HE last-moment war news is good, in some respects very
NEWS OF THE WEEK
good, except from the Donetz, where the Gerinans seem to L ave succeeded, for the present at any rate, in warding off the ussian advance to the Dnieper, and have actually regained territory
some importance in the region of Izyum. The capture of Rzhev, ost due west of Moscow, which has been in enemy hands since e middle of 1941, holding out impregnably even when the ussians had advanced far to the north and south of it, is a most table achievement, which will affect the situation over the whole the central front, and at least as far north as Demyansk, whose pture by Marshal Timoshenko was announced on Monday. A ortening of the German lines is clearly inevitable, and it will
enforced, not spontaneous. In Tunisia anxiety has been con- erted to hope by the recapture of nearly all the ground the Germans emporarily occupied during their advance through and beyond e Kasserine Pass, by the signs of the Eighth Army's activity ore the Mareth Line, and by the seizure by French troops of a sitiort midway between the positions held by the Eighth Army and American forces farther north. The R.A.F. raid on Berlin as evidently had great results in disrupting communications and the administrative machinery centred in the capital. But probably the greatest achievement of the whole week is the destruction of the menacing Japanese convoy off Northern Australia. Full details I of this resounding victory are not yet available, but if the reports that practically the whole convoy of to warships and 12 transports has been destroyed, together with 55 aeroplanes, involving a loss Of 90,000 tons of shipping and 15,000 men, are true, Japan has sus-
tained- the heaviest blow yet dealt at her and the latest threat to Australia is effectively disposed of.
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