TV News LIES

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday, Aug. 18 that Kyiv and Brussels are working on finalizing a Drone Deal, following talks on bilateral defense and diplomatic cooperation.

Zelensky detailed the meeting in a statement on Telegram, saying that he held discussions with Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Prévot, covering nearly all areas of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between the two countries.

“I expect that we will be able to implement what we discussed, and that protection against Russian strikes will increase,” Zelensky said, adding that “Ukraine is also ready to share its experience and expertise and to support partners who have stood with us since the start of the war.”

Zelensky praised Belgium for allocating more than €1.1 billion (roughly $1.3 billion) in support to Ukraine already disbursed this year, along with Belgium’s backing of Ukraine’s path toward European Union membership.

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The Palestinian American whose home in the occupied West Bank has been besieged by Israeli settlers for over a week traveled to his property on Monday to join other family members who have been defending it.

The standoff, in the village of Qusra, has seen groups of settlers surround several Palestinian houses and prevent residents from leaving. The United States has condemned the siege and the Israeli military has deployed troops it says are there to maintain order.

The siege of Palestinian homes by Israeli settlers comes as violence in the West Bank has soared in recent months. The settlers, emboldened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government, have ramped up attacks on Palestinian towns and villages, harassing residents and setting homes, mosques and fields ablaze.

Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 87 Palestinians so far this year, according to Palestinian health officials. Palestinians have killed three Israelis, including two who were killed during clashes in the West Bank village of Tell last month.

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President Trump’s decision to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea is being met with derision from Democrats and fears from other allies who are already worried over the president’s past willingness to toss aside longtime defense commitments.

Trump said it was too late to fully cancel what he called expensive and provocative joint exercises known as Ulchi Freedom Shield but directed the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the drills on Sunday — just a day before they were set to start.

The war games are a major part of a mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and South Korea, meant to protect Seoul from possible North Korean aggression. 

The announcement, made in a Truth Social post, further added insult to injury by excoriating Seoul for refusing to help the U.S. in its war against Iran. 

This is not the first time Trump has criticized the exercise. In 2018, he said he was suspending the drills after meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

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Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia Sunday, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv's largest aerial attacks of the war.

Russia's Ministry of Defense said that it had destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Some 600 drones were detected headed toward the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with a third of those destroyed over the Moscow region itself.

An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, local Gov. Andrey Vorobyov said. He also confirmed that a Ukrainian attack had sparked a blaze at a Wildberries warehouse in the town of Podolsk.

A drone attack targeted three towns in Russia's southwestern Rostov region, killing five people, local Gov. Yury Slyusar said. The attack, with more than 150 drones, damaged several homes and a railway station and sparked a forest fire.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has branded Britain an "Islamic republic", attacking a country whose governments have armed, protected and assisted Israel throughout its genocide in Gaza and wider regional wars.

During an interview broadcast by Army Radio, Netanyahu complained that the favourable British coverage Israel received during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war had disappeared.

The 1967 war began with Israel’s surprise attack on Egypt and ended with Israeli forces seizing the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights.

“Try to find that now in Britain, which you could call the Islamic republic of Britain,” Netanyahu said.

When the host responded, “Isn’t all of Europe like that?”, Netanyahu replied: “Yes, but you know, someone said the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic republic of Britain.”

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A German court this month decided that comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is protected legal speech, highlighting a growing conflict between constitutional protections and Berlin’s political commitment to Tel Aviv. 

The regional court acquitted a woman convicted in a lower court over social media posts comparing Israel’s conduct in Gaza with the methods of the Nazi regime.

In recent years, Germany’s support for Israel has increasingly shaped policing, administrative decisions and criminal prosecutions.

After 7 October 2023, Germany banned Hamas and Samidoun, a Palestinian advocacy group, while increasingly using laws originally aimed at preventing a Nazi revival to crack down on criticism of Israel.

The recent court ruling, which found that the woman’s use of Nazi imagery in the context of Israel’s conduct in Gaza constituted protected political expression, rejected the prominent notion within German circles that such analogies are inherently criminal in nature.

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