crime

Welcome to Cyprus traffic violations

OVER 2,000 traffic violations were recorded last weekend by two fixed speed cameras installed on Grivas Dhigenis avenue in Nicosia.

Just give it a minute to sink in. Two thousand violations. In only two days. Recorded by only two fixed cameras (fixed means people know where and when they are). These numbers are mind-blowing. And yet what does the police decide? Here’s what:

Deputy head of the Electromechanical Services Department (ESD) Loucas Timotheou said that no one would be prosecuted or fined, for now.

I think this basically explains the attitude towards the traffic laws. Furthermore:

Timotheou told the Cyprus Mail that the weekend traffic violations caught by the cameras could add up to €100,000 in fines. “Of course, it’s not about the money. It’s about protecting people and making drivers obey traffic laws,” he said.

Two things that catch my attention here are:

Isn’t Cyprus trying to survive a bad economy, scrubbing for money everywhere? Why 100K in two days is completely ignored?
How exactly are you protecting people by recording videos of violators and not issuing fines?

Cyprus Attorney General’s office to buy 600,000 EUR server

Cyprus Updates point out:

According to an article in today’s issue of Phileleftheros newspaper, the Attorney General’s office is planning to purchase a server which will cost more than 600,000 euro in order to analyse the thousands of documents relating to economic scandals. The purchase was proposed by a British expert on the field in order the “strengthen the investigation”.

Always according to the article, the ‘electronic brain’ will store 150000 documents sorted and coded for each suspect for quick retrieval. As any owner of a mid range laptop today will tell you 150000 files are nothing by today’s computer technology and could probably even be analysed by any decent smartphone.

The whole article sounds as if it came out of a late 1960′s newspaper. Even though it made it to the front page we still hope this it was a farce or result of journalistic error.

Cyprus public sector employee worked a total 47 days in 2 years with full pay

Cyprus Updates reports:

an employee of Cyprus Press Information Office (P.I.O), managed to attend work for only 47 days during a 2 year period and get away with it.

The employee under investigation in 2010 showed up to her job for 37 days (followed with 116 days of medical leave) and for just 10 days in 2011. In September 2010 an officer was appointed to conduct a disciplinary investigation and on October 2011 the case was taken to the Attorney General who in April 2012 drafted an indictment which was submitted to the Chairman of the Public Service Commission. In June 2013 after the bureaucratic process finished and after the employee pleaded guilty of the 15 charges she was facing a penalty of 1500 euro was imposed. Finally the employee was to be let go after a decision of the Public Service Commission on 26th March 2014 but to their surprise the employee had already retired prematurely 4 months earlier and now enjoys all pension benefits she would have normally lost had she been fired.

And if all this was not enough, the case has not been closed but has been brought to the Supreme Court because the now ex-employee of P.I.O. is claiming additional 44 days of pay for 2010 which were not approved by the medical board as sick leave.

This is dog crap!

Cyprus Mail reports:

DOG owners who walk their pets but don’t clean up after it is an increasing problem within the Nicosia municipality, which has launched an awareness campaign on the issue.

The campaign is titled: ‘Behind each dog we are looking for a responsible citizen not an uncaring owner’.

As part of the effort, municipal workers are visiting parks handing out flyers and plastic bags to people walking their dog.

And this made me so happy I’m not a dog owner:

Not cleaning after a dog can lead to a fine of €1,700 and/or up to 12 months in jail.

On a serious note, they are right of course. I don’t know how bad it is in Nicosia, but I’ve seen plenty of dog owners in Limassol that just walk away from the steaming pile of crap their dog just left in the middle of the street.

Stealing Mona Lisa

As he entered the Salon Carré, the thief headed straight for the Mona Lisa. Lifting down the painting and carrying it into an enclosed stairwell nearby was no easy job. The painting itself weighs approximately 18 pounds, since Leonardo painted it not on canvas but on three slabs of wood, a fairly common practice during the Renaissance. A few months earlier, the museum’s directors had taken steps to physically protect the Mona Lisa by reinforcing it with a massive wooden brace and placing it inside a glass-fronted box, adding 150 pounds to its weight. The decorative Renaissance frame brought the total to nearly 200 pounds. However, only four sturdy hooks held it there, no more securely than if it had been hung in the house of a bourgeois Parisian. Museum officials would later explain that the paintings were fastened to the wall in this way to make it easy for guards to remove them in case of fire.