Theo Panayides

The little boy doesn't hesitate once. He's only 10 years old – the video was shot in Kakopetria in 2015 – but the piece of charcoal flies across the paper, adding lines at lightning speed: straight lines at right angles, then diagonals, then a frilly fringe. A stray trapezoid forms into a face, the lines collect into a vaguely equine shape. At the end he finally pauses – and an adult hand comes into the frame, prompting him to sign his name: ‘PARIS'.

A photo, taken in the Turkish Cypriot enclave of northern Nicosia in the late 1960s, shows 15-year-old Suleyman posing with his rifle and his best friend, the two lads having heeded the call to perform sentry duty on the newly established Green Line: schoolboys by day, soldiers by night, as he puts it.

Greek Cypriot schoolkids in Nicosia, organised by student committee Psem, protested on the 41st anniversary of the declaration of the ‘TRNC'.

Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier, the unofficial starting point for the festive season – December 1, at least according to Advent calendars – getting progressively pushed back.

Would a close-to-the-bone performance that will ‘shake you up a bit' benefit from being enjoyed by a wider audience?

There are times, admits George Rotos, when he'll run into someone he knows and pretend not to see them – not because he doesn't want to talk to them but the opposite, because he doesn't want to put them in the awkward position of having to talk to

I wrote a number of stories in 2024 that meant a lot to me (the one about the growing use of antidepressants was an eye-opener). In the end, though, the one about asylum seekers stuck in the UN buffer zone resonates most memorably – if only because it wasn't just ‘the one'. I wrote an article, and made a video, in July – then returned for a follow-up in October, meeting many of the same people.

Sometimes a New Year really is a new year. “It’s a new thing for us,” says Aziz Altaany. “It’s a new thing. We lived 50 years with the same dictator family… It’s a new thing for me to write something on Facebook without fear.” Welcome to 2025, not just a…

The BBQ House in Nicosia is the ultimate small business. Only open in the evenings, serving mostly grilled food – kebabs, chops, and so on – it’s run by a married couple, Demetris and Daniella, both of whom have other jobs during the day. Despite the modest scale, its window…

We asked a selection of people on the streets of Nicosia how they see the new year – what they expect will happen and what they hope for, both in their own lives and the world in general.