Cyprus bailout deposit tax rattles markets

Stocks fall sharply after Cyprus proposal to tax deposits sparks renewed debt crisis fears

Trial over NYPD stop-and-frisk tactic set to begin

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Police Department's practice of stopping, questioning and frisking people on the street is facing its biggest legal challenge this week with a federal civil rights trial on whether the tactic unfairly targets minorities.

Police have made about 5 million stops of New Yorkers in the past decade, mostly black and Hispanic men. The trial, set to begin Monday, will include testimony from a dozen people who say they were targeted because of their race and from police whistleblowers who say they were forced into making slipshod stops by bosses who were too focused on numbers.

"When we say stop, question and frisk, we're not talking about a brief inconvenience on the way to work or school," said Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the lead attorney on the case. "We're talking about a frightening, humiliating experience that has happened to many folks."

U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin, who has said in earlier rulings that she is deeply concerned about stop and frisk, is not being asked to ban the tactic, since it has been found to be legal. But she does have the power to order reforms, which could bring major changes to how the nation's largest police force and other departments use the tactic.

Street stops have become a New York flashpoint, with mass demonstrations, City Council hearings and, most recently, days of protests after police shot a teenager who authorities say pulled out a gun during a stop.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly say it is a necessary, life-saving, crime-fighting tool that helps keep illegal guns off the street and has helped New York reach all-time crime lows.

It's an issue outside of New York. Philadelphia settled a civil rights lawsuit last year over its stop-and-frisk program by agreeing to court monitoring, and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee backed off plans to adopt stop and frisk after weeks of criticism last summer.

A 1968 Supreme Court decision established the benchmark of "reasonable suspicion" — a standard that is lower than the "probable cause" needed to justify an arrest.

Street stops increased substantially in New York in the mid-1990s, when, faced with overwhelming crime, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani made stop and frisk an integral part of the city's law enforcement, relying on the "broken windows" theory that targeting low-level offenses helps prevent bigger ones.

Stops rose and overall crime dropped dramatically in a city that once had the highest murder rate in the U.S.

There were only 419 murders in 2012, the lowest since similar record-keeping began in the 1960s, down from more than 2,000 in the 1990s. And there were 531,159 people stopped, more than five times the number when Bloomberg took office a decade ago. Fifty-one percent of those stopped were black, 32 percent Hispanic and 11 percent white. According to census figures, there are 8.2 million people in the city: 26 percent are black, 28 percent are Hispanic and 44 percent are white.

About half the people are just questioned. Others have their bag or backpack searched. And sometimes police conduct a full pat-down. Only 10 percent of all stops result in arrest, and a weapon is recovered a fraction of the time.

Police documents indicate that officers are drawn to suspicious behavior: furtive movements, actions that indicate someone may be serving as a lookout, anything that suggests a drug deal or a person carrying burglary tools such as a slim jim or pry bar.

Celeste Koeleveld, a city Law Department attorney, said police go where the crime is, and minorities are overwhelmingly the victims of violent crime in the city. A 2003 court settlement and various city laws have instructed police to provide stop-and-frisk data and avoid racial profiling.

"Precinct by precinct, the rates at which minorities are stopped are consistent with the rates at which minorities are identified as crime suspects. That statistic, not the census, is the appropriate benchmark for analyzing police enforcement activity," Koeleveld said.

But minority residents say they're targeted regardless of location. Nicholas Pert, a 24-year-old black man, says he has been stopped many times in his gentrified Harlem neighborhood, while his white neighbors are not.

"We go to the gym and we have hoodies," he said. "One of my friends said, 'Maybe we should walk around with yoga mats instead.'"

Recent polls show a stark divide over how blacks and whites view the tactic, while among Hispanics, disapproval of the practice has grown. The debate has drawn in Muslim-Americans concerned about NYPD surveillance revealed in a series of reports by The Associated Press; the family of a 16-year-old shot by police who say he couldn't have had a gun; and City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who was detained at the September 2011 West Indian Day Parade. He recently tangled with Kelly on the issue during a public safety hearing.

The case was first filed in 2008 on behalf of David Floyd, a freelance film and video editor, and three others. It has since been named a class-action lawsuit on behalf of everyone who may have been wrongly stopped. Floyd said he was stopped and harassed at least twice by police, once simply walking home and again outside his apartment. In both cases, he said, they had no reason to stop him.

The trial is expected to last more than a month and include more than 100 witnesses. Lawyers will also plan to play hours of audio tapes made by Adrian Schoolcraft, an officer who was hauled off to a psych ward against his will after he said he refused to fill illegal quotas. His former bosses, including some reassigned after their statements were made public, are also expected.

In addition to seeking broad reforms, the lawsuit also requests a court-appointed monitor to oversee those changes.

Syria opposition pushes to form interim government

ISTANBUL (AP) — Syria's main opposition coalition began a push Monday to form an interim government to provide services to people living in parts of the country now controlled by rebel forces.

The effort is the most serious yet by the forces opposing PresidentBashar Assad to establish a rival administration and bring together all the factions working to topple his government.

They have no guarantee of success. Two previous attempts to form an interim government failed because of divisions within the group, the Syrian National Coalition, and some members said before the meeting Monday in Istanbul that it was unclear whether they would agree this time. Many have also complained of insufficient international support for their initiative.

But many said that members feel a new sense of urgency, as the amount of territory under rebel control has expanded.

"What delayed this before was that there was no agreement on the importance of forming a government," said Burhan Ghalioun, coalition member and former head of its predecessor, the Syrian National Council. "Now people are convinced that a government is necessary."

But in a stance that could frustrate their Western supporters, including the United States, coalition members dismissed any possibility of negotiating with the current regime and insisted they will talk only when Assad has left power. Many believe the only way to accomplish this is through continued advances by rebel forces.

"There has to be a military victory on the ground to convince the regime or some elements in the regime" of the need for change, Ghalioun said. "The solution is not an end to the violence. This is linked to pushing the regime toward steps to a democratic system."

Despite repeated failures to bring about a negotiated solution to the conflict, the United Nations-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, continues to push for one.

Two years after the anti-Assad uprising began, the conflict has become a civil war, with hundreds of rebel group fighting Assad's forces across Syria and millions of people pushed from their homes by the violence. The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed.

Rebel progress against government forces since last summer has expanded the areas controlled by rebel forces. They now run a large swath of territory along Syria's northern border with Turkey as well as much of the east, near Iraq. This has given them control of much of the city of Aleppo, Syria's largest, and one provincial capital, Raqqa.

Currently, rebel areas are administered by an improvised patchwork of local councils and rebel brigades, many of who run bakeries, security patrols and courts and prisons for criminals and soldiers captured in battle. But more ambitious government services, like electricity supply and running water, are limited.

In the last two months, various members of the coalition, including its head, Mouaz al-Khatib, have visited these areas. Khalid Saleh, the Coalition's spokesman, said these visits made many realized the necessity of an opposition government.

"When they went inside, they felt the severe need for a government because we have large, liberated territories that need administration," he said.

The challenges facing an interim government would be great, both inside and outside of Syria. Coalition members often complain of insufficient international support to allow them to form an effective administration. Such a body could also face fierce resistance from rebel groups fighting on the ground. Most fiercely guard their independence, and likely would not follow any group that could not improve its arms.

Islamic extremist groups have also risen in the rebels' ranks, which could pose a dilemma for the new government. Radical groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, are among the most powerful forces in many rebel areas, meaning the rebel administration will have to deal with them. This could risk isolating the new body from Western nations.

Salem Al Meslet, a candidate for Prime Minister, said international support will be key.

"If we come up with a government, will this government have the support of the international community?" he said at the meeting in Turkey. "This is very important for us."

He said that unifying the rebel forces on the ground would be a priority.

"The first thing to do is to unify all the powers on the ground to be under one management," he said. "We don't want loose weapons here and there."

Twelve candidates have been nominated for Prime Minister, who will be elected by the coalition's 73 members. The vote is expected by Tuesday.

The candidates include prominent Syrian opposition politicians and exile businessmen and academics. Among them are Osama Kadi, the coalition's economic adviser from London, Ontario in Canada; Ghassan Hitto, a longtime IT manager who recently moved from Dallas, Texas to Turkey; Assad Asheq Mustafa, a former Syrian agriculture minister and former governor of Syria's central Hama province, and Walid al-Zoabi, a real estate entrepreneur from Dubai.

Some coalition members suggested that, if they could not agree, they could create a collective leadership in the form of an executive commission.