Authorities in Thailand have warned that kennels are fit to bursting after more than 2,000 dogs bound for dinner tables in South East Asia were seized in the last six months.

Dog is considered a delicacy in parts of Vietnam and China, and strays and domestic pets are being snatched in increasing numbers from Thailand's streets before they are transported abroad.
Sompong Lertjitcharoenboon's dog, Tao Tao, was stolen before Christmas. It was a month before Chinese New Year, when demand for dog meat rises sharply.
"We lost him after a fireworks display," Mr Sompong said. "I thought he was just scared and would come back. We would get up in the middle of the night whenever we heard dogs barking."
As the weeks passed, Mr Sompong and his wife came to accept that Tao Tao was not coming back.
Then Thai television broadcast pictures of a lorry laden with 800 dogs crammed into cages. The vehicle had been stopped as it attempted to cross the border into Laos.
The bust took place in Nakhon Phanom, where Capt Teerakiet Thong-aram from the Thai navy conducts patrols to try to prevent the smuggling of both dogs and drugs across the Mekong River.
"Dog meat is not popular in Laos. It's just a passageway. This is the easiest way for smuggling," he said, explaining that the planned destination for the animals was almost certainly Vietnam or China.
"People around here pay 300-400 baht ($9-13/£5.70-8.30) for a dog. The price goes up to 1,000 baht ($32/£20) or more in the third or fourth countries."
Dogs with dark fur are more highly prized, both for their skins and apparently a more distinct taste.
The seized lorry was 600km (373 miles) away from where Tao Tao had disappeared. But for Mr Sompong, it represented a glimmer of hope. He quickly made plans to head to the town of Buriram, where a shelter was recently set up to deal with the rise in rescued dogs.
There are already more than 2,000 animals at Buriram, ranging from once-pristine poodles to a motley collection of strays. Many of those taken for the food trade are soi (street) dogs, but at least a quarter are stolen domestic pets.
Paisarn Pattanadejkul, the head vet at the shelter, clearly remembers Mr Sompong's emotionally-charged visit.
"He (Sompong) came back carrying his dog in his arms," he said. "His wife said, 'Is that Tao Tao?', and he couldn't answer her because he was crying so much."
According to Mr Paisarn, hundreds of people have come to Buriram in the hope of finding their lost dogs, but Tao Tao is the only one who has been reunited with his owner so far.
"I felt very glad, but also very sad, when I saw his poor condition." Sompong said, with a tear in his eye. "It shouldn't have been like that."
Iinadequatelaws
But stopping what Capt Teerakiet calls a "billion-baht industry" is close to impossible under existing Thai law. It is illegal to steal domestic pets but not to round up stray dogs and pack them into cages. Animal cruelty is not banned, so a law is only actually broken when an attempt is made to smuggle the dogs out of Thailand.
"On the scale of one to 10, I would say it's a minus-one as far as the government's concern for animal welfare goes," said Roger Lohanan from the Thai Animal Guardians Association.
"Animal welfare poses a lot of burden on business, and that's why animal welfare laws have been postponed for the last 15 years."
At the shelter in Buriram, the rescued dogs are well-kept in fields, with thatched huts for shade. Despite their growing numbers and the strain on the Thai Department of Livestock Development, putting them down is not an option.
"I'm afraid that if we get many more dogs, we won't have the money to keep them in food and medication," Mr Paisarn said. "But we are a Buddhist country that believes in reincarnation, so to kill the dogs is a sin."
There is very little Buddhist calm in Somporn Kansuwan. His dog, Goh-dum, was rescued from the smugglers, but infected with a disease that eventually killed him.
"I hate those people who stole my dog," he said. "I hate it that those people make money from these little lives. If the police would let me, I'd kill those who took my dog."


A growing number of Scots have no savings, according to a new study.

An annual Bank of Scotland survey found 21% of people had not put any money away - up from 18% a year earlier.
The How Scotland Lives study also found 38% of Scots had savings of less than £2,500.
More than one in 10 savers said they were just saving towards a short-term goal, such as a holiday, while the same proportion were saving only for the long-term.
More than a third said they were saving for both.
The research also found that people in Glasgow were putting away the least amount, with 27% saying they did not have any savings to their name.
Bank of Scotland director Mike Moran said: "Our research suggests that many Scots have literally nothing to fall back on if they were to get into financial difficulties.
"It's recommended that everyone has three to six months' wages in savings, just as a back-up in case something unexpected happens."
The bank polled more than 2,000 people across Scotland in December last year.


Kizza Besigye used to be President Yoweri Museveni's personal doctor but he went on to become an opposition leader and has referred to Uganda's leader as a "dictator".

Mr Besigye is running against Mr Museveni in the presidential elections for the fourth time, after losing his previous three attempts.
He promised in an interview with Uganda's Daily Monitor paper in 2013 that he would not run again but would use other means "to dismantle the dictatorship".
A year later he was still insistent that he would not run, telling Uganda's Observer newspaper that it is impossible to win an election that is being controlled by Mr Museveni.
But in 2015, he changed his mind.
His campaign rallies for the 2016 election have been characterised by supporters handing over donations, including bunches of bananas and live goats - a stark contrast to most campaign rallies on the continent, which see the candidates distributing gifts hoping to secure the votes of the beneficiaries.
Mr Besigye says previous elections have been rigged and that he has been the victim of a campaign of intimidation by the security forces.
Some seven months before the 2016 election, Mr Besigye was arrested ahead of a campaign rally, accused of violating public order laws by attempting to hold public meetings without the government's permission.
On his way to another rally three days before the election, he was briefly held by police who accused him of disrupting the traffic.
Mr Besigye has been arrested on numerous occasions.
On one occasion he was shot in the hand, on another he suffered eye injuries after being doused in pepper spray.
The authorities have said Mr Besigye is provoking them, and he has been charged with inciting violence.
The charismatic Mr Besigye, 59, is married to Winnie Byanyima, a former MP who is seen as intelligent and ambitious and who was once a close personal friend of Mr Museveni. Mr Besigye and his wife have one son.
He was born in the western Rukungiri District, the second child in a family of six and the son of a policeman.
Besigye's dates with history:
Both his parents died while he was at secondary school.
In 1975, he headed to Kampala and to medical school at what was then the region's most prestigious university, Makerere.
Idi Amin was president of Uganda at the time and his army was causing misery in many areas of the country, including on the university campus.
Mr Besigye did not escape that treatment. Aged 18, he was in a Kampala hotel about to have dinner. Walking to the toilets, he stopped to talk to a former classmate.
A huge man lifted him up by the collar, slapped him hard across the face and sent him sprawling to the floor.
He said he never made it to the toilets, and never ate his dinner. He picked himself up and ran for his life.
Following Amin's overthrow, the qualified doctor became a member of the Uganda People's Movement of Yoweri Museveni.
The movement had little success in the 1980 election which saw the return of Milton Obote to power, and which is widely considered to have been rigged.
Mr Besigye told the East African newspaper that he did not immediately join Mr Museveni in the bush war.
But he was imprisoned for two months in the Nile Hotel in 1981, accused of working with the rebels, and tortured.
Mr Besigye fled to Nairobi and in 1982 joined Mr Museveni in the bush, where he became his personal doctor.
Although rarely at the battle front, Mr Besigye was deployed in divisions which were sent into battle where he treated the casualties.
Kizza Besigye on his 2001-2005 exile:
"I left in order to continue to be politically active rather than being behind bars or six feet under as had been threatened"
When Mr Museveni came to power, Mr Besigye, aged just 29, was appointed state minister of internal affairs and national political commissar.
These appointments shocked some who had been in the bush with Mr Besigye, as he had not been heavily involved in the political side of the bush war.
Some believe Mr Besigye's rapid rise led to him being viewed as a potential threat to the president, and as a result he was given less demanding work during the 1990s.
Mr Besigye rose to the rank of colonel in the army but did not retire from it until shortly before the 2001 elections - having written a document that accused the ruling National Resistance Movement of being undemocratic, dishonest and corrupt. It almost earned him a court martial.
A few months before the election, he emerged as a presidential candidate.
Having lost to Mr Museveni, he went to court and challenged the result on the grounds that the state had used force, intimidation and violence.
He lost the case on a split decision and then fled the country.
On his return in 2005 he said: "I left in order to continue to be politically active rather than being behind bars or six feet under as had been threatened."
More on Uganda's election:
After he returned to Uganda ahead of the 2006 elections, he was arrested and charged with both treason and rape.
The charges were later dismissed, but not until long after the polls and they obviously distracted him from campaigning.
The rape prosecution was dismissed as "crude and amateurish" but the treason charges hung over his head until 2010.
His lawyers unsuccessfully challenged the 2006 results, alleging widespread fraud. Mr Besigye won 37%.
The government says Mr Besigye has connections with a rebel group, and this accusation led to charges.
He denied any rebel link, although he has said he would not rule out going to the bush to battle the government if the constitution was overthrown and needed to be reinstated.
After he lost the last election in 2011, Mr Besigye said all the votes were flawed.
Before the 2011 polls, Mr Besigye had called for popular uprisings in the event of fraud.
And after gaining 26% to the president's 68% in the vote, the leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) claimed it was rigged.
After the election he continued to campaign against the result, along with the rising cost of living, by staging "walk to work" protests.
He was arrested four times, accused of inciting violence and beaten by police during the protests before all charges were dropped.
Human rights groups condemned the brutality of the police and military.
His critics see him as a power-hungry attention seeker. But others praise him for standing up to authority.
Mr Besigye himself says his mission is "to work with millions of other Ugandans in bringing about a stable democratic and peaceful Uganda".


A Bahraini court has sentenced one person to death and 22 others to life in prison over two deadly bomb attacks in the country last year, reports say.

The defendants, all of whom are Shia Muslims, were also convicted of forming a terrorist organisation in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom.
All had their citizenship revoked, judicial sources said.
Bahrain has been wracked by unrest since mass Shia-led protests calling for reforms were put down in 2011.
At least 90 people, including at least 18 policemen, have been killed in the ongoing violence.
The 23 were convicted of carrying out the bombings in two Shia villages last December. One of the blasts killed a Jordanian policeman, and the other caused the death of a Bahraini man.
The attacks were the work of the same "terrorist group" which "specialised in making explosives to target policemen", chief prosecutor Ahmed al-Hammadi said.
The case is the latest in a series of trials, some involving many defendants, in connection with unrest and deadly attacks in the kingdom.
On Tuesday, 29 people were jailed for five years to life over a bombing in which police officers were injured last year.
Human rights groups have criticised Bahrain's justice system for failing to provide fair trials and imposing draconian sentences.


A man has been arrested on suspicion of the kidnap of Sian O'Callaghan, who disappeared after leaving a nightclub in Swindon on Saturday.

Miss O'Callaghan, 22, has not been seen since she left the town's Suju nightclub in the early hours.
The man was held at a supermarket in north Swindon where police also seized a green Toyota car.
Police confirmed a number of locations across the county were also being searched as part of the inquiry.
Ch Supt Steve Hedley, of Wiltshire Police, said: "A short time ago a man was arrested on suspicion of the kidnap of Sian O'Callaghan and is en route to a police custody centre.
"Sian's family have been informed.
"It is a significant stage in this difficult inquiry. Our priority is to find Sian and we are doing all that we can to do so.
"Further information will be released in due course but it is not appropriate for me to make any further comment at this time."
On Thursday afternoon a white tent was put up outside a semi-detached house in Ashbury Avenue, near Greenbridge, in Swindon.
A Wiltshire Police spokeswoman would not comment on its significance but confirmed a number of locations were being examined.
BBC correspondent Robert Hall, who is at the scene, said the house is occupied by a man in his mid 40s and neighbours say the taxi is often on the drive.
"Forensic officers are searching the inside and the outside of the property and items brought out and put into a police van," he said.
Detectives are also searching a second location between Ashbury and Letcombe Regis, some seven miles east of Swindon, and close to the Uffington White Horse, Oxfordshire.
An area of the road and the verge has been sealed-off and is being guarded by a number of police officers.
Officers had earlier appealed for sightings of a green Toyota Avensis estate with taxi markings, seen between Swindon and Savernake Forest, near Marlborough, shortly after Miss O'Callaghan was last seen.
Specialist dog teams were drafted in to help in the search for the office administrator on Thursday after detectives using mobile phone technology pinpointed several areas of interest in the 4,500-acre forest.
Police are also appealing for information about items believed to have been in Miss O'Callaghan's handbag.
The bag is described as large and dark, with a beige flower on the side.
A spokesman said she was likely to have had items similar to a front door key with a "distinctive pattern", a black car key with yellow insulation tape, a Tesco Clubcard key fob, lip gloss and a yellow Kinder Egg plastic casing containing an orangey-brown squirrel with a felt belly.
He said she was also believed to have worn or had with her a DKNY watch with false diamonds and had been wearing a pair of brown boots.
About 200 people attended a vigil for Miss O'Callaghan on Wednesday night.
A reward to help find her now stands at £40,000.
In a statement, Miss O'Callaghan's family said: "We have been so touched by the support shown by the community that we wanted to express our thanks.
"The sheer numbers of people who have given up their time to help search for Sian and distribute appeal posters are overwhelming and we couldn't ask for better support from the public, police and media.
"We are aware of the reward that has been offered and are very grateful; we hope that this might help someone come forward with information to help the police find her.
"This is an extremely difficult time for us and we continue to hope and pray that our beautiful girl is found soon."


Iraq, in an area once home to some of the earliest civilisations, became a battleground for competing forces after the US-led ousting of President Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The Shia-led governments that have held power since then have struggled to maintain order, and the country has enjoyed only brief periods of respite from high levels of sectarian violence.
Iraq profile - home
Country profiles - home
Country profile compiled by BBC Monitoring
Profile of Iraqi Kurdistan
The majority Shia population, which had been excluded from power, was initially jubilant at the 2003 campaign to remove the dictator Saddam Hussein.
But optimism gradually gave way to despair as insurgent groups - mainly drawn from embittered Sunnis, dismissed army officers and supporters of the former regime - began an increasingly bloody campaign of bomb attacks.
The insurgents - with al-Qaeda in Iraq among the most violent - targeted civilians as well as security forces, at times killing hundreds of people in one day.
The conflict acquired a marked sectarian aspect in 2006-7 when Shia militant groups struck back with a campaign of kidnappings and killings.
The transfer of power to an interim government in June 2004 and, seven months later, the first multi-party elections in 50 years, which brought an overwhelmingly Shia-dominated coalition to power, failed to stem the violence.
By 2008, however, a "surge" in US troop levels to confront the rebels, the co-opting of moderate Sunni tribesmen in the struggle against militants, and an improving Iraqi army succeeded in turning the situation around.
In June 2009 US troops withdrew from Iraq's towns and cities, and the last remaining US forces left the country at the end of 2011. But the Shia-led government of Nouri al-Maliki failed to unite Iraq's various communities and from 2013 faced a rapidly-rising tide of extreme Sunni rebellion in Anbar Province.
By early 2014, Sunni rebels led by the extreme jihadist group calling itself Islamic State (IS) had established strongholds in the mainly Sunni Anbar Province.
Army resistance quickly melted away, and within months, IS fighters had begun to move into central and northern Iraq, threatening the unity of the state.
A US-led coalition of regional and Western powers responded with a campaign of air strikes, as the Iraqi government attempted to counter the group.
After elections in 2014, the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was replaced with the less divisive figure of Haider al-Abadi and a new broad-based government including Sunni Arabs and Kurds in September 2014.
Straddling the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and stretching from the Gulf to the Anti-Taurus Mountains, modern Iraq occupies roughly what was once ancient Mesopotamia, one of the cradles of human civilisation.
In the early Middle Ages, Iraq was the heartland of the Islamic Empire, but a brutal Mongol invasion in the 13th century destroyed its importance. Part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century, it came under British control after World War I, gaining independence in 1932.
The British-installed monarchy was toppled in 1958, and a coup in 1968 brought the Arab nationalist Ba'ath (Renaissance) party to power. Oil made the country rich and, when Saddam Hussein became president in 1979, petroleum made up 95% of its foreign exchange earnings.
But the 1980-88 war with Iran and the 1991 Gulf War, sparked by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, together with the subsequent imposition of international sanctions, had a devastating effect on its economy and society.
What remained of the economy was largely shattered by the 2003 invasion and the subsequent violence. Attacks by insurgents on Iraq's oil infrastructure cost the country billions of dollars in lost revenues.
In the north, the Kurdish community has managed to create an autonomous region of its own, and is pushing for greater territory and more powers.
The area threatened to hold a referendum on independence after the seizure of northern Iraq by IS militants in 2014, but backed down after the creation of more broad-based government in Baghdad.


Thousands of foreign nationals have been trying to flee Yemen as fighting between Houthi-led rebels and pro-government forces escalate across the country.

Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and Indonesian citizens have been leaving on ships chartered by some of their governments as the main airports remain closed. The BBC has spoken to some of them and here are their stories.
The Egyptian foreign ministry says 7,000 of its citizens have official entry stamps for Yemen but the Yemeni government estimates there could be as many as 17,000 Egyptians in the country.
Ahmed Sami, a communications engineer, has been based in Sanaa for four months on a work contract. He has left his accommodation, along with some Egyptian colleagues, for a safer place.
The Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs says there are approximately 400 Pakistanis still awaiting evacuation, mainly in Aden, Mukalla and Sanaa.
There are 200 Pakistanis stranded in Aden who are waiting to be evacuated by a Chinese naval ship. They will be taken to Djibouti by sea, from where a special flight will take them back to Pakistan.
"The government needs to urgently evacuate the Pakistanis from Aden because the situation there is very bad compared to Sanaa," said Waheed Bangash, an accounts officer in a Pakistani embassy school in Sanaa.
"The conflict between North and South Yemen has escalated and people in Aden are facing bombardment, and according to my information, that part of the country is on the brink of civil war."
"When news broke that Pakistan was helping Saudi Arabia in the operation and air strikes began, the Pakistani community was looked at suspiciously," he said.
The Foreign Ministry says it has repatriated at least 400 Indonesians as the security situation has worsened.
According to data from the ministry, there are 4,159 Indonesians who are registered as living in Yemen.
Of these, 2,686 are reported to be students who attend Yemeni schools and universities while 1,488 Indonesians are migrant workers.
Muhammad Wazier Hidayat, an Indonesian student who works at the Indonesian embassy, is in the Yemeni capital.
"I can't say that Sanaa is safe," he said. "The airstrikes hit a warehouse, only two kilometres away from the embassy."
"At the moment, I don't think we want to leave Sanaa," he said.  "But if conditions worsen, then we will leave."
China has already dispatched two frigates to Yemen to evacuate its nationals over the past week.
About 570 Chinese citizens have been able to leave in recent days via Djibouti, Chinese sources say.
On Tuesday, the first batch of evacuees arrived in Beijing, holding national flags and banners saying "Thank you, motherland".
A staff member at the Chinese Embassy in Yemen said the evacuation was still under way as many citizens still remain in Sanaa.
The majority of Chinese nationals in Yemen are company employees, businessmen and students.
The official said the Chinese embassy in Sanaa and its consulate general in Aden are "operating as normal".
The Indian government estimates that some 4,000 of its citizens remain in Yemen.
So far, 300 Indian nationals have been able to return home with the assistance of the Indian Air Force.
Divya Ganapathy is a nurse who is waiting to be evacuated from Sanaa and has spoken to BBC Hindi.
"I have never seen such a situation before. We can't go out because there are gunshots and bombings.
"We are not able to rest because there is bombing all through the night. I live about 3km [two miles] from the hospital. We don't know what will happen tomorrow. Please help us."
The Indian government has called the evacuation Operation Raahat and has sent two warships - the destroyer INS Mumbai and stealth frigate INS Tarkash - to Djibouti, from where it has been flying its nationals back home.
Where does the Saudi offensive go next?
Yemen - who is fighting whom?
The Houthis: Zaidi Shia-led rebels from the north, who seized control of Sanaa last year and have since been expanding their control
President Hadi: Fled to Saudi Arabia after rebel forces advanced on his stronghold in the southern city of Aden
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Seen by the US as the most dangerous offshoot of al-Qaeda, AQAP opposes both the Houthis and President Hadi.
Islamic State: A Yemeni affiliate of IS has recently emerged, which seeks to eclipse AQAP
Failure 'not an option for Saudis'
Yemen crisis: An Iranian-Saudi battleground?
Yemen: Waiting for the war
Meeting the Houthis - and their enemies
The rise of Yemen's Houthi rebels


Relatives of the 96 people who died at Hillsborough have told the home secretary they want a "Hillsborough Law" to compel public officials to tell the truth at inquiries.

They held private meetings with Theresa May in the wake of the Hillsborough inquests, which ended in April.
Jurors found the fans who died as a result of the 1989 crush were unlawfully killed.
The families also complained about the conduct of South Yorkshire Police.
They called on the home secretary to put the force into remedial measures.
It is understood the proposed 'Hillsborough Law' would seek to place a further onus on those in public office to cooperate positively with investigations.
The families were told about developments in two ongoing criminal investigations into the disaster at the meetings with the home secretary, which were held in Warrington.
Theresa May has previously praised the dignity and determination of the victims' relatives.
Chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, Margaret Aspinall, whose son James died in the disaster, said: "I myself for the very first time felt - I'm sure the families did as well - that at last there's a home secretary that's actually listening to them."
The home secretary has met some Hillsborough families before, but this is the first time that she's spoken directly to them since the inquests ended.
Theresa May spent several hours in Warrington, meeting separately with the two main groups of relatives.
The atmosphere was said to be heated, with some of the families complaining directly to her about the conduct of South Yorkshire Police during the inquests.
Some relatives asked for assurances that there will be criminal prosecutions, and I'm told that they wanted to make sure that the home secretary personally understood the emotional toll that the two-year inquests have taken.
Although the Hillsborough families welcomed the jury's finding of unlawful killing, they know that many months of uncertainty lie ahead before they find out whether criminal trials will follow.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission revealed that 19 people have refused to assist with their probe into the conduct of officers from West Midlands Police, which investigated the tragedy.
The watchdog has now handed files on suspects to the Crown Prosecution Service in its largest-ever inquiry into alleged criminality and alleged police misconduct.
The IPCC has contacted 258 officers and staff members involved in the investigation into the tragedy and a total of 161 statements have been taken.
The watchdog said: "Our intention remains to submit full files of evidence to the CPS by the turn of the year to enable decisions to be made on whether any individuals should be charged."


Turkish police have fired tear gas and water cannon at people trying to enter an Istanbul park that was the focus of last month's anti-government protests.

Istanbul's governor reopened Gezi Park - next to Taksim Square - to the public earlier on Monday, but shut it again after protest leaders called a rally.
The park had been shut since 15 June, when police ejected people occupying it in protest at redevelopment plans.
The authorities' response to the protest sparked nationwide unrest.
Four people were killed and thousands more were injured as police cracked down on anti-government demonstrators, who accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of becoming increasingly authoritarian.
Hundreds of people flocked to Gezi Park on Monday afternoon after Istanbul governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu declared it open once again.
Mr Mutlu said staff had tried to improve the park while it was sealed off, planting additional trees and shrubs and replacing damaged grass.
But, in a clear warning to protesters, he also warned that it was no place for "forums, occupations or marches".
"Blocking the parks, making them areas for demonstrations, preventing children, elderly and [others]  from using these areas and turning this into a security problem - we would never ever allow that," he told reporters.
Taksim Solidarity, a group of political parties and non-governmental organisations, subsequently called a public meeting in the park at 19:00 (16:00 GMT), prompting the authorities to close it after only three hours.
Dozens of people were forced to leave by police, who used their shields to eject some who resisted.
Officers then used tear gas and water cannon to break up a crowd of several thousand people marching along Istanbul's main shopping street towards Taksim Square, according to the Reuters news agency.
On Saturday, police prevented thousands of people trying to enter Gezi Park as part of a rally called by Taksim Solidarity to serve notice to the authorities of a court decision that annulled the redevelopment plan.
An administrative court said locals had not been consulted sufficiently about replacing the park with a replica of an Ottoman-era military barracks and a mosque, and that the work would not serve the public.
However, the ruling is not final and the government is expected to appeal.


A boat that police say was being used for growing cannabis has been seized in the Isle of Wight.

The vessel was boarded by officers in Bembridge Harbour, St Helens where the cannabis was discovered.
A 48-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of supplying and producing the class B drug.
The raid happened on Friday morning and the man has been released on bail until 9 September.


A police firearms enquiry officer has been accused of possessing prohibited weapons and ammunition without a certificate.

Essex Police said it had suspended David Sims, 69, from his duties.
The force has served him with a court summons to answer three counts of possessing prohibited weapons.
Mr Sims will appear before magistrates in Colchester on 21 July. An internal disciplinary investigation is also under way, the force said.
He has also been accused of possessing ammunition without a certificate and possessing a firearm without a certificate.
The prohibited weapons allegedly involved in the case are understood to be firearms less than 12in (30cm) in length.


Welsh football fans at Euro 2016 need to "keep safe and behave responsibly", a police chief has urged.

It comes after five Welsh supporters and four English ones were arrested after "disorder" on a train from Calais on Wednesday.
The atmosphere between supporters was said to be "good-natured" following Wales' 2-1 loss to England on Thursday.
Paul Corkery of Fan Embassy Wales said what was thought to be a "high risk" match had "a fantastic atmosphere".
It followed clashes in nearby Lille on Wednesday, where many have been staying.
Mr Corkery said: "[Following trouble involving Russia supporters Marseille] They decided safety in numbers and joined up together and all got on - there was some banter after the match, that was fun and games. With regards to violence, there wasn't any, that's fantastic."
Assistant Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the National Police Chiefs' Council lead for football policing, said the 12pm alcohol curfew and use of plastic bottles had been "helpful tools in preventing an escalation of violent behaviour".
"More UK officers are now in France and we are working with the French police should there be any further disturbances," he added.
"A reminder to fans to enjoy the rest of the tournament, keep yourselves safe and behave responsibly - do not retaliate to provocation and seek help from police if you are harassed or attacked."
There has been a high level of security in Lens and Lille where trouble broke out on Wednesday, with some English and Russian supporters being detained after scuffles.
At least 37 people were arrested as riot police fired tear gas and charged at hundreds of England fans.
The Russian football team have already been given a suspended disqualification from the tournament following attacks by their supporters on England fans at their opening fixture in Marseille on Saturday.
Wales face Russia in their final Group B game on Monday night and can still qualify for the last 16 stage of the tournament.


Throughout the bitter violence of the Ukrainian conflict, another hidden war has been waged, involving several groups of computer hackers.

Little is beyond their reach. Official documents and private communications are made public, and websites blocked. They hijack CCTV cameras, electronic billboards and network printers.
The best known of the virtual warriors are the Ukrainian Cyber Troops, the Cyber Berkut and Anonymous International.
All three present themselves as independent activists, separate from other, government-sponsored groups.
The most prominent pro-Ukrainians hackers are the Ukrainian Cyber Troops, led by Kiev-based programmer Yevhen Dokukin.
Most recently, he claimed to have hacked into two Russian interior ministry servers and an email account used by police in Russia's Rostov region - bordering Ukraine's eastern separatist regions.
"I gave all this data to Ukraine's security service, but they still can't get round to analysing it, so do it yourselves," he urged readers on Facebook.
Volunteer activist group Inform Napalm sifted through more than 35 gigabytes of the data and found what looked like official reports confirming that Russian military servicemen were among the hundreds of people evacuated to Russia after being wounded in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Cyber Troops make extensive use of one of the most tried and tested tools in cyber warfare, the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
"DDoS attacks are the Ukrainian Cyber Troops' artillery," Mr Dokukin likes saying. Scores of rebel websites were made inaccessible when the Ukrainian Cyber Troops relentlessly bombarded them with fake service requests.
To disrupt separatist funding, they target accounts held by rebels in electronic payment systems such as PayPal and WebMoney.
The Cyber Troops have also hacked into public CCTV systems in rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine and monitor them for the movement of troops and military hardware.
On 8 December, Yevhen Dokukin claimed to have hijacked network printers in eastern Ukraine and Crimea to print pro-Ukrainian messages and insults against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Some media reports suggest that Ukraine's security services have used information obtained by hackers to direct artillery fire.
But officials deny this. "We only use data obtained by people we trust and know," Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky told the BBC.
On the other side of the conflict is Cyber Berkut, a staunchly anti-Western group which takes its name from the riot police used against protesters during the unrest in Kiev that led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.
The group's declared goal is thwarting Ukraine's military plans and thus stopping the "genocide" that it accuses Kiev of unleashing at America's behest. Its motto is "We won't forgive or forget", and its rhetoric closely resembles that of Russian state media.
During US Vice-President Joe Biden's visit to Kiev on 20-21 November, Cyber Berkut hacked several Ukrainian government websites, placing a message on their front pages which read: "Joseph Biden is the fascists' master."
Cyber Berkut claims to have retrieved confidential documents from a mobile device used by one member of Mr Biden's team while it was in Kiev. The documents appear to detail Washington's military assistance to Ukraine.
Another stunt carried out by Cyber Berkut is the apparent hacking of electronic billboards in Kiev, which were made to show a video branding Ukrainian officials and activists "war criminals" and featuring highly graphic images of civilians killed in the current conflict.
They also claim to have disrupted the electronic vote-counting systems ahead of October's parliamentary election in Ukraine, to have leaked Ukrainian defence ministry data on losses and desertions, and to have blocked President Petro Poroshenko's website.
In addition, Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted a Facebook conversation allegedly hacked by Cyber Berkut, in which Ukrainian officials appear to admit that their forces downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
The claim went largely ignored elsewhere and has never been verified.
Russian activist group Anonymous International made its name by publishing leaked documents from the Kremlin. It is otherwise known as b0ltai or Shaltay Boltay, which translates as "Humpty Dumpty".
What is not clear is whether it obtains material through hacking or are given it by Kremlin insiders.
The group focuses on Russia's domestic affairs, but some of its material covers Ukraine.
In  November it published a letter from a Russian fighter in eastern Ukraine suggesting that locals did not support the separatist forces.
And in May it made headlines leaking what it said were emails to and from former Russian FSB colonel Igor Girkin, also known as Strelkov, who was then a key rebel commander in eastern Ukraine.
Access to Anonymous International's website is currently blocked in Russia.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.


The Cuban government has announced a two-month trial scheme to allow internet access in private homes.

State-run telecommunications company Etecsa will install internet in some 2,000 homes in the capital's colonial district, Old Havana.
The company has also reduced by 25% the fee charged to connect to the web, which most Cubans can only access from public wi-fi hotspots.
Cuba has one of the lowest online connectivity rates in the world.
Dissidents accuse the government of not providing affordable home internet access for political reasons.
The Cuban government blames the US for the poor state of telecoms infrastructure, which it says is caused by the American economic embargo imposed in the 1960s.
Details of the news scheme are scarce, but the authorities say the experiment will be extended if it is approved after the two-month trial period.
Many Cubans hope the country's communist government will eventually expand the scheme, says the BBC's Will Grant in Havana.
Last week, Etecsa signed an agreement with Google to provide faster access to content including Gmail and YouTube.
Google will install local servers that will speed up connection to its services.
Much of the island's internet infrastructure is obsolete.
Google and Etecsa reached agreement in the final weeks of Barack Obama's presidency, but it is not clear whether his successor, Donald Trump, will change US policies towards Cuba.


The mother of a teenager who has been missing for 10 years believes "someone local is withholding information" about his disappearance and suspected murder.

Luke Durbin, 19, was last seen in Ipswich on 12 May, 2006 after a night out in the town.
Nicki Durbin renewed her appeal for "anyone who has any information" to come forward.
Det Insp Kevin Hayward, from Suffolk Police, said the investigation "remains an open and active enquiry."
His mother said: "Myself and the police believe that it is someone local who is withholding that information and I beg them just to come forward."
The joint Norfolk and Suffolk major investigation team has previously said it believed Luke had been unlawfully killed".
Luke was captured on CCTV, walking across Dogs Head Street towards the bus station at 04:00 BST. That is the last known sighting of him.
Ms Durbin hopes her "cheeky, very clever... and very loving, talented" son is still alive, but "doesn't think that's realistic".
Last September, a Â£20,000 reward for information was issued and in December police issued photographs of a Volvo 440, similar to one seen in Ipswich town centre at the time of his disappearance.
There have also been numerous appeals by the police and Luke's family, including a BBC Crimewatch appearance in November 2013.
Ms Durbin has joined a choir set up by the charity Missing People, which supports families in her situation.
A single is being released on 20 May which the charity hopes will highlight its work in supporting families looking for their relatives.


The Women's Equality Party has called for quotas for female MPs, an end to the gender pay gap and more affordable childcare as it set out its agenda.

The party, which was formed six months ago, said it would field candidates in elections starting next Spring.
Leader Sophie Walker said Parliament could have equal representation of men and women within a decade if parties prioritised women in safe seats.
She attacked other parties for thinking they could "dole out" equality.
The party, the brainchild of broadcaster Sandi Toksvig and journalist Catherine Mayer, says it is prepared to work with other parties to secure genuine equality in society but has challenged David Cameron "to put us out of business" by implementing all of its ideas.
At a policy launch in London, Ms Walker, herself a former journalist, said many of the problems facing women were a product of the fact they were not "equal decision makers", whether in politics, business or other areas of public life..
"We have made some progress but the path to shared power is taking too long to pave," she said. "So we have concluded that as a temporary measure quotas are necessary."
It was lamentable, she said, that women still made up less than a third of the Commons - 191 of the UK's 650 MPs.
"We will put Parliament into special measures for two elections. Political parties should field women in two thirds of seats, including two thirds of safe seats. We can have a 50:50 Parliament in a decade."
She also called for 75% of new peers to be women and for all publicly listed companies to have a 50:50 gender ratio on their boards and executive committees by 2025.
The party has called for action to tackle the "exorbitant" cost of childcare, which it says is stopping at least 600,000 women from either returning to the workplace or working the full hours they want to.
It has called for government-subsidised childcare to be available to all parents at the end of their parental leave, a £6.5bn commitment it says could be paid for by introducing a single rate of tax relief on pensions.
"We want women to realise their potential and we want to do that by providing a system of childcare that does not cost the earth and does not have to be waited for," Ms Walker told party supporters.
Among its other priorities are to challenge gender stereotyping in schools, to tackle discrimination against older women, to increase the rate of prosecutions for domestic violence and to make the purchase of sex a criminal offence.
"Our country has a gendered culture where men are seen as entitled to dominate and the media portrays women as sex objects," she said. "The acts of everyday sexism that permeate our culture must not be trivialised, they must be challenged and they must be defeated."
Ahead of Tuesday's launch, the party released a report suggesting women earned £245bn less than men each year in the UK.
Ms Walker accused the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems of treating equality as a political football, saying it "seems to me that they are more interested in claiming the right to deliver equality than actually deliver it".


Amid reports of Hyon Yong-chol's death by anti-aircraft gunfire, analysts say North Korea clearly wanted to send one clear message - that no one person can be more important than the state.

Paul French, who has written on North Korean state control, told BBC World News that Hyon's execution was about the "total obliteration of someone, and of any opposition, and therefore having total control".
The idea "is to render a person a non-person... so there isn't even a corpse left to give to the family for burial," said Alexander Neill, a senior fellow with think tank II-SS.
"What underlies all this is the psychology of the identity of an individual in a regime, and once they are disloyal they are effectively a non-entity."
North Korea is not alone in conducting brutal executions.
When Argentina's last military government was in power from 1976 to 1983, it executed people by throwing them out of planes into the ocean, in a practice known as "death flights".
Other countries have a history of abusing a prisoner's corpse after execution.
In Sudan and Saudi Arabia, prisoners can be crucified as punishment but it is usually done after he or she is killed by a more conventional method such as hanging or decapitation.
Ugandan despot Idi Amin reportedly fed the bodies of dead prisoners to crocodiles.
Public humiliation
Brutally executing someone in the public eye is designed as "humiliation of the highest order", said Mr Neill.
In a similar vein, China has held mass show trials of prisoners accused of terrorism in Xinjiang.
These involved prisoners paraded in trucks in sports stadiums and physically restrained so that they are forced to bow.
These "reinforce that the collective is more important than the individual, and it's about controlling thoughts rather than behaviour," said Mr Neill.


A former aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, Patrick Rock, has been given a two-year conditional discharge over indecent images of children.

The ex-deputy director of policy at Downing Street was convicted on Wednesday of five charges and acquitted of three similar counts.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the remaining 12 charges.
Rock, 65, had admitted downloading 20 images of nine young girls in 2013, but denied they were indecent.
Although he will not serve time in prison, Judge Alistair McCreath said Rock's punishment was "the loss of your reputation and your very public humiliation".
"I have not lost sight of the obvious reality that right-thinking people will quite properly consider that those who did what you did should be punished for it.
"You should be. And you have been... It is a punishment which you brought on yourself, but is nonetheless a very real one. And it is one that is utterly merited."
The court heard that the youngest of the girls in the pictures was aged just 10 years and four months when he downloaded the image - meaning she would have been younger when it was taken.


An NHS trust that runs three Kent hospitals should be placed in special measures, the chief inspector of hospitals has recommended.

It follows inspections at William Harvey in Ashford; Kent and Canterbury in Canterbury and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (QEQM) in Margate.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated two hospitals as inadequate and one, the QEQM, as requiring improvement.
East Kent NHS trust said it was already addressing many of the criticisms.
Inspectors who visited the three hospitals in March found there was a "worrying disconnect" between those running the university foundation trust and frontline staff, with a recent staff survey flagging up bullying and harassment.
Risks to patients were not always identified and where they were, were not always acted on by the trust.
A number of clinical services were poorly led and there were concerns about staffing levels, especially in A&E, children's care and at night.
Poorly maintained buildings and equipment were also identified.
"It is a lack of effective leadership, alongside care failings across the majority of services we inspected, which has led me to recommend to the foundation trust regulator Monitor that the trust be placed in special measures," said chief inspector of hospitals Sir Mike Richards.
"This will allow the trust to receive the additional support I believe it needs."
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust said it had been asked some very challenging questions by the commission, but that the caring nature of the staff had been praised.
"Much of what is in the report we have already recognised," claimed chief executive Stuart Bain.
"We have invested an additional Â£2.9m to recruit 69 nurses. We have also recently appointed an additional four general surgeons and will be recruiting a further three."
He said the appointments system and outpatient services were being improved and Â£28m was being spent on facilities, including a new hospital in Dover.
A number of MPs have accused the CQC of scaremongering.
Sir Roger Gale, MP for Thanet North, said the report was "disproportionate and irresponsible" and would "cause unnecessary public alarm".
"I think the CQC is inadequate and ought to be looking at itself," he said.
However, Julie Pearce, the chief nurse and deputy chief executive of East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation, said she generally welcomed the inspection.
"We have an ambition to make this as positive as possible and turn this around as quickly as we can," she said.


A comedian named Chris Martin has, to his bemusement, received an influx of Twitter followers from India shortly after a Coldplay concert in Mumbai.

Mr Martin, who shares the same name as the lead singer of the band, tweeted: "To the 500 Indian followers I gained in the last day I'm not in Coldplay."
He also updated his Twitter profile to read, "currently HUGE in India".
He told the BBC that a lot of his new followers are "laughing with me and a surprising amount feel sorry for me".
"A few have pointed out that me and him look similar. I don't see it, but I guess we are both skinny white men with some half baked facial hair," the British comedian said.
Mr Martin has been retweeting some of the more humorous responses he has been getting from India, including one that read: "Why do all white men look the same?"
Viewpoint: Is India's outrage over Coldplay justified?
Hymn for the Weekend criticised for misusing Indian culture
He says that despite his clarifications a lot of his followers seem to have stuck around.
"Pity followers I call them. But I'll take them. Since it's been in the media a few have jumped on the bandwagon. Everyone is welcome in my follower crew."
Some of them have even gone to his website and watched his stand-up clips but not everyone is a fan.
"One guy said he didn't find it at all funny but then called me 'buddy'. Quite possibly the politest online troll I've ever had," he said.
Mr Martin has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter.


A 42-year-old driver who died after a tree hit his car in Perthshire has been named.

Police said he was Scott Pankhurst, also known as Scott Finnie, who lived in Dundee.
The accident happened on the A85, two miles east of Gilmerton, at about 20:00 on Tuesday. The road was closed while emergency services dealt with the incident.
Police said inquiries into the accident were continuing.


Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), has acknowledged its actions "have affected civilians" during 50 years of internal conflict.

"We are expressly responsible for all acts of war carried out by our units," said Pablo Atrato, a Farc leader.
In the first admission of its kind, he said the rebels were ready to take "responsibility" for these actions.
Latin America's longest running war has killed 220,000 people.
More than five million others have been displaced.
The Marxist rebel group joined negotiations in Cuba with the Colombian government in November 2013.
The talks in the capital, Havana, are aimed at getting the 8,000-strong Farc to sign an agreement renouncing its armed struggle in order to join the legal political process.
"We explicitly recognise that our actions have affected civilians at different times and under different circumstances throughout the conflict," Mr Atrato said.
He added the Farc would "assume the responsibility that concerns us," but did not give any further details as to what responsibility they would take.
The Farc's statement comes as both sides discuss the issue of victim reparations as part the peace talks.
The two sides have reached agreement on three key issues: land reform, political participation of the rebels and illicit drugs.
They are now working towards agreements on disarmament, victims' rights and the eventual implementation of the peace deal.
They are expected to attempt to negotiate an amnesty as part of the deal but correspondents say it would face opposition from conservative politicians in Colombia.
President Juan Manuel Santos recently said his government and the rebels were getting closer to an agreement.
The Farc, Colombia's largest guerrilla group, controlled nearly a third of the country a decade ago, but now mostly operates in remote rural areas.


Two people have died following a house fire in Sefton, Merseyside.

A man and a woman, both aged in their 40s, were found unconscious and not breathing when firefighters arrived at the scene in Maghull late on Saturday evening.
They were taken to University Hospital Aintree, but both were pronounced dead.
An investigation is now under way to establish the cause of the fire on Bridge Farm Drive near Deyes Lane, said Merseyside Fire and Rescue.


Hundreds of gay and lesbian people of South Asian heritage are believed to be under pressure to marry someone of the opposite sex, police say.

West Midlands Police said a growing number are now contacting the force after being ordered to have a heterosexual wedding by their families.
The UK's forced marriage unit heard from at least 30 LGBT people last year.
But they say more people are likely to be affected as being gay is often seen as taboo among south Asian communities.
This is supported by data from charities and LGBT organisations that have made referrals to the police.
Twenty-two gay and lesbian people of South Asian heritage have told the BBC that at some point they were pressurised to marry somebody of the opposite sex.
In most of those cases, the individuals said they were tempted to go ahead with the marriage because they did not want to embarrass their family, or ruin their reputation.
My big fake straight wedding
Male 'honour' cases 'underreported'
Ranjeep - not his real name - told his family a couple of years ago that he was gay.  His father's first response was to tell him to marry a woman.
"I'm Sikh, and culturally the older generation don't accept homosexuality," he said. "My father ordered me to marry a woman because he thought that would cure my homosexuality."
Ranjeep, who is in his 30s and from Coventry, said: "The emotional pressure is really hard and distressing and you don't want to bring shame on the family by saying you're gay.  I ended up marrying my partner but my parents didn't come to wedding."
He said he lives two separate lives and is distraught his father will not accept him for who he is.
"It's heart-breaking to see my father heart-broken because of my sexuality."
A forced marriage is where one or both people do not consent to the marriage and pressure or abuse is used. In the UK, it is illegal and recognised as a form of violence against women and men.
The pressure put on people to marry against their will can be physical or emotional and psychological.
Det Sgt Trudy Gittins, from the West Midlands force, said the people coming forward from the LGBT community in recent months are from all walks of life.
"We've got professional well educated people who still feel that immense pressure because there's a whole expectation that they will not bring shame on their family," she said.
"Homophobia is rife in some communities and to be seen as being gay or lesbian or bisexual it can absolutely destroy the dynamic of that community and this person just has that burden every single day and it can cause a great deal of anxiety and distress and in some cases they also feel suicidal."
The Foreign Office and Home Office set up the Forced Marriage Unit in 2005. Figures show 30 LGBT people who contacted the unit last year were among the 1,428 people who asked for help.
But the government acknowledged the actual number of cases that involving LGBT people could be "significantly higher" as it did not explicitly ask people whether their sexuality was the trigger for the forced marriage.
The unit is now working with LGBT groups to encourage more victims to come forward and get support.
Khakan Qureshi runs a Birmingham-based organisation called Finding a Voice, which gives advice to gay and lesbian people of south Asian origin.
He is of Muslim faith, and told his family he was gay more than two decades ago.
"I had one relative who is in his 20s, and he told me that he would kill his son if he told him that he was gay.
"And it's this old fashioned attitude that scares me because attitudes haven't changed since I came out more than 20 years ago.  The younger generation have to be bold and reject this sort of homophobia and ignorance or attitudes will stay the same."
Blackburn-based imam Saleem Sedat said homosexual people should be treated with respect and humanity.
"Islam is categorically against forged marriage," he said.  "What's important is that we're sensitive towards the concerns of young people including when it comes to matters of sexuality and that we provide them with the necessary support and care they require to grow and become healthy members of society."
For advice and support call the Forced Marriage Unit's public helpline on 0207 008 0151.


They played the first one almost 140 years ago and, of all the fixtures in Test rugby, there is nothing like it.

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Wales against England, neighbours with a capacity for generating grudges grand enough to make Donald Trump and Barack Obama seem the best of friends. Well, almost.
Wales against England has rarely failed to light blazing bonfires of controversy. Unforgettable tales of skill and skulduggery abound and yet of all the Wales versus England matches for me one stands out above the rest and not because it happened 50 years ago.
England came to the Arms Park on 15 April, 1967 needing a win to share the title with France.  Wales had been wallowing in a winter of woe, beaten in all three matches, the country close to a collective nervous breakdown.
The way the selectors saw it, there was only one way to avert the impending national crisis. They picked an 18-year-old centre straight out of Monmouth School and added fuel to the fire by playing him out of position at full-back. His name was Keith Jarrett.
Now in sport there are dream debuts and then there are those so far-fetched, so implausible that they would have been beyond even the ultimate spinner of fairytales, Hans Christian Andersen.
Twelve days before the England match, the selectors pleaded with Newport to pick Jarrett at full-back for their game against Newbridge.
The black-and-ambers did so most reluctantly but not for long. They aborted the experiment at half-time and returned the bungling teenager to his normal position in the centre.
David Watkins, then captain of Newport and Wales, had seen enough - Jarrett would never make a decent full-back.  "Keith cost us the game," he said. "He had a nightmare.''
Imagine then how Watkins felt when he learnt that Wales had picked Jarrett at full-back against England. The selectors got it in the neck but the chairman, the late Cliff Jones, a wise old bird, knew a winner when he saw one.
Jones summoned Jarrett to Rodney Parade that week for a crash course in how to be a full-back. "Keith I could meet you every day for the next five years and I still wouldn't be able to teach you how to become a full-back," he said.
"So all I'm going to tell you to do against England is this. When they have the ball stand between 30 to 40 yards behind Dai Watkins. Stand that far back and you will be running onto the ball instead of turning and going backwards."
It was as if Mr Jones had seen the future. For on that heavenly Saturday afternoon, everything Jarrett touched turned to gold. When the England centre Colin McFadyean kicked deep, Jarrett caught the ball in full flight and ran 60 yards for his try of tries without an English hand touching him.
Wales won 34-21, then a record score against England, and Jarrett's personal tally amounted to 19, simply unheard of for a teenage novice.
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Of all the stories told of that day, the one I like best concerns a bus driver.
Late that night when Keith was perhaps a little the worse for wear and looking for a bus back home to Newport, a driver stopped, explained that the last one had gone and told the hero of the day: "I'm going back to the depot so get in and I'll ask the supervisor if it's ok to take you to Newport."
Permission duly given, the driver was puzzled when the supervisor who'd noticed Jarrett smoking a cigarette, pointed to a double decker in the depot and said "take that."
"Why would I need that," said the driver. "There are only the two of us."
"Because Mr Jarrett here might want to go upstairs and have a smoke….that's why!"
You couldn't make it up but then exactly the same could be said of that afternoon and the wondrous Keith Jarrett.


Key forward Jon Walters is the latest injury concern for the Republic of Ireland ahead of Euro 2016 after taking a bang to his calf.

Stoke City's Walters, 32, was unable to train with his Republic team-mates on Thursday morning as he instead worked with the medical staff.
The initial indications were that the knock was not serious.
However, it's a further issue for boss Martin O'Neill given the injuries to James McCarthy and Robbie Keane.
On the plus side, Everton midfielder McCarthy was able to take part in training for the first time since the squad got together 10 days ago.
McCarthy, who has been bothered by a thigh injury, worked alone after completing the warm-up ahead of Wednesday morning's session, but stayed with the rest of the squad on Thursday as he stepped up his recovery.
Squad skipper Keane was out on the pitch, although only as an observer with the 35-year-old striker unlikely to resume training until the middle of next week at the earliest because of a calf problem which required an injection.
Keane accepts that he faces a battle to be available for the Group E opener against Sweden in Paris on 13 June but is certain he will be fit for the second game against Belgium five days later.
"Luckily for me, it's not as bad as I first thought," Keane told FAI TV YouTube.
"They are saying a couple of weeks which would maybe get me (fit) for the Sweden game or maybe missing that one.
"But I'll definitely be ready for the second game."
Keane did show off his hurling skills on Thursday as he and staff member Dick Redmond tested out each other's ability at the Gaelic Athletic Association sport.
The players were due some down-time later in the day, with golf on the agenda ahead of the final day of their pre-tournament training camp in Cork before a weekend off.
After the Belgium game in Bordeaux on 18 June, the Republic face Italy in their final Group E match on 22 June in Lille.


A man who attacked his mother after attending his grandfather's funeral has been jailed for eight months.

Joshua Reid, 21, admitted two charges of assault to injury and one of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner in Ladybank, Fife, in November.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard how Reid attacked his mother after being offered only leftover takeaway for dinner.
He then threw a carving fork at his mother's partner, which pierced his clothes and stuck in his shoulder.
The court heard how the assaults on 41-year-old Gillian Farquharson and her partner Grant Swan, 44, happened hours after the funeral of Ms Farquharson's father.
At one point Reid dragged his mother along the ground when she tried to escape.
Ms Farquharson later told police she feared her son was going to kill her.
Fiscal depute Eilidh Robertson told the court that after being offered leftover takeaway, Reid swore at her and threw food over the walls, saying "you have two seconds to clean up that rice or you will get it'.
He then threw crockery around.
Ms Robertson said: "His mother tried to leave but as she walked out he followed her, seized her by the arm and pulled her into the house. He grabbed her by the neck and threw her on to the sofa."
Mr Swan tried to intervene but Reid threw a carving fork at him, embedding in his shoulder through his coat and hoody.
"The accused shouted he was going to do his mother, calling her a slag and a dog," Ms Robertson added. "The complainers later spoke to police and his mother said she had been absolutely terrified and believed he would kill or stab her."
Defence solicitor David Bell said: "He had taken alcohol for the first time in a long time and the effects of that combined with the event and the argument caused this.
"The death of his grandfather was a significant event for him. He reacted extremely badly to what happened."
The court heard that Reid had been committing crimes since he was 14 and he had convictions for theft, carrying a knife, assault and robbery.
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael jailed Reid for eight months and ordered him to be monitored in the community for four months after his release.
He said: "There isn't any alternative to a custodial sentence.
"This was a serious matter involving the throwing of a carving fork that embedded in this man's body.
"Fortunately the injuries were not as serious as they could have been."


Western powers negotiating an agreement with Iran on its nuclear activity will not accept "a bad deal", UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond says.

Ministers from France, Germany, and the UK along with the US Secretary of State met in London amid increased urgency to reach agreement by the end of March.
Six world powers want to ensure that Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons - something it denies doing.
Earlier, Iran's president spoke positively about reaching agreement.
"There is nothing that cannot be resolved," although some differences still remain, Iranian state media quoted President Hassan Rouhani as saying.
Mr Rouhani said that in the current round of talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, "shared points of view emerged in some of the areas where there had been a difference of opinion" and these could become "a foundation for a final agreement".
Speaking after Saturday's talks in London, Mr Hammond said: "We will not do a bad deal that does not meet our red lines."
An official statement from the meeting said: "We agreed that substantial progress had been made (with Iran) in key areas although there are still important issues on which no agreement has yet been possible.
"Now is the time for Iran, in particular, to take difficult decisions."
The four powers, along with China and Russia, make up the so-called P5+1 which is negotiating with Iran to scale back sensitive nuclear activities in return for an easing of international economic sanctions.
Both Iran and the Western powers have set themselves deadlines of 31 March for a political framework agreement and 30 June for a final deal.
US Secretary of State John Kerry also said that "substantial progress" had been made in the talks although "important gaps" remained.
Mr Kerry flew to London from Switzerland and will return there to resume talks with Iran next week.
But in a reminder of more hardline attitudes within the Iranian leadership, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Saturday against submitting to foreign demands in order to achieve economic growth.
Sticking points in the nuclear talks are thought to include the pace at which sanctions would be lifted, how long the deal will last and how much of Iran's nuclear facilities will be open to inspection.


Great Britain's Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas missed out on a medal in the men's road race at Rio 2016 as Belgium's Greg van Avermaet took gold.

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British hopes were ended when Thomas crashed on the final descent, after Froome and Adam Yates had failed to stay with the leaders.
Thomas still finished the race as the best-placed British rider, in 11th.
Froome, who was 12th, goes for gold again in Wednesday's time trial, hoping to better his bronze at London 2012.
A thrilling finish saw Van Avermaet win the sprint to the line, leaving Denmark's Jakob Fuglsang to take silver and Poland's Rafal Majka bronze.
Yates came home in 15th while the other British riders, Ian Stannard and Steve Cummings, did not finish.
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Before the race Froome had described the picturesque 237.5km road-race route as the most brutal course in Olympic history, but the three-time Tour de France winner's challenge did not falter until the final 20km.
By then, fewer than 40 of the 144 starters were left in contention after almost six hours of racing but Britain's riders remained well placed, with Thomas part of a six-man lead group that had opened up a 30-second gap on what was left of the peloton.
Froome and Adam Yates were back in that pack along with pre-race favourites Alejandro Valverde of Spain and Italy's Vincenzo Nibali, who was waiting to make his move.
It came on the penultimate descent of Vista Chinesa when Nibali bridged the gap. Yates got across too but was dropped early on the final set of ascents when the race completely split and Froome was left with too much work to do.
Thomas was left as Britain's last chance of a medal but did not have the legs to stay with the three leaders - Nibali, Colombia's Team Sky rider Sergio Henao and Majka.
That trio looked set to contest the medals until the final descent when Nibali and Henao both crashed out, with Thomas sliding off the road soon afterwards.
Majka was left clear but could not hold off Fuglsang or Van Avermaet, who won the sprint to the line along the Copacabana.
"Crazy day out there today! Team GB were amazing all day. So gutted for Geraint Thomas crashing when he did," Froome tweeted.
Thomas also tweeted: "Thanks for all the messages guys. Gutted to end like that, with it all the play for!!!"
Three of Britain's five riders were involved at the front of the race until almost the very end and the other two, Stannard and then Cummings, had sacrificed their individual chances to haul in an early breakaway.
Olympic gold medallist and BBC cycling co-commentator Chris Boardman said: "We did not win a medal because ultimately we did not have the legs for it but, tactically, that was the best Olympic road race I have seen from the British team, so hats off to them.
"They gave themselves plenty of options rather than concentrating on one rider, and used them superbly. All five rode a tough course fantastically well and I was really impressed by how they managed their resources.
"Thomas did a phenomenal job, the whole team did. Britain's best rider was expected to be Froome but for me Thomas would have been the better sprinter if it had come to that."
British coach Rod Ellingworth said: "Looking at Geraint there he was proper, proper disappointed. He knew that was a proper gold medal chance.
"He's all right. He's fallen heavy, he's got plenty of skin off, but he's okay, I think.
"I knew from the test event that descent was going to perhaps be a deciding factor in the race. And it was.
"When you think about how many riders crashed round there it was pretty mad really."
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A Canadian man detained in China since 2014 has been charged with stealing state secrets, say state media.

China's official Xinhua News Agency said Kevin Garratt had been charged in Dandong city, Liaoning province, which borders North Korea.
Xinhua said authorities had found evidence that Mr Garratt accepted tasks from Canadian espionage agencies to gather intelligence in China.
The Canadian government said it was concerned and monitoring developments.
Correspondents describe China's "state secrets" law as notoriously vague, including the definition of what constitutes a state secret.
Mr Garratt and his wife, Julie, were arrested in August 2014. Mrs Garratt was later released.
Their son, Simeon, has said that his parents ran a coffee shop and did Christian aid work for North Koreans.
"The Government of Canada has raised this case with the Chinese Government at high levels .... We remain in contact with Chinese authorities and the family, and are monitoring developments closely," said Canadian foreign ministry spokesperson Francois Lasalle.
Dandong is the main China-North Korea border crossing and trade link. It is a key transit point for North Korean refugees, some of whom are aided by NGOs or Christian groups.


Staff at a Japanese zoo chased a keeper dressed up in a snow leopard costume, as part of their yearly animal-escape drill.

11 February 2015 Last updated at 15:19 GMT
This event happens every year at the zoo, and helps the keepers to prepare in case any of the animals escape in real life.
A total of 70 staff helped out in the drill, as well as local police and emergency workers, who helped to capture the fake leopard-on-the-loose.
Zookeeper Toshiya Nomura, who played the snow leopard, was a bit gutted he didn't scare any of the zoo's visitors with his acting: "Personally I feel I did my best, but it didn't work for kids. I'm a bit disappointed,"
Last year the zoo staged a gorilla escape, and there has even been a pretend rhino escape!


England's rich clubs will dominate the Premier League for the next two decades following Leicester City's title win, says Foxes manager Claudio Ranieri.

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Leicester's squad was assembled for £57m, the cheapest of any currently in the top half of the table.
"Big money makes big teams and usually big teams win. Now we can say only 99% of the time," said Ranieri.
"Next season will be the same and for the next 10 or 20 years, it will be the same."
The cost to assemble Leicester's squad is dwarfed by that of the Premier League's elite.
A recent study showed nearest challengers Tottenham had a squad built at the cost of £159m, while Arsenal (£231m), Liverpool (£260m), Chelsea (£280m), Manchester United (£395m) and Manchester City (£415m) had invested significantly more.
Ranieri suggested a surprise title winner only comes along roughly once every 20 years, pointing to the examples of Nottingham Forest in 1978 and Blackburn Rovers in 1995.
Forest won the league a year after finishing third in the second tier, while Blackburn, themselves heavily backed financially by Jack Walker, were champions three years after winning promotion to the Premier League.
"How many years after Nottingham Forest and Blackburn have another team won?" said the Italian. "The richest, or the team who can pick up the best players to make a team, will win."
Leicester are owned by Thai billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who spoke in 2014 of his readiness to spend £180m to secure the Foxes a top-five finish in the Premier League within three years.
Next season, they will receive between £99m and £150m in prize money as a new television deal worth £5.136bn over three years begins.
Ranieri's argument, though, is other clubs in the Premier League still have more money to spend on players.
"Maybe now is too early to think what we have done," said the 64-year-old. "Maybe in one or two years it will be easier to understand, but now it is important to stay high in the world."
Ranieri does not believe the Foxes' Premier League rivals will have an easy job taking his key players away from the King Power Stadium.
His star trio - midfielder N'Golo Kante, forward Riyad Mahrez, the Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year, and striker Jamie Vardy, who was named Football Writers' Footballer of the Year - are likely to attract interest over the summer from Europe's biggest clubs.
"My phone will ring this summer but I will say: 'Do you have enough money to buy my players?' I would like to maintain all of them," said Ranieri.
"But if one of my players says to me, 'I want to go there', I try to keep him. If you go away you don't know what happens, here you are the king."
And the former Chelsea boss said he will not rush into spending big money on a squad that faces a first Champions League campaign.
"We don't need superstars, we need our players," said Ranieri. "I want to improve the squad without big stars but the right players."
Leicester, champions of England for the first time in their 132-year history, will receive the Premier League trophy after Saturday's final home game against Everton (17:30 BST kick-off).
New snooker world champion Mark Selby, who is from Leicester, wants to join the club's open-top bus parade after missing the moment they sealed the title because he was winning his second crown.
When the Foxes clinched the Championship in 2014, Selby missed the team's bus parade through the city because he was beating Ronnie O'Sullivan to win his first world title.
"They had the open-top bus tour on the day of the Crucible final but I hope they can hold it back for me this time and I can be on there with them," he said.
Selby has revealed the part Leicester's England striker Vardy played in his Crucible success, encouraging him to overcome Marco Fu in the semi-finals.
"He was texting me through the semi-final, saying 'good luck' and hopefully I'll get a few more messages from the boys," said the 32-year-old.


Southend United have signed centre-back Anton Ferdinand on a one-year deal.

The 31-year-old, who began his career at West Ham and later joined Sunderland for £8m, was a free agent after leaving Reading earlier this summer.
Ferdinand could make his Southend debut in Tuesday's Checkatrade Trophy game against Brighton.
"I'm hoping to play regularly and prove to people I can still play in English football at this level and at a higher level," he told the club website.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.


Five prison officers have been hurt during a disturbance at a prison in Kent.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said the "incident of indiscipline" at HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey on Monday was quickly resolved.
All five officers were treated for minor injuries and six inmates have been moved out of the prison.
The category B prison houses around 1,100 prisoners, almost half of whom are serving life sentences.
"The prison is operating as normal and an investigation will now take place," the MoJ spokesman said.


In May 2013, Alan Connell stepped on to the hallowed turf at Wembley as a substitute for Bradford City as they won the League Two play-off final.

Just over two years later, the striker is preparing for pre-season with Southern Premier League Poole Town.
It is the place where QPR striker Charlie Austin began his career, but a far cry from Connell's experiences at the national stadium.
"When I was at Bradford, I wouldn't have imagined being here, but circumstances have dictated that I am," the 32-year-old told BBC Radio Solent.
"A lot of people don't realise there's a life away from football as well."
Life as a part-time player will be markedly different from helping Phil Parkinson's Bradford side secure promotion with a 3-0 win against Northampton, and their memorable run to that season's League Cup final, when he scored in their penalty shoot-out win against Arsenal.
The decision to join Poole is all about "coming home" and follows an injury-hit spell with National League South club Havant & Waterlooville.
"I've sacrificed a lot over the years to benefit my career," said Connell, who will now be facing clubs such as Slough Town, AFC Totton and Chesham United.
"Moving around, going to clubs which I think will benefit me at certain times, I just wanted to move somewhere where I feel settled. I'm really excited about the Poole Town challenge.
Connell's Bradford spell came to an end in January last year when he left to join a Northampton side in the thick of a relegation battle at the foot of League Two.
"Football doesn't stand still for anyone, it's a ruthless game," he said.
"We stayed up at Northampton. I didn't personally play well, it was a real dogfight, but we did what we had to do in the circumstances.
"At the end of the season, the manager didn't offer me a new contract. I was released and I made the decision to move back down to the south coast.
"That's how quickly things can change.
"But, I've got no regrets about any decision I've made in my career. I'm sure it's the same for anyone else in any other walk of life, you make a decision at the time you think's right.
"You can't look back three years later and say, 'I wish I did that instead'.
"I've got a life away from the game now with one or two other things going on and I'm happy again playing my football."
Connell's "no regrets" attitude extends towards former managers who have made decisions to let him go - even former Swindon boss Paolo Di Canio, who transfer-listed him after finishing as their top scorer in 2011-12.
"I wish all my former clubs well," he explained. "I've got a great relationship with all my ex-managers and when you see these people again, there's a really healthy relationship and a mutual respect."
Also among them is a certain Eddie Howe, who began his managerial career within months of Connell joining Bournemouth for a second spell in August 2008.
And the striker believes Howe will be more than capable of handling the challenge of managing a team in the Premier League for the first time this season.
"If you look at the bottom 10 or 12 teams in that league, I think Bournemouth have a chance of doing really well, not just finishing 17th," he added.
"He cares, he has attention to detail, sees things tactically other people don't see.
"He's got an aura and respect about him and just demands the best. It doesn't matter who you are, he just demands you're professional.
"Anything's possible for Eddie in his managerial career and I think they'll do well this season."
Alan Connell was speaking to BBC Radio Solent's Chris Wise


An interpreter who was blinded in one eye in a bomb attack while working with the British Army in Afghanistan fears he could be deported from the UK.

Mr Husseinkhel, 26, has been living in Derby as an asylum seeker since last year after fleeing war-torn Helmand province in 2014.
He now faces deportation to Austria, the first "safe" country he arrived in.
The Home Office said it aimed to return asylum seekers to the European country that was "responsible" for them.
Updates on this story and more from the East Midlands
Mr Husseinkhel worked on the front line in Helmand province translating between British troops and the Afghan army, police and civilians.
He was an interpreter between 2008 and 2012, until he was blown up in a bomb attack and was blinded in his right eye.
Mr Husseinkhel received a death threat letter because of his work, leading him to flee in 2014.
His application for asylum in the UK has been rejected and he now has until 26 June to find a solicitor to take on his case.
If he can get legal representation, a Home Office judicial review will take place. Without a solicitor he faces immediate deportation.
Mr Husseinkhel, who speaks four languages and has glowing references from the army, said it was "unbelievable" that he fought for the UK, but faces being thrown out.
"We put our life at risk and today can't even get help," he said.
"I have worked with them at very hard moments... through bomb threats and enemy threats. I was working shoulder-to-shoulder with British forces."
As an asylum seeker Mr Husseinkhel has not been able to work, but volunteers at Derby Refugee Advice Centre. He lives in modest accommodation and has a Â£36-a week government allowance.
A Home Office spokesman said: "The UK has a proud history of providing protection to those who need it, but it is only fair that we do not shoulder the burden of asylum claims that should rightly be considered by other countries.
"Asylum seekers should claim in the first safe country they arrive in. Where there is evidence that an asylum seeker is the responsibility of another European country we will seek to return them there."


Former Rangers and Romania defender Daniel Prodan has died from a heart attack at the age of 44.

Capped 54 times, he played at the 1994 World Cup and at Euro 96.
Prodan was 26 when he joined Rangers from Atletico Madrid for £2.2m in 1998, but a knee injury prevented him from making a single first-team appearance.
It was later revealed the signing was completed without a medical examination, and Prodan left after two and a half years in Glasgow.
He had won five successive titles with Steaua Bucharest before moving to Madrid, where he spent one season with Atletico.
Prodan took up a sporting director role with the  Romanian Football Federation following his retirement at the age of 31.


There have been angry recriminations about the UK's apparent scaling back of plans to accept unaccompanied child refugees.

Lord Dubs, with all the moral freight and sense of history of a refugee from Nazism, said the government was going back on its own commitments.
But is the UK really shirking its international obligations?
Figures published this week about aid for Syrian refugees might put the UK government into a less hard-hearted light.
One year ago, London hosted a major international conference to raise humanitarian funds for Syria.
There were huge pledges of $12bn (£9.6bn) in grants and $40bn (£32bn) in loans to help a region struggling with unprecedented numbers of refugees escaping war and persecution.
But after the photo-opportunities and handshakes and ministerial convoys - who actually paid up?
The financial report shows that a year later Ireland has paid more than Saudi Arabia and Estonia has donated more than China - not as a proportion of their economies, but in hard cash.
In terms of both promises and delivery for funds in 2016, a quartet of donors made up a huge slice of what was supposed to be a global effort.
These are the US, Germany, the European Union and the UK - all of which have given more than they initially pledged.
The Netherlands, Japan and Norway are the next in this list of donors, but some way behind.
According to this annual reckoning, Saudi Arabia pledged $200m (£160m) for 2016 and has so far committed to $27.9m (£22m).
In contrast, Ireland, promised $21.9m (£17.6m) for this Middle East conflict and has actually paid up $27.9m (£22m).
China promised $35m (£28m) and so far has delivered $3m (£2.4m). This in the end was less than Estonia, a country with a population of 1.3 million, which promised $2.2m (£1.76m) but gave a higher sum of $3.2m (£2.6m).
Canada had been relatively generous in its promise - with a pledge of $71.3m (£57.3m). But it proved to be even more forthcoming in practice - delivering $201m (£161m), more than any of the Middle Eastern countries making pledges.
There might have been a long list of 48 countries and organisations at the London conference pledging support for Syria in 2016, but in practice the fundraising effort has depended on the big contributions from the top four donors.
The UK, the smallest donor of this quartet, alone promised $731m (£584m) and gave $741m (£592m).
The next phase of this accounting - for pledges for 2017 to 2020 - gets even sketchier.
The EU, the UK, Germany and Norway are the big long-haul donors - but a majority of those who made pledges for 2016 have not promised anything at all for the following years.
The world community has promised $6bn (£4.8bn) humanitarian aid up to 2020 - but Saudi Arabia and China are among those absent from the donors.
And 60% of the total pledges are from the EU, the UK, and Germany.
There are a handful of countries who are donating even though they have not made pledges, such as Canada and Ireland.
Optimists might take heart from the eventual level of funding for 2016 - where grants have exceeded the original promises by about a third.
And of course there are other ways of donating directly or through charities that countries might choose.
But so far less than half of the promises at the London conference for 2017 to 2020 have been honoured - and in terms of the loans promised only 31% have been delivered.
It's also interesting to look at the detail of who is getting the money. Turkey is the second-biggest recipient in 2016, after Syria.
And from 2017 to 2020, the biggest recipient of this "Syrian" support will be Turkey by some distance, ahead of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
Turkey is host to the largest number of refugees in the region, with the UNHCR reporting 2.8 million Syrian refugees registered in the country.
Apart from immediate humanitarian aid, a key aim of the fundraising has been to provide an education for all of Syria's refugees - with fears of the damage to a "lost generation".
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a UN envoy for education, appeared before the International Development Select Committee a couple of weeks ago - and warned about what was at stake.
In righteous indignation, he criticised the broken promises that meant many young Syrian refugees had lost their chance of an education along with their homes.
He warned that half of all Syrian refugee children were not in a classroom - and many would never enter school at all.
When it came to promises of aid, he told MPs: "There is a post-truth economics as well as a post-truth politics."
And despite the billion-dollar handshakes, he said, world leaders had not come up with the goods.
The price for this lack of education would be paid in increased migration, extremism, poverty and political instability, Mr Brown said.
"Of course, there will always be a battle publicly about how well aid is used," he told MPs.
"I will just give you one figure about education that people sometimes forget.
"Take all the aid agencies in the world together, including the Department for International Development, the World Bank, Unesco and Unicef, and the average expenditure per child in low and middle-income countries on education through aid, with all these agencies taken together, is less than $10 (£8) per head per year," Mr Brown told the select committee.
"This is less than the cost of a textbook, so nobody can say that we are overspending on aid for kids who are desperately in need of educational opportunity."


Soldiers from the Royal Tank Regiment have staged an attempt to set a new world record as the first regiment to pull a Challenger 2 battle tank.

The attempt was made to pull the 62-tonne tank over 100m (328ft) at Tidworth Garrison, Wiltshire.
The team pulled the Challenger 2 tank at approximately the same speed as the Mk1 tank moved over the Somme battlefield 100 years ago.
Judges will decide in March if a Guinness World Record record was set.
Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Nick Cowey said: "We got going fine but really had to work hard for the last 50 metres.
"As we were pulling down and legs were starting to tire, people had to dig in and started cheering each other on, the crowd were fantastic and we got there."
The idea was thought up by Warrant Officer Class Two Harley Upham to commemorate 100 years since the Army put in the order for the first Tanks which were known as land ships.
The RTR was formed by the British Army in 1916, making it the oldest tank unit in the world.
Source: British Army


British designer John Galliano is to return to high-end fashion as creative director of French fashion house Maison Martin Margiela.

Mr Galliano had been keeping a low profile since he was sacked from Christian Dior in 2011, after a video of him using anti-Semitic language in a drunken tirade was released.
He is currently creative director at Russian perfumery chain L'Etoile.
He also spent a three-week stint at designer Oscar de La Renta last year.
"Margiela is ready for a new charismatic, creative soul," Renzo Rosso,  whose OTB group controls the house, told industry journal Women's Wear Daily.
"John Galliano is one of the greatest undisputed talents of all time. I look forward to his return to create that fashion dream that only he can create," he added.
The 53-year-old designer is considered to be one of the most influential designers of his age and has been awarded the title of British Fashion Designer of the Year four times.
He spent 15 years at Dior, but was sacked after footage of his drunken tirade was released.
A Paris criminal court found him guilty of proffering anti-Semitic insults in public, an offence under French law, on two occasions in February 2011 and October 2010.
Mr Galliano apologised and blamed his actions on drink and drugs.


A German town has banned male asylum seekers from a public swimming pool after women complained of harassment.

A government official in Bornheim said men from a nearby asylum shelter would be barred until they "got the message" that such behaviour was not acceptable.
It follows outrage over hundreds of sexual assaults in nearby Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve.
Those attacks, by men of mainly Arab and North African origin, raised tensions over the influx of migrants.
More than 1.1 million people claimed asylum in Germany in 2015.
The head of the social affairs department in Bornheim - about 20km (12 miles) south of Cologne - said the move to ban migrant men followed increasing number of reports of inappropriate behaviour from female swimmers and staff members.
"There have been complaints of sexual harassment and chatting-up going on in this swimming pool... by groups of young men, and this has prompted some women to leave," Markus Schnapka told Reuters.
He said none of the complaints involved a crime being committed, but that social workers in the town would help to ensure the asylum seekers changed their behaviour.
It is unclear how this rule will be enforced, although Germany is set to introduce new ID cards for migrants in February.
Correspondents say the pool ban is the latest sign of increased tensions following the Cologne attacks.
On Thursday, the authorities in another town in west Germany, Rheinberg, cancelled a carnival parade planned for February over security concerns.
Rheinberg's public security chief, Jonny Strey, told German media that events in Cologne had influenced the decision and that officials were worried about from men from migrant backgrounds misbehaving.
Rheinberg Mayor Frank Tatzel later denied this, according to Reuters.
Cologne authorities expressed concern about the city's own carnival in February following the NYE attacks, promising to step up security and public awareness.
An opinion poll on Friday showed public anxiety increasing over the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Germany.
In the research, published by broadcaster ZDF (in German), 66% of the 1,203 respondents said Germany could not handle the arrivals, up from 46% in December.
Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure over her policies to welcome refugees, also fell - with 39% of people agreeing the chancellor was doing a "good job" in this area, down from 47% in December.


A woman has told a murder trial of how she found a body when she was a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

Kerry Gillespie, now 36, said she had gone with two friends to watch Celtic footballers training in the east end of Glasgow.
They spotted the body of Derek Sheerin on waste ground behind the Celtic social club, near the club's stadium.
She was giving evidence at the trial of Philip Morrison, 40, who denies murdering Mr Sheerin in September 1994.
It is alleged that Mr Morrison, from Londonderry, compressed Mr Sheerin's neck with a belt and robbed him of a watch, tobacco and Â£20.
Ms Gillespie said that on the 25 September, she and her friends were walking in single file, with her at the front, when she saw the body.
She was asked by prosecutor Iain McSporran: "What did you do when you saw the body?"
"I screamed and ran back," she told the High Court in Glasgow.
Ms Gillespie said she ran towards two men who were walking on a path from London Road towards the River Clyde.
One of the men, 49-year-old Duncan Innes, said he had been walking to nearby allotments with a friend.
After being approached by the girls, he went to look at the half-naked body before calling police.
He described seeing papers scattered around the body.
Asked by Mr McSporran what he thought had happened, he said: "I thought maybe it was a sex thing went wrong. Two guys having sex a certain way and it has gone wrong."
The court also heard a statement from James Grayson, the first police officer on the scene, who is no longer alive.
Mr Grayson said he responded to a call at 11:30 on 26 September, 1994.
In his statement, he said: "Due to the distressed condition of the young girls I put them in the rear of my van.
"I went and saw a man's body. A belt was around his neck, his trousers were at his ankles and papers were scattered around."
The trial before judge Lady Rae continues.


The mental health trust for Norfolk and Suffolk is being recommended to be placed in special measures after being rated inadequate.

The Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) was "not a safe, effective or responsive service", said the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The report said there were also concerns about a lack of beds and "urgent action" was needed.
The trust said it would improve services and put patients first.
The CQC report found:
The report recommends leadership "must be more visible and accessible to staff".
But the report also said: "Staff were kind, caring and responsive to people and were skilled in the delivery of care."
Dr Paul Lelliott, CQC's deputy chief Inspector of hospitals, said: "We found a number of serious problems when we inspected the services run by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust.
"We were concerned about the safety and quality of care provided by some of the trust's services," he added.
"We were also struck by the low morale of many of the staff that we interviewed who told us that their voices were not heard by those managing the trust."
Trust chief executive Michael Scott said: "Our priority is to make sure we work with staff to improve the services we provide across Norfolk and Suffolk.
"We are under new management, the new team is bedding in, and there is no complacency on our part about the need to continue to deliver improvements.
"I would like to assure our patients, staff and our partners that this is a turning point for the trust and we will continue to do everything possible to address all of the recommendations the CQC has made."
A spokesman for the Campaign to Save Mental Health in Norfolk and Suffolk said: "The regulator confirms what our campaign has consistently said for more than a year."