The parents of a former Thai princess have been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison after pleading guilty to defaming the monarchy.

The parents of Srirasmi Suwadee, who was recently divorced from Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, admitted misusing their royal connections 12 years ago.
Nine of Ms Srirasmi's relatives have been arrested since last year.
Thailand's royal family is protected by some of the strictest lese majeste laws in the world.
On Wednesday, a court sentenced Apiruj Suwadee, 72, and his wife Wanthanee, 66, for insulting the royal family, lodging a malicious claim and asking authorities to file false charges against their neighbour in 2003.
Ms Srirasmi gave up all her royal titles last December.
Various members of her family, including her sister and two brothers, have now been convicted and jailed for lese majeste.
The army staged a coup last year, and has since ramped up the use of the charge.
The law prohibits any negative comments about the king, queen, heir or regent. It carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Media organisations cannot report the full details of any case without risking prosecution under the law.
Critics say the law restricts free speech and is used as a tool to silence political opposition.


Two British servicemen, killed in a "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan, could still be alive if an inquiry into the Javelin weapons system had been set up, say their families.

They have demanded a broader inquiry into the conflict itself.
A coroner in Salisbury recorded a narrative verdict into the deaths of Capt Tom Sawyer and Cpl Danny Winter.
The inquest found human error and a series of "interconnected events" caused their deaths in Helmand in 2009.
Tom Sawyer, 26, from Hertfordshire, and Cpl Danny Winter, 28, of Stockport died when they were hit by a missile fired by two members of the Gurkha regiment.
A Danish officer gave the order to fire believing the men were under threat from Taliban insurgents.
Capt Sawyer, of the Royal Artillery was attached to Zulu Company, 45 Commando Royal Marines and Cpl Winter was with the mortar troop of Zulu Company, 45 Commando Royal Marines.
Speaking after the inquest, the dead men's families called for changes in the way the military use shoulder launched missiles and for a wider government inquiry into the Afghan conflict.
"There have been six similar incidents involving the Javelin weapons system which killed Danny and Tom, resulting in five deaths and one near miss."
"We strongly believe that if an inquiry had been set up after the first of these incidents in September 2007 and communication within the army had been better, there is a good chance that Tom and Danny would not have been killed."
The families said they believed that some of the written witness statements provided by the Danish personnel were inaccurate and misleading.
"We are disappointed that the Danish personnel involved decided to stay in Denmark and not answer questions about their role so as to allow the inquest to build up a true and full account of what happened."
The Danish soldiers had declined to attend the inquest and their evidence was given by means of written statements.
They insisted that the British troops had "repeatedly" requested a Javelin be fired as they were "convinced they were soon to be attacked".
Corporal Danny Winter's parents called on political leaders to commit now to setting up the inquiry after May's General Election.
"Danny's family call now for the next government to set up a full inquiry into the Afghan War immediately after the May General Election with the bereaved and injured placed at the heart of it."
Coroner David Ridley, recorded a narrative conclusion after rejecting the submission from the servicemen's families that he should consider unlawful killing.
He said: "The Javelin was fired with tragic and fatal consequences."
"The system failed as such. There was an inadequate assessment of Javelin's role from the perspective of its use in an anti-personnel role," the coroner said.
Mr Ridley said bad weather was a contributory factor in the incident and "ineffective communications was a contributory factor" in the deaths of the two men.
"There were inconsistencies between the British and Danish witnesses and between Danes and other Danes."
"This was, in the main, a series of interconnected events with fatal consequences. Human error was also involved.
"I am going to submit a report [to the Ministry of Defence] over the concerns I have with radios.
"It is hard to understand how, in the 21st Century, there's still a reliance on signallers and hand written records and the absence of logs."
Mr Ridley struggled to hold back tears as he read out eulogies from the men's units.
"Capt Tom Sawyer died a hero doing the job he loved. He was an uncompromising professional.
"Cpl Danny Winter was an exceptional Royal Marine who was loyal and warm hearted."


Germany's economy grew strongly in the first three months of this year, driven by investment and consumption, official figures show.

First-quarter GDP growth was 0.6%, faster than the October-to December 2016 figure of 0.4%.
Household and state spending were strong, while firms invested money in construction and equipment, said German statistics authority Destatis.
Foreign trade also helped, as exports increased faster than imports.
Germany has the largest economy in the eurozone and its performance is in marked contrast to that of other big countries, such as Italy and France.
However, its relative strength has prompted concern in Brussels.
In February, the European Commission said Germany's current account surplus - which measures the balance of goods, services and investments into and out of the country - was too big.
It said that cutting that surplus would help the whole of the eurozone.


UK inflation held steady last month, as rising prices for food and clothing were offset by lower air fares.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said inflation as measured by the Consumer Prices Index remained at 2.3%.
The main downward effect on inflation last month came from air fares, which was due to the timing of Easter.
However, the ONS data showed food prices in March were 1.2% higher than last year, the biggest annual rise in three years.
Inflation has been accelerating in recent months, partly as a result of the fall in the pound after the Brexit vote, which has raised import prices.
Although the inflation rate remained unchanged from February, it remains above the Bank of England's target of 2% and is the highest since September 2013.
"Inflation may be steady, but it's still currently outpacing wages and interest rates, which spells trouble for households and cash savers," said Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
"The inflationary squeeze that's coming is going to mean consumers have to spend more at the check-outs and petrol pumps, and that reduces their capacity to fund discretionary spending."
Earlier on Tuesday, a survey by the British Retail Consortium and KPMG suggested consumers were reining back spending in the face of rising food prices.
Total spending on non-food items fell by 0.8% in the January-to-March period, the survey found, which was the weakest three-month performance for nearly six years.
The ONS figures showed that the cost of air fares fell by nearly 4% in March from the month before. However, last year, when Easter Sunday fell on 27 March, air fares had jumped by more than 20% amid higher demand.
With Easter Sunday falling on 16 April this year, economists are expecting inflation to pick up this month.
As well as air fares, fuel also had a downward impact on inflation in March, as the prices paid by motorists at the pump fell slightly.
The biggest upward impact on inflation came from food and non-alcoholic drinks, where prices rose by 0.4% in March from the month before, compared with a 0.6% fall a year earlier.
The ONS's new preferred inflation measure of CPIH, which contains a measure of housing costs, also remained unchanged at 2.3% in March.
The Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation fell to 3.1% last month, from 3.2% in February.
ONS deputy national statistician Jonathan Athow said: "Food, drink and clothing prices all rose in March.
"However, this is offset by air fares, which fell slightly but last year rose substantially thanks to the timing of Easter.
"The costs of raw materials and the price of manufactured goods leaving factories were both little changed, as falling fuel prices helped stem further rises."
Data from the ONS showed the annual rate of producer price inflation fell back slightly in March.
The prices of goods leaving the factory gate were up 3.6% from a year earlier, compared with a rate of 3.7% in February.
The prices paid by companies for materials and energy rose at an annual pace of 17.9%, down from February's rate of 19.4%.
"Today's producer prices release suggests that the impact of the weaker pound on manufacturers' input costs may have peaked," said Martin Beck, senior economic adviser to the EY Item Club.
"However, there is still some way to go until these pressures have fully passed along the supply chain to consumers, so the headline measures of inflation are likely to climb further over the coming months.
"It is looking increasingly likely that the CPI measure will breach the 3% barrier during the summer."


A Dungannon schoolgirl suffered severe hypothermia and lost consciousness during a Duke of Edinburgh expedition in the Mourne mountains in County Down.

Several members of her group suffered from mild hypothermia after conditions deteriorated near Slieve Beg on Monday.
The team was made up of 11 students from two Dungannon schools, the Royal and St Patrick's Academy.
The girl who became ill on the mountain was from the Royal School.
Members of her group contacted the emergency services and the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team was called to the scene at about 19:15 BST.
Martin McMullan from the rescue service said all 11 group members, aged 16 and 17, were quickly found and treated.
He said they were "all doing well" and the girl who suffered severe hypothermia has now returned home.
The rescue team doctor and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service were involved in the rescue.
Mr McMullan said the teenagers' quick thinking and help for each other prevented a more serious situation.
"When you're in the mountains, the conditions are a part of it [and] you're working a little bit harder, you're carrying a rucksack on your back," he said.
"There are a lot of different factors that do take their toll on individuals.
"The one thing about these guys last night is they did a phenomenal job looking after each other.
"If they hadn't behaved in the way they did in terms of getting their entire group into shelter and calling for help, the situation could have been much, much worse."
Twenty-three rescuers took part in the operation that ended at 01:10 BST.
"It was a reasonably inaccessible location so we did have a big response last night," Mr McMullan said.
"When you get to the stage where you may have to stretcher someone out of the mountain, that requires 12 people in itself."
Dr David Burnett, principal of Royal School Dungannon, said the young people had done a "brilliant job" when they realised one of the party was in distress.
"Seven of the group were able to walk down the mountain with a guide," he said.
"The others stayed behind with the girl who had fallen ill."
"They weren't casualties but stayed behind with her in the tent until help arrived. The pupil who took ill was stretchered down, and then checked by paramedics.
"She did not need hospital treatment, but was reunited with her mother who subsequently took her home."
"Having spoken to her family this morning, she is doing well and making a good recovery at home."
Dr Burnett also said that the other ten pupils in the group had returned to the Mournes on Tuesday morning to complete their expedition, which is due to finish later.
Two other joint groups from the schools also spent the night in the Mournes and were unaware of the incident involving their fellow pupils.


Mahela Jayawardene's unbeaten century led Somerset to a crushing nine-wicket victory over Worcestershire to reach the semi-finals of the One-Day Cup.

The visitors, with England all-rounder Moeen Ali back as opener at Taunton, looked well placed at 155-3.
But once Moeen went for 81, followed by Worcestershire skipper Daryl Mitchell (64), they collapsed to 210 all out.
Openers Jayawardene (117 not out) and captain Jim Allenby (81) then put on 188 as Somerset raced to 214-1.
Allenby's side will now face Warwickshire at Edgbaston in the last four, after they beat Essex by 70 runs in Wednesday's other quarter-final.
While Somerset made the chase look simple, with Jayawardene's superb, chanceless innings coming off 111 balls, it was the wicket of Moeen which turned the match in the hosts' favour.
The 29-year-old, who scored 316 runs at an average of 63.20 in the four-match Test series against Pakistan, looked at his fluent best once again, striking 10 fours and a six in his 76-ball knock.
However, just as he seemed to be taking Worcestershire to a sizeable score he miscued Peter Trego into the leg side in the 30th over and was caught on the mid-wicket boundary by Max Waller.
Seamer Trego (3-33) followed it up with the wicket of Mitchell and, by the time last man Jack Shantry was pinned lbw by Roelof van der Merwe, Worcestershire had lost their last seven wickets for 55.
Former Sri Lanka captain Jayawardene demonstrated all of his international class in bringing up his 21st List A limited-overs hundred, mixing wristy flicks to the boundary with more aggressive shots - one of his two sixes landing on the roof of the Sir Ian Botham Stand.
Allenby's dismissal, when he skied Moeen to Tom Fell, was only a minor blip as the hosts got home with 13.1 overs to spare.


Crawley Town say they are close to agreeing a takeover with an overseas-based business consortium and hope to finalise the deal in early February.

The League Two club have been in talks with the group - which BBC Sussex reports is European - since October.
A club statement said: "The board and Paul Hayward, our benefactor, have been looking for fresh investment since 2013 to help take the club further forward."
The West Sussex club were first put up for sale in March 2013.
The Reds were then in League One and were looking to gain the "further substantial funding" needed to win promotion to the Championship.
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But last season Crawley were relegated to League Two, with Mark Yates then appointed as their new manager.
The statement continued: "Subject to the ratification of legal agreements and Football League approval being granted, the club hope to be finalise the takeover early next month.
"The board firmly believe that the consortium have the ability to build on our achievements to date."
The continued talks mean no new signings are likely to be made before Monday's transfer deadline.
Speaking after Saturday's 1-0 home defeat by Mansfield Town, Yates added: "The players can't do anything about it, but we must find out what is going on as quickly as we can.
"The sooner that gets cleaned up the better. The group needs some fresh faces."
BBC Sussex sports editor Tim Durrans
"The club is desperate for new investment after a glorious rise under the current owners took them from non-league status to the third tier of English football.
"Attendances never quite sustained the budget required to compete at that level, and last summer they were relegated back to League Two.
"It's not clear what any of this means for the likes of chief executive Michael Dunford, or indeed manager Mark Yates."


Double Olympic gold medallist Victoria Pendleton believes Britain's Jess Varnish has the potential to become a better sprinter than she was.

Varnish missed out on the podium in the women's sprint at the Track World Championships in France on Friday.
But when asked if the 24-year-old could be as successful as she was, Pendleton replied: "I think more so.
"I honestly believe that having trained with Jess. She's already achieved more than I did before I was 24."
Varnish beat Olympic champion Anna Meares of Australia but missed out on a place in Saturday's semi-final after losing to another Australian, the Commonwealth champion Stephanie Morton.
Pendleton, who won sprint gold at the Beijing and London Olympics, believes Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Varnish has all the attributes required to become a world champion.
"She's got that killer instinct and she's got more than I had going on physically and mentally in terms of what it takes to be a champion," said Pendleton.
"It's a tough event in my opinion - out of all the events it's the hardest. Some people can't hack it but Jess - one more year before we give her a kick up the bum - I think she'll do it."
Varnish, who finished eighth overall after coming fourth in the race-off, said: "You want to be on the podium, but that's the best I've finished all year.
"To beat the Olympic champion [Meares], I've never beaten her before, so I feel like I'm going in the right direction."
Britain's Joanna Rowsell missed out on a bronze medal in the women's individual pursuit after losing to Australia's Amy Cure.
The defending champion, 26, was part of the women's team pursuit squad which came second to Australia on Thursday, a race which took its toll on the Olympic gold medallist.
Rowsell said: "You're never really going to be happy with fourth, but you can see that across the board everyone has stepped up.
Australia's Rebecca Wiasak took the gold medal from Jennifer Valente of the United States with a dominant display.
Katie Archibald, of Scotland, finished fifth.
Elsewhere, local hero Francois Pervis sprinted to gold in the 1km time trial in his home town of St-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
Pervis, 30, who lives a mile from the track, won his second gold medal of the week after success in the keirin.
He beat Germany's Joachim Eilers and Matthew Archibald of New Zealand in 1min 0.207 seconds.
Russian Artur Ershow of Russia won the men's points race ahead of Eloy Teruel Rovira of Spain with Britain's Mark Christian 17th.
Jon Dibben was 11th after three of six events in the men's omnium.


Former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith has dismissed Lord Heseltine as a "voice from the past" after the Tory grandee's attack on Boris Johnson.

Mr Duncan Smith, who like Mr Johnson is campaigning to leave the EU, criticised "name-calling", calling it "childish".
It comes after Lord Heseltine said Mr Johnson's "judgement is going" after his comments about Hitler and the EU.
The ex-deputy PM also said he would be "very surprised" if Mr Johnson went on to become prime minister.
The UK's EU referendum takes place on June 23. The government is officially campaigning for a vote to remain in, but several high profile Conservatives are backing the Leave campaign, with Mr Johnson one of its figureheads.
On Sunday Mr Johnson, the former London mayor, compared the EU's aims in creating a "single authority" in Europe with Napoleon's and Hitler's.
Remain campaigners have rounded on him, and the European Council president said his comments were "absurd".
But Mr Johnson has stood by his remarks and on Wednesday described the criticism he has received as "synthetic outrage".
Lord Heseltine's intervention on Tuesday, in which he said the "preposterous, obscene" remarks had "crossed the bounds of domestic debate", provoked a strong reaction from Mr Duncan Smith, who quit the government in March over cuts to disability benefits.
"It's always good to hear voices from the past. I would be grateful if they remained in the past," he told the BBC.
"My simple comment is: cut the name calling because this is childish and the public is fed up with it.
"All of you in the past who were once responsible for these actions, the best you can do is say let's engage with the debate and stop calling people names, because I think that demeans us and I don't think politicians should do that."
Another Leave campaigner, Tory backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg, described Lord Heseltine -  a longtime EU enthusiast whose challenge helped trigger Margaret Thatcher's departure from Downing Street - as "a frightful old humbug who divided the Conservative Party more than anybody else in our modern history".
Mr Duncan Smith also told the BBC key elements of the government's agenda  had been "parked or dropped" in this Queen's Speech, because David Cameron was keen to avoid any debate or argument which touched on Europe.


Scientists believe sleep manipulation could help to tackle anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Psychologists at Cardiff University are working on a number of projects looking at the health benefits of "sleep engineering".
The team is considering ways of "decoupling" emotions from troubling memories during rest.
Sleep expert Prof Penny Lewis said the research area was new and "really exciting".
Post-traumatic stress disorder is believed to affect one-in-three people who suffer a traumatic event, with thousands of sufferers in the UK, including many armed forces veterans.
Prof Lewis, who is based as the university's CUBRIC neuroscience institute, believes the brain's processing of emotions during sleep could hold one of the keys to treating the debilitating disorder.
"Sometimes things happen to you in your life that you don't want to remember in graphic detail, like if you've been mugged or had an accident for instance," she said.
"And it's important over time those memories become less upsetting. So, what you want probably is to remember what happened but not to get upset every time you remember it."
Sleep scientists believe these kinds of anxiety could be treated by triggering the troubling memories while a person slumbers.
This triggering of memory reactivation can be done by presenting stimuli that are linked to the target memories during sleep.
Prof Lewis said: "So if we trigger emotional memories to reactivate during REM sleep, then we find that [people] rate the upsetting memories as much-less upsetting than they did before sleeping.
"It's early days on this but we're pretty excited about it," said Prof Lewis.
The university is currently conducting experiments using sleep labs at CUBRIC.


Papers shine a spotlight on China-Africa ties as Premier Li Keqiang visits the continent.

Mr Li reached Ethiopia on Sunday in the first leg of his week-long tour. He will also visit Nigeria, Angola and Kenya.
The premier promised Ethiopia that China would help the country to construct more power plants and roads. Both countries also signed agreements in other sectors such as agriculture and industrialisation, reports say.
Papers appear to be trying hard to reject what they call the "West's propaganda" that "China is colonising Africa".
"China has a tradition of being kind to Africa," an article in the Beijing Times comments.
"China will not colonise Africa like Western countries did before and is not interested in the so-called neo-colonialism. China only wants to provide aid to Africa and help in its development. We take from Africa, but we don't forget to give backâ€¦ We urge other Western nations to treat Africa well," it adds.
However, the Global Times' Chinese edition points out that some Chinese businessmen in Africa are "not too concerned with their country's image".
"China needs to build a positive image in local communities of different African countries, and all Chinese nationals working in the continent need to play a part in it," it urges.
The paper adds that "more official visits of different levels are needed. We should also support more state-owned enterprises and companies with good reputations to go there."
Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping urged the country's youth to "improve their moral character" in his lecture to mark China's Youth Day on Sunday.
The president interacted with students at Peking University in Beijing after giving his lecture.
"Don't dream of getting rich if you want to be a government official," he said.
Media outlets seem to be backing Mr Xi's call. "By saying this, Mr Xi is telling all the young people in the country that they have to cultivate sound values and maintain a right attitude," the Changjiang Net, a news portal of the Hubei provincial government, says.
The website adds that those planning to become government officials must listen to the president.
"This is also a warning to present officials as well to those who wish to become leaders of the party in the future. The aspirants are wrong if they think that they can become rich by being in the government. In other words, one should not think that being rich is the ultimate reason to become a government official," it says.
And finally, 11 Uighur students have written an open letter condemning the bomb attack at Urumqi's south railway station on Wednesday. China says Uighur separatists were behind the attack.
The authorities believe two of the attackers, who were among the dead, had come under the influence of "extremist religious thought and participated in extremist religious activities".
The letter, entitled "We will no longer remain silent", was posted online on 1 May and has been widely shared on websites.
"We urge our compatriots to denounce religious extremismâ€¦ We urge our countrymen in China and overseas to see clearly what tragedies such hostility has causedâ€¦," the students appealed in the letter.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.


Highland Council has asked Police Scotland to review its decision to arm officers in the Highlands.

A small number of specially-trained officers in the area have been routinely carrying side-arms since before April last year.
Police in the former Strathclyde and Tayside forces also allowed specialist officers to routinely carry guns before the launch of the new single force.
Police Scotland has adopted the approach across the country.
Fifty nine Highland councillors support a motion by the local authority's depute leader, David Alston, calling for the policy to be reviewed.
Earlier this month, the officer in charge of policing in the Highlands and Islands said he could have done more to make the public aware of changes to firearms policy.
Ch Supt Julian Innes said he "probably had not explained" the police tactic as well as could have.
He told BBC Radio Scotland officers had been carrying Tasers and holstered handguns for 13 months before it had become an issue.
A political row over specially-trained officers routinely carrying side-arms started in May when Independent MSP John Finnie raised concerns about the change in policy.
He said previously firearms officers had to retrieve their weapons from locked safes in armed response vehicles with permission from a senior officer.
Mr Finnie said following the change in policy there had been occasions when firearms officers had supported unarmed police on routine duties, such as dispersing late night crowds from outside pubs and clubs.


Train companies in the South East paid out nearly £4m in compensation to commuters last year because of delays, figures obtained by the BBC have shown.

Southern paid  £1,623,000, Southeastern paid £1,351,000, and First Capital Connect, which later became Govia Thameslink, paid £923,000 for the financial year 2014-15.
The three operators said they operated a compensation scheme for customers.
Passenger groups said the compensation process still had to be made simpler.
After the Department for Transport released the figures, rail minister Claire Perry said: "I have been clear with the rail industry that it must make it easier for people to claim, and I am pleased to see these measures are working."
David Sidebottom, from Transport Focus, which represents passengers, said research two years ago had shown people were not aware they could claim compensation, and many "couldn't be bothered with the hassle".
He said his organisation had been working with the regulator and rail operators to tell customers they were entitled to claim.
And Transport Focus wants to see compensation to be paid automatically using technology, such as cards similar to Oyster.
Southern said compensation payouts had increased because more people were becoming aware they could claim, and work would continue on raising awareness of the system.
Southeastern said it operated a nationally-agreed compensation scheme that was advertised on posters, social media and its website.
Govia Thameslink said punctuality was improving and it understood delays were frustrating, and in the future smartcards would provide automatic alerts to passengers when they are entitled to claim.


Patrick Reed won his first tournament of the season at The Barclays to seal his spot on the USA Ryder Cup team.

Overnight leader Rickie Fowler missed out on an automatic Ryder Cup place after carding a three-over round of 74 on Sunday to finish joint seventh.
Fowler needed to finish third and will now hope to be a wildcard pick on Davis Love's team.
Reed, on the losing team at Gleneagles in 2014, said: "I want sweet revenge, just like our whole team does."
Europe have won the competition three times in a row, and eight times in the last 10.
Reed, 26, beat fellow American Sean O'Hair and Argentina's Emiliano Grillo by a shot in New York to go top of the PGA points standings.
Scotland's Martin Laird ended two under par, while England's Olympic champion Justin Rose and Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy finished on level par.
Reed, who represented the USA at the Presidents Cup in South Korea and at the Olympic Games in Brazil, added: "I finally get to play for the United States in the United States and I cannot wait to see how the fans are, and just have the whole crowd on our side this time."
Fowler's late slip-up saw 2015 Open champion Zach Johnson claim the final automatic spot.
1. Dustin Johnson
2. Jordan Spieth
3. Phil Mickelson
4. Patrick Reed
5. Jimmy Walker
6. Brooks Koepka
7. Brandt Snedeker
8. Zach Johnson
Captain Davis Love has four wildcard picks and will choose three after the BMW Championship on 11 September.
Love will make his final selection two weeks later after the Tour Championship, only five days before the Ryder Cup starts on 30 September.
Among those in contention for a spot, along with Fowler, are Bubba Watson, who finished ninth in the standings, and JB Holmes.
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China's top family planning body has warned couples that they must continue to obey the country's one-child policy until the law changes in March.

On Thursday, the government announced it would relax the rules to allow all couples to have two children.
It said the decision was made because of China's rapidly ageing population and to help support the economy.
However, officials have stressed that the one-child policy will continue to be enforced until the law is changed.
China's controversial one-child policy was introduced nationally in 1979 to slow the population growth rate, and is estimated to have prevented about 400 million births.
Though there were exceptions to the policy, most couples who violated it faced punishment, from fines and the loss of employment to forced abortions.
On Friday, a local official was quoted as saying that women pregnant with a second child would no longer be punished, suggesting that the new policy was already effective.
More on China's one-child policy:
Will the policy affect China's single mothers?
Growing up alone
Five figures that sum up the policy
Trauma and sympathy
Your stories
However, on Sunday, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said that local officials should continue to implement existing family planning laws until the two-child policy was ratified by lawmakers in March.
"The two-child policy must be implemented in accordance with the law," an official with the commission said in a statement (in Chinese).
Until the new law was adopted, local officials "must seriously enforce existing policies" and "must not act of their own accord", the statement added.
The government estimates that 90 million couples will be eligible for the new two-child policy.
Correspondents say that despite the relaxation of the rules, many couples may opt to have only one child, as one-child families have become the social norm.
What was the one-child policy?
What was China's one-child policy?


A car has smashed through a wall of a shop in County Tyrone after rolling down a hill.

No-one was in the vehicle when it careered rear-end first into the side of the building in Dromore Road Retail Park in Omagh at about 17:00 BST on Thursday.
Simon Burke said his wife and son, who were in the shop at the time, had were "very lucky" to escape injury.


David Cameron has described Nigeria and Afghanistan as "fantastically corrupt" in a conversation with the Queen.

The PM was talking about this week's anti-corruption summit in London.
"We've got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain... Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world," he was overheard saying.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, elected last year after vowing to fight corruption, said he was "shocked".
And a senior Afghan official said the characterisation was "unfair".
After Mr Cameron's comments, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby intervened to say: "But this particular president is not corrupt... he's trying very hard," before Speaker John Bercow said: "They are coming at their own expense, one assumes?"
The conversation took place at Buckingham Palace at an event to mark the Queen's 90th birthday, attended by political leaders and other public figures.
At a garden party later on Tuesday, the Queen herself was caught on camera making unguarded comments about the Chinese government.
She told a senior police officer that she had heard the Chinese had been very rude to Britain's ambassador to China during President Xi's state visit last year. The Queen also agreed that the Chinese state visit had been a testing time for the police and told the officer it was "bad luck" that she had been in charge of security at the time.
James Landale, BBC diplomatic correspondent
On the face of it, it is perhaps one of the most undiplomatic things a prime minister could say - to describe two countries as fantastically corrupt just hours before their leaders visit Britain.
The prime minister's remarks were outspoken and unguarded but they were not untrue. Both Afghanistan and Nigeria come high on lists of the world's most corrupt nations.
And later in the conversation, the prime minister agreed with the Archbishop of Canterbury that President Buhari of Nigeria is not corrupt himself and is trying very hard to tackle the problem.
A Downing Street spokesman noted both men had written openly about the subject in a collection of essays being published this week.
So this was a truthful gaffe, another moment when the prime minister was caught on camera saying something ostensibly embarrassing.
Labour said Mr Cameron had egg on his face. But, as Downing Street acknowledged, the cameras were very close to the prime minister and his anti-corruption summit is now very firmly in the headlines.
In Transparency International's 2015 corruption perception index, Afghanistan was ranked at 167, ahead of only Somalia and North Korea, Nigeria was at 136.
With his remark, the archbishop was believed to have been referring to Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, who won elections last year promising to fight widespread corruption.
In response, Mr Buhari said his government was deeply "shocked and embarrassed" by the PM's comments. Speaking through his spokesman, he suggested that Mr Cameron must be referring to Nigeria's past notoriety for corruption before his coming to power last year.
The Afghan embassy in London said tackling corruption was one of President Ghani's top priorities and "bold" action had been taken.
"We have made important progress in fighting systematic capture in major national procurement contracts and are making progress on addressing institutional issues as well as issues related to impunity... Therefore calling Afghanistan in that way is unfair."
No 10 said the presidents of Nigeria and Afghanistan had "acknowledged the scale of the corruption challenge they face in their countries".
The government will host world and business leaders at the summit on Thursday in London, aiming to "galvanise a global response to tackle corruption". Speaking ahead of the summit, Mr Cameron said: "For too long there has been a taboo about tackling this issue head-on.
"The summit will change that. Together we will push the fight against corruption to the top of the international agenda where it belongs."
But Labour said a Tory government "hosting an anti-corruption summit is like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop".
"The government is refusing to take meaningful action to close Britain's constellation of tax havens, which together constitute the largest financial secrecy network in the world," said shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott.
Transparency International said the UK's record was mixed and concrete action was needed on tax evasion and secrecy in the wake of the Panama Papers disclosures, stopping tainted firms from bidding for public contracts and protecting whistleblowers who expose corruption.
Last year Mr Cameron was recorded talking about Yorkshire people "hating each other" - and he was previously caught revealing how the Queen "purred" with pleasure when he told her the Scottish independence referendum result.


Gunmen in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province have attacked two buses, killing at least 19 passengers, officials have said.

The province's Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti said unidentified militants boarded the vehicles travelling to Karachi on Friday evening.
Passengers were then ordered off and shot dead, officials said.
Balochistan has seen a long-running conflict between separatists and security forces.
No group has yet said it carried out the attack on the two buses, which happened near the town of Mastung, south of the provincial capital, Quetta.
"The armed men were wearing the uniforms of the security forces," Mr Bugti told Reuters.
An operation was launched after reports of the incident emerged, and at least five people have been rescued, officials say.
However, the number of passengers abducted from on board remains unclear, Dawn newspaper reports.
Fighting is ongoing in the area between the attackers and security forces.
Those killed were mostly ethnic Pashtuns, a local official told the BBC. They are natives of northern Balochistan.
While separatists have regularly attacked government and military targets, attacks on Pashtuns are a rarity, the BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says.
He says officials believe this may be a tactical move by insurgents to put pressure on security forces who have recently carried out several "search and kill" operations against insurgents in the region.
Rebels in Balochistan have been fighting for greater autonomy from Islamabad, and a bigger share of the region's natural resources.
Are you in Balochistan? Have you been affected by the issues in this story? You can share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
If you are available to speak to a BBC journalist, please include a telephone number.


New research sheds light on the world's most specialised bird perch.

The researchers suspect that the vertical, branchless stem of a South African plant - locally called the Rat's Tail - has evolved to encourage pollinating birds to visit its flowers.
The birds hang upside down from this perch and fertilise the plant when they thrust their beaks into the red flowers to drink nectar.
The international team reports the findings in the Annals of Botany.
Plants go to great lengths to attract animals to pollinate them; they seduce insects, birds and small mammals with colourful, shapely, sweet-smelling flowers.
Some plants even wave at passing pollinators.
On first seeing the deep red, long-tubular flowers of Babiana ringens in 2003, botanist Spencer Barrett from the University of Toronto, Canada, suspected that he was dealing with a plant that was pollinated exclusively by birds.
But the position of the flowers at the base of the plant perplexed him.
Most birds avoid feeding on or close to the ground to keep clear of ground-dwelling predators; plants reliant on bird-pollination tend to keep their flowers up high.
Dr Barrett and his colleague Bruce Anderson from University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, wondered if the curious perch-like structure had evolved to give pollinating birds a foothold from which to feed.
Crouching among the shrubs of the Cape of South Africa, binoculars in hand, Dr Barrett and his team confirmed that the flowers were exclusively pollinated by sunbirds.
"When we saw a bird visiting we were completely enchanted," said Dr Barrett.
Still unconvinced that the stick-like protrusion had evolved as a perch, the team set about to gather further evidence.
They set out to look at the full distribution of B. ringens across the Cape, and found that in the east, where sunbirds have a greater variety of flowering plants to choose between, B. ringens'  perches were smaller than in the west, where plants can rely on regular visits from sunbirds.
Dr Barrett suspects that in the absence of pollinating birds, the plants do not need to invest in maintaining the perch, and so it shrinks over many generations -  an example of what is called relaxed selection.
With time, this branch might return to its ancestral form, which the researchers suspect was a central stem with flowers at its top, much like many of B. ringens' close relatives.
"It's a fascinating piece of work," said plant biologist Professor Simon Hiscock from the University of Bristol.
This study poses questions about the influence of pollinators on the structures of flowers and on plants' reproductive strategies, he added.


Teenage wicketkeeper Harvey Hosein has signed a one-year contract extension with Derbyshire.

Hosein, 19, who took a club-record 11 catches in his first two days of first-class cricket in 2014, has extended his stay until the end of the 2017 season.
The seven catches that the then 18-year-old claimed in the first innings against Surrey was a joint world record for a keeper on first-class debut.
"Harvey is an exciting talent," elite performance director Graeme Welch said.
"Since making his debut, Harvey has performed well with the gloves and continues to show improvements with the bat.
"His challenge now is to score runs on a consistent basis and contribute to winning games for the county."
Hosein, who took 33 catches in 12 first-class matches last season, scored his maiden first-class half-century against Gloucestershire in 2015, hitting 61 in the win at Bristol.


Muirfield will not stage another Open Championship after maintaining its ban on women members in a vote described as "indefensible" and "embarrassing".

The Scottish club said voting in favour of allowing women had fallen just short of the required two thirds majority.
Governing body the R&A said it would not stage the Open "at a venue that does not admit women as members".
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Muirfield's stance was "simply indefensible".
To admit women golfers as members, Muirfield - a privately owned links in East Lothian run by The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers - needed two thirds (432) of its 648 eligible voters to back the move.
But after a "comprehensive" two-year consultation process described as "thorough" and conducted "with all due diligence and professionalism", it fell short.
Of the 616 members who voted, 397 - or 64% - voted for the resolution, while 219 (36%) voted against it.
Royal Troon is the only other Open venue that still excludes women. The club, which will stage this year's Championship, it is consulting members about altering that arrangement.
The Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St Andrews opened its membership to women in 2014 for the first time in 260 years, while Royal St George's in Kent lifted its ban on women last year.
Muirfield last hosted the Open in 2013, when American Phil Mickelson won the Claret Jug.
Iain Carter, BBC Sport golf correspondent
"The Muirfield based Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, have, at best, been left to look out of touch with modern thinking. At worst, they look like a bunch of selfish bigots who have no place at the top of the game.
"Sources close to the club suggest they will explore the opportunities of staging another ballot. One said they might ask for simple majority vote next time, instead of a two-thirds requirement.
"Another said overseas members might be allowed to take part in the decision-making process after being denied this time."
Muirfield battle lost, but can the war still be won?
Muirfield captain Henry Fairweather, who announced the result of the ballot, said: "Our club committee recommended that members should vote for the admission of women as members.
"A majority voted for women as members but the two-thirds majority that we require for a change in the rules was not met. The club, therefore, will retain its men-only membership policy.
"The Honorary Club is a members club and the members decide the rules of the club, including its membership policy.
"Women will continue to be welcome on the course and in the clubhouse as guests and visitors, as they have been for many years."
A 33-strong group of 'no' campaigners among the Muirfield members had cited concerns about slow play and making women "feel uncomfortable" among the "risks" of admitting female members.
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English golfer Melissa Reid, twice a member of Europe's Solheim Cup team, described the decision as "embarrassing".
"You know it was an opportunity for Muirfield, but they've wasted it," she told BBC Radio 5 live.
"I think that the decision the R&A have made to postpone the Open being there is a good one. I wouldn't play there, because I'd be going against what I believe.
"We're still a long way off the men's game in terms of prize money, and this just sets it back even further".
Listen: Women should marry a Muirfield member - Alliss
R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers said: "The Open is one of the world's great sporting events and going forward we will not stage the Championship at a venue that does not admit women as members.
"If the policy at the club should change, we would reconsider Muirfield as a venue in future."
Scottish Golf said it was "disappointed" with Muirfield's decision.
"We believe every golf club has a duty to be inclusive and to reflect modern society. We hope that those who voted for change continue to make the case for the modernisation of their club," it added in a statement.
George Kerevan, the SNP MP for East Lothian, tweeted: "I'm outraged by decision of minority at Muirfield Golf Club to block admitting female members. Sad for golf, equality, democracy."
He added: "Defeat of proposal to admit women members at Muirfield Golf Club imperils the sport in East Lothian. Very selfish."


Bury have signed striker Nicky Ajose on a season-long loan deal from fellow League One club Charlton Athletic.

The 25-year-old joined the Addicks from Swindon Town in June 2016 and scored seven goals in 28 appearances.
Ex-Manchester United trainee Ajose has had two previous loan spells with his hometown club, in 2010-11 and 2013.
"I sat down with him and he said this was something he wanted, so I told him I wasn't going to stand in his way," Charlton boss Karl Robinson said.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.


Chelsea had Thibaut Courtois sent off as they started their Premier League title defence with a draw against Swansea City at Stamford Bridge.

Oscar's free-kick put the Blues ahead before Andre Ayew stabbed a close-range equaliser after keeper Courtois had kept out Bafetimbi Gomis's header.
Federico Fernandez put Willian's cross past his own keeper before Courtois was sent off after bringing down Gomis.
New signing Asmir Begovic came on but failed to stop Gomis's spot-kick.
Swansea played with an extra man for more than half an hour but could not make the most of the advantage.
The dangerous Gomis had the ball in the net but was ruled offside while Jefferson Montero, who was excellent throughout, forced a fine save from Begovic.
Much has been made of Chelsea's failure to attract a box-office name from outside the Premier League this summer.
Even Jose Mourinho, who signed a new four-year contract on Friday, has warned of the danger of standing still yet neither of his two main close-season buys started the game.
Diego Costa did, despite his manager claiming in the build-up that the forward was a major doubt, but the Spain international rarely looked like scoring, let alone repeating his hat-trick in the corresponding fixture last season.
The champions contributed to a high-tempo, entertaining game but did not look like a side that won the league by eight points last season.
Even before Courtois's dismissal, Swansea had more shots than the hosts and were lively throughout, full of enterprise and in Montero had  the best players on the pitch.
It does not get any easier for Chelsea, with last season's nearest challengers Manchester City next up.
It is no secret that the champions have been trying to strengthen their defence, with Everton's John Stones a target.
There are still another three weeks before the 1 September deadline but, if Chelsea's current defence was trying to persuade Mourinho not to strengthen the back four, they failed.
Ayew, Swansea's new signing from Marseille, took his goal well but the Chelsea players were slow to react after Courtois kept out Gomis's powerful header.
Swansea finished eighth in the table last season, a campaign which started with a fine 2-1 win at Manchester United.
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They managed to do the double over Louis van Gaal's side - as well as Arsenal - and they look as though they will again cause problems for clubs with serious title ambitions.
Garry Monk has brought in four players over the summer, with Andre Ayew looking a shrewd signing after scoring on his first Premier League start for the club.
Yet it was the familiar face of Montero who really impressed at Stamford Bridge, the Ecuadorian winger a constant menace throughout as he teased and tormented Chelsea's defence.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho: "They didn't have chances against 11. The team was playing very, very well in the first half. In the second, in one minute, it was a penalty, red card and the goal - 2-2.
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"If you have 10 men and are winning you can defend well and try to find a strategy but to play with 10 men and try to win the game is more difficult. I would say we were the best team with 11 players and with 10 we fought hard, some fighting at the limit of their condition."
Swansea manager Garry Monk: "I thought our performance warranted at least that point. We went for it and showed our attacking prowess."
On the red card: "It is a goalscoring opportunity. The letter of the law is that it is a red card and we got what we deserved today."
Jefferson Montero was at the Copa America tournament in Chile for Ecuador during the summer and has not had a full summer's rest since 2011. You would not have known it at Stamford Bridge. The 25-year-old was at his threatening best and used his pace to cause problems. He was also not shy to test Courtois or Begovic.
Match ends, Chelsea 2, Swansea City 2.
Second Half ends, Chelsea 2, Swansea City 2.
Foul by Nemanja Matic (Chelsea).
Eder (Swansea City) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Delay in match Eden Hazard (Chelsea) because of an injury.
Ashley Williams (Swansea City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Eden Hazard (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Ashley Williams (Swansea City).
Corner,  Swansea City. Conceded by Nemanja Matic.
Foul by John Terry (Chelsea).
Jack Cork (Swansea City) wins a free kick on the right wing.
John Terry (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Eder (Swansea City).
Attempt missed. Falcao (Chelsea) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Eden Hazard.
Eden Hazard (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Gylfi Sigurdsson (Swansea City).
Substitution, Chelsea. Falcao replaces Willian.
John Terry (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Eder (Swansea City).
Attempt saved. André Ayew (Swansea City) left footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Eder.
Kurt Zouma (Chelsea) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Eder (Swansea City).
Substitution, Swansea City. Eder replaces Bafétimbi Gomis.
Offside, Swansea City. Jonjo Shelvey tries a through ball, but Bafétimbi Gomis is caught offside.
Substitution, Chelsea. Kurt Zouma replaces Cesc Fàbregas.
Attempt blocked. Branislav Ivanovic (Chelsea) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Willian.
Attempt saved. Eden Hazard (Chelsea) right footed shot from a difficult angle on the right is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Willian.
Attempt saved. Wayne Routledge (Swansea City) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Jonjo Shelvey.
Substitution, Swansea City. Wayne Routledge replaces Jefferson Montero because of an injury.
Foul by Gary Cahill (Chelsea).
Jack Cork (Swansea City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Delay in match Jefferson Montero (Swansea City) because of an injury.
Offside, Swansea City. Neil Taylor tries a through ball, but Bafétimbi Gomis is caught offside.
Attempt blocked. Jonjo Shelvey (Swansea City) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Attempt missed. Branislav Ivanovic (Chelsea) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Cesc Fàbregas with a cross following a set piece situation.
Cesc Fàbregas (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Jonjo Shelvey (Swansea City).
Offside, Swansea City. Gylfi Sigurdsson tries a through ball, but Bafétimbi Gomis is caught offside.


The Bend It Like Beckham stage musical is to close in March, less than a year after it opened in London's West End.

The show was staged by Gurinder Chadha, who also directed the hit 2002 movie that launched the careers of Keira Knightley and Parminder Nagra.
It has had offers to tour the UK and overseas, a statement said.
"Bend It Like Beckham will continue to defy expectations and proudly represent and celebrate the UK we all know and love," Chadha said.
With a cast including Natalie Dew and Lauren Samuels, the show officially opened at the Phoenix Theatre last June following a month of previews.
It received glowing reviews - the Daily Telegraph declared it a "bold, beautifully British triumph" and the Evening Standard called it a "joyous hymn to girl power".
The final performance will take place on 5 March. A statement said: "The producers are currently finalising both national and international touring offers including a tour of India visiting multiple stadia."
While its creators may have hoped the show would stick in the West End for a more substantial run, Bend it Like Beckham has lasted for longer than some other recent British film adaptations.
Made in Dagenham lasted six months, while The Full Monty closed after just five weeks.
Chadha said the show had "inspired and entertained people of all ages and all backgrounds, something I have not seen in the West End for many years".
As well as directing, Chadha co-wrote the script with Paul Mayeda Berges. The musical includes songs composed by Howard Goodall, with lyrics by Charles Hart.
Chadha continued: "I set out to tell our stories from my perspective of our multicultural London. Our show celebrates all of us on stage and behind the scenes, something myself and the team worked so well together to realise.
"From the responses I have received since we opened there is a genuine hunger for us to tell our story internationally, so as well as planning a UK tour for the show, we are now working on expanding the production for a proposed tour of India to include multiple stadia."


Barnsley striker Sam Winnall scored twice at St Andrew's as Championship promotion contenders Birmingham City lost for the first time in five games.

The Tykes led on 38 minutes when Barnsley defender Marc Roberts headed in from close range.
But Blues buckled after home midfielder David Davis was red-carded for his second booking on 71 minutes.
Davis's former Wolves youth team-mate Winnall then cashed in, scoring twice in the final six minutes.
Barnsley took the lead seven minutes from the interval when Davis was booked for a foul on Sam Morsy and Roberts found the bottom corner after getting his head on Conor Hourihane's resulting right-wing free-kick.
Off-colour Blues had a penalty shout on Lukas Jutkiewicz turned down before he became part of a double substitution on the hour which brought on Greg Stewart and Che Adams.
But Barnsley twice went close, Hourihane putting his curling shot just over and Tom Bradshaw's shot being tipped over by home keeper Tomasz Kuszczak, before Davis was sent off, following his foul on James Bree.
Winnall was then twice set up by Hourihane to head home, on 84 and 87 minutes, to end Barnsley's poor run, earning them their first win in five games, while Blues lost at St Andrew's for the first time in eight league matches.
Birmingham City manager Gary Rowett:
"We were not good enough, although 3-0 flatters them. We had opportunities and caused them problems. You could see that they had not won for a while and they were determined to do something about it.
"We have not played well in the last three or four games. We got results, but didn't play well enough and, against Barnsley, it was a culmination of not playing well.
"We have lost four games in 18 matches, so there is not too much wrong, but against Barnsley we were nowhere near that level."
Barnsley boss Paul Heckingbottom:
"For the last two weeks we have been working really hard on set-pieces. It is important and it paid off against Birmingham.
"We have only had one defeat in six games. We've only had two matches this season when we have not been in the game.
"This is the level of performance you need to be successful in the Championship. Sometimes you have to admit that is not good enough against some teams with the quality they possess."
Match ends, Birmingham City 0, Barnsley 3.
Second Half ends, Birmingham City 0, Barnsley 3.
Offside, Birmingham City. Josh Cogley tries a through ball, but Clayton Donaldson is caught offside.
Josh Cogley (Birmingham City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Adam Hammill (Barnsley).
Che Adams (Birmingham City) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Saidy Janko (Barnsley).
Attempt blocked. Greg Stewart (Birmingham City) left footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked.
Foul by Che Adams (Birmingham City).
Adam Davies (Barnsley) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt saved. Reece Brown (Birmingham City) left footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Greg Stewart.
Michael Morrison (Birmingham City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Tom Bradshaw (Barnsley).
Substitution, Barnsley. Adam Hammill replaces Sam Morsy.
Substitution, Barnsley. Saidy Janko replaces Sam Winnall.
Offside, Birmingham City. Greg Stewart tries a through ball, but Ryan Shotton is caught offside.
Clayton Donaldson (Birmingham City) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Angus MacDonald (Barnsley).
Goal!  Birmingham City 0, Barnsley 3. Sam Winnall (Barnsley) header from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Conor Hourihane with a cross following a set piece situation.
Robert Tesche (Birmingham City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Robert Tesche (Birmingham City).
Josh Scowen (Barnsley) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Josh Cogley (Birmingham City).
Josh Scowen (Barnsley) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Substitution, Barnsley. Ryan Williams replaces Ryan Kent.
Goal!  Birmingham City 0, Barnsley 2. Sam Winnall (Barnsley) header from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Conor Hourihane with a cross following a corner.
Corner,  Barnsley. Conceded by Michael Morrison.
Attempt blocked. Conor Hourihane (Barnsley) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Tom Bradshaw.
Attempt missed. Ryan Shotton (Birmingham City) header from the left side of the six yard box misses to the left. Assisted by Greg Stewart with a cross following a set piece situation.
Che Adams (Birmingham City) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Angus MacDonald (Barnsley).
Greg Stewart (Birmingham City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Andy Yiadom (Barnsley).
Offside, Birmingham City. Josh Cogley tries a through ball, but Clayton Donaldson is caught offside.
Attempt missed. Ryan Kent (Barnsley) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses the top left corner. Assisted by Sam Winnall.
Corner,  Birmingham City. Conceded by Tom Bradshaw.
Corner,  Birmingham City. Conceded by Angus MacDonald.
Substitution, Birmingham City. Reece Brown replaces David Cotterill.
Second yellow card to David Davis (Birmingham City) for a bad foul.
Foul by David Davis (Birmingham City).


Nato defence ministers are reviewing progress in what's known as the alliance's "enhanced forward presence" - its deployment of troops eastwards to reassure worried allies, and deter any Russian move west.

Nato has dispatched four battalion-sized battle groups, one deployed in Poland and one in each of the three Baltic republics: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
The US has also begun to bring back heavy armoured units to western Europe.
The whole effort is prompted by the shock emanating from Russia's seizure and subsequent annexation of the Crimea, and its continuing support for rebel groups in eastern Ukraine.
If Moscow could tear up the rule-book of security in post-Cold War Europe by carving off a slice of Ukraine (as it previously did in Georgia), many feared the Baltic republics - also territory of the former Soviet Union - could be next.
Russia says that in response to these Nato moves, it is making new deployments of its own. But the reality is rather more complex. I've been speaking to some of the leading Western experts on the Russian military to get a sense of what is behind Russia's modernisation effort, and to determine what threat it really poses and to whom.
"Russia would like us to think that its current militarisation and preparations for conflict are a response to Nato doing the same, but it's simply not true."
That's the view of Keir Giles, director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre, and probably Britain's leading watcher of Russian military matters.
"Russia's enormously expensive reorganisation and rearmament programme," he told me, "was already in full swing well before the crisis over Ukraine, while Nato nations were still winding down their militaries.
"As late as 2013, the US withdrew all its armour from Europe - while Russia was already busy investing billions in upgrading its forces."
Analyst Dmitry Gorenburg of Harvard University dates the start of the Russian modernisation programme to 2009. It was a response, he says, to the evident shortcomings in the Russian military campaign against Georgia.
He says the main focus was "the improvement of the speed of decision-making and communication of decisions to the troops, and interoperability among military branches, followed by the replacement of Soviet-era equipment that was rapidly reaching the end of its service life".
The results have been significant. According to Michael Kofman of the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute, "by 2012 Russia had reorganised its armed forces from a Soviet mass mobilisation army into a permanent standing force, and began improving quality across the board".
This was coupled with an intense regimen of snap checks on readiness and countless exercises, to the extent that "by 2014 the Russian military was markedly improved compared to its lacklustre performance in the Russia-Georgia war in 2008," he says.
All the experts I spoke to insist that the initial focus of the Russian effort has been on Ukraine, not the Baltics. Indeed, Michael Kofman argues that the war in Ukraine imposed unexpected requirements on Russia's military, which found itself lacking permanently stationed forces on the country's borders, and ill-positioned for the conflict.
"Russian armed forces," he says, "were, and still are, in transition."
To address the prospect of war with Ukraine in the medium to long term, he says, Russia "has spent much of the past three years repositioning units around Ukraine, building three new divisions, rebasing several brigades, and creating an entire new combined-arms army. The intent is for Russian ground forces to be in place just across the border should they need to reinforce proxies in the Donbas, invade from several vectors, or simply deter Kiev from thinking it could quickly retake the separatist regions by force".
Ukraine may be the immediate strategic concern of the Russian general staff. But as Keir Giles notes, "Russia is developing its military infrastructure all the way along its western periphery - not just opposite Ukraine, but also Belarus, the Baltic states and even Finland. They have re-organised in order to be able to deliver combat troops to the western border as rapidly as possible".
This includes "setting up new heavy road transport units in order to reduce their traditional reliance on railways to deliver armour to the operational area. That gives them a lot more flexibility to move in areas where road networks are better developed - primarily the west of Russia, including across the border in Russia's western neighbours," he tells me.
Given Moscow's focus on Ukraine, have some Nato countries over-reacted to the perceived Russian threat? Not at all, says Keir Giles. On the contrary, he insists, the concern is that Nato has under-reacted.
"The direct military challenge from Russia, and confirmation of Russia's willingness to use military force against its neighbours," he argues, "with few exceptions, hasn't translated into European countries taking a serious interest in defending themselves."
He adds that the failure of many Nato allies to meet even symbolic commitments, like the pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defence, let alone urgent real measures like regenerating the capacity for high-intensity warfare to match Russia's developing capabilities, "speaks of an unwillingness to recognise politically inconvenient reality".
That reality, according to Michael Kofman, is nothing short of a transformation of the Russian military. "Reform, modernisation and the combat experience gleaned from Ukraine and Syria will have lasting effects on the Russian armed forces," he told me.
"Russia," he says, "retains the ability to deploy decisive force anywhere on its borders, overpowering any former Soviet republic. In terms of its strategic nuclear arsenal, Russia is not only a peer to the United States, but actually ahead in modernisation and investment in non-strategic nuclear weapons.
"Meanwhile Russia's conventional forces are now capable of imposing high costs on even a technologically superior adversary such as Nato in a high-end conflict - i.e. a fight would be quite bloody for both sides."
That is hopefully an unthinkable situation. At root, though, Dmitry Gorenburg believes that "Russia's conventional capabilities will be nowhere near as strong as those of the US military or Nato forces as a whole".
Above all it is readiness, proximity, and the ability to mass fire-power quickly that gives Russia an immediate local advantage. But Nato needs to get the threat into perspective.
As Michael Kofman notes, "Russia is a Eurasian land power, bringing a lot of firepower to the fight, but its strength shines when fighting close to home."
Nato's defence and research budget dwarfs Russia's, as does the base capacity of the alliance to generate forces and equip them in a prolonged conflict.
"The bottom line," he says, is that "while Nato has genuine worries on what a short-term conflict with Russia might look like, the reality is that this is the world's pre-eminent military alliance, at the core of which is still an incredibly potent military power, and a sustained fight would probably end disastrously for Moscow."
The Russian military is simply not structured to hold substantial territory, or to generate the forces needed for a prolonged conflict. Nato needs to be ready, in the view of experts. If deterrence is going to be credible it needs to restore its ability to fight high-intensity combat, a capacity that has atrophied during the counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The consensus among the experts seems to be that Ukraine was a warning bell. Russia's newfound assertiveness is not to be confused with a desire to launch a military attack westwards.
Indeed, the immediate Russian threat may come from its information warfare and cyber campaigns directed against the West. That's a battle that has already been joined. And it is one the West is equally ill-prepared for.


Radiohead have released the song they recorded to be the theme for the latest James Bond movie Spectre.

The band have revealed they were asked to write a signature tune for the movie, but it "didn't work out" and the song was not used.
Sam Smith's Writing's On The Wall ended up as the movie's theme song instead.
Radiohead have now made their brooding, orchestral song, titled Spectre, available as a free download on Soundcloud.
Singer Thom Yorke wrote on Twitter: "Last year we were asked to write a theme tune for the Bond movie Spectre.
"Yes we were. It didn't work out, but became something of our own, which we love very much.
"As the year closes we thought you might like to hear it. Merry Christmas. May the force be with you."
Many fans expressed their approval on Twitter. Music critic Pete Paphides was among them, writing: "It sounds exquisite on first listen, sensational string arrangement."
Before Spectre came out in October, there had been speculation that Radiohead had been chosen for the coveted task of recording the theme tune.
In July, one bookmaker suspended betting on the identity of the act that had recorded the theme after one punter tried to bet Â£15,000 on Radiohead.
Bond actor Daniel Craig is known to be a fan of the band, having quizzed Yorke for Interview magazine in 2013.
Sam Smith's theme received mixed reviews when it was released in September, with BBC entertainment correspondent Colin Paterson saying it was "good enough, but not a classic".
But former Bond actor Sir Roger Moore called Writing's On the Wall "very haunting and wonderfully orchestrated".
The song made history by becoming the first Bond theme to reach number one in the UK, achieving combined chart sales and streams of 70,000 copies.
Smith was the first solo male British act to perform a Bond film's theme song since 1964, when Tom Jones was heard over the opening credits of Thunderball.


Tesco has apologised to "any inconvenienced customers" after an apparent fuel-mix up at a store in Bangor at the weekend.

One customer contacted Radio Ulster's The Nolan Show, to say her car had broken down on Saturday after using one of the pumps at Bloomfield.
She said she was told the next day that a tanker had mistakenly filled unleaded pumps with diesel.
On Tuesday, Tesco said it was investigating what had happened.
"We are aware of an issue with the unleaded fuel being sold from our Bangor store on Saturday afternoon," a statement said.
"We are investigating what happened and would like to apologise to any inconvenienced customers.
"We are working to contact all affected customers and will work with them on an individual basis to resolve their problems.
"Where we are found to have been at fault we will, of course, cover the costs of any repairs needed to customers' vehicles."
Danielle, who contacted the Nolan Show, said initially she did not know what was wrong with her car.
"Sunday, one o'clock in the morning, out with the AA trying to get my car fixed," she said.
"I'm 22 weeks pregnant, so being out at one o'clock in the morning trying to get my car fixed - which took about an hour - wasn't great, obviously the stress of having to deal with it all, wondering how I'm going to get the kids to school, get to work myself."
She said the next morning there was a post on a local community Facebook page to say what had happened.
Danielle said she contacted the Tesco customer helpline and was told they would have to investigate.
"I was in store on Sunday afternoon and the girl who worked there was actually a lot more helpful than their helpline was and explained that the unleaded tanker that was there was filled with diesel and filled all the pumps full of it," she said.
"There were loads of people in, they were giving out contact numbers for people to drain their cars - they were a lot more helpful.
"I still had to pay 200 odd pounds to get it fixed.
"Apparently it was from 11 o'clock that morning, that's what the girl in the store said and  I think they closed the pump later on that evening."
Another customer, Brian from Bangor, said he had bought a new car on Friday and filled it on Saturday after shopping at the Tesco store.
"I was driving my lovely new car home - it's about a mile journey - I got home it spluttered to a stop and wouldn't restart," he said
He said he contacted the dealer where he bought the car and accused them of "selling me a dud".
"They took the car back to the garage and called me yesterday and said they had detected diesel in the petrol," Brian said.
He said when he went back to Tesco the lane where he had got his petrol from was closed and staff told him there had been contamination of the unleaded fuel on Saturday.
Kim, from Bangor, told the Nolan Show that after she contacted Tesco, they arranged to send someone out to drain her petrol tank.
She said she was then given a bill for Â£175 "even though Tesco organised that".
Tesco said customers who used the Bangor store fuel station on Saturday afternoon and think they were affected, should contact its customer service centre on 0800 505555.


A man who raped a mother moments after taking her baby from her arms has been jailed for eight years.

Colin McKay, 34, was found guilty of attacking the woman twice, raping a 15-year-old girl and indecently assaulting another female in West Lothian.
McKay had denied the offences but was found guilty after an earlier trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Sentencing him, Judge Lady Wolffe told him he had preyed on "vulnerable women".
She ordered that he be kept under supervision for a further two years and be put on the sex offenders register.
McKay was found guilty of raping the mother on two occasions at her home in the summer of 2005 and raping the teenage girl the same year at a house in West Lothian.
The court heard that he turning up at the first victim's door and attacked her after removing the baby from her arms.
He was also convicted of carrying out the indecent assault on the third victim at a house in Armadale in 2011.
The judge said that the case disclosed him to be "a predatory sexual offender preying on vulnerable women when the opportunity arose".
Lady Wolffe said: "You have been convicted of a number of predatory rapes of women who were vulnerable by reason of their age or circumstances."
She told McKay he had been assessed as posing a high risk of further violent offending.
She added: "You are noted as adopting a position of extreme denial and blame your victims."
Defence counsel Ian Duguid QC said: "His evidence was to deny categorically that any of these allegations took place."
But the defence counsel acknowledged that a jail sentence was "inevitable" following his conviction for the offences.
Mr Duguid said the proceedings had been a "chastening" experience for McKay and added: "He is unlikely to be involved in any kind of this activity in the future."


South Sudan's military says it has recaptured the strategic town of Bor from rebel forces.

The Ugandan army said it had helped in the operation, while a spokesman for the rebel forces said its troops had made a tactical withdrawal.
Bor, the capital of Jonglei state, has changed hands several times in a month-long conflict that is believed to have left thousands dead.
Meanwhile, talks to try to find a ceasefire are continuing in Ethiopia.
The conflict between rebel and government forces broke out on 15 December. President Salva Kiir has accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup - an accusation he denies.
The dispute has seen killings along ethnic lines - Mr Kiir is a member of the Dinka community, the country's largest, while Mr Machar is from the Nuer ethnic group.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting.
On Thursday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni confirmed his country's troops were now fighting alongside South Sudanese government forces against the rebels. A spokesman for the Ugandan People's Defence Force said its troops had helped retake Bor.
"There was a lot of resistance but our force was overwhelming," the spokesman, Paddy Ankunda, told Reuters news agency.
South Sudanese army spokesman Philip Aguer said the fight for Bor had left "many dead", without giving figures.
Brig-Gen Lul Ruai Koang, a military spokesperson for the opposition in South Sudan, said its troops had withdrawn to reorganise.
He said Bor was a "ghost town" and no longer important.
But Col Aguer said the victory had eliminated the psychological pressure of a rebel attack on the capital, Juba, 200km (130 miles) south of Bor.
Col Aguer also said the focus would now fall on the town of Malakal, still party controlled by the rebels, with the government forces planning an imminent attack.
But Col Aguer admitted maintaining communication with government forces there was "difficult".
The BBC's Mark Lowen, in Juba, says Bor has changed hands a number of times already - and it is not inconceivable that Riek Machar could mobilise his forces for another assault.
Talks to try to agree a ceasefire are continuing in a hotel in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
There have been conflicting reports about progress in the discussions, but no breakthrough has yet been signalled.
Our correspondent says it is widely believed that the talks have stalled because both sides are aiming for an upper hand in the fighting before real negotiations begin.
The release of political detainees continues to be a key issue that must be resolved.
On Friday, UN Human Rights fact finder Ivan Simonovic said both government soldiers and rebels had committed atrocities.
He told the BBC there had been reports of "mass killings, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, widespread destruction and looting of property and use of the children in conflict".


Annan slipped to fourth place in League Two as they fell to a surprise defeat at home to 10-man East Stirlingshire.

Max Wright shot the visitors ahead with a superb shot but was then sent off for a reckless challenge on Rabin Omar.
Annan levelled early in the second half when substitute Smart Osadolor converted Josh Todd's cross.
Shire snatched the lead from a set piece, Kris Faulds scoring from close range, and Gavin McMillan sealed the points for the rock-bottom team.


Three children have been taken to hospital after a fire gutted a house in Reading.

10 August 2016 Last updated at 17:27 BST
Emergency services were called to the blaze in Wesley Road, Coley Park at 12:30 BST.
One adult and three children were treated at the scene, but the minors were taken to the Royal Berkshire Hospital for further treatment.
Fire crews got the blaze under control and are investigating the cause.


A man has admitted raping and attacking a woman as she walked her dog.

Jack Ian Walker, 18, pleaded guilty to rape, attempted rape, a further sexual assault and grievous bodily harm at Carlisle Crown Court.
His 58-year-old victim needed hospital treatment after the attack in Workington on 15 July.
Walker, from Dean Street, Workington, was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on 7 October.
Judge Peter Davies directed that comprehensive background information should be prepared about the defendant ahead of the sentencing.
Walker also admitted a separate common assault charge which relates to the same date.


A long-delayed inquest into the disappearance of County Tyrone teenager Arlene Arkinson has been postponed again until November.

Police admitted they would not meet a 10 July deadline to disclose files to the court.
Coroner Brian Sherrard said he knew the development would cause "regret and distress" to her family.
He questioned whether the police was diverting sufficient resources to the task.
The process of security vetting 70 case files has been further complicated by the prospect of the PSNI applying for Public Interest Immunity (PII) on three of the files, which would prevent their contents being made public
Fifteen-year-old Arlene, from Castlederg, County Tyrone, went missing in August 1994 after a night out at a disco in Bundoran, County Donegal.
Her body has never been found.
The inquest had been due to run at the start of September, almost eight years after the first preliminary hearing was held.
However, this was dependent on the PSNI completing disclosure of the case files by 10 July.
A barrister for the PSNI told the preliminary hearing: "They will be really pushed to have this done by the end of September."
The coroner said it was with regret that he had to re-list the case for 2 November, and issued the PSNI with a new disclosure date of the end of August.
He asked the barrister: "Is there anything that can be done from a resources perspective that can speed this up?"
The barrister replied: "I just don't see it happening unless someone else comes in to give assistance to those working on it. And resources, I'm told, are not available."
Confirming that the start date would have to be moved back, Mr Sherrard said: "This is a matter of some regret to me and I know it will be a matter of some regret and distress to everyone concerned, in particular to the family of Miss Arkinson.
"Nevertheless we have to be realistic and pragmatic."


Russian state TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov has a reputation for extravagant tirades demonising the West, stigmatising homosexuals and portraying Ukraine as a country overrun by violent fascists.

He also has the unusual distinction, for a journalist, of being targeted by EU sanctions - imposed in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Mr Kiselyov delivered another of his anti-Western diatribes in the 30 March edition of Vesti Nedeli (News of the Week), his flagship current affairs show on the official channel Rossiya 1.
Millions of Russians rely on the main state-owned TV channels for their news.
With dainty, almost balletic hand gestures and the faint trace of an ironic smile on his lips, Kiselyov asks with mock concern "what's up" with Barack Obama. The US president's ratings, he says, are on the slide, while Russian President Vladimir Putin's continue to rise.
Turning to another camera, he goes on to denounce the US for trying to spread revolution with "terrorists" in Syria and "fascists" in Ukraine. "They shamelessly spy on everyone, wanting to control the world, but they suffer one defeat after another," he concludes.
It was a typical Kiselyov performance, if not quite a vintage one. Two weeks earlier, he had mocked what he said were President Obama's waning powers, as symbolised by his greying hair, before boasting that Russia was the only country "genuinely capable of turning the USA into radioactive ash".
At the beginning of March, he had lambasted Ukraine as a country overrun by "bandits", where democracy was "on its knees". He sneered at the weakness of the Ukrainian army and airily dismissed the idea of Western sanctions. He also said the fate of Crimea was a "personal matter" for each and every Russian citizen.
Mr Kiselyov's polemic set the tone for the Kremlin's policy on Ukraine that culminated in Mr Putin's triumphant annexation of Crimea some three weeks later.
Mr Kiselyov is a key part of Mr Putin's media operation. Apart from his role as TV anchor, he was recently appointed to head the new Russia Today news agency, whose mission is to further beef up the Kremlin's media presence around the world.
The appointment was controversial, not least because of Mr Kiselyov's repeated attacks on homosexuals. The most notorious of these came on a Rossiya 1 talkshow in 2012, when he said gay people should be banned from donating blood and sperm, and that if they were killed in a car crash "their hearts should be buried in the ground or burnt as unfit for helping to prolong anyone's life".
A blog published by The Economist has dubbed Mr Kiselyov Russia's "chief propagandist".
According to former Kremlin insider and political analyst Gleb Pavlovskiy, Kiselyov and his state media colleagues are generators of "Russophobia". They are a "machine churning out the black myth of Russia as an enemy of Europe and civilisation", Mr Pavlovskiy said.
The Ukrainian authorities have now ordered all cable operators to suspend broadcasts of Rossiya 1 and three of Russia's other state-controlled channels. Russian TV has been widely watched in Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, and now dominates the airwaves in Crimea.
Mr Kiselyov himself is now the subject of a travel ban and asset freeze by the EU.
But at home he appears to be riding high. A recent poll by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) named him as Russia's second most respected and authoritative journalist. Another FOM poll found that more than 50% of respondents thought it acceptable to "distort information" in the interests of the state.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here


Scotland's deputy first minister has said the Scottish Football Association (SFA) should set up an independent inquiry into historical child abuse.

Police Scotland is among a number of UK forces investigating allegations.
John Swinney told BBC Scotland he would not extend the Scottish government's inquiry to include football clubs but said that the SFA should consider a review.
The SFA said it was "open minded" to an independent inquiry.
A spokesman for the governing body added that any review must have the "right scope and terms of reference".
The SFA is due to hold a meeting with Police Scotland on Monday to discuss the issue of sexual abuse in football.
Speaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland programme, Mr Swinney ruled out extending the remit of the government's inquiry looking into the historical abuse of children in care in Scotland.
He said: "I won't do that.
"Survivors group want that [the inquiry] to proceed. They don't want the timescale extended, which would be an inevitable consequence of extending into other sectors, whether that was football or any other sector."
But asked whether the SFA should look at establishing its own inquiry, Mr Swinney said he thought it should.
"I think first and foremost the police have got to be given the time and the space to address any complaints made by any individual who has had the whole experience of being affected by child abuse within football," he said.
"They must go to the police, there are helplines available to assist people to make that contact, and I encourage people to do that.
"I think the SFA should recognise the extent of the actions that various clubs have taken individually to examine previous conduct in handling these issues.
"But I think the existence of that information is now so widespread that I think the SFA has got to consider setting up an independent inquiry that will satisfy that these issues have been properly and fully addressed by everyone in football."
He said any inquiry set up by the SFA should be fully "independent".
He added: "It should be conducted by an authoritative, independent, respected figure who will be able to look at these issues without fear or favour, and to examine all of the issues to the satisfaction of the wider debate within Scotland.
"I think that's a necessity of the current situation that football in Scotland finds itself in."
The English Football Association has commissioned an independent investigation into the way it dealt with abuse allegations.
Earlier this week, former SFA chief executive Gordon Smith called for an inquiry into historical sexual abuse.
He said it should look at how clubs and national bodies responded to allegations.
His comments came after Partick Thistle confirmed that physiotherapist John Hart, who died in 1995, was dismissed from Firhill in 1992 after allegations of abuse were made.
A BBC Scotland investigation has also revealed that former youth coach and referee Hugh Stevenson was allowed to carry on working in football for several years after being reported to police and the SFA over child sex offences.
Opposition parties have said the Scottish government, rather than the SFA, should take the lead on any inquiry into abuse in football.
Responding to Mr Swinney's comments, a Scottish Conservative spokesman said: "Given the volume of allegations that have emerged over the past week, an independent inquiry is something that should now be considered.
"However, there will be questions as to whether the SFA is best placed to lead such an investigation.
"A government-instructed inquiry may be a better option to restore public confidence, and would avoid any conflict of interest concerns."
Scottish Labour education spokesman Iain Gray said: "Last week Kezia Dugdale called for the remit of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry to be extended, which is what survivors' groups want to see.
"It is difficult to see how an SFA-commissioned inquiry, effectively into itself, could hold public confidence. This is a matter the Scottish government should be leading on."
You can watch John Swinney's full interview with the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland programme on the BBC iPlayer.


Convicted of being a senior member of the self-styled Islamic State group, Aine Davis is part of a worryingly familiar trend: the petty criminal who embraced violent jihad.

On the streets of west London he sold drugs and carried a gun.
And on the same streets he converted to Islam, in a doomed attempt to put the chaos of his life behind him.
But in the twisted version of Islam he embraced he kept faith in the gun.
His early adult years in Hammersmith saw a string of drugs convictions.
Then in 2006, Davis was jailed for possessing a firearm after a police operation smashed a gang that supplied hundreds of weapons to the criminal underworld.
Around this time Davis became a Muslim, took the Islamic name Hamza, and travelled across the Middle East. But trouble was never far behind.
According to his wife, Amal El-Wahabi, he could not escape the influence of friends from the drug scene.
We know this because El-Wahabi testified in her own trial in 2014, when she was convicted of funding her husband's terrorism.
She was jailed for 28 months after tricking a friend into trying to smuggle thousands of euros to Davis, who went to Turkey in 2013.
She told the Old Bailey that she had ignored her parents' concerns about Davis, whom she met at a west London mosque.
It was at the mosque that Davis encountered another person whose life would become defined by extremism.
That man was Mohammed Emwazi, who gained global notoriety as "Jihadi John", the masked man who carried out a series of grotesque beheadings of Western hostages.
Davis and Emwazi were part of a group of radicalised Muslims living in the capital.
From 2012 they seized the chance to fight jihad in the vortex of violence that was engulfing Syria and Iraq.
Once there, Davis and Emwazi wound up as trusted members of so-called Islamic State.
With two other friends from home, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, they were allegedly put in charge of guarding hostages, who dubbed them "The Beatles" because of their English accents.
Davis denied being a member of the group, insisting in court that stories of his involvement were false.
He said he was not the head of that unit, adding: "I am not ISIS. I went to Syria because there was oppression in my country."
One of the hostages who survived has described how, in basement rooms in a large house in northern Aleppo, the group of friends from London inflicted appalling acts of violence on their captives, who included journalists and aid workers.
Detained for about six months, Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa was put in an orange jumpsuit, called Prisoner 43 and held in conditions designed as IS's version of the controversial US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
What followed was a vision of hell: mock executions, waterboarding, and widespread torture.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Espinosa likened "The Beatles" to "a group of thugs with no knowledge of what is religion at all".
They used their faith "to try to justify all type of common crimes that they were committing".
"I mean if they were raping, they called it marriage. If they were stealing things they called it confiscation."
He said the guard they called George would often say: "You don't know how I hate you," referring to people in the West.
"He really had this deep and profound hatred of the Western world," Mr Espionza said.
Six of the 27 hostages held by "The Beatles" were killed by beheading, including Britons Alan Henning and David Haines, in an orgy of choreographed violence designed to shock the world.
Mohammed Emwazi
Mohammed Emwazi, aka "Jihadi John", appeared in a number of IS videos in which hostages were beheaded.
In November 2015, days after the arrest of Aine Davis, he was killed in a US drone strike.
The then Prime Minister David Cameron said the UK and US had worked around the clock to track down the "barbaric murderer [who] posed an ongoing and serious threat".
Alexanda Kotey
Alexanda Kotey was identified as one of the kidnap gang by the US State Department, which claimed that "Kotey likely engaged in the group's executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding".
It also stated that he was an IS recruiter "responsible for recruiting several UK nationals to join the terrorist organisation".
It is understood that the 33-year-old is still in Syria, in IS territory.
El Shafee Elsheikh, the son of Sudanese refugees to the UK, went to Syria in 2012 - it is understood that he is still there, in IS territory.
The US State Department said he "earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions".
His father, Rashid Elsheikh, told the BBC he had seen no evidence that his son was one of "The Beatles".
He added: " I would like to repeat my condemnation of violence against any human being whatever the reason.
"My son and anybody else is responsible and accountable for his acts."
In November 2015, Aine Davis was being monitored as he slipped across the border from Syria to attend a meeting in Istanbul.
Police followed him to a complex of luxury villas by the coast in the town of Silivri.
He was arrested along with a group of other men, including three Britons.
Deniz Solak, 33,  from east London, Jermaine Burke, 29, from High Wycombe and Mohammed Karwani, 40, from London all denied being members of Islamic State.
Mr Solak was acquitted by the court in Silivri.
The cases were recently dropped against Mr Karwani and Mr Burke and both will now be deported to the UK.
Speaking to BBC News, Mr Karwani's father, Sayed Jan, said: "There is no terrorism in my family."
He said his son "good relationships with people. We are against Daesh [so-called Islamic State]."
He said his son went to work in Turkey as a teacher and added that he had another son who had been injured in a bomb explosion in Afghanistan while working as a translator for the US Army.
No evidence was produced to show the four Britons had been planning a terror attack in Turkey, as was suggested in some press reports after their arrest.
But the court heard Davis was a senior figure in the ranks of IS - and the judge agreed.
He was found guilty of being a senior member of a terrorist organisation and jailed for seven-and-a-half years.
The London street criminal turned international terrorist is back behind bars.


Forgotten photographs of The Smiths have gone on display at the scene of the band's most famous photo shoot.

The images, taken in 1983, are on view at Salford Lads Club, outside which the group posed for sleeve art on their album The Queen Is Dead.
Fanzine editor Colin Howe decided to loan his negatives to the club for an exhibition and a fund-raising booklet.
He had discovered the pictures in his garage and mentioned them in passing while on a tour of the club.
Mr Howe had written to the band's record label Rough Trade requesting an interview for his fanzine, The Portable Chatshow.
He met and photographed the band when they played Liverpool Polytechnic on 22 October - their first appearance in the city on what was only their second tour.
Leslie Holmes, project manager at Salford Lads Club said: "He offered them to us and we are delighted to put these rare photographs on show."
"One of our first visitors today was Joyce Guillarduccci who is a visitor from Sao Paolo," he added.
The club is one of most popular music landmarks with tourists in the UK owing to its association with the seminal Manchester group.
The exhibition is running for two successive Saturdays at the club ending on 5 December.