Northern Europe holds increasing allure for UK cruise passengers looking to book a no-fly cruise, in a record year for the UK cruise market.

Latest figures from CLIA UK & Ireland show that 2013 was another record year for the UK cruise market, with continued growth and port embarkations passing the one-million mark for the first time.

The number of British and overseas passengers joining their cruise at a UK port grew 10% to 1,062,000 in 2013, whilst the number of British passengers taking an ocean cruise also continued to increase with an additional 25,000 (1.5%) in 2013.

The UK retains pole position as Europe’s biggest cruise market, accounting for 27% of cruise passengers.

Destination winners include Northern Europe – now the destination of choice for one in three British passengers. A cruise in the Mediterranean remained the most popular holiday choice for cruising Brits, accounting for 644,000 of them, but for Norway alone the number of passengers joining a ship at a UK port has increased five-fold from 37,000 to 218,000 over the past decade – making it more popular than the Mediterranean for ex-UK cruisers.

There was a 20% increase in cruise passengers to Northern Europe in 2013; numbers for the Med fell by 8%. Were the trend to continue in 2014 Northern Europe will overtake the Mediterranean as the leading cruise destination for UK cruise passengers since the inception of cruising two centuries ago.

The increasing popularity of no-fly cruising however, coupled with crippling APD (air passenger duty) to the region and the impact of higher fuel costs has put the traditional Caribbean fly-cruise holiday out of reach for some. There were nearly 100,000 fewer fly cruises there in 2013 compared with 2009, in spite of the fact that one in every two cruises sold last year cost less than £1,000.

Despite a record year for British cruising the number of first-time cruisers dropped by 4%, which has contributed to an increase in the average passenger age, to 57. “Numbers of first-time cruisers have been volatile in recent years as cruise companies have marketed even more strongly to past passengers,” said a spokesperson for CLIA.

Demand for river cruising continues to soar with 20,000 Britons choosing a European river cruise in 2013, taking the total to almost 110,000 passengers. Twenty-seven ships were introduced in 2012-2013 and a further 24 are on order.

Follow @TelegraphTravelFollow @TelegraphSkiFollow @TelegraphCruise

SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Luxurious Cruises Ships In The World

Follow Us! Business Insider Is On Instagram

Join the conversation about this story »

Russia's Vladimir Putin has committed a grave strategic blunder by tearing up the international rule book without a green light from China. Any hope of recruiting Beijing as an ally to blunt Western sanctions looks doomed, and with it the Kremlin's chances of a painless victory, or any worthwhile victory at all.

Mr Putin was careful to thank China's Politburo for its alleged support in his victory speech on Crimea. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has been claiming with his usual elasticity that “Russia and China have coinciding views on the situation in Ukraine.”

This is of course a desperate lie. China did not stand behind Russia in the UN Security Council vote on Crimea, as it had over Syria. It pointedly abstained. Its foreign ministry stated that “China always sticks to the principle of non-interference in any country’s internal affairs and respects the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

We don't know exactly what China's Xi Jinping told President Barack Obama at The Hague this week it clearly had nothing in common with the deranged assertions of the Kremlin. The US deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes appeared delighted by the talks, claiming afterwards that Russia could no longer count on backing from its "traditional ally".

If so, Mr Putin is snookered. He cannot hope to escape financial suffocation by US regulatory muscle, should he send troops into Eastern Ukraine or even if he tries to stir up chaos in the Russian-speaking Donbass by means of agents provocateurs.

Nor can he hope to turn the tables on the West by joining forces with China to create a Eurasian bloc, a league of authoritarian powers in control of vast resources. Such an outcome is the obsession of the 'Spenglerites', the West's self-haters convinced that the US is finished and that dollar will soon be displaced by the Eurasian Gold Ducat -- odd though that may seem at a time of surging oil and gas output in the US, and an American manufacturing revival.

The reality is that China is breaking Russia's control over the gas basins of Central Asia systematically and ruthlessly. Turkmenistan's gas used to flow North, hostage to prices set by Gazprom. It now flows East. President Xi went in person last September to open the new 1,800 km pipeline to China from the Galkynysh field, the world's second largest with 26 trillion cubic meters.

It will ultimately supply 65 BCM, equal to half Gazprom's exports to Europe. Much the same is going on in Kazakhstan, where Chinese companies have taken over much of the energy industry. The politics are poignantly exposed in Wikileaks cables from Central Asia. A British diplomat is cited in a 2010 dispatch describing the "Chinese commercial colonization" of the region, saying Russia was "painfully" watching its energy domination in Central Asia slip away.

Yet more revealing is a cable quoting Cheng Guoping, China's ambassador to Kazakhstan, warning that Russia and China are on a collision course, and China will not be the one to yield. "In the future, great power relations in Central Asia will be complicated, delicate. The new oil and gas pipelines are breaking Russia's monopoly in energy exports."

Mr Cheng not only expressed "a positive view of the US role in the region" but also suggested that NATO should take part as a guest at talks on the Shanghai Cooperation group -- allegedly the Sino-Russian answer to EU/NATO -- in order to "break the Russian monopoly in the region." That word "break" again. So there we have it in the raw, what really goes on behind closed doors, so far removed from the pieties of a Moscow-Beijing axis.

There was much anguish about such an axis in the 1960s, then based on Communist fraternity. Henry Kissinger saw through it, suspecting that the two hostile cultures were at daggers drawn along their vast borders -- "Four Thousand Kilometres of Problems" to cite the title of a 2006 opus by Moscow writer Akihero Ivasita.

George Walden exposes deep roots of this mistrust in his superb little book "China: A Wolf in the World?". As a diplomat in Russia and then in China -- one of the tiny handful of Westerners in Beijing through the Cultural Revolution -- he saw first-hand how the Marxist brotherhood had come to loathe each other. Indeed, they came close to nuclear war. The CIA and State Department were dumbfounded by his accounts at a debriefing in Washington. They had no sources on the ground in Mao's era.

Mr Walden says the Chinese have never forgiven Russia for seizing East Siberia under the Tsars, the "lost territories". They want their property back, and they are getting it back by ethnic resettlement across the Amur and the frontier regions, much as Mexico is retaking California and Texas by the Reconquista of migration.

The population of far Eastern Siberia has collapsed to 6.3m from over 8 million twenty years ago, leaving ghost towns along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Russia has failed to make a go of its Eastern venture. With a national fertility rate of 1.4, chronic alcoholism, and a population expected to shrink by 30m to barely more than 110m by 2050 -- according to UN demographers, not Mr Putin's officials -- the nation must inexorably recede towards its European bastion of Old Muscovy. The question is how fast, and how peacefully.

Jonathan Fenby, a China expert at Trusted Sources, said there is a faction within China's National Security Council that wishes to "line up with Russia" over Ukraine, hoping to exploit the crisis to gain better terms on gas, food, and raw materials. These voices have been overruled by Xi Jinping. He plays on a more sophisticated strategic stage.

China is likely to walk a tightrope, "hiding its brilliance and biding its time" as the saying goes. This will becomes a harder if the Ukraine crisis escalates. Beijing may have to choose. It is surely unlikely that imperious Xi Jinping will throw away the great prize of G2 Sino-American condominium to rescue a squalid and incompetent regime in Moscow from its own folly.

Mr Putin must realize by now how fatally isolated he has become, and how dangerous it would be to go a step further. Even Germany's ever-forgiving Angela Merkel has lost patience, lamenting an "unbelievable breakdown of trust." Enough of Europe's gas pipelines have been switched to two-way flows since 2009 to help at least some of the vulnerable frontline states, if he tries to pick off the minnows one by one. Eight EU countries have liquefied natural gas terminals. Two more will join the club this year, in Poland and Lithuania.

The EU summit text last week was a call to arms. Officials have been ordered to draft plans within 90 days to break dependence on Gazprom. Even if this crisis blows over, Europe will take radical steps to find other sources of energy. Imports of Russian may be slashed by half within a decade.

Capital flight from Russia reached $70bn in the first quarter. Russia's central bank cannot defend the rouble without tightening monetary policy, driving the economy deeper into recession in the process. Russian banks and companies must roll over $155bn of foreign debts over the next twelve months in a hostile market, at a premium already over 200 basis points.

Mr Putin is discovering that global finance is more frightened of the US Securities and Exchange Commission than Russian T90 tanks. Any sanction against any oligarch linked to any Russian company could shut it out of global capital markets, potentially forcing default. Creditors in the West would be burned. But nobody cares about them once national security is at stake, something markets have been slow to grasp.

Nor has he chosen a good moment for his gamble. Europe's gas tanks are unusually full. The price of oil is poised to fall -- ceteris paribus -- as Iraq's output reaches a 35-year high, the US adds a million barrels b/d a day this year from shale, and Libya cranks up exports again. The International Energy Agency says global supply jumped by 600,000 b/d last month. Deutsche Bank predicts a glut. So does China's Sinopec. Mr Putin needs prices near $110 to fund his budget. He may face $80 before long.

At the end of the day he has condemned Russia to the middle income trap. The windfall from the great oil boom has been wasted. Russia's engineering skills have atrophied. Industry has been hollowed out by the Dutch Disease: the curse of over-valued currency, and reliance on commodities.

He jumped the gun in Ukraine, striking before the interim government had committed any serious abuses or lost global goodwill, a remarkably sloppy and impatient Putsch for a KGB man. He took Germany for a patsy, and took China for granted. He has gained Crimea but turned the Kremlin into a pariah for another decade, if not a generation, and probably lost Ukraine forever. It is a remarkably poor trade.

Join the conversation about this story »

Ulmart, Russia's answer to Amazon, is close to appointing advisers for an IPO in London next year, as sales surge past $1bn (£602m).

Russia's biggest e-commerce company is close to appointing advisers for a London IPO next year, after passing $1bn (£602m) in sales.

Ulmart, an Amazon-style marketplace that started life selling computers, but has branched out into children’s toys and furniture, is Russia’s largest internet business, after overtaking the Russian search engine Yandex.

Discussions are underway about hiring two banks to advise on the flotation of the company, which is currently valued at between $2.5bn and $3bn.

Ulmart’s projected revenue for 2014 is $1.6bn, up 60pc from $1bn in 2013.

Dmitry Kostygin, the majority owner and chairman of Ulmart, met Goldman Sachs in London today, following a recent meeting with the bank’s Moscow arm.

Mr Kostygin, who last year increased his stake in Ulmart to 60pc, is also talking to banks and investment funds across London, Russia, Switzerland, the US and Asia about raising $300m to $400m of growth funding.

If the financing talks prove successful, Ulmart will postpone its London listing for around three years while it continues to focus on expanding the business.

Ulmart currently sells around 80,000 products, but plans to expand to 150,000 by the end of the year.

The company also plans to quadruple the capacity of its distribution centres over the next 18 months, while tripling sales. Two new fulfilment centres are under construction in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Mr Kostygin chose to list the company on the London Stock Exchange after its recent surge of public offerings, such as AO World, Merlin Entertainments and Poundland.

But he remains positive about doing business in Russia, despite the political unrest in Ukraine. “I see that there is enough capital in Russia,” he said. “It will remain the fifth largest economy in the world for at least the next decade.”

However, Mr Kostygin warned that a decision by the US and the EU to impose sanctions on Russia in response to President Putin’s actions in Crimea would be a “huge mistake”.

“It is primitive to seize or freeze assets, or to say businesses have to leave Russia,” he said. “If they [the West] are really that stupid, I think Russia benefits. Russians are already more cautious about using Western suppliers, such as Facebook and Visa, and they are looking for their local or Asian substitutes.”

Mr Kostygin, who spent five years in Zurich earlier in his career, favours the Swiss model of “the sovereignty of the small communities”.

Under Switzerland’s federal government, each of the country’s 26 cantons is responsible for setting its own tax rates and regulation, enabling home-grown enterprises to thrive.

Join the conversation about this story »

The great-grandson of Scientology's notorious founder has been threatened, attacked and is convinced there is a 'dossier on him'. But it won't stop Jamie DeWolf from spilling the religion's darkest secrets

One Sunday morning in the early Eighties, as he sat among the pews in church, Jamie DeWolf’s life was changed for ever. Then just six years old, DeWolf was handed The Kingdom of the Cults by his pastor, a book examining new religious movements – among them Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists and Mormons.

Yet one group stood out for the young Baptist and, more specifically, one name. It was that of Lafayette Ronald (L Ron) Hubbard, a science fiction writer turned prophet who founded the Church of Scientology . He was also DeWolf’s great-grandfather.

“I remember coming home and saying, 'Mom, what’s Scientology?’ and her face went really pale,” says DeWolf, three decades later in his home in Oakland, California. “I remember her explaining that Hubbard was a prolific writer, then at some point kind of lost his marbles and wrote different kinds of books. She was like, 'I don’t think you’d like them, there aren’t many guns and spaceships’, something I later found out was also untrue.”

Never short of scandal since its first church opened its doors in California 60 years ago, Scientology was created with ideas derived from Hubbard’s bestselling self-help book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, published in 1950. Tired of being paid a penny per word for his sci-fi tales, Hubbard reportedly adopted the motto, “If you want to get rich, start a religion”. Dianetics, a theory of the mind which had been discredited by the scientific community, was subsequently transformed into something based around faith, not fact.

Hubbard never painted himself as a messiah, instead claiming to have learnt the truths of existence while “dead” under anaesthetic during a dental procedure. He none the less asserted, among other things, that he’d visited Venus, developed a protein formula for babies based on a Roman recipe and cured himself of debilitating optic nerve, hip and back injuries suffered during the Second World War .

Despite his declaration he was not God, it’s Hubbard’s picture you’ll still find hanging in every Scientology building, and Scientologists fully expect him to return one day. They’re so sure of this that an office in each church is reserved for him, along with a $10 million mansion employing full-time staff to wash his clothes and tidy the property. Cars with full petrol tanks sit in the garage with keys in the ignition.

Ask Scientology’s believers and they’ll tell you the religion – recognised as such in the United States after a legal battle with the Internal Revenue Service in 1993, and in the United Kingdom as recently as December 2013 – is a pathway to spiritual freedom followed by many high-profile success stories such as the Hollywood actor Tom Cruise.

Scientology’s critics paint Hubbard as the planet’s most decorated charlatan and Scientology as a pay-as-you-go religion, one which extorts naive believers by promising the secrets of the universe in return for cash, while ordering them to sign a billion-year pledge of allegiance, disconnect from their families, endure squalid conditions and sometimes even suffer mental and physical abuse. Leaving is even tougher, it’s said, with the lifetime confessions of members recorded, filed and used against them, should they ever attempt to abscond. The church denies all such allegations.

One of Scientology’s fiercest and most vocal critics today is DeWolf. Late last year DeWolf (his birth name was Kennedy, but he changed it to avoid clashing with a comedian of the same name) became a viral sensation after a 2011 performance of his poem “The God of Man” was uncovered on YouTube by the news website Upworthy. The piece is a poignant account of DeWolf’s awkward family history, his ancestor Hubbard and the tale of his grandfather, L Ron Junior, who endured decades of persecution by the church following his own defection.

Despite never meeting his great-grandfather – who disappeared in 1980, while facing 48 lawsuits, and died in 1986 – DeWolf had a childhood fascination with Hubbard, in particular his writing, which spanned a Guinness World Record breaking 1,084 works. Today, DeWolf concedes it was Hubbard who drove him to pursue a career in the arts.

“I remember idolising L Ron as a kid, and I remember asking my mom all the time why couldn’t I meet him,” admits DeWolf. “I didn’t know at that point that he had created a religion, I just knew when I went into a bookstore I could find books by him – he was evidence to me that you could be a writer simply by your will alone. Outside of this man running this crazy church and brainwashing millions of people, at the same time he was just another family member,” he tells me. “It was incredibly painful that I couldn’t meet him.”

Now 36 years old, DeWolf is a writer, poet, film-maker and performer. Once a month, he hosts a variety event called Tourettes Without Regrets, an absurdist underground arts show merging comedy, burlesque, and poetry, along with bizarre contests such as “What’s Down Jamie’s Pants”.

DeWolf was once a “hardcore Christian kid” who hoped to become a Baptist minister; he would regularly hand out pamphlets on street corners. “I vividly remember acknowledging on the playground that all the other kids were going to hell and trying to understand that,” explains DeWolf. “There was a summer camp we went to where they said the Rapture was going to happen on the weekend. I hadn’t even reached teenage years and that was it: Jesus was going to come down and swoop us up.” DeWolf sniggers. “You know, we stood in a field for a long time. Nothing happened.”

Since denouncing his Baptist faith, DeWolf now sees all religion as “an inherently absurd and flawed human concept”. But he doesn’t consider himself an atheist: “I feel like [that’s] almost a little too easy.” As for Scientology, none of Hubbard’s descendants are known to subscribe to his teachings; the party line is to maintain a stoic silence.

DeWolf is the exception, and his encyclopedic knowledge of Scientology borders on the obsessive. Since discovering the truth as a boy, DeWolf says it’s been a “taboo subject”. During his childhood the family was both embarrassed and fearful of the church — mainly because Hubbard’s son, L Ron Junior, was still alive.

DeWolf’s memories of his grandfather are nothing but warm. He was a loving grandparent, DeWolf says, who visited every Thanksgiving and bought him Star Wars toys on his birthday. Yet he was also a guarded, solitary individual who was very sick – eventually losing a foot to diabetes. But Junior’s early years, and his role in the formation of Scientology, remain a mystery. He died in 1991, aged 57, and DeWolf admits his story remains “just as murky and hidden” as Hubbard’s own.

Born prematurely due to what he claimed was a botched abortion attempt (an allegation he later retracted under oath), Junior weighed just 2lbs at birth and was kept alive in a homemade shoebox incubator, then a cupboard drawer, kept warm with an electric light and fed with an eyedropper. He once recalled his father dabbling in black magic and drugs, which he would also give to his children. As a teenager, Junior later confessed, “I believed in Satanism. It was the only religion in the house!”

Later, when Scientology was in its formative stages, it’s believed Junior was Hubbard’s right-hand man and enforcer. DeWolf claims it was Junior who was largely responsible for penning Scientology’s infamous “Fair Game” doctrine to pursue defectors and those seen as enemies of the church.

The specific reasons for Junior’s exit from the church still aren’t clear. DeWolf claims it was partially a dispute over money, with Junior unhappy that profit went “straight to the top of the pyramid” and, ergo, Hubbard. Legend has it that Hubbard kept shoeboxes full of banknotes under the bed and routinely burnt incriminating documents, but DeWolf believes his grandfather simply began to see Hubbard for who he really was.

“I think he came to the view quite early on that his father was truly a grifter and a hustler,” says DeWolf. “It was maybe exhilarating and intoxicating to be around this roguish character, but at some point he became just another victim. I think he started to see past the curtain and decided it was a house of cards.”

After leaving the church – or “blowing”, in Scientology speak – it was assumed Scientology agents wouldn’t pursue Junior, given they’d be using the very policy he had devised against him. However, as detailed in DeWolf’s The God or the Man, Junior was stalked with “wiretaps, break-ins and death threats,” the family were perpetually on the run, and “every aunt and uncle of mine were taught to use a gun,” for protection.

Things haven’t gone that far, but DeWolf has experienced similar scare tactics since breaking his silence on Scientology. The day after he first performed a version of The God or the Man in 2000, two men who DeWolf believes were Scientologists (they claimed to be fellow poets) turned up at his home.

In 2012, DeWolf appeared on a US news programme and the same evening was attacked during his own stage show. DeWolf concedes that over time he has become paranoid, but claims that by this point “it’s impossible for them not to have created some sort of dossier on me, along with strategies on how to dismantle and destroy me. That’s just protocol”.

These days, though, Scientology has enough to worry about. After cultivating a reputation as a boutique religion coveted by film stars, artists and creatives in the Sixties and Seventies, the church has suffered a PR battering in recent times. There are persistent allegations that Scientology leader David Miscavige (who took charge following Hubbard’s death) has physically assaulted church members – allegations the church denies.

There’s also the online “hacktivist” network Anonymous’s pledge to “dismantle the church of Scientology in its present form”, which has seen several Scientology websites shut down and protests organised around the globe. There is also a long list of prominent Scientology figures who have left the religion. Senior members have quit to expose the church’s inner workings, as have celebrities including film director Paul Haggis and actress Leah Remini, who was helped to defect by friend Jennifer Lopez.

Perhaps the biggest foe Scientology is facing, and one it will struggle to conquer irrespective of court action, is its own reputation. DeWolf believes Scientology has become “a one-sentence punchline” through its relatively new status as “a UFO cult”. Once, people were afraid to criticise Scientology. Now, thanks to the internet, DeWolf says it is “open season”.

Does Scientology have a future? It’s a matter of perspective. Lawrence Wright’s 2013 book Going Clear reports that Scientology has $1 billion of liquid assets and 12 million sq ft of property around the globe – including a new £20 million London HQ – valued at $168 million.

This suggests Scientology as a business is in rude health. On the other hand, although the church attests to having 8 million members worldwide, only 25,000 Americans and 2,400 Britons consider themselves Scientologists. For the sake of context, in the 2011 UK census 176,632 people identified themselves as Jedi Knights.

As for DeWolf, he has a daily reminder of his great-grandfather’s legacy – a Scientology symbol inked on his right arm. “I’m a huge fan of irony,” he says.

Join the conversation about this story »

Scott Laidler is a personal trainer and personal development coach based in London. 

What's the difference between free weights and resistance machines, and which should I be using?

Free weights are the dumbbells and barbells that you see either stacked up by walls or littered over the floor in gyms (and private garages). Lifting free weights represents a true reflection of your strength. This is because they offer you no help; you simply have to pick them up and complete an exercise.

Resistance machines, on the other hand, are normally designed to facilitate your ability to lift a weight at the point where your joint needs the most assistance. These machines are the big, complex-looking metal structures you see in the gym. They compensate for the fact that your lifting ability will be limited by the amount of strength at a certain angle. The machines work to help you through the 'dead' spots of a lift, unlike free weights.

Another key difference is that resistance machines will generally isolate only the targeted muscle groups, whereas free-weights will call upon an array of stabilizers and assisting muscles to aid the lift.

Generally speaking, if you are new to training you should be using resistance machines until your body is conditioned, at which point you can safely move onto free weights.

What are the main benefits of working with a personal trainer?

Just as with any realm of expertise, working with a professional trainer gives you access to their knowledge base. A good trainer will be able to tell you exactly which exercises you need to do, how much you need to rest, and what you need to eat. Whilst you could discover this information yourself through comprehensive research, getting into something as vast as exercise comes with too many inherent unknowns to make self study a time effective pursuit.

Many people also find the accountability a personal trainer provides to be a huge factor. Just knowing that there is someone you’ll have to answer to if you don't show up is a great motivating factor.

Is walking or running better for fat loss?

This is always a difficult question to field, as there's a lot of debate around the subject. It bears working through.

Lets assume that there are two main ways to do cardio work for fat-loss. The first is very light exercise, where the heart rate beats at around 105-120 beats per minute and there is little or no barrier to recovery. The second is highly intensive training, where your heart rate is pushed up close to its max, which functions to stimulate your metabolism and burn excess fuel.

Light exercise benefits from operating within the ‘fat burning zone’, meaning that proportionately you burn more calories from fat (though less calories overall) in comparison to other forms of exercise. A second benefit is that you can basically do as much of it as you like, as you don't need time to recover from your exertions. Highly intensive training however, stimulates your metabolism to burn fat far quicker, but must be respected and given adequate recovery time.

With that all established, the crucial thing I find when working with clients is that a typical run manages to be neither one nor the other. The heart rate on a jog will not be optimal for fat loss, and the duration of the workout is often too long to benefit from the ‘in and out’ nature of intensive training. In fact, running can even bring about a negative change in your body composition. If you are not careful with your nutrition when running frequently, you run the risk of depleting your body's glycogen stores, forcing your body to convert existing muscle into fuel for your workout. Consequently you lose muscle weight, leaving you with a higher proportion of fat in your body.

My answer to the question is that walking and sprinting are both excellent ways to burn fat. Leave the jogging for running events, not fat loss.

How long should I rest between workouts?

Rest required between workouts depends on both your conditioning and the nature of your workouts. If you are well conditioned to exercise you may be able to train each day or even twice per day – although almost certainly not the same form of exercise or targeted muscles groups.

If you are new to exercise, particularly resistance work, you should be doing total body workouts to get your body to adapt to the new stress you are putting on it. In this case, I would suggest rest periods of at least 48-72 hours.

Which diet is the best to follow?

Generally speaking ... none.

Diets are inherently temporary, and many popular diet plans are so restrictive that thinking you are going to be able to sustain them probably isn’t realistic.

The real solution to healthy dietary intake is to find a balanced, non-restrictive eating plan that you find easy to sustain. This way you will be able to maintain your ideal weight.

Once you are able to balance your eating and know what your body requires, you can consider temporary restrictive eating programs to achieve specific goals. But not before.

If I stop training will my muscles turn to fat?

This is a very common and understandable misconception. I think it has arisen through anecdotal evidence of big guys who have stopped training and quickly slipped from being muscular to fat. Boxers are a great example. The weight gain is typically because the men have become so used to eating large amounts of food when training that they continue the habit even when idle. Combine this with the reduction of calorie expenditure and you're left with a huge calorie surplus every day.

If you avoid eating too much when you stop training, what actually happens is that your muscles lose bulk (they're no longer needed to perform at high levels) but your body fat stays the same.

Contact Scott at www.scottlaidler.com for personal training and online fitness coaching

Join the conversation about this story »

To mark the Eiffel Tower's 125th birthday, here is a selection of fascinating facts about the attraction

1. Completed on March 31, 1889, the tower was the world’s tallest man-made structure for 41 years until the completion of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930.

2. It is 324 metres tall (including antennas) and weighs 10,100 tonnes.

3. It was the tallest structure in France until the construction of a military transmitter in the town of Saissac in 1973. The Millau Viaduct, completed in 2004, is also taller, at 343 metres.

4. It is possible to climb to the top, but there are 1,665 steps. Most people take the lift.

5. The lifts travel a combined distance of 103,000 km a year – two and a half times the circumference of the Earth.

6. Victor Lustig, a con artist, "sold" the tower for scrap metal on two separate occasions.

7. During cold weather the tower shrinks by about six inches.

8. Gustave Eiffel, the engineer and architect behind the tower, was also involved in a disastrous attempt by the French to build a canal in Panama, and his reputation was badly damaged by the failure of the venture.

9. Eiffel also designed interior elements of the Statue of Liberty.

10. He died while listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony.

11. Since its opening almost 250 million people have visited the tower.

12. Today the tower welcomes almost 7 million people a year, making it the most visited paid-for monument in the world.

13. Its construction took two years, two months and five days - 180 years fewer than Paris's other great attraction, Notre Dame.

14. During the German occupation, the tower's lift cables were cut, and the tower closed to the public. Nazi soldiers then attempted to attach a swastika to the top, but it was so large it blew away and had to be replaced with a smaller one.

15. In 1944, as the Allies approached Paris, Hitler ordered Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower, along with other parts of the city. The general refused.

16. Repainting the tower, which happens every seven years, requires 60 tonnes of paint.

17. The tower was the main exhibit at the 1889 Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair), held to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution.

18. One attendee at the 1889 World's Fair was Sir John Bickerstaffe, Mayor of Blackpool. So impressed was he at the new attraction, he has a similar tower built on the English seafront.

19. The tower appears in the 1985 Bond film A View to a Kill. There is a scene in the Jules Verne restaurant, and a fight in the stairway.

20. Semolina Pilchard climbs the Eiffel Tower in the Beatles song I Am the Walrus.

21. There are a number of other replicas around the world, including one in Las Vegas and one at the Window of the World theme park in Shenzhen, China.

22. The tower played a part in the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne, in 1914. One of its transmitters jammed German radio communications, hindering their advance.

23. It was originally intended to stand for 20 years before being dismantled, but its use as a wireless telegraph transmitter (in cases such as the one above) meant it was allowed to stay.

24. French car manufacturer Citroen used the tower as a giant billboard between 1925 and 1934 – the company name was emblazoned on the tower using a quarter of a million light bulbs – and was recorded as the world’s biggest advertisement by the Guinness Book of Records.

25. In 2008 a woman with an objects fetish married the Eiffel Tower, changing her name to Erika La Tour Eiffel in honour of her ‘partner’.

26. The tower comprises 18,000 metallic parts, joined together by 2.5 million rivets.

27. To mark the 125th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower’s completion the British Virgin Islands has launched a special tower-shaped $10 coin.

28. A number of aviators have flown an aircraft under the arches of the tower. In 1926 Leon Collet was killed after a failed attempt.

29. The tower sways around six to seven centimeters (2-3 inches) in the wind.

30. Gustave Eiffel kept a small apartment of the third floor for entertaining friends. It is now open to the public.

31. The Eiffel Tower and Margaret Thatcher share the same nickname - La Dame de Fer ("The Iron Lady").

32. In 1960 Charles de Gaulle proposed temporarily dismantling the tower and sending it to Montreal for Expo 67. The plan was rejected.

33. The names of 72 engineers, scientists and mathematicians are engraved on the side of the tower, each of whom contributed to its construction.

34. In the computer game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the tower is toppled by an airstrike.

35. There area five billion lights on the Eiffel Tower.

36. Ever wanted to build your own Eiffel Tower? There's a LEGO set for that - number 10181 (it contains 3,428 bricks).

37. It costs €15 to take the lift to the top.

38. The majority of visitors (10.4%) are French, following by Italy and Spain (8.1% each), USA (7.9%), Britain (7.4%), Germany (5.8%) and Brazil (5.5%).

39. In 1905 a local newspaper organized a stair climbing championship at the tower. A M.Forestier won, taking three minutes and 12 seconds to reach the second level.

40. Pierre Labric cycled down the stairs of the tower in 1923. He won a bet, but was arrested by local police.

More on Paris

Paris's best museums and art galleries
Paris's best bakeries
Paris's best fashion shops
Paris hotels for under £100: The Fab Five
Paris Metro's 'ghost stations' could be transformed
Paris's best cheap restaurants
Paris: five of the best traditional restaurants
Paris guide: free attractions and things to do
Secret Paris: lesser-known attractions, bars and restaurants
Burger King: the hottest new restaurant in Paris
Paris for romantics

Follow @TelegraphTravel

Join the conversation about this story »

A British sniper in Afghanistan killed six insurgents with a single bullet after hitting the trigger switch of a suicide bomber whose device then exploded, The Telegraph has learnt.

The 20-year-old marksman, a Lance Corporal in the Coldstream Guards, hit his target from 930 yards (850 metres) away, killing the suicide bomber and five others around him caught in the blast.

The incident in Kakaran in southern Afghanistan happened in December but has only now been disclosed as Britain moves towards the withdrawal of all combat soldiers by the end of the year.

Lt Col Richard Slack, commanding officer of 9/12 Royal Lancers, said the unnamed sharpshooter prevented a major attack by the Taliban, as a second suicide vest packed with 20kg (44lbs) of explosives was found nearby.

The same sniper, with his first shot on the tour of duty, killed a Taliban machine-gunner from 1,465 yards (1,340m).

Several hundred British and Afghan soldiers were carrying out an operation in December when they were engaged in a gun battle with 15 to 20 insurgents.

“The guy was wearing a vest. He was identified by the sniper moving down a tree line and coming up over a ditch,” said Lt Col Slack. “He had a shawl on. It rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun.

“They were in contact and he was moving to a firing position. The sniper engaged him and the guy exploded. There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said, 'I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber’. The rest of them were killed in the blast.”

It is understood the L/Cpl was using an L115A3 gun, the Army’s most powerful sniper weapon.

The armed forces are gradually decreasing their presence in Helmand province, handing over security of the country to the Afghan armed forces.

Last month, three major bases were closed or handed over to Afghan control. At the height of the campaign, there were 137 bases across Helmand province — now there is only one base outside Camp Bastion, Sterga 2, which is staffed by a company from 4 Scots and the 9/12 Royal Lancers.

The sniper incident is one of a dwindling number of gun battles between British forces and the insurgents. In total, 448 UK soldiers have died since 2001, but far fewer have been injured in the most recent tour, with Afghan forces now leading 97 per cent of the security operations across the country.

On Monday, at Sterga 2 — the last British front line base in Afghanistan — soldiers said they were looking forward to returning home and hoped their work would help the Afghans achieve stability.

Sterga 2 stands on a plateau above the Helmand river, about 18 miles south-east of Camp Bastion. Between Bastion and Sterga 2 is the “protected zone”, next to the river, where the local population is living under the protection of the Afghan armed forces.

The camp has only come under attack once, and that was when it was being built last August. “In my tour in 2007, I had seven guys injured while they were actually inside the base,” said Lt Col Slack. “We had rocket attacks every day. This base hasn’t been attacked since it was built. It feels like it is time to go.”

Capt Ed Challis, who is in charge of Sterga 2, said he was hopeful about the future of Afghanistan.

The country has its first round of presidential elections this Saturday, with an upsurge in violence expected as voters go to the polls.

“I am an optimist,” said Capt Ed Challis. “There are lots of things that have changed for the better. You would be a fool to think you can change a hundred years of culture fast, but have things improved? Yes. I believe they are able to take it forward.”

He added: “I’d imagine once I get back it’s something I’ll look back on and sort of realise the historical importance of it – but at the moment we’re just focusing on our primary role here.”

Highlander Paul Carr, 27, from Paisley, was on sentry duty in the watchtower above the river. He said he was enjoying the hot weather, after the camp was hit by snow in February. “When this base closes, we will go home,” he said. “I get a holiday feeling when I think about it.”

Highlander Carr was monitoring a small compound on the bank of the river. Camels and goats wandered around outside the farm, with small fields of onions growing in the sun. Poppies were also starting to flower, despite years of programmes to eradicate the poppy crops in Afghanistan.

Abandoned fortifications — Russian installations from the Eighties and older — dot the horizon.

Inside the camp, a company of servicemen and women were working to gather intelligence about the surrounding area.

The information is passed on to the Afghan security forces and intelligence from Sterga 2 aided the sniper attack in December.

Cameras mounted on balloons monitor the fields and compounds for several miles around, feeding into an operations room and providing protection for Bastion. The Taliban thought that the large balloon was a “white whale in the sky” when it was first launched.

Lt Col Slack lost one soldier, Lance Corporal James Brynin, 22, of the Intelligence Corps, who was shot dead on patrol last October.

Lt Col Slack said he had watched Afghanistan evolve dramatically over the years.

“The price has been heavy for the Army and in particular it has been heavy for the families of those nearly 450 [dead soldiers], and no one is under any illusions about that,” he said.

“I will finish my tour knowing one of our NCOs will not be coming home and that is a heavy price to pay.

“Has it been worth it? At my level when I look at security that is here and the way the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) have developed, I certainly think it’s been worth it.”

SEE ALSO: The Forgotten Heroes Of The War On Terror

Join the conversation about this story »

Malaysian authorities have confirmed that “someone on the plane” was responsible for the disappearance of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, as official sources outlined the reasons for believing the plane was sabotaged.

As the international team searching for the plane in the Indian Ocean warned the hunt could “drag on for a long time”, Malaysia’s government said that investigators still believe the disabling of the plane’s communications and its westward turn above the Gulf of Thailand were “deliberate”.

“The international investigations team and the Malaysian authorities remain of the opinion that, up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, MH370’s movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane,” said Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s acting transport minister. Two official sources, who are close to the investigation but not authorised to comment publicly, said there were three main reasons that investigators believe the plane’s manoeuvres before it vanished on March 8 were intentional.

First, the communications were disabled during the handover between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic controllers - the moment at which its disappearance from radars was least likely to be noticed.

“That is the precise moment to disappear an aircraft - that was what was exploited,” a source told The Telegraph.

Second, the plane’s unusual flight path - though little is known about speed and altitude - appears to have been programmed deliberately.

Finally, according to the source: “All the investigators are saying the same thing - there is no precedent in the history of commercial aviation where the sat-com [satellite communications] and the transponder have been knocked out and the plane continued to fly.”

A second source cited the same reasoning, adding that the “working notion is it was deliberate” but that further explanation was unlikely until the plane’s black box is found.

No motive has been uncovered and nothing suspicious has been found about any of the 239 passengers, including the pilot and co-pilot. Both pilots were experienced, with no background of extremism or psychological problems, and did not ask to fly together on the flight.

Malaysian authorities on Tuesday released an official version of the cockpit transcript, confirming it did not contain “anything abnormal”. The 54-minute transcript was previously published by The Telegraph in a version based on a translation from Mandarin.

As revealed, the transcript shows the pilot made standard calls and there were no suspicious communications.

Mr Hishammuddin said the airline had previously indicated the sign-off was given by Fariq Abdul Hamid, the 27-year-old co-pilot, but police were conducting a “forensic examination” to confirm this. It is understood investigators have found nothing suspicious about the tone of voice used from the cockpit or anything to suggest coercion.

Angus Houston, the former Australian defence chief who is co-ordinating the international search, on Tuesday warned the hunt may not find floating debris and was not “necessarily going to be resolved in the next two weeks”.

“It is a very inexact science at the moment,” he said.

Australia has deployed an airborne traffic controller to ensure the aircraft involved in the search do not collide.

Join the conversation about this story »

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg has sold more than half the shares she owned when the social network went public just two years ago.

Ms. Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and its most high-profile executive after founder Mark Zuckerberg, has reduced her holding to 17.2m shares now worth just over $1bn (£600m), according to regulatory filings published by Facebook.

This compares to the 41.2m detailed when Facebook filed for its initial public offering in March 2012. Ms. Sandberg, a former Google executive who also served in the Clinton administration, is often tipped for a return to politics, and it has been suggested that she is building up a campaign fund.

The vast majority of Ms. Sandberg’s shares when Facebook went public were in the form of restricted stock units, meaning they were converted to basic shares at intervals after the IPO. A portion of her holding was sold to cover the taxes that were charged when these shares vested.

Facebook also revealed that both Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg took pay cuts last year. Mr. Zuckerberg, who owns 476m shares worth almost $30bn, was paid an annual salary of just $1 in 2013, down from $503,205.

Benefits of $653,164 were largely for private aircraft as part of his security programme. Mr. Zuckerberg also made $3.3bn selling share options.

Ms. Sandberg’s compensation, made up mainly of stock awards, fell from $26.2m to $16.1m.

SEE ALSO: Sheryl Sandberg Is Right — Data Shows Women Are Called 'Bossy' More Than Men

Join the conversation about this story »

Tour operators have seen a significant rise in bookings for holidays to Iran, as improved relations with the West and an expectation that Foreign Office travel advice will be relaxed boost tourist interest

Wild Frontiers, an adventure operator, has nine group tours scheduled for 2014, five of which are sold out to their maximum capacity of 12, and contrasts with two group tours in 2013, neither of which ran full. The company has seen tailor-made bookings rise from four last year to 26 so far in 2014, with many more in the pipeline.

Tailor-madeadventures.com, which creates itineraries for Iran, has seen an 80 per cent increase in enquiries since the beginning of the year and said that the vast majority of interested customers have gone on to book. The company sent 24 customers to the country in 2013, and so far has had bookings for 50 people this year.

Jim O’Brien, the company's head of development, said: "Thirty-five years ago, Iran dropped off the tourist map, becoming the preserve of a few hardcore independent travellers and those in organised groups. Since the election of Hassan Rouhani as president last August, however, and a thawing in political relations with the west, it seems that Iran is returning to travellers' bucket lists with a bang."

Numerous tour operators have compared Iran’s future to that of Burma, which has been a top-selling destination since the election of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2012 and the subsequent change in stance on tourism in the country.

Although his company has been running trips to Iran for 10 years, Jonny Bealby, founder and managing director of Wild Frontiers, told Telegraph Travel that in the last six months or so there has been a significant increase in demand for the destination, which he puts down to "the election of a more moderate leader, and last year’s nuclear agreement”.

The expectation that the British government will ease its travel advice to Iran will lead to a further increase in bookings, according to tour operators.

“Once this [advice against travel] has been lifted, we predict a further, even-greater increase in demand, one similar to when Aung Sang Suu Kyi changed her stance on travel to Burma a few years ago," Jonny Bealby added.

The Foreign Office still currently advises against all but essential travel to most of Iran, and against all travel to within 62 miles (100km) of the entire Iran/Afghanistan border and within six miles (10km) of the entire Iran/Iraq border. However, there is the feeling among tour operators and country experts that these restrictions are more to do with diplomatic relations than actual risk to travellers. Tour operators running trips to Iran currently do so against Foreign Office advice.

In January, Telegraph Travel predicted that Iran would be one of the world's top destinations in 2014, citing "epic scenery, an extraordinary history and culture and a warm welcome".

Martin Randall Travel, a specialist cultural tour operator, is planning two tours to Iran for 2015 in June and September, concentrating on the major buildings and archaeological sites in Tehran and Shiraz, the former capital of Persia. The tour will allow three days in Isfahan, to visit all the major monuments. The company last ran a tour to Iran in September 2010 and the three scheduled for 2011 all had to be cancelled.

Liz Brown, the company’s marketing manager, explained that if the Foreign Office advice remains unchanged, their 2015 tour will not run, but that they will be accepting bookings as they are expecting the advice to change later this year. This caveat will be explained in the brochure, Ms Brown added.

Travel to Iran is not without its difficulties. Female travellers must wear a headscarf at all times, alcohol is prohibited, and driving standards are notoriously poor. The current Foreign Office advice means that obtaining valid travel insurance is difficult, although operators such as Wild Frontiers offer their own policies.

In addition, British tourists currently wishing to travel to Iran must obtain their visas from the country’s embassy in Dublin, since the Iranian embassy in London has been closed since 2011. The Foreign Office currently says that the Iranian Consulate in London may be able to offer limited advice on getting a visa, a process that it warns can be “long and unpredictable”.

But Mr O’Brien of Tailor-madeadventures.com added that “while it's not ideal for travellers to have to obtain their visas outside of the UK, judging by our bookings, this is proving to be only a minor hurdle to single-minded travellers wanting to experience Iran for the first time."

Although political relations with the west have made travel to Iran difficult for the past few decades, the country holds some of the world’s most spectacular ancient ruins and religious sites, including the Unesco World Heritage site of Persepolis, which dates from 515 BC, and the expansive Imam Square in Isfahan.

Read more

Twenty destinations for 2014: in pictures

Follow @TelegraphTravel

SEE ALSO: 12 Reasons To Visit Copenhagen

Follow Us Business Insider Is On Pinterest

Join the conversation about this story »

A US soldier who shot dead three comrades and wounded 16 others before killing himself was on a cocktail of prescription drugs and had managed to smuggle a semi-automatic handgun on to one of America’s largest military bases.

Specialist Ivan Lopez, 34, who had been prescribed drugs including anti-depressants and Ambien for insomnia, had been deployed to Iraq as a truck driver for four months in 2011.

After his return he told senior officers he had suffered a traumatic brain injury, but military officials said he had not been directly involved in combat and had not been wounded.

According to friends in his home town of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, Lopez had been devastated by the death of his mother from a heart attack in October, and his grandmother earlier this year.

Aidé Merlo Irizarry, a family friend, told Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia: “Ivan was very loving to his mother and it hurt him a lot when she died. We are praying for the victims.”

At the time of the shooting he was in the process of being assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder. In February had been transferred from another base in Texas to Fort Hood, which has a Warrior Transition Unit. More than 40,000 military personnel are based at Fort Hood.

The shooting highlighted the scale of the mental health legacy from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last month Lopez had been fully examined by a military psychiatrist and there were found to be no signs he was likely to commit violence either against himself or others.

US Army Secretary John McHugh said: “The plan was just to continue to monitor and treat him as deemed appropriate.”

Lopez was from Puerto Rico where he had served in the National Guard since 1999, going on a peacekeeping mission to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in the mid-2000s. He later joined the regular Army.

At 4pm on Wednesday Lopez, who was in uniform, reportedly argued with other soldiers at a Medical Brigade building, then got into a vehicle firing several shots out the window as he drove away. He then entered another building belonging to the 49th Transportation Battalion and opened fire again with a .45 caliber Smith & Wesson.

Less than 15 minutes after the shooting began he was confronted in a car park by a female military police officer who pointed her gun at him from 20ft away before Lopez shot himself in the head.

The shooting happened at the same base, and a short distance from where Army psychiatrist Nidal Hassan, who had become radicalised by an al-Qaeda terrorist based in Yemen, shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 others in November 2009.

It was the third fatal shooting on a US military base in six months. Last September former Navy reservist Aaron Alexis, who believed he was controlled by electromagnetic waves, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

Last month at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia a civilian went on to the base and shot dead a sailor on a Navy destroyer.

By comparison, last month no US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

A few weeks ago Lopez moved into a small apartment with his wife and infant daughter. It was in a row of a dozen identical white brick buildings just outside the sprawling base, which covers 340 square miles and surrounds the town of Killeen like a horseshoe.

As news of the shooting swept through Killeen the many residents with relatives living or working on the base faced an agonising wait.

According to neighbours Lopez’s wife initially feared her husband might be one of the victims. She then emerged from the apartment “hysterical, shaking and crying” after finding out he was the shooter. She was later taken away by officials and is co-operating with authorities at the base.

Neighbour Xanderia Morris said Lopez left his home each morning for the base dressed in an Army T-shirt.

Like in other US military bases, soldiers at Fort Hood are unarmed apart from those employed in security duties. Lopez had purchased his gun at a civilian weapons store outside the base.

Following the 2009 shooting, Fort Hood imposed even stricter restrictions on guns. Soldiers living on the base who have privately held weapons were required to register them with their commander and keep them locked in an arms room.

The latest shooting led to calls from some politicians and soldiers for the restrictions to be reversed, rather than tightened further.

Sgt Howard Ray, a survivor of the 2009 massacre, said: “When our soldiers are unarmed, they will find themselves in a situation like yesterday and in 2009.”

A Texas congressman has already introduced a proposed law that would allow personal weapons to be carried on the base so soldiers could better tackle a crazed gunman.

Killeen’s mayor Dan Corbin said it was “unreasonable” to have expected soldiers to stop Lopez smuggling the gun in. He said: “There are tens of thousands of cars that come in and out of Fort Hood every day. It would be logistically impossible to search each and every one.”

Asked about the series of shootings at military bases, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said: “Something’s not working.”

US President Barack Obama said he was “heartbroken” that another shooting had occurred.

Join the conversation about this story »

Champagne connoisseurs and sommeliers may blanch at the notion but bubbly may taste better at room temperature, scientists have suggested.

A study by the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, in France, has found that fizz keeps its bubbles for longer if served slightly warmer, around 18C.

Physicist Gérard Liger-Belair discovered that the average champagne flute holds around one million bubbles, 14 million fewer than previously thought.

For people who want to taste as many of the bubbles as possible, he suggests tilting the flute while pouring and serving it warmer than recommended.

The number of bubbles is important for the taste because it improves the aroma as the bursting bubbles release carbon dioxide and trigger sensory receptors in the mouth.

Hundreds of bubbles simultaneously bursting at the surface also cause hundreds of tiny droplets to shoot into the air slightly above the glass, causing a pleasant tickling sensation in the mouth and nose.

Belair looked at 'bubble dynamics' to see what the optimal conditions would be for bubble production.

"During the pouring step, champagne loses a very significant part of its initial content in dissolved carbon dioxide," said Belair.

"The concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide found within glasses was found to depend on both the champagne temperature and the way of serving it.

"Several tens of thousands bubbles may be "saved" if champagne is served in a tilted flute.

"And interestingly, the theoretical number of bubbles likely to form was found to globally increase with the champagne temperature."

The study was published the Journal of Physical Chemistry

SEE ALSO: These Are The Most Tweeted About Light Beers In Different Areas Of The Country

Join the conversation about this story »

The official described how assassination attempts on Kim Jong-il, the country's leader until three years ago, drove the country's feared internal security apparatus to take elaborate measures against suspected plots, real or imagined - including an attempt by a rogue army unit to launch missiles against Pyongyang.

The official, who asked to be named only as "Mr K", said he had personal knowledge of two assassination attempts on Kim Jong-il, who ruled North Korea from 1994 until his death in December 2011.

In one attempt, a lone gunman with an automatic weapon attempted to shoot him, but was captured before firing. In another, a would-be assassin driving a 20-ton lorry rammed his motorcade but failed to kill Kim Jong-il, whose car was in a convoy of identical limousines and was not among those damaged.

In an extraordinarily rare behind-closed-doors briefing, the official also detailed two attempted coups against the regime, following uprisings in the Korean People's Army, especially among the officers who had been trained in the former Soviet Union.

He described how North Korean officers who had graduated from Moscow's Frunze military academy had been persuaded by Russian officials to feed intelligence back to the Kremlin.

In one plot, a group of officers hoping to provoke a Russian intervention against the regime planned to stage a bomb attack on the Russian consulate in the North Korean city of Chongjin. In another, a north eastern army unit planned a missile strike on key targets in Pyongyang. Both plots, said Mr K, were discovered before they took place.

Mr K's claims cannot be directly verified, but much of what he said is supported by other sources. He requested that the directorate that he worked for and his current activities in South Korea remain secret.

Both accounts appear to be supported by circumstantial evidence. North Korea watchers have noted that in 1994, a group of officers who had studied in Russia were rounded up and imprisoned, in what became known as the "Frunze Affair".

Then in 1997, for reasons that were at the time unexplained, the regime sent troops into the headquarters of the army's Sixth Corps, prompting firefights and arrests. The corps was subsequently disbanded.

Describing the country's internal security system, Mr K - who fled the country in 2005 - said that even the most senior cadres and army generals were routinely monitored, often by agents posing as their chauffeurs, and their activities reported to the Supreme Leader in weekly bulletins.

He also said the regime's crackdown on private markets had led to a flurry of dissident graffiti and pamphlets, with messages such as "How are we supposed to survive?" scrawled on walls.

So suspicious were Pyongyang officials that when a circus in the North Korean capital burned down a day before Kim Jong-il's birthday, it was believed to be an anti-regime protest, he said.

The country's notorious gulags, meanwhile, are run by a unit with the chilling cover name of "Farm Guidance Directorate" - appropriately enough, said Mr K, because the prison-camp inmates are "less than human".

In the "total control" camps, where political criminals are sent, "once you check in, you do not check out," he said. "Even dead bodies do not leave the total control zones."

The two assassination attempts on shortly before he took over as leader from his father, Kim Il-sung, help to explain his subsequent paranoia, and his preference for traveling by private, armored, train, the intelligence official said.

He described an incident in which Kim Jong-il was talking with senior officials inside a ruling-party compound when there was an electricity blackout.

Instantly, bodyguards tackled all the officials to the ground and surrounded the leader.

Whether the plots were real, or imagined by a paranoid regime, is unclear. "I would be sceptical unless you have a chain of collaborative evidence, and in a state which applies torture, you can create collaborative evidence by skillful application of the hot iron," said Andrei Lankov, a North Korean expert at Seoul's Kookmin University. "But this does not mean conspiracies did not exist."

Unlike most defectors, who remain slight because of years of malnutrition and who are often quiet and nervous, Mr K has a robust build and appears to be in his late 40s. He spoke confidently, using expansive body language.

He had little information about the country's current leader, Kim Jong-un, he said, but speculated that he would be difficult to assassinate. "Anyone meeting the supreme leader is patted down, everyone," he said. "I would guess even family members."

During his public appearances, the younger Kim is protected by a triple cordon of bodyguards, state security agents and regular police. The locations he visits are carefully vetted in advance.

Mr K said that while North Korean agents are present among South Korea's 25,000-strong community of defectors, he does not fear assassination.

"I do not raise my voice against the regime," he said, though he admits he always keeps an eye out when taking public transport, and is wary if he sees another vehicle following his in traffic.

Relaxing at a late-night Seoul food stall after his briefing, Mr K admitted that he misses some things about Pyongyang: friends, colleagues and Korea's native grain spirit, soju.

North Korean soju, he opined, is far stronger than its South Korean counterpart - which, he growled, tastes "like water".

Join the conversation about this story »

A North Korean official has been executed with a flame-thrower, South Korean media has reported, amid a crackdown on loyalists of Kim Jong-un's purged uncle.

As many as 11 senior party officials with close ties to Jang Song-taek have apparently recently been executed or sent to political prison camps.

Mr Jang was publicly purged in December and executed after being found guilty of corruption and activities that ran counter to the policies of the Workers' Party of Korea. The regime has shut down the department within the Workers' Party that Mr Jang previously headed.

O Sang-hon, a deputy minister at the Ministry of Public Security was "executed by flame-thrower," a source told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

Mr O was executed because he had followed Mr Jang's instructions to turn the ministry into a personal security division to help safeguard his business dealings, the paper reported.

The report could not immediately be confirmed, although previous executions have suggested that the North Korean leadership can be inventive when it comes to ridding itself of anyone who has fallen out of favour.

In 2012, a vice minister of the army was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il's death in December of the previous year.

On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," South Korean media reported, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been targeted for a mortar round and "obliterated".

With the purges apparently continuing, there is concern in Seoul at further possible instability in Pyongyang, coupled with a renewed belligerence being demonstrated by the North.

The South Korean military has launched an intensive search across large areas of the country after a third unmanned reconnaissance drone was handed into authorities over the weekend. The aircraft was more than 80 miles south of the heavily fortified border.

The drone was spotted by locals last year but they only recognised its significance after the recovery of two similar remote-controlled aircraft in recent weeks.

The defence ministry in Seoul has promised to deploy new defensive measures specifically to destroy spy drones.

Join the conversation about this story »

The Rev Al Sharpton, the radical civil rights leader who is now a close ally of President Obama, was a Federal Bureau of Investigation informer who helped to jail a number of Mafia bosses, it has been claimed.

An investigation by the Smoking Gun website claims that the 69-year-old television host and White House regular was "turned" by the FBI after being implicated in a drug deal.

The website said that he agreed to wear a wire tap during conversations with Mob bosses, including leading members of the Genovese crime family, the largest and most feared Mafia outfit in the United States.

A Baptist minister who is said to have been targeted by the FBI because of his extensive contacts in the music and sports industry, as well as the New York underworld, Mr Sharpton has always denied being a "snitch."

He has said that his only contact with the police was to gather information in order to help drive out drug dealing in the black communities he worked in.

But the Smoking Gun website claimed that interviews with a number of detectives on a joint FBI and police taskforce called the Genovese squad revealed that Mr Sharpton was a valued informer who delivered at least 10 taped conversations that led to the jailing of a number of mobsters.

It also produced internal documents showing that the recordings were used to help gain court approval for further secret taping at gang members' homes and other places they associated.

Asked why he cooperated with the police, who in public he frequently lambasted, one unnamed former member of the squad said: "He thought he didn't have a choice," after being taped by an agent pretending to be a drug dealer apparently agreeing to buy cocaine.

Starting in the mid-1980s with the codename CI-7 - for Covert Investigator number seven - he is said to have operated as a police spy for about four years.

In one lengthy memo, the agents discussed how Mr Sharpton's identity could be concealed from the court in order to protect him from Mafia reprisals.

The FBI are also said to have provided him with a briefcase containing a secret camera, with which to record members of four of the five New York crime families he is said to have been familiar with.

Those said to have been bugged include organised crime associates Dominick "Baldy Dom" Canterino, music industry supremo Morris Levy, and Federico "Fritzy" Giovanelli.

He also allegedly passed on information about Don King, the boxing promoter.

A prominent supporter of and fundraiser for President Obama, Mr Sharpton was on the dias on the steps of the US Capitol building when he was sworn in last year. He also attended a private 50th birthday party at the White House for the President's wife, Michelle.

In his 2013 book "The Rejected Stone," Mr Sharpton denied being an informer, saying that he was once "set up by the government," whose agents later leaked "false information" that "could have gotten me killed."

Questioned about the allegations this week, he denied being "flipped" by federal agents. Asked about the secret recording he added: "I'm not saying yes, I'm not saying no."

Join the conversation about this story »

Rio de Janeiro may have smartened up significantly in preparation for this summer's World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, but it remains an essentially relaxed city at heart. While the city is, as yet, without its own Michelin-starred restaurant, it does feature an abundance of exceptional eateries, the best of which are highlighted here.

Téreze, Santa Teresa
The Hotel Santa Teresa’s exclusive hillside restaurant, Térèze, is comfortably the neighbourhood’s most upmarket dining experience. This being Rio, that doesn’t mean it isn’t also wonderfully casual, and indeed tropical. Arrive at sunset for a drink on the terrace with a palm tree-framed view out towards Guanabara Bay, the heaving city below seemingly a million miles away. Portions are small, but that merely allows for more courses to be devoured. The tiger prawn cocktail, perfectly cooked lamb and some beautifully presented desserts dazzle the senses, all backed up with charming, friendly and well-informed service.

Aprazivel, Santa Teresa
High up on the Santa Teresa hillside, Aprazivel spreads out across a wonderfully rustic terrace offering couples romantic nooks and larger groups a crowd-pleasing and original setting to dine in. On a balmy evening, request one of the tables outside or call ahead and hope that the group table, set in what can best be described as a tree house, is available. Order carefully, for while the lamb shank is excellent, the chicken ‘galinhada’ is less enticing, but there are several good fish options, not least the seasonal ‘moqueca’ stew. Like the food, the wine list is almost entirely Brazilian, providing a good opportunity to sample the fruits of the southern states.

Azumi, Copacabana
The most authentic Japanese restaurant in the city, Azumi is tucked away on a quiet Copacabana street from where it serves up exceptional, award-winning sushi. The combos are a lesson in the simple pleasures of the ocean, but the main courses prove there is much more to the country’s cooking than simply raw fish. There is no better way to start proceedings than with a bowl of edamame beans and ice-cold sake, and even as a bona-fide sushi lover I find it hard to resist the ika sautée, combining tender, spicy squid with mushrooms and crisp, stir-fried vegetables. Larger groups should call ahead to book one of two screened-off tables where the floor-cushion seating all adds to the ambience. The restaurant has no website but you'll find it at 127 Rua Ministro Viveiros de Castro.

Casa da Suiça, Glória
It may not be the first thing on many people’s lists when they think of Rio, but when the sun isn’t beating down and the long sleeves come out, it is fondue time. A perennial favourite of the state’s cooler hillside towns, there is only one worth knowing in the capital and its location says everything about its authenticity. Deep inside the Swiss consulate in Glória, Casa da Suiça recreates a little European elegance, where bratwurst, steak tartare and some inventive seasonal menus vie for attention with the cheese, meat and seafood fondues. Despite the auspicious location, caution is advised when wandering the neighbourhood after dark.

Irajá Gastrô, Humaitá
Partly responsible for turning the north end of Humaitá into a new gastro-hub for the city, Irajá Gastro’s modern approach both in and out of the kitchen made the rest of Rio’s contemporary restaurants take note. The unusual twists on Brazilian classics are the standout dishes, be it the manioc chips with parmesan and liquefied butter or the pork ribs with a chic version of the classic bean-and-bacon tropeiro. The menu is ever-changing, but the hot brigadeiro chocolate cake is a dependable mainstay, and the cocktail menu is always worth exploring. The gin, wasabi and coconut water Tropicalista and the passion fruit Mojito aren’t easily forgotten.

Le Pré Catalan, Copacabana
With the award-winning chef Roland Villard at the helm, dining at the Sofitel transcends the concept of a hotel restaurant, serving up contemporary, French-inspired Brazilian menus that play with the senses. Take the quail, wild mushroom and foie gras-stuffed rigatoni starter for example, or head to his famous ‘Trilogies’, where snails and shellfish are given three exquisite treatments. Seafood is the house speciality, but several tasting menus are also available in which Villard’s creativity with classic Brazilian ingredients is put firmly on display. The window tables give a fine view out along Copacabana Beach.

Olympe, Lagoa
Carioca chef Claude Troisgros’ flagship restaurant by the Lagoa still gets people cooing at the mere mention of its name. Celebrating three decades of fine French cuisine in 2013 with a discreet facelift, Olympe remains the city’s number one European dining experience. Opt for the chef’s tasting menu and let five of the day’s imaginative Brazilian updates of European classics arrive unhurried to the table, with optional (and highly recommended) wine harmonising for R$130 extra. The à la carte menu is no less appealing, though, with foie gras, seafood and beef all featuring in grand style, but the lamb cannelloni with truffle consommé is hard to top.

Pérgula, Copacabana
The famous swimming pool of the Copacabana Palace hotel is the backdrop for Pérgula, a light and airy restaurant that almost spreads itself out among the sun loungers. Like in all good poolside restaurants, the club sandwich comes stacked high, salads are plentiful and an eclectic list of starters includes nachos, shrimp tempura and oysters. Come Sunday, however, the restaurant is devoted solely to the art of brunch, an all-you-can-eat buffet of caviars, seafood, pasta, salads and breads, accompanied by a bottomless glass of prosecco.

Shin Miura, Centro
A touch of Tokyo can be found on the third floor of the electronics mall Edificio Avenida Central in downtown Rio, towering over Carioca Metrô station. From the sushi bar inside Shin Miura, the noted chef Nao Hara conjures up imaginative and exotic combinations for the lucky fifteen or so patrons granted an audience with him and his team at any one time. Smaller appetites can battle it out for an equally sought-after table, but even though it is only open at lunchtime, the never-ending, always changing chef’s menu comes highly recommended. Warm lobster sashimi straight from the shell, foie gras resting atop delicate towers of tuna and juicy scallops dazzle the eyes as well as the tastebuds, served straight onto the marble worktop from the hands of a master.

Sushi Leblon, Leblon
Sushi Leblon is the most stylish contemporary Japanese restaurant in town – the sharply-attired line patiently awaiting a table most nights of the week says it all. The quality of the service may never hit the heights of the food, so it is best to just sink back and let the experience wash over. Start with a bowl of edamame and an ice-cold Bohemia beer while you study of the extensive (English and Portuguese) menu. The simple salmon sashimi is out of this world, but more exotic combinations include sea urchin, snook and eel.

Zuka, Leblon
Restaurants may come and go along Leblon’s sought-after Rua Dias Ferreira, but thankfully Zuka and its signature charcoal grill look like they are here to stay. More exotic dishes such as the Thai fish wrapped in a banana leaf and meaty namorado (Brazilian sand perch) in a foie gras sauce are offered alongside dependable regulars like the house burger and lamb. It is always worth asking for the daily specials, and the wine list is comprehensive. Though the restaurant is a favourite for lunching ladies, it is after dark that the true charms of this contemporary dazzler come to the fore.

These recommendations, and hundreds more, can be found in the free Telegraph Travel Guides app . The app features expert guides to destinations including Paris, Rome, Rio, New York, Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro, with Edinburgh, Barcelona and Venice among those to be added in the coming weeks

SEE ALSO: How NOT To Behave In 12 Countries Around The World

Follow us!  Business Insider Is On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

Campaigners and Ukrainian citizens are facing a daily struggle to keep animals in a Kharkiv zoo alive while the political crisis in the country continues.

The government began in January to divert funds away from the Nikolaev zoo, which houses nearly six thousand animals, including big cats, bears, monkeys, crocodiles, boa constrictors and elephants.

The dire situation at the 114-year-old facility, which has survived two World Wars, was highlighted in March by a letter sent by zoo director Alexey Grigoriev to Ukraine's prime minister that said: "The Kharkiv animals on the verge of starvation."

"Our animals are not fighting for power, they do not share anyone's political views, they just want to live," continued the letter.

However, locals immediately responded to the plea, donating large sums of money as well as food supplies to the zoo.

They received so much food from the local community that they could barely manage to shelve and count the donations.

The zoo also received nearly £6,000 in monetary donations, while large numbers of locals have been flocking to the Kharkiv attraction since the announcement, which has resulted in long queues, something rarely seen at the zoo even in more peaceful times.

In addition, South African-born entrepreneur and Ukraine resident Lionel de Lange has made it his personal mission to save all the animals from starvation.

De Lange contacted that Lawrence Anthony Earth Organisation (LAEO), based in California, which immediately launched a fundraising campaign to buy supplies for the animals.

While LAEO has raised enough funds since late March to cover two weeks of needed food and medical supplies, the situation is still perilous, with only enough food available now for one more week.

The zoo will not have the resources to take care of the animals' food needs until the end of April when the weather gets warmer and the fees from attendances are enough to render the zoo self-sufficient once again.

Nikolaev is not the only zoo in Ukraine where the animals are in trouble.

Ex-President Viktor Yanukovych's private zoo, with over two thousand animals, was abandoned when he fled the country in February. Although the condition of the facility in Kiev is beautiful and modern, the animals are completely without food and there are reports that some of the animals have been stolen by looters.

Join the conversation about this story »

Stock Markets are at a record high but Questor editor, John Ficenec warns there are signs that we could be in for a crash

1. China credit bubble– Is it a new economic model? Or the emperor’s new clothes? The economy is slowing and the central bank is attempting to reign in loose monetary policy by allowing bad loans to default.

2. IPO fever– Professional investors always exit at the top and it is no coincidence we have a record number of overvalued companies listing on stock markets.

3. Technology valuations– Companies that have only been around for a few years, barely make a profit, and are valued at billions of pounds? That’s almost evidence enough that people have taken leave of their senses.

4. Markets don’t rise forever - Studies show that the average length of a bull market was just over 3 years, with the longest bull market being about 5 years. From the lows in March 2009, we are now more than five years into a bull market.

5. End of easy money– For five years every time the markets have wobbled more money has been pumped into the economy, but that can’t go on for ever, the US and China are both tightening monetary policy at the same time.

6. Bitcoin– This is a symptom not a cause, the rise of a currency backed only by the trust of those who use it is evidence that central banks have destroyed faith in the monetary system through a concerted period of devaluation.

7. Gold– It was written off at the start of the year, but has risen 8pc during the past three months as investors seek a safe haven; easily outpacing the FTSE 100 that has fallen by 1.3pc.

8. Credit markets– Years of low interest rates in advanced economies have encouraged global investors to seek higher yields in fast-growing developing countries. Credit investors are always much better at pricing risk than equity investors.

9. Earnings misses– There are signs the five year run of growing profits is coming to an end. We have had big earnings misses right across the sectors. Oil giant shell issued its first profit warning in 10 years, engine maker Rolls-Royce warned on profits along with banking giant Citigroup, The owner of the financial times and education group Pearson and online retailer Amazon.

10. Commodity market– Another sign of the end to easy money is falling commodity prices. Iron, oil and copper are all cheaper than they were at the start of the year

Investors have been piling into equities to get a better return as loose monetary policy has crushed interest rates around the world. But in the race for returns many have forgotten how to price risk, for these ten reasons the coming nine months could prove to be a painful reminder.

Join the conversation about this story »

Solar power will slowly squeeze the revenues of petro-rentier regimes in Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. They will have to find a new business model, or fade into decline

Solar power has won the global argument. Photovoltaic energy is already so cheap that it competes with oil, diesel and liquefied natural gas in much of Asia without subsidies.

Roughly 29pc of electricity capacity added in America last year came from solar, rising to 100pc even in Massachusetts and Vermont. "More solar has been installed in the US in the past 18 months than in 30 years," says the US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). California's subsidy pot is drying up but new solar has hardly missed a beat.

The technology is improving so fast - helped by the US military - that it has achieved a virtuous circle. Michael Parker and Flora Chang, at Sanford Bernstein, say we entering a new order of "global energy deflation" that must ineluctably erode the viability of oil, gas and the fossil fuel nexus over time. In the 1980s solar development was stopped in its tracks by the slump in oil prices. By now it has surely crossed the threshold irreversibly.

The ratchet effect of energy deflation may be imperceptible at first since solar makes up just 0.17pc of the world's $5 trillion energy market, or 3pc of its electricity. The trend does not preclude cyclical oil booms along the way. Nor does it obviate the need for shale fracking as a stop-gap, for national security reasons or in Britain's case to curb a shocking current account deficit of 5.4pc of GDP.

But the technology momentum goes only one way. "Eventually solar will become so large that there will be consequences everywhere," they said. This remarkable overthrow of everything we take for granted in world energy politics may occur within "the better part of a decade".

If the hypothesis is broadly correct, solar will slowly squeeze the revenues of petro-rentier regimes in Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, among others. Many already need oil prices near $100 a barrel to cover their welfare budgets and military spending. They will have to find a new business model, or fade into decline.

The Saudis are themselves betting on solar, investing more than $100bn in 41 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, enough to cover 30pc of their power needs by 2030 rather than burning fossil fuel needed for exports. Most of the Gulf states have comparable plans. That will mean more crude - ceteris paribus - washing into a deflating global energy market.

Clean Energy Trends says new solar installations overtook wind turbines worldwide last year with an extra 36.5GW. China alone accounted for a third. Wind is still ahead with 2.5 times old capacity but the "solar sorpasso" will be reached in 2021 as photovoltaic (PV) costs keep falling.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory says scientists can now capture 31.1pc of the sun's energy with a 111-V Solar Cell, a world record but soon to be beaten again no doubt. This will find its way briskly into routine use. Wind cannot keep pace. It is static by comparison, a regional niche at best.

A McKinsey study said the average cost of installed solar power in the US across all sectors has dropped to $2.59 from more than $6 a watt in 2010. It expects this fall to $2.30 by next year and $1.60 by 2020. This will put solar within "striking distance" of coal and gas, it said.

Solar cell prices have already collapsed so far that other "soft costs" now make up 64pc of residential solar installation in the US. Germany has shown that this too can be slashed, partly by sheer scale.

It is hard to keep up with the cascade of research papers emerging from brain-trusts in North America, Europe and Japan, so many brimming with optimism. The University of Buffalo has developed a nanoscale microchip able to capture a "rainbow" of wavelengths and absorb far more light. A team at Oxford is pioneering use of perovskite, an abundant material that is cheaper than silicon and produces 40pc more voltage.

One by one, the seemingly intractable obstacles are being conquered. Israel's Ecoppia has just begun using robots to clean the panels of its Ketura Sun park in the Negev desert without the use of water, until now a big constraint. It is beautifully simple. Soft microfibers sweep away 99pc of the dust each night with the help of airflows.

Professor Michael Aziz, at Harvard University, is developing a flow-battery with funding from the US Advanced Research Projects Agency over the next three years that promises to cut the cost of energy storage by two-thirds below the latest vanadium batteries used in Japan.

He said the technology gives us a "fighting chance" to overcome the curse of intermittency from wind and solar power, which both spike and drop off in bursts. "I foresee a future where we can vastly cut down on fossil fuel use."

Even thermal solar is coming of age, driven for now by use of molten salts to store heat and release power hours later. California opened the world's biggest solar thermal park in February in the Mojave desert - the Ivanpah project, co-owned by Google and BrightSource Energy - able to produce power for almost 100,000 homes by reflecting sunlight from 170,000 mirrors onto boilers that generate electricity from steam. Ivanpah still relies on subsidies but a new SunPower project in Chile will go naked, selling 70 megawatts into the spot market.

Deutsche Bank say there are already 19 regional markets around the world that have achieved "grid parity", meaning that PV solar panels can match or undercut local electricity prices without subsidy: California, Chile, Australia, Turkey, Israel, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain and Greece, for residential power, as well as Mexico and China for industrial power.

This will spread as battery storage costs - often a spin-off from electric car ventures - keep dropping. Sanford Bernstein says it may not be long before home energy storage is cheap enough to lure households away from the grid en masse across the world.

Utilities that fail to adapt fast will face "disaster". Solar competes directly. Each year it is supplying a bigger chunk of peak power needs in the middle of the day when air conditioners and factories are both at full throttle. "Demand during what was one of the most profitable times of the day disappears," said the report. They cannot raise prices to claw back lost income. That would merely accelerate what they most fear. They are trapped.

Michael Liebreich, from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, says we can already discern the moment of "peak fossil fuels" around 2030, the tipping point when the world starts using less coal, oil and gas in absolute terms, but because they cannot compete, not because they are running out.

This is a remarkable twist of history. Just six years ago we faced an oil shock with crude trading at $148. The rise of "Chindia" and the sudden inclusion of 2bn consumers into the affluent world seemed to be taxing resources to breaking point. Now we can imagine how China will fuel its future fleet of 400m vehicles. Many may be electric, charged by PV modules.

For Germany it is a bitter-sweet vindication. The country sank €100bn into feed-in tariffs or in solar companies that blazed the trail, did us all a favour, and mostly went bankrupt, displaced by copy-cat competitors in China. The Germans have the world's biggest solar infrastructure, but latecomers can now tap futuristic technology.

For Britain it offers a reprieve after 20 years of energy drift. Yet the possibility of global energy deflation raises a quandary: should the country lock into more nuclear power stations with strike-prices fixed for 35 years? Should it spend £100bn on offshore wind when imported LNG might be cheaper long hence?

For the world it portends a once-in-a-century upset of the geostrategic order. Sheikh Ahmed-Zaki Yamani, the veteran Saudi oil minister, saw the writing on the wall long ago. "Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil - and no buyers. Oil will be left in the ground. The Stone Age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil," he told The Telegraph in 2000. Wise old owl.

SEE ALSO: Even In New York City, Solar Is Booming

Join the conversation about this story »

A US government climate initiative is to address the largest source of methane gas in the country: cows.

The Obama administration's crackdown on methane emissions has given fresh impetus to the development of an environmentally friendly 'cow of the future'.

There are currently 88 million cattle in the United States, and together their farts, burps and manure produce more methane gas than landfill sites, natural gas leaks or even fracking .

Methane, which has 20 times the global warming effect of carbon dioxide, accounts for 9 per cent of US greenhouse gas emissions, according to White House estimates. A typical animal emits 250-300 litres of methane a day.

Solutions being explored range from anti-methane pills and dietary supplements to burp scanners and gas backpacks.

The Cow of the Future project at the Innovation Centre for US Dairy in Illinois believes that the answer is a combination of good diet and good digestion: anti-methane gourmet grains processed by the best possible bovine digestive system selective breeding can produce .

"We want it to be more productive, we want it to be healthier, we want it to be a problem-free cow,"project director Juan Tricarico told the Financial Times .

It has also been proposed that the energy from methane gas be harnessed using state of the art technology.

One such example is the National Biogas Roadmap, announced by President Barack Obama late last month, which will help install biogas digesters in slaughterhouses, dairies, and ranches that will capture methane gas released by the cows' manure. The methane can then be used on-site as natural gas, or converted into electricity.

The program aims to cut methane emissions from the dairy industry by 25 per cent by 2020, with 12,000 of these digesters planned for sites agricultural, landfill and wastewater. There are already 2,000 in operation across the country.

It's estimated that a big biogas plant, such as the ones used by meat processor Cargill, produces enough methane to power 3,000 houses a year .

Beyond its environmental hazards, dairy cow methane gas has been responsible for some strange incidents in recent months, including a plane emergency landing after mistaking cattle methane heat for a fire and the explosion of a cow shed in Germany .

Some experts, like Ilmi Granoff from the Overseas Development Institute, have suggested that significantly reducing the number of cattle would be the most effective solution.

“Forget coal, Forget cars. The fastest way to address climate change would be to dramatically reduce the amount of meat people eat,” he said. “But that involves cultural preferences and they are difficult to touch.”

Join the conversation about this story »