BBC News with Nick Kelly
Banks in Cyprus are to stay closed until Tuesday as the government struggles to avert a financial collapse. There are fears of a run on the banks. Reports say a cabinet meeting is deciding how to prevent large amounts of cash leaving the island. Mark Lowen reports.
It’s been a day of frantic talks in Nicosia, Brussels and Moscow as all three parties debate how to pull Cyprus out of this crisis. After the bailout deal was rejected in parliament, the country’s 17bn euro rescue is in turmoil with Cyprus close to bankruptcy. Meanwhile, banks here will remain closed until Tuesday, causing cash machines to run low and some businesses to refuse credit cards.
Within the past few minutes, state television in Cyprus has reported that the Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades will present alternative plans for securing a bailout for the country’s stricken economy to the leaders of the country’s political parties on Thursday.
On his first official visit to Israel, President Obama has said the US will do what is necessary to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. At a joint news conference with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Obama said Israel’s security was non-negotiable. He said the US preferred to resolve the Iranian issue diplomatically, but that all options were on the table. Mr Netanyahu thanked Mr Obama for his efforts on Iran, but said any measures must be backed up by a credible military option.
"Diplomacy and sanctions so far have not stopped Iran’s nuclear programme. And as you know my view is that in order to stop Iran’s nuclear programmes peacefully, diplomacy and sanctions must be augmented by clear and credible threat of military action. In this regard, Mr President, I want to thank you once again for always making clear that Israel must be able to defend itself, by itself against any threat.”
The governor of the American state of Colorado John Hickenlooper has signed new laws on gun control exactly eight months after a gunman killed 12 people in a cinema in the town of Aurora. Paul Adams reports from Washington.
Governor Hickenlooper looked shaken as he signed Colorado’s three new gun control laws. His friend Tom Clements, the head of the state’s prison service, was killed on his doorstep on Tuesday evening. Police are still looking for the person who shot him at point-blank range. The new legislation expands the role of background checks on weapons purchases and limits the size of gun magazines to 15 rounds. It’s a bold move in a state with plenty of gun enthusiasts.
US researchers have for the first time used gene therapy to successfully fight a particularly aggressive type of leukaemia in adults. They took disease-fighting T-cells from their patients and modified them to specifically attack leukaemia cells. The scientists said the cancer was eradicated in all five patients. However, they said that the sample was a small one and that more study was needed.
World News from the BBC
Rebels in the Central African Republic say they are considering their options following the expiry of a deadline given to the government to meet their demands. A spokesman for the Seleka rebels, who last year seized several key towns, said a return to arms was possible.
French police have carried out a search of the Paris home of the IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. The search was part of an investigation into a decision by Ms Lagarde when she was French finance minister to order judges to arbitrate in a dispute between the disgraced tycoon Bernard Tapie and a partly state-own bank. Mr Tapie was awarded more than $300m in damages. Investigators suspect Mr Tapie’s deal was granted in return for his support of President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election. Ms Lagarde has denied any wrongdoing.
The operator of Japan’s damaged nuclear power plant at Fukushima says a rat may have been responsible for a loss of power that threatened a new crisis this week. Charles Scanlon reports.
The failure of the cooling systems at Fukushima brought back memories of the panic two years ago when nuclear reactors there melted down and emitted clouds of radiation. This time the cooling ponds for spent but still highly radioactive fuel rods were affected by a power failure and it took engineers some 30 hours to fix them. The operator, Tepco, has released a picture of a dead rat near one of the switchboards and suggested that that could have been the cause of the power failure.
And Russian football officials have fined a leading Chechen club Terek Grozny after one of its keenest fans, the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov commandeered the public address system to hurl abuse at the referee during a home game. Mr Kadyrov’s outburst occurred on Sunday when the referee sent off Terek’s captain. He shouted “The ref’s been bought off. You are an ass.” After the game he challenged the referee in his dressing room to explain the sending-off.