Day: March 21, 2024

The impact from the implementation of the new EU maritime fuel tax was discussed on Thursday by the Transport Council, in Nicosia, chaired by the Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, Alexis Vafeades. According to the Transport Minister, competent authorities from the private and public sector try to agree on a common position which Cyprus will present at the European level in order to mitigate the negative impact. This as the Minister said will be put forward in consultation with the other 7 Mediterranean countries that are most affected by the new European taxation. He also spoke about the need pursue compensatory measures. Speaking to the press after the Transport Council's meeting that was attended also by Deputy Minister of Shipping Marina Hadjimanolis and representatives of CCC?, OEB, ETEK, Cyprus University of Technology, University of Cyprus, Department of Environment, Cyprus Chamber of Shipping, Cyprus Shipowners' Union and Cyprus Shipping Association, the Minister of Transport stated th at during the discussion, participants highlighted the problems that arise from the implementation of the carbon tax. "Essentially, we have discussed how the cost increases for consumers by this taxation and all this in view of the fact that at the beginning of April the EU Transport Council will take place, but also another meeting between the Ministers of Transport of the 8 countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, Malta, Croatia and Cyprus) which are essentially affected by this taxation especially due to the close proximity of their ports to other ports such as those of North African countries" Vafeadis noted, explaining that therefore the effort is to create a joint approach between the private sector and the state competent authorities so as to draw up the arguments with which Cyprus will argue in favour of improving this situation and reducing the cost for the consumers. "The effort will continue, we will look at the issue in the EU and we will try in cooperation with the other countries tha t cooperate with us on this issue to bring a better result," he said. Asked on whether today's meeting produced a common position Cyprus will put forward at an EU level, the Minister of Transport explained that the issue is that the EU alone is promoting these new regulations and that the other countries are not keeping up with the pace at which the EU is trying to manage climate change. Which, as he explained, creates a difference in the cost of conducting each activity. And he noted that therefore one of the issues that Cyprus should highlight is the cost of these new regulations for the citizens and that the EU should start discussing compensatory measures. "Additionally, we will see," he said, "how we as the EU can identify with the policies of other organizations such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) which determines what is done globally." Therefore, he emphasized, that there should be a discussion on how Europe relates to what happens in the rest of the world, how the EU priorities create an additional burden on EU citizens 'and how we can help so that these costs are reduced to minimum." Asked why only the southern countries are affected and not countries such as Germany and the Netherlands with large ports such as Hamburg and Rotterdam, Alexis Vafeades indicated that all countries are affected but those that are most affected are those in proximity to third country ports which do not apply these regulations. As he explained, the cost of ships moving to the Mediterranean region will be less if they approach North African ports instead of an EU member state port. He explained that Cyprus is in an even more difficult position as geopolitical developments have pushed most ships to change routes avoiding the Suez Canal, which increases the distance and therefore the taxation. When asked if the competitiveness of Cypriot ports are affected by the new regulations, the Minister of Transport explained that not only the competitiveness of Cypriot ports is affected but of all EU ports noting that this is exactly the argument. That is to say, the cost of those ships cooperating with European ports increases at the moment when the ports of third countries keep the prices lower and thus "their competitiveness is upgraded at the expense of our own ports". When asked if this matter might affect Cypriot shipping in general, the Ship Registry and the Cypriot flag, the Minister of Transport explained that the Registry is not expected to be affected as the cost increase concerns each route and has nothing to do with the ship's registration. Source: Cyprus News Agency

ANKARA: cTrkiye's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) "neutralized" the PKK/KCK terror group's Iran youth coordinator in an operation in neighboring northern Iraq, according to information from security sources on Thursday. MIT identified the location of Barzan Hesenzade, codenamed "Tolhildan Kandil," who joined the terrorist organization in 2016, in a rural area of the Qandil region. Hesenzade was also found to be in contact with PKK/KCK ringleaders Cemil Bayik and Duran Kalkan, as well as to have been involved in recruitment efforts for the terrorist group. In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Trkiye, the PKK - listed as a terrorist organization by Trkiye, the US, UK, and EU - has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. Source: Anadolu Agency

The actions of political leaders must be characterized by integrity, accountability and commitment to defend democratic values, President of the House of Representatives Annita Demetriou has said. Demetriou, in her capacity as Ambassador of the Network of Women Political Leaders (WPL), made a statement on behalf of the House of Representatives, at the conclusion of the deliberations of the WPL Summit in Athens. A press release by the Parliament says that in her statement, the President of the Parliament underlined that the actions of political leaders must be characterized by integrity, accountability and commitment to the defense of democratic values and the restoration of citizens' trust in public institutions. Our actions as political leaders must promote the cultivation of a political culture that promotes bridging partisan divides, overcoming ideological differences, seeking consensus and common ground, and focusing on the common goals and interests, she pointed out. Demetriou stressed that the activ e participation of women and young people in decision-making processes and in public debate is of essential importance for the formation of resilient and inclusive democracies, noting that taking relevant initiatives is a collective responsibility of political leaders. The House President called on the citizens to exercise their voting rights in the upcoming elections, thereby contributing to shielding and strengthening the democracy. Concluding, she expressed her firm commitment, in her dual capacity as the first female President of the House of Representatives and WPL Ambassador, to work with determination to promote women's empowerment and accelerate progress towards this goal. Source: Cyprus News Agency

IZMIR: The Turkish Coast Guard rescued 51 irregular migrants and captured 13 others off the coast of Izmir province. According to a statement Wednesday on the Coast Guard's website, two rubber boats carrying irregular migrants off the coast of Urla and Dikili districts drifted due to engine failure and requested assistance. Coast guard boats were dispatched to the area upon receiving the information. Coast guard teams rescued 51 irregular migrants from the rubber boats, including two children. In the Tepecik area of Seferihisar district, a coast guard special operations team responded to reports of a group of irregular migrants being present and captured 13 migrants, including one child. After processing, the irregular migrants were sent to the Provincial Directorate of Migration Management. Source: Anadolu Agency

ISTANBUL: As ocean temperatures hit new dangerous peaks, experts are warning the unprecedented levels of accumulated heat will trigger intense chain reactions, including deadly hurricanes and cyclones, over the coming months. Recent reports have shown that oceans worldwide are now at their warmest ever. The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service found that sea surface temperatures were exceptionally high through most of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. At the end of February 2024, the daily average sea surface temperature reached a new absolute high of 21.09 degrees Celsius (69.962 degrees Fahrenheit). Climate researcher Leon Simons told Anadolu that the emergence of an El Nino over the Pacific Ocean last year led to increased warming of oceans and the atmosphere, triggering changes in weather patterns. 'With the whole of the Atlantic Ocean record warm, that will increase temperatures, especially this year in the coming months … With these higher temperatures, hurricanes can get stronger … (and) you can h ave very heavy flooding like we saw in Libya, Greece and in many parts of the world last year,' he said. The flooding, he explained, is because of increased rainfall, which happens when warm air cools down as it moves over land or especially elevated areas such as mountains. Another climate researcher Joel Hirschi said temperatures in the Atlantic are 'exceptionally high.' 'If these temperatures persist later into the year, past May-June into July into the hurricane season, that could favor a very active hurricane season, especially in conjunction with the El Nino that is waning,' he said. Why are the world's oceans getting warmer? The unprecedented warming of oceans is a combination of greenhouse emissions, as well as a strong El Nino event that started last year and is still ongoing, said Hirschi, associate head of marine systems modeling at the UK's National Oceanography Center. The anomalously warm temperatures also have to do with atmospheric circulation, which is conducive to the development of 'm arine heat waves,' he said. For Simons, a key factor apart from greenhouse emissions is the reduction in sulfur emissions, especially from shipping and coal-fired power plants. 'When we reduce air pollution, more sunlight can reach the oceans. The oceans are warming much faster, especially where this air pollution has been reduced in areas where a lot of shipping was happening,' said Simons, a climate researcher at the Club of Rome Netherlands. He said the International Maritime Organization introduced in 2020 new regulation to reduce by 80% the amount of sulfur in fuels used for shipping. 'Because there's now much less sulfur being emitted, much less sunlight is being reflected by this air pollution to space,' he said, adding that this change has been visibly proven with NASA satellite data. El Nino-La Nina transition and extreme weather About the projections for coming months, Hirschi said the weakening El Nino will very likely switch to a La Nina. El Nino and La Nina are both climate phenomena that originate in the Pacific Ocean but can affect weather worldwide. An El Nino is when warm water builds up and pushes sea surface temperatures above average, while La Nina is the complete opposite, when cool water increases and drags down temperatures to below the average level. They are two distinct phases of what is known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, and can never occur at the same time. 'It is known that La Nina additionally favors conditions that are conducive for the formation of tropical cyclones over the North Atlantic,' said Hirschi. The areas likely to be impacted are Central American countries such as Belize, Honduras, and Mexico, along with the US, including southern areas like Florida, but also much of the East Coast, he said. It could also go all the way to Canada and sometimes even curve back toward Europe, he added. Hirschi said precursor signs of a La Nina event are building up in the Pacific. 'La Nina anomaly phases are when you tend to have droughts over South America a nd it gets wetter over Australia. So, La Nina years are favorable for torrential rainfall over Australia and in the regions in the Western Pacific,' he said. A sort of positive effect of La Nina could be that ocean temperatures are expected to fall back a bit below the levels of 2023, he added. Apart from hurricanes and cyclones, both scientists warned there will be more extreme weather events in the coming months. One of them will be heat waves, which Hirschi pointed out are now more frequent and intense, with heat records being regularly shattered and not by 'a few tenths of a degree but sometimes 3, 4 or even 5 degrees.' Simons called for steps to 'prepare ourselves for a lot of extreme weather in the months ahead.' 'We should prepare ourselves for a lot of unpredictable extreme weather because we are now in a situation where our planet hasn't been for millions of years, with greenhouse gas concentration now higher than it has (ever) been,' he said. Eyes on the Mediterranean Both Hirschi and Simons pointed out that the Mediterranean is another region that is warmer than usual at the moment. The Mediterranean had massive heat waves last year, said Hirschi, adding that there have also been 'severe marine heat waves' recorded in the region 'for more than 10 years in a row.' There are higher chances of 'medicanes,' he said, referring to a destructive weather phenomenon that scientists have previously warned will increase due to global warming. The term is a combination of the words Mediterranean and hurricane. 'They're tropical cyclones, like a hurricane, like storms, that develop over the Mediterranean and … can pick moisture and the heat of these warm ocean temperatures,' Hirschi explained. An example was Storm Daniel last year, which severely affected countries like Bulgaria, Greece and especially Libya with tragic consequences, he said. The reason for the warmer Mediterranean over the past few years is the 'excursion of very warm air from Africa, pushing towards Europe, engulfing the Mediterranean ' and forming so-called heat domes that then stayed for a long time, he explained. Simons said the Mediterranean is also seeing the effects of rules enforced to control sulfur emissions. By May 2025, they will further reduce these sulfur emissions which will cause even more warming, he said. 'We see that much more sunlight is being absorbed in this region now that this regulation has come into effect. We should expect that to increase further when the regulation is strengthened in May next year. Then, of course, the damages will keep increasing faster,' he warned. 'Concern is now obviously much higher' Francesca Guglielmo, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service, told Anadolu that the recent trend 'in terms of global surface air and sea surface temperature is unprecedented.' 'Both in terms of deviation from the climate normal and duration. The concern is now obviously much higher than, for example, a year ago,' she said. Simons also emphasized the danger of the current situation, po inting out that it takes 3,000 times more heat to warm the oceans than the same amount of air. 'So, that's why it's very concerning that … the temperatures are so much higher than they were ever before,' he said. Hirschi said the crisis should not come as a surprise to anyone, but should be taken as yet another wake-up call. Source: Anadolu Agency

Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development, and Environment, Maria Panayiotou, met with a group of experts from Israel and Switzerland on Wednesday to discuss biological rodent control using barn owls, headed by Professor Yossi Leshen. According to a press release from the Ministry of Agriculture, the purpose of the visit was to document the achievements of the Cypriot program, as well as to capture the project's activities in the field for a documentary expected to be completed by late 2024, aiming for global exposure. The experts' visit is part of their collaboration with the working group of the National Action Plan for rodent control using barn owls in Cyprus. The achievements of Israel's corresponding program for biological rodent control, which has been in place for 40 years with over 5,000 artificial nests currently deployed in rural areas of the country, were presented during the meeting. It was also mentioned that, regionally, the program involves participation from Jordan, Palestine, Greece, and Morocco, in addition to Cyprus. Their planning for further collaborations was presented, while discussions included the role Cyprus could play as a successful example of reducing pesticide use through barn owl utilisation, as well as a model for cooperation between governmental bodies and environmental organisations. Ideas and issues for improving the actions included in the National Action Plan were also discussed. Source: Cyprus News Agency

ISTANBUL: EU leaders called on Thursday for an "immediate humanitarian pause" in Gaza, urging measures to prevent population displacement amid ongoing Israeli aggression in the besieged Palestinian enclave. 'The EU calls for an immediate humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable ceasefire. Full and safe humanitarian access into Gaza is essential to provide the civilian population with life-saving assistance in a catastrophic situation in Gaza,' European Council President Charles Michel said as a joint text agreed upon by EU's 27 heads of state and government was released. "The European Council calls for an immediate humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and the provision of humanitarian assistance," the bloc said in the text published by the council. It also condemned Hamas for the Oct. 7 attack 'in the strongest possible terms." It said that the European Council is 'deeply concerned about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and its disproportionate effect on civilians, particularly children, as well as the imminent risk of famine caused by the insufficient entry of aid into Gaza.' "Full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access into and throughout the Gaza Strip via all routes is essential to provide the civilian population with life-saving assistance and basic services at scale," the text said, adding that 'immediate measures should be taken to prevent any further population displacement and provide safe shelter to the population to ensure that civilians are protected at all times.' Source: Anadolu Agency

The Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) participates in a new EU-funded, cutting-edge project titled 'COMFORTAGE' for the prediction, monitoring and provision of personalized recommendations for the prevention and relief of dementia and frailty for the elderly. According to a press release this highly ambitious project is funded under the 'Staying Healthy' call of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme and will span a total of four years. It is added that the specific topic of the project relates to the 'The Silver Deal' regarding person-centred health and care in European regions. More details on this topic can be found at the HORIZON-HLTH-2023-STAYHLTH-01-01 official website. As it is explained, the project's consortium, led by the University of Piraeus, consists of 38 partners. Specifically, CUT will work together on a number of tasks and activities with other members in a joint effort between medical experts (neurologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, nurses, memory clinics), technical experts (data scientists, AI experts, robotic experts), social scientists and humanists, as well as digital innovation hubs and living labs. It is underlined that the aim will be to establish a pan-European framework focusing on developing community-based, integrated and people-centric solutions for the prevention, monitoring and progression management of age-related diseases and disabilities. It is furthermore explained that the project's framework will be empowered by a unique combination and integration of: medical/clinical innovations (e.g., novel approaches to risk factor analysis and personalized prediction, AI-based medical devices, integrated data sources of age-related clinical evidence, and evidence-based healthcare technology assessment), cutting-edge AI and data science innovations (e.g., explainable AI, secure AI, serious games, patient digital twins, virtual assistive technologies) for trusted, accurate, secure and personalized clinical decision making, digital innovation hubs (e.g., smart homes, robo tics and living labs) to facilitate and promote research activities in the health and wellbeing domain and social innovations for promoting innovative views and co-creating new or improving existing solutions for assistance and support for social integration and interaction. It is added that COMFORTAGE will facilitate the integration, harmonization and management of a host of different data sources, including biobanks, cohorts, medical records, longitudinal observational studies, real-world data about patients, as well as alternative secondary data sources such as sensors, wearables and mobiles in a standardized structure forming holistic health records. It is also mentioned that CUT's team is coordinated by the Software Engineering and Intelligent Information Systems Research Lab led by Prof. Andreas S. Andreou, and will be assisted by the e-Health Lab led by Prof. Efthyvoulos Kyriacou. Both labs are housed at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Informatics at CUT. Source: Cyprus News Agency

ANKARA: The English Premier League on Thursday charged Leicester City for allegedly violating the spending rules during their time at the top-tier division. In a statement, the league said: "The Premier League has today referred Leicester City FC to an independent Commission for an alleged breach of Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSRs) and for failing to submit their audited financial accounts to the League. "The alleged breach relates to the assessment period ending Season 2022/23, when the club was a member of the Premier League."? Called the Foxes, Leicester City, who were the 2016 English champions, are now playing in the second-tier Championship division after they were relegated from the Premier League last season. In a statement, Leicester City said that the club is "surprised" and "extremely disappointed" about the timing of the actions taken by the Premier League. "LCFC remains willing and eager to engage constructively with the Premier League and the EFL to seek the proper resolution o f any potential charges, by the right bodies, and at the right time.? "The Club continues to take careful advice about its position and, if necessary, will continue to defend itself from any unlawful acts by the football authorities, should they seek to exercise jurisdiction where they cannot do so, as occurred earlier this year," the Foxes said. Second-place Leicester City, who have a game in hand, have 82 points in the Championship division. Leeds United are leading the league on goal average. The best two clubs in the Championship standings are automatically promoted to the Premier League, and a team from playoffs joins them.? A points deduction may risk Leicester City's promotion chances.? Leicester City is a Premier League frequenter in the 1990s and early 2000s. Following so many years at the Championship, the Foxes played in the Premier League in 2014-2023.? Several well-known players such as France's N'Golo Kante, Algerian winger Riyad Mahrez, England duo James Maddison and Harry Maguire played for Leicester City in previous years.? Former England player Jamie Vardy, one of the main protagonists of the 2016 success, is still a Leicester City striker. Source: Anadolu Agency