Deng Xiaoping has triumphed over the Gang of Four

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The disgraced deputy Prime Minister of China, Deng Xiaoping, is to return to Chinese Government.

The Chinese Communist Party conference has restored him to the offices of Vice Premier of the State Council, Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee, Vice-Chairman of the Military Commission and Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army.

He was dismissed from his posts after the leftist Gang of Four blamed him for the popular uprising in Tiananmen Square in April last year after Premier Zhou Enlai's death.

Since the death of Chairman Mao last September the Gang of Four has sidelined Mr Deng and attempted a programme of radical reform.

But Mao Tse Tung's named successor as CCP chair, Hua Guofeng, has beenpurgingthe Party of extremist influences such as the Gang of Four.

The Gang of Four was formally expelled from the CCP at a meeting of the Central Committee's Third Plenum last weekend.

The Gang include Mao's fourth wife, Jiang Qing, former vice premier and politburo member Zhang Chunqiao, ex-worker Wang Hongwen and Shanghai intellectual Yao Wenyuan.

Official CCP newspaper The People's Daily last week accused the group of trying to "rebuild" the Communist Party, excluding senior officials and creating a "mass organisation".

Chinese authorities now regard "pleading the Gang's innocence" as a "counter-revolutionary act".

A party official in Kiangsi who defended the group recently was "denounced for his crime" at a meeting of 4,000 people.

Premier Hua has also identified far-left tendencies in party leaders of 13 of China's 29 administrative regions and removed them from power.

Uday (left) and Qusay Hussein were among the most feared men in Iraq

All week there has been mounting speculation over where the spacecraft would come down. It has been in orbit six years - for the past five of those it has been unoccupied.

Skylab's last signal was recorded at 1611 GMT. Less than an hour later a tracking station at Ascension Island in the South Atlantic confirmed the solar panels were beginning to peel off as the craft descended.

The 77.5 ton Skylab could break into as many as 500 pieces, including a 5,100lb (2,310kg) airlock shroud and a 3,900lb (1,767kg) lead safe to protect film from radiation, which are expected to survive the heat of re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.

Head of the Nasa task force monitoring Skylab, Richard Smith, said they had already received reports of hot debris, which had lit up the night sky, from several points in Western Australia.

'Edge of Cornwall'

Dozens of residents reported seeing debris falling near Kalgoolie, 370 miles (595km) northeast of Perth.

Skylab was launched on 14 May 1973 and was lived in by three teams of astronauts for periods of up to 84 days as they tested human endurance over long periods of weightlessness.

While the astronauts were on board they were able to carry out many valuable scientific experiments including analysis of the sun's activity and how it affected the Earth.

Skylab was abandoned by the last crew in February 1974, since when scientists have only had limited control over it. It was supposed to stay in orbit until the mid-1980s when the new shuttle would have come to its rescue.

A Skylab task force of computer specialists, engineers, lawyers and public relations experts has been on standby at various Nasa centres.

It has been very difficult to predict exactly where and when the craft would finally come down. Only two days ago, a Nasa spokesman had been predicting it would land near the "edge of Cornwall".

In India, the police in all 22 states were put on full alert and the civil aviation department was planning to ban flights across the sub-continent during the crucial hours of re-entry.

Skylab's final orbital path, its 34,981st, passed over the north Pacific, the northwest tip of the United States, south central Canada, north of Montreal and Ottawa and the state of Maine.

purging :清除；凈化