Bank accounts have been frozen since the weekend when the Cypriot government did a secret deal with the EU to steal money out of the bank accounts of ordinary savers as part payment of an EU bailout. A compromise was offered that would see money stolen only from bank accounts with €20k in them but it wasn't enough to convince MPs to support it: out of 56 MPS, 36 voted against, 19 abstained and one didn't turn up for the vote.
The EU generously says that Cyprus can still have a bailout but they'll have to find the €10bn shortfall some other way if they don't steal it out of peoples' bank accounts. Whether the Cypriot government has done enough to restore confidence in the banking system remains to be seen but it's likely that at least a couple of banks are going to experience a fatal run when they are allowed to reopen on Thursday and the Russians will almost certainly pull out of Cyprus.
Stuart Parr is a 
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