Outgoing ministers in Ghana could be forcibly evicted from their official residences if they fail to move out in time, under new laws.

Article: Andrew Crook, 48, struck 46-year-old Robert Allaway head-on in the crash on the A65 near Settle in October.
Crook, of Swinnow Grove, Leeds, pleaded guilty to causing Mr Allaway's death by driving without due care and attention.
He was jailed at Bradford Crown Court for four years and eight months and banned from driving for five years.
North Yorkshire Police said Crook had 83mg of alcohol per 100mg of breath when he hit Mr Allaway, from Long Preston, near Skipton - the legal limit is 35mg.
Mr Allaway's wife Lorraine, who lost her sister to cancer on the same day, said: "It is impossible to find the words to describe how we feel about Bob's death.
"He was my soul mate and is the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night.
"This is without doubt the hardest and most painful experience of my life."
Mrs Allaway said she planned to campaign for tougher sentencing for drivers convicted of causing death by dangerous or careless driving or while under the influence of drink or drugs.
Traffic constable Dave Seavers, from North Yorkshire Police, said: "Crook gave no consideration to the safety of other road users that day and got behind the wheel with a blatant disregard for the law.
"The bad choice Crook made meant that a man has lost his life through no fault of his own and his family faces a future without a loved one."

Summary: A man who was more than twice the drink-drive limit and driving on the wrong side of the road when he hit and killed a motorcyclist has been jailed.
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Article: An area of ancient woodland in the rolling hills of the South Downs in West Sussex, Markwells Wood is a world away from rain-lashed oil rigs in the North Sea or sun-bleached oil refineries in the deserts of Saudi Arabia.
Yet hidden behind the trees is one of the UK's newest onshore oil wells.
With testing work continuing, the owner, London-based Northern Petroleum, estimates it could produce about five million barrels of oil.
This is tiny in comparison with reserves in the Middle East, but with the UK's offshore oil supplies in the North Sea running low, Northern's argument is that such small onshore oil fields - of which there are currently 28 scattered across Britain - together play a vital role in reducing our dependence upon imports.
As Derek Musgrove, Northern's managing director, drives up to Markwells Wood in his Land Rover, the only obvious sign it houses anything at all is a basic gravel access track.
"As you can see, the facility is very much hidden away," he says.
"The trees all the way around the site are not just a visual barrier, but excellent sound proofing - you would be surprised at just how effectively trees absorb noise."
At present all is quiet at Northern's site - two acres of levelled land cut from the wood, with the small wellhead roughly in the middle.
Beneath the flooring of basic compacted stone is a thick plastic membrane, which covers the entire site, including a trench running all the way around the perimeter.
"While it is highly unlikely that there will be any leaks, we don't take any chances, and the membrane is there for containment," says Mr Musgrove.
"Everything we do is about best environmental and safety practice. We wish to be the best possible neighbour, and behave with the utmost care."
But while Northern Petroleum is keen to stress its environmental credentials, it has a fight on its hands to win planning permission to start actual production.
Especially as Markwells Wood, near Chichester, lies within the new South Downs National Park, which came into being on 1 April...

Summary: A Â£500m battle is welling up over a picture postcard piece of English countryside.
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Article: Hundreds of seals were moved after coastal flooding hit the Donna Nook reserve earlier this month.
Staff had opened gates and cut holes in a fence along a viewing area to allow the seals to escape the surge of water.
The dead seal is believed to have become disorientated and failed to find its way back.
The accident happened on Tuesday evening on Marsh Lane - a minor road leading to the reserve.
Rachel Shaw, of Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, said because of the damage to the fence the seals had managed to go much further inland than they normally would.
Three other seals were also found stuck in a ditch about three miles away, she said.
It was the first time she had ever heard of a seal from Donna Nook being involved in an accident with a car.
In 2011, about 75 pups died after a series of high tides hit the colony, but they perished as a result of being separated from their mothers.
For most of the year, grey seals at Donna Nook are at sea or on distant sandbanks.
In November and December, up to 60,000 visitors come to see the pups along the six-mile stretch of beach - based on an active Royal Air Force weapons range.
However, because of the damage caused by the tidal surge the reserve has been closed for the rest of the season.

Summary: A grey seal at one of the largest reserves in the UK has been run over and killed after being displaced by a tidal surge.
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Article: Lawrence Herkimer, known as "Herkie", built a successful business by setting up cheerleading camps and developing equipment - including the pom-pom.
Cheerleaders have been posting photographs of themselves performing his signature jump - the Herkie - on social media.
He died of heart failure on Wednesday, according to the New York Times.
Mr Herkimer formed a national organisation for cheerleading and a dedicated magazine while studying at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
After graduating in 1948, he reportedly borrowed $600 from a friend of his father-in-law's to begin his business in the family garage.
His first camp attracted 52 girls and one boy. The following year, it drew 350 participants.
He also patented the pom-pom, which would go on to become a key component of cheerleading, and is credited with inventing the spirit stick.
The organisation he founded, the National Cheerleading Association, said it was "deeply saddened by the loss of a legend".

Summary: Tributes have been paid to the founder of modern cheerleading who has died at the age of 89.
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Article: Carey Gabay, a lawyer working for Governor Andrew Cuomo, was caught in crossfire at a pre-parade event early on Monday.
A 24-year-old man was also shot and killed in a different Brooklyn neighbourhood in a separate incident.
Last year, a man was killed and several wounded near the parade.
This time the violence erupted at the J'Ouvert march, a pre-parade celebration which starts before dawn.
At 03:40 local time (08:40 GMT), the 43-year-old Mr Gabay, first deputy counsel to the governor, was struck in the head by a bullet as he walked down the street with his brother. He was in a critical condition.
Mr Cuomo described him as a beautiful man who was giving back to his community. Mr Gabay's wife is expecting their first child.
"I'm the governor of the state of New York, and there's not a thing I can do," Mr Cuomo told reporters after visiting his employee at Kings County Hospital.
"There's not a thing I can say, and there's nothing I can do. And sometimes it just hurts."
No arrests have made been, police said.
The main parade itself went ahead on Monday, attended by thousands including Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose wife Chirlane McCray is of Caribbean descent.

Summary: Violence before the West Indian Day Parade in New York has left one man dead and a top aide to the state governor fighting for his life.
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Article: Ministers and other government officials are being given a three-month deadline to hand over state-owned homes and vehicles, from the date of the new president's inauguration.
The law targets presidential appointees who try to cling on to the perks of office after a new leader is elected.
Ghana goes to the polls on 7 December.
After previous transfers of power, some officials have had to be forcibly evicted and had their state-owned vehicles seized after failing to hand them back.
The law does not apply to presidents and vice-presidents as we earlier reported.
The bill, which was passed by MPs on Wednesday evening, will now go to the president to sign into law.
Existing legislation requires officials to hand back government property after they leave office, but this is the first time a strict time limit has been applied.
Ghana's current leader John Mahama is standing for re-election and his main opponent is Nana Akufo-Addo. The winner will be inaugurated on 7 January 2017.
Ghana's presidential candidates:

Summary:


Spending on private ambulances in London grew by 1,000% between 2011 and 2013, the Labour party has claimed.

Article: CorporateHealth International ApS is to invest Â£5.7m in establishing a new diagnostics centre at the Inverness Campus.
The centre's staff will analyse images captured by video camera capsules - small devices swallowed by patients.
The capsules offer an alternative to diagnostic endoscopies and colonoscopies.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise is supporting the project with investment of Â£600,000.
CorporateHealth International UK Ltd, a subsidiary of the Danish firm, will run the centre.

Summary: A Danish life science company is to create 30 jobs over the next three years in the Highlands.
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Article: It has produced advice for scientists and the media on choosing names.
The WHO says Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Spanish Flu are examples of what to avoid because they mention specific locations.
Instead, names should contain generic terms that are "easy to pronounce".
The WHO said several new human infectious diseases had emerged in recent years and some had stigmatised certain cultures, regions and economies.
Dr Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general for health security at the WHO, said: "This may seem like a trivial issue to come, but disease names really do matter to the people who are directly affected."
Dr Fukuda said certain disease names had created a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities.
They had also put up barriers to travel, commerce and trade, he added, and in some cases triggered the needless slaughtering of animals.
"This can have serious consequences for people's lives and livelihoods."
The WHO has listed a number of best practices for naming new diseases which have not been recognised in humans before.
They include using specific or generic descriptive terms if they are known, such as 'severe', 'progressive' or 'respiratory disease' and making names short and easily pronounceable.
Any acronyms for longer names should be checked, the advice adds.
Disease names which incite fear, include people's names, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or refer to specific occupations, for example Legionnaires' disease, should be avoided.

Summary: New human diseases should be given socially acceptable names which do not offend people and countries or mention animals, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
###
Article: "He is a martyr. May his soul rest in peace," Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said, indicative of the esteem in which the late sheikh was held in Iraq.
For many Shia there, Sheikh Nimr was an icon for his vocal support for anti-government protests by fellow Shia in Sunni Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province.
No wonder they took to the streets of Baghdad in their thousands after Sheikh Nimr, along with 46 other people, was executed on 2 January, all convicted of terrorism.
With the devastating civil war in Iraq between Sunnis and Shia in 2006-2007 still fresh in people's minds, his execution threatens to inflame Iraq's sectarian tensions.
Two Sunni mosques have been attacked and two people killed in apparent retaliation for Sheikh Nimr's death.
Leading Shia political and military figures in Iraq openly bear animosity towards Saudi Arabia.
They are particularly critical of Riyadh's ultra-conservative form of Islam, which they perceive as the nucleus of the extremist ideology of al-Qaeda and its splinter groups, like the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS).
"This is an ideological battle with Sunni extremists that must be fought to the end," Jaafar al-Husseini, spokesman for the Shia Hezbollah Brigades militia, told me.
The Iranian-backed group is one of several militias that constitute the backbone of nearly 120,000 volunteers, mainly Shia and known as the Popular Mobilisation (PM) forces.
Able-bodied Shia men took up arms against IS in response to a fatwa (edict) by Sheikh Sistani in June 2014 as large parts of the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of the IS advance.
The massive force of Shia volunteers has become the most successful example of boots-on-the-ground in Iraq.
And despite accusations by international human rights groups of human rights abuses against Sunnis, the Popular Mobilisation forces remain hugely popular in Shia-majority areas.
"We should not have any relations with Saudi Arabia," Mr Husseini said in a decisive tone.
The growing Saudi-Iranian crisis has put Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi...

Summary: Within hours of Saudi Arabia's execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the highest Shia authority in Iraq spoke out against what he called the shedding of "pure blood".
###
Article: That is the conclusion of a study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Previous studies had shown that a specific style of grooming - grooming hand clasp (GHC) - was restricted to specific populations of chimpanzees.
By studying distinct communities of semi-wild chimps, the team identified different styles of GHC and showed they were learned by social convention.
These studies provide insights into how differences in social behaviours in human cultures and populations might have arisen.
GHC was first observed in the K(ajabala)-Group of chimpanzees living in the Mahale mountains of Tanzania.
During GHC, two chimpanzees raise one arm overhead and clasp each other's hands, whilst grooming one another with their free hand.
But not all chimpanzees groom in this way - animals in the nearby Gombe field-site never engage in GHC.
Why GHC is not pervasive throughout chimpanzee communities was the key question that Prof Edwin van Leeuwen from the Max Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Netherlands, and his colleagues addressed.
Previous studies had shown natural variation in GHC style - including palm-to-palm, wrist-to-wrist and forearm-to-forearm clasping.
Prof van Leeuwen posited that a preference for a particular style would be "a strong indication that this behaviour follows cultural patterns".
The researchers recorded GHC behaviour in four social groups of semi-wild chimpanzees living in the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage Trust (CWOT) in the north west of Zambia. Half of the chimpanzees were wild-born, whilst half were reared in the orphanage.
The chimpanzees originated from all over Africa and groups were formed based on their date of arrival at the orphanage. This meant that any differences in behaviour would unlikely be due to genetic or ecological influences.
Commenting on the study design Prof Lydia Luncz from the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany, told BBC News: "In recent years, research has shifted from debating the existence of culture in great apes to trying to understand...

Summary: Chimpanzee grooming habits are influenced more by where they live than by genetic or ecological influences.
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Article: Leprosy was thought to have died out in the UK in medieval times, but these recent discoveries confirm that red squirrels carry the disease.
Despite this, researchers are keen to stress that the squirrel infection poses little, if any, threat to humans.
The research is published in the journal, Science.
In 2014 scientists studying red squirrel populations in Scotland noticed that some of the animals had abnormal growths on their ears, snout and limbs.
"We found that they were suffering from a form of leprosy," Prof Anna Meredith from the University of Edinburgh told the BBC's Science in Action.
The red squirrel is an endangered species found across Eurasia.
UK populations are especially under threat due to habitat loss, as well as through direct competition and the deadly effects of squirrel poxvirus following the introduction of the grey squirrel from North America.
The scientists do not think that it is having a negative impact on overall population size, although they are not sure of its effects on individual infected animals.
There are two species of bacterium that cause leprosy: Mycobacterium leprae, which is often referred to as "human leprosy", and a recently described species that also infects humans, called Mycobacterium lepromatosis.
The Scottish squirrels were infected with the more recently discovered form of the bacterium.
Following this initial report of the disease, the public alerted the Edinburgh-based researchers to cases of lesions that looked suspiciously like leprosy in other populations of red squirrels across the UK.
One of these reports focussed on animals living on an isolated island in Dorset in the south of England, which Prof Meredith was keen to follow up.
"We took samples from those squirrels, investigated further and we found that the squirrels on Brownsea Island were also infected with leprosy, and it's the human form of the disease," she said.
So squirrels living in different parts of the UK were infected with different species of leprosy.
"It's still quite puzzling as to why...

Summary: British red squirrels are infected with two different strains of the bacterium that causes leprosy, according to a study.
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Article: The NHS spent £8.84m on private ambulances in the capital last year compared to £795,000 in 2011, according to Freedom of Information data.
The London Ambulance Service (LAS) conceded it was losing staff due to "pressure on the organisation".
But LAS denied claims it had employed private staff previously sacked by the NHS.
Heidi Alexander, Labour MP for Lewisham East, claimed London ambulances were taking "on average two minutes longer than three years ago" to respond to the most serious call-outs.
Labour said its research discovered private ambulance usage by ambulance trusts across the country grew by 82% between financial years 2011/12 and 2013/14, from £37m to £67.5m last year.
Private ambulance spending In Yorkshire and the North East more than quadrupled to hit £3.56m and £2.9m respectively, said Labour, although other ambulance services maintained low spending during the two years, while one trust reduced its reliance on private vehicles.
Shadow health minister Jamie Reed raised concerns over the figures and the "increasing use" of private ambulances during health questions in the House of Commons.
But his comments were branded "absolute nonsense" by public health minister Jane Ellison, who said that previous Labour government "occasionally deployed private ambulances too".
Brendan Kemp, regional organiser for the GMB union, questioned the hiring practices of ambulance trusts and their ability to keep staff.
"Who's checking the qualifications of the staff that man these vehicles?" he said on BBC London 94.9.
"Often staff that have been dismissed by London Ambulance Service for something, often they'll reappear working for a private contractor."
But Jason Killens, director of operations for the LAS, said every private contractor "is checked by us before we use them".
"Staff that leave the LAS for reasons of clinical safety would not be redeployed on those private contracts with us," he told BBC London 94.9.
Mr Killens said increasing demand each year "is adding pressure in the organisation" and conceded...

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The Archbishop of Canterbury is working with other Christian churches to agree on a fixed date for Easter.

Article: Mark Carney, speaking at the annual Jackson Hole convention in the US of central bankers and economists, said: "The prospect of sustained momentum in the UK economy and the gradual firming of underlying inflationary pressures will likely put the decision as to when to start the process of gradual monetary policy normalisation [or interest rate rises] into sharper relief at the turn of this year."
Which is another way of saying that he stands by the economic timetable for possibly raising rates that he set out in Lincoln Cathedral on 16 July.
He was giving his first response to the rout in shares on the Shanghai stock market over the past few days - a rout which for a couple of days infected stock markets all over the world.
Mr Carney said an interest rate rise was by no means inevitable in the opening months of 2016.
But he wanted to dampen speculation that "developments in China" have changed "the process of rate increases from limited and gradual to infinitesimal and inert".
What the Bank of England has to weigh up, he said, was whether domestic demand - spending by British consumers, investing by British investors - was strong enough to offset the potential for further "material slowing of growth in China and more broadly in non-Japan Asia", coupled with the deflationary impact of falling currencies of China and other emerging markets.
Although Wall Street and European stock markets have since recovered from last week's shocks, central bankers and economists are concerned that a pronounced deceleration of growth in China is having a big negative impact on other emerging market economies, and therefore on the prosperity of the world as a whole.
There has therefore been widespread speculation that the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England would delay the first rises in interest rates since the great crash of 2008 in the US and UK.
Mr Carney made clear that the decision on whether to increase the so-called Bank Rate - the interest rate set by the Bank of England - by 0.25% from 0.5% would depend on...

Summary: The decision on when to raise interest rates is still likely be at the top of the Bank of England's agenda at the turn of the year, the governor said this afternoon - even though he acknowledged that China's economic slowdown means the world's second biggest economy is likely to be a drag on growth in the whole world.
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Article: Their funding was cut by a quarter from 2011 to 2016, according to an investigation by the agency.
The government is committed to raising parks' budgets between now and 2020.
However, funding in 2020 will be as much as a fifth below 2010 levels, said the study, even before inflation is taken into account.
Among the parks affected were the Peak District, with annual funding cut from £8.3m to £6.3m, and the Lake District from £6.9m to £5.2m.
The investigation found that once inflation was taken into account cuts over the five years were even more severe, at 40% in real terms.
In 2015, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) pledged to increase the direct grant for National Parks by 1.72% a year for most parks up to 2020.
The figures exclude South Downs National Park which did not become fully operational until April 2011.
The park saw funding fall from £11.4m in 2011-12 to £9.8m in the last financial year.
The Yorkshire Dales will see a bigger boost in its grant in the next two years as a result of the extension of the park area by almost a quarter in 2016.
The Campaign for National Parks said that since 2010, the Norfolk Broads had closed three out of six information centres, Dartmoor had reduced staff by 35% and various parks had cut bus services transporting people to the attractions.
Chief executive Fiona Howie said the charity welcomed the government's desire for more people to benefit from National Parks.
"If we want the parks to inspire current and future generations we need to make sure they receive the resources necessary for them to be maintained and, ideally, enhanced," she said.
A Defra spokeswoman said: "National Parks are treasured landscapes and an important part of our country's identity, attracting 90 million visitors and generating £4bn a year.
"We are committed to helping them thrive, which is why we have protected their budgets to 2020, committing over £350m for English National Parks, AONBs (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) and public forests."
National Parks in...

Summary: National Parks in England have lost millions of pounds of government funding in the past five years, says the Press Association news agency.
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Article: The ancient reptiles are preserved in "superb detail" down to scales of skin, the tip of a tongue and tiny claws.
Two of the fossils are related to modern-day chameleons and geckos, revealing how features such as sticky toe-pads evolved.
The lizards inhabited tropical forests in what is now Myanmar during the Mid-Cretaceous Period.
Researchers in the US have published their assessment of the specimens in the journal Science Advances.
"The fossilised amber provides a view into a lost world, revealing that the tropics of the Mid-Cretaceous contained a diverse lizard fauna," Dr Edward Stanley of the Florida Museum of Natural History told BBC News.
Some of the lizards are representatives of modern groups such as geckos, while others have no modern equivalent and eventually died out.
One of the fossils appears to be a transitional form between the "standard" lizard form and chameleons, said Dr Stanley.
"This 'missing-link' is roughly 80 million years older than the next oldest chameleon fossil, and shows that features like the chameleon's projectile tongue was present deep in its ancestry," he added.
"But its strange fused toes (adaptations for climbing along branches) evolved later."
The amber fossils were obtained by private collectors and were acquired by museums in the US. They have now been collated and studied for the first time.
"They provide details of external morphology, which is something that is pretty rare to find," said Juan Diego Daza, of Sam Houston State University in Texas, who led the research.
"These fossils represent most of the diversity of lizards with a superb amount of detail."
Soft tissues and internal organs - as well as bones - can persist in amber for millions of years.
"We can pretty much see how the animals looked when they were alive," explained Prof Daza.
"They provide a really nice snapshot of the past. To me it is like going back in time and doing a lizard collecting trip when we can see what these animals looked like."
Some of the smaller specimens are whole lizards but others...

Summary: Lizards locked in amber for 99 million years give a glimpse of a "lost world", say scientists.
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Article: The party will devote its opposition day debate in the Commons to the issue, having accused the prime minister of failing to show leadership.
David Cameron has said the UK will take thousands more refugees from Syrian camps.
He has also pledged an additional Â£100m in aid.
On Saturday, Scottish first minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon confirmed Â£1m in Scottish government funding to co-ordinate Scotland's practical response to the humanitarian crisis
She has urged Mr Cameron to "do more" to help those in need.
A leading member of the Scottish Catholic Church also called for action, arguing that the UK needed to be "generous in providing a safe haven" for refugees seeking to enter Europe.
The Archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia, criticised the "mean-spirited and unhelpful" approach Britain had adopted so far.
In an article in the Herald newspaper, he said the Conservative leader "appeared to offer no hope to those who have already reached Europe".
He wrote: "In my view the refugees crisis is a test, not of political shrewdness, but of common humanity. What is happening in the Mediterranean, Calais and other access points is an affront to human dignity."
The archbishop's comments came after Ms Sturgeon hosted an emergency summit in Edinburgh on Friday involving the Scottish Refugee Council, council leaders, religious groups and opposition politicians to discuss what could be done.
The Scottish government has agreed to set up a taskforce to co-ordinate the country's response to the crisis, with Â£1m of funding being provided to support its work.
The first minister said Scotland should accept 1,000 people as a "starting point" for further help, and council leaders across the country have signalled a willingness to shelter refugees.
SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson said the prime minister "has failed to show any leadership on the refugee crisis".
"He must attend this parliamentary debate and show that he is serious about taking action and moving beyond what, to date, has been a slow and wholly...

Summary: The SNP has confirmed it will use an opportunity on Wednesday to hold the UK government to account over its stance on the refugee crisis.
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Article: Peter Horrocks is calling for part-time higher education to be made a much higher priority.
There has been a 37% decline in UK part-time students in the past five years, Mr Horrocks says.
The OU head says he wants universities, employers and the government to "break down barriers" for part-time study.
Mr Horrocks, who was formerly the director of the BBC World Service, is using his inaugural speech as vice-chancellor to highlight worries about the sharp fall in part-time students.
When tuition fees were increased in England's universities, applications fell across the higher education sector.
But while applications for full-time undergraduate courses bounced back, applications for part-time courses and from mature students have not recovered.
"Last year, there were almost 370,000 people studying for an undergraduate degree on a part-time basis in the UK. Five years ago, there were more than 580,000. That's a decline of 37% in just five years and 200,000 life opportunities that have been lost," Mr Horrocks will say.
"I think each of those lost opportunities is a tragedy. A tragedy for those individual lives. A tragedy for their families. But also a tragedy for our wider society and economy."
Speaking on the 46th anniversary of the Open University receiving its royal charter, Mr Horrocks will warn of the loss of potential economic benefits from a flexible way of improving people's skills.
"Part-time higher education is just too valuable - to society, to the economy and to those citizens who should have equal access to that opportunity to study," he will say.
And he warns of the need to get more attention paid to part-time education, a type of learning in which the Open University specialises.
There have been warnings that the much greater political attention paid to the numbers of full-time applications has overshadowed the decline in part-time students.
A study last year by the Higher Education Funding Council for England examined why part-time student numbers were falling when applications for full-time...

Summary: The fall in part-time students in the UK means lost opportunities for individuals and the economy, the new head of the Open University warns.
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Article: Justin Welby made the announcement after a meeting of primates from the Anglican Communion in Canterbury.
In the UK, an act of Parliament passed in 1928 allowed for Easter Sunday to be fixed on the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April.
However, this has never been activated and Easter has remained variable, determined by the moon's cycle.
Easter is the most important Christian festival, as it celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ following his death by crucifixion on Good Friday.
The archbishop said he was in talks with Pope Francis, Coptic leader Pope Tawadros, and the leader of the Orthodox church Patriarch Bartholomew.
Mr Welby said he hoped the change would happen "in between five and 10 years time".
"I would love to see it before I retired", he said, although he warned the first attempt to make such a change was in the 10th Century.
An Anglican source told the BBC there had been 15 attempts to agree a common date since then.
Easter is on the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon following the spring equinox, meaning it can be celebrated on a Sunday between 22 March and 25 April.
But the Orthodox church follows the Julian calendar, hence has later Easter celebrations compared with those of Western Christianity.
In 1990, the Vatican approved a proposal for a fixed date, which was subject to agreement with other Christian churches and governments. It has not yet been reached.

Summary:


Girls are being invited to audition to join Gloucester Cathedral's Choir for the first time in its 477 year history.

Article: The footage revealed that the clever primates habitually make special water-dipping sticks - chewing the end of the stick to turn it into a soft, water-absorbing brush.
Primate researchers examined the "dipping sticks" and concluded they were made specifically for drinking.
The findings are reported in the American Journal of Primatology.
Lead researcher Juan Lapuente, from the Comoe Chimpanzee Conservation Project, in Ivory Coast, explained that using similar brush-tipped sticks to dip into bees' nests for honey was common in chimpanzee populations across Africa.
"But the use of brush-tipped sticks to dip for water is completely new and had never been described before," he told BBC News.
"These chimps use especially long brush tips that they make specifically for water - much longer than those used for honey."
The researchers tested the chimps' drinking sticks in an "absorption experiment", which showed that the particularly long brush-tips provided an advantage.
"The longer the brush, the more water they collect," said Mr Lapuente.
"This technology allows Comoe chimpanzees to obtain water from extremely narrow and deep tree holes that only they  - and no other animal - can exploit, which [gives] them a superb adaptive advantage to survive in this dry and unpredictable environment."
This suggests that this particular population of chimpanzees has what the researchers call a "drinking culture" - a custom shared throughout this group of making these special water-dipping sticks to help them through the dry season.
The population belongs to the Western Chimpanzee sub-species, now critically endangered.
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Summary: Researchers have used camera traps to film tool-use that is unique to chimpanzees in Ivory Coast.
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Article: Meeting in secret and banned from using mobile phones or electronic recording devices, the 124 members will propose candidates, vote to create a shortlist and pick a winner.
A member of the voting committee will call the winner. If they do not want the job, the orchestra will reconvene.
Sir Simon said two years ago he would leave when his contract ended in 2018.
He will join the London Symphony Orchestra as its music director.
The Berlin Philharmonic, founded in 1882, has had three chief conductors over the past six decades:
Among the possible successors are:

Summary: The Berlin Philharmonic orchestra is electing a chief conductor and artistic director to succeed Sir Simon Rattle.
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Article: An old chicken farm by the A3 at Thursley next to the Devil's Punch Bowl was used as a construction site for the Hindhead Tunnel which opened in 2011.
Highways England has now said it is a "useful location" for a salt storage depot.
Neighbours fear "horrendous" noise pollution and said officials promised to return the site to agricultural use.
Contractor Kier Highways has applied to build a "winter maintenance" facility to be used by 38-tonne delivery lorries up to 10 times a day.
Tony Kelly, who lives 50m away, said cyclists, horse-riders and walkers use a public bridleway outside the gates.
He told BBC Surrey: "It's unsafe, somebody is going to get hurt, walkers, young kids. It's just the wrong place to have this kind of access.
"Is it really worth impacting an area of outstanding natural beauty and causing distress to the villagers of Thursley when (Highways England) has a compound less than 10 miles away?"
In a statement, Highways England said: "We used Hindhead Hill Farm for our site compound while we were building the Hindhead Tunnel and have honoured our commitment to return it to agricultural use after the project was completed in 2011.
"We need a winter maintenance depot to help keep the A3 operating safely during severe weather. We think this farmyard could be a useful location for a barn, which is why we are taking forward this planning application."

Summary: Highways officials have been accused of "breaking a promise" over land at a beauty spot in Surrey.
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Article: Ms Villiers said she would be speaking to all the Northern Ireland political party leaders over the "coming days".
She said that failure to find a solution to the dispute would mean there was no "workable budget".
Ms Villiers said this would have an impact on Troubles legacy issues.
"It is crucial that the executive is able to fulfil what it promises to do under the Stormont House Agreement, after all the party that has caused the latest impasse, Sinn FÃ©in, were the ones that were most vocally in favour of the Stormont House Agreement (SHA)," she told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster.
"It is time for them to sit round the table with the other parties to make sure the dispute around the implementation of the welfare provision is resolved.
"Otherwise the executive doesn't have a workable budget.
"The package provided under the SHA amounts to around Â£2bn in extra spending power and that's a considerable and generous extra financial support.
"There isn't additional funding on top of that but one of the benefits of pressing ahead with the obligations the executive undertook under the SHA is that they get access to that financial package.
"If this latest impasse isn't resolved then obviously that financial package is jeopardised and I think even more worryingly the progress on the past and dealing with the legacy of the past and improving outcomes for victims and survivors that is all in jeopardy as well which I think would be deeply regrettable."
Ms Villiers also rejected claims that the government's pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act would be a "flagrant breach" of the Good Friday Agreement.
Scrapping the act and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights was a Conservative election manifesto pledge.
The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) said such a move would "significantly roll back" Northern Ireland's peace settlement.
"I just don't believe that for a moment and I don't believe that the CAJ have got grounds for that assertion," Ms Villiers said.
"We are committed to protecting the...

Summary: Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers has said it is crucial that the issue of welfare reform is resolved or the executive is likely to become "increasingly dysfunctional".
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Article: Farmer Rob Morgan from Three Crosses won the competition to provide the tree - a Nordman fir - for the pillared state dining room.
His family have been in sheep and cattle farming for five generations and started planting trees in 1996.
"It's like winning supreme champion at the Royal Welsh Show", said Mr Morgan.
The Gower farmer was runner-up from around 300 entrants in the British Christmas Tree Growers Association competition in October.
Mr Morgan told BBC Wales he was "immensely proud" to be chosen and was looking forward to meeting Prime Minister David Cameron at the unveiling of the 12ft (3.6m) tree inside 10 Downing Street on Monday.
"I'm a fifth generation farmer here - these fields have produced livestock over the years," he said.
"I changed the trend of the farm to plant Christmas trees - I hope I'll have made my all my forefathers proud by creating something like this in a different business."
Mr Morgan said he now had around 320,000 trees but was a much smaller operation than many of his rivals, who would have had millions of trees to choose from.
He said success in producing a prize-winning tree was down to "shape and height, all in proportion, a fairly natural look" - and taking good care of them over a growing period of at least ten years.
"Every tree is nurtured from a seedling ...  you can't just plant a tree and watch it grow," he added.
Source: British Christmas Tree Growers Association

Summary: A fir tree grown on Gower has been unveiled as one of 10 Downing Street's two official Christmas trees.
###
Article: The choir was established by Henry VIII in 1539 and is currently made up of 20 boys and 12 adults.
The Dean of Gloucester said including girl choristers would be an "exciting new chapter" in the choir's history.
The aim is to find youngsters from local schools and a range of backgrounds who may not have considered singing in a cathedral choir before.
Adrian Partington, director of music at Gloucester Cathedral, said the aim is to "discover" some very talented girls.
New recruits will play a full part in the cathedral's musical worship, beginning with rehearsals in September before singing at evensong each Monday from October as well as at Christmas and Easter services.
The dean, the Very Reverend Stephen Lake, said: "This will ensure that young girls and boys will be lifting their voices in song at Gloucester Cathedral for many years to come."
The cathedral is hosting a "come and sing" open day on 9 April with girls and boys aged between seven and 12 invited to experience singing in the cathedral.
Auditions for girls will be held on 23 April.

Summary:


The bedroom where the Duke of Wellington died at Walmer Castle has been recreated to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

Article: Fewer international journalists come here nowadays, she tells me. There is less interest now that the city is no longer murder capital of the world.
Back in 2011, Honduras had a murder rate of 86.5 per 100,000 people, according to the National University's Violence Observatory.
The country's industrial capital, San Pedro Sula, was the worst-hit.
But by 2015, the national murder rate had decreased to 60 per 100,000. Still not low, but quite a drop.
At the same time, neighbouring El Salvador has been climbing the ladder of violence.
Its national murder rate last year was closer to 100 per 100,000 people. El Salvador is currently the most deadly country outside a war zone.
Ms Cruz points out how much has changed in the past couple of years. Security cameras have been installed on street corners across San Pedro Sula.
More than 2,000 in the past few months.
"The Honduran government has real political will to clean up," she tells me.
"To heal the wounds of the violence, the statistics and deaths through drug trafficking and organised crime."
Ms Cruz says funding from the United States has helped too; programmes that have helped bring the violence down.
Latin America makes up just 8% of the world's population but accounts for nearly a third of all murders.
How did Central America in particular get so bad?
A combination of organised crime and weak institutions has played a huge part, as well as regional instability.
"We've practically got two generations who've grown up in an environment of ideological warfare," says Ramon Renaud, a political analyst who explains that even though Honduras - unlike many of its neighbours - escaped civil war, violence has made its mark.
"The violence in Honduras doesn't have its roots in social issues or a class war. It's more about the bridge that drug-trafficking has formed in Honduras and the Northern Triangle of Guatemala and El Salvador.
"Previous governments have not taken the right decisions to tackle this problem head on. So what happens? It's infiltrated and rooted itself in...

Summary: The first person I meet when I land in San Pedro Sula, in north-western Honduras, is local journalist Ingrid Cruz who gives me a tour of her city.
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Article: John Burke stole money from the 83-year-old from Warrington, Cheshire, over five years, using the cash to buy a Mercedes and a new kitchen.
Burke, 74, of Teal Close in Altrincham, admitted fraud by abuse of position.
He was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
Burke befriended the woman and gained her trust between 2007 and 2012, persuading her to give him cheques, Greater Manchester Police said.
He promised she would see good returns on her investment, despite not being a registered accountant or qualified to give financial advice.
Burke was arrested in January 2015 after a family solicitor became concerned about a lack of paperwork and interest payments from the victim's purported investments.
An investigation then found he had stolen £160,000 and prepared a homemade will, which the victim had signed, appointing him as sole executor.
As well as the car and kitchen, Burke had spent most of the money on loans to another company, paying off his own debts, loaning money to a friend and other living expenses.
By 2014, the woman had been repaid just over £25,500 from the accounts held by Burke.
Det Con Laura Watson said Burke was a "callous fraudster" who had "gained and then obliterated" the trust of a "vulnerable" woman.
She added: "This is a sad case where an elderly woman has lost her savings and has been left extremely upset by what has happened."

Summary: A "callous fraudster" who conned an elderly woman out of £160,000 by convincing her he would invest her savings has been jailed.
###
Article: ITV have raised an official complaint about Metrolink's plans for a new route - linking central Manchester with the Trafford Centre - which would run past the soap's Media City set in Salford.
They said they would be happier with earlier plans which bypassed the area.
The proposals will be discussed during a public inquiry which begins in July.
A Coronation Street spokesman said managers were "obviously unaware of the plans" when the decision was made to move their studios to Salford.
He added: "Having carried out our own tests, we have serious concerns about the impact on the production of Coronation Street.
"We are in discussions with Transport for Greater Manchester (TFGM) to explore what mitigation it can offer to ensure we are able to continue filming uninterrupted.
"If there are no acceptable solutions, we have called for a return to the original route which we believe achieves the same transport objectives and has no impact on our production."
A TFGM spokesman said tram operators Metrolink and Coronation Street "have a strong track record of working together".
"Metrolink trams can be seen on the show's opening credits and featured in one of the Street's biggest storylines back in 2010," he said.
"We are committed to working with ITV, as we are with all stakeholders along the route, as we progress the scheme."

Summary: Coronation Street bosses have objected to a planned expansion of Greater Manchester's tram network because they fear the noise could disrupt filming.
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Article: Party leaders were out and about from the Borders to Stornoway as they highlighted their education policies with two weeks to go until May's election.
Nicola Sturgeon said raising educational attainment should be the next government's "number one priority" while campaigning in Dumfries.
The SNP leader said if re-elected as first minister, she would seek to give parents and teachers a greater say over key decisions in schools.
Ms Sturgeon said she wanted every child in Scotland to have "the benefit of a world-class education".
She said: "The most significant investments the SNP will make in the next term will be in our young people. From the earliest years until adulthood, improving Scotland's education system should be the number one priority of the next Scottish government."
Kezia Dugdale challenged Ms Sturgeon to match her pledge to protect schools, colleges and universities from cuts.
Campaigning in Stornoway, the Scottish Labour leader said the SNP manifesto had not committed to above-inflation increases in the education budget.
She said: "In her manifesto yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon offered protection for the NHS budget, but not for education.
"This is not a technical detail - if the SNP leader does not make this commitment in simple terms, it means she plans to cut education spending in real terms."
Ruth Davidson said there would be "more money in the system" for education under her plans.
Visiting a nursery in Edinburgh, the Scottish Conservative leader said ending the council tax freeze would allow local authorities to spend more on schools.
She also said any increases in the devolved budget as a result of rising education spending in England should be allocated to Scottish education.
The Tories want to free up extra cash for further and higher education by charging university graduates a contribution towards the cost of their tuition.
Willie Rennie called for the "immediate publication" of a national survey of schools attainment in Scotland, accusing the SNP of "jiggery-pokery".
The Scottish Lib Dem...

Summary: Scotland's politicians used their education and schools policies as a campaigning platform while out on the Holyrood election trail.
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Article: Robo Brain is designed to acquire a vast range of skills and knowledge from publicly available information sources such as YouTube.
The information it learns can then be accessed by robots around the world, helping them to perform everyday tasks.
A similar project is already being developed in Europe.
RoboEarth, described as a world wide web for robots, was demonstrated by researchers at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands in January.
Like Robo Brain, it aims to become a global repository for information that can be accessed by other robots.
But unlike RoboEarth, Robo Brain is able to build up its own understanding from the information it gets from the internet, rather than being programmed by humans.
The project is the result of a collaboration between the US universities of Cornell, Brown, Stanford and California, and has support from companies including Google and Microsoft.
Robo Brain began digesting information from the internet last month.
The researchers say it is sifting through about a billion images, 120,000 YouTube videos and 100 million how-to documents and appliance manuals.
A website for the project has been set up, detailing some of the knowledge it has acquired.
This includes the ability to recognise chairs, and understand how items such as microwaves and umbrellas are used.
The researchers say Robo Brain is not just capable of recognising objects, but of understanding how they are used, as well as more complex concepts - including human language and behaviour.
For example, it can recognise objects such as mugs, and understand what a mug is used for and how it is carried.
It is also able to recognise when someone is watching television, and knows not to get in the way.
Ashutosh Saxena, of Cornell University, one of the researchers behind the project, said the idea was to create a huge repository of information that robots could call on to perform tasks around the house or at work.
"If a robot encounters a situation it hasn't seen before, it can query Robo Brain in the cloud," he...

Summary: A super-intelligent robotic "brain" that can learn new skills by browsing millions of web pages has been developed by US researchers.
###
Article: The military hero who defeated Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 stayed at the Kent castle regularly from 1829 until 1852.
Copying a watercolour made shortly after his death, English Heritage has recreated the carpet and wallpaper in the room when he died aged  83.
A pair of his original Wellington boots and his death mask are also on show.
The bed and armchair he used are also on display as part of the new exhibition at the castle, which opens on Friday.
Displays in other rooms explore the career of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley and his "celebrity" status and state funeral, where more than 1.5m people lined the route.
Wellington's body lay in state at Walmer for two months while preparations for his funeral at St Paul's Cathedral were taking place.
"In 1852, the eyes of the world fell upon Walmer Castle as one of the most important figures of that century died within a small and modest room there," said senior curator Rowena Willard-Wright .
Walmer Castle, near Deal, was completed in 1540 as one of a chain of coastal artillery forts.
From 1708 it became the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a position occupied by Sir Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother as well as the Duke of Wellington.
The Lord Warden is now a ceremonial post but the holder was originally in charge of five port towns on England's south east coast.

Summary:


Apple has expanded its use of "two-step verification" checks to protect data stored online by its customers.

Article: Jackson held a 50% stake in Sony ATV Music Publishing as part of a business partnership that began in 1995.
The purchase will give Sony the rights to about three million songs, including works by the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift.
However, the deal does not include Jackson's master recordings.
His estate will maintain its holdings in Mijac Music, which owns all the songs written by Jackson, as well as EMI Music Publishing.
The agreement will reportedly help reduce the Jackson estate's remaining $250m debt and give the late musician's three children more financial flexibility.
The purchase of Jackson's stake also strengthens Sony's US entertainment business, which includes a film studio and music recording company.
"The entertainment businesses have long been a core part of Sony and are a key driver of our future growth," Kazuo Hirai, Sony's president and chief executive, said in a statement.
"These businesses will continue to contribute to our success for years to come."
John Branca and John McClain, co-executors of the Jackson estate, said the deal "further validates Michael's foresight and genius in investing in music publishing".
"His ATV catalogue, purchased in 1985 for a net acquisition cost of $41.5m, was the cornerstone of the joint venture and, as evidenced by the value of this transaction, is considered one of the smartest investments in music history."

Summary: Sony is paying Michael Jackson's estate $750m (£526m) for the late pop star's share of a joint music publishing venture that it does not already own.
###
Article: The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) spoke to 7,300 businesses in the manufacturing and services sectors, and found the percentage seeking to hire had grown by up to 9% in the last quarter.
But most also experienced "high levels of recruitment difficulties" which the BCC said was a risk to growth.
The government said it was working to deliver a highly-skilled workforce.
According to the trade group's quarterly economic survey, both manufacturing and services firms reported "solid growth" in their businesses in first three months of the year, with domestic and export sales up since the previous quarter.
It also found "confidence in turnover and profitability is improving", and that some 86% of manufacturing firms, up from 77% in the last quarter, and 59% of services companies, up from 53%, wanted to find new recruits.
But despite this, around 74% of manufacturing firms and 58% of services firms said they were struggling to find staff.
Suren Thiru, head of economics at the BCC, told the BBC: "The main issue is finding enough people with the right skills, and of course the workforce is aging.
"A lot firms are also finding their costs rising and this is deterring business investment, including investing in training their staff."
He said new upfront taxes were partly to blame, such as the recently introduced immigration skills charge and new National Living Wage.
But he also said that the rising cost of imported raw materials, resulting from the weakness of the pound since the Brexit vote, had squeezed business spending.
"Another emerging issue is whether firms can continue to get workers from overseas both in the run-up to, and after, Brexit," he added. "Industries like hospitality and construction are heavily dependent on EU workers."
A government spokesman told the BBC: "The UK economy has shown sustained momentum since the EU referendum and it's encouraging to see continued investment and growth in important sectors like manufacturing and services.
"We know that businesses need a highly-skilled workforce to...

Summary: UK firms want to recruit more workers but cannot find or afford the right staff, a survey has found.
###
Article: Researchers, writing in the journal Pediatrics, said the results would reassure parents whose babies fail to put on weight quickly.
And they warn against boosting the calorie intake of slow-growing babies as this may increase obesity.
Experts said that monitoring of weight gain in infants remained vital.
The researchers looked at data from 11,499 children who took part in a large study in Bristol in the 1990s.
It showed that 507 who were slow to gain weight in the first eight weeks of life recovered fairly quickly and had almost caught up by the age of two years.
Another group of 480 children who were slow to gain between eight weeks and nine months continued to put on weight slowly until they were seven years, but then had a spurt and caught up by the age of 13.
The different patterns of recovery between the two groups were likely due to different reasons for slow weight gain, the researchers said.
All the children were still lighter and shorter than their peers by the time they were teenagers, but within the normal range.
The findings highlight the importance of monitoring a baby's weight and height gain during the first few weeks and months, but not creating anxiety with parents of slow-growing babies, said study leader Prof Alan Emond from the University of Bristol.
"In the past, a lot of parents have been caused a lot of unnecessary anxiety by health professionals and this is a positive and reassuring message."
He said in many cases slow growth where children who are otherwise well do not follow the standard 'curve' is just because they are following their genetic potential.
"The second point for health professionals is that for a child that is well with no symptoms they can be relaxed and not worry about pushing calories because you can push them the other way."
Feeding habits in the second six months of life determine a child's future weight gain, so consuming too many calories in infancy can lead to obesity later on, he explained.
Dr Simon Newell, vice-president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and...

Summary: Babies who are slow to gain weight in the first months of their lives generally catch up to their peers by age 13, a large UK study shows.
###
Article: The deal
could make Barnes and Noble's Nook e-book reader available to millions of new customers, integrating it with the Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system.
The as-yet unnamed new company will be 82.4% owned by Barnes and Noble, with Microsoft getting a 17.6% stake.
It will house the bookseller's digital and college education book businesses.
But some industry commentators believe publishers will be "terrified" at the implications of the deal.
"This deal with Microsoft could be the saviour of its digital division but won't help the bricks and mortar business," Tim Coates, managing director of Bilbary, an e-book content provider, told the BBC. "In fact it could accelerate its decline.
"Publishers will be terrified of Barnes and Noble going digital only."
Barnes and Noble did announce at the beginning of the year that it was looking at splitting off its digital business. It said it does not yet know whether it will float the new company.
End to hostilities
The Nook e-reader was launched in 2009 to compete with Amazon's Kindle, allowing users to buy, download and read digital versions of books and magazines.
Microsoft sued Barnes and Noble in March last year, alleging the Nook, which runs on the Google Android operating system, infringed its patents.
The deal would seem to indicate an end to hostilities.
Traditonal bookseller chains have been struggling to cope with the e-book revolution and some have found it difficult to compete against Amazon's distribution of cut-price physical books.
The rise of the digital-only e-books and dedicated e-readers has only compounded their problems.
Borders closed last year, leaving Barnes and Noble as the only major US book chain, with just under 700 branches. It also has 641 specialist college bookshops.
Low production cost
Sales of e-books, with their low production and distribution costs, have now oustripped sales of print titles in many cases.
According to Juniper Research, sales of handheld e-readers have leapt from below 5 million in 2009 to nearly 25 million...

Summary: Microsoft has invested $300m (£185m) in a digital venture with US bookseller Barnes and Noble.
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Article: The pair will be at the helm when the show returns to BBC Two after an absence of more than 10 years.
The series will be filmed at a purpose-built fighting arena in Glasgow.
Mock the Week presenter and comedian O Briain said he was "thrilled", while Scanlon said she could not wait to "see the robots in all their metallic glory playfully destroying each other".
The six-part series will be shown on BBC Two with Jonathan Pearce commentating - as he did on the original series, fronted initially by Jeremy Clarkson and then Craig Charles.
O Briain said: "For too long, the schedules have cried out for a show in which dedicated amateurs, toiling day and night, handcraft sophisticated automatons built on the delicate interplay of hand-wired servo motors with custom-built circuit boards and fingertip motion control, just to see them get smashed to pieces by a dustbin carrying a massive hammer.
"It's war, and how I love it so."
The new Robot Wars will see inventors pitting their robots against each other, as well as having to avoid the more powerful house robots.
It promises technological advances from the original series, which ran on the BBC from 1998 to 2002, as well as state-of-the-art cameras showing the fights in detail.
Scanlon, who has worked for Irish broadcaster RTE, said: "I'm so excited to be joining such a legendary show that, after all this time, still manages to make people squeal with joy.
Pearce, a commentator on Match of the Day, said he was "delighted to be involved and back among the cut and thrust of the robot battles".
BBC Two channel editor Adam Barker said the presenters were "the perfect team to bring to life all the excitement and drama from the arena".
The series was last broadcast from 2003 to 2004, on Channel 5.

Summary: Dara O Briain is to host the new series of Robot Wars alongside Irish broadcaster Angela Scanlon.
###
Article: It follows suggestions third-party software had been used to steal intimate photos of celebrities - posted online last month - from iCloud.
The action should stop the tool from being able to infiltrate Apple's internet storage service if the safety measure is implemented.
However, the security facility remains an opt-in choice.
One expert suggested that Apple should instead make it the default option.
The process works by introducing an extra step after an account holder has typed their username and password into a device they have not used before.
They are also required to enter a four-digit code that is either texted to a trusted mobile phone number or sent via Apple's Find My iPhone app.
If the person does not enter the code, they are refused access to iCloud and are blocked from making an iTunes, iBooks, or App Store purchase.
They can, however, use a 14-character recovery key to regain access to the account in the event their trusted device is lost or stolen. They are told to keep this in a safe place to avoid being locked out.
While Apple had offered the two-step verification system in the past, until now it had not come into play when device owners used the firm's back-up service.
That meant that even if people had switched on the two-step feature to prevent cyber-thieves logging into their accounts with a stolen or guessed password, the attackers could still download a complete back-up of their data by using Elcomsoft's Phone Password Breaker.
Several hackers' forums contain discussions about using of pirated copies of Elcomsoft's "forensic" software, which is marketed as a tool for law enforcement agencies to access iCloud content without needing to be in possession of a suspect's iPhone or iPad.
ElmcomSoft's Moscow-based owner told the BBC earlier this month that he believed his software had been used in the recent hacks, as it was "the only one able to do that".
He has now acknowledged that Apple's changes guard against the technique he had used.
"I think that implementation is secure, and so there...

Summary:


Pope Francis will go to Africa for the first time this week, visiting a refugee camp, a slum and a mosque.

Article: The money, invested over three years, will be used to help health boards and councils provide support packages for people in their own homes.
Figures from last October showed a rise in number of patients waiting longer than four weeks to be discharged.
The health secretary said the funding would "ease pressure" on the system.
Delayed discharge, often referred to as bed-blocking, is when a patient is judged clinically ready to go home but continues to occupy a hospital bed while plans are made for appropriate follow-up care.
Health Secretary Shona Robison has said cutting the number of people stuck in hospital waiting for a care package to be arranged is an "absolute key priority" for the Scottish government.
The plans for the funding were announced on a visit to Cowan Court care home in Penicuik.
It is part of wider efforts to better integrate health and social services.
Meanwhile, Holyrood's presiding officer, Tricia Marwick, has accused Ms Robison of "gross discourtesy" for making a major policy announcement outside the Scottish parliament.
At the start of parliamentary business, Ms Marwick told MSPs she found the decision to reveal the funding at a Midlothian care home "unacceptable".
Ms Robison earlier told BBC Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that the funding was a three-year package.
She said: "It gives the integrated partnerships - health and social care coming together - a three-year ability to plan and develop services."
The health secretary said the fact that health and social services were being integrated showed there had been a "realisation that those systems had to be brought together if we were really going to be able to tackle delayed discharge in a sustainable way".
She said that health boards and councils would work together with an aim of discharging patients within 72 hours of clinical readiness.
Ms Robison said: "My plan is to get rid of delayed discharge, for it to become something of the past, and move to a 72-hour standard where people are discharged within 72 hours of being...

Summary: The issue of patients stuck waiting to be discharged from hospital is to be tackled with £100m of funding from the Scottish government.
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Article: Nathan Gill said he would quit as an MEP if elected as an AM, but with no UKIP member to replace him he said he did not want to force a by-election.
The party's ruling National Executive Committee had threatened him with expulsion if he did not resign from one of the posts by Sunday.
But on Monday it voted to put the matter to the membership.
UKIP chairman Paul Oakden told BBC Wales it was the right thing to do.
Mr Gill did not respond to the request to step down by the deadline so was briefly expelled from the party.
But the NEC voted to reinstate him and let members decide his fate.
Mr Oakden said: "The NEC believes, as I do, that members in Wales are the best people to make this decision.
"I will now decide how to do this fairly, cleanly and as soon as possible."

Summary: UKIP members in Wales will vote on whether their leader should be allowed to continue in his two elected roles.
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Article: Alan Scott had been given several lifetime bans from driving over 57 offences before he was caught behind the wheel in Perth in July.
The 30-year-old was jailed for eight months after admitting driving while disqualified for the fifth time.
Perth Sheriff Court heard Scott had "something akin to an addiction" to driving.
Scott had racked up 17 driving bans totalling 76 years, as well as a number of life bans, having convictions for 57 driving offences.
He was given a lifetime ban in 2007, and was jailed in June 2014 for driving while disqualified.
Police were informed that Scott was driving while disqualified, and caught him driving off from the Marmaris takeaway in Perth on 31 July.
Solicitor Kris Gilmartin said Scott "ought to know better", having been jailed for this offence before.
He said: "His position is that he feels some sort of release when he is driving. He has been disqualified for life and ought to accept he should go nowhere near any vehicle for any reason whatsoever."
Jailing Scott and banning him from the road for a further 10 years, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said: "You have driven a coach and horses through the prohibition banning you from driving for life."

Summary: A man who took a job as a delivery driver despite being banned from the road for life has been jailed.
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Article: Former Royal Navy test pilot Eric "Winkle" Brown will appear on the show on Friday 14 November.
Brown, 95, is the Navy Fleet Air Arm's most decorated pilot and holds the record for the most flight deck landings.
He is also thought to have flown more types of aircraft than anyone else.
Presenter Kirsty Young, who has presented Desert Island Discs since 2006, described Brown as "the perfect castaway" to celebrate the 3,000th edition.
"Talking to him about his remarkable, dare-devil life was like touching history. A charming and twinkly man," she said.
First broadcast on 29 January 1942, the programme was conceived and presented by playwright and novelist Roy Plomley, who each week asked a guest to choose eight songs, a book and luxury item for their imaginary stay on the island.
The "castaways" are then invited to discuss their lives and reasons for their choices.
Plomley presented the show until 1985. Michael Parkinson took over for two years and was followed by Sue Lawley (1988-2006).
The show's guests over 72 years have included Aung San Suu Kyi, Elton John, Nicole Kidman and Stephen Hawking.
Radio 4 controller Gwyneth Williams said: "We all love Desert Island Discs - and the incomparable Kirsty. What is thrilling for me is to see this Radio 4 jewel of a programme take on new life in the digital world.
"Listeners - and often young listeners - are discovering it and exploring the rich archive, so it brings Radio 4 to new audiences as people listen in different ways. Here's to the next 3,000 editions."

Summary: BBC Radio 4's long-running Desert Island Discs will feature a World War Two veteran for its 3,000th edition next week.
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Article: Formula 1's governing body the FIA has backtracked on an earlier ruling that allowed Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari to upgrade their engines but not Honda.
The move comes after Honda expressed its unhappiness about what it considered to be an unfair situation.
Honda will now be allowed to develop its brand new engine within limits explicitly laid out by the FIA.
Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari are allowed to change up to 48% of the engines they used in 2014 by the end of the 2015 season.
This is defined by a number of 'tokens', which are assigned to parts of the engine on the basis of their influence on performance.
Out of a total of 66 tokens, Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari can modify 32 through 2015.
Previously Honda had been barred from changing any of its engine after it was approved for competition on 28 February.
Friday's ruling will allow Honda to change a given amount of its engine calculated by the average of the number of tokens unused by the other manufacturers by the time of the first race in Australia on 16 March.
In the example given by FIA race director Charlie Whiting, and seen by BBC Sport, he writes: "If the three 2014 manufacturers have eight, seven and five unused tokens respectively at the start of the season, then the new manufacturer will be allowed to use six during the season (the average rounded down to the nearest whole number)".
Honda, which is the first new engine manufacturer to enter F1 for well over a decade, had been concerned that it was not being treated fairly.
Its senior management flew over from Japan to meet the FIA on Monday to express its concerns at the situation.
This followed the decision by the FIA to allow Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari to use their 32 development tokens over the course of the 2015 season, rather than by the originally intended approval date of 28 February.
That came after Ferrari, who had the worst engine in 2014, pointed out to the FIA that the rules did not clearly define when the modified engines for 2015 should be submitted for approval.
Whiting...

Summary: McLaren's new engine partner Honda has won its fight to be allowed to develop its engine during 2015.
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Article: He will make 19 speeches during his tour of Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic (CAR) and they will probably address these issues:
He is expected to focus on religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence at a time of rising political instability and extremism in much of the region.
Security is expected to be tight throughout the trip, as the faithful flock to see this popular Pope, who has previously said that Christians would be wrong to equate Islam with violence.
His first stop, Kenya, has seen some of the worst Islamist violence: Two years ago, gunmen from the Somali militant group al-Shabab massacred at least 67 people inside Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall.
In Uganda, his second stop, al-Shabab bombed sports bars in Kampala where fans were watching the 2010 football World Cup on TV.
Many think the third stop on his trip, the CAR, is too dangerous for him to visit.
The Pope's visit to the capital, Bangui, where many have died in violence between largely Muslim Seleka rebels and mainly Christian "anti-balaka" militias, is seen as his most dangerous yet - but potentially also one of his most fruitful as a peace-maker.
In short: He will probably urge Christians and Muslims to get along.
2. Poverty
This is a Pope who has been hailed as the champion of a church for the poor.
His emphasis on the developing world, and the example of simplicity he sets in his own life, will be welcomed in countries where corruption in public life is often seen as an issue.
His capacity to look beyond Europe and embrace the concerns of people around the world is also likely to endear him to the faithful, and to those of other faiths, as this Pope from the southern hemisphere offers a message of hope to the dispossessed, and the struggling.
In Kenya, 75% of the wealth is owned by around 1% of the population, so Pope Francis's message may well prove popular among many of the remaining 99%.
He is likely to criticise inequality and corruption and will visit Kenya's multi-ethnic Kangemi slum - home to around 100,000...

Summary:


The finance minister has said she cannot move the budget bill forward because of the inability of the Stormont parties to resolve the deadlock over welfare reform.

Article: The figure is down 1% on the equivalent number for last year which was a record high.
The drop across the UK as a whole is significantly greater.
The Scottish government noted that the number of 18-year-old applicants from deprived areas still went up.
However, the number of applicants from EU countries fell 5%, suggesting uncertainty surrounding Brexit may have deterred some people from applying to study in Scotland.
Universities Scotland noted the number of Scottish applications was down by about 2,000 but said this followed a record high last year and it did not see the fall as a cause for concern.
A spokeswoman said: "The appetite for university remains very high amongst Scots. This year's applications by the January deadline are still 13% up on just four years ago.
"The very modest levelling-off from last year's peak in applications will do little to take the pressure off places given the very high standard of applicants."
The number of applications from EU countries also fell by around 2,000. EU students who start courses this year will be entitled to free tuition on the same terms as Scottish applicants.
This is currently required under EU law and the Scottish government has confirmed it will ensure EU students who begin their courses this year will be entitled to free tuition until they graduate although the expectation is that the UK will have left the EU by then.
The number of applications from other parts of the UK and countries outside the EU - all of whom are charged tuition fees in one form or another - rose.
Scottish and EU students in effect compete against each other for the same free places - the drop in the number of applicants could make it slightly easier for some applicants to get in. Universities can decide for themselves how many paying students from the rest of the UK and countries outside the EU to let in.
Scottish government education minister Shirley-Anne Somerville said: "The initial UCAS applicant figures for 2017 show that, in the face of a general decline in applicants to...

Summary: The number of Scots applying to university has fallen slightly, according to the latest official figures from admissions service UCAS.
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Article: The government was forced to publish the unredacted report after a decision by data watchdog the Information Commissioner's Office.
Defra said the report was incomplete and "not analytically robust".
It added that the conclusions of the draft report "amount to unsubstantiated conjecture".
United Kingdom Onshore Oil and Gas (UKOOG), the industry lobby for the UK onshore oil and gas industry, said the report was "in danger of extrapolating the experiences of other jurisdictions that have different regulation, planning regimes and geologies."
The internal document - called 'Shale Gas: Rural Economy Impacts' - had several key sections obscured when it was published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) last summer in response to a request under freedom of information laws.
Energy and climate campaigner Daisy Sands of Greenpeace, which led the request, said: "It's a complete vindication of Lancashire County Council's decision to reject Cuadrilla's bid to frack in their region, and provides other councils with compelling reasons to do the same."
Defra has now been forced by the Information Commissioner's Office to publish the document in full.
It reveals that potential negative impacts of the controversial process of fracking had been redacted.
Among the deleted sections were suggestions that house prices could fall by up to 7% in close proximity to shale gas exploration sites, while rental prices in the area could be pushed up by people coming to work on the developments.
Properties located up to five miles from the fracking operation could face additional insurance costs to cover losses in case of explosion on the site, the study suggested.
While the redacted version of the report flagged up the job opportunities created by fracking, the unredacted version also sounds a note of caution, warning it was less clear how sustainable shale gas investments would be and if rural communities would be able to take advantage of them.
"New York state has just made its fracking ban permanent," said...

Summary: Fracking could reduce house prices, increase traffic and noise and damage the landscape in rural communities, according to a draft official report.
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Article: Warm temperatures are being experienced widely across Scotland, but so far they are still below the Scottish May record of 30.9C of five years ago.
By 14:00, the temperature was 27.2C in Aboyne in Aberdeenshire, 25C in Inverness and Aviemore in the Highlands and 24C in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
High temperatures have also been forecast for Friday when it could reach 29C.
The top May temperature was recorded in Inverailort in the Highlands.
BBC Scotland Weather said 27-28C was likely to be the hottest on Thursday, with the average expected to be between 13 and 16C.
Warm and dry weather has been a feature of May this year.
The previous month in Scotland was largely cold and wet with some snowfall.
May is traditionally seen as one of the best months for long spells of fine weather in Scotland.

Summary: All pictures via the BBC's Weather Watchers.
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Article: It was a stunning result for a party which had seen two previous administrations overthrown by a coup and a controversial court decision, and whose supporters had just the year before been involved in an occupation of Bangkok, which ended in bloodshed.
An essential part of Ms Yingluck's winning manifesto was a generous promise to rice farmers. That is at the heart of the legal case against her.
Under the new scheme the government was supposed to buy the entire rice crop, and pay 15,000 baht (£350; $450) per tonne, well above the 11,000 baht guaranteed by the previous government. It was wildly popular with farmers.
But economists and agricultural experts immediately questioned its viability. The price of 15,000 baht was significantly higher than the global rice price, and Thailand exports more of its crop than any other country - it was the world's number one rice exporter at the time.
Its principal rivals India and Vietnam, it was predicted, would simply increase their exports at Thailand's expense, offering a price much lower than the Thai government could, unless it was willing to incur huge losses. And there were many warnings that the scheme was vulnerable to corruption.
Six years later Ms Yingluck faces a possible 10-year prison sentence on charges of malfeasance, or dereliction of duty, over the rice scheme. She has not been charged with corruption, but with failing to prevent it, in her capacity as prime minister and as chair of the National Rice Policy Committee.
If convicted she could be permanently banned from politics - she has already been banned for five years after being impeached in 2015.
Unsurprisingly Ms Yingluck and her party have cried foul.
After all her government was overthrown, in 2014, by the same army officers who now run Thailand.
They justified their coup by the need to restore order, but had conspicuously failed to offer her support as she faced sustained protests in Bangkok, which had crippled her administration. The military is not seen as impartial, and it wields authoritarian...

Summary: Six years ago Yingluck Shinawatra, a novice who had only been in politics for two months, led the Pheu Thai party, founded and funded by her older brother Thaksin, to a resounding election victory.
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Article: The Electoral Office believe that turnout will be up on last year's figure which was 55%. Officials said their staff had been busy in all areas.
Two hundred and twenty-eight candidates are competing for 90 seats across 18 constituencies.
It is the second time the electorate had to choose a government in the space of 10 months.
Notices posted up at the entrance to polling stations at 21:00 GMT varied between a low of 46% in one district of Lagan Valley to a high of nearly 80% in one area of Mid Ulster.
The ballot boxes were taken to eight counting centres across Northern Ireland after the polls closed.
The count will get under way at 08:00 GMT on Friday with the final results not expected to be confirmed until Saturday afternoon.
The polls opened at 07:00 GMT on Thursday and closed at 22:00 GMT.
The leaders of Northern Ireland's five main parties got out early to cast their votes.
The 2017 Assembly Election was called after the resignation of former Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
This assembly election has seen one significant change from previous ones.
There will be a reduction in assembly members from 108 to 90.
Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies will return five MLAs each, not six as was the case beforehand.
The number of MLAs has been cut in order to reduce the cost of politics.
Forty-eight fewer candidates stood in this election than in May last year.
In Northern Ireland, the government must be run by Irish nationalists and unionists together.
When all of the 90 seats have been filled, the two biggest unionist and nationalist parties will get together to try to form a new government.
Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly use a form of proportional representation called the Single Transferable Vote (STV).
Voters rank candidates in numerical preference.
Candidates are then elected according to the share of the vote they receive. You can read an in-depth guide to the system here.
A total of 1,254,709 people were eligible to vote.
The BBC News NI website will carry the latest election results...

Summary: Polling stations have closed across Northern Ireland for the 2017 Assembly election.
###
Article: Arlene Foster was speaking after a meeting of the executive on Thursday afternoon.
She told the BBC there were no solutions on the table.
The Stormont parties failed to pass the Welfare Reform Bill on Tuesday.
Mrs Foster said failure to pass the legislation meant that there was a £600m hole in her budget.
She said she cannot move the budget bill required to give Stormont officials the legal authority to carry on spending money after the end of July.
The minister said she is seeking a meeting with the Treasury in London early next week to assess her options.
Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd said Stormont ministers should present a united front and seek a joint meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron.
However, both the Alliance Party and Ulster Unionist ministers said they were pessimistic about the chances of a resolution to the executive's difficulties.

Summary:


Disney has announced it will produce a sequel to its runaway hit Frozen, which last year became the highest-grossing animated film of all time.

Article: The government wants parents to agree their child maintenance agreements "amicably" or face a charge.
It said the changes were necessary as the old set-up was costly for taxpayers.
But a charity said the changes could force some parents into "unstable" arrangements.
Child maintenance is financial support that helps towards a child's living costs when its parents have separated.
If parents split, maintenance should be paid to the person who takes care of the child on a day-to-day basis.
Under the old system many single parents used the Child Support Agency (CSA) to sort out maintenance payments, but ministers announced last year the CSA would be abolished.
A government spokesman said the old CSA was using an IT system that was "totally inadequate and notoriously riddled with defects", and as such it was costing £74 million per annum to run in operating costs alone.
Source: Department for Work and Pensions
The spokesman added that the old maintenance system "took responsibility away from parents, encouraging conflict and hostility at huge expense to the taxpayer".
In an effort to improve the situation the new replacement "Child Maintenance Service" has been gradually rolled out, which the government said is designed to act as a backstop for parents having trouble.
This week more than 50,000 letters are being sent out by the Department for Work and Pensions to parents in England, Scotland and Wales who currently pay and receive child maintenance through the old CSA.
Ministers want to encourage people to come to voluntary arrangements but if that is not possible - and the new statutory service is used - then both parties will be charged.
Under the new rules if an amicable arrangement cannot be reached the paying parent - usually the father - will have a 20% fee added to the maintenance payment, while the receiving parent will pay 4% to get the money.
The charges will be introduced later this year, and all single parents will be charged an upfront fee of £20 for registering with the new service.
However, the chief...

Summary: Thousands of letters are to be sent to single parents in Britain informing them of changes to their child maintenance arrangements.
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Article: The timing on triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty means the UK looks set to leave the EU by summer 2019.
Mrs May told the Tory Party conference - her first as prime minister - the government would strike a deal with the EU as an "independent, sovereign" UK.
Voters had given their verdict "with emphatic clarity", she said, and ministers had to "get on with the job".
In a speech on the first day of the conference in Birmingham, she also gave details of a Great Repeal Bill which she said would end EU law's primacy in the UK.
She attacked those who "have still not accepted the result of the referendum", adding: "It is up to the government not to question, quibble or backslide on what we have been instructed to do, but to get on with the job."
She told delegates: "We are going to be a fully independent, sovereign country - a country that is no longer part of a political union with supranational institutions that can override national parliaments and courts.
"And that means we are going, once more, to have the freedom to make our own decisions on a whole host of different matters, from how we label our food to the way in which we choose to control immigration."
Mrs May said a "truly global Britain is possible, and it is in sight", adding: "We don't need - as I sometimes hear people say - to 'punch above our weight' because our weight is substantial enough already."
Reacting to Mrs May's comments about Article 50:
The PM, who had previously only said she would not trigger Article 50 this year, ended speculation about the government's timetable on BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning.
She said it would be done by "the first quarter of 2017", marking the start of a two-year exit process.
The process of leaving the EU would be "quite complex", she said, but added that she hoped there would now be "preparatory work" with the remaining EU members so that "once the trigger comes we will have a smoother process of negotiation".
She added: "It's not just important for the UK, but important for Europe as a...

Summary: The UK will begin the formal Brexit negotiation process by the end of March 2017, PM Theresa May has said.
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Article: Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found that one in four of those under the age of 30 is at risk of financial hardship.
Its report said the poverty faced by young adults contrasts with an improving picture for other age groups.
For those over the age of 65, poverty rates were found to have fallen by almost half.
Social Justice Secretary Alex Neil welcomed the report and called on businesses to follow the Scottish government in paying the living wage to get people out of poverty.
Labour's shadow Scotland secretary Margaret Curran said the report "has shown that the Tories have completely failed Scotland's young people".
The JRF report, Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion in Scotland, found a rising number of young people in poverty and persistently high levels of disadvantage in health, education and work.
JRF chief executive Julia Unwin said: "Falls in child and pensioner poverty over the past decade in Scotland show that poverty can be reduced.
"But sustained action must be taken to stop a lack of high-quality work, and a shortage of affordable homes from trapping a generation of young people in poverty.
"All of us in government and local government as well as employers, housing providers and the NHS, need a shared focus to alleviate the impacts of poverty across all age groups."
The key findings of the report include:
Dr Peter Kenway, director of the New Policy Institute and author of the report, added: "Organisations across Scotland, local councils, the NHS and businesses are accepting a responsibility for acting against poverty and are making plans accordingly.
"The challenge is to turn words into deeds. Involving people with direct experience of poverty themselves is vital to this."
The report recommends more encouragement for employers to pay the living wage; better training for people in low-paid work and a reduction in the use of sanctions against benefit claimants.
Labour's shadow Scotland secretary Margaret Curran said a Labour government "would invest Â£1bn for more opportunity...

Summary: Young adults in Scotland are the population group most likely to experience poverty, a report has said.
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Article: Ben Gwynne captured the sight on the moors above Skipton, North Yorkshire at about 19:40 GMT.
Lunar rainbows are formed when moonlight, rather than direct sunlight, is refracted by moisture in the atmosphere.
On Sunday, a Hunter's Moon - also known as a blood moon - lit up skies over the UK.
If you have a picture of the Hunter's moon you'd like to share, email us at england@bbc.co.uk, post it on Facebook or tweet it to @BBCEngland
Mr Gwynne had stopped to take some photos of the supermoon when he caught sight of the rare moonbow.
"We'd gone into the Dales to take pictures and stopped on the way back to photograph the moon over some trees," he said.
"I'd never seen one before and getting to photograph it was amazing."
UK's natural wonder
Guide: How can I see a moonbow?
You can see more pictures of England on our Pinterest board
According to National Geographic, the hunter's supermoon is the first of three giant moons that we will see over the next few months.
The next full moon on 14 November will also be the largest full moon in the 21st century so far.

Summary: A rare lunar rainbow - or moonbow - has been photographed in the skies over northern England.
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Article: The company demonstrated the device along side another new model, the lighter Gear 2 Neo.
Both have a heart rate sensor, a pedometer and various tools to measure exercise, sleep and stress levels.
The watches run on Tizen OS, a fledgling mobile operating system, rather than Google's Android software.
The move is being seen as part of a wider strategy from Samsung to move away from Google's platform and to lessen its reliance on the search giant's product.
Crucial to Tizen's longer-term success will be whether it can attract the same breadth and quality of apps compared to Apple's App Store and Google Play.
Currently there are offerings from the likes of CNN, Ebay, Evernote and Paypal available on Tizen, as well as some slightly clunky but nonetheless functional workarounds that allow Android apps to run on the platform.
At Barcelona's Mobile World Congress on Monday night, Samsung is expected to launch the latest iteration of its flagship smartphone range, presumably to be called the Galaxy S5.
The current model, the S4, has proved to be a hugely popular product for the South Korean firm, and is widely considered the only real rival to Apple's iPhone.
The Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches are companion devices to the Galaxy smartphones, although last year's model was poorly received by both critics and consumers.
Samsung will hope a number of enhancements will turn things around.
Firstly, the battery life of the new devices is considerably better. Samsung promises two to three days of power - much more than the charge-every-night issue suffered by the company's first effort.
The Gear 2's camera is now situated on the main body of the device, taking it away from the strap and removing some of the rigid bulk of the Galaxy Gear.
The Gear 2 Neo does not have a camera, but is 13g lighter as a result.
Samsung has heralded both devices as offering "freedom and style" - but despite bringing in extra design expertise, the watch still looks very much a technology product, rather than a fashion accessory.

Summary: Samsung has shown off the Gear 2, its second attempt at releasing a smartwatch that has mass appeal with consumers.
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Article: The Oscar-winning picture made $1.27bn (Â£857m) at box offices worldwide, and led to record sales of related merchandise.
Frozen 2 will reunite the team behind the original feature, including director Chris Buck, writer Jennifer Lee and producer Peter Del Vecho.
The studio did not name a release date.
Shares in parent company Walt Disney were up by almost 4% following the news.
Toy-maker Mattel, which currently owns the license to sell Frozen products, saw its shares rise by almost 5%.
Last month, Disney credited the continuing success of toys based on Frozen for an "incredibly strong quarter".
Net income rose 19% to $2.2bn (Â£1.5bn) in the three-month period, with revenues up 9% to $13.4bn - both figures better than forecast.
In December, Frozen became iTunes' biggest-selling movie of all time, while the soundtrack sold more than any other album in the US in 2014.
Additionally, DVD and Blu-ray sales of the animation broke the three million mark on the first day of their release.

Summary: