By Petros Petrides

NICOSIA mens jordan 6 unc shoes , Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- The less than one million population of Cyprus started New Year 2014 on Wednesday on an upbeat note despite more austerity on the way after a year of harsh economic hardship.

Finance Minister Haris Georgiades was able to proclaim the eastern Mediterranean island's economy definitely out of danger of default and on the right track.

However, 2014 dawned on Cypriots with more salary and pension cuts and tax hikes as well as a further reduction in government spending dictated by international lenders.

Cyprus reached a 10-billion euro (13.7-billion U.S. dollar) bailout agreement with the Eurogroup and the International Monetary Fund early in 2013 after it had been shut out of international markets following repeated downgrades by rating agencies in 2012.

Public sector workers and pensioners will forfeit a further 3 percent of their income and shoulder additional pension and social security contributions, plus a hike of one percentage point on Value Added Tax which will go up to 19 percent and 5 cents on each litre of fuel, amounting to a rise of about 3.5 percent.

In all cheap womens jordan 6 unc , 10 new austerity measures will become a feature of everyday life for most Cypriots.

If all these sound harsh, 2013 was even worse for Cyprus which saw its thriving economy crumple down overnight after its lenders demanded a world-first recapitalization of its largest bank with depositors' money -- which has now become the standard European Union practice in the case of failing banks -- and forced the winding down of the island's second largest lender.

This had caused a liquidity squeeze which choked the financial sector and the real economy. Yet, despite predictions of a further contraction of the economy in 2014 by about 4.5 percent before a modest recovery in 2015, most Cypriots are optimistic that the worst is over. Their optimism was made manifest by brisk shopping during the New Year holiday period compared to the sluggish business of the past year and is also reflected in the daily conversations of Cypriots.

Tourism cheap mens jordan 6 unc , the main income earner for Cyprus after the demise of its banking system, performed better than expected, with hundreds of thousands of Russians arriving during the off-peak autumn period. On top of providing badly needed income, tourism helped cut back the rate in the increase of unemployment womens jordan 6 unc for sale , now standing at just over 16 percent.

Most economists believe that a similar performance by tourism this year plus a modest amount of new money in investment, not more than 500 million euros, will be enough to help the economy take off again because of its small size and agility.

Cyprus' annual economy amounts to about 17 billion euros and represents 0.2 percent of the European Union's economy.

Both government officials and economists believe that it will not be hard to soon attract foreign investment given the internal depreciation in the form of lower wages, a drop in real estate values and returning credibility.

This sentiment of optimism was echoed in a New Year's message by President Nicos Anastasiades who said that "the New Year will mark the beginning of the regeneration of our country."

Drake mens jordan 6 unc for sale , the Toronto rapper whose latest album Views has topped this year's charts, followed his success Monday with a film set to the music.

Entitled Please Forgive Me, the 21-minute movie was shot in the South African township of Soweto and features tracks from Views.

Please Forgive Me starts with a wealthy man offering Drake's girlfriend, played by Belgian actress Fanny Neguesha womens jordan 6 retro unc , money for the chance to sleep with her. It turns into an action flick as she and Drake seize the money.

The film also stars Jamaican dancehall artist Popcaan and Bob Nameng, whose nonprofit Soweto Kliptown Youth gives opportunities to street children through arts.

Please Forgive Me was directed by Anthony Mandler, best known for filming videos by Rihanna. In 2013 he led a film of similar length by singer Lana Del Rey.

Drake released Please Forgive Me exclusively on Apple Music.

Views has been the top-selling album released in 2016 in the US. On Sunday it returned to No.1 on the Billboard chart.

By Xinhua writers Yang Chunxue, Yu Fei

BEIJING mens jordan 6 retro unc , April 23 (Xinhua) -- Yu Jun aimed his telescope at a bright star in the night sky. A moment later, a dim light passed across it, along the very path foreign astronomy websites had forecast.

"Dongfanghong-1," Yu Jun noted in his observer diary.

"I can hardly believe that several decades after its launch womens jordan 6 unc 2017 , China's first satellite can still be seen. It's amazing," he exclaims.

The launch of Dongfanghong-1 on April 24, 1970 marked China's entry into a new epoch of space exploration.

But less-well understood is how China developed high-end space technologies during impoverished and turbulent times.

GREAT LEAP FORWARD

In 1957, the Soviet Union and United States each launched their first satellites mens jordan 6 unc 2017 , officially starting a space race. A year later, Chinese leader Chairman Mao Zedong proposed, "We too should produce satellites."

Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences began a satellite program with the aim of launching China's first satellite in 1960.

At that time - during the Great Leap Forward - ordinary Chinese talked of "launching high-yield satellites" in a reference to reporting fictitiously high crop yields or industrial output. But a satellite launch could not be fabricated.

The young scientists worked day and night for three months and produced models of the rocket and the satellite. But many questions were left unresolved, because they lacked basic theory and computing methods. Their first attempt failed.

In the autumn of 1958 womens jordan 6 unc , Zhao Jiuzhang and other scientists were given a cold shoulder when they visited the Soviet Union to study space technology. China h. Wholesale Cheap Jerseys China   Wholesale Jerseys China Free Shipping   Wholesale NCAA Jerseys   Wholesale Nike NBA Jerseys   Wholesale Cheap Baseball Jerseys   Wholesale Cheap Soccer Jerseys   Wholesale Hockey Jerseys For Cheap   Cheap Jerseys From China   Cheap College Jerseys   Wholesale Basketball Jerseys Online