December 24
[ 2006-12-31 08:40 ]
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| John Stonehouse was
presumed dead |
| 1974: 'Drowned' Stonehouse found
alive |
England have
Former UK minister John Stonehouse has been found living under a false
name in Australia after apparently faking his own death.
He was detained under an immigration law by Melbourne police at the
seaside resort of St Kilda, where he told officers his name was Donald
Clive Mildoon.
He is due to appear before a magistrate on Boxing Day and it is thought
he is being held for entering the country with a false passport.
Mr Stonehouse, 49, was feared drowned after vanishing on a business
trip to Miami Beach on 20 November.
He vanished while swimming in the sea and there was no trace of him but
for the pile of clothes he left behind on the beach.
His wife, Barbara, is expected to travel to Australia to meet him
although it is understood she did not know he was still alive.
The Labour MP for Walsall North is currently being questioned by police
after they revealed their first interview with him proved "inconclusive"
and he has been driven to a central police station.
It is thought he may have a second forged passport because he arrived
in Australia from Hawaii on 27 November bearing the name J D Norman.
It has emerged he then left the country the following day and travelled
between Singapore, Denmark and the Lebanon before returning to Australia
around 10 December.
Melbourne police's "dog squad", so called because they hunt in packs,
had placed Mr Stonehouse under surveillance from 10 December after a
tip-off from overseas.
There are unconfirmed reports they believed him to be the missing Lord
Lucan who disappeared after his children's nanny was found dead.
The re-emergence of the MP, once tipped as a future Labour leader, on
the other side of the world has stunned Parliament and his colleagues at
Westminster.
A Whitehall source said his future in Parliament was uncertain but it
is too early in the proceedings to comment on whether he could be
expelled. |
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| Ariane 1 blasted off
from the Kourou base in tropical South
America |
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1979: Europe launches first
rocket | Artificially 1969:
The The first
European-built rocket, Ariane 1, has successfully completed its maiden
flight.
The space launcher finally took off from the Kourou Space Centre in
French Guiana on its third attempt.
Test flight technicians have declared the flight an almost complete
success. All three stages seemed to have fired and separated correctly and
its tiny payload , an
automatic tracking device, was put into the right orbit.
The success of Ariane 1's maiden flight is a major boost for the
European Space Agency which first gave the go-ahead for the rocket in
1973.
The space launcher - built by the 10 nation European Space Agency - was
due to blast off eight days ago but one of its four engines apparently
failed to ignite and the launch had to be abandoned.
A second attempt yesterday also had to be cancelled because of
malfunctions in the third stage of the rocket.
It is hoped the rocket will now be used to launch commercially
profitable television, communication and other useful satellites
throughout the 1980s - in competition with the American shuttle programme.
The rocket has been largely built by the French who have also borne 60%
of the cost of the entire venture. The West Germans provided nearly 20%
and the British are near the bottom of the list of contributors, providing
less than 2.5% of the cost.
As long as two out of its first four test flights are considered a
success, Ariane has already got at least one order in the pipeline.
The deal worth ?2m would be to launch a communications satellite for
Intelsat, the worldwide agency for spaceborne telephone, telex and TV
links.
In June of this year, a new company called Arianespace was formed to
produce, market and finance the Ariane launch vehicle from the first
quarter of 1980. The shareholders include 35 European companies, 10 banks
and the French space agency CNES. |
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| Vocabulary:
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magistrate: a public official authorized to decide
questions bought before a court of
justice（地方官員）
payload: the front part of a guided
missile or rocket or torpedo that carries the nuclear or explosive charge
or the chemical or biological
agents（有效載荷）
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