Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kikapu]

Any estimation on how high the cost of electricity will go up due to extreme power shortages ?

Just imagine how bad things could have been had this power station was a Nuclear Power Station.

[denizaksulu]

Any estimation on how high the cost of electricity will go up due to extreme power shortages ?

Just imagine how bad things could have been had this power station was a Nuclear Power Station.

Whose brain-child was it to store the containers where they did? Why did not the USA take the contraband (or the eu) and just left t iny Cyprus to deal with this 'hot potato'. No pun intended. I am fucking annoyed.

[Robin Hood]

I always walk the dog before sun up as it is cooler early morning. We live above (400m) Limassol and to the west of it in the hills and remote from most neighbours. Whilst the dog was having his usual morning snff at all and every thing I stood looking out over Limassol, the sun had not yet popped up from behind the hills when ‘the Sun’ popped up very suddenly ...... but the glow from the yet to rise sun was about 20 Deg to the left of this ‘sun’. I took a few seconds to realise I was looking at a very large explosion (it was 5.45am and I am a bit slow at that time) and I thought it was somewhere in Limassol, maybe the tourist area. It looked just like the rising sun only much larger, darker red and with what I thought were the shadow of tress on the hills, but there are no trees on the hills. I waited to hear the bang but heard nothing.

When I got back home we had no electricity and have only just go power on again at 5.45. So we have been twelve hours without power which in the circumstances is understandable. Looking at the pictures on the internet of the damage to the power station, it has to be hats off to AHK for getting power back on so soon if only intermittently.

We are some 50km or more from Zygi so I dread to think what it must have been like if you were close enough to hear/feel the bang.


The country is now short of electricity and we should all heed the requests of the authorities to conserve power and water.

To the President and Government of Cyprus regarding the serious shortage of power after today’s tragic explosion at Zygi and the loss of so many lives;

• Get yours fingers out of your backsides and do something, running the Country is what the people of Cyprus pay you to do and it is about time you started earning the money you take. This explosion has been caused by Government incompetence and indifference to a situation that, to anybody with just half a brain, had ‘CATASTROPHE WAITING TO HAPPEN’ written all over it. You The Government , according to one report, were given offer’s by both the British and American Governments, to make safe and dispose of the munitions. If that report is correct then, either because you are stupid or incredibly arrogant, you allowed your outdated hatred of both to get in the way of doing what was right for your Country and accept genuine offers of help.

A few suggestions to ease the impact may help..........................

• In towns and cities remove the lamps from 3 out of every four street lights.
• In villages only have one light every 100m or at each end of each street.
• Disconnect all lights on developments that are unoccupied.
• Turn off all motorway lighting except at intersections and reduce by at least 50%.
• Turn off all external lights on Government buildings.
• Ban lighting in shop windows except for one energy saving lamp.
• Switch off all traffic lights – they are never used correctly any way – and have solar powered flashing amber lights at all intersections.
• Impose an Island wide speed limit of 50 km/hr, with €500 first offence fine for speeding and instant disqualification for a second offence plus a €1000 fine and/or imprisonment.
• A €1000 first offence fine for failing to slow down or stop at intersections and instant disqualification for a second offence plus a €5000 fine and/or imprisonment.

The police should be vigorous in clamping down on the offenders and, although I would like to believe that everybody on the Island would comply and the imposition of draconian measures would raise nothing, I am a pragmatist and I believe the police would collect enough in six months to rebuild/repair the power station, repair the de-salination plant and even enough left over to build a new power station.

[skyvet]

Electricity cuts? Travel delays? So what? Let's get a reality check here guys, and remember people DIED in this awful accident. RIP, and my family send our commiserations to their familes.

[CBBB]

Some of our "friends" on 44 find it amusing!

http://www.cyprus44.com/forums/68275.asp

[Jerry]

Condolences to the relatives of the deceased, apparently two 20 year old twins amongst them.

According to one report the power station will take billions of euros to restore.

http://www.cna.org.cy/website/english/index.asp

[Kikapu]

Some of our "friends" on 44 find it amusing!

http://www.cyprus44.com/forums/68275.asp

Weapons claimed to be bound for Gaza seized in 2009 - Last week Greeks prevent peace activists from sailing to Gaza and Arab nations consider Greece to be Israel’s co-conspirators oppressing the citizens of Gaza. One week later the Gaza bound weapons blow up Greek power plant and causes extensive damage meaning if indeed the explosives actually were for Gaza many believers may come to the assumption in the end, Allah has delivered them to intended targets from Gaza with love.

This fcuking idiot cannot even tell the difference between the Greeks and the GCs, and if that wasn't bad enough, he can't even tell the difference between Greece and Cyprus. It is true, that over 90% of those on C44 are the most uninformed and morally corrupted ignoramuses.

[thisiscyprus]

cypriot president knew about the danger....but...he just turned his head in some more proficous "business" for his wallet.....
But, he's still sitting his fat bottom on that well payed chair....
cypriots.....what are u waiting to strike and ask for his dismission?????
come on!!!!! maybe smth will change, finally, in ur country

[thisiscyprus]

anyone has some news about the shelter situated close to the naval base? im worried about these poor dogs....Hope they are all fine...

[Mikiko]

Here is the background about the cargo that exploded. The article was written a week ago. Once again Cyprus fall victim of the power politics of some foreigners.

US GOVERNMENT cables disclosed by WikiLeaks earlier this week depict a Cyprus government overwhelmed by the Monchegorsk incident of early 2009, with Nicosia said to be “looking for a way out” of a diplomatic nightmare that had snuck up on it.

The Monchegorsk, a Cypriot-flagged ship bound for Syria and originating from Iran, was apprehended on January 20 in the Red Sea by US warships. Following an on-board search suspicious military material was reported and the ship was ordered to dock at the port of Limassol.

The United States and Israel maintained that the cargo was in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747 which sanctions Iranian arms exports. Israel claimed that the intended destination of the cargo was Palestinian organisations in the Gaza strip, a claim that Iran denied.

As the WikiLeaks cables reveal, Nicosia was caught in a diplomatic vice - on the one hand, Damascus indicating it would settle for nothing less than the ship being released to continue on to Syria; and on the other, the United States and the European Union making it abundantly clear that was not an option.

The government’s direct involvement seems to have begun on January 27, when attempts were made to contact the ship and instruct it to dock at Limassol.

A team of Cypriot experts proceeded with two inspections of the ship’s cargo on January 29 and February 2. Cyprus then requested from the UN Sanctions Committee to assess whether the findings of the inspections lay within the provisions of the UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions on Iran and sought its recommendations on how to proceed.

Once the breach of UNSC resolutions was confirmed the cargo was confiscated and unloaded onto the island where it was stored in warehouses of the National Guard. The details of the contents from the 98 confiscated containers were not released to the public. The ship was sold for scrapping in 2010.

Those are the broad strokes. But the WikiLeaks documents - classified communications between the State Department and the US Embassy in Nicosia - provide a blow-by-blow account of what was transpiring behind the scenes.

A cable dated January 29, 2009, from then US Ambassador to Cyprus Frank Urbancic, reads: “The RoC [Republic of Cyprus] is clearly feeling the heat and wants to avoid a confrontation with Syria and Iran. [Leonidas] Pantelides [head of the President’s diplomatic office] worries, with reason, that the Monchegorsk incident will break soon into the contentious Cypriot press, and he is looking for a way out before it becomes an embarrassment to the government.”

A subsequent cable, dated 16 April 2009, looks back to Cyprus’ cooperation with the international community as having been “half-hearted.” It reads: “Cyprus's new direction under Christofias has made final resolution of the M/V Monchegorsk incident problematic. Only a full-court international press from the UN Security Council and EU convinced Cyprus to summon the vessel to port for a more thorough inspection and eventual seizure of the cargo.

“Subsequent RoC cooperation with the UN's Iran Sanctions Committee (ISC) has been half-hearted…”

In a cable (January 27, 2009) titled “Cyprus Washing Hands of M/V Monchegorsk?” from the US Embassy here to the State Department, Urbancic attributes Cyprus’ dithering to fears of “Cyprus Problem-related ‘reprisals’ from Damascus”. He goes on to add that Nicosia “hopes to avoid having to interdict and/or divert to an RoC port the M/V Monchegorsk.”

In the same communication, Urbancic says Pantelides informed him that “Cyprus had requested the ship's owner to radio the master to divert to Limassol, but as yet had received no response. ‘This is all that we can do’, Pantelides insisted.”

The cable notes, however, that the US National Security Agency, which was tracking the ship’s communications, discovered otherwise: “NSA contacts report the ship has not received or transmitted radio messages recently.”

Further on, Urbancic comments on why Cyprus was getting “cold feet” (his words): “Greek Cypriots learn Security Council resolutions like others learn their ABCs - early and by heart. No country pays more lip service to their status at the top of the international pyramid. Why, then, the seeming disregard for RoC obligations under 1747 and 1803?”

He goes on: “Contacts ranging from President Christofias to worker bees at the MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] informed us that Cyprus's 2006 decision to interdict the M/V Gregorio, a vessel carrying missile radar equipment from North Korea to Syria, had caused grave damage to its bilateral relations with Damascus. The Syrians had responded by green-lighting regular ferry service between Latakeia and the ‘occupied’ port of Famagusta in the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.’ Highest-level RoC entreaties have failed to compel Damascus to end the sea link, one of the few clear diplomatic blows the Cypriots have taken recently. They worry that further government action against the Monchegorsk might provoke Damascus to take further steps to ‘upgrade’ the

‘TRNC’.”

The leaked US government documents also shed light on some Cypriot officials’ belief that the Syrians would not back off their demands. Dionysis Dionysiou, Middle East Desk Officer at the Foreign Ministry, who had accompanied former Foreign Minister Erato Markoulli on an official visit to Damascus in late 2007, was convinced the Syrians were playing “hardball”. According to Dionysiou’s reading of the situation, “They [the Syrians] felt they had Cyprus in a corner, emboldened by the RoC recently having broken EU consensus to support a UNGA resolution on the Golan Heights. No end-state other than an RoC decision to let the vessel proceed to Latakeia would satisfy the SARG [Syria], Dionysiou predicted. Should that not occur, the Syrians would look to upgrade further their relations with the breakaway ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’, and lobby hard on the ‘TRNC's’ behalf within the OIC [Organisation of the Islamic Conference].”

Focus then shifted on the fate of the ship’s cargo, with Nicosia insisting that any actions it takes must have “UN cover”.

With pressure mounting on Cyprus to take decisive action, the government came up with this idea. According to Urbancic, Pantelides “floated the possibility of transferring the cargo to the United Nations in some creative way. UNFICYP likely was out, owing to its restrictive mandate; also, transfer to UNFICYP likely would require bringing the materiel on land, which the government hoped to avoid. But might UNIFIL [the UN force in Lebanon] be a possibility? Pantelides ventured. That UN mission runs its sea operations out of Limassol. He questioned whether the Monchegorsk's haul could be transferred to a German ship operating under the UN flag, and taken out of Cyprus.”

Urbancic said he “welcomed the creative thinking and promised to follow up with Washington. He emphasized that the aim of the USG was not to punish Cyprus, but to prevent an illegal Iranian arms export.”

The cables also shed light on the US’ carrot-and-stick approach toward Cyprus. On January 29, 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advised the US Embassy here:

“If the ship arrives in Syria, without the ROC's best efforts to support the relevant UNSCRs, the USG would not be able to portray the ROC's actions in the most positive light,” Clinton says.

Meanwhile, the Syrians were working in the wings to influence Cyprus’ decision. An Urbancic email dated January 30, 2009 informs that “Damascus had deployed a high-level envoy to Nicosia, the Syrian Deputy FM, who was applying significant pressure to allow the vessel to depart for Latakeia.”

Urbancic notes that Cypriot maritime officials had conducted a cursory check of the Monchegorsk and discovered significant quantities of high explosives that were “clearly military in nature”.

He goes on to summarise the Cypriot approach: “Should the RoC's attorneys determine the cargo was subject to UNSC sanctions, the overarching Cypriot desire was to remove it soonest from the island, owing to ‘heavy pressure’ from Damascus and Teheran.”

A February 2 cable from the US Embassy describes a conversation between Pantelides and Urbancic: “Pantelides was more blunt than usual in replying. ‘Cyprus will not be able to withstand the pressure much longer, and has to find a way out,’ he claimed, noting that Monchegorsk stories were now dominating local media.”

Pantelides conveyed also to the US Ambassador that “there was no doubt the Monchegorsk was carrying proscribed materiel. That said, Cyprus needed ‘a blue flag (United Nations) solution,’ or otherwise would prefer to send the cargo back to source country Iran.”

On February 13 the ship finally docked at the port of Limassol: “Unloading of the vessel commenced at 0800 and ended at 1030; Emboffs [US Embassy officials] counted 98 containers off-loaded. Port authority contacts report that many of them will remain at quayside for an indeterminate time, as limited truck availability will make cargo transfer to the naval facility at Mari a lengthy and complex undertaking..”

On the same day “a mid-level Foreign Ministry contact told PolChief [US Embassy Political Chief] …that the government was pleased with recent developments on the Monchegorsk matter, as were ‘all major players.’ Pressed to confirm that that list included Syria and Iran, the Cypriot diplomat nodded affirmatively and added, ‘it seems so’.”

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/wikileaks/di ... e/20110703

Why DID NOT send this BOMB to the US with first class courier UPS !