Letters: Cyprus suffers for others' failings

Cyprus's eurozone "bailout" should more properly be called blackmail (Cyprus bailout: big implications in a small-scale rescue, 17 March). Half-baked, inequitable, flawed, selectively vindictive, counter-productive, downright hostile to a small island whose main fault was its overexposure to Greece, which became the cause of its troubles following the Greek bailout haircut imposed by eurozone financial authorities last year. This is double punishment by the same people.

UK Cypriots, including those with deposits on the island who have been adversely affected by this fundamentally unjust haircut, will stand by Cyprus during this difficult period.

But EU solidarity should have been in greater evidence than it was in Brussels last Saturday.

The eurozone financial authorities and the IMF should be more circumspect about imposing drastic and inequitable solutions that could have serious repercussions not only in Cyprus but also in other financially over-stretched European economies and the whole eurozone banking system.
Peter Droussiotis
President, National Federation of Cypriots in the UK

• The Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, says that taking up to 10% of savings from Cyprus bank accounts is not to punish Cypriots. It does not feel like that here. It feels like collective punishment. Tens of thousands of honest, hard-working people, including thousands of British retirees, will now pay for a crisis that we did not cause.
Dr Michael Paraskos
Director, Cyprus College of Art, Larnaca, Cyprus

• I can't quite work out why there is such anger about the Cypriot bank levy. We regularly see the pound fall because of the mishandling of our economy and prices rise, for example that of petrol, with no real upset. Within the euro the government of Cyprus's mismanagement doesn't reduce the value of its currency. What is the difference that 10% of savers' money is lost in one way or another? At least they may put the levy to good use, instead of it evaporating away, as our savings and earnings do.
Martin Cooper
Bromley, Kent

• So a new line has been crossed as savers' deposits in Cyprus banks are raided by the Cypriot government in a move underwritten by the EU in Brussels. This latest tactic to shore up unsustainable banking may have begun on that small island in the Mediterranean but I doubt it will stop there.

Meanwhile, here in Britain George Osborne et al continue digging the economic black hole this government began in 2010, wedded to the old economic orthodoxy of the 1930s, that somehow austerity is good. Remember where that got us?

Most ordinary people in this country of course don't have savings to be raided, they just have debts. To the privileged few who have savings now – I'd watch out!
Sean McGrath
London

• As the Cypriot banking system has been widely used as a tax haven and for laundering money, why not limit the proposed tax to non-residents? It would probably not make a great deal of difference in the amount collected, as the non-resident funds appear to be huge.
Emanuel de Kadt
Brighton

• I can't help feeling that the Cypriot raid on savings is not entirely different from what political control of interest rates has done to bonsai my retirement money tree in the UK.
Mike Brown
Newcastle upon Tyne

• If the result of the tax on deposits is that people in other weak economies like Italy, Spain and Portugal now withdraw their savings, it might well bring down the entire eurozone. Samson and the pillars of the temple spring to mind.
Ralph Blumenau
London

• I used to think Karl Marx's definition of banks in capitalist society as "institutions created for the systematic robbery of the people" as cheap polemic. Now I begin to see what he meant.
Patrick Renshaw
Sheffield

• Cyprus
• Europe
• Eurozone crisis
• European Union
• Economics
• European banks
• Financial crisis

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Baltimore Celebrates 'Greek Week'

Baltimore Celebrates 'Greek Week' WBAL Radio Many restaurants are offering specials on Greek food. "Spinach and cheese pies, fire roasted eggplant dip and Mediterranean Greek salad," said Gayle Economos, spokeswoman for Baltimore Greek Week. "It's all so good." She said in addition to restaurants ... and more »

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Cyprus bailout: 'Trust in our banks has evaporated. It can only get worse'

Hundreds of protesters vent fury before key parliamentary vote on levy of up to 10% on all bank deposits to pay for rescue plan

Behind the banners reading "Hang the banksters, hands off our savings", "Who is next Spain or Italy?" or simply "Fuck Europe", Andreas Constantinou stood outside the Cyprus parliament, with a grim look on his face.

"It's just unfair," he said. He had cut short his family lunch to mark the first Monday of Orthodox lent, a bank holiday when Cypriots usually descend on parks to picnic, fly kites and celebrate. Instead, as Cypriot politicians held emergency talks before Tuesday's parliamentary vote on the controversial levy of up to 10% on all bank deposits, hundreds joined the street protest against the seizure of a chunk of everyone's savings to satisfy an EU rescue plan.

"This is going to affect everyone, savings or not, because no matter how the politicians tweak it, the damage has been done. Trust in our banks has evaporated, people will take out their money, investors will flee, the economy will be hugely hit and things can only get worse," said Constantinou, 29.

As a state employee for the Cyprus tourist board, he had already taken two salary cuts in recent years, of €200-300. He earned €1,700 a month, which had also to support his parents and a sister studying in England. His mother was a shop assistant in a furniture store that had laid off over half its staff. His father was a hotel maintenance man.

Both parents often had to wait months for their pay cheques and relied on loans. "I'll instantly lose the equivalent of one month's salary from my bank account with this levy. Tourism and business will be massively hit. German and British tourist numbers had been going down, Russians had been rising. But with all the reports that this bank levy is aimed at hitting Russian investors here, it will put off Russian visitors, tourism will suffer."

A financial manager, 39, who had driven from Limassol to take part in her first ever protest said: "Cypriots aren't big on street demonstrations, we usually sit back and let things happen. Not anymore. This saving grabs is a human rights abuse."

The nation hung in baffled suspense. Banks will probably remain closed until at least Thursday as people wondered how they would do business when they go back to work on Tuesday, without being able to make transactions. Some worried how their mortgage repayments would go through. "What we're living here is surreal," said one worker in a major retail group. After a run on cash-point machines on Saturday, the ATMs had been replenished but no one could take out more than the usual €500 limit.

Internet banking was frozen. One businessman said when the banks opened he was half thinking of taking as much money as he and his children could take out in briefcases and heading for Beirut. As politicians discussed possible tweaks to the deal, it was not certain whether people with savings under €20,000 would be exempted, whether those with under €100,000 would have their levy cut from 6.75% to 3% or those with over €100,000 have to pay over the planned 9.9%.

But what infuriated people was how wide-reaching the planned levy would be. It was not just those with savings in the bad banks who would be hit, but all savers, even those who had thought it wiser to stick with building societies or foreign banks like Societe Generale's Cyprus arm.

Alexander Apostolides, economic historian at the European University Cyprus, said: "It's across the board, every single bank account, current account, even no-interest accounts. There was no distinction, a real bungling. An unemployed person who had just put in their benefits cheque would be hit, someone who had just taken a loan for a house for well over €100,000 could now find €30,000 of it had been taken but they still have to pay it back to their lender. It has been badly thought-out and means a real hit on the economy. Our GDP will be low, which means we'll come short on repayments. Does this mean Cyprus will need a second bailout? What will they ask of us then?"

Natassa Apostolidou, 34, who lost her job for an advertising agency in the financial crisis, was working freelance contracts for 10-12-hour days and juggling caring for her four-month old baby, because she had bills to pay and student loans to pay off and her husband's architecture job was far from safe. But because she received her maternity pay two weeks ago as a lump sum, €4,000 , it would now be hit by the government levy. "It's pretty terrifying to be honest," she said.

Many feared that if this deal doesn't work, the biggest banks faced meltdown. But most felt the savings levy would not solve Cyprus's root problems as it doesn't address the issues in the public sector and the oversized banking system that had led to the problem.

Cassandra Koupari, 30, a Nicosia lawyer, felt Cyprus, the tiny eastern Mediterranean island of 1.1m people closer to Damascus than Berlin, and which joined the EU in 2004 still plagued by its separation between Greek-speaking south and Turkish north, was being hung out to dry as an "irrelevance on the periphery" of Europe. Whatever the parliament vote on Tuesday, many felt a mortal blow had been dealt to the economy and Cyprus's reputation as a financial centre, with not just major foreign investors poised to pull out their cash, but smaller ones too.

With Cyprus one of the biggest destinations for British ex-pats after Spain and France, Justin Harris of Chase Belgrave wealth management and financial consultants, said: "Cyprus is a big ex-pat destination, although it's no Monaco. The kind of British expats that go there take €250,000-300,000 and use that for a fixed income of say €15,000 a year.

"If you take 10% out of it, at say €13,500, that's a lot. Some may have to leave and very few people will continue to bank in Cyprus. Whether the levy happens or not, people will now take their money out and put it elsewhere. Offshore expat specialist arms of British banks stand to benefit, namely in the Isle of Man."

• Cyprus
• Europe
• European Union

Angelique Chrisafis

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Greek units of Cypriot banks to stay shut on Tuesday, Wednesday

Kathimerini

Greek units of Cypriot banks to stay shut on Tuesday, Wednesday Chicago Tribune ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek branches of Cypriot banks will remain shut on Tuesday and Wednesday, Greece's finance ministry said on Monday, in line with Nicosia's plan for a bank holiday over the two days. Cyprus's three top lenders, Bank of Cyprus, ... Two major Greek lenders to bid for Cypriot branchesKathimerini all 4 news articles »

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Cyprus bailout: how Nicos walked straight into a German sucker punch

Greek Cypriot president's disastrous first EU summit ended with a €5.8bn bill for savers as troika demanded payback

Exactly a fortnight after being sworn in as the new president of Greek Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades set out for Brussels last Thursday for his first exposure to European Union summitry.

For months the divided island, whose offshore business attractions have left local bank deposits about four times bigger than the national economy, has been on the eurozone sickbed fearfully awaiting the treatment administered by the hated "troika" – the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank– as the currency zone's fifth bailout candidate.

As well as the full EU summit on Thursday and Friday, Anastasiades, a London-educated 66-year-old, was to attend the first full eurozone summit for 14 months late on Thursday.

A senior EU policymaker said: "There will be a little discussion of Cyprus, but no decisions."

A senior EU diplomat predicted: "Nothing much will happen. It's the new president's first summit."

As it turned out, the centre-right Cypriot leader was given a 12-hour stay of execution until the early hours of Saturday on what, highly conveniently, was a Cyprus bank holiday weekend. He went home with a €10bn euro bailout and a eurozone taboo-busting obligation to expropriate every saver in every bank in Cyprus.

Cypriot participants describe the experience of those two days with rancour as chastening and brutal, an unforgettably unhappy debut on the European stage.

"It was clear blackmail. We were told either you accept this or on Tuesday your banks will not open," said George Sklavos, a senior Cypriot finance ministry official present at the meetings.

By the time he got home to Nicosia on Saturday, Anastasiades was preparing to go on national television to announce the worst moment in his country since the Turks invaded in 1974 and forced a partition that continues to this day. Announcing that Cypriot savers would have their nest-eggs docked to co-finance the bailout, he was also going back on a campaign pledge that helped him get elected. He blamed the usual suspects in the "troika" – officials whose diktats on struggling eurozone economies determine their bailout prospects.

It was not the two-day summit that decided to confiscate savers' money for the first time in more than three years of currency, banking and sovereign debt crisis. Rather, the Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem called an emergency session of the eurogroup in the same drab building in Brussels to kick off on Friday just as the leaders were heading for the airport.

As the summit ended, but before the eurogroup started, the senior policymaker confirmed that the Cyprus bailout would indeed be €10bn, leaving a further €7bn to be found.

The eurogroup comprises the 17 finance ministers of the currency zone plus the European Central Bank, the relevant EU commissioner, Olli Rehn, and — where bailouts are concerned — the IMF. The key players were Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister, his former deputy, Jörg Asmussen, from the ECB, Christine Lagarde of France for the IMF, and Finland's Rehn from the commission.

Anastasiades lingered in the building, but did not take part in the meeting which began at 4.30pm on Friday and ended with a bombshell — under the terms of the bailout he would need to find €5.8bn by raiding bank accounts.

Sklavos said the goalposts kept shifting. His boss, the finance minister Michalis Sarris, was first told the Cypriots had to find €2bn from taxing savers. That was doable. However, "At around 7.30pm they asked us for €5.8bn. The atmosphere was not pleasant," he said. "A few countries like Luxembourg supported us and we got help from Olli Rehn. Other than that no one came to our defence.

"It was our worst nightmare. At the end of the day it was a simple: 'take it or leave it on the table'."

Various formulas and calculations were kicked around, with the Germans and the IMF demanding much bigger taxes on savers' deposits, the commission seeking modest contributions from savers with less than €100,000 and Anastasiades said to be keener on spreading the burden, fearful of scaring off the wealthy Russians with too punitive levies. They use Cyprus as a holiday, property, and banking paradise.

Anastasiades balked at anything over 10% for the wealthy, said EU sources, and settled on the symbolic figure of a 9.9% "tax" on depositors with more than €100,000. That meant the rest of the €5.8bn had to come from the more modest savers, at a one-off rate of 6.75%.

By Monday, with Anastasiades unable to muster parliamentary support to pass the shock legislation, it appeared the equation would be changed to benefit small savers. German, French, and ECB policymakers said they did not care how the money was raised, as long as the €5.8bn figure was guaranteed.

The IMF has long insisted on keeping the cost of the bailout well below the €17bn needed because of its fixation on ensuring medium-term debt sustainability. Lending Cyprus what it needed would have tipped the scales of sustainability.

The German government, months away from a crucial general election, was also very reluctant to see its taxpayers' money lent to secure the savings of wealthy Russians whose deposits are estimated to represent almost a third of Cypriot accounts.

The panic about banks closing down on Tuesday came from Asmussen, who warned the Cypriots that no deal meant no emergency liquidity help from the ECB, meaning the two biggest banks on the island could collapse.

"I was present," said Sklavos. Asked who pushed the hardest for the levy to be slapped on depositors, he said: "Wolfgang Schaeuble."

"It was a fait accompli. They had made their decision before the meeting had even begun. They don't care. They want Cyprus to be the guinea pig. They want to see if this thing works. If it does, then perhaps Spain or Italy will be next. If it doesn't, then who cares about Cyprus?"

• Cyprus
• Europe
• Eurozone crisis
• European Union
• European monetary union
• Economics
• Banking
• European banks
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• Financial sector
• Euro

Ian Traynor

Helena Smith

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The Cyprus eurozone bailout conditions are bank robbery pure and simple | Aditya Chakrabortty

This is yet another euro bailout that punishes ordinary people to prop up a bust financial system. How long can the euro last now?

You don't need any economics to grasp what Europe and the IMF have just done to the Cypriots. Anybody can imagine how awful it would be to wake up one morning and discover that their savings have just been raided. Over the previous four "rescues" of bust eurozone countries, the details have always been swaddled in technicalities: debt restructuring this, fiscal consolidation that. With Cyprus, however, an immediate tax of up to 10% on savings accounts needs little explaining. Officials may euphemise it as a bail-in but everyone else will agree with yesterday's Daily Mail headline: it's a bank robbery.

Pensioners are losing part of their retirement savings in order to keep afloat the island's two big banks. According to the plan announced this weekend (details are reportedly being rejigged so as to win parliamentary support), poorer Cypriots will be hit with a 6.75% tax on assets so as to cushion the blow on the rich, who will have to cough up 9.9%. Up until last Friday, bank deposits up to €100,000 were officially protected. Come what may, a retiree with a nest-egg of €50,000 would not have lost a cent. She is now €3,375 poorer; her only compensation will be shares in a bust bank.

Inevitably, assurances come in that this is strictly a one-off levy. But they are being made by a Cyprus finance minister who just a few days ago waved off any compulsory requisition with "there really couldn't be a more stupid idea". Whenever the island's banks reopen, his public can hardly be blamed for pulling out the rest of their savings.

Occasionally, financial reporters face brickbats for stories that may trigger a bank run; but this is the first time I have seen a policy that could almost be designed to spark one.

There are winners, of course. They number the hedge funds of Mayfair that bought Cyprus government debt betting that the euro elite would implement just such a stupid scheme. They include the dirty-money merchants who launder their cash through the tiny tax haven; under the old scheme, someone with €1m in a broken bank would have lost €900,000 – they now walk away only €99,000 worse off. The Cyprus banking system which, at about eight times the size of its GDP badly needs to be shrunk, will be propped up and go unreformed.

All that said, there will be the usual sermons from the rest of Europe about how the latest car crash is really the exception rather than the rule. Already yesterday, the bankers of Lisbon were uttering the formula that "Portugal is not Cyprus". And just as northern European politicians were happy to smear the workshy Greeks, so you will surely hear the claim that Cyprus – the Cayman of Europe – was always less an economy, and more a financial washing machine. What you won't get is any explanation for why Cyprus was accepted into the euro just five years ago, why Brussels never tried to clean up the island's financial system, or what it will do about the latest hot-money destination of Latvia.

After all we've seen in the past couple of years, it surely comes as no surprise to see yet another euro bailout that punishes ordinary people in order to reflate a broken financial system. Nor is this the first time that unelected officials in Brussels and the IMF have drawn up a programme for political suicide and handed it to a democratically elected government of a small, weak country with the ultimatum to take it or leave it.

What's different this time is the nakedness of the Cyprus heist. The right can jump up and down at a massive infringement of property rights. The left can fulminate at the obvious social unjustness of such a tax, levied even while the banks are shut. However the Brussels elite might thus seek to defend their plan, they have managed to offend all sides – and so blown a huge hole in the credibility of the eurozone. As Talleyrand once scornfully remarked of the latest blunder by Napoleon Bonaparte: "It's worse than a crime; it's a mistake."

That will be the lasting lesson from this week: it shows up again just how far the single currency has drifted from all those warm words uttered in the 90s about creating a continental shelter from turbulent globalisation. As we have seen since the sovereign debt crisis began, the euroclub has bullied its poorer members into swallowing poisonous austerity and social regressiveness in order to keep a bust system on the road. In so doing they have created the conditions for such clowns like Beppe Grillo and thugs such as Golden Dawn.

A friend of mine has a mid-level job at the European Commission. Over the past few years, through Greece and Ireland and Portugal and Spain, he has kept up a resolutely chipper air. This weekend, as details of the Cyprus deal came out, he sent me this email: "Is this what the European financial system has come down to? A direct appropriation of savings because it cannot cure its systemic problems. It is not just the banks that are bankrupt. It is the whole bloody model that has run its course and we are in denial."

If even the true believers in the euro, the ones who have built their careers on it, now express such fundamental scepticism, you have to wonder how long it will last – or in what form.

• Cyprus
• Europe
• European Union
• Eurozone crisis
• European monetary union
• Economics
• Banking
• European banks
• Financial crisis
• Financial sector
• Euro
• Market turmoil

Aditya Chakrabortty

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Why target bank deposits?

Cyprus has become the latest eurozone nation to apply for a bailout amidst a financial crisis linked to debt defaults in neighboring Greece. The Mediterranean island has a huge banking sector and its public debt is expected to match GDP within the next decade. Proposals to tax existing bank deposits as part of a rescue package have alarmed investors.

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2 inmates escape from Quebec prison in helicopter

2 inmates escape from Quebec prison in helicopter

Associated Press


Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Updated 11:10 am, Monday, March 18, 2013

MONTREAL (AP) — Two Quebec inmates grabbed a rope attached to a hijacked helicopter to make a daring daylight escape from a prison outside Montreal, then led police in a car chase and exchanged gunfire at a rural cabin before they were finally recaptured, authorities said Monday.

Yves Le Roux, president of the helicopter rental company, Passport-Hélico, said Monday two men posed as tourists who wanted to take a flight over Mount-Tremblant before they pulled a gun on the pilot and told him to fly to the prison and land on one of the buildings.

Quebec provincial police spokesman Benoit Richard said Monday that they had arrested four people about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Saint-Jerome prison from which the inmates escaped.

Richard said the charges could include attempted murder, hijacking an aircraft, evasion, possession of restricted weapons and breaking and entering.

Quebec provincial police tracked down the helicopter used in the escape to Mont-Tremblant, about 53 miles (85 kilometers) away from the jail but only the chopper's pilot was still at the scene.

Hudon-Barbeau was arrested in November on two firearm related charges and associating with people with criminal histories, according to a provincial police report.

A helicopter swooped down on a prison courtyard in Greece last month as armed men on board fired on guards and lowered a rope to help a convicted killer make his fourth attempt to escape from the prison.

In 2009, one of Greece's most wanted men, bank robber Vassilis Paleokostas, escaped from from a prison with another inmate by helicopter — staging their second chopper getaway in three years.

In that incident, police were called in to secure the outside of the jail, which holds about 480 inmates, and jail staff used pepper spray to disperse the mob.

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Crews fight fire at Near West Side church

Crews fight fire at Near West Side church Chicago Tribune St. Basil originally was built in 1910 as Anshe Sholom Synagogue and became a Greek Orthodox church in 1927, according to the church's Web site. It served as the the first Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Chicago. The church was gutted by a 1977 fire but ... and more »

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Samaras Says Greece Stands With Cyprus

Greek Reporter

Samaras Says Greece Stands With Cyprus Greek Reporter samaras2 With Cypriots facing an unprecedented confiscation of part of their savings accounts to help pay for an international bailout from the same lenders that have put onerous austerity measures on Greece in return for rescue monies, Greek Prime ... Greek PM says Greece stands by Cyprus' sideShanghai Daily (subscription) Two major Greek lenders to bid for Cypriot branchesKathimerini all 5 news articles »

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Does Greek coffee hold the key to a longer life?

Does Greek coffee hold the key to a longer life? EurekAlert (press release) The answer to longevity may be far simpler than we imagine; it may in fact be right under our noses in the form of a morning caffeine kick. The elderly inhabitants of Ikaria, the Greek island, boast the highest rates of longevity in the World, and many ...

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Delay to Cyprus vote risks sale of banks in Greece

Kathimerini

Delay to Cyprus vote risks sale of banks in Greece Kathimerini Delays in approving a Cypriot bank levy risk derailing a plan for Greek banks to take over the local units of Cypriot lenders before a three-day weekend ends on Tuesday, bankers said on Monday in Greece. Athens has been sounding out interest among ...

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In avoiding a Greece repeat, the Cypriot bailout is setting a dangerous precedent

Evening Standard

In avoiding a Greece repeat, the Cypriot bailout is setting a dangerous precedent Quartz Although Cyprus may be a tiny country and an offshore Russian tax haven, the implications for the rest of the euro area of the plan to bail out its banks by imposing a levy on depositors are very real. It all has to do with how Greece's bailout was ... Cyprus bank savings raid hits Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal as investors ...Evening Standard Samaras Says Greece Stands With CyprusGreek Reporter Cypriot banks in Greece excluded from "haircut": Greek FinMinPeople's Daily Online Shanghai Daily (subscription) -Fox Business -International Business Times all 1,619 news articles »

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Baking secrets: Homemade granola, Greek yogurt build a grand parfait

Baking secrets: Homemade granola, Greek yogurt build a grand parfait Chicago Daily Herald I am a big fan of Greek-style yogurt. This plain Jane of the dairy case contains zero added sugars and packs a protein punch. Most days I blend low-fat Greek yogurt into a breakfast shake, but reading about the Daily Herald's Fittest Loser contest ...

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David Hasselhoff, Katidis' 'fatherland' furor: Think global, parent local

Christian Science Monitor

David Hasselhoff, Katidis' 'fatherland' furor: Think global, parent local Christian Science Monitor Greek soccer star Giorgos Katidis apologized for giving the Nazi salute on the field, allegedly without knowing what the symbol meant, and actor David Hasselhoff defends the last bricks in the Berlin Wall from demolition so that future generations may both ... David Hasselhoff Joins Protest to Save Berlin WallABC News (blog) David Hasselhoff returns to Berlin to save the wall he helped to toppleThe Guardian David Hasselhoff Campaigns Against Demolition of Berlin WallFirst Coast News msnNOW -E! Online -WebProNews all 68 news articles »

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Compulsory license sought for BMS drug as Greece gives CL a hard look

Compulsory license sought for BMS drug as Greece gives CL a hard look FiercePharma Greece, of course, is in the midst of a financial crisis leading to unpaid bills for its drug imports, which account for most of its drug use. Some Greeks are finding it impossible to find drugs they had been taking for critical illnesses, like cancer ...

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Doubts over Cyprus gas bonanza

President Nicolas Anastasiades promises bonds linked to natural gas revenues, but experts question energy reserve potential

Amid the panic caused by the Cyprus bailout plan, Cypriots employed in the island's oil and gas industry may be approaching their work with renewed vigour this week.

Some experts believe Cyprus could be sitting on natural gas reserves worth up to €300bn (£257bn), a bonanza for a country with an estimated GDP of €15bn.

These gas fields have come under the spotlight after Cyprus's president, Nicolas Anastasiades, promised that people who kept deposits in domestic banks for the next two years would be given bonds linked to revenues from natural gas.

Traders said they were not aware of any such bond but could see how it would work as a sweetener for customers. In the same way, investors in Greek bonds were offered a so-called GDP warrant for taking part in a debt swap last year, which will pay out if and when Greece's economic fortunes improve.

But the Cypriot gas reserves have not been proved. Back in 2011 the US energy company Noble announced a successful well off Cyprus, in a field estimated to hold at least 7tn cubic ft of natural gas. That prompted a flurry of interest in Cypriot waters, which, analysts say, could hold another 30tn cubic ft of gas, but there have yet to be any more discoveries.

The flood of money the Cypriot government envisages coming from these fields will also be painfully slow in coming. Vincent Forest, Cyprus analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said: "When Anastasiades said we can guarantee these sweeteners in two years, I seriously doubt this would be effective.

"It would take between seven and 10 years to have the first revenues from gas exploitation so you can't guarantee anything in two years, otherwise you give people shares in something that doesn't exist."

The situation is complicated further by disputes with Turkey – which has a strong bargaining position, as any gas pipeline would have to cross its territory – and Egypt, which questions Cyprus's claim to the gas fields.

Forest said: "You can't bet on gas for a country such as Cyprus. It's a small country, it's a weak country, it's got very difficult relations with Turkey. Most important you have the Egyptians claiming rights to some of the gas reserves. It's a huge imbroglio."

• Cyprus
• Gas
• Commodities
• Europe

Josephine Moulds

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Turkish Ergenekon conspiracy trial approaches verdict

By Ece Toksabay SILIVRI, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish prosecutors summed up their case on Monday against those accused of plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government, seeking life terms for an ex-military chief and other retired generals. Retired armed forces commander Ilker Basbug was among 275 defendants whom prosecutors accused of attempting to stage a coup as part of the "Ergenekon terrorist group", an alleged underground network of secular arch-nationalists. Erdogan's ruling AKP party has Islamist roots. ...

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Greece, Europe ETFs Down as Cyprus Triggers Fresh Debt Fears

ETF Trends

Greece, Europe ETFs Down as Cyprus Triggers Fresh Debt Fears ETF Trends ETFs that invest in Greece and other European countries fell at the open Monday as Cyprus was poised to force savers to chip in to help pay for a financial bailout. Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (NYSEArca: GREK) was set for further declines after ... and more »

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Greek midfielder Giorgos Katidis banned from national team after Nazi salute ...

Greek midfielder Giorgos Katidis banned from national team after Nazi salute ... Yahoo! Sports (blog) For the gesture, the tattooed 20-year-old has been handed a life ban from the Greek National team, whom he once captained at U-19 level. Katidis, however, will not join Di Canio and Christian Abbiati in the pantheon of proud football fascists, as he ...

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Delicate diplomacy: Pope meets Argentine president

Delicate diplomacy: Pope meets Argentine president

Associated Press


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Updated 8:27 am, Monday, March 18, 2013

Fernandez called on the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires at his temporary home, the Vatican hotel on the edge of the Vatican gardens, and the two later had lunch together, a day before she and other world leaders attend his installation Mass in St. Peter's Square that some estimates say could bring 1 million people to Rome.

The Vatican on Monday released details of the Mass, saying it would be a simplified version of the 2005 installation Mass that brought Pope Benedict XVI to the papacy, with many gestures to Eastern rite Catholics and Orthodox Christians in a sign of church unity.

According to Francis' authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was politically wise enough to know the church couldn't win a straight-on fight against gay marriage, so he urged his bishops to lobby for gay civil unions instead.

Fernandez issued a perfunctory message of congratulations when Francis was elected last week, calling the election of the first Latin American pope "historic" and saying she hoped that given his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, the new pope would inspire world leaders to pay greater attention to the poor and pursue dialogue rather than force to resolve disputes.

Italian media say Rome civil protection authorities are planning for upward of 1 million people to attend the Mass, numbers not seen since the beatification of Pope John Paul II in 2011, which drew 1.5 million to St. Peter's and the surrounding streets.

The Mass will make several gestures toward Eastern rite and Orthodox Christians, with the Gospel being chanted in Greek as opposed to Latin and eastern rite Catholic prelates joining Francis at an initial prayer at the tomb of St. Peter under the basilica's main altar, the Vatican said Monday.

Mugabe, 89, is the subject of a travel ban by European nations to protest his human rights record in a decade of political and economic turmoil in his southern African nation, but it does not affect his trips to the Vatican through Italy.

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