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The QE2 will be Cunard's only big cruise ship on the transatlantic route

England have  

The Queen has launched the new Cunard cruise liner named after her, the Queen Elizabeth 2, at a ceremony on the Clydebank.

Tens of thousands of people crowded the river's banks as the Queen appeared on a platform high against the bow of the 963 ft (293.5 metres) long liner, with Prince Philip and Princess Margaret by her side.

In clear tones, she pronounced: "I name this ship Queen Elizabeth the Second. May God bless her and all who sail in her."

She then pressed the launching button, and a bottle of champagne shattered against the huge bows of the ship.

After a pause, the ship began her journey down into the water. She began slowly, but soon gathered speed, hitting 22mph (34.4 kph) before she entered the water stern-first.

Luxury cruiser

A two-foot (0.6m) high wave rose up and travelled across the Clyde, announcing the arrival of Cunard's latest - and probably last - great luxury cruise ship to be built here.

Her launch comes just a few days after Cunard's other great liner, the Queen Mary, made her last transatlantic crossing to New York.

The 58,000-ton QE2 is now Cunard's only big cruise ship.

Since the early 1950s, when cruise liners carried over a million passengers a year across the Atlantic, sea traffic has almost halved to around 600,000 journeys.

By contrast, the airlines are now carrying over five million people each year.

Changing direction

Shipping companies like Cunard are increasingly turning to the pleasure cruise market as their main source of income.

The new QE2 will be fitted out with just this market in mind, with big deck spaces and four swimming pools.

There are nearly 1,000 cabins, restaurants on the upper decks with sea views, cocktail bars, night clubs and a theatre.

Themammothliners, like the original Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary, were built for speed rather than luxury, and in using them for long, leisurely cruises Cunard has been losing money fast.

The company is hoping to reverse that trend with its first giant cruise ship to be targeted exclusively at the leisure market.

The peacekeepers want to make East Timor streets safer

The UN force has been sent to the island to end the violence that has beset the region since its people voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia.

Pro-Jakarta militias are thought to have killed thousands of people since the election on 4 September.

They have been apparently backed by the Indonesian military (TNI), but members of the UN International Force for East Timor (Interfet) said the army was now cooperating fully with the peacekeepers.

The operation began at 0640 local time (0140 BST) when a transport plane carrying British Royal Marines and Australian troops touched down at Komoro airport in the capital, Dili.

Throughout the day a total of 1,190 soldiers - mostly from Australia and New Zealand - landed on the war-torn island.

Fires from recent attacks were still burning, but the troops met little resistance from Indonesian forces or the armed bands that have been terrorising the population.

"The TNI have been quite helpful - we have not seen any militia," said British Brigadier Mark Evans.

Another 1,110 peacekeepers will arrive in East Timor tomorrow and within the next seven days the international force will eventually grow to 8,000 soldiers - drawn from more than 20 countries.

UK Armed Forces Minister John Spellar told the BBC the primary objective of Interfet was to take themilitiasoff the streets.

The next stage would be to re-establish supply lines of food, water and electricity in a capital mostly abandoned by its inhabitants.

mammoth: very large; gigantic（巨大的）

militia: civilians trained as soldiers but not part of the regular army（民兵）