Lottery hacker blasts 'devil's work'

THE French site for the EuroMillions lottery has been hacked with warnings denouncing gambling as impure and the work of the devil.

The messages appeared in Arabic and French and blocked the homepage of the lottery in France on Sunday. The hackers identified themselves as "Moroccanghosts".

The French version of the message said: "Oh you believers. Wine, games of chance, statues all augur impurity and are the work of the devil."

It exhorted people to quit gambling, saying it was used by the devil along with alcohol to "sow hatred between yourselves and turn you away from God and prayer".

Gambling and alcohol are forbidden in Islam.

France has a population of 65 million, including an estimated four million Muslims, the largest Islamic population in western Europe.

The EuroMillions lottery, launched in 2004, is now played by nine countries across western Europe: Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

More than 100 million euros ($A126 million) are up for grabs in a EuroMillions jackpot to be played on Tuesday.

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NYC orders 375,000 evacuated

NEW York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered the evacuation of 375,000 people in low-lying areas threatened by Hurricane Sandy.

"This is a serious and dangerous storm," Mr Bloomberg told a news conference as he ordered the mandatory evacuation ahead of the storm which is expected to start hitting on Monday.

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New York orders 375,000 storm evacuations

NEW York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered the evacuation of 375,000 people in low-lying areas threatened by Hurricane Sandy.

"This is a serious and dangerous storm," Bloomberg told a news conference on Sunday as he ordered the mandatory evacuation ahead of the storm, which is expected to start hitting on Monday.

He ordered the evacuation of part of lower Manhattan and the Rockaways, a low-lying area of Queens.

Bloomberg also said the 1.1 million-student New York City school system would be closed on Monday.

That follows the suspension of the city's public transport system.

The New York subway and trains will be suspended from 7pm on Sunday (1000 AEDT on Monday) while buses will stop running two hours later.

New York's public transport system is America's largest. The subway alone has more than five million passengers a day.

Meanwhile Air France has cancelled all flights into New York and Washington on Monday while US airlines have called off hundreds of domestic flights.

New York airports were still open on Sunday but the airport authority warned passengers to expect disruption.

Rainfall is expected to start in New York on Monday (AEDT).

Hurricane Sandy is headed north from the Caribbean to meet a winter storm and a cold front.

Experts say the rare hybrid storm that results will cause havoc over 1200 kilometres from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.

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Storm has Obama campaign worried

HURRICANE Sandy has raised concerns in President Barack Obama's campaign that it could impact his re-election to the extent that voters are kept from going to the polls, a top strategist says.

"Obviously we want unfettered access to the polls because we believe that the more people come out, the better we're going to do," David Axelrod told CNN on Sunday.

"And so to the extent that it makes it harder, you know, that's a source of concern," he said.

With the storm due to hit late Monday, both Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney have scrambled to revamp their schedules in the final stretch of a campaign that is already very close.

Obama cancelled two campaign events and moved up a visit to Florida on Sunday so he could be back in Washington before the so-called "Frankenstorm" makes landfall on the US East Coast.

"I don't know how all the politics will sort out. It depends on how scenarios are impacted," Axelrod said.

"And so the best thing we can do is focus on how we can help people during this storm and hope that it all clears out and that by the next weekend we'll be free of it and people can focus on the election."

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Hurricane Sandy death toll rises to 65

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct 28 AP - As Americans braced for Hurricane Sandy, Haiti was still suffering.

Officials raised the storm-related death toll across the Caribbean to 65, with 51 of those coming in Haiti, which was pelted by three days of constant rain that ended only on Friday.

As the rain stopped and rivers began to recede, authorities were getting a fuller idea of how much damage Sandy brought on Haiti.

Bridges collapsed. Banana crops were ruined. Homes were underwater. Officials said the death toll might still rise.

"This is a disaster of major proportions," Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told The Associated Press. "The whole south is under water."

The country's ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding. The bulk of the deaths were in the southern part of the country and the area around Port-au-Prince, the capital, which holds most of the 370,000 Haitians who are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Santos Alexis, mayor of the southern city of Leogane, said on Sunday the rivers were receding and people were beginning to dry their belongings in the sun.

"Things are back to being a little quiet," Alexis said by telephone. "We have seen the end."

Sandy also killed 11 in Cuba, where officials said it destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of houses.

Deaths were also reported in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic said the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities while damaging an estimated 3500 homes.

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Minor 3.9-magnitude quake shakes LA

A MINOR earthquake has rattled southern California, shaking buildings in Los Angeles.

The US Geological Survey says the 3.9 magnitude quake struck on Sunday morning was centred about eight kilometres east-southeast of Santa Clarita, California.

Shaking was felt across the Santa Clarita Valley, in downtown Los Angeles and in West Hollywood.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

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Sheep take over streets of Madrid

SPANISH shepherds led a flock of more than 2000 sheep through central Madrid in defence of ancient grazing, migration and droving rights threatened by urban sprawl and modern agricultural practices.

Many tourists and residents were surprised to see traffic cut to allow the ovine parade to bleat its way across some of Madrid's most upscale urban streets.

The right to use droving routes that wind across land that was open fields and woodland before Madrid grew from a rural hamlet to the great metropolis it is today has existed since at least 1273.

Every year, a handful of shepherds defend the right and, following an age-old tradition, yesterday paid 25 maravedis - coins first minted in the 11th century - to city hall to use the crossing.

Shepherds have a right to use 125,000 kilometres of paths for seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer and more protected lowland grazing in winter.

The movement is called transhumance and in Spain up until recently involved close to a million animals a year, mostly sheep and cattle.

Modern farming practices are however increasingly confining animals to barns, because shepherding is costly, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, which has been promoting the colourful annual Transhumance Fiesta in Madrid since 1994.

Madrid became an important urban centre when King Philip II chose it as the capital of his vast empire in 1561. Some paths have been used for more than 800 years and modern-day Madrid has sprawled to engulf two north-south routes. One that crosses Puerta del Sol - Madrid's equivalent of New York's Times Square - dates back to 1372.

Spaniards are proud of their centuries-old sheep rearing traditions and hold the native Merino breed of sheep in particular esteem. Merinos have gone on to form the backbone of important wool industries in places such as Australia and South America.

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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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