NEVER write off those dreams of picking up an international cap. A cheeky drunken email has bagged eight Irish amateur footballers a place at the football tennis world championships in Turkey next month – even though they’ve never played the sport before.

A Turkish court sentenced seven suspected al Qaida militants to life in prison for the deadly 2003 bombings in Istanbul.

A bomb blast today killed at least five people on an Istanbul bus – only days before the Turkish city hosts a NATO summit attended by President George Bush and other world leaders.

Turkish police have detained a man with alleged ties to al-Qaida and have seized enough chemical fertiliser to fill five truck bombs similar to those used in the Istanbul suicide bombings last month.

President George Bush flew home to Washington tonight after a four-day state visit to Britain overshadowed by the terror attacks in Turkey.