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		Lib-Dem in space alien search call Thursday, 20 March 2003 At a meeting of the European parliament's Industry & Research committee on Wednesday, East Midlands Lib-Dem MEP Bill Newton Dunn called for new EU-funded research on space aliens. Research Commissioner Busquin was presenting a Green Paper on European Space Policy. In a question to the Commissioner, Newton Dunn complained that the proposals did not contain sufficiently exciting ideas to engage the public imagination, and he called for "SETI" - the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence - to be included in the programme. Similar programmes have been under way in the USA for some years, but have yet to show results. Commenting on Newton Dunn's call, Tory MEP Roger Helmer, who was also at the meeting, said: "I have been an enthusiast for astronomy and space exploration for fifty years. But given the current crises in pensions, health and transport, a proposal to spend EU tax-payers' money putting little green men into the Commission's Green Paper shows a bizarre sense of priorities. Newton Dunn would do better to search for intelligent life in the Lib-Dem party".