THE POPE’S MESSAGE

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28162, 28 December 1956, Page 7

THE POPE’S MESSAGE

Moscow Radio Attack (Rec. 8.50 p.m.) MOSCOW, December 27. Moscow Radio yesterday attacked the Pope’s Christmas message. which, it said, gav* 4 a blessing for a preventive war. The radio said: “He has openly declared himself against the idea of peaceful coexistence and a joint struggle for peace.” The radio claimed that the Pope did not make the speech of a religious leader. “In his message the usual antiCommunist attack had been linked with blessings for a preventive war—a war which only a few in the West are ready to wage,” the announcer read. “The author of the Christmas message did not find one word to condemn the European colonial robbers for whom the main Holy Places in the Near East are their oil concessions.” “We must admit that we have not discovered in this document any excess of the Christian spirit,” the broadcast concluded.

Red Sea Base For Israel

TEL AVIV, December 26. The Israeli Navy has established a naval base at Elath. Israel’s Red Sea outlet, according to “Maariv,” the Tel Aviv evening newspaper. The newspaper states that the first Israeli warship, a river-type frigate bought from Canada several years ago, reached Elath yesterday. The establishment of the base is in line with the policy of maintaining freedom of navigation through the Tiran Strait, the narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Akaba. Bystander Attacks Lioness (Rec. Il p.m.) PARIS, Dec. 27 A bystander jumped into a lioness’s cage at a Paris menagerie and beat the lioness with an iron bar until she released the arm of the keeper, who was seriously injured. The keeper, Mr Georges Castel. was attacked as he was pouring cod-liver oil through the cage bars into a bowl for the sick lioness.