Chinese shares continued their sharp fall on Monday as concerns over the country's slowing growth and volatile markets sparked panic among traders.

The mainland benchmark index, the Shanghai Composite, fell sharply by 8.4% to 3,211.75 points, extending last week's losses.
The sell-off continued despite China's latest attempts to reassure investors.
Over the weekend, Beijing said it planned to let its main state pension fund invest in the stock market.
Under the new rules, the fund will be allowed to invest up to 30% of its net assets in domestically-listed shares.
The fund will be allowed to invest not just in shares but in a range of market instruments, including derivatives. By increasing demand for them, the government hopes prices will rise.
The Hong Kong Hang Seng index followed the mainland's sharp decline, dropping 4% to 21,523.57 points in early trade.
Simon Littlewood, president at business advisory firm ACG Global told the BBC there were concerns that the world's second biggest economy was "a one-trick pony as they have been trying repeatedly over the past few months to put more liquidity into their economy", yet so far have failed to calm markets.
Over the past week, China's benchmark Shanghai Composite fell 12%, adding up to a 30% drop since the middle of June.
The sharp fall sparked a global sell-off, with the Dow Jones in the US losing 6%, while the UK's FTSE 100 posted its biggest weekly loss this year of 5%.
Earlier this month, the Chinese central bank devalued the yuan in an attempt to boost exports.
Elsewhere in Asia, the region's biggest stock market, Japan's Nikkei 225 traded 2.8% lower at 18,907.39 points in Monday morning trade.
It marks the Nikkei's lowest level in nearly five months.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was down by 2.9% to 5,063.50 points.
Iron ore miner Fortescue posted an 88% drop in annual net profit as the sector was hit by a global drop in commodity prices. Fortescue shares were down by more than 10% on the weak results.
In South Korea, the Kospi index followed the region's lead, trading 1.4% lower at 1,850.56 points.
Earlier on Monday, stock markets in the Middle East also fell sharply.
Over the weekend, the International Monetary Fund weighed in on the global sell-off in an attempt to avoid further market panic.
China's economic slowdown and fall in equities was not a crisis but a "necessary" adjustment for the economy, a senior IMF official said on Sunday.
"It's totally premature to speak of a crisis in China", Carlo Cottarelli, IMF executive director representing countries such as Italy and Greece on its board, told a press conference, reiterating the international lender's forecast for a 6.8% expansion of the Chinese economy this year, below the 7.4% growth achieved in 2014.
On Friday, figures showed China's factory activity in August shrank at its fastest pace in more than six years.
This came after official figures showed the country's economic growth continuing to slow. For the three months to the end of July, the economy grew by 7% compared with a year earlier - its slowest pace since 2009.


While one Royal Navy officer's family tucks into its turkey and stuffing this Christmas, James Rowson will be sailing the ocean wave.

The 21-year-old from Blaina, Blaenau Gwent, will be on board HMS Chiddingfold in the Gulf.
The minehunter is one of seven Royal Navy ships deployed to the region over the festive period.
But while James enjoys his dinner in the heat of Bahrain, his loved ones will be very much in his thoughts.
"Merry Christmas to all my family and friends, can't wait to see you all in the new year," he said.


Thousands of Peterborough United and Cambridge United fans turned out for a match at the Abax Stadium in memory of the clubs' former manager Chris Turner.

He died aged 64 in April after a long battle with dementia.
The goalless draw between the only two Cambridgeshire clubs in the Football League began with a minute's applause "to honour this county's greatest sporting icon".
It was the first match between the two sides in 14 years.
Almost 4,700 fans from both clubs turned out on Saturday for the friendly in Peterborough, with all profits going to the Glenfield Care Centre, whose staff looked after Turner during his final years.
He started his playing career at Peterborough in 1969, making more than 300 appearances for the club before winning back-to-back promotions as manager in the early 1990s.
Turner also played for Cambridge United, Luton, Swindon and Southend.
He retired as a player in 1984 and took over as Cambridge United boss the following year, managing them until 1990.
His successful reign at Peterborough ended in 1992, when he stood down to become chairman.
Turner was diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia in 2006.
His wife Lynne said doctors told her the illness was "caused by heading too many balls" and called for greater research into the health risks surrounding the sport.
Turner died on 27 April. Hundreds of fans from both Peterborough and Cambridge attended his funeral in May.
The Chris Turner Memorial Match was devised as a way of "commemorating Chris [in a way] that is fitting, and to make sure we celebrate the life of Chris in the right way", Phil Adlam, from Peterborough United, said.
It was, both team managers agreed, "a fitting memorial" and "the result didn't matter".


More than 50 people are reported to have been killed in heavy fighting in Syria after so-called Islamic State launched an attack in Hama province.

The militants targeted villages under government control, and clashed with the army and its militia allies.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said at least 15 of the dead were civilians.
The fighting is near a strategically important highway linking Hama city with the Aleppo area further north.
The SOHR said at least 27 government troops or militia were killed in the attack, on the villages of Aqareb and al-Mabujeh. Another 10 bodies had yet to be identified.
Some of the civilians killed were put to death after being captured by IS, the observatory added.
State news agency Sana also reported the attack in Aqareb, saying 20 civilians were killed there, but made no mention of al-Mabujeh.
Why is there a war in Syria?
IS was now fully in control of Aqareb, SOHR said, adding that the government had sent reinforcements to the area.
Hama province is divided three ways between government forces, rebels and IS, with the militants mainly occupying the eastern part.


Egypt is reportedly planning to create a 500m buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip to block the smuggling of weapons.

Residents living along the border with the Palestinian territory were told to evacuate their homes so that they can be demolished, local media reports.
Water-filled trenches will also be used to prevent the construction of tunnels.
Egyptian media accuses Gaza's Hamas administration of aiding militants in Sinai. Hamas denies the charge.
Last week, more than 30 Egyptian soldiers were killed in a militant bomb attack on an army post in Sinai.
After the bombing, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi passed a law authorising the military to protect state facilities - including power plants, main roads and bridges.
He also declared a three-month state of emergency in Sinai. Critics of the move said it allows the army to return to the streets and brings back military trials for civilians.
The planned buffer zone will reportedly stretch along the length of the 13km (8 mile) border.
Officials told the Associated Press news agency that the army had given residents 48 hours to leave their homes, but this ultimatum had been put on hold after protests.
Tunnels linking the Gaza Strip and Sinai have also played a vital role in the economy of the Palestinian territory, which has been struggling to cope with a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt in 2007 as a measure against Hamas.


Boreham Wood's 0-0 draw at home to Macclesfield saw them fall into the National League relegation zone.

In a nerve-stricken performance, Boreham Wood struggled to create anything at a quiet Meadow Park.
The Silkmen had the game's best chances, as Chris Holroyd tested Boreham Wood's James Russell before Kristian Dennis fired wide.
Harry White had the Wood's best chance, shooting over the bar as neither side could break the deadlock.


The Sun has printed an apology to Everton and England footballer Ross Barkley over an article in which its former editor Kelvin MacKenzie compared him to a gorilla.

The newspaper said it had been unaware of Mr Barkley's heritage and there was "never any slur intended".
The 23-year-old footballer's grandfather was born in Nigeria.
The Sun said it had been contacted by Mr Barkley's lawyers, who had made a formal complaint about the piece.
In the article, published on 14 April, Mr MacKenzie said looking at Mr Barkley's eyes had given him a "similar feeling when seeing a gorilla at the zoo".
His eyes made him "certain not only are the lights not on, there is definitely nobody at home", he wrote.
Alongside the article, was an image of a gorilla next to a picture of the midfielder.
The columnist is currently suspended by the newspaper.
The Sun's apology, printed on page five of the paper, said that as soon as Mr Barkley's background was drawn to its attention, the article was removed from online.
The apology did not extend to other elements of the article, in which Mr MacKenzie suggested that the only people in Liverpool who could earn as much as footballers were drug dealers.
On Friday, Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson said Mr McKenzie would be facing questions from the police about the article.
Mr Anderson described it as a "racial slur... and something we won't tolerate".
A spokesman for Merseyside Police said its investigation was ongoing and officers would be speaking to relevant witnesses.
Mr MacKenzie was approached for a comment but is on holiday, although previously he has said it is "beyond parody" to describe his column as racist.
The Sun, which has previously apologised for the "wrong" and "unfunny" views of Mr MacKenzie expressed in the column, has said he will be "fully investigated" on his return.
The Sun apology in full:
"On April 14 we published a piece in the Kelvin MacKenzie column about footballer Ross Barkley which made unfavourable comparisons between Mr Barkley and a gorilla.
"At the time of publication, the newspaper was unaware of Mr Barkley's heritage and there was never any slur intended.
"As soon as his background was drawn to our attention, the article was removed from online.
"We have been contacted by lawyers on behalf of Ross Barkley, who has made a formal complaint about the piece.
"The Sun has apologised for the offence caused by the piece.
"We would like to take this opportunity to apologise personally to Ross Barkley."


Alex Salmond has criticised his party over its treatment of former SNP MP Michelle Thomson.

Ms Thomson has said she was given no choice but to resign the SNP whip after a fraud allegations were made against a former business associate.
She later sat as an independent MP for Edinburgh West but stood down at the general election.
Mr Salmond said the SNP had faced a difficult situation which it had "handled badly".
But he also blamed the media for destroying the political career of Ms Thomson, whom he regarded as "an incredibly talented female politician".
The former first minister was speaking to reporters ahead of his Edinburgh Festival Fringe show "Alex Salmond Unleashed" which begins on Sunday.
Ms Thomson was one of five people named in a Police Scotland report to prosecutors in December 2016 about alleged mortgage fraud.
The Crown Office, however, announced earlier this month that there was no "credible and reliable" evidence that she engaged in illegal activity.
Ms Thomson, who always denied any wrongdoing, has since criticised the SNP leadership over her treatment and suggested Nicola Sturgeon should apologise.
Asked about the matter, Mr Salmond said: "It's a difficult position for any political party to be in.
"It was an extremely difficult situation, which the SNP handled badly.
"I thought, whenever the parliamentary group voted on this, that you cannot have a situation where people are denied natural justice.
"There is a point where you have to take action and I happen to believe that's at the point of charging, dependent on the offence."
Nicola Sturgeon recently described the Michelle Thomson situation as "not easy" for her party and offered to meet her to discuss her future SNP membership.
Mr Salmond was also questioned about Scottish independence, saying he believed there would be a "Yes vote" in a referendum within four years, although the precise timing would depend on Brexit.
He said: "I think Scotland will become independent, I think that was rendered inevitable when the Scottish Parliament was established.
"The timing has always been the interesting thing and I think the timing and outcome of Brexit will dictate the timing of another referendum, and therefore the timing of independence, in the medium term.
"If Brexit is a soaraway success, the best thing since sliced bread, then I think that will postpone another referendum but I don't know anyone who thinks that now.
"So therefore I think a (second independence) referendum will be at some point in the next three to four years, depending on the transitional period of Brexit, and I think the result will be a Yes."
Mr Salmond, a former SNP leader, said he would play "whatever part is necessary" in a future referendum campaign and did not rule out a return to office.
In the meantime, he said he looked forward to enjoying the freedom to express himself in different ways.
"There are things you can't say in office that you can say out of office," he said.
The Scottish Conservatives said it was clear Mr Salmond had "learned nothing" from his election defeat.
Deputy leader Jackson Carlaw said:  "The SNP's obsession with independence and a subsequent lack of focus on education, health and the economy was a key factor in the widespread losses suffered by his party in June.
"Voters sent a clear message that they are fed up hearing about a second referendum, but it seems Mr Salmond, along with many others in the SNP, is still not listening."
Mr Salmond, who lost his Gordon seat in the June general election, will perform 18 shows at the Fringe, promising light-hearted banter and a few behind-the-scenes-revelations from his time in office.
An extra night has been added, the second time the run has been extended after tickets sold out.


A report into safety failures that forced 17 Edinburgh schools to close has highlighted a lack of proper scrutiny of the construction work.

The independent report has criticised the council and the partnership which managed the building contracts, as well as the construction company.
City of Edinburgh Council said lessons would be learned from the report.
Nine tonnes of masonry fell at Oxgangs Primary School in January 2016 during a storm.
Ten primaries, five secondaries and two additional support needs schools were shut because of concerns over the standard of construction in the city.
About 7,600 pupils were affected by the closures.
How Edinburgh built unsafe schools
City of Edinburgh Council asked John Cole, an experienced architect from Northern Ireland, to investigate the closure of the 17 Edinburgh schools built under the PPP1 project.
In his report, he said: "The fact that no injuries or fatalities to children resulted from the collapse of the gable wall at Oxgangs School was a matter of timing and luck.
"Approximately nine tonnes of masonry fell on an area where children could easily have been standing or passing through.
"One does not require much imagination to think of what the consequences might have been if it had happened an hour or so later."
The 250-page report identified fundamental defects which led to the wall collapse:
The report said: "It is the view of the inquiry that the primary cause of the collapse of the wall at Oxgangs school was poor quality construction in the building of the wall, which failed to achieve the required minimum embedment of 50mm for the wall ties, particularly in the outer leaf of the cavity wall. The poor quality relates to all three of the following aspects:
"All three issues were ultimately the responsibility of the design and build contractor in charge of the site."
The report said it was not the result of an isolated case of a rogue bricklayer.
It said the substandard brick-laying was either not inspected or was ignored, that an appropriate level of independent scrutiny was missing; and that having a clerk of works may have made a difference.
Mr Cole also questions whether the drive for faster, lower-cost construction is to the detriment of quality and safety.
The report said the fundamental weakness was the lack of proper scrutiny of building work by the council and Edinburgh Schools Partnership, which managed the PPP contract.
The report also said: "There was an over-reliance on the part of the council, without adequate evidence, that others in the project structure, including those building the schools would comprehensively fulfil this essential role."
The report also concluded that the finance model was not responsible for defective construction.
Mr Cole also highlighted a failure to properly store and maintain the relevant documents.
He said closing the schools had been the only practical and safe course of action, and that finding alternative arrangements for more than 7,600 pupils was a "remarkable feat". The impact on the children's education had been "relatively limited".
His report was originally expected by the end of 2016, but was delayed by several weeks after Mr Cole was advised that any organisation or individual criticised in the investigation must be given time to respond.
The schools affected by the closures were all built or refurbished as part of the same public private partnership scheme.
They were built by Miller Construction, which was acquired by Galliford Try in 2014.
City of Edinburgh Council said it was drawing up an action plan to ensure confidence in the safety of all its buildings.
An Edinburgh Schools Partnership spokesman said: "We have fully cooperated with the council and Professor Cole in trying to establish the facts of what happened with the schools affected.
"Having only just received a copy of the report, we will now take time to consider its findings in detail before commenting further."
Andrew Kerr, City of Edinburgh Council's chief executive, said: "The report pulls no punches and makes clear what went wrong, the reasons for it and where responsibility lay.
"Clearly there are lessons for the council and I will now be drawing up an action plan to take our recommendations forward to ensure everyone can have confidence in the safety of all of our buildings.
"The council, our public and private sector partners both in Scotland and across the United Kingdom, need to take on board the issues raised and address the concerns highlighted in the report as they have far-reaching implications for the construction industry."
Kevin Stewart, Minister for Housing and Local Government, said: "The safety of people in public buildings is an absolute priority and I am very concerned by some of the findings highlighted in this report."
Larry Flanagan, EIS General Secretary, said: "This report issues a stark warning - to Edinburgh, to local authorities and to all those responsible for the construction and maintenance of our schools - that they must take action to ensure that all buildings are well-designed, properly-built and maintained to an extremely high standard.
"This is not an area where corners or costs should ever be cut.
"The legacy of the PPP/PFI funding model is too many inferior buildings, for which we will all be paying a vastly inflated price for decades to come. Scotland's pupils and school staff and, indeed, Scottish taxpayers deserve far better."


Britain did not vote for 'hard Brexit' in the EU referendum and will have to compromise in exit talks, former Chancellor George Osborne has warned.

He said Leave campaigners were naive for thinking the UK could secure everything it wanted in negotiations.
In a speech in Chicago, he also warned against "the dangerous purity of splendid isolation" over co-operation.
He campaigned for the Remain side and was criticised for warning of a Â£30bn "black hole" if the UK voted to leave.
Mr Osborne's speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs is one of few public interventions he has made, since being sacked as chancellor when Theresa May became prime minister.
What has actually happened since Brexit?
In it, he described the vote to leave Europe on 23 June as "one of the low points" of his time in government and warned Conservative colleagues now looking to negotiate Brexit that they faced "the most important set of decisions Britain has faced since the Second World War".
He is now a backbencher, but urged Prime Minister Theresa May to pursue "the closest possible economic and security relationship with our European partners while no longer being formal members of the EU".
Formal negotiations over the UK's withdrawal from the European Union cannot begin until the UK triggers Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which Mrs May has said will not be before the end of the year.
"I can't see us consenting to the current arrangements around free movement of people that clearly caused such concern in the referendum," Mr Osborne said.
"Equally, I find some of the take-or-leave it bravado we hear from those who assume Europe has no option but to give us everything we want more than a little naive.
"We need to be realistic that this is a two-way relationship: that Britain cannot expect to maintain all the benefits that came from EU membership without incurring any of the costs or the obligations. There will have to be compromise."
He warned against the "false logic" of exiting all forms of European co-operation and against valuing "the dangerous purity of splendid isolation over the practical necessity of co-operation in the real world".
"Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not," he said. "The mainstream majority in our country do not want to be governed from the extremes."
He said the government could not ignore the referendum result but said the EU would not be in a position for serious negotiations until autumn 2017 because of French and German elections.
The UK must not turn its back on Europe, he said, as huge issues such as terrorism, mass migration, disease and climate change could not be tackled alone.
In London on Friday, Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, concluded a two-day visit including talks with Prime Minister Theresa May. He said the vote for Brexit was a "lose-lose" result for the UK and the EU.
"A G7 country, the second economy of the European single market, a permanent veto of the security council leaving the European Union is a disaster for us and for the United Kingdom," he said.
"Honestly, I leave London with a feeling that the Government is undecided about how and when they should trigger Article 50... also with the feeling that they perceive, more and more, the European side - the 27 institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg - can't wait too long."
In his speech in the US, Mr Osborne also defended the government's involvement in Libya - criticised by the foreign affairs committee earlier this month - and said governments should not be afraid of intervening in crises like Syria.
The Commons vote in 2013 against military action in Syria was "the single most depressing moment of my time to date in Parliament", he said.
Failing to intervene had led to the rise of the so-called Islamic State and a refugee crisis that had "fuelled the rise of extremism across Europe", and cost "hundreds of thousands of lives", he argued.


Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes need to improve what he believes is a weakness in their starts after he lost a potential win in the Italian GP.

Hamilton was on pole but dropped to sixth after a bad start, with team-mate Nico Rosberg going on to win and reduce the championship lead to two points.
"We're still caught out by random variation from one race to another," Hamilton said.
"As you've seen with Nico and me quite a few times, we need to work on it."
Hamilton said he would be discussing the issue with his engineers when he goes to the Mercedes factory on Tuesday for a debrief ahead of the final seven races of the season.
"I can assure you on Tuesday it is the only thing I am going to work on because everything else we are doing really well," he said.
"We are not struggling with pole positions; it is just getting off the line."
Rosberg has now won two races in a row since F1 returned from its summer break but Hamilton said he was still confident for the rest of the season.
Hamilton said: "We have been smashing the weekends, been quickest, dominant all weekend and then less than a tenth of a second decided the race.
"That is tough for everyone but when you look back and think of where we've come from it's not so bad.
"We are still leading the world championship. We have had so many things go against us on our side of the garage that to come back and be where we are, it has been a phenomenal year, and there's still lots of good things that can happen moving forwards."
Hamilton was 43 points behind after Rosberg won the first four races of the season but turned that around to take a 19-point lead into the summer break with a run of six wins in seven races.
Rosberg said his approach had not changed through the fluctuations in the championship.
"I am not thinking about it," he said. "My belief to win individual races is as high as ever and I showed it today again and that's it, because its my best approach.
"Because if I think about 43 points going to 19, I would lose sleep over that. So I just don't think about it and enjoy winning the races."
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A plan to implement a ceasefire across Syria could be in place before the new year, Turkey's foreign minister says.

Mevlut Cavusoglu said the plan, which also involves Russia, could be set in motion "at any moment" but it was up to the "will of the leaders".
Russia has not officially confirmed the deal, other than to say talks are under way with Turkey. The two countries back opposing sides in the conflict.
Rebels said they would meet Russian officials in Turkey on Thursday.
Turkey's state news agency had earlier reported the deal could come as early as Thursday evening.
The issue of which areas would fall under the ceasefire deal remains a possible stumbling block.
Earlier this month, Moscow and Ankara negotiated a ceasefire in Syria's second city, Aleppo, that led to tens of thousands of rebel fighters and civilians being evacuated from an enclave besieged by government forces.
Previous ceasefire initiatives this year brokered by the UN, or the US acting with Russia, quickly collapsed.
Fighting has continued elsewhere in Syria since the Aleppo evacuation, notably in the nearby town of al-Bab, where Turkey has been helping rebels fighting so-called Islamic State.
Speaking on Turkish TV, Mr Cavusoglu said Turkey and Russia would act as guarantors of the ceasefire deal, under which all foreign fighter groups would have to leave Syria.
"We are on the verge of an agreement with Russia," he said.
"If everything goes alright, we will make this agreement. Russia will be the guarantor of the regime [Syrian government]. Russia and Turkey are guarantors in the agreement being worked on in Ankara."
He added that there was "nothing final" on whether Iran, another military ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,  would also sign it as a guarantor.
Russia's RT state TV channel said it was still waiting for confirmation from the Russian foreign ministry that a deal had been reached.
On Wednesday, Turkey's official Anadolu news agency cited an unnamed Turkish source as saying the ceasefire would exclude "terrorist organisations", without giving further details.
An official from the Islamist rebel coalition Ahrar al-Sham said there were fundamental disagreements over which areas would fall under the ceasefire deal.
Labib Nahhas singled out the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus, saying Russian attempts to exclude it from the truce were unacceptable.
Despite the obstacles, Turkey and Syria analyst Ilhan Tanir detected greater confidence among the negotiators after the Aleppo evacuation and last week's Moscow Declaration, a roadmap for Syria's future signed by Turkey, Russia and Iran.
"So this is kind of a third step and I think the parties have more confidence to work together for Syria," he told the BBC.
Diana Darke, a Middle East expert, said she was optimistic as Russia and Iran had achieved their war goals.
"Potentially everybody has finally reached the stage where they are ready," she told the BBC World Service's Newsday programme.
"They can see that there is nothing further to be gained. I mean Russia does not want to be sucked more and more in to the Syrian quicksand. They've got what they wanted. The same for Iran. The Syrian government itself is incredibly weak."


A man has been charged with with witness intimidation as part of an inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.

Kaleem Ali, 18, of Clough Road, is due to appear before Rotherham Magistrates' Court on 29 October.
The offence is alleged to have taken place in the town in March.
South Yorkshire Police said he was charged under Operation Clover, a joint inquiry with the local authority and the Crown Prosecution Service.


West Indies' Kraigg Brathwaite achieved the best Test bowling figures by an opening batsman for more than half a century on day three of the second Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo.

Brathwaite, 22, had only one Test wicket and three first-class scalps to his name before this game, but captured 6-29 with his part-time off-spin.
That helped bowl Sri Lanka out for 206, setting West Indies 244 to win.
Brathwaite was then lbw for three with the tourists 20-1 when rain ended play.
The Bajan right-hander had only bowled in six of his previous 23 Tests since his debut in 2011, taking a solitary wicket against India in Kolkata for an overall Test bowling average of 137.
His previous first-class bowling figures were equally forgettable, with three wickets at an average of 67 in 81 games.
But after he came on with Sri Lanka 146-4 to share the spin workload with Devendra Bishoo and debutant Jomel Warrican, Brathwaite took the last six wickets including home skipper Angelo Mathews, who was ninth out for 46.
With rain preventing any play after tea, Sri Lanka lead the two-Test series 1-0 after winning the first Test in Galle by an innings.


World-renowned climber Hamish MacInnes believes this winter in Scotland's mountains is the snowiest since 1945.

He said he had not seen such "colossal volumes" of snow since he started climbing as a youngster 69 years ago.
Dumfries and Galloway-born Mr MacInnes is also the inventor of mountaineering equipment, including a stretcher.
He said: "The first time I went climbing was in 1945 and I remember cutting our way through snow in Glencoe.
"I've not seen anything like it until now.
"This covering of snow we have just now is very alpine. There is a very defined demarcation line between where the snow starts and the bare grass below.
"The volume of snow is colossal. It has been falling for weeks now."
Mr MacInnes, whose first climb was Buachaille Etive Mor, added: "The biggest accumulations have been on the main plateaus."
He said the snow at the highest levels was powder, which for walkers is tiring to hike through and is also unstable, raising the risk of avalanches.
Mr MacInnes, who has written extensively on hillwalking and climbing, said climate change could be a cause of this year's heavy snowfalls. He said he had been critical of climate change science in the past.
"I wrote an apology to the people who predicted climate change," he said.
"I thought it was just a historical pattern, it probably is to a large extent, but I did kind of poo-pooed the idea of climate change."
The veteran mountaineer added: "This snow is not just something happening in Scotland.
"This turmoil is throughout the world. I have been in contact with people from all over the world, people in rescue teams, and they have got the same pattern - even more pronounced than us."
Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, the UK's busiest MRT, has suggested that the snow and also frequent strong winds have discouraged some walkers and climbers from heading into the hills.
Team leader John Stevenson told BBC Radio Scotland: "It has been a quiet year. People are either behaving themselves, or the conditions are too bad for them to go out.
"The conditions haven't been good this winter. There is no big route climbing going on."
Mr Stevenson said there were plenty of safe areas for walkers to enjoy, but said they should check weather and avalanche risk forecasts before heading out and also make sure that they are well equipped for winter conditions.
The team leader said even highly experienced mountaineers could be caught out.
He said that during a call-out on Saturday two members of the Lochaber team fell through a cornice - an overhanging edge of snow - and another was caught in an avalanche. All three were unhurt.
Mr Stevenson said: "It always something we have to expect will happen, but I think this time the boys got a bit of a wake up call."
He added: "There have been some huge avalanches this winter. You can see them from the road."
The Sportscotland Avalanche Information Service (SAIS) has recorded 219 avalanches so far this season, 116 of them in the last month.
Last winter, the service recorded 129 avalanches.
SAIS forecasters and winter skills instructors including Andreas Heinzl have been photographing the conditions this winter in areas such as the Cairngorms, Glencoe and Torridon.


From a distance Castelluccio looks the same as it has done for 1,000 years, a beautiful hilltop town in the midst of one of Italy's most celebrated plains, the Piano Grande.

But even from the road below the village you can see the buildings are shattered, roofs collapsed, more reminiscent of a war zone than the Umbrian countryside.
Nearly a year on from the earthquakes which devastated this region of central Italy, visitors have just been allowed back into the so-called "zona rossa" near Castellucio, although not the village itself.
The red zone marks areas still regarded as too dangerous to visit but an exception was made for people to see "La Fioritura". This is a spectacular showing of wild flowers in the meadows of the Piano Grande.
We joined a convoy of around 40 cars to be taken through army road blocks high up into the Sibillini mountains.
Village after village showed the impact of the earthquakes that hit this region, first in August 2016 and then again in October.
These villages look as if the earthquake had just happened, instead of nearly a year ago. Most of the people who lived there have been moved to hotels on the coast.
We left our cars on top of a high ridge and trekked for two hours down on to the plain, overlooked by the jagged peak of Monte Vettore, which marks the boundary between Umbria and Le Marche.
A deep, black crack could be seen high up on the mountainside which had appeared after the earthquake.
As we came down on to the plain, extraordinary splashes of colour came into view, reminiscent of an Impressionist canvas.
Meadows were tinted red with swathes of poppies, others bright blue with cornflowers. Normally there would be 10,000 visitors a day to photograph the splendours of the Fioritura, we were told. This year it is in the hundreds.
There are more beehives than people in the fields.
The 16 sq km (6 sq miles) Piano Grande - literally the big plain - was once a glacier lake and is surrounded by mountains.
It is here that the farmers of Castelluccio plant their lentils, a crop that has become famous amongst foodies around the world.
This year they were only allowed in by convoy to prepare for the season ahead. No-one is allowed up into what has become a ghost village. It was once the highest inhabited village in Italy at 1,452m (4,760 ft).
Below what has been his home for generations, Lorenzo Caponecchi is selling lentils and wild peas in a stall by the side of the road.
I wondered why it was taking time for rebuilding to begin. Was it because these were such old buildings or was it a question of money?
No, said his partner Monia Falzetti angrily. "It's the state and the politicians. There is plenty of money from the EU but we aren't seeing any of it."
Other former inhabitants of Castelluccio are so angry at the lack of help that they believe visitors should not be allowed into the Piano Grande.
It is the tourism of rubble, they proclaim.
But the local mayor told La Repubblica that the flowers of the Piano Grande do not just belong to the people of Castelluccio. They are the world's heritage and, besides, more tourism will help the local economy.
Side by side in this unique valley, you can see the sublime beauty of nature at its most spectacular but also the forces of nature at its most destructive.
In a few moments here houses that existed for hundreds of years were torn down and reverted to stones.


So what changes might we see to the national curriculum, which has been part and parcel of how pupils in Wales have been taught since the late 1980?

The national curriculum was given the go-ahead in 1988 under education reforms by the then education secretary Kenneth Baker and started to be taught in schools in September 1989.
Mr Baker had said that "we can no longer leave individual teachers, schools or local authorities to devise the curriculum that children should follow".
The world was a bit different 26 years ago - the mobile phone was in its infancy; the internet had not been invented.
There have been attempts at tweaks since but this has led to an over-complicated and incoherent system.
Prof Graham Donaldson of Glasgow University - a former teacher and chief inspector of schools - was asked to lead a wide-ranging review by the Welsh government nearly a year ago.
Prof Donaldson wants to do away with the idea of having four key stages in schools.
He says the "transitions" between them leads to too much of a disconnect for pupils; that teachers and schools do not see the education system as one long process, but rather a series of blocks.
They all have different characteristics which are "unhelpful" for pupils whereas they should feel their time in school is one "journey". It is all too complicated at the moment, it is seen as "stop-start".
So he wants to see five "progression steps" at three-year intervals.
The idea is that, instead of going from stage to stage, a pupil's time in school will be one long process.
It would mean, for example, that primary and secondary schools would have to work together much better, rather than being seen as a "new beginning".
At the moment in Wales there is a Literacy and Numeracy Framework (LNF). Those two elements are embedded into every aspect of the curriculum; they're weaved into every subject.
For example, even pupils in PE lessons are expected to work out the maths of how far they run and how quickly.
Prof Donaldson wants that to continue, but wants a third cross-curricular element to be included - digital competence.
Testing in schools should continue but be very different to what we have now.
At the moment, pupils are tested every year in Wales from the age of seven. The results are used to track and monitor the progress of pupils and also to judge the relative success of schools.
This needs to change. Without saying so explicitly, Prof Donaldson suggests very heavily that there is too much testing and that it is not being used correctly.
He thinks pupils should be tested less often, and that it should be "part of learning".
At the moment he thinks there is too much emphasis on testing for accountability rather than for learning.
He said: "Testing can be an important learning tool. And if I'd have to choose between accountability and learning, I'd go with learning every time."
In his report there will be more details about what tests should look like in future, although he thinks there needs to be a conversation within the profession about how they should be used in future.
But he added: "There needs to be a radically different way of working in future."
At the moment, Prof Donaldson thinks the national curriculum is too prescriptive. It does not give schools the flexibility they need to tailor teaching to their own needs.
In England, academies make up half of all schools. They have much more freedom over what they teach. This should not happen in Wales.
He says there should still be a central curriculum but schools will be able to interpret the curriculum, rather than have to follow every element to the dot.
He added we should stop obsessing about comparing ourselves to England.
At the moment, subjects are taught within a "core" and "non-core" framework. It basically ranks subjects in order of importance: English, Welsh, science and maths are the core subjects.
The non-core subjects are: art and design, design and technology, geography, history, information and communication technology, modern foreign language, music, physical education and Welsh as a second language.
This needs to go, Prof Donaldson says and instead there should be six areas of learning.
Prof Donaldson will not be drawn on a precise timescale but is keen that while we do not rush it we do not lose momentum either.
Education Minister Huw Lewis has said it could take a decade or more of "heavy lifting and hard work" from teachers before the new curriculum is in place.
Wednesday's announcement will not be the end. To paraphrase Churchill, it will not even be the "beginning of the end". It will, however, "be the end of the beginning".


British high jumper Isobel Pooley is currently working towards a place in Team GB's squad for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The 22-year-old, who won a silver medal for England at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, set a new British record in outdoor competition of 1.97m in 2015.
In her latest BBC column, Pooley discusses sexism in sport, indulging at Christmas and how to eat healthily the rest of the time.
Fortunately, sexism isn't an issue I've encountered within athletics. I'm aware that female sportspeople are sometimes objectified but I think the same thing happens to men - who hasn't swooned over Roger Federer or Anthony Joshua? (Sorry, Anthony!).
I'd rather earn respect and admiration for my physical achievements than my looks. When I'm training and competing, I am far more concerned with my performance than whether I might look stereotypically feminine or otherwise.
I think commitment, skill and ability are some of the most attractive traits in a partner. A guy is more likely to win me over with intelligent conversation and perfect grammar than with overstated confidence and good looks.
I'd like to think that I can view sportsmen purely as athletes but that seems unrealistic to me - there are always other factors at play. The important thing is to respect the context in which people are in front of you and what they're trying to achieve.
It saddens me to read that objectification and sexualisation makes some women feel undermined and not taken seriously in their professional roles, but I think this can change. All I can say is, if you don't take me seriously then it's at your own risk!
Over time, I've become self-confident enough to not let other people's negative comments affect my opinion of myself. It's always lovely to receive a compliment but sometimes people do miss the point - I'm out there trying to jump high and break records, not to look sexy or - thank goodness - skinny.
Speaking of trying to look skinny, it's only a few weeks into January and the media seems to be really pushing the idea of "shedding your Christmas belly" and giving up all sorts of food types. While I'm strongly in support of healthy eating and I know all about weight control, I'm finding it a bit overwhelming and, frankly, depressing.
While everybody did probably overindulge over Christmas and it's never a bad idea to improve your diet, the harsh self-dislike and wildly ambitious fitness ventures that are encouraged at this time of year have no place in my lifestyle.
Christmas is a time for togetherness and celebration. If you're going to chastise yourself for every excessive treat you eat, then at least remember the good things too - the laughter, days off work and the gifts lovingly given.
When I was mulling over ideas for this blog, someone suggested that I could keep a food diary over Christmas. I was horrified! Christmas Day is one of the few times in the whole year where I deliberately don't think about what I'm eating in terms of health or nutrition, focusing instead on the taste and social enjoyment of celebrating with my family.
Hopefully you won't be surprised to hear that I happily put away just as much turkey, Christmas pudding and chocolate as anyone else at the table and loved every indulgent mouthful. I had three days off training too, which was a rare treat and left me with bundles of energy and a new spring in my step.
Nonetheless, now we're into January it does seem like a good time to share some of my healthy-eating tips with you and give some insight about my diet as an elite athlete - and keen foodie!
Part of being a successful high jumper is maximising your power-to-weight ratio, which means becoming as light as possible while still being strong, healthy and happy. We train hard, so it's essential to keep up a steady supply of fuel and nutrients for our muscles - there's no intermittent fasting here.
I eat at least every three or four hours and have retrained myself to accept smaller portion sizes and different food choices so that I can really enjoy and embrace this aspect of my sporting lifestyle. Happily for me, I now really enjoy lighter options although this wasn't always the case - I nearly threw up the first time I tasted raw celery.
At home we always ate big, hearty portions but nowadays I totally accept that - at certain times of year - my plateful might need to look a bit different. When I eat out or with friends, I sometimes just ask for a smaller plate.
If Isobel's story has struck a chord or made you think more about body image, find out more about the #BodyPositive campaign here.
Even a simple crockery swap can make the difference between an enjoyable, appropriate meal and feeling stuffed afterwards. This is relevant to anybody wanting to lose weight as long as what you're eating is fairly balanced.
I love home-cooking and living alone gives me total control over what I eat during the week. Eating consistently lower-calorie, nutrient-packed meals means that if I'm eating out at the weekend and fancy something more indulgent, I don't need to panic too much if there isn't a pile of vegetables on my plate or we are all having dessert.
I'm only human and can't deny that sweet and fatty treats are sometimes delicious. My theory is that if I ate these every day they wouldn't be special any more and, more importantly, they would negatively affect my weight goals. Once every couple of weeks though, these treats contribute to a sense of well-being and give me more motivation for the other days when I eat the freshest, healthiest diet I can manage.


Former Premier League manager Harry Redknapp has said his players bet on the result of one of their matches, the Daily Telegraph has claimed.

Football Association rules forbid players from betting on games in which they are involved, with managers expected to report any misconduct.
The paper has revealed several cases of alleged corruption in English football.
When contacted by the Telegraph, Redknapp, 69, said he did not think it was against the FA rules at the time.
The paper does not suggest that Redknapp knew the players were betting at the time of the match.
Redknapp has managed West Ham, Portsmouth, Southampton, Tottenham and Queens Park Rangers.
The article does not say at what match the alleged offence took place, or which club was involved.
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Italian Pino Pagliara, who appears in the video alongside fellow agent Dax Price, told the BBC on Friday that his previous claims that eight current and ex-Premier League managers took bribes was a lie.
In the video, Price claimed that both sets of players involved in the match in question bet on the result.
Redknapp was filmed seemingly talking about third-party ownership - a system where private investors can own part of a player's economic rights.
The system is banned by the FA, which governs English football, and world governing body Fifa.
According to the Telegraph, on third-party ownership Redknapp said: "What's the objection? You're helping clubs to buy players because they can't afford them, you'd think they'd be only too pleased."
When contacted by the Telegraph, Redknapp said third-party ownership was "not something that I've ever been involved in, and it's not something that I'd want to get involved in".
Sam Allardyce left his post as England manager on Tuesday, making a "whole-hearted apology" in the wake of allegations in the newspaper that he told undercover reporters how it was possible to "get around" rules on player transfers.
On Thursday, Southampton's assistant manager Eric Black was alleged to have given advice on how to bribe officials at other clubs, with the Premier League club requesting a full transcript of the meeting. He denies the claims.
Barnsley assistant boss Tommy Wright was sacked on Thursday over claims he took cash for trying to engineer certain transfers, allegations he has "categorically denied".
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, manager of fellow Championship side QPR, has denied "any accusations of wrongdoing" after being filmed apparently negotiating a fee to travel to Singapore to speak to the Far East firm, with the club postponing an internal investigation.


An airshow is returning to Teesside for the first time in more than 25 years.

The Tees Valley Airshow will take place on 29 August at Durham Tees Valley airport for the first time since 1989.
The show, which will also see a live music event on the night, is being organised by Skylive Events and the Peel Group, which operates the airport.
Chris Petty, from Skylive Events, said he was "excited" to put on a "fantastic airshow" for the region which will be a "full family day out".
Mr Petty said: "It's going to be fantastic for the whole region - for local businesses, local charities, we're going to get everybody involved because it's the region's airshow.
"We want to improve on it year on year, this isn't just a one-off event."
Organisers tried to bring back the airshow in 2013, but a "lack of operational support" meant it could not go ahead.


The BBC's Quentin Sommerville is embedded with the Iraqi army as they attempt to retake western Mosul - the last urban redoubt of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq.

He spent the first day of the offensive with the special forces troops of the Emergency Response Division as they cleared villages south of the city.
Here are some of his pictures.


Five government commissioners have been selected to run Rotherham Council after a report found the local authority "not fit for purpose" over its handling of child sexual exploitation in the town.

Sir Derek Myers, Stella Manzie, Malcolm Newsam, Mary Ney and Julie Kenny will head the council until 31 March 2019.
They replace the cabinet following the Casey Report's criticism of its woeful response to child exploitation.
Last year the Jay Report found 1,400 children had been subjected to abuse.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has also promised £250,000 to help set up an outreach project to help victims.
He said the commissioners would remain in control of Rotherham Council until the end of March 2019, but added that powers would likely be passed back to the local authority throughout that period.
He said: "I expect that there will be a phased roll back of powers to the authority as and when there can be confidence that the authority could exercise a function in compliance with the best value duty, and in the case of children's social care, to the required standard."
Sir Derek will be lead commissioner and command fees of £800 a day, Ms Manzie will take the role of the managing director commissioner with an annual fee of £160,000 and Mr Newsam will be nominated as children's social care commissioner.
Ms Ney and Ms Kenny will be supporting commissioners. The latter three will all be paid fees of £700 a day.
Rotherham Council has been told it will be expected to pay the commissioners' fees plus any "reasonable expenses".
The youth project funding will be provided with the aim of setting up an organisation similar to the Risky Business project, which repeatedly raised the issue of child abuse in the town before effectively being closed down by the council.
"Risky Business is now missing from Rotherham," said Mr Pickles. "This should not continue, and historic victims of child sexual exploitation should be given the help they need."
Mr Pickles said elections would be held in Rotherham in 2016 but rejected a Ukip call to put the whole council up for election in the forthcoming May poll.
He said: "I have carefully considered this, but I am clear that making such a change only some two months before the elections is neither practicable nor desirable."
Councillors elected in Rotherham next year will have to work under the instructions of the commissioners.
Sir Derek was knighted last year for services to local government in London.
Until he retired in November 2013, he was chief executive of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea at the same time.


It's no big deal for comedians to play sold-out arena shows these days - just look at Peter Kay and Michael McIntrye.

But it was unheard of before 1993, when Rob Newman and then comedy partner David Baddiel became the first comics to sell out Wembley Arena.
With Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, they formed The Mary Whitehouse Experience in the 1990s, before getting their own show, Newman and Baddiel in Pieces.
It was such a success the pair went on tour - but by then the cracks were showing.
They later admitted that for part of the tour, the only time they spoke to each other was to deliver lines.
Baddiel said in an interview: "It was incredibly acrimonious. I remember people saying at the time that it was a publicity stunt, but it really wasn't. We weren't speaking at times, except on stage... It's interesting in terms of fame, in that it's quite toxic, and it certainly was in that relationship."
Newman - now a writer as much as a comedian - was "affected by fame" and became a "difficult person to work with", he said at the time. Baddiel went on to further fame on Fantasy Football with Frank Skinner, while Newman pretty much retreated from the limelight.
So imagine fans' delight when Newman got back in touch with his former partner earlier this year.
In a slightly clunky tweet, he requested free tickets to Baddiel's show about his father's dementia (inspiring one reply of "See that freeloader? That's you, that is", in a nod to their catchphrase).
He said the show was "heart-warming" and "very, very funny". It was the first time they'd been in the same room since 1993 - though Baddiel said they'd bumped into each other a few times "in various parks and streets".
And now, they've been publicly reunited at the Harper Collins summer party - leading to many fans (and some fellow celebs) pinning their hopes on them getting back together.
Others said they hoped it meant they were getting back together for a one-off series - but Baddiel has previously vowed they would never work together again.
While that might dash the hopes of comedy fans, at least they're on speaking terms.
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Iran's defence minister has confirmed that it tested a missile over the weekend, but denied it had violated a UN Security Council resolution.

Hossein Dehghan said the test was "in line with our plans" and insisted that the country would "not allow foreigners to interfere in our defence affairs".
The US warned on Tuesday that the test, reportedly of a medium-range ballistic missile, was "absolutely unacceptable".
Iran has carried out several since a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
A 2010 Security Council resolution, which barred Iran from undertaking any work on "ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads", was terminated after the nuclear deal was implemented a year ago.
It was replaced by a new resolution, 2231, which "calls upon" Iran not to "undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology".
Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and that it will continue missile development.
CIA's Brennan warns Trump over Iran deal
Iran nuclear deal: Key details
Mr Dehghan did not say what type of missile was tested, but he stressed it was not a breach of the nuclear deal nor resolution 2231.
Iran only produced weapons to defend its "goals and national interests", he added.
His comments came after the UN Security Council held a special session to discuss the issue.
US permanent representative Nikki Haley said Iran was believed to have tested a ballistic missile capable of carrying a 500kg (1,100lb) payload and with a range of more than 300km (187 miles). "That is more than enough to be able to deliver a nuclear weapon," she added.
Ms Haley said that was something the world "should be alarmed about".
"The United States is not naive," she added. "We are not going to stand by. You will see us call them out as we said we would and you are also going to see us act accordingly."
The Security Council's member states requested a report on the test from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and a UN committee.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier said that "Iranian aggression must not go unanswered" and that he would discuss renewing sanctions on Iran when he met US President Donald Trump in Washington later this month. Both men were fierce critics of the nuclear accord.


A 16-year-old boy has been arrested after three people were stabbed at a shop in Manchester.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) were called to Grove Village Parade on Stockport Road in the Ardwick area of the city at about 12:50 BST.
While one woman is being treated in hospital, police said none of the three victims were in a serious condition.
The teenager, who has not been named, has been held on suspicion of wounding and attempted robbery.


Up to 600 jobs are under threat at an oil and gas engineering firm in West Yorkshire.

Staff at OneSubsea have been told it was considering stopping manufacturing at their Leeds factory in 2017.
It blamed the "most severe downturn of the past 30 years" in the oil and gas industry, with "operators significantly reducing their investment".
OneSubsea has 929 staff in Leeds. Some will remain at its site on Queen Street, Stourton, under the proposals.
In a statement, it said a drop in orders meant many of its plants were "underutilized".
More on this story and others in West Yorkshire
The firm, whose parent company is oilfield services giant Schlumberger, said it would hold a 45-day consultation period on the plans.
A spokesperson said: "This is only a proposal at this stage and we will be conducting consultation with the unions and employee representatives and make every effort to try and mitigate as much as possible the impact on our employees."
The union Unite said the news had come "out of the blue".
Regional officer Chris Daly said: "We knew that there was a downturn in the oil price, but we had no inkling about the scale of such job losses.
"Unite's goal in the days and weeks ahead is to make the case to mitigate the job losses envisaged and offer our members the maximum support at this difficult and worrying time."
In the past year, Schlumberger has announced thousands of worldwide job losses amid a plunge in oil prices.
Hilary Benn, MP for Leeds Central, said: "It's a terrible blow, not just to OneSubsea, its workers and families, but it's also a blow to manufacturing.
"That's why I'm calling on the government to look at what it might be able to do to support the UK oil and gas industry."
"There's still oil and gas out there, but the low oil price means a lot of companies have said it's too expensive at the moment for us to go and find it," the Labour MP added.
According to its website, OneSubsea creates "integrated solutions, products, systems and services for the subsea oil and gas market".


Outrage is growing in China over a video that appears to show mistreatment of two giant panda babies at a famed research facility in Chengdu.

In the video, which has since gone viral, a staff member can be seen "dragging and throwing" the cubs.
The incident has drawn criticism from Chinese netizens, who have raised concerns about animal cruelty.
However, panda keeper Guo Jingpeng defended himself saying the cubs were being violent.
Mr Guo told state news agency Xinhua that what is not shown in the video is that he was bitten during a feeding.
"The cub bit my hand really hard. Its teeth cut into my flesh and my hand started bleeding," he said, adding that his hand still remained scarred.
"When it tried to bite me again, I pushed it away out of instinct."
Mr Guo also said he felt he had been wronged by the footage being circulated online this week, which was recorded earlier in July.
"The online community claims we don't love pandas. But we choose to stay and work here because we love these creatures," he told local media.
"I just want to clarify that the footage showing me "throwing" the panda was a natural reaction."
Colleagues of Mr Guo told local media that he had since been "criticised and educated" by the facility.
The giant panda is regarded as a symbol of China and is a highly-protected species under the government.
The official panda facility in Chengdu, Sichuan province is dedicated to preserving the species, which is now no longer considered endangered.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding has responded to the "inappropriate" incident, ordering their staff to treat the pandas "gently", even if they scratch or bite, according to Xinhua.
"When we first saw the video, we thought the staff members had overreacted even though they meant no harm to the pandas," Wu Kongju, a panda expert, told Xinhua.
"We hope people can show more understanding towards the panda keepers. Although giant pandas look cute, they are quite strong and can be violent."
But the controversial interaction caused a stir in China, a nation of fierce and protective panda lovers.
On the popular Sina Weibo micro-blogging site, many called for Mr Guo's resignation over his "manhandling" of the cubs.
"I don't care what he has to say, they were just babies," wrote Loo Jiaying from the capital Beijing.
"It made me so angry to watch him throw a defenceless cub around. If he was so worried about his safety, why wasn't he wearing protective equipment like gloves?"
Other netizens called it "blatant animal abuse" and voiced anger at the situation.
One Weibo user questioned the whole government facility. "We have always thought that the Chengdu centre was set up to save our national animal. It did great work in the past and made many Chinese people happy with its panda baby pictures," he wrote.
"This incident has definitely changed my opinion about its operations and objectives."


A Kenyan man with a brain tumour has thanked people for donating towards his treatment following a Twitter appeal.

Emmanuel Jadudi tweeted that he was "overwhelmed" and did not know how to thank them for the money raised.
On Tuesday, popular Kenyan blogger Jackson Biko urged Kenyans to donate money to help Mr Jadudi fly to India for a fourth brain operation.
In two days, they raised more than $60,000 (Â£38,000), which was six times the amount requested.
"He doesn't have much time left. He needs our help to fly out to India for a fourth brain surgery... he needs 1m [Kenyan] shillings [$10,000] by Saturday," Mr Biko wrote on his blog Bikozulu on Tuesday.
"We all have the power to help this boy. We have the power to show our compassion to a stranger in need."
He urged people to donate and spread the message using the hashtag #1MilliForJadudi and gave the details of an M-Pesa account, through which money can be transferred via mobile phones.
Mr Jadudi, who was in his third year at university studying political science and sociology when he was first diagnosed in 2012, tweeted: "I am beyond grateful I'm overwhelmed with joy."


Fans have gathered to honour Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher at a public memorial service in Los Angeles, three months after the actresses died.

The mother and daughter are being remembered in the 1,200-seat theatre at Hollywood's Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
On the programme are a tribute song by James Blunt and a performance by the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles.
Singin' in the Rain's Reynolds, 84, and Star Wars actress Fisher, 60, died within a day of each other in December.
Reynolds starred in a string of classic Hollywood films in the 1950s and 1960s, while her daughter was best-known for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars films.
"There were no finer people that I have ever known than my mother and sister," Todd Fisher, who organised the service, said on stage.
The brother of Carrie and son of Debbie described the moments before his mother died: "She literally asked permission and said she wanted to be with Carrie.
"She closed her eyes and went to sleep. It was a very peaceful exit that only my mother could orchestrate. It was a beautiful exit."
Carrie Fisher died aged 60 on 27 December, days after suffering a cardiac arrest. Her mother died a day later after a suspected stroke.
Earlier Mr Fisher said the public was invited to the memorial "because that's how my mother would want it".
He added that she was "very connected to her fans and felt they were a part of her".
James Blunt was friends with Carrie Fisher and recorded part of his debut album in her bathroom. His tribute song will be accompanied by a montage of photographs of the pair.
Todd Fisher called it a "beautiful song to Carrie", adding that "it might rip your heart out".
Dancers from the Debbie Reynolds Studio performed a tribute to Singin' In The Rain at the event, which is being live streamed on debbiereynolds.com.
The public ceremony follows a private memorial service, which took place in January and was attended by stars including Meryl Streep, Gwyneth Paltrow and Meg Ryan.
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A 21-year-old man has been charged with two counts of trespass after climbing a gate at Buckingham Palace, police say.

The Metropolitan Police said Daniel Sheehan, of no fixed address, had been charged on Saturday.
He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday.
No members of the Royal Family are thought to have been at the palace at the time of the alleged incident on Friday.
The Queen had undertaken an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle earlier in the day.


Manu Tuilagi will "thrive" at Leicester this season despite his latest disciplinary lapse, says Tigers team-mate Ben Youngs.

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Tuilagi was sent home from the England camp by head coach Eddie Jones after a night out earlier this month.
"It is frustrating, but I know Manu is surrounded by the right people now," Youngs said.
"He has got himself where he needs to be. He's back fit and he just wants to play."
He told the Rugby Union Weekly podcast: "I have no doubt that this year, if he stays fit, all his talking will be done on the rugby field. I'm absolutely confident he will thrive this year."
Tuilagi has been plagued by injury over the past couple of seasons, and has not started for England since the summer of 2014.
His head coach at Leicester, Matt O'Connor, believes the "mental torture" of injury has contributed to Tuilagi's disciplinary problems, which include assaulting two female police officers in 2015.
"As a mate and a team-mate and a supporter and a rugby fan, I just want to see him fulfil his potential," Youngs said.
"We all know that on his day he is an incredible player, some would say the world's best centre on his day.
"I don't want to speak for him, but I will always support my team-mates. He has had two and a half years of watching everyone else play well.
"So demons in your head start playing. You have two and a half years of that and you become this myth as such, and that becomes very frustrating.
"Unfortunately, his frustration has come out in other avenues that are not so smart."
Meanwhile, Youngs says he has no regrets over pulling out of this summer's British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand to spend time with his family.
Youngs' sister-in-law Tiffany, wife of brother Tom, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
"The whole family has been overwhelmed by the support we received. We are very grateful for that," Youngs said.
"We had a lovely summer together and managed to do lots and create memories.
"The decision was genuinely very easy for me to make. It was a very simple decision. I have many years of rugby, but what I can't do is get those times back. It was a decision I'm very glad I made."
Hear the full interview with Ben Youngs on the Rugby Union Weekly podcast.


Leicester City's summer transfer plans will focus on strong-minded players who work hard without the ball, says head of recruitment Steve Walsh.

The club won the Premier League this season on a relatively small budget and with low possession statistics.
Players will not be signed on ability alone, Walsh told BBC Radio 5 live.
"It's about making sure the players you bring in are strong of character, and can do the tasks we ask them to do when we haven't got the ball," he said.
Walsh, who is one of the club's two assistant managers in addition to being head of recruitment, agreed a new contract on Sunday, having been widely credited with finding bargain signings such as Riyad Mahrez, signed from French second-tier club Le Havre for £400,000 in January 2014.
People think we play with two in midfield, and I say 'No. We play with Danny Drinkwater in the middle and with Kante either side'
Leicester's squad as a whole was assembled for £57m, making it the cheapest of any in the top half of this season's Premier League.
Walsh said: "If you just needed to get all the best players, talent scouting would be easy, wouldn't it? You've got to look at the players maybe through different eyes and see what they can achieve. That's the skill.
"We have a DNA. For me, it's not just about their ability on the ball. It's what they're prepared to give to the team when we haven't got it.
"Obviously, the character of the person shines through. If you're prepared to put in a shift when we haven't got the ball, that says a lot about you in terms of your work ethic."
Arguably Leicester's most significant signing last summer was that of French midfielder N'Golo Kante, brought in from Caen for £5.6m.
Described as the best midfielder in this season's Premier League by former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, Kante's ball-winning skills were key to the fast, counter-attacking style that has brought the title to the King Power Stadium.
The midfielder arrived shortly after the appointment of Ranieri, after Walsh persistently urged the Italian to secure a deal by telling him: "Kante, Claudio, Kante."
"We did have that conversation," Walsh said. "But obviously he took my advice, brought him in and the rest, as they say, is history.
"People think we play with two in midfield, and I say 'No. We play with Danny Drinkwater in the middle and we play with Kante either side, giving us essentially 12 players on the pitch.'"
Mahrez, Kante and prolific striker Jamie Vardy are the three players most often cited when illustrating the success of Leicester's recruitment.
But for Walsh, a Lancashire-born former schoolteacher who scouted for Jose Mourinho and who has been with the Foxes in two spells since 2008, the real satisfaction has come in building a title-winning squad from scratch.
"Sven Goran Eriksson brought in Kasper Schmeichel in 2011," Walsh said. "But apart from him, and the kids who have come through the academy, such as Andy King and Jeff Schlupp, we scouted them all.
"Christian Fuchs, the left-back who we got on a free transfer from Schalke, scored against Real Madrid in the Champions League at the Bernabeu last year. He's captain of Austria. He wanted to come. It was a no brainer."
Walsh admits that he and fellow assistant Craig Shakespeare were "upset" when manager Nigel Pearson was sacked by Leicester at the end of last season, and were not sure what to expect when Ranieri took over.
Pearson and Walsh had worked together for nine years, firstly when the former Sheffield Wednesday captain was assistant manager at Newcastle, and then through his two spells as boss at Leicester either side of a stint at Hull.
"I had big ties with Nigel, and both Craig and I were very upset when he left," Walsh said. "They chose Claudio, for whatever reason, and it's been a fantastic success. We've all gelled and worked together.
"Claudio knows what he wants. I think that's the easiest way to put it. He definitely wants to keep a clean sheet and he definitely wants people to defend.
"It was a while before he kept a clean sheet, hence he put together the idea of going out for a pizza. That tells a tale, doesn't it?"
Ranieri's willingness to treat the players as grown-ups led to him giving them a week off in February when they had a gap in their fixture list, which striker Vardy feels was key to their title win.
The England forward said:  "It was a great idea. I remember sitting on a sun lounger in Dubai and in the same hotel, Sunderland were there running up and down the beach doing fitness. For me to be relaxing while they're doing the training was quite nice."
Leicester's success was aided by the fact that Ranieri managed to keep his players relatively free of injuries - and by a light fixture list.
Ranieri's team have played only five cup ties all season, while fellow top-four sides Tottenham and Arsenal have had 15 each, and Manchester City 21.
Walsh has acknowledged that Leicester will need a bigger squad to cope with the demands of a minimum of six Champions League fixtures next season, in addition to domestic commitments.
"I think we're going to need more personnel," he said. "We'll go from playing one game a week this year to two games a week. That, in itself, says you need more personnel on the ground.
"But we're in the Champions League now. It's fantastic for Leicester to actually be in the Champions League. Liverpool haven't won the Premier League. That says it all, doesn't it?"
Vardy, the Football Writers' Association's player of the year, has indicated that the prospect of Champions League football will keep him at Leicester, even if other clubs try to sign him.
"We've just won the league and will be playing in the Champions League next year," the forward said. "I am happy here."


A footballer who hit an opponent with a "reckless" tackle before breaking the man's jaw has been jailed for a year.

Ross Sinclair was playing in the Dundee Sunday Amateur league when the incident happened.
A jury heard Plough Athletic player Sinclair brought down Josh McHugh with a late tackle just minutes before the end of the match.
A fight broke out leaving Mr McHugh with a broken jaw which had to be fitted with two metal plates.
He later said he did not want Sinclair to be jailed for the attack, but Sheriff Alastair Brown said sentencing "couldn't be left to the victim" and jailed him for a year.
Mr McHugh told a jury at Dundee Sheriff Court that he could only eat soup for three months after the attack.
The court was told the incident caused the game between Plough Athletic and Queen Anne to be stopped and a mass brawl then erupted off the pitch.
Fiscal Depute Eilidh Robertson told the jury: "If someone acts aggressively towards you, even punches you, and you respond by running up behind them whilst they are being dragged away and assault them from behind by striking them so hard that you break their jaw then that is not self defence, that is retaliation."
Sinclair, 20, of Forfar, denied a charge of assault to severe injury, but a jury of eight men and seven women took just an hour to convict him.
His defence solicitor said there was genuine regret on Sinclair's part.
Sheriff Brown said: "You approached the complainer, who was being ushered away, and punched him so hard that bystanders heard his jaw being broken.
"This was not an incident in a game of football. It was an unprovoked and deliberate assault which caused serious injury.
"I can see no alternative but imprisonment."


Relegated Port Vale have received an offer from a Burslem-based IT company to buy the League One club.

Following owner Norman Smurthwaite's decision to stand down as chairman, Synectics Solutions have made an offer of £1.25m, reports BBC Radio Stoke.
That is the same figure Smurthwaite and his former business partner Paul Wildes paid when they bought Port Vale out of administration in November 2012.
Synectics Solutions is owned by Kevin and Carol Shanahan, from Stafford.
They moved the business from Newcastle-under-Lyme to Hamil Road, Burslem, close to Vale Park, two years ago.
They say they would not have to borrow money to buy the club and have the funds to run it.
Smurthwaite has previously said that he has put £3.7m worth of loans into Port Vale since he has been the owner.
Vale, who confirmed the appointment of Michael Brown as their manager on Wednesday, were relegated last Sunday after four seasons in League One.
Port Vale have agreed one-year contracts with three of their young players - midfielder Billy Reeves, 20, goalkeeper Ryan Boot, 22, and striker Dan Turner, 18.
Welshman Reeves, who has an option to extend the deal when it expires in June 2018, follows the lead set by Danny Pugh on Thursday.
He has made 12 appearances, eight of them as substitute, since making his debut at Southend in early March.
Boot, who made his first Vale appearance in the 2-2 home draw with Bury in January, has previously been out on loan in non-league with Worcester City (twice) and Macclesfield Town.
Turner, who spent two months out on loan at Worcester, has made 19 appearances, mostly as substitute, but is yet to score his first goal.


Wasps flanker Sam Jones is one of seven uncapped players named in England coach Eddie Jones' 37-man training squad ahead of the autumn Tests.

Leicester's Zimbabwe-born flanker Mike Williams is included, as is Wasps' Fiji-born back-rower Nathan Hughes.
Harlequins' 20-year-old centre Joe Marchant, Wasps' Dan Robson, Sale's Josh Beaumont and Worcester's Ben Te'o are the other uncapped players.
And there is a surprise return for Gloucester number eight Ben Morgan.
The back row forward has not played for England since the World Cup last year.
The 37-man squad will gather in Brighton on Sunday for a three-day camp, with the final squad to be announced on 26 October.
England's first game of the autumn series is against South Africa on Saturday, 12 November, before matches against Fiji, Argentina and Australia.
With James Haskell and Jack Clifford ruled out by injury, Wasps flanker Jones is now a prime contender to play at open-side against the Springboks.
"We're not looking for your traditional seven [open-side flanker] because at the moment we don't have that in England," said Jones.
"We're looking for a more destructive, defensive-type player like a Haskell, so Sam Jones and Mike Williams come into that category."
Haskell will attend the camp but will not train as he continues his recovery from the toe injury that finally gave up on him in the second-Test win against Australia this summer.
Saracens' fly-half Alex Lozowski has been included in a wider 45-man Elite Player Squad, but will be not be part of next week's training camp.
Northampton back rower Teimana Harrison and Exeter back Ollie Devoto will both be involved in the camp next week, but have not been named in the Elite Player Squad.
Captain and hooker Dylan Hartley and fly-half/inside centre Owen Farrell, who are both injury concerns as they are yet to return to action as they recover from back problems, will attend the training squad.
"Owen's injury is one of those where you never really know how long it's going to take to repair," said Jones.
"But he is the sort of player who can come back very quickly. He needs only a small amount of game time, so we're still confident he can be ready for November."
Notable absentees from the 45-man elite squad include Tom Youngs, Tom Wood, Luther Burrell and Danny Cipriani.
"They're are some disappointed players out there but it's not the end of the road for those guys," said Jones.
Expanding on Cipriani's omission, Jones said: "It was a difficult conversation. Danny knows what he's got to do. He's a talented player but at the moment he's not number one or two in England in terms of stand-offs.
"I don't see him as someone who comes in as [third or fourth choice]. He likes to be the main man. When he plays well enough, he'll be in the squad."
Jones also confirmed that England Under-20 backs and attack coach Rory Teague will join his staff in November as a part-time skills coach.
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"The 45-man Elite Player Squad is a type of legal agreement between the Rugby Football Union and Premiership clubs, and so it includes long-term injured players such as Haskell, Tuilagi and Clifford.
"Of far more relevance ahead of the autumn internationals is the 37-man training squad. All these players are fit - or nearly fit - for selection, and barring further injury it's from this group of players that Eddie Jones will select his matchday squad to take on South Africa." CJ
37-man training squad:
Forwards: Josh Beaumont (Sale Sharks); Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers); Jamie George (Saracens); Teimana Harrison (Northampton Saints) *injury replacement for James Haskell (Wasps); Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints); James Haskell (Wasps); Paul Hill (Northampton Saints); Nathan Hughes (Wasps); Maro Itoje (Saracens); Sam Jones (Wasps); George Kruis (Saracens); Joe Launchbury (Wasps); Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints); Joe Marler (Harlequins); Ben Morgan (Gloucester Rugby) *injury replacement for Jack Clifford (Harlequins); Chris Robshaw (Harlequins); Tommy Taylor (Wasps); Billy Vunipola (Saracens); Mako Vunipola (Saracens); Mike Williams (Leicester Tigers);
Backs: Mike Brown (Harlequins); Danny Care (Harlequins); Elliot Daly (Wasps); Ollie Devoto (Exeter Rugby) *injury replacement for Manu Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers); Owen Farrell (Saracens); George Ford (Bath Rugby); Alex Goode (Saracens); Jonathan Joseph (Bath Rugby); Joe Marchant (Harlequins); Jack Nowell (Exeter Chiefs); Dan Robson (Wasps); Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath Rugby); Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs); Ben Te'o (Worcester Warriors); Anthony Watson (Bath Rugby); Marland Yarde (Harlequins) *injury replacement for Jonny May (Gloucester Rugby); Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers)
45-man elite player squad:
Forwards: Josh Beaumont (Sale Sharks); Jack Clifford (Harlequins); Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers); Luke Cowan-Dickie (Exeter Chiefs); Will Evans (Leicester Tigers); Charlie Ewels (Bath Rugby); Ellis Genge (Leicester Tigers); Jamie George (Saracens); Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints); James Haskell (Wasps); Paul Hill (Northampton Saints); Nathan Hughes (Wasps); Maro Itoje (Saracens); Sam Jones (Wasps); George Kruis (Saracens); Joe Launchbury (Wasps); Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints); Joe Marler (Harlequins); Matt Mullan (Wasps); Chris Robshaw (Harlequins); Kyle Sinckler (Harlequins); Tommy Taylor (Wasps); Billy Vunipola (Saracens); Mako Vunipola (Saracens); Mike Williams (Leicester Tigers)
Backs: Mike Brown (Harlequins); Danny Care (Harlequins); Elliot Daly (Wasps); Owen Farrell (Saracens); George Ford (Bath Rugby); Alex Goode (Saracens); Mike Haley (Sale Sharks); Jonathan Joseph (Bath Rugby); Alex Lozowski (Saracens); Joe Marchant (Harlequins); Jonny May (Gloucester Rugby); Jack Nowell (Exeter Chiefs); Dan Robson (Wasps); Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath Rugby); Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs); Ben Spencer (Saracens); Ben Te'o (Worcester Warriors); Manu Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers); Anthony Watson (Bath Rugby); Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers)
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Japan's Nikkei index rebounded slightly on Tuesday, a day after stock markets had fallen in the wake of Greece's decision to reject the terms of an international bailout.

The Nikkei closed up 1.3% at 20,376.59.
Stock markets around the world had fallen on Monday in reaction to the "no" vote in Greece's referendum, but the declines were not as bad as feared.
On Tuesday, Greece is expected to present new proposals at a eurozone emergency summit.
The plan is said to include a demand for Greece's debt to be cut by up to 30%.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is maintaining its pressure on Greek banks, refusing to increase emergency lending and ordering them to provide more security for existing emergency loans.
On Monday, the main share indexes in the US all closed down about 0.3%. In Europe, London's FTSE 100 slipped 0.8%, France's Cac 40 dropped 2% and Germany's Dax index lost 1.5%.
The euro had dipped at first against major currencies on Monday, but then recovered later in the day.
Speaking on Monday, Neil Williams, chief economist at Hermes Investment Management, said: "Markets have yet to be convinced in full either that the [Greek] exit door will be open or that the extent of any contagion from this could be irreparably damaging to the system."


A Google artificial intelligence program has beaten the European champion of the board game Go.

The Chinese game is viewed as a much tougher challenge than chess for computers because there are many more ways a Go match can play out.
The tech company's DeepMind division said its software had beaten its human rival five games to nil.
One independent expert called it a breakthrough for AI with potentially far-reaching consequences.
The achievement was announced to coincide with the publication of a paper, in the scientific journal Nature, detailing the techniques used.
Earlier on Wednesday, Facebook's chief executive had said its own AI project had been "getting close" to beating humans at Go.
But the research he referred to indicated its software was ranked only as an "advanced amateur" and not a "professional level" player.
Go is thought to date back to ancient China, several thousand years ago.
Using black-and-white stones on a grid, players gain the upper hand by surrounding their opponents pieces with their own.
The rules are simpler than those of chess, but a player typically has a choice of 200 moves compared with about 20 in chess.
There are more possible positions in Go than atoms in the universe, according to DeepMind's team.
It can be very difficult to determine who is winning, and many of the top human players rely on instinct.
DeepMind's chief executive, Demis Hassabis, said its AlphaGo software followed a three-stage process, which began with making it analyse 30 million moves from games played by humans.
"It starts off by looking at professional games," he said.
"It learns what patterns generally occur - what sort are good and what sort are bad. If you like, that's the part of the program that learns the intuitive part of Go.
"It now plays different versions of itself millions and millions of times, and each time it gets incrementally better. It learns from its mistakes.
"The final step is known as the Monte Carlo Tree Search, which is really the planning stage.
"Now it has all the intuitive knowledge about which positions are good in Go, it can make long-range plans."
Tested against rival Go-playing AIs, Google's system won 499 out of 500 matches,
And last October, DeepMind invited Fan Hui, Europe's top player, to its London office for a series of games, each of which the AI won.
"Many of the best programmers in the world were asked last year how long it would take for a program to beat a top professional, and most of them were predicting 10-plus years," Mr Hassabis said.
"The reasons it was quicker than people expected was the pace of the innovation going on with the underlying algorithms and also how much more potential you can get by combining different algorithms together."
Prof Zoubin Ghahramani, of the University of Cambridge, said: "This is certainly a major breakthrough for AI, with wider implications.
"The technical idea that underlies it is the idea of reinforcement learning - getting computers to learn to improve their behaviour to achieve goals.
"That could be used for decision-making problems - to help doctors make treatment plans, for example, in businesses or anywhere where you'd like to have computers assist humans in decision making.
"It doesn't mean that Google is ahead of all other companies in AI - there are many artificial intelligences.
"But in terms of devoting resources to Go, Google has clearly done more.
"Facebook has achieved some pretty spectacular results in other areas of artificial intelligence, but I think Google has beaten them to this particularly important challenge."
DeepMind now intends to pit AlphaGo against Lee Sedol - the world's top Go player - in Seoul in March.
In addition, it continues to develop AI systems that can play computer games without any help, following last year's success at getting its bots to teach themselves how to play several dozen classics.
"For us, Go is the pinnacle of board game challenges," said Mr Hassabis.
"Now, we are moving towards 3D games or simulations that are much more like the real world rather than the Atari games we tackled last year. "


Two men have been rescued after they were found clinging to their upturned kayaks, which had blown out to sea.

It happened about 15:30 BST on Saturday near Waterfoot in County Antrim.
A member of the public spotted the men in the water shouting for help and raised the alarm.
The RNLI Red Bay Lifeboat crew brought them onto the lifeboat and safely ashore. The crew treated them at the scene.
It is understood the men were from Belfast and were visiting the area for the day.
RNLI Red Bay Lifeboat Helm Paddy McLaughlin urged those enjoying the sunny weather on the water to be careful.
"These men were very lucky their calls for help were heard and that the lifeboat crew were on scene so quickly," he said.
"We would advise everyone enjoying the water during the warm weather to take all necessary safety precautions including wearing a suitable flotation device and having a means of calling for help," he added.


Hatem Ben Arfa's penalty gave Newcastle an opening-day victory and ensured Andre Villas-Boas began his tenure as Tottenham manager with defeat.

Spurs hit the woodwork twice before Demba Ba put Newcastle ahead with a wonderful curling strike.
Jermain Defoe levelled from close range after Magpies boss Alan Pardew was
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But Ben Arfa won it from the spot after he was fouled by Aaron Lennon, picking himself up to slot past Brad Friedel.
A trip to the north east always looked a tricky start for Villas-Boas, against a Newcastle side aiming to build on their fifth-place finish last time out.
The Magpies were last season's surprise package but this time it is Spurs who are the unknown quantity, beginning life under a new manager who is rebuilding his reputation after his ill-fated stint at Chelsea and still constructing his squad.
That process will continue if and when Luka Modric leaves for Real Madrid before the end of the month and, on this evidence, Villas-Boas will surely intensify his efforts to sign Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor to bolster his attacking options.
Spurs had the better of the first half, new signing Gylfi Sigurdsson denied by Tim Krul - although the £8m Iceland midfielder did not know he had already been wrongly ruled offside.
"It's a winning start for Newcastle United. No points on the board for Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas, who might feel a little unlucky. They were the best team in the first half but Newcastle took their chances in the second half."
More opportunities followed before the break, with Defoe cutting into the area to prod a shot against the post, before Bale met Lennon's enticing cross with a header that looped back off the bar.
But Spurs could not make their chances count while, in contrast, Newcastle put away their first opening of note nine minutes after the break.
Kyle Walker failed to deal with Danny Simpson's cross and his header fell at the feet of Ba, who turned to curl home an unstoppable shot and end his run of 14 games without a goal.
The Magpies had Pardew sent off soon afterwards, the Newcastle boss pushing linesman Peter Kirkup after claiming the ball had gone out of play in the build-up to a Sigurdsson shot that flew wide.
And Pardew soon had more to get angry about from his vantage point high in the stands.
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Defoe saw his header from a Lennon cross hit Davide Santon before being scrambled on to the post by Krul, but, with the Newcastle defence static, he reacted quickest to fire home the loose ball.
Spurs were level for less than five minutes, however, as Ben Arfa delivered a timely reminder of what he is capable of when given space in the final third.
He burst into the area and, after being brought down by a combination of mis-timed challenges by Rafael van der Vaart and Lennon, sent Friedel the wrong way from the spot.
There was no way back from there for Tottenham, who only had teenager Harry Kane in the way of strikers to bring on from the bench and did not come close to salvaging a point in the final 10 minutes.
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Featherstone's Shaun Pick and South Wales' Ashley Bateman have been banned for two years for doping offences.

Pick, 21, and Bateman, 25, were caught with anabolic steroids in their systems during out-of-competition tests.
Both players have been suspended from all sport until December 2016.
"The players perhaps thought they had a better chance of getting away with it as it was pre-season," UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) head of science and medicine Nick Wojek told BBC Sport.
"The benefits for rugby players, in both codes, are clear with these kinds of substances. They also allow for a quicker recovery from training sessions or from injuries.
Wojek says that UKAD are taking greater steps to deter players from rugby league and union from taking banned substances.
Last week Neath back-row Lee Evans was banned for two years after he was found to have taken the anabolic steroid drostanolone - although UKAD director Graham Arthur said there was some evidence to support Evans's claim that he had not knowingly taken the banned substance.
"The rewards are potentially very big for players outside the top level attempting to obtain lucrative contracts and there is also an image issue to contend with," Wojek added.
"We are implementing a visible testing program and working with governing bodies to ensure that education strategies are in place within clubs.
"We're also looking to educate players in academies and at school level on the morals of taking banned substances."
Wales international three-quarter Bateman is the club's longest-serving player and signed a contract extension at the third tier side in October 2014.
Scorpions chairman Ian Curzon said: "It is hoped that he will return from this ban both a better person and a better player."
Featherstone forward Pick was a member of the Rovers team that lost 36-12 against Leigh Centurions in the 2014 Championship Grand Final but he has not played this season.
A statement issued by the West Yorkshire club said: "Featherstone Rovers are fully committed to the sport's anti-doping policy and players are educated by the club and governing body as to the penalties they could incur should a positive test be recorded."


The numbers of fatal police shootings and deaths after police pursuits in England and Wales both rose sharply in the last year, the latest figures show.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said there were six fatal police shootings between April 2016 to March 2017, up from three in 2015/16.
The number of deaths in police road traffic incidents rose by 11 to 32 - the biggest total in eight years.
The six shootings included that of Westminster attacker Khalid Masood.
It is the highest number in 12 years.
Twenty-eight of the road traffic deaths were related to police pursuits of vehicles.
Since the IPCC was set up in 2004, there have never been more than a handful of fatal police shootings in a year, so the fact there have been six is unlikely to raise alarm bells.
And, as the watchdog points out, the number has to be set in context: there were more than 14,700 police firearms operations during the same 12-month period - the vast majority pass off without a shot being fired, let alone anyone dying.
However, the sharp rise in pursuit-related deaths - after a concerted effort by police and the IPCC to reduce the number of such casualties - will prompt searching questions. Of the 28 who died, 18 were either passengers in the suspect vehicle or other road users.
Does the rise simply reflect an upsurge in criminal activity? Is it because suspects have become increasingly reckless? Or have police standards on the roads slipped?
The IPCC and the National Police Chiefs' Council will have to get to the bottom of it quickly.
Dame Anne Owers, chairwoman of the IPCC, said the six fatal shootings occurred across six forces.
The shooting of Khalid Masood was the only one related to terrorism.
The watchdog said the investigation into that case and two others had been completed and all three found no evidence of any misconduct by firearms officers.
In addition, another inquiry, which is still ongoing, is also yet to find any evidence of wrongdoing by police.
Investigations into two other shootings are still to conclude.
The National Police Chiefs Council and the IPCC will examine whether changes to police pursuit safety or training are needed after the rise in road traffic deaths, added Dame Anne.
The IPPC data also showed there were 14 deaths in police custody - the second lowest figure it has recorded.
Eight of the 14 people who died were reported to have mental health problems.