It is very strange

It is very strange."Accounts of St Michael the Archangel reveal that pounds 7,000 has been sent to the project.. A resident at a nearby village said: "Last Easter and summer more than 30 people came in cars They were from different countries They went into the woods as if they were explorers. A government official in Aragon recalls meeting young Britons and Spaniards carrying Nazi symbols making inquiries to buy villages near the town of Huesca.The former owners of the properties in Los Pedriches are apparently unaware of the identity of those they sold to.At present, three Britons and a Pole live in the project. It opposes divorce, and supports the repatriation of ethnic minorities from Europe and making homosexuality a criminal offence.Some funds from St Michael the Archangel have been channelled to the Los Pedriches project, advertised on the Internet as a haven where "nationalists" from all over Europe can be part of a "new order" and inner-city children can be taught to stop "talking, walking and acting like blacks".The ITP had tried in the past to buy ruined properties in Aragon, but was stopped by local authorities.

He was questioned about the 1980 bombing of Bologna rail station which killed 85 people, but has been cleared of involvement. Another of the group's leaders is Nick Griffin, of the British National Party.The ITP, whose symbol is the Celtic Cross, is virulently anti-Semitic, describing Jews as "the plague" and advocating the destruction of Israel. He was sentenced to nine years in absentia in Italy for organising the fascist group NAR, reduced on appeal to three years. THE TINY village of Los Pedriches had long been abandoned to the elements and tumbleweed blown in fromVenta del Moro. But now the houses in this remote spot in south-east Spain are being renovated and there are plans for new ones to be built. The disturbing story behind the development is that Los Pedriches has been bought by an international neo-Nazi group, which has its headquarters in Britain, as a base for fascist and racist indoctrination and planning. The purchase has been made with the help of a London charity, St Michael the Archangel, which falsely claims to be linked to the Roman Catholic Church but has been exposed recently as a front for an underground right-wing group, the International Third Position, which is monitored by Scotland Yard's Special Branch.Roberto Fiore, an Italian living in London, is one of its leaders. She called for an inquiry focusing on the changes in drainage patterns caused by new buildings and modern agriculture and forestry methods.President Jacques Chirac visited Carcassonne, in the middle of the afflicted area, on Saturday night to show "solidarity" with rescue workers and displaced families.

He offered the "sympathy of the nation" to the relatives of the victims and thanked the 700 firemen, gendarmes and soldiers who were mobilised to search for survivors.. Close to 600 millimetres were recorded in several places - the average rainfall for a whole year.The Environment Minister, Dominique Voynet, said the floods were a "natural catastrophe" but the heavy rainfall could not alone explain the speed and ferocity with which streams and rivers broke their banks. The region traditionally receives a large part of its annual rainfall in late autumn but the downpours on Friday afternoon and evening were exceptional. Several rescue vehicles which answered the first emergency calls were also swept away. In the Tarn and the Aude departements, however, villages were still cut off by floodwater, and heavy falls of rain were forecast overnight.The floods, said to be the worst for at least 60 years, overwhelmed river banks and dikes on Friday in a matter of minutes.

Rescue efforts were due to continue into the night.The floods also caused widespread damage and two deaths in the departement of Pyrenees Orientales, but the water was said to be receding yesterday afternoon. "It seemed that I had waited for an eternity," he said.There were fears last night that the death-toll might still grow Nine people were reported missing in the Aude alone. Ten potholers have been trapped since Friday by rising water in two separate cave systems in the Lot departement, about 100 miles to the north. Initial rescue attempts failed to find either party, but gendarmes said the potholers might have taken refuge in dry caverns.

The mother was saved from another tree, but her seven-year-old son lost his grip and fell into the torrent just before the rescuers arrived.In Labastide-Rouairoux, a little to the north in the Tarn departement, a woman and her three children died when a mudslide engulfed their house in the early hours of Saturday morning, after a day of torrential rain.Four members of another family, who were on a hunting expedition, died when their car was swept away by the deluge late on Friday night near Felines-Termenes in the Aude departement.At Villedaigne, near by, Romain Larrigole, 21, clung to an electricity pylon for nine hours, surrounded by floodwaters a kilometre wide, after his van overturned He was finally rescued by firemen on Saturday morning. Near Nevian, south of Montpellier, villagers constructed makeshift rafts and lifelines to try to rescue a family of four who were marooned in two trees when their car was overturned by a raging torrent three metres deep and 800 metres wide that had once been the river Aude. The villagers reached the father and his four-year-old daughter after a three-hour struggle, but the little girl died of hypothermia a few minutes later. THE DEATH-TOLL from floods that have ravaged three departements in south-western France rose to 27 yesterday, amid tales of heroism and stubborn survival and three family tragedies. The pay-off line, reflecting Mr Bradley's outsider status, is: "It can happen."While losing his marginal lead over Mr Gore in the key primary state of New Hampshire, according to a poll last week, Mr Bradley has more than halved the Vice-President's lead nationwide in the past two months, reducing it from 38 to 17 points.. He's a fierce competitor, in a very quiet way."Yesterday's rally is followed this week by the release of the Bradley campaign's first television advertisements, commissioned - to the surprise of many in the political world - from a commercial agency with a reputation for an off-beat style rather than from a company that specialises in political campaigns. Bill Russell said: "He's bright, intelligent, a very strong person. Willis Reed told ABC that Mr Bradley had been "the biggest example of racial togetherness" during the Sixties when the civil rights movement was at its zenith and race riots scarred America's cities.Phil Jackson, another former team mate who is now manager of the Los Angeles Lakers, said that how professional sportsmen behaved under pressure was a good indicator of how they would handle crises in later life.