A noisy crowd of about 1,200 staged a march through Nicosia's streets on Wednesday to protest a eurozone bailout deal which delivers a major hit to big bank depositors and will see thousands left jobless. Led by the opposition communist Akel party, protesters waved Cyprus and communist flags as they punched their fists in the air and chanted angry slogans against the "troika" which demanded the severe restrictions, the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Faced with mounting public anger over the EU-IMF bailout deal which he struck, President Nicos Anastasiades is launching a criminal probe into how Cyprus banks were brought to their knees. His cabinet was to have met on Wednesday to appoint an investigator or commission to determine any criminal, moral or administrative responsibility, or uncover cases of incompetence, for the crisis. But as the authorities struggle to have banks reopen on Thursday after a 12-day closure prompted by fears of a run on deposits, the government said it was postponing the meeting by a day.

Cypriots vote in a presidential election Sunday more worried about securing an international bailout for the crisis-hit economy than choosing a leader to bridge the island's decades-old divide. The vote marks the first time since independence in 1960 that progress on reunification with the island's Turkish-occupied northern third has been forced to take a back seat. "The economic crisis has dominated the debate and the Cyprus problem is second by a long distance," political analyst Hubert Faustmann told AFP.