Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 99-12-04

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

CONTENTS

[01] Talks start, but Annan doesn’t expect miracles

[02] Did you hear the one about the two men laughing in public?

[03] Shares bounce back ahead of three-day closure

[04] Concern over Turkish green light for Akkuyu nuclear plant

[05] Foundry was tipped off about tests, claim angry residents

[06] The world’s biggest? A piece of cake

[07] ‘Drug-stuffed teddies sent through the post’

[08] Turks free man who strayed north

[09] £27m plan to prevent ‘ghettos’

[10] Drivers urged to take more care after yet another death

[01] Talks start, but Annan doesnt expect miracles

New York

THE New York proximity talks got under way yesterday when United Nations Secretary-general Kofi Annan held separate meetings, first with President Glafcos Clerides and then with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash.

Before the talks got under way, Annan struck a note of caution concerning his expectations from the talks. "I don't expect a miraculous solution," he told reporters upon arrival at the UN headquarters.

Neither Clerides nor Denktash made any substantive comments to reporters after their separate meetings with the UN chief. The UN has clamped a news blackout on the proximity talks and appealed to both sides to say nothing likely to trouble diplomatic waters.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said no further meetings were scheduled for Friday and the talks would resume on Monday morning. Eckhard said a letter from US President Bill Clinton that Washington's special envoy for Cyprus, ambassador Alfred Moses, had been expected to hand to Annan during a meeting on Thursday, was "in the pipeline" but had not yet been delivered. Moses is one of several special envoys to Cyprus who are in New York to keep track of the talks and

Washington has been the driving force behind the Cyprus talks.

On his departure after spending about 70 minutes with Annan, Clerides said only, "You see, we are smiling." Asked about his meeting with the Secretary-general, he reminded reporters of the news blackout.

When Denktash left, after also spending just over an hour with Annan and his aides, he said only, "We had a very good meeting, very useful." When a Greek Cypriot journalist asked Denktash whether he had brought any papers to the talks, he replied jokingly, "Many".

Annan himself has only modest expectations for the latest round of talks, hoping they might at least pave the way for a resumption of direct negotiations broken off more than two years ago. Speaking to reporters on his arrival at UN headquarters, Annan said he hoped the young people of Cyprus would support the latest effort to end the divisions.

"It is their future that we are trying to resolve, and I hope that at the end of this process we will be able to come with a comprehensive solution that will assure the young people of the island a peaceful and harmonious future," he said. While cautioning against any "unrealistic expectations" he added:"I hope we will be able to discuss the core issues, stick with the issues and move forward gradually."

He said he was "very happy that both leaders are here and that both parties have come determined to engage in a meaningful dialogue".

Asked if Clerides and Denktash had refrained from the kind of public comments that he hoped they would avoid, Annan replied: "I think on the whole they have done well ... and that as we begin today they will respect the news blackout."

Clerides is anxious to press ahead with negotiations on arrangements for re-uniting Cyprus as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation -- the prescription for a solution laid down in numerous Security Council resolutions. Annan, in a written report to the council last June, listed the core issues to be resolved between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots as security, the distribution of powers, property, and territory.

Denktash told a news conference on Thursday he would put forward a plan, first aired in August 1998, aimed at setting up a confederation -- a much looser union than a federation. Such a confederation would, in effect, mean recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Denktash also repeated at the news conference his long-standing objections to international recognition of President Clerides Government as the government of the whole island. "I am asking for justice for my people, to be recognised for what they are, as co-founder partners, the absolute equal community to the Greek Cypriot community," said Denktash.

The parties to the proximity talks also have an eye on a European Union (EU) summit in Helsinki, which opens on Friday next week, at which Turkey's candidacy for EU membership and progress on Cyprus' current membership negotiations will be discussed.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook yesterday reaffirmed his government's position that a solution of the Cyprus problem should not be a pre-condition for the island's accession to the EU. Cook also said that at the Helsinki summit next week Britain will work for a declaration that recognises the status of Turkey as candidate for EU membership.

He said however, that progress in the New York talks will help create a climate in which it would be easier to gain support for the recognition of Turkey as candidate country.

[02] Did you hear the one about the two men laughing in public?

Confused? Dont be. It all began at their talks in Troutbeck, New York, more than two years ago, where a Clerides aide was "telling jokes all the time", Denktash told reporters in New York.

"Some of them were dirty, some of them clean, but they were very good jokes," Denktash said, adding that because of this anyone seeing them together saw them "laughing our hearts out, one joke after another".

Because of their obvious mutual mirth, the UN official who organised the Troutbeck talks "came to the conclusion that there was no problem to settle" between Clerides and himself, Denktash said.

"And then I realised that this was a scenario exactly to make others, onlookers, believe that there is no problem (in solving the Cyprus question) except Denktash," he added.

For this reason, Denktash said tongue in cheek, he is declining to meet Clerides face to face, and will only hold indirect proximity talks through UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan.

That way, theres no chance of smiling or laughing in the presence of Clerides, an adversary as a lawyer and politician for more than 40 years, while risking again appearing to be the obstacle to a Cyprus settlement.

[03] Shares bounce back ahead of three-day closure

SHARE prices moved higher yesterday, the last day of trade before a three-day closure starting on Monday, as the bourse's boss promised a gradual introduction of a less cumbersome settlement system beginning from March 2000.

The Cyprus Stock Exchange's all-share index closed up 4.23 points, or 0.51 per cent, at 837.26 on a volume of £33.04 million. The rise ended a three-day spree of negative closes.

But only two sectors -- banks and other companies -- finished the day's trade in positive territory.

Bank of Cyprus was up 3.50 cents at £11.94, while Popular Bank moved 11.50 cents higher to close at £16.25. The small Universal Bank finished lower, but the sub-index of banks was up 0.39 per cent.

The other companies sector, missing heavyweight Louis Cruise Lines, saw its sub-index finish up 2.72 per cent. Cyprus Airways, in which the government holds a majority holding, was up by £1.35 to close at £10.05. The government is due to dilute its 70 per cent stake in the airline by the end of the year to conform with the exchange's regulations, a prospect which has whipped up investor interest.

Addressing a news conference, exchange chairman Dinos Papadopoulos said the new settlement system was a temporary solution to ease paperwork in the market.

"This is not a panacea or a final solution. A solution which does not get rid of paperwork entirely may present some difficulties in cases of heavy volume. The final solution is when paperless trading and a central depository is created," he said.

The temporary system, he said, would draw on the ability of some companies to set up their own share registries. In those cases, paperless trading will be allowed to replace share certificates for each transaction with statements of account. He said first to try the new system would be the Bank of Cyprus next week and that Popular Bank would possibly follow.

The December 6-8 closure, its fourth since late July, is aimed at allowing the bourse time to put into place the new temporary system. The decision to close the bourse down met with opposition from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, but Papadopoulos dismissed its criticism.

"Our prime concern is to protect investors," he said.

In a separate development, the exchange announced that it had granted a request by KEO, the Limassol-based beverages conglomerate, Cyprus Airways, Cytrustees Investment Company and Triaina Investment to withdraw from the exchange during the period December 6-17.

An exchange statement did not say why the four companies wanted to suspend trading in their shares, but KEO is already one of 21 companies out of the market, either through suspension or voluntary withdrawal, to update their share registries and rectify erroneous share title deeds.

[04] Concern over Turkish green light for Akkuyu nuclear plant

TURKEY has decided to go ahead with controversial plans to build a nuclear power plant at Akkuyu on its southern coast, prompting a worried response yesterday from Cyprus.

"The government has made a decision to go ahead with the nuclear power plant tender," Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit announced after a six-hour meeting of government coalition leaders in Ankara on Thursday night.

Environmentalists and the Greek and Cypriot governments have repeatedly expressed grave concerns about the nuclear power plant plans, pointing to the fact that Akkuyu lies in a seismically active area.

Such protests have forced the repeated postponement of the Akkuyu plans, but Ankara now appears determined to proceed with the project. The proposed plant site is only 120km from Nicosia.

The director of the Agriculture Ministry's Environment Service, Nicos Georgiades, said the Ecevit announcement was bad news.

"We are not in favour of such action and we are greatly concerned about the impact of the plant," Georgiades told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.

Nicosia had repeatedly made clear her opposition to the Akkuyu project, Georgiades said.

Irini Constantinou, of Greenpeace Cyprus, outlined the threat that an Akkuyu plant would pose to the island.

"The danger, even just from the normal functioning of the plant, is huge -- with radioactive releases and wastes," Constantinou said. "In the case of an accident or earthquake, studies show radiation fall-out would hit Nicosia within 24 hours," she added.

A study by the Greek Ministry for the Aegean suggested Cyprus would bear the brunt of the fall-

out in the event of an Akkuyu nuclear accident.

Constantinou said Greenpeace would soon release a new study confirming that Akkuyu lies within an active earthquake zone.

"The study will focus on the geology of the area to show exactly where the fault lines lie," she said.

A Turkish Housing Ministry map suggests the site is in one of the safest locations in terms of earthquake risk. But concerns about the plant's proposed location have also been voiced from within Turkey.

The head of the influential Turkish Chamber of Environmental Engineers, Ethem Torunoglu, told Reuters news agency Turkey was criss-crossed by active fault lines and that there were also legal barriers to building the plant.

"A fault line passes some 25 km to the east of the plant site. Also the project does not have a key document, called the environmental assessment report, for it to go ahead," Torunoglu said.

The project has also been criticised by Akkuyu area residents and some Turkish politicians.

Thursday's meeting that gave the green light to Akkuyu was prompted by a series of gas and power cuts in Istanbul, Ankara and Bursa this week after gas pressure in the pipeline from Russia dropped.

The head of Greenpeace Mediterranean's energy campaign, Melda Keskin, suggested the timing of the power cuts was deliberate.

"They are trying to scare people off by using darkness and cold weather in order to conclude the nuclear tender," she charged.

Three international consortia have been bidding to build the Akkuyu plant since 1997.

Constantinou said Greenpeace would continue its campaign to get the Akkuyu plant blocked. She said two Greenpeace power experts would be in Ankara on Wednesday in an effort to persuade Ecevit of the merits of renewable energy alternatives.

She said Akkuyu was the first of 20 nuclear power plants Turkey wanted to build over the next two decades.

In Athens today, Cypriot, Greek and Turkish environmentalists will join forces for the first time to protest against Turkey's plans to build the Akkuyu power station.

The demonstration will be staged outside the Canadian embassy in Athens in an attempt to dissuade Canadian firms from supplying technology for the plant. Canada's AECL is bidding for the Akkuyu tender along with US company White Westinghouse and French-German coalition NPI.

The Akkuyu project is priced at $5 billion and is set for completion in 2007.

[05] Foundry was tipped off about tests, claim angry residents

SOME OF the 400 angry Zakaki area residents who marched in protest to the Nemitsas foundry on Thursday accused the Labour Ministry yesterday of warning the foundry it would test its chimney emissions, instead of conducting surprise tests.

The residents, who say many of their children have been sickened by toxins in the foundry's emissions, plan more protests against the continued operation of the foundry at current pollution levels.

"Yesterday was just the first demonstration as far as we are concerned," Bernadette Charalambous told the Cyprus Mail. The 400-500 residents marched from nearby 8th Elementary School to the foundry site, where Akel MP Yiannakis Thoma and Green Party member Pantelis Metaxis addressed them.

"All we want is health and safety in our neighbourhood," Charalambous said. "We are not prepared to put up with a foundry in the area."

Two of Charalambous' children were among more than 50 8th Elementary School pupils who needed medical treatment on November 11, after falling ill in the playground reportedly because of toxins in smoke from the Nemitsas foundry.

On October 14, 47 pupils were taken to Limassol General Hospital with symptoms of smoke poisoning.

Charalambous also says she believes her two-year-old son's chronic respiratory problems were caused by smoke emissions from the foundry.

The Initiative for Clean Air, an area residents group that joined the march with the parents, accused the Labour Ministry of collusion with Nemitsas by alerting the foundry to the fact that technicians would test its emissions for pollution levels on the day of the protest.

Acting Labour Ministry Permanent Secretary Doros Ioannou dismissed the charge. "It was not advance warning. That's what people say. The next time will be without warning."

Ioannou said Nemitsas "asked us to go (and test on Thursday) because they work the foundry only once a week in Limassol," usually on Thursdays. "So maybe we won't go next Thursday; we'll go on another one," he suggested.

"We have the situation under constant surveillance," he insisted.

Charalambous termed "ridiculous" Nemitsas' recent filing of a lawsuit essentially asking the Supreme Court to lift the smoke particulate-emission limit of 300 milligrams per cubic metre of air that was imposed by the Labour Ministry on Nemitsas and the Marios and Eleni foundry in Ergates.

"Here we're going towards Europe, which has a 50mg ceiling" on emissions, she said, "and for Cyprus to try and have that (300mg pollution level) worsened in a residential area is ridiculous."

According to public health specialist Dr Michalis Voniatis, foundry emissions contain lead, cadmium and dioxin. Lead and cadmium are toxic heavy metals, and dioxin is one of the deadliest compounds known. All of them cause cancers and organ and nerve diseases, and dioxin causes horrendous birth defects.

On Thursday, Voniatis released a second set of blood test results on the residents of Ergates, showing "the blood-levels of both lead and cadmium in the inhabitants of Ergates are much higher than those in Nicosia urban area."

"The levels of lead are 2.5 times higher in Ergates than in Nicosia. And cadmium levels in Ergates are 5 times higher than in Nicosia," Voniatis said.

Nemitsas Managing Director Kikis Petevis has denied specifically trying to use the courts to lift the Labour Mininstry's 300mg limit on his foundry's smoke-particulate level.

"It's much bigger than that," he said. "It's not against the 300mg limit that we're going; it's against the whole way of how these limits were set, because what we want to find out is what basis we're going -- 300 this year, 50mg next year. That's the basic issue behind" the lawsuit.

Labour Minister Andreas Moushouttas said six Cyprus ministries agreed on a 300mg limit for foundry particulate pollution in Cyprus. But he gave credence to Petevis' fears that a 50mg limit is on the horizon.

"In a year we will move ahead and demand that he limit emissions to 50mg, which I repeat is technically feasible and applies in countries of the European Union where foundries have not closed" because of them, Moushouttas said.

[06] The worlds biggest? A piece of cake

LIMASSOL hopes to sweeten its image by making the world's largest ever Christmas cake and entering it in the Guinness Book of Records.

The 80-ton cake -- at a cost of a thousand pounds a ton -- will be baked by 600 chefs island-wide in an attempt to break the current Guinness record of 58.08 tons.

Mixing the cake will begin on December 13 at various bakeries around the island. According to Zoe Felippe, one of the organisers of the project, normally it should take 15 days to put this monster together.

But she reckons itll be a piece of cake for Limassolians to assemble the 25,000 pieces in just 12 hours.

The big event will take place at Limassol's Tsirion stadium on December 15 from 6am to 6pm. The stadium has a capacity of some 15,000.

Felippe, from the Cypriot-owned hotel trade magazine which is behind the event, said the recipe calls for 250,000 eggs, 17 tons of flour, three tons of sugar and five tons of honey.

She said the aim is to put Cyprus on the confectionery map and give the island some publicity as a tourist destination. Limassol was chosen because of the positive response from the municipality, she said.

Limassol Mayor Demetris Kontides was reported to be delighted that his town was chosen to host the event. It has suffered a bad press in recent years because of underworld crime.

"Everyone is welcome to come and eat," Felippe said. She said the cake will also be distributed to tourists at the island's hotels, to hospitals, the army and the UN.

"We want to say Merry Christmas to the world," she said.

At 7pm on December 15, the cake will be cut by Commerce, Industry and Tourism Minister Nicos Rolandis.

Bizarrely the event will be rounded off with a performance by a group of Zulu rain dancers from South Africa. But Felippe did not appear to be too worried that their dance might succeed, soaking the cake.

"Although we did think of that..." she said.

[07] Drug-stuffed teddies sent through the post

Michalis Lazarou Leonidou, from Paphos, was arrested after police acted on a tip-off that three teddy bears sent to him from England by mail contained 58.5 grams of cannabis.

Police searched Leonidou's house in Amalthias Street in Kato Paphos, where they found small quantities of cannabis and hashish.

Leonidou reportedly handed over to police an additional 15 grams of cannabis.

Police say Leonidou admitted that the drugs were his, and that they had been posted to him by an English friend. He told police that he had paid his friend £50 when he was in Cyprus on holiday to send him the drugs for his personal use.

[08] Turks free man who strayed north

Argyris Roussou, 65, from Aglandja in Nicosia, was seized by the Turkish Cypriots after he took a wrong turn near the village of Lymbia, southeast of Nicosia.

A court in the north had earlier remanded Roussou for two days.

He was released at the Ledra Palace checkpoint in Nicosia yesterday afternoon, where he was met by members of his family.

[09] £27m plan to prevent ghettos

"Owners will be given incentives to restore buildings so that they cease to be cheap homes for the residence of certain persons coming from abroad. This is part of the plan," Christodoulou said.

The Minister's comments came after a meeting of the House Green Line committee, which he briefed on the five-year rejuvenation plan.

The £27 million scheme provides for a new Nicosia Town Hall, a walk and cycle way for Kaimakli, a sports park for Pallouriotissa, renovation of further homes in old Nicosia, revamping Eleftheria Square, creating an underground car-park in the Nicosia moat, establishing an Aliens Support Centre and restoring Nicosia's mediaeval baths.

The committee called for the rejuvenation plan to be extended beyond Nicosia and its suburbs. Committee chairman Lefteris Christoforou said Famagusta area villages next to the ceasefire line should also be included in the plan.

[10] Drivers urged to take more care after yet another death

"People should become more sensitive and aware, in order to avoid any more road deaths during the holidays," he said.

He was speaking in the wake of yet another fatal accident in Paphos on Thursday night. A 66-

year-old woman was killed on the Ayia Marina to Polis Chrysohous road in the Paphos district after the car she was in slammed into the back of a truck.

Tassoulla Constantinou Skenderi from Paralimni, was killed after the car driven by her niece, Maro Andrea, 43, from Ayia Marina Chrysohous, hit the lorry and then went intol in a 1.4 metre-deep ditch.

Andrea and her daughters Xenia, 15, and 11-year-old Elena, were injured and taken to Paphos hospital were they were kept in for treatment.

Police said that Skenderi had been wearing her seatbelt at the time of the accident.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1999

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