IT IS STILL unclear whether the report about customs officials checking how much petrol is in a car crossing north actually happened or was a fabrication aimed at frightening people so they do not fill up their cars with cheap pseudo petrol.
If this was happening, would we not have heard about it? Yet a customs official told several publications, including this one, that random checks were carried out on cars that were about to cross north, and that these would be intensified. He also said there were instances, after an official carried out a check on a car’s petrol gauge that the driver would turn back and drive home.
Meanwhile those caught having filled up in the north, were fined €4 per litre, the customs official said. He did not explain how the customs guy calculated the exact number of litres in the car in order to issue a fine. Does he ask the driver to provide a payment receipt from the garage in the north?
Does a customs official have the legal authority to check how much petrol there is in someone’s car, before they cross to the north? Probably not, but abuse of the law by officials is permitted for national reasons.
It turned out that even the imposition of a fine is unlawful, because according to the European Commission’s interpretation of the Green Line regulation people can fill up their car with pseudo petrol in the north and also bring an extra 10 litres in a container.
LOCAL Nato-bashers were given a powerful excuse to disparage the hated alliance last week for its unwavering policy of pandering to the Turks. Apparently the Cyprus Republic was removed from maps of Nato’s regional plans by the Yanks because of Turkey’s objections and referred to by coordinates.
It was seen as another example of the way the much-hated Nato panders to Turkey. It was also an insult as it downgraded Kyproulla’s geo-strategic regional significance and its role as a pillar of stability. Leading Nato-basher, Costas Venizelos, could not hide his disgust in a recent Phil column, sarcastically referring to our Yank ‘friends’ and ‘strategic partners’.
“There is no room for any delusions,” he wrote. “At the same time displeasure must be expressed and strongly.” He also had a go at the Greek government, which is a Nato member but allows Turkey pandering to continue, at the expense of the snubbed Republic, which nevertheless has ambitions of joining the Alliance.
Not any longer, “These are the realities that must be understood by the Nato-lovers,” wrote the Nato-basher, who never feels there is a need to take such a hard line when Putin panders to Turkey, something he does with much more regularity than Nato recently.
FATE has been cruel to the president of the Cyprus Bar Association, Christos Clerides, whose law office unknowingly had as a client an Israeli businessman undertaking big development projects on Greek Cypriot land in the occupied north.
The revelation was made by Politis and drew a written response from the Phivos, Christos Clerides and Associates office, which categorically denied having anything to do with the activities of any person in the occupied north. The office said it had a policy of refusing the “offer of services linked with anything in the occupied areas”.
His law office, had registered in Cyprus the company Danilen Ltd, owned by the businessman Yaakov Afik who is the man behind the big developments in Akanthou, the Karpas, Trikomo and Boghazi and selling properties to foreigners. Afik has citizenship of the pseudo-state as well as residence permit for the Republic.
It was a tad ironic that a man with impeccable patriotic credentials like Clerides, who had filed recourses at the ECHR on behalf of Greek Cypriots seeking the return of their properties in the north, ended up with a client that was making big bucks developing Greek Cypriot-owned land in the north, even though he had nothing to do with Afik’s activities.
ASKED about the report by Alithia, the president of the Bar Association said “there is no legal or ethical issue” for himself or his law office.
He said his son, who also works at the office, had been asked by a relative to register a company in the name of an Israeli who wanted to develop some land in Larnaca. “Since then, the company did not show any activity nor were any substantive services offered by our office. The company just stayed registered at our office.” he said.
Eventually, the company moved to another office, said Clerides. He was not asked whether any due diligence was carried out on the company owner as part of the Know Your Customer process. If it had been, we are certain the law office would never have taken on Afik as a client and would not have been the victim of this grossly unfair, negative publicity, that undermined the standing of its founder.
EUROPEAN officials often try to offer us advice, but there are times that this advice betrays a staggering ignorance of Kyproulla.
The European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders illustrated his cluelessness about our Kyproulla when he urged major changes at Rik so that its administrative and financial independence was secured. In small countries which lack pluralist information in their media, it is more important to secure pluralism in the public broadcaster.
Rik has always been a state rather than public broadcaster, serving the government of the day which appoints the board and chairman, the chief executive, hires hacks and promotes the staffers with the greatest brown-nosing skills.
Ever since the days of Makarios, Rik has existed as the main publicity vehicle of the president, who is, as a rule, presented as a wise, far-sighted and selfless leader, tirelessly working for the public good and never putting a foot wrong.
On the plus side, it would beat Russian state TV on the pluralism stakes.
I DO NOT know where the labour minister Yiannos Panayiotou came from, but the way he goes out of his way to satisfy the unions, he could have been a minister in the Christofias government.
To be fair, the Christodoulides government is looking worrying similar to that of comrade Tof in the way it has been spending the taxpayer’s money in its first four months in office. And now Panayiotou, who ensured a higher CoLA for the public parasite class, is looking at ways to scrap the 12 per cent pension penalty for those who retire at 62 instead of 65, as unions have been demanding for some time now.
While the scrapping of the penalty would have to be part of some reform, he said, the introduction of a ‘relief scheme’ for those who will retire at 63 was at an advanced stage he said. This government aims to please, regardless of the cost to the taxpayer.
IN ANOTHER union-friendly decision, Panayiotou agreed, a few weeks ago, to the Pasydy demand to introduce the practice of work-from-home, one day a week, for public parasites. This colossally foolish practice will be introduced next year, ensuring the already low productivity of civil servants will be reduced by another 20 per cent. What is the likelihood that people who do the bare minimum of work in the workplace would do even five minutes work when they unsupervised are at home.
FOREIGN minister, Constantinos Kombos, who is no longer referred to by Rik and Tass as Thoctor, will be meeting UN Secretary-General Antonio in the Big Apple this week.
The invitation from Guterres may have been decided after he received of a two-page letter from Prez Nik II, dated June 23 and made public by Tass news agency on Saturday, in which he asks for the appointment of special envoy to facilitate the resumption of talks.
I suspect Guterres will want to establish how serious the prez is about his alleged commitment to a federal settlement (not just a resumption of talks), whether he will accept a suffocating time-frame and also find out why he appointed the arch-destroyer of peace efforts Tasos Tzionis as his national security advisor.
AND WE thought our church was run by loonies. The archbishop of York, reported The Guardian, “has suggested the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer may be problematic because of their patriarchal association.”
Addressing the Church of England’s General Synod, Stephen Cottrell discussed the words “Our Father” at the start of the prayer and said: “I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have laboured rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life.”
The Guardian also quoted Rev Christina Rees, who agreed with the archbishop. “The big question is, do we really believe that God believes that male human beings bear his image more fully and accurately than women? The answer is absolutely not.”
“In February, the C of E said it would consider whether to stop referring to God as ‘he,’ after priests asked to be allowed to use gender-neutral terms instead.”
The LGBTQ+ movement will approve.
