Elizabeth Mazzocchi's rape detail against Esai Morales

Elizabeth Mazzocchi claims that Esai Morales, whose biggest claim to fame is appearing in 61 episodes of “NYPD Blue”, raped her. The supposed rape took place at the house Mazzocchi and Morales shared in the gray Lake area of Los Angeles but the judge has one major difficulty with Mazzocchi’s claim. Mazzocchi continued to live with Morales 15 months following the alleged physical attack which led the LA district attorney to make a decision that there were no grounds to bring charges against Morales. “Mr. Morales is pleased to be vindicated . . . We never looked at it as anything other than Liz Mazzocchi’s being disgruntled,” stated his lawyer, Richard Charnley.

There were never any charges filed against Mr. Morales due to insufficient evidence," said his lawyer, Richard Charnley. "There was an inquiry because the DA has to look at every claim, but my client was never charged with a crime, never arrested, never interviewed by police.

"Mr. Morales is pleased to be vindicated . . . We never looked at it as anything other than Liz Mazzocchi's being disgruntled."

Sick of ‘Danny Boy,’ the press is calling

Foley’s Bar in Manhattan has officially banned the song for the month of March. OK, so maybe it’s just a great publicity stunt in time for the 17th, but they’ve nevertheless started quite a conversation.

Malachy McCourt gave a history of the song on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, explaining how it is that the lyrics were written by an Englishman. The song’s appeal, McCourt says, has to do with the power of Irish sentimentality. “Memories of great tragedies,” he says, “sustain us in moments of great joy.”

Meanwhile Brian Lehrer is asking people of other ethnicities a great question: What’s your cultural equivalent of “Danny Boy”?

So far “Roll out the Barrel” is a winner for Polish Americans, and for Jewish Americans, anything from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

It's depressing, it's not usually sung in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day, and its lyrics were written by an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil.

Those are only some of the reasons why a Manhattan pub owner is banning the song "Danny Boy" for the entire month of March.

"It's overplayed, it's been ranked among the 25 most depressing songs of all time and it's more appropriate for a funeral than for a St. Patrick's Day celebration," said Shaun Clancy, who owns Foley's Pub and Restaurant, across the street from the Empire State Building.

The 38-year-old Clancy, who started bartending when he was 12 at his father's pub in County Cavan, Ireland, promised a free Guinness to patrons who sing any other traditional Irish song at the pub's pre-St. Patrick's Day karaoke party on Tuesday.

The lyrics for "Danny Boy," published in 1913, were written by English lawyer Frederick Edward Weatherly, who never even visited Ireland, according to Malachy McCourt, author of the book "Danny Boy: The Legend of the Beloved Irish Ballad."

He said Weatherly's sister-in-law had sent him the music to an old Irish song called "The Derry Air," and the new version became a hit when opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink recorded it in 1915.

Some say the song is symbolic of the great Irish diaspora, with generations of Irish fleeing the famine and poor economic conditions starting around 1850. Others speculate it's sung by a mother grieving for her son or by a desolate lover. Lyrics include: "The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying/ 'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide."

"Danny Boy" was recorded by Bing Crosby in the 1940s, served as the theme song of television's "Danny Thomas Show" from 1953 to 1964. It has been performed by singers ranging from Judy Garland and Elvis Presley to Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.

At least one patron at Foley's was glad to hear the song was banned from the pub for the rest of the month.

The song is "all right, but I get fed up with hearing it — it's like the elections," Martin Gaffney, 73, said in a thick Irish brogue.

Gaffney said Wednesday he looked forward to crooning his own Irish favorites, such as "Molly Malone" — whose own theme is hardly a barrel of laughs.

A sort of unofficial anthem of Dublin also known as "Cockles and Mussels," the song tells the tale of a beautiful fishmonger who plies her trade on city streets and dies young of a fever.

Now heal the wound, comrades

A FUNNY thing happened on the edge of Europe last week, when the second round of a presidential election on a divided Mediterranean island yielded a communist victor.

Even more peculiar, arguably, was the reaction in some European capitals to this development: Jose Manuel Barroso, the head of the European Commission in Brussels, described it as an excellent opportunity “to overcome the longstanding stalemate”, while David Miliband, the British foreign secretary saw the election result offering “a renewed sense of hope”.

Perhaps most remarkable of all is the reaction of Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, who has been speaking in terms of putting Cyprus back together again through a negotiated settlement “by the end of 2008”.

The reaction to the election of Demetris Christofias has not been uniformly positive, however. One member of AKEL, as the communist party in Cyprus is known, has been quoted as saying: “Sensible people are calling me, asking whether, as atheist communists, we’ll close down churches, abolish religious education classes and even stop Greek language and culture being taught in schools.”

Christofias, who holds a doctorate in history from the Soviet-era Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow, has been irked by suggestions that he could turn out to be “a Mediterranean Fidel Castro”; he prefers to describe AKEL as “a party that cares for social justice” rather than as a Marxist-Leninist entity that poses a threat to the capitalist way of life in Cyprus.

AKEL traces its origins back to the foundation of the Communist Party of Cyprus in 1927, making it the oldest political organisation in the country. After years of victimisation by the British colonial authorities, it was reinvented as AKEL in 1946.

Unlike most of the post-communist parties on the European mainland, it has persisted with traditional communist imagery of the hammer and sickle variety, and banners featuring Che Guevara were much in evidence during victory celebrations in Nicosia last week.

However, notwithstanding the ideological contents of its constitutional manifesto, there aren’t many grounds for suspecting the party’s intent is anything other than moderately social democratic, or for doubting Christofias when he says his government will “work within the framework of the free market”.

While this is disappointing in some ways — it would have been interesting, to say the least, to see how the European Union (EU) would have coped with a member boasting a radical socialist agenda — the woes of Cyprus are primarily political in nature, and it is on this front that the advent of Christofias has rekindled hopes that were dashed four years ago when Greek Cypriots voted down a United Nations proposal for the reunification of Cyprus on the basis of a loose federation.

At the time, President Tassos Papadopoulos — whose second-term ambitions were thwarted in the first round of the presidential election last month — vociferously advocated a no vote in the referendum, and AKEL came down on the same side at the last minute. Rauf Denktash, too, was less than enthusiastic about Kofi Annan’s plan, but Turkish Cypriots ignored him and voted overwhelmingly in favour of reunification.

Brussels was keen on a reunified Cyprus joining the EU; ironically, those who voted against the Annan plan were allowed in, while those who backed it were left out. The Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, which Denktash established in 1983, has never been recognised by any country other than Turkey and North Korea. A trade embargo against the entity has entailed a great deal of economic pain, including an unemployment rate now estimated to be in the vicinity of 50 per cent.

The Annan plan offered them political parity and a great deal of autonomy within a federation; it would have allowed them to hold on to roughly one-third of the island, disproportionate to their numerical strength. It would also have permitted a fraction of the 35,000 Turkish troops stationed in north Cyprus to remain there for the time being. All of which helps to explain why Greek Cypriots were far more ambivalent about the UN proposals.

Given its ethnic composition — largely Greek — and its physical proximity to Turkey, it’s hardly surprising that Cyprus has had a convoluted, and often violent, history. The Turkish component of its population dates back to the Ottoman era. In the late 19th century, control of the island was ceded to the British in return for their assistance in the Russo-Turkish war.

Britain annexed Cyprus in 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, and recruited Cypriots to the war effort by promising union with Greece afterwards. The same ploy was used during the Second World War, whereafter the colonial power had to contend with growing local resistance, sometimes coordinated between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

Cyprus was granted independence in 1960, and serious ethnic strife surfaced some three years later, partly as a consequence of the divide-and-rule strategies implemented by the British. UN troops have patrolled the island ever since. The big break came in 1974, when the military junta in Greece instigated a coup, backed by the CIA, against the reasonably popular government of Archbishop Makarios.

He managed to elude would-be assassins and escaped abroad, from where he denounced what he described as an invasion. At this point Turkey — which technically shared responsibility for the island’s security alongside Greece and Britain — deemed it opportune to intervene militarily, occupying the parts over which Denktash subsequently established his rule.

In recent years, Turkey has been keen on a negotiated solution to the divide, if only because its occupation of one-third of Cyprus is incompatible with its urge for full EU membership. The circumstances for a settlement are propitious, not least because about three years ago, Denktash was succeeded by a left-wing critic, Mehmet Ali Talat. It so happens that he and Christofias have long been on cordial terms, not least on account of AKEL’s involvement in the trade union movement. Fortuitously, it is also the case that politicians on the left are far less likely to be prey to the ethnic prejudices that have for so long bedevilled the island.

It would be futile to pretend, however, that the road ahead will be anything other than bumpy. There are plenty of complications to be resolved and almost no chance in the short term of an ideal solution that would enable all Cypriots, regardless of their origin, to coexist side by side. A bizonal, bicommunal federal won’t exactly dispense with the divide, but it will undoubtedly render it less unpalatable — and serve, hopefully, as the first step towards a rebirth in which ethnicity becomes redundant.

It would be almost criminal to squander the opportunity that has arisen. The concept of enosis — amalgamation with Greece — lost its validity a long time ago. Athens and Ankara would, in all probability, both be relieved to see the Cyprus knot untangled. Britain has shown no inclination to remove the two huge military bases it maintains in Cyprus, but the republic’s new president has described them as a “colonial bloodstain”, and a political settlement would make it easier for Nicosia to demand their removal.

The progress of Comrade Christofias will be followed with keen interest.


By Mahir Ali

NATO seeks Russia's help in Afghanistan

NATO official MOSCOW, March 5 (AFP): A senior NATO official said here on Wednesday the alliance was seeking Russia's help in Afghanistan, particularly with transporting NATO forces and equipping the Afghan army. Robert Simmons, NATO's special envoy for the Caucasus and Central Asia, told journalists Russian help could include “regular use of Russian transport to get supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan, possible Russian contributions to the re-equipment of the Afghan army.” He said NATO and Russia had “common ground” on Afghanistan and that he would hold discussions with Russian officials on possible help from Moscow. Russia's President Vladimir Putin is due to attend a summit NATO in Romania on April 2-4.

Hollywood divided over Cotillard’s 9/11 comments

LOS ANGELES : Hollywood insiders are scratching their heads over comments by French Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, with some asking whether her questioning of the events of Sept 11 will damage her international career.

“I think we’re lied to about a lot of things,” Cotillard said during a television programme first broadcast last year which has resurfaced on the internet.

The actress who picked up the award for playing Edith Piaf in the French film “La Vie En Rose” cited the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 as one example, adding: “I tend to believe in the conspiracy theory.” In the video, the 32-year-old Parisian talks about watching films on the internet challenging the official version of the Sept 11 attacks, saying “its fascinating, even addictive”.

She continues: “Did man really walk on the moon? Me, I’ve seen a fair few documentaries on the subject. That, really, I question. In any case I don’t believe everything people tell me, that’s for sure.”

Cotillard’s lawyer Vincent Toledano said she had “never intended to contest nor question the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and regrets the way old remarks have been taken out of context”. The comments reverberated in Hollywood.“Only a week after picking up her best actress Oscar, Marion Cotillard’s unconventional views on the Sept 11 terrorist attacks have come to light,” the Hollywood journal Variety wrote.

“It remains to be seem what effect the revelation of her beliefs will have on her future in US films,” it said.

In its entertainment supplement The Envelope, the Los Angeles Times wrote: “Normally, it takes Oscar winners at least a few months or years to land in trouble, but Marion Cotillard could set a new record thanks to some bizarre comments she made last year that are now triggering a hubbub just days after her best-actress victory.”

Prior to snatching the coveted gold statuette, the French beauty signed on to two other Hollywood films: police flick “Public Enemies” and a film version of the musical “Nine”. A spokesman for Universal Studios, distributor of “Public Enemies”, did not immediately return call seeking a reaction.