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Italian parliament bar clamps down on bill-dodging –
The bar inside Italy’s lower house of parliament has deployed “receipt inspectors” to ensure that MPs pay their bills, it’s reported. The establishment at Palazzo Montecitorio, home to the Chamber of Deputies, has lost a significant chunk of revenue because some politicians have been failing to settle up, Corriere della Sera reports. The company that took over running the bar last year noticed that takings were 30% lower than expected. Staff have now been told that customers must pay for their order and show their receipt to the barista before actually being served any refreshments – something that is done in some Italian bars. They’ll be backed up by a team of receipt-checkers, whose job will involve being “discreet, but inflexible”, observing patrons and intervening if anyone fails to pay up, the paper says. [BBC]
Palazzo Montecitorio, Rome

Spain’s Princess Cristina denies role in tax fraud at ‘trusted’ husband’s company –
Princess Cristina of Spain denied any involvement in tax fraud on Thursday when she gave evidence in the first criminal trial held in the country with members of the royal family among the accused. King Felipe’s sister said that she had been completely unaware of the business operations at a company she owned jointly with her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin, who is accused of a series of crimes including embezzlement of public funds and money laundering. Asked by her defence lawyer why she became the co-proprietor of the company called Aizoon, Princess Cristina it had been Mr Urdangarin’s idea and she had agreed: “Out of trust. He asked me and I accepted.” The 50-year-old princess, who has been stripped of her aristocratic title of Duchess of Palma by King Felipe, said that Aizoon existed “to channel my husband’s income”. “He was the administrator and he took the decisions”, she added. The public prosecutor has requested a 19.5-year jail sentence for Mr Urdangarin, who, along with his business partner, is accused of diverting €4.5 million of public money from a non-profit organisation to private accounts. [Daily Telegraph]
Infanta Cristina Duchess of Palma de Mallorca

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• DHKP/C insurgency in Turkey
  • Istanbul police, after a standoff, shoot and kill two women from the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front suspected of ambushing a riot police station in the Bayrampaşa neighborhood on the city’sEuropean side. Two policemen were injured. (The Washington Post)

Disasters and accidents

• A nationwide power outage hits Syria. The Syrian government says shortly before the power outage, militants had hit part of a power-generating station with rockets in the city of Hama, though it hasn’t said whether this damage was linked to the nationwide outage. Also, it isn’t clear how many people are affected by the power outage as many cities outside of the government’s control already weren’t being served by the government-run power grid. (CNN)
• At least 31 people are killed in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe, when a bus, with a blown front tire, switches lanes and slams into an oncoming public transport minibus. (AP ia Fox News)

International relations

• North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
  • South Korea claims that North Korea has launched several short range missiles into the Sea of Japan. (Yonhap) (AFP via Yahoo! News)
  • North Korean leader Kim Jong Un orders nuclear weapons to be ready for use at any time. (Sky News)
• Taliban insurgency
  • Sartaj Aziz, a top foreign affairs adviser for Pakistan, publicly admits for the first time that the Afghan Taliban‘s leadership is living in the country and that Islamabad has “considerable influence” over them.(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014–present)
  • The United States extends sanctions against Russia over its military intervention in Ukraine. (ABC News)
• Jordan–United States relations
  • The United States delivers eight UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to Jordan to help the Jordanian Armed Forces defend the country from the threat of ISIL. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• Honduran indigenous environmental activist Berta Cáceres is assassinated in her home in La Esperanza in Intibucá Department. (Telesur)
• A riot at a prison in Guyana‘s capital Georgetown leaves at least 16 people dead. The riot began when inmates angered by a search that led to the confiscation of mobile phones set fires in one part of the prison. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• New Zealand flag debate
  • Voting begins for the second stage of New Zealand‘s flag referendum with the current flag going up against the design chosen on the first stage of the referendum. Voting will end on March 23 with polling showing the current flag is favoured to win. (BBC) (CNN)
• 2014–16 Venezuelan protests
  • Violence breaks out in in the Venezuelan city of San Cristóbal between students and police after a supreme court ruling curtailed the power of the opposition-controlled National Assembly to review government appointments of Supreme Court justices. (BBC)
• Republican Party presidential debates, 2016
  • The eleventh Republican Party presidential debate of the election cycle takes place at the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit, Michigan, airing live on Fox News Channel. The debate features four Republican candidates, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich. Ben Carson was also invited to the debate but he said that he would not be attending. An estimated 16.9 million viewers watched the debate, 5.5 million of them adults aged 25-54, making it the most watched debate since December 2015. (Fox News) (CBS Local) (Hollywood Reporter)

Science and technology

• Astronomers use the Hubble Space Telescope to discover GN-z11, the remotest galaxy yet discovered. (ABC News)

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