Britain's Kelly Sotherton is set to be upgraded to an Olympic bronze medal for the second time in five months after retrospective drug tests.

Russian Tatyana Chernova has been stripped of the heptathlon bronze she won at Beijing in 2008 after testing positive for a steroid.
Sotherton won heptathlon bronze in 2004 and had already been moved to third in the Beijing 4x400m relay after Belarus and Russia's disqualification.
She was fifth in the 2008 heptathlon.
However, the 40-year-old has now climbed to third after the previously announced doping ban of Ukrainian Lyudmila Blonska and now Chernova.
Sotherton retired five years ago after failing to recover from a back problem in time to qualify for the heptathlon at London 2012.
After finding out she was to become a three-time Olympic medallist, Sotherton posted an emotional video on social media showing her reaction.
"Yes I had tears. Happy ones this time," she said.
Sotherton's compatriot, Jessica Ennis-Hill, belatedly won the 2011 World heptathlon title last year when Chernova was similarly stripped of gold for doping.
Former UK Athletics performance director Dave Collins, who oversaw the 2008 Games, said that British athletes receiving their medals was an "essential step for the sport".
Collins' contract was not renewed after Britain fell one short of their medal target in Beijing.
"It's great to see but clearly it's a disappointment they didn't get their day in the sun," he said.
"It's great to see the teams getting recognition late, because it's better late than never. But by gosh, it would have been a lot better at the time."


Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers is happy that his side's Champions League play-off against Astana is not a trip into the unknown for the Scottish champions.

Rodgers' side, who were seeded in the 'champions route' section of the draw, beat the Kazakh outfit in last season's third qualifying round.
The first leg at Celtic Park is on 16 August, with the return six days later.
"We know what it's like - the hotel, the astroturf, it's virtually the same managers and players," said Rodgers.
"It will be as tough as last year but we look forward to it and will be ready for it."
The trip to Kazakhstan involves a seven-hour flight and a five-hour time difference, and Rodgers will adopt the same technique that served his side well last season as they drew 1-1 away and then won 2-1 in Glasgow to progress.
"We stayed on British time because obviously there is the time difference which can really throw you," he said.
"I have done it in the past, we stayed on British time to keep our body clocks the same.
"Some of our staff outside the football stayed on the time in Astana and they actually felt it would have been better to stay on the British time.
"You are not sure if you are having your dinner or breakfast but it certainly helps you.  You couldn't really do it over a sustained length of time but when it is only a short trip, to throw your body out sometimes isn't ideal.
"We did last time and it worked well for the players."
The 10 play-off winners will join 22 teams already qualified for the group stage, including four English, three Spanish and three German teams.
In the 'league route' of the play-off draw, Liverpool were paired with Hoffenheim and will be away first.
Losing teams at the play-off stage enter the Europa League group stage.
Celtic, who defeated Linfield earlier in the competition, beat Rosenborg 1-0 on Wednesday to secure an aggregate win by the same scoreline in the Champions League third qualifying round while Astana overcame Poland's Legia Warsaw 3-2 on aggregate.


Dozens of members of an Indian tribe said to be lost descendants of ancient Israelites have emigrated to Israel after the government lifted a visa ban.

Some 1,700 of the 7,200-strong Bnei Menashe already arrived nearly a decade ago after a chief rabbi recognised the community as a lost tribe in 2005.
Israel stopped issuing visas to the group two years later but recently reversed the policy.
Some critics have questioned the authenticity of the tribe's claims.
The community says it is one of the lost 10 tribes of Israel who were exiled when Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th Century BC.
According to its oral tradition, the tribe travelled through Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet, China and on to India, where it eventually settled in the north-eastern states of Manipur and Mizoram.
Around 50 people landed in the city of Tel Aviv on Monday.
Eyewitnesses said there were emotional scenes at Ben Gurion airport as the newcomers were greeted by relatives who had moved to Israel during the first wave of immigration.
Several hundred more  Bnei Menashe members are due to arrive in the coming weeks, said Michael Freund, chairman of the Shavei Israel group which helped organise the journey for the Bnei Menashe members.
"The members of this tribe have never forgotten where they came from and we are excited to be able to help them come back," he told AFP news agency.
But some critics say the Bnei Menashe's link to Judaism are "historically untenable". They accuse the community of using their status to escape poverty India.
In March 2005, Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar officially backed Bnei Menashe's claims after an investigation lasting several years.
The announcement led to a wave of immigration to the "Promised Land", where members were formally converted to Orthodox Judaism.
The flow stopped in 2007, however, when the government rescinded visa rights to the Bnei Menashe.
Israel's decision to reverse the policy is expected to pave the way for all remaining members to migrate.


Hampshire coach Dale Benkenstein says the county will use the loan market to find cover for injured bowlers Reece Topley, Liam Dawson and Chris Wood.

Benkenstein's side were dominated by Yorkshire on day two of their County Championship match on Monday.
"It doesn't help when you're up against it before the game even starts," Benkenstein told BBC Radio Solent.
"We have to (think about loans). We need to get our heads down and we are already discussing some options."
Yorkshire's England batsman Jonny Bairstow made a double ton as the hosts declared on an emphatic 593-9 on Monday.
But Hampshire's bowling attack was without Dawson, who has an abdominal strain, Wood, who has a knee problem, and Topley, who fractured his hand on his debut.
"I can't really accept what we dished up with the ball," Benkenstein added.
"That performance out there in the field is not good enough. We have also learnt that we don't have time in this competition.
"We can't expect a miracle like we did last year in the last four games. The signings that we made were exactly for that reason."


Facebook has apologised after its Safety Check system wrongly asked people if they were caught in a bomb attack in Pakistan.

The suicide attack on Sunday in a Lahore park killed more than 70 people, including children.
Facebook's Safety Check system activates after a tragedy to help people let others know they are safe.
The social network blamed a "bug" for the warnings sent to people thousands of miles away from Pakistan.
Responsibility for the attack on Sunday has been claimed by a Taliban splinter group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, which said it targeted Christians celebrating Easter.
Police are still looking in to the claim.
The Safety Check system is supposed to be a quick way for members of the social network to let friends and family know they are safe if they are caught up in or are close to a natural disaster or attack.
On this occasion, many were made anxious when they received a message because it simply asked "Are you affected by the explosion?" without giving information about how close that person was to any potential threat.
People in the US, India, UK, Hawaii and many other places wrongly received warnings. Many shared images of the messages on social networks.
"Unfortunately, many people not affected by the crisis received a notification asking if they were okay," said Facebook in a statement.
"This kind of bug is counter to our intent," it added. "We worked quickly to resolve the issue and we apologise to anyone who mistakenly received the notification."
The problem is the latest in a series that the Safety Check feature has suffered. Last year, Facebook began to use the system more widely after being criticised about when it was employed. Criticism was levelled at it because it was used for the large-scale attacks in Paris but not subsequently for similar-style bombings in Beirut.
Safety Check was originally developed for use after natural disasters but was expanded to include terror attacks after Paris.


Demolition teams have started knocking down a fire-ravaged bowling alley and indoor market complex in the heart of a seaside resort.

Regent Superbowl and the indoor market in Great Yarmouth were engulfed by a seven-hour blaze on Friday.
The attraction in Regent Road was on the town's main tourist thoroughfare.
Jim Palmer, of Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service, said: "To enable the town to return to normal, we have to start bringing this building down now."
Great Yarmouth Borough Council said work had been completed on Saturday to make the site structurally safe and to allow firefighters in the ground floor to dampen down hot spots over the weekend.
It said following expert advice, material containing asbestos would now need to be cleared from the site.
"A clean-up crew wearing protective gear are starting to remove the debris and another team has started to board up windows [opposite]," it said in a statement.
A stretch of the pedestrianised road will be blocked until an inspection on Monday and shops inside the cordon cannot re-open until "further notice".
At the blaze's height, the pillar of smoke billowing from the country's oldest working bowling alley could be seen up to 11 miles away.
People and businesses across the area have rallied around to support the market's shop owners, with an online fundraising page already generating around Â£1,700 of its Â£2,000 target.
The building's owner, Philip Thompson, said he believed some of the 40 traders were uninsured and plans to re-build the complex in time for the next summer season.
"I am just so concerned about the people who trade underneath in the market," he said.
"I feel responsible that we've got to get this open as soon as possible.
"I've had to pay Â£25,000 just to make it safe overnight."
An investigation into the cause is ongoing.


Wikipedia has suspended at least 10 accounts linked to the public relations firm Bell Pottinger as it investigates allegations of content manipulation.

The online encyclopaedia's founder Jimmy Wales told the BBC the lobbyists had "embarrassed their clients".
He said a team of volunteers was looking at possible breaches of conflict of interest guidelines.
Bell Pottinger admitted to editing entries, but said it had "never done anything illegal".
Mr Wales said he was "highly critical of their ethics".
"I've never seen a case like this. In general when I speak to PR firms they have ethical guidelines that would prevent this kind of conduct."
While anyone is free to edit the encyclopaedia, the site's guidelines urge users to steer clear of topics in which they have a personal or business interest.
"I offered to pop by their office next week and give them a speech on ethical editing of Wikipedia - but I guess they didn't think that was too amusing so they didn't respond," Mr Wales said.
The investigation comes as blogger and search engine optimisation consultant Tim Irelanddiscovered activityby a Wikipedia user nicknamed "Biggleswiki".
Mr Ireland said the account had been responsible for adding positive - or removing negative - information from entries about or making reference to several Bell Pottinger clients.
In some instances, such as with theParamount Group, Biggleswiki requested "edit protection" after altering a page in the hope that other users would not be able to change the most recent amendments.
Lord Bell, chairman of Chime Communications, the owner of Bell Pottinger, said an internal review had been launched.
"I can't see any bad headlines for our clients," he told the BBC. "You won't find anybody, including journalists, who doesn't do exactly the same thing."
He stressed that when companies had requested Bell Pottinger post untrue statements onto the site it had flatly refused - citing Wikipedia's guidelines.
"We are having our own conversations with Wikipedia, and we are also conducting our own internal review to establish the facts."
Bell Pottinger is one of Britain's largest lobbying and public relations companies. This week it came under fire after theBureau of Investigative Journalismreported that the firm had written aspeech delivered to the UN by the Sri Lankan president.
Mr Ireland has called for Bell Pottinger to publicly declare the identities of the other accounts under investigation in order to reveal which other edits have been made.
"I'd like to see that list," he told the BBC. "What they've done wrong here is they've not declared an interest. Let's see them do it - even belatedly."
Lord Bell said there was no intention to make details of the accounts public.
The Wikipedia team hasposted a list of articlesit believes have been altered by accounts traced back to Bell Pottinger.
So far, they said of the 10 accounts identified, two had carried out over 100 edits each.
Mr Wales highlighted an account -diginerd84- which was among the investigated accounts. The profile said it had been set up by a 50-year-old retired stockbroker in Mayfair with an interest in classic cars - particularly a 1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom II.
"I will personally buy a full tank of petrol for Mr Draper's 1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom II if he exists at all," Mr Wales said. "Perhaps it's time for Bell Pottinger to issue another statement."
The BBC has approached Bell Pottinger for a response to this claim but at the time of publication it had yet to respond.
By Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent
There is nothing wrong in itself in someone trying to correct perceived inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles - after all, that process happens every day and helps the online encyclopaedia get closer to an objective account.
What is disturbing is the fact that the edits are carried out by an anonymous person who does not declare an interest.
dot.Rory: Bell Pottinger, Google and Wikipedia
Wikipedia, which has grown into one of the web's most popular destinations since being founded 10 years ago, is edited by a huge number of volunteers who follow an agreed set of rules.
Wikipedia's guidelinesstate that a conflict of interest (COI)represents an "incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopaedia, and the aims of an individual editor".
It adds: "COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest."
David Gerard, a UK-based spokesperson and volunteer for Wikipedia, told the BBC that the investigation must establish whether or not Bell Pottinger carried out the edits in "bad faith".
"We're having a close look. What the team is going to do is look at Bell Pottinger's clients and see what edits have been made.
"We have plenty of experience in dealing with people who try to spin Wikipedia - after a while it becomes really obvious."
He said that Wikipedia would be reviewing the effectiveness of its system for flagging up suspicious additions or edits.


Facebook revenues and profits soared in the most recent quarter, as advertising dollars poured into the social media company and users continued to flock to the site.

More than two billion people - more than a quarter of the world's population -  log into the site every month, a powerful draw for advertisers.
The firm said revenues hit $9.3bn (Â£7.09bn) over the April to June period, jumping 45% year-on-year.
Profits climbed 71% to $3.9bn.
"We had a good second quarter and first half of the year," said chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in 2004.
Facebook has been adding more advertising as well as more consumers, as it explores how to monetise its other social networking platforms, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The company said that Instagram was making an increasing contribution to growth, but that the news feed at the heart of Facebook remained the biggest driver.
It was still early days for advertising on Facebook's messenger service, said Mr Zuckerberg, but he told an investor call he was "confident we're going to get this right in the long term".
Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said brands were experimenting with different advertising formats within Facebook's platforms, for example Tropicana had found that six-second ads gave better results than longer versions, she said.
Facebook faces competition from Snapchat, a platform particularly popular amongst young social media users, which pioneered the idea of "stories", a series of messages aimed at a wider audience that lasts for 24 hours.
Instagram and WhatsApp are now offering similar features.
Facebook shares, which have risen steadily this year, bounced 3.6% in after-hours trade.
The company said mobile ads represented 87% of its advertising revenue of $9.16bn, up from 84% a year ago.
The firm now employs more than 20,600 people, up 43% year-on-year.
The firm said the number of monthly active users at the end of June - 2.01 billion - was 17% higher than a year ago and two thirds of those logged onto the site daily.


UKIP's Douglas Carswell is quitting the party to become an independent MP and says he is doing so "amicably".

The party's only MP defected from the Conservatives in 2014.
Former leader Nigel Farage recently called on Mr Carswell to quit, accusing him of "actively working against UKIP".
Party leader Paul Nuttall said Mr Carswell was "committed to Brexit, but was never a comfortable Ukipper". There are now calls within UKIP for the Clacton MP to call a by-election.
The party leader said Mr Carswell's announcement was "not a surprise".
He said: "I was elected on a pledge to forge unity in the party, and have had many discussions with key players to try and make that happen, but it had become increasingly clear to me that some things were simply beyond reach."
UKIP donor Arron Banks welcomed Mr Carswell's departure, claiming it was "a rare piece of good news for UKIP".
The Leave.EU chairman, who said there should be a by-election, said: "It's only a shame that Carswell was given a chance to resign.
"I urged UKIP to expel Douglas from the party repeatedly, but weak leadership failed to heed my call."
Earlier on Twitter, Mr Banks posted a smiley face emoji and a green tick.
Mr Farage tweeted: "Carswell has jumped before he was pushed. He was never UKIP and sought to undermine us. He should have gone some time ago."
Mr Carswell chose to announce the decision on his blog, just days before the prime minister is due to formally notify the European Union the UK is leaving.
He said: "I switched to UKIP because I desperately wanted us to leave the EU. Now we can be certain that that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving UKIP."
He added: "I will not be switching parties, nor crossing the floor to the Conservatives, so do not need to call a by election, as I did when switching from the Conservatives to UKIP. I will simply be the Member of Parliament for Clacton, sitting as an independent.
"I will leave UKIP amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won."
Thousands join anti-Brexit London march
Mr Carswell told the BBC News Channel he would will still be sitting in opposition "holding the government to account".
He declined to comment on where his decision left UKIP, saying there was a "political cartel" in the UK and he wanted to be part of "far-reaching change" as an independent MP.
Mr Carswell said: "I think the fundamental reason for UKIP - certainly the reason that I made that switch and I think the reason why millions of people around the country made the switch to UKIP, was over the Europe question."
Earlier this month, Mr Carswell vowed to "absolutely" fight the next general election as a UKIP candidate.
He was speaking after Mr Nuttall urged senior figures to "stick together" after he unsuccessfully stood for Parliament at the Stoke Central by-election.
Mr Carswell, 45, first entered the Commons in 2005 as MP for Harwich, defeating Labour's candidate by just 920 votes. By 2010 he defeated the same opponent by 12,000 votes - although boundary changes had seen the seat renamed.
After defecting to UKIP he stood down to seek re-election in a by-election, which he won by 12,404 votes in October 2014.  At the general election in 2015, he retained the seat with a 3,437 majority.
Another Tory MP, Mark Reckless, followed Mr Carswell's example by defecting to UKIP in 2014, but lost his seat the following year.
UKIP MEP Bill Etheridge said he was "delighted" as the "focus of serious infighting in the party has gone".
"But I think he needs to step down and call a by election... He was elected twice on a UKIP ticket, with UKIP resources and the hard work and shoe leather of UKIP activists."


Women's rights activist Emmeline Pankhurst is to be the first woman to get a statue in Manchester for more than 100 years following a public vote.

The leader of the suffragette movement, who was born in the city, gained over half the votes in the WoManchester Statue Project poll.
A statue of Queen Victoria in Albert Square is currently the only woman portrayed across 17 city centre works.
The statue, which will be privately funded, is due to be unveiled in 2019.
Mrs Pankhurst beat five other women shortlisted to be commemorated with 56% of the 5,301 votes cast.
Didsbury councillor Andrew Simcock, who started the project, said none of the funding for the £200,000 memorial would come from Manchester City Council's budget.
Mrs Pankhurst, who was born in 1858, was instrumental in the movement for women to get the vote and founder of the Women's Social and Political Union.
The group held its first meeting at Mrs Pankhurst's Chorlton-on-Medlock home on 10 October 1903. The building has since become a museum and community centre named in her honour.
•Organised campaigns for women's suffrage began in 1866
•When Parliamentary reform was debated in 1867, John Stuart Mill proposed an amendment to give the vote to women on the same terms as men but it was rejected by 194 votes to 73.
•             Women's rights activists were involved in direct action, including chaining themselves to railings and jail hunger strikes
•             In 1918 the Representation of the People Act gave women over 30 the vote, which was extended to all women over the age of 21 in 1928.
Manager Rachel Lappin said she was "thrilled to bits [that] the legacy of Mrs Pankhurst's campaign and the movement she led lives on".
The other nominees were author Elizabeth Gaskell, anti-racism campaigner Louise Da-Cocodia, Manchester councillor Margaret Ashton, businesswomen and writer Elizabeth Raffald and MP Ellen Wilkinson.


An inquiry into the deaths of 16 men in a North Sea helicopter crash has concluded that the accident could have been prevented.

All on board died when the Bond Super Puma came down in 2009.
Relatives have called for a criminal inquiry, but the Crown Office defended its decision not to prosecute.
Sheriff Principal Derek Pyle said  the precautions which might have avoided the deaths included following agreed procedures and communications.
He said the operators had considered replacing part of the gearbox just a week before the crash but did not do so because of a failure of communication with the manufacturer.
Sheriff Pyle said: "During the course of the inquiry there was much discussion about the circumstances which led Bond not to follow the clear terms of the maintenance.
"Bond readily acknowledged that they ought to have done so.
By James CookScotland Correspondent, BBC News
As the families of Flight 85N sat down to face the cameras in Aberdeen, the air throbbed as a helicopter passed overhead.
It was an eerie reminder of why we were here.
Every day hundreds of North Sea oil workers place their faith in helicopters and those who manufacture and operate them.
The relatives of some of those who died say that faith was betrayed twice: once by Bond's failure to operate "by the book" and again by a failure to bring anyone to justice.
Crash relatives 'one big family'
"The essential fact is that everyone in the company well knew that maintenance must be done by the book.
"On one occasion, that fundamental rule was broken. It resulted in the failure to detect a significant fault in the helicopter's gearbox, which possibly - but only possibly - resulted in the crash."
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) pinpointed a catastrophic failure of the gearbox in its examination of the crash.
Sheriff Pyle acknowledged that the exact cause of the gearbox failure which led to the crash could not be fully determined.
He concluded that on the balance of probabilities the spalling - the fracturing of metal - in the gearbox was the probable cause of the accident.
Lawyer Tom Marshall, for the families, said he was pleased the sheriff principal had accepted that the crash could have been prevented if Bond had followed the maintenance manual.
He said there was a need for a wider public inquiry, and that the families wanted to meet the Lord Advocate to discuss the earlier decision not to pursue criminal prosecutions.
Audrey Wood, whose son Stuart died, said: "Safety is absolutely paramount, and everything must be done by the book.
"We, the families, feel let down by the system. We just wanted answers.
"We will never have closure, this will go on and on for us."
Helicopter operator Bond said: "We have always accepted that we made mistakes through honest confusion over telephone calls and emails.
"Lessons needed to be learned, lessons have been learned and lessons continue to be learned.
"We would like to express again our deep sorrow at the 16 lives lost.
"Bond Offshore hopes that Sheriff Principal Pyle's determination brings a degree of closure to the families, friends and dependents of those who died in the tragedy of 2009."
Tommy Campbell, from the Unite union, said it was a "travesty of justice" that there had not been a criminal prosecution.
He also called for the decision to be reconsidered, and added: "These failings have cost lives."
A Crown Office spokesman said Crown Counsel had "fully assessed" the evidence before deciding there was not enough evidence for a prosecution.
"For a criminal prosecution to have taken place, the Crown would have to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The Sheriff Principal makes clear that a reasonable doubt remained over the technical cause of the crash.
"The evidence presented during the FAI has not altered the insufficiency of evidence, therefore the decision not to hold criminal proceedings remains the correct one.
"We will be offering to meet relatives again to discuss the Sheriff Principal's judgement."ã€€
A six-week hearing into the crash was held in Aberdeen earlier this year.
It heard evidence from the helicopter operator Bond Offshore Helicopters and manufacturer Eurocopter, as well as crash investigators.
Senior AAIB operations investigator Timothy Atkinson told the fatal accident inquiry that the gearbox failure meant there was nothing the crew could do - and the crash was "not survivable".
Eight of the victims came from the north east of Scotland, seven from the rest of the UK, and one from Latvia.
The two crew who died were Capt Paul Burnham, 31, of Methlick, Aberdeenshire, and co-pilot Richard Menzies, 24, of Droitwich Spa, who worked for Bond Offshore Helicopters.
The KCA Deutag employees killed were Brian Barkley, 30, of Aberdeen; Vernon Elrick, 41, of Aberdeen; Leslie Taylor, 41, of Kintore, Aberdeenshire; Nairn Ferrier, 40, of Dundee; Gareth Hughes, 53, of Angus; David Rae, 63, of Dumfries; Raymond Doyle, 57, of Cumbernauld; James John Edwards, 33, of Liverpool; Nolan Goble, 34, of Norwich, and Mihails Zuravskis, 39, of Latvia.
The other victims were James Costello, 24, of Aberdeen, who was contracted to Production Services Network (PSN); Alex Dallas, 62, of Aberdeen, who worked for Sparrows Offshore Services; Warren Mitchell, 38, of Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, who worked for Weatherford UK; and Stuart Wood, 27, of Aberdeen, who worked for Expro North Sea Ltd.


The US is to supply direct military aid to the Syrian opposition for the first time, the White House has announced.

President Obama made the decision after his administration concluded Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad were using chemical weapons, a spokesman said.
Ben Rhodes did not give details about the military aid other than to say it would be "different in scope and scale to what we have provided before".
The Syrian government said the US statement was "full of lies".
The White House "relied on fabricated information" about chemical weapons use in Syria in order to justify its decision to arm the rebels, the foreign ministry said.
The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the US announcement is one that the Syrian opposition has been pushing and praying for for months.
By Jonathan MarcusBBC diplomatic correspondent
Initially US support looks likely to involve the supply of light arms and ammunition. Mr Rhodes says that the President has not made any decision to pursue a military option, like a no-fly zone, and he has ruled out the deployment of US ground troops. Requests from the opposition for anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons  are, we understand, still a matter of discussion.
Thus the US response to President Assad's apparent crossing of a "red line" seems tentative at best. As ever it raises more questions than answers.
Will US arms fix Syrian problem?
It seems clear that President Obama has finally been persuaded, as Britain and France have argued, that the battlefield cannot be allowed to tilt strongly in the regime's favour, as is currently happening, he adds.
Washington's "clear" statement was welcomed by Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who urged Syria to let the UN "investigate all reports of chemical weapons use".
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK agreed with Washington's assessment and said an urgent response to the Syria crisis would be discussed at the G8 this week.
Russia said it had seen Washington's evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria; "What was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing," said Yuri Ushakov, President Putin's senior foreign policy adviser.
A spokesperson for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the BBC that he remained against "any further militarisation" of the conflict in Syria, saying the people there need peace not more weapons.
Mr Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr Obama, said the US intelligence community believed the "Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times over the last year".
Audio statement from Ben RhodesText statement from Ben Rhodes
He said intelligence officials had a "high confidence" in their assessment, and also estimated that 100 to 150 people had died from chemical weapons attacks, "however, casualty data is likely incomplete".
"We have consistently said the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses red lines that have existed in the international community for decades," Mr Rhodes said.
Mr Rhodes said President Obama had made the decision to increase assistance, including "military support", to the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and Syrian Opposition Coalition.
He did not give details of the aid, but administration officials have been quoted by US media as saying it will most likely include sending small arms and ammunition.
The New York Times quoted US officials as saying that Washington could provide anti-tank weapons.
Syria's rebels have been calling for both anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry.
Syria's chemical weapons stockpile
The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington is also considering a no-fly zone inside Syria, possibly near the border with Jordan, that would protect refugees and rebels who are training there.
When asked whether Mr Obama would back a no-fly zone over Syria, Mr Rhodes said one would not make a "huge difference" on the ground - and would be costly.
He said further actions would be taken "on our own timeline."
The CIA is expected to co-ordinate delivery of the military equipment and train the rebel soldiers in how to use it.
Until now, the US has limited its help to rebel forces by providing rations and medical supplies.
Mr Rhodes said the White House hoped the increased support would bolster the effectiveness and legitimacy of both the political and military arms of Syria's rebels, and said the US was "comfortable" working with SMC chief Gen Salim Idris.
"It's been important to work through them while aiming to isolate some of the more extremist elements of the opposition, such as al-Nusra," he said.
The US decision marks a significant escalation of the proxy war that has been gathering pace in Syria,  our Beirut correspondent says.
By Mark MardellNorth America editor
The support of the West's regional allies, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, had helped the rebels in the days after the uprising became militarised.
But the tide turned after the Assad government turned to Moscow and Tehran for help. Hezbollah fighters have also been involved in the government's counter-offensive.
Now the West is lining up to try and help the rebels, but that is likely to take many months with more bloodshed and destruction, our correspondent adds.
The White House announcement immediately shook up the ongoing debate in Washington DC over how the US might provide assistance to the rebels.
Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have been particularly strident in their calls for military aid, said the finding must change US policy in Syria. They called for further action, saying US credibility was on the line.
"A decision to provide lethal assistance, especially ammunition and heavy weapons, to opposition forces in Syria is long overdue, and we hope the president will take this urgently needed step," they said in a joint statement.
"But providing arms alone is not sufficient. The president must rally an international coalition to take military actions to degrade Assad's ability to use airpower and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the battlefield by air."
The White House announcement came on the same day the United Nations said the number of those killed in the Syrian conflict had risen to more than 93,000 people.
A UN report released on Thursday found at least 5,000 people have been dying in Syria every month since last July, with 30,000 killed since November.
More than 80% of those killed were men, but the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says it has also documented the deaths of more than 1,700 children under the age of 10.


A man has been accused of a series of offences including rape and kidnap after a teenage girl was dragged out of a Pizza Hut and stabbed.

Costica Voedes was arrested following the attack on the 17-year-old in Epsom, Surrey, at about 22:30 BST on Friday.
Mr Voedes, 32, of High Street, Epsom, was remanded in custody and is due before magistrates on Monday.
The girl was stabbed in the abdomen and her condition is serious but not life-threatening, Surrey Police said.
Mr Voedes is accused of two counts of wounding with intent, two counts of rape, kidnap, false imprisonment, possession of an offensive weapon, affray and common assault.
He is due to appear at South East Surrey Magistrates' Court on Monday.
The victim is being treated at St George's Hospital in Tooting.
A Pizza Hut staff member, who tried to help her, suffered injuries to his arm which are not believed to be serious.


Leicester midfielder Danny Drinkwater will serve a three-match ban after he accepted a Football Association charge of violent conduct.

The 26-year-old elbowed Watford's Valon Behrami in the 67th minute of the 2-1 defeat at Vicarage Road on Saturday and is banned with immediate effect.
The incident was not seen by the match officials, but was caught on video.
The England player will miss Premier League games against Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Manchester City.
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Thousands of heart attacks and strokes could be prevented if the cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins, were more widely prescribed, research suggests.

The study of 175,000 patients, in the Lancet,
 said even very low-risk patients benefited from the medication.
The Oxford researchers says the NHS should consider giving statins to healthy people. The NHS drugs watchdog, NICE, is reviewing the evidence.
However, statins have been linked to side-effects such as kidney failure.
They are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the UK and have long been known to help people at high risk of heart attack and stroke.
However, there has been considerable debate over medicating healthy people - both whether it works at all and if it would be socially acceptable.
Researchers at the University of Oxford say they have investigated the issue in "unparalleled" detail.
Their review of 27 trials concluded that statins significantly reduced the risk of heart attack and stroke for everyone.
Current rules from NICE - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence - recommend statins for people who have a 20% or greater chance of developing cardiovascular disease within 10 years.
Doctors look at a patient's age, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and lifestyle to work out the risk.
One of the researchers, Prof Colin Baigent, told the BBC: "We've been taught over the years that high cholesterol is the thing that matters; you mustn't have high cholesterol.
"But what we've actually learned is that, whatever your level of cholesterol, reducing it further is beneficial.
"Whatever your level of risk, the benefits greatly exceed any known hazard."
He calculates that lowering the threshold for prescribing statins to a 10% risk of cardiovascular disease within a decade would lead to five million more people taking the drugs.
This in turn would save 2,000 lives and prevent 10,000 heart attacks or strokes every year, he said.
Prof Baigent said: "Half of [these] deaths come out of the blue in people who were previously healthy.
"If we are going to prevent that half of cardiac or stroke deaths, then we've got to consider treating healthy people.
"It can't be done any other way."
He, alongside fellow researchers, is now calling on NICE to review the evidence for giving statins to more people.
NICE, which sets drugs policy for England and Wales, said it was updating its guidelines.
The organisation said: "New evidence on statin treatment thresholds that has become available since publication of the original NICE guideline, including the study reported in the Lancet, will be considered as part of our review."
Their conclusions will be published towards the end of 2013.
One of the questions will be over side-effects. Statins have been linked to liver problems, kidney failure, muscle weakness and an increased risk of diabetes.
Prof Shah Ebrahim, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, conducted a large review of the evidence last year.
His results
 urged caution, and Prof Shah said doctors should stop prescribing to healthy patients.
He now says: "This research provides further evidence that statins are an effective and safe way of reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes even among people at quite low risk of these conditions."
He suggests that universal prescribing to the over-50s might be appropriate, as 83% of 50-year old men have a 10% risk of cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years.
"The benefits of giving statins to everyone over the age of 50 would probably save the NHS money in the long run, owing to the savings in health care costs from the heart attacks and strokes prevented."
However, he questioned whether it would be good for people or society to resort to mass medication for lifestyle issues.


Money collected by a town council after the murder of April Jones was outside its powers and should not have happened, an audit report has said.

Machynlleth Town Council banked Â£71,663 of public money before transferring it to April's fund - something it did not have the authority to do.
Auditor BDO said money offered by the public should have been refused.
The council said it was holding a meeting on 24 August to discuss the report's recommendations.
Y Plas, where the council is based in Machynlleth, became a hub for the search for April in October 2012, with people wanting to donate money.
The report said: "The council had no power to collect this money or to establish a bank account for its retention, but ultimately they did not intend to collect the money, they were just given it by the public.
"When people came into the office and gave them money they should not have accepted the money."
The disappearance of April in 2012 sparked the biggest search in UK police history.
In May 2013, Mark Bridger was convicted of her murder and was given a whole life sentence.
A judge branded him a "pathological liar" and "a paedophile"..
The report also drew attention to "failures in governance arrangements and inadequacies in financial management and internal control" at the council.
It found the council failed to complete its annual accounting statements and submit its annual return on time for each of the past six years.
It said the former clerk's "failure to maintain proper records" resulted in the loss of Â£5,073 when VAT was not reclaimed - 2% of the council's total annual budget.
The report said the new clerk had "worked to improve internal controls and bring the accounts up to date".


Former Hampshire and Sussex bowler Billy Taylor hopes to realise his international cricketing ambitions in his new career as a first-class umpire.

Taylor, 39, was appointed to the ECB's full umpires' list on Wednesday having been on the reserve list since 2011.
His promotion follows former Kent and England batsman Mark Benson's decision to step down after having back surgery.
"When I started umpiring, my ambition was to push to try and do international cricket," he told BBC Radio Solent.
"I've served my apprenticeship and learnt a lot doing the hard yards on the circuit."
Taylor's decade-long first-class playing career started at Sussex in 1999 and was followed by a move to to Hampshire in 2004.
He recorded career-best figures of 6-32, which included a hat-trick, for Hampshire against Middlesex in 2006.
"As a player, I always dreamt about playing for England and didn't quite achieve that, but I had a fantastic career," Taylor said.
Taylor stood in a handful of first class games last season, but is set to start his full season in April.
"I really want to continue working as hard as I have been over the last five years," he added. "When you retire from playing, there's always a bit of concern and worry about finding a career for your future.
"Thankfully, I've found one that I'm as passionate about as I was playing."


Fernando Alonso has insisted he will not take a year off Formula 1 next year, following claims from McLaren boss Ron Dennis that he could.

Alonso is contracted until the end of 2017, but McLaren struggled in their first season with engine partner Honda.
And on Saturday, McLaren chairman Ron Dennis said a "sabbatical" for the Spaniard had been a "consideration".
Alonso has admitted the idea was discussed some months ago, but told BBC Sport on Sunday: "I won't do it."
The two-time champion's revelation is the first time he has categorically said he would be on the grid in 2016.
Alonso, 34, said on Saturday only that it was his "intention to race and I think I will race".
Dennis said on Sunday ahead of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: "There is no question Fernando and Jenson [Button] are the drivers for next year. End of story."
Asked whether Alonso could take a year out if the car turned out to be not as good as he was hoping, Dennis said: "That's not an option, we are totally committed. We know where we are going. We're going in the right direction. We are very confident with where we are on next year's car and very optimistic about all the work Honda is going and we anticipate being much stronger from the beginning of the season."
The confusion stemmed from Dennis' response to a question in a news conference about ambiguity over Alonso's future arising from events at the Japanese Grand Prix.
During the race at Suzuka at the end of September, Alonso criticised the Honda engine over the team radio and said its performance was "very embarrassing".
After the race, he told BBC Sport that he "didn't know" whether he would race at McLaren next year.
Later that day, he sent a series of tweets reaffirming his commitment to McLaren, saying: "No-one should have any doubt that I have three years with McLaren and my career in F1 will end with this team, hopefully winning everything."
Nevertheless, insiders have continued to express doubts about whether Alonso could stomach another season at the back of the grid if Honda is not able to significantly improve its engine for 2016.
There have been suggestions since Japan that, if the Honda engine remains uncompetitive in 2016, Alonso could take a year out and come back to fulfil the final two years of his contract in 2017 and 2018.
Dennis was asked whether there was any chance Alonso might not drive in 2016 if the car was uncompetitive in pre-season testing.
Media playback is not supported on this device
He replied: "He will definitely finish his career in McLaren. I have an open mind to anything.
"Some of the ideas have involved those sorts of considerations, sabbatical years, etc, but at this moment in time I would say we believe we know where we'll be and we navigated a difficult weekend in respect of our drivers.
"I took quite a high level of flak out of that weekend, it was a challenge to navigate through it.
"We have a great number of driver options. We have two of the best drivers in the world in our cars. When we have to take the decision, we will take it together and at this moment in time our drivers of next year are Fernando and Jenson Button."
McLaren insiders have expressed their dismay at Dennis's remarks, which caught Alonso by surprise.
Alonso said: "I don't know what his intention is behind or what he means with some of the things.
"Of course, we all want to improve and put the car on winter testing and see how competitive we are and we are hoping for the best."


Leinster put four tries past Premiership leaders Wasps to reach the European Champions Cup semi-final.

A sparkling first half by the three-time champions had them in control at 22-3 ahead with Isa Nacewa, Jack Conan and Robbie Henshaw scoring tries.
Shellshocked Wasps rallied with Christian Wade and Jimmy Gopperth closing the gap to 25-17 with 20 minutes remaining at the Aviva Stadium.
But Fergus McFadden halted their charge with a late try to settle it.
The game was billed as a show-case for players aiming for a place in the British and Irish Lions squad, which is announced on 19 April.
Leinster dominated the first half, but the scoreboard didn't reflect their superiority until Conan and Henshaw's tries in the closing moments of the opening period.
Two-time champions Wasps, nervous and slow to settle, conceded an early penalty which Sexton converted after six minutes to get Leinster up and running.
Leinster full-back Joey Carbery set up two first-half tries and his first significant contribution was a superb flat pass out wide to Nacewa, who touched down in the corner.
Wasps inflicted a record 33-6 defeat on Leinster at the RDS last season, and also won 51-10 at home, but this was a horror show by the under-performing Premiership leaders.
They blew their one big chance to establish a foothold in the game when Willie Le Roux's showboating cost them a try after 24 minutes.
Kurtley Beale's footwork created the opening for the South African but he lost control of the ball as he dived over the line and his effort was disallowed.
Jimmy Gopperth's penalty finally got Wasps on the scoreboard after 32 minutes and Dai Young's side, who had no continuity and struggled to take the ball through the phases, were fortunate to only trail by five points.
Leinster were excellent with the ball in hand and enjoyed over 70% possession in the opening half, which eventually led to two tries within six minutes of half-time.
Again, Carbery was the architect. He exchanged passes with Fergus McFadden and then put Conan away, the number eight's arcing run taking him over the line. Sexton added the extras to make it 15-3.
Wasps needed half-time but Leinster stole the ball from a driving maul by the visitors and and three passes later it was try number three for the home side.
Dan Leavy popped it up to Sean O'Brien who off-loaded to Sexton, and Henshaw was on his shoulder to crash over for a well-worked try leaving it 22-3 at the interval.
Sexton's early second-half penalty stretched Leinster's lead but from 22 points down, Wasps somehow found another gear to almost get back on terms.
Leinster switched off with full-back Carbery coming into the line leaving acres of space in the back field and Christian Wade exploited it as he won the race to touch down his own grubber kick to earn Wasps an opening try after 53 minutes.
Gopperth spent two seasons at Leinster before joining Wasps in 2015 and he was instrumental in their much-improved second half performance.
The Kiwi's direct run punched holes in the Leinster midfield and an excellent one-handed finish suddenly had Wasps right back in the game, with his conversion making it 25-17 with 20 minutes still remaining.
But Leinster resumed control of territory and possession and McFadden's converted short range try with six minutes to go ensured it is Leinster who will face either Clermont or Toulouse in the semi-finals.
Wasps' Director of Rugby Dai Young: "In these games you can't give yourself a mountain to climb like we did in the first half.
"We knew we had to be at our best and we didn't need to help them along the way.
"Le Roux is really disappointed [with his botched try attempt]. You expect a player of that quality to score but we also gave away two tries.
"We looked like rabbits in the headlights in that first half and the biggest disappointment is we didn't do ourselves justice."
Leinster fly-half Johnny Sexton: "Wasps are the best team around at capitalising on mistakes and we're disappointed with some of the mistakes we made.
"We wanted to show we had a physical backline but conditions were awful out there. The ball was like a bar of soap and there was a swirling wind."
Leinster: Carbery; Byrne, Ringrose, Henshaw, Nacewa; Sexton, McGrath; McGrath, Strauss, Furlong, Toner, Triggs, Leavy, O'Brien, Conan
Replacements: Tracy, Healy, Bent, Molony, van der Flier, Gibson-Park, McFadden, Kirchner
Wasps: Beale; Wade, Daly, Gopperth, Le Roux; Cipriani, Robson; Mullan, Taylor, Cooper-Woolley, Launchbury (capt), Myall, Haskell, Young, Hughes
Replacements: Johnson, McIntyre, Moore, Symons, Rieder, Simpson, Leiua, Bassett
For the latest rugby union news follow @bbcrugbyunion on Twitter.


A collaboration between the cities of Bristol, Cardiff and Newport to boost the economy in the West has moved a step closer.

The city councils will work together, rivalling England's so-called northern powerhouse, under the Great Western Cities plan, first unveiled last year.
An independent report has concluded the alliance would "strengthen the voice of the West".
Leaders from the cities have met in Bristol to discuss the idea.
The report examined the benefits of "greater sharing, matching and learning" between the city regions, including "an influential role for universities, businesses and civil society".
Ben Lucas of advisory firm Metro Dynamics, which carried out the research, said the case for a "Great Western powerhouse" was "a strong one".
"Our research shows that there are already more people commuting between the Cardiff and Bristol Metros than between Leeds and Manchester, even though the journey is equally slow.
"As with the northern powerhouse, better connectivity will reap big rewards in creating a larger, more productive labour market across the Great Western cities."
The leaders of the City of Cardiff Council, Phil Bale, Newport City Council, Bob Bright, and mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson will unveil the report later.
However the Conservative deputy leader of North Somerset Council, Elfan Ap Rees, said the authority and others neighbouring Bristol, had not been consulted about it.
"This seems very underhanded and [George Ferguson's] move will not improve relationships in the West of England, and could jeopardise the devolution discussions with government.
"We're in the middle of trying to sort out the devolution deal to our benefit for the West of England and here's the mayor trotting off to do something entirely different. It's ridiculous."


Gary Neville claimed the obituaries for his time as Valencia boss have already been written following a 1-0 La Liga defeat at lowly Real Betis.

Neville, whose side was thrashed 7-0 by Barcelona in a midweek Copa del Rey tie, is yet to see his side win in nine league games but again refused to quit.
The ex-England international, who was appointed at the start of December, said: "I said before I came that I would be judged in five months.
"I have been judged in six weeks."
Former Valencia goalkeeper and captain Santiago Canizares - as well as some supporters - called for Neville to stand down after the Copa del Rey hammering by Barcelona.
Under Neville, Valencia have lost four and drawn five league games to slip to within four points of La Liga's bottom three, although the 40-year-old insists he is not contemplating the threat of relegation.
He added:  "It's clear that we are better than some of the teams we are playing against.
"Our last two league matches were not performances that deserved two defeats, but the reality is that they are two defeats and I am aware of the consequences when you don't get good results. What matters are results.
"There's no doubt that at times like this everyone needs to stay together.
"Everyone suffers. It's just not going for us at the moment.  I continue to work, I continue to have belief.
"Conversations with the owners are between me and the owners. We have to turn it round quickly, I understand that. It is hard to explain the defeat. It will turn."
Neville claimed that the Valencia players are now much fitter and better organised than the team he inherited, which he said was "all over the place".
He admitted every defeat felt like a "punch in the face" but said there was no need for the owners, who include his business partner Peter Lim, to make any statement on his position.
Former Manchester City striker Alvaro Negredo, who missed Valencia's best chance to avoid becoming only the second team to lose a league fixture at Real Betis this season, would not be drawn on the manager's future.
Negredo said: "That's not up to me. We know the coach well but that's up to the club. We shouldn't get involved in things that we aren't supposed to."


Theresa May launched the Conservative Party's campaign for local elections in England, pledging to "protect and enhance workersâ€™ rights" when the UK leaves the EU.


The International Criminal Court (ICC) has called for the arrest and surrender of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was released by a militia in Libya last week after six years in jail.

The son of late leader Col Muammar Gaddafi is wanted for alleged crimes against humanity during the rebellion that ousted his father in 2011.
His location is unclear. The UN-backed government has condemned the release.
It is feared that the move could fuel further instability in the country.
Saif al-Islam was freed from jail last Friday by the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Battalion militia in the western town of Zintan under an amnesty law.
He has not been seen in public since then. A source told the BBC he was in the Tobruk area of eastern Libya.
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, of the Hague-based ICC, said her office was still trying to verify the release, and called on Libya and other states to arrest and surrender him.
"Libya is obliged to immediately arrest and surrender Mr Gaddafi to the ICC, regardless of any purported amnesty law in Libya," she said in a statement.
The re-emergence of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi could deepen old wounds and create fresh divisions in this fractured country. For those who gathered in Martyrs' Square in Tripoli six years ago demanding freedom it will be seen as a betrayal of the revolution. One man said it was like building a house just to have it torn down.
But many of those we spoke to around the square accepted his release. That is not so surprising perhaps given Libya's descent into chaos since his father was overthrown.
One woman said that those who had come after Col Gaddafi had made an even bigger mess in Libya, and his son might bring stability. In the words of a young man, better the devil you know.
The former playboy often appeared in the West as the public face of the Gaddafi regime, and was his father's heir apparent. His supporters will be hoping he returns to the political fray here, but he is still a wanted man.
The Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Battalion said it was acting on a request from the "interim government" based in the east of the country.
However, Saif al-Islam has been sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Tripoli, in the west of the country, where control is in the hands of the rival, UN-backed Government of National Accord.
The 44-year-old Saif al-Islam was captured in November 2011 after three months on the run following the end of Muammar Gaddafi's decades-long rule.
He was known for playing a key role in building relations with the West after 2000.
But after the 2011 uprising, he found himself accused of incitement to violence and murdering protesters.
Four years later, he was sentenced to death by firing squad following a trial involving 30 of Gaddafi's close associates.


German MPs have demanded much tighter surveillance of neo-Nazi activities, after investigating a notorious series of murders targeting ethnic Turks.

MPs said Germany's police and justice officials must exchange intelligence on neo-Nazis, improve training and recruit more ethnic minorities.
Their report condemned "major failures" by security services who had not suspected a violent neo-Nazi cell.
An alleged member of the cell, Beate Zschaepe, went on trial in May.
The cell is accused of 10 murders in Germany, spanning seven years.
The mishandling of the case triggered much criticism, focusing on the failure to explore a racist motive and the initial suspicions about the victims' relatives and friends. It also emerged that the police had used unreliable undercover informers.
The MPs in a cross-party special committee made 47 recommendations, highlighting lessons to be learnt from the blunders.
The committee chairman, Sebastian Edathy of the Social Democrats (SPD), called the blunders "a historically unprecedented disaster". He handed the 1,000-page report to Norbert Lammert, president of the Bundestag - the lower house of parliament.
"The danger of militant neo-Nazis must never again be underestimated," he said, adding that the threat from such groups had even been "trivialised" sometimes.
"I'm pretty sure that, if a leading police investigator had had a Turkish background, investigating authorities would not have taken six years before seriously considering the possibility that racism was the motive," he said.
Lawyers for the victims said the report did not go far enough - they alleged that "institutional racism" was a factor in the botched investigation into the murders.
Mr Edathy disagreed, saying: "I don't think it is a case of institutional racism, but we do have racists working within the security authorities," Reuters news agency reported.
"Turks murder Turks, that seems to have been the mentality," he said. "Changing this will take longer than changing laws."
The case only came to light in November 2011, when Ms Zschaepe handed herself in to police.
Police had found the bodies of two of her alleged accomplices in the National Socialist Underground (NSU). They had apparently shot themselves after a botched bank robbery.
Ms Zschaepe shared a flat in Zwickau, in the old East Germany, with the two men.
After their deaths, the gun used in the murders of the 10 people was discovered.
In their investigation the panel of MPs met 75 times, heard from 107 witnesses and experts, and looked at thousands of files.
But they were hampered by officials who delayed handing over information and in some cases important information was missing, German media say.
A left-wing MP on the panel, Petra Pau, spoke of "files that were missing, shredded or delayed, or incompetent witnesses", the German broadcaster ARD reports.


A disqualified driver who had no insurance has admitted causing a crash which killed a teenager.

Tyrone Quinn, 20, of Felling, admitted causing death by dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and having no insurance at Newcastle Crown Court.
James Docherty, 17, died at the junction of Redheugh Bridge and Askew Road West in Gateshead at 04:00 BST on Sunday 24 July.
Quinn was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on 24 October.
Two men also suffered non-life threatening injuries in the crash.
Three other men arrested were released with no further action.


Brandon Stone fought back in the final round to win his first European Tour title at the SA Open in Johannesburg.

Stone went from five shots ahead to two behind after six bogeys in seven holes but recovered with four birdies to post a one-under-par 71 to win on 14 under.
The 22-year-old becomes the youngest winner of the event since 1997.
Stone won by two shots from fellow South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout (67), with England's Daniel Brooks (72) a shot further back in third.
He broke down in tears after his victory and told Sky Sports: "I don't have the vocab to describe how I feel right now.
"That round was the most up-and-down round that I've ever had in my life.
"Walking up to the 18th made me think about how the last few years have been up and down and up and down and just to pull it through at the end there, I can't describe it."
Branden Grace and former major winner Retief Goosen ended in a four-way tie for fourth.


Fighters loyal to ex-Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo carried out recent attacks in Abidjan, killing 10 soldiers, a minister has said.

Hamed Bakayoko told Radio France International (RFI) he believed the attackers received their orders from Gbagbo loyalists in neighbouring Ghana.
One assailant was also killed in the gun battle on Monday in the Riviera district of Abidjan, the main city.
Ivory Coast is recovering from months of unrest after a disputed poll.
The attacks on Sunday and Monday were said to be the biggest in Abidjan since Mr Gbagbo was ousted in April 2011.
"They [the attackers] were people who come from the myriad pro-Gbagbo militiamen and former armed forces nostalgic of the Gbagbo regime," Mr Bakayoko told RFI.
He believed that "everything was ordered" by pro-Gbagbo militiamen who fled to Ghana after they were ousted from power in Abidjan, RFI reports.
Mr Bakayoko told state TV the army would step up its presence across the country.
'Weapons stolen'
"The orders have been given, our instructions are firm," he said.
"From today, you'll be able to note this by the presence of our men in all the districts of Abidjan as well as towns in the interior."
By John JamesBBC News, Abidjan
This attack certainly gives Ivorians the jitters - especially those tempted to believe the violence of the past 10 years was finished.
The assailants may not have had much chance of taking control of the Akouedo base, which has a UN peacekeeping base at its heart, but it shows the Ivorian army is vulnerable to surprise attacks, and many soldiers complain of being woefully under-equipped.
This incident will also increase tensions between those in the new unified armed forces about who is loyal to whom.
The army struggles both from a lack of weaponry because of the continuing UN arms embargo, but also from its mixed make-up of former rebels from the north, regular troops and recent volunteers due for disarmament.
With so many small arms in circulation, and limited progress on reconciliation, this may not be the last of this type of incident.
The BBC's John James in Abidjan says there was a gory scene at the Akouedo military camp, with bodies lying on the ground and blood spattered over the walls after Monday's attack.
Corp Ousmane Kone, who took part in the fighting, told Reuters news agency that the attackers had made off with guns.
"They took lots of weapons, loaded them in a truck and drove off with them. They took AK-47s [automatic rifles], machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades," he said.
The head of the national assembly, Guillaume Soro, said the situation was under control.
"The attackers just want to give the impression that the security situation in Ivory Coast is precarious," he added.
The army is patrolling the areas east of Abidjan looking for the attackers.
UN peacekeepers have been posted at key junctions.
Defence Minister Paul Koffi Koffi had told AFP the Yopougon attack was an apparent bid to free people who had been arrested the previous day.
Yopougon district suffered some of the heaviest fighting during the battle for control of Abidjan last year following the disputed elections.
Although Abidjan has been relatively peaceful recently, there have been outbreaks of unrest, especially in the west of the country, which correspondents say remains awash with guns.
Some 3,000 people were killed in a dispute after the November 2010 poll.
Mr Gbagbo refused to accept defeat to President Alassane Ouattara, who eventually ousted his rival with the help of former rebel forces, the UN and former colonial power France.
Mr Gbagbo is currently in The Hague, awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity.


The VW Group will not enter Formula 1 while question marks remain over the sport's ownership and technical rules, says the group's motorsport boss.

In September, Volkswagen were close to agreeing to take over Red Bull, before the VW emissions scandal led to the resignation of CEO Martin Winterkorn.
Last year, F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone said the sport could be sold and also wants to get rid of hybrid engines.
"Formula 1 is not on our agenda right now," said Wolfgang Durheimer.
"The situation is not predictable enough to make the kind of investment required. Before you commit the kind of money needed you must see five years of rules stability," Durheimer told Autocar.
This season, teams have agreed changes to qualifying to increase unpredictability and talks are ongoing to make cars faster in 2017.
"There can't be the possibility of rules changes, of more or less engine cylinders coming in, or the hybrid system changing away from technology you are developing on road cars," he added.
"If you are a big business making a big investment you expect to have some influence on the set-up, with an assurance the present ownership will last. In F1, it seems the owners will not be there forever and that creates some instability."


Crystal Palace have re-signed winger Wilfried Zaha from Manchester United on a season-long loan.

The 21-year-old signed for United from Palace in January 2013 in a £15m deal, then finished the season on loan at his old club, helping them win promotion.
He made only four appearances for the Red Devils and joined Cardiff on loan for the second half of last season.
"I'm just buzzing to be back, to be in and around the lads again," he said.
"There have been rumours for a while, but it was only yesterday that it got sorted out and I am happy because I just need to get out and play.
"The best place to come back to is Palace where I am loved."
Zaha came through the youth ranks at Palace and was helped in his development by Neil Warnock, who returned to the south London club for a second spell as manager on Wednesday.
Warnock was previously in charge between 2007 and 2010, although he had left for QPR by the time Zaha made his first-team debut against Cardiff in March 2010.
Zaha went on to score 18 goals in 143 appearances.


The salary for the successor to controversial Pembrokeshire council chief executive Bryn Parry-Jones should be £130,000, councillors say.

Mr Parry-Jones was Wales' highest paid chief executive when he stepped down from his post at the end of October and was paid more than £190,000 a year.
He also received a £277,000 severance deal.
The authority's senior staff committee salary recommendation will now need to be ratified by the full council.
The decision by members of the cross-party committee comes after the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales said a new chief executive should be paid £130,000.
Councillor Paul Miller told his colleagues it would be "inconceivable" to set the chief executive's salary higher than the panel's recommendation.
He also said there was now an opportunity to review car allowances for senior officers.
It comes after BBC Wales discovered Mr Parry-Jones had been given a luxury Porsche lease car worth around £90,000 as his work vehicle.
The recruitment process for a new chief executive will start in April, with a shortlist drawn up in May.
An appointment is likely to be made in June.
Mr Parry-Jones came under pressure to resign after it was revealed he received cash payments in lieu of pension contributions, which the Wales Audit Office said were unlawful.
Police inquiries into the payments were dropped after no evidence was found of criminal offences.


"Our job is to make Jeremy Corbyn the Left's Donald Trump", whispered a political adviser over cold sausage rolls at Labour's annual Christmas party,

"Trump shows if we take the anti-establishment message and run with it, anything is possible".
This most unlikely of strategies, to replicate the electoral tactics of a man Mr Corbyn has called divisive and wrong, is clear.
If you have lost trust in politicians, well, don't go for fake anti-elitism. Go for the real thing. Corbyn.
The Labour leader's office are convinced that the anti-elitist wave which delivered Jeremy Corbyn the leadership twice is the same that brought President Trump and Brexit.
How do they ride that wave? Efforts will be made in the early part of the year to roll out radical retail policies on the economy and the cost of living, with an attempt at every turn to avoid the potentially sticky wicket of Brexit.
Whether he will be able to sell his message beyond Labour's 515,000 members remains to be seen but we should see a return to the campaign rallies and speaking tours that played such a part of his summer 2015 leadership bid.
Harnessing the energy of large crowds and speaking direct through TV into the living rooms of the general public, rather like one Donald J Trump, will be just one part of a new turbo-charged media strategy.
This will be first put to the test in the Copeland by-election. The resignation of Jamie Reed, one of Mr Corbyn's most prominent critics, will mean the party having to defend a 2,500 majority in a seat which Labour has held since 1935.
It should be an easy hold for an opposition party taking on a mid-term government; after all a governing party hasn't made a by-election gain, without a defection, for 56 years.
The bookies think the Conservatives have a good chance of taking the seat, but after outperforming many people's expectations in Oldham West and Royton, it would be foolish to write Labour off six weeks before voting begins.
Next year's set of local elections will take place on 4 May and will see elections to English, Scottish and Welsh councils, as well as the first set of elections for newly created regional mayors.
The most high-profile race for Labour will be Andy Burnham's attempt to become the first directly elected mayor of the Manchester region. But there will be more competitive elections in the West Midlands, where MEP Sion Simon faces a challenge from Andy Street - the former managing director of John Lewis - who is standing for the Conservatives.
Outside of the inaugural mayoral contests, there will be elections to 34 councils in England.
This will be a challenging environment for the Labour Party; back in 2013 the party made substantial gains and is facing elections in swathes of safe Conservative shire areas.
The 2013 vote share of 29% was actually two points behind their final general election result and a replication of this result would not be too surprising.
The danger, perhaps, would be if Labour fell into third place behind a resurgent UKIP and Conservative Party. Should that happen, then it is likely the carefully maintained silence of Mr Corbyn's opponents within the Parliamentary Labour Party will break.
Perhaps the most consequential battles will be outside national electoral contests and within the movement itself.
Len McCluskey will face re-election for general secretary of Unite in April. Few individuals have been as vital as the leader of the UK's biggest union to preserving Jeremy Corbyn's position.
Moderates are organising hard to elect Gerard Coyne, a close friend of Tom Watson, someone who, they think, could deliver thousands of votes for a moderate candidate in a future leadership contest.
Momentum, the powerful grassroots organisation that supports Mr Corbyn's leadership, will also face internal challenges in 2017.
Since the party conference in Liverpool, a bitter dispute has broken out over who should hold the reins of power.
The organisation is facing internal squabbles over its future direction with a concerted effort to remove Corbyn ally Jon Lansman from his leadership role.
Momentum tearing itself apart could seriously imperil Jeremy Corbyn's efforts to make Labour a movement. This will be, of course, with a Parliamentary party doggedly against him but maintaining a Trappist silence following Mr Corbyn's 2016 re-election as Labour leader.
In all of this the key question for Jeremy Corbyn will be whether he can translate the powerful populist movement that took him to the leadership of his party in 2015 and 2016 onto a national stage.
Polling, with Labour at its lowest ebb since the dog days of Gordon Brown's government, suggests that it is a tall order.
But if 2016 has taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected.


The circulation of every regional daily newspaper in Wales has fallen, with the country's flagship title the Western Mail dipping below the 30,000 mark.

The figures, which reveal the number of copies distributed on an average day for the first half of 2010, have led to concern about the future of the industry in Wales.
Media lecturer James Stewart said it was worrying for Welsh democracy.
The Western Mail said its circulation trend was "improving slightly".
Newspapers across the UK have seen the number of copies sold and read continuously fall over recent years.
The latest figures show that only one of the UK's 86 regional daily newspapers increased its sales year-on-year in the first half of 2010 - the DC Thomson-owned Dundee Evening Telegraph.
Of the Welsh titles, the Western Mail - the only daily that covers the whole of Wales - saw the biggest drop in circulation during the first half of 2010 compared with the same period last year, down 10.2%.
Its average daily circulation was 29,567.
The Daily Post, which covers north Wales, had the smallest year-on-year decline in circulation at -4.5%, with an average daily circulation figure higher than the Western Mail at 32,414.
The newspaper with the highest circulation figure was the South Wales Evening Post, which covers the Swansea area, with an average figure of 42,619.
James Stewart, who worked at the Western Mail and South Wales Echo in the late 1970s and early 80s and is now senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Glamorgan, said the figures were "sad and worrying".
He said when he worked at the Western Mail, its circulation figure was around 90,000, adding there were serious implications about its decline over the last 30 years.
"As we're coming up to a referendum next year on more powers for the Welsh assembly, how many people in Wales are watching Welsh news or reading papers that discuss these things? Most people are not," he said.
"In evidence given to the assembly's culture committee recently, which was looking into public service broadcasting, it emerged 90% of people in Wales read a paper that doesn't contain Welsh news.
"That's very worrying if you want an electorate who knows what's going on and is engaged in the democratic process."
He added: "What are their other sources of information? There's the BBC - but how many young people watch local news on television or listen to it on the radio? There have also been major questions about the news resources at ITV Wales."
Mr Stewart, who also previously worked at BBC Wales, said he believed that many young people did not read newspapers and were more likely to go online, while even the habits of traditional readers were changing.
"You have to ask what the difference was 30 years ago," he said.
"The number of journalists at the Western Mail has gone down. The quality of their journalism is still very good but they just haven't got the resources they used to have.
"It's sad but on the other hand, as someone now involved in education, it's interesting to look at where journalism will now go. How will people be informed? We have to look at how that will be done."
He added that it was too soon to say whether newspaper companies would be able to make their websites work, as they currently do not get as much advertising revenue from them as they do from newspapers.
Alan Edmunds, publishing director at Media Wales - home to the Western Mail and the South Wales Echo - said the company's website was helping them reach a "large audience".
"Despite the obvious challenging circulation environment there has been a slight improvement in the circulation trend for both the South Wales Echo and the Western Mail as a result of a number of editorial and publishing enhancements," he said.
"For example, we're planning to launch the second phase of the South Wales Echo's redesign in September and this will be backed up by a number of newspaper sales initiatives.
"Following a redesign in June, the Western Mail has continued to focus on serving its key business and political audiences in print and through the large audience we reach through WalesOnline."
Rob Irvine, publishing director at Trinity Mirror North Wales, which publishes the Daily Post, said it too had seen a rise in people using its website.
"We've seen an improvement to the circulation trend for the Daily Post which is encouraging in the current challenging environment and we're delighted with a significant increase to our unique user numbers for dailypost.co.uk, up 28% period on period and 43% year on year," he said.
"The Daily Post remains focused on serving our audiences and advertisers across print, online and mobile."
The South Wales Evening Post and the Leader have been asked to comment, while the South Wales Argus did not want to comment.


Cladding is being removed from two residential tower blocks in Portsmouth after tests found it to be a fire risk.

Portsmouth City Council said it was detaching the panels on Horatia House and Leamington House as a "precautionary measure".
The authority insisted the blocks were still safe for residents to stay in.
The move comes as it emerged about 600 high-rise towers across England had used similar cladding to that on Grenfell Tower in London.
Read more on this and other stories from across the south of England.
Cladding is thought to have contributed to the rapid spread of fire at Grenfell Tower, in which at least 79 people are believed to have died.
Portsmouth City Council said cladding from all its tower blocks was independently tested and the material on the 18-storey Horatia House and Leamington House came back as "a fire risk".
No other tower block in the city required action to be taken, it said.
Work is already under way to remove the cladding which the council confirmed was made of aluminium composite material. The council has posted staff around the clock in each of the 1960s-built buildings to provide "support and advice" while the work was done.
Deputy leader of Portsmouth City Council Luke Stubbs said people's safety was its priority.
"We will be removing the cladding as quickly as we can, in the meantime we would like to reassure residents we have conducted a full assessment of the buildings, with Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, and the buildings are safe to stay in with all of the existing safety measures still in place," he added.


Marine Le Pen has got through the first round of voting in the race to become the next president of France.

The other candidate who also got through is Emmanuel Macron.
This means that these two candidates will go head to head in a second round of voting, which will take place on 7 May.
Adult voters in France will choose which of these two candidates they want to be the next leader of their country.
Find out more about the French presidential election here.
In a presidential election, some candidates will represent political parties - and this has been the case with Marine Le Pen.
The party she represented is called the Front National, which her father Jean-Marie Le Pen founded in the 1970s.
Her opponent, Emmanuel Macron, leads a political movement called En Marche!, which means On the move! in French.
This was Marine Le Pen's sixth year in charge of the Front National, but she has just stepped down as leader to focus on the presidential election.
It is not the first time she has tried to become president.
She came third in the presidential election in 2012, after just under 1 in 5 French voters said they wanted her to win.
This time, she's down to the final two.
Both En Marche!'s Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have different ideas about how the country should be run.
Some people who don't support the Front National have accused it of being a racist party because of some of its ideas.
Marine Le Pen worked hard to try to stop people thinking that about the party.
She even kicked her father out of the party in 2015 because of racist comments he had made.
As a result, the Front National has more support than it used to, even though there are still people who do not support what it stands for.
This election is significant because Marine Le Pen has done better than the Front National has done in the past.
People have divided opinions about Marine Le Pen and how she wants to run the country. Some people really like her ideas, while others do not.
For example, one of her big plans - if she wins - is to limit the amount of people moving to France.
Some who don't agree with her and her party think that her ideas about immigration are racist. Others agree with limiting immigration in the way she wants to.
She has also said that she wants to make sure that jobs in France go to French people first.
Those who like her think that this is important for French people, but those who don't like this idea think that it is unfair.
We do not know who will win the French election just yet.
There were 11 candidates to begin with - and now there are only two left.
Voters in France will decide on 7 May who they want to put in charge.


Apple has blamed "external factors" for a handful of iPhone battery "fires" in China.

Eight users have complained to Shanghai's consumer watchdog that their iPhone 6 series handsets spontaneously combusted or exploded.
The US tech giant said it had conducted tests on the devices and had found "no cause for concern with these products".
One technology analyst told the BBC she did not believe it to be a widespread problem.
Apple said the iPhones had external physical damage "which led to the thermal event".
The watchdog's report quoted one woman as saying her iPhone 6S Plus exploded in August, shattering the screen and leaving the battery and back of the phone blackened.
The regulator refers to combustion and smoking, but it is not clear whether flames were seen.
Apple has denied that it was slow to respond to consumer complaints raised by the state-run Shanghai Consumer Council.
'We treat safety as a top priority and have found no cause for concern with these products,' the company added.
Xiaohan Tay, technology analyst for IDC in Beijing, said: "From what we are seeing in the market, it doesn't seem to be a big problem yet in China, we can't confirm whether all iPhone 6 and 6S models are at risk."
"At this point, it doesn't seem that there is any major implication yet for the iPhones sold outside of China," she told the BBC.
However, complaints against Apple have surged in the past two months according to the Shanghai Consumer Council.
They include reports of sudden shutdowns of the iPhone 6 and 6S - even though batteries still had enough power.
Apple last month offered to change iPhone 6S batteries for Chinese users who complained of the sudden shutdowns.
But it has maintained that the problem did not constitute a safety issue.
The firm has seen Chinese sales fall over the past three quarters following rising competition with domestic smartphone makers offering cheaper models.
Those domestic handset makers are likely to have received a boost after South Korea's Samsung Electronics recalled 2.5 million Note 7 handsets globally following a series of battery fires.
Analysts say those problems have not only damaged Samsung's reputation but have raised distrust of foreign smartphone brands in China.


SNP MP Mhairi Black has been announced as one of music magazine NME's People of the Year nominees.

The 21-year-old member of parliament is named alongside Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Noel Gallagher for the publication's People of the Year list.
NME said the politician impressed by becoming the youngest MP elected to the House of Commons since 1880.
Earlier this month, she was named Glasgow University's Young Alumnus of the Year.
Ms Black won the Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat in May's general election, before completing her MA Hons degree in Politics and Public Affairs.


The Scottish Parliament is to mark the anniversary of the terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.

SNP MSP Christian Allard - who is a French national -  will lead a debate to commemorate the victims of the Paris attack, which left 12 people dead.
Another five people were also killed by Islamist gunmen over the next two days.
Mr Allard said the right to free speech was essential, and an attack on cartoonists and journalists was "an attack on us all".
He added: "The tragic attack on Charlie Hebdo was not just an attack on one magazine. It was an attack on the principle of free speech.
"Charlie Hebdo has responded to this attack in the best possible way - to keep on doing what they were doing before. To be outrageous, to mock and to challenge us all.
"One year on, let us make sure that we continue to respond to terrorism by valuing and embracing freedom of speech and our right to disagree. Rather than 7 January solely being an anniversary of terrorism we should celebrate it as Cartoonists' Day."
Cartoonist Terry Anderson will lead a discussion on freedom of expression at the parliament's cross-party group on France following the debate in the main Holyrood chamber.
The Charlie Hebdo attack was carried out by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who forced their way into its offices, shooting dead 11 people and injuring 11 others.
They later shot dead a French National Police officer outside the building.
The gunmen said they belonged to the Yemen branch of the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda, which took responsibility for the attack.
Both brothers died on 9 January 2014 after being shot by police following a siege in Dammartin-en-Goele, about 20 miles north east of Paris.


A teaser for Disney's new live-action version of Beauty and the Beast became the most-viewed such clip of all time with 91.8 million hits in its first 24 hours, the Hollywood Reporter says.

The 90-second clip had nearly four million more views than the previous title holder Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it says.
The new film features Emma "Harry Potter" Watson as Belle and Dan "Downton Abbey" Stevens as the Beast.
The film is due out in March 2017.
Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon, retells Disney's classic 1991 animated film.
Perhaps what is most impressive about the numbers is that the trailer does not actually give much of a glimpse of the film at all.
It contains only a fleeting view of Watson and the Beast's trademark growl - and the unmistakable tones of Sir Ian McKellan, who plays Cogsworth in the film, and Ewan McGregor, who voices Lumiere.


A rare meeting between two self-driving cars resulted in one taking evasive action, Reuters reports.

The robot cars, one made by Delphi Automotive and one by Google, met on a Californian road in Palo Alto.
The Google car pulled in front of the Delphi vehicle making it abandon a planned lane change.
The incident comes as Google's purpose-built self-driving cars take to California highways to see how well they mix with regular traffic.
Details of the encounter were revealed to Reuters by John Absmeier - director of Delphi's autonomous car driving unit.
The vehicles involved were conventional road cars modified with lasers, radar, cameras and other sensors to help them navigate roads without a driver.
The incident occurred as the Delphi car, an Audi Q5 crossover, was preparing to change lanes. As it did so the Google car, a Lexus RX400h crossover, abruptly moved in front of it forcing the Audi to abandon its manoeuvre.
The Delphi car coped well with the incident, said Mr Absmeier, and "took appropriate action". A Delphi spokeswoman clarified the incident with tech news site Ars Technica saying there was nothing amiss in the encounter and that its vehicle behaved "admirably".
Google played down the the incident, saying early reports that the cars were involved in a "near miss" were inaccurate. It said the cars treated each other as they would any other vehicle and neither was in danger of colliding with the other.
Delphi and Google's autonomous vehicles have been involved in several minor accidents and incidents during testing. However, before now all of those have involved the robot cars and human-driven vehicles. In almost all cases, the firms have said, the fault lay with human drivers.
The encounter occurred earlier this week shortly before Google's purpose-built robot cars began to be tested on roads in Mountain View close to the search giant's headquarters.
Google has created a webpage through which people can share their encounters with the cars and their impressions of how they drive.
A monthly report about Google's self-driving car project reveals that it is currently testing 32 autonomous vehicles - 23 modified Lexus SUVs and 9 purpose-built prototypes. During testing, it said, these vehicles have covered more than 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometres).
It also detailed some of the accidents in which the cars have been involved. Many of these resulted in minor damage to the Google cars and the most serious involved a driver in a modified Lexus taking control to avoid a human-driven car that ignored a stop sign.
The report also reveals how the cars coped when they met other road users such as emergency vehicles and cyclists at night.


Bookmakers Ladbrokes and Gala Coral must sell about 350-400 shops in order for their Â£2.3bn merger to be cleared, the competition regulator has said.

The Competition and Markets Authority identified 642 local areas where it said the merger would hit competition.
Ladbrokes and Gala Coral are the UK's second and third largest retail bookmakers, behind William Hill.
Ladbrokes has about 2,150 outlets in Britain and 77 in Northern Ireland. Coral runs 1,850 shops in Britain.
A merger between Ladbrokes and Gala Coral would make it the UK's largest bookmaker.
However, on Monday, the current market leader, William Hill, was approached by rival gambling companies 888 and Rank Group about a merger.
The sale of up to 400 shops is the same figure suggested by the CMA in May, when it published its provisional findings into the Ladbrokes-Gala Coral deal.
Announcing the final report, Martin Cave, chair of the CMA's inquiry, said: "We've found that the merger between two of the largest bookmakers in the country would reduce competition and choice for customers in a large number of local areas.
"Although online betting has grown substantially in recent years, the evidence we've seen confirms that a significant proportion of customers still choose to bet in shops - and many will continue to do so after the merger. We therefore believe that a sale of shops of this scale is needed to protect these customers.
"It is now for the parties to propose a divestment package and one or more suitable purchasers for the CMA to approve."
Ladbrokes agreed the terms of the all-share merger with Coral in July, and the company's shareholders backed the deal in November.
Gala Coral has been owned by a group of private equity firms, including Apollo Global Management, Cerberus Capital Management, Anchorage Capital Partners and Park Square Capital, since 2010, when it collapsed under Â£2.5bn of debt.
Under the terms of the deal, those private equity owners will own 48.25% of the new company's shares, with the remainder being held by Ladbrokes shareholders.


Several thousand Liverpool fans walked out of Saturday's league match with Sunderland at Anfield in protest at rising ticket prices.

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A supporters' group had urged fans to leave their seats in the 77th minute in protest at the £77 top-priced ticket in the new main stand next term.
The walkout followed singing of the club anthem 'You'll Never Walk Alone' then chants of "enough is enough".
Liverpool lost a 2-0 lead at the time of the walkout and drew the game 2-2.
First-team coach Pepijn Lijnders, standing in after manager Jurgen Klopp had surgery to remove his appendix, said fans were within their rights to stage the protest.
"We have one of the best supporters groups in the world so if they want to make a statement, they have the right to," added Lijnders.
"It changed the atmosphere in the stadium, but not our mentality."
Earlier, Liverpool chief executive Ian Ayre said: "No-one is being priced out of the stadium."
He urged fans to "look at the facts" before taking part in a walkout and highlighted that 64% of season ticket prices will decrease or freeze.


A regional supermarket chain accidentally introduced a 20% discount in all its stores - costing thousands in lost revenue.

The East of England Co-op intended to have the offer at just one shop, in Clacton, starting last Wednesday.
However, computers introduced it at the checkouts of 140 stores across Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.
The error was corrected a day later, but not before the company had lost about £43,000 in revenue.
Shopper Noel Galer spotted something was up when he went to one of the stores at Martham near Great Yarmouth.
More on this story and others from Essex
"The checkout assistant noticed my surprise and said they seemed to have a computer fault which was knocking 20% off everything that was going through and they weren't sure whether it was just their shop or not," he said.
"It's always been said that to err is human, but to really mess things up you need a computer and this is a perfect example."
Roger Grosvenor, retail officer for the Co-op, said he was "flabbergasted" because nothing like it had happened before.
"It went viral and we were aware of the problem within an hour and a bit, but I just wanted to know the extent and cause of the problem.
"Unfortunately the computers at our Ipswich headquarters didn't want to play ball, so it took a day and a half to get us back on song.
"No-one's in trouble - it was an honest mistake."
The Co-op said sales were up 4% on the days of the discount, but officials had yet to analyse the figures to see if this was due to the mistake or simply down to the run-up to Christmas.
The 20% discount will continue at the supermarket on Bull Hill Road in Clacton, where it will run until 31 December when the store closes for good.
The offer only applied to cans, bottles and packets, not alcohol, tobacco or fresh food.


The Money Advice Service (MAS), which has provided financial and debt advice to consumers since 2010, is to be abolished, the BBC understands.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, is expected to announce in the Budget that it will be replaced by a smaller advice body.
The MAS has been criticised in two official reports.
One study commissioned by the Treasury found that few members of the public had even heard of it.
And two years ago the National Audit Office found the MAS was not always delivering value for money.
"We will work with the government to fully consider the implications of any announcement," said a spokesperson for the MAS.
"In the meantime we will continue to fulfil our statutory role to help people make the most of their money."
The MAS spends about Â£80m a year, but much of its income came from an industry-based levy.
Christine Farnish, a former head of the National Association of Pension Funds - who examined the MAS for the government - said the abolition was good news.
"I think it is a welcome development which will allow a more efficient and focused organisation, which will add more value for consumers," she told the BBC.