Deposit outflows from Cypriot banks slow

CYPRUS' central bank says deposit outflows from the bailed-out country's banks have slowed to their lowest level in 10 months.

Figures released on Thursday show overall deposits at the end of October to be at 47.3 billion euros ($A71.2 billion), just 163 million euros less than the previous month.

Another encouraging sign was that deposits from non-EU country residents increased to 12.1 billion euros, up by 406.6 million euros from a month earlier.

That's the first such increase since March, when Cyprus agreed on a painful rescue deal with other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

The agreement sanctioned a grab from the savings of uninsured depositors in Cyprus' top two banks.

To prevent a run, authorities imposed capital controls that have since been partially relaxed.

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Britain scales back loan program

THE Bank of England has scaled back a loan program meant to spur economic recovery, amid fears that cheap mortgages could inflate a housing bubble.

The Fund for Lending program was launched in June last year by the bank together with the Treasury to help homes and businesses emerge from the crisis.

But starting in January, the plan, which offers cheap finance to banks to encourage lending, will only be available to small- and medium-sized businesses.

House prices have gathered momentum since the plan was announced, with average prices rising 6.8 per cent in the year to October.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney says that acting now reduces the likelihood of larger interventions later.

While he didn't see any immediate threat, he says the "concern is where this could go".

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Syrian troops retake rebel-held town

THE Syrian army has retaken a mainly Christian town near the capital Damascus, a week after Islamist rebels seized it.

The army regained full control of Deir Attiyeh in the Damascus countryside "after eliminating the last dens of terrorists there", the state-run news agency SANA reported on Thursday.

The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the seizure.

Deir Attiyeh, with a population of about 25,000 people, is situated on a strategic route linking Damascus to Homs in central Syria.

The area was captured by al-Qaeda-linked groups of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Al-Nusra Front last week, reported the Britain-based Observatory.

Troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have claimed advances into rebel-held areas near Damascus in recent months.

Further north, at least six people were killed and more than 35 wounded when a surface-to-surface missile fell overnight in the city of al-Raqqa, according to the Observatory.

The Syrian Co-ordination Committees, a group of activists reporting violence on the ground, said a Scud missile had landed in a market in the jihadist-controlled city, leaving at least 40 people dead and 220 injured.

There was no official comment.

Syria's crisis started in March 2011 with pro-democracy protests, which soon developed into a devastating war after al-Assad's regime attempted to quell the demonstrations.

The UN estimates that more than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

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Sri Lanka starts counting civil war dead

SRI Lanka's government has started counting the dead, wounded and missing in its quarter-century civil war amid international pressure to conduct a credible investigation into war crimes allegations.

It comes two years after a local war commission recommended a census to determine the number of civilian deaths in the civil war that ended in 2009.

Tens of thousands are said to have perished in just the last few months of the fighting.

Government census official A J Satharasinghe said some 15,000 workers will go house-to-house asking about war victims for the count to be completed on December 20.

Sri Lanka is under pressure over its delay to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, which includes a local inquiry into allegations of war abuse.

Countries including the US and Britain have warned that Sri Lanka could face an international war crimes investigation if it fails to conduct its own inquiry.

The UN Human Rights Council has passed two successive resolutions calling for an inquiry, and human rights chief Navi Pillay is expected to submit her findings from a visit to Sri Lanka at the council's session next March.

Sri Lankan troops in May 2009 defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who had fought since 1983 to create an independent state for the country's ethnic minority Tamils.

The government expelled international aid workers and UN staff from the war zone in the last stages of the fighting and blocked independent journalists, making it impossible for outsiders to know the extent of civilian deaths.

According to a UN report, as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians may have died in the last few months of the fighting, which the government disputes.

Sri Lanka's government insisted that not a single civilian was killed, until 2011 when it acknowledged some deaths.

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