The US and Russia fail to reach a Ukraine accord – Russia claims to have downed a US spy drone – The historic expansion of the Panama Canal is back on track – A legendary British political figure is dead – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

US Secretary of State John Kerry emerged from a six-hour meeting in London with his Russian counter Sergei Lavrov, with no progress on the downward spiral in Ukraine’s Crimea region.  The two men talked past each other, with Lavrov informing Kerry that Russian president Vladimir Putin is not going to back down.  Russian troops continue to occupy Crimea, and will hold a “referendum” on Sunday on whether the ethnic Russian majority wants to stay with Ukraine and its new pro-EU government, or break off and join the Russian Federation.

The Russians hacked and captured a US unmanned drone over Crimea, according to the state arms and technology group “Rostec”.  The MQ-5B drone fell “almost intact into the hands of self-defense forces” added Rostec, which said it had manufactured the equipment used to down the aircraft, but did not specify who was operating it.  Anonymous US officials deny the Russian claim.

The Panama Canal expansion project will go forward.  The Canal authority and the Spanish-led consortium of construction companies have agreed on a plan to split more than US$1.6 Billion in cost overruns.  The plan now is to accelerate construction to make up for lost time, and get the third lock open by the end of 2015 so that freighters that are three-times the current Panamax size ships can move through from Pacific to Atlantic and vice versa.

Sri Lankan police arrested a leading Tamil human rights activist.  Jeyakumari Balendran and her 13-year old daughter were arrested on suspicion of harboring a criminal. Balendran's son disappeared in police custody after the Tamil Tigers lost the civil war in 2009, and she’s been campaigning for the families of other missing Tamils ever since.

West Bromwich-Albion striker Nicolas Anelka says via Twitter he is leaving the team, after being presented with tough conditions for returning to work from his suspension for making an anti-Semitic gesture on the pitch last year.  He claims he is doing so to “preserve his integrity”.  West Brom officials are disappointed he whinged over social media, and consider him fired.

The Nigerian military says it repelled a suspected Boko Haram guerillas attack on an army barracks in the northeast, where the Islamic separatists are trying to carve out a new state based on a pretty medieval interpretation of Sharia law.  Witnesses report 15 bodies lying near the scene of the battle.  Boko Haram has slaughtered more than 500 so far this year.

Police arrested a man suspected of defacing hundreds of copies of “The Diary of Anne Frank” in libraries in and around Tokyo.  The suspect, described as a 36-year old unemployed male, reportedly confessed but the motive is still unclear.  More than 300 books were damaged, and the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo quickly donated books to replace them.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will not revise Japan’s apology for the imperial army’s use of sex slaves, known as “comfort women”, during World War II.  His government had earlier announced it would reinvestigate the matter, an announcement some see as to placate extreme right-wingers in the Diet.  But it drew loud condemnation from South Korea and China, and the ire of Japan’s besties in Washington.

Also in Tokyo, workers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant protested in Tokyo, saying the plant’s operator forced them to work in unsafe conditions for too little pay.

Dancehall and Reggae star Vibes Kartel and three codefendants were convicted of murdering a friend, Clive “Lizard” Williams, in a fight over a missing gun.  Cops in riot gear protected the courthouse where the verdict came down after a 65-day trial, the longest criminal case in Jamaican history.  Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, is one of the biggest names in Jamaican dancehall reggae.  His music is often criticized for glorifying violence.  He’ll be sentenced on 27 March,

The founder of the US-based frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry has been sentenced to seven years in prison for beating a homeless man to a pulp with a tyre iron.  Prosecutors said that if witnesses hadn’t intervened on the Hollywood street in 2011, it would have been a murder case.

Tony Benn Dies

UK Labour Party firebrand Tony Benn is dead at age 88.  He resisted the tide when the other Tony, Prime Minister Blair, took the party to the center.  Friends and allies are crediting him with far-sighted warnings against war, and globalization and unaccountable corporate power (called the “Thatcher-Reagan neo-liberal agenda has failed us terribly, and destroyed millions of lives” by his friend former London Mayor Ken Livingstone). 

“Some of his ideas around democracy and accountability are very fashionable now, and indeed not just in the Labour Party but in the Conservative Party too,” said Steve Richards, political columnist for the Independent newspaper.

During his 60-year career in public service he didn’t just stand up for the Left, he influenced everything from British postage stamp design to the development of the Concorde.