An Italian navy officer has been arrested after being caught in the act of handing secret documents to a Russian military official, police say. The men were stopped by military police on suspicion of serious crimes relating to espionage and state security. The Russian, who reportedly worked at the Russian embassy in Italy, is expected to be expelled. Russia’s ambassador Sergey Razov has been summoned to the foreign ministry in Rome.

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said two Russian officials “involved in this very serious affair” were being expelled with immediate effect. The Kremlin said it hoped the “very positive and constructive nature of Russian-Italian relations will continue” but Russia’s foreign ministry is expected to respond to the expulsions.(BBC)…[+]

The cherry blossom season, Japan’s traditional sign of spring, has peaked at the earliest date since records began 1,200 years ago, research shows. The 2021 season in the city of Kyoto peaked on 26 March, according to data collected by Osaka University. Increasingly early flowerings in recent decades are likely to be as a result of climate change, scientists say. The records from Kyoto go back to 812 AD in imperial court documents and diaries. The city has experienced an unusually warm spring this year. The previous record there was set in 1409, when the season reached its peak on 27 March. The blossoms, “sakura” in Japanese, last only for a few days, but their appearance is tremendously important, both economically and culturally. Friends and family get together, and Instagram is awash with pictures.(BBC)…[+]

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has replaced six cabinet ministers as his popularity plummets over his handling of the pandemic. Brazil’s health service is reported to be on the brink of collapse as the country battles a deadly second wave. It is the biggest reshuffle since Mr Bolsonaro came to power two years ago. He has consistently opposed quarantine measures, arguing that the damage to the economy would be worse than the effects of the virus itself. He also told Brazilians to “stop whining” about the coronavirus pandemic. More than 300,000 people have died of Covid-19 in Brazil, with more than 12 million confirmed cases.

The Italian government is to introduce a mandatory five-day quarantine for EU travellers amid a third wave of infections in a number of countries. Previously, only arrivals from outside the bloc had to self-isolate. Tuesday’s decision comes as new rules requiring all air passengers to Germany to provide a negative coronavirus test come into effect. Germany remains under a partial lockdown but coronavirus cases continue to rise.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government did not consult key ministries and states while imposing the world’s strictest coronavirus lockdown a year ago, according to an investigation by the BBC’s Jugal Purohit and Arjun Parmar. The BBC filed more than 240 right to information applications with various Indian government departments – health, finance, disaster management – to find out if and how much they were consulted ahead of the lockdown.

The responses revealed that there is no evidence of key experts or government departments being consulted prior to the lockdown being implemented. The home ministry, which played a key role in executing the lockdown, repeatedly rejected our request for information. It said the answers we sought were related to “strategic and economic interest and it also contains information which is held under fiduciary relationship and thus exempt from disclosure of information under section 8(1)(a) and (e) of Right to Information Act, 2005.” The government has also denied a BBC request for a statement explaining why concerned departments were not consulted ahead of time.(BBC)…[+]

A French drug maker has been found guilty of aggravated deceit and involuntary manslaughter over a weight loss pill at the centre of a major health scandal. The drug Mediator was developed for use in overweight diabetics and was on the market for 33 years. It was eventually withdrawn in 2009 over concerns it could cause serious heart problems. Hundreds of people are believed to have died as a result of the drug. Around five million people were prescribed the medicine over the course of three decades, despite various warnings over its side effects. Thousands of plaintiffs were involved in the trial, which began in 2019. Drug maker Servier had denied any knowledge of Mediator’s side effects but a court on Monday issued it with a fine of €2.7m (£2.3m, $3.2m).

Eritrea will withdraw troops from Ethiopia almost five months after a conflict started in the Tigray region, Ethiopia’s prime minister has said. The soldiers are there to back Ethiopia’s government as it fought a group that challenged the central government’s rule. Thousands have died in the conflict, human rights groups say.

Eritrea has not confirmed the troop withdrawal from some areas across the border in Ethiopia. The presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia was especially controversial because the two countries had fought a bitter border war, which was only officially ended after Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018 – a move which earned him the Nobel Peace prize the following year. The conflict began in November after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) captured military bases in the northern Ethiopian region. The TPLF had been the ruling party in the area but fell out with Mr Abiy over the future of Ethiopia’s ethnically based federal system and their role in government.(BBC)…[+]

France has accused the UK of “blackmail” over its handling of coronavirus vaccine exports, amid continuing tensions over supply chains. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was asked whether the EU had been “scammed” by sending millions of doses to the UK while its own rollout stuttered. “We need to build a co-operative relationship,” he told France Info radio. “But we cannot deal this way.” France has called for the EU to implement tougher export controls. Vaccine rollouts have started sluggishly across the bloc, and the EU has blamed pharmaceutical companies – primarily AstraZeneca – for not delivering its promised doses. AstraZeneca has denied that it is failing to honour its contract. The EU is expecting to receive about 30 million AstraZeneca doses by the end of March, less than a third of what it was hoping for.(BBC)…[+]