December 27

The film was released in the US seven months ago

England have

Thousands of people are flocking to cinemas in the UK to watch the long-awaited blockbuster, Star Wars - a movie which is already setting US box offices alight.

Bracing the cold weather, young and old queued from 0700 GMT in London at the Dominion, and Leicester Square cinemas, to snatch up non-reserved tickets which are otherwise booked until March.

Star Wars, which was first released in America seven months ago, has taken audiences by storm andoutstrippedlast year's blockbuster Jaws to gross $156m at the box office.

Carrie Fisher, Sir Alec Guiness and little known Harrison Ford star in this fairytale set in space.

Produced by Gary Kurtz, written and directed by George Lucas who directed American Graffitti, the U-classified sci-fi film is a classic epic of good versus evil.

It hasenthralledaudiences under a dazzle of special effects with wizards, heroes, monsters in "a galaxy far, far away".

The 900 people involved in the film included giants, dwarfs, artists and the man who built machines for James Bond.

All the special effects, costing $4m (?.14m), have been put together in Britain and filming took the cast to Tunisia, Death Valley California, Guatemala and the EMI soundstage at Elstree.

The build-up and hype has led to store wars over Star Wars with products including T-shirts, sweets, jig-saw puzzle, watches and food to name but a few.

Mr Lucas has published a paperback version and Marvel comics have produced a special edition to meet the thirst for Star Wars' merchandise.    

The explosion in the Sahara has provoked outrage in Africa and the USSR

It brings the nation a step closer to its aim of developing a compact nuclear device to arm missiles.

The explosion took place this morning at Reggan in south-western Algeria, according to a communique from the French Armed Forces Ministry.

France's first two atomic bombs were also exploded there earlier this year - in February and April .

The communique stated the "nuclear explosion of limited power" had been successful and that care had been taken to prevent radioactive fall-out from affecting people living in the remote part of the desert, and those in neighbouring African countries.

The test provoked swift condemnation from Japan, which has also protested in the past against tests carried out by the United States, Britain and the USSR. All three nations agreed two years ago to cease test explosions but France would not be bound by such an agreement.

Today, Moscow joined Japan in condemning the test saying it was a serious blow to any hope of disarmament and against the wishes of the United Nations. Moscow Radio described the act as "a monstrous challenge to world public opinion".

Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Ghana have also expressed outrage at France's action and its timing - on the eve of the African summit in Casablanca.

In Cairo, the deputy secretary general of the Arab League, El Dardiri Ismail, called for all Arab nations to break off political and economic links with France.

Today's bomb contained plutonium and had an explosive force equal to 10,000 to 14,000 tons of TNT - half as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.

It was exploded at the top of a steel tower. Military equipment, dummies and caged rats and mice were positioned in the area of the blast were monitored during and after the explosion.

The rodents have been flown to Paris for examination.

outstrip: go far ahead of（超过）

enthral: hold spellbound（迷惑）