TV News LIES

A bill "aimed at combating renewed forms of antisemitism", which is due to be debated on by parliament next month, has sparked a heated controversy in France in recent weeks.

Many organisations and parts of the political left suspect the proposed legislation of exploiting the fight against antisemitism to censor and criminalise criticism of the Israeli government.

The bill was introduced in November 2024 by Caroline Yadan, an MP representing French citizens living abroad in a constituency including Israel and Palestine, who left President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance parliamentary group last summer to protest against his recognition of the State of Palestine.

Yadan, who is also vice-president of the France-Israel friendship group in the National Assembly, has also criticised the French president for calling in 2024 for a halt to arms deliveries to Israel.

Officially, the proposed law aims to address the “resurgence” of antisemitic acts in France since 7 October 2023 and the development of “an obsessive hatred toward the state of Israel”.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine and Saudi Arabia have reached an important agreement on defense cooperation during his surprise visit to the kingdom.

In a Telegram post, Zelensky said the document was signed ahead of his meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He added that the agreement lays the foundation for further contracts, technological cooperation, and investment, while strengthening Ukraine’s international role as a security donor.

Zelensky highlighted that Ukraine is ready to share its expertise and defense systems with Saudi Arabia and cooperate to strengthen the protection of lives. 

“For the fifth year now, Ukrainians have been fighting against the same terrorist attacks with ballistic missiles and drones that the Iranian regime is currently carrying out in the Middle East and the Gulf region. And Saudi Arabia has what Ukraine is interested in. This cooperation can be mutually beneficial,” he said.

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A British judge has ordered the UK home secretary to “get on with” explaining her opposition to Hamas's appeal to be removed from the list of proscribed terrorist organisations.

Hamas, currently proscribed in the UK, is appealing against this designation before the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), an independent tribunal.

Last April, Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of Hamas’s foreign relations office, instructed British lawyers to appeal against the UK’s 2021 decision by former Home Secretary Priti Patel to designate the movement as a terrorist organisation.

Four months later, in August 2025, Hamas lodged a second appeal to POAC after former UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper rejected the group’s request to be taken off the list of banned groups.

During Thursday’s proceedings, Justice Jonathan Swift, the chair of POAC, told government lawyers to respond to Hamas's appeal and to “clearly explain any reasons for delay” by 20 May.

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The U.S., Israel and Argentina on Wednesday voted against a United Nations resolution led by Ghana to label the international slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and call for reparations.

The resolution received 123 votes from the U.N. General Assembly in favor and 52 countries abstained, including all 27 European Union members, the United Kingdom, Australia, Oman and Japan.

The resolution also focused on the need to address historic wrongs toward Africans and people of the diaspora, and it placed emphasis on claims for reparations.

Diplomats cheered and some danced over the resolution’s adoption.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Dan Negrea called the resolution’s text “highly problematic in countless respects.” Negrea said in a statement that the U.S. “does not recognize a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred.”

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Transgender women are banned from competing at the Olympics, beginning with the Los Angeles Summer Games in 2028.

International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry announced the change Thursday, March 26, reversing its 2004 decision to allow the participation of transgender athletes. To date, only one openly transgender woman has competed at the Olympics in 2021, a weightlifter from New Zealand who did not make it past her opening round of competition at the Tokyo Games.

Women who want to compete at the Olympics will have to do a one-time genetic test.

The IOC began examining the issue of transgender participation in September 2024 after several sport federations, including World Athletics and World Aquatics, took steps to limit or ban transgender athletes. A year later, Coventry announced the creation of a working group that looked at "scientific, medical and legal developments since 2021."

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FIFA has said it will not act against Israeli settlement clubs in the West Bank, but fined the Israeli FA (IFA) over discrimination. 

At the 2024 FIFA Congress, the Palestinian FA (PFA) demanded Israel be suspended from the global game over the war in Gaza and that FIFA act against Israeli settlement clubs in the West Bank, which prompted FIFA to seek ‘independent’ legal advice.

On Thursday, following a meeting of the FIFA Council, the world governing body dismissed the PFA and its argument that Israel violates FIFA statutes by letting teams from settlements in the West Bank play in the national league, saying: “FIFA should take no action given that, in the context of the interpretation of the relevant provisions of the FIFA Statutes, the final legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter under public international law.”

However, in 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the West Bank, is unlawful.

The Court noted that it “considers that the violations by Israel of the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force and of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination have a direct impact on the legality of the continued presence of Israel, as an occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful. This illegality relates to the entirety of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967.”

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