Cyprus bailout: fury as banks closed to avert run
Eurozone finance ministers hold emergency talks as vote on aid package in Cyprus parliament is delayed for second day
Cyprus took the unprecedented step on Monday of closing its banks until Thursday as officials scrambled to renegotiate the terms of a controversial bailout that threatens to force savers to take a €5.8bn (£5bn) hit to their deposits.
Finance ministers from the 17-country eurozone held an emergency video conference call and concluded that small depositors should not be hit as hard as others. They said the Cypriot authorities could stagger the deposit seizures, but remained firm in demanding that the overall sum of money raised remained the same. Cyprus state media said accounts with less than €20,000 may be spared.
The announcement came amid recriminations over the aid package, particularly in Moscow, where a spokesman for Vladimir Putin attacked the plan as "unfair, unprofessional and dangerous".
Thousands of Russians have bank accounts in Cyprus, which has styled itself as a tax haven to attract international deposits into a banking system now at least eight times the size of the island's €17bn economy. Russia hinted that a separate but crucial €2.5bn loan to Cyprus could now be in doubt.
WHY is all this happening in EUROPE?: http://drkhalid.blogspot.in/2013/03/cartoons-for-great-simple-explaination.html
More: http://drkhalid.blogspot.in/search/label/Going%20into%20recession%3F
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