A shower of watches and jewellery, ancient artefacts from Israel and a scooter from the King of Jordan are among a haul of exotic gifts handed to Tony Blair by foreign leaders. No 10 declined to give full details of the gifts, which were listed in the annual report of valuable presents handed to ministers.Mr Blair only bought the watches from the Italian government and a porcelain dish worth £175 from the government of Turkey.The President of Yemen gave Mr Blair a sports dagger and jewellery, while he received a musical box from the King of Bahrain and another dagger from the Malaysian government. It recounted an onlooker, Lewis Lapham, as saying: "Fascinated by his performance, I watched as he slid his hand inside her thigh and began a long honeyed spiel which ended with the promise 'And I will make another Sharon Tate out of you'." Polanski's lawyers said the article meant that he had gone "on the pull" and exploited the name of his late wife, who was eight months pregnant, as a "tool of seduction". Although unseen, he was following proceedings via videolink from Paris. He sued Conde Nast over a July 2002 Vanity Fair story which said that in the aftermath of the August 1969 murder of 26-year-old Tate and four others by Charles Manson's "Family", he made a pass at a woman in Elaine's restaurant in New York.

The jury of nine men and three women took four-and-a-half hours to reach their unanimous verdict at London's High Court. Polanski was absent because of his fear of extradition to the US following his flight from the country in 1978 while awaiting sentence for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. She said that the emissions created by ministerial travel would be offset by planting trees and funding low carbon projects from next year.High-flyer* 9-11 May 2004 Kerry; £3,884* 14-16 May Waterford; £1,580* 24 May Brussels; £1,580* 2-4 June Bonn; £3,697* 21 June Luxembourg; £1,645* 16-18 July Maastricht; £2,764* 5 Sept Hague; £2,699* 13-14 Oct Brussels and Luxembourg; £2,608* 18 Oct Luxembourg; £2,040* 3 Nov Berlin; £2,370* 22 Nov Brussels; £1,185* 23 Nov Vienna; £3,160* 24 Jan 2005 Brussels; £1,975* 28 Feb Brussels; £1,711* 10 Mar Brussels; £1,580* 14 Mar Brussels; £1,514. Film director Roman Polanski won £50,000 libel damages today over a claim that he made sexual advances to a Scandinavian woman just after wife Sharon Tate's brutal murder. We must put a stop to this waste of public money."A spokeswoman for Ms Beckett said "there's often not much choice" in using RAF flights because European meetings ended at unpredictable times, often after Eurostar services had finished. We have to live in the real world and unless we cut back on aviation we will be facing real problems."The Tories also went on the attack yesterday.

Chris Grayling, the shadow Leader of the Commons, said: "Taxpayers will be angry to see ministers spending thousands of pounds using the Queen's Flight and RAF planes for short-haul business trips to Europe."They should be using scheduled flights or Eurostar like the rest of us. I have written to the Cabinet Office asking for clear guidelines on when ministers can or cannot use the Queen's Flight or other RAF planes. It should be possible to schedule meetings so people can catch the train there and back. It's a pity she does not feel able to set an example."Greenpeace said the flights were "ludicrous" when Brussels was easily reached by train. Anne Callaghan, a climate campaigner with the pressure group, said: "In the case of Brussels there is a very good service called Eurostar. It is a pity that the good work Ms Beckett is doing to argue the case for action to halt climate change is being undermined by her own travel arrangements I have always found the Eurostar is a very good service. They said Ms Beckett's flying blighted her record of trying to curb the pace of climate change, estimating that her year's travelling was responsible for pumping 31 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.Norman Baker, the party's environment spokesman, said: "She seems to be racking up carbon emissions as if there was no tomorrow, which there might not be.