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@christy3angels CYPRUS GREEK TURKISH CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX MUSLIM BISHOP IMAM FAMAGUSTA CHURCH GOOD FRIDAY JESUS Hundreds of Greek Orthodox pilgrims, some coming home after 40 years of forced exile, commemorated the crucifixion of Jesus in a rare Good Friday service in northern Cyprus on Friday. Held in this medieval walled city in the Turkish part of the divided island, the ceremony at the 14th-century St. George Extorinos church was the idea of local authorities who invited the faithful from the Greek part of the island to visit. A local Muslim cleric joined the service in a sign of interfaith harmony. The traditional procession of an icon of Jesus, which would normally be openly paraded through the streets of a Greek neighborhood, was limited to the church grounds for security reasons and guarded by a strong police presence. A/MANOLIS (A Greek Orthodox bishop and an Islamic cleric attend a Good Friday liturgy at the Church of St. George Exorinos in Famagusta, northern C

A new search has been launched to find some of the UK's most-wanted fugitives thought to be hiding in Cyprus. The National Crime Agency and Crimestoppers list includes 11 men wanted for crimes including rape, fraud and drug smuggling. Anyone with information on the fugitives is asked to call Crimestoppers anonymously It is thought they are evading justice by living in Cyprus as there is a large British community on the island. Five are still being sought as part of an operation launched in 2012, along with six new suspected criminals. After the earlier 2012 campaign - known as Operation Zygos - four of the nine people sought were arrested. The NCA and Crimestoppers are hoping the second appeal will have the same success. All the men have European arrest warrants issued against them

( Reuters ) - Cyprus expects to return to international markets late next year but cannot rule out testing the waters earlier to gauge the appetite for Cypriot debt, the president of the bailed-out Mediterranean nation said on Wednesday. Cyprus' President Nicos Anastasiades arrives at a European Union leaders summit at the EU council headquarters in Brussels December 20, 2013. CREDIT: REUTERS/YVES HERMAN In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said an "economic dependency" on Russia - common with other EU member states - could have an impact should the bloc decide to tighten sanctions on Moscow in its standoff with Ukraine. He also said there should be offsetting measures for those countries whose economies could be directly hit if the crisis escalates and further sanctions are imposed. That could include leaving it to the discretion of member states over what additional curbs to apply, he said. Just a year ago, Cyprus teete

incyprus.philenews.com A MORE active role for the EU in the Cyprus negotiations, plus the return of the fenced-off area of Famagusta as a confidence-building measure (CBM) were at the centre of talks between President Nicos Anastasiades and EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule yesterday. Fule, who is on a two-day visit to the island and will inaugurate the new bi-communal wastewater treatment plant at Mia Milia in Nicosia today, met Anastasiades for an hour yesterday evening. He made no statements after the meeting. A written statement from government spokesman Christos Stylianides said Anastasiades’ efforts at the start of his presidency to see greater involvement from the EU in the talks appeared to having practical results. He said the meeting with Fule was “very productive”. EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule (r) with President Anastasiades last night (Christos Theodorides)

A woman at Aphrodite Rock. Photo: Corbis It's doubtful that Cyprus has witnessed such feasting since its ancient king, Richard the Lionheart, married Princess Berengaria of Navarre in 1191. On a five-day cook's tour of this diverse Mediterranean island, the one constant is the boundless filoxenia, or hospitality, lavished on us by locals. A five-day smorgasbord of food, culture and hospitality in Cyprus. Cypriot hospitality is not just a smile and a greeting; it's a total embrace of strangers. They can't help themselves. You've come all the way from Australia, the adopted home of our families? Sit! Eat! We must celebrate. And so it is that at every lunch and every dinner and even, once, at morning tea, we are greeted by lavish displays of meze dishes that, in Cyprus, make up an entire meal, not just the appetisers. In one sitting it is quite normal to be served up to - and often more than - 20 dishes, all cooked from the heart. Tables warp under the weigh

Department of State, Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs - Overview This volume is part of a Foreign Relations subseries that documents the most important foreign policy issues of the Jimmy Carter administration. The focus of this volume is on U.S. policy towards the Eastern Mediterranean region. The Carter administration’s major goals during this period were to broker a peace deal to unify Cyprus, which was divided since the Turkish invasion of 1974; to lift the arms embargo enacted by Congress on Turkey as a result of the invasion; and to reintegrate Greece into the NATO military alliance, from which Athens had withdrawn in protest of Turkey’s actions in Cyprus. President Carter was keenly interested in securing a negotiated settlement between the divided Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, and he made it a high-level priority at the outset of his term. Despite intensive efforts headed by the Department of State and Carter’s emissary Clark Clifford, an agre

Cypriot lawmakers must make it easier for banks to seize property when borrowers default to tackle the issue of bad loans, the country’s most pressing issue, central bank governor Panicos Demetriades said. Borrowers who intentionally fail to repay loans need to be reined in, Demetriades said in an interview yesterday in Athens. A possible political fight may delay planned legislation to tackle the Mediterranean nation’s stock of bad debt, he said. The law is required under the country’s 10 billion-euro ($13.8 billion) international rescue put together a year ago. “There’s a lot of strategic default happening,” Demetriades said. “Borrowers need to know that there’s a consequence when you don’t pay. It’s still the case that the banks are not able to basically carry out any repossessions in any meaningful timeframe. That’s the top priority now, to address NPLs,” or non-performing loans. Photographer: Yiannis Kourtoglou/AFP - via Getty Images -Central Bank Governor Panicos Demet

Marina and Elena: A Lesbian Love Story From Russia.  MARINA & ELENA When they come home from their office jobs to a small two-room apartment in a tiny town outside of Moscow, Marina and Elena change into almost-matching pajamas with cat-and-paw-print patterns. They are both 28, and they have been living together for less than a year. Their story began in preschool, when Marina was in love with a boy named Kolya. They were so taken with each other that their parents ended up becoming good friends, staying in touch even after Marina and Kolya’s romance faded. Marina and Kolya grew up and both married different people when they were 20—no younger than most Russians. Marina had a son.

- despite having less stringent restrictive measures than almost a year ago, the banking system remains stable The calm after the storm: developments in Cyprus’ banking sector the Central Bank of Cyprus released new data on key aggregate financial stability indicators, including provisional data for the fourth quarter of 2013. Our preliminary figures show some improvement in the profitability and capital adequacy ratios of the Cypriot banking system, reflecting the progress made on restructuring last year. The facts Although the banking system as a whole is still not generating profits, losses were much more moderate during 2013 than the year before; the total losses before tax from continuing operations (not taking into account the parts of the business that have been disincorporated due to restructuring or other reasons) stood at less than 1% of total assets for the last quarter of 2013, while the ratio for return on assets (after tax profit/losses on a discontinued operati

NICOSIA ( Reuters ) - Bailed-out Bank of Cyprus is reviewing its restructuring plans in a move that could result in billions of euros of its troubled assets being put into a "bad bank", chief executive John Hourican said. Hourican took the top job at Cyprus' largest bank in October after it was rescued during an international bail-out of the island, which had run into financial problems partly because of the exposure to debt-laden Greece. At that time, a plan to put the bank's 22 billion euros ($30.32 billion) of good and bad loans into one legal entity was just being finalized. This plan also envisaged the bank remaining reliant on some emergency funding from the Central Bank of Cyprus until 2017. View/Submit Comments for this story But Hourican, former investment banking head at Royal Bank of Scotland , wants to look again at all the options. "We have appointed HSBC to help us look at our overall corporate finance agenda including the entire stru

Cyprus will want to be compensated for economic losses that will result from further sanctions imposed on Russia, the island’s President Nicos Anastasiades said in a statement issued following the March 20-12 EU Council that discussed the Ukraine situation. “The next phase of restrictive measures will admittedly include extensive consequences on the economic and other relations between the European Union - and its member states - and Russia. Our country is not only facing our national problem but is also under a financial assistance program. This factor cannot be ignored or overlooked. As other member states we cannot accept measures affecting Cyprus tourism, our banking system or our services sector,” Anastasiades said. “In such a case and if there is a need for such a development, which obviously will require a new decision at European Council level, Cyprus calls for, and considers as a precondition, that the competent bodies of the EU will conduct a relevant study, both for t

Following the economic crisis and with a new agreement on the table, there is unprecedented impetus for unifying Cyprus—but the two sides must overcome their violent history. As deep-seated tensions and divisions elsewhere in Europe reach breaking point, away from the headlines the small island of Cyprus has taken another faltering step towards a long overdue unification. This outpost of Europe, adrift in the turbulent seas of the Middle East, has been split for the last 40 years between a Greek south and Turkish north. In the last few weeks, however, progress towards unification has been made. After months of painstaking negotiation, a joint agreement has been signed between the two leaders, Nicos Anastasiades and Dervis Eroglu, paving the way for UN-backed unification talks—suspended for the past 18 months—to restart. Since then, negotiators from both sides have paid a visit to each other’s powerful backers, Athens and Ankara, a move unprecedented in its positivity. But at the

Marcos Baghdatis (143-CYP) didn't quite take back the ship's helm in the second set last night at the Sony Open, but he did let Santiago Giraldo (65-COL) know he wasn't captain anymore. It looked like heavy seas and strong winds for Baghdatis during the first leg (set) of this voyage and then he decided to right his ship and come back from 2-5 to win the second set. Giraldo was hitting some well-paced nearly flat ground strokes that Baghdatis could have mostly covered in the first set, but he seemed to be a little flat on his feet and not quite engaged. I thought he was hanging out a little too much in his deuce court or at least leaning toward it. One is not any better (or worse) than the other if that where one's mind and physical energy are focused - it's a disadvantage. I imagine he was expecting some cross-court backhand rallies, but Giraldo would abruptly halt such nonsense with a crisp backhand winner down the line. I was pulling for Baghdatis, not

Cypriot immigration authorities routinely detain hundreds of migrants and asylum-seekers in prison-like conditions for extended periods while awaiting deportation, said Amnesty International. Those detained include Syrian refugees and women separated from their young children. Evidence gathered by researchers during a recent visit to Cyprus indicates that the authorities are exploiting European Union (EU) laws – imposing automatic detention of migrants and asylum-seekers without implementing the required safeguards, which make detention a last resort. The practice is also a breach of international law. “By detaining scores of people for months at a time, Cyprus is displaying a chilling lack of compassion and a complete disregard for its international obligations,” said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Head of Refugee and Migrants’ Rights at Amnesty International. Hundreds of migrants and asylum-seekers are held in prison-like conditions in Cyprus while awaiting deportation. © Amnesty Inter

Cyprus is by many characterized as a paradise on earth. Some people claim that this is the island of Love, while some others refer to Cyprus as the island of Beauty. Below are listed some of the key reasons why Cyprus can act as an absolute temptation for both locals and foreigners. 1. Because Love has its origins in Cyprus Cyprus, is the original birthplace of the goddess of Love, the beautiful Aphrodite. The goddess is thought to have stepped ashore on the island by making it her mother country. Birth place of Aphrodite

planespotters.net CY sells Heathrow slot to Middle East Airlines Cyprus Airways has agreed to sell its night slot at London’s Heathrow airport for €6.3 million to Middle East Airlines, it was announced on Thursday. In a statement issued to the stock market, the company said the deal is part of the restructuring plan submitted to the European Commission, which calls for the consolidation of the troubled airline with a view to becoming commercially viable. As a result, the statement continues, as of March 25, 2014, Cyprus Airways will operate one flight to and from Heathrow, departing Larnaca at 10 am and landing in London at 1.05 pm – local time – with the return flight leaving London at 2.25 pm and arriving to Larnaca at 9.00 pm. dailymail.co.uk

NICOSIA: Cypriot central bank governor Panicos Demetriades, whose testy relations with island’s government dogged a tumultuous tenure when Cyprus teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, resigned Monday. Demetriades’ resignation was accepted by President Nicos Anastasiades, an official statement from the Cypriot presidency said. Demetriades will work out his notice until April 10. Anastasiades had said in September 2013 he might ask the Supreme Court to rule on whether Demetriades, an appointee of Cyprus’ former communist administration, could be sacked. Tensions between the two men have simmered for months, bursting into open animosity when the right-wing Anastasiades was elected Cypriot president a year ago. There was no immediate official word on why Demetriades resigned. Two sources with knowledge of the matter said Demetriades submitted his letter of resignation to Cypriot Finance Minister Haris Georgiades, who was in Brussels for a Eurogroup meeting. Cyprus’ Centra

BEIRUT: Lebanese banks have asked the Cypriot central bank to remove all restrictions on residents seeking to open accounts at the country’s banks operating on the island. “Lebanese banks urged the Cypriot central bank to lift restrictions on residents, whether they are individuals or companies, on opening accounts at the branches of Lebanese banks in Cyprus, even for those seeking permanent residence or Cypriot nationality,” the Association of Banks in Lebanon said. The statement was featured in an article that was published in ABL’s monthly magazine. It added that the Cypriot central bank had promised to study the request made by the Lebanese banks as soon as possible. Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh headed a large Lebanese bank delegation to Cyprus last month to examine ways to offer letters of credit to Cypriot merchants and traders who want to export goods to the European Union. Salameh is in Washington for an annual meeting of World Bank and IMF officia

photos.al.com ANSAmed  - NICOSIA, MARCH Cyprus: Russian military hold exercises in Mediterranean - The Admiral Kuznetsov docked at Limassol port for re-supply Russian fighter jets and helicopters have started training flights over the Mediterranean Sea, Famagusta Gazette online reports today quoting a Russian navy spokesman as saying. Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier is involved in the exercises, and the training included tactics for engaging aerial targets and other battle techniques. The Admiral Kuznetsov docked at Limassol port for re-supply at the end of February. The vessel is Russia's only operational aircraft carrier and currently stationed in the Eastern Mediterranean. www.lgcnews.com