus water experts agreed.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[06] War of words between Paphos deputies

Yesterday's revelation that the removal of the trench was in fact approved by the Ministry of Defence did nothing to cool tempers between deputies Averof Neophytou, of Disy, and Nicos Pittokopitis, of Diko.

Pittokopitis had originally accused Neophytou of turning a blind eye to his brother's demolition of the National Guard trench in order to expand his restaurant in Latsi, a resort near Polis.

In retaliation, Neophytou on Thursday said Pittokopitis was not qualified to discuss military matters, accusing him of having failed to serve his full term in the National Guard. And he added: "in the last few years the Diko deputy, Nicos Pittokopitis, has appeared as the cowboy of the country's political life".

Continuing in the same vein yesterday, Neophytou claimed Pittokopitis had made similar smear attacks on other political figures.

Pittokopitis defended himself by stating that the reason he was unable to complete his National Service was because of health problems. He noted his activities in the Eoka movement against British Colonial rule and his contribution during the Turkish invasion.

Pittokopitis last week claimed ministers had allowed a luxury hotel to be built illegally in Paphos, enjoying preferential treatment in a special suite thereafter.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[07] Tourist denies negligence in jet-ski death

ALFRED Post, the Dutch tourist whose jet-ski was involved in fatal collision on Tuesday yesterday pleaded not guilty to three charges in connection with the case.

Post, 28, appeared at Famagusta District Court, where he was charged with unintentionally causing the death of Karen White death through negligent driving, causing bodily harm to White's husband Greg, 25, through negligent driving and driving a jet-ski without a licence.

White, 32, from Bitterne in Southampton, died instantly when Post's jet-ski collided with that driven by her husband, on which she was a passenger.

When he was breathalysed two hours after the collision, the Dutch tourist was found to be almost twice over the drink-drive limit.

The Ayia Napa collision apparently happened in spite of the British couple's attempts to flag Post down as he bore down upon them. Karen sustained severe chest injuries and was declared dead on arrival at an Ayia Napa private clinic. Greg escaped almost unscathed.

Post was treated for severe shock at an Ayia Napa private clinic after the accident.

After yesterday's hearing, he was released on £1,000 bail. He was also required to surrender his passport to local authorities, and must appear daily at Ayia Napa police station. His trial has been set for October 21.

The charges Post faces carry a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment and/or a £2,000 fine.

This summer has seen several tourists injured in jet-ski accidents. One British tourist, David Whitworth, 22, was given a suspended sentence and a fine for the reckless driving of a jet-ski, which collided with a banana boat in August, putting two British women in hospital with multiple fractures.

Anyone wanting to hire a jet-ski must produce a valid driver's licence.

Police said yesterday they were investigating the jet-ski owner who had hired the machine to Post, apparently without checking whether he had a licence, but were unlikely to take any action until the Dutchman's trial was over.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[08] National Council fails to decide on recourse

Speaking after a three-hour meeting of the National Council, the first since the return of President Glafcos Clerides and other political leaders from New York, the spokesman said discussion of the matter had not yet even begun, as the time had been spent on briefings for the party leaders given by Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides, also just back from New York.

Before any decision is taken, the party leaders must in turn brief their respective parties. The council will reconvene on Tuesday morning to continue talks on the matter.

At the meeting, party leaders who had been on the New York trip also briefed the council on contacts they had held there.

During the New York trip, Clerides addressed the 53rd UN General Assembly and held various meetings. Stylianides said that no meeting has yet been arranged between Clerides and Cyprus' permanent UN Representative, Dame Ann Hercus, in the light of the UN's decision to start shuttle talks to break the deadlock on the Cyprus problem.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[09] Clerides pledges more women in public life

He gave his promise while opening a three-day workshop, entitled 'Women and Men in Partnership - The Politics of the Future' and co-hosted by the Ministry of Justice and the British Council.

Clerides declared that by the year 2005, Cyprus would have approached 30 per cent participation of women in all areas of the island's political life - five years later than the global target year of 2000 set by the United Nations.

"More women are contesting political positions" today, he said, and now hold more top positions in political parties and on the boards of semi- governmental organisations and in local administration. He did not enumerate.

As well, six of Cyprus' 30 ambassadors to other countries are women, he added.

Eleni Stamiri, the director of the Women's Department of the Commonwealth Secretariat, took issue with Clerides' claims, noting Cyprus had the lowest percentage of women participating in parliament and government of any country in the world.

By contrast, she said, Norway's parliament is 49 per cent female, while women make up 40 per cent of Sweden's legislature, 33 per cent in both Denmark and Finland, and 31 per cent of the MPs in the Netherlands.

Justice Minister Nicos Koshis also addressed the workshop's opening. His ministry is responsible for the Cyprus National Machinery for the Advancement of Women.

Koshis said that, after the 1996 parliamentary voting elected only three women to the House of Representatives, the government invited experts to "guide us on how to change the picture of today's political life."

"We aim to continue this pioneering seminar and other initiatives which would create a better climate for women in the political arena," Koshis said.

The three-day workshop, in the mountain resort of Platres, is being guided by Lesley Abdela, a member of the Board of the British Council.

Abdela founded the "300 Group" for Women in Politics and Public Life, which helped redraw the gender lines in British politics and increase the number of women MPs in the British Parliament from 19 to 121 in the last election.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[10] A good citizen

At a special ceremony in Limassol, Stephanie Demetriou, 13, was given a commemorative plaque and a generous reward for her action in handing the bag to police.

Limassol police chief Miltiades Neocleous said Stephanie's action gave a strong hope in the next generation.

Asked if she had entertained any thoughts of keeping the contents of the bag, Stephanie admitted she had, but the thought it might have been somebody else's entire fortune convinced her to turn it in.

Saturday, October 10th, 1998

[11] We're running out of chickens

The Ministry of Agriculture says it foresaw the shortage, but owners of hatcheries and poultry farms had chosen to ignore the warning.

Farmers have now had to turn overseas for supply, meaning higher prices with the payment of heavy import duties of around 30 per cent.

And farmers in turn are blaming the ministry.

According to poultry-farm owner, Demetra Orphanidou, it was the high summer temperatures that resulted in the loss of nestlings.

"A serious shortage of chicken supply is foreseen for the holiday season, since hatcheries have not supplied the necessary amount of nestlings," Orphanidou said.

She added this was not a new problem, and added there was also a problem of quality.

"The problems start from the hatcheries and are in turn transferred to the poultry farms. The hatcheries deny the responsibility and do nothing to solve the problem, which results in the poultry farmers having to pay the price.

"The bad quality of grain fed to the animals results in a bad quality in the nestlings, which in turn decreases production as well as the income to the poultry owners.

And the Head of Veterinary Services, Pavlos Economides, confirmed that "the quality of the nestlings depends on the grain fed to the animals, which contain toxins making the food unsuitable for the animals."

But the general manager of the Grain Committee, Charalambos Archimandrites, who deals with the import of grain supplies, said his service had received no complaints: "The grain loads imported are thoroughly checked by the national grain control company, and another analytical check takes place at unloading in Cyprus... We have not received any specific complaints."

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1998

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