🌏 Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Jailed, The Taliban Sends Afghan Girls Home From High Schools and More

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Russia’s main opposition leader and president Vladimir Putin’s biggest critic Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to an additional nine years in a high security prison after a court found him guilty of fraud.

Navalny is currently already serving a two-year-eight-month sentence after he was arrested upon returning to Moscow from Germany in January last year.

In February last year, he was found guilty of violating a suspended sentence for alleged embezzlement and sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, which he had already served 10 months of under house arrest.

On Tuesday Mar. 22, he was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to another nine years in prison and ordered to pay 1.2 million ruble (US$11,500). Prosecutors said he had embezzled money from supporters of his anti-corruption foundation.

Despite being in prison, Navalny has been writing letters from jail for his lawyers to post on social media calling on Russians to protest Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It is every person’s duty to fight against this war,” Navalny said in a courtroom speech last week, the New York Times reported.

More On Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

🇺🇦 Ukrainian museum staff are racing against time to save their valuable artworks from the war.

Also Happening Around The World

🇨🇳 A China Eastern Airline plane crashed in the mountains of southern China, killing all 132 people on board.

🇸🇩 Protests have broken out in Sudan after a 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped by security forces involved in dispersing anti-government protesters.

The Taliban has banned girls from going back to high school after it promised all students would be able to return to school.

The announcement came on Tuesday (Mar. 22) night, and several students, parents, and teachers were unaware of restrictions until they arrived to class on Wednesday morning, the first day of the academic year.

They were then told to return home.

The Taliban has justified the closure of secondary education by saying they must review school uniforms for girls.

A Ministry of Education spokesperson said that it will compile a comprehensive plan regarding girls’ uniforms “in accordance with Islamic law and Afghan culture and traditions, as well as the ruling of the Islamic Emirate” before officially informing girls schools and high schools.

Girl students in high school have been unable to return to school since the Taliban took over in August last year.

Three years after a terrorist attacked two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and killed 51 people, a survivor who was shot nine times retraced the gunman’s 360 kilometer path to reclaim the journey for peace.

Over two weeks, 47-year-old Temel Atacocugu cycled and walked the gunman’s 360-kilometer drive from Dunedin to the two mosques in Christchurch, arriving on Tuesday Mar. 15, the third anniversary of the attack.

“I wanted to fix this damage,” Atacocugu said. “Because three years ago, he started that journey with hate.”

During the attack in 2019, Atacocugu was shot in the mouth, left arm and both legs.

He often felt the pain from his injuries during his walk and ride, which he began on Mar. 1, braving the changing weather, blisters and a blood infection that left him in the hospital for two nights.

Along his journey, he received an outpouring of support, with different people joining him to walk, cycle and stop for coffee, RNZ reported.

On Tuesday, joined by about 50 supporters, Atacocugu entered Al Noor Mosque at 1:40 pm – the exact time he was shot during Friday prayers in 2019.

He also raised NZ$64,000 (US$43,000) for three charities benefitting children.

“All New Zealand is one,” Atacocugu said. “Terrorist is nil.”

The Australian white supremacist who committed the attack was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in 2020.

More Good News This Week

🇳🇿 A few months ago, a couple living in Waikato, New Zealand, dug up what may have been the world’s biggest potato growing in their garden, only to find out it was a “tuber of a gourd.”

🇸🇪 A Swedish company is training crows to pick up cigarette butts to help clean up street litter.

🇵🇭 And finally, watch as police officers in Singapore stop traffic in front of the presidential palace to help a group of otters to cross the busy road.

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