TV News LIES

As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are still missing and thought to be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, according to an American team of experts, with families saying they are being forced to take desperate and risky measures to try to rescue them.

As Russian forces began their invasion in February 2022, children were abducted from care homes, from the battlefield after the death of their parents, or under coercion directly from their families.

Russia has rejected demands for the children to be returned, with an official accusing Ukraine of “staging a show on the topic of lost children” during ceasefire talks in Turkey this month.

Speaking to the Guardian, one mother has described her own dramatic rescue of her two teenage sons who were held in a camp in Russia for almost six months.

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Hamas has agreed to the latest proposal from regional mediators for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Israel, a source in the Palestinian armed group has told the BBC.

The proposal from Egypt and Qatar is said to be based on a framework put forward by US envoy Steve Witkoff in June.

It would see Hamas free around half of the 50 remaining Israeli hostages - 20 of whom are believed to be alive - in two batches during an initial 60-day truce. There would also be negotiations on a permanent ceasefire.

It is unclear what Israel's response will be, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said last week that it would only accept a deal if "all the hostages are released in one go".

In a video released after the reports of Hamas's approval emerged, Netanyahu did not comment directly but said that "from them you can get one impression - Hamas is under immense pressure."

The Israeli military's chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, meanwhile said it was at a turning point in the 22-month war, with the "focus on enhancing the strikes against Hamas in Gaza City".

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Marius Borg Høiby, the son of the Norwegian crown princess, has been charged with 32 offences including four counts of rape, a prosecutor has said.

Høiby, whose mother is the crown princess, Mette-Marit, and whose stepfather is the crown prince, Haakon, Norway’s future king, is expected to stand trial early next year and could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of the most serious charges.

The charges, made public on Monday, include the rape of four different women, domestic abuse of a former partner, and illegally filming a number of women, including their genitals, without their knowledge or consent.

He is also charged with harassment of police and traffic violations.

Høiby’s lawyer, Petar Sekulic, who is representing him together with Ellen Holager Andaenæs, said: “Our client denies all charges of sexual abuse, as well as the majority of the charges regarding violence. He will present a detailed account of his version of events before the court.”

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The Irish novelist Sally Rooney could be arrested under the Terrorism Act after saying she intends to use proceeds from her work to support Palestine Action, which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK last month, a legal expert has warned.

Meanwhile, No 10 said that supporting the group was an offence under the act, after Rooney had made her pledge.

Royalties from Rooney’s books, including Normal People and Conversations with Friends, along with BBC adaptations of them, would be used to support Palestine Action, she wrote in the Irish Times over the weekend.

The legal expert also said that the bestselling writer could face prosecution if she were to express her views at, for example, a UK book festival, underscoring the proscription’s “gross disproportionality”.

While the prime minister’s spokesperson would not respond to the author’s comments specifically, they said that there was “a difference between showing support for a proscribed organisation, which is an offence under the Terrorism Act, and legitimate protest in support of a cause”, according to the Press Association.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came dressed for diplomacy.

The last time Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in February - an acrimonious meeting that ended abruptly - he said he’d wear a suit after the Russian war on his country had ended.

The declaration came after a reporter asked Zelenskyy, who was wearing a black sweatshirt, black slacks and boots, why he was not wearing a suit while visiting the “highest level” office in the country.

I’ll “wear the costume after the war is finished," he replied. Kostium is the Ukrainian word for suit.

This time, his sartorial choice as well as his choice of words seemed carefully designed to insulate him from another unceremonious exit from the Oval Office. But perhaps his willingness to don a suit to the meeting, three days after Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, also revealed that peace could possibly be within reach.

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The world got a glimpse of one of the most famous Palestinian prisoners in Israel on Friday, Marwan Barghouti, for the first time in years.

A video posted by Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, shows him berating Barghouti in his prison cell.

"You will not win. He who messes with the people of Israel, he who will murder our children, he who will murder our women, we will wipe him out," Ben-Gvir is recorded as saying.

Now, he is serving five consecutive life sentences, after being convicted by an Israeli court in 2002 for helping plan attacks on civilians during a Palestinian uprising that came to be known as the Second Intifada.

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