Swansea City have signed Australia international goalkeeper Mark Birighitti on a free transfer.

The 25-year-old has agreed a two-year contract after leaving Australia A-League side Newcastle Jets.
Last year, Birighitti spent six months on loan at Varese, where he worked with Swans coach Gabriele Ambrosetti.
He is the fourth goalkeeper on Swansea's senior books, alongside Lukasz Fabianski, Kristoffer Nordfeldt and Gerhard Tremmel.
Birighitti was named in the A-League's 2015-16 team of the season after impressive displays for Jets, and has made one appearance for Australia - against China in 2013.
He was an unused substitute in the 2-1 defeat by England in May.
Birighitti has also represented his country at under-17, under-20 and under-23 level.


A former home affairs minister has been accused of a "stitch-up" over the suspension of a police chief who headed a historic child abuse investigation.

Deputy Mike Higgins said Deputy Andrew Lewis had "lied" at a secret States meeting in 2008 over his use of a police report to suspend Graham Power.
In later reviews Deputy Lewis said he had never seen the police report, the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry heard.
The inquiry is investigating historic child abuse in Jersey since 1945.
The States of Jersey recently published transcripts of secret discussions about Mr Power's suspension in 2008, following a proposition lodged by Deputy Higgins.
One transcript shows that in December 2008, Deputy Lewis told States members he used a preliminary report by the Metropolitan Police into the Jersey abuse investigation as a basis to "suspend" Mr Power.
Deputy Lewis said he had acted within the remit of the "rule of law", despite the report not being meant for disciplinary procedures.
However, he was accused of lying about his knowledge of the police report by Deputy Higgins, who cited a 2010 review into Mr Power's suspension which claimed Deputy Lewis had never seen the report.
Deputy Higgins said: "I have always been of the impression that that they decided to suspend [Mr Power] and then look for the evidence afterwards.
"Andrew Lewis' role in the whole affair is obviously open to question and in my view demonstrates explicit corrupt behaviour", Deputy Higgins said in his statement.
He also criticised the "culture in Jersey" which he suggested discouraged people from coming forward with information about cases of child abuse.
He said as a politician trying to help victims of abuse, he met "obstruction after obstruction" and that one of the things the inquiry needed to show was "the cover up" of incidents of abuse in Jersey.
Deputy Lewis is yet to give evidence to the inquiry.


An adventurer who has spent four years circumnavigating the globe using human power has had to abandon a row across the Atlantic.

Sarah Outen, from Rutland, had been travelling around the world using only a kayak, bike and rowing boat.
But she was forced to abandon her craft Happy Socks after 143 days at sea because of worsening weather conditions and hurricane Joaquin.
She is now aboard the Federal Oshima which will reach Montreal in a week.
The 30-year-old had been expected to reach the UK in September after setting off from Cape Cod in May but strong winds slowed her progress.
On Saturday it was announced she had taken the decision to seek help after winds of up to 60 knots (69mph), large waves and two low pressure system predicted to hit in the coming days.
Close to tears in a recording for her website, Ms Outen said: "In the next few hours I'm going to get a call from passing ships to say they are coming to pick me up.
"That's right. I'm getting off this ocean... because we have a hurricane forecast heading this way next week.
"With conditions more severe than those that led to me being rescued from the north Pacific, it felt like there wasn't really much of a choice."
She added that she shed "lots of tears" at the thought she might have to abandon her trusty boat but was smiling at the amazing memories.
Since recording the message she was rescued by the cargo ship which is en route to Canada but Happy Socks had to be left behind.
Ms Outen was the first woman to row solo across the North Pacific in 2013 having previously failed in an attempt because of a tropical storm.


The SNP has recorded a historic landslide general election victory in Scotland, winning 56 out of 59 seats.

Labour has been left with just one MP north of the border, but its Scottish leader Jim Murphy, who lost his seat, said he would continue in his post.
The Liberal Democrats lost 10 seats with only Alistair Carmichael holding on in Orkney and Shetland.
The Conservatives held Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale - the other seat to withstand the SNP tsunami.
The headlines of the night were:
The scale of the SNP's rout of Labour is unprecedented.
It won by 10,000 votes in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, which had previously been held by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
In East Renfrewshire, the SNP's Kirsten Oswald defeated Mr Murphy - who had been defending a majority of 10,400 - by 3,718 votes.
The SNP has won 56 seats, the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour have just one each. That sees Scotland's political map changed from a distinctive red/orange to a widespread yellow.
Despite former Labour MP Ian Davidson - who lost his Glasgow South West seat to the SNP's Christopher Stephens - calling for Mr Murphy to resign he told a news conference on Friday morning that he would "continue the fight".
Mhairi Black, who becomes the UK's youngest MP at the age of 20, overturned former shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander's majority of 16,600 in Paisley and Renfrewshire South to win by 5,684 votes - a swing of 27% from Labour to the SNP.
The SNP also gained Edinburgh South West, which had previously been held by Labour's former Chancellor Alistair Darling.
Labour's former Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran was defeated by more than 10,000 votes by the SNP's Natalie McGarry in Glasgow East.
In the aftermath of the referendum, folk in Scotland have been in a mindset which was focused upon the need for a clear Scottish voice.
That demand is inchoate and imprecise - in that it is not pegged directly or solely to a demand for particular devolved powers or a particular economic strategy.
It is, nevertheless, powerful and all-consuming. Perhaps all the more potent in that it is wide-ranging, rather than narrowly driven.
It is an aggregate feeling of remoteness from the concerns of a metropolitan elite, a feeling of physical and cultural distance from the Westminster centre of UK political life. A shout of anger, a yell of anguish, a demand to be heard.
And that feeling found expression through the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon is right. It tells us nothing about independence - other than the fact that the people of Scotland were not seemingly scared to endorse a party whose reason for being is to end the Union.
Read more from Brian
Alan Brown was elected as the new SNP MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun - which was the first seat in Scotland to declare - with 30,000 votes. over Labour's Cathy Jamieson who polled 16,362 votes.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, who is now in London for VE Day commemorations, said she had hoped her party would do well but "never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined we'd win 56 out of Scotland's 59 MPs".
"The tectonic plates of Scottish politics shifted yesterday - it is a historic result," she said.
Ms Sturgeon told the BBC: "Given that we are, unfortunately, facing another Conservative government, it's all the more important that we've got a strong team of SNP MPs standing up for Scotland.
"The government at Westminster cannot ignore what has happened in Scotland, people have voted overwhelmingly for Scotland's voice to be heard and for an end to austerity."
She added: "We will go to Westminster and seek to ensure that Westminster governments can't ignore Scotland, that they can't simply push aside the things that were voted for in Scotland yesterday."
Throughout the election campaign, Ms Sturgeon had been hoping to form a "progressive alliance" with other parties to bring about change at Westminster.
But with the Conservatives having won a majority at Westminster, she insisted Labour could not blame her party for its failure to win across the UK.
Ed Miliband, who has resigned as UK Labour leader in the wake of the loss, said his party had been "overwhelmed" by a "surge of nationalism" in Scotland.
Mr Miliband added: "I also want to say that the next government has a huge responsibility in facing the difficult task in keeping our country together.
"Whatever party we come from, if we believe in the UK we should stand up for people in every part of our United Kingdom. Because I believe what unites us is much, much more than what divides us."
Speaking in Downing Street after winning an outright majority, Prime Minister David Mr Cameron said the Conservatives would "govern as a party of one nation".
He said new powers promised to Scotland before the referendum would be delivered, creating the "strongest devolved government anywhere in the world".
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg also stood down after his party's disastrous showing across the UK, with 10 losses to the SNP in Scotland.
Former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy lost his Ross, Skye and Lochaber seat to the SNP's Ian Black ford. Mr Kennedy had held the seat for 32 years.
And former Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander lost by more than 10,000 votes to Drew Hendry of the SNP in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
The SNP's John Nicolson also defeated Lib Dem incumbent Jo Swinson in Dunbartonshire East
The results mean that the SNP has recorded its most successful general election ever. Its previous best was in October 1974, when it won 11 seats. The party won six seats in 2010.
Among its new MPs is former party leader Alex Salmond who will be returning to the House of Commons after winning the Gordon constituency from the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Salmond, who served as an MP between 1987 and 2010, said: "There's going to be a lion roaring tonight, a Scottish lion, and it's going to roar with a voice that no government of whatever political complexion is going to be able to ignore.
"I think it's going to be a resounding voice, a clear voice, a united voice from Scotland, and I think that is a very good thing".
David Cameron is back in Downing Street but at what price?
Has the Conservative prime minister sacrificed the union for another five years of power?
These are the questions many people are asking today after a party which fought for independence for 80 years swept to victory in Scotland.
The answer from the jubilant leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, is "no", this does not advance her cause.
She insisted that her MPs would speak for all of Scotland â€” not just for the 45% who voted for the country to leave the United Kingdom last September.
"This changes nothing," Ms Sturgeon told me when I asked her about independence at the count in Glasgow, in a brief moment of calm during the nationalist avalanche.
Read James' analysis in full


A dismal display from England in the sole Test of the seven-match multi-format Women's Ashes series has left them on the brink of relinquishing the Ashes to Australia for the first time in five years.

After speaking at the start of the series about their desire to take a leaf out of their male counterparts' handbook and play in a more attacking manner, the hosts' performance on all four days at Canterbury showed a negative and static mindset.
They played out an astonishing 436 dot balls from the 513 deliveries they faced in the first innings, scoring at under two runs per over in both innings.
English expectations have grown considerably since their elite 18 players became full-time professionals in May 2014.
However, the belief came from a lengthy period of success - having been World Cup and World Twenty20 winners in 2009 and winning back-to-back Ashes since the format was changed in 2013.
But having been thoroughly outclassed since winning the first one-day international in this Ashes series, England have come under scrutiny with a number of areas raising serious questions.
Middlesex captain Isabelle Westbury, who plays county cricket with and against those in the England side, has queried whether there is "hubris" around the side since they turned professional.
The 25-year-old feels that the top-down approach of English women's cricket has made some of the top players seemingly undroppable.
"These players have been lauded as pioneers in women's cricket," Test Match Special summariser Westbury told BBC Sport. "England have had a lot of attention at the top.
Media playback is not supported on this device
"There is a hype that is surrounding them, which they are believing but they are now not living up to it on the pitch.
"Charlotte Edwards has been a very successful captain over the last decade, but her place and some of the old guard like Sarah Taylor, Jenny Gunn, Laura Marsh and Lydia Greenway are never questioned
"Amy Jones was dropped because she had a couple of bad innings [in the first two ODIs] and they panicked. They would never do that to Taylor or Greenway.
"Why is there one rule for a core group of players, who cannot be dropped no matter how they play, and another rule for the rest?
"The problem is within the team but also in the wider picture. The English underbelly is feeble and weak.
"There is a massive disconnect between those at the top and those that are feeding it."
Meanwhile, ex-Leicestershire seamer and TMS commentator Charles Dagnall has said that England's women have to be held to the same standards as any other professional team in sport.
Following a run of poor performances that has exposed a number of weaknesses, Dagnall feels there must be some accountability.
"Who is accountable for how England are performing on decent professional contracts?" he asked.
"Where does the fault lie? Is it the coach's fault? Is it the captain? Is it the players?
"There is all this talk about playing positive cricket but we have not seen that.
"Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole carried the attack but elsewhere we saw naïve captaincy, really poor application, and no adaptation to conditions or how to play on certain wickets."
With England now trailing Australia 8-2 on points, only victory in the final three Twenty20 matches - the format in which Australia are undoubtedly strongest, having won the last three World T20 tournaments in 2010, 2012 and 2014 - would see the hosts retain the Ashes.
However, ex-England batter and TMS summariser Ebony Rainford-Brent believes the hosts' biggest problems lie away from this current Ashes series.
By the 2017 World Cup in England, Edwards will be 37, Brunt and Greenway will be 32, while a large gulf remains between the 18 centrally contracted professionals and the women's county game - which remains amateur.
Rainford-Brent, now director of women's cricket at Surrey, questioned whether the current system will produce players of a high enough quality who can replace England's leading players once they retire.
"The question is when those big gaps are left, are there players coming through who are ready to perform?" she said.
"I do not believe our county system at the moment provides the best environment for them to be ready to perform.
"The ECB are trying to build a base with the Women's Cricket Super League where players get supported at county level and get a professional environment.
"However, we could be looking at a five-year lull once we lose those players until the system really kicks in.
"Fans and supporters need to be prepared and patient for it to kick because we will see a lag in terms of the domestic structure having an impact on the national game."


Two tortoises were stolen from a Northamptonshire pet store by a man who stuffed the reptiles down his trousers.

The animals were pinched from Bruno's near Daventry late last month, police said.
Store manager Jackie Hunt told the Northampton Chronicle the thief removed the tortoises from a locked vivarium then put them in his pockets.
Police confirmed the thief "concealed" his booty "in his trousers" and appealed for witnesses.
More news from Northamptonshire
"We saw the CCTV later and it clearly showed the man bending down and breaking the lock, before taking out the tortoises," Mrs Hunt told the BBC.
"He was wearing jogging bottoms and he put one in each pocket."
The micro-chipped tortoises, worth about Â£150 each and about 7.5cm (3in) in length, are too young to survive without correct UVB lighting and heat.
Their micro-chips are registered on the tortoises' licences, which are still held by the pet shop, meaning they cannot legally be owned in this country.
The theft happened at the shop in Whilton Locks Garden Village at about 16:00 on 25 April.


Barnsley have signed FC Halifax Town centre-back and captain Marc Roberts on a three-year deal.

The Barnsley-born 24-year-old made 46 appearances for the Shaymen this season, scoring four goals.
He told the club website: "The gaffer here is great and I'm looking forward to working for him.
"I'm an old-fashioned defender. I'm strong in the air and won't lose many headers. I'm not bad on the floor but I'm looking to improve."


A former soldier has admitted buying deactivated guns over the internet and turned them back into lethal weapons.

The High Court in Glasgow heard that Andrew Steven, also known as Walton, set up a specialist workshop in his home in Ayr.
When it was searched by police in March 2015, they found a cache of guns, tools and ammunition.
Steven, 53, and three co-accused were remanded in custody before sentencing in November.
Dean Kimmins, also known as Stewart, 32, from Glasgow, Kenneth McMullen, 27, from Glasgow, and Michael Stuart, 35, from Glasgow, had denied the charges against them.
After a trial they were convicted for their part in the scheme to further the commission of serious organised crime by reactivating firearms.
The court heard that the accused were under surveillance and undercover police witnessed gun handovers.
It was also told that one of the guns reactivated by Steven - a Colt Model King Cobra revolver - was found near a murder scene in Scapa Street, Glasgow in 1993.
Other guns were uncovered during drugs raids.
Prosecutor Richard Goddard said: "Andrew Steven was the general reactivator and distributor, the gun dealer, Dean Kimmins was the customer sourcing guns, Michael Stuart the organiser and Kenneth McMullan, the courier."


Swansea City have completed the signing of central defender Mike van der Hoorn from Ajax on a three-year contract.

The 23-year-old started his career at FC Utrecht before moving to Eredivisie rivals Ajax in July 2013.
He was called up to the Netherlands senior squad in 2013, having played for his country at Under-21 level.
Van der Hoorn is Swansea's second signing of the summer after fellow Dutchman Leroy Fer joined from QPR in a permanent deal.
Fer, 26, made nine appearances on loan with the Swans during the 2015-16 season.


A new full-length portrait of the Queen commissioned to mark her 90th birthday year has been unveiled in Edinburgh - in front of the monarch herself.

Commissioned by the Royal Company of Archers, the Queen is pictured in the ceremonial robes of The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle.
Nicky Philipps's work, produced from a sitting at Windsor Castle, will hang in the dining room at Archers' Hall.
Her earlier portrait of the Queen was used for a Diamond Jubilee stamp.
That work is on permanent display in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace.
Another of Philipps's paintings - a joint picture of princes William and Harry - was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2010.
The latest painting shows the Queen standing at the top of the staircase at Archers' Hall, the base for the Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland.
Philipps, who attended the unveiling with the Duke of Buccleuch, said: "It was an enormous privilege to paint this portrait... and I very much hope the Archers feel it is a worthy representation of our monarch."
Earlier in the day, the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh took part in a thanksgiving service for the Order of the Thistle - the greatest order of chivalry in Scotland - at Edinburgh's St Giles' Cathedral.


The growing problem of children waiting for psychiatric services in Wales is being ignored by ministers, it has been claimed.

The number waiting more than 14 weeks has soared in the past year.
Ongoing problems with mental health services in Wales were previously highlighted in a report last year.
The Welsh government said cutting waiting times was a priority, and extra funding of Â£250,000 had been announced recently.
Welsh Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams said: "Sadly the Welsh Labour government is determined to bury its head in the sand and ignore the catalogue of concerns and warnings that young people in Wales are being put at risk.
"This complacency is astounding and the Welsh Labour government should hang its head in shame."
The number of children in Wales waiting more than 14 weeks for psychiatric services rose from 199 to 736 in the 12 months up to January 2014.
Problems with the child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) were raised in a report last December despite some progress being recognised since a previous study in 2009.
The joint review by Health Inspectorate Wales and the Wales Audit Office said children were being put at risk because of inappropriate admissions to adult mental health wards.
The assembly's children's committee is currently holding an inquiry into the service.
In its evidence to the committee, the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Wales said there was "significant variation in access" around Wales.
A Welsh government spokesperson said: "Waiting times are a priority in our CAMHS improvement plan.
"We have seen an increase in demand in recent years in part because of changes in 2012 for services to care for young people until their 18th birthday.
"The Mental Health (Wales) Measure, which came into force in 2012, enables more patients be seen by local mental health services, which means that CAMHS can concentrate on treating the most complex patients.
"The health minister [Mark Drakeford] recently announced an extra Â£250,000 a year for CAMHS services, which will ensure more young people are cared for in Wales, reducing the need for costly out-of-area placements."


Russia has retaliated to new US sanctions by telling Washington to cut its diplomatic staff to 455 and barring the use of some properties.

The new US embassy staffing level would be the same as at Russia's embassy in Washington.
The Russian foreign ministry also said it was seizing holiday properties and a warehouse used by US diplomats.
The new US sanctions are over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and alleged interference in the US election.
They come months after the Obama administration ordered the seizure of two Russian diplomatic compounds and expelled 35 Russian diplomats in response to alleged hacking of the US Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
In a statement on Friday, Russia's foreign ministry said: "The US is stubbornly taking one crudely anti-Russian step after another, using the utterly fictitious pretext of Russian interference in its internal affairs."
The US expulsion of Russian diplomats "clearly violates the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations and generally accepted diplomatic norms", it added.
It was not immediately clear how many diplomats and staff members would have to stop working at the embassy, but Russian news agencies quoted sources as saying "hundreds" of people would be affected.
Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed US embassy official as saying the embassy employed about 1,100 diplomatic and support staff in Russia, including US and Russian citizens.
Russia also said it would respond in kind if Washington decided to expel any more Russian diplomats.
Russia's move comes a day after President Vladimir Putin decried what he called "anti-Russian hysteria" in Washington.
The new US sanctions on Russia were overwhelmingly approved by both houses of Congress despite objections from the Trump White House.
US intelligence agencies believe Russia tried to sway the election in favour of Trump and now there are several investigations looking into whether anyone from his campaign helped.
Russia has always denied interfering and Mr Trump insists there was no collusion.


West Brom striker Saido Berahino has been banned from driving for 12 months after pleading guilty to drink-driving.

Berahino, 21, was travelling at 110mph when he was stopped by Cheshire Police near junction 20 of the southbound M6 in the early hours of 22 October.
He was found to have 101 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood - the drink-drive limit is 80 mg.
North Cheshire Magistrates in Runcorn fined Berahino Â£3,400 and offered him a drink-driver referral course.
If he completed the course, it would reduce the length of his ban to nine months.
The striker's excellent form this season earned him a call-up to the full England squad in November but he did not play in matches against Slovenia and Scotland.
His court case, originally scheduled for 19 January - the same day as the Baggies are due to meet Everton in the Premier League at Goodison Park - was brought forward late on Thursday.
The BBC understands that Berahino will be fined by West Brom under its usual disciplinary procedures - the maximum permitted being a fortnight's wages.
With the case having been dealt with before the scheduled Monday hearing, he is now likely to play that night at Everton.
West Brom will not be making any comment on the matter.
Berahino, who came to the UK from war-torn Burundi as a child, signed a new three-and-a-half-year contract with the Premier League club in December 2013.
The England Under-21 international has scored 14 times in 25 appearances for the Baggies this season, and has been linked with a big-money transfer to a top Premier League club.


It was more important to be at the place he could train than the place he could sleep.

Media playback is not supported on this device
Swansea's Brett Johns was so poor he could not afford to travel home from the gym. So he stopped there.
As a man desperate to reach the top of MMA, there was no way he was letting a lack of money stop him from training.
"I went through a phase when I had nothing," he told BBC Wales Sport. "I couldn't afford the bus ticket home.
"I lived in the gym for the winter where there was no heating and all I had was a sleeping bag."
Media playback is not supported on this device
That might explain the outpouring of emotion when he was told he had been called up to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
His manager filmed the video call he made to Johns and uploaded the Welsh fighter's moving reaction to Facebook.
"When I got the call, it just put me into tears," says Johns. "That seven years of hard work I've had to put in all came out in that moment.
"I'd hate to see what I'm going to be like when I win that UFC title if I'm like that when I'm getting called up."
The 24-year-old, who trains in Fforestfach, will make his debut at UFC Fight Night 99 in Belfast on Saturday.
He brings with him a record of 12 wins from 12 professional fights and is a two-time MMA world champion. Johns says the call-up was "a long time coming".
"It was very frustrating," he admitted. "I was thinking 'what more do I need to do?' Now I've achieved my dream."
Media playback is not supported on this device
Johns was not the first Welsh fighter to be signed by the UFC. That title goes to a soldier from Monmouthshire.
Jack Marshman was signed just weeks earlier in October and he will debut on the same bill as Johns this weekend. Like his Welsh counterpart, the road to the top has been a long and difficult one.
Marshman estimates he was locked up 30 times as a teenager, but joining the Tillery Combat MMA Academy in Blaina kept him "on the straight and narrow".
"I was on the wrong path," he confesses. "But without a doubt MMA changed my life. I'm not trying to be cheesy but it genuinely did.
"Instead of going out on the weekend I was training Friday night and sparring Saturday morning."
Marshman has served in the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, for nearly a decade and he toured Afghanistan twice but the middleweight says his call-up means he will soon leave the forces to fight full time.
"You can't get any bigger than the UFC," he says, ahead of his fight against Sweden's Magnus Cedenblad. "It's the highest we can go in our sport."
Wales waited a long time for its first UFC fighter. Now two have turned up at once.
The UFC calls itself the fastest-growing sports organisation in the world and both Welsh fighters believe it will transform the sport in their home country.
"It's huge for Welsh MMA and huge for Welsh sport," says Johns. "Going back a few years, MMA in the UK was very basic. Then we had a bit of help from [Republic of Ireland's] Conor McGregor.
"They go wild about those Irish fans but the Welsh fans can be crazy as well. So I'm hoping they'll transfer from football and rugby fans into MMA."
Marshman believes it will not be long before MMA becomes as popular in the UK as boxing.
"We've already got a massive cult following," he continues. "But now it's starting to get a bit more mainstream more people are going to watch it.
"In America I think it already is [as big as boxing]. The UFC just had its first event in Madison Square Garden and that's an historic boxing venue. It just goes to show how big the sport's getting."
For Brett Johns, those cold nights in the gym will seem a long way away when he walks out to fight South Korean Kwan Ho Kwak in Belfast. The bantamweight has signed a four-fight deal, but wants to stay much longer than that.
"One of my idols was Joe Calzaghe. He fought Mikkel Kessler at the Millennium Stadium. I don't see why I can't do that too."


Nearly 6,000 lorries are parked on the M20 in Kent as part of Operation Stack, with local residents and businesses complaining that its knock-on effects are becoming intolerable.

The M20 is the main route through the county, but a 23-mile stretch of the coast-bound carriageway is currently shut.
The closure was ordered as part of Operation Stack, which is implemented whenever there is disruption to Channel crossings, and involves lorries being parked or "stacked" along the motorway.
The current closure is due to the ongoing Calais migrant crisis.
Local roads are also affected as motorists going about their daily business - and lorry drivers too - look for alternative routes.
It has led to heavy congestion in town centres, villages and country lanes across south-east Kent.
Jenny Chessman lives on the Orchard Heights estate in Ashford, close to the Drovers roundabout, which has consistently been at a standstill.
"We're prisoners on our own estate... people are using every other route to try to get around the problem," she said.
"There are so many lorries causing absolute chaos."
Chris Wolfe runs a wholesale flower business from Ashford and said getting around was impossible, with side roads gridlocked and unable to cope, and everybody "jumping the lights".
"It's the wedding season and sometimes flowers have arrived 15 hours late, so we've been delivering late at night," she said.
"There are a lot of angry, frustrated people out there."
Linda Farrier, who runs a family funeral directors in Dover, said the firm was having to add extra time on to most journeys.
"It's not just funerals, it's also collecting the deceased from hospitals," she said, adding that some mourners had even been unable to get to funerals because of delays on the road.
Residents have complained of spending hours sitting in traffic, with parked lorries blocking junctions and roundabouts.
Ken and Jeanette Green drove from Folkestone to Kingston, south London, with their cousin Dave Williams on Wednesday in a round trip that took more than 10 hours.
"It was the worst journey I have ever had," Mr Williams said.
He recalled how they were visiting a sick relative in hospital and got almost as far as Ashford on the M20 when all the lanes came to a halt because Operation Stack had suddenly been brought in on the London-bound carriageway.
Mr Green said they were at a standstill for at least three hours.
"It's ridiculous, and a national disgrace," he said.
Paget Silvester, from Lympne, works 12-hour night shifts as a healthcare assistant in a nursing home in Blackheath, south-east London.
Her journey to and from work normally takes just over an hour, but has been taking up to three-and-a-half hours.
But she and her husband, who also has to drive up the M20 to Maidstone for his job, have decided to turn the situation around.
"We have a small caravan, and we're going to tow it to Bearsted to a caravan site to live there and cut our journey times down," she said.
"We're trying to turn a desperate situation into something a little bit easier."


The family of a sailor whose body was found after a major search have paid tribute to a "beloved husband, father and grandfather".

Thomas Tyrrell failed to return after setting off from Brevig on the Isle of Lewis in his home-made vessel on Tuesday morning.
His boat was found off the Western Isles the following day, and his body was recovered nearby.
Mr Tyrrell was wearing his life jacket when he was found.
Stornoway Coastguard had launched a major search after a call from concerned relatives at about 20:00 on Tuesday when Mr Tyrrell failed to return home in his three-metre boat.
It is understood he had not left word as to where he was going, and did not have a radio or mobile phone with him.
Search teams eventually found his submerged boat in the Minch area.
In a statement issued through police, his family said: "Now that family are aware, we confirm that our beloved husband, father and grandfather, Thomas Tyrrell was found deceased following a land and sea search.
"We would like to point out that Thomas had and was wearing his life jacket when found.
"We would like to thank all emergency services - Coastguard, RNLI, Hebrides Search and Rescue Team and Police for their efforts and for finding Thomas."


The biggest prize at the Oscars on Sunday is saved for last - the Academy Award for best picture.

This year, nine films are nominated.
If you've not had a chance (or the desire) to see them all, here's a guide to what you need to know - which means that this contains spoilers.
Make sure you read this before going anywhere near a water cooler on Monday morning.
Find out more about this year's Oscars nominations.
Who's in it and who directed it? Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker and some aliens that look like giant squid are the main stars. Denis Villeneuve is the director.
What's it about? Aliens. NO WAIT COME BACK.
Amy Adams plays Louise Banks, a linguistics expert who is called in by the US Army to translate what aliens who have landed at random spots around the world are trying to say.
Oh, one small thing, she can also see into the future. And has to deal with the fact that she knows her future daughter is going to die of cancer. So yeah, it's pretty intense.
What did the critics say? "An intelligent, eloquent and stirring sci-fi that grips from start to finish, Arrival is up there with the year's best movies." [Total Film]
How likely is it to win? It's picked up a string of trophies during awards season already, but it would it's unlikely to take home the main prize at the Oscars.
Talking point: Even though it's up for best picture, Amy Adams failed to secure a nomination in the best actress category - she was nominated at the Golden Globes and Baftas, though.
Who's in it and who directed it? Viola Davis and Denzel Washington play husband and wife Troy and Rose Maxson. Washington also directed the film, based on the August Wilson play Fences.
What's it about? This family drama set in 1950s America is centred around the domineering Troy Maxson, who rules his home with an iron fist and has a volatile relationship with his son Cory.
That's not to say he doesn't have a loving relationship with Rose, but it's fair to say her patience is tested by his behaviour later in the film (spoiler: he cheats).
What did the critics say? "It's all too seldom that a feature film combines brilliant acting with a spellbinding flow of language." [The Wall Street Journal]
How likely is it to win? While Washington and Davis are great, the film isn't exactly... cinematic. This one is an outsider.
Talking point: It's not the first time Washington and Davis have played these roles - they were the Maxsons on Broadway in 2010, winning Tony Awards for their performances.
Who's in it and who directed it? Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Hugo Weaving and Teresa Palmer are in the cast of this Mel Gibson war epic.
What's it about? The true story of a guy called Desmond Doss, a World War Two medic who joined the army but refused to even touch a gun - due both to his Christian faith and the fact he has a violent father.
He struggles to be accepted in the army at first but goes on to single-handedly save the lives of 75 men. Warning: it's quite (okay, extremely) gory.
What did the critics say?  "Thanks to some of the greatest battle scenes ever filmed, Gibson once again shows his staggering gifts as a film-maker, able to juxtapose savagery with aching tenderness." [Rolling Stone]
How likely is it to win? It's currently the seventh favourite out of the nine - so not very.
Talking point: The film has been seen as something of a comeback for Mel Gibson. His nomination of best director is a sign of him being welcomed back into Hollywood after his career hit rock bottom.
Who's in it and who directed it? Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster and Chris Pine star; David Mackenzie directed.
What's it about? An ex-con (Foster) and his brother (Pine) resort to robbing banks in an attempt save their family's Texan ranch after the death of their mother. Bridges plays the ranger on their case.
It's been described as a modern Western, but it could also be described as a cops and robbers drama with slices of sharp comedy, or a study of two brothers battling against the system.
What did the critics say?: "Hell or High Water is a thrillingly good movie - a crackerjack drama of crime, fear and brotherly love set in a sun-roasted, deceptively sleepy West Texas that feels completely exotic for being so authentic." [Variety]
How likely is it to win? It's gritty, heartfelt and beautifully written, but it's fair to say this is the rank outsider. And you could be forgiven for it having gone under your radar - it was released in the UK last September, and in August in the US.
Talking point: The producers had to deal with sweltering conditions and rattlesnakes during filming, describing the conditions as "insufferable". What's that saying about suffering for your art..?
Who's in it and who directed it? Taraji P Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae play the three leads. Theodore Melfi directs.
What's it about? Three female mathematicians take jobs at Nasa during the 1960s space race,  challenging racial and sexist prejudice along the way.
Katherine Johnson is made to drink from a "coloured" coffee urn and go on 40-minute breaks to get to the "coloured" toilets on the other side of the NASA campus, despite being one of the brightest brains of the whole project.
What did the critics say?  "Hidden Figures, both a dazzling piece of entertainment and a window into history, bucks the trend of the boring-math-guy movie." [Time]
How likely is it to win? Could be a surprise winner - and it would definitely be a popular one. The film has done incredibly well at the box office.
Talking point: Free screenings of the film have been put on in the US for young girls who are likely to be inspired by it.
Who's in it and who directed it? Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are the all-singing, all-dancing stars in Damien Chazelle's film.
What's it about? For those who've been buried under a rock (or just refuse to be swept along by the hype)... the musical traces the stories of aspiring actress Mia and pianist Sebastian, who dreams of opening his own jazz club.
What did the critics say? "Audacious, retro, funny and heartfelt, La La Land is the latest great musical for people who don't like musicals - and will slap a mile-wide smile across the most miserable of faces." [Empire]
How likely is it to win? Very. Like, very very. Bookies say it is the overwhelming favourite - and it doesn't hurt that it's a film all about Hollywood itself.
Talking point: Some have deigned to suggest that La La Land is overhyped and overrated - but that hasn't stopped its juggernaut-like journey through awards season.
Who's in it and who directed it? Sunny Pawar is Saroo as a young boy, with Dev Patel playing him as an adult. There's also Rooney Mara and Nicole Kidman. The film is directed by Garth Davis.
What's it about? This is the staggering true story of a young Indian boy who is adopted after losing his family at a young age.
But he manages to find them again, decades later. With a bit of help from Google Earth.
What did the critics say? "The beauty of Lion is that it explores and allows for the unique possibilities and power of multiple homes, multiple families and multiple selves." [The Chicago Tribune]
How likely is it to win? Dev is certainly in the frame for best supporting actor, but it's not that likely to translate to best picture success.
Talking point: It's been making people cry. A lot. And not just audiences - both Dev and Nicole Kidman say the script made them weep. So if you go to see it, take tissues.
Who's in it and who directed it? Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams star, with Kenneth Lonergan the director.
What's it about? Caretaker Lee Chandler, played by Affleck, has to look after his teenage nephew after his brother (the boy's father) dies.
And he does this while still grieving for his own young children, who died in a house fire. It's safe to say this film is short on laughs.
What did the critics say? "Manchester by the Sea is heartbreaking yet somehow heartening, a film that just wallops you with its honesty, its authenticity and its access to despair." [Los Angeles Times]
How likely is it to win? The Academy tends to like gritty, serious films which could explain why it's currently fourth favourite.
Talking point: The original idea was thought up by Matt Damon and John Krasinski, from the US version of The Office. Damon was actually meant to star as Lee originally, but had other filming commitments.
Who's in it and who directed it? Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris and Janelle Monae star in Barry Jenkins's film.
What's it about? Moonlight tells the story of a young man named Chiron through three stages of his life, as he battles life in extreme poverty with an abusive drug addict mother, all the while trying to come to terms with his sexuality.
He has one gay experience in his teenage years but struggles to accept his sexuality in a neighbourhood that is largely hostile towards it.
What did the critics say? "It's a thrilling, deeply necessary work that opens up a much-needed and rarely approached on-screen conversation about the nature of gay masculinity." [The Guardian]
How likely is it to win? It's currently second favourite and has been picking up awards left, right and centre - so watch this space.
Talking point: Naomie Harris is nominated for best supporting actress - yet she managed to squeeze all of her filming into just three days.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


Scunthorpe United failed to make the League One play-offs despite beating Sheffield United at Bramall Lane.

Scunthorpe needed to better Barnsley's result at Wigan to secure the final play-off position but the Tykes' victory ended their top-six ambitions.
Tom Hopper put the Iron ahead as he slid Paddy Madden's deflected effort past keeper George Long from 15 yards.
Madden fired past Long after half-time as Scunthorpe kept pushing but they ended the season in seventh place.
Scunthorpe started the day on equal points with Barnsley and began strongly, with Luke Williams' long-range effort well held by Long.
Billy Sharp curled Matt Done's cross wide of the post as the Blades struggled to make any impact, before the unmarked Hooper tapped the Iron's first goal past Long.
The home side looked stronger after the break as Sharp saw his low effort from distance turned wide, but a defensive mix-up in the box allowed Madden to score his 23rd of the season.
Long pulled off two excellent saves as Williams and Madden came close for the visitors, but Barnsley's win scuppered their chance of reaching the play-offs.


Images courtesy of AFP, EPA, Getty Images and Reuters

A selection of the best photos from across Africa and of Africans elsewhere in the world this week.


A baby girl found dead in a black bag on an footpath was stillborn, a coroner has ruled.

The infant, still with its umbilical cord attached, was found by a member of the public in Marston, Oxford, on 29 February.
Thames Valley Police has still not traced her mother and have continued to urge her to come forward over concerns for her health.
The baby was discovered with no signs of injury in bushes on Edgeway Road.
A police spokesman added it was not believed the baby, who weighed 8lbs, was born there.
A funeral will be held for the child, but a date has not yet been announced.


Scottish League Two play-off chasers Elgin and Queen's Park settled for a share of the spoils.

Marc McKenzie put the hosts ahead in the 18th minute when he capitalised on a defensive mix-up which allowed him the simplest of tap-ins.
Liam Brown equalised for the Spiders, superbly finishing off a fine passing move. Elgin then spurned a great chance as Darryl McHardy headed wide.
Both sides remain in the play-off hunt despite the draw.


Police investigating the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence are following up "numerous calls and pieces of information" after a new CCTV appeal.

The Met released the enhanced footage of a possible key witness for the first time on Monday, 23 years after the murder in south-east London.
The CCTV showed a possible witness in an off-licence just hours before the fatal stabbing.
Stephen, 18, was murdered by six white youths in an attack in Eltham.
On Tuesday, the force said on Twitter: "Officers (are) now following up numerous calls and pieces of information received."
Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of his murder and sentenced to minimum terms of 15 years and two months and 14 years and three months in January 2012.
The investigation into Mr Lawrence's death remains open.
The Met said the potential witness was in an off-licence on Well Hall Road in Eltham at 20:00 BST on 22 April 1993.
The off-licence was 300m (330 yards) from the bus stop where Mr Lawrence was attacked two-and-a-half hours later.
Witnesses saw a man in a "V" emblem jacket near Well Hall Road roundabout at about the time Mr Lawrence was attacked, the Met said.
Det Ch Insp Chris Le Pere said the CCTV was "recently identified as part of a regular internal review of the case", he said, and released as a public appeal after being digitally enhanced.
"We are hoping that over the passage of time allegiances may have changed, people may have moved away and feel more confident coming forward," he added.


Kyle Edmund fought back to claim his first Wimbledon win and end the hopes of fellow Briton and world number 869 Alex Ward.

Media playback is not supported on this device
Edmund, ranked 50th, won 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-1 on court three to reach the second round for the first time - at the fifth time of asking.
British wildcard Katie Boulter, making her Grand Slam debut, lost 3-6 7-5 6-3 to world number 60 Christina McHale.
Brydan Klein and James Ward also bowed out, both men losing in straight sets.
James Ward, 30, lost 6-4 6-4 6-3 to Marcos Baghdatis, faring marginally better than Klein, 27, who won only nine games as he was beaten 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 6-0 by Japan's Yuichi Sugita.
Alex Ward, 27, had come through qualifying to take his place in the main draw.
Edmund, 22, goes on to face French 15th seed Gael Monfils, who beat Daniel Brands of Germany 6-3 7-5 6-4.
Andy Murray, Aljaz Bedene, Johanna Konta and Heather Watson all won on Monday.
Ward captured the headlines heading into the all-British contest but it was as big a match for Edmund, who was without a win on grass this year and had recently split from his coach.
It's not been a good tournament for me in recent years but it's good to get the win now
The British number two appeared the more nervous, dropping serve in the first game and failing to get the deficit back as a confident Ward took the set.
A shock was a realistic possibility until midway through the second set, when Edmund rose to the challenge and showed the class which has taken him to the world's top 50.
The Yorkshireman dropped just six games in three sets to secure his second-round place.
"It's nice to get the win," he said. "It's a home Grand Slam and one of those dreams you have as a kid. It's not been a good tournament for me in recent years but it's good to get the win now."
Ward, who missed six months through injury last year, leaves the All England Club with £35,000 in prize money and his ranking projected to rise around 300 places.
"It's been tough starting again this year from a low ranking. But experiences like this make the sacrifices all worthwhile," said Ward.
"And today's my mum's 60th birthday, so playing that match was a nice present for her."
Media playback is not supported on this device
Former British number one John Lloyd on BBC Two
A very fine performance by Kyle Edmund after a dodgy start. He was on a hiding to nothing going up against a fellow Brit. He started badly, a set down but had faith in his ability to come back.
His game improved, he was aggressive in the right way and his serve got better. This will do him the power of good. Ward ran out of gas. He looked fatigued, but has made a bit of money and hopefully now he can push his ranking up.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Boulter, the world number 238, made a confident start on her senior Grand Slam debut but could not maintain her momentum against the experienced McHale.
Helped by a noisy home crowd on court 12, 20-year-old Boulter took the first set with some powerful baseline play but she became more inconsistent the longer the match went on.
Boulter was not too far off the pace and can be pleased with her performance
McHale took advantage when Boulter's serve dipped at the end of the second set and the 25-year-old American won nine straight points in the decider on her way to wrapping up the match in two hours and four minutes.
"I'm completely devastated in this one moment," Boulter said. "I'm sure in the next couple of days I will reflect on it a little bit more.
"Of course I'm proud to represent my country and to give my all."
Former British number one Jo Durie said: "McHale gradually broke Boulter down until it was like a torrent coming down towards her in the final set.
"But, overall, Boulter was not too far off the pace and can be pleased with her performance.
"That is what you want to do when you come on court for a match like this - believe you can win, and work for it, and I think Boulter did all of that."
James Ward was number 89 in the world in 2015 but his ranking has tumbled to 1,085 after a lengthy injury absence.
I'm not completely 100% pain-free, but I don't know if I ever will be
He was handed a wildcard into the main draw but his hopes of a repeat of his performance here two years ago, when he reached the third round, were quickly ended on court 18.
Baghdatis, who reached the semi-finals at SW19 in 2006, did not face a single break point and completed a dominant victory in one hour and 40 minutes.
"I have come a long road. There were times I never knew if I was going to play tennis again. I was in the gym every day rehabbing with a physio and it was tough, because you just don't know when it's going to get better.
"You see very small improvements. Sometimes you go backwards. And then now I'm at a stage where I'm not completely 100% pain-free, but I don't know if I ever will be. So that's what I maybe have to live with."
Over on court 16, Klein, the world number 232, started strongly against Sugita and forced a first-set tie-break against a player ranked 188 places higher.
But Klein, 27, never recovered after falling awkwardly while 5-2 down in the second set and, after lengthy treatment, won only one more game as his Japanese opponent triumphed in two hours and six minutes.
"The knee was a bit sore and I was losing my balance a bit, but not much," said the British number six.
"When I lost a few points my mind was maybe on my knee when it should have been elsewhere, but I was already a set and 5-2 down.
"He played well in the third and I didn't so it was disappointing. But even if I looked angry I was enjoying every second of it."


Asian markets had mixed fortunes after talks between Greece and eurozone ministers broke down when it rejected an extension of its bailout programme.

Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Athens had until Friday to request an extension, otherwise the bailout would expire at the end of February.
The euro fell to $1.1365 against the dollar from Monday's high of $1.14295.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed down 0.1% at 17,987.09.
The index had closed at it highest level since July 2007 on Monday, rising above 18,000 for the first time in more than seven years.
The dollar was at 118.52 yen, off Monday's high of 118.88.
Bucking the downward trend, Chinese shares headed higher with Hong Kong's Hang Seng index closing up 0.2% at 24,784.88.
The Shanghai Composite index ended 0.8% higher at 3,246.91.
Data showed that average new home prices in China's 70 major cities fell 5.1% in January from a year ago, marking the fifth consecutive month that prices have fallen year-on-year.
In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 closed down 0.5% at 5,858.2.
Shares in ANZ fell 2.5% - its biggest one day fall in nine months - after the bank reported a small rise in cash profit amid falling loan margins in its first quarter.
It also warned that 2015 was going to be a "slightly tougher, more volatile" environment.
South Korean shares headed higher after the country's central bank decided to leave interest rates unchanged for the fourth consecutive month.
The Kospi closed up 0.2% at 1,961.45 ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays. The market will reopen on Monday.


The banners and posters that went up on the central avenues of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, over the weekend have the aura of a political campaign.

But there are no elections in sight, the banners do not praise any political party, and the face painted on most of them is not that of a politician but of the once secretive ISI intelligence chief, Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam.
"We love [the] Pakistan army and the ISI, and condemn attempts to malign them," reads the message on the banners.
Bizarre as it may sound, the campaign is apparently a public response to recent accusations by Pakistan's largest media conglomerate, the Jang group, that one of the top presenters of its Geo television channel might have been attacked by the ISI.
Hamid Mir survived a gun attack in Karachi on 19 April and is recovering in hospital.
Soon after the attack, his brother, Amir Mir, who is also a journalist, said in a statement that the TV anchor had earlier expressed fears the ISI might try to kill him.
Geo ran this statement for several hours against the backdrop of Gen Islam's picture - a move that many interpreted as an indictment of the general before an investigation could prove him or the ISI guilty.
It was also unprecedented. While the role of the ISI has figured in public discourse in recent years, it has never been directly accused of any wrongdoing.
But this troubling new precedent and its aftermath also brought on a feeling of deja vu.
The groups that have taken to the streets to express their love for the army and the ISI are more or less the same ones which defended the two institutions when Osama Bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan.
Later that year, they ran a vociferous street campaign aimed at preventing the last civilian government from reopening the Nato supply routes that Islamabad had ordered closed following an American air raid on one of its border posts.
Also, it is not the first time that Geo has been accused of wilfully confusing opinion with facts to hold what many call a "media trial" of public figures.
During the last five years, Geo was repeatedly accused of painting former President Asif Ali Zardari and his Pakistan People's Party as corrupt, even though none of them had been convicted by a court.
The trend proved infectious and was adopted by rival television channels in their race for public ratings and revenue.
Many suspect the ISI actively supported this trend and often offered lopsided information to certain presenters with a view to keeping the civilian government under pressure.
Many say both the ISI and Geo have become victims of their own "over-indulgence". Geo tried to conduct a "media trial" of the ISI, and was in turn accused of being an agent of hostile foreign powers by rival television channels vying for a share of Geo's mammoth business interests.
On the ISI's part, too, it is not the first time it has been suspected of carrying out an attack on journalists. In a number of cases since 2006, it has been accused, albeit indirectly, of intimidating, threatening, kidnapping or even killing journalists.
Run under standard operating procedures because there is no specific legislation to regulate its affairs, the ISI is known to have arrogated to itself a monopoly over shaping the country's security paradigm, and creating the social narrative to support it.
The proliferation of militant groups - and their respective political wings that are occasionally seen on the streets - are said to be a product of this autonomy.
During the 1990s, the intelligence operatives indirectly controlled the narrative, promoting it mainly through the Urdu language press. Today they are known to directly influence the material that runs on TV channels.
Talk-show hosts from across the Pakistani electronic media have often privately shared anecdotes of how frequently ISI officials float programme ideas to producers and presenters, suggest subjects for talk shows, and set up unofficial moles of ex-servicemen and journalists to influence the debate.
Both the intelligence establishment and the main media houses have tended to be on the conservative side of the social spectrum, providing a disproportionate space to hard-line religious groups and militants.
But signs of a rift emerged between them following the 2007 lawyers' movement that forced the military government of Pervez Musharraf to reinstate the country's chief justice it had sacked months earlier.
A major part of that battle was fought on television screens, with the journalist community pitting itself against the then military ruler.
Since then, the media has been growing in power, and has tried to wade into areas that were traditionally an exclusive domain of the ISI.
Hamid Mir's Capital Talk - one of the most viewed prime-time shows on current affairs - came up with some of the most biting criticism of the military's role in Balochistan, where locals accuse the ISI and its surrogate groups of kidnapping and sometimes killing political activists suspected of ties to a separatist insurgency.
Mr Mir also expressed mostly anti-military views on the issue of whether or not the former President and army chief, Pervez Musharraf, should be tried for high treason.
The military has had reservations over this move because it fears that Gen Musharraf's trial will show the institution in a negative light.
While the government has gone ahead with bringing a treason case against Gen Musharraf, the current army chief recently vowed to "resolutely preserve [the army's] dignity".
The attack on Hamid Mir is seen as an added trigger in a three-way battle of one-upmanship among the soldiers, the politicians and the media.


An Irish coastguard helicopter pilot has died following a crash off the coast of Mayo in the Republic of Ireland.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick was taken to hospital on Tuesday after being found in a critical condition by RNLI crew.
The surface search for her three colleagues who are still missing will continue overnight.
The air search, however, will be scaled down until first light on Friday.
The aircraft lost contact at about 01:00 local time as it was coming in to refuel during a rescue operation.
The three other crew on board have been named as Chief Pilot Mark Duffy and winchmen Paul Ormsby and Ciarán Smith.
Irish coastguard search and rescue manager, Gerard O'Flynn said Ms Fitzpatrick was the most senior pilot with CHC which runs the contract to provide search and rescue services in the Republic of Ireland.
"She's been with the company for some 20 years and outside of her work as a pilot she did an enormous amount of work on water safety and was always available to do school visits and just highlight basic water safety," he said.
"For all of us involved in the coastguard and particularly, for her family and everybody, it does come as a complete shock, and we want to extend our sincere sympathy to all her family and indeed to her flying colleagues in CHC and simply to everybody who knew her."
Capt Fitzpatrick was the mother of a young son. Her sister, Niamh Fitzpatrick, paid tribute to her on Twitter and asked for prayers for her missing crew members.
Mr O'Flynn said the Irish naval service, the Garda (police) diving unit and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) had joined the coastguard's "hugely resourced" search operation.
He also said that a number of fishing vessels were assisting the emergency services and were "doing Trojan work out there".
"Obviously with the passage of time the chances of recovering somebody alive decreases, but we are treating this as a search operation and we don't give up hope until we absolutely have to."
I spoke to one of those who had been out and he described the conditions as quite rough with a four to five metre swell but said they had recovered some of the wreckage.
He said that the debris field covered quite a considerable area.
But the search is continuing for those three missing crew members as well as the flight recorders which may go some way to explaining what actually happened here.
The head of the Irish coastguard, Eugene Clonan, told a news conference earlier on Tuesday that it was a "very dark day" for emergency services in Ireland.
He added that as time went on, "hopes are fading that we will find the rest of the crew".
Debris has been spotted in the water and a search by two RNLI lifeboats, two Irish coastguard helicopters and several local fishing boats is focusing north of Achill Island in County Mayo.
The helicopter which crashed was a Dublin-based aircraft that had been providing support for another Sligo-based coastguard helicopter during an overnight rescue mission.
The Sligo helicopter had been responding to a distress call from a crewman in need of medical attention on a UK fishing vessel about 150km west of Eagle Island.
The BBC understands that the second helicopter, the R116 from Dublin, was sent to help the Sligo aircraft communicate with the base at Malin, as the fishing boat was too far out for the first helicopter to stay within communication range.
The Sligo crew picked up the fisherman, who had a serious hand injury, and transferred him to hospital.
Shortly afterwards, communication was lost with the Dublin-based aircraft.
Conditions were described as good when the R116 helicopter - crewed by two pilots, a winch man and a winch operator - lost contact on its final approach to Blacksod refuelling depot.
The Sligo helicopter returned to the scene and began to search for their colleagues.
Declan Geoghegan from the Irish coastguard said the accident had hit the "rescue family" hard.
"We don't know what happened and obviously there will be an air accident investigation into it," he said.
"We'll continue to search for the missing crew members until such time as we have recovered them and the flight recorder."
The Irish President, Michael D Higgins, paid tribute to Cpt Fitzpatrick on "behalf of the people of Ireland".
He said she had lost her life "while providing assistance to others".
"We are all grateful for the courage, resolution and exemplary commitment to the aims of the coastguard that Captain Fitzpatrick and her colleagues have consistently displayed.
"My thoughts are with her family at this difficult moment and also with the families of the missing crew," the president said.
The Irish Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross, also offered his condolences, saying: "As the search for the Dublin-based helicopter R116 is currently under way I would like to express my sincere support and sympathies for all those involved."
The search operation is being led by the Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Centre in Malin Head, County Donegal.
The Irish naval vessel, the LÉ Róisín, arrived in the search zone to assist on Tuesday morning.
It is the second fatal accident involving Irish Coastguard crew members over the past six months.
In September 2016, volunteer Coastguard Caitriona Lucas died while assisting in a rescue operation off the County Clare coast.
The mother of two was one of three crew members on board a rigid inflatable boat which flipped over during a search for a man near cliffs at Kilkee.


In the firmament of Welsh boxing legends, no star has burned so brightly, or for such a tragically short time, as the "Merthyr Matchstick", Johnny Owen.

Thirty years ago, the boy from the Gellideg estate challenged Mexican Lupe Pintor for his WBC Bantamweight belt.
Despite defying the odds to dominate the early stages of the fight, he was knocked out in the 12th round, never to regain consciousness again.
In a typically hard-fought battle for life, he survived for another two months, but on 4 November 1980, Johnny Owen eventually succumbed to his terrible head injuries.
Born to a large Merthyr family, Johnny soon learned to stick up for himself, and started his interest in boxing aged just eight.
He was to remain in the amateur sport until he was 20, an unusually long time by modern standards; winning 106 of his 124 bouts.
He fought for Wales 17 times, and was victorious on 15 occasions.
Yet despite this impressive record, Merthyr boxing writer and professional referee, Winford Jones, says that Johnny's true talent didn't lie in the shorter format of the sport.
"Johnny was a machine. His great skill wasn't his strength - though he never took a backwards step and could punch as hard as anyone of his weight - it was his stamina.
"He could fight for hours, and would wear opponents down by outlasting them.  You could see this talent far more in 12 and 15-round professional fights, than you could in the three rounds allowed in amateur boxing."
His professional career lasted just four years, from 1976 to 1980, but in that time Johnny Owen crammed in 28 fights; winning 25, drawing one and losing two.
Though in a sense it is possible to argue that he never lost fair and square.
His first defeat came against Spain's Juan Francisco Rodriguez, in a fight for the European belt.
In what's now widely regarded by experts to have been a travesty of a home-town decision, the judges awarded Rodriguez a fight which Owen had clearly bossed.
His second, and final defeat came in the fatal clash with Pintor, a  fight in which he at least held his own, and may have won, were it not for the head injuries which he'd sustained.
But at one stage Owen's record read 22-0, winning his first fight against a former Welsh champion, George Sutton.
In his sixth fight he again saw off Sutton to claim the Welsh title.
By bout nine he had the British belt, beating Paddy Maguire, and in November 1978 he became the Commonwealth champion, stopping Italian-Australian Paul Ferreri.
Owen wasted no time in avenging the controversial defeat to Rodriguez in the spring of 1979.
Just a year later he convincingly bettered him in a re-match in Ebbw Vale, setting up his World title chance against Pintor.
Winford Jones was lucky enough to referee some of those early fights.
"In what I think must have been his fourth or fifth fight, I remember he was taking on an Irish lad, and I had to stop it in the fourth round because Johnny was murdering him.
"It makes you think about what happened a few years later on to Johnny.
"But he was fearless, you could tell, even then, that he had the makings of a champion, and sadly the potential to get hurt, because he would never give in, and never take a backward step in a fight."
Yet the man who was so fearless in the ring, was the shyest and most awkward of characters in the glare of the media.
Professional life
Inconceivable in modern boxing, Owen would simply shake hands with his opponent at a weigh-in, avoiding confrontation, and usually conversation of any kind.
He declined requests for all but a tiny handful of interviews.  Perhaps boxing journalist Hugh McIlvanney summed it up best, when he wrote: "The tragedy of Johnny Owen was that he was only articulate in the most deadly of languages."
When Owen was knocked down in the ninth round of the WBC title-challenge in Los Angeles, it was the first time he'd been on the canvas in his professional life.
But he was to go down twice more in the 12th round, never getting up from the second.
The legacy of Johnny Owen lives on in Merthyr.
After he died, a Â£100,000 relief fund raised for his care, went instead, according to his family's wishes, to establish a special-care baby unit at the town's Prince Charles Hospital.
Important safety lessons were learned, when it became evident from his post mortum, that Johnny had been born with a critical weakness of his skull.
Whilst boxing will never be entirely safe, the routine scans introduced following Johnny's death, have undoubtedly saved many other lives.
Rather than bitterness, his family extended a hand of friendship and solidarity in boxing to Lupe Pintor, telegraphing him shortly after Johnny's death, to urge him not to feel guilty, and to continue boxing.
Mutual respect
In 2002, on the 22nd anniversary of Owen's death, his father Dick unveiled a statue of his son in Merthyr, arm-in-arm with Pintor.
Winford Jones said was it was one of the most moving experiences of his life.
"Before the unveiling, I asked Lupe, in my scratchy Spanish, how he was finding the day, and he replied 'Very awkward'.
"But he'd come nevertheless, and the people of Merthyr gave him a tremendous reception.  I think that speaks volumes for Merthyr, and in particular for Lupe and Dick."
"I cried when I saw them hug in front of Johnny's statue.
"That is an image that all boxers should be shown before they set a toe in a ring, as it encapsulated the honour and mutual respect that should always be present in the sport."


Wales fans will be heavily outnumbered in their Euro 2016 quarter-final with Belgium in Lille - with most French fans cheering for the opposition.

Chris Coleman's team will play Belgium at the Stade Pierre Mauroy on Friday.
The stadium is less than 10 miles (16km) from the border, with reports suggesting more than 100,000 Belgians could descend on Lille.
But Wales fans in France believe the "away-game" atmosphere could suit the team.
Karen Crocker, a Wales fan from Cardiff, said: "There's going to be far more Belgian fans than Welsh.
"There's lots of Welsh coming over to go in the fan zone but in the stadium we're going to be outnumbered."
But Mark Watkins, 50, also of Cardiff, said it would "definitely" suit Wales having to play like an away team.
"The way we play, we're going to need to ride our luck a bit, but we've got a chance."
He added: "I think we will have a fair chunk of support [in Lille].
"We'll make plenty of noise. I think it will be a fantastic atmosphere.
"We'll try and be the 12th man in this game."
On Tuesday, Belgium midfielder Kevin de Bruyne said: "I can't wait for this match, which will be like a home match for us because it's right on the Belgian border."
And residents of the French city are also keen to back the Belgians.
Solange Baillon, 27, said: "Here in the north of France, we were really part of the same country in the past so we just cheer for each other, every time."
She said people in the city had found Wales fans "more discreet" than England fans when the two sets of supporters were in town for England's 2-1 win in Lens.
Ms Baillon said the people of Lille had been "very happy" to be part of the tournament.
Fellow Lille resident Vincent Houttelitu, 29, said he believed most of France would cheer on Belgium, saying: "We are very close."
Wales fans have begun arriving in the town and collecting their tickets from the voucher exchange at Grand Palais.
Some 4,500 of the tickets at the 50,000 capacity stadium have been allocated to Wales fans with Follow My Team vouchers.
And while many fans in France for the earlier stages have returned home, the Football Supporters' Federation Cymru is expecting tens of thousands of Wales fans to make it to Lille on day trips.
For those without a ticket, the city's fan zone can hold 30,000 people.
Wales will go into the game with a measure of confidence after beating and drawing with Belgium during their qualifying campaign.
Should they win on Friday, the team would face a potential semi-final against either Portugal or Poland in Lyon on 6 July.


Inside a foil sachet, which looks more at home in a fast-food restaurant, an exact dose of antiretroviral medicine is helping to protect newborn babies against the threat of infection from their HIV-positive mothers.

Rosa's family considers her dead after they found out she lives with HIV.
"They even built a tomb in a cemetery here in Guayaquil (in Ecuador) and take flowers to it every month," she says.
Rosa, however, is happy, because her one-year-old baby is about to be declared free of HIV.
"I don't care if my career as a teacher was ruined by this illness. Today I am happy to see my children healthy and studying."
Rosa is one of many HIV-positive women who gave birth at South America's biggest maternity hospital, the Enrique Sotomayor Hospital in Guayaquil.
Their babies must be given antiretroviral (ARV) medication within 24 hours of birth, otherwise the risk of the infection being passed from mother to child during pregnancy, labour, delivery or during breast-feeding is around 45%.
According to the UN, mother-to-child transmission in the developing world creates 260,000 new infections in children every year.
Thanks to a programme involving the hospital, the Ecuadorian government, the VIHDA foundation in Guayaquil and Duke University in North Carolina, at least 1,000 babies have been born without the infection from HIV-positive mothers.
The programme is enabling newborn babies to take their medicines efficiently - via a pouch that looks just like the small ketchup sachets you get at fast food restaurants.
Only in this case, they are filled with antiretroviral drugs, which protect against HIV.
Rosa's baby was born in one of the hundreds of rooms in the hospital - just like 20% of Ecuadorian children.
She has received free psychological and medical support since she tested positive for HIV three years ago.
Rosa has been able to try different methods of giving the antiretroviral medicine to babies, who have to take them during their first four weeks of life.
"We used to get a small bottle with a dropper, but that spilled and it was difficult to measure the dose", she tells the BBC.
The same thing happened with syringes and spoons, she says.
"But now with the pouch it is easy to put all the liquid in the baby's mouth without spilling or spoiling it."
As well as giving the exact dose, the pouch avoids contact with the air, enabling the medicine inside to be preserved for up to a year without degrading.
The pouch was researched and designed by a group of students, most of them from Ecuador, at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University.
But it only reached the wards of the hospital thanks to Humberto Mata, who was born there 47 years ago.
A car parts seller and former politician of the Guayas State, Mata created the VIDHA foundation with his husband to prevent children from getting HIV.
The Harvard graduate says he is part of the 1980s generation, when thousands of young Americans died of AIDS.
"I buried many of my friends", he says.
After that experience, Mata did some research and found out that babies with HIV were not being treated as well as adults with HIV.
"So we became the bridge between the public sector, which pays for the drugs, and the hospital, where a huge number of cases are gathered in the same building," Mata says.
The Pratt pouch is now also being used in African countries such as Tanzania, Zambia and, soon, Uganda to prevent children being infected by their HIV-positive mothers.
In these countries, many women give birth at home so the pouches have to be handed out at ante-natal appointments and stored at home until the baby is born, rather than provided in hospital at the time of delivery.
Most mothers who know they are HIV positive will be on medication already so the emphasis is on protecting newborns from the virus during birth and the time they are breastfed, particularly the first six to eight weeks.
Dr Robert Malkin, from Duke University, who led the design of the pouch and the research into its use in Ecuador, says some countries are better equipped than others to make use of it.
"In Yemen there are a huge number of mothers who never make an ante-natal visit. And there is no HIV testing, so they don't know if they are HIV positive or not. There is no point in the pouch being used there."
Dr Malkin says there are currently 30,000 medicine pouches in circulation at clinics around the world.
Like many other countries in Latin America, Ecuador has a high rate of young pregnancy. There's a big sexual industry and, according to Mata, a complicated problem of education.
"Could you believe that 40% of Ecuadorians believe HIV is transmitted by mosquitoes?" he asks rhetorically, citing recent polls.
HIV can be transmitted through sexual relations and blood transfusions.
But mothers who live with HIV can also infect their children with a 50% chance in birth, 30% during pregnancy and 20% through breastfeeding.
"At the hospital we have a 0% chance of infection in mothers if we get to them in their early months of pregnancy," says Mercedes Ortiz, chief of the Infections Control Committee at the hospital.
"But the problem is that 53% of HIV-positive mothers get here days or even hours before giving birth, something that complicates our job preventing the infection".
All HIV-positive mothers take antiretroviral during pregnancy, have a caesarean birth and are told not to breastfeed.
But despite these measures, and using technologies like the pouch, there are still a small number of cases of HIV-positive babies at the hospital.
Cuba was recently declared by the World Health organization as the first country with 0% HIV infection between mother and child.
To match this, Ortiz says Ecuador needs an ambitious sexual education programme.
"Because HIV doesn't fly - it's transmitted through chiqui-chiqui (sex)".


Police in north-west China have charged a man with murdering two women with mental disabilities, alleging that he wanted to sell their corpses to be used in so-called "ghost weddings".

It has put a spotlight on the ancient shadowy ritual, still practised in certain parts of China, which aims to provide spouses for people who die unmarried.
According to police in Shaanxi province, the murder case dates back to April, when three men were detained after the body of a woman was found in their vehicle by traffic police.
Their investigation led them to uncover a grisly sequence of events in which the man, named only as Ma, allegedly promised the women he would find them grooms but instead killed them so he could sell their corpses.
Believers in the custom, practised for some 3,000 years, say it ensures the unmarried dead are not alone in the afterlife.
Originally, the weddings were strictly for the dead  - a ritual conducted by the living to wed two single deceased people - but in recent times some have involved one living person being married to a corpse.
In ghost marriages between two dead people, the "bride's" family demands a bride price and there is even a dowry, which includes  jewellery, servants and a mansion - but all in the form of paper tributes.
Factors like age and family background are as essential as they are in more traditional weddings, so families hire feng shui masters to work as a match-maker.
The wedding ceremony will typically involve the funeral plaque of the bride and the groom and a banquet. The most important part is digging up the bones of the bride and putting them inside the groom's grave.
For years there has been evidence of this ritual mutating in certain parts of China. There have been cases where a living person has been "married" to a corpse in a secret ritual, but more alarmingly reports of grave robbery and even murder have also surfaced.
In 2015, it was reported that 14 female corpses were stolen in one village in Shanxi province. Villagers said tomb-raiders stole the bodies to make money.
According to Huang Jingchun, the head of the Chinese department at Shanghai University who carried out a field study on ghost weddings in Shanxi between 2008 and 2010, the price of a corpse or the bones of a young woman has risen sharply.
At the time of his research such remains would fetch around 30,000 to 50,000 yuan (Â£3,400 to Â£5,700; $4,500 to $7.500). He estimates the price these days could be up to 100,000 yuan. The sale of corpses was outlawed in 2006 but that hasn't stopped grave robbers.
A man arrested in Liangcheng County, Inner Mongolia last year told police officers that he murdered a woman so that he could make money by selling her body to a family looking for a ghost bride.
The reasons vary from place to place. In some districts of China, such as Shanxi where the latest murders are alleged, there are large numbers of young, unmarried men working in coal mining, where fatalities are high.
The ghost wedding serves as a form of emotional compensation for bereaved relatives, as finding a dead bride is something they can do for a son who died young while working to support the family.
But sex ratios are also significant. The 2014 census results show that about 115.9 boys were born for every 100 girls.
But Dr Huang believes there are also more fundamental cultural reasons.
Many Chinese people believe misfortune will be brought upon them if the dead's wishes have not been fulfilled. Hosting a ghost wedding is a means to pacify the dead.
"The basic ideology behind ghost weddings is that the deceased continue their lives in the afterlife," Dr Huang said. "So if someone didn't get married when they lived, they still need to be wedded after their death."
Most cases are found in northern and central China, areas such as Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan provinces. But Szeto Fat-ching, a feng shui master in Hong Kong, also confirms the ancient form of the custom still exists among Chinese communities in South East Asia.
In Taiwan, if an unmarried woman passes away, her family may place red packets with cash, paper money, a lock of hair, a fingernail out in the open and wait for a man to pick them up.  The first man to pick up the packets is chosen as the groom and it is believed to be bad luck if he refuses to marry the ghost bride.
The wedding rituals are similar, but unlike in mainland China, no bones are dug up. The groom is often allowed to marry a living woman later, but his dead wife should be revered as the primary wife.
Last year a video of a ghost wedding from Taichung in Taiwan, where a man apparently "married" his deceased girlfriend in an elaborate ceremony, went viral.
At the core of these rituals is the universal human dilemma of how to deal with bereavement.
"Such ghost weddings are very touching, showing the perseverance of love," Mr Szeto told the BBC.


A man was limp "like a teddy bear" after he was restrained by bouncers on the ground outside an Aberdeen bar, a murder trial has heard.

Kiel Hauley, 33, Jonas Marcius, 23, and Adrian Morley, 33, deny assaulting and murdering Craig Grant, of Inverurie, outside the Galleria shopping centre in August last year.
Witness Shaun Wheeldon said he saw Mr Grant being held on the pavement.
He said he was "shocked" to see Mr Grant's face was light grey.
Mr Wheeldon told the High Court in Aberdeen he could see two men restraining Mr Grant on the ground outside Tonik and stopped to speak to a bouncer.
He said:  "He just said he had been in the club and he was highly drunk."
Mr Wheeldon said there was "quite a commotion" outside the bar with a lot of people standing outside.
Advocate depute James Keegan QC asked: "How did you react when you saw his face?"
He replied: "I was shocked at the colour of him. He was light grey."
Mr Keegan asked: "When you saw the colour of him what did you think?"
He replied: "That he was in a bad way."
He said Mr Grant's friends were trying to intervene when police arrived at the scene because he had shown no response on the ground.
He told the court police took over and tried to sit him up.
He said: "They sat him up like a teddy bear. It wasn't a recovery position."
Mr Keegan asked: "When you say a teddy bear what do you mean by that?"
He replied: "Because he was limp."
The trial continues.


Energy giant Ineos has struck a deal to acquire the Forties Pipeline System in the North Sea from BP for US$250m (£199m).

The pipeline transports about 450,000 barrels of oil per day on average - about 40% of UK production.
It is one of the oldest in the sector, having started operating in the Forties field in 1975.
The 235-mile line links 85 North Sea oil and gas fields to the UK mainland, and to the Ineos site in Grangemouth.
Sites at Aberdeen, the Kinneil terminal and gas processing plant, the Dalmeny terminal and the Forties Unity Platform will all transfer to Ineos when the deal is completed.
BP originally operated the Forties oil and gas field, the pipeline and the refinery.
It sold its interests in the oil field to Apache in 2003 and sold the Grangemouth refinery and chemical plants to Ineos in 2005.
Forties Pipeline System employs about 300 staff at Kinneil, Falkirk, Dalmeny, Aberdeen and offshore.
Ineos chairman and founder Jim Ratcliffe said: "The North Sea continues to present new opportunities for Ineos.
"The Forties Pipeline System is a UK strategic asset and was originally designed to work together to feed the Grangemouth refinery and petrochemical facilities.
"We have a strong track record of acquiring non-core assets and improving their efficiency and reliability, securing long-term employment and investment."
Deals done in the offshore oil industry are, generally, a good sign.
They signal that there are still buyers who think they can get more value than existing owners out of these maturing assets, and still have enough left over to pay for decommissioning.
That releases capital for the existing owner to invest upstream.
Following its Gulf of Mexico explosion and spill, BP hastened the pace of its shift from refining and mid-stream operations such as pipelines operations.
The oil major wants to deploy its capital resources where it thinks it can get most return by specialising in what it does best - big scale, technically-demanding new fields, such as those west of Shetland.
Ineos thinks it can extract more economic value out of older assets being put on the market by the majors.
Read more from Douglas.
Under the terms of the deal, Ineos will pay BP US$125m (£99.5m) on completion and an earn-out arrangement over seven years that totals up to a further US$125m.
BP chief executive Bob Dudley said: "While the Forties pipeline had great significance in BP's history, our business here is now centred around our major offshore interests west of Shetland and in the Central North Sea."
The Forties Pipeline System primarily comprises a 105-mile (169km) 36in pipeline from the unmanned offshore Forties Unity platform to the onshore terminal at Cruden Bay in Aberdeenshire.
From there, a 36in onshore pipeline transports the oil 130 miles (209km) south to the Kinneil facilities, adjacent to the Ineos-owned Grangemouth refinery and chemical plant on the Forth.
This is where it is processed before either being sent for export via the Dalmeny terminal or on to the refinery at Grangemouth.
20% of the oil that passes down the pipeline feeds the Ineos refinery to provide 80% of Scotland's fuel.
The Unite union, which was involved in two major disputes with Ineos in 2008 and 2013, called for the Scottish and Westminster parliaments to carry out urgent inquiries into the sale.
Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty said: "It's not so long ago that both Grangemouth and the Forties pipeline were owned by all of us, and operated by a nationalised British Petroleum with a responsibility to look at what was good for the country as a whole, not just what was good for a small group of wealthy individuals.
"Both these parts of vital national infrastructure - which are central to the success of the Scottish and wider UK economy are now essentially in the hands of one man.
"Unite firmly believes that this sale is bad for Scotland and the UK."


A group of experts set up to advise the Scottish government in the aftermath of the Brexit vote has met for the first time in Edinburgh.

The Standing Council on Europe is made up of 18 legal, economic and diplomatic specialists.
It was established by Nicola Sturgeon after the UK opted to leave the EU despite 62% of Scots voting to remain.
Its chairman Professor Anton Muscatelli said it would look at how best to secure Scotland's place in the EU.
When the first minister announced she was setting up the standing council last month she said it would consider the impact of proposed changes to the UK's relationship with the EU on Scottish interests.
It will also advise ministers on the best way to secure Scottish interests and objectives during negotiations.
Ahead of the first meeting Prof Muscatelli, who is Glasgow University's principal and vice chancellor, told BBC Scotland: "As you can imagine there will be a range of issues we will want to discuss.
"They range from the impact of Brexit on the Scottish economy and society, but it's also how best we can secure Scotland's place in the EU given the decision on Brexit.
"Also, in the run up to any Article 50 invocation, but also after, to offer the best advice to government, also to be able to influence the outcome in a way that suits Scotland best."
The group's chairman said it would have to consider "a range of scenarios" as a result of the EU referendum.
He added: "I think our purpose is to be as wide ranging as possible, to provide very high level advice.
"We have a fantastic group of experts around the table - financial, legal, diplomatic, constitutional - so that we can actually provide best advice in a variety of different spheres."
Ms Sturgeon has said her priority following the Brexit vote is to "protect Scotland's place in Europe".
As Theresa May officially took up her new role on Thursday, the Scottish first minister stressed that her message to the new PM was to respect the "differing views of Scotland" on EU membership.
In her first address outside 10 Downing Street, Mrs May said the word "unionist" was very important to her.
She added: "It means we believe in the union, the precious, precious bond between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."


Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has defended the Stop the War Coalition, following calls for him not to attend a fundraiser for the group this Friday.

It comes after Labour MP Tristram Hunt called on Mr Corbyn to "step back" from the anti-war group, saying it is a "disreputable organisation".
Mr Corbyn said people who oppose war "shouldn't be condemned or denigrated".
Asked by the BBC if he would still be going to the event, he said: "I'll attend all the things on my diary."
Mr Corbyn's defence of the Stop the War Coalition, of which he was chairman until recently, came at an event in Paris on Monday evening.
He said the organisation had "consistently said we need foreign policy that brings about political solutions to desperately complicated problems, which is why last week I voted against the deployment of British forces into Syria".
"Not because I'm any sympathiser for Isil or any of the other groups in area", he said, "but because I want to see a speeded-up political process through the Vienna conference".
Mr Corbyn added: "People in the country that oppose wars and want to see a peaceful future shouldn't be condemned or denigrated.
"They should be recognised as people who are giving up a large proportion of their lives in a totally peaceful and democratic way to bring about a different form of foreign policy in our country.
"That's surely a good thing in an open and participative liberal democracy?"
Stop the War Coalition has staged a number of protests in the constituencies of Labour MPs who backed action in Syria, including shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn.
On Sunday, Tristram Hunt, Labour's former shadow education secretary who voted for air strikes, called on Mr Corbyn to distance himself from anti-war group, which is one of the leading opponents of military action in Syria.
He accused them of making a series of "ugly comments" since the vote on air strikes and said they had been "very irresponsible with their language and activities".
"I think they're a really disreputable organisation and I would hope Jeremy would step back and not go to their fundraiser," he said.
Stop the War's convenor Lindsey German rejected Mr Hunt's attacks as "unfounded and unjustified". Defending the group's action, she said it was entitled to engage in peaceful protests and would continue to do so.


Millions of people have been queuing up outside banks all across India, six days after the  government said that 500 ($7.6) and 1,000 rupee notes were no longer valid.

It's an effort to crack down on so-called black money and corruption, but many machines are not working or have run out of cash, leading to long queues and fights.
This is what a cash crisis has looked like.


A haul of what is believed to be cocaine with a street value of £120,000 has been uncovered by engineers dismantling a scrapped jumbo jet.

Three parcels of the suspected drug were found hidden behind a panel of a toilet on a decommissioned plane by Air Salvage International (ASI).
The 2Kg (4.4lb) packages were discovered at Cotswold Airport in Kemble, Gloucestershire, on 18 October.
Wiltshire Police said they were waiting the results of forensic analysis.
A police spokesman said the hidden packages, each measuring 20 cm by 13 cm (8 in by 5 in) were found "well wrapped in plastic and black gaffer tape".
"We searched the rest of the plane and put a drugs dog through but actually the dog didn't seem overly interested in the packages," he said.
"But they were well wrapped and with the test we did on the powder at the station - we decided to send it for forensic analysis.
"We're waiting for the results before we start trying to trace where the plane came from."
Air Salvage International (ASI) has declined to comment.


Chinese superstar Ding Junhui held off a gutsy Martin Gould fightback to win a tense match 10-8 and progress to the second round of the World Championship.

Media playback is not supported on this device
Ding, who had to qualify after dropping out of the world's top 16, dominated early on but only led 5-4 after a thrilling opening session.
Gould scored a magnificent ton to end the session and then went 8-6 up.
But Ding, who scored three centuries and seven further breaks of 50 or more, rattled off four frames to win.
"After he fought back I had some pressure on me," said 11-time ranking event winner Ding. "But at 8-6 down I just thought, 'go for everything'".
A Ding victory looked unlikely when Gould needed snookers in the 14th frame.
Media playback is not supported on this device
But despite losing from a strong position, Ding refused to crumble and he took full advantage of a couple of missed opportunities and some sloppy safety play to win through.
Ding will now face either Judd Trump or fellow countryman Liang Wenbo in the last 16.
World number five Trump - the second highest seed left in the tournament - trails UK Championship finalist Liang 6-3 after their afternoon session.
Rising star Kyren Wilson leads tenth seed Joe Perry after fighting back from 4-2 down with three consecutive breaks of 50-plus, including a score of 89 where he was on course for a 147.
Elsewhere, world number seven Mark Allen and 2013 runner-up Barry Hawkins earlier both booked their place in the last 16 in contrasting style.
Northern Irishman Allen led debutant Mitchell Mann 6-3 overnight and won four frames without reply, while Hawkins described much of his performance as "awful" despite seeing off China's Zhang Anda 10-5.
World number 12 Hawkins set up a second-round date with Ronnie O'Sullivan thanks to his unconvincing win over Chinese qualifier Anda.
He rounded off the match with a tournament-high break of 141, but was far from happy with his efforts.
"I was awful at times - I was so lucky to be 6-3 up," he said. "I could easily have been 6-3 down with the way I was playing.
"I've got to play quite special in the next round. If I can put Ronnie under a little bit of pressure, hopefully I can give him a game. If not, he will bash me up with a session to spare."


Francis Maude and Nick Clegg have agreed to demonstrate the government's commitment to equality by allowing the rainbow flag to fly from the Cabinet Office during Pride week.

They argue that there should be greater public acceptance of same-sex relationships.
Some 133 Tory MPs voted against plans to allow same sex marriage earlier.
Fifteen Labour MPs, four Lib Dems, eight Democratic Unionist and an independent were also against the move.
The rainbow flag was designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978 as a symbol of gay and lesbian community pride.
It first flew from government buildings during Pride 2012.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: "Flying the rainbow flag is a great symbol of pride - and what better place than Whitehall, the centre of government, to demonstrate that.
"I was proud to raise the flag for the first time last year, and hope to see more departments following suit this year."
Pride week, which will run from the 23-30 June, will this year have a theme of "love (and marriage)", in recognition of the equal marriage law which the government is pushing through Parliament.
Several Conservative MPs spoke out against the equal marriage law, but it passed the Commons with the help of Labour and Lib Dem votes.
Francis Maude has previously written that his brother, who was gay and died from AIDS in 1993, would have experienced a much better life if "there been greater acceptance of publicly acknowledged stable same-sex relationships".
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: "We are proud to fly the flag and look forward to a time when same sex couples can get married."