Cyprus was placed under the United Kingdom's administration based on the Cyprus Convention in 1878 and was formally annexed by the UK in 1914. The future of the island became a matter of disagreement between the two prominent ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots, who made up 77% of the population in 1960, and Turkish Cypriots, who made up 18% of the population. From the 19th century onwards, the Greek Cypriot population pursued enosis, union with Greece, which became a Greek national policy in the 1950s. The Turkish Cypriot population initially advocated the continuation of the British rule, then demanded the annexation of the island to Turkey, and in the 1950s, together with Turkey, established a policy of taksim, the partition of Cyprus and the creation of a Turkish polity in the north. (Full article...)
On 25 March 2013, a €10 billion international bailout by the Eurogroup, European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB), and International Monetary Fund (IMF) was announced, in return for Cyprus agreeing to close the country's second-largest bank, the Cyprus Popular Bank (also known as Laiki Bank), imposing a one-time bank deposit levy on all uninsured deposits there, and seizing possibly around 48% of uninsured deposits in the Bank of Cyprus (the island's largest commercial bank). A minority proportion of it was held by citizens of other countries (many of whom from Russia), who preferred Cypriot banks because of their higher interest on bank account deposits, relatively low corporate tax, and easier access to the rest of the European banking sector. This resulted in numerous insinuations by US and European media, which presented Cyprus as a "tax haven" and suggested that the prospective bailout loans were meant for saving the accounts of Russian depositors. No insured depositof€100,000 or less would be affected, though 47.5% of all bank deposits above €100,000 were seized. (Full article...)
Image 17Ioannis Kigalas (c. 1622–1687) was a Nicosia born Greek Cypriot scholar and professor of philosophy who was largely active in the 17th century. (from Cyprus)
Image 53Laouto, dominant instrument of the Cypriot traditional music (from Cyprus)
Image 54Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, consecrated in 1328, the largest medieval building in Famagusta, where the Kings of Cyprus were crowned also as Kings of Jerusalem. In 1571 having fallen to the Ottoman Empire it became the Mosque of Mağusa, and remains a mosque today (from History of Cyprus)
Image 55Typical Cypriot architecture in old part of Nicosia, Cyprus (from Cyprus)
Image 56Turkish rally in Nicosia in January 1958 (from Cyprus problem)
Image 57Red-polished ceramics from Enkomi, 1900–1725 BC. St. Barnabas Archaeological Museum, Salamis, Cyprus (from History of Cyprus)
Image 58Varosha (Maraş), a suburb of Famagusta, was abandoned when its inhabitants fled in 1974 and remains under Turkish military control. (from Cyprus)
![Image 27Cypri insvla nova descript 1573, Ioannes á Deutecum f[ecit]. Map of Cyprus newly drawn by Johannes van Deutecom, 1573. (from Cyprus)](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atlas_Ortelius_KB_PPN369376781-073av-073br.jpg)
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