Turkish frustration with a series of setbacks for its bid to join the European Union triggered a search for a foreign policy that reflect its historical interests in the Middle East, Caucasus and Islamic world.

Foreign intelligence officials sounded an alarm over Turkish manoeuvring closer to Iran, which has undermined the international campaign to isolate the Islamic regime. In particular it has allowed key members of the Islamic regime to move large sums of money – up to $10 million per day – into the global financial system.

Turkey has become a prized outlet for Iranian transactions since a tight regime of sanctions cut off Iranian banks from international finance.

Turkey was one of a handful of countries that refused to support a reprimand imposed on Iran over its failure to declare secret nuclear facility last month. Iranian activists have complained that the regime’s agents can operate with impunity in a country that was once a safe haven for those fleeing persecution.

One man who fled to Turkey told a newspaper last week that an Iranian agent had threatened to kill him in an encounter at his private accommodation. He said: “As I was going into my flat, a man put his hand on my shoulder and, looking into my eyes, told me, ‘either you are going to shut up or we will shut you up’.”

He said it would be better for world leaders to rip them up and start over again.

Lord Stern said methane emissions from cows and pigs were putting ‘enormous pressure’ on the world.

The peer, who wrote an influential review of climate change in 2006, advocated a meat-free diet and called on people to think more about the effect of what they eat.

He predicted people’s attitudes to eating meat would change so much with time that it would eventually become unacceptable - in the same way as drink driving.

And he also forecast the price of meat and other foods that generate a lot of greenhouse gases could rise after December’s pivotal climate change conference.

From Cairo to Calgary, artists can often be divided on their Middle East views but most agree on the need to draw the line between cultural expression and political advocacy.

As a glamorous parade of celebrities walk the red carpet here, increasing numbers of Hollywood stars are speaking out for or against the festival’s critics, who say the Tel Aviv program boosts Israel’s tarnished image eight months after its devastating bombing raids in the Gaza Strip.

“We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine,” said the Toronto Declaration, signed earlier this month by 65 artists, including actresses Jane Fonda and Julie Christie, musicians David Byrne and Harry Belafonte and writers such as Alice Walker and Wallace Shawn.

Cadbury’s board had rejected the proposal, Kraft said, adding that it was “committed to working toward a recommended transaction and to maintaining a constructive dialogue”. The company said it had published details of its approach in order to “encourage and further that process”.

“It feels absolutely brilliant,” Mike told CNN by phone hours before crossing the finish line. “I’m really, really excited to be going across the line at last. It doesn’t feel like long since I crossed it first.”

“It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight,” Noel Gallagher said in a brief statement on the band’s Web site. “People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”

In early April, 18-year-old Moszy came ashore in the Spanish Canary Islands, along with 59 other African refugees. He stood out among a sea of black faces waiting in line that day to be processed by immigration officials. He is an albino, a person with a congenital lack of the melanin pigment that protects the skin, eyes and hair from the sun’s ultraviolet rays.

Albinism is a condition that makes life in much of Africa miserable for many reasons, said Javier Ramirez, a human rights lawyer with the Spanish Commission for Refugees or CEAR, which is representing Moszy.

On the Polish side of the border, residents are opposing plans to extend the protected zone of this unique habitat, which is under threat from rising temperatures and declining rainfall. Encouraged by international conservation agencies, Warsaw wants to enlarge the area’s national park, which occupies less than a fifth of the Polish part of the forest. It has offered up to 100 million zlotys (£20m) to be shared among the nine communities that would be affected by broader regulations protecting wildlife.