The German Masters may be staged at a time of year when temperatures frequently plummet to minus 15C or lower in Berlin, but snooker is one of the hottest tickets in town.

The 2,500 crowds that packed out the imposing Tempodrom arena last week - and saw Chinese star Ding Junhui win his fourth ranking title of the season on Sunday - are the biggest the sport draws anywhere in the world.
By way of comparison, Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, home to the World Championships, accommodates just under a thousand fans.
The exponential growth of the game in China has been well documented, but snooker's governing body has long hankered after putting down roots in mainland Europe.
And although snooker is very popular in Poland, Bulgaria and Belgium, nowhere does the sport regularly pull in crowds in such numbers as Germany.
To say the country - which only has one professional player, the 120th-ranked Patrick Einsle, on the main tour - has warmed to this most British of sports over the past 10 years would be an understatement.
Six-time world champion and BBC pundit Steve Davis, who qualified for the German Masters for the first time this year, has seen a huge change from his earliest forays on the exhibition circuit almost 30 years ago.
"The first time I came out here was in the 1980s to Hamburg - a club called Greens, which was ahead of its time," he said. "I did some trick shots live on German TV, a sort of Jonathan Ross-style show, and what they struggled to get their heads around was that I was making a living from it.
"When you first go to a country the knowledge and appreciation isn't there, and people burst into rapturous applause for the break-off shot. But even by the end of the match they weren't doing that any more - there was a quick learning curve.
"Initial excitement, novelty and naivety then gets replaced, and a country wants champions from their own area. It may not need one to flourish - Ronnie O'Sullivan would still be supported against a German player - but there is no doubt it would lift things up another level. The buzz around the German Masters now reminds me very much of the 1980s back in the UK."
So how did it become so popular in a country with no history of success on the green baize?
Sadly, one of the trailblazers is no longer with us. But one of the most enduring legacies the late, great and much-missed Paul Hunter left to the sport was enthusing a new audience beyond its traditional borders.
Thomas Cesal, head of German snooker promoters Dragonstars, lured Hunter over to his home town of Furth for a pro-am event in 2004. That morphed into the appropriately named Paul Hunter Classic three years later, and is now accorded the status of a European Tour event carrying ranking points, won earlier this season by Ronnie O'Sullivan in front of 1,000-plus crowds.
It is a fitting tribute to the three-time Masters champion, who died from cancer aged 27 in 2006.
"We started from very little in 2004," recalled Cesal, who also now runs the Berlin tournament. "Paul kindly came over to start with, together with [Welsh player] Matthew Stevens. And as that event grew, World Snooker started looking at us more seriously to stage a full ranking event."
Germany had previously staged the German Open - a ranking event - three times in the 1990s, including one year in a British Army barracks sports hall in Osnabruck, near the Dutch border.
But the inaugural German Masters in the striking Tempodrom building - usually a music and arts venue, and designed to look like a circus tent - marked a watershed moment in 2011.
Around 14,000 tickets were sold this year, with sell-outs for the weekend sessions. "It is a pilgrimage for German fans," Cesal explains. "Only 30% of tickets sold are to people within a 30km radius of Berlin."
In a country where the mention of snooker would once have drawn blank looks, hundreds of thousands now follow the game on German Eurosport, thanks in no small part to the pioneering, almost evangelical, zeal of commentator and MC Rolf Kalb.
Kalb has been beating the snooker drum for decades, and all major tour tournaments are now shown on television. More than a million Germans tuned in to watch Ronnie O'Sullivan beat Mark Selby in the Masters final at London's Alexander Palace last month.
But snooker remains for the moment a game that is watched, but not played, in huge numbers.
Stalwart German players Sascha Lippe and Lasse Munstermann - who had a brief stint on the World Snooker tour - and current professional Einsle are known to aficionados, but hopes of a further boom in interest appear to rest with Lukas Kleckers, a 17-year-old from Essen.
"The next big step would be a real German star," Kalb says. "Kleckers is already the German national champion. He is practising hard and maybe he can go on to become a professional. Realistically he then has to go to live in England.
"Lukas is a good young player, but he can't play in everything at the moment, still being at school. In Germany he is a big fish in a small pond, but if he goes to England he will be a small fish in a big pond of other bigger fishes trying to eat him. And it isn't easy. Patrick Einsle found it difficult psychologically being away from home and has almost given up."
Regardless of whether Kleckers breaks through to the pro ranks, the signs are positive for continued growth.
"Germany has decided it loves snooker and finds it a fascinating game even without a top German player or hero, so it is a solid foundation," Kalb adds. "When Boris Becker and Steffi Graf came along, tennis went through the roof, but it went down again afterwards, it was like boom and bust. But of course it would be helpful to have a leading player, a real contender.
"But we do have a unique atmosphere at the Tempodrom. It gives those involved goose bumps. Referee Jan Verhaas told me he was shivering walking in for the first final in 2011. Olivier Marteel was crying last year; these are experienced referees. Ronnie O'Sullivan once told me he should have to pay to play in front of a crowd like that."
O'Sullivan failed to qualify for last week's event, but the world champion still flew out to sign some copies of his latest book and help sell some branded merchandise, an indication of Germany's growing influence in the sport.
The sport's biggest draw will be back later in the year, for two exhibition events. An England v Germany contest in June with no danger of penalties will see O'Sullivan and Steve Davis take on Einsle and Lippe, while the two English legends will also play in a Speed Cup tournament in May that will also feature the emerging Kleckers.
Germany has the status, the respect, the event, the venue and the fans. Now it just needs a contender.


A motorbike rider killed in a crash on the A75 Gretna to Stranraer road in Dumfries and Galloway has been named.

Dr Robert Murphie, 52, known as Robbie, is believed to have worked as a GP in Stranraer.
His bike collided with a Land Rover near Creetown, five miles east of Newton Stewart, at about 12:00 on Saturday.
Two people in the Land Rover suffered shock and bruising. Police Scotland said inquiries were continuing.


Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King has said he is "pessimistic" about the short-term prospects for the global economy.

He also said he had been struck by how much the situation had changed in the past six weeks.
Sir Mervyn said he was particularly concerned about the worsening situation in Asia and other emerging markets.
His comments followed official data showing the government borrowed more than expected in May.
Excluding financial interventions such as bank bailouts, it borrowed £17.9bn, compared with £15.2bn in May 2011.
A 7% fall in income tax receipts contributed to the rise in borrowing.
By Hugh PymChief economics correspondent, BBC News
You know when the Treasury quote "special factors" with government borrowing that the underlying picture is not good.
Spending in May was swelled by tax credits being paid early - usually payments are made in early June but they were brought forward because of the Jubilee Bank Holidays.
But there is no disguising the awkward message of these figures  for the chancellor - borrowing over the first two months of this financial year (stripping out the effects of the Royal Mail pension fund transfer to the government) is higher than the same period last year.
What's more it has been revised up for the full 2011-12 year.
Recession is biting into tax revenues and the Treasury will be looking more nervously at the prospects for the rest of the financial year.
Speaking at the Treasury committee, Sir Mervyn said the economic crisis had continued longer than he had expected, questioning the response of European authorities.
"Over two years now we have seen the situation in the euro area get worse and the problem being pushed down the road," he said.
"There is just enormous uncertainty out there, I have no idea what is going to happen in the euro area."
Sir Mervyn confirmed he would be prepared to cut interest rates further if "that turns out to be necessary".
He was one of four members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee to vote for additional quantitative easing at its last meeting to try to stimulate the UK economy.
One of the main reasons for this was the deteriorating situation in emerging economies, he said.
"And my colleagues in the United States are more concerned than they were at the beginning of the year about what is happening to the American economy," he added.
May's public borrowing figure was higher than many analysts' expectations of about £14.8bn.
The increase in borrowing was driven by a 7.3% fall in income tax receipts and an 11.7% jump in welfare benefits.
Economists said May's figure suggested the government would struggle to meet its target of trimming total borrowing in 2012-2013 to £120bn.
Vicky Redwood, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said she expected the government to overshoot "significantly".
"The main problem remains a sharp slowdown in tax receipts. And with the economy probably still in recession, receipts are likely to remain weak," she said.
A spokesman for the Treasury said: "It is too early in the financial year to draw conclusions about the year as a whole, especially as today's public finances data include a number of one-off factors and temporary distortions."
Rachel Reeves MP, Labour's shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said the figures indicated the coalition government's attempt to cut spending had backfired.
"As we consistently warned, if you choke off the recovery and push the economy into recession, the government ends up having to borrow more not less," she said.
Official data released on Thursday is expected to confirm the economy shrank by 0.3% in the first three months of 2012.
Britain's total public sector net debt, excluding financial sector interventions, rose to £1.013 trillion, according to the ONS. This is equivalent to 65% of GDP, a record for the month of May and the third-highest level on record since the series began in 1993.


George Osborne has been accused of being the "high priest of an austerity cult" after he set out plans to cut the welfare budget by £12bn.

The Chancellor told MPs that the first Conservative-only Budget for 18 years would help working people.
It included plans for a new "national living wage" alongside a series of reductions in welfare spending and some tax increases.
The SNP said Mr Osborne was "taking from the poor, giving to the rich".
Scottish Labour said it was a "bad budget for working families, our most vulnerable and our young people".
But the Chancellor said his Budget was designed to take Britain "from a low wage, high tax, high welfare economy, to the higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare country we intend to create".
He pointed to the Greek crisis as evidence that a "bold new settlement" is needed, saying Britain was still "borrowing too much and spending too much".
However, he pledged to make the £12bn of cuts to the welfare budget over three years rather than two.
The chancellor announced a new compulsory national living wage for workers aged over 25 which will start at £7.20 in April 2016 and then rise to £9 an hour by 2020.  It will replace the minimum wage which is currently £6.50, but its starting rate will be lower than that recommended by the Living Wage Foundation.
The government said about 140,000 workers in Scotland would benefit, with full-time workers on the new wage expecting to increase their earnings by about £5,200 more by 2020.
The Scottish Conservatives said the £9 national living wage by 2020 went further than the £8.70 figure recommended by the SNP.
Mr Osborne also said that the benefits cap will be cut from the present £26,000 that a family can claim in a year to £20,000 for those living outside London - a move which he said would save more than £1.5bn.
And he confirmed changes to tax credits, limiting them to two children for new claimants from 2017. The income threshold for tax credits is to be reduced from £6,420 to £3,850.
Among the other measures announced by the chancellor were:
Mr Osborne said the changes announced would save £9bn on the welfare budget by 2020.
The SNP welcomed the principle of a national living wage, but said Mr Osborne had set it too low and claimed the rise would be offset by cuts in tax credits.
The party's Treasury spokesman at Westminster, Stewart Hosie, said the Budget had been "less a plan to boost productivity, which should have been at the heart of this, and more a sermon from the high priest of an austerity cult".
He added: "It was not the budget the country needed and it was not the budget needed by those who have suffered the most over the last five years.
"Although the chancellor was right in one regard, it was a Conservative budget - taking from the poor, giving to the rich. The Tories have done it again."
The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) claimed the national living wage will be "nothing of the kind and is simply a cheap gimmick aimed at undermining the successful work we have undertaken to promote a meaningful living wage that genuinely helps people out of in work poverty".
Shelter Scotland described the move to stop 18 to 21-year-olds claiming housing benefit as "shameful, unjustified and cruel".
Director Graeme Brown said: "This completely removes the safety net that is in place to protect young people whose circumstances often prevent them from staying in or returning to the family home."
Tax credits provided £2bn in additional cash to households in Scotland in 2013-14, with two-thirds going to help families in low-paid work with children.
Mr Osborne has previously said tax credits had become a "very expensive" system, costing £30bn.
He said the low paid would be compensated by tax cuts in an effort to end the "merry-go-round on which people pay their taxes and then get back benefits" and firms would be encouraged to pay higher wages.
However Jackie Brock, chief executive of the organisation Children in Scotland, called moves to cut child tax credits "shameful", saying they would "punish children born into larger low income families".
Ian Murray, Labour's shadow secretary of state for Scotland, said the chancellor had "cut vital support for working families, whilst slashing reducing inheritance tax for the most well off".
And he urged the SNP to make clear how they would use the new tax and welfare powers being devolved to Holyrood as part of the Scotland Bill to "make a real difference to working families in Scotland."
Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael described the budget as "an assault on the young and the poor".
The former Scottish secretary added: "If anyone had doubts, the budget today shows that the nasty party is well and truly back."


The next generation of Americans to hit retirement will be 'shocked' when they find out how little they have to live on.

A former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury warns that the US government is standing idly by. "We need to do something, we're not doing anything," she says.
Professor Alicia Munnell, who is now director of Boston College's Centre for Retirement Research, tells BBC World Service's In the Balance programme that most Americans' voluntary 401(k) pension schemes are seriously under-funded.
In a new book, Falling Short, she says the only answer is to work longer and save more.
But it is part of a bigger global pensions gap between what is needed to fund pensions and what is actually available in private and public pension pots.
America's 401(k) was introduced in 1978 as a tax-efficient way of encouraging individual citizens to save for retirement.
But the average 401(k) fund, to which individuals and employers contribute, stands at $111,000. That's about enough to provide just $400 (£256) a month in retirement.
On the streets of New York, we questioned people on how confident they were about their retirement income.
"I'd say fairly-to-very confident," says Mark, aged 53 from Boston. "I think we've done our part, put as much dough aside as possible.
"In the next five to seven years we should be able to save even more - we'll have to."
However, Prof Munnell says the first retirees who are going to rely solely on their 401(k) are going to be "stunned" at how little that average $111,000 balance provides them in terms of monthly income.
"People are going to be shocked," she says.
Hannah, a 31-year-old New Yorker says: "I think it is getting to the point now in the economy where people my age are going to have to work until they die.
"I don't think social security is going to be able to do anything by the time I retire."
While Prof Munnell says that there will always be some kind of safety net in the US, "we need to put more money in to maintain current benefit levels".
Across the world company and public pension schemes are moving away from 'defined benefit' schemes.
These typically guarantee a pension equivalent to a proportion of a person's final salary, sometimes as high as two-thirds.
Instead they have moved to 'defined contribution' schemes where workers get out what they put in - plus, hopefully, some gains made by investing the funds over the years.
But not enough people are using the schemes.
"We have introduced 'auto-enrol', which is where people are assumed to be putting money into a small personal pension unless they deliberately opt out," says David Willetts, MP, a former shadow pensions minister in the UK.
"It's not compulsory but it's a powerful nudge. The bad news is these provisions are not going to be enough."
And private pension pots don't always catch on.
Monika Queisser, head of pensions policy at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) explains how there has been a "reticence in many populations," who believe that "this is like putting your pension in the casino, [it's] too dangerous, there is too much risk.
"And since private pensions also entail administration costs people are looking very closely at returns - and saying they don't think they should be putting their money there."
Prof Munnell says that with the 401(k) scheme only covering half the US workforce she would love to see automatic enrolment.
People should also work longer to put more into their schemes, she says.
"If people put off retirement until they were 70, then they would be in good shape."
So, faced with a reluctance to save through private pensions, most governments outside the US are getting workers to save for longer instead and imposing later retirement ages.
In countries such as China, Italy, Greece and Germany pension ages have been raised, although the pill has been sugared slightly by pegging retirement to the length of time workers have paid into a fund, rather than their actual age.
The bottom line is: People have to pay more.
The pension problem is particularly acute in countries where there has been a massive decline in fertility rates and simultaneous rises in life expectancy.
David Willetts describes the phenomenon as being like a "python trying to swallow a pig," as the large numbers of one generation reach working age first and then retirement age - while the smaller numbers of the succeeding generation struggle to pay for them.
South Korea is a good example of this phenomenon, says the OECD's Monika Queisser. It is, she says, "the OECD's second youngest country but in a few decades will be the oldest country.
"Korea... doesn't have a long standing pension system. And we have a long standing problem of old age poverty there already, and it's not going to get any better."
There are other, more informal ways in which individuals will try to pay their way.
Prof Munnell suggests that people could also use equity in their homes to finance their pensions.
"For most middle class people their house is their major asset, and to date people have not wanted to tap into their home equity at all.
"They want to leave their house to their children. Given the situation now that is no longer going to be possible."
However, this will not always work, warns David Willetts.
"You can 'eat your house' but 'eating your house' probably won't deliver quite as much income as people hope," he says.
"I think we do have this problem with people imagining they are going to have a better income than their current savings would predict."
But it may soon be in the interests of employers to give more generous pensions, he says.
"We are all going to be working longer and there will come a point when the company wants to reorganise itself and create opportunities for younger employees.
"It will try to get its 70-year-old employees to leave, and will find that to get them to leave it will have to give them a nice fat departure payment."
So, once you have finally made it out the company door, how much do you actually need for your retirement?
In the UK, Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at Hargreaves Lansdown, explains how much would be needed to provide a decent income for an average wage earner.
"Let's take someone in the UK with a typical earnings of £30,000 ($50,000) a year. They may want to look for a pension of £20,000 a year.
"In order to do that they are going to have to build up a pot of money of £300,000, roughly $500,000. In order to do that someone starting saving in their twenties is going to to need to save 12% of their income.
"The problem is many people have missed that boat. They are in their thirties and they still haven't started saving, so the saving rate for them is going to have to be 15-20% of their income."
You can hear In The Balance's discussion on the global pension gap 08:32 GMT on Saturday, 3 January, 2015 here on BBC World Service.


Wolves goalkeeper Carl Ikeme has signed a new contract, keeping him at the club until the end of the 2018-19 campaign.

The Championship side have the option to extend the Nigeria international's deal by a further year.
Ikeme, 30, has been at Molineux since the age of 15, making 192 appearances and winning both the Championship and League One titles with the club.
"Carl has been terrific since I arrived and I think this is a big signing for the club," said boss Paul Lambert.
"He knows exactly what the club is about and if you get a core of lads like that then they can look after the dressing room as well."
Ikeme joins five other Wolves players in agreeing new deals in December, including Wales international midfielder Dave Edwards.


Thousands of pupils across the country are getting ready for SATs today.

11 May 2015 Last updated at 07:25 BST
The exams test English and Maths skills for 10 and 11 year olds and if you're getting ready for yours, don't worry.
From revising to how to feel your best before the exam, here are some top tips on how to cope...


Bill Cosby testified under oath for several hours on Friday in response to a civil case brought by a woman who accused him of sexually abusing her.

Lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents Judy Huth, said her client would seek a second deposition - giving out-of-court evidence - of Mr Cosby on Thursday.
Ms Allred added that a judge would decide in December if either testimony could be made public.
Mr Cosby, 78, has previously said Ms Huth's claims are "absolutely false".
BBC Entertainment Live: News updates
Ms Huth has accused the former Cosby Show star of forcing her to perform a sex act at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in 1974 when she was aged 15.
It was the first time the veteran comedian has testified under oath since dozens of women came forward with accusations of sexual abuse, many of which are historic claims.
Mr Cosby has never faced criminal charges over the allegations which he has denied.
He also faces two other cases: a defamation case brought by three women who claim he abused them decades ago and a civil case filed last Tuesday by a model who alleges he drugged and sexually assaulted her.
In relation to the defamation case, a federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday ruled it could go ahead.
The women - Tamara Green, Therese Serignese and Linda Traitz - claim that Mr Cosby's representatives damaged their reputations by denying their allegations in sometimes disparaging language.
Mr Cosby's lawyers had asked the judge to dismiss the case, arguing the remarks were personal opinions protected by the First Amendment and legal declarations made in his defence.
But in his ruling on Friday, US district court judge Mark Mastroianni rejected Cosby's bid to dismiss the case before it goes before a jury.
The trio have accused Cosby of drugging them and then having unwanted sexual contact with them.


Liverpool have rejected an £11m bid from Italian side Napoli for Alberto Moreno - and will demand £15m for the Spanish defender.

Moreno, 24, is also wanted by former club Sevilla in La Liga, while Serie A giants AC Milan and Inter Milan have expressed an interest in the left-back.
Liverpool will insist on £30m for France defender Mamadou Sakho, who had a spell at Crystal Palace last term.
And winger Lazar Markovic is a target for Watford and Zenit St Petersburg.
Moreno was displaced at left-back by James Milner last season but Reds manager Jurgen Klopp is in no hurry to sell the player, although Moreno may also want more first-team football at this stage of his career.
The Anfield club are confident they will get their full asking price for Sakho, 27, given the current market for centre-backs and the player's successful loan spell at Premier League rivals Palace last season.
Serbia winger Markovic is another player unlikely to be in Klopp's plans, especially following the addition of £34m forward Mohamed Salah from Roma.
New Watford manager Marco Silva may make a move for the 23-year-old, who joined Liverpool from Benfica in a £20m deal three years ago, after being impressed with Markovic during a loan spell at Hull City last season.
Russian side Zenit have also shown an interest in Markovic, who has had loan spells at Fenerbahce and Sporting Lisbon.


Four hundred games at one football club, spanning 12 and a half years.

Matt Bloomfield made his 400th appearance for Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday in the latest chapter of a Chairboys career which has included a League Cup semi-final, two promotions, three relegations and two play-off campaigns.
It's not something that I set out to achieve. It's not something that I ever really thought might happen up until last season. And it's something that rarely happens in football, let alone in League Two.
My first Wycombe game wasn't very memorable. We lost 2-0 at home against Rushden and Diamonds. We were poor, they were better, I was average. Welcome to the real world.
I was 19 but had played for Ipswich and lived at home up until that point. I hadn't experienced the world and my mind was very narrow about lower-league football.
I entered a dressing room that was in transition. Unbeknown to myself several of the squad were on their way out of the club and I was the new kid from Ipswich that had come to take their place.
I was used to changing with my mates, trying to get into a team that was full of extremely rich footballers.
I was now part of a first team of players on normal earnings with mortgages to pay and kids to feed. Most of these were out of contract and told that they could leave. It was something of a culture shock to me.
That has to be Torquay away in May 2014.
To all intents and purposes we were destined to be relegated from League Two, and the repercussions of relegation for the club into non-league could have been huge. I'm certain that I wouldn't be writing this now if that had been the case.
Changes and cuts would have had to be made and for those reasons alone the fact that we avoided relegation by a single goal makes it the stand-out game. The relief and elation was massive.
Rushden and Diamonds away at Nene Park.
Steve Claridge laid the ball off onto my left foot, 25 yards out. Head down and strike through the ball. Top corner! I know it doesn't really sound like me but I can assure you that there is video footage to prove that it is true!
One funny moment that isn't very well known is the day I knocked the referee's front teeth out at Leyton Orient.
About 10 years ago a long ball was played over my head in central midfield and I'm running back towards my goal... our defender clears the ball and as I turn I collide with the referee with the side of my head hitting his mouth.
Orient's youth team players were out on the pitch after the game looking for his teeth and I felt absolutely awful. Apart from apologising profusely after the game I feel bad that to this day I haven't ever spoken to that referee again.
Contract length, budget cuts, managers changing more often, the opportunity to earn more money elsewhere or just the feeling of 'what if the grass is greener at another club?'.
I have seen all of these reasons and many more for why a player has moved clubs. It is a very volatile business and even if a player wants to remain at a club that wants to keep him, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will reach an agreement for a contract.
There are just so many variables to consider.
Former Chairboys manager Tony Adams, who brought Bloomfield to Adams Park, said: "He reminded me of a young Nobby Stiles; neat and tidy with good feet, but the main thing that stood out for me was his aggression.
"He was technically very good as well - he was like a Didier Deschamps or a Lassana Diarra.
"He took a little while to find his feet but his attitude was first class and I think that is what has allowed him to have such a long and successful career."
Former Wycombe team-mate and coach Keith Ryan: "I'm pretty sure I played in Blooms' debut - it was very forgettable but Matt's contribution to WWFC certainly hasn't been.
"Four hundred games - what an achievement; some injury lows but lots of highs with promotions and cup success along the way. Well done Blooms - your attitude and intelligence has made you a vital part of the Wycombe team under many managers."
And Bloomfield himself? "I'm feeling great and loving my football as much as I ever have done. I hope that there are many more to add on to the 400."


Finance minister Derek Mackay has said he will put more pressure on the UK Treasury to scrap VAT bills for Scotland's police and fire services.

The organisations became liable for the tax after merging from regional into national bodies.
The Scottish government said it meant Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service still faced an annual VAT cost of about Â£35m.
The UK government said MSPs knew of the VAT implications before the mergers.
Local police and fire services were exempt from VAT but this ended with the creation of national bodies in Scotland in 2013.
Other territorial services in the UK remain exempt.
The fresh calls for the UK government to deal with the "anomaly" follow a Sunday Times Scotland report suggesting an end to the payments could be on the cards in the chancellor's next budget.
Mr Mackay said: "We have repeatedly called on the UK government to end the glaring disparity in the way that VAT affects emergency services across the UK, with Scottish police and fire services facing Â£35m of unnecessary annual costs which other territorial services do not have.
"This is unacceptable and I will be pursuing with the chancellor whether the reports he has changed his mind are true or simply more mixed messages from the UK government.
"We have repeatedly made clear that the financial support we are providing for our frontline emergency services would go much further if Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service were able to recover VAT.
"Any move to end this would be welcome - it would make a real difference to frontline services in Scotland."
A UK government spokeswoman said: "Before the Scottish government made the decision to make Scotland's police and fire services national rather than regional bodies, they were told this would mean that Scottish police and fire services would become ineligible for VAT refunds.
"They pressed ahead with the changes fully aware of the implications. There has been absolutely no change in this position."


The live final of a reality television show, Germany's Next Topmodel, was taken off air after a bomb scare at the venue where it was being filmed.

As many as 10,000 spectators were evacuated from the arena in Mannheim, in south-west Germany.
Reports say model Heidi Klum and judges on the show were the first to leave the arena, before the audience were removed.
Police say they received a bomb threat from an anonymous female caller.
They investigated a suspicious suitcase but later said no bomb had been found.
The show was interrupted at about 21:30 local time on Thursday (20:30 BST), with technical problems blamed.
Shortly afterwards, broadcaster ProSieben said it would not be airing the programme, which is one of Germany's most popular shows.
Police said the audience left the SAP Arena calmly. But ARD television reported that many left their jackets and bags behind.
Klum, who hosts the show, later tweeted (in German): "Dear GNT fans, the evening has not ended as I would have wished! Safety comes first!"
Newspaper Bild said Klum, her daughter Leni and the show's judges had been taken to an undisclosed location outside the venue.
Four young women were competing in the finale of the 10th series of Germany's Next Topmodel, based on model Tyra Banks' America's Next Top Model.
Klum said the producers would announce the name of the winner in the next few days.


Northern Ireland's first minister is to write to the German chancellor to seek support for a new compensation package for victims of the Thalidomide scandal.

Arlene Foster added her voice to the campaign after meeting a group of people affected by the drug at Stormont on Monday.
The drug was developed in Germany as a sedative, but it was also used to ease morning sickness in pregnant women.
It was linked to thousands of birth defects and was withdrawn in 1961.
The Stormont delegation included Kim Fenton, a former mayor of Castlereagh, who was born with shorter arms and legs because of Thalidomide.
She told BBC News NI that she believes survivors of the drug scandal are close to a breakthrough in securing compensation from Germany.
Ms Fenton, who is in her 50s, said that life is more of a struggle now, as her body has been so weakened by the strain of using her arms to walk.
"As a child, I didn't feel there were huge challenges. Before my mid-30s, the only time I kind of struggled was in pregnancy," she said.
"But since then, things have changed quite drastically. Because I've been using my arms as legs, the wear and tear over the decades has been severe.
"All the bones in my shoulder have disintegrated. Wearing my artificial legs has dislocated my hip and they can't operate because my bone structure is so complex."
On Monday, Kim and other people affected by Thalidomide asked Mrs Foster to add her voice to those appealing to the German government to recognise its responsibilities towards victims.
In 2012, German-based pharmaceutical company Gruenenthal issued its first apology over the drug in 50 years.
However, it said Thalidomide's possible side-effects "could not be detected" before it was marketed.
In March, a debate in the European Parliament centred on claims that the German government prematurely ended court action in the 1970s which would have helped those affected in the UK.
Kim and other campaigners want the German government to explain whether it protected Grunenthal directors and staff from prosecution and to properly compensate survivors.
An EU resolution that is expected to be passed in January next year could force the country's government to recognise its responsibilities towards victims.
"All eyes will be on Germany when this resolution is passed," Ms Fenton said.
"They're already embarrassed by this and it will be difficult for them not to respect the authority of the European Parliament.
"But we need our own politicians to take a stand and support our campaign."
Kim's increasingly complex medical needs are a strain on her financially - as well as regular physiotherapy, she has to travel to London to see specialists.
"Health insurance doesn't cover existing illnesses, so it would be pointless. This compensation would give me back my independence, which I have lost so much of since my health really began to deteriorate," she said.
"I came to terms with how I am a long time ago. There is nothing I can do to change it, but I want to continue to make the most of what I am and do everything I'm capable of, and to do that, I need support.
"It wouldn't be just a monetary victory though - it would feel like a moral victory if the German government did the right thing."


Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said that UK interest rates are likely to remain low "for some time".

His comments came as he spoke to MPs on the Treasury Committee.
UK rates have been held at 0.5% since March 2009. Most economists are not expecting the Bank to raise rates until mid-2016 at the earliest.
Mr Carney said that "even with limited and gradual rate increases it still will be a relatively low interest rate environment".
He remained vague on when a rate rise might be coming, and added:   "The question in my mind is when the appropriate time for interests to increase and that is strongly consistent with the strength of the domestic economy."
Mr Carney also said that he did not see any need for negative interest rates.
Meanwhile, he said the Bank was monitoring groups of households to find out what impact any rate hike would have.
Kirstin Forbes, an external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, who was also giving evidence at the same hearing, said that the next interest rate move would be upwards.
"Given the state of the UK economy, a solid recovery, I still believe certainly the next move in interest rates will be up, we will not require loosening," she said.
Mr Carney also said productivity was more likely to exceed than undershoot the Bank's latest forecasts, reducing the pressure on inflation.
Meanwhile, sterling fell after the Bank's chief economist Andy Haldane said he saw more downside risks to growth and inflation than had been indicated by the Bank's latest economic outlook.
He also reiterated his view that the Bank's next move might actually be a rate cut.
"I see the balance of risks around UK GDP growth and inflation as skewed materially to the downside, more so than embodied in the November 2015 Inflation Report," he told the Treasury Committee.
In late morning trade sterling fell by 0.03% against the US dollar, to $1.5120, and by 0.15% against the euro, to 1.4198 euros.


Bernard Hogan-Howe has been named the new commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

The former chief constable of Merseyside was appointed to the position this afternoon by the Queen.
He beat three others to the job after interviews with the home secretary and mayor of London.
Speaking briefly at Scotland Yard, the new commissioner said he wanted to lead a force that criminals fear and the public trust.
The post became vacant after Sir Paul Stephenson quit amid the phone-hacking scandal and claims about links between Scotland Yard and News International.
Mr Hogan-Howe will be in charge of more than 50,000 staff, including 32,000 officers. The force, the biggest in the UK, includes more than a fifth of all police in England and Wales.
The commissioner's job combines policing London and responsibility for national security issues such as combating terrorism.
Mr Hogan-Howe, who has served in the Metropolitan Police before, went on to lead Merseyside before becoming one of Her Majesty's chief inspectors of constabulary in 2009.
He returned to Scotland Yard after Sir Paul's resignation to stand in as acting deputy commissioner while the post holder, Tim Godwin, stepped up to the top job.
His appointment as commissioner was formally made by the Queen on the recommendation of the Home Secretary Theresa May.
The candidates went through a series of interviews, including a final session with both Mrs May and London's Mayor Boris Johnson.
Mrs May said: "I am delighted to announce Bernard Hogan-Howe as the new commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
"As you would expect for such a prestigious position, we had an exceptional field of candidates, but Bernard Hogan-Howe impressed us all with his vision for the Metropolitan Police, his commitment to cutting crime and the important work he has done for the public.
"I made my recommendation following representations from the Metropolitan Police Authority and discussions with the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson."
She went on: "The government's reforms are transforming the police in this country and Bernard Hogan-Howe has the skills and experience needed to ensure the nation's biggest force is at the forefront of this change.
"London is a great city and will next year host the biggest sporting event in this nation's history. I am confident he will lead the fight against crime with determination and vigour."
Tough competition
The other candidates were Sir Hugh Orde, former Chief Constable of Northern Ireland; Stephen House, the Chief Constable of Strathclyde; and Tim Godwin, the Acting Commissioner.
Boris Johnson said that of all the candidates he believed that Mr Hogan-Howe provided a "firm, strategic lead".
"Londoners deserve strong and dynamic leadership at the helm of the country's largest and most industrious police force.
"Public confidence is paramount for any police force and Bernard Hogan-Howe has the impressive track record to restore confidence and crack down on violent crime and disorder.
"Over recent weeks London has faced immense policing challenges and I truly believe that Bernard Hogan-Howe has the sound expertise to handle critical issues and keep our streets safe.
"It's no secret that I desired someone who has a clear strategy for tackling gang violence and youth crime and restoring pride in our great city.
"Bernard Hogan-Howe has made it clear that this will be a new more transparent era for the Met, making the police more accountable to the public, and strengthening police and public relationships."
Sir Hugh Orde, who remains the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "Bernard Hogan-Howe is to be congratulated for his appointment as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service.
"He brings a wealth of experience and professionalism to the job of policing our capital, protecting Londoners and leading the Met.
"Chief officers look forward to working closely with Bernard and the chief officer team at the Met as the service gets on with its work to cut crime, deliver a safe and secure Olympics and meet the challenges of reform."


The Chancellor George Osborne has revealed details about the Financial Services Bill that will overhaul regulation of the sector.

It will give the Chancellor the power to veto decisions made by the Bank of England when dealing with bank bailouts and other interventions.
One aim is to prevent a repeat of the Northern Rock collapse.
The bill will replace the so-called Tripartite structure, introduced by the previous Labour government.
The structure was made up of the FSA, the Treasury and the Bank of England, a system George Osborne said was "incoherent" and "without clear lines of accountability".
One major change will see the abolition of the Financial Services Authority.
The bill will create three new bodies, the first two within the Bank of England, to regulate financial services:
"The Financial Services Bill will overhaul the failed system of financial regulation which allowed such dangerous levels of leverage to emerge," Mr Osborne said in a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.
"Everyone was so focused on ticking off a regulatory checklist that nobody felt it was their responsibility to use their judgment."
The Chancellor said that lack of clarity meant the Royal Bank of Scotland was allowed to take over the Dutch bank ABN Amro when the credit markets had already frozen up, something which ultimately led to its Â£45.5bn bailout.
He added: "We are putting in place clear lines of accountability, and restoring that crucial element of judgment."
The bill means that, during "normal" times, the Bank of England will be responsible for regulation and stability and accountable to Parliament.
But in a crisis, when taxpayers' money is at risk, both the responsibility and the power to act will rest with the Chancellor of the day.
This system would mean there would be no ambiguity about who was in charge, according to Mr Osborne.
Sarah Brooks, the director of financial services at Consumer Focus, said the plans were good news for personal finances.
"Particularly welcome steps include early interventions on banning products," she said.
"This should help stop many of the issues which have been endemic in this market in recent years. Transferring responsibility for credit over to the Financial Conduct Authority is also a good common-sense move."
The Financial Services Bill must go before parliament before it becomes law.
Separately, in a BBC interview at the WEF in Davos, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said the government's austerity package, which was implemented in response to the debt crisis, was "the right thing to do".
"Under the current circumstances, the policy in place that consists of letting the automatic stabilisers move without readjusting and tightening the principles is the right thing to do," she said.


Five-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan is "completely wrong" to accuse snooker bosses of bullying, says world number five Shaun Murphy.

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O'Sullivan made the claims against World Snooker on Sunday, accusing the body of using "threatening language".
Murphy, who will face O'Sullivan in the World Championship second round on Thursday, said he cannot live in a "world without consequences".
Four-time world champion John Higgins said he felt sympathy for O'Sullivan.
The Scot, who beat Martin Gould on Tuesday to reach the second round at the Crucible, told BBC Radio 5 live: "If I am led to believe what I have heard about how he was reprimanded, it is out of order."
O'Sullivan, 41, publicly criticised a referee and swore at a photographer after his Masters win in January, which led to World Snooker referring his comments to snooker's governing body, the WPBSA.
The WPBSA took no action but O'Sullivan was sent a letter by the organisation about his behaviour and warned he could face further sanctions, including a fine.
"To claim he has been bullied is, in my opinion, quite inaccurate," said Murphy.
"The players' contract is clear for all to see. He can say whatever he wants. No-one has muffled him. But you can't live in a world where there are no consequences; no-one lives in that world."
Speaking earlier on Monday, World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn said O'Sullivan's allegations were "unfounded".
"Ronnie can say whatever he wants about whatever he wants, but he can't get away with everything he says and he isn't right about everything he says either," Murphy said.
"In my own personal opinion, I think he is completely wrong."
Murphy, the 2005 champion, survived a fine comeback from 17-year-old Chinese qualifier Yan Bingtao to win 10-8 and set up a mouth-watering match with O'Sullivan
The Englishman said he was "sure" the off-table controversy would be a distraction for his opponent.
"It's very hard to talk about lawyers and threatening the chairman and being embroiled in all of that - and focus on the snooker," he added.
"I certainly couldn't do it. I don't know how he does it, but he seems to like it; he always seems to do it. He seems to court it, like he enjoys it  - so let him carry on with it with it."
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Higgins said Hearn was doing "great things" with snooker but added some things in the players' contracts were "a bit over the top".
The 41-year-old said: "Ronnie does not normally come in here and be that passionate about something. I think he has a case. There are a few things in these players' contracts that lawyers would laugh at.
"We sign the contracts at the beginning of the year... it would need the top 16 or 32 players to say something. But we will never get that.
"Some players think it is OK or don't want to rock the boat. Why would we? It's a great product and Barry Hearn is doing great things but there are some points in it that are a bit over the top.
"I have a degree of sympathy for him [O'Sullivan]. He has a lot to take on his shoulders because he is the biggest name."
Read more: Higgins beats Gould to reach round two


So that was the night when a talented young sportsman supersized to become part of mainstream British culture.

Nothing will ever again be the same for Anthony Joshua, a prodigiously gifted boxer who in 11 rounds of twisting drama escaped not only the fists of Wladimir Klitschko and the dislocated senses that came from them but the tight boundaries of his chosen sport.
These moments come along infrequently but unforgettably, sometimes through great triumph, sometimes through desperate failure: a performer long appreciated in their own world who through one act or display jumps the barriers into an altogether greater sphere of fame.
Barry McGuigan overcoming Eusebio Pedroza at Loftus Road in 1985, Paul Gascoigne being yellow-carded in Turin in 1990. Bradley Wiggins and some yellow of his own on the Champs-Elysees before a throne at Hampton Court a few weeks later. Dennis Taylor and a black-ball finger waggle; Mo Farah and a Stratford Saturday night Mobot, Jonny Wilkinson and a late drop-goal on the other side of the world.
It doesn't matter if nothing else they do ever quite matches that initial impact. Into the national consciousness they have been stamped, from playgrounds to offices, dinner parties to dinner ladies, front pages to social media memes.
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Joshua's coming of age was not witnessed by 18 million people on terrestrial television like Taylor's, nor was it part of a wider festival of surreal national success like Wiggins and Farah. Its impression instead comes both from what was expected and what actually transpired, from the way it was achieved, from the distinctive emotions boxing can still illustrate and stir.
This was a heavyweight title fight that appeared predictable - the short game for Joshua, the long one for Klitschko - and behaved any way but: the 41-year-old veteran initially resurgent and fluid, the young puncher putting his man down and then being stunned himself with celebrations still rolling round the arena. A cruel, lost period when Joshua somehow held on in the darkness, the slow assertion of tactical superiority by the old stager and then, from nowhere, the final shattering denouement, an uppercut to be felt around the nation, an explosion of blows and stumbling feet and raised arms.
It was boxing with the plot twists of Test cricket, turning with the speed of the critical holes of a Ryder Cup Sunday, a callow kid becoming a true champion in 11 rounds that felt simultaneously far longer and a breathless fast-forward that pushed everything else away.
There is no hiding place for pain and pleasure in boxing, no mask to disguise what a boxer is going through when his opponent's arsenal detonates. When the skin around Klitschko's left eye was opened up by Joshua's right hand early in the fifth, the shock was as visible as the Ukrainian's blood; when Joshua was nailed with a right cross early in the sixth, his legs gave in even as he tried to smile it away, his arms groping for the ropes and missing, his knees trying to straighten but failing.
It spells it out for those watching and it sucks them in. "Boxing is about character - there is nowhere to hide," Joshua would say afterwards, and in the manner that he came through the rest of that sixth round and clung on for the next two, he gave testimony to where the hype ended and heart began.
That fifth round in isolation was enough to make it the best heavyweight fight since the first Tyson-Holyfield ding-dong. The 11th deserves to stand alone too, a brutal eruption of speed and violence from Joshua, a heroic refusal from Klitschko to let go, rising once to be put down again, rising once more to be sent crashing for the final time.
Anywhere it had been staged it would have reminded those who long ago fell out of love with heavyweight boxing why they were drawn to it in the first place. With 90,000 to witness it at Wembley came a setting to intensify the intrinsic thrills.
Boxing in Britain has always drawn crowds to garland the big showdowns, from the 35,000 at Wembley that saw Henry Cooper's first fight with Muhammad Ali and the 46,000 that saw the two meet again at Highbury three years later, to the 40,000 for Frank Bruno's world title fights with Tim Witherspoon and Oliver McCall, the 47,000 at Old Trafford for Benn-Eubank in 1993 and the 80,000 for Froch-Groves II at Wembley three years ago.
Should those numbers desensitise you to the scale of the support, it is worth reflecting that Floyd Mayweather's fight of the century against Manny Pacquiao in May 2015 drew 16,507 paying customers to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Mike Tyson's meeting with Lennox Lewis in 2002 took 15,327 to the Pyramid in Memphis.
It doesn't matter that many of those in the further reaches of Wembley Stadium on Saturday night will recall the critical moments from distant screens rather than first-hand memory. If you were there, you went so you could boast of having done so. If you forked out on pay-per-view you made satellite executives rich and helped break records; if you listened on radio you were part of a collective that set even more.
If it passed you by on the night, it came to you in conversations and status updates across an otherwise slow Sunday. Replays on radio, reflections on news channels, memories received and given.
No live event this year has drawn a bigger audience to a single page on the BBC Sport website. Just as at London 2012, when Joshua won the last home gold medal of an extraordinary 17 days, Britons embraced a live sporting occasion like very few other nations.
Boxing is a niche sport in many countries and unloved or forgotten in others. With 11 current world champions, Britain is entering an unexpected golden age that may yet produce more nights like Saturday, not least should Tyson Fury shed the weight and demons to line up another upset in his sights.
For now, this is all about Joshua, the everyday kid with just enough bad in his back story, the last sporting hero of 2012 and the first of 2017.
He may never again be involved in a fight as epic as Saturday night's. He may never have to prove more. Boxing may one day even sour for him. But he is unforgettable now, whatever Fury or future may bring.
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A government initiative aimed at making the internet safer for young people will target sexting and cyberbullying, as well as online harassment, abuse and rape threats made against women.

Ministers will meet with large technology companies, charities, academics and mental health professionals to identify risks and develop an internet safety strategy.
The work is being led by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley.
And a Green Paper is due in the summer.
"The internet has provided young people with amazing opportunities but has also introduced a host of new dangers which children and parents have never faced before," said Ms Bradley.
"It is increasingly clear that some behaviours which are unacceptable offline are being tolerated or even encouraged online - sometimes with devastating consequences.
"We are determined to make Britain the safest place in the world to be online."
In October 2016, the Crown Prosecution Service warned internet trolls who created derogatory hashtags or doctored images to humiliate people could face prosecution in England and Wales.


Canada's immigration website has suffered an intermittent fault that made it inaccessible to visitors during the US election vote.

Officials have confirmed that the cause was a higher than normal level of traffic.
It has been suggested this may have been caused by US citizens exploring their options following Donald Trump's victory.
The tycoon confounded polls predicting he would lose to Hillary Clinton.
"The Government of Canada is committed to secure and reliable IT infrastructure toâ€Ž ensure high-quality services to all users," a spokeswoman told the BBC.
"The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship website became temporarily inaccessible to users as a result of a significant increase in the volume of traffic.
"Shared Services Canada worked through the night and continues to work to resolve the issue to ensure that the website is available for users as soon as possible."
The problem was widely commented about on social media.
The issue is not the only glitch linked to the US elections.
Officials were unable to access Colorado's voter registration database for about half an hour on Tuesday afternoon.
"Clerks can't process mail ballots that need to have the signature verified," tweeted Lynn Bartels, spokeswoman for Colorado's secretary of state, at the time, adding that in-person votes also had to temporarily be treated as being "provisional" while the fault endured.
"Unfortunately our system goes down now and then," she said.
North Carolina's State Board of Elections was also forced to switch from using an electronic voting check-in system to a paper-based one at several of its precincts after experiencing "technical problems".
It later reported a delay in uploading about 93,000 of its voting results before solving the problem.
There were also unverified claims that some machines had switched votes for one candidate for another.
"The machines, you put down a Republican and it registers as a Democrat, and they've had a lot of complaints about that today," Donald Trump told Fox News.
However, officials had blamed earlier reports of such problems on "user error".
Elsewhere, the Verge has reported that a company that had provided a get-out-the-vote telephone and texting service to the Clinton campaign had suffered a cyber-attack causing "brief periods of unavailability".
The news site reported that members of the 4chan chat site had said they had intended to carry out a denial-of-service attack - which involves flooding a target with internet traffic - which might have been responsible.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg has acknowledged "an internal issue" caused its instant messaging tool to stop working for about an hour on Tuesday morning.
The service is used by financial traders and money managers to discuss market-moving events.
The Financial Times reported that users temporarily switched to WhatsApp, but that the fault "frayed nerves" ahead of the election results.


Yahoo has downplayed a report that said it had scanned millions of its users' emails on behalf of the US government.

Reuters made the allegation on Tuesday, saying Yahoo had created special software to comply with a classified directive.
The tech firm said the article was "misleading" but did not explicitly deny that it had carried out such an order in the past.
Privacy rights campaigners have raised concerns about its alleged behaviour.
The EU's lead data regulator is also looking into the matter.
"The article is misleading," said Yahoo's statement.
"We narrowly interpret every government request for user data to minimise disclosure.
"The mail scanning described in the article does not exist on our systems."
Yahoo is in the process of selling its main business to Verizon Communications in a $4.8bn (Â£3.8bn) deal.
Some analysts have suggested the telecoms firm might seek to pay less in light of the news agency's article and an earlier revelation that about 500 million Yahoo accounts had been hacked in 2014.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that three sources had told it that Yahoo had scanned all incoming emails for a string of characters on behalf of either the FBI or the National Security Agency (NSA).
Although Yahoo had previously challenged other requests for data, Reuters said it had decided to comply this time as it thought it would lose.
The report said the firm had installed a program to carry out the task in early 2015, but Reuters was unclear about what information was actually handed over and did not say if the software was still in use.
The report appeared to contradict Yahoo's transparency report, which said that the US had requested data from tens of thousands of its members' accounts in 2015, rather than hundreds of millions.
Yahoo initially said only that it was a "law-abiding firm" that complied with US laws.
Other tech firms were more explicit.
"We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'no way'," said Google.
Facebook said it had "never received a request like the one described in these news reports from any government and if we did we would fight it".
Microsoft added it had "never engaged in the secret scanning of email traffic".
And Twitter said: "We've never received a request like this and were we to receive it we'd challenge it in a court."
Neither the NSA nor the US Department of Justice has commented on the claims.
But the office of Ireland's data protection commissioner said it was making enquiries.
"Any form of mass surveillance infringing on the fundamental privacy rights of EU citizens would be viewed as a matter of considerable concern," it said in a statement.
Internet rights campaigners also raised concerns.
"This is the first public indication that the government has compelled a US-based email provider - as opposed to an internet-backbone provider - to conduct surveillance against all its customers in real time," blogged the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.
"The story explains that Yahoo had to build new capabilities to comply with the government's demands, and that new code may have, itself, opened up new security vulnerabilities for Yahoo and its users.
"We read about new data breaches and attempts to compromise the security of internet-connected systems on a seemingly daily basis.
"Yet this story is another example of how the government continues to take actions that have serious potential for collateral effects on everyday users."
Amnesty International has also been critical.
"For a company to secretly search all incoming emails of all its customers in response to a broad government directive would be a blow to privacy and a serious threat to freedom of expression," said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, the organisation's head of technology and human rights.
He added that citizens should only trust services that provide end-to-end encryption, a technology that scrambles the contents of a message so that only its sender and intended recipient can return it to its original state.


The sold-out auditorium shakes with a roar of approval - and, for a second, Lloyd Cole looks slightly taken aback.

The rapturous reception is not for one of the platinum-selling classics from his days with The Commotions in the 1980s. Instead, the crowd are cheering for Like A Broken Record, the opening track of his excellent but considerably lower-selling 2010 album.
"Thanks," says the singer-songwriter. "Always nice when the new songs are as popular as the old ones."
In fact everything Lloyd Cole plays over a two-hour set at Ustanova Kulture Palilula is devoured ravenously by an audience which has long been starved of live music like this.
Much of Belgrade beats to the pulse of British bands from the 1980s - blasting from shops, cafes and taxis. Street vendors and record shops offer locally-pressed vinyl copies of all the era's big albums for two or three pounds.
But seeing the acts in the flesh has been tricky since the breakup of Yugoslavia - thanks to conflict, international embargoes and economic woes.
Now things are changing. The economics of the music industry and Serbia's shift towards the European Union are playing into the hands of local listeners.
Lloyd Cole was just one of a considerable list of respected international acts who made their first visits to Belgrade in 2013. Beyonce opened her world tour at the city's main arena. Depeche Mode played an enormous outdoor show. And Green Day played at the foot of the city's ancient riverside fortress.
"I hadn't been getting offers here before - or, at least, not workable offers," says Lloyd Cole on the day of his show.
The singer admits there is a delicate balancing act for someone with his current profile - respected but not million-selling, although current album Standards has caused a considerable critical stir.
Income from touring has become vital to artists who can no longer rely on royalties from record sales. But travelling to a country where there is no audience waiting to buy tickets would be a costly mistake.
"There's a whole block of the world that starts somewhere near where the old iron curtain used to be and goes all the way to Japan that I've almost never been, and from a selfish point of view, I'd be excited to try to go to new places."
"Realistically, my chances of getting to those places would be dependent on me actually having some kind of re-emergence, which strangely seems to be happening right now."
But in Belgrade it is not just about the revival of a particular artist. Many of those for whom music is a passion are celebrating the re-emergence of their city on the international musical map - and what that means for their country.
Valentina Macura promoted Lloyd Cole's show as part of October's inaugural Festival Parallel - and says the renewed popularity of Belgrade as a tour stop has enormous symbolic significance. It indicates the decline of insular, nationalist attitudes which championed locally-made "turbo folk".
"Depeche Mode was a huge band for people in Belgrade and Serbia. When they came, and all of those countless thousands of people went to see them, it felt like after 10 years, we won!"
Valentina believes the range of touring productions coming to Belgrade shows that the city is finally recovering - culturally at least - from the isolation of the Milosevic era.
"The country is opening up - it has been for the past decade. But it's very important not just to have the big names coming, but to have artists who are a bit less commercial and more quality."
John Lydon's Public Image Limited certainly fit that description - they sparred with an enthusiastically abusive crowd in the garden of the Student Cultural Centre. Mark Lanegan - of Screaming Trees and Queens Of The Stone Age - has become a regular visitor, as has veteran singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet.
Peter Gabriel was another 2013 Belgrade debutant - making a late booking at the city's arena after a date in Croatia's capital Zagreb fell through.
His long-time guitarist David Rhodes says there are certain perils to playing in parts of the world which have not previously been fixtures on the circuit.
"Sometimes you're just not the right act to play and at the last minute the promoter will say: actually I can't afford to have you come out this far. Then you have to turn back and find something else to do!"
David Rhodes has become a frequent visitor to Serbia thanks to his involvement with the band Balkanopolis. And he says the changes in the country's international standing have come at just the right time to pick up musicians keen to expand their touring horizons and income.
"Generally artists will be pushing further east. Promoters will only put things on if they think they can make some money out of it, and artists will then come so that they can make a bit of money too.
"And I guess it's quite easy, once the promoters see it happening with a couple of people, that will then attract more and hopefully the scene will expand."
Serbia's promoters are also hoping for a little high-level help. Valentina Macura says she would like the government to provide "better conditions" for putting on events involving international artists - with tax breaks and help with sponsorship.
As it happens, the government has started to wake up to the fact that big-name gigs could be a way of attracting more overseas visitors to Belgrade - further rehabilitating Serbia's image.
Prime Minister Ivica Dacic says he has asked the country's new Minister of Culture to look into ways of attracting more international touring artists.
"It all greatly contributes to the strengthening of the position of our country. There is still much work to do, so that when you say Serbia, the first thing you think of is Novak Djokovic or the Exit Festival or the fact that the best nightlife is happening here - and not to think of Serbs as war criminals."
The past couple of decades have been turbulent both for Serbia and the international music industry. But now both sides are ready to give each other what they need. It could be the re-birth of a beautiful relationship.


Hannah Phillips, author of 'No Run Intended', recites her special poem about excuses not to run.

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Hannah was one of 57,000 people taking part in the 2016 Great North Run.
If you'd like to find out how to get into running, take a look at our special guide.


The longest-serving coach in the Welsh Premiership is leaving his current club after 16 years in charge.

Bedwas head coach Steve Law will be joining Cardiff RFC this summer as their director of rugby.
Law helped Bedwas reach the play-offs this season and has earned a reputation as a spotter of young talent.
"Steve has been a great servant of Bedwas and most people will realise the huge input he has made in our rise," director of rugby Mark Lewis said.


Iran's supreme leader has condemned the military intervention in Yemen by his country's main regional rival, Saudi Arabia, describing it as "genocide".

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Riyadh that it would "not emerge victorious".
A Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign two weeks ago in an attempt to halt an advance by Houthi rebels and restore President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who fled the country last month.
On Wednesday, the US warned Iran over its alleged support for the rebels.
Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington would back any state that felt threatened by Iran and would not "stand by" if the Middle East were destabilised.
Shia power Iran has repeatedly denounced the air strikes launched by the coalition of nine, mostly Sunni Arab, countries to "defend the legitimate government" of Mr Hadi. But Ayatollah Khamenei's comments were the most critical yet.
"The aggression by Saudi Arabia against Yemen and its innocent people was a mistake... It has set a bad precedent in the region," he said in a televised speech.
"This is a crime and genocide that can be prosecuted in international courts," he added. "Riyadh will not emerge victorious in its aggression."
The World Health Organisation says at least 643 people have been killed and 2,226 wounded in Yemen since 19 March. Another 10,000 people have been driven from their homes.
Earlier on Thursday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on countries in the region to work together to resolve the crisis.
The foreign ministry also summoned Saudi Arabia's charge d'affaires in Tehran.
The state news agency, Irna, quoted the ministry as saying the envoy would be asked to explain "baseless accusations" made by a spokesman for the coalition.
On Wednesday night, Brig Gen Ahmed al-Assiri told a news conference that Iran had been training and equipping Houthi fighters, according to the Reuters news agency.
The US secretary of state also said that Iran's support for the rebels was clear.
"There are obviously supplies that have been coming from Iran. There are a number of flights every single week that have been flying in," Mr Kerry told PBS Newshour.
On Wednesday, Iran said it was sending two warships to the Gulf of Aden with the aim of "safeguarding naval routes".
The coalition has so far failed to halt the advance into Aden by the Houthis and allied military units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Mr Hadi left for Saudi Arabia at the end of March after the Houthis reached the southern port city, where he took refuge in February after fleeing Sanaa.
On Thursday, coalition warplanes reportedly bombed rebel positions and weapons depots in and around Sanaa.
The defence ministry building was among the targets, according to the AFP news agency.
Northern areas near the Saudi border and in the south around Aden were also hit.
Houthi fighters and allied soldiers meanwhile entered Ataq, the provincial capital of the mainly Sunni province of Shabwa after days of clashes with Sunni tribesmen.
"Ataq is like a military barracks. A tank here, an armoured vehicle there and non-stop patrols," resident Saleh al-Awlaki told the Associated Press.
The rebels say their push into southern and eastern areas of Yemen is to combat militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
On Thursday morning, residents of al-Siddah district in central Yemen told Reuters that AQAP flags were flying over local government offices, after Houthi rebels withdrew overnight.
Who is fighting whom?
Houthis - The Zaidi Shia Muslim rebels from the north overran Sanaa last year and then expanded their control. They want to replace Mr Hadi, whose government they say is corrupt. The US alleges Iran is providing military assistance to the rebels.
Ali Abdullah Saleh - Military units loyal to the former president - forced to hand over power in 2011 after mass protests - are fighting alongside the Houthis.
Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi - The president fled abroad in March as the rebels advanced on Aden, where he had taken refuge in February. Loyal soldiers, Sunni Muslim tribesmen and Southern separatists have formed militia to fight the rebels.
Saudi-led coalition - A US-backed coalition of nine, mostly Sunni Arab states says it is seeking to "defend the legitimate government" of Mr Hadi.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - AQAP opposes both the Houthis and President Hadi. A rival affiliate of Islamic State has also recently emerged.
Frontline voices from Yemen conflict
Failure 'not an option for Saudis'
Meeting the Houthis - and their enemies
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Bayern Munich are confident Pep Guardiola will sign a new contract to stay on as manager beyond the end of this season.

The Spaniard, 44, has been linked with Manchester City, and walked out of a news conference after being asked about the England job in September.
"It is clear that there are other good-looking brides out there," Bayern chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said.
"But we are optimistic that Pep Guardiola will stay at Bayern."
Speaking before Bayern's Champions League meeting with Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday, Rummenigge added: "I have said that in the second half of 2015 there will be a discussion and then there will be clarity.
"That talk is still pending but it will still take place sometime before the end of the year."
Former Barcelona boss Guardiola has led German club Bayern to two Bundesliga titles since taking over in 2013, yet he questioned at the start of this season whether he was the right man for the job.
He said he would step down if he ever got the feeling somebody else would be a better choice, leading to speculation that he will leave next summer.


A woman has admitted dragging a two-year-old toddler along the ground at a Falkirk shopping centre while shouting and swearing at her.

Jodie Mitchell, of Selkirk, admitted behaving in a threatening and abusive manner towards the child at Falkirk Central Retail Park on 6 February.
The 26-year-old was originally charged with assault, but pleaded guilty to the alternative charge.
Sheriff Craig Caldwell deferred sentence until 30 July for reports.


A motorist "fixed" his car window with plastic sheeting and tape, leaving a small peephole to see his mirror.

He was pulled over by police in Northampton on Saturday while driving the white Toyota at about 12:00 BST on Wellingborough Road.
Officers, who seized 30 cars that day as part of a road policing operation, said it was an "interesting concept".
PC Dave Lee said the driver would likely be fined or face a court appearance for the misdemeanour.
"Interesting concept for this Toyota that was driving along. #PeePo," PC Lee wrote on Twitter.
Northamptonshire Police added: "Our central ticket office will write to him giving him various options from a fine through to a court appearance."


A couple from Northern Ireland describe their narrow escape from the Tunisian beach gun attack.

Media playback is unsupported on your device
29 June 2015 Last updated at 18:38 BST
BBC Newsline's Mark Simpson reports.


A cash-and-carry boss killed one of his three lovers on Christmas Eve with the help of his brother, a court has heard.

Roger Cooper, 41, allegedly decided to take Sameena Imam "out of his life" after she issued him with an ultimatum to leave his long-term partner.
It is alleged Mr Cooper, of Coventry, believed he would be sacked if Ms Imam, from Cardiff, exposed their affair.
He is standing trial at Birmingham Crown Court with David Cooper, 38, of Leicester. Both men deny murder.
Jurors were told Roger Cooper, manager of Costco's Coventry warehouse, may claim to have travelled to Leicester to pick up a Star Wars figure as a present from his brother.
Opening the case against the two men, prosecutor Timothy Spencer QC said: "He did pick (the Star Wars figure) up but we say the reality of that journey is that it had a much more sinister motive.
"It was really about what was going to happen to Sameena Imam."
CCTV footage played to the jury showed Ms Imam, the store's marketing chief, and Roger Cooper leaving Costco's Coventry branch within minutes of each other at about 16:00 GMT on 24 December last year.
The Crown claims Ms Imam then left her BMW in the local area and was driven to Leicester before being killed within hours.
Mr Spencer said of the defendants: "They thought they had got away with the killing, they thought they had covered their tracks and traces. They were wrong."
At the time of Ms Imam's death, the court heard, Roger Cooper was also having relationships with two other women, his live-in partner Susan Potts and Costco colleague Sinead Sweeney.
Ms Imam, who lived in south Wales and worked at Costco outlets in Coventry, Southampton, Bristol and Cardiff, was reported missing after failing to attend a family gathering in Essex on Boxing Day.
During his opening address at the start of a two-month trial, Mr Spencer added: "From Boxing Day onwards a missing person inquiry was triggered."


An Isle of Man school has paid tribute to an "articulate and confident" teenager who died last Sunday.

14-year-old Harrison Cushing was found hanged at his home in Peel and died later at Noble's hospital in Braddan.
An inquest in Douglas on Friday heard that the child, a Year 9 student at Queen Elizabeth II High School, died from "asphyxia due to hanging".
A school spokesman said Harrison was an "articulate and confident young man" and a "pleasure to teach".
He added: "Harrison had a very keen and quick sense of humour, appreciated by his classmates and teachers alike.
"Anyone who knew Harrison could not fail to like him and he will be very deeply missed by his close friends, his classmates in Year 9, his teachers and the wider school community.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to Harrison's family at this very sad and difficult time".
Coroner John Needham has adjourned the inquest to a date yet to be fixed.
Education psychologists are providing professional support at the school for students and staff.


Three youths have been spoken to by police over an attack on two alpacas with garden furniture.

Attackers were seen on CCTV throwing objects at the animals and chasing them at Danesmoor Nursing Home, Haslingden, Lancashire, on Tuesday night.
The alpacas - named Bill and Ben - are brothers and have lived at the home for five years.  They were not hurt.
Lancashire Police said two 17-year-olds and a 16-year-old voluntarily attended Waterfoot police station on Thursday.
A spokesman said they were spoken to "in relation to offences of animal cruelty and criminal damage".
He added: "They have now been referred on to the youth offending team."


All air displays have been cancelled due to bad weather conditions on the first day of Bournemouth Air Festival.

The Red Arrows, Black Cat helicopters and others were due to fly over the town as part of the four-day event.
The night air displays have also been cancelled as the aircraft were unable to get to Bournemouth in time.
Director of the festival Jon Weaver said the site was still open with fun fairs and exhibitions for people to enjoy.
Bournemouth Air Festival posted on Twitter night air displays had had to be cancelled.
"The aircraft are unable to get into Bournemouth in time to be able to prepare for the shows and in addition the weather would make the dusk air flying conditions unsuitable.
"Concerts are still on at Boscombe and Bournemouth stages," it said.
The Red Arrows posted on Twitter: "Bad news yet again.
"The weather is below limits and forecast to get worse. We've no choice but to cancel our @BmthAirFest display today."
On Wednesday the RAF display team cancelled an appearance at Weymouth Carnival.


Two people have been charged with slavery and forced labour offences in Hertfordshire.

Shanon Loveridge, 22, and Johnny Murphy, 25, both of Watford Road, St Albans, are to appear before St Albans Magistrates Court on 27 October.
They are charged with holding a person in slavery or servitude and requiring another person to perform forced labour between April 2010 and September 2014.
The pair were arrested in March following reports of human trafficking.
They have been released on bail until their court appearance. The alleged offences are said to have been committed in St Albans.
A 62-year-old woman has been released without charge.


Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a cabinet reshuffle after the departure of five ministers in five months.

Two senior ministers retired, while three others left in the wake of separate political scandals.
Liberal leader Mr Turnbull said his new team "combines youth, new talent, experience, continuity, and a real sense of innovation and enterprise".
It comes ahead of a federal election later this year.
Veterans affairs minister Stuart Robert left the frontbench on Friday for breaching ministerial standards. He had travelled to Beijing with a Liberal Party donor for the signing of a mining deal.
Special minister of state Mal Brough announced in December that he would resign from the ministry while he remained under police investigation in connection with the downfall former parliamentary speaker Peter Slipper amid a sex scandal.
Cities minister Jamie Briggs stepped down the same month after a female public servant complained about his behaviour at a Hong Kong Bar.
Mr Turnbull said his  revamped frontbench was a "transition from older leadership to newer leadership".
Mr Turnbull's changes will see new deputy Nationals leader Fiona Nash become Regional Development Minister and Minister for Regional Communications, taking the number of women in the cabinet from five to six.
Nationals MP Darren Chester will take the infrastructure and transport portfolio from retiring party leader Warren Truss, while Steve Ciobo will become trade minister following the resignation of Andrew Robb.
Five new junior ministers and five assistant ministers have also been appointed, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.


UKIP MEP Mike Hookem believes British and French authorities aren't doing nearly enough to stop migrants from coming to the UK.

7 August 2015 Last updated at 23:21 BST
He decided to head to Calais on a fact-finding mission.
Newsnight's James Clayton and Jack Garland followed him around for a day.


Manchester United "will be in trouble" in April and May if they continue to progress in the Europa League and the FA Cup, says manager Jose Mourinho.

Mourinho is worried about fixture congestion towards the end of the season.
United, who entertain Saint-Etienne in the Europa League on Thursday, are at Championship side Blackburn in the fifth round of the FA Cup on Sunday.
"We cannot choose competitions at Manchester United," said Mourinho.
United have played 38 competitive games this season, including 25 in the Premier League, five in the EFL Cup and two in the FA Cup.
They will play a minimum of 65 games if they reach the FA Cup and the Europa League finals.
Their next top-flight match is at home to Bournemouth on 4 March, by which time Mourinho could have secured his first major trophy as United boss.
His side face Southampton in the EFL Cup final at Wembley on 26 February, which means the league derby at Manchester City scheduled for the same day has been postponed.
They are scheduled to visit Southampton in the Premier League on 12 March but that match will also be postponed if United reach the sixth round of the FA Cup.
"We know our situation is really complicated," added Mourinho.
"The Europa League is a competition where we play on Thursdays and that makes it even more difficult for us.
"With the accumulation of FA Cup, League Cup and match postponed it is really hard for us.
"If you progress in the competitions, we will be in trouble in April and May. But we cannot choose competitions so we play to win."
Thursday's Europa League last-32 first leg tie at Old Trafford will be their seventh in this season's competition. That cup provides United with one of two possible routes into next season's Champions League.
The winners of the final on 24 May will get a Champions League spot, while United will also qualify if they secure a top-four finish in the Premier League.
United are sixth in the Premier League, two points behind fourth-placed Arsenal with 13 matches remaining.
Mourinho added: "We have two doors still open. But we are in the last 32 - not eight or four so there is a long way to go.
"There is also a long way to go in the Premier League."
Thursday's match is set to see United midfielder Paul Pogba, 23, go up against his older brother.
Florentin Pogba, 26, is poised to line up in Saint-Etienne's defence at Old Trafford.
He marked the "magical" encounter against younger brother by having the numbers 19 and six shaved into his hair - their squad numbers.
"The 19 is my squad number and the six is for him," said Florentin. "It's going to be a magical moment and I hope he and I enjoy it the best we can."
Their mother, Yeo, will be at the first leg and next Wednesday's return fixture in France, enjoying the "one-off" occasion to the maximum.
Mourinho said: "I think mother Pogba is in trouble, which is normal.
"It is not difficult for the lady to choose, it is impossible. I know from Paul that his mum wants a draw.
"But next week, one son will be happy and another will be sad. But only for their mum is it a problem.
"For them, I think they will enjoy playing against each other. Paul is excited. It is a good thing."
Saint-Etienne are fifth in Ligue 1, 19 points behind leaders Monaco.


Barrels suspected to contain chlorine gas have been dropped on a town in Syria, a doctor and rescuers have said.

It is not clear who was responsible.
The attack took place in Saraqeb in Idlib province, near where a Russian military transport helicopter was shot down by rebels hours earlier.
About 30 people, mostly women and children, have been affected. Chlorine gas can cause victims to become short of breath and to foam blood from the mouth.
The government and some rebel groups have been accused of, and denied, using chemical agents.
A Russian military helicopter was shot down near Saraqeb on Monday, killing five crew. It is not clear who brought it down.
It was the biggest single loss of life suffered by Russian troops since they entered the conflict in Syria last year, on the side of President Bashar al-Assad.
Dr Abdel Aziz Bareeh, who works in Saraqeb, told the BBC that two barrels of chlorine gas were dropped on the town late on Monday.
"We know it's chlorine because we were hit by it in the past and we are familiar with its odour and symptoms.
"We have 28 confirmed cases, mostly women and children."
Separately, a spokesman for Syria Civil Defence told Reuters that 33 people had been affected in the attack.
The organisation of volunteer rescue workers said it suspected the barrels contained chlorine but was unable to confirm it.
Chlorine is a common industrial chemical, but its use in weapons is banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention.
In 2013, the BBC found strong evidence suggesting residents of Saraqeb were subject to a chemical attack by government helicopters, something denied by the Syrian authorities.
Separately, clashes are continuing near Aleppo, where rebels have launched an offensive to break a government siege.


A team led by researchers at Strathclyde University in Glasgow have replicated the effects of space radiation in the laboratory.

They've used new laser-plasma-based accelerators to mimic the radiation.
It was first achieved using the Central Laser facility, part of the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford.
Now Strathclyde will be taking the work further because they've installed one of the world's most powerful lasers.
Space looks peaceful but it's a hostile place.
Radiation levels in orbit are 10 times what they are here on Earth.
For astronauts and probes leaving orbit - and the protection of the planet's magnetic field - they're 10 times worse again.
That's why the European Space Agency (ESA) is funding the research, which also involves universities in Germany and the United States.
When you're assessing the effects of broadband radiation on humans and electronics, the first priority is safety - and so, just a few hundred yards from George Square in Glasgow city centre, a 10-tonne door floats on air.
It's guarding the entrance to a concrete bunker.
Prof Bernhard Hidding, who is chairman of Experimental Physics at Strathclyde University, said: "The flux of energetic particles such as electrons is very intense.
"This is a big danger for electronics on board space vessels and satellites, but also for astronauts.
"Sometimes Nasa and the ESA call these electrons in these so-called radiation belts - the Van Allen Belts - 'killer' electrons."
That radiation is being reproduced by the Scottish Centre for the Application of Plasma-based Accelerators (Scapa) which is based at Strathclyde.
It's taking advantage of a recent and huge leap in technology.
Beams of high-energy particles used to be created in linear accelerators 100 metres (328ft) long. Now you can fit one in your pocket.
But to do that you need enormous amounts of power.
Which is why Scapa has just installed Â£3.5m worth of French-built laser on the floor above.
Scapa's laser manager Dr Gregor Welsh has the technical specs off by heart.
"This is the highest average power laser system in the world today," he says.
"It's unique in a university environment. It delivers 350 terawatts at five hertz."
That's 350 trillion watts, five times a second.
"That's the peak power," he says. "For the average power we deliver up to 14 joules which we compress down to 25 femtoseconds."
"So high energy and very short pulses give us extremely high peak power."
A femtosecond is one millionth of one billionth of a second. But if grasping that is a bit too much, Scapa's director, Prof Dino Jaroszynski, can put it into perspective.
"If you think about all the power from the sun reaching the UK, this laser actually produces the same amount of power. But only for a very, very short time," he says.
They're producing these massive bursts of light to investigate more than space radiation.
Scapa's centre manager Dr Mark Wiggins says the laser will produce high-energy particles and radiation pulses for experiments in science, engineering and medicine.
He points to one particularly promising research area.
"Radiotherapy is an ongoing and particularly interesting project because we're looking at electron beams as a potential radiation therapy technique as opposed to X-Rays or proton beams.
"There are a lot of nuclear physics applications because these are very novel sources of, say, gamma rays.
"They're very bright radiation pulses and very, very short."
Among the other potential applications: experiments in nuclear fusion.
The laser pulses could contain and compress the fuel for a fusion reaction, producing energy in the same way the sun does.
Because this laser - however briefly - can reproduce the temperatures and pressures found inside stars.


A new bill passed through the US Congress is creating a storm - with President Barack Obama and the CIA warning of its dire consequences.

In passing the law that allows legal action against Saudi Arabia over the 9/11 attacks, Congress over-ruled a veto by Mr Obama for the first time in his presidency.
So why is it so controversial, and what are its wider implications?
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) was brought by the families of 9/11 victims, to allow them to sue any member of the Saudi government suspected of playing a role in the attacks.
In practice, the bill permits civil claims against a foreign state or official for injuries, death, or damages from an act of international terrorism.
Fifteen of the 19 terrorist who hijacked planes on 9/11 were Saudi nationals, and it has long been rumoured that senior Saudi officials were in some way linked to the attack.
Official inquiries since 2001 have found there is no evidence of either the Saudi government or senior Saudi individuals funding al-Qaeda.
However, a previously classified document earlier this year revealed "while in the United States, some of the 9/11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government".
While the document did not provide any direct evidence of top-level Saudi involvement, it did raise new questions.
A veto is one of the most significant tools an American president has at his disposal, and has been used more than 2,500 times in America's history to prevent the passage of legislation. According to the US' House of Representatives, even the threat of a veto can bring about changes.
Congress can overrule a veto however - but only if it has the support of two-thirds of the House and Senate. This has only happened on 110 occasions since 1792.
Despite this, it is unusual for a president in recent years to get through two terms without congress overruling a veto. George W Bush had four overturned, while Bill Clinton had two during his tenure. The last presidency to go unchallenged was that of Lyndon B Johnson.
President Barack Obama, who has only used a veto on 12 occasions and had, until now, never had one overruled, fears the amended law will leave America open to similar suits from other countries - especially as there is little consensus internationally on what constitutes an act of terrorism.
Stephen Vladeck, professor of law at the University of Texas, explained: "The real concern is that the more the US weakens the concept of foreign sovereign immunity, the more that the weakening will be used against it.
"President Obama is concerned that [something like] a drone strike against a suspected al-Qaeda target in Yemen or Pakistan or Somalia could very well be deemed by those countries as terrorism which could subject the US to significant liability in those courts."
But Terry Strada, national chair for 9/11 Families United For Justice Against Terrorism, has disagreed that the bill could backfire in the way the White House has warned.
"If we're not funding terrorist organisations and killing people, then we don't have anything to worry about," she said.
The bill may also have an impact on relations with Saudi Arabia, a key ally for the US in the Middle East.
Salman al-Ansari, president of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, said Saudi Arabia could reduce valuable security and intelligence co-operation as a result.
The idea was to "clear away" obstacles and force an American court to answer whether and to what extent the Saudi government was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
But Professor Vladeck says in its creation the bill has created more blocks which will "probably" lead to "more litigation".
And even if the outcome is successful for the families, it will be little more than symbolic, he believes.
"The problem with JASTA is, it does not allow an American court to seize Saudi assets, or any foreign sovereign's assets, for this kind of claim," he says.
"So the best the plaintiffs can hope for is a piece of paper that says, yes the Saudi government was indirectly responsible because of funding, no you don't get any damages."