Russia rebuffs Cyprus, EU awaits bailout "Plan B"

NICOSIA/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia rebuffed Cypriot entreaties for aid on Friday, leaving the island's increasingly isolated leaders scrambling to strike a bailout deal with the European Union by next week or face the collapse of its financial system.

In Nicosia, the country's biggest bank urged politicians to make haste and cut a deal with their EU partners as parliament considered proposals to nationalise pension funds, pool state assets and split the country's second-largest bank in a desperate effort to satisfy those exasperated European allies.