MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival, which has today announced the 2006 Festival events programme. Just some of the top names confirmed for this year's event include, David Abraham, Charles Allen CBE, Sir David Attenborough, James Baker, Jeremy Beadle, Russell Brand, Paul Burrell, Michael Collins, Michael Carroll, Nick Elliott, Peter Fincham, Michael Foster, Paul Gibbs, Al Gore, Alan Hansen, Armando Iannucci, Luke Johnson, Roly Keating, David Liddiment, Kevin Lygo, Roger Lynch, Sir Trevor MacDonald, Kelvin Mackenzie, Jimmy McGovern, Marissa Mayer, Andrew Neil, Peter Oborne, Rageh Omaar, Trey Parker, Jon Plowman, Simon Schama, Simon Shaps, Matt Stone, Mark Thompson, Jane Tranter, Jon Thoday and Richard Woolfe.

Films submitted for the Oscars' foreign language feature award need no longer be in the country's official language, under new rules approved this week.

As long as the dominant language is not English, a film from any country may be in any number of tongues.

Last year's winner, South African film Tsotsi, featured Afrikaans and Tsotsi-Taal, the street patois spoken in the country's townships.

But last year also, Italian submission Private was considered ineligible because it featured only Middle Eastern languages.

Entries are now being invited for the third annual International  Video Journalist award, which takes places in Berlin in October this year. Prizes range from 500 to 1500 Euros for a range of awards, including Independent Video, TV Production, Reportage and a Newcommer award.

The comedy duo, Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhashkar, famed for their highly successful spoof family chat show The Kumars at No. 42, have walked away with the award for Best TV Drama for Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee.  

The two, who have worked together for many years - most famously in Goodness Gracious Me - shared the limelight with a host of other winners, including James Peries and Majabeen Salim who scooped Best Broadcast Soap for the BBC Asian Network's Silver Street and none other than Sir Trevor MacDonald who picked up the coveted Media Personality of the Year award.

The Festival of Politics is launched in Edinburgh today, but without the expected participation of Scotland's biggest star, Sir Sean Connery. The former Bond actor had agreed to take part in a public discussion with the presiding officer of Scotland's parliament, George Reid. Sir Sean declined to appear after Mr Reid told a magazine he was prepared to ask the star some difficult questions about his attitude to women.

A cherub-faced, computer-generated moppet clutches a magic paintbrush and flies high above the city skyline, before coming face to face with a giant rainbow, which then suddenly morphs into an enormous flag, and back again. It's not the sort of surreal visual whimsy you would expect to see emerging from Baghdad. Yet Abdulbasit Salman's short film Rainbow is Stronger than War is just that - a quirky and inventive vignette that was showing as part of last year's hugely successful International Iraq Short Film Festival.

Britain's film industry was well represented in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.

Actors Charles Dance and Rudoplh Walker and Aardman founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton and director Gurinder Chadha were all honoured.

The Discovery Channel, BBC FOUR, E4, UKTV History and SKY One form the non-terrestrial shortlist for this year's MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival’s Channel of the Year Awards. The TV festival, running from August 25 - 27, this year features South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker; former vice-president turned environment and media activist Al Gore; Sir David Attenborough, celebrating his 80th birthday, and In The Thick of It's Armando Iannucci.