WORLD NEWS OF INTEREST

Chronicle (Levin), 20 March 1948, Page 7

WORLD NEWS OF INTEREST

Banned since 1849, cockfighting is making great strid'es. towards popularity again ih Frarice. Las.t year it e^perienced its peak season. Breeders of birds corrie. £rom- England and Belgium to attend the cockingmains, • fights us.ually being staged on Sundays. Much betting takes place.

AUyTRALIA: When an exSydney polieeman went into the Northerh territory to shoot crocodiles, he bagged 100 in.six weeks. One of them was, wounded but it didn't get away. . He held it by its tail for an hour when.'it gave in. ITALY : A Swedish and an Italian- citizen, now Mr. and Mrs. Cornelie, created a record when they married in an aircrafb, 12,000 feet above the Mediterranean. The law governing marriages of foreignerS in Italy is so complicated that the couple decided to cut through the red tape and so were married three miles from the Italian territorial limit. NIGERIA: Returning to Nigeri'a after a three months' tour of Europe, Margaret Ekpo, journalist, said: "Europeans spend Sundays in bed. Men are brutal, women have an unnatural affection for eats and small dogs and neither know anything about love." CANADA: The semi-ofiicial Polish newspaper, Rzeczpospolita,, in a leading artiole recenbiy, state'd that Canada' to.kes its orders from the American State Department. "Canada reeently withdrsw an offer of a 450,000 dollar loan to Poland after Poland demande'd the : return of priceless art objeets removed to Canada after the war started,"; staied the journal. "Thc decisicn to cancel the loan," said the arcicle, "was' 'due to the dictatorship of the United States State •Department.".: ; . , IRELAND: Ire1and used to be known as a land of saints and scholars. It is now known for its smugglers. The professional sniugglers number thousands, but the ; amateurs run into tens of thousands. People of Northern Ireland exist on British rations and clothing standards. That is why so many make freauent trips across ! the frontier into Eire, land of compara tive pienty. Thousands are caught. Prosecutions are so numerous that in country dlstricts whole days are devoted to hearings. SWEDEN: Scandinavia is probably the test off country for food in Europe. While Britain is on short rations and Germany on the point of starvaticn, -Swe'den and : Denmark are1 living in' luxury, j though prices have nsen considerabiy. Though 'SwedSn complains of a shortage of eoal,; that is 'only trivial i because :it has one of the best eiectric pcwer Systems1 in the world: ' •. " •

CANADA: What Ca'nada is going to *do for he.r 128/0G0 Indiahs is a question which ha's been worrying uJse Goverhihent for some time. The Indian eomplairis that , he is ■-egarded as a shcvc ' piece"to 'be herde'd into feseiwes for the cnter:ainment of : whiteV tourists;- >,v ped sape has blocked hdUsing and m|dical refortus so ch'at four out'i of 2veiy • ten Indian children die 'in -heir ' first ' year' of 'V'tuberculosis. VeryTew learn to read or wrijte'j?"' SPAlN : Thef e are knowh " to be 14,970 m?n' and '20.501 women in gaols beh.'nd Fr'anco's ' "Iro'n Curtain." Political suspects are alleged to- be tcrtured and beaten. A raclio commentator said recently that uprisings are becoming more frequent and may develop into mother civil war.