Canada will stop bombing targets in Syria and Iraq belonging to the militant group known as Islamic State by 22 February at the latest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said.

Speaking in Ottawa on Monday, he said air strikes alone did not secure lasting stability for local people.
Mr Trudeau, who was elected in October, promised to withdraw six fighter jets from the region during his campaign.
But Canada will keep two surveillance planes in the region, he said.
It will also keep refuelling aircraft in the area and will increase the number of Canadian soldiers training local troops who are fighting Islamic State (IS).
"It is important to understand that while air strike operations can be very useful to achieve short-term military and territorial gains, they do not on their own achieve long-term stability for local communities," Mr Trudeau said.
"Canadians learned this lesson first hand during a very difficult decade in Afghanistan where our forces became expert military trainers, renowned around the world."
He said Canadian armed forces would instead allocate more military resources to training Iraqi security forces so that "a murderous gang of thugs who are terrorising some of the most vulnerable people on Earth" could be defeated.
How is Canada's new leader doing?
Mr Trudeau's move has been criticised by the opposition, whose leader Rona Ambrose in parliament accused the government of  "stepping back from the fight against IS when our allies are stepping up".
"The reality is that when we talk about Canada's new approach to fighting  IS... Canada is backing away," she said.
But Mr Trudeau is adamant that his announcement on Monday makes sound strategic sense.
"Call us old-fashioned, but we think that we ought to avoid doing precisely  what our enemies want us to do. They want us to elevate them, to give in to fear, to indulge in hatred, to eye one another with suspicion and to take leave of our faculties," he said.
Many Canadians have lost enthusiasm for overseas military missions after a decade of involvement in Afghanistan that ended in 2011, correspondents say. More than 150 Canadian soldiers were killed over that period.


A 79-year-old man killed in a three-vehicle crash in Angus has been named as George McAllister from Broughty Ferry.

Three other people were injured in the incident which happened between Arbroath and Montrose, near the Maryton junction, on Friday.
The collision involved a car, a pick-up truck and a security van.
Mr McAllister, who was driving a red Volkswagen Golf, died from his injuries at the scene.
The 47-year-old female driver of a blue Mercedes Sprinter Van sustained serious injuries and her male passenger suffered minor injuries.
The 50-year-old male driver of a Ford Ranger pick-up also suffered minor injuries in the collision.
A Police Scotland spokeswoman said a report would be submitted to the procurator fiscal.


No-one's ever said my microphone should be cut before, so when Dr Ben Carson suggested I should be shut up after I asked him if he thought the women accusing Donald Trump of sexual abuse were lying, I was a bit flabbergasted. It sounded almost Soviet.
Let's be clear about what happened. I asked Dr Carson, a surrogate for Mr Trump, a simple yes/no question. He refused to answer. When I pushed him he asked not once but twice that the programme shut off my mic. All I wanted was an answer - what I got was a ridiculous demand for censorship.
Replaying the tape I see it also looks rather bullying. In a conversation about sexual harassment a man asks a woman to be silenced for asking a question he doesn't want to answer. He may not have meant to, but Dr Carson gave a perfect, real-time example of exactly the kind of overbearing, condescending attitude a lot of women experience all too often and that the whole Donald Trump scandal has raised as a conversation here.
But I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that this pattern is very familiar to women everywhere. In less crass and explicit ways, this happens in the workplace all the time, men who talk over women at meetings, who take credit for a woman's idea or dismiss their female colleagues as somehow too emotional.
Amid the stunned reaction to Dr Carson's "cut her mic" demand another important thing he said has been slightly overlooked. Later in the our interview he said it didn't matter whether the women accusing Mr Trump were lying or not. I don't really know what he meant by that but it's clearly nonsense. If the women are all lying they deserve criticism, if they're not, they don't. How could it not matter?
One upside of this miserable campaign season is that we are now talking about these important issues and I think men are getting a new insight into the inequality, big and small, that women suffer every day.
My Twitter feed has been flooded with outraged messages from men and women. Joe Scarborough, the host of Morning Joe, called Dr Carson out in no uncertain terms and raised the issue of his call to silence my mic after the ad break. I'd like to thank them all. Wouldn't it be a strange thing if Mr Trump's candidacy ended up precipitating greater sexual equality not less.
Follow Katty Kay on Twitter here.


Competitive video gaming - known as e-sports - should be included in the Olympic Games, according to a top video game designer.

When asked by BBC reporter Colin Paterson whether video games should be an Olympic sport, Rob Pardo told BBC Radio 5 Live: "There's a very good argument for e-sports being in the Olympics."
Mr Pardo said: "Video games are well positioned to be a spectator sport."
Some video game events already attract thousands of spectators.
A recent video game tournament held in South Korea filled a stadium with 40,000 people.
He said: "Look at these professional gamers - [their] reflexes are lightning quick and they're having to make very quick decisions on the fly."
But he also said people would need convincing that video games can count as a sport.
Mr Pardo said: "If you want to define sport as something that takes a lot of physical exertion, then it's hard to argue that video games should be a sport."
"But at the same time, when I'm looking at things that are already in the Olympics, I start questioning the definition," he added.
For e-sports to appear at the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee would first have to recognise video games as a sport, which is highly unlikely.
Board game fans have previously called for chess to be an Olympic sport, but the IOC said it is a "mind sport" and therefore not welcome in the Olympic Games.


Six of the most successful Fifa video gamers to feature on YouTube have been targeted by cyber-thieves.

The hackers stole millions of Fifa coins, the in-game currency, and deleted valuable players.
They are thought to have convinced manufacturer EA Sports to transfer their victims' Origin accounts to email addresses the hackers controlled.
Many other well-known players who do not make videos are also believed to have been hit.
AnesonGib, W2S, Nepenthez, Nick28T, Bateson87 and matthdgamer have more than five million YouTube subscribers between them.
Matthew Craig, the man behind matthdgamer, told the BBC: "There have been about 10 or more accounts which have been hacked over the last two weeks, me included."
Mr Craig said in his case the attackers discarded valuable players, such as Ronaldo, who is worth 3.4 million of the games virtual coins. Exchange rates for Fifa coins suggest Ronaldo was worth about Â£800.
He said the gang behind the attacks could use online leader boards to pick victims.
"It's most likely they just went on the leaderboards and found the ones with the best Ultimate Team Clubs and targeted us that way," he said.
In a video, Nick28T said: "Basically, someone called in pretending to be me and... got in to my account."
Origin is the online system that players have to use if they want to use some of the multi-player aspects of EA games.
An EA representative said: "We encourage all Fifa players to secure their accounts with authentication and verification steps, which we outline on our help and our product sites.
"We are consistently working through our customer experience teams to secure accounts and make sure players are educated when account compromises are made."
Mr Craig said EA had apologised to him about the attack and had moved quickly to help him once he had reported it.
"They got my account back, added four or five more security measures, and my account has been fine since," he said.


Championship side Bristol City have released right-back Mark Little, but veteran forward Aaron Wilbraham has been offered an extended deal.

Former Wolves trainee Little, 28, had been with the Ashton Gate club since signing on a free transfer from Peterborough in June 2014.
Wilbraham, 37, also arrived in 2014 and has scored 30 league goals since then.
The club captain's new offer also includes some "additional non-playing responsibilities".
Meanwhile, 20-year-old midfielder Joe Morrell has joined six other young players in being offered extensions by head coach Lee Johnson.
But the on-loan quartet of Wales duo Adam Matthews and David Cotterill, goalkeeper Fabian Giefer and Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham - who was the Robins' top scorer this term - have all returned to their parent clubs.
Johnson's side finished 17th in the Championship in 2016-17, three points above the relegation zone.


Scientists have discovered evidence of a rare species of flying dinosaur, which was as small as a cat.

Fossilised bones of the dinosaur were found by researchers on Hornby Island in Canada. They are thought to be 77 million years old.
It's fossil shows that it was a type of pterosaur - a group of fearsome, flying dinosaurs, with long sharp beaks and teeth used for crushing shellfish.
However, the unusual thing about this pterosaur was that it was tiny!
Around the time it would have been alive, most pterosaurs would have been huge, some as tall as giraffes, with wingspans as big as fighter jet planes.
Scientists thought the smaller pterosaurs had all become extinct around that time.
However, this new discovery shows that the small pterosaurs hadn't quite been pushed out just yet!
Finding pterosaur fossils is no easy task - because their bones are hollow and thin to help them fly, this means that they don't preserve very well over millions of years, so finding these fossils was really rare.


Forward Fraser McKenzie has signed a new two-year deal with Edinburgh.

The 28-year-old, who can play lock or flanker, is now contracted to 2019 and said he was "delighted to be staying".
He started his professional career with Edinburgh in 2006, leaving for Sale Sharks in 2011 and Newcastle Falcons two years later.
After a year with Falcons, he returned to Murrayfield in 2014 and had a brief spell on loan with Pro12 winners Glasgow Warriors last season.
"When I left the first time, things at the club were a bit unsettled but since then Solly's [head coach Alan Solomons] stabilised the ship, has good coaches around him, I'm happy being back here and it's great to see Edinburgh heading in the right direction," said McKenzie.
"We have a really good close-knit bunch of guys here. You class them all as friends. That's one of the real strengths of this club and another reason I wanted to stay.
"I still class myself a relatively young player with plenty of opportunity for progression and I want to kick on from here."
McKenzie played at Scotland Under-19 and Under-20 level and also featured for Scotland A in 2009.
Edinburgh are currently seventh in the Pro12, four points behind Glasgow, with the top six teams qualifying for next season's European Rugby Champions Cup.
And Solomons said: "It is great to see Fraz make a long-term commitment to the club.
"Since coming back from Newcastle he has become an integral part of the team and has made a huge contribution to its development.
"He is a real team man and a pleasure to coach. I look forward to continuing working with him."


President Barack Obama has called for the US to prepare to accept "at least" 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, according to a White House spokesman.

That number is significantly higher than the 1,500 Syrians that have been permitted to re-settle in the US since the start of the conflict.
The 10,000 figure is still much lower than the 340,000 asylum seekers who arrived in Europe this year.
Since the beginning of the conflict the US has given $4bn ($2.6bn) in aid.
The increase in accepting refugees displays a "significant scaling up" of US commitment to accept people from conflict zones and help provide for their needs," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.
US Congress would have to to make a "significant financial commitment" in order to allow for additional 10,000 refugees to the US, Mr Earnest said.
Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel has said her country is prepared to accept 800,00 Syrians, having accepted about 450,000 so far.
Prime Minister David Cameron has said that the UK will accept 20,000 Syrian refugees.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered four million Syrians as refugees, and it has asked governments around the world to resettle 130,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2016.
In May, 14 US Senators penned a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to allow 65,000 Syrian refugees to settle inside the US.
Humanitarian aid money remains the most effective way to fight the problem for the US, Mr Earnest said, and it is "not feasible" for millions of Syrians to come to the country.
"We know the scale of this problem, it's significant," he said.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called for an "emergency global gathering" at the UN General Assembly meeting this month, where the migrant issue is sure to be discussed.
Asked at a press briefing why the US was not accepting as many refugees as the UK, as a larger country, Mr Earnest said the US wants to meet the "most urgent, immediate needs" of migrants like basic medical care, food, water and shelter.
The security screening migrants must go through when arriving in the US can take 12 to 18 months, and the "safety and security of the US homeland" comes first, he said.
There have been concerns expressed that terrorists could exploit the refugee system to enter the country and carry out an attack, but experts say that fear is overblown.


Police investigating the rape of a 14-year-old girl who was walking to school said they have yet to make any arrests nine days on from the attack.

The victim, who was wearing a school uniform, was snatched from a street in Oxford and forced into a car, then sexually assaulted by two men.
Thirty Thames Valley officers are working on the case, the force said.
Police said they are following a number of lines of inquiry and continuing to talk to the victim.
She was found at midday on 28 September by a member of public after knocking on doors to get help in Cavendish Drive, Marston.
In a statement released on Friday, Thames Valley Police said officers were "continuing to investigate the circumstances" surrounding the abduction and rape.
Det Supt Chris Ward, of the Major Crime Unit, said the force was first informed of the kidnap at 08:51 BST.
"We immediately followed the national guidelines for responding to a kidnap and a significant response following those guidelines was commenced," he said.
"I am unable to provide any additional details of the operational activities."
He added that police had been reviewing "huge quantities of CCTV content" from the Summertown and Marston areas and had responded to over 260 calls from people who had phoned in with information.
Mr Ward said he was "grateful to the public for their patience and support". The offenders were described by the victim as white and used a silver hatchback.
The first spoke with a northern accent, was in his mid-20s, and was balding with shaved dark blond hair. He had blue eyes, a medium build and was about 6ft (1.82m) tall.
The second man had brown gelled hair, was clean-shaven with brown eyes, and was in his late teens or early 20s, with a slightly smaller build than the other offender.


David Cameron has returned to Downing Street with the Tories having defied polls and won the general election.

The Conservatives made gains in England and Wales and are forecast by the BBC to secure 331 seats in the Commons, giving them a slender majority.
Labour leader Ed Miliband said he would stand down on Friday, saying his party must "rebuild" with a new leader.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has also said he will quit, with his party set to be reduced from 57 to eight MPs.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage is also quitting after he failed to win Thanet South, losing by nearly 2,800 votes to the Conservatives.
In other election developments:
The Conservatives have now won the 326 seats needed to form a majority administration, meaning they are able to govern without the need for a coalition or formal agreement with other parties.
Mr Cameron all but declared victory in a speech after being returned as MP for Witney, in which he set out his intention to press ahead with an in/out referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union and to complete the Conservatives' economic plan.
"My aim remains simple - to govern on the basis of governing for everyone in our United Kingdom," he said.
"I want to bring our country together, our United Kingdom together, not least by implementing as fast as we can the devolution that we rightly promised and came together with other parties to agree both for Wales and for Scotland.
"In short, I want my party, and I hope a government I would like to lead, to reclaim a mantle that we should never have lost - the mantle of One Nation, One United Kingdom. That is how I will govern if I am fortunate enough to form a government in the coming days."
Mr Cameron later returned to Downing Street with his wife Samantha and is now having an audience with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
Chancellor George Osborne said the Conservatives had been "given a mandate to get on with the work we started five years ago" and would follow the "clear instructions" of the British public.
However, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith acknowledged that governing with a small majority was difficult.
"Whatever else we now do we keep it simple, we keep it focused and we absolutely stick to our manifesto commitments," he told the BBC.
He said the party would deliver an EU referendum as it was a "red line".
Not since the fall of Thatcher or the Blair landslide has there been a political moment quite like this one.
Personal triumphs for David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon will not just reshape British politics but could perhaps reshape the future of the United Kingdom itself.
Bitter disappointment for Ed Miliband and a political disaster for Nick Clegg may lead to both men quitting, and is sure to lead to months of soul searching for their parties as they mourn the loss of some of their most famous faces - felled by a brutal electoral firing squad.
If UKIP's Nigel Farage fails to win his seat, as many expect, he promised too that he would resign. His party amassed millions of votes in England, more than the SNP in Scotland, but they have struggled to convert them into seats.
The future, though, belongs to David Cameron who defied all those - including at times himself - who doubted that he could ever increase his party's support.
Read Nick's analysis in full here
Although it won a number of seats in London, Labour failed to make the headway it wanted in the South of England and the Midlands, failing to take its top target seat, Warwickshire North, back from the Conservatives.
Speaking in London, Mr Miliband said he had phoned David Cameron to congratulate him on his victory.
He said he would step down as leader with immediate effect and that deputy leader Harriet Harman would succeed him pending a leadership contest.
Labour, he said, needed an "open and honest debate about the way forward without constraints".
"I am truly sorry that I did not succeed," he told party supporters. "I have done my best for five years."
He added: "Britain needs a strong Labour Party. Britain needs a Labour Party that can rebuild after this defeat. We have come back before and we will come back again."
He added: "Britain needs a strong Labour Party. Britain needs a Labour Party that can rebuild after this defeat. We have come back before and we will come back again."
After his own defeat, one of the most surprising results of the night, Mr Balls said he had a "sense of sorrow" about his party's disappointing performance but he was "confident that Labour would be back" as a "united and determined" political force.
Labour has been hammered in Scotland by the SNP, with Nicola Sturgeon's party seizing 56 of the nation's 59 seats. Jim Murphy, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, and shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander both lost their seats to the SNP, which is benefiting from a 27% average swing from Labour.
Conceding defeat, Mr Murphy said it had "proven hard to turn round years of difficulties with the Scottish Labour Party in just five short months".
Mr Clegg said the results were the most "crushing blow" to the Liberal Democrats since they were formed in the late 1980s and a leadership contest would take place in due course to choose his successor.
"This is a very dark hour for our party," he told party supporters in London. "But we cannot allow the values of liberalism to be extinguished overnight. Our party will come back. Our party will win again."
Speaking at the start of the night, the Lib Dem election chief Lord Ashdown told the BBC that he would "publicly eat my hat" if exit polls predicting the party would win only a handful of seats were borne out.
Douglas Carswell has held Clacton for UKIP and it could end up in third place in the national vote share but the party failed to make a breakthrough elsewhere, with fellow defector Mark Reckless losing his seat.
Green Party leader Natalie Bennett fell to an expected defeat in Holborn and St Pancras, finishing in third place. But the party appears to have increased its share of the vote, including in some of the big northern cities and retained Brighton Pavilion, which the party won in 2010.
A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 50 million people registered to vote.
There are also more than 9,000 council seats being contested across 279 English local authorities.
Mayors will also be elected in Bedford, Copeland, Leicester, Mansfield, Middlesbrough and Torbay.


England Under-21 manager Gareth Southgate has no interest in succeeding Roy Hodgson as boss of the senior national team.

The 45-year-old has not been offered the role or spoken to the Football Association since the weekend.
Hodgson resigned after four years in charge following the shock Euro 2016 last-16 defeat by Iceland on Monday.
Southgate was considered as a possible temporary appointment while the FA searched for a successor to Hodgson.
BBC Radio 5 live senior football reporter Ian Dennis said the England job is "not what Gareth Southgate wants at this stage" either on a permanent or interim basis.
Media playback is not supported on this device
On Tuesday, chief executive Martin Glenn said the FA wants a new manager in place for the opening World Cup qualifier against Slovakia on 4 September.
However, if the right man was not available by then he said former England defender Southgate would be the "obvious choice" as an interim boss - and did not rule out appointing a foreign manager.
Arsene Wenger is thought to be among those in the FA frame, with his Arsenal contract due to expire at the end of the season.
Former Paris St-Germain coach Laurent Blanc - who managed France from May 2010 to June 2012 - is also reportedly a name interesting the FA.
Earlier on Wednesday, West Ham co-chairman David Gold said Hammers boss Slaven Bilic would not be tempted by the England job, while on Thursday Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers ruled himself out of the running.
The selection process will be led by Glenn, FA board member David Gill and technical director Dan Ashworth. They plan to conduct a widespread consultation process before narrowing down the contenders.
Southgate, who has been in charge of the Under-21s since 2013, has also managed Middlesbrough, taking them down to the Championship in 2009.
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Match previews for Friday and Saturday's Scottish Premiership games.

Friday
Aberdeen v Celtic (19:45)
Saturday
Rangers v Heart of Midlothian (12:15)
Dundee v Ross County (15:00)
Hamilton Academical v Motherwell (15:00)
Kilmarnock v Inverness Caledonian Thistle (15:00)
St Johnstone v Partick Thistle (15:00)


Spanish police say they suspect a British man and his son of pointing green laser beams at incoming airliners on the Costa del Sol - an offence that can incur an enormous fine.

An off-duty police officer reported seeing them aiming laser pens at jets from a hotel balcony in Torremolinos, near Malaga, on Tuesday night.
The British man is 41 and his son 15, police said (in Spanish), giving no further details about them.
Three pilots reported being dazzled.
They told the Malaga airport control tower, on Spain's south coast, that green laser beams had troubled them as they prepared for landing.
If found guilty, the two British holidaymakers could face a fine ranging from €30,001 (£27,280; $35,425) to €600,000 for endangering flight safety.
Spanish authorities have not yet confirmed any charges.
Raúl Delgado, spokesman for Malaga's air traffic controllers, said the laser beam "enters the cabin and starts bouncing off the windows, hampering the pilots' view of the instruments, causing much interference just when great concentration is needed for landing".
In the UK, the number of such incidents was 1,258 last year - more than three a day on average.
The UK government is tightening the law to tackle the many dangerous incidents, envisaging prison terms for offenders.


Northern Ireland's main parties are expected to hold talks with the prime minister in Downing Street later.

The DUP, Sinn FÃ©in, the UUP, Alliance and the SDLP will hold separate meetings with Theresa May.
She has already held talks with the DUP this week about a deal to support her minority Conservative government.
Since last week's general election, Mrs May has spent much of her time talking about Northern Ireland - and Thursday will be no different.
Thursday's talks will focus on attempts to restore devolution at Stormont by the end of this month.
Secretary of State James Brokenshire has said there was very little time left to reach a deal before a 29 June deadline, but that local parties had it in their hands to take control of their future.
While the Downing Street discussions will focus on restoring devolution, the prospect of a DUP-Conservative deal at Westminster will undoubtedly be raised, says BBC NI political correspondent Stephen Walker.
The deal is now not expected to be announced before next week.
DUP sources have told the BBC an announcement on a deal with Tories had been delayed because of the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower blaze.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has demanded details of any Conservative-DUP deal, calling it a "nonsense situation".
"We want to know what is in the deal they are offering to the DUP and we want to know when it is going to be put before Parliament," he said.
On Wednesday, Mr Corbyn announced that Owen Smith would be his shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland.
The Conservatives are having to rely on the support of 10 DUP MPs after they fell eight seats short of winning an overall majority at the general election.
It means Mrs May will remain as prime minister and the DUP MPs will be central to the survival of a Conservative Party administration.
Devolved government in Northern Ireland broke down in January.
The late deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, stood down to protest the DUP's handling of an energy scandal, in a move that triggered a snap election.
The DUP and Conservatives were close to reaching agreement to enable Mrs May to form a minority government and the talks were not in trouble, according to DUP sources.
But they added that the London tower block fire made an announcement on Wednesday "inappropriate".
The DUP source told BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith the two parties were now finalising the "terms and conditions" of an agreement after Mrs May and DUP leader Arlene Foster met on Tuesday.
Downing Street sources told our correspondent talk of a delay in announcing a deal was "not coming from us."
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Spring may have sprung in gardens across Northern Ireland - but does that mean that winter's really gone?

Over the last few years, we've been enjoying milder winters and earlier springs.
This means that our plants bud and flower much earlier than they used to.
We have just had one of the mildest, wettest winters since records began with reports of daffodils, snowdrops and even cherry blossom in bloom as early as last December across the UK.
The average date for a snowdrop to bloom in the UK is 9 February.
The earliest recorded snowdrop in flower here in Northern Ireland was in Newtownards in County Down on January 10 in the winter of 2014.
However, Kaye Coates from the Woodland Trust says that this season, the first flowering snowdrop was in Kircubbin, County Down, on 28 December 2015.
While it's heartening to see colourful blooms break up the winter gloom, there's always the risk of a cold snap, which can affect plants later in the season.
Dr Kate Lewthwaite is the citizen science manager at the Woodland's Trust. She says "species that traditionally flower later in the spring, like hawthorn or wild cherry, are more vulnerable to the effects of frost, especially if this follows a mild spell that has encouraged early flowering.
"Frost-damaged flowers may fail to set fruit, which obviously has an impact on wildlife later in the season."
This happened during 2015 when a sharp spring frost almost wiped out County Armagh's famous apple crop at the centre of a Â£20m industry.
Any early frogspawn could freeze if the temperatures drop for a time - clearly not good news for the frog population.
But fingers crossed, winter may be behind us.
Dr Lewthwaite says early sightings of the first signs of spring are becoming more commonplace, and could be expected as a result of climate change.
The Trust is always adding to its records and is calling for the public to help them collect as much information as possible.
Director Patrick Cregg said: "We're keen to get a good geographical spread of observations and are appealing to local people to take part.  Please remember that your records - no matter how few - will make a valuable contribution to scientific research."
Find out more at naturescalendar.org.uk


Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) chairman Gareth Davies is hopeful more players will sign national dual contracts in "the next few days".

Ospreys and Wales pair Alun Wyn Jones and Rhys Webb are in talks about their dual deals which expire at the end of the season.
Toulon full-back Leigh Halfpenny has been touted for a return to Wales, with Scarlets among his potential suitors.
"There should be good news," Davies told BBC Wales Sport.
"If there's a chance to get players like Leigh Halfpenny or if we have to look to keep players like Alun Wyn Jones in Wales, then we have to consider that seriously.
"I do not want to say too much at the moment but maybe there will be good news over the next few days."
Wales scrum-half Webb is eager to extend his dual contract despite receiving offers from English and French clubs.
His half-back partner at regional and international level, Dan Biggar, became the first Welsh player to renew his dual contract on 4 December.
Wales have 17 dually-contracted players and another of those, Ospreys captain Jones, has said he is "weighing up" his options.
Dual contracts are 60% funded by the WRU and 40% by the regions.
While the WRU is in negotiations to keep its leading players in Wales, its funds are also used to bring players back from foreign clubs.
Wales centre Jonathan Davies is rejoining Scarlets on a dual contract from French side Clermont Auvergne at the end of the season, and he could be joined by Halfpenny.
The 27-year-old joined Toulon on a two-year deal in 2014 and has been linked with a move to Scarlets, Wasps and former club Cardiff Blues.


Cars, shoes, pizza scissors, vibrating forks and bluetooth water bottles. The list of consumer products - some pointless, some not - that we amass over our lifetimes is almost endless.
The problem is rising populations and rising aspirations mean that the earth's finite natural resources are feeling the strain.
One possible answer is simply to own fewer things.  In other words, sharing, renting and swapping stuff, rather than buying it.
It's a concept that has exploded in recent years.
The variety of businesses set up within the sharing economy is staggering, from cars (for example Lyft, Blablacar, RelayRides, Liftshare and Getaround) and fashion (Girlmeetsdress, Fashionhire) to meals (Grubclub, Mealsharing, Tablecrowd and Vizeats) and wi-fi (Fon).
Anything goes at sites such as Rentmyitems and Yerdle (stuff), Storenextdoor (storage), Spinlister (bikes), DogVacay (pet boarding) and Campinmygarden.
And while this model would not be possible without the advent of the internet, it's the changing attitude of the younger generation that is key to this fundamental transformation.
Comfortable with sharing photos, personal information and recommendations on social media, so-called millennials are keen to embrace this new economic paradigm, where access is more important than ownership.
"We are now in the early stages of a different model of organising economic activity," says Prof Arun Sundararajan at New York University.
Indeed he argues the sharing economy taps into a basic human need.
"We are wired for social connection. The appeal [of sharing] is to integrate some semblance of human interaction into our economic activities."
However, the primary driver behind the extraordinary growth of the sharing economy is somewhat more prosaic, according to expert Benita Matofska - money.
Making or saving money is what drives most people to share or rent, while the social and environmental aspects keep them coming back for more, she says.
The benefits to the consumer are clear - you only pay for what you need, when you need it.
Why buy a car when, on average, you only use it for 4% of its life? Why buy an expensive designer dress to wear once a year when you can rent one, and rent a different one next time round, for a fraction of the cost?
Sharing is even changing the way we think about work, says Ms Matofska, with more and more people taking on one-off projects as opposed to traditional jobs thanks to shared work spaces and sites such as Upwork, Freelancer, Guru and Taskrabbit.
But the two start-ups that stand out from the crowd are taxi service Uber, now valued at more than $60bn (Â£42bn), and room sharing site Airbnb, valued at $25bn.
As a recent report on the sharing economy by US Crowd Companies says, "the world's largest hospitality brand owns not a single room or hotel. The world's largest car service owns not a single vehicle".
Indeed in eight years, Airbnb now has more rooms than the Hilton Group managed in almost 100.
And it's this kind of dizzying success that has grabbed the attention of the established order.
Understandably concerned that they may go the way of the music industry, where many traditional incumbents were wiped out by the advent of streaming, big global brands are desperately trying to work out how best to engage with this new economic model.
Prof Sundararajan's advice is simple: "They have to experiment aggressively with new consumption models".
And many are. Unsurprisingly given the impact of Uber and Lyft, carmakers have also been among the first to react.
Ford is offering financial incentives to customers who rent out their cars using sharing site Getaround, while Daimler runs its own service called Car2Go.
Rival BMW has also been quick to react with its DriveNow service based in a number of German cities, London, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
"There is physically not enough space for the one-car, one-owner business to grow; this is about selling one car a thousand times," explains Tony Douglas, head of mobility services at the German giant.
"Hope and threat are both drivers - it's about generating new business, [and] if we don't do it, someone else will.
"Why be a supplier for Uber or Zipcar and let them own the customer? We want to own the customer."
BMW started looking at the on-demand model four or five years ago, with a small project team of five people. It now has a dedicated and profitable business unit employing more than 100 people.
Other companies are engaging in a different, if rather less imaginative, way - by investing in or buying out sharing start-ups.
US giant General Motors recently announced a $500m partnership with Lyft, having already teamed up with RelayRides; while Hyatt Hotels has invested in Onefinestay, an upmarket room-sharing site.
Retailing, tourism, healthcare, energy supply and recruitment are likely to be the early adopters, but it's not just the private sector that is waking up to this fundamental shift in the way we buy and sell goods and services.
Local councils and charities are also looking to embrace sharing, for example Macmillan's Team Up initiative, where local people can help those suffering with cancer.
While the advent of sharing lifestyles should in the main help relieve pressure on resources, there could, however, be some unexpected knock-on effects.
For example, cheaper and more accessible taxi services could well provide an increasingly attractive alternative to public transport, exacerbating rather than reducing emissions of CO2 and pollutants.
Indeed there is increasing talk of a "rebound effect, where people who share have more money to spend on things, which muddies the water a little," says David Symons, director of consultancy WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff.
But given that those who embrace sharing are by their very nature less obsessed with accumulating material possessions than previous generations, sharing must be seen as a force for good.


Clyde's Barry Ferguson admits it is make or break for his side's promotion play-off chances when they travel to face Annan Athletic on Saturday.

But the former Scotland midfielder insists that he can turn the Cumbernauld outfit around despite only one win in 12 games.
"Of course I can," the 39-year-old manager told BBC Scotland.
"But, if we have any aspirations about getting into the play-offs, we need to win on Saturday."
With Forfar Athletic eight points clear of Arbroath at the top, Clyde slipped 15 points behind third-placed Elgin City when they were trounced 4-1 away to the Moray outfit on Saturday.
The Bully Wee are also 11 points behind this weekend's hosts, who sit in the final play-off spot.
Ferguson's side do have three games in hand over Annan, but Montrose and Berwick Rangers have also overtaken Clyde during their run of nine league games without a win.
"It is tough," admitted Ferguson, who previously had a spell as caretaker manager with Blackpool. "Listen, it's easy to walk away, but I am there fighting and we'll get into the play-offs."
Clyde have played fewer games as a result of a run to the fifth round of the Scottish Cup that ended last midweek after they lost 2-1 in extra-time at home to Championship outfit Ayr United.
"We had a long game on Tuesday night - went into 120 minutes and into extra-time, but I'm not going to use it as an excuse," said the Bully Wee boss, whose side were praised for their display against the full-time visitors.
"We try to do everything properly, the recovery - we went and got protein shakes, recovery shakes, we took them up the night before, which we normally don't do because it is a bit of a cost to the club.
"But it just wasn't good enough. I'm not going to mix my words. I told them after the game."
Ferguson, who had a long playing career in the top flight in Scotland and England, has often expressed his frustration at managing part-time players.
"On Tuesday night, Ayr United scored the winner in extra-time," he said. "I had four guys who were going straight from that game to night shift for eight or nine-hour shifts.
"I take my hat off to them as a realise now how difficult it is.
"But that's why we do a pre-season and we should should be fit enough to play three games in a week."


A Berkshire man with a rare eye disease has won an 18-month battle with the NHS to pay for his treatment.

Tony Watson, from Wokingham, is blind in one eye from neo vascularisation, a condition where abnormal blood vessels form behind the eye.
NHS Berkshire originally refused to treat him with the drug Lucentis, offering a cheaper alternative instead.
But the primary care trust (PCT) says recently reduced costs in manufacturing Lucentis now make it more affordable.
Lucentis previously cost around Â£700 per injection. When Mr Watson's condition became chronic last June, he was refused the drug on the NHS and offered Avastin, which cost Â£60 per injection.
His cardiologist and ophthalmologist advised he continue using Lucentis after he suffered two heart attacks. They believed Avastin could have had possible side effects on his heart.
"I lost sight in my left eye in 2007 and in 2010 the same thing began with my right eye," said Mr Watson.
"From then on, I had a scan every four weeks and if I needed it, Lucentis was provided through my private health care plan."
The PCT informed Mr Watson because of a lack of National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines over his condition, Lucentis would be too costly to provide on the NHS.
Mr Watson added: "A very cold, matter-of-fact letter came through the door one day telling me I would no longer qualify.
"At first you feel scared and deflated, but then you get a bit more passionate and say, 'it's not going to happen'."
With the help of evidence compiled by the RNIB and his specialists, Mr Watson eventually convinced health bosses to fund his Lucentis injections.
Clara Eaglen from the charity said: "A change in costs has led the PCT to change its mind, so it's unbelievable Mr Watson had to fight his corner.
"Everyone should have access to the drugs they need, especially if clinicians recommend them. Patient safety should take priority over cost."
An NHS Berkshire spokesman said: "The NHS is funded by the taxpayer and the PCT has a duty to spend money cost-effectively.
"Lucentis is an expensive drug, but the PCT has always funded Lucentis when recommended by NICE."


Callum Hawkins set a Scottish record in the half marathon at the Kagawa Marugame International in Japan with a time of 60:00.

The 24-year-old won the event, finishing ahead of Ethiopian record holder Atsedu Tsegay.
His time beat the 62:28 set in the 1987 Great North Run by Allister Hutton.
Hawkins' time of 60:24 in last year's Great Scottish Run half-marathon did not count as a Scottish record after the course was found to be too short.
Organisers re-measured the Glasgow route after some competitors raised concerns about the distance and it was found to be around 150m shy.
Hawkins is now second to Mo Farah on the all-time British list over the half-marathon distance, with Steve Jones third.
Another Scot, Laura Muir, set a new European 3,000m indoor record in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The 23-year-old's victory set a new mark of eight minutes 26.41 seconds - fifth on the world-best list.
Meanwhile, compatriot Andy Butchart clocked 3:54.24 to win the Armory Invitational Mile event in New York to go second on the Scottish all-time list and third on the British list.


An archaeologist says he may have found evidence that Nefertiti, the former Queen of Egypt, is secretly buried inside Tutankhamun's tomb.

The whereabouts of Nefertiti's remains are not known, although those of Tutankhamun - who may have been her son - were found in 1922.
New tests have shown there may be a portal leading from King Tut's tomb.
Nicholas Reeves, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, says he believes Nefertiti may lie inside.
One leading Egyptologist urged caution over the conclusion but said that, if confirmed, it would be "brilliant".
The finds were made last year, after the Spanish artistic and preservation specialists, Factum Arte, were commissioned to produce detailed scans of Tutankhamun's tomb.
The scans were then used to produce a facsimile of the tomb near the site of the original Valley of the Kings in Luxor.
While assessing the scans last February, Dr Reeves spotted what he believed were marks indicating where two doorways used to be.
"I have been testing the evidence ever since, looking for indications that what I thought I was seeing was, in fact, not there," Dr Reeves told the BBC.
"But the more I looked, the more information I found that I seemed to be looking at something pretty real."
The layout of Tutankhamun's tomb has been a puzzle for some time - in particular, why it was smaller than those of other kings' tombs.
Dr Reeves believes there are clues in the design of the tomb that indicate it was designed to store the remains of a queen, not a king.
"If I'm wrong, I'm wrong," he said. "But if I'm right, the prospects are frankly staggering. The world will have become a much more interesting place - at least for Egyptologists."
After being discovered by English archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922, the tomb of Tutankhamun was opened in February the following year.
It was the most intact Egyptian tomb ever discovered, and very few objects appeared to have been plundered.
Close to 2,000 objects were found, and it took archaeologists nine years to catalogue them all.
If the same amount of objects were found elsewhere in the tomb, it would represent "quite a coup," said Dr Reeves.
Neither Egyptian authorities nor Factum Arte have responded to the claims.
"I think there are certainly some signs that there might have been some activity around those doorways," said Joyce Tyldesley, an Egyptologist with the University of Manchester.
"Whether we can deduct from that that we actually the burial site of Nefertiti might be a step too far.
"But if it was true, it would be absolutely brilliant."


Young fish become hooked on eating plastic in the seas in the same way that teenagers prefer unhealthy fast food, Swedish researchers have said.

Their study, reported in Science, found exposure to high concentrations of polystyrene makes perch larvae favour the particles over more natural foods.
As a result of exposure to plastic, the young perch are smaller, slower and more susceptible to predators.
The researchers called for plastic micro-beads to be banned in cosmetics.
Concerns have been growing about the amount of plastic in the seas in recent years.
A study that came out last year estimated that about 8 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the oceans annually.
When exposed to UV radiation, chemical degradation and the movement of the waves, this plastic breaks down into tiny pieces. Those smaller than 5mm are referred to as micro-plastics. The term also covers plastic micro-beads from personal care products.
Scientists have been worried that these tiny fragments can build up in the guts of marine creatures and can also leach toxic chemicals.
To look at the impact of micro-plastics on the early life stages of fish, Swedish researchers exposed perch larvae to different concentrations of polystyrene in water tanks.
In the absence of micro-plastics, about 96% of the eggs successfully hatched. This dropped to 81% for those exposed to large quantities.
The fish that did hatch in these waters with high quantities of micro-plastics were "smaller, slower, and more stupid" than those that hatched in clean waters, lead author Dr Oona Lonnstedt, from Uppsala University, said.
When exposed to predators, about half the young perch from clean waters survived for 24 hours. Those that had been raised with the strongest plastic concentrations were all consumed by pike over the same period.
Most surprising for the research team was the way that plastic changed food preferences.
"They all had access to zooplankton and yet they decided to just eat plastic in that treatment. It seems to be a chemical or physical cue that the plastic has, that triggers a feeding response in fish," Dr Lonnstedt told BBC News.
"They are basically fooled into thinking it's a high-energy resource that they need to eat a lot of.  I think of it as unhealthy fast food for teenagers, and they are just stuffing themselves."
In the study, the researchers link the decline of species such as perch and pike, observed in the Baltic Sea over the past two decades, to increased deaths at the juvenile stage. They argue that if plastics are impacting young fish across species, it could have "profound effects" on ecosystems.
Other researchers said the new study was an important step forward in understanding the mechanisms of impact on marine species.
"The observations we have so far are about the amount of plastic we find in the seas, and the amount we find within animals," commented Dr Erik Van Sebille from Imperial College London.
"Your intuition would say it is not good for a fish to eat plastic, but scientifically you want to prove it, you want to be able to show what the impacts plastic are having, and that has been very hard to determine until now, and that's why this is such a big paper."
The US has banned the use of plastic micro-beads in cosmetic and personal care products and there is growing pressure in the UK and Europe to do the same.
"It's body care products, it's not just toothpaste and scrubbers; some mascara and some lipsticks have plastic in them too," said Dr Lonnstedt.
"It's a silent threat that we haven't really thought about before. We need to ban the products that have micro-beads in them."
Ministers in the UK have already said that if the EU cannot adopt a common position on the issue then Britain is prepared to ban them unilaterally.
The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee will be questioning witnesses about micro-plastics next week.
Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc and on Facebook.


England head into the semi-finals of the Women's World Cup on the back of a sixth straight win courtesy of a 92-run victory over West Indies.

Media playback is not supported on this device
Captain Heather Knight top scored with 67 as the hosts were restricted to 220-7, Afy Fletcher finishing with 3-33.
Natalie Sciver, who hit 129 against New Zealand on 12 July, took three wickets, including two in one over, as West Indies were restricted to 128-9.
England will face South Africa in the semi-final on 18 July in Bristol.
South Africa, who started the day third in the table, dropped to fourth after a 59-run defeat to Australia at Taunton.
India confirmed their place in the semi-finals with a 186-run win over New Zealand at Derby.
They will meet holders Australia in the other semi-final at Derby on 20 July.
The final is at Lord's on 23 July.
Having lost on the opening day of the World Cup against India on 24 June, England have recovered well to build momentum and finish top of the group.
Their emphatic victory over West Indies, runners-up in 2013, included a disciplined fielding display, while seven Windies wickets were lbw - a record in the women's one-day international game.
West Indies were 64-3 at one stage before losing five wickets for 36 runs to collapse to 100-8.
Earlier Knight played an intelligent innings, which included five fours, to steady England after they had slipped to 105-5.
Nat Sciver, who hit two swashbuckling centuries earlier in the tournament, made a second-ball duck but responded with two wickets in her first over and went on to claim 3-3 from four overs.
Captain Knight came to the crease in the 11th over with her team at 54-2 and was awarded the Player of the Match for her composed 88-ball innings.
"The support has been brilliant, particularly here at Bristol, and it really does make a difference," she enthused.
"Hopefully we will get a lot of people here on Tuesday for the semi-final and go from there."
The tournament's leading scorer, Tammy Beaumont, who made 42, added: "That performance was what we were aiming for, we knew it was a used pitch and their spinners would come into the game, they pegged us back but with 220 on the board we were pretty confident
"We fielded and bowled well and won by 90 runs in the end so it's good for us. At 90-4 it wasn't an ideal start but we back our batting line-up the whole way down.
"The best part about our squad is that someone steps up every single game, Heather had a crucial knock with the bat and then everyone did their bit with the ball and that's really important.
"We all need to be on form heading into a semi-final."
Former England batter Ebony Rainford-Brent on BBC Test Match Special: "Clearly England are favourites for the semi-final but South Africa will bring their spinners out - players like Nat Sciver like pace on the ball - and if the South Africans turn it it will be the spinners who decide it.
"South Africa have beaten England in recent times and on any day they can put their names in the hat."


Information is being sought on spider species in Scotland.

The Wildlife Information Centre (TWIC), working with other organisations such as British Arachnological Society, has launched the Scottish Spider Search.
Records of four species in particular have been sought - the four-spotted orbweb, daddy long-legs, zebra and nurseryweb.
These spiders include the UK's heaviest and one that creeps up on its prey before pouncing.
TWIC's centre manager Graeme Wilson said it was hoped the survey would gather new information on many of the hundreds of spider species found in Scotland with the help from the wider public.
He said: "Spiders may not be everyone's favourite creatures but they play a very important role in the natural world by controlling other species.
"Because there are so many different types of spiders, each with their own particular ecological requirements, surveying them is a good way to assess the health of habitats.
"This is why The Wildlife Information Centre, with the help of other conservation organisations like the British Arachnological Society, has launched the Scottish Spider Search to help increase the number of spider records in Scotland as they are very under-recorded at present."
He added: "We also hope that some people will really catch the spider bug by learning more about these interesting creatures and start recording some of the other over 400 spider species found in Scotland."
Scotland has many close connections to the eight-legged beasties.
Robert the Bruce, Scotland's warrior king, was inspired to continue campaigning when he feared all was lost, after observing a spider's determination to spin a web.
Glasgow football club, Queen's Park FC, are nicknamed The Spiders. Among the club's rivals are Alloa Athletic, also known as The Wasps.
Scots comic book writer Mark Millar, whose most famous works include comic-to-movie-adaption tales Kick-Ass, Kingsmen: The Secret Service and Wanted, has written stories for Marvel's Spider-Man.
And Dundreggan, a large are of woodland that includes areas of ancient Caledonian Forest, is thought to hold Scotland's largest population of the colourful strawberry spider.
The four-spotted orbweb is the UK's heaviest spider.
There are relatively few records of this species from Scotland, but TWIC said conservationists had suggested that the spider was spreading northwards and was likely to be more widespread in Scotland than previously thought.
Zebra spiders do not build webs and instead stalk their prey before pouncing on them.
These stripy creatures have a large front pair of eyes that provide "excellent binocular vision" to track moving prey. Their other six eyes can detect movement from the sides and rear.
Daddy long-legs spiders can be found in houses all year round.
Described as being unfussy eaters they will make a meal of almost anything that gets tangled in their webs, including larger house spiders.
Nurserywebs are a large UK species of spider.
The females build tent-like "nurseries" of dense silk for their eggs and guard these shelters once the spiderlings have hatched.


George Osborne told his City of London audience this week that he's not dogmatic about private being good, and public bad.

But there's not much doubt that he thinks private banks are preferable. And he can say it more clearly now that he's unshackled from coalition with the Lib Dems.
In the same speech, the chancellor announced a sell-off of half the remaining 30% government stake in Royal Mail.  We've learned this morning that raised Â£750m.
He offered the "staggering fact" that the continued sell-off of Lloyds Banking Group shares - of which the UK government continues to hold just under 20%, having sold off half its stake already - will be the biggest privatisation ever.
That's at least until we see the shape of what's going to happen to Royal Bank of Scotland.
With 80% of it still in government hands, institutional investors will get a bite at the first tranche, later this year.
Unless something unexpected happens to the share price - currently trading around 30% below the break even price at which the stake was taken on - then the government will be making a loss.
To suggest, as some have, that this is so that its chums in the City can make a profit is to misunderstand what's going on.
It was not taken on as an investment. Indeed, the thinking back in 2009 was that we should brace ourselves for a whacking great loss.
And if the institutional investors wish to take on RBS shares at their current price, they'll do so for what they're worth now. Even they have to remember that share prices can go down as well as up.
The reasons for the RBS market valuation falling further would be another raft of vast fines for rigging markets, and legal challenges for its involvement in over-risky lending.
Specifically, investors are challenging RBS over what Fred Goodwin and his fellow bosses knew about the state of the bank's risks in spring 2008, when they raised Â£12bn in a share issue a few months before it hit crunch point.
To the upside, the reckoning is that the share price should be helped up by the very act of starting this sale. From a market analyst point of view, an 80% government shareholding has a dampening effect on the value of the other 20%.
There's no reason, says George Osborne, why there shouldn't be a retail offer to the small investor. They invariably come at a discount. That means sacrificing a bit more of the value of the shares to the taxpayer.
A more audacious plan, suggested before the election, was for a distribution of shares to every British household. That would reduce takings a lot further, particularly if it were to be on a meaningful scale.
But by hook or (dare I say it) by crook, RBS is to be taken out of government hands.
For some, that removes the opportunity to use a publicly-owned bank to serve the economy and social purposes. Other countries - and not just leftish ones - have banks which provide branch networks, small business lending, and accounts for the financially marginalised.
That assumes privately-owned banks won't or can't provide these services, or that they can only be provided by government diktat.
The way Britain has gone is to use regulation and political pressure to reach these objectives, and both the UK and Scottish governments have gone a limited way towards using their own funds to provide lending to growing businesses where the market doesn't.
The other option for RBS was to break it up, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Not under government control, anyway.
Critics of the limited actions taken since the 2008 financial crash say that Britain needs smaller regional banks and more competition. The lack of competition became a bigger issue in 2008-09, when foreign banks quickly withdrew from the market.
More entrants can be expected, as the financial system returns to something that looks more like normal.  This week, a new savings offer was put on the UK market by the financial arm of Renault, the French carmaker.
But small banks risk being gobbled up, returning us to Britain's giant bank problem.
TSB was spun off from Lloyds Banking Group, under European Commission instruction, but within months, it had been bought by Spanish bank Sabadell.
The Clydesdale Bank, including the Yorkshire Bank brand, is to be floated by its Australian owner later this year. It's not clear that it will remain independent for long.
In exchange for state aid permission from the European Commission, RBS is having to sell a sizeable chunk of its operations, which are soon to be floated under the old Williams and Glyn brand.
This, too, could be vulnerable to takeover by a foreign owner. But one lesson from carving that out of RBS in preparation for a sale is that it is fiendishly difficult and expensive to do. Breaking up banks, in the hope they'll function better and be less of a risk in smaller units, is anything but simple.
So could RBS, without a controlling government stake, itself be vulnerable to a bid from a rival, if it is felt to be undervalued by the market? Investors or rivals may consider it ripe for break-up, if it reckons the sum is worth less than the parts.
That could be painful for its headquarters in Edinburgh. The prospect also raises the question of what protection, if any, the UK government wishes to put round it while it continues its slow recovery.
And the reverse is also true. An RBS in wholly private hands will be able to choose its own destiny, away from Treasury interference and the electoral timetable - perhaps expanding into new markets and acquiring others, though taking a bit more care about doing so than it did under Fred Goodwin. Quite apart from being allowed to pay dividends again, that could unleash a bit more dynamism into its executive suite.
Without being further broken up, RBS, including NatWest and Ulster Bank, remains a huge national presence in retail, and even more so in its share of small and medium-scale business lending.
It has shed most of its risky investment bank division, its sprawling overseas interests, its aviation finance wing, its commodity trading division, and it's on the way to shedding its Citizens Bank subsidiary in the US. It's now crunching through its branch network, in response to changed consumer behaviour.
Whatever the price when the shares come on the market, buyers will be taking a stake in a much slimmer Royal Bank of Scotland than the one taken on by the government back in 2008-09.


Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle have rejected the chance to play Under-21 teams in the EFL Trophy.

Sixteen Category One academies were invited to play against League One and League Two clubs as part of a one-season, 64-team competition trial.
Premier League champions Leicester and Chelsea have accepted the invitation.
"If it's a success it will continue. If not we'll review and see where we go," said EFL chief executive Shaun Harvey.
REACTION: 'EFL Trophy won't capture imagination'
Leicester and Chelsea are joined by Southampton, West Ham United, Stoke City, Everton, Swansea City, West Bromwich Albion, Sunderland and Middlesbrough in accepting the initial invitation to join the competition.
Six Championship academy teams will take the places of the rejected teams.
Norwich City, Brighton, Derby, Wolves, Blackburn and Reading have all put teams forward to play in the competition in 2016-17, which has undergone a revamp from the knockout stages of previous years.
Sixteen groups of four teams will each contain an academy side, with the top two from each qualifying for the first knockout round of 32 teams.
The final will be held at Wembley and Harvey said two academy teams making the final is "probably one of the biggest concerns we have".
He continued: "If two Premier League clubs get to the final I suspect the reinvention of the competition might have to take another move in a further year.
"We're a long way from that position yet. Clubs have got a lot of distance to travel to get to that final at Wembley, and it'll be very interesting to see how those games work out over that period."
Category One academy teams will have to start six under-21 players in the competition, but the others can be of any age.
"The challenges we faced were due to scheduling issues that football faces throughout the full season - we are in a position where the EFL Trophy fixtures are played in international weeks," said Harvey.
"Some of the bigger clubs who supply the bulk of players for the international sides - the younger players in particular in that under-21 age group, under-17, under-18, under-19, under-20 age groups as well - their players were on international duty so the type of players this competition could have suited may be missing.
"From a competitive perspective I think those clubs who provide the majority of those players took the option that it was probably a step too far at this stage, particularly when the better younger players in those age groups have already been committed to go out on loan to other clubs."
Barnsley beat Oxford United 3-2 at Wembley in front of a crowd of more than 59,000 in last season's final.
Harvey said that the primary reason for changing the format of the competition was for it to "survive".
He continued: "We've used that opportunity to try to ensure we get ourselves in a position where there's some good from a player development prospective.
"The advent of additional prize money and the change in structure will also mean it should be financially beneficial to our clubs as well."
However, Peterborough United chairman Darragh MacAnthony - one of those to vote in favour of the proposals - has now said he would have reversed his decision had he known the line-up of under-21 teams.
He said on Twitter: "If I had know such large amount of them (Championship under-21 sides), then no chance (of voting in favour). You live and learn. Now we have to get on with it."
Northern Group A: Everton, Bolton, Cheltenham, Blackpool.
Northern Group B: Wolves, Chesterfield, Crewe, Accrington.
Northern Group C: Stoke, Bradford, Morecambe, Bury.
Northern Group D: Blackburn, Fleetwood, Carlisle, Oldham.
Northern Group E: Derby, Port Vale, Doncaster, Mansfield.
Northern Group F: Sunderland, Rochdale, Hartlepool, Notts County.
Northern Group G: Middlesbrough, Scunthorpe, Cambridge, Shrewsbury.
Northern Group H: Leicester, Sheffield United, Grimsby, Walsall.
Southern Group A: Reading, Bristol Rovers, Portsmouth, Yeovil.
Southern Group B: Swansea, AFC Wimbledon, Newport, Plymouth.
Southern Group C: Chelsea, Swindon, Exeter, Oxford.
Southern Group D: West Ham, Coventry, Wycombe, Northampton.
Southern Group E: Southampton, Charlton, Colchester, Crawley.
Southern Group F: Norwich, Peterborough, Barnet, MK Dons.
Southern Group G: Brighton, Southend, Stevenage, Leyton Orient.
Southern Group H: West Bromwich Albion, Millwall, Luton, Gillingham.
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An Afghan woman immortalised on the cover of National Geographic magazine has been denied bail after being arrested on fraud charges.

Sharbat Gula, whose haunting green eyes made her famous, fled Soviet-occupied Afghanistan as a child and was pictured in 1984 in a refugee camp in Pakistan.
Mrs Gula has been accused of living in Pakistan on fake identity papers and faces up to 14 years in jail.
Pakistan recently launched a crackdown on fake IDs.
There are strict restrictions to getting a Pakistani ID card, which is needed for opening a bank account or to buy property.
Why Now?: M Ilyas Khan, BBC News, Islamabad
Technically, Sharbat Gula cannot deny she committed fraud. But on a humanitarian level, many believe she is just one among thousands of Afghan refugees who committed the same offence.
Unfortunately for Mrs Gula, she has become the victim of a rather sudden turn in Pakistan's policy towards refugees.  It wants them out of the country in the shortest possible time.
Pakistan's decision has come amid its rapidly deteriorating relations with India and Afghanistan. Officials say militants have been using hideouts in refugee settlements to launch attacks in Pakistan.
Another reason, according to some quarters, may be Islamabad's likely desire to inflict economic pain on Kabul for co-operating with India.
The Afghans forced to go home
Afghanistan's looming refugee disaster
Mrs Gula was arrested in Peshawar, near the Afghan border after a two-year investigation.
She allegedly applied for an identity card in April 2014, using the name Sharbat Bibi.
On Sunday Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said she should be granted bail, but a judge denied her application, saying she had failed to make her case.
If the fraud claims are true, she is one of thousands of Afghan refugees deploying desperate measures to avoid returning to their war-torn homeland.
The celebrated "Afghan girl" picture was taken by photographer Steve McCurry in 1984 in a refugee camp in north-west Pakistan, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It led to one of the most recognisable magazine covers ever printed.
He tracked her down 17 years later, living in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. Mrs Gula later moved back to Pakistan and he kept in touch.
He told BBC Newsday on Wednesday that he had hired a lawyer for her.
He added that he believed the Pakistani authorities may have singled her out because she is so well known.
"Perhaps they are trying to send the message to other Afghan refugees that 'we couldn't care who you are, we are going to hunt you down and drive you back into your country'."
Recent UN figures show that Pakistan hosts 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees. A further one million unregistered refugees are believed to be in the country.
Pakistan recently started cracking down on fake IDs.
It has been illegal for non-Pakistanis to have IDs since they were first issued in the 1970s but the law was not enforced, says our reporter M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad.
At first, the procedure was for a village council member to endorse a citizen's application. Few village councillors objected to endorsing an application for someone who, to them and to the rest of the village, was no longer a refugee but a neighbour, he adds.


John Egan and Liam Kelly have been given their first call-ups in the Republic of Ireland squad to face Wales in a World Cup qualifier.

Brentford defender Egan and Reading midfielder Kelly are in the 39-man provisional squad with Newcastle keeper Rob Elliott, who returns after a year.
Brighton defender Shane Duffy and Reading midfielder Stephen Quinn miss out because of injury.
The Irish host Wales on 24 March before a 28 March friendly with Iceland.
The extended panel for the two Aviva Stadium games was announced on Monday by Republic boss Martin O'Neill.
Everton midfielder James McCarthy is an injury doubt after suffering a recurrence of a hamstring injury.
Elliot returns to the squad for the first time since being injured against Slovakia in March last year.
The visit of Wales will be the Republic's fifth qualifying game following victories over Georgia, Moldova and Austria, as well as a draw away to Serbia.
The results have taken O'Neill's men to the top of Group D with six qualifiers remaining.
Wales have won just one of their four qualifiers and lie four points behind the Republic.
Republic of Ireland provisional squad:
Goalkeepers: Colin Doyle (Bradford City), Rob Elliot (Newcastle United), Darren Randolph (West Ham United), Keiren Westwood (Sheffield Wednesday)
Defenders: Seamus Coleman (Everton), Cyrus Christie, Richard Keogh, Alex Pearce (Derby County), Paul McShane (Reading), Andy Boyle (Preston North End), John O'Shea (Sunderland), Ciaran Clark (Newcastle United), John Egan (Brentford), Stephen Ward (Burnley), Matt Doherty (Wolverhampton Wanderers)
Midfielders: Aiden McGeady, Daryl Horgan (Preston North End), Glenn Whelan (Stoke City), James McCarthy (Everton), Jeff Hendrick, Robbie Brady (Burnley), David Meyler (Hull City), Liam Kelly (Reading), Darron Gibson (Sunderland), Harry Arter (Bournemouth), Eunan O'Kane (Leeds United), Conor Hourihane (Aston Villa), Stephen Gleeson (Birmingham City), Wes Hoolahan (Norwich City), Anthony Pilkington (Cardiff City), Callum O'Dowda (Bristol City), Jonathan Hayes (Aberdeen), James McClean (West Bromwich Albion)
Forwards: Kevin Doyle (Colorado Rapids), Shane Long (Southampton), David McGoldrick (Ipswich Town), Daryl Murphy (Newcastle United), Adam Rooney (Aberdeen), Jonathan Walters (Stoke City)


The Queen is to receive an 8% increase in income from public funds, after the Crown Estate's profits rose by £24m.

The Sovereign Grant, which pays for the salaries of her household, official travel and upkeep of palaces, is to increase by more than £6m in 2018/19.
It comes as accounts revealed the Queen's official net expenditure last year increased by £2m, to almost £42m.
Sir Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse, said the Queen represented "excellent value for money".
He said: "When you look at these accounts, the bottom line is the Sovereign Grant last year equated to 65p per person, per annum, in the United Kingdom.
"That's the price of a first class stamp.
"Consider that against what the Queen does and represents for this country, I believe it represents excellent value for money."
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The Queen and the Royal Family's official travel cost the taxpayer £4.5m during 2016/17, up £500,000.
Clarence House has also released its annual accounts, which showed the Prince of Wales' annual income from his hereditary estate, the Duchy of Cornwall, increased by 1.2% - to £20.7m.
The Sovereign Grant, which is paid two years in arrears, is money given to the Queen by the Treasury.
It is based on the profits of the Crown Estate portfolio, which includes much of London's West End.
The Crown Estate posted a £24.7m rise in profits, to £328.8m, in 2016/17.
By Peter Hunt, royal correspondent, BBC News
For decades, royals and their use of taxpayers' money have had the potential to be a toxic combination.
This latest increase in funding - the Sovereign Grant will have risen from £31m to £82m over six years - has been made public at a time of continued pay restraint in the public sector and when there is a focus, after the Grenfell Tower fire, on the divide between rich and poor.
Add in the £17,000 it cost to fly Prince Charles on a private plane between two of his residences and the ancient institution's critics cry foul. As they do each year.
And each year aides stress that a regal eagle eye is kept on travel costs and the extra cash is needed to save Buckingham Palace from damaging disrepair.
The generous royal funding formula will be reviewed in four years time. It's meant to last until 2026.
Royal officials have said they've no reason to believe "it won't remain in place".
Read more from Peter Hunt
Republic, which campaigns for an elected head of state, published its own report on royal expenses.
It said that once security and other costs were included, the annual bill for the monarchy was nearer £345m.
Graham Smith, the organisation's chief executive, said it was a "massive bill for the taxpayer" to support "privileged lifestyles".
The increase in funding will take place as extensive repairs are being carried out at Buckingham Palace, costing £369m.
To help pay for the work at the palace, the percentage of the Crown Estate profits paid to the Queen will increase from 15% to 25% between 2017 and 2027.


As the great movie mogul Sam Goldwyn might have said: "It's injunction deja vu, all over again."

The newspapers are going to town on the story of a well-known, married actor who has an injunction preventing publication of details of his alleged sexual encounter with a prostitute. They argue it is absurd that he has been named in the United States and on social media, but cannot be named in the mainstream media here.
Is it a coincidence that this particular story is being run now? After all, the actor's injunction was obtained five years ago.
Consider then that the Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to allow an appeal against a decision of the Court of Appeal to lift a privacy injunction obtained by a married celebrity who, it is alleged, took part in what the courts have called a "three-way sexual encounter".
That celebrity is known to us only as CJS but following the granting of his injunction in January, has been named in the US media, in Scotland and online. It is essentially that - the cat being let out of the bag - which led the Court of Appeal to lift the injunction, although it remains in place pending the Supreme Court judgement which is expected soon.
It would seem the print media has been emboldened by what some regard as the orchestrated leakage of identifying information in the CJS case. It looks to be working through a back catalogue of celebrity injunctions in a campaign to destroy the UK privacy injunction.
The newspapers regard these court orders as unsustainable and unfit for purpose in the global world of the internet. And they are not alone in seeing them as a Canute-like attempt to hold back the modern tide of information.
But injunctions also happen to interfere with the tabloid business model by stopping them from writing about the sex lives of the rich and famous.
So how many celebrity injunctions are there? We don't know for sure. They are often incorrectly referred to as "super-injunctions".  A true super-injunction is so powerful that even the fact of the injunction cannot be made public. So we really wouldn't know how many exist.
However, lawyers who work in this area estimate there are possibly one or two true super-injunctions.
There are, however, more privacy injunctions in place. These are injunctions which anonymise the celebrity claimant and details of the activity they are alleged to have taken part in.
The existence of these injunctions can be made public. And so there will be some very twitchy celebrities out there clutching injunctions and wondering when it might be their turn to be subject to a press campaign to identify them.
There was no right to privacy in UK law until the Human Rights Act in 2000. Before that, newspapers could publish whatever they liked about a person. As long as it wasn't defamatory, it could be as private as they liked.
In 1990, the 'Allo 'Allo actor Gorden Kaye was recovering from emergency brain surgery when a team from the Sunday Sport disguised as medical staff entered his hospital room, took photographs and purported to interview him.
He took his case for breach of privacy to the Court of Appeal, only to be told there was no right to privacy.
The court spoke of the "desirability" of parliament legislating to create a privacy law. It never did, but, in 2000, the Labour government passed the Human Rights Act, which wrote into UK law the European Convention on Human Rights.
It established two very powerful but contradictory rights: the right to private and family life under Article 8, and the right to freedom of expression under Article 10.
They drew up the battle lines between the rich and powerful who wanted to protect their privacy on the one hand, and a hungry tabloid press who wanted to write about it on the other.
The law was developed by judges in cases involving the supermodel Naomi Campbell, photographed leaving a drug treatment centre, and the former Formula 1 boss, Max Mosley, who took part in a orgy with prostitutes.
His case established that a consensual sexual act between adults was by definition private, and the press could only publish the story if there was a genuine public interest in doing so.
At the heart of the fight was the only effective means of protecting privacy - the privacy injunction.
Five years ago, the Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs had his injunction - preventing details of an alleged affair being reported - melted, following publication online and in Scotland. He was then named by an MP in parliament.
Things went quiet for a while, perhaps while the tabloid media was put somewhat on the back foot by the phone-hacking scandal.
But celebrity injunctions are now back firmly in the spotlight and their future looks pretty fragile.
Some will say the damage to, and possible demise of the injunction is an inevitable consequence of the weakness of national courts to enforce these orders in a global internet age.
Others will feel it that it undermines the rule of law, destroys any meaningful privacy protection and is deeply worrying.


Too many patients are dying following emergency bowel surgery, experts who have done a comprehensive audit of care across England and Wales warn.

One in 10 patients dies within 30 days of undergoing urgent, unplanned laparotomy and some of these deaths could be avoided, the authors say.
The National Emergency Laparotomy Audit team found the care for these high-risk patients was lacking at some hospitals.
Expert supervision and best treatment was not always immediately on hand.
The audit, commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership and funded by the government, looked at data from more than 20,000 patients from 192 of 195 eligible NHS hospitals.
It found:
More than 30,000 patients have this emergency surgery each year in NHS hospitals within England and Wales.
The procedure, done under general anaesthetic, involves making an incision to operate inside the abdomen to treat life-threatening conditions such as bowel obstruction, perforation or a bleed.
Miss Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, is concerned the mortality rate for the procedure remains too high.
"This audit demonstrates patients are still not accessing a consistently high standard of care from initial assessment through to post-operative care," she said.
She said improving the outcomes for these patients should be made a top priority.
Iain Anderson, the lead surgeon involved in the audit, said many clinical teams had already reviewed and improved the way they delivered care. He urged other hospitals to follow suit.
"This audit is an essential step in helping all involved measure and continue that development and in indicating particularly to weaker teams how they might improve services and save lives," he said.
Prof Mike Grocott, chairman of the audit, said even a modest improvement could have a substantial benefit.
He said the audit team would be following up with the best and worst hospitals to understand what was being done well, sharing best practice to improve performance where necessary.
It may be necessary to accept more delays for routine surgery so these emergency cases can be given a higher priority, say the report authors.
The Office for National Statistics will soon be releasing new hospital-level data on emergency laparoscopy death rates.


A police officer and scout leader who sexually abused boys and young men has been convicted of 40 offences.

Allan Richards, who served with West Midlands Police for 31 years, assaulted 17 people between 1976 and 2013. His youngest victim was eight.
The 54-year-old, who worked as a police constable between 1980 and 2011, kept a list of boys he was attracted to.
West Midlands Police has apologised to Richards's victims and said it could have done more.
More updates on this story and others in Birmingham and the Black Country
The attacks took place at scout camps, swimming pools and other locations.
The court heard Richards used a police database to access information about young men.
He indecently assaulted scouts inside tents and told some victims he was touching them to eliminate them from a criminal investigation. One assault was committed in a police station.
Richards, formerly of Thaxted Road, Birmingham, was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of nine indecent assaults against six boys. He will be sentenced at a later date.
He was found guilty earlier this year of a further 31 sex offences against other boys, including two rapes from the 1970s.
One victim, who was eight when he was abused, said he felt "sick, emotional [and] quite frightened" giving evidence during the trial.
"As soon as the police said to me they wanted to talk about an incident, or possible incident, when I was in the cubs, it was like opening up Pandora's box - everything came flooding back," he said.
"It's something I'd put in a box when I was very young, thought I'd locked it away, but [when the police came] it came springing back out instantly."
The court heard that Richards was questioned after concerns about him were raised in both 2000 and 2004.
But, although he was barred from contact with the public, he avoided prosecution because West Midlands Police said the force was advised there was not enough evidence for a conviction.
Analysis: Phil Mackie, BBC News
Because he pleaded not guilty to all of the charges his victims had to come to Birmingham Crown Court to give evidence.
One of his two rape victims, who is now an adult, told me "it was horrific" to see the man who "turned my life upside down".
If West Midlands Police had fully investigated complaints made by victims in 2000 and 2004 Richards might have been brought to justice earlier.
Detectives didn't search his home, and didn't find the evidence that eventually convicted him.
In 2014 a third investigation was launched. This time detectives did a thorough job, searched his home and found the diaries in which he documented the abuse, which lasted more than three decades.
Assistant Chief Constable Alex Murray apologised to the victims and said Richards had preyed on children, both on duty and off duty.
He said: "In retrospect, when I look back at those investigations, yes we took action, yes we spoke to the victims. Could we have done more? I think we probably could have done."
The Scout Association condemned Richards' actions and said it was pleased he had been found guilty.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating, said the fact Richards was able to abuse his position as a police officer while committing many of his crimes was "of great concern".
It said: "His victims will not be alone in wanting to know if opportunities were missed, and our independent investigation will examine whether more could have been done by the force to uncover his activities sooner."
West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson said it was "extremely worrying" Richards had been able to remain a police officer until 2011.
He said he had commissioned a report into the force's failings to ensure it would not happen again.
"The force has very serious questions to answer and I will make sure the chief constable provides the answers the public - and Richards's victims - deserve," he said.


England survived a top-order collapse on day five as the second Test against South Africa ended in a draw.

Resuming on 16-0, a second-innings lead of 18, the tourists lost their top four cheaply and then fell to 116-6 as Ben Stokes and James Taylor departed.
But Jonny Bairstow and Moeen Ali held on before bad light ended play after tea with England, who lead the four-match series 1-0, on 159-6.
After the match, Hashim Amla stepped down as South Africa captain.
The 32-year-old, who succeeded Graeme Smith as permanent skipper in July 2014, left the role having led his team in 14 Tests, winning four, drawing four and losing six.
Amla, who cited the need to "work on my own game", will be replaced as captain by AB de Villiers for the final two Tests.
Amla's 707-minute 201 in South Africa's first innings was one of the reasons a draw was always the likely result after four days dominated by the bat on a flat Newlands wicket.
But England made hard work of it, as the loss of early wickets gave South Africa hope of levelling the series after the tourists' victory in the first Test in Durban.
For the first time in the match, cloudy conditions in the morning offered something for the bowlers - and the home side took advantage.
Captain Alastair Cook was the first to go, feathering his second ball from Kagiso Rabada down the leg side and into the gloves of Quinton de Kock.
He was soon followed by fellow opener Alex Hales, brilliantly caught one-handed at third slip by the diving Chris Morris off Morne Morkel.
Cook's eight means he has now scored just 42 runs in his four innings so far this tour, while Hales' dismissal further highlights his fallibility outside off stump.
Joe Root and Nick Compton rallied slightly, adding 36 for the third wicket, but both fell as they were gaining momentum - the former bowled by Morris for a run-a-ball 29 before the latter chipped spinner Dane Piedt to short mid-on to depart for 15.
After smashing a record-breaking 258 from 198 balls in the first innings, Stokes was required to demonstrate a more disciplined side to his game along with Taylor, but both fell to Piedt in quick succession - Stokes misjudging a sweep to Morkel at deep mid-wicket and Taylor gloving a rising delivery to Temba Bavuma at short-leg.
The depth to which England bat was their salvation, chiefly in the shape of Bairstow, who followed his 150 not out in the first innings with an unbeaten 30 during a stand of 43 with the equally resolute Moeen (10 not out).
The partnership was not without its scares, most notably a stumping of Bairstow off spinner Dean Elgar, over which the video umpire took an age before deciding the Yorkshire player had made his ground by a toe's length.
Having survived to tea, during which light rain briefly fell, the pair were only required to bat six overs of the evening session before bad light brought an early end to the match, with 59 eventful overs bowled in the day.
Former England batsman Geoffrey Boycott on BBC Test Match Special: "South Africa have confidence now and England have a contest on their hands in Johannesburg.
"Hales looks extremely vulnerable outside off stump, he got caught on the crease and was eventually out. And Dale Steyn could come back if he's fit, and he's even better than Morkel.
"The catching is the worst aspect for England. They perhaps just need to treat this as a bad match for catching and hope to do better in the next Test. I don't think they can do much with their team, but the top order needs to be better."
Alastair Cook: "It was a little bit nervous. It's amazing when only one side can win it, the pressure is all on one side. South Africa bowled well. It would have been really disappointing not to bat out the day.
"On the first day it was a really good cricket wicket, but the pace slowly died. The partnership between Stokes and Bairstow accelerated the game. It was outstanding, a privilege to watch.
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"The bowlers put the ball in really good areas. We played against some really good batting. To get 600 when you have conceded 600 is a really good effort from them. It might have been different had we taken our chances."
Hashim Amla: "It was nice to get some runs again. It's one of the best places in the world to play and we were pleased to see so many supporters here.
"Bavuma's innings was exceptional. He's been under pressure with people doubting his place in the team, but he's got real talent and we're all pleased the way he showed that.
"The next two matches should be really exciting. Both teams are evenly matched but we've got more positives to take into the next match."
Cricket analyst Simon Hughes: "This will be remembered as Ben Stokes' match. I don't think we'll ever see such sustained dominance again.
"Even watching him today was exhilarating. The talent he has, the way he picks up length, the simple execution of his shots, it's exquisite and he can match bravado with delicate precision.
"He's got the lot, and to top it he's a really nice bloke. He's an absolute gem."
163 - balls taken for Ben Stokes' 200
461 - balls taken for Hashim Amla's 200
377 - dot balls in Amla's innings. He scored off just 100 deliveries
11 - Stokes' English record of sixes in an innings
2 - players to have faced 700 balls in a Test innings on more than one occasion. South Africa captain Hashim Amla and England captain Alastair Cook
3 - century partnerships in South Africa's first innings. They did not manage a single one in 2015
7 - bowlers that conceded more than 100 runs in an innings in the match
7 - dropped catches by England in the first innings
2004 - The year England last bowled more than 200 overs in an innings
29.90 - Alastair Cook's average in South Africa. His lowest anywhere in the world
85,095 - fans in attendance over five days at Newlands


Scottish Labour has pledged to implement all the recommendations the Scottish government's poverty advisor made in January.

The SNP has said it will not issue a detailed response to Naomi Eisenstadt's report until after the election.
Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said she had written to Ms Eisenstadt committing to implementing all 15 recommendations.
The poverty report urged "bold" moves on tax reform, the living wage, childcare and public service delivery.
When the 'Shifting the Curve' report was released in January First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the government would respond formally by the end of March.
However, after that deadline expired, Social Justice Secretary Alex Neil confirmed during an election hustings for Holyrood magazine that the SNP would only be making a "detailed response" to the full report if re-elected in May.
Ms Dugdale said she had written to Oxford University research fellow Ms Eisenstadt committing to following her plan to alleviate poverty if Labour wins the election.
She said: "A Scottish Labour government will implement all 15 recommendations from the SNP's own anti-poverty tsar. Something even the SNP government has so far refused to do.
"So my challenge to Nicola Sturgeon is this - don't just talk about how anti-poverty you are. Actually do something about it and match Labour's plan.
"Risk upsetting the millionaires. Risk asking the wealthiest few to pay just a little bit more.
"Because the price of not doing it - more cuts to schools, thousands out of work and more children living in poverty - is just too great."
The report was sparked by concerns about poverty in Scotland, with recent government studies finding half a million Scots living in poverty, including 100,000 children.
Ms Eisenstadt called for more social housing to be built, a focus on expanding the living wage to larger employers, work to make sure people claim all the benefits they are entitled to, improved childcare, and "bold" reforms to council tax.
Mr Neil said the SNP was treating the report "very seriously", and said the Scottish Parliament had done more to tackle poverty over the past 16 years than Westminster had in 60.
He said: "A lot of the levers over the kind of policies we need to change are still going to reside at Westminster. That's not an excuse for inaction because when we publish our manifesto next week we'll see a very comprehensive social justice action plan designed to reduce levels of poverty and inequality in Scotland."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the SNP had the power to change lives for the better, but were "frozen to the spot".
He said: "They have had control of our education system, housing and NHS for nine years, but their plans are far too timid.
"Boosting education is the best investment we can make to ensure that children can avoid a life of poverty. That is why Liberal Democrats will invest half a billion pounds a year in education, to give kids the best possible start in life."
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson set out her own plan to tackle poverty in a lecture in February.
She called for government to support communities and individuals caught up in a "cycle of deprivation", including policies on expanded childcare for one and two-year-olds, funding for further education colleges and a review of how top bosses are paid to address pay inequality.
She said: "It is possible to say, all at the same time - we are individuals, the state doesn't have all the answers, the market is not king, there is such a thing as society, and government can be a force for good."


Actress Natalie Wood's death certificate has been amended to reflect some of the lingering questions surrounding the star's death in 1981.

Wood drowned during a boat trip with her husband, TV star Robert Wagner, and actor Christopher Walken. At the time it was ruled to have been an accident.
But police reopened their inquiry last year after receiving new evidence.
The death certificate now says she died as a result of "drowning and other undetermined factors".
The amended document, obtained by the Associated Press news agency, also says the circumstances of how she ended up in the water are "not clearly established". The certificate was altered earlier this month.
Chief of detectives William McSweeney said the decision was made by the coroner's office. He added that detectives still had work to do on the case, but that did not necessarily mean a major development was coming.
"We don't close these cases," he said. "These cases have active periods and more passive periods. We're moving toward the end of an active period."
Conflicting versions of what happened on the yacht have contributed to the mystery of how the actress died in November 1981.
Wood had been partying the night before her death, and the coroner's investigation ruled she had been drinking and may have slipped trying to board the dinghy.
Resuming the investigation last November, the sheriff's office said: "Recently sheriff's homicide investigators were contacted by persons who stated they had additional information about the Natalie Wood Wagner drowning."
The move came hours after the captain of the boat, Dennis Davern, told NBC News that he lied to police during the initial investigation and that a fight between Wood and Wagner had led to her death.
In his book Pieces of My Heart, Wagner acknowledged that there had been a fight with Wood before she had disappeared, but authorities have said Wagner is not a suspect in his wife's death.
Wood's body was found floating in a Catalina Island cove off the coast of California. Police reports said she was found wearing a long nightgown, socks, and a jacket.
The post-mortem report said Wood had bruises on her body and arms as well as a facial abrasion on her left cheek.
Wagner's family said they supported the reopening of the inquiry and trusted the detectives would "evaluate whether any new information relating to the death of Natalie Wood Wagner is valid, and that it comes from a credible source or sources other than those simply trying to profit from the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death".
As a child, Wood featured in films like Miracle on 34th Street and The Ghost and Mrs Muir.
She was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in Rebel Without a Cause, and for best actress for Splendor in the Grass and Love with the Proper Stranger.