2 inmates escape from Quebec prison in helicopter

Police vehicles block a road just outside the town of Chertsey, Quebec, Sunday, March 17, 2013, during a search for escaped prisoners. A dramatic daylight jailbreak involving two Quebec inmates climbing a rope into a hovering helicopter swiftly escalated into a large police operation Sunday night in which at least one escapee was tracked down hours after he fled. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

Police vehicles block a road just outside the town of Chertsey, Quebec, Sunday, March 17, 2013, during a search for escaped prisoners. A dramatic daylight jailbreak involving two Quebec inmates climbing a rope into a hovering helicopter swiftly escalated into a large police operation Sunday night in which at least one escapee was tracked down hours after he fled. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

Police vehicles block a road just outside the town of Chertsey, Quebec, Sunday, March 17, 2013, during a search for escaped prisoners. A dramatic daylight jailbreak involving two Quebec inmates climbing a rope into a hovering helicopter swiftly escalated into a large police operation Sunday night in which at least one escapee was tracked down hours after he fled. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

SAINT-JEROME, Quebec (AP) ? Two Quebec inmates climbed into a hijacked helicopter to make a daring daylight escape from a prison outside Montreal, authorities said Monday. Both were later recaptured.

Police said they believe the pilot was held hostage in the Sunday jail-break and consider him a victim. He was treated for shock in hospital.

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

Two of those arrested Sunday were inmates Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, 36, and Danny Provencal, 33. Hudon-Barbeau was arrested first and police cornered Provencal later in the evening, after establishing a security perimeter around a building where he had barricaded himself.

Quebec Provincial Police Sgt. Benoit Richard said early Monday that Provencal had surrendered peacefully after negotiations continued through the night.

Earlier Sunday, police received a call from the staff at the Saint-Jerome jail, reporting the escape at about 2:20 p.m. local time, Richard said.

The prison's warden told police that Hudon-Barbeau and Provencal had grabbed a rope dropped from the helicopter to make their getaway, Richard said.

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. Richard called the pilot "an important witness" in the case.

"We were called early in the process of the prison break. We were able to locate the suspects quickly. They ended up in a car and there was a chase and we were able to find them," Quebec Provincial Police spokesman Gregory Gomez Del Prado said. "Three were in custody within five hours. The fourth was in custody around midnight."

Gomez Del Prado said the two inmates escaped from the prison yard.

"It's spectacular. It's out of the ordinary," he said.

According to a provincial police report, Hudon-Barbeau was arrested in November on two firearm related charges and associating with people with criminal histories. The arrest came as part of an investigation of a double murder in Quebec.

A Montreal radio station, 98.5 FM, said it received a call Sunday from a man claiming to be Hudon-Barbeau, who said he was "ready to die" as he tried to evade police.

"The way they're treating me in there, it's unreal," the man told the radio station. "They won't let me be. They put me back in prison for nothing."

Authorities did not immediately respond to the claims made in the radio station interview.

Yves Galarneau, the correctional services manager who oversees the Saint-Jerome jail, said he'd never seen anything like the dramatic escape in more than three decades on the job.

Galarneau said there are no security measures in place at the jail to prevent a helicopter from swooping down from above.

"As far as I know, it's a first in Quebec," he told reporters at the scene. "It's exceptional."

Although the tactic may have been a first for Quebec, using a chopper to break out of jail has a long and colorful history, and not just in the movies.

A New York businessman, Joel David Kaplan, used a chopper to escape from a Mexican jail in 1971, and went on to write a book about it. Pascal Payet, a French prisoner, used a helicopter to escape on three occasions, only to be caught by authorities every time.

The prison at the center of Sunday's escapade in Quebec is a provincial detention center with a maximum-security wing.

Saint-Jerome jail, located about 37 miles (60 kilometers) northwest of Montreal, experienced a mini-riot by about a dozen prisoners a little over a month ago. 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.

_________

AP's Rob Gillies in Toronto and Benjamin Shingler in Montreal contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-18-CN-Canada-Prison-Escape/id-e7484bb54d3b4b999a8295abf21b54c3

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17-year-old race car driver struck and killed his teenage cousin and an elderly man in California raceway collision

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 00:07 EST, 17 March 2013 | UPDATED: 06:22 EST, 17 March 2013

Tragic crash: Chase Johnson, 17, lost control of his sprint car and slammed into two people during warm-up laps, killing both

A 17-year-old race car driver accidentally struck and killed his teenage cousin and an elderly man during warm-up laps at a California raceway on Saturday.

A sprint car driven by Chase Johnson hit his 14-year-old relative and a 68-year-old man on pit row at Marysville Raceway Park some 40 miles north of Sacramento, said Race track announcer Steven Blakesley.

Venue promoter Paul Hawes told the Marysville Appeal-Democrat that the car crashed during warm-up before the race and ran into pit row at high speed.

The raceway was hosting the California Sprint Car Civil War Series on the opening day of its season.

The deadly collision took place just after 6pm during warm-up laps ahead of the race which was scheduled for 7.30pm.

Blakesley told?ABC News 10 that Johnson?s car had an apparent mechanical failure and did not make the corner at turn 1.

The vehicle going about 90 miles per hour went up a ramp to the pit area, hit a stack of tires and settled on top of a cement barrier.

The car continued on the partition for 100 feet, hitting a golf cart and two people walking in the pits before coming to a stop another 50 feet away, CBS Sacramento reported.

Need for speed: Johnson has been racing since age four, taking part in 503 competitions

According to the announcer, one of the victims is the driver's 14-year-old cousin, and the other is a 68-year-old man who owned several of the cars in the race.

The Yuba County Sheriff's officials said the older of the two victims was pronounced dead at the scene , while the boy was taken to a hospital where he passed away from his injuries shortly after.

The 30 race teams who were set to compete Saturday night have agreed to donate their combined entrance fees totaling about $10,000 to the families of the victims, Blakesley said.

Collision scene: The accident happened at Marysville Raceway Park before the start of the California Sprint Car Civil War Series

On its Facebook page, the Marysville Raceway Park posted: ?Our thoughts and deepest prayers go out to everyone. Out of respect we will not elaborate on details. We ask everyone to respect each other and the families.?

According to his official website, Johnson, a senior at Petaluma High School, is a fourth generation race car driver who has been competing since age four.

The Penngrove, California, resident has been in 503 races so far in his career. In the three years that he has been in sprint car racing, the teenager won two Rookie of the Year awards.

?

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294665/17-year-old-race-car-driver-struck-killed-teenage-cousin-elderly-man-California-raceway-collision.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

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Kenya's Odinga challenges election defeat in top court

By Drazen Jorgic and Humphrey Malalo

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Defeated presidential contender Raila Odinga challenged his election loss in court on Saturday, alleging widespread ballot rigging in a fresh test of Kenyan democracy five years after a disputed vote triggered deadly tribal violence.

Shortly before the petition was filed, police outside the Supreme Court fired teargas to disperse a rally of around 100 Odinga backers. They were urged by the outgoing prime minister to stay calm and trust in the law to resolve his complaint.

Odinga's complaint threatens to prolong the period of uncertainty shadowing east Africa's largest economy.

Analysts say a swift, transparent resolution of the row will be critical to restoring Kenya's reputation as a stable democracy. Big Western donors worry about a nation seen as a vital ally in a regional struggle against militant Islam.

Odinga, head of the CORD coalition, refuses to accept the slim first-round election win by Uhuru Kenyatta, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court over the explosion of bloodshed in 2007 that left more than 1,200 people dead.

The March 4 election and aftermath was largely peaceful by contrast. Kenyatta declared the vote "free and fair" in his victory acceptance speech, though he added that the electoral process could be made more refined and efficient in the future.

Kenya's electoral commission (IEBC) had promised a smooth election but the collapse of an expensive new electronic voting system led to a five-day wait for the winner to be announced.

Odinga's petition alleges widespread rigging and accuses the IEBC of inflating voter registration numbers and going ahead with the election aware that its systems were going to fail.

"These failures dwarf anything Kenyans have ever witnessed in any previous election," Odinga told reporters on the doorstep of his office in the center of the capital Nairobi.

"Every mechanism and every instrument the IEBC deployed failed miserably. Its failure and collapse, on a catastrophic scale on the polling day, so fundamentally changed the system of polling and the number of votes cast."

Kenyatta comfortably beat Odinga in terms of votes won, 50.07 percent versus 43.28 percent, but only narrowly avoided a run-off after winning just 8,100 votes more than the 50 percent needed to be declared the winner outright.

That slim margin has given Odinga allies confidence that they can force a run-off through the courts, though the petition calls for the whole process to be declared null and void.

Kenyatta said his Jubilee coalition would respect the rule of law and the outcome of the petition filed by CORD. "If the decision is not in our favor, then we are ready to face the electorate again," Kenyatta said.

By the time the petition was filed in the early afternoon, hundreds of Odinga supporters gathered outside the court, many wearing T-shirts with slogans such as "democracy on trial".

"I am not happy with the election results, since my rights have been stolen. President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta is not my choice," Florence Bolo, an Odinga supporter, said outside the Supreme Court. Others shouted: "Uhuru must go!"

"We Kenyans want justice and I am crying for the Supreme Court to look at this case as critical and come out with a fair judgment," said Hamsa Omondi, a 21-year-old street vendor.

Traffic was moving freely through Nairobi and there were no signs of further unrest in the capital.

Many had feared a repeat of the 2007 violence after this month's vote, and were relieved when that did not transpire.

Kenya's stock market, which surged 7 percent in the two days after the peaceful conclusion of the March 4 vote, then suffered three consecutive days of falls. Traders said the Supreme Court petition had unnerved foreign investors.

The IEBC has consistently described the vote as credible despite a series of technological glitches on voting day and during the tallying of ballots. The IEBC spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.

International monitors, commenting shortly after counting began, said the election was broadly credible up to that point. But the count went for five days, and monitors did not follow the entire count process, diplomats say.

TEST FOR REFORMED COURTS

Odinga's petition names four respondents - the IEBC, its chairman Issack Hassan, Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto, who is also under ICC indictment for crimes against humanity over the 2007 bloodshed. Both deny the charges.

Odinga's attempts to nullify Kenyatta's victory will be the first significant test for Kenya's new Supreme Court, established under a constitution adopted in a 2010 referendum.

Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, appointed in 2011 to reform a legal system accused of serving the interests of the elite, will be under pressure to deliver a transparent verdict in a country where political tensions are more tribal than ideological.

Mutunga received death threats in the run-up to the vote but promised the judiciary would act without "favor, prejudice or bias" when handling election complaints. He invited the media to cover the proceedings live from the court.

Odinga's decision to contest the election outcome in the courts was a major departure from his response to the 2007 election outcome which he also described as rigged.

Odinga at the time summoned supporters out into the streets for peaceful protests, as he did not trust the judiciary to be fair. But violence quickly erupted between tribes backing competing leadership candidates and spread across Kenya.

(Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kenya-police-fire-teargas-disperse-odinga-supporters-075244442.html

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Apple Bull Gene Munster: 'This Is Samsung's Time, But...' (And Other Quotes Of The Week)

It might sound like heresy to call the past week ?quiet? from a news perspective, given the election of a new Pope, the Dow?s impressive run to 10 consecutive up days, some fireworks on Capitol Hill surrounding JP Morgan, and a raft of market-related and other stories.

?(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

But some of the drama surrounding the market?s head- and tailwinds over the past few weeks seemed to largely evaporate and was reflected in a VIX which had its lowest weekly close in years.

However, Samsung certainly attempted to inject its own brand of showmanship into the smartphone wars, with the launch event of the new Galaxy S4 at NYC?s historic Radio City Music Hall.

Fortune commented that, ?The lines to get in were longer that any Apple event? and ?The press presence was ridiculous?taking an hour to enter.?

A Forbes technology contributor, Larry Magid, called it ?the glitziest product introduction I?ve ever been to.?

And a Forrester Research piece, also in Forbes, punched a few holes in the fanfare surrounding the launch event:

Apple?s launch events may not have the singing and dancing that Samsung brought, but they do have a couple of things Samsung didn?t: details like pricing and a specific launch date by country and operator. Apple?s brand power allows it to ensure that these critical pieces of information come out at the launch ? and none of their competitors, not even Samsung, yet rises to that level.

The product itself, and the competitive challenge it poses to Apple, received tech and analyst reviews all over the place, ranging from ?the new king of smartphones? to ?not a game-changer.? You will just have to decide for yourself if the product lives up to Samsung?s co-CEO J.K. Shin?s lofty goal of introducing a device which is a ?Life Companion?which can join us on our life?s journey?with?innovations that make your life simpler and fuller.? (USA Today).

One analyst?s comments were watched particularly closely?those of noted tech analyst and seemingly perpetual Apple bull Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. Munster showed some grudging respect but largely felt the Galaxy S4 was ?an incremental upgrade, with spec bumps mostly in line with expectations.? (Motley Fool). Munster added:

This is Samsung?s time right now. They are clearly gaining more attention this time around than they ever have? Despite the launch and fanfare around the Galaxy S4, we continue to believe that Apple will maintain a low 40% market share in the high-end smartphone market in CY13. (NY Times and Vancouver Sun).

The market voted with its wallet on Friday, ?selling the Samsung news,? with a rare recent day of AAPL gains on a market down day. For the week, AAPL put in a gain of +2.8%, much of that in Friday?s move higher. While breaking the win streak Friday, the major indices were modestly higher on the week: the S&P up +0.6%, the Dow +0.8%, and the Nasdaq Comp +0.1%.

Let?s take a look at what they were saying this week:

?Uh-oh, Greenspan sounds bullish.?? ?Barron?s on Saturday, a bit tongue-in-cheek, on the possible contra-indicator of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan?s interviews this week, adding, ?The Maestro declares stocks to be undervalued.?

?She has a grandiose plan to become the PowerPoint Pied Piper in Prada ankle boots reigniting the women?s revolution.?? ?A few weeks old editorial comment by the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, which was referenced constantly this week with the release of ?Lean In,??Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg?s ?sort of Feminist Manifesto.?

?The banking system is in much better shape, able to absorb unexpected shocks and losses.?? ?former Fed Governor Randy Kroszner of the Univ. of Chicago Booth School of Business today on Maria Bartiromo?s ?On The Money,? reflecting on the latest round of bank stress test results released this week.

?The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has no humor up its sleeve.?? ?Various reviews, including USA Today, which all broke out any number of puns, from variations on ?It proves you can?t conjure up a plot? to ?You don?t have to be a Houdini to escape this movie.? (cinemadope.com). The film had its world premiere at the South by Southwest Conferences and Festivals but ?did not pull a white rabbit out of its top hat? at the box office on general release this weekend, looking to finish in third place. (EW.com)

?The number I reported (to the regulators) was the number that was given to me.?? ?former JP Morgan exec Ina Drew in testimony before Senator Carl Levin?s panel on the ?Whale Trading Loss? inquiry this week. (Huffington Post). While she stated she was ?sorry for the loss,? the general take was ?that Drew blamed the losses on executives under her watch who failed to control risks out of the London office.?

Rolling Stone?s columnist Matt Taibbi managed to work in a shot at nemesis Goldman Sachs in his panel blog coverage:

These early (JPM) witnesses are being smart, somberly nodding and agreeing with Levin every time he asks a question like, ?Weren?t you all being raving, irresponsible douchebags when you ignored these warnings of huge losses last year?? Big stylistic difference from the Goldman hearings, where the Goldman guys couldn?t resist letting their know-it-all attitudes leak out.

?There is reason to be optimistic (on a grand budget deal).?? ?Bloomberg interview with new U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who stated, ?The President is putting in a great deal of effort on finding a bipartisan solution.?

?Disappointing recent numbers leave analysts divided about China?s growth prospects.?? ?WSJ, after China reported a surge in exports but relatively weak industrial production numbers, inflation concerns and softer domestic economic indications.

?More forceful action is warranted to cement recent gains in (European) market confidence and to end the crisis.?? ?an IMF statement this week (NY Times), lest we forget that European concerns have not totally disappeared amid the many analyst and commentator calls essentially seeing the ?start of a secular global equity bull market.?

?The GOP of old has grown stale and moss-covered. We don?t need to name names.?? ?Kentucky Senator Rand Paul at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) this week in Maryland. (atlanticwire.com). NJ Governor Chris Christie was a notable non-invitee, but Politico called that perhaps ?a blessing in disguise?he will have plenty of time before 2016 to re-ingratiate himself with conservatives.?

?We are committed to continuing to maintain a first-rate compliance effort woven into the fabric of the firm.?? ?SAC Capital official press release after being hit with the SEC?s ?largest ever insider trading settlement? at around $600 million. (Forbes).

Let?s close it out there with just a quick look at some ?rumors? of the week.

There was continued speculation that a ?special dividend? was due shortly from Apple, that Yahoo had designs on Zynga, that Ron Johnson would shortly be relieved of CEO duties at JC Penney, and that Blackberry and Lenovo might get together. There were no definitive answers to these, although JCP adamantly dismissed the Johnson story (foxbusiness.com).

But we can definitively confirm the outcome of three of the more outrageous rumors:

-Dennis Rodman is not going to be appointed Special Envoy to the Vatican.

-Mayor Michael Bloomberg was likely not really sighted drinking a green-colored 32-oz. Slurpee at the NYC St. Patrick?s Day Parade.

-And despite what Jay Leno might have you believe, the Cardinals at the Papal Conclave did not break out in the ?Harlem Shake? at the end of deliberations. (See Tonight Show video here, courtesy NBC and YouTube).

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidwismer/2013/03/17/apple-bull-gene-munster-this-is-samsungs-time-but-and-other-quotes-of-the-week/

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Major issues in Pakistan's upcoming election

The Pakistan People's Party, which led the government for the past five years, faces a difficult challenge in the upcoming national election expected in May because of anger over faltering economic growth, worsening energy shortages and continued attacks by militants.

FALTERING ECONOMIC GROWTH: The economy has grown at less than 4 percent a year under the PPP government, compared with much higher rates during the previous administration, which sometimes hovered near 7 percent. Inflation spiked, reaching an annualized rate of around 25 percent in some months. The inflation rate, however, has fallen in the past year, averaging around 11 percent in 2012.

ENERGY SHORTAGES: Electricity shortages have almost doubled under the PPP compared with the previous administration. Some places in Pakistan suffer blackouts for up to 18 hours a day during the hot summer months. The country also has experienced increased shortages of natural gas, which were felt acutely during the winter because many people rely on natural gas to heat their homes as well as cook.

TALIBAN ATTACKS: The military has launched numerous operations against the Pakistani Taliban in the country's northwest tribal region along the Afghan border since the spring of 2009. Analysts say the operations and U.S. drone attacks against militants in the tribal region have helped produce a significant decline in overall levels of violence in 2011 and 2012. But the Taliban remain a potent threat and have once again stepped up their pace of attacks in recent months, especially operations against high-profile targets like Pakistani military bases. Sectarian violence by radical Sunni Muslim militants against minority Shiites also has significantly worsened in recent months.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/major-issues-pakistans-upcoming-election-195906165.html

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Cyprus secures $13 bn bailout from eurozone, IMF

Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, left, speaks with Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde during an extraordinary meeting of the eurogroup at EU headquarters in Brussels on Friday, March 15, 2013. European finance ministers are trying to complete a long-delayed bailout deal for Cyprus in a bid to keep the island nation from a bankruptcy that could rekindle the region?s debt crisis. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, left, speaks with Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde during an extraordinary meeting of the eurogroup at EU headquarters in Brussels on Friday, March 15, 2013. European finance ministers are trying to complete a long-delayed bailout deal for Cyprus in a bid to keep the island nation from a bankruptcy that could rekindle the region?s debt crisis. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, center, speaks with the media as he arrives for an extraordinary meeting of the eurogroup at EU headquarters in Brussels on Friday, March 15, 2013. European finance ministers are trying to complete a long-delayed bailout deal for Cyprus in a bid to keep the island nation from a bankruptcy that could rekindle the region?s debt crisis. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

A man uses his mobile phone as passes outside of the Financial ministry in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, March 15, 2013. European finance ministers are gathering for an extraordinary meeting on Friday, in a bid to finalize a long-delayed bailout for the cash-strapped Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, officials said, but the bailout is likely to come with tough strings attached. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, March 15, 2013. On the second anniversary of an uprising that evolved into Syria?s brutal civil war, the European Union?s national leaders will likely discuss whether to arm rebels trying to overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

BRUSSELS (AP) ? Cash-strapped Cyprus secured a ?10 billion ($13 billion) bailout package from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund in a bid to prevent the island nation from entering a bankruptcy that could rekindle the region's debt crisis, officials said early Saturday.

In a major departure from established policies, the package foresees a one-time levy on the money held in bank accounts in Cyprus. Analysts have warned that making depositors take a hit threatens to undermine investors' confidence in other weaker eurozone economies and might possibly lead to bank runs.

In return for the rescue loans, Cyprus will trim its deficit, significantly shrink its troubled banking sector, raise taxes and privatize state assets, said the Netherlands' Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup meetings of the 17-nation eurozone's finance ministers.

"The assistance is warranted to safeguard financial stability in Cyprus and the eurozone as a whole," he said, briefing reporters after almost 10 hours of negotiations.

People with less than ?100,000 in their Cypriot bank accounts will have to pay a one-time tax of 6.75 percent, those owning more money will lose 9.9 percent. The measure will be carried out early next week and is expected to net ?5.8 billion in additional revenues, Dijsselbloem added, thereby greatly reducing the country's financing need.

"We found it justified in terms of burden sharing to also involve the depositors," said Dijsselbloem, noting that it was a "unique measure" because of Cyprus' outsized banking system.

"As it is a contribution to the financial stability of Cyprus, it seems just to ask a contribution of all deposit holders," Dijsselbloem added.

Analysts have warned that imposing such a drastic measure could be seen as a watershed moment, undermining the eurozone's credibility. Although the leaders stressed the levy was a unique measure for Cyprus, they said the same when private holders of government bonds were forced to accept losses in Greece.

The measure therefore risks scaring investors in Europe's weaker economies, which could lead them to move their deposits to more stable eurozone countries like Germany. In that case, banks in southern Europe's economies might be considerably weakened and could possibly require new bailouts. That could then weaken the respective governments, which might then need further assistance from their eurozone partners ? possibly setting off a vicious spiral.

But Joerg Asmussen, a member of the European Central Bank's governing council, sought to dismiss fears of bank troubles stemming from the levy, saying the ECB stands ready to provide financial institutions with emergency liquidity assistance.

"The levy, it's an appropriate tool. It's really tailor-made to the situation in Cyprus," he said. "It's a country in extreme financing need, and what you do is to expand the tax base, not only to residents but also to non-residents," he said.

Russian citizens are estimated to have at least ?20 billion in deposits in Cyprus.

Asmussen stressed that there was no risk of such a levy being implemented in other countries that have already received bailouts, such as Greece, Ireland or Portugal, because those countries' financing needs are covered by their international rescue loans.

In a sign of how exceptional and urgent a decision the one-time levy is, Cypriot banks are already implementing measures to make sure that depositors cannot withdraw money to shrink the tax basis, Asmussen said. The remainder of their holdings can be withdrawn, he added.

But Cypriot Finance Minister Michalis Sarris added that electronic bank transfers won't be possible before Tuesday, Monday being a regular holiday in the country. In return for their one-time tax payment, depositors will get an equivalent stake in the bank where they have their account, he said.

"It was a very difficult decision," Sarris acknowledged, but added that "much more money could have been lost in a bankruptcy of the banking system or indeed the country."

Cypriot lawmakers are expected to approve a law on the bank levy over the weekend, and the money will be levied starting Tuesday.

"I want to underscore that this is a once and for all levy. We wanted to do it in a way, in a decisive way ... to remove any doubt about the future," Sarris said. "There is no reason whatsoever that deposit holders in Cyprus, existing and new ones, should have any concerns."

While the Cypriot bailout is many times smaller than Greece's ?240 billion package or Ireland's ?67.5 billion, it is still considered crucial to the future of the eurozone because a default even by a small country could roil financial markets and undermine investor confidence.

Cyprus' financing needs to recapitalize its banks and keep the government afloat were initially estimated to total ?17 billion, which is almost the equivalent of Cyprus' annual economic output and would have ballooned the country's public debt to about 140 percent of its economy, a level the IMF considers unsustainable.

The creditors therefore sought to exhaust all avenues to have Cyprus raise more revenue to reduce the need for external financing.

Losses will also be imposed on the banks' junior bondholders, the officials said. In addition, Cyprus agreed to increase its capital gains tax, and to raise its corporate tax by a quarter, from 10 to 25 percent, Dijsselbloem said.

To further reduce the financing needs, Russia was expected to significantly extend the maturity of a ?2.5 billion loan granted in 2011 after the country could no longer tap international markets.

The ministers also agreed to make sizeable Greek operations of the country's two largest banks, Bank of Cyprus and Laiki, eligible for spare rescue cash from Greece's bailout accord.

Under the bailout deal, Cyprus debt is forecast to reach about 100% of GDP by 2020.

The economy of Cyprus, an eastern Mediterranean island of just over a million people, represents less than 0.2 percent of the eurozone's annual economic output.

Cyprus, which first applied for a bailout last summer, wasn't in imminent danger of bankruptcy, as it faces its next bond redemption in June. But the European Central Bank, concerned that prolonged uncertainty over Cyprus could hurt market sentiment across the eurozone, had pushed for a swift deal, even threatening to cut the country's financial system off from emergency funding.

The finance ministers' agreement still has to be approved by parliaments in several eurozone nations. EU officials say everything should be done by the end of the month.

To appease its potential rescue creditors, Cyprus has already accepted an independent audit of its banks, which hold billions in Russian deposits, to soothe concerns voiced by Germany, France and others that they launder dirty Russian money.

___

Don Melvin in Brussels contributed to this report.

___

Juergen Baetz can be reached on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jbaetz

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-16-Cyprus-Financial%20Crisis/id-c830ce957acd47aebb0e5d5d2160f1cd

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