A UN-backed special court in The Hague has rejected an appeal against war crimes convictions by lawyers representing former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

It ruled that his convictions had been proved beyond doubt.
Taylor appeared impassive in court as the judge upheld his convictions and 50-year sentence.
He was sentenced in May 2012 for aiding rebels who committed atrocities in Sierra Leone during its civil war.
His lawyers had argued that there were legal errors during his trial.
By Chris MorrisBBC News, The Hague
Charles Taylor listened intently in court, as his appeal against his conviction for war crimes was rejected point by point. Dressed in a dark suit and light yellow tie, he began taking notes in the back of a small desk diary.
But he wrote less as it became clear that his appeal was going to be unsuccessful. At one stage, there was a small shake of the head as the chief judge outlined the wide range of Mr Taylor's support for rebel groups in Sierra Leone.
He stood to hear a summary of the appeal decision, his hands resting on the desk below him. But there was no other visible display of emotion, even when the judge listed some of the horrific crimes for which he has been convicted, crimes that had 'shocked the conscience of mankind'.
Charles Taylor has no further grounds for appeal before this court, and he was given no opportunity to speak. He will serve his sentence in a foreign country, possibly the UK. Sweden and Rwanda have also offered to find a cell to house him.
Taylor, 65, was found to have supplied weapons to the Revolutionary United Front rebels in exchange for a constant flow of so-called blood diamonds.
He was found guilty at his trial of 11 crimes including terrorism, rape, murder and the use of child soldiers by rebel groups in neighbouring Sierra Leone during the vicious civil war of 1991-2002.
Judge Richard Lussick said at his trial that they were "some of the most heinous crimes in human history".
Taylor has always insisted he is innocent and his only contact with the rebels was to urge them to stop fighting.
He became the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World War II.
"The appeals chamber... affirms the sentence of 50 years in prison and orders that the sentence be imposed immediately," Judge George King told the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) on Thursday.
The BBC's Chris Morris in The Hague says the court's decision has been closely watched because the guilty verdict was hailed as a landmark, proving that even people at the highest level of power can be held to account.
• 1989: Launches rebellion in Liberia
• 1991: RUF rebellion starts in Sierra Leone
• 1997: Elected president after a 1995 peace deal
• 1999: Liberia's Lurd rebels start an insurrection to oust Mr Taylor
• June 2003: Arrest warrant issued; two months later he steps down and goes into exile to Nigeria
• March 2006: Arrested after a failed escape bid and sent to Sierra Leone
• June 2007: His trial opens - hosted in The Hague for security reasons
• April 2012: Convicted of aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes
• May 2012: Sentenced to 50 years in jail
• September  2013: Conviction and sentence upheld by the SCSL
Charles Taylor profile
Why Taylor will be jailed in UK
In its ruling, the special court said that Mr Taylor's personal conduct had a "significant effect on the commission of crimes in Sierra Leone".
It said that he unleashed a campaign of terror against the Sierra Leonean opposition "using terror as its modus operandi".
"The Appeals Chamber is of the opinion that the sentence imposed by the trial chamber is fair in the light of the totality of the crimes committed," Judge King said.
He said that Taylor's lawyers had "failed to demonstrate any errors in the trial chamber's reasoning".
The BBC's Umaru Fofana in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, says the hearing was broadcast live on national television.
Presidential spokesman Unisa Sesay told the BBC: "The end of the Charles Taylor trial presents a final closure to a long and sad episode in our nation's history.
"It's fair and open nature, although torturous, is a practical demonstration of accountability and rule of law in state governance."
Correspondents say that Taylor is now expected immediately to serve his sentence in a foreign jail. The UK has offered to accept him at a British prison - other possible destinations include Sweden or Rwanda.
It is likely to take about a week to organise his transfer from The Hague.
Human rights groups have welcomed the outcome of the appeal.
In a statement Amnesty International said that it sent a clear message to leaders across the world that no-one is immune from justice.
"The conviction of those responsible for crimes committed during Sierra Leone's conflict has brought some measure of justice for the tens of thousands of victims," said Stephanie Barbour, head of Amnesty's Centre for International Justice in The Hague.
"The conviction of Charles Taylor must pave the way for further prosecutions."


Wasps hooker Edd Shervington is to seek a new career in show business when he retires at the end of the season.

At the age of 31, the Welsh chicken farmer, who runs a successful family free range egg business in Gwent, is serious about fulfilling a genuine ambition to tread the boards.
"I'm sure people will think my West End ambitions are a wind-up," he said.
"The family farming business is going really well. The time is right to hang up the boots and try a new challenge."
As well as spending more time with his young family and successful chicken farming and countryside recycling business, based at St Brides just outside Newport, the rugby-playing Shervington fulfils another traditional Welsh custom of being a good singer. He has a passion for musicals and theatre and is now enthusiastically ready to target the West End.
"I'm not always seen as the most serious bloke in the game," he added. "But I'd genuinely love to try something different and to follow another of my passions, just like rugby has been for the past 12 years."
After two years working with his fellow Welshman, Wasps director of rugby Dai Young said: "Edd has been a great addition to the squad, not only for his strength at the set-piece but also for his off-field presence.
"His sense of humour is sometimes an acquired taste, but he has created a lot of laughs among the squad throughout his time here and I'd like to wish Edd and his family the best of luck for their next steps."
Shervington represented Wales at age-group levels up to Under-21s, as well as Neath and Ospreys, before signing for Worcester Warriors in 2010.
After four seasons at Sixways, he joined Wasps in 2014, since when he has made 31 appearances.
"I would like to thank everyone at Wasps for such an enjoyable two years, particularly our owner Derek Richardson, who has been phenomenal for the club as well as being a really decent guy," he said.
"I'd also like to thank Dai and the coaches for the opportunities and support they've given me and the players for such a memorable couple of seasons.
"It's been a pleasure to be part of such a tight squad, to reach a European semi-final and still with a Premiership semi-final to look forward to."


The funeral has been held of a Hampshire man killed in the Tunisia beach attack.

David Thompson, 80, was the oldest of the 38 people who died when a gunman opened fire on a beach in the resort of Sousse.
A private funeral service was held in his home village of Tadley.
In his address, the Reverend Richard Harlow said: "there are no words which can soften either the manner or the suddenness of David's death."
The funeral service was held at St Paul's Church, close to Mr Thompson's home on The Green.
A book of condolence had been opened at the church following the death of the retired atomic scientist.
Mr Harlow told the congregation of Mr Thompson's skill as a woodworker as well as his love of keeping fit, dancing and travel.
"We are all left speechless by such evil. We give thanks to God for David's life, love and kindness.
"We treasure the man he was and the memories he leaves behind," he said.


Road closures were in place on Friday as 40,000 people came to Cardiff for Justin Bieber's concert.

The Canadian singer appeared at the Principality Stadium, with the gates opening at 17:30 BST and the event ending after 22:30.
Some nearby roads were shut for periods between 18:00 and 23:00.
Those coming by car were urged to use a park-and-ride at Cardiff City Stadium, as city centre car parks were expected to be busy.
Westgate Street, Park Street and Scott Road shut at 18:00 and after the gig, closures were extended to cover parts of Cowbridge Road East, Castle Street, Duke Street and Wood Street.
There was a post-event queuing system at Cardiff Central Station and limited extra services after the concert.


Atletico Madrid have agreed a deal to sign midfielder Nicolas Gaitan from Benfica for 25m euros (£19.7m).

The 28-year-old, linked with Manchester United, will join Atletico after the Copa America campaign with Argentina.
He spent six seasons with Benfica, making 200 appearances with 32 goals, having joined them from Argentine giants Boca Juniors in 2010.
Gaitan won three straight league titles with Benfica and was a Europa League runner-up twice.


A motorcyclist in his 40s has died in a traffic accident in Cookstown, County Tyrone.

His motorcycle was involved in a collision with a car on the Lough Fea Road at about 19:45 on Wednesday.
Police said the man died from his injuries at the scene.
The Lough Fea Road was closed following the collision but has now reopened. Police have appealed for anyone who was travelling on the road at the time of the crash to contact them.


Kent have signed batsman Sean Dickson after he impressed during a trial spell with their Second XI.

The South Africa-born 23-year-old had been playing club cricket in the East Anglian Premier League this season.
"Sean shows a great maturity with the bat and understands his game well," Kent's high performance director Simon Willis told the club website.
"The number of runs he has scored in all formats is testament to his focus and concentration."
Dickson, who has a British mother and holds a UK passport, has previously played first-class cricket for Northerns in South Africa.
He also bowls medium pace and could make his first-team debut for the club in their T20 Blast match against Glamorgan on Friday.
Kent have not disclosed the length of his contract at the St Lawrence Ground.


A senior state official has been shot dead in central Mexico.

Jose de Jesus Gallegos was named as tourism minister in Jalisco's state government only 10 days ago. The Jalisco authorities said the attack had nothing to do with Mr Gallegos' current job.
Unconfirmed reports say four people have been detained.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has joined state governor Aristoteles Sandoval in condemning the attack.
Police said Mr Gallegos was attacked by gunmen as he drove through Zapopan, which is part of Guadalajara's metropolitan area.
Initial reports said two vehicles had blocked Mr Gallegos as he was driving on the border area between Zapopan and the state capital, Guadalajara.
Several gunmen opened fire when his car stopped.
"It was probably related to his business activities before he took the job as secretary of tourism," said Jalisco's government secretary, Arturo Zamora.
Federal authorities had been instructed to help local police solve the crime, which Mr Zamora said must not go unpunished.
Mr Gallegos had spent most of his life working in Mexico's tourism industry, but not in the public sector.
Jalisco, known for tequila and mariachi music, was recaptured by the president's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 2012 and the new state government took office on 1 March.
The killing happened a day before the president marks his first one 100 days in office.
Since his inauguration, on December 1st, there have been more than 3,150 violent deaths in Mexico.


Parents of children due to go to a summer camp whose director has been charged with possession of indecent images have been offered refunds.

LL Camps in Bushey, Hertfordshire, was closed by Ofsted last week and director Ben Lewis has been charged with possessing indecent images of children.
Following the closure, parents vented their anger on the firm's Facebook page at the initial lack of information.
But camp co-founder Tal Landsman has now said refunds will be issued.
Ofsted closed the camp on 6 August and the company's website was taken down soon after.
One parent whose child was due to attend the US-style day camp wrote it was an "utter disgrace".
Another was concerned about parents who "could not afford alternative care without the refund".
A man whose children had gone to the camp told the BBC: "Fortunately, for us they were only going for one further day, and then they were going to a different camp.
"Had it been the situation that they were due to be there this week and all of next week, we'd be in a bit of bother."
But on Wednesday, Mr Landsman confirmed parents would be able to fill in a refund form which has been placed on a holding page on the company's official website.
Mr Lewis and Mr Landsman opened the holiday club in 2010.


It will be up to engineers to find solutions to the problems posed by the world's growing human population, the Duke of Edinburgh has told the BBC.

The duke told Radio 4's Today programme that "everything that wasn't invented by God was invented by an engineer".
He was discussing the merits of British engineering with Today's guest editor, former BP chief executive Lord Browne.
Prince Philip said engineering had contributed to the post-war recovery and would help solve future problems.
The prince, who has an interest in scientific and technological research and development in industry, told the programme that after World War Two "we were completely skint, seriously badly damaged" when engineering had helped the post-war rebuilding process.
Looking to the future and the problems the world's growing population are likely to pose, he said: "But somehow or other that balance to try and fit as many people onto this globe as comfortably as possible without them doing too much damage - I think ultimately it's going to be engineers who are going to decide that."
Asked whether scientists viewed engineers as second-rate, the prince said there was, he assumed, a certain amount of jealousy and anxiety as to whether engineers might be better.
He added it was "curious" that there was no Nobel Prize for engineering.


Neighbours gather at windows and on rooftops surrounding the Tabaydar house in a very poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Lahore.

It feels like an open-air concert - men, women and children are cheering and trying to get the best vantage point to watch the performance.
The two girls they want to see are 15-year-old Saania and 13-year-old Muqqadas Tabaydar, also known as 'Justin Bibis'.
The teenage sisters became an internet sensation when a video of them singing Justin Bieber's song Baby, with their mother doing background beats on a pot, went viral.
People in Pakistan took to social media. Some announced that Bieber had "competition" in these two girls.
"Pakistan's got talent" was another popular comment about the sisters.
"We've been singing since we were very young - many members of our family sing too. We know all sorts of Pakistani and Bollywood songs," said Saania.
"But we especially love Justin Bieber songs because they touch our hearts.
"When we heard Baby, we started dancing and jumping around and we just lost ourselves to it," she added.
Her sister Muqqadas said they have both listened to the song about 70 times.
"When I heard the song I forgot to eat or drink. I was just listening. I kept practising and practising until I learned it by heart.
"This song has been really lucky for us because we've now become famous!"
Saania and Muqqadas come from a very poor family and dropped out of education after primary school.
They do not speak much English so to learn the song they sounded out the words and transcribed them into Urdu.
They coached each other on the lyrics and the melodies.
They were soon picked up by local television channels who invited them to perform live.
The new-found fame is a big shift from their daily life.
"We really didn't expect all of this to happen to us, to be famous like this. Because of this video we got on a plane for the first time and we've been on TV. That's always been our dream.
"We had our hair and make-up done. We'd never been to a beauty parlour before. All of it was like magic so who knows what will happen next," said Saania smiling.
Their mother Shahnaz Tabaydar said she was also a big fan of Justin Bieber.
"I still can't believe all of this happened to my daughters, all thanks to Justin Bieber.  I like him a lot. I feel he's like my son.
"I wish that my girls could one day become professional singers in Pakistan and India. I hope they get the support they need."
Mrs Tabaydar said the girls were taken out of school because the family was too poor. "But I really want them to go back," she said.
Their father said he was proud of his daughters.
Pakistan is a religiously conservative country and girls singing in public is frowned upon. But their father says they have not received any criticism.
"My daughters do something not many others girls can do. They sing English songs which are very hard for them, but they manage it."
Saania and Muqqadas say they want to travel the world.
"Our biggest wish, though, is to meet Justin Bieber and to sing with him."


Rare finds - including works of art and a trolley used to transfer wounded soldiers in World War One - have been unearthed in Swansea and Bridgend hospitals.

The artefacts came to light after Abertawe Bro Morgannwg health board embarked on a project to catalogue items held in storage.
Some have been stored away for more than a century.
Once a digital catalogue is completed, the board wants to put them on display.
It hopes to secure a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the exhibition, which will tell the story of health care in Wales.
As project lead Martin Thomas explained, the idea came about through a chance conversation.
"My day job, so to speak, is manual handling advisor for the board and I was approached about what to do with an old wicker trolley which was getting in the way," he said.
"When I started to investigate it, I realised that it had been used to transport wounded WW1 soldiers from Clydach train station up to the war memorial hospital.
"It soon became clear that we have hundreds of items like this."
He approached the chairman of the board about a heritage project and securing a grant from the Charitable Funds Committee to catalogue them "before it's too late".
The first item restored under the project was a long-lost oil painting of Roger Beck, the pioneer of Swansea General and Eye Hospital, painted in 1922 by renowned Swansea artist Gwenny Griffiths.
Other items include early electric shock therapy equipment, a 1940s X-ray chair, dental and maxillofacial prosthetics from the 1920s, a lockable leather glove used to prevent psychiatric patients from harming themselves or staff and test tubes full of seeds from Glanrhyd Hospital.
"If there's anywhere where the innovation and achievements of the NHS over the decades should be celebrated, then surely it's in Wales, the birth-place of the NHS," he added.


A former council official has been accused of misleading the health and safety executive (HSE) after a child died at a cemetery in Glasgow.

Ciaran Williamson, eight, was playing with friends in Craigton Cemetery when a headstone fell on him on 26 May 2015.
Alastair Brown later told the HSE that the council had a "formal process of inspection" for cemeteries before 2015.
A QC for Ciaran's mother stated that no evidence existed for this claim and accused him of misleading inspectors.
Mr Brown, who was head of environment and sustainability at Glasgow City Council from 2008 until September 2016, was giving evidence for a second day at the fatal accident inquiry into Ciaran's death.
The inquiry, at Glasgow Sheriff Court, aims is to establish if there were any reasonable precautions that could have prevented the tragedy.
It also aims establish if there were any defects in the system of work which caused or contributed to Ciaran's death.
The inquiry heard that Mr Brown wrote to the health and safety executive following the tragedy.
In his letter, he said the council had established a "formal process of inspection" before 2015.
The letter also said: "Whilst there does not seem to be any formal inspections undertaken from 2011 there are reports of a number of inspections on an ad hoc basis."
Paperwork sent to the HSE included 11 reports of checks at cemeteries in Glasgow, between 2006 and 2011.
Six cemeteries had only one report while two others had multiple checks over those years.
An example of one record from Sandymount cemetery, dated back to 2006 and recorded three memorials being checked.
Dorothy Bain QC representing Ciaran's mother, Stephanie Griffin, questioned Mr Brown about the records.
She said: "There's no record for Craigton here."
The witness replied: "There's no record for Craigton.
Ms Bain put to him: "The records - clearly meaningless, aren't they?"
Mr Brown said he "wasn't familiar with guidance" but said he would have thought they would have asked for "more explicit records".
Ms Bain continued "If this is all there is, there is no evidence whatsoever of what you have told the inspectorate, namely a formal process for the inspection of memorials within burial grounds.
"It's completely misleading the inspectorate."
The witness replied: "I would have expected the inspectorate if they were unhappy with phraseology to come back to me for more records."
Mr Brown said that from 2003 onwards it was a "fairly unplanned activity".
The inquiry before sheriff Linda Ruxton continues.


When the Six Nations committee decided to introduce a bonus-point system for the 2017 championship you could almost hear the contrasting reactions in rugby heartlands in Britain and Ireland.

There are those who will argue to kingdom come that the Six Nations is fine as it is, that it has its own identity and doesn't need to go down the road of being tricked up. What next? Kiss-cams. Mexican waves. Pitch-side microphone-wielding fun police ordering everybody to 'MAKE SOME NOISE!' Too late, alas. Too late.
Those who are against bonus points for extra scores see it is a gimmick that will do nothing to enhance a tournament that doesn't need a whole lot of enhancing in the first place.
Apply a retrospective bonus-point system and would it have changed the finishing order in 2016? No. How about 2015, 2014? No, no. Are there not enough tries in the Six Nations already? Not as many as its southern hemisphere counterpart, the Rugby Championship, but enough to satisfy the vast crowds who always turn up to watch it?
The average try count per match in the 2016 Six Nations was 4.73. In the Rugby Championship it was 5.83. The season before it was 4.13 in the north and 5.5 in the south. The season before that, 4.07 in the Six Nations and 4.17 in the Rugby Championship.
It's not as big a gulf as people might think. In any event, Six Nations rugby is not Rugby Championship rugby. It has its own heartbeat. Oftentimes, it's rugby in the trenches. Full Metal Jacket stuff. It's not as easy on the eye as the New Zealands and the Australias, but it works. And fans adore it.
In the southern hemisphere's four-nation tournament, yes, there are more tries, but does that necessarily make it better, more intoxicating? Across a difficult four-year period in economic terms, Six Nations crowds have gone from an average of 69,531 to 68,968, a drop of less than 1%. That's good going in the climate. The Rugby Championship's crowds are down close to 12%.
The opposing, pro-change view is that the Six Nations has become a bit tired and is in need of modernising. The Rugby Championship, the Champions Cup, the Premiership in England, the Pro12, the Top 14 in France and Super Rugby in the southern hemisphere all have the bonus-point system.
In the Six Nations there is a view that the premium is on defence over attack. That argument can be overblown, but there's truth in it, too. Those who are supportive of the new bonus-point system see a vision of the future that will have a nation busting a gut to turn three tries into four in the latter stages of a Test, just to secure that extra point.
Cue more attacking intent and more entertainment. That's the wish. For example, in the 2015 Six Nations, had England scored four tries against Scotland - and got a bonus point - instead of three they might have won the championship. The winners, Ireland, could apply the same logic to one of their games, of course. So could Wales.
In 2014, had England added to their two first-half tries in their victory against Wales with another two in the second half they might have won that championship, too. They didn't. Ireland did - and it was hard-won and richly deserved.
The final Saturday of both of those Six Nations were thrill-fests. Ireland secured the title with a hugely dramatic victory in Paris in 2014 and they won it again in 2015 with that most incredible trilogy where tries cascaded down on Ireland in Scotland, Wales in Italy and England against France.
Three nations were in a mad-dash for the winning line. It was an utterly brilliant day, so why would you want to mess with the dynamic?
There is no harm in tinkering. Experimentation is to be applauded, just as long as there's an open mind and that if bonus points are not seen to be working then they're put in the bin and the Six Nations is restored to its old, flawed, but thoroughly loveable self.


Three men have appeared in court in Dublin charged with illegal immigration offences.

All three have been remanded in custody.
The men were charged in connection with the operation of an international human trafficking network at Dublin Airport.
Xing Wang, 28, originally from China is accused of possessing false documents, failing to produce a passport or identity card and failing to present himself to an immigration officer.
A detective from the Garda (Irish police) National Immigration Bureau told the court that he arrested Mr Xing at 21.45 local time on Sunday at the White Zone Car Park at Dublin Airport.
The two other accused are both Aer Lingus employees, Frederick Cham, 56, and 58-year-old Peter Kernan, both with addresses in Celbridge, County Kildare.
They are accused of facilitating an illegal immigrant entering Ireland on 9 January and 22 January of this year.
A detective told the court Mr Cham made no reply to the charges.
Another detective said Mr Kernan, along with others, organised the entry of illegal immigrants to Ireland, by-passing passport control and airport security.
He alleged that money had been paid and that some of Mr Kernan's resources had been seized and were no longer available to him for a bail application.
The court was told that an independent surety had been organised but had been withdrawn this morning because of the publicity.
The detective said police were objecting to bail because of the seriousness of the charges and the accused's association with organised criminal gangs who had access to false documents.
Mr Xing and Mr Cham have been remanded in custody until Friday.
Peter Kernan has been remanded in custody until bail conditions are satisfied.


Young people in Africa are being "sold the dream" of living in the UK only to be trafficked into slavery, the Archbishop of Westminster has said.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols was speaking at a conference of religious leaders and police chiefs in London.
Met Police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told the conference there had been a four-fold rise in victims coming forward over four years.
It was meeting to discuss what measures could best combat trafficking
Cardinal Nichols said: "What struck me the most of all was the extent and the type of enticement and abuse of people that goes on in Africa.
"For example, there are schools for football excellence which get youngsters in and promise them a career in the Premier League, and as soon as they get to England they are enslaved.
"There seems to be almost no enticement that isn't being used. They come in search of a dream, but of course don't find it.
"There are plenty of people who are willing to entice them and sell them the dream in order to get them here."
And Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told the conference "Often, people are trafficked at a young age believing that they are entering a better world, when in reality they are entering a far worse world from which they cannot escape."
A recent Home Office report estimated that as many as 13,000 people in the UK have been trafficked into activities such as prostitution, domestic labour, factory work and working on fishing boats.
One victim, Nadia, was married at 13 and trafficked in South East Asia by her husband. Now in her 60s, she found refuge in the UK but spent many years before that in slavery.
She told the BBC: "They beat me every day, shouting at me, not giving me food, not giving my daughter food, not giving medicine, not taking to a doctor - she sick, sick, sick; she died. Here I am safe."
The collection of religious leaders, government officials and senior international police officers attending the conference is known as the Santa Marta Group, and was launched at the Vatican in April.
At its launch, Pope Francis described trafficking as "an open wound on the body of contemporary society; a crime against humanity".
The group is considering the best ways to stop human trafficking, including measures such as working with local health services to try to identify women sold into sex work.
The next meeting of the group will be in Madrid in October next year.


The alleged murderer of a teenage girl was told by police to contact social services when he sought advice about what to do with the "problem child" up to two weeks before he killed her, a court has heard.

Robert Ewing, 60, is accused of killing 15-year-old Paige Chivers, who went missing in Blackpool in 2007.
Preston Crown Court has heard he rang police anonymously to say a girl had turned up on his doorstep.
Mr Ewing denies murder.
It is said that Mr Ewing, of All Hallows Road, Bispham, was "testing the water" to discover what the official reaction would be to Paige turning up on his doorstep after she had been thrown out of her home by her father.
Later that month in August 2007, Mr Ewing is alleged to have murdered Paige at his flat before he disposed of the youngster's body, which has still not been found.
The court heard the defendant told a police operator that a 15-year-old girl who he "vaguely knew" had come to his house following a family row.
He said he let her in before later sending her home but was concerned he had "left her in limbo" and wanted to know what he should do next.
During the recording, which was played to the jury, he said: "She's permanently excluded from school. She's a problem child. Drinks, smokes ...you name it she does it."
Mr Ewing revealed he knew her full name but was not asked to disclose either his or her name.
After adding he did not know her address, the operator advises him to ring social services.
Co-defendant Gareth Dewhurst, 46, of Duncan Avenue, Blackpool, has pleaded not guilty to a serious sexual act, assisting an offender in disposing a body and intending to pervert the course of public justice.
Mr Ewing also denies intending to pervert the course of public justice.
The trial continues.


Security forces have ended a gun and bomb attack on a university in north-west Pakistan in which 19 people were killed and 17 injured.

Four suspected attackers also died in a battle that lasted nearly three hours at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda.
One Pakistani Taliban commander said the group had carried out the assault, but its main spokesman denied this.
The group killed 130 students at a school in the city of Peshawar, 50km (30 miles) from Charsadda, in 2014.
Survivor recalls 'horrible and wild attack'
How the attack unfolded
Why can't Pakistan stop the militants?
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement: "We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland."
The attackers struck at about 09:30 local time (04:30 GMT), apparently climbing over a back wall under cover of the thick winter fog.
Intense gunfire and explosions were heard as security guards fought the attackers.
Students and staff ran to find cover in toilets and examination halls.
One student told television reporters he was in class when he heard gunshots: "We saw three terrorists shouting, 'God is great!' and rushing towards the stairs of our department.
"One student jumped out of the classroom through the window. We never saw him get up."
Reports say a chemistry lecturer, named by media as Syed Hamid Husain, shot back at the gunmen to allow his students to flee, before he was killed.
Geology student Zahoor Ahmed said the teacher had warned him not to leave the building after the first shots were fired.
"He was holding a pistol in his hand," he was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.
"Then I saw a bullet hit him. I saw two militants were firing. I ran inside and then managed to flee by jumping over the back wall."
The victims - mostly male students - were shot in the head or chest. Seventeen people were injured. At least one security guard also died.
There have been conflicting claims about who could be involved in the attack, a sign of the kaleidoscopic mix of militant networks evolving along the Pakistan-Afghan border region in the north.
The attack comes amid a sudden spike in militant violence in Pakistan, after a year of relative peace and quiet largely attributed to a 2014 military operation against militant sanctuaries in Waziristan. Questions are now being raised over whether that operation really destroyed the ability of militants to regroup and strike at will.
The attack is reminiscent of the December 2014 attack on a school in Peshawar in which more than 150 people, mostly schoolboys, were killed. But damage to life and property this time has been much less, mainly due to swift action by the local police, but also because of the fact that the university had its own team of more than 50 trained security guards on duty who first confronted the attackers.
A dense fog that reduced visibility to less than 10m may also have been a factor, as one police officer explained, because it put the attackers at a disadvantage against the university guards who knew the premises better.
Read more:
Pakistan hangs four over Peshawar school attack
Peshawar school massacre video game removed
Who are the Taliban?
Images from inside the university show a pool of blood on the floor of a dormitory and the bodies of two alleged militants lying on a staircase.
A senior Taliban commander, Umar Mansoor, told the media the attack was in response to a military offensive against militant strongholds. He said four suicide attackers had carried out the attack.
However, the group's main spokesman, Mohammad Khurasani, later told the BBC the Taliban had not been involved. He condemned the attack as "un-Islamic".
About 3,000 students are enrolled at Bacha Khan, but hundreds of visitors were also expected on Wednesday for a poetry event.
There is a symbolic value attached to Bacha Khan University as it is named after a Pashtun nationalist leader who believed in non-violent struggle, says BBC Urdu's Asad Ali Chaudry.
The title of Wednesday's poetry programme in his honour was "peace", he adds.
Just days ago, some schools in Peshawar were closed by the authorities amid reports that militants were planning an attack.


A German-Turkish writer who is a known critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been arrested in Spain.

Dogan Akhanli, who has written extensively on human rights in Turkey, was detained at the request of Turkish authorities in the city of Granada.
German Green MP Volker Beck said the move was politically motivated and that he had requested that Mr Akhanli should not be extradited to Turkey.
It is unclear on what grounds the arrest warrant was issued.
The move, Mr Beck said, showed that President Erdogan was prepared to "extend his power beyond his country's borders" to "intimidate and pursue [his critics] around the world".
Since a failed coup in July last year, tens of thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey - including officials, academics and journalists. Opposition media outlets have been closed down.
Mr Akhanli, 60, has written about the killing in 2007 of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and the 1915 killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, which was labelled as genocide by the German parliament last year.
His lawyer, Ilias Uyar, told Der Spiegel magazine that it was "unbelievable that Turkey is now simply chasing critical minds abroad".
In February Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist who works for Germany's Die Welt newspaper, was detained in Turkey over allegations of producing terrorist propaganda. He remains in police custody.
German-Turkish relations dipped to a new low on Friday when Germany accused Mr Erdogan of interference after he urged Turkish voters in Germany not to vote for the country's main parties.
Relations soured in March after Mr Erdogan accused German officials of acting like Nazis following Germany's cancellation of rallies among ethnic Turks ahead of a referendum on greater powers for the Turkish president.
Despite these tensions, the two countries remain major trade partners and allies in Nato.


This afternoon, eleven England internationals will walk out at Wembley to the roar of a sell-out crowd.

Each will have the famous three lions badge on their shirts.
That may all sound familiar, but those inside the stadium, and the many more watching at home, will be witnessing history.
Sunday's international friendly against old rivals Germany will be the first time England's women have played at the new home of English football.
And more than 55,000 tickets have been sold, far more than the 40,181 that saw the last Wembley friendly involving England's men.
Interest in the women's game hasn't been this feverish since 1920.
Back then crowds regularly dwarfed modern attendances for the men's game, with one recorded at 53,000.
But then an FA ban on the women's game a year later stopped progress for decades.
Officials deemed the sport "unsuitable for females" with the restriction not lifted for another half century.
This season though the climax to the domestic Women's Super League was televised and Sunday's match will be broadcast on BBC2.
"It's unbelievable that we've sold 55,000 tickets," England defender Steph Houghton told Newsbeat.
"I speak on behalf of all the girls and say we're really, really excited. Times have changed massively over the last few years."
However, greater interest and exposure breeds added expectation and pressure.
Much like the men's abject failure in Brazil last summer, England's women bombed out of their last major competition.
One point out of nine from their three games at the European Championships in 2013 was a poor return by anyone's standards.
It was an opportunity lost to showcase the women's game to the country.
Hope Powell, who transformed the game in her 15 years in charge of the national side, was sacked.
Mark Sampson was brought in to replace her and tasked with rebuilding the squad's confidence and profile.
It's going well. Sampson has won 10 of his 12 games in charge and has lifted England to seventh in the world rankings.
Sunday's opponents Germany are second.
The sides last met in the final of the 2009 European Championships, a game which the Germans won 6-2 at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki.
"Germany have always been an incredibly strong nation in women's football," said Sampson.
"They're a team that continue to get results, they're always at the end of major championships, and they're European champions - so we'll expect a really tough game."
There's no doubting a result against the Germans would be a huge scalp, especially considering the exposure the match will be getting.
Although the side's main focus is next year's World Cup in Canada.
With 10/10 wins in qualification, hopes are high that an England team can finally bring back football's biggest prize.
"At the moment we've got a really good squad in terms of youth and experience. I think the balance is right," Steph Houghton told Newsbeat.
"We've got six months to prepare and I think we've got a really good chance."
Women's football is one of the world's fastest growing sports, with over 30 million women participating worldwide.
The hope here is if the women's team can couple success on the pitch with the sport's growing profile, more and more women will start to play.
"The most important thing is to enjoy playing," said Houghton.
"Never lose the fact that you love the game. If you get the opportunity to go and train with coaches, listen to them and work as hard as you possibly can."
England take on Germany at 1500 GMT on Sunday 23 November. You can catch all the action live on BBC Two, Radio 5 live sports extra and the BBC Sport website.
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube


A police officer accused of raping and sexually abusing vulnerable women has claimed he was a victim of rumours.

Northumbria Pc Stephen Mitchell, 43, of Glasgow, denies five counts of rape, six of indecent assault and 15 of misconduct in public office.
He told a court his accusers shared details of their allegations against him with each other.
The prosecution claims he promised "favours" for women in custody  - and then demanded sexual favours in return.
One of the 16 complainants claimed Mitchell's three-and-a-half year hold over her only ended when she fled after he handcuffed and raped her at her flat.
Mr Mitchell told Newcastle Crown Court the claimant came forward to police as a means of "self-preservation", the nature of which he could not divulge in open court.
He added: "From that moment onwards I suggest there has been a whole host of rumours going around which have been spread by (that complainant).
"She's telling certain people for a particular reason, and it's a very small-knit community in Newcastle city centre's criminal fraternity.
"I think it has been demonstrated that people have been talking about this on a number of occasions."
Mr Mitchell said that explained why some aspects of some of the women's complaints against him were similar.
"I know these people are not always truthful," he said.
"But you are?" asked Paul Sloan QC in cross-examination for the prosecution.
"Yes," replied the defendant. "These people will grab any opportunity they can."
The trial, which is in its fourth week, continues.


Hearts midfielder Don Cowie has backed head coach Ian Cathro to turn things around at Tynecastle.

Cathro has overseen six wins from 24 games since taking over, leading to criticism from the club's fans.
And Saturday's 2-1 defeat at Rangers, coupled with St Johnstone's win over Partick Thistle, means Hearts cannot now qualify for Europe.
But Cowie said: "I firmly believe we have a tremendous manager, and we need to stick by him and get through this."
With St Johnstone now certain of a fourth-place finish and that last European berth, Hearts are left to battle it out with Partick Thistle for fifth spot in the Premiership, with the Jambos currently four points clear of the Jags.
It is far from where the Gorgie faithful want to be but Cowie says Cathro should not be bearing the brunt of the fans' flak alone.
And he is convinced the 30-year-old will get it right in time for next term.
"Look, we all take responsibility for the way things have gone in the last few months," the 34-year-old former Wigan, Cardiff and Watford player said.
"A lot of it has been put on to the manager but us as players need to take part of the blame. The performances haven't been good enough.
"I don't like talking about next season but I believe that after the summer we will come back a stronger team."
Cowie reckons there were positive signs for the future in Saturday's defeat at Ibrox.
Rangers took an early lead through Joe Garner before Hearts' Prince Buaben was shown a straight red card for a last-man challenge on Josh Windass.
Cathro's side produced a much-improved second-half display, however, levelling through Esmael Goncalves before Barrie McKay won it for the home side.
"There has been a lot of doom and gloom about but you saw a performance from boys that were putting their body on the line and showing what it means to play for this club," Cowie added.
Meanwhile, Hearts have handed a new one-year deal to Bulgarian striker Nikolay Todorov.
The 20-year-old scored five goals for Cowdenbeath and four goals for League One title winners Livingston during loan spells this season.


A British man faces extradition to France for questioning over the murder of a film-maker.

Former journalist, Ian Bailey, 53, is wanted by authorities in Paris over the killing of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, 39, who was beaten to death in west Cork in 1996.
On Friday a judge in Dublin's High Court ruled he would make an order for Mr Bailey's surrender to authorities in France.
He denies any involvement in her death.
Mr Bailey was arrested twice by gardai in connection with the murder investigation but he was never charged.
Ms Toscan du Plantier was found dead outside her holiday home at Toormore, near Schull, two days before Christmas 1996.
Under French law, authorities can investigate the suspicious death of a citizen abroad but cannot compel witnesses to go to Paris for questioning.
Investigating magistrate Patrick Gachon was appointed by officials in Paris to conduct an inquiry into Ms Toscan du Plantier's violent death after the Director of Public Prosecutions in Ireland announced nobody would be charged.
A European arrest warrant was issued for Mr Bailey.
During a two-day hearing in December 2010 barrister Martin Giblin, senior counsel for Mr Bailey, argued there has been no new evidence against him to support an extradition.
He also maintained the application was an insult to the Irish state and the DPP, who has repeatedly directed that no prosecution be taken.
Manchester-born Mr Bailey, a recent law graduate, lives in Schull with his partner.
He worked as a journalist in Gloucester and Cheltenham before moving to Ireland in 1991.


Lord Coe is the right man to lead a clean-up of athletics, says Olympic medallist Brendan Foster.

Foster's support comes on the day a World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) independent report is set to criticise governing body the IAAF, which Coe now heads, for failing to tackle doping.
Foster, now part of the BBC commentary team, said: "This is the worst day in the history of this great sport.
"The agenda is clearly set that he has to change the future of athletics."
Former Wada president Dick Pound last year released a damning report that was critical of the IAAF and led to Russian athletes being banned from competition.
He will issue the second part of that report on Thursday.
Foster, who won European 5,000m gold in 1974, added: "The sport, today, will be unveiled as clearly unable to be governed by the regime that was in place before Seb Coe was appointed.
"We've got a governing body that is not fit for purpose."
Foster has recently spoken to his fellow Briton and said the two-time Olympic champion was "hurting".
He added: "He is determined like no-one else can be determined. He's going to change this thing."
Lord Coe, 59, succeeded Lamine Diack as IAAF president in August, after eight years as a vice-president.
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Foster, 68, believes the governing body needs to change its name and move from its headquarters in Monaco.
He also agrees with UK Athletics' proposal to reset world records to help achieve a "new era" of clean competition.
Foster said: "My view is 'park' that record book and start a new one."
Meanwhile, sports lawyer Gregory Ioannidis expects the second part of the independent Wada report to be "very damaging" to the IAAF.
Ioannidis, who has represented accused athletes, said: "The first part of the report focused basically on allegations of anti-doping violations on behalf of a specific country.
"The second part of the report I expect to perhaps focus on allegations of violations on behalf of IAAF officials.
"Obviously, I'm expecting this to be a very dark day for world athletics."


Florent Malouda scored as England's Euro 2012 Group D opponents France stunned Germany 2-1 in Bremen.

Olivier Giroud silenced the hosts in Werder Bremen's Weserstadion before Chelsea's Malouda doubled the lead.
Germany striker Cacau scored an injury-time consolation but France are now unbeaten in 18 matches.
Sweden and Ukraine, who also face England in the group stage at Euro 2012, secured wins against Croatia and Israel respectively.
Sunderland's Sebastian Larsson scored twice as Sweden recorded an impressive 3-1 victory.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic also scored while Croatia found the net through an own goal from West Brom defender Jonas Olsson, his header sending the ball looping over goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson and into an empty net.
Co-hosts Ukraine continued their impressive build-up to the tournament with a 3-2 friendly win away to Israel.
Feb 29: Germany (a) 2-1
Nov 15: Belgium (h) 0-0
Nov 11: United States (h) 1-0
Oct 11: Bosnia Herzegovina (h)1-1
Oct 07: Albania (h) 3-0
Oleg Gusev opened the scoring from the penalty spot before Yevhen Konoplyanka doubled the lead before half-time.
Andriy Yarmolenko extended Ukraine's two-goal cushion after Tomer Hemed had reduced the deficit, before Ben Sahar netted Israel's second.
Ukraine, now unbeaten in five, face England in Donetsk on 19 June.
Elsewhere, there was a major surprise as the United States pulled off an historic first win over Italy in Genoa.
Fulham striker Clint Dempsey's 55th-minute goal earned Jurgen Klinsmann a fourth straight win, while Italy suffered their second straight loss after defeat against Uruguay in November.
Roberto Soldado scored a hat-trick as World and European champions Spain crushed Venezuela 5-0, Manchester City's David Silva also on the scoresheet along with Andres Iniesta.
Andrey Arshavin scored in Russia's 2-0 win over Denmark in Copenhagen while Lionel Messi helped himself to a hat-trick as Argentina won 3-1 in Switzerland.
Messi struck with a delightful shot in the 20th minute, a mischievous chip in the 88th and a stoppage-time penalty.
Portugal were held to a goalless draw away to Poland.


Spain is mourning Carme Chacón, the former defence minister who died on Sunday and was famously photographed in 2008 reviewing troops in Afghanistan while seven months pregnant.

Ms Chacón was found dead at her Madrid home, aged 46, after a neighbour had raised the alarm. A congenital heart problem was the likely cause of death.
She was Spain's first woman defence minister, symbolising the change of culture since the end of military rule.
Her son Miquel is eight years old.
In 2007 Ms Chacón also served as housing minister in the Socialist government led by ex-Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Spanish politicians were among the many Spaniards who expressed shock and sympathy over Ms Chacón's sudden death.
Mr Zapatero said he was "heartbroken at the death of my comrade and friend".
He said "we feel emptiness, because of the enormity of this loss, for Spanish democracy and for all socialists".
The current Popular Party (PP) defence minister, Dolores de Cospedal, said "I deeply mourn the ex-minister". "My heartfelt condolences to her family, friends and the Socialist Party. RIP."
At the age of 37, and seven months pregnant, she visited Afghanistan, five days after being appointed defence minister.
She told Spain's El Pais daily "pregnant or not, I was clear that my first duty was to visit those who are able to put their lives at risk for higher values: for other people's freedom".
"A pregnant woman is not sick. Sure, it's harder when you're pregnant and on your feet all day. I wanted to express society's gratitude to those who put themselves in danger to bring peace to regions of conflict."
Spaniard Victor Orive-Martin tweeted the famous photo, in a tribute to Ms Chacón, calling her "a wonderful human being".
After the Afghanistan trip she also reviewed troops in Madrid while pregnant in May 2008.
She joined the Socialist Youth at the age of 18, and began her political career as a local councillor in 1999-2007. Later she served as an MP representing a Barcelona constituency. She was born in Llobregat, Barcelona, in 1971.
She was the daughter of a fire service official in Barcelona and his lawyer wife. As a girl she had been advised to lead a calm life because of her heart condition. But she ignored the advice repeatedly - including the suggestion that it would be risky to have children, El Pais reports.
Ms Chacón had also taught political science at Miami Dade College, in Florida, whose president Eduardo J Padrón said her contribution had "left an indelible mark".
"Spain is losing a distinguished figure from its modern political scene. And Spanish women are losing someone who always took a stand to emphasise the importance of women's roles in modern society, and among the college's faculty and students."


Middlesex batsman Nick Compton says it is "nice to contribute again" after helping the side to a win which kept them top of the County Championship.

The 33-year-old scored a crucial 63 in the second innings of the five-wicket victory over Nottinghamshire on Friday, following a first-innings' duck.
England opener Compton had a two-month break from the game earlier this summer in order to "refresh and recharge".
"I was proud of the way I managed to hold things together," he said.
Chasing 235 to win at Trent Bridge, Compton, batting at number three, helped Middlesex from 0-1 to 146-5 in their second innings before John Simpson and James Franklin put on a match-winning partnership of 89.
"As someone who prides myself on tough situations, I wanted to make sure I was on it," Compton told BBC Radio London.
"I haven't been fully in the moment at times this season. I knew how important it was that we stayed solid.
"I can't say enough for how we are growing as a team. There was a calmness and a confidence with how we went about it."
After returning to cricket in early August, Compton hit 131 in his second game back for Middlesex and says his confidence with the bat has returned.
"I went through a period where I wasn't hitting the ball very well," he said.
"There have been a few technical things which haven't helped.
"I felt I moved well in this game and my head led the process well. I felt like I got into strong positions and confidence comes with it."
Middlesex hold a one-point lead over Yorkshire heading into the last two games, with the two sides meeting at Lord's, starting on 20 September, in the final round of matches.
"I felt a bit of pressure because I wanted to get us over the line against Notts," Compton said.
"The intent was to make sure we found a way to do it, because this is the time.
"You don't get too many opportunities to be a county player playing for the title as this stage of the season. It is a fantastic place to be."


Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor shrugged off his side's 3-1 loss to Morocco at the Africa Cup of Nations, despite them sitting bottom of the table going into their last Group D match.

The group is so tight that Togo have a chance to reach the quarter-finals if they beat DR Congo on Tuesday.
"It's all in our hands," Adebayor said. "Before the Afcon, if you'd put me in this position, I would sign for it.
"So now we just have to go for it - that's what I'll tell my team-mates!"
A win will likely secure qualification for Togo - although if the match between Morocco and Ivory Coast ends in a draw, they might need an improved goal difference to be sure.
Adebayor said the Hawks would be "focused" as they prepare for the game.
The former Arsenal, Tottenham and most recently Crystal Palace star has not played been with a professional club since June 2016 - but has proved himself to be in good shape.
"I am lucky to be alive and lucky to be a footballer," he said when asked about his performances in Gabon.
"Physically I am a lucky guy - whether I work hard or not I am always fit."


Gary Cahill says Chelsea need to avoid "too many injuries" as questions were asked about the depth of their squad.

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Antonio Conte named 24 players in the squad for the Community Shield defeat by Arsenal and four of the seven substitutes were academy players.
The Premier League champions have signed four players but Conte has said he would like to strengthen further.
Asked if the Chelsea squad was small, club captain Cahill replied: "The back of the programme was interesting."
The England defender was referring to the squad lists on the back of the match programme - which showed 24 Chelsea players compared to 41 from Arsenal.
Cahill added: "In terms of quality we've certainly got that and you just have to hope we don't have too many injuries."
Chelsea have bought Alvaro Morata, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Willy Caballero and Antonio Rudiger this summer for a combined £129m.
But they have sold Nemanja Matic, Nathan Ake, Asmir Begovic, Bertrand Traore, Christian Atsu, Nathaniel Chalobah and loaned out Tammy Abraham, Nathaniel Chalobah, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
Striker Diego Costa, who scored 20 goals last season, has been told he does not have a future at the club.
Former Chelsea striker Chris Sutton has said their squad looks "bare", adding: "They need more and I don't think Conte is happy."
Conte issued terse responses to questions after the penalty shootout defeat on Sunday and declined to answer when asked if his squad was ready to challenge in all four competitions this season.


There are plans to temporarily reduce the opening hours of a children's care unit in Pembrokeshire.

Hywel Dda University Health Board wants to reduce the hours of the paediatric ambulatory care unit (PACU) at Withybush Hospital by four hours a day.
It is making a recommendation in response to there being "fewer consultant paediatricians available."
The plans will be discussed at a full health board meeting on 24 November.
The PACU cares for children who experience sudden pain, high temperatures, sickness, infections, or requirements for dressings, blood tests, x-rays or scans.
If the recommendation is accepted, it would mean the PACU would be open daily from 10:00 to 1800 GMT instead of 10:00 to 22:00.
Sick children who require assessment after the new closing time would be referred or transferred by ambulance to Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen.
The health board said the move to reduce hours in the short term was the result of "longstanding difficulties in recruiting paediatric consultants across the UK".
This coincided with the retirement of a Pembrokeshire paediatric consultant and the maternity leave of another.
The health board said to do nothing would be a "risk."
There is also a recommendation to merge the on-call rota with the one operating in Carmarthenshire.
This means that if there was a paediatric out-of-hours emergency at Withybush Hospital, the on-call paediatric consultants would offer remote advice.
The health board's chief executive Steve Moore said: "It is our duty to be realistic about the availability of our consultants and to plan care around this so that it is safe, consistent and to avoid public confusion.
"Otherwise, we risk the event of having insufficient staff and having to close the unit in an unplanned and uncoordinated way, risking patient safety and public confidence."
He added that the health board's recruitment efforts are continuing.


The US is to send a senior official to North Korea to request the release of a US man jailed in the communist state.

Robert King, the US special envoy for North Korean rights, will arrive in Pyongyang on Friday, the state department said.
He will request a pardon and amnesty for Kenneth Bae, 45, on humanitarian grounds, it said.
Mr Bae, a Korean-American, was given 15 years' hard labour in May for trying to overthrow the North Korean government.
His family say he is seriously ill and has been moved from a labour camp to a hospital. They say he has diabetes and an enlarged heart.
"We remain deeply concerned about the health and welfare of Kenneth Bae,'' a White House statement said. "We urge the government of North Korea to grant special clemency to Mr Bae immediately and allow him to return home with Ambassador King.''
Mr Bae (known in North Korea as Pae Jun-ho) was arrested in November 2012 as he entered the north-eastern port city of Rason, a special economic zone near North Korea's border with China.
US citizens held by N Korea
He has been described as both a tour operator and Christian missionary.
North Korea said he used his tourism business to form groups to overthrow the government.
Mr Bae's trial and conviction came at a time of high tension between the US and North Korea, in the wake of the communist state's third nuclear test. It also came as the US and South Korea conducted annual large-scale military exercises, which angered Pyongyang.
North Korea has arrested several US citizens in recent years, including journalists and Christians accused of proselytising.
They were released after visits to Pyongyang by high-profile officials, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.


A students' union has apologised for using the faces of Zayn Malik and Sadiq Khan - who both have Pakistani roots - to mark Black History Month.

Neither the former One Direction singer nor the mayor of London are black, and have no African or Caribbean heritage.
Other public figures chosen by Kent Union, which represents students from the University of Kent, include Dame Kelly Holmes and Sir Trevor McDonald.
Union president Rory Murray has apologised for "not getting it right".
More news from Kent
Social media posts released for the union's Black History Month campaign featuring Mr Malik and Mr Khan were withdrawn on Tuesday night.
The event's official UK organisers tweeted that they were "deeply disappointed at @KentUnion's ill thought and misdirected Black History Month celebrations".
"With Asian Heritage Month being observed by a growing number of countries in May, will Black icons be celebrated by Kent University then?" they asked.
Mr Murray said: "I want to apologise on behalf of Kent Union to any individuals who were upset, uncomfortable or offended by the image shared.
"There was no intent for this to happen and I am very sorry to anybody who felt this way," he said.
"Whilst we made every effort to include black and minority ethnic students on the planning for the month, clearly, we haven't got it right on this occasion."
In a joint statement, Kent Union and the University of Kent said the campaign was in line with the National Union of Students' position on Black History Month which chose to "recognise and celebrate the immense contributions that people of African, Arab, Asian and Caribbean heritage make to humanity".
"In the planning stages Kent Union worked with students to develop a campaign that celebrated a range of ethnic cultures.
"However, we can see that many of our students disagree with the direction the campaign took and that a mistake was made," they said.


The White House has apologised to a black US official fired after a video appeared to show her making racially charged remarks about a white farmer.

Agriculture department official Shirley Sherrod was exonerated in the full video, which surfaced on Tuesday.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the apology reflected "the feelings" of President Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has offered Mrs Sherrod a new position.
Mr Vilsack told reporters at a White House press conference that he accepted responsibility for the affair.
"I did not think before I acted and for that reason this poor woman has gone through a very difficult time," Mr Vilsack said.
Mr Vilsack said he had apologised to Mrs Sherrod, who had accepted his apology and "was extraordinarily gracious".
Mrs Sherrod told the Associated Press news agency she was considering the new position.
In the edited video clip, Mrs Sherrod appears to say that in 1986 she did not give a Georgia farmer all the assistance she could to save his farm because black farmers were losing their land and he was white.
By Kevin ConnollyBBC News, Washington
In Shirley Sherrod's bruising 24 hours at the heart of the frantic American news spin cycle, she found herself condemned by the black civil rights group which hosted the meeting where she spoke and then forced to resign by government officials who said they were acting on behalf of the White House.
No-one in government or in the civil rights movement bothered to ask what she'd actually said or ask for her side of the story.
If they had, they would have found in Shirley Sherrod a woman who had risen above personal tragedy to work for black and white farmers alike.
Whatever happens to Mrs Sherrod the case demonstrates that in Obama's America the issue of race isn't getting any less sensitive.
More importantly, it catches politicians in a moment of slavish and ill-considered over-reaction to the demands of the age of continuous news.
Mrs Sherrod said the video, first posted on a conservative website, lacked context and was part of a larger story about learning from her mistakes and racial reconciliation, not racism.
She also complained the department had fired her without listening to her explanation.
Mr Gibbs agrees the department acted in haste.
"Decisions were made based on an incomplete set of facts," he said.
Mrs Sherrod was videoed giving a speech in March at a dinner of a Georgia chapter of the NAACP, a prominent civil rights group.
The clip was picked up on by conservatives as evidence of anti-white racism in President Barack Obama's government and within the NAACP, an organisation seen as Democratic-leaning.
Mrs Sherrod was promptly sacked, her remarks condemned by the administration and the NAACP.
'Backlash'
But the video of her full speech, which surfaced on Tuesday evening, shows her explaining she learned from the incident that poverty, not race, is the key factor in rural development. She also said she ultimately worked hard to save the farmer's land.
"Working with him made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who haven't," she told the NAACP in March.
"They could be black, they could be white, they could be Hispanic. And it made me realise then that I needed to help poor people - those who don't have access the way others have."
The NAACP said the organisation had been "duped" by conservative groups.
"We have come to the conclusion we were snookered... into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias," President Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement.
"It makes me feel better that the apology is finally coming," Mrs Sherrod said after the White House said sorry. "I accept their apology."
In interviews on Tuesday Mrs Sherrod complained that government officials would not heed her explanation and accused them of ousting her because they were afraid of a conservative media backlash.


Car hire service Uber has been issued a four-month operator licence to continue working in London.

The firm, which allows users to book a car on a smartphone app, was granted a five-year private hire licence to operate in the capital in 2012.
Transport for London (TfL) said the four-month licence renewal "will allow us to conclude our consideration of a five-year licence".
The taxi driver union has demanded to know the reasons for the decision.
Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, said it was "time politicians banned this tax-dodging, driver-exploiting, parasitic company".
Uber's previous licence was due to expire on 30 May.
A spokesperson for the company said it "looks forward to continuing to help keep London moving".


After 47 years Heathrow Airport's Terminal 1 will close its doors to passengers for the last time tonight.

British European Airways was the first operator to fly from Terminal 1 when it was opened by the Queen in May 1968.
The final departure is also due to be a British Airways flight, this time to Hanover.
Its closure will allow Terminal 2 to be expanded and comes in the week the Airport Commission decides whether to permit a third runway at Heathrow.
A spokesman for Heathrow Airport said the industry expected Sir Howard Davies's report on airport expansion to be published later this week.
At its peak, more than nine million passengers a year passed through Terminal 1, which was the largest short-haul terminal in Western Europe.
In recent weeks, flights have been transferred to Terminal 2 and passengers numbers have fallen to just 1,700 and 17 flights a day.
Terminal 2 will be expanded to take the place of Terminal 1 and if the government supports a third runway at Heathrow then Terminal 2 will be extended further still.
Heathrow chief executive John Holland Kaye said; "The closure of Terminal 1 marks another important milestone in the transformation of Heathrow.
"Terminal 1 has served Britain well for nearly 50 years, but will soon make way for the expansion of Terminal 2, giving Britain a world class airport that we can all be proud of."


The Supreme Court will soon determine if gerrymandering, where voting districts are re-drawn in order to favour political parties, is legal.

They will review a state ruling which found that officials engaged in "an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander".
A federal court ruled in Wisconsin that Republican lawmakers had violated the US Constitution's equal protection under the law and free speech clauses.
The case will set a legal precedent on the long-time political practice.
In May, the Supreme Court invalidated state electoral maps in North Carolina, after finding that Republicans legislators re-drew them to diminish the political clout of African-American voters.
But the court has never ruled on electoral maps that have been re-drawn simply to give a political advantage to one party over another.
In states controlled by Republicans, Democrats have long complained that voting districts are designed to disadvantage them. And the reverse applies in Democratic states, although they are fewer in number.
In 2010, when districts were last redrawn, Republicans controlled the process in a majority of states, which helped lock in their electoral advantage.
The last time the Supreme Court looked at a challenge to partisan redistricting, the justices tied themselves in knots trying to resolve the case, ending with a muddled decision that didn't answer the basic question. Can politicians take politics into account when picking who their voters will be?
The cleanest answer for the nine justices would be to reverse the lower court decision striking down Wisconsin's legislative districts as too partisan. That would preserve the status quo and leave the battle over the perceived ills of partisan gerrymandering to politicians and voters.
A decision to uphold the ruling, on the other hand, would send courts across the US head-first into a legal thicket, where they would be asked to glean legislative intent in district-drawing and pore over electoral maps and data to discern evidence of imbalance.
It's a practice federal courts are already familiar with when it comes to allegations of racial bias in redistricting, resulting in protracted legal battles that have often stretched on for years.
This Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, may shy away from such an outcome. All we know right now, however, is that they have decided take a closer look.
Up to one-third of electoral maps in the US could be affected by the justices' ruling, which is expected in the autumn.
Maps are re-drawn by lawmakers periodically, in order to assign congressional representatives in proportion to US census data.
The practice of gerrymandering has grown and become more specific since the invention of modern computing technology, which allows politicians to more easily identify their supporters.
The term is named after 18th Century vice-president and Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, who approved a politically carved-up voting district that was likened in shape to a salamander.


Tottenham remain winless in the Premier League after being held to a goalless draw by Everton at White Hart Lane.

Harry Kane had the home side's best chance when he was sent clear but Toffees goalkeeper Tim Howard saved.
Jan Vertonghen also skimmed the bar for Tottenham while Tom Cleverley, who was later carried off on a stretcher, went closest for Everton.
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The last time Spurs did not win any of their opening four league fixtures was under Juande Ramos in 2008-09.
Ramos was subsequently sacked by Spurs a few months later and current boss Mauricio Pochettino will now have to wait until a trip to Sunderland on 13 September for another chance to register their first win of the campaign.
Everton, who included John Stones in their starting line-up even though he handed in a transfer request, lost midfielder Cleverley to injury after an awkward tangle with Eric Dier while Spurs midfielder Mousa Dembele also left the pitch on a stretcher.
Relive Tottenham's stalemate against Everton
Reaction to this match and the rest of Saturday's action
When Kane raced clear of the Everton defence and found himself one-on-one with Howard, White Hart Lane held its collective breath.
This was the kind of opportunity he scored for fun en route to 31 goals in 51 appearances for Spurs last season, but a combination of Howard's speed off his line and Kane's hesitancy saw the chance go begging.
All strikers go through peaks and troughs, but Kane looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Perhaps he just needs a break.
Tottenham have signed forward Son Heung-min from Bayer Leverkusen for £22m, and remain keen on West Brom's Saido Berahino, so he might get some time out of the firing line.
While Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal refuses to pick unsettled goalkeeper David De Gea because of concerns over his focus amid interest from Real Madrid, Stones remains a fixture in Everton's starting line-up.
If Everton chairman Bill Kenwright's determination not to sell the 21-year-old England international is admirable, Martinez's insistence on picking him could prove to be a canny piece of man-management.
Rather than isolate Stones and drive a wedge between the pair, Martinez has ensured their personal relationship remains unaffected.
Stones produced a composed and defensively sound performance and it certainly did not suggest a player who had his head turned.
Tottenham head coach Mauricio Pochettino: "We created a lot of chances but you need to score. It was impossible today but I am happy with the performance. I am happy with Harry Kane, he had two or three clear chances but I am happy. He needs to work hard and play. A goal will come for Harry. All strikers have spells like this and only time can do it. I trust in him."
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Everton manager Roberto Martinez: "John Stones was an immense influence on what we did defensively. The reading of the game, he looks like a player who has grown in the last few weeks under the pressure and speculation. Every single Evertonian will show that respect to him for the way he has handled the situation. You can see the signs of a future England captain."
BBC Radio London's Bradley Allen: "Some of the Tottenham fans are right to be disappointed because that was probably the best Spurs have played so far this season. Everton were solid defensively, Tim Howard made some fine saves, and it just wasn't Spurs' evening."
Everton host Premier League champions Chelsea at Goodison Park on Saturday, 12 September where John Stones could once again be the centre of attention. Tottenham will head to the Stadium of Light on 13 September to attempt to record their first win of the season against Sunderland.
Match ends, Tottenham Hotspur 0, Everton 0.
Second Half ends, Tottenham Hotspur 0, Everton 0.
Attempt saved. Kevin Mirallas (Everton) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Gerard Deulofeu with a cross.
James McCarthy (Everton) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Jan Vertonghen (Tottenham Hotspur).
Foul by Gareth Barry (Everton).
Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Nacer Chadli (Tottenham Hotspur) is shown the yellow card.
Kevin Mirallas (Everton) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Alex Pritchard (Tottenham Hotspur).
Corner,  Tottenham Hotspur. Conceded by Bryan Oviedo.
Seamus Coleman (Everton) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Nabil Bentaleb (Tottenham Hotspur).
Steven Naismith (Everton) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur).
Substitution, Tottenham Hotspur. Alex Pritchard replaces Ryan Mason.
Hand ball by Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur).
Substitution, Everton. Gerard Deulofeu replaces Arouna Koné.
Attempt missed. Ross Barkley (Everton) left footed shot from the left side of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Bryan Oviedo.
Corner,  Tottenham Hotspur. Conceded by John Stones.
Foul by Steven Naismith (Everton).
Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt missed. Kevin Mirallas (Everton) right footed shot from outside the box is too high from a direct free kick.
Ross Barkley (Everton) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Eric Dier (Tottenham Hotspur).
Attempt missed. Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Ryan Mason.
Steven Naismith (Everton) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Nabil Bentaleb (Tottenham Hotspur).
James McCarthy (Everton) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Nacer Chadli (Tottenham Hotspur).
Offside, Tottenham Hotspur. Ryan Mason tries a through ball, but Harry Kane is caught offside.
Corner,  Everton. Conceded by Toby Alderweireld.
Steven Naismith (Everton) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur).
Attempt missed. Arouna Koné (Everton) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Bryan Oviedo with a cross.
Attempt missed. Eric Dier (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Nacer Chadli.
Foul by Kevin Mirallas (Everton).
Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt missed. Jan Vertonghen (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from the centre of the box is too high.
Substitution, Everton. Steven Naismith replaces Romelu Lukaku.


The chair of the All-Party Tennis Group has described the £640,000 salary of Lawn Tennis Association chief executive Roger Draper as "unthinkable".

Details of Draper's salary were published for the first time last week.
On Monday, Sport England cut the LTA's funding, criticising its plans for increasing participation.
"It's unthinkable that someone earning four times more than the Prime Minister has not got ideas for the shake-up of the sport," Baroness Billingham said.
This report from Sport England means what the LTA is doing, or failing to do, is absolutely unacceptable
"You don't give bonuses for failure, surely, and a priority has to be placed on grassroots sport.
"The LTA is one of the wealthiest sporting organisations in the country and it's my honest and genuine opinion that they are useless."
The LTA published details of Draper's salary for the first time last week. He received a basic wage of £394,000, a bonus of £201,000 and a pension contribution of £45,000.
This was a £42,000 increase on his package of £598,000 in 2011. Prime Minister David Cameron earns £142,500 a year.
The figures were released days before Sport England announced its decision to withhold three years' funding from the LTA for grassroots tennis.
The number of people playing tennis once a week has fallen from 487,500 in 2008 to 445,100 in 2012, and Sport England decided to give the LTA just one year's funding of £7.1m.
"This report from Sport England means what the LTA is doing, or failing to do, is absolutely unacceptable," added Baroness Billingham, who is urging sports minister Hugh Robertson to demand a meeting with Draper so he can explain himself.
"The people who can hire and fire are the board of the LTA, but I see no sign whatsoever that they are moving to even chastise Roger Draper."
Sport England chief executive Jennie Price said a further £10.3m could be available to the LTA if it proves it has credible plans for how to improve participation in the sport.
"We need to give them a year to step up their game and prove they can deliver it," she said.
On Monday, LTA chief commercial officer Simon Long said: "£17.4m is a substantial potential award for British tennis and we are working closely with Sport England to ensure that we develop the best tennis offers to increase participation, whilst continuing to deliver a leading talent programme."
A spokesman for the LTA added that Draper's salary had been decided by the LTA's remuneration committee after careful consideration. He would not give reasons for the £201,000 bonus awarded to Draper.
The LTA received 92% of the "net surplus" of the Wimbledon Championships in 2012, which came to £37.8m.


England bowler James Anderson says the impressive third Test victory over Pakistan at Edgbaston shows the team can win from "any position".

After England were bowled out for 297, Pakistan replied with 400 but the hosts won by 141 runs to take a 2-1 lead into Thursday's final Test at The Oval.
"It does a huge amount for the team, knowing you can be 100 runs behind and come back," Anderson said.
"It shows what sort of character we've got in the team as well."
Anderson returned to the top of the Test bowling rankings after a match haul of 4-85 in Birmingham and he believes his individual confidence is shared across the team.
"Going into this game we know now we can win from pretty much any position," added the Lancashire bowler.
"Hopefully we won't be 100 runs behind on first innings this time, but the confidence in the group is high at the moment."
England are thought to be considering a place for Yorkshire leg-spinner Adil Rashid, who is a regular in the one-day team but who played the last of his three Tests in November last year.
Rashid, who took 5-64 in his debut against Pakistan in October, is expected to be included in the squad for the winter tours to the spin-friendly conditions of Bangladesh and India.
"You've got to pick your team according to the conditions," Anderson said. "If the pitch is suitable for two spinners then we'll play two spinners.
"If it's a pitch that has got green grass on it, I don't think there's any point playing him for the sake of playing him.
"It's nice to have someone like Adil waiting to play. He's a quality spinner and we're very fortunate we've got him and he'll hopefully be a big part of our winter if he doesn't play this game."
Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur insists his team can recover to draw the series despite losing successive matches by heavy margins at Old Trafford and Edgbaston.
"There were a lot of good things for us out of that Test match. I certainly did not feel we ever rolled over there, we were in the contest for most of that game.
"We probably won five sessions and England won three. The sessions England won, they won convincingly.
"We hate losing but we lost with a lot of credibility at Edgbaston and it puts us in a really good space to come back here."


A decision to space out the distinctive triangular chocolate chunks in two Toblerone bars sold in the UK has upset fans who say that they do mind the gap.

The product's makers, US-based Mondelez International, said it had changed the design to reduce the weight of what were 400g and 170g bars.
Some consumers have described the move as "the wrong decision" and said the bigger spaces looked "stupid".
Mondelez said the move was down to a rise in the cost of ingredients.
In a statement on the Toblerone Facebook page, the company said it had to make a decision between changing the look of the bars or raising the price.
Outcry as Toblerone triangles are downsized
The move has resulted in the weight of the 400g bars being reduced to 360g and the 170g bars to 150g, while the size of the packaging has remained the same.
It said: "We chose to change the shape to keep the product affordable for our customers."
But consumers took to Toblerone's Facebook page to question why the company had decided to make the gaps between the triangles bigger, rather than reducing the length of the bars.
Lee Yarker said: "Fair enough reducing the weight of the bar, but why the big gap in between segments? Looks stupid imo [in my opinion], could have just made the bar shorter and kept the original design."
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Philip Joseph wrote: "It was the wrong decision. It looks like a really underhanded thing to do.
"You buy a bar expecting a normal bar and it looks like you are getting half the chocolate."
Cathy White added: "It looks dreadful. Think you should've reduced the length and kept the chunky triangles."
However, other consumers praised the company for making a public announcement on the change.
Lainey Ireson wrote: "Sadly whatever you chose won't please everyone but as Toblerone is such a great product I'm happy that you've explained - a lot of companies wouldn't be so mindful."
Mondelez said that "like many other companies, we are experiencing higher costs for numerous ingredients".
It added: "We carry these costs for as long as possible, but to ensure Toblerone remains on-shelf, is affordable and retains the triangular shape, we have had to reduce the weight of just two of our bars in the UK, from the wider range of available Toblerone products."
Other food manufacturers have previously announced rises in their product prices, blaming the falling value of the pound following the UK's decision to leave the EU.
A spokeswoman for Mondelez acknowledged that the foreign exchange rate was currently "not favourable", but added: "This change wasn't done as a result of Brexit."
However, she was unable to clarify whether the change in shape affected only bars sold in the UK and not the rest of Europe.
Walkers and Birds Eye have both said they are set to raise the prices of some items following the drop in the UK exchange rate post-Brexit.
In October, a dispute broke out between Tesco and Unilever after the food brand said it was raising prices in Britain to compensate for the fall in the pound.


Jamaica's attorney general has sparked criticism after saying it was "disrespectful" to Jamaican law for the US embassy to fly a rainbow flag following the Orlando shooting.

In response, the US embassy in the capital Kingston asked Marlene Malahoo Forte to explain her legal reasoning.
Forty-nine people died when a gunman opened fire in a gay club in Florida.
Jamaica has laws criminalising gay sex and rights groups have warned LGBT face frequent discrimination.
The embassy in Kingston joined other US missions around the world in flying the rainbow flag in solidarity with the victims of the attack, the worst mass shooting in recent US history.
The flag symbolises the diversity of the LGBT movement.
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In a post that now appears to have been deleted, Ms Malahoo Forte said: "I strongly condemn #OrlandoNightClubShooting but find it disrespectful of Jamaica's laws to have #RainbowFlag flown here. #MyPersonalView."
The US embassy replied: "We're listening. Explain the legal reasoning? It was an attack of terror !!and!! hate, targeting the LGBT community".
She faced a backlash on social media where she was accused of ignorance and bigotry.
Others though defended her right to speak out. "This is her country, not America," said one comment on Facebook.
A letter to the Jamaica Observer warned the attorney general was painting the country in a bad light while saying no one was asking Ms Malahoo Forte "to condone homosexuality".
Separately, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness offered his condolences.
"The bullet of terrorism does not discriminate, it does not know gender, class or sexual orientation. We all grieve the 49 lives lost," he tweeted.


Genuinely new, genuinely brilliant ideas in mathematics are hard to come by.

Undergraduate maths, for example, contains few topics imagined after 1950.
That John Nash made ground-breaking contributions in mathematical areas as diverse as games, geometry and topology, and partial differential equations therefore establishes his place in history.
Much more striking, though, is the continuing resonance of his ideas.
Just last week, as Nash was in Oslo collecting the prestigious Abel Prize, colleagues of mine began applying his famous concept of equilibrium to help address one of society's much more contemporary problems - that of supplying electricity cheaply, reliably and cleanly.
Great new mathematical ideas have a balance to strike - they must be precise enough to allow detailed conclusions to be drawn, and yet sufficiently loose that they can be useful in a wide range of problems.
Nash equilibrium is just such an idea, and was a fundamental contribution to the nascent mathematical theory of non-cooperative games - situations where one player's fortunes depend on the actions of others, and everybody tries to do as well for themselves as possible.
Nash's definition of equilibrium was definitely loose enough: "A configuration of strategies, such that no player acting on his own can change his strategy to achieve a better outcome for himself."
Indeed it had so much slack that John von Neumann, the originator of game theory, reportedly told Nash in person that his work on the concept was "trivial".
Crucially, though, the Nash equilibrium offered something truly new - the ability to analyse situations of conflict and co-operation and produce predictions about how people will behave.
In addition to its obvious range of applications in politics and economics, the depth of the idea is illustrated by the traction it gained at the Rand corporation, the top secret US Cold War think tank.
While Rand had already identified game theory as a promising secret weapon against the Soviet Union, before Nash their analysis was "zero sum".
In other words their existing version of the theory was one of pure conflict in which the two sides shared no common interests.
There was a growing appreciation at Rand that this assumption was not realistic.
Since Nash's equilibrium concept is wide enough to allow the analysis of non-zero sum situations in which some goals are shared, he was immediately hired by Rand on completing his PhD in 1950.
Nash's other mathematical contributions should not be underestimated.
Indeed he always considered himself to be a pure mathematician, in contrast with the applied nature of game theory.
In the 1950s, Einstein's theories on the relationships between time and space led to a growing interest among mathematicians in high dimensional geometry.
In this context Nash's Embedding Theorem resolved a long-standing open problem among pure mathematicians, and the manner in which he proved it caused no little incredulity and controversy among his contemporaries.
His major contribution to the theory of differential equations may have led to the award of the prestigious Fields Medal, had his contemporary Ennio de Giorgi of Pisa not proved the same result just months earlier by different methods.
Nash's famous equilibrium, though, has grown to be perhaps the most important idea in economic analysis and has found application in fields as diverse as computing, evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence. More recently it has been used in studies of corruption and also name-checked amidst the Greek financial crisis.
It has of course been criticised, questioned and varied. Perhaps fittingly for an equilibrium, though, it is the balance between precision and generality which has made this beautiful and natural concept endure.


Motorists are being warned to expect delays at Easter as diversions set up while the main route into Bournemouth is rebuilt will remain in place.

A contraflow system and a reduced speed limit will affect the A338 Spur Road over the two-week school holidays.
Dorset County Council said suspending the project for the break would "cost around four weeks of time, and would mean us finishing at the end of June".
The authority has advised motorists to "plan ahead".
The Â£22m project, which started in September, is due to finish at the end of May.
It involves a re-development of the route between the Ashley Heath Roundabout and Blackwater Junction.


As Nepal marks the first anniversary of its devastating earthquake, the BBC Nepal's Surendra Phuyal assesses how the country has been coping.

The government has provided 25,000 rupees ($250, £164) to families to buy corrugated sheets and warm clothes and paid out 40,000 rupees ($400) for the death of each family member.
Most affected families have received this money.
The Himalayan nation has also assessed the loss and damage caused by the quake, but has yet to officially kick start its much-delayed reconstruction mission.
The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) was only set up in December 2015.  It will officially announce the start of reconstruction campaign in the coming week.
The authority is seeking 811 billion rupees ($8bn) to implement its reconstruction programme for the next five years.
NRA spokesperson Ram Thapaliya told BBC Nepali that international donors are being asked to extend their commitment for reconstruction programmes.
"The donors have already pledged half of the amount ($4bn) and we are in the process of seeking commitment for the rest," he said.
Nearly 9,000 people died and 22,309 were injured in the two earthquakes that struck Nepal last year.
The first was on 25 April 2015, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake which caused most of the damage and loss of life.
A large number of aftershocks followed, including one that measured 7.3 on 12 May 2015.
The quakes destroyed or damaged more than 800,000 houses mainly in the western and central districts, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The country seemed totally unprepared for the disaster.
Government buildings, some stretches of roads and Kathmandu Valley's famous historic monuments - Unesco world heritage properties - were destroyed or damaged with many villages north of Kathmandu flattened.
In the famous trekking destination of Langtang, which lies about 100km (62 miles) north of Kathmandu, an entire settlement was buried and washed away by a massive landslide, killing more than 100 people, including international trekkers and local villagers.
Several people are still missing and have never been accounted for.
More than a dozen climbers also died in an avalanche near Mount Everest base camp.
Nepali government figures show that about 500,000 families were made homeless by the quakes.
But aid agencies say the true figure is much higher, with millions homeless.
The IFRC says "an estimated four million people are still living in sub-standard temporary shelters" where they're exposed to weather and health hazards.
It also estimates that more than 800,000 homes were damaged.
"Despite achievements in many areas of earthquake recovery efforts, little progress has so far been made in helping survivors to rebuild permanent homes," it said.
But Nepali officials blame a four month blockade at the Nepal-India border for hampering post-earthquake reconstruction programmes.
The unrest was due to Madhesi parties in southern Nepal protesting against a new constitution which they said disadvantaged them.
Ram Thapaliya of the National Reconstruction Authority says work is under way to help those in need and speed up the reconstruction process.
"In March, we started distributing grants, worth $500 in first stage, to around 800 families for reconstruction," he said.
"Now another 5,000 families are in the process of getting that amount."
While preparing its Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA), the Nepali government estimated that it would need $7bn for reconstruction.
But now the reconstruction authority is raising that amount to $8.1bn, due to unspecified "cost factors".
Soon after the earthquake struck Nepal last year, a large number of international aid agencies and individuals flew into Nepal and fanned out across the affected areas from Barpak, Gorkha, the epicentre of the 25 April earthquake to Dolakha in the east, near the epicentre of the 12 May earthquake.
Their main purpose was to focus on immediate rescue and rehabilitation.
According to Himal news magazine, a popular Nepali weekly which has run an investigative cover story in its recent edition, the agencies spent an estimated $1bn.
The magazine wrote: "Where did the money go? Of the 1 billion dollars that were raised, two-thirds were spent by donor agencies, international NGOs and their local partners, and only one-third of that amount actually reached the victims."
But aid workers say the main problem is bureaucracy - and that some donors have become frustrated and given up as a result.
"We just lost a donor who wanted to give $400,000,'' Unesco's representative to Nepal, Christian Manhart, told AP news agency.
"Everything seems to be blocked because there are very lengthy government procedures.''
The Unesco office has about $1.8m earmarked for Nepal which is still waiting to be spent, AP reports.
Before the earthquake, Nepal's tourism sector was doing well.  In 2014, an estimated 800,000 tourists visited Nepal.
Nepal re-opened for tourism just two months after the quakes.
But the devastating earthquakes clearly scared many visitors and the number of arrivals dropped by about 30% in 2015, according to Department of Tourism figures.
The government is hopeful 2016 will be better.
"We are hoping for an improvement in the coming year," Sudarshan Prasad Dhakal, director general of Department of Tourism, told the BBC.
He said the government was encouraging Nepalis to visit their country's exotic natural and cultural sites this year.
"In the short term, this will help the local hoteliers, and in the longer term, it will help lay the foundation for future arrivals of international visitors."


A driver has died and another was injured after two lorries crashed and caught fire in Cambridgeshire.

The surviving driver was taken to hospital with minor injuries after the crash at about 14:30 GMT on the A141 at Hartford, Cambridgeshire Police said.
The road has been closed and will remain shut until "at least" Wednesday night, the force said.
A van was forced off the road during the crash but no details of injuries were reported.
More than 25 firefighters tackled the blaze.
The East of England Ambulance Service said two ambulances and a number of support vehicles were despatched.
Fire services from a nearby American air base assisted the six Cambridgeshire crews sent to the scene.