“Nicola Sturgeon resigns as first minister of Scotland…”

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announces shock resignation

Scotland’s longest-serving first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has announced her intention to resign, saying that part of serving in politics is knowing when it is time to make way for someone else.

Speaking at a news conference at her official residence in Edinburgh, Bute House, Sturgeon said she wrestled with the decision, but that the pressure of the job was relentless and that she is a human being as well as a politician.

Sturgeon, who has led the country’s devolved government and the Scottish National Party for eight years, has faced months of controversy over a law that makes it simpler for people to change their gender on official documents.

The decision caught political observers by surprise, despite the ongoing controversy over the gender recognition measure. She had vowed to take the British government to court over its decision to block the law and argued that the Conservative UK government was making a “profound mistake” by vetoing the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

But the measure was only one controversy in a career where Sturgeon has been noted for rarely putting a foot wrong.

She had been lauded for her response, for example, to the COVID-19 pandemic, where she won praise for her sober, straight-talking abilities.

That catapulted the idea of Scottish independence from the United Kingdom — the long-held dream of Sturgeon’s nationalist government — back up the political agenda.

Scotland is part of the UK but, like Wales and Northern Ireland, has its own semi-autonomous government with broad powers over areas including health care.

NATO urged to boost ammunition production as war in Ukraine enters critical stage

As Russia increases its attacks in Ukraine’s south and east, Ukrainian soldiers defending the frontline say they urgently need more ammunition and planes to win the war. 

While at times Russia has reportedly been firing a staggering 20,000 artillery shells a day, according to some estimates, Ukraine is firing between 6,000 and 7,000.

Ukraine renewed its appeal on Tuesday to Western countries for fighter jets, as NATO defence ministers take part in a two-day Ramstein-format meeting in Brussels, but no decision has been made. 

Ukraine Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov was in Brussels to press NATO members on the issue, holding up an image of a warplane when asked what military aid his country is seeking. 

However, Ukraine’s allies pledged more weapons, ammunition and tanks as the war with Russia reaches a critical stage, with both sides expected to launch an offensive in the spring when the weather improves.

Lufthansa: IT failure causes cancellations and delays for thousands of passengers

Thousands of air passengers are currently stranded across Europe. An IT fault at Germany’s flagship carrier Lufthansa has caused flight delays and disruption on all the airlines they own.

“There is a group-wide IT system failure,” a Lufthansa spokesperson told Reuters news agency.

Photos and videos from several airports across Germany show chaos, with thousands of stranded passengers awaiting news. On Twitter, some passengers in London reported having to manually check in. 

All domestic flights have been cancelled and international flights have also been affected by the outage. 

Lufthansa Group owns Lufthansa as well as six other airlines including Eurowings, Brussels Airlines, and Swiss and Edelweiss Air.

The airline said it is working intensively to solve the problem.

It also said that domestic passengers within Germany affected by the outage should book a train ticket and apply for a refund on Lufthansa’s website. 

Lufthansa has blamed the IT failure on construction work in the Frankfurt area. 

The IT system failure comes two days ahead of planned strikes at seven German airports which are expected to lead to major disruptions.

The European Union adds Russia to its blacklist of tax havens 

The European Union has added Russia to its blacklist of tax havens after the country amended its business legislation in a way the bloc considers detrimental and unfair.

“The Russian Federation has not fulfilled its commitment to amend its harmful preferential tax regime,” economic and finance ministers from the 27 member states said after meeting on Tuesday.

The breakdown in dialogue between the EU and Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine prevented the tax frictions from being resolved, ministers noted.

“With Russia, obviously, currently there is no engagement,” said Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission’s executive vice-president.

“One cannot clearly say that Russia is cooperating on tax matters.”

Swedish Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson, whose country holds the EU Council’s rotating presidency, said the decision was not based on a “political reason,” despite the particular timing, but rather on a technical assessment that proved Russia had “failed” to address the harmful elements of its legislation.

Those elements relate to the income from intellectual property and so-called “grandfathering provisions,” which allows business entities to follow old rules instead of new ones.

Also on Tuesday, ministers added the British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica and the Marshall Islands to the blacklist, bringing the total to 16 jurisdictions.

Slowdown in UK inflation eases pressure on Bank of England

British inflation fell by more than expected in January and there were signs of cooling price pressure in parts of the economy watched closely by the Bank of England, adding to signs that further hefty interest rate hikes are unlikely.

Despite the fall, inflation remains higher than in the United States or euro zone, and many forecasters think it will stay higher as a result of Britain’s acute labour shortages and other constraints on the economy such as Brexit.

Sterling fell against the U.S. dollar and the euro after the data. British government bond prices rose sharply as investors ruled out the chance that the BoE will need to raise interest rates in March by another 0.5 percentage points. Most expect a quarter-of-a-percentage-point raise next month.

Earlier this month, the BoE said it saw signs that the surge in consumer prices had turned a corner and it suggested it was close to ending its run of interest rate hikes.

“The Bank of England will be pleased to see that services inflation is starting to subside. They will also be reassured by the latest data indicating that private sector wage growth is easing,” said Jake Finney, an economist at PwC.

Data on Tuesday showed strong annual increases in wages but slowing growth over the most recent months.

Finney said he still expected the BoE to raise interest rates by another 0.25 percentage points in March, as do most economists polled by Reuters.

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