Sean Ervine and Jimmy Adams shared an unbroken 263-run stand as Hampshire made 294-3 on day one of their County Championship game against Warwickshire.

After Hampshire won the toss, the visitors started well, left-arm paceman Keith Barker taking two of the wickets to reduce the hosts to 31-3.
However, Adams (104 not out) and Ervine (160 not out) batted sensibly on a slow wicket for the day's last two sessions.
Both made their 22nd first-class tons to leave Hampshire on top at stumps.
Warwickshire's day started brightly, as Barker (2-62) dismissed Michael Carberry and Rilee Rossouw to go past 300 first-class wickets.
But the Bears, who are still looking for their first win of the season, struggled to make further inroads, captain Ian Bell using seven bowlers to try and break up Adams and Ervine's partnership.
Warwickshire's other wicket-taker was fit-again Boyd Rankin, on his first start in 11 months.
Ervine brought up his first century of the season before Adams reached 13,000 first-class runs as the pair set a new Hampshire record for the fourth wicket in games against Warwickshire.
Hampshire batsman Jimmy Adams told BBC Solent:
"It was a big relief to get those runs as it had been a while and we were in a bit of strife at the beginning of the day. To do it at a time when it was needed means a lot.
"I am just delighted to see it through as you have days where you know you're not at your best. You just stick in there and do what the team needs. To have someone like Slug going well at the other end was important.
"I heard the PA over the speakers say about the record. Me and Slug had a chuckle about that. It's a nice milestone, especially when you hear it has been so long. Unfortunately, Slug got most of them."
Warwickshire first team coach Jim Troughton told BBC Coventry & Warwickshire:
"We knew it would be a good toss to win and get a bat out there. Then we got them 30-3 and we thought we could get into them and open the innings up.
"But Adams and Sean showed their experience there and put on a great partnership for them. Whatever the ball did do it did slowly, so it was hard work for our boys.
"Barks, Boyd and Clarkey all bowled exceptionally well but they got the better of us in that partnership. We stood together well. This game hasn't got away from us."


A court in Egypt has finally revoked the licence of a doctor found guilty last year of the manslaughter of a 13-year-old girl who died after an illegal female genital mutilation procedure.

Raslan Fadl was Egypt's first doctor to be convicted of performing FGM, even though the still widespread practice was officially banned in 2008.
His two-year prison sentence was hailed as a major victory by campaigners.
But recent reports said Fadl had not been jailed and was still practising.
Despite the ban, more than 90% of girls and women aged between 15 and 59 in the country have undergone the procedure in recent years, according to UN estimates.
Fadl was convicted in January 2015 on charges relating to the 2013 death of Suhair al-Bataa, who was from a small farming community on the outskirts of the Nile Delta city of Mansoura.
During the trial prosecutors argued that she had been forced to undergo FGM by her father.
Fadl denied carrying out the procedure, saying he had only treated her for warts and that her death had been caused by an allergic reaction to penicillin.
Both he and Suhair's father were cleared of any wrongdoing at their initial trial. But prosecutors appealed against the verdict and it was overturned in November 2015.
Fadl's clinic was ordered to close for a year.
Suhair's father was meanwhile given a three-month suspended sentence.
The revoking of Fadl's licence will be seen as a small step forward in the anti-FGM campaign, the BBC's Sebastian Usher says.
He adds this comes just days after the Egyptian health ministry set up an initiative, called Doctors against FGM, aimed at encouraging all medical professionals to stop the practice.
Typically FGM is carried out on girls aged between nine and 13 - but there are victims as young as six, anti-FGM campaigners say.


Over two fifths (41%) of parents in a survey for a transport charity say their child has had a near-miss traffic accident going to or from school.

Road safety is a bigger concern for parents than "stranger danger", suggests the survey for the sustainable transport group, Sustrans.
Some 470 parents of five to 11-year-olds in England, Scotland and Wales were questioned.
Sustrans wants speed limits reduced to 20mph in all built-up areas.
It wants local authorities to ring-fence part of their budget to build dedicated cycling and walking routes to school. And it wants any new housing developments to take into account the needs of walkers and cyclists.
The charity is asking supporters to write to their MPs to urge changes to transport policy to make cycling and walking to school safer.
Sustrans says the most recent government figures on road deaths and injuries show that in 2012, across England, Wales and Scotland, 33 children under the age of 16 died in accidents while walking or cycling and more than 1,800 were seriously injured.
"If a whole classroom of children had been killed under other circumstances there would be public outcry," said Sustrans chief executive Malcolm Shepherd.
"With today's children the least physically active in history and set to have shorter life expectancies than their parents... shuttling kids to the school gate in the car is not the answer.
"Giving children the opportunity to walk, scoot or cycle the school run is vital to their health and well-being, so making our roads safe enough that they can do this must be a top priority," said Mr Shepherd.
Of the parents who took part in the survey, some 18% said their child had experienced a vehicle not stopping or stopping too late at a pedestrian crossing, 13% said their child had nearly been hit by a speeding vehicle while crossing the road and 5% said their child had actually been hit.
Some 44% said road safety was their biggest concern, compared with 28% whose main worry was strangers.
The survey suggested that in a typical week some 61% of children would walk or cycle to or from school at some point, most of them with their parents or another adult.
A spokesman for the Department for Transport said: "Most drivers know that keeping to the speed limit can mean the difference between life and death in a collision and that they should always remain mindful of pedestrians, especially around schools where children are crossing.
"We want people to drive in a safe manner at all times, which is why we recently increased the fixed penalty to Â£100 for several driving offences, including careless driving, and why we have given local councils more flexibility so that it is cheaper and easier for them to implement 20mph limits and zones.
"We are also encouraging councils to think about cyclists when designing new road schemes and they can also install safer Puffin crossings to detect when pedestrians have safely crossed."
The Local Government Association said keeping children safe on the school run was of "paramount importance" to councils.
Cllr Peter Box, chairman of the body's Economy and Transport Board said many councils had already introduced 20mph speed limits around schools and were investing in cycling and walking despite funding cuts.
He said many head teachers had asked their councils to introduce CCTV camera cars around their schools to tackle drivers parking on zig-zag lines or pavements, forcing children and parents with buggies to walk in the road.
"Plans by the government to ban the use of CCTV cars in this way will do nothing to solve the real problem of safety outside our schools that this alarming survey clearly highlights and will only leave school children further at risk."


A decision to refuse planning permission for a Denbighshire wind farm has been overturned by a High Court judge.

The local authority's refusal of permission for a development at Gorsedd Bran, Nantglyn, was quashed by Mr Justice Wyn Williams and sent back for reconsideration.
Permission was refused for several reasons, including noise levels.
However, the High Court ruled the decision-making process was flawed.
Permission was refused in November 2008.
The applicants, Tegni Cymru Cyf, appealed that decision, but it was again refused.
Mr Justice Wyn Williams said the inspector who investigated the noise impact of the site during the appeal did not give sufficient reasons for concluding sound levels generated would be unacceptable.
Delivering his ruling, the judge said: "Tegni Cymru Cyf seek an order quashing a decision dated 18 November 2009 made by an inspector duly appointed by Denbighshire County Council whereby he dismissed the claimant's appeal against the council's refusal to grant planning permission for what is known, in summary, as a wind farm."
He added: "The primary ground of challenge is that the inspector reached conclusions about the visual impact of the wind farm and the noise associated with its operation which no reasonable Inspector would have reached.
"Additionally, however, the claimant alleges that the inspector's decision should be quashed because he failed to give sufficient reasons for his conclusions upon important issues."
The judge concluded "the inspector erred in law in at least one important respect".
He added: "In my judgment, he failed to provide adequate reasons for his conclusion that the noise impact of the proposed development was unacceptable; his reasoning gives rise to a substantial doubt, at the very least, as to whether he erred in law when reaching his conclusion upon the issue of noise impact."
Tegni Cymru Cyf want to erect 13 turbines, which it claims would power 23,896 homes.
In a statment, Denbighshire County Council said it "will be seeking its own advice on the judgement and will be waiting to see what action, if any, Welsh Assembly Government ministers will be taking following the judgement in this case".


A report on electricity prices shows an improvement for medium and large business users in Northern Ireland during 2014.

They are, however, still among the highest in the European Union.
But the report by the Utility Regulator shows how energy costs have fallen from their peak around 18 months ago.
Northern Ireland is reaping the benefits of increased competition, according to business campaign group Manufacturing NI.
Italy still has the highest energy prices in the EU.
The report points out how the market share, based on consumption, of Cookstown energy firm LCC has grown "significantly" between 2013-14.
Recently, it won the contracts to supply power to 10 of the 11 new super councils.
Domestic electricity customers pay slightly above the EU average.
Historically, electricity prices in Northern Ireland have tended to be higher than in Great Britain.
"This differential could be due to higher energy transport costs," the report states.


High-profile rape cases like that involving a violinist who took her own life after giving evidence against her abuser have prompted major changes in the way victims are treated in court.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has announced three pilot areas where prosecuting barristers will use new guidance to help witnesses and victims during a trial.
It comes after Frances Andrade died in 2013 during the trial of her former teacher from Chetham's School of Music in Manchester.
DPP Alison Saunders has also acted in the light of other cases, including one where a defence barrister's opening question to a rape victim was: "So tell me, I am very unsure how to address you, is it victim or mistress?"
The victim, known as Woman A, described her subsequent cross-examination as "an assault" and the ordeal as "terrifying".
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Ministry of Justice have been urged to strengthen victims' support during a trial.
Following a CPS victim survey, the new pilot areas will see prosecutors:
Ahead of their implementation, staff from St Mary's Sexual Assault Centre in Manchester are shadowing barristers during trials to gain a greater understanding of the process.
Woman A described how even getting to the courtroom was an ordeal.
" I had to go down steps and on the third step, my knees they gave way, so they had to hold me, taking me down the stairs."
Her questioning went on for several hours over two days.
"My legs were shaking, my knees were shaking, my hands were shaking, I tried to drink the water and the water fell out of the glass because I was shaking so much.
"I'd only written, I'd never spoken about what had happened to me graphically, it was extremely traumatic.
"You are asked to pinpoint fingers, penises, vaginas and you have to say all those wordsâ€¦ it's very, very hard, very hard to do."
Listen to her full interview on BBC 5 live
An inquest into Mrs Andrade's death was told she "spiralled into despair after giving evidence" at the trial of Michael Brewer, who was later jailed for six years for indecently assaulting her.
Mrs Andrade's husband Levine found his wife, known as Fran, dead at their home.
He said: "It brought back horrible memories from her past.
"Apart from the trial bringing it all back up, she felt the defence barrister seemed to be attacking her personally."
The CPS said it had tried to help Mrs Andrade through the case and the judge said the barrister who cross-examined her could not be criticised.
During the inquest into her death, coroner Richard Travers called for the legal system to do more to help vulnerable people when they give evidence in court.
Mark Fenhalls QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said that under the code of conduct, barristers were "obliged to promote fearlessly and by all proper and lawful means the client's best interests."
If a trial judge considers an advocate has "gone too far" he or she can and should intervene, he added.
There are measures already in place to help reduce stress for victims during a trial.
Testifying behind a screen or using a video link helps protect them from facing their alleged attacker.
And, since 2007, video recordings of statements made to police by alleged rape victims can be used as their main evidence in court.
Gail Morgan, an adviser with Manchester's St Mary's for 14 years, has shadowed barrister Gary Woodhall in the city.
They both found the experience invaluable.
She said: "Gary went to see the victim before the trial... and he made sure the victim - who was giving evidence from behind a screen - could still see him during her cross-examination by the defence."
Mr Woodhall said examining a witness's evidence and challenging what they said was "a natural and necessary" part of the trial process.
"It is how you manage it that is important," he explained.
"How it is done within the rules in a way that causes as little impact, little damage on those who are having to come to court to give evidence."
Prosecutions for sexual offences in England and Wales are at their highest level in a decade and the length of sentences is also on the rise, up more than three months compared with those for September 2013, according to Ministry of Justice figures.
The conviction rate for rape dropped slightly between 2013 and 2014 after five years of steady improvement.
Victims' minister Mike Penning said: "This government is absolutely committed to putting the needs of victims at the heart of the criminal justice system.
"We have given victims more rights under the Victims' Code, and will reinforce this by putting key elements in law."


Publication of a report into how Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall abused people while at the BBC has been delayed.

Dame Janet Smith's review is finished, the team working on it has confirmed.
However, the Metropolitan Police said publishing findings could hamper ongoing investigations into sexual abuse claims.
Publication is to take place "as soon as possible", the report's authors said.
Investigators interviewed 375 witnesses in connection with Savile and more than 100 about Hall - findings had been due to be published in the second half of this month.
A statement released by the review team said: "Dame Janet recognises that a further delay will be of particular disappointment to victims of Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall whose accounts are in the report and other witnesses before the review, to all of whom she is very grateful.
"However, it is important that the Metropolitan Police's investigations should not be prejudiced."
Dame Janet Smith's review has been looking at how Savile and Hall abused people over decades while working at the BBC.
It was set up in October 2012 by the BBC to examine the culture and practices of the corporation during the years Savile worked there after the former presenter was revealed to be a prolific sexual predator.
Shortly after Hall was convicted of 14 charges of indecent assault in May 2013, the BBC announced a further investigation into the former It's a Knockout presenter, which will feed into Dame Janet's review.
Liz Dux, abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, which represents 168 victims of Savile and Hall, said: "This will come as bitterly disappointing news to the victims of Savile and Hall.
"They desperately want the last of the investigations to be published and to be able to move on with their lives.
"Naturally, they do not want to prejudice any outstanding investigation.
"But given the amount of time that has elapsed since they gave their testimonies, they will question why police investigations are taking so long."
In May 2014, Hall was sentenced to an extra two years and six months in prison for two counts of indecently assaulting a girl.
He was already serving a 30-month jail term after he pleaded guilty in 2013 to indecently assaulting 13 other girls, aged between nine and 17, over a 20-year period.
A report concluded in February that Savile had abused at least 63 people connected to Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
In April, Surrey Police said 22 pupils and one visitor had been sexually abused by him at a school for emotionally disturbed teenage girls.


The commissioner who investigates complaints against MLAs believes the public is losing confidence in the Stormont complaints system.

In his annual report, Douglas Bain is recommending changes to the way complaints are handled.
These include the appointment of members of the public to the assembly committee which decides whether MLAs have broken the Stormont rules.
Last year, Mr Bain received just 14 complaints about MLAs' behaviour.
That was down dramatically from 53 the previous year.
He is suggesting MLAs should end what he calls their current "party political approach".
He wants a ban on the use of assembly vetoes - or Petitions of Concern - to stop politicians being punished for breaking the rules.
Such a petition was used to prevent any sanction against the Democratic Unionist Party's Sammy Wilson last year.
Mr Bain also wants Stormont to follow the example of Westminster, where seven members of the public sit alongside seven MPs on the committee charged with maintaining parliamentary standards.


A 35-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the death of a man on Christmas Day.

Thomas Roberts was found with serious injuries in the back courts of Ashgill Road, in the Saracen area of Glasgow, at about 04:00 on Sunday.
He was taken to hospital but died a short time later.
The man who has been detained by police will also be reported to the procurator fiscal in connection with an alleged assault on a 50-year-old man.


Since midway through the Six Nations of 2007, Ross Ford has not so much retained the Scotland number two jersey as worn it like a second skin.

Ford is sitting on 99 caps, a century denied him this weekend in Toyota City against Japan because of a tight calf that might rule him out next week in Tokyo as well. It's no understatement to say this is freakish.
The 32-year-old does not miss Scotland games through injury very often.
The 2016 Six Nations: started all five; the 2015 World Cup: started all five; the 2015 Six Nations: started all five. This has been the way of it for much of the past decade. You could hang your hat on two things on a Scotland matchday - Ford and Flower of Scotland.
It's too early to say there is a changing of the guard in the middle of the Scotland scrum, but Stuart McInally has a big opportunity on Saturday and enough game to make the most of it. He's 26 and driven. One Test match start and six more off the bench.
McInally wins his eighth cap on Saturday and, at the Toyota Stadium on Friday, he spoke about his journey.
Or his lack of journey. He was supposed to go to the World Cup but didn't. He made the farewell dinner and that was as far as he went.
"I'd just been in the gym a couple of days before that dinner doing an exercise and I felt something ping in my neck, thought it was nothing and it turned out to be a prolapsed disc," McInally recalls.
"I didn't know at the time how severe it was, whether it needed surgery. It took about four months to recover.
"It was tough, but people have had to retire from neck injuries, so I'm just glad I managed to get myself back. It certainly made me desperate to get involved again."
Professional rugby players have to find the positive in every situation, no matter how grim. Miss the World Cup? Use the time to strengthen the neck muscles and return a stronger man.
Start off life as a back-row forward? Switch to hooker to advance your career. Have a faltering beginning in your new position? Learn to fly.
Yes, learn to fly.
"During the move to hooker (in 2013), there were a lot of dark times, from playing every week (in the back row) for Edinburgh to not playing at all or maybe being on the bench for Currie," he explains.
Media playback is not supported on this device
"It was a massive turnaround and I was very frustrated a lot of the time and felt that it [learning to fly a light aircraft] allowed me to take my mind off it.
"When you're flying, you can't think about anything else, something that I can do on my own and was in complete control of. It helped me switch off."
It worked. In August, McInally made his Scotland debut at hooker against Italy in Turin. Then came the neck injury and the lay-off and then the renaissance.
Sixteen minutes off the bench as Ford's understudy against England in the Six Nations then another 16 minutes against Wales, 17 against Italy, 13 glorious minutes against France and an eye-catching half-hour against Ireland in Dublin.
Now he is in from the beginning and thinking about the past.
"When I started, the first part was to practice my throwing," he said. "It was something I would do every day.
"I borrowed a bag of balls from Murrayfield - I've still got them, I suppose I should return them - and would go down to Inverleith Park and find a tree that was a nice height with a split at the top and a V so I would try to get it through there.
"I knew that throwing would be the thing I needed to work on. I knew that, if I wanted to make it work, it was something I would have to do.
"I was doing it one day when an old woman told me that I shouldn't be throwing balls at a tree because there was bark flying everywhere.
Media playback is not supported on this device
"I used to get really hung up on my throwing. I'd worry if I was throwing well and that would determine whether I had a good game or a bad game.
"There is so much more to the position now - that's something I've learned. I'm very comfortable. Making a mistake now, if that happens, I just get on with it, whereas before it would play on my mind for a couple of weeks."
On Saturday, he comes up against a wily old dog in Shota Horie, the 42-cap veteran who McInally describes as "an exceptional player and someone I will be looking to have a good battle with".
Nothing comes easy. McInally's rise, on the back of hard graft, is living proof of it.


The American rapper Jay Z is selling a stake in his Tidal music streaming business to the telecoms company, Sprint.

Jay Z bought Tidal three years ago and his wife Beyonce and other artists own equity in the company.
Aiming to challenge larger rivals such as Spotify, Tidal offers artists on its platform more control over their music.
Sprint, which is owned by Japan's Softbank, will pay an estimated $200m (Â£162m) for a 33% stake in the company.
The deal means that Jay Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, will make a return on the initial $56m investment he made when he bought Tidal from Norway's Aspiro in 2015.
Other artists including Madonna, Rihanna, Daft Punk, Kanye West and Jay Z's wife Beyonce are part owners of the service, giving Tidal a star-studded board of directors. It is reported that they will remain part of the company.
The investment could help bolster Tidal in its battle to win ground from Spotify and Apple, which dominate the fast-growing music streaming industry.
Sprint's decision to invest is a sign the mobile operator wants to provide its customers with more content in a highly competitive market. As a result of the deal, Sprint customers would have access to exclusive Tidal content.
Tidal has a 42 million song catalogue and is available in 52 countries, but is currently much less widely used than services from Spotify and Apple.


More than 100 people have protested against proposals to close 26 out of 70 children's centres in Birmingham.

Under the plans, community venues such as churches, mosques, and nurseries will be used instead, and GP surgeries would run baby clinics.
Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is poised to take over the running of contracts.
People demonstrated outside Birmingham Council House at 11:00 BST. A 60-day consultation will end on 17 August.
Brigid Jones, cabinet member in charge of children's services at the Labour-run city council, has previously said a new system would improve things further.
Ms Jones said: "Rather than different centres and different professionals picking up on a concern and recording them on different systems, we are to going to have one system across all of the city."
The council's children's services has been given an inadequate rating since 2008, but a report issued last month said services were improving.
One parent outside the council building, Rebecca Harris, said the current offering "helps my son".
She said: "With it closing it's like, 'what am I supposed to do for him?'
"Look at how happy he is... They've done a lot of good for my son."
Another woman, Sara Hadi, said: "I was shocked to hear that these services are being cut.
"I really believe that obviously our children are our future and this is where we need to invest."
The community healthcare trust has said its role would be to ensure children aged up to five led healthy lifestyles and were ultimately kept safe.


Knifepoint robbers have targeted four victims in just three-and-a-half hours during a spate of attacks.

The male victims were all confronted in Colchester, Essex, between 23:00 BST on Friday and 02:30 on Saturday.
Essex Police said extra patrols would be made in The Hythe and New Town over the weekend.
The force said the crimes were being linked and that it was "working with the victims in each incident to identify the suspects".
The first victim managed to flee unscathed after being surrounded by a group of up to 15 men, one armed with a knife, in Hickory Avenue at 23:00.
A man then had his wallet and phone stolen after he was approached by two men who pulled out a knife. The pair were with two women at Hythe Station at 01:30.
Forty-five minutes later, a gang of up to six males stole a man's phone at knifepoint in Winnock Road, before a fourth man managed to push a would-be robber away when he was threatened with a knife at 02:30 in Hythe Hill.
Det Ch Insp Leighton Hammett said:  "We have a zero tolerance stance on this type of behaviour and these incidents are not acceptable."


Two people have died, and several have been hurt, in a crush at a large open-air rock concert in Argentina.

Saturday night's concert in the eastern city of Olavarria turned dangerous after the crowd rushed towards the stage at the end of the performance.
Organisers said over 250,000 fans attended the concert by popular performer Indio Solari and his band - many more than initially expected.
The local mayor said the situation "got out of hand" due to the high numbers.
Solari stopped performing several times, and urged security to help fans who had fallen.
At one point, he said: "Has someone fainted? What is going on there? There are people on the floor, please! Security! Get up, please, get them out of here."
Local mayor Ezequiel Galli told reporters 12 people were taken to hospital.
"We are working with the the health teams to calm relatives and to be the contact between the relatives and the patients," he said.
Many fans were also stranded the morning after the concert, as the local bus system struggled to cope with the large numbers of concert goers.
Olavarria has a population of about 100,000 - far fewer than the number of concertgoers.


Colin Turkington has announced that he will return to West Surrey Racing for the 2017 British Touring Car Championship, driving a BMW 125i.

Turkington has a strong history with the team after winning the BTCC title in 2009 and 2014 with WSR, as well as making his debut with the team in 2002.
The Portadown driver split from his BMR team at the beginning of the year.
"It feels fantastic to re-join WSR for the 2017 season and I couldn't be more excited about my return," he said.
As well as two BTCC titles, the 34-year-old has 30 race victories with the team and has collected four Independant Title championships.
Turkington added: "From my debut in touring cars in 2002 right through to winning my second BTCC title, it's been like a second family for me and my greatest achievements in motor racing have all been shared with them.
"I'm confident our rear wheel expertise and shared work ethic will be a successful formula and allow us to fight for honours once more."
WSR boss Dick Bennetts said, "Colin, no doubt, is one of the fastest and most consistent drivers in the BTCC, we are looking forward to getting him back in the car and hitting the track."
Turkington finished fourth in the overall standings last year, taking an impressive five race wins.
WSR collected both the Manufacturers and Teams championship, meaning that Turkington and WSR will be looking to continue one of the BTCC's most successful partnerships.


A court in Bangladesh has sentenced eight student activists of the governing Awami League party to death for the murder of a youth during an opposition strike last year.

A further 13 people from the student wing of the Awami League were sentenced to life in prison for murdering Biswajit Das.
Prosecutors said they mistook him for a supporter of the opposition.
The murder in broad daylight was captured on TV and caused outrage.
The pictures showed activists chasing Mr Das in the streets of Dhaka and hacking to death him with machetes.
Police were severely criticised for their slow response in arresting the suspects.
Only eight of the accused were present in the crowded court to hear judge  ABM Nizamul Huq read out the verdict.
The rest, including two of those condemned to death, have not been caught and were tried in absentia.
The victim's elder brother Uttam Das was quoted by the AFP agency as saying that the family was happy with the verdict and wanted the executions to be speedily carried out.
"We have got the justice and now we want quick execution of these  criminals," Mr Das said.
Correspondents say that the trial was a major test for the Awami League and came amid allegations that police tried to cover up the identities of the attackers.
The verdicts came as the country reels from street violence over the last few weeks ahead of polls scheduled for 5 January.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies say that they will boycott the vote - which they insist should only be held after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has stepped aside to make way for a neutral caretaker government.
They have held a series of violent strikes and street protests to advance their demands.


Islamic State (IS) militants have mounted a ferocious counter-attack in north Iraq, killing at least 19 people in and around the city of Kirkuk.

They attacked government buildings, killing at least six police officers, and a power station under construction, where 13 employees died, officials say.
Twelve IS fighters also reportedly died and fighting seems to be continuing.
Government and Kurdish forces began a long-awaited operation against the IS capital in Iraq, Mosul, on Monday.
Mosul lies 170km (105 miles) to the north-east of Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic city claimed both by Iraq's central government and the Kurds.
Government forces said on Friday they had regained control of a further two villages - al-Awaizat and Nanaha - south of Mosul, evacuating 65 displaced families and killing 15 IS militants.
Is so-called Islamic State finished?
Mosul citizens face "frenzy" of IS
Voices from Mosul as battle nears
Hours after the initial assault, witnesses in Kirkuk said gunfire could still be heard and militants were walking openly through the streets. Initial reports suggested as many as 16 civilians had been killed.
Local media say a state of emergency has been declared and Friday sermons have been cancelled as mosques remain closed.
A news agency affiliated to IS said fighters had broken into Kirkuk's city hall and seized a central hotel but officials denied this.
District police chief Brig Gen Sarhad Qadir told the BBC suicide bombers and other IS fighters had attacked three police buildings and the headquarters of a political party in Kirkuk.
"All of the militants who attacked the police emergency building and the old building of the Kirkuk police directorate have been killed but a number of other militants are still in Dumez district," he said.
The governor of Kirkuk, Najm al-Din Karim, insisted that Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and counter-terrorism forces were completely in control of the situation.
He blamed the attack on IS sleeper cells.
"Because of the ongoing Mosul offensive, they may want to create a situation where forces would be withdrawn from there and the focus shifted to Kirkuk," Mr Karim told Kurdish news agency Rudaw.
"Also because they are being defeated in Mosul, they want to boost their morale with these kinds of actions."
Five Iranian employees are believed to be among the dead in the attack on the power plant to the north of Kirkuk, Iraq's electricity ministry said.
Seven other employees and five police guards were wounded.
The power plant, which is still under construction, is being built by an Iranian company.


Wales forward Gareth Bale is set to be out "for two to three weeks" with a calf injury, according to Real Madrid manager Rafael Benitez.

Bale, 26, limped out of Real's 4-0 Champions League win over Shakhtar Donetsk in midweek.
But Benitez expects the former Spurs player to be fit for his country's Euro 2016 qualifiers against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Andorra next month.
"It is a small injury and it appears he recovers quickly," said Benitez.
Bale has scored six of Wales' nine goals in Euro 2016 qualifying.
Benitez believes he should be available for their two fixtures in October, which they enter needing a point to qualify for their first major tournament since the 1958 World Cup.
"We are optimistic," he said.
"If the player is fit to go with the national team there is little you can do apart from the normal conversations with the national team managers.
"The most important thing is that Gareth recovers as quickly as possible."


Three men have been arrested on suspicion of being involved in terrorism, Scotland Yard has said.

A man in his 20s was arrested at an address in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, at about 12:45 BST.
Two men in their 20s and 30s were arrested shortly after at two properties in the Luton area of Bedfordshire.
All three were arrested on suspicion of involvement in commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
Searches are under way at two addresses in the Luton area as part of the investigation, a spokesman said.
Armed police from the Met's Specialist Firearms Command were involved in assisting with one of the arrests, but no shots were fired, Scotland Yard said.
The arrests and searches are part of an ongoing investigation into Islamist-related terrorism, the spokesman added.


Sales of SUVs and pick-up trucks in North America helped General Motors to achieve improved profits last year.

It reported net income of $9.7bn (Â£6.7bn) compared with $2.8bn the previous year, although that was flattered by a gain of $3.9bn from the revaluation of tax assets in Europe.
Almost all of GM's profits were earned in North America.
Much of that profit growth was due to a 16% rise in sales of SUVs and pick-up trucks in the US.
The world's third-biggest carmaker reaffirmed its earlier forecast that it would increase earnings per share before exceptional items to between $5.25 and $5.75 this year, from $5.02 last year.
It plans to return $16bn to shareholders by the end of next year, including a $9bn share buyback programme.
"It was a strong year on many fronts, capped with record sales and earnings, and a substantial return of capital to our shareholders," said chairman and chief executive Mary Barra.
"We continue to strengthen our core business, which is laying the foundation for the company to lead in the transformation of personal mobility. We believe the opportunities this will create in connectivity, autonomous, car-sharing and electrification will set the stage for driving value for our owners for years to come."


Spectators have gathered in boats to watch a cricket match on a sandbank in the middle of the Solent.

Island Sailing Club beat Royal Southern Yacht Club by one run in the light-hearted challenge held on Bramble Bank.
The annual game has taken place at the same location since the 1950s, with the teams taking it in turn to win.
It relies on the low-water spring tide exposing the sandbar for long enough to play.
The 50-minute match began with a blessing from Rev Andrew Poppe, vicar at St Mary the Virgin and Holy Trinity churches in Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
"It was a wonderful, wholly eccentric and very wet game," he said.
"The conditions were at times challenging, as they are at Lord's sometimes, with the players waist-high in water."
He added that Hamble's Royal Southern Yacht Club "were generous in their giving up of the trophy this year" to their Cowes-based rivals, who won the match by 80 runs to 79.
Bramble Bank can be a troublesome navigational hazard for ships in the Solent.
Last year the car transporter ship Hoegh Osaka hit the sandbank and in November 2008 it caused the QE2 liner to run aground.


Bradford staged a second-half fightback but were held to their fourth successive draw by struggling Bury, who are without a win in 14 matches.

The visitors, who ended a run of 12 defeats in a row with a goalless stalemate at Fleetwood on Boxing Day, went in front after 39 minutes when Scott Burgess latched on to a long through pass and lobbed the ball over the advancing Colin Doyle.
The goal came less than minute after Jordy Hiwula had missed Bradford's best chance.
Left-back Matt Kilgallon's cross was helped into his path but the on-loan striker saw his close range shot blocked.
Bradford began the second half brightly and deservedly equalised after 52 minutes, moments after Doyle had saved Burgess volley at the second attempt.
The ball was quickly cleared up field for James Hanson to head the ball into path of Hiwula. Ron Lainton saved Hiwula's shot but could not hold the ball and Nicky Law fired the rebound into the net to level the scores.
The home side continued to dominate but could not turn pressure into goals and substitute Mark McNulty twice missed good chances after Hanson headed the ball into his path and the tall striker also provided chances for Law and substitute Haris Vuckic, but their shots were off target.
Report supplied by the Press Association.
Match ends, Bradford City 1, Bury 1.
Second Half ends, Bradford City 1, Bury 1.
Corner,  Bury. Conceded by Nicky Law.
Attempt missed. Haris Vuckic (Bradford City) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left from a direct free kick.
Josh Cullen (Bradford City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Hallam Hope (Bury).
Nathaniel Knight-Percival (Bradford City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Tom Pope (Bury).
Attempt missed. Haris Vuckic (Bradford City) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the right.
Attempt saved. Marc McNulty (Bradford City) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Attempt missed. James Hanson (Bradford City) header from the centre of the box misses to the right.
Substitution, Bradford City. Haris Vuckic replaces Mark Marshall.
Attempt blocked. Mark Marshall (Bradford City) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked.
Corner,  Bradford City. Conceded by Greg Leigh.
Foul by Romain Vincelot (Bradford City).
Tom Pope (Bury) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Attempt missed. Marc McNulty (Bradford City) right footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the right.
Tony McMahon (Bradford City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Jacob Mellis (Bury).
Substitution, Bradford City. Timothee Dieng replaces Daniel Devine.
Substitution, Bradford City. Marc McNulty replaces Jordy Hiwula-Mayifuila.
Matthew Kilgallon (Bradford City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by James Vaughan (Bury).
Attempt missed. James Hanson (Bradford City) header from the centre of the box is just a bit too high.
Corner,  Bradford City. Conceded by Jacob Bedeau.
Attempt blocked. Josh Cullen (Bradford City) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Substitution, Bury. Jacob Mellis replaces Scott Burgess.
Romain Vincelot (Bradford City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Callum Styles (Bury).
Substitution, Bury. James Vaughan replaces George Miller.
Attempt blocked. Mark Marshall (Bradford City) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Attempt saved. Tom Pope (Bury) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.
Romain Vincelot (Bradford City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Hallam Hope (Bury).
Attempt missed. Nicky Law (Bradford City) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left.
Corner,  Bradford City. Conceded by Tom Soares.
Corner,  Bradford City. Conceded by Antony Kay.
Attempt missed. Scott Burgess (Bury) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top right corner.
Corner,  Bradford City. Conceded by George Miller.
Goal!  Bradford City 1, Bury 1. Nicky Law (Bradford City) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner.


France's far-right National Front (FN) has failed to form an alliance with the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders, reducing both parties' influence in the European Parliament.

Pan-European party blocs get more funding, staff and speaking time in the parliament. The deadline for forming a bloc expired on Monday night.
The new 751-seat assembly, elected in May, holds its first session next week.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has formed a bloc with other Eurosceptics.
UKIP's new allies are the Italian Five Star Movement of comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, Lithuania's Order and Justice Party, the nationalist Sweden Democrats and a few anti-EU MEPs from Latvia, the Czech Republic and France. Jointly they are called the New EFD (Europe of Freedom and Democracy).
Under parliament rules, a faction has to consist of at least 25 MEPs from a minimum of seven EU countries. The EU has a total of 28 member states.
The FN and PVV failed to satisfy the seven-country rule.
Before the election Mr Wilders and FN leader Marine Le Pen had spoken of their common ambition to return powers from the EU to the nation states.
Ms Le Pen's triumph, leading the FN to first place in the French election, gave her party 23 seats. It was one of the biggest surprises on an election night that saw big gains for anti-EU parties across Europe. In the last parliament the FN had just three seats.
Mr Wilders was disappointed with the PVV's result, however. The party won just three seats and fell to fourth place in the Netherlands - well behind liberal and centre-left, pro-EU parties.
Both the FN and PVV want tougher immigration controls, reject the euro and want their countries to leave the EU. Both parties also campaign strongly against the spread of Islam in Europe.
Mr Wilders said forming a faction with Poland's Congress of the New Right would be "a bridge too far". The Polish party has been accused of anti-Semitism and misogyny.
But Mr Wilders said he still hoped for co-operation between his PVV and like-minded parties in the parliament over the next five years, including the FN, Belgium's Vlaams Belang, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) and Italy's Northern League.
The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group - including the UK Conservatives - looks set to be the third-largest group in the parliament.
Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives will sit alongside several nationalist Eurosceptic parties: The Finns, Belgium's Flemish separatist N-VA and the Danish People's Party.
The ECR group also includes Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), a new German conservative anti-euro party.
Mr Cameron's alliance with the AfD is seen as another irritant in his relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.


A man died in a fire at a house where cannabis was being grown, police have said.

The fire in a house in Harehills Lane, Leeds, in the early hours of the morning also damaged neighbouring properties.
The man was treated by firefighters and paramedics but died at the scene, West Yorkshire Police said.
A 28-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, the force said.
Live updates and more stories from Yorkshire
She was also arrested over the production of cannabis after the remains of a cannabis growing set-up were found, said police.
A post-mortem examination is due to be held to establish the cause of his death.ã€€
Det Ch Insp Jaz Khan said the cause of the fire was yet to be established and specialist fire investigators were at the scene.


America's military finds itself pulled in several directions - and even the $582bn (Â£403bn) defence budget rolled out earlier this month will not be enough to satisfy all of its needs.

New challenges - from Russia and the so-called Islamic State (IS) group - are forcing the Pentagon to change its plans, and reopening old arguments about whether its allies are doing enough.
One of the headlines to come out of the new budget was a quadrupling of spending on US military preparations to defend allies in Europe.
When Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, says the alliance is facing its "most challenging security environment in a generation", he is thinking principally of the challenge posed by a "newly assertive Russia".
"The US is doing what they've always done - bail out Europeans unprepared to fund defence properly," says General Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato's number two soldier until two years ago, "but more than that, it's recognition that Europe is strategically vital for the US and that the withdrawal of the last of the US heavy brigades a couple of years ago went too far in the face of the very real threat posed by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin."
Yet the line item in the Pentagon's budget shows an increase from $789m to $3.4bn on measures to improve readiness in Europe.
It's a lot of money, but not compared to the budget overall or to what was lost when the US and other Nato countries cashed in their "peace dividend" at the end of the Cold War.
So the US now plans to have about 250 armoured vehicles pre-positioned in eastern Europe in case trouble flares in the Baltic republics or Poland.
But the number of tanks within that figure (50 or so) is around 1% of the number the US Army had positioned in Europe during the Cold War.
In 2013-14 the number of American tanks actually went down to zero.
The new deployments, and a programme of rolling Nato exercises, will bring some reassurance to Baltic leaders who fear that Russia might try to destabilise them.
America's reinvestment, it's only fair to say, also contrasts with many European allies who, so far at least, show little sign of living up to promises to raise their defence spending to 2% of GDP.
American annoyance that the Europeans are not doing enough to defend themselves led Robert Gates, then defence secretary, to warn in 2011: "There will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress, and in the American body politic writ large, to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defence."
Since pledging to boost spending in 2014, several east European Nato members have announced increases. Germany, long criticised by many of its allies, has also said it will add â‚¬9bn (Â£7bn; $10bn) to its military budget between 2016 and 2019.
Yet despite many changes of this kind the authoritative "Military Balance" annual published this month by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, reports, "while these additional funds will provide some relief to defence ministries across Europe, the significance of the announced increments should not be overstated".
So despite the 2011 Gates warning, and the summit pledges, Nato's reality remains much the same.
The Europeans don't want to spend (much) more and however much America may complain, it remains committed to its global security mission.
Russia and China, by comparison, may spend considerably less, but their budgets are rising (rapidly), they buy a lot more (manpower is cheaper for them), and their forces focus on their immediate periphery.
In the Middle East too, the Obama administration finds itself reversing its earlier drawdown in Iraq. It is spending more (for example, $1.8bn to buy 45,000 new guided bombs and missiles to replace those used recently, mostly in that part of the world) and calling on its friends to step up.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter spoke last week of the "terrific opportunity" for US allies to do more in the fight against IS.
Yet the Americans find themselves being criticised by Turkey and France among others, for ceding the initiative to Russia and failing to act effectively enough over the past 18 months in Syria.
While Mr Carter has spoken of the battle to retake Mosul (which fell to IS in the summer of 2014) being under way, US intelligence officials suggest they do not expect the city to be recaptured this year.
The reality, then, of America's new defence budget is that the Obama years' pattern of long-term decline (of spending as a proportion of GDP) continues.
And even the one strategy that the Pentagon a few years back thought it had - drawing down in Europe and the Middle East in favour of a new emphasis on China and the Pacific - has been frustrated by world events.
Mark Urban is diplomatic and defence editor for BBC Newsnight. You can read more on his blog and follow him on Twitter


United Nations aid agencies in Geneva were nervous before Donald Trump was elected: his rhetoric on all sorts of key issues, from migrants to torture, was deeply worrying to a community dedicated to upholding what it believes are fundamental human rights.

Once candidate Trump became President Trump, the nervousness increased.
The executive order on immigration seemed, to many aid workers, to betray an almost total lack of understanding and compassion for the world's most vulnerable people.
Now, 100 days in, there is a sense of wariness.
Although that key executive order on immigration may have been stayed by the US courts, there is unease at what may come next.
On 1 May, the UN human rights commissioner, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, warned that he was "watching the US very carefully".
His remarks were made in the context of Donald Trump's "very friendly" conversation with President Duterte of the Philippines, and his invitation to Mr Duterte to visit the White House.
John Fisher, Geneva director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), describes the invitation as an "uncritical embrace" and "entirely inappropriate".
This week, the Philippines is due to be reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
HRW, which has submitted evidence to the UN review, has described President Duterte's war on drugs as "nothing less than a murderous war on the poor", in which more than 7,000 people have been killed in less than a year in a campaign HRW believes could amount to a crime against humanity.
Human rights commissioner Mr Zeid said he expected a "clear and undiluted" message on human rights from Washington to Manila during any White House visit, and that was what he would be watching for.
But just two days after these comments, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed to reinforce Geneva's growing suspicion that Washington's commitment to human rights is weakening.
In a long-awaited speech to State Department employees, Mr Tillerson suggested that asking other countries to adopt what he called "American values" might conflict with US national security interests, and the latter must come first.
The backlash was swift.
Former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power pointed out something that seems to have been lost on the former oilman Mr Tillerson: human rights are first and foremost universal, and the US agreed, when it signed the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948, not just to accept them as American values, but to uphold them worldwide.
"It was a very disappointing statement [from Mr Tillerson]," said John Fisher, of Human Rights Watch.
"It suggests that human rights are no longer a central plank of US foreign policy."
Others, however, suggest that the only change is that Washington is now publicly preaching what it always practised.
"Historically, the US has always been able to have its cake and eat it," says David Sylvan, professor of international relations at Geneva's Graduate Institute.
"Geopolitical interests come firstâ€¦ the US has always been able to cut deals with people who are fairly thuggish."
But even if the change is more language than substance, Washington's approach is causing concern.
"The impact of Trump's speeches on dictators around the worldâ€¦ can't be good," says Robert Roth, director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
"Obviously it could encourage some states to be even less careful about human rights," says Marco Sassoli, professor of international law at Geneva University.
Added to concern over the effect of the rhetoric from Washington is the more existential one: the US is the biggest financial contributor to many UN agencies, including the Office of Human Rights.
Under President Trump, big cutbacks have been proposed.
So what can the UN, and human rights commissioner Zeid Raad Al Hussein in particular, do to convince Washington that supporting universal human rights is worthwhile?
"Almost nothing," says David Sylvan. "Trump is not bothered about human rights, he doesn't care at all."
But until the cutbacks are actually reality, and so far, as with so many other issues, no concrete proposals on the UN have come out of the Oval Office, the UN community in Geneva tries to remain optimistic, but wary.
Mr Zeid's comment that he was "watching" the US was, in fact, a good deal more diplomatic than some of his pre-US election speeches, in which he called some political leaders, Donald Trump among them, "demagogues".
He still, apparently, hopes to get an invitation to Washington himself, though it seems it will be after President Duterte's.
If the UN's human rights chief does get into the White House, Robert Roth, of the Geneva Academy, has some advice on strategy.
History shows us, he says, that abusive regimes tend not to last, and that tolerating human rights violations and those who commit them will not, in the long term, help any country's national security.
"It is in the interests of a stable world not to accept major violations of human rights," says Mr Roth.
David Sylvan is more blunt. "Trump doesn't understand the UN and won't until something happens that makes him see it could be useful," he says.
"The way human beings tend to learn is from a disaster.
"Let's hope [President Trump's learning process] isn't a disaster that affects the whole world."


Derrick Nsibambi scored twice for Uganda's KCCA to earn them a 2-1 win over Nigeria's Rivers United in Kampala on Saturday.

He scored KCCA's first after 15 minutes before Bolaji Sakin fired into the roof of the net 18 minutes later to equalize for Rivers.
Nsibambi scored what proved to be the winner with a shot from inside the area with 19 minutes left to play.
Despite the win KCCA coach Mike Mutebi felt his side should have won by more.
"We should have got more goals because we created the chances, but now we return to the drawing board for the away game in Nigeria on June 20th," he said.
His Nigerian counterpart Stanley Eguma was not happy with his defence.
"My boys tried to play a good game, but the early goal was our problem. We also didn't defend well," he said.
The other match in Group A was played on Friday and Morocco's FUS Rabat came from behind to beat visiting Club Africain of Tunisia 2-1.
Algerian Ibrahim Chenihi gave the Tunisian's the lead after 19 minutes before FUS drew level early in the second half through a penalty by Mohammed Fouzair.
Ayoub Skouma found the net in injury time to give the Moroccans all three points.
The results mean that after three group matches FUS and KCCA both have six points while Rivers and Club Africain are on three.
Also on Saturday in Group D there was a 1-0 win for Guinea's Horoya away in Gabon against Mounana.
Seydou Camara with the only goal of the match after 72 minutes.
The result puts Horoya onto five points from three matches while Mounana are still searching for the first one of the group stage.
On Sunday holder TP Mazembe of DR Congo host SuperSport United of South Africa in the other Group D encounter both sides are on four points from two games.
On Friday in Group B Swaziland's Mbabane Swallows earned a goalless draw with visitors Mouloudia Alger of Algeria.
The draw keeps Mouloudia at the top of Group B with five points and Mbabane second a point behind.
Three-time winners CS Sfaxien can overtake both teams if they beat South Africa's Platinum Stars in Tunisia on Sunday evening.


One of the earliest coins ever minted in Scotland is going under the hammer.

Made during the reign of King David I of Scotland, the penny was unearthed by a metal detector in a field in the north of England.
Experts think it could fetch between Â£8,000 and Â£12,000 when it goes up for auction on 22 September.
The penny bears the head of King David I, who ruled Scotland from 1124 to 1153.
It is thought to have been struck some time after the Scots invaded England in 1136 to intervene in a civil war over the English throne.
The coin will be auctioned in London by international coin specialists Dix Noonan Webb, and the auctioneers have described it as very important.
It is one of the first to be struck bearing the head of a Scottish monarch and represents a key moment in the development of independent Scotland.
The 54-year-old metal detectorist who found it has asked not to be named.
He discovered the coin in a field in County Durham, on the site of a long-lost medieval village after he was given permission to search the area two years ago.
He also turned up pennies from the reigns of English kings Edward I and Edward III as well as Elizabethan coins, two modern gold rings and a large number of bullets.
The coin was almost certainly dropped in the medieval village which, in the 12th Century, was in an area of Northumbria granted to David I under the Treaty of Durham in 1139.
It may, therefore, have lain in the soil for almost 900 years.
Hiram Brown, of the Edinburgh Coin Shop, told BBC Scotland: "This coin is unique because it has an Edinburgh side with David on it, and the other side is Carlisle. It was probably struck in Carlisle.
"David and his son Prince Henry attacked Carlisle and took over silver mines in that area and struck coins.
"They went on to strike coins in many places in Scotland."


It is often said that crises in the EU give an impetus for further integration - "more Europe".

There was a new example of that at this week's Brussels summit.
EU leaders agreed on the need for a new "European Border and Coast Guard", with greater powers and resources than the current Frontex border agency.
The European Commission stressed that the new force would not usurp the authority of national border staff - it would work alongside them.
Controversially, however, if a member state fails in its duty to protect the EU's external borders, during an emergency, the Commission could deploy EU guards without needing the state's permission.
And part of the guards' remit would be to send failed asylum seekers back - though currently such "returns" are handled by national forces.
The plan has caused some alarm about sovereignty. Few issues are as touchy for nations as their own borders. Hungary and Poland have voiced concern.
But this year's record influx of migrants - many of them Syrian war refugees - has demanded crisis measures.
Greece has become the main gateway to Europe, as thousands of desperate migrants come ashore daily on the islands near Turkey.
The massive flow north, through the Balkans, has severely strained European solidarity.
New east-west tensions arose when Hungary, Slovakia and some other countries objected to housing migrants. Muslims would struggle to integrate - and anyway most wanted to live in Germany, it was argued.
But France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Sweden all want EU burden-sharing.
The migrant crisis is testing the idea of "ever closer union" just as UK Prime Minister David Cameron argues against it. For the first time he presented his reform case to the other EU leaders in detail.
A striking phrase at the summit was the need to "take back control" of the EU's external borders - a phrase also used by British Eurosceptics who want to limit immigration from the EU.
Stricter policing of the EU's external borders is considered vital to preserve freedom of movement in the Schengen area, where 26 countries removed border controls.
But tighter surveillance is also part of what the EU leaders call "our uncompromising fight against terrorism".
Shocked by the jihadist atrocities in Paris last month, they pledged to enable much more information-sharing between police and intelligence services in the EU.
There needs to be better use of the Schengen Information System (SIS) and other key databases to keep track of suspects, the leaders agreed.
The EU aims to hammer out the operational details for the new border force by next July.
The deadline is significant. A senior EU official said next summer could see another big surge of migrants, with the likelihood of more boat tragedies.
According to the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) however, the approach to the migrant crisis remains too security-focused.
CEPS urges the EU to provide more legal channels for migration and use development aid to help tackle the root causes, especially poverty.
Nearly one million refugees and other migrants have entered the EU this year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says.
And no let-up is expected next year, as the Syrian war and other conflicts grind on.
But few European politicians are bold enough to say they want young skilled migrants to fill jobs as the workforce gets older.
Germany's welcome for Syrians could pay dividends in the future.
A big EU effort is under way now to encourage Turkey to crack down on people traffickers and improve conditions for the 2.2 million Syrian refugees it is hosting, so that they stay in the region.
Many of those refugees are in squalid camps, without any legal right to jobs or welfare. So, seeing no future in Turkey, they set off for the EU.
In a report last month Human Rights Watch said fewer than one-third of the 700,000 Syrian refugee children who had entered Turkey since 2010 were attending school.
The EU is offering Turkey incentives: its bid to join the EU is no longer frozen, Turks may get visa-free travel to Europe next autumn, and Turkey will get â‚¬3bn ($3.26bn; Â£2.1bn) of EU aid for the refugees.
Addressing the conflicts in the Middle East, Afghanistan and other trouble spots has become urgent business for the EU - and a distraction from the unresolved problems of the eurozone.


Thousands of students are taking part in School Report's 2016 News Day on Thursday 10 March, and this is the place to find messages of support, encouragement and congratulations for pupils across the UK from their schools and teachers!

We try to use as many as possible, but with so many schools taking part it's very hard to get every single one mentioned so please bear with us.
See if you can find your school's shout out here:


A centre which celebrates Pembrokeshire's wartime history has unveiled a full size replica cockpit of a Sunderland flying boat.

Made by local volunteers, it gives a simulated experience of flying over the Milford Haven waterway.
It has taken two years to build and has been funded by a grant from the Ministry of Defence.
A large-scale model of an entire flying boat was also unveiled at Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre.
The RAF's Air Officer for Wales, Air Commodore Adrian Williams, said: "Pembroke Dock is really important to the history of the Sunderland, and although there's a full-scale Sunderland aircraft in the RAF Museum at Hendon, what we've done here in Pembroke Dock is really unique."


Loyalist communities across Belfast will be invited to engage in events to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising, organisers say.

The rising was a republican rebellion that lasted from 24 April (Easter Monday) to 30 April 1916.
A series of events in Belfast to mark next year's centenary were announced on Monday.
Organisers have said they hope unionists as well as republicans will take part.
Tom Hartley, one of the organisers and a former Sinn FÃ©in mayor of Belfast, acknowledged some unionists may not want to commemorate an event that effectively paved the way for Irish independence, but he said others appreciated the rising's significance in what was such an important historical period for everyone on the island.
"What I find inside loyalist communities is there are many, many people who are already engaging in history and hopefully we can create a template where we can deal with what I call the combustible period of Irish history in a way that allows engagement and discourse," he said.
"There will be some who will engage, others who won't. But we do think it is important for us from early on in this process to say 'look, we want this to be a period of hospitality, of bringing people in and getting other people's views and dealing with difficult views of 1916'. We have no difficulty with that."
Next year will mark two major centenaries in Irish history.
While the 1916 Rising in Dublin is a seminal moment in republican history, the sacrifice made by Irish soldiers, both Protestant and Catholic, at the Battle of the Somme in the First World War is extremely important in the unionist narrative.
Mr Hartley was the main speaker as the programme of events to mark the rising in Belfast was unveiled in the city hall.
Parades, re-enactments, lectures, exhibitions, cycle tours and a commemorative walking trail are all planned for next year.
There will be a weekend of events focusing on the contribution of Winifred Carney, the County Down-born suffragette, socialist and trade unionist who acted as secretary to one of the Rising's leaders, James Connolly.
One of Ms Carney's relatives, Desmond Cassidy, attended the launch event in City Hall.
"It's the greatest thing that has come to pass in the family that this is all happening for Winifred at the moment," he said.
"The more people that get to know about her, the more pleased the family are going to be.
"I look around the city hall and I think to myself if Winifred was still alive and seeing what was happening here in the city hall she would be well pleased."
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Progressive Unionist Party said: "As unionists and loyalists we don't think people will want to participate in any celebration events, however it is a matter for the individual to decide.
"The unionist and loyalist community will have their eyes firmly focused on remembering those who sacrificed their lives on the battlefields of France that very same year.
"On the other hand there will be those who want to gain a better understanding of the conflict and British and Irish history and that will be a personal choice for the individual."


Students from a Bristol school have spoken to astronaut Tim Peake aboard the International Space Station.

Among the questions from pupils at Oasis Academy Brightstowe was one from 15-year-old Seema who wants to be the first female Afghan astronaut.
Major Peake told her it was a "wonderful idea and ambition" and that she should "follow her dreams"
The link up started at 14:20 GMT and lasted 10 minutes with the school using the special radio call sign GB1OAB.
A computer programme tracks the ISS as it travels across the sky and this controls where the aerials are pointing and what frequency the VHF/UHF radio is on
As the students ask their questions the operator switches the transmitter on. At the end of the question he or she says 'over' and the transmitter is switched off
The reply is received from space and played over loudspeakers in the hall
There was a loud cheer from pupils, staff and parents as his voice crackled through the loudspeakers in the school hall for the first time and the live picture appeared on TV screens.
Sixteen-year-old Ashleigh wanted to know how many days' supplies the space station has on board and what would happen if a restocking mission could not take place?
Major Peake told him a few missions to restock had had problems but the space station had six-month's worth of reserves.
And nine-year-old Jacob asked why he had become an astronaut..
He replied he had been a pilot and it was the "pinnacle of his career" to "explore new frontiers".
The link-up was part of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station project which aims to inspire students,  to pursue interests and careers in science, technology, engineering and maths through an interest in amateur radio.


Wheelchair basketball is fast-paced and requires skill and determination - something Great Britain's under-23 team have in bucketloads!

24 July 2017 Last updated at 08:25 BST
Fresh off the back of their win in the World Wheelchair Basketball, the team is back together, practising and getting ready for their next competition.
Hayley caught up with them in Yorkshire, and even set them a cheeky challenge!
Watch this...


Scotland's outdoor snowsports centres have been reporting improving conditions for skiing and snowboarding.

Mild temperatures and high winds have affected Scotland's ski season so far this winter.
However, this week has seen heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures allowing some resorts to offer some snowsports.
Nevis Range said the season has started later than usual but hopes for a prolonged spell of suitable conditions.
The centre near Fort William along Glencoe Mountain, Lecht, CairnGorm Mountain and Glenshee have been putting updates on their websites about their availability for snowsports.
A spokesperson for Nevis Range said: "It's been a later than usual start to the snowsports season at Nevis Range.
"However, in previous years we've still been open for snowsports in April and had lovely skiing conditions into May."
A late start to the 2015-16 snowsports season had a "significant impact" and reduced the number of days available for skiing and snowboarding.
Ski-Scotland, the organisation that promotes Scottish snowsports, said it had involved 207,770 skier days.
It also estimated that the industry generated almost £21m for the economy during the season.
Previous seasons involved bigger numbers - 2012-13 had 290,996 skier days and raised more than £29m.
The more recent 2014-15 season involved 230,634 skier days, raising £23.2m.
It was also the first in years that all five of Scotland's outdoor ski centres opened for snowsports before Christmas.
For the 2015-16 season, the sites had to wait until January for sufficient snow cover, though Nevis Range and the Lecht in Aberdeenshire were able to open for a short time at the end of December 2015.


Australian Richie Porte claimed the Criterium du Dauphine's yellow jersey after Friday's sixth stage won by Denmark's Jakob Fuglsang.

Astana rider Fuglsang, 32, crossed the line in a photo-finish with Porte and defending champion Chris Froome at the end of the 147.5km stage.
Porte now has a 39-second lead over Froome in the general classification.
The leader after stage five, Belgium's Thomas de Gendt, lost over eight minutes and is now 30th overall.
Fugsang said: "There has been a lot of bad luck for our team this year, but finally everything seems to come together. We start to be competitive.
"Luckily it is at the right time just before the Tour de France."
The race continues in the mountains for the final two days. The Tour de France starts on 1 July.
1. Jakob Fuglsang (Den/Astana) 4hrs 41mins 48secs
2. Richie Porte (Aus/BMC Racing) same time
3. Chris Froome (GB/Team Sky)
4. Fabio Aru (Ita/Astana)
5. Alejandro Valverde (Spa/Movistar) +50secs
1. Richie Porte (Aus/BMC Racing) 20hrs 52mins 34secs
2. Chris Froome (GB/Team Sky) +39secs
3. Jakob Fuglsang (Den/Astana) +1min 15secs
4. Alejandro Valverde (Spa/Movistar) +1min 20secs
5. Fabio Aru (Ita/Astana) +1min 24secs
7. Daniel Martin (Ire/Quick-Step) +2min 14secs
12. Simon Yates (GB/Orica) +3min 16secs
29. Nicolas Roche (Ire/BMC Racing) +7min 41secs


Two high school football players in the US state of Ohio have been found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl.

Trent Mays, 16, and Ma'lik Richmond, 17, attacked the girl after a drunken party in the town of Steubenville. Both wept as the verdict was read out.
The case came to light via text messages, online videos and social media posts made the morning after, attracting nationwide attention.
The two were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile detention.
Mays was sentenced to another year for taking pictures of the naked victim, and the judge said both might stay in detention until they reach 21.
The case was thrust into the national spotlight after attention by bloggers and the hacker activist group Anonymous.
Some claimed that the community - including local police - had sought to cover up the crime to protect the accused, who were members of a celebrated high school American football team.
The case focused attention on teenage alcohol abuse and highlighted the increasing use of social media as evidence in court, the BBC's Matt Wells in Washington says.
Last August, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond left a party with a 16-year-old girl and sexually abused her, first in a car and then at a friend's house.
The victim was so drunk she had no memory of the attack, but prosecutors said she had been "treated like a toy".
There was no physical evidence, but details of the evening emerged from text messages, tweets and humiliating photos posted on the internet by the attackers and other party-goers.
The case caused a bitter divide in Steubenville, a small and economically depressed former steel town that had immense pride in its high school football team, known as the "Big Red".
Some of the witnesses were friends of the accused who gave evidence against them in return for immunity from prosecution.


The US Treasury Department says a redesigned $10 note will feature a woman, but who she will be has not been decided.

The new note will debut in 2020 to mark the 100th anniversary of the US Constitution's 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
The treasury will seek the public's input in the selection, looking for a "champion for our inclusive democracy".
Former US political leaders - all white men - currently headline US notes.
The woman who the Treasury Department ultimately selects will replace Alexander Hamilton, a key figure in the American Revolution and the first secretary of the US Treasury.
Hamilton began appearing on the $10 note in 1929. He along with diplomat and inventor Ben Franklin are the only non-presidents featured on current US notes.
Women have been featured on US money before, but the notes and coins were not widely used. Most recently women's rights activist Susan B Anthony and Native American Sacagawea appeared on dollar coins, but both coins quickly went out circulation.
The primary goal of the redesign is to add measures to thwart counterfeiters, the Treasury Department said. But women's groups have recently pressed for more representation on US notes.
"We have only made changes to the faces on our currency a few times since bills were first put into circulation, and I'm proud that the new 10 will be the first bill in more than a century to feature the portrait of a woman," said Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew.
In March, an independent group held a contest to select a woman to headline the $20 note, replacing former President Andrew Jackson.
Abolitionist Harriet Tubman was the public's top choice, beating out finalists, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, civil rights activist Rosa Parks and leader of the Cherokee nation Wilma Mankiller.
Tubman was known as the "conductor" of the Underground Railroad that allowed many slaves to escape to freedom in the 1850s.
Mr Lew will make a decision about the selected woman by the end of year.


The Scottish government may seek to give funding directly to schools rather than via local authorities, Education Secretary John Swinney has said.

The government has launched a review of school governance, aiming to "empower" teachers to make their own decisions.
Mr Swinney told the BBC there could be "further financial flexibility devolved to individual schools" which formerly would have lain with councils.
Some council leaders have voiced fears about their role being reduced.
The consultation will run into January 2017, and will be the basis for specific proposals drawn up by the government.
Speaking on the Sunday Politics Scotland programme, Mr Swinney said it was "entirely conceivable" that some power could transfer from councils to head teachers.
He said: "There may be some decisions that are taken by local authorities that would be taken by schools instead.
"So for example, if further financial flexibility is devolved to individual schools, and they are able to take decisions about the way resources are used within schools, then conceivably some of these decisions would have been taken by local authorities in the past.
"That's entirely conceivable that that's what could happen, because it would give the schools the ability to take decisions that relate directly to the educational opportunities of young people in Scotland.
"But I've made it also clear that I want local authorities to retain democratic control over education services within Scotland, but that I want to encourage a much greater degree of co-operation between local authorities in how they use their services to add value to the educational experience of young people at a local level."
Asked if this would "erode" democratic accountability of schools to councils, Mr Swinney said there needed to be a debate about decision-making in the education system.
He said: "There has to be democratic accountability in all aspects of our public services, and part of our consultation is exploring how we can take that forward to ensure that we have that necessary relationship of accountability.
"Fundamentally, the question that the consultation is asking is how can we best structure Scottish education that ensures the key educational relationship, between teachers and pupils, is enhanced and supported by the intervention of other bodies and institutions.
"I believe it's in the best interests of the educational journey of young people if decisions about those young people are taken as close to them as possible within schools.
"So I want to open up a debate about what are the right issues and questions and decisions that should be taken close to young people ins schools, and what should be taken at another level."
Teaching leaders have cautiously welcomed Mr Swinney's review, but warned against compromising local democratic accountability.
Larry Flanagan, of the Educational Institute of Scotland, the country's largest teaching union, said the Scottish model was superior to the "disasters" taking place in the rest of the UK.
When the review was announced, he said: "The Scottish government has made clear that it does not intend to take schools out of local authority control nor does it intend to mimic the disasters of UK policy in terms of academies or free schools. That is to be welcomed.
"In Scotland, there remains a widely-shared continuing commitment to the core ethos of our highly inclusive system of comprehensive education.
"At a time when the UK government seems determined to embed division - largely based around socio-economic factors - within its school system, it is important that we take a different approach here in Scotland."
The Scottish Conservatives have welcomed the idea of schools having more power, but warned that this "must not be a Trojan Horse for yet more centralisation".
Education spokeswoman Liz Smith said: "We have been calling on the Scottish government for years to drive more control and power down to schools.
"If this is what is going to happen under this review, then that is to be welcomed. But as ever with this SNP government, it will need to be watched carefully to make sure it delivers on its promises."


An Aberdeenshire Elvis fan who died on a trip to Memphis has left almost £500,000 to her family in her will and instructed her memorabilia be sold.

Gerrie Lawrie, 41, was reported missing after failing to catch her flight home in August last year. Police found her in her apartment.
Papers from Glasgow Sheriff Court show £495,000 of assets were left behind to her sons and parents.
She also requested her antiques and Elvis memorabilia be sold at auction.
This is except for four "life-size famous mannequins" which have to be displayed in a museum.
Tributes were paid on a special Facebook page after her death with people expressing their condolences.
And Ms Lawrie's friend John Helms said: "I'll remember Gerrie as a beautiful, happy, friend who loved life and the people around her."


A top South African court has cleared the way for an eight-year-old girl, born to Cuban parents, to be granted South African citizenship.

This entitles her to access to health care, education and other welfare services which she had been denied.
As her parents have been out of Cuba for some time, the girl had been unable to claim Cuban citizenship and she had been effectively left "stateless".
This test case will affect other children in such legal limbo.
The case has been going through the South African courts for several years, and the Supreme Court of Appeal's decision came after the government challenged a ruling brought by a lower court.
The BBC's Karen Allen in Johannesburg says the home affairs ministry had argued that granting the girl a South African birth certificate would open the floodgates to new applications.
The court's judgement is a reaffirmation of existing laws in South Africa which give citizenship to stateless children.
The Supreme Court of Appeal gave the government 18 months to get its house in order and put in place a mechanism for processing similar claims.
Lawyers say the implementation of this ruling would bring South Africa into line with many other countries.
It could also help many of the thousands of stateless youngsters born in South Africa, who are now being put up for adoption and whose birth parents were foreign migrants or refugees, our reporter says.
A spokesman for South Africa's Department of Home affairs said it welcomed the chance to re-evaluate its position.
South Africa is home to many African migrants who have moved to the country for better economic fortunes in one of the continent's largest economies or to seek political refuge.


Swansea City head coach Francesco Guidolin wants to limit his January signings to "one or two".

Chievo's 26-year-old striker Alberto Paloschi is due in Swansea for a medical ahead of an £8m move to the Liberty Stadium.
But fellow Italian Guidolin played down speculation linking the relegation-threatened Swans to Crystal Palace's 25-year-old forward Dwight Gayle.
"I think one or two new players would be good but no more," Guidolin said.
Former Udinese manager Guidolin was appointed Swansea's head coach earlier this month, guiding them to a first ever league win at Everton in his first game in charge.
With the Swans 15th in the Premier League and just four points above the relegation zone, the Italian admitted it is a "possibility" transfer targets could be put off a move.
But as he settles into his new role, Guidolin is more concerned about familiarising himself with the current squad than he is with making new signings.
"It is not easy for me because I want to know all my players," he added.
Only bottom club Aston Villa have scored fewer Premier League goals this season than Swansea, for whom signing a striker is a priority.
The Swans have been linked with a move for Gayle, though Guidolin was not aware of an offer.
"I don't know at the moment. In this period, there are many rumours, many names of players," he said.
"If there is a possibility, I hope to have another midfielder."
That midfielder will not be Napoli's Jonathan de Guzman, who spent two seasons on loan at Swansea between 2012 and 2014.
Dutch international De Guzman, 28, has joined another Serie A side, Carpi, on loan until the end of the season.


Andy Murray said his first thought as he led Team GB into the Maracana stadium at the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics was "don't drop" the flag.

The British contingent got a rousing ovation from the crowd as a spectacle of sound and colour welcomed the 206 guest nations competing in the games.
Murray, defending Olympic champion and two-time Wimbledon winner, said: "It was amazing to get to carry the flag.
"I'm obviously really proud to get the opportunity."
The Scottish tennis star held the Union Jack aloft with his left arm - after appearing to struggle with the pole in practice.
He added: "My first thought was 'don't drop it' and I was gripping onto the flag really tight. Then I was just trying to take it all in. The size of the stadium was incredible."
Wearing red, white and blue, Team GB soaked up the electric atmosphere, with some team members taking selfies as they all waved to the crowds.
Chef de Mission, Mark England said the occasion was "everything we hoped it would be - vibrant, colourful and energetic" and would give the team a boost ahead of the competition.
On Day One at Rio there was Scottish interest in swimming, tennis, shooting and rowing.
Edinburgh's Jen McIntosh failed to qualify for the final of the women's 10m air rifle event but secured the best-ever finish for a British woman - 15th out of 51.
Elsewhere, Colin Fleming was involved in the tennis doubles.
In the rowing, Katherine Grainger and her partner Vicky Thornley finish second in their heat to reach the semi-finals in the doubles sculls.
Swimmer Hannah Miley narrowly missed out on a bronze medal in the 400m individual medley. She was in third place with the last 50m to go but she was edged out into fourth spot.
Ross Murdoch failed to make the final in the 100m breaststroke after finishing 6th in his semi-final.


A special one-off drama about the creation of Doctor Who has been commissioned to mark the show's 50th anniversary.

An Adventure in Space and Time will tell the story of the genesis of the BBC sci-fi show in the early 1960s.
"This is the story of how an unlikely set of brilliant people created a true television original," said its writer Mark Gatiss.
The 90-minute drama will air on BBC Two next year.
Gatiss said the drama would also examine how actor William Hartnell - who played the first incarnation of the Doctor - moved from hard-man roles to become "a hero to millions of children".
"I've wanted to tell this story this for more years than I can remember! To make it happen for Doctor Who's 50th birthday is quite simply a dream come true," he said.
Steven Moffat, Doctor Who's executive producer, said: "The story of Doctor Who is the story of television - so it's fitting in the anniversary year that we make our most important journey back in time to see how the Tardis was launched."
Further details about the production, including the casting, will be confirmed next year.
Doctor Who was first broadcast on 23 November 1963 with a four-part adventure known as An Unearthly Child.
The show was originally commissioned by the BBC's head of drama Sydney Newman, and produced by Verity Lambert.


Sale Sharks centre Mark Jennings says he feared for his career because of almost four years of injury problems.

The 22-year-old suffered his initial bicep problem playing for England U20s in March 2013 that caused him to miss the junior version of the World Cup.
He had further minor injuries but has started in the Sharks past two games in the Champions Cup.
"It has been brutal as most of the injuries I've had are all upper body," he told BBC Sport.
"So it has all been lower body weights in rehab, a lot of running involved and I basically don't have any biceps anymore - I've got an Achilles heel tendon holding my left one together and then I did my right one at the start of the season.
"It was a serious thing as the rehab had to be down to every fine detail about getting it right to make sure it was 100% before I came back.
"It was quite frightening for my career as before that I hadn't really had any injuries, now it just makes me hungry to play."
The Namibia-born back agreed a deal with Sale aged 16 becoming their youngest ever signing at the time and represented England through the age groups from under-16 up to under-20.
He joked: "I think the Sale physios are my best mates with the amount of time I spend with them. I'm sick of seeing the inside of the gym, really it is just a good feeling getting back out there and playing.
"It is about me kicking on now and putting my hand up for selection by showing what I can do."
Sale director of rugby Steve Diamond also confirmed that he would now not be looking to make additions for this season, but is close to agreeing deals for players for the 2017-18 campaign.
"I think we've got enough quality here if we get some momentum to get comfortable in the league," said the former Sharks hooker.
"There are new two or three for next season we'll have decisions on this week and we're still trying to negotiate with George Ford's agent but it is down to Bath now I think, that is out of our hands.
"If Bath don't release him then we'll look elsewhere."


Captain Michael Clarke has been named in the Australia squad for the first Test against India, subject to proving his fitness after a hamstring injury.

The 33-year-old batsman suffered the problem in the first one-day international against South Africa earlier this month.
Pace bowler Ryan Harris is also included for the first time since March after knee surgery.
The first of four Tests begins in Brisbane on 4 December.
The third instance of Clarke injuring his left hamstring in the space of six weeks caused him to miss the remaining four ODIs against South Africa in a series that Australia won 4-1.
Clarke, who has scored 8,297 runs in 107 Tests, will play for a Cricket Australia XI against the tourists in a two-day match beginning on 28 November if he continues to respond to daily treatment.
Ten of the 12-man squad played in every match of Australia's 5-0 Ashes whitewash last winter, with batsman Mitchell Marsh and uncapped seamer Josh Hazlewood also included.
In the absence of regular captain MS Dhoni, India will be led by batsman Virat Kohli at the Gabba.
Australia squad: Michael Clarke (captain), Chris Rogers, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steve Smith, Shane Watson, Brad Haddin (wicketkeeper), Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris.


Newport winger Jack Compton has joined Southern League title-chasers Merthyr on loan until the end of the season.

Compton has made 12 appearances for County this term, but is one of three told by boss Graham Westley that they do not have a future at the club.
Compton, 28, joins a Merthyr Town side who are second in the Southern League, four points behind leaders Chippenham.
"Newport County AFC would like to wish Jack the best of luck on his loan spell," the club said in a statement.


When your social media news feeds are filled with images of your friends' smiling, perfectly-groomed children playing contentedly with their siblings in spotlessly clean Pinterest-worthy designer kitchens, it's easy to forget that these are the heavily edited highlights of family life.

Most people don't share the humdrum realities of parenthood and children on Facebook - the endless episodes of Paw Patrol on the "electronic babysitter", the fight over a long-neglected plastic toy from a Christmas cracker pulled in 2012, and the can't-be-bothered Sunday night teas of sugar-coated breakfast cereal.
But Gill Sims is not most people.
Her blog, Peter and Jane, is an honest, sweary, tongue-in-cheek account of a pretty normal, middle-class Scottish family. In less than a year, her daily Facebook posts about Mummy, Daddy, their two "precious moppets", and their pet "Judgy dog" has become a cult hit, attracting more than 250,000 followers.
They enjoy daily updates about mundane events which must happen in homes across the country - but they are recounted in a style which crosses Peppa Pig with Bridget Jones. In one popular recent post, she described a "major catastrophe" when her "busy and important" husband lost his car keys.
She wrote: "Mummy is sick to death of being expected to find things, and has told Daddy to find his own (expletive) keys.
"That's OK though, because Daddy has a special method of looking for things, which involves stamping around the house in a thunderous temper having a massive tantrum and shouting at everybody and blaming them for the missing car keys."
She eventually found the keys in the pocket of his jeans (obviously), along with Â£40 in cash - which she quietly pocketed as her "finders fee".
"Mummy is going to spend her Â£40 windfall on posh gin," she wrote. "Mummy is not going to share the posh gin with Daddy, but she may well brain him with the empty bottle when she has drunk it all."
Ms Sims, who has a background in engineering and works for a software company, told the BBC Scotland website that the blog was "a bit of light-hearted fun really, about the everyday, really dull bits of parenting - and marriage and family".
She said she started writing the posts after joking with her friend about how much she swears but she has been overwhelmed by the feedback she has received from other parents.
"It was never planned to turn into the something the size of what it's become," she said. "I suppose I do it because it's so nice to see that there are so many people are feeling the same, doing the same things, having the same experiences."
Her page really took off after she described a typical day keeping the family afloat during last year's school summer holidays. It was a post that was shared 67,000 times.
"It was about the middle of July and it was just a post about a really long day in the school holidays and all the things you end up doing in the school holidays to entertain the children and keep everything going and everything else, and then your husband comes home and says "so what did you do today?"
"For some reason that, I don't know why, that was the one that kind of just took off. I wouldn't even say it was particularly good post or one of the best I've done. But for whatever reason that seemed to be the one the struck a chord."
Another post about post-natal depression, during which she recounts being approached by two police officers as she tearfully pushed the baby in its pram at 02:00 one morning, also provoked a strong reaction.
"It seemed to really make a difference to a lot of people who spoke about their own experiences, for the first time in a lot of cases," she said.
"A lot of people messaged as well to say 'that's how I felt but I've never really been able to put it into words'. So from that perspective, I think that was probably one of the ones that I think was a good one in that it seemed to help a lot of people."
The camera-shy blogger generally illustrates her writing with two of the recurring elements of her musings - alcohol and her beloved Border Terrier, Buddy, who is known to readers as "Judgy Dog". Indeed, he has built up such a following he now has a Facebook page of his own.
"Some days I have no idea what I'm going to write about, it's just kind of let's see what happens today kind of thing," she said.
"Other days I've got a bit more of an idea. But sometimes it really is what silly thing are they going to do today, my darling children? Or indeed my darling husband?"
She added: "Sometimes I spend quite a lot of time on them and I think that's quite good and it's not that popular.
"Other times, I've got half an hour and I dash something off and everyone really likes it. I'm never able to tell what's going to resonate and what's not.
"I'm still very much winging it, I have to say."
She said her school-age children don't really want to feature in the blog - they are only referred to as the Girl Child and the Boy Child - but she has received warm praise at the school gates.
"It seems to have gone down really, really well. People who have never really spoken to me before have come over to me and said 'oh, we really like it'," she said.
"Online feedback is pretty much all positive as well. People find it funny, people feel it reflects their own experiences.
"There's the odd negative bit usually from - and this sounds really bad - but usually from a grumpy man saying you should get a life or whatever else. But that's really the odd comment. It's by and large positive."
Her work has inevitably led to comparisons with other "mummy bloggers", like The Unmumsy Mum and Hurrah for Gin, who have both both been snapped up by publishers since starting blogs.
Ms Sims is coy about any plans for a Peter and Jane book, though she admits there are a few projects in offing. "We'll have to wait and see," she said.
So how would she describe their genre of writing? Are they writing "angry mum blogs"?
"We are sometimes angry, I think just real mums, honest mums, slightly frustrated mums."