TV News LIES

Syria is holding parliamentary elections on Sunday forthe first time since the fall of the country's longtime autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, who was unseated in a rebel offensive in December.

Under the 50-year rule of the Assad dynasty, Syria held regular elections in which all Syrian citizens could vote. But in practice, the Assad-led Baath Party always dominated the parliament, and the votes were widely regarded as sham elections.

Outside election analysts said the only truly competitive part of the process came before election day — with the internal primary system in the Baath Party, when party members jockeyed for positions on the list.

The elections to be held on Sunday, however, will not be a fully democratic process either. Rather, most of the People's Assembly seats will be voted on by electoral colleges in each district, while one-third of the seats will be directly appointed by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

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For the second anniversary of launching mobilization in the Russian Federation, the Chronicles research project and the Extreme Scan group conducted a survey among Russians which proved that almost half of them support the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine.

According to the poll results, 49% of Russians surveyed would support the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and the start of peace talks without achieving the military goals set by Moscow, while 33% of respondents opposed such a decision. Also, 63% of survey participants were in favor of concluding a peace treaty with mutual concessions between Russia and Ukraine in the coming year.

As many as 32% of respondents said they were ready to participate in the war against Ukraine by order of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, while 30% expressed the opposite intention. 29% of Russians were in favor of a new wave of mobilization.

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Rescue efforts are under way on Mount Everest after a snowstorm trapped nearly 1,000 people in campsites on the eastern side of the mountain, according to Chinese state media.

Hundreds of trekkers stranded by a blizzard near the eastern face of the mountain in Tibet were guided to safety by rescuers on Sunday, as unusually heavy precipitation including rain pummelled the Himalayas.

As of Sunday, 350 people had reached the small township of Qudang, while contact with the remaining 200-plus trekkers had been made, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

Visitors to the remote valley of Karma, which leads to the eastern Kangshung face of Everest, were in the hundreds this week, taking advantage of an eight-day National Day holiday in China.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that an independent Palestinian state is “not even a realistic thing right now.”

“It’s not even possible. That’s not even a realistic thing right now,” Rubio said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Because who would govern that Palestinian state, Hamas?”

The Trump administration’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza includes a pathway to Palestinian statehood under the governance of a reformed Palestinian Authority (PA). Hamas is currently in control of Gaza, while the PA controls parts of the West Bank. 

Last month, the governments of Canada, Australia, France and the United Kingdom formally recognized a Palestinian state, a symbolic gesture. Of the 193 United Nations countries, 157 recognize a Palestinian state. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the measure, while President Trump said at the United Nations General Assembly last month that recognizing Palestinian statehood “rewards” Hamas.

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Japan's governing party on Saturday elected former Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a hard-line ultra-conservative and China hawk, as its new leader, making her likely to become the country's first female prime minister.

In a country that ranks poorly internationally for gender equality, the 64-year-old Takaichi makes history as the first female leader of Japan's long-governing conservative Liberal Democratic Party. She is one of the most conservative members of the male-dominated party.

An admirer of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Takaichi is a protege of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe 's ultra-conservative vision and a regular at the Yasukuni Shrine, seen as a symbol of Japan's wartime militarism, which could complicate Tokyo's relations with its Asian neighbors.

Takaichi beat Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in a runoff in a vote by the LDP on Saturday.

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French photojournalist Antoni Lallican has been killed in a Russian drone strike in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military has said.

Grigoriy Ivanchenko, a Ukrainian photojournalist working alongside Mr Lallican, was injured in the same attack on the outskirts of Komyshuvakha, a village in the Donetsk region.

The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ and IFJ) said this was the first instance of a journalist being killed by a drone in Ukraine.

Mr Lallican, a Paris-based photojournalist, had been documenting the war since March 2022 - a month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion - earning him the prestigious Victor Hugo Prize for photography in 2024.

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