Clean-up begins as Lourdes flooding eases

A MASSIVE clean-up is under way in the French pilgrimage town of Lourdes, famed for its Catholic sanctuaries, after flash floods forced the evacuation of some 450 pilgrims and closed the main shrine.

The waters from days of non-stop rain in the region had begun to recede on Sunday but the main places of worship remained closed to the public as firefighters pumped out water from a grotto and the basements of several hotels.

The cave, where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, remained flooded, with debris like bits of wood, candles and branches floating on the surface.

An estimated six million pilgrims visit the shrine every year, drawn by its spring waters, which the devout believe can heal and even work miracles.

Thierry Castillo, the custodian of the sanctuaries, told AFP: "There have been floods in the past but this one has caused the most damage in the last 30 years."

It was a fresh blow for the sanctuaries, which had a million-euro hole last year in a 30 million euro ($A38 million) budget due to lower donations as a result of the eurozone debt crisis.

"We have serious damages which will run into hundreds of thousands of euros," Castillo said, adding that he hoped for "a mobilisation of donors".

Pope Benedict XVI evoked the flooding at a special mass on Sunday in the Vatican where he named seven new saints, saying: "Let us turn to the Virgin Mary with a thought for Lourdes, the victim of flash floods, which inundated the grotto where the Madonna had appeared."

Several areas in the town were inundated on Saturday as the river Gave de Pau burst its banks, leading to the closure of the main places of worship.

Buses ferried guests from all the hotels in the lower town to a conference centre and a sports complex on Saturday. Two campsites were also evacuated and several roads closed in Lourdes, home to 22 places of worship.

The water was around one metre deep in front of the grotto and 80 centimetres in the Avenue du Paradis, where most of the hotels for pilgrims are located.

On Sunday, the waters had receded from the streets but in many places left mud and slush up to 10 centimetres deep.

The body supervising the sanctuaries said a hydro-electricity unit providing power to the shrines had been badly damaged as well as two pedestrian walkways on the side of the river.

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Burmese leader holds first media briefing

BURMA'S reformist president has held his first news conference for local press, a milestone after years of secrecy and censorship by the former military regime.

Thein Sein didn't break any stunning news on Sunday when he answered about 30 questions from local press and foreign correspondents on subjects ranging from fighting with ethnic rebels in the north to amending the country's military-fashioned constitution.

His mere appearance, however, told the story about his country's turn from secrecy and paranoia to relative openness. The news conference in the capital Naypyitaw ran 20 minutes past its scheduled two-hour length.

The 67-year-old ex-general, who served as prime minister under the previous ruling junta, looked tense as he started answering questions but soon relaxed enough to reveal a little-known sense of humour.

Explaining why he was holding the pioneering news conference, he told of being interviewed many times during his recent visit to the United States and said he had the hardest time answering questions on the inquisitorial BBC program, HardTalk.

After surviving that experience, he said, he's no longer afraid of meeting with the media. But he added that he feared he would also be criticised by Burma's media if he didn't come out to talk at home after giving so many interviews abroad.

Thein Sein avoided revealing too much, speaking only in general terms even about critical matters such as the fighting in Kachin state, which reflects a deeper, long-running problem of how much autonomy to give the large ethnic minorities living in border regions.

In what many see as an example of the government's weakness compared to the still-influential military, his orders last year for the army to cease its fighting against the Kachin Independence Army were ignored.

"To get a ceasefire agreement is our government's goal," he said when asked about the matter. "It's the people's desire to get peace and we are doing our best for the people's desire."

He was also asked whether he plans to contest the 2015 election for a second presidential term. He replied that he has been thinking only of his current term.

Thein Sein was asked if he would give opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, his ally in the reform program after being freed from house arrest, a role in his government.

Through his reform program, Thein Sein lured her National League for Democracy party back into electoral politics, and it should pose a major challenge to his party in the next polls.

Whether or not she takes a role in government depends on her, Thein Sein said.

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Three Catholic priests kidnapped in Congo

CONGOLESE civic leaders say three Roman Catholic priests have been kidnapped in eastern Congo.

The three priests were taken captive from their monastery by about 10 gunmen on Saturday night.

Omar Kavota, the vice-president of the North Kivu civil society, said the abductions took place in Beni, north of Goma, in North Kivu province.

The three, identified as Wasukudi Anselm, 41, Jean Ndulani, 52, and Edmond Kisughu, 53, were tied up and taken away by the armed men, who witnesses say spoke Swahili.

More than a year ago, in the same area, Dr Paluku Mukongoma, medical director of the General Hospital Oicha, was kidnapped and nothing has been heard of him or of his abductors.

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No limits on Jerusalem building: Israel

ISRAEL'S prime minister has vowed to continue building in east Jerusalem, despite objections from Palestinians who claim the territory as the capital of their hoped-for state.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Sunday after the European Union's foreign policy chief criticised plans to build 800 new apartments and a military college on contested land.

"We are not imposing any restrictions on construction in Jerusalem," Netanyahu told his Cabinet. "It is our capital."

A top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promptly accused Netanyahu of deliberately destroying prospects for peace.

The Israeli leader's comment "comes in the context of the continuing destruction of the peace process and the two-state solution", Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

The fate of Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians refuse to negotiate while Israel continues to build settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, areas captured by the Jewish state in 1967.

Netanyahu has rejected the notion of partitioning the city.

Meanwhile, American academic Noam Chomsky made his first ever visit to the Gaza Strip, where he called on Israel to end its blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.

The octogenarian Chomsky, an ardent critic of Israel who was banned from entering the country in 2010, entered Gaza through neighbouring Egypt to attend a linguistics conference.

While there, he accused the US of allowing the Jewish state to act with impunity for its continuation of the blockade, which Israel imposed after the militant Islamist Hamas group violently seized control of Gaza in 2007.

The restrictions were loosened after an Israeli raid on a blockade-busting boat in 2009 killed nine Turkish activists, but there are still limits on movement, imports of raw materials, and exports.

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eBay saves $80m in UK 'tax dodge'

ONLINE auction and shopping giant eBay has reportedly avoided paying nearly STG50 million ($A78 million) in corporation tax in Britain through legal accounting schemes.

The group paid just over STG1 million in UK corporation tax despite making nearly STG800 million annual sales in Britain, according to a Sunday Times investigation.

It is thought eBay used legal tax-avoidance schemes, which saw it channel payments through Luxembourg and Switzerland.

The group is the latest firm to see its tax payments come under scrutiny after coffee chain Starbucks reportedly paid just STG8.6 million in corporation tax in 14 years of trading in Britain - and nothing in the past three years.

The American coffee firm - valued at STG25 billion - is understood to have generated more than STG3 billion of sales in the UK since 1998, but has paid less than one per cent in corporation tax.

Facebook and Google have also been criticised over poor contributions to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

It was revealed earlier this month that Facebook paid only STG238,000 in tax in the UK despite pulling in STG175 million in revenues, while Google reportedly paid STG6 million in UK tax despite revenues of STG2.6 billion.

The Sunday Times reports that eBay - the world's biggest online marketplace - would have made UK profits of about STG181 million in 2010, the latest year for which accounts are available.

This would have produced a corporation tax bill of STG51 million.

But the group is believed to have paid STG1.2 million in tax that year.

It is thought HMRC head Lin Homer will be questioned in a hearing by MPs on the House of Commons public accounts committee on November 5 over tax avoidance strategies used by foreign firms.

An eBay spokesman said: "eBay Inc in Europe works with tax authorities and complies fully with all applicable tax laws and regimes - including national, EU, and internationally recognised OECD rules."

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Activists accuse Israeli navy of tasering

PRO-PALESTINIAN activists from a Gaza-bound boat intercepted by the Israeli navy have accused troops of tasering them when they took over the vessel.

The Israeli army has denied the claim.

"They used electric shocker devices to the extent of what we call 'electro torture' on some of the activists," lawyer Gaby Lasky told AFP, adding that at least one of them is an MP.

It was not immediately clear how many of the 30 activists and crew on board the Estelle were shot with the stun guns, which use an electrical charge to incapacitate a person.

But Israeli army spokeswoman Avital Leibovich denied the soldiers had used "violence".

"No force was used when taking over the ship," she told AFP.

There were five parliamentarians from Europe on board: Ricardo Sixto Iglesias from Spain, Sven Britton from Sweden, Aksel Hagen of Norway, and Vangelis Diamandopoulos and Dimitris Kodelas, both from Greece.

Former Canadian MP Jim Manly, who is in his late 70s, was also on board.

Saturday's takeover ended the latest attempt by pro-Palestinian activists to breach Israel's tight maritime embargo on Gaza, which prohibits all naval traffic in and out of the coastal territory.

In May 2010, pro-Palestinian activists tried to reach the Gaza Strip in a six-ship flotilla that was stormed by Israeli troops in a botched pre-dawn operation, which left nine Turkish nationals dead, sparking a diplomatic crisis with Ankara.

Since then, there have been several other attempts to reach Gaza by boat, all of which have been stopped by Israel, although there has been no repeat of the bloodshed.

Israel says its blockade is necessary to prevent weapons from entering the coastal territory, which is run by the Islamist Hamas movement.

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Brahimi urges truce as bomb rocks Damascus

PEACE envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has appealed to both sides in Syria's conflict to cease fire for a Muslim holiday this week after meeting President Bashar al-Assad, even as a deadly blast rocked Damascus.

Thousands of people, meanwhile, took part in a demonstration against the Syrian regime at the Beirut funeral of a top Lebanese police intelligence chief killed in a car bombing that Lebanon's opposition has blamed on Damascus.

In Syria's capital, a bomb exploded outside a police station in a Christian quarter of the Old City on Sunday, killing 13 people, the state news agency SANA reported, blaming rebels.

The bombing came as UN-Arab League envoy Brahimi, after meeting Assad, called for "unilateral" ceasefires by the regime and the rebels for the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on Friday.

"I appeal to everyone to take a unilateral decision to cease hostilities on the occasion of Eid al-Adha and that this truce be respected from today or tomorrow," he said.

The envoy told reporters the ceasefire call was his "personal initiative, not a blueprint for peace".

"This is a call to every Syrian, on the street, in the village, fighting in the regular army and its opponents, for them to take a unilateral decision to stop hostilities," he said.

Brahimi added he had contacted political opposition leaders inside and outside Syria and armed groups in the country. "We found them to be very favourable" to the idea of a truce, he said, in a cautious note of optimism.

"We will return to Syria after the Eid (feast) and if calm really takes hold during the feast, we will continue to work" on ending the 19-month conflict, said Brahimi, on his second mission to Damascus since taking up the post in September.

Assad, in his meeting with Brahimi, said he was "open to all sincere efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis on the basis of a rejection of any foreign interference", SANA reported.

He stressed calls for "a halt to terrorism" and "commitment on the part of certain implicated countries to stop harbouring, supporting and arming terrorists" in Syria.

Brahimi has visited several countries with influence in the Syrian conflict over the past week, including Lebanon and Iran, while warning that the violence could spread and set the entire region ablaze.

Such fears were compounded when a massive car bomb exploded on Friday in Beirut, killing three people including a senior police intelligence chief linked to the anti-Damascus camp in Lebanon, General Wissam al-Hassan.

Lebanon, which was under Syrian military and political domination for 30 years until 2005, has been divided over the conflict in Syria and has seen violence between supporters and opponents of the Assad regime.

Damascus has emerged as prime suspect in Hassan's assassination, despite Syria joining international condemnation of the killings.

After the Beirut funeral, Lebanese police tear-gassed demonstrators trying to storm the offices of Prime Minister Najib Mikati and demand his resignation over the killing.

On the ground, clashes were reported on Sunday in several parts of Syria, including Damascus province and the northern city of Aleppo, a key battleground for three months.

A car bomb exploded in the Sarian district of Aleppo, wounding several people, an AFP correspondent said. A security source said the blast was caused by "a suicide car bomber".

In the Damascus province town of Harasta, nine people, including a child and three rebels, were killed in clashes and shelling, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which also reported bombardment of the nearby town of Irbin.

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