John Stonehouse was presumed dead

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 amagistrateon 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

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 tinypayload, 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.

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）