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December 24
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.
Ariane 1 blasted off from the Kourou base in tropical South America
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.
Vocabulary:
magistrate: a public official authorized to decide questions bought before
a court of justice(地方官员)
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(有效载荷) |
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发表于 2016-7-9 23:19:50