The internet is reinventing the Christmas TV commercial, making it more creative, more ambitious - and arguably more self-regarding.

Advertising plays a central role at Christmas, and for over 100 years has extended its reach from posters to radio, TV and now online.
Successfully making that last leap has become the holy grail of Christmas advertising.
"The strategy among the retailers now is to get the ad into a prime time spot," says Neil Saunders, managing director of retail research agency Conlumino.
"From then on TV becomes less important as the message goes off into social media, where there is less cost and the reach can be phenomenal, far greater than TV."
So, let's look at how that works with one of the most famous, the John Lewis ManOnTheMoon commercial.
In early November it launched the ad, telling the story of a small child who sees a lonely old man through a telescope living on the moon, and sends him a Christmas present by balloon.
Conventional wisdom might assume that the campaign should spark interest in the retailer - John Lewis - but there's barely a mention of the name.
Instead the aim seems to be to spark interest in the ad itself.
To this end John Lewis actually advertised the advertisement with a 10 second teaser commercial a week before it went live, and fired up social media interest with the #ManOnTheMoon hashtag.
Three hours after the advert was aired, #ManOnTheMoon was trending with 40,000 tweets.
And it doesn't stop there. Of the Â£7m spent on the campaign, John Lewis spent only Â£1m on the ad itself, which is just the tip of a merchandising iceberg.
There's an app offering moon-related information. There's a tie-in with a game that can be played on mobiles, sending your presents to the moon by balloon, though at this point Christmas sentimentality is abandoned in favour of eluding surface to air missiles.
Then there's a link-in with ManOnTheMoon telescopes, pyjamas, bedding, mugs and so on.
"The key to the John Lewis ad is that people no longer watch real-time television," says Jacques de Cock of the London School of Marketing.
"They defer their watching to Netflix or YouTube, and to capitalise on this market advertisers have to make their ads into social phenomena."
The reality is that companies are having to make contact with a customer whose habits are dictated not by TV but by the internet.
For instance, view the new Harvey Nichols commercial and the last frame has a "Shop Now" button to take you straight to the store.
You can't do that on TV.
But the customer is doing a lot more than just clicking and buying Uncle Cedric's Christmas socks on Amazon.
He or she is researching, comparing prices and browsing online, before either clicking or physically marching into the store and demanding the socks over the counter.
According to Forrester Research, by 2020, 53% of retail sales across Europe will be influenced one way or another by the online world.
So it is not important to an advertiser by what mechanism the money is spent. What matters is where the customer makes up his or her mind - and that space is increasingly a digital one.
All of which shapes the way ads are made.
Sainsbury's advert "Mog's Christmas Calamity" written by the writer and illustrator Judith Kerr runs for a full three and a half minutes. The traditional TV ad break spot could never support that on a regular basis - but the internet can.
Lifting time restrictions allows for a great deal more creativity. For instance, the Mulberry Christmas commercial turns the gift of a red bag into a parody of the Nativity, attended by shepherds and Wise Men, which is witty both visually and verbally ("It is a thing of wonder" extols one of the Wise Men).
And there are other opportunities to add nuances to your brand.
Click on the end of the Sainsbury's commercial and up come links to Judith Kerr's book, the making of the commercial, Save the Children, competitions, recipes and of course Sainsbury's produce.
"We love working for retail," says James Murphy, chief executive of adam&eveDDB, which made the John Lewis ad.
"Retail is the new rock and roll in advertising. It is a great shop window for your creativity and for your effectiveness."
Some might argue the industry is taking itself a teensy weensy bit too seriously. The Burberry Christmas commercial, borrowing its theme from the play/movie Billy Elliot, rolls its own credits at the end.
Bizarrely, the prize for the most viewed ad this Christmas goes to the German supermarket chain Edeka which has been shared 2.39 million times online, leaving John Lewis (1.3 million) and Sainsbury (917,000) trailing in its wake.
It tells a tear-jerking tale, that some might find in questionable taste, of an old man abandoned by his family at Christmas, until, by faking his own death he manages to bring them round the table for Christmas dinner.
Edeka doesn't have an international retail operation. Yet the ad appears on YouTube with English subtitles, suggesting the commercial is as interested in its own brilliance as it is in trying to sell a product.
Supermarket chain Aldi tried to puncture this sort of self-indulgence by making a parody of John Lewis's ManOnTheMoon ad with the frail old gentleman debating whether he should buy a cheaper telescope at Aldi.
But it raises the question - does any of this actually increase sales?
Marks and Spencer tried to tap into this market in 2014, with its Magic and Sparkle TV commercial showing fairies carrying out gratuitous acts of generosity.
The fairies gathered 42,000 Twitter followers and the campaign was hailed as the most imaginative social media event of the year.
But it didn't work in terms of sales and Christmas turnover slumped.
"The campaign is only successful if you have the right product at the right price," says Neil Saunders.
"People may want to come to the shop, but if they can't find what they want they won't buy."
This year M&S has avoided story-telling and instead opted for what is little more than a glitzy montage of its wares.
However, Robert Jones head of new thinking at agency Wolff Olins argues the campaign was still effective.
"It may not have worked in terms of Christmas sales - but this is part of a long term strategy to create an image. You can't change the way people see you in a single year."
So is the John Lewis ad working?
On the big discount day, Black Friday, sales were up 4.8% on last year. But it is worth noting that whatever the long term effect, the only John Lewis item featured in the ad - a telescope - had sold out online five hours after the ad went live.


The remains of a Brutalist bus station that dominated the Northampton skyline for nearly four decades are to be recycled at the town centre site.

Dubbed the "mouth of hell", the building was reduced to about 22,000 tonnes of rubble using more than 2,000 individual explosive charges in March.
Contractors are anticipating recycling about 97% of the materials, a borough council spokesman said.
Stone, concrete and bricks will now be re-used on the site as hard-standing.
The materials will be "crushed and processed on the site" as part of the demolition, which has cost upwards of £4m, the council said.
Excess material will be removed from site and re-used within the construction industry for applications such as hard-standings, paths and roads.
The site is due to be cleared and levelled at the end of July. It is being considered for retail and leisure schemes.


The Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival opens later this week.

Held at Beauly's Belladrum Estate, in the Highlands near Inverness, almost 17,000 people are expected to attend over the event's two days of Friday and Saturday.
The acts performing will include Sir Tom Jones, Razorlight, Billy Bragg, Reef and Frightened Rabbit.
While set lists, loud music and drinks in plastic cups are festival staples, what about knitting needles, a metal detector, personal ads, hot coals and stunt bikes?
Tickets for the 11th Bella sold out a record five months before the event.
And some of those going are also looking for love, according to the festival's organisers.
This year, for the first time, Bella is offering a free service publishing small personal ads in a new Festival Lovers column in the event's souvenir programme.
Couples have previously met at the festival and even got married in the Belladrum Temple during the festivities.
In the walled garden of the Belladrum Estate there will be a tent where festival-goers can knit hats, ear warmers and floral brooches.
Other activities will include headband-making, crochet and sugar paste modelling.
In the countdown to the festival, people are being invited to sign up for the fundraising Belladrum Celtic Firewalk.
This year's walk is in aid of The Archie Foundation Raigmore Children's Ward Appeal and Tir na nOg Holistic Centre, near Glasgow.
Drop and Roll, a new bike show formed by professional street trials riders Danny MacAskill, from Skye, and Duncan Shaw, of Inverness, will make its first ever UK festival appearance at Bella.
MacAskill said: "After doing shows out on the continent with the team it is going to be amazing to come and do a show a lot closer to home. I am sure the Bella crowds are going to be great."
Shaw added: "It has been hard work getting the whole team together and the show ready over the past six months but now it's all set up the fun can start."
A metal detector is a key tool during the clean up of the festival's camp site, a field that at other times is used for growing hay or grazing livestock, after everyone has left.
The device is used for finding discarded tent pegs.
But in 2012, the festival's Eric Soane picked up something very different with the detector - part of a Roman coin hoard.
A dig led by archaeologist Dr Fraser Hunter went on to uncover the rest of what was the first Roman coin hoard to be discovered in the Beauly area.
Some of the 36 denarii date from the mid-Second Century.
Festival promoter Joe Gibbs said at the time: "Left-behind tent pegs can be dangerous to stock and can damage machinery.
"We like to get rid of as many as possible. But it was an unexpected bonus to find the coins."
He added: "Heavy metal isn't generally a genre we go in for at Belladrum, but perhaps we should revise that as clearly there is a precedent, albeit 2,000 years ago."


Britain were the first nation to have a Para-canoeist qualify for a Paralympic Games after Emma Wiggs won gold at the Sprint World Championships in Milan.

Wiggs finished ahead of team-mate Nikki Paterson in the KL2 200m final - and both will now vie for one place at next year's Rio Games, at which canoeing will make its Paralympic debut.
"It's absolutely incredible", Wiggs, 35, told BBC Sport.
Britons Jonny Young and Fran Bateman won silver in the VL3 va'a event.
Wiggs said she was "blown away" by her achievement.
She added: "One of us will go to Rio and the other will push all the way.
"We won't find out until June next year but I'm incredibly proud to be part of it."
While Wiggs is an experienced competitor, having represented Team GB at the London Paralympics in sitting volleyball, Paterson was competing in her first international event.
The 25-year-old former servicewoman only took up the sport 18 months ago after a car accident left her needing her right leg amputated.
"To come away with a gold and silver is unbelievable," said Paterson.
"Me and Emma work well as a team and we're treating this as a partnership to push us both forward."
Further Para-canoe medals are available for Britain on Thursday, when the able-bodied athletes also begin competition.
British competitors are entered in 14 disability events and 14 able-bodied events in the World Championships, which continue until Sunday.
The event is the first of two opportunities for British athletes to qualify for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in canoe sprint.
Able-bodied athletes can also qualify at the continental qualifier in Duisburg in May, while Para-canoeists have a second chance at next year's World Championships.


For more than 30 years, cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan convinced his victims he was "all powerful and all-seeing" - a master manipulator who used violence, fear and sexual degradation to control the women he held captive in communes across London.

His daughter was one of them.
Born into her father's Communist "collective", she spent her childhood almost entirely isolated from the outside world.
She never went to school or played with a friend her own age, but spent years cooped up in the various houses occupied by the group.
Southwark Crown Court heard how, as a child, she was so painfully alone she spoke to the taps and toilet for company - hugging them for being "nice" to her.
On one occasion, she was so desperate to see an unfamiliar face she fabricated a water leak in an airing cupboard in the hope someone would come to fix it.
This was the sad picture painted in the diaries of a girl who was kept in captivity most of her life.
But how did this happen?
At Aravindan Balakrishnan's trial, jurors heard how the cult leader likened himself to God and believed himself to be the "centre of the natural world".
Through a brutal regime of violence and sexual degradation, he sought to mould his followers into a "cadre of women soldiers" he believed could help him overthrow "the fascist state".
There were rapes and victims were beaten and told "bad ideas could burn you to death". He made it, the prosecution said, so they were "too frightened to leave but hated to stay".
To those with the luxury of free will, the fact these women stayed might seem baffling.
But Graham Baldwin, manager of Catalyst Counselling, which supports victims of cults, said those caught up in Balakrishnan's web would have been taught to believe their lives were "satisfying".
"What normally happens is a leader says: 'I've got special knowledge, I know how to make your life better and the world better but you've got to do what I say'," he explained.
"Then it becomes a process of breaking down a person's ego, so that he is incompetent. They are told they are the new world order and this is their great moment... [and] if they leave the group or betray it then God is going to punish them."
Jurors heard Balakrishnan's political views were influenced by what he saw as post-war British mistreatment of the people of Malaysia and Singapore, where he lived from 1949.
He moved to London in the 1960s and began giving political speeches, earning a reputation as a "charismatic man" whose ideals struck a chord.
It was the height of the Cold War and a period when the UK had a plethora of small left-wing collectives and communes.
The many empty houses of south London in particular were targeted by left-wing groups for the purpose of collective living.
"It had been a worrying and oppressing time and finding someone a bit like you, who has the same idea about the world you want to live in, living with them was not so unusual," said historian Dr Lucy Robinson.
"It was a time when all sort of ideas were up for grabs. People did go out and make their own politics.
"[But] this [case] is not a lesson about communes and counter-culture, but a lesson about abuse, because you could normally just leave a commune."
Balakrishnan and his wife Chandra ran a bookshop and commune from a large building in Brixton, where he started his so-called "Workers Institute" in 1974.
He initially claimed his teachings were based on those of Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong but by 1980 the "collective" had evolved into a "Cult of Bala", far removed from its original ideals.
Only a handful of women remained and were kept under Balakrishnan's strict control - prevented from seeing family members and governed by a strict rota of work and chores.
Regular beatings eventually evolved into the sexual abuse of at least two women, who Balakrishnan claimed were being "purified" or "cleansed" by the acts he forced upon them.
His appearance [now] does not reflect in any way who he was.
In the early days he was well groomed, he was smart, he took great care of his hair, the way he wore his glasses, the way he conducted himself.
He was extremely knowledgeable and a great orator... but in his environment, we began to realise you didn't have a choice, you had to listen to what he said.
That's when my relationship broke up with him.
He's definitely a psychopath, I have no doubts about that. He has all the characteristics of a psychopath - they have no remorse, no guilt, they're manipulative, they have a great sense of self-grandeur, they have objectives that are totally unrealistic.
He meets people, he impresses them with his knowledge and storytelling skills, he gleans info about their private lives and uses that to create doubts within that individual and their capabilities and makes them emotionally dependent on him, like a cult leader.
Balakrishnan's daughter was born into the collective after one of its earliest members, Sian Davies, became pregnant.
But the girl's status as the youngest member of the commune did not save her from physical punishment and she lived in perpetual fear of incurring the wrath of "Jackie", a mind control machine the defendant claimed had the power to torture her.
She lived in fear of her father's "Jekyll and Hyde" character: "When he was nice, he could be very nice, but when he was not he was frightening," the court heard.
Speaking to the BBC, she recalled an incident in which the defendant took away her balloon when she was 10 years old.
"He punctured it because I liked it. He said: 'This is really good because I can use the stick to whip you'."
It was against this backdrop that Balakrishnan, now 75, was able to oppress his victims for so long.
The court heard his views were "so deeply instilled in them all they were too scared to oppose him".
Mr Baldwin said that, far from being unintelligent, the kind of person often caught up in a cult tends to be bright but idealistic.
He said some fall victim very quickly and, in one case the charity dealt with, a gap-year student was recruited into a cult during a 12-hour flight stopover in New York.
But, he warned, it can take much longer to leave.
"We have spent a lot of time working with them and the progress has been outstanding; [the daughter] is very competent and is looking at moving to independent living and she's studying at college," said Ms Hall.
"They were all told the outside world was a very hostile place and if they went out bad things would happen to them: they would get killed or raped or disappear. The youngest one was told if she left the property she would spontaneously combust.
"[When the daughter came out] she wasn't able to navigate from A to B, she wasn't able to use public transport or go shopping independently, or do day-to-day activities that a normal 30-year-old could do."
Mr Stocks added: "She couldn't cross the road. It took us two-and-a-half weeks to teach her how to do that herself and now she can get about just fine, but when she came out it was very different.
"We're looking at a man who manipulated and controlled people to a height none of us can really imagine."
For Balakrishnan's daughter, it was only when she reached her 20s that she began to realise the extent of her confinement.
She started fantasising about men and developed a crush on a neighbour. Though she never spoke to him, she was devastated when the commune moved to another estate, writing in her diary: "I was cruelly wrenched away from my beloved darling, I have never [had] anything to look forward to."
An infatuation with a second neighbour turned into a sexual relationship - he would climb through a window to visit her - but this ended when Balakrishnan caught them and beat her.
She believes she suffered a miscarriage a few weeks later.
Fed up with being "a non-person", in 2005 she plucked up the courage to flee the commune.
Ill-equipped to cope in the outside world, she went to a police station - where she was told to go back to the collective or risk being reported as a missing person.
It would be another eight years before she finally managed to escape for good - by that point seriously ill with diabetes - setting off the chain of events that would lead to her father's arrest.
Now 32, she is no longer at the mercy of the man who for years she knew only as Comrade Bala, and the note she left him the day she left suggests a woman determined to make up for lost time:
"I may have no wealth, no property, but I do have my dignity and I will defend it with my life," she wrote.
But she also hopes to build bridges with her father.
"I forgive him and I would like to reconcile with him in the future, because hatred does no good to anyone," she told the BBC.
"Nelson Mandela said if you leave a place with anger and hatred and bitterness, then you are still in prison and I don't want to be in prison that way."
Additional reporting: Beth Rose


The lights, the cameras, the glamour - the Cannes Film Festival certainly has its share of those.

But alongside the red carpet on the famous Palais des Festivals on the Croisette is the the Marche du Film, a bustling movie market where producers, distributors and investors are all trying to find or fund the next big thing.
Among them are British producers Rachel Richardson-Jones and Daisy Allsop.
Both women have been selected by Creative England as part of its Market Trader programme, aimed at giving film producers, distributors and sales agents at the start of their careers a better understanding of international markets.
But with hundreds of producers all camped out and hoping for the same thing, what do they expect will be the challenges facing them?
Richardson-Jones is a film producer and co-founder at Not A Number Productions and, prior to entering the world of feature films, directed and produced corporate videos and commercials.
She produced horror films Splintered in 2010 and White Settlers in 2014 and is meeting with sales agents for her third film, Dearly Beheaded, which is due to start shooting this in September.
The corporate stuff has stood me in good stead for features. My last two movies I raised through private equity. You need to be able to understand the corporate culture and how SEIS works. I wouldn't have imagined being a corporate producer had so much continuity with film producing.
Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) - Investors can invest up to £100,000 a year and for every £10,000 invested under SEIS, will get £5,000 tax relief or 50% back.
There are the horrors of the corporate world, making high end films about fork lift trucks! When Simeon (film director Simeon Halligan), approached me with an idea for a low budget horror,  I didn't really know anything about the genre. But I thought, that kind of stuff sells.
I was so lucky to have been mentored by Tony Parsons (producer of films including Scum and Gregory's Girl) and I asked him whether I should go for it and, in the end, he offered to executive produce and said he would teach us everything there was to know about film producing.
Sadly, he died before we finished producing Splintered (2010), so both Simeon and I knew about production but it was after-production which was where we missed him so very much. So there we were, we had this movie and didn't know the world of sales and distribution.
We didn't have UK distribution so we decided to put on on an event, just us and a few filmmakers of low budget movies. and before we knew it, it wasn't one day with three or four films, it was three days with 27 films and Grimm Up North was born and we're now in its seventh year.
Sim loves the genre and we've now built an audience - I'm more of a sci-fi geek. I'm dying to make a pure sci-fi movie but they take bigger budgets
We're actually just about close finance on that, and hope to start shooting in September. So we are talking to sales agents (who market films and help find international distribution) but with Cannes around the corner they are all very busy.
I'm going to be doing some meetings about a monster movie bank heist, primarily with American sales and financiers because it really lends itself to being an American-set movie. I've been sending emails about meeting with production partners, there are a couple of studio people I met at the Berlin Film Festival and I'll reconnect with them.
The industry people spend the first four or five days seeing who they are there to see, they are there to buy and sell. So you coming along with your little project, its very difficult to get time with them, to sit down and have a proper conversation. It's always good to have meetings planned and have time to shift them if you need to.
Also the parties, they do help in bumping into people and catching up. We have another Manchester-based project called Habit. It's a novella by the writer Stephen McGeagh.
Simeon has just adapted it in to a screenplay so we are going to start talking about that project. It's a fantastic gritty, kitchen sink horror.
Allsop began her career in 2000 in development and distribution. She helped launch the film arm of Feel Films in 2004.
As head of development for Feel she managed a slate of literary adaptations through development, production and distribution, including the upcoming BBC series adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
She was also associate producer on Skellig starring Tim Roth and is now producing with director David Leon through their company Zeitgeist Films.
This is my 13th Cannes Film Festival, I've been every year since university. I used to go in my capacity as development and acquisitions sales agent. That was a different kind of Cannes where I was in the office all day taking meetings every half hour with producers pitching their ideas, and now I'm on the other side.
Absolutely. Working for a sales agent gives you a view on the whole market. Firstly, it was good training right from the beginning of my career on how films get made, and the market value of a film. Sometimes the quality of a script is not enough. It's also about whether the budget matches the elements attached. It also taught me to work out the producers who get their films made are the ones that are smart about aiming it for the right budget and with its destination audience in mind.
Yes, there are so many people in Cannes doing so many different things at different levels. People do come year after year and don't get films made, but then maybe they do once they've had time to mould them and make it work. Sometimes it can take a long time. I've been coming as a producer for about three years.
You tailor your trip to Cannes for whatever stage you are at with your project. Sometimes you have a finished film and you want to find a sales agent. Last year, I had a film that was almost finished called Orthodox, directed by David Leon and starring Stephen Graham and Michael Smiley. It was David's first feature and now I produce him and we have a company. We've developed his second feature - no-one has seen the script yet, it is hot off the press. I will be coming to meet with sales agents and potential financiers about that. It's called The Albatross - we'll be partly shooting it in north-east Yorkshire and partly Newcastle and it's about a trawlerman who becomes a reluctant father figure to a young migrant girl.
It's really full on. I've also got another project called Tell it to the Bees, which is an adaptation of a novel which I've developed with the BFI which is slightly bigger budget, around the £5m mark. The script just finished and I'll be starting conversations around that. So with both projects at an early stage, planning Cannes has been about planning how I am going to finance these films. It's coming up with a whole strategy.
Other festivals are catching up slowly with markets. They are dotted throughout the year, but Cannes is the one time you really know everybody. People tend to use it to meet people from other countries. The other thing is just keeping up with people and telling friends what you're up to. But ultimately it's a market - sales agents are there to sell films they've already got so indie producers coming in and saying, 'Can I have a meeting is a low priority' for them. It can be difficult to get  half an hour unless you know who you want which is important so you don't waste the wrong people's time.
It can feel quite big and unwieldy, it takes a few times of going to get a sense of the place and what you're doing.
We'll be catching up with both Daisy Allsop and Rachel Richardson-Jones later in the festival.


People caught feeding seagulls on beaches in Devon face £80 fines from Monday.

The punishment is being introduced in Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Beer and Seaton as part of a Public Space Protection Order.
Andrew Ennis of East Devon District Council said the move is designed to "ratchet up the message one notch".
A charity said the birds are a natural part of our country's wildlife but some species are now in decline.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said on its website that while it is "best to avoid widespread feeding of gulls," a ban on feeding them alone was not enough to solve the problem.
The council said its officials were able to issue the fines and it was hoping that people would pass on information to the council about breaches.


Click here to see The Tree Project's high-resolution image of a tree dubbed Gandalf's Staff.

Photographers have scaled towering eucalyptus trees in Tasmania for a spectacular art project.


Russia's justice ministry has put the Memorial human rights group in St Petersburg on a list of organisations labelled as "foreign agents".

Memorial has documented Soviet human rights abuses - especially the terror unleashed by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s - as well as abuses in Chechnya.
The "foreign agent" label echoes the Stalin-era denunciations of alleged anti-Soviet spies.
Memorial's director Arseny Roginsky called the move "a huge blow".
The "foreign agents" law was passed in 2012 to crack down on foreign funding of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). There are now 101 NGOs on the list.
Quoted by Tass news agency, Mr Roginsky said Memorial was "one of the most effective public organisations" chronicling Soviet abuses, to help prevent any future repetition of them.
Memorial's branches in Moscow, Yekaterinburg and the Komi region - in northern Russia - were also put on the "foreign agents" list before the St Petersburg branch.
Russia has also listed the independent election monitoring group Golos as a "foreign agent".
Several other NGOs, including some gay rights groups, have been shut down under the "foreign agents" law.
Memorial was established in the late 1980s by dissidents including the late Andrei Sakharov, a nuclear physicist.
Millions died during Stalin's purges of Soviet citizens accused of plotting against the Communist authorities. Besides those who were shot, there were many victims in the harsh, remote labour camps - the so-called Gulag system.
According to the justice ministry, the St Petersburg Memorial branch received funds from various foreign organisations including the European Commission and the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which has been labelled "undesirable" under Russian law.
Two British universities - New College Oxford and Middlesex University - are also listed as donors to Memorial.
The Memorial offices were searched on Friday and the ministry accused the NGO of engaging in political activities to influence Russian public opinion.
In a statement, Memorial in St Petersburg said it would defy the order to put the label "foreign agent" on its publications and would continue its work, using the Veniamin Ioffe Educational Centre.
The "foreign agents" list also includes Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group with a branch in Murmansk, where activists monitor Russian nuclear activities, including the decommissioning of nuclear submarines.
Last month Bellona Murmansk was shut down by the authorities. But the group's director Nils Boehmer said it would continue its work under a different structure. That "will free it from the yoke of being branded a foreign agent", said Mr Boehmer on Bellona's website.
"It is yet another challenge the group has had to face, but we are again rising above it and we are still doing the hard work of enumerating radiation threats in an atmosphere that is hardly conducive to transparency," he said.


The Conservatives have strengthened their political control of Worcestershire.

The Tories added 11 seats and lost one, leaving them with 40 out of 57 after gaining 46.8% of the vote.
Labour has 10 seats after losing two and the Lib Dems have three after winning one and losing one.
County council vice chair June Griffiths collapsed during the count and was taken to hospital. She lost her Alvechurch seat.
It was taken by independent Charlie Hotham in Alvechurch.
Latest reaction from Worcestershire County Council election result
Election 2017: Full results from across England
Four seats have gone to others in total, following the one gain and nine losses.
Health Concern, the independent party formed to protect Kidderminster Hospital, who had Dr Richard Taylor elected in two general elections, lost one of their two seats on the council to the Conservatives.
The Conservative Party's parliamentary candidate for Worcester, Robin Walker, said: "We've won a seat in Claines that we haven't held for 12 years and we've increased our vote in most areas of the city, so that's good to see."
UKIP has lost both of its county councillors in Redditch with Labour also losing two there.
Labour leader of Redditch Borough Council Bill Hartnett said: "(It's been a) really, really tight call. Big county divisions, there's only four divisions in Redditch and we lost marginally on two seats."


The Russian airline Kogalymavia has blamed "external influence" for Saturday's Sinai plane crash which killed 224 people.

A senior airline official said: "The only reasonable explanation is that it was [due to] external influence."
An investigation by aviation experts using data from the aircraft's "black boxes" has yet to give its conclusions.
The head of Russia's Federal Aviation Agency said it was premature to speculate on the cause of the crash.
"This kind of talk is... not based on any proper facts," Aleksandr Neradko said on Russian TV.
The Kremlin has also warned against speculation as to the possible causes of the crash.
James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, said there was no "direct evidence of any terrorist involvement yet" adding: "It's unlikely, but I wouldn't rule it out."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the crash as an "enormous tragedy" and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.
"Without any doubt, everything must be done to create an objective picture of events so that we know what happened and can react accordingly," he said.
At a news conference in Moscow, the deputy director of the airline, which was later renamed Metrojet, ruled out a technical fault and pilot error.
"The only [explanation] for the plane to have been destroyed in mid-air can be specific impact, purely mechanical, physical influence on the aircraft," Alexander Smirnov said.
"There is no such combination of failures of systems which could have led to the plane disintegrating in the air," he added.
Another airline official acknowledged that there had been previous damage to the plane's tail in 2001 during take-off.
But he said that the damage had been repaired, and was not thought to be a factor in the crash.
However, the widow of the plane's co-pilot told Russian TV her husband had complained about the aircraft's technical condition.
The Airbus 321 lost speed and started descending rapidly, and the crew made no attempt to get in contact and report about the situation on board, Mr Smirnov added.
The bodies of 144 of those killed in the crash have been flown back to the Russian city of St Petersburg, where the plane had been headed from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
A second flight with more bodies is expected to arrive in St Petersburg on Monday evening.
Russian Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov said that searches in a 20-sq-km (7.7-sq-Mile) area around the crash site had ended and that a 30-sq-km area was now being searched.
Mr Puchkov said searches would not end until all the bodies have been recovered, AP reports.
The plane was carrying 217 passengers, including 25 children, and seven crew members - mostly Russians.
05:58 Egyptian time (03:58 GMT): Flight leaves Sharm el-Sheikh, a statement from the Egyptian cabinet says
06:14 Egyptian time (04:14 GMT): Plane fails to make scheduled contact with air traffic control based in Larnaca, Cyprus, according to Sergei Izdolsky, an official with Russia's air transport agency
06:17 Egyptian time, approx (04:17 GMT): Plane comes down over the Sinai peninsula, according to Airbus
11:12 Egyptian time (09:12 GMT): Flight had been due to land in St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport


The Republic of Ireland took advantage of Wales' slip-up earlier in the day as two James McClean goals helped them see off Moldova in the World Cup qualifier.

After the Welsh were held at home by Georgia, Shane Long's early goal gave the Irish the perfect start but Igor Bugaev levelled just before the break.
The Republic were rattled by the equaliser after Wes Hoolahan's artistry had helped them boss the first half.
But McClean's goals in the 69th and 75th minutes eased Irish nerves.
The visitors had appeared in complete control in Chisinau after Hoolahan's perfectly weighted pass was followed by a superb Long finish in the second minute as he ended an 18-game scoring drought for club and country.
But after not being threatened in the opening 44 minutes, Republic keeper Darren Randolph had to pick the ball out of his own net seconds before the interval as Bugaev produced a composed finish after outpacing a badly caught out Shane Duffy.
Relive all the action from Moldova v Rep of Ireland
The Republic endured a few nervous moments after the break but McClean stabbed home from close range before another clever piece of play from Hoolahan released captain Seamus Coleman to tee up the West Brom winger for another close-range finish.
The win moves the Republic two points ahead of Wales in Group D, although Serbia lead the table on goal difference after beating Austria 3-2 on Sunday.
Hoolahan's invention was key to the Republic's win, the 34-year-old Norwich midfielder totally justifying his recall as he and Glenn Whelan replaced the concussed Robbie Brady and suspended Jeff Hendrick from Thursday's win over Georgia.
Hoolahan's gorgeous first-time pass which set up Long's early goal was his stand-out contribution but there were numerous occasions when his speed of thought created openings for Martin O'Neill's side.
While his attacking instincts did result in him taking a few wrong options, Hoolahan's impressive evening was summed up by his delightful nutmeg on Alexandru Dedov which allowed Coleman to square for McClean's clinching third goal.
Once again, Hoolahan's display will leave many Republic fans wondering why he has only accumulated 36 caps in a career which saw him make his first competitive start at the age of 31.
Anything other than a victory over a Moldovan side that lost at home to Liechtenstein in the Euro 2016 qualifiers would have been a big setback for O'Neill's side.
Wales' surprise home draw against Georgia earlier on Sunday suddenly made the Republic's laboured home victory over the same opposition on Thursday look a good result but failing to get the job done in Chisinau would have undone that good work.
Blackburn defender Duffy's poor positioning for Bugaev's sucker punch equaliser as he was caught out by Alexandru Gatcan's harmless looking ball out of defence will be a concern for O'Neill.
Buoyed by the equaliser, Moldova looked dangerous in the 10 minutes following the break before the rattled Irish regrouped as McClean stabbed them back into the lead after James McCarthy's scuffed shot had rebounded into his path off Jonathan Walters.
By that stage, Long was off the field because of injury which led O'Neill to hand a first competitive appearance to Bristol City forward Callum O'Dowda.
After McClean's clinching goal, tempers flared in the closing stages with Walters claiming that he had received a studs-up challenge to his midriff and manager O'Neill raced on to the field to calm the Stoke forward and the fiery McClean.
Republic of Ireland boss Martin O'Neill: "We played excellently in the first half. We should have maybe been two or three in front. Then the goal knocked us back for a while.
"But we came around in the second half. We defended strongly. We created some chances and won the game and it was a big win for us.
"It's great to win away from home. I thought we played with a bit of panache."
The Republic's next Group D qualifier is away to Austria on Saturday, 12 November.
Match ends, Moldova 1, Republic of Ireland 3.
Second Half ends, Moldova 1, Republic of Ireland 3.
Foul by Aleksandru Gatcan (Moldova).
Callum O'Dowda (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Corner,  Moldova. Conceded by Glenn Whelan.
Corner,  Moldova. Conceded by Seamus Coleman.
Attempt blocked. Eugeniu Cebotaru (Moldova) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Veaceslav Posmac with a headed pass.
Foul by David Meyler (Republic of Ireland).
Andrei Cojocari (Moldova) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by David Meyler (Republic of Ireland).
Eugeniu Cebotaru (Moldova) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Aleksandru Gatcan (Moldova) is shown the yellow card.
Jonathan Walters (Republic of Ireland) is shown the yellow card.
Jonathan Walters (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Alexandru Dedov (Moldova).
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Delay in match Shane Duffy (Republic of Ireland) because of an injury.
Igor Bugaev (Moldova) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Seamus Coleman (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Igor Bugaev (Moldova).
Attempt blocked. James McClean (Republic of Ireland) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Substitution, Republic of Ireland. Eunan O'Kane replaces Wes Hoolahan.
David Meyler (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Eugeniu Sidorenco (Moldova).
Substitution, Moldova. Eugeniu Sidorenco replaces Gheorghe Andronic.
Foul by Vadim Bolohan (Moldova).
James McClean (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Jonathan Walters (Republic of Ireland).
Victor Golovatenco (Moldova) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Substitution, Republic of Ireland. David Meyler replaces James McCarthy.
Andrei Cojocari (Moldova) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Andrei Cojocari (Moldova).
James McClean (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Gheorghe Andronic (Moldova) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Wes Hoolahan (Republic of Ireland).
Foul by Aleksandru Gatcan (Moldova).
Callum O'Dowda (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Goal!  Moldova 1, Republic of Ireland 3. James McClean (Republic of Ireland) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Seamus Coleman.
Foul by Victor Golovatenco (Moldova).
Jonathan Walters (Republic of Ireland) wins a free kick in the attacking half.


The Ulster Unionists say if they join the next Stormont executive their priority department will be education.

They said they want to devise a new method of transferring pupils from primary schools within two years.
The party launched its assembly election manifesto on Thursday.
The UUP said successive Sinn FÃ©in ministers have pushed for an end to academic selection, but there is no evidence that this would shorten the tail of underachievement.
Instead the Ulster Unionist manifesto says the party will pursue numeracy and literacy initiatives and provide extra help for children through a "book buddy" scheme.
They believe a new method of transferring Year 7 pupils should be based on continual assessment of pupils during the course of their primary education.
Last year, the party pulled out of the Northern Ireland Executive in a protest over IRA activity in the wake of the murder of Belfast man Kevin McGuigan.
The manifesto says they will rejoin the power sharing coalition, provided its programme for government is progressive, and there is a collective political will to deliver it.
The manifesto does not link the UUP's participation in government to the question of IRA activity. Instead, the party says it has engaged positively with the group established under the Fresh Start agreement to recommend ways to end paramilitary groups.
The Ulster Unionists say the next executive must prioritise tackling what they describe as the current "crippling hospital waits". They pledge to increase the number of GPs here by 400 over the next five years.
On the economy, the party pledges to implement a strategy to tackle the high level of economic inactivity in Northern Ireland. That strategy was drawn up for the last  executive, but was not funded and so not implemented.
The party wants to celebrate the centenary of Northern Ireland in 2021 with new community facilities in each of the six counties.
They propose a centre piece could be a "people park", as a tribute to the famous people born in Northern Ireland or who have chosen to settle there.
They suggest the new park could be sited in the Titanic Quarter and argue that the cost to the public purse would be minimal as the development would be attractive to commercial and philanthropic funders.
"The main message of the manifesto is that we are offering real choice to the electorate on 5 May because we are now refreshed and we are, as it were, reborn," Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt said.
"We've gone through a bad period and now we're saying to the electorate we have the vision to make this work, we have the policies to make it work and we have the people in terms of our 33 candidates."


They get their colours from different metal salts, while their combination of light, shape, pace and height is an interplay of science and art.

Fireworks may have their critics but many others will be out this weekend enjoying all they have to offer.
"If I'd fired each firework one after another it would have lasted for two and half hours," explains Dave Mason, pyrotechnist and MD of Dragonfire Scotland, talking about his last show a few days ago.
"I'm now doing 10 minutes with all of this material and I'm trying to make a story, I'm trying to make something beautiful."
He is preparing for his 21st Guy Fawkes Night firing a professional show. He reckons a minute of fireworks takes about a day to complete with one person working. On the day itself more people might be rigging.
He rarely sees his shows as he chooses to fire the fireworks by hand, using a stopwatch.
"It's all overlapping," he says.
"It's layer on layer on layer. What I want is everybody in the audience to have all the hairs on the back of their neck stand up - that's it."
But if there is art in placing fireworks in the sky where you want them, you need science to help you do that, to make light and colour. In earlier times fireworks were only gold and silver, colour is a relatively new phenomenon.
"When you ignite the firework you're basically kick-starting a bunch of chemical reactions," says Dr Zara Gladman.
She works for the Glasgow Science Festival and is a contributor to BBC The Social.
The colours vary depending on which metal salt is contained in the firework. So sodium produces a yellow colour, strontium makes red, copper makes blue.
"You can combine these in the same way that an artist would combine colours painting," Dr Gladman adds.
"So strontium plus copper will produce purple. It really is a lovely example of science meets art."
But the science does not stop there. There is also the chemistry of the noise producers, the thrusters to get the fireworks up into the air. There is physics involved in modelling where debris might land.
"There's a delay that burns as this thing rises into the air, a pyrotechnic delay," says explosive consultant, Dr Tom Smith, who is secretary of the British Pyrotechnists Association.
"It then transfers the fire to what's called the bursting charge of the shell, which both lights all the stars and produces that enormous burst of colour in the sky and spreads those stars out."
And it is those bits of magic which it is all about for Dave Mason.
He says: "There are moments when you hit something and it works, you hear the audience just gasp and that to me is solid gold.
"I think we are alchemists, we take very base chemicals like charcoal and we turn it into gold inside of people."


A man who killed another with a single punch outside a bar in Leamington Spa has been jailed for six years.

Robert Bavington, 28, of Rugby, fell to the ground in the attack and hit his head. He died in hospital.
Vijay Masih, 31, of Willenhall, West Midlands, denied his manslaughter in April last year but was found guilty at Warwick Crown Court.
Police said it was an unprovoked attack and described it as "a senseless act... with no real meaning or justification".
Mr Bavington was attacked in the early hours of 10 April outside Moo Bar on Russell Street in Leamington.
More updates on this story
Det Ch Insp Liam Barry, of Warwickshire Police, said Mr Bavington was "a young man of fine character with his life very much ahead of him".
"The sentence handed to the defendant will not bring Robert back or take away the trauma, pain and suffering caused but I hope they will be able to take comfort from the fact Masih will be behind bars and will not be able to cause harm to another family," he said.


Hearts have started on resurfacing their pitch at Tynecastle Stadium.

The surface has been heavily criticised in recent weeks after it began to cut up badly.
Club owner Ann Budge confirmed in a statement on the club's website that work would begin this week and current surface was dug up on Tuesday.
"We are assured it will be completed well in time for our next home game against Ross County on Wednesday 1 March," she said.
Hearts head coach Ian Cathro has been among those to voice concerns over the playing surface, admitting it was hampering the passing style he is trying to implement at the club.
Hearts drew 1-1 with bottom-of-the-Premiership Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Tynecastle on Saturday.
"As many of you will have seen for yourselves, our pitch has deteriorated badly over the last few weeks," added Budge.
"While we knew that we would have to address the replacement of our now 19-year-old pitch sometime soon, we were hoping that it would see us through to the end of this season.
"However, having carefully monitored the issues and having consulted a number of experts in this field, we have taken the decision to address the problem now."


A suspected Bronze Age burial mound has been found in Ceredigion during a community project.

A geophysical survey has revealed new finds under the Iron Age hillfort, Pen Dinas, at Penparcau, near Aberystwyth.
A number of suspected hut circles - dwellings typical of the Iron Age - have also been identified.
Dr Alan Chamberlain said the presence of the mound means the hill "must have been a place of special importance long before the hillfort was constructed".
The survey was part of a community-led heritage and environment project run by Penparcau Community Forum with support from archaeological specialists.
Trustee Dr Chamberlain, a local resident, said: "It's really exciting and nationally significant.
"It's especially important because the local community has made this happen."
The project is seeking more volunteers.


Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's seat in Parliament could be abolished under proposals from the Boundary Commission for England.

Mr Corbyn represents the Islington North constituency in London, and much of it is expected to form part of a new Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington seat.
Mr Corbyn would be entitled to seek selection as Labour's candidate.
A source close to the Labour leader said there was "every reason to believe Jeremy will have a seat to contest".
The total number of MPs is to be reduced from 650 to 600 under government plans.
The boundary commissions for England and Wales are drawing up plans for new constituencies, with proposed details being published on Tuesday.
The Labour Party is expected to be particularly hard hit by the changes.
Proposed changes to the boundaries in Northern Ireland have already been published.
The proposed changes in Scotland are set to be published next month.


A woman from Northern Ireland, who was only 28 when she began to lose her hair, has said shaving her head helped her to "take back control".

Juliet Cooke was diagnosed with alopecia just nine months ago.
The film producer first noticed a bald patch while she was getting ready to go out to an event.
She said it became a difficult process where big clumps of hair would "fall out every day in (her) hands".
"Losing my hair was this horrible feeling - you felt dirty, you never looked great," Ms Cooke told BBC's Talkback programme.
"When someone says you've got alopecia, it changes the way you feel about yourself."
Doctors told the 28-year-old that she had likely developed the condition due to stress.
There is, however, no definite cause for alopecia and it can occur at any age.
In the months following her diagnosis, Ms Cooke said she "hit rock bottom", and began suffering from depression.
Eventually, she became frustrated with continually losing her hair and took the brave step of shaving her head completely.
For many people, that would be a difficult decision to make, but Ms Cooke said it gave her "a new lease on life".
"Suddenly I felt this sort of power and I could stand on my own two feet, it was like being born again," said Ms Cooke.
"Now I've shaved my head I feel great - I took back control."
Some people who develop alopecia opt to wear a wig and Ms Cooke said sometimes she also does, because it "makes you feel like you haven't changed".
She added that while she would not choose to have developed the condition, it has given her a new-found confidence to help others who may be suffering in silence.
"I want to use my voice to help motivate people, to help them find beauty when they think it's impossible to find," said Ms Cooke.
"Things happen in life for a reason, maybe I got alopecia for a reason."
You can listen back to Juliet Cooke's interview with Talkback presenter William Crawley on the BBC iPlayer.


A 23-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man outside a block of flats in south London.

The victim, who was aged in his 20s, was stabbed outside Deerhurst House, on Haymerle Road, in Peckham, on Friday afternoon.
He has not been officially identified but next of kin have been informed. A post-mortem examination is due on Sunday.
The arrested man was held by police on Saturday afternoon.
He remains in custody at a south London police station.
The Metropolitan Police have appealed for witnesses and anyone with information to contact them.


Four men accused of UVF membership and other offences have been cleared after the prosecution decided not to continue with the case.

It is believed key prosecution evidence would have come from Robert Stewart.
He is one of two brothers who gave evidence in the supergrass trial which ended with 12 acquittals last week.
At Belfast Crown Court on Friday, the prosecution said they had reviewed the evidence after the supergrass trial and would not go ahead with the case.
The judge then found all four accused not guilty.
Robert Warnock, 63, William Young, 41, 33-year-old Raymond Burns and Ronald Bowe, 34, were all charged with membership of the UVF and of trying to intimidate Ballyclare pub doorman Trevor Gowdy from giving evidence between August and September 2003.
Mr Burns, from Ballyvessey Court, Newtownabbey, and Belfast men Mr Young, from Seapark Drive and Mr Bowe, from Grove Street East, had faced further charges relating to explosives.
They were accused of causing an explosion likely to endanger life on 12 September and perverting justice by causing an explosion at a property connected to Mr Gowdy in an effort to stop him from giving evidence.
Mr Bowe was further charged with having an improvised pipe bomb the day before the alleged attack while Mr Burns faced a further charge of being a member of the UVF on diverse dates between 27 February 1996 and 13 September 2003.
Mr Bowe was one of the accused in the supergrass trial who was cleared of all charges.
Three co-accused in that case either had the charges dropped or were acquitted of offences arising out of the Trevor Gowdy attack, while a fourth was initially charged with the attack, but never faced trial for it.
Speaking outside the court, the Progressive Unionist Party's Ken Wilkinson said it was "another chapter closed in a case which is a total and utter farce".
He added: "We are not against justice, we are totally and utterly opposed to the system that's been used.
"It was a failed system in 84, it's now 2012 and it's still a failed system."


South Africa left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso will miss the first two matches of the Twenty20 series against Australia after tests showed his bowling action was illegal.

An International Cricket Council (ICC) movement expert found his arm extended beyond the 15 degrees allowed.
Phangiso, 32, is in the Proteas squad for this month's World T20 in India.
If he passes a re-test on 7 March, he will be available for the final T20 against Australia and the World T20.
South Africa meet England in their opening game on 18 March.
Phangiso was reported by umpires after helping Lions reach the final of South Africa's domestic 50-over competition.
He will remain with the South Africa squad and work with spin bowling coach Claude Henderson and Cricket South Africa high performance manager Vinnie Barnes to try to remedy his action.
South Africa face Australia in Durban on Friday, Johannesburg on Sunday and Cape Town on 9 March.


Six people arrested after a group forced its way into a synagogue in what police have described as an "anti-Semitic" incident have been bailed.

Police said the group, all in their late teens, had just left a nearby party and tried to get into the synagogue in Stamford Hill, north London, at about 01:15 on Sunday.
One man was punched in the face as he tried to stop them.
The six have been released on bail pending further inquiries.
Four men and two women were held on suspicion of public order offences and assault. Police said one man had made an anti-Semitic comment.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said a number of people entered the synagogue on Craven Park Road, but they were removed shortly afterwards by security staff.
He added: "There is no suggestion that this was a far-right or extremist attack but rather the completely unacceptable actions of a drunken group."
But the incident is being treated as an anti-Semitic incident because of remarks made by one of the group.
The man who was punched was treated at the scene but did not require hospital treatment.


Chelsea have lost a vote to buy back their own stadium from a group owned by their fans.

Only 61.5% of shareholders in Chelsea Pitch Owners voted in favour of selling the freehold for the club's Stamford Bridge stadium back to the club.
Approval of 75% of the shareholders was needed to pass the proposal.
CPO acquired the freehold to the stadium in 1997 to protect Stamford Bridge from developers should the club run into financial difficulties.
Chelsea had wanted to buy the stadium in order to facilitate a possible move to a new stadium and redevelopment of the site.
However, many fans opposed the move from the club's current location where it has been based for more than a century.
"Chelsea FC is naturally disappointed with the result. While we will remain as ambitious as ever, this decision could slow down our progress," the club said in a statement.
The club maintains no decision has been made on a move, even if the club does buy the stadium.
The club feels that Stamford Bridge's current capacity of 42,000 puts Chelsea at a financial disadvantage compared with rivals such as Arsenal whose new stadium holds 60,000.


DIY retailer Kingfisher, which owns B&Q and Screwfix, says it could open another 200 Screwfix stores in the UK.

Kingfisher currently has 412 Screwfix UK stores, which supply tools, plumbing and electrical equipment.
As part of previously announced restructuring plans, the company said it was on track to close about 60 B&Q stores by the end of its 2016-17 financial year.
Statutory pre-tax profits dipped 1.8% to £386m in the half year to 1 August.
Total sales fell by 4.8% to £5.49bn.
Kingfisher shares dropped around 2% in early trading.
"I am pleased that we have delivered a solid first half of the year," said chief executive Veronique Laury. "There remains a lot to be done, however."
Earlier this year Kingfisher announced a change in strategy that involved scaling back its B&Q stores while opening up new Screwfix outlets.
Other plans include cutting back on some of the 393,000 products sold across the company. Only 7,000 items - amounting to 7% of sales - are sold in at least two of Kingfisher's operating companies.
The beefed-up Screwfix "continues to deliver strong growth" in the UK, Kingfisher said.
In the first half like-for-like sales at the chain rose 16.5% to £494m. It said 60 Screwfix stores would be opened by the end of 2015-16.
Sales were driven by strong growth from trade desks for plumbers and electricians, digital and mobile growth, new and extended ranges, and new outlets, it said.
It added that a trial of Screwfix in Germany "has been well received", with signs of repeat custom in store and online.
Like-for-like sales at B&Q rose 0.7%. The majority of the 30 B&Q closures planned for this year will fall in the second half, the firm said. Over two years, the restructuring is expected to cost it about £350m.
The firm also runs the Castorama and Brico Depot chains in France and other countries. It announced two store closures in France, and one in Russia.


Two men jailed for a gangland murder have been cleared on appeal after spending more than a decade in jail.

Gary Higgins, 47, and James Dunn, 34, were convicted in 2006 of shooting Clinton Bailey in the car park of a Coventry pub in April 2005.
The Court of Appeal said there had been a "serious" and "regrettable" failure to disclose information which could have helped their defence at trial.
Three other men were also jailed in connection with the killing.
Lord Justice Davis, who chaired the appeal panel, said fresh evidence had cast doubt on the credibility of a "crucial" prosecution witness.
Read more news for Coventry and Warwickshire
The two men were found guilty on the basis of joint enterprise after Mr Bailey was lured to the Three Horseshoes in the Foleshill area of Coventry before being led outside and gunned down.
While neither of the men was accused of firing a shot, Mr Higgins was said to have enticed the victim to the pub, Mr Dunn was alleged to have helped organise the trap.
Mr Bailey, who was believed to have been attempting to mediate a drugs-related dispute between a friend and a gang, died 12 days after being shot.
Senior judges at the Court of Appeal said the convictions should be quashed "since we cannot be satisfied that either conviction was safe".
Lord Justice Davis said the safety of the convictions was undermined by the prosecution's star witness who claimed to have overheard the murder plans.
But evidence casting doubt on her reliability and "tendency to manipulation" was kept from defence lawyers before the trial, he added.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it would not be applying for a retrial.
"The murder convictions of the other three men are not affected by the ruling and they remain in prison," it added.


A runner has pledged to complete his bid to run 401 marathons in 401 days despite a back injury which has forced him to take some time out.

Ben Smith had completed 284 consecutive marathons in 284 days when he developed an umbilical hernia in Aberdeen.
Mr Smith said: "It's caused a bulging disc which is causing some nerve pain and a curvature in my spine."
He has pledged to restart on Tuesday and extend his daily runs so he can still meet his challenge on time.
Mr Smith, from Portishead, is now taking time out in Blackpool for intensive physiotherapy and acupuncture sessions.
"To be honest I was absolutely gutted and I didn't really know what to do with myself.
"But I've got a fantastic team of people around me and they've worked tirelessly over the past couple of days.
"We've all come together with a plan now and all going well I'm due to be going back out on the road on Tuesday next week," he added.
He will start back at Inverness and will need to cover an extra 2.5 miles a day for the next 106 days to make up for the time he has lost.
The aim is to finish the run as planned on 5 October in Bristol.
Mr Smith hopes to raise Â£250,000 for the anti-bullying charities, Stonewall and Kidscape.


Passers-by on a London street were recently amazed to see a fleeting image of a pink tongue protruding from fruitily plump lips, seemingly suspended in mid-air.

It was the famous logo for the Rolling Stones and was part of an experiment by tech start-up Lightvert.
Its technology can produce images that appear to be 200m (656ft) high, but which only exist in the eye of the viewer for a fraction of a second.
So could we be on the verge of seeing giant digital ads in our cities, similar to those featured in the seminal 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner?
Lightvert certainly hopes so.
Its tech, called Echo, works by employing a narrow - no more than 200mm - strip of reflective material fixed to the side of a building. A high-power projector mounted below or above the strip beams light off the reflector directly into the viewer's eye.
The image appears momentarily, exploiting what's called the "persistence of vision" effect - the way sparklers seem to leave a trail of light when you wave them around quickly.
"Echo technology is being well received by those who have seen it to date," says Daniel Siden, Lightvert's chief executive.
"Viewers are curious as to how it works and engage with it in a way you just don't see with traditional screen media."
He is hoping that landlords will grab the opportunity to turn their buildings into revenue-generating digital billboards that are huge, yet physically unobtrusive.
These are very early days for the firm, but Mr Siden believes outdoor advertising generally is overdue a leap forward in innovation.
But would you want a billboard to target adverts at you specifically?
That's what happened in Moscow recently. Drivers approaching a digital billboard were shown ads for Jaguar's new SUV (sports utility vehicle), but only if they were driving a different make of SUV.
A machine-learning camera recognised the vehicle's make and changed the ad to target those drivers.
The billboard image was adaptive, too, showing the Jaguar against a dark background if it was night-time, or manoeuvring through snow if the weather was bad.
The ads were developed by Synaps Labs and founder Aleksey Utkin says there are plans to test similar ads in the US this summer.
But won't such ads be dangerously distracting?
A study on driver distraction by the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute found that digital billboards attracted the gaze of drivers for much longer than other signs.
Researchers found drivers often took their eyes off the road for more than two seconds - a threshold which other studies have found to be dangerous.
Some bricks-and-mortar retailers, such as video games specialist Game, are using augmented reality (AR) tech to bring their shop windows to life.
Overlaying moving digital images on to the real world, as seen through a smartphone camera, caught the public imagination after the release of Nintendo's Pokemon Go game.
"AR is no longer just a nice-to-see technology - it has a far more extensive commercial application for brands, where results can be tracked and measured," says Richard Corps, co-founder of Ads Reality.
"We're seeing a much wider industry use of AR tech in different environments, such as in education as well as retail."
The uptake of AR in advertising is likely to increase due to the demands of a new generation of consumer, says Alex Fenton, a lecturer in digital business at Salford Business School.
"AR has lots of potential," he says. "The technology has been around for many years but had failed to capture the imagination of the mainstream.
"But with things like Pokemon Go, there's now an acceptance from young people in particular about AR and its benefits."
A few years ago retailers were excited about the potential of pinging you specific offers and ads to your phone based on where you were in the store or High Street.
But "proximity marketing" as it's called, has so far failed to take off, mainly due to the high costs of installing and maintaining Bluetooth beacons used to locate shoppers precisely.
But Devicescape eschews Bluetooth and instead tracks smartphone users via the use of wi-fi hotspots.
"Our software establishes a person's presence in a particular location based on their proximity to the wi-fi network at that location," says Owen Geddes, the firm's vice president of market development.
"It could be anywhere, a supermarket, a concert hall, or a bus."
This has resulted in a 13% rise in customers clicking through to product websites, he maintains.
Once aware of a person's location, the system triggers the delivery of a targeted ad to that smartphone containing a link to a piece of online branded content.
"It could be a discount offer for use in the shop the person is visiting, or a piece of content such as a movie trailer," says Mr Geddes.
"Importantly, it is always relevant to the consumer because of their location."
But Chris Daly, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), says customers are instinctively sceptical about how their data is used, and thinks the industry will need to tread carefully.
CIM research has shown that 92% of customers are wary about data collection and use.
"When using adtech, marketers must keep this in mind and ensure they do not overstep their reach when making use of consumer data," says Mr Daly.
Maybe sticking to giant ads in the sky would be less controversial.
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The creator of the energy drink Red Bull, Chaleo Yoovidhya, has died.

Mr Chaleo rose from humble origins to become one of Thailand's richest men, with a wealth estimated at $5bn (Â£3.2bn) last year.
His pharmaceutical company produced a tonic drink in the 1970s, but it became popular worldwide in the next decade when he went into partnership with an Austrian entrepreneur.
Red Bull also owns two football clubs and a Formula 1 team.
Mr Chaleo was born of poor Chinese immigrant parents in the northern province of Phichit, reportedly in 1932, local media say.
He worked as a salesman before setting up TC Pharmaceuticals in 1962.
It introduced the drink Krating Daeng, which became popular with shift workers and lorry drivers.
In 1984 he launched it as Red Bull with the Austrian marketing expert Dietrich Mateschitz, and three years later began selling it in Austria.
Red Bull is now sold in 70 countries throughout the world.
Forbes Magazineput him equal 205th in its March 2012 world billionaire list.


There are "serious weaknesses" in the Welsh-medium education strategies of councils, the Welsh Language Commissioner has told AMs.

Since last year, Welsh councils have had to submit proposals to ministers showing how they intend to meet the demand for Welsh-medium education.
The government can then accept, amend or refuse the proposals.
But Meri Huws raised concerns that the government cannot force councils to implement their schemes.
Ms Huws told members of the assembly's education committee:
Liberal Democrat AM Aled Roberts used the example of one of his north Wales constituents, who spoke Welsh with her children and was unable to get into a Welsh-medium primary school, to say that the system was failing.
Responding to the claims, Wrexham council said it wanted to point out that if has enough Welsh primary provision in the county borough.
"Some parents have, however, been unable to get their children into their preferred school and have been offered a place in an alternative Welsh medium-school," said a spokesperson.
"The criteria used for over subscription is exactly the same as for English medium schools."
Education Minister Huw Lewis accepted there were some issues with the current proposals and had "sent 17 of the 22 proposals back to the councils".
But he told the committee it was still too early to see how effective the new system had been.


Spanish police have detained nine men during raids against suspected Islamist militants believed to be linked to last year's deadly bomb attacks in Belgium.

Eight Moroccans and a Spanish national were arrested in and around Barcelona, in the north-east, police said.
The raids were co-ordinated with Belgian and Moroccan police.
The suicide bomb attacks on the Brussels airport and metro killed 32 people in March 2016. They were claimed by so-called Islamic State (IS).
As well as the 32 victims of the bombings, three suicide bombers died.
Several other men, some identified on CCTV as having been accomplices of the attackers, were subsequently arrested.
The group has been linked to  the November 2015 Paris attackers.
On Tuesday, Spanish police said the nine suspects - aged between 30 and 40 - were seized during raids on 12 properties.
"Four of those who were detained have links with people arrested for the attacks carried out at Brussels airport and metro," a spokesman for Catalonia's regional police told the AFP news agency.
It was not clear whether the four had been directly involved in the attacks, the spokesman added.
During the raids police seized guns and drugs, as well as computers and memory drives, which were  being analysed.
The names of the nine men detained - most of whom have criminal records - have not been released.
Meanwhile, police in Morocco searched several properties belonging to family members of those being held. It was not immediately clear if any arrests were made.
The raids were part of an operation that followed an eight-month long investigation, police said.


Judy Murray has been unveiled as an ambassador for the 2017 Badminton World Championships in Glasgow, which will be staged from 21-27 August.

Badminton Scotland made the announcement at the latest Big Hit Festival - part of the Glasgow 2017 legacy programme, which aims to introduce 30,000 more youngsters to badminton.
"I played badminton when I was young and got to junior international level," she said. "I'm thrilled the World Championships is coming to Glasgow."
"I don't play anymore but I'm a huge fan and love to watch it, so it's great to have the chance to promote the event and the sport."
Murray was joined by Commonwealth Games and European badminton silver medallist Kirsty Gilmour at the event at the Peak Leisure Centre in Stirling Sports Village, alongside 85 pupils from local primary schools.
The children received a coaching session from Glasgow Sport Young Leaders from Dunfermline High School and primary and secondary teachers who are attending a continuing professional development course, also as part of Glasgow 2017 legacy.
Find out how to get into badminton with our special guide.
Billy Garrett, head of sport at the city's cultural and sporting organisation Glasgow Life, said: "A huge part of our legacy campaign is introducing young people to badminton and ensuring they are given the appropriate support to continue playing if they wish to do so.
"That's why it's so great to have people like Judy on board - to help us promote not only Glasgow 2017, but also the sport itself."
Murray joins Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon, Scotland rugby international Finn Russell and golfer Catriona Matthew in support of the tournament and ongoing efforts to develop the sport.
Chief executive of Badminton Scotland Anne Smillie, said: "I am delighted to have Judy involved with our legacy Programme. She and Finn were both at the Big Hit Festival on finals day at the Scottish Open Grand Prix and saw first-hand how excited and eager the youngsters were."
You can watch live coverage of the World Championships on the BBC Sport website.


Ospreys have signed Sale Sharks' former South Africa tight head prop Brian Mujati until the end of the season.

The 32-year old, who has won 12 caps for his country, has been signed to provide injury cover.
Ospreys tight heads Dmitri Arhip and Ma'afu Fia are currently sidelined and Rhodri Jones is in the Wales squad.
"Brian has proven quality at the top level and will add so much experience to the squad, particularly over the coming weeks," coach Steve Tandy said.
Mujati has played in Super Rugby with Lions and Stormers, in Top 14 in France with Racing Metro, and in England with Northampton Saints and Sale.
At Northampton Mujati was a losing Heineken Cup and Premiership finalist, and an Anglo-Welsh Cup winner.
Ospreys Head Coach, Steve Tandy, said he is expecting Mujati to make a big impact.
"This is an important signing for us given the injury situation with Dmitri and Ma'afu. Our performances this season have put us in a really strong position but we still have eight PRO12 games to go, and a Challenge Cup quarter-final in April," he said.
"In Rhodri Jones and Daniel Suter we have two young men who will be heavily involved but we can't go through such a big run of games with only two fit pro tight heads on our books, particularly with Rhodri still a part of the Six Nations squad and potentially away on Wales duty. It's a critical position and we felt that we had to act now."


The first minister knew that reviewing ambulance targets was a risky move, says BBC Wales political correspondent and guest blogger Daniel Davies.

In September 2013 Carwyn Jones said NHS performance targets would be reviewed.
As it happens, the following month was the last time the Welsh ambulance service hit its target to reach 65% of the most serious Category A emergency calls within eight minutes.
This is risky political ground for Labour. The first minister acknowledged as much on the Sunday Politics Wales programme in January 2014.
"Well, we can't review the targets until we've met them," he told me.
"I mean, quite naturally people will say if we try and change them without meeting them that we are trying to shift the goalposts."
That's exactly what Plaid Cymru has said today, claiming a trial of a new target system is a "dangerous experiment".
Despite a steady improvement this year, the ambulance service is still not meeting its key target for response times.
Yet from October the Welsh government says the target will only apply to a smaller number of the most life-threatening calls.
So what's changed since January 2014?
"This is clinically led", a source says. In other words, the experts think the 41-year-old eight-minute target no longer makes sense.
Similar pilot projects have been made in parts of England and an "increasing weight of evidence" persuaded Welsh ministers it was time for change.
Dr Brendan Lloyd, medical director of the Welsh ambulance service, says the "highest level of the medical profession in the UK" support an "urgent change".
The Tories and the Liberal Democrats say they welcome changes that will mean better care for patients.
But cross-border comparisons of the NHS have become a major part of Welsh politics.
Hardly surprising then that both parties want to retain a way of comparing the Welsh system with the performance of the ambulance service in England.


Olympic cycling champion Victoria Pendleton avoided injury after being unseated from Satanic Beat on her third competitive ride as an amateur jockey.

Pendleton, who won keirin gold at London 2012, walked away after a fall in the final stages of the Rayner Bosch Car Service Handicap at Newbury.
"I'm fine," the 35-year-old told the Racing Post.
"I lost my balance and couldn't regain it. It's so annoying but it won't put me off."
Pendleton is aiming to ride over jumps at the Cheltenham Festival in March.
She retired from cycling in 2012 after adding London gold to the sprint title she won at the Beijing Games in 2008.


Despite six snorkelling or scuba-diving deaths in Australia last week, tourism and certification operators are rejecting a call for a safety review, reports Ben Collins.

First came the tragic news last Wednesday that two elderly French tourists had died on a guided snorkelling trip at Michaelmas Cay, a popular tourist spot about 40km (25 miles) north-east of Cairns, in Queensland state.
They reportedly had pre-existing medical conditions, and suffered cardiac arrests.
Two days later, a 60-year-old British man died in unclear circumstances while scuba-diving at Agincourt Reef, also in Far North Queensland.
By the weekend, three more men - one of them aged 68 - were also dead after separate snorkelling and scuba-diving incidents in Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria. Their deaths are still being investigated.
The incidents have prompted Graham Henderson, president of the Australian Underwater Federation, to call for a review of safety standards for scuba-diving courses.
He said increased health screening for older divers should be considered.
"Having that number of deaths is really unusual. I've never seen it happen before," said Mr Henderson, whose organisation is the government-recognised body for amateur underwater activities in Australia.
"I think realistically, for older divers from the age of 65 onwards, I think it would be worth having a medical every two years."
Mr Henderson said the diving community was ageing as people came back to the sport later in life.
"People can be certified 20 years before and in some of the [certifying] organisations there is no process for renewal," he said.
However, others such as Mike Holme, head of quality management at Padi Asia Pacific, deny there is any issue with safety standards. Padi is a global provider of scuba-diving training and certification.
"There's a self-screening medical statement that every open-water diver student needs to complete," Mr Holme said.
"Any dive operator will always ask a diver when they last dived and would generally ask for proof of currency.
"If it has been more than two years, they will ask that they do a refresher course or what we call a re-activation course.
"We are always telling our divers to refresh their skills and re-activate. We also tell them if they have any medical conditions that have changed since their last dive, to go and talk to their doctor about it."
The executive director of the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators (AMPTO), which represents the tourist industry in the Great Barrier Reef, also rejected any issue with current standards.
But Col McKenzie said older people should be aware of the risks associated with either snorkelling or scuba-diving.
"We are the most regulated diving and snorkelling industry anywhere in the world. We're also the safest," he said.
"The reality is that as customers get older we will have more deaths, not less.
"All we can do is make sure we have the correctly trained staff to deal with it as best we can.
"When you're two hours off shore and you have a heart attack the outcome is not good unless we can get a helicopter to you," Mr McKenzie said.


A woman with multiple sclerosis (MS) says her symptoms improved so dramatically she was able to walk again after being prescribed HIV drugs.

Shana Pezaro, 36, from Hove, East Sussex, was given antiretroviral drugs after fearing she may have contracted HIV.
Within days, Miss Pezaro noticed an easing of her MS symptoms.
When a doctor saw her walking up stairs after years of using a wheelchair he set up a clinical trial.
Multiple sclerosis is an incurable condition that can lead to sight loss, pain, fatigue and disability. It affects around 100,000 people in the UK.
Miss Pezaro was a dancer and piano teacher before being diagnosed with MS at the age of 28. The condition affected her hands and feet and she used a wheelchair.
In MS the coating around the nerve fibres is damaged causing a range of symptoms
Once diagnosed there is no cure, but treatments can help manage the condition
MS affects almost three times as many women as men
Physical symptoms of MS  might commonly include vision problems, balance problems and dizziness, fatigue, bladder problems and stiffness and/or spasms
MS can affect memory and thinking and also can have an impact on emotions
(Source: Multiple Sclerosis Society)
About a year ago, Miss Pezaro thought she may have been exposed to HIV and her doctor prescribed emergency antiretroviral drugs.
"Three days after I took the drugs I walked up a flight of stairs," she said.
"That was an unbelievable, massive change."
Prof Julian Gold from the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, saw a video of Miss Pezaro climbing the stairs and a clinical trial was set up to look at the impact of single or combination antiretroviral drugs on MS patients.
An earlier study led by Dr Gold conducted with Queen Mary University, London and the University of Oxford showed an association between HIV and MS.
They reported antiretroviral treatment may suppress other viruses such as those which may cause MS.
Dr Gold said: "The next stage of the investigation is to use a very similar combination [of HIV drugs] that Shana took. I think that might be quite optimistic."
A spokeswoman for the MS Society said: "Our growing understanding tells us that viruses have a role to play in multiple sclerosis and it will be interesting to see the trial results - positive findings mean another step on the road to beating MS."
Shana and Dr Gold would be very keen not to raise any false hope.
The study builds on a lot of work already done with HIV patients who simply don't get multiple sclerosis.
This is really about finding a cause and increasingly people think the cause may be a virus.
When scientists use words like "amazing" and "intriguing" you have to stand up and listen.


Next time you visit your GP to have your blood pressure (BP) checked, you may want to ask the nurse to do it, say researchers who have found that doctors routinely record higher levels.

In some cases, the hike in BP reading was enough to tip a patient over the threshold for needing treatment.
The difference may be because patients feel more anxious when they see a doctor - the white coat effect, say the University of Exeter researchers.
Their work is published at BJGP.org.
The researchers studied more than 1,000 patients whose BP readings had been taken by both doctors and nurses at the same visit.
Lead researcher Dr Christopher Clark said the study findings suggested doctors might not be best placed to monitor blood pressure.
He said: "Doctors should continue to measure blood pressure as part of the assessment of an ill patient or a routine check-up, but not where clinical decisions on blood pressure treatment depend on the outcome.
"The difference we noted is enough to tip some patients over the threshold for treatment for high blood pressure, and unnecessary medication can lead to unwanted side-effects."
Blood pressure can fluctuate throughout the day. Having one raised reading does not necessarily mean you have high blood pressure. Feeling anxious or stressed when you visit your GP can raise your blood pressure, the NHS advises.
Increasingly, to get more accurate readings, doctors are giving patients portable testing kits that measure blood pressure at home over the course of a day and night.
Spotting and treating high blood pressure is important to lower the risk of future complications such as heart attacks and stroke.
Katharine Jenner, of Blood Pressure UK, said: "Many people feel slightly anxious when going to see a doctor, even though having a blood pressure check is simple, quick and painless, it is interesting to see it quantified in this study."
She said guidelines recommended home monitoring of blood pressure as well as in the clinic.


The people behind Big Hero 6 have been speaking to Newsround after the film won the Best Animation award at the Oscars.

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23 February 2015 Last updated at 12:46 GMT
The ceremony is the biggest film event on the planet and the Disney movie picked up the prize, which was won by Frozen last year.
You can find out who won the other big prizes by clicking here.
But fresh from receiving their famous golden statues the film's director, Don Hall, and Producer, Roy Conli, answered some questions specifically for Newsround about the success of the movie, and the chances of making a Big Hero 7.
Watch the clip to see more.


Colombian police are investigating the killings of three youths whose names appeared on hitlists published on the social networking site Facebook.

The hitlists warned scores of teenagers in the town of Puerto Asis, in southern Colombia, to leave town or be killed.
Two of the youths named were shot on 15 August, while a third was killed five days later.
Police have sent an investigative team, including internet experts, to find out who is behind the threats.
A local official said a criminal gang had recently expanded its operations to the area and was intimidating locals.
Diego Ferney Jaramillo, 16, and Eibart Alejandro Ruiz Munoz, 17, were shot dead as they were driving along a road on the outskirts of Puerto Asis in Putumayo province on their motorcycle on 15 August.
Colombian ombudsman Volmar Perez Ortiz said that at around the same time, anonymous threats appeared on Facebook, listing 69 local youths and telling them to leave Puerto Asis within three days or be killed.
The names of the two dead teenagers had been on the list. The ombudsman's office said the authorities at first thought they were dealing with a hoax.
But the killing of a third listed teenager, Norbey Alexander Vargas, on 20 August prompted officials to take the threats seriously.
Since then, a second threat has appeared, on leaflets left on cars and addressed to the families of the youths.
"Please, as relatives, ask them to leave town in less than three days, or we'll see ourselves forced to carry out more acts like that of 15 August," it read.
Another list was published on Facebook on Monday, this time naming 31 local girls.
Putumayo province official Andres Gerardo Verdugo said the threats had provoked panic among the town's families, some of whom had fled.
Police officials have not yet commented on who may be behind the threats or why the youths had been targeted.
But the ombudsman's office said a notorious gang, the Rastrojos, had recently stepped up its criminal operations in the area.


Florida is holding its first bear hunt in more than two decades, despite opposition from animal rights campaigners.

The state's Wildlife Conservation Commission is allowing licensed hunters to kill a total of 320 black bears.
It said the aim was to stabilise the growing number of the animals.
But activists said the state should instead focus on waste management and curbing the smell of food in garbage.
More than 200 bears were killed on Saturday. The hunters included a 16-year-old boy who said he fulfilled a dream when he killed an 80kg bear.
The Wildlife Conservation Commission said it issued nearly 4,000 permits to hunters.
"There has been a need to make seasons longer, make them more liberal, because there have been so many predators and they're not as controlled as they should be," said Nick Pinizzotto, president and chief executive officer of the Sportsmen's Alliance.
However, animal rights groups said the hunt was unnecessary and did not have public support.
"Research overwhelmingly shows that hunting bears in the woods doesn't reduce problems with bears in neighbourhoods. The state would be better off helping citizens manage trash and outdoor food sources," said Kate MacFall from the Humane Society of the United States.
Opponents photographed the dead bears as they arrived at designated delivery points in the hope that the images would undermine support for future hunts.
The first bear to be killed was a lactating female, but the Wildlife Conservation Commission told the Orlando Sentinel newspaper the hunt had been timed so the youngest bear cubs would be about nine months old and able to survive on their own.
Officials said the black bear population had grown to 3,500 - up from a few hundred in the 1970s - and presented a safety problem.
At least four Florida residents have been injured in bear attacks in the past two years, mostly in the suburbs north of Orlando.
On Friday a bear attacked a man near the town of Eastpoint, leaving him with non-life threatening injuries.
Charlie Griffin told local TV that the 180kg bear emerged from a garbage dumpster and swiped at him, slashing him on the arm.
In 2014, a black bear killed a hiker in New Jersey, the first fatal attack in the state in recorded history.
The Wildlife Commission's advice on encountering black bears is to remain standing upright and speak to the bear in a calm, assertive voice while backing up slowly towards a secure area and leaving the bear a clear escape route.


Winning Olympic gold in her final international match was the dream way for BBC Women's Footballer of the Year 2017 nominee Melanie Behringer to bring down the curtain on her Germany career.

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We are profiling each of the five nominees for the BBC Women's Footballer of the Year 2017 award. You can see all their profiles, read full terms and vote here for your favourite online until 08:00 GMT/09:00 BST on Monday, 15 May.
A 2-1 victory over Sweden in last year's final at the Olympic stadium in Rio de Janeiro earned the midfielder the one piece of international silverware she was missing.
"That was a crazy, beautiful tournament. For me I think the best tournament overall," the 31-year Bayern Munich player said.
"Our goal was to win a medal and at the end we even got gold. That of course was an amazingly beautiful feeling. Indescribable."
Behringer says she realised after the Olympic semi-final victory over Canada that the next match would be her last for her country.
"I have never before made it to the finals at the Olympics," said the midfielder, who won 123 caps for Germany and was nominated for Fifa's World Player of the Year award in 2016.
"It was the right time to say I am done with playing in the national team."
As well as international success, Berhringer has enjoyed club success in her homeland, where she played for Freiburg, then Bayern Munich and then FFC Frankfurt before returning to Bayern in 2014.
She won the German Cup with Frankfurt in 2011 and 2014 before helping Bayern, to back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 2015 and 2016.
"[Bayern's] last championship was sometime in the '70s and because of that it was really insane for us to win the title," she said.
"We were 10 new players, as 10 players from Bayern left and therefore we were a complete new team. We had to come together very quickly and managed that in a short period of time."
Some of this recent success is down to the relationship the men's and women's teams have with each other at Bayern, she says.
"It is very, very important that the men's team stand behind the woman's team, especially names like Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Chelsea, Lyon or Paris," she said.
"It helps especially when you play in other countries and they know Bayern Munich is coming. The name alone is important because of the success in the men's team.
"It is very much like being in a family here. We all get on really well with all the players. Actually it is like this at the whole club. If you see any workers from Munich, you just know each other and just talk. It's a feeling that you just belong there. It's a great feeling."
The men's game has been important to her development as a player from an early age, with her earliest footballing memories centring around playing with her brothers and in matches against boys' teams.
"I had to play with the boys, because there was no girls' teams," said Behringer, who was born in Lorrach, in south-west Germany on the border with Switzerland and France.
"I think it is important that you train and play with boys, because then you have to physically push through.
"You learn how to defend yourself and that's why I think it is good to play with boys as long as possible. Opinions are for sure either way."
"To win the Olympic gold medal, to hold it in your hands is a feeling you cannot describe. I'm very happy and proud to be nominated for this award, I never believed I would be nominated, but the year of 2016 was very successful and amazing for me."


Ireland's Jason Smyth completed a sprint double at the World Para-athletics Championships with victory in the T13 200m final at London Stadium.

The 30-year-old from County Londonderry moved clear at the bend and won comfortably in 21.41 seconds.
Johannes Nambala of Namibia was second in 21.81 with Poland's Mateusz Michalski clocking 21.86 in third.
Smyth, who won the T13 100m final at London Stadium on Sunday, has now secured five world titles.
"I first came on the scene in 2005 and won golds all the way - I really would love to continue that," said a delighted Smyth
"I just want to be the best I can be and that's what drives me."
The visually-impaired athlete was a double Paralympic gold medallist at the same stadium in 2012.
Smyth is unbeaten at Paralympic level since beginning his international career at the 2005 European Championships.