🌏 Russia Reacts To Death Of Main Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny, Updates From Gaza And More

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• 🌏 This Week’s Top Stories
• 👩 Women To Know
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Here’s what’s been happening around the world.

Russia’s main opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison, according to Russian state media.

The 47-year-old, who was Russian president Vladimir Putin’s biggest critic, was serving a 19-year sentence in a remote Arctic prison for “promoting extremism”.

Prison authorities said Navalny died on Friday Feb. 16 after he collapsed and lost consciousness following a morning walk.

Navalny had previously experienced at least two attempted poisoning attacks, with one military-grade nerve poison attack, which was a suspected Kremlin attack, nearly killing him in 2020.

His death was confirmed by his team on Saturday Feb. 17.

Navalny’s team and family said that Russian authorities had refused to return his body back to them and pressured his mother into holding a secret burial.

Russian authorities finally returned his body back to his family eight days after his death.

More On Alexei Navalny’s Death

• Within hours of hearing the news of his reported death, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya took to the stage at a security conference in Munich, Germany, giving a powerful speech demanding justice.
• A clip from a documentary of Navalny telling people not to give up in the event he is killed then started going viral.
• Yulia then shared a video on Navalny’s social media, saying that she will continue his fight for a free Russia.
• Meanwhile, Russian police arrested more than 400 people for mourning Navalny and laying flowers at memorials.

Updates On War On Gaza

• Israel has started bombing Rafah in southern Gaza where 1.4 million Palestinians are trapped with nowhere to go.
• After pushing Palestinians to Rafah, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu then said there’s “plenty of areas” for them to evacuate.
• This Top EU minister then slammed Netanyahu’s comments and Israel’s allies, asking “Evacuate where? To the moon?”
• The airstrikes on Rafah killed a seven-year-old girl in Gaza, leaving her body hanging on a wall, in an image that has horrified the world.
• As Israeli forces started attacking south Gaza’s largest hospital, where thousands of Palestinian civilians are sheltering, a Palestinian woman doctor ran into gunfire to save an injured man and people say she’s a real life superhero.
• A journalist has shared photos of Gaza before and after Israel’s attacks and the difference is devastating.
• Israel’s government has formally approved Netanyahu’s plan to reject creating a Palestinian state.
• Elsewhere around the world, Ireland women’s basketball team refused to shake hands with Israel’s team before their game.
• And Brazil’s president compared Israel’s war on Gaza to Hitler’s genocide of Jewish people in WWII.
• In a rare move, Prince William called for an end to war in Gaza, saying that “too many people have been killed”.
• But for the third time, The US blocked a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

ICJ Begins Hearing On Israel’s Occupation Of Palestine

Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has begun a hearing on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since 1967.

The hearing comes after the UN General Assembly passed a resolution in December 2022 to ask the court to issue a legal opinion on the occupation and is separate from South Africa’s case against Israel committing genocide in Gaza since Oct. 7.

Here are some highlights:

• Palestine’s foreign minister gave a powerful speech calling for an end to Israel’s occupation.
• Palestine’s UN ambassador then broke down as he called for a “future where Palestinian children are treated as children, not as a demographic threat”.
• Kuwait’s representative also broke down talking about Palestinians’ suffering under Israel’s occupation.
• China, meanwhile, said Palestinians using armed force to resist Israel’s occupation should not be considered “terrorism”.

Also Happening Around The World

🇨🇩 The DR Congo football team protested the silence over the massacre in their country before their Africa cup match.

🇸🇱 Three teen girls have died in Sierra Leone after they underwent female genital mutilation or FGM.

🇵🇪A Peruvian police officer caught a drug dealer by dressing up as a teddy bear with a valentine’s note.

This Indian woman chess player called out sexism in chess and people are praising her bravery.

In an Instagram post after a tournament, 18-year-old Divya Deshmukh spoke out about how women chess players often don’t get equal respect as male players.

Deshmukh said that she has been told that the audience doesn’t care about the games she’s playing but are focused on things like her appearance and accent instead.

She said that even though she’s only 18, she has already faced a lot of judgement and hatred for things that are irrelevant to her games, pointing out this is not the case for male players.

Deshmukh said she has been told to ignore the comments and focus on her games, but she didn’t want to stay quiet about the issue.

Her post inspired other women chess players to come forward to share their own stories of discrimination and harassment.

Women represent just 10% of licensed chess players worldwide as of 2020, according to The International Chess Federation.

More Women You Should Know About

🇬🇧 A man tried to mansplain golf to a UK professional woman golf player and women can’t believe she had the patience to stand him.

In a landmark moment, Greece has become the first Orthodox Christian country to legalize same-sex marriage.

A majority of lawmakers voted in favor of a bill on Thursday, February 15 after decades of campaigning by LGBTQ rights activists.

Same-sex partnerships have been legal in Greece since 2015, but now same-sex couples can get married, as well as legally adopt children.

However, the law still bans gay couples from becoming parents through surrogacy, which is allowed for women who can’t have children due to medical reasons.

Greece’s prime minister, who had pushed for the law, called it a milestone for human rights, saying it will end a serious inequality in the country.

Greece has now become the 16th EU country and the first in southeastern Europe to achieve marriage equality.

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