Australian Casino In 'Ocean's Eleven' Scam

Australia's largest casino has been scammed out of a reported $32m AUS (£22m) in an Ocean's Eleven-style heist.

Melbourne's Herald-Sun newspaper said a foreigner staying at the Crown Casino used the venue's own surveillance cameras in the sting.

The paper claims information taken from the high-resolution cameras was apparently signalled to the high roller as he played cards - a similar method to that used by George Clooney's character in the crime caper.

In the 2001 movie Brad Pitt and Clooney recruit someone familiar with security to rob a series of Las Vegas casinos.

Crown said a member of staff in the VIP gambling area had been sacked and the patron involved banned after the scam was uncovered several weeks ago.

Victoria state police said they had been informed of the incident.

Deakin University's Linda Hancock, who has written a book about Crown, said surveillance cameras were throughout the casino but even more intensified in the premium areas.

"There's someone in monitoring rooms looking at them in real time," she told the broadcaster ABC.

"So they must have picked up that there was a winning streak here that looked suspicious and zoomed in on it and then been able to look at what was going on in real time in the room."

Reports said Crown believed it could recover a significant portion of the money.

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Syria Anniversary: EU Rethinks Arms Embargo

Health Needs Critical In Aleppo

Updated: 9:04am UK, Friday 15 March 2013

By Dr Natalie Roberts, Doctors Without Borders

I'm part of an MSF team based in the Aleppo region in the north of Syria. This area continues to see an enormous amount of conflict, and the health needs are massive.

Before I was in Aleppo I worked in Idlib region, where MSF runs a surgical trauma hospital with an operating theatre, an emergency department and a small in-patient department.

There are a number of expats there, including a surgeon and an anaesthetist along with about fifty Syrian staff. It's a small hospital, but it's actually very full and busy. We're currently providing support to other hospitals and health facilities in Aleppo.

Much of the healthcare infrastructure in this part of Syria has essentially collapsed, and although there are dedicated people working hard to keep facilities going, sometimes they don't have the training, the experience or the equipment to provide the medical care that people need. That's where we can help.

Not long after I arrived, I was working at an MSF hospital and a six-year-old girl was brought to us. She'd been with her family on the roof of her house, when a plane had flown over to bomb the village.

Understandably, children in Syria are now very scared of planes, so when this girl had seen the plane she ran across the roof. The family had a diesel heater because of the cold, and as the girl ran she knocked it over and splashed the burning fuel all over her legs.

She suffered serious burn injuries to her legs, and was rushed to a local health centre, but they really didn't have the equipment or even the proper pain relief to treat her.

This is a problem that we see a lot. Even when facilities are still open, often they don't have the medicines or the equipment to properly treat patients. Or if they do have the equipment, it's been damaged by bombing or by lack of maintenance. Hospitals are a target and many have been bombed.

And then there's the lack of electricity, which is a huge problem. Equipment in hospitals is dependent on electricity but most places now don't have a supply so everything is run from generators, but that requires diesel which is very expensive and not always available. Vaccines and blood need to be kept in fridges, but if you don't have power, those things are useless.

At one of the emergency rooms I go to, they don't have a means of sterilising equipment. So when they get patients from a bomb blast, they'll do procedures like suturing, but they can't really sterilise the equipment so they just have to reuse. And that obviously causes problems down the line.

By the time the girl came to us, she was really traumatised and even walking into the hospital left her screaming and in tears. It took a long time for her to trust us, but eventually we were able to change her dressings and give her the beginnings of the care that she needed.

For me, that really summed up the horror of the situation in Syria. Yes, there are acute injuries from the bombings and from the violence, but there is also the psychological trauma caused by the whole situation. This poor girl has seen and experienced things that nobody - let alone a six-year-old girl - should have to experience.

When I visit different hospitals in Syria, often the casualties are children. Bombings will hit residential areas and whole families are injured or killed.

Alongside the acute injuries, children are suffering from a range of medical problems. Vaccination has essentially stopped in some areas. Whole families are living in tents or in houses with no heating or clean water, often all together in one room. Infectious diseases are starting to spread. I've seen a lot of children with basic disease like pneumonia and Hepatitis A.

There's no school. They're coping, but that doesn't mean they're behaving normally.

Sometimes the children will be playing on the streets when planes fly over, and they just accept it and keep playing, even when the plane is bombing their town.

There's a man I know who has a four-year-old son, and sometimes this man helps in a local field hospital. One night he was going to help after a bombing and his four-year-old son asked him not to go, saying that if a bomb hits the house, he wanted the family to all be together so none of them would feel lonely. That's not a normal thing for a four year old to say.

You know, MSF is very good at being efficient, at knowing how to provide a good medical service with not many facilities. We're used to working in these types of conflict areas and we're one of the rare aid organisations I've seen working in the region.

The health system in Syria was very sophisticated before, and now that the infrastructure has broken down, they're struggling to optimise how they work. That's how we can help. But building that trust takes time. These people have been doing this for two years and doing an amazing job, and it does take time to build up trust. I have to tell them what I've seen and done before, and tell them what MSF does.

I remember I was visiting an emergency department at one hospital in Aleppo. It was the first time I'd been there, and we were discussing with the staff how we could help them when news came that a mortar bomb had hit a nearby market. Very quickly we started to receive casualties, brought to us in private cars, the back of pick-up trucks and on motorbikes. Ten fatalities arrived almost immediately, then four more, two who had sustained massive head injuries.

In situations like that, it's vital you triage and prioritise patients that can be helped, and it was very clear that these two patients were beyond help. But it was equally clear that there were other patients - particularly two eight-year-old girls with shrapnel wounds - who could be saved.

My role in the midst of all the panic and crisis was to point out that these girls were our priority and that we needed to focus our attention on them. Pointing that out, though, requires that the team trust me.

I think one of my main roles at the moment in these hospitals is to use my experience to train people and demonstrate what should be done in terms of prioritising patients during a mass casualty event. To that end, I've been delivering a training programme in different hospitals.

We teach them about triage, about managing war wounded patients, about blood transfusion, and how to do all that with reduced facilities and equipment.

It's a scary situation in Syria. This is the second period of time I've spent there, and over the last weeks I've really noticed the escalation of violence. But you do get used to it. Incidents that initially made me very frightened, I now take for granted.

The first time I was really scared was when a very large missile landed not too far away where we were staying. We could feel the windows of our house shaking. There were two of us in the house and we were both afraid.

But within a month, we  were getting missiles every night - some very near - and we'd get out of bed and go to our safe room but be complaining that it was cold and our sleep was being interrupted. You even start making jokes about it, but it's just a way of coping. In reality, you never really lose the fear.

People are grateful that we're there. But we can't do everything. We can help with what we can, but the needs are huge. We set up a blood bank. We provide vaccinations. We helped with supplies for dialysis machines.

We need to set up more MSF clinics and structures. There is a need for more acute trauma surgery, but there's also a need to continue basic healthcare, treating chronic diseases and providing outpatient services. We need to continue helping with equipment and advice and support.

Take our blood bank. We've set one up in the Aleppo region in a secret location which supplies all hospitals in that area. People have been coming from 50km (30 miles) away to access it. It required a bit of work, a lot of training and equipment, but it's now up and running.

Before people were getting unsafe blood, blood that hadn't been tested and stored correctly, but now they are. Something like that is really easy to do, but it's cost effective and it saves lives.

But this is just a drop in the ocean. The suffering that people are experiencing in that country is incredible and it's frustrating and upsetting to see so many problems and know that because of security or for other reasons you can't solve it all.

But as MSF we do what we can, and it's vital we continue to help. This is a massive humanitarian emergency and the Syrian people need our help. It's as simple as that.

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Berlusconi: Semi-Naked Women At Bunga Parties

A TV journalist has told a court she saw semi-naked women dancing at former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's infamous 'Bunga Bunga' parties.

Silvia Trevaini also said Berlusconi gifted her 800,000 euros in just two years because her "career had been affected".

It emerged the 29-year-old was still working for one of the media tycoon's websites, prompting the prosecutor to question her stated reason for the payments.

Berlusconi leaves hospital on Friday after treatment on his eye

Miss Trevaini was giving evidence in the case of three people accused of procuring women for the politician's parties, which he threw at his luxury villa and which prosecutors say were characterised by semi-naked women being paid to attend.

She told the court in Milan: "I saw Nicole Minetti dressed as if she was a Bagaglino (dancing girl show). She had a short top and mini skirt. Other women were dressed the same way."

When asked what she had thought, she replied: "Everyone is free to do what they want. They were just pleasant dinners. I always left in my own car."

Miss Trevaini added that she had met Berlusconi in 2006 and started work for his Mediaset TV empire shortly afterwards, receiving a salary of 2,500 euros a month - which she said came with other regular payments from him into her bank account.

She said: "In 2007 I received 290,000 euros from him to buy a house and then in 2009 he gave me 400,000 euros to buy another house after I sold the first one.

"The same year I also received two bank transfers of 40,000 and 80,000 euros as well as an Audi. In total, 810,000 euros.

"I needed the money because my career had suffered. I also had to help my brother and my father who was having problems with his building business. It's very hard for a woman in this business to have a career."

Miss Treviani did not go into further details of how her career had been affected but when questioned about the money she confirmed she had a contract to work on the website of one of Berlusconi's news programmes.

Prosecutors have accused regional councillor Nicole Minetti, casting agent Lele Mora and TV news anchor Emilio Fede of recruiting the girls for the parties and being paid handsomely by Berlusconi, 76, for doing so.

Another witness, Russian model Raissa Skorkina, told the trial she had met Berlusconi while on holiday in Sardinia and was invited several times to his homes on the island, in Rome and Milan.

"At the time I met him I was working for (Flavio) Briatore but Silvio told me to quit my job and he would look after me," she said.

"He said 'I will be your little angel'. Then I started to get monthly payments from him, around 3,000 euros. I'm still getting them now.

"When we spoke he said I should never talk about money on the telephone as they were bugged he said I should say the word 'petrol' for money."

Berlusconi is also accused of paying under-aged Karima El Mahroug for sex

The trial has already heard from several women who attended the parties including two who said they were left "mortified and embarrassed" at the sexual nature of events that took place, although Berlusconi has insisted they were simple dinners.

He has accused magistrates of being on a left-wing orchestrated witch-hunt and being out to get him.

Berlusconi is currently on trial separately for paying a then 17-year-old girl, Karima El Mahroug, for sex when she attended the parties. Both deny any wrongdoing.

That trial was suspended last week after Berlusconi's legal team filed a request for an adjournment as he was suffering from a severe eye complaint.

It is due to end later this month but they have also now asked for it to be moved to Brescia, accusing judges of bias.

The trial against the three accused of procuring the women also continues later this month.

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US Boosting Defence After North Korea Threats

The US is beefing up its domestic missile defence systems with new interceptors after recent threats of a nuclear attack by North Korea.

Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has announced the addition of 14 interceptors in Alaska, a nearly 50% increase in defence capability.

The new interceptors, added to the 30 already installed in California and Alaska, will improve the military's ability to shoot down missiles in flight before they reach the US.

Mr Hagel said the US is also working with Japan to deploy new radar systems that could better track and provide warning of any missile launched by the Communist regime.

Kim Jong-Un greets troops on a visit to a military installment

The Pentagon is also studying the feasibility of alternative missile defence system sites in other parts of the US, he said.

Officials do not believe North Korea is capable of carrying out a nuclear attack on the US, but the recent threat has added to tensions between the two countries.

The defence system has existed since 2004, when the George W Bush administration built it in response to threats from North Korea.

North Korean soldiers undergo military training

In the past year, under the regime of leader Kim Jong-Un, North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests and successfully launched a satellite into orbit using the same technology needed to launch a long-range missile.

Mr Hagel told reporters the decision was intended to help the US "stay ahead of the threat" posed by North Korea's missile technology advances.

"The United States has missile defence systems in place to protect us from limited ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) attacks, but North Korea in particular has recently made advances in its capabilities and is engaged in a series of irresponsible and reckless provocations," he said.

North Korea's ire has also been directed at neighbour South Korea, with it recently threatening to reduce the country's capital Seoul to "a sea of fire".

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China Detains Sky Correspondent In Beijing

Sky correspondent Mark Stone has been detained by Chinese police while filming in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

The Sky News team were reporting on China's leadership transition after the National People's Congress confirmed the country's new president and prime minister.

They had permission and passes to film in the square.

But a police officer told them to stop and asked them to accompany him to a nearby location.

Stone said that police told him the team were not displaying their passes correctly and noted that he did not have his passport with him as he is required to do.

He and his cameraman were driven in a police van to a nearby building where they were detained for four hours.

Stone said his passport was in their vehicle, which had been asked to move on.

He added: "This is just a little insight really into the way reporting works in China.

"Most of the time things are fine and for most of the day no problems at all, but then every now and then this happens.

"The police have been entirely civil with us but they are detaining us nonetheless."

He later returned to Sky's Beijing offices.

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Soyuz Space Capsule Lands In Kazakhstan Fog

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three crew from the International Space Station has safely returned to Earth after an "energetic and exciting" landing in thick fog.

The vessel was upright and almost hit its "bull's eye" target in Kazakhstan, a day after its originally scheduled touchdown was delayed by bad weather.

Nasa astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin, as Expedition 34, had manned the $100bn (£66bn) orbital outpost since October. They had spent 144 days on the station.

The space capsule landed at 7:06am (local time) northeast of the town of Arkalyk.

Due to reduced visibility, it took a few minutes before helicopters with Russian search and recovery teams could locate the vessel after it came down.

The trio are wrapped up amid freezing temperatures

Russian television showed footage of rescue workers opening the hatch of the capsule.

The crew were helped down a special slide and Mr Tarelkin pumped his fists as he sat on the edge of the craft.

The three smiling astronauts were then seated on special chairs and given blue thermal blankets.

A Nasa TV commentator said only two of 12 search and rescue helicopters were allowed to land at the touchdown site because of heavy cloud and fog.

The trio later gave the thumbs up

So instead of being placed in an inflatable medical tent for checks, the trio were then taken to one of the helicopters for a two-hour trip to the staging site. The temperature at the time was well below freezing.

From there, Mr Ford would board a plane for Houston, Texas, and the Russians would be flown to Moscow.

"The landing was energetic and exciting," Russian TV showed Mr Novitskiy as saying.

And Nasa TV said: "Oleg Novitskiy reported to search and recovery teams that the crew is feeling good. Everything seems to be in order."

In preparation for their departure from the ISS, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield took the helm of the station on Wednesday.

Canadian Chris Hadfield took the helm of the ISS earlier in the week

He became the first Canadian to do so and only the second in the ISS's 12-year history who was not American or Russian.

Mr Hadfield will be part of a three-man skeleton crew until Nasa astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin arrive later this month.

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Hugo Chavez Taken To Final Resting Place

Chavez: 'A Master Of The Spotlight'

Updated: 6:50am UK, Wednesday 06 March 2013

By Rachel Younger, Sky News Correspondent

Hugo Chavez was one of the most charismatic and controversial leaders of our time.

A master of the spotlight, his military fatigues and synthetic red tracksuits underlining his socialist credentials made him a photographer's dream.

Best of all were the shots that captured him with his pet parrot Simon Bolivar, named after a Venezuelan general, and sometimes sporting a tiny red beret to match his own.

No wonder he caught the imagination of Hollywood film stars and directors - one day attending premieres with Oliver Stone, the next sharing jokes with Naomi Campbell.

Mr Chavez was a former soldier who was elected president in 1998, after being imprisoned for a failed coup seven years earlier.

His nineties brand of revolutionary socialism won him plenty of affection among the poor, with many of his supporters viewing him with almost religious reverence.

It was an emotional connection he was happy to milk on his weekly television show, Alo Presidente. The masses tuning in for his rambling poetry recitals and even stranger song and dance routines.

His country's vast oil reserves gave the president the money to tackle poverty, boosting spending on health and education. But corruption and mismanagement left the economy struggling and democracy withered under his rule.

An increasingly autocratic Mr Chavez changed the constitution to allow unlimited presidential terms, stamped hard on press freedom and nationalised many of the country's industries.

A natural firebrand, he didn't confine himself to Latin American politics. Instead he took on the West by courting fellow controversial figures like Cuba's Fidel Castro and  Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, forging a close alliance with Iran and offering Argentina support on the Falklands.

But Mr Chavez saved most of his wrath for the Americans, regularly referring to George W Bush as Mr Danger, and accusing Washington of "fighting terror with terror" in Afghanistan.

In one particularly bellicose statement in 2006 he appeared at the UN a day after the former American president and stated: "The Devil came here yesterday. It smells of sulphur still."

Even after four operations and intensive chemotherapy for his cancer, Mr Chavez maintained his grip on the country, anointing Vice President Nicholas Maduro as his preferred successor.

Too ill in January to travel back from Cuba for his inauguration, he managed to hang on to the presidency despite the constitution forbidding it.

For the three months before he died Mr Chavez wasn't seen or heard of publicly, yet the cult of his personality was enough to keep his leadership alive.

Without it, Venezuela may emerge a very different country.

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Pope Francis Wants 'Church For The Poor'

Profile: The Chemist Who Became A Pope

Updated: 1:17pm UK, Thursday 14 March 2013

Francis is the first ever pope from the Americas, an austere Jesuit intellectual who modernised Argentina's conservative Roman Catholic Church.

Known until Wednesday as Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis is respected as a humble man who denied himself the luxuries that previous Buenos Aires cardinals enjoyed.

In the past, the 76-year-old pontiff often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited the slums that ring Argentina's capital.

He accused fellow church leaders of hypocrisy, and forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

"Jesus teaches us another way. Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the Word in body as well as spirit," the then-Cardinal Bergoglio told Argentina's priests last year.

He was born in Buenos Aires on December 17, 1936, one of five children of an Italian railway worker and his wife.

His legacy as a cardinal includes his efforts to repair the reputation of a church that lost many followers by failing to openly challenge Argentina's murderous 1976-83 dictatorship.

He also worked to recover the church's traditional political influence in society, but his outspoken criticism of President Cristina Kirchner could not stop her from imposing socially liberal measures, from gay marriage and adoption to free contraceptives.

He came close to becoming pope in 2005, reportedly gaining the second-highest total in several rounds of voting before bowing out in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.

Initially trained as a chemist, Bergoglio taught literature, psychology, philosophy and theology before taking over as Buenos Aires archbishop in 1998.

He became cardinal in 2001, when the economy was collapsing, and won respect for blaming unrestrained capitalism for impoverishing millions of Argentines.

Sergio Rubin, Bergoglio's authorised biographer, said the new pope felt most comfortable taking a very low profile, and his personal style was the antithesis of Vatican splendour.

"It's a very curious thing. When bishops meet, he always wants to sit in the back rows. This sense of humility is very well seen in Rome," Mr Rubin said before the 2013 conclave to choose Benedict's successor.

Bergoglio has stood out for his austerity. Even after he became Argentina's top church official in 2001, he never lived in the ornate church mansion where Pope John Paul II stayed when visiting the country.

He almost never granted media interviews, limiting himself to speeches from the pulpit, and was reluctant to contradict his critics, even when he knew their allegations against him were false, said Mr Rubin.

That attitude was burnished as human rights activists tried to force him to answer uncomfortable questions about what church officials knew and did about the dictatorship's abuses after the 1976 coup.

Many Argentines remain angry over the church's acknowledged failure to openly confront a regime that was kidnapping and killing thousands of people as it sought to eliminate "subversive elements" in society.

It's one reason why more than two-thirds of Argentines describe themselves as Catholic, but fewer than 10% regularly attend mass.

Under Bergoglio's leadership, Argentina's bishops issued a collective apology in October 2012 for the church's failures to protect its flock. But the statement blamed the era's violence in roughly equal measure on both the junta and its enemies.

"Bergoglio has been very critical of human rights violations during the dictatorship, but he has always also criticised the leftist guerrillas; he doesn't forget that side," Mr Rubin said.

The bishops also said "we exhort those who have information about the location of stolen babies, or who know where bodies were secretly buried, that they realise they are morally obligated to inform the pertinent authorities".

But that statement came far too late for some activists, who accused Bergoglio of being more concerned about the church's image than about aiding the many human rights investigations.

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India: Tourist Gang-Raped And Husband Beaten

A Swiss tourist has been gang-raped in India and she and her husband were beaten before being robbed, police said.

The pair were on a cycling trip in the impoverished Madhya Pradesh state, when they were attacked by seven to eight men while they were camping.

The perpetrators tied up the man and raped the woman in his presence, police official S M Afzal said.

He added they stole 10,000 rupees (£122) and a mobile phone from the woman.

The attack comes just a few days after the man accused of leading the fatal gang rape of a student on a New Delhi bus was found hanged in his prison cell.

Police say Ram Singh took his own life in the high-security Tihar jail where he had been on suicide watch in an isolated cell.

The case made headlines around the world and raised the issue of sexual violence against women in India.

The student's internal injuries were so horrific she died two weeks later in a hospital in Singapore despite surgery to try to save her.

A security official at the scene of the attack

The latest attack happened at a village near Datia where the 39-year-old woman and her husband were camping.

They had stopped there while on their way from Orchha to the tourist destination of Agra, home to the iconic Taj Mahal monument.

Police said 13 men were detained in connection with the attack. Six of them were later released.

According to the woman's husband, a group of seven men with lathis (wooden sticks) in their hands overpowered him.

He said four of them gang-raped his wife and then beat him up.

The woman was taken to a hospital in Gwalior where a medical examination confirmed that she was gang-raped.

The couple will be asked to try to identify the accused, NDTV reported. Police said the pair apparently did not suffer any major injuries.

Swiss foreign ministry spokesman Tilman Renz described the case as "deeply disturbing" and said Swiss diplomats were assisting the couple.

The chairman of India's national commission for women, Mamata Sharma, slammed the provincial government of Madhya Pradesh over its failure to curb violence against women.

The couple, who were travelling to Agra, were attacked near Datia

She said: "The government should pay attention towards what is happening with the foreigners.

"I have said this for the past few days that the crime against women in Madhya Pradesh is increasing and the government should take stringent action to put an end to such incidents.

"Many incidents of violence against women have come into the limelight in Madhya Pradesh but the government is completely insensitive towards them.

"The accused should be punished and we should see what kind of image of India we are presenting to the outside world. The government should take strict action."

Sky's Alex Rossi, reporting from Delhi, said of the gang rape: "This is another shocking case of violence against women, highlighting the very real problems that women face in this country on a day-to-day basis.

He added: "Foreign tourists, especially single women, face problems of unwanted sexual harassment in this country.

"This area of Madhya Pradesh in central India is known for its banditry. It is fairly lawless and it is also very poor."

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Cyprus Bailout: Savers Lose Money In EU Deal

Cyprus Savings Raid Crosses Rubicon

Updated: 4:04pm UK, Saturday 16 March 2013

By Ed Conway, Economics Editor

Back in 1941, with the memory of the Great Depression still weighing heavy, an American wrote into the Federal Reserve with an idea.

"Would it not be feasible," the member of the public asked, "to impose a federal tax on the deposit of funds in bank checking accounts?"

The reply from the Fed was polite but succinct: while there is no doubt a tax on bank deposits would have "the advantage of administrative simplicity", it is "not in accord with one of the fundamental principles of taxation in a democracy, namely, that taxes should be imposed in accordance with ability to pay".

And that, when it comes down to it, is the most scandalous and worrying aspect of the overnight decision to impose a one-off levy on all bank deposits in Cyprus.

There is no doubt the country is in big trouble. It was heading for a potential default and is in desperate need of another bail-out.

However, trying to recoup some of the cash directly from bank deposits is a step across the financial Rubicon.

Even in the depths of the euro crisis, none of the troubled countries had, until now, gone so far as to confiscate bank deposits.

As the Fed said all those years ago, doing so involves arbitrary charges on those least equipped to afford them.

And so it will be in Cyprus.

If you have anything up to 100,000 euros in a bank, by the time you next get access to your account on Tuesday (after Monday's Bank Holiday) some 6.75% of your cash will have disappeared into the government's coffers to help keep the country afloat.

That goes for everyone, from a pensioner to a small business owner to a millionaire - although Greek depositors get an exception.

If you have more than 100,000 euros, the charge is 9.9%.

In exchange, Cypriots will get a share in the relevant bank, equivalent to the value of the tax deduction - although this is unlikely to be of much consolation given the country's current financial woes.

To make those distributional consequences even more egregious, the word from Brussels is that while depositors will get hit, the senior creditors who own bonds in the banks (including, naturally, some of the racier hedge funds) will escape scot-free.

The concern is not merely about the brutal arbitrariness of the plan - it is about its implication for the country's financial system in the coming months.

There are scant examples of similar bank levies and those that do exist are hardly shining models.

In July 1992, Italy's Socialist Prime Minister Giuliano Amato imposed a one-off levy on bank accounts.

It was a mere 0.6% in comparison with Cyprus's scheme, and it still left a lasting scar on the country's financial psyche.

In 1936, Norway experimented with a bank deposit tax, but it caused an exodus of cash from the country.

There are also some Latin American examples (Brazil in 1992, Argentina at the turn of the millennium) but most were combined with capital controls, and were last-ditch efforts to rescue the financial system when all else had already been tried.

There really is no precedent for a policy of this sort, on this scale, and in an economic system where there are no controls on the movement of cash from one country to another, which leads one to believe that it will trigger depositors to pull money out of Cyprus at record speed as soon as they have the chance.

Moreover, given that this policy was not merely rubber-stamped but engineered by Eurozone finance ministers and the IMF (indeed, the IMF wanted an even deeper cut of deposits), it sends a disquieting message to anyone with deposits in a euro area bank.

Although the ministers were quick to insist that this is a one-off and is "exceptional", anyone even vaguely acquainted with the initial Greek bailouts will remember precisely how long such exceptions last.

Now, to some extent, one can see the logic in the plan.

The country has an enormous banking system, worth several times more than its economic output.

Around half of all those deposits (estimates vary) are owned by Russians, many of whom allegedly use the country as a tax haven from their own domestic charges.

Another hefty chunk of the bank deposits are owned by Britons - although UK deposits in UK branches and subsidiaries won't be affected.

This one-off levy will at least recoup some of the cash needed for the bailout from these depositors rather than the Cypriot taxpayer.

And why should the Russians (primarily) and the British (less so) have to contribute to a bailout simply because Germany was unwilling to pay up?

The pragmatic answer is that conveniently they weren't in the room when the move was negotiated. Germany, which let's not forget has an election later this year, was.

Or, in the words of someone closely involved with the negotiations: "Basically Cypriots turned their country into an offshore tax haven for dirty Russian money and the Germans and others are now insisting they pay the price for that."

However, that price is a deeply socially-damaging one.

The move has all sorts of implications, whether it's for the state of the euro crisis, the prospect of future assaults on bank deposits, and the British deposits in Cypriot banks, which will now be raided for the bailout.

However, most of all, one's sympathy has to be with the country's savers. Consider it: overnight a widow's life savings, carefully built up over decades, have been gouged, simply because EU bureaucrats decided to protect hedge funds and the German surplus, and to teach Russians a lesson.

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