Stephen Lendman

A company belonging to the relatives of Cypriot President
Nicos Anastasiades has reportedly moved millions of euros
out of the country a few days before a controversial levy
proposal by the Eurogroup was declared. (PressTV)

Grand theft is official Cypriot policy. Bank account haircuts are authorized. Those above 100,000 euros are targeted.

Depositors may lose much more than initially thought. Minimally it's around 40% of their money. It may be double that amount or more. Potentially it's everything.

In return, they'll get unsecured IOUs (promises to pay). They'll be converted to bank shares. They may end up worthless.

Small depositors aren't safe. If enough money isn't raised, they're vulnerable. Once thought safe bank accounts are being looted. It gets worse.

Friends of President Nicos Anastasiades got advance word. Cypriot newspaper Haravgi said A. Loutsios & Sons Ltd wired 21 million euros to London. It did so on March 12 and 13. It was days before capital controls were imposed.

Loutsios & Sons is co-owned by the husband of Anastasiades' daughter. The company denied Haravgi's report.

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Chris Floyd

As millions around the world mark the death of a god this weekend, let us add our voice to the chorus on this theme with a little number laid down back in ancient times (i.e., the last decade): End Times.

THIS IS NOT THE AGE OF DEFEAT ― This is the age of loss, not the age of defeat.

Drone strikes, kill lists, murderers and torturers approved for high office. Austerity for the poor, record profits for the rich. Truthtellers shackled, liars lauded, ignorance exalted, cruelty and callousness gilded with righteous piety. Everywhere, goodness is driven to its knees, and this brutality is not decried but celebrated.

As in that age of iron that lowered over our forbears during dark night of the Thirties, you see faces once thought kind and kindred turn suddenly feral. Fear is behind it, but not just fear: also a self-hatred for what fear has turned them into, a self-hatred that cannot be borne and so is turned outward, thrown outward, into harsh projections of hatefulness, violence and desolation.

The avid embrace of what was once denounced, or the sad but “savvy” acceptance of the “lesser evil”: this is what we see at every turn today among ourselves, among those we thought were our own, and sometimes, maybe – when the lowering is darkest, heaviest – in mirrors as we pass. When the lowering is darkest, when the soul is lost. In them. In us. This is the age of loss – but it is not the age of defeat.

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