In brief: Tough Putin critic dismisses theft charge as baseless
Moscow – Russian authorities charged Alexei Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, with theft on Tuesday, threatening him with a 10-year prison sentence as the Kremlin ramps up a crackdown on dissent. Navalny rejected the charges as baseless.
The 36-year-old anti-corruption crusader and popular blogger has played a key role in rallying Russia’s young Internet generation against Putin’s rule. Over the winter, the lawyer spearheaded a series of rallies in Moscow that drew up to 100,000 people to the streets ahead of the March vote that handed Putin a third presidential term.
The State Investigative Committee said Tuesday that it suspects Navalny of organizing a scheme to steal assets from a state timber company totaling about half a million dollars. He was ordered not to leave Moscow as the committee pursues an investigation against him. In Russia, authorities file initial charges to open a criminal probe, long before reaching the trial stage.
Defense minister orders plan to draft Israeli Orthodox Jews
Jerusalem – In a step that could intensify a major rift among Israelis, the defense minister on Tuesday ordered the army to prepare for a universal draft of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.
Many in the insular and rapidly growing community say they would rather go to jail than comply with an end to the decades-long draft exemptions that have caused increasing outrage in the country.
Ehud Barak gave defense officials a month to craft a plan to put the new draft procedure into practice, trying to buy time in a last-ditch effort to find an agreed solution. His order came just hours before the expiration of a law that has granted tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews exemptions from military duty and followed a Supreme Court ruling against extending that arrangement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 2 TV Tuesday night that the army would begin widening its list of recruits immediately.
Irish author Maeve Binchy, ‘a national treasure,’ dies at 72
Dublin – Bestselling Irish author Maeve Binchy, one of Ireland’s most popular writers who sold more than 40 million books worldwide, has died in Dublin after a brief illness, Irish media and national leaders said. She was 72.
She was best known for her depictions of human relationships and their crises, mainly in the small towns of Ireland but also in London. Author of “Circle of Friends” and “Tara Road,” Binchy wrote 16 novels, four collections of short stories, a play and a novella.
“We have lost a national treasure,” Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said.
The Irish Times, her former employer, told the Associated Press it had spoken to Binchy’s family and said the acclaimed author had died in a Dublin hospital on Monday.