WAR NEWS IN BRIEF

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 May 1943, Page 5

WAR NEWS IN BRIEF

FRENCH WEST INDIES

NEW YORK, May 14

Serious disturbances in which four people were killed broke out on the island of • Guadeloupe, in the French West Indies, giving evidence of the population’s growing impatience with Admiral Robert's totalitarian rule,

says the North American Newspaper Alliance. Discontent is brewing everywhere in the islands.

RED CROSS FUNDS

LONDON, May 13

Twenty milb'on sterling has now been raised by the Red Cross and St. John Fund since the outbreak of war. Of this a quarter of a million in penny subscriptions came from Britain and the Empire.

The Duke of Gloucester, in a speech, said that- never before in Britain had such a sum been provided by voluntary contributions.

S. AFRICAN EFFORTS.

CAPE TOWN, May 13

From a European population of 2.250,000, South Africa has provided more than 300,000 full-time and parttime volunteers of whom 86,000 are on active service outside the Union. There are also .100,000 non-Euro-peans.

General Smuts gave this figures in a broadcast address. He added that war workers totalled many thousands. They had produced more than 300,000,000 rounds of small arras ammunition, 750,000 shells, and 35,000 transport vehicles, and repaired more than 6000 ships and 4000 armoured cars. South Africa has sent 2,5000,000 spare parts for tanks and aeroplanes to the Middle East and also 10,000 tons of aerial bombs.

WHEAT PRESERVATION

LONDON, May 13.

Analysis of earth from the tombs of the ancient kings of Egypt gave scientists the secret of preservative which saved huge dumps of wheat for 'the Allied armies in the Middle East. The “Daily Mail” says that scientists years ago went to the tombs to find why the wheat buried with the ancient kings was still fresh and wholesome when the tombs were opened. The result was the discovery of Ketc-lsousse, an ultra-fine powder which, in dry climates, deters weevils.

An Imperial Chemical Industries official revealed that the main ingredients of the powder are Egyptian rock phosphate and sulphur. One ton costs about £lO and treats about 100 tons of grain.

GRAF SPEE’S CREW.

LONDON. May 13

The Paris radio quoting the Italian newspaper “Popolo di Roma” said that about 100 members of the crew of the Graf Spee escaped from internment in the Argentine and Uruguay and reached a German warship.