Cyprus - buoyed by gas hopes

Seen through a Brussels-based prism, it is easy to forget just how far to the east Cyprus is.

Lebanon, Syria and Israel are all within a couple of hundred kilometres. To its north is Turkey, to its south Egypt. To fit on euro coins, Cyprus had to be moved several degrees further west.

There is a price to pay for being such a strategically well-placed island.

Down through the years the island has had many masters. In ancient times it knew Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek a...