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TALES FROM THE COFFEESHOP: WE ARE ALL PROUD TO BE CALLED ‘MOSSAD’ AGENTS · penna!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Public Works Department was always notorious for its legendary inefficiency.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was traditionally the employer of a special type of public parasite, the type that is less productive than the average employee of the state.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of jokes about the way the public works department operates, and on Friday I saw the epic inefficiency with my own eyes.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Outside the building that houses the Cypress Mail Office on Lemesos Avenue, there was a group of men in the familiar phosphorescent orange gillets, talking rather loudly outside a big truck, with a sticker on the door saying Department of Public Works.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: A few yards from the truck, where workmen in the orange gillets were loudly chatting, two of their colleagues were placing a pole with the sign Tax Council in a hole they had made in the pavement.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: They had poured freshly made cement into the hole to make the sign stay in place.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: They then rejoined their colleagues to confer about the project they successfully completed.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: The astonishing thing was that six workers had been sent out to do this job in two different vehicles.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: When they departed, two of the men went into a service pickup truck to return to base.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Six workmen were paid to make a small hole in the pavement and stick a pole in it.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: They also had to mix half a bucket of cement.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And to this the department sent out a diesel guzzling industrial truck and a pickup truck to carry the pole and bag of cement.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can only guess that the team of six was made up of two drivers, a supervisor, a cement maker, and two laborers, who placed the pole into the ground.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to take a picture of the workman with my phone, but I only got three of them in the frame, because I was spotted by one of them, and he demanded to know what I was doing.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I fled for fear there was also an enforcer hiding in the truck with the job of dealing with troublesome members of the public.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, dear customer, when you are filling out your tax declaration this month, do not feel resentful about the money you will pay.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Inland Revenue Department, because your moolah is being used very prudently by the state.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: After the success of his Suicide Bomber Act, which cleared the main obstacle to his Democratic rally candidacy, Avrov Neofitu has now decided to market himself as the man of the people, who will help low earners cope with the rising cost of living.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: He held a news conference on Friday to announce his brilliant plan to bring down fuel prices and thus protect our people.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: He urged the Prez, who was attending a European Council meeting, to call for the lifting of the EU's energy sanctions against Russia.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was a time for bold decisions, Avaroff said, adding that as the Yanks had eased sanctions on Russian diesel, the EU should do the same.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: For most of his career, Avarov was one of the most pragmatic politicians, but he must have decided that to have a chance of being elected, he should emigrate to Cloudkukuland and embrace the loony populist ideology.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, he publicly called on his fellow Paphite to propose to EU leaders to lift sanctions on Russian oil, although the probability of this happening is less than zero.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: The pragmatic Avrov of the past, quite rightly, would have laughed at any politician that made such an insane suggestion.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: But now we have to deal with Avarov in Wonderland.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: First, the idea that the press of a midget state like Kaipula would be taken seriously by his fellow leaders if he made such a suggestion is a bit far fetched, especially at a time when anti Putin paranoia is at its peak in EU states.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Europeans have turned against President Trump for lifting sanctions on Russian diesel, which they see as betrayal of Ukraine.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there is no chance in hell they would heed Avarov's advice conveyed by our press.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: In this regard, Avarov is repeating the neak myth that Kiprula is a big player, the wield's great influence in the EU.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest myth, though, is the misleading idea that by lifting sanctions against Russian oil fuel prices will come tumbling down in no time, and Avarov's master plan would prove a mega success.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Next week he will ask our press to urge Trump to make peace with Iran so that fuel prices fall further, and the protection of our people is secured forever.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our love affair with Israel was taken to another level last week, with six deputies launching the Kipula chapter of the Israel Allies Foundation IAF, which is an international pro-Israel organization.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: A few weeks earlier, the same deputies had launched a local chapter of the Transatlantic Friends of Israel.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: An IAF delegation, headed by Josh Rinstein, was welcomed to the presidential palace by Presniktvo, who has developed into an ultra loyal associate of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: The love affair, which is rather one way, has blossomed in the last few years, thanks to the rising tension between Israel and Turkey, whose once close relations have degenerated into an intense hostility over Gaza and range of other geopolitical issues.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now Israel's government feels comfortable referring to the Turkish occupation of Cyprus, something it had avoided doing for decades after the invasion.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: The IAF chapter was set up on the initiative of Democratic Party Deputy Croesis Pantellides, who had come across the network on his parliamentary visits abroad.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Two deputies, each from the Democratic Rally and the National Popular Front, joined the chapter.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: There was no issue of double standards in supporting Israel, Pantelides said, because although Israeli forces occupy certain territories, it was unfair to compare the Palestinian issue with the Cyprus problem, because there had never been a Palestinian state.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: This presumably made some military occupations better than others.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: What is astonishing is how far the Democratic Party has traveled.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Back in the nineteen seventies, nineteen eighties, it was part of the Anti Israel Axis with the Progressive Party of the Working People and the Socialist Party, extolling the virtues of Yasser Arafat and slamming Israel at every opportunity.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Backed by the Soviet Union, the members of the Anti Israel Axis would attack anyone who dared express even mild support for Israel back then, labeling them Mossad agents.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: But now that Israel has turned against Turkey, we are all proud to be called Mossad agents.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: An EU ambassador, speaking to a customer of our establishment, said that many member states were exasperated with the attitude of Kiprula in Brussels.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, it has become a practice of our delegations to criticize the speaker of any country that takes a rational, more neutral approach to the Cyprus problem.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Such people are immediately attacked for not showing solidarity for a fellow member state.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: The result, the ambassador said, is that nobody bothers to express an opinion when the Cyprus problem is raised in some way.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is just not worth the trouble.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Kai Pruula will join the Schengen area, which was supposed to have happened, according to our press, during Kiprulla's presidency of the EU Council that ended in June in twenty twenty six.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Admittedly, it is difficult to believe anything the government says about Schengen.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Several months ago, it was saying that all technical requirements had been completed, and we were now waiting for the political decision.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Last weekend, Deputy Migration Minister Nicholas Iovanides said the government expected to complete six outstanding actions by early November, after which it would inform the European Commission that it is technically ready.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: The only problem is that approval must be given by all twenty nine member states of the Schengen area, something that only our press treats as a certainty.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: The EU member states that our delegations fall out with over the Cyprus problem might want to get their own back by keeping poor old Kipula out of Schengen.