Thousands marched for gay rights in the capital of Nicosia despite a counter-demonstration by conservative Christians and clerics.
Cyprus’s Parliament will vote on a bailout imposed by the EU, with approval likely from a thin majority against calls for the island to exit the euro.
Cyprus’s finance minister has resigned after concluding a €10-billion bailout deal with international lenders.
Cyprus’ ministers have met to rework a plan to seize money from bank deposits before a parliamentary vote that might threaten the island’s finances.
Cypriots have gone to the polls to elect a president who must negotiate a financial rescue to save the island country from its economic crisis.
No image available
/ 10 December 2008
Protesters threw fire bombs at police outside Parliament on Wednesday during a strike which paralysed Greece and piled pressure on the government.
Greek and Turkish Cypriots on Thursday pulled down barricades that have separated them for half a century, reopening Ledra Street, a potent symbol of Cyprus’s ethnic partition. The highly symbolic gesture comes as the two communities prepare talks to end the Mediterranean island’s division.
Leaders of Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish communities agreed on Friday to relaunch reunification talks and to open a barricaded street in Nicosia that symbolises the island’s division. It was the first meeting between Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat since Christofias was elected to the Cypriot presidency last month.
Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders may soon erase the most potent symbol of the island’s division, by reopening a bullet-pocked crossing between the two sides closed for nearly half a century. Hopes of ending decades of estrangement were revived after last month’s election of Cyprus President Demetris Christofias.
Greek Cypriots razed to the ground a symbol of Cyprus’s decades-old division running through the heart of the capital Nicosia and challenged Turkey to respond by withdrawing its troops from the area. Demolition work on a concrete barrier in Nicosia’s Ledra Street ceased by dawn on Friday, exposing a corridor of crumbling buildings untouched for decades.