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Three Bulgarians were found guilty of spying for Russia as part of a cell that plotted to kidnap and kill targets in Europe, under a fellow Bulgarian who lived in a former guest house in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. The court heard that the spies reported to Austrian-born Jan Marsalek, who sought refuge in Moscow after the collapse in 2020 of Wirecard, the German payments company he helped run. Walgreens Boots Alliance, the US owner of Boots the chemist, was taken over by a private equity firm, Sycamore Partners. The government introduced the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will enable councils to seize land. The cost of a first-class stamp will go up 5p to £1.70 on 7 April.
Reform UK suspended Rupert Lowe MP and referred him to police, alleging he had made ‘threats of physical violence’ against party chairman Zia Yusuf; Mr Lowe said that this was ‘no surprise’ a day after he had criticised Nigel Farage, the party leader. Nicola Sturgeon, the former Scottish first minister, will not stand in the Holyrood elections next year. Derek Hatton, 77, a former Liverpool councillor, and Joe Anderson, 67, a former mayor of the city, were charged with bribery and misconduct relating to council contracts. Rats welcomed a strike by dustmen in Birmingham.
The 600ft US-flagged Stena Immaculate tanker, carrying jet fuel for the US military, was hit by the 460ft Portuguese-flagged Solong container ship in the North Sea, ten miles off Holderness, Yorkshire; both vessels caught fire. Humberside police arrested the Russian captain of the Solong, from which a man was lost. A Kuwaiti migrant in his sixties died after a cardiac arrest while trying to cross the Channel in a small boat; in the seven days to 9 March, 1,171 others succeeded. A couple who reported to police a migrant who had travelled hidden on the back of their motorhome all the way from France to Essex were given a £1,500 penalty by the Home Office. A man with a Palestinian flag but no shoes climbed 50ft up the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament and clung to a finial for 16 hours before being brought down in a cherry picker and arrested. Manchester United announced plans to build a 100,000-seat stadium estimated to cost £2 billion.
Abroad
Ukraine agreed to an immediate 30-day ceasefire after Mike Waltz, the White House National Security Adviser, and Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, held talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. President Volodymyr Zelensky was not in the delegation but visited the ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. ‘I think we’re doing very well with Russia,’ President Donald Trump of America told reporters before the talks. ‘But right now they’re bombing the hell out of Ukraine.’ More Russian strikes followed American withdrawal of intelligence to Ukraine, which was restored on the first day of the Jeddah talks. In the meantime Ukraine attacked Moscow with hundreds of drones.
Israel ordered Gaza’s electricity supply to be cut off, in an attempt to get Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages. France, Germany, Italy and Britain welcomed a plan by Arab leaders for the reconstruction of Gaza that would cost £41 billion and avoid displacing Palestinians. Britain unfroze the assets of Syria’s central bank in ‘support for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition process’. Syrian security forces were reported to have killed hundreds of civilians belonging to the Alawite religious minority on the coast; three Christian patriarchs in Syria also made a joint protest at the killing of Christians, including women and children.
Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, was elected party leader of the Liberals in Canada, to succeed Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister, though he is not an MP. Ontario announced a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity sent to America as Mr Trump threatened to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium to 50 per cent; both sides then changed their minds. Eurostar services between Paris and London were disrupted when an unexploded second world war bomb was found at Saint-Denis. The Constitutional Court of Romania confirmed a ban on the far-right populist Calin Georgescu from standing in May’s presidential election. Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, was arrested relating to deaths in his ‘war on drugs’. The centre-right Demokraatit party won elections in Greenland. After 400 years, Denmark’s postal service is to end all letter deliveries at the end of this year. CSH
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