PLACES IN THE NEWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 167, 14 June 1940, Page 7

PLACES IN THE NEWS.

FItENCH GOVERNMENT’S SEAT. Tours, to which the French Government is reported to have moved, stands in the fertile valley of the River Loire, 147 miles from Paris by rail. Its population is about 73,000. It was here that Charles Martel won the great victory which 6aved Northern Europe from the Saracens in 732. During the Franco-Prussian War Tours was the seat of, government from September 11 to December 10, 1870. The noble cathedral has very fine glass and two towers 205 it high, and there are other notable buildings. Tours has a brisk trade in iron and steel, leather, wine, woollen, silks and printing. Pantellana, near which mines are taking toll of shipping, i 6 the Italian rival of Malta and is strongly fortified. It is a volcanic island of 45 square miles and i.s eouth-west of Sicily, between Cape Bon and Sicily. In peace-time a penal settlement was conducted at Pantellaria. Genoa, bombed by the Royal Air Force, is the chief port of Italy, the population of the town itself is 34/,(iOO. There are great industries at Genoa, but the principal interest from the war point of view is in the Ansaldo ship-building vard9, which construct armoured cruisers for the Italian Navy and for other governments, T.he Odei-o yards have attended previously to the needs of merchant and passenger lines, and the Foce yard is also important. Associated with this activity are extensive foundries and metallurgical works. Turin, another city visited bv the Royal Air Force, is the seat of manufacture of aeroplanes and motor cars, although in war-time this might be turned to the production of other materials. Hydro-electrical undertakings have been developed on account of the proximity of the Alpine valleys. Owing tov its nearness to both tlie Gothard and the Simplon Passes, Turin is the most important railway centre in Italy. Bizerta, in Tunisia, although having a population of but 23.000 persons, is the naval port in the Mediterranean next in importance to Toulon for the French. It stands in a commanding situation on the narrowest part of the Mediterranean. Great breakwaters protect a canal entrance to the Lake of Bizerta entering the sea at this point, and it is in the lake itself-(of about 50 square miles)' that the naval port and arsenal are situated. There are dry docks and all the other requirements for a large fleet. Addis Ababa, the capital of Abyssinia’ conquered by the Italians in 1936, is again in the. news. A railway 487 miles long connects the town with Djibouti, in French Somaliland, and Addis Ababa is now the headquarters of the Italian colonv of East Africa, which comprises Abyssinia, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. Addis Ababa stands about 8000 ft above sea-level.