TV News LIES

More than 20 people have been killed in what has been branded the worst flooding on record across the Balkans. Tens of thousands have been evacuated and 250,000 homes are without power.

The death toll has reached 19 in Bosnia alone, including nine people found on Saturday when waters receded from the northeastern town of Doboj, Reuters reported. Authorities have warned that more bodies could emerge as waters recede in dozens of cities flooded over the past three days. Serbia has seen eight deaths, AP reported.

David Miranda, partner of the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, has been granted permission to appeal against a ruling that he was lawfully detained under counter-terrorism powers at Heathrow airport.

The case – which also involves a challenge to the police seizure of computer material related to the US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden – will now go to the court of appeal.

An explosion followed by a fire in a coal mine in western Turkey killed 157 miners and trapped hundreds more on Tuesday, a provincial mayor said, in what appeared to be the country's worst mining accident in years.

Rescue workers pumped oxygen into the mine to try to keep those still trapped by the blaze alive as thousands of family members and fellow workers, clamoring for information, gathered outside the town's hospital, held back behind police lines.

At least 36 migrants drowned when their boat sank off the Libyan coast earlier this week, officials said, following the recovery of more bodies on Sunday.

The navy said it rescued 52 people when the boat sank on Tuesday, but survivors say there were 130 people on board.

On Saturday Libya's interior minister urged the European Union (EU) to do more to help stem the tide of migrants.

When White House national security advisor Susan Rice’s security detail cleared her Jerusalem hotel suite for bugs and intruders Tuesday night, they might’ve had in mind a surprise visitor to Vice President Al Gore’s room 16 years ago this week: a spy in an air duct.

According to a senior former U.S. intelligence operative, a Secret Service agent who was enjoying a moment of solitude in Gore’s bathroom before the Veep arrived heard a metallic scraping sound. “The Secret Service had secured [Gore’s] room in advance and they all left except for one agent, who decided to take a long, slow time on the pot,” the operative recalled for Newsweek. “So the room was all quiet, he was just meditating on his toes, and he hears a noise in the vent. And he sees the vent clips being moved from the inside. And then he sees a guy starting to exit the vent into the room.”

Edward Snowden will be called to testify as a witness, the German parliamentary committee investigating the U.S. National Security Agency's activities said Thursday.

Testimony from the American whistleblower and former NSA contractor was agreed to by all political parties in the investigative committee, said Martina Renner of the socialist Die Linke party. Since the German government will likely prevent Snowden from attending a hearing, he is expected to be questioned by either a video link, or a visit from a parliamentary delegation to Moscow, his current home.