TV News LIES

• The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, have signed a pact that includes a clause requiring the countries to come to each other’s aid if either is attacked. The inclusion of a mutual defence clause in their comprehensive strategic partnership, which Kim described as an “alliance”, will add to the west’s alarm over growing economic and military ties between North Korea and Russia

• It was not immediately clear what form that support might take, and no details of the agreement were made public. Putin later described the pact as “defensive”, citing North Korea’s right to defend itself, Tass reported. He added that Russia would not rule out developing military-technical cooperation with North Korea

• Putin’s visit has been closely watched by the US and South Korea amid concern that growing military cooperation between the isolated, sanctions-hit states could boost the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine and add to tensions on the Korean peninsula. In Washington, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Putin’s visit highlighted Russia’s attempts, “in desperation, to develop and to strengthen relations with countries that can provide it with what it needs to continue the war of aggression that it started against Ukrain

Israeli tanks backed by warplanes and drones advanced deeper into the western part of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Wednesday, killing eight people, according to residents and Palestinian medics.

Last Friday, while President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and other Western leaders, along with the reporters who clerk for them, were in Normandy busily airbrushing out the Red Army’s heroism in defeating the Reich 80 years ago, something truer to history occurred in the pages of The Times of London.

Under the headline, “Israel says Hamas weaponized rape. Does the evidence add up?” two investigative reporters, Catherine Philp and Gabrielle Weiniger, decisively shredded the dense fabric of lies on this topic, woven these past eight months by the Israelis, Western media, freakishly obsessed Zionist sympathizers and various feminist poseurs.

Philp and Weiniger have produced an exceptional piece of journalism, the virtues of which I will shortly consider. For now, just this: You will never read a piece of this integrity on this side of the Atlantic — and certainly never in The New York Times, whose infamous dishonesty in the matter of alleged sexual violence in the Gaza crisis has few matches in the history of the once-but-no-longer newspaper of record.

More...

The Israeli military may have commited multiple war crimes and has made little effort to protect civilians while relentlessly pounding Gaza in pursuit of Hamas militants, the U.N. human rights office said Wednesday.

In a separate meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, the head of a U.N. Commission of Inquiry said the scale of Palestinian civilian losses amounted to "extermination." The use of weapons with large destructive capacity in densely populated areas "constitutes an intentional and direct attack on the civilian population" and those responsible should be held accountable, Navi Pillay said.

The U.N. report, focusing on six attacks that resulted in mass casualties and destroyed civilian infrastructure, said Israeli forces "may have systematically violated" the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution. No prior warning was issued in five of the attacks, the report says, adding that international humanitarian law clearly defines the obligation to make protection of civilians a priority.

More...

At least 550 pilgrims have died during the hajj, underscoring the gruelling nature of the pilgrimage which again unfolded in scorching temperatures this year.

At least 323 of those who died were Egyptians, most of them succumbing to heat-related illnesses, the two Arab diplomats coordinating their countries’ responses told AFP.

“All of them [the Egyptians] died because of heat” except for one who sustained fatal injuries during a minor crowd crush, one of the diplomats said, adding that the total figure came from the hospital morgue in the Al-Muaisem neighbourhood of Mecca.

At least 60 Jordanians have died, the diplomats said, up from an official tally of 41 given earlier on Tuesday by Amman.

TVNL Comment:  50 degrees C equals 122 decrees F.

More...

Sudan is facing a famine that could become worse than any the world has seen since Ethiopia 40 years ago, US officials have warned, as aid deliveries continue to be blocked by the warring armies but arms supplies to both sides continue to flow in.

With much of the world’s attention focused on Gaza, the scene of another human-made famine, Sudan is already the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and is slipping towards a humanitarian disaster of historic proportions, with far less media coverage and global concern. A UN humanitarian appeal for the country has received only 16% of the funds it needs.

“We need the world to wake up to the catastrophe happening before our very eyes,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, told reporters.

More...