TV News LIES

François Hollande is to press Barack Obama on tax avoidance by big Silicon Valley companies such as Google, saying that the practice of shifting tax liabilities around Europe was "not acceptable".

Hollande will meet Obama on Monday as part of a two-day trip during which he will also meet firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter in Silicon Valley.

Three Israeli settlers were arrested Wednesday for allegedly carrying out so-called price tag vandalism in a neighboring Palestinian village, police said.

The attacks -- acts of random violence carried out by Jewish extremists against Palestinian property and members of Israel's security forces meant to exact a price for actions taken against controversial Jewish settlements -- left two cars torched in the West Bank village of Far'ata.

Syria has failed to meet another key deadline for turning over its chemical weapons stockpile as part of an internationally brokered agreement.

Under a February 5 deadline set by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Syria was to have given up its complete stockpile. Syria has so far sent only two shipments of chemicals to be destroyed, amounting to less than five percent of its stockpile.

The OPCW says Damascus is not doing everything it can to meet that timetable.

Israel's Finance Ministry said on Wednesday it was cutting funds to seminary students exempt from compulsory military service, in the latest battle between the Jewish state's secular majority and an ultra-Orthodox minority.

Seminary students, many of whom rely on state stipends, have for decades been excused from army service under blanket exemptions that have long stoked resentment in a country whose other Jewish citizens are called to duty at the age of 18.

The issue is at the heart of an emotional national debate.

The Vatican "systematically" adopted policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, a U.N. human rights committee said Wednesday, urging the Holy See to open its files on pedophiles and bishops who concealed their crimes.

In a devastating report hailed by abuse victims, the U.N. committee severely criticized the Holy See for its attitudes toward homosexuality, contraception and abortion and said it should change its own canon law to ensure children's rights and their access to health care are guaranteed.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been holding secret talks with Taliban officials in the hope of persuading them to make peace with his government, his spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday, confirming a New York Times report.

"I can confirm that ... Taliban are willing more than ever to join the peace process," Aimal Faizi said. "Contacts have been made and we are also in touch with them."

A member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council also confirmed that talks had taken place, but was measured in his assessment of their success.