22 March 2013/10 Jumada l-Ula 1434/02 Farvardin 1391/11 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

“Time is up, we want our cash! Our friends in Europe brought us to this point. We expected more.”-Maria Melitou, Cypriot accountant

The latest reports are that hundreds of people, if not thousands, are clashing with police in the capital city of Cyprus.  All because the European Union wants to take their bank accounts.

European Central Bank (ECB) officials are now pressuring Cyprus to close down its banks, as part of the latest bailout offer.  The ECB is also demanding the freezing of any accounts that are not insured!

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that they would be able to seize 40% of uninsured assets and accounts!

German officials said the radical bailout offer is justified because the two biggest banks in Cyprus will fail anyway.  The German official said seizing uninsured accounts would actually leave more money in the Cypriot banking system than if the two biggest banks failed outright.

But there are several Russian billionaires who have large amounts of uninsured deposits in Cypriot banks, and they say this is just an attempt by the ECB to steal some free money.

Another German official admitted in a Christian Science Monitor interview that the European Union wants to get its hands on the suspected tens of billions that are in the almost unregulated Cypriot banks: “We want this to be taxed.”-Michael Fuchs, a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats

The Cyprus Popular Bank (aka Laiki Bank) said it will fail outright on Monday, 25 March 2013.  The Cypriot government is considering a law that would ban money being taken out of the country.  Also, ATMs are running out of money because of the amount of people trying to cash out (the banks are still closed).

Right now 67.3% of Cypriots want out of the European Union.  There are reports that if Cyprus goes along with a ECB bailout that Russia could dump its holdings of euros.  42% of Russia’s foreign exchange currency holdings are in euros.  Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says it’s not worth it to have euros if the ECB gets its way: “If it can be done in Cyprus, why not in Spain, in Italy, or in other countries where there are problems with finances? Tomorrow they will start to confiscate deposits there.”