Kerry warns Iraq on Iran flights to Syria

C. African Republic president flees rebel attack

Associated Press/Ben Curtis, File - FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2013 file photo, government security forces in a pickup truck drive past a demonstration calling for peace as negotiators prepare for talks with rebels from the north, in downtown Bangui, Central African Republic Saturday. On Friday, March 22, rebels took the town of Damara, beginning a new march to take the capital, Bangui, said a rebel spokesman. Panic spread throughout the capital, with the neighborhoods closest to the northern gate of the city emptying out, as frightened residents locked up their shops, packed their bags and yanked their children out of school. Banks and government offices closed early.(AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — The leader of Central African Republic fled the capital Sunday following a decade in power, after hundreds of armed rebels invaded the city and later declared he was now the former president.

The rebels pushed further into the heart of the city, where they seized the presidential palace, according to witnesses and an adviser to longtime President Francois Bozize.

A statement issued in Paris said French President Francois Hollande "has taken note of the departure of President Francois Bozize."

"Central African Republic has just opened a new page in its history," said a communique signed by Justin Kombo Moustapha, secretary-general of the alliance of rebel groups known as Seleka.

"The political committee of the Seleka coalition, made up of Central Africans of all kinds, calls on the population to remain calm and to prepare to welcome the revolutionary forces of Seleka," it said.

Central African Republic, a nation of 4.5 million that has long been wracked by rebellions and power grabs. The president himself took power in 2003 following a rebellion, and his tenure has been marked by conflict with myriad armed groups.

The rebels reached the outskirts of Bangui late Saturday. Heavy gunfire echoed through the city Sunday as the fighters made their way to the presidential palace, though the country's leader of a decade was not there at the time.

"Bozize left the city this morning," said Maximin Olouamat, a member of Bozize's presidential majority. The adviser declined to say where the president had gone.

Coverseas Worldwide Assistance, a Swiss-based crisis management firm that has contacts on the ground, said it believed Bozize was headed toward neighboring Congo.

Bangui is located along the Oubangui River that separates the two countries.

Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende, however, said he had no knowledge of Bozize crossing into Congo.

Rebels from several armed groups that have long opposed Bozize joined forces in December and began seizing towns across the sparsely populated north of this former French colony. They threatened at the time to march on Bangui, but ultimately halted their advance and agreed to go to peace negotiations in Libreville, the capital of Gabon.

A peace deal was signed Jan. 11 that allowed Bozize to finish his term that expires in 2016, but the rebels soon began accusing the president of failing to fulfill promises made.

They demanded Bozize send home South African forces who were helping bolster the country's military. They also sought to integrate some 2,000 rebel fighters into Central African Republic's armed forces.

The deal unraveled more than a week ago, with the rebels again taking control of two towns and threatening to advance on the capital.

Late Saturday, Bangui was plunged into darkness after fighters cut power to much of the city. State radio went dead, and fearful residents cowered in their homes.

An unspecified number of French citizens have taken refuge in the French Embassy, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be publicly named according to Foreign Ministry policy.

A French diplomat said extra French troops were brought in to secure the Bangui airport.

"For us, there is no other solution than the departure of Francois Bozize," Eric Massi, a rebel spokesman, said from Paris by telephone late Saturday.

Massi said the rebels were securing the city, and he called on residents to remain calm and avoid looting amid the chaos.

South African Brig. Gen. Xolani Mabanga, the country's military spokesman, said there had been "intense" fighting this weekend between the rebels and South African forces.

"Our base was attacked by the rebels as they were advancing toward the capital," he said. South African forces suffered casualties from the fighting Saturday night, he said.

"We have suffered some casualties," he said. He declined to provide the number of casualties, pending the outcome of an investigation.

He said the situation for South African forces was "relatively calm" on Sunday afternoon.

"There are no threats at this moment," he said.

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Cyprus in last ditch EU talks to save economy

Anti-Troika protesters hold a "Hands off Cyprus" banner during a demonstration outside the EU offices in Nicosia March 24, 2013. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

By Michele Kambas and Annika Breidthardt

NICOSIA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades held last-minute talks with international lenders on Sunday in an attempt to save the Mediterranean island from financial meltdown and possibly becoming the first country to leave the euro zone.

With Cyprus facing a Monday deadline to avert a collapse of its banking system, Anastasiades met the heads of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to try to craft a deal on a 10 billion euro ($13 billion)bailout after a first attempt collapsed last week.

His government and Cypriot political parties remain divided, and late night talks in Nicosia broke up without a result after angry bank workers demonstrated to save their jobs.

Anastasiades flew to Brussels in a private jet sent by the European Commission ahead of a crunch meeting of euro zone finance ministers, which was put back to 8 p.m. (3:00 p.m EDT).

The key unresolved issues were how Cyprus should raise 5.8 billion euros from its banking sector towards its financial rescue, and how to restructure the island's overgrown banks.

The president and his team have a "very difficult task to accomplish to save the Cypriot economy and avert a disorderly default," a Cypriot government spokesman said.

The EU's economic affairs chief Olli Rehn said there were no good options but "only hard choices left" for the latest casualty of the euro zone crisis. With banks closed for the last week, the Central Bank of Cyprus imposed a 100-euros per day limit on withdrawals from cash machines at the two biggest banks to avert a run.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici rejected charges that the EU had brought Cypriots to their knees, saying it was the island's business model as an offshore financial center that had failed.

"To all those who say that we are strangling an entire people ... Cyprus is a casino economy that was on the brink of bankruptcy," he told Canal Plus television.

Analysts say failure to clinch a deal could cause a wider financial market selloff, but some say the island's small size - it accounts for just 0.2 percent of the euro zone's economic output - means that contagion would be limited.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said there had been little progress since last weekend's attempted bailout deal involving a levy on all bank deposits, which the Cypriot parliament overwhelmingly rejected, but he hoped people in Cyprus now had "a somewhat realistic view of the situation".

Schaeuble said the financial numbers had got worse, if anything, in the intervening week of uncertainty. Asked what a solution would look like, he said: "What we agreed last week."

A French government source said French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were being briefed on the talks and were on standby if needed.

The levy on bank deposits represents an unprecedented step in Europe's handling of a debt crisis that has spread from Greece, to Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

ANXIOUS MOOD

In the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, the mood was anxious.

"I haven't felt so uncertain about the future since I was 13 and Cyprus was invaded," said Dora Giorgali, 53, a nursery teacher who lost her job two years ago when the school she worked at closed down.

"I have two children studying abroad and I tell them not to return to Cyprus. Imagine a mother saying that," she said in a central Nicosia square. "I think a solution will be found tonight but it won't be in the best interests of our country."

Cyprus's banking sector, with assets eight times the size of its economy, has been crippled by exposure to crisis-hit Greece.

Without a deal by the end of Monday, the ECB says it will cut off emergency funds to the banks, spelling certain collapse and potentially pushing the country out of the euro.

Conservative leader Anastasiades, barely a month in the job and wrestling with Cyprus' worst crisis since a 1974 invasion by Turkish forces split the island in two, has been forced to back down on his efforts to shield big account holders.

"Negotiations continue. We are doing our utmost for #Cyprus," he tweeted from Brussels.

Scrambling to find the funds, officials said Cyprus had conceded to a one-time levy on bank deposits over 100,000 euros, a dramatic U-turn from five days ago when lawmakers threw out a similar proposal as "bank robbery".

A senior Cypriot official said Nicosia had agreed with its lenders on a 20 percent levy on deposits of more than 100,000 euros at the island's largest lender, Bank of Cyprus, and four percent on deposits above that level at other banks.

Anticipating a run on banks when they reopen on Tuesday, parliament has given the government powers to impose capital controls.

PARLIAMENT

About 200 Cypriot bank employees protested outside the presidential palace on Sunday chanting "troika out of Cyprus" and "Cyprus will not become a protectorate".

In a stunning vote on Tuesday, the 56-seat parliament rejected a levy on depositors, big and small. Finance Minister Michael Sarris then spent three fruitless days in Moscow trying to win help from Russia, whose citizens and companies have billions of euros at stake in Cypriot banks.

Rebuffed by the Kremlin, he said the levy was back "on the table".

On Friday, lawmakers voted to nationalize pension funds and split failing lenders into good and bad banks - a measure likely to be applied to the second-biggest lender, the largely state-owned Cyprus Popular Bank, also known as Laiki.

Cypriot media reports suggested talks were stuck on a demand by the IMF that Bank of Cyprus absorb the good assets of Popular Bank and take on its nine billion euros debt to the central bank as well. The reports said the Cypriot government was resisting.

A Cypriot plan to tap pension funds had already been shelved, a senior Cypriot official told Reuters, under opposition from Germany.

It was far from certain that a majority of lawmakers would back a revised levy, or whether the government might even try to bypass the assembly.

Cypriot leaders had initially tried to spread the pain between big holdings and smaller depositors, fearing the damage it would inflict on the country as an offshore financial haven for wealthy foreigners, many of them Russians and Britons.

The tottering banks hold 68 billion euros in deposits, including 38 billion in accounts of more than 100,000 euros - enormous sums for an island of 1.1 million people which could never sustain such a big financial system on its own.

(Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski, Luke Baker, Phil Blenkinsop and Robin Emmottvin Brussels, Costas Pitas, Laura Noonan, Karolina Tagaris, Yannis Behrakis and Yorgos Karahalis in Nicosia. Writing by Giles Elgood and Paul Taylor. Editing by Mike Peacock)

Palestinians cool to partial settlement freeze

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A senior Palestinian official on Sunday rejected the idea of a partial Israeli settlement freeze as a way of restarting peace talks, a sign of tough times ahead for theObama administration's new attempt to bring the sides together.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met separately late Saturday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to talk about ending a deadlock of more than four years over settlements.

Abbas says he won't return to negotiations without an Israeli construction freeze, arguing that Israel's building on war-won land pre-empts the outcome of talks on a border between Israel and a future state of Palestine. Abbas last held talks with Netanyahu's predecessor in late 2008.

Netanyahu has refused to halt construction and instead calls for an immediate return to negotiations. President Barack Obama sided with Israel's position during a visit to the region last week, saying the Palestinians should return to talks to sort out the settlement issue.

The U.S. has not spoken publicly about possible compromises in recent days, though there has been some speculation it would propose a partial construction stop in the West Bank heartland, east of Israel's separation barrier.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday that the Palestinians do not seek a confrontation with the Obama administration, but appeared to suggest that nothing short of a full freeze will bring them back to negotiations.

The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in 1967. Since that war, Israel has built dozens of settlements — considered illegal by much of the world and now home to more than half a million Israelis — in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Much of the construction takes place in so-called "settlement blocs" close to Israel and in east Jerusalem. Israel's separation barrier cuts off east Jerusalem and some of the settlement blocs from the rest of the West Bank.

Asked if Abbas would accept a partial freeze, east of the barrier, Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio: "Absolutely not. It is rejected."

"First of all, 90 percent of the building in settlements is going on in the blocs," he said. "If we accepted that, we would be committing two crimes. The first is legalizing what is illegal, which is settlement construction, and the second is accepting the Israeli policy (of) dictation."

Israel agreed to a 10-month slowdown in settlement construction early in Obama's first term, allowing talks to resume briefly in 2010. The talks fizzled out after Netanyahu refused to extend the slowdown, which halted new housing starts but allowed previously started construction to continue.

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who will oversee any negotiations with the Palestinians, said it remained to be seen what would bring about a new round of talks.

"We are after four years of stalemate, of distrust, and we need to see how we restart, what we will discuss," she told Army Radio.

Erekat said the Palestinians would wait for two to three months to see if the Obama administration can come up with a way out of the deadlock. "We want to cooperate with the U.S. administration, not clash with it," he said.

If the deadlock persists, the Palestinians will move ahead with their quest for international recognition, he said. "We have to focus on the steadfastness of our people, and we have 63 international agencies we can join," he said.

In November, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly recognized a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, despite objections by the U.S. and Israel. The recognition paved the way for Palestinians to seek membership in U.N. agencies and other international organizations.

Earlier Sunday, Israel dismantled a tent camp Palestinians set up during Obama's recent visit to protest Israeli plans to build a large West Bank settlement near Jerusalem.

During his visit, Obama singled out the settlement, known by its planning name E-1, as particularly problematic. The settlement of more 3,500 apartments would close one of the last open spaces between east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Before dawn Sunday, about 200 Israeli police officers removed some 40 demonstrators from the tent camp, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Three protesters were arrested, but no injuries were reported, Rosenfeld said.

The encampment is part of a new Palestinian tactic to protest against Israeli settlement expansion.

Also Sunday, the Israeli military said security forces arrested five Palestinians suspected of throwing stones at an Israeli car in the West Bank two weeks ago. An Israeli toddler was seriously hurt in the incident. The military said the suspects, aged 16 and 17, confessed their involvement during questioning.

In addition, a 17-year-old Israeli pleaded guilty Sunday to helping lead a group attack on a 17-year-old Arab male in downtown Jerusalem last summer. The Israeli minor agreed to a plea bargain and his punishment will be determined at a later date, his lawyer, Avi Himi, told Israeli Channel 10 TV.

Boulder-Size Asteroid Caused Friday's East Coast Meteor, NASA Says

This map created by Mike Hankey of the American Meteor Society depicts the sighting reports of the March 22, 2013, fireball that lit up the East Coast night sky.

The dramatic fireball that lit up skies over the U.S. East Coast Friday evening (March 22) was caused by an asteroid just 3 feet (0.9 meters) or so wide, scientists say.

Such boulder-size asteroids slam into Earth's atmosphere every two or three days, so Friday's "Manhattan meteor" — which shone as brightly as the full moon and was apparently visible from Maine to North Carolina — isn't a terribly rare event. But the sensation it created on Twitter and other social media outlets is understandable nonetheless, said NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke.

"When you have something like this occur at 8 o'clock at night over one of the most populated regions of the United States, it's going to get people's attention," Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., told reporters today (March 23).

Indeed, a similar meteor caused a stir last month when it blazed through the skies above California's densely populated Bay Area. [5 Amazing Fireball Videos]

The Manhattan meteor entered our planet's atmosphere over eastern Pennsylvania Friday and streaked southeast from there, flaming out over the Atlantic Ocean. While space rocks of this size sometimes produce meteorites (rocks that survive to reach Earth's surface), Cooke said, it's unlikely that scientists or collectors will snag any pieces of this one.

"The eyewitness accounts indicate that this meteor was last seen about 70 kilometers [43 miles] into the Atlantic, so I do not believe there are any meteorites on land from this event," Cooke said.

Some eyewitnesses have posted videos of the meteor to YouTube, which Cooke and his colleagues have been poring over. NASA runs a network of fireball cameras, but the instruments were apparently all clouded out or too far away to observe the event, Cooke said.

Friday's meteor follows closely on the heels of several other dramatic space rock events. For example, a huge fireball detonated without warning over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15, wounding more than 1,200 people. Just hours later, a 130-foot-wide (40 m) asteroid called 2012 DA14 gave Earth an uncomfortably close shave, coming nearer than our planet's ring of geosynchronous satellites.

But people shouldn't start worrying that the sky is falling, Cooke stressed.

"If you look at the actual number of fireballs for this month so far, it's normal — it's the same as every other year before this one," he said. "It's just that people are paying more attention and looking up, I think, because of recent events."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.