TV News LIES

The brief exchange of fire between Iran and Israel was a truer statement of the balance of power that now exists between these two countries than the many spurious claims by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about having “smashed”, “destroyed” or “obliterated” the armed forces of the Islamic Republic.

In firing up to 30 missiles towards Israel in retaliation against its renewed bombing of Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Iran broke the model that Israel had imposed on the two other ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza: namely that you cease, and we keep on firing.

Furthermore, it showed that it would target northern Israel to protect a third country, Lebanon, which is also something of a first.

In announcing that it would halt fire, Iran’s military command said that if Israel resumed its attacks anywhere, including southern Lebanon, “much more severe and crushing measures than before will follow”.

It has taken time for the Islamic Republic to respond to Israel’s campaigns on Gaza, Lebanon and itself as one war - which is what it is - but at last, it is being forced to do so.

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Russian investigative media outlet The Insider confirmed that the victim of a car bombing on Tuesday was Damir Davydov, a Russian military official responsible for supplying missile and artillery ammunition to the front.

Davydov, the Defense Ministry’s head of missile and artillery command, was reportedly killed when his BMW X3 was blown up near a high-rise building in the Moscow suburb of Balashikha at around 5:30 a.m.

Earlier, Russian authorities confirmed the explosion and opened a criminal case, but had not yet disclosed the victim’s identity, leaving multiple Telegram channels to speculate whether the victim was a senior officer in Russia’s Aerospace Forces, Alexander Maksimtsev.

Early reports suggest the blast, which had a power equivalent to about 400 grams of TNT, occurred less than a kilometer from where Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik was killed in a nearly identical car bombing in the same military residential district just over a year ago. This is the fourth killing of a Russian officer at the rank of lieutenant general inside Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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The top soccer referee in Africa says he's devastated he won't be able to officiate in the 2026 World Cup after being denied entry into the United States last Saturday.

"am very, very disappointed," Artan told The New York Times in a telephone interview from Istanbul, Turkey, where he had been diverted after landing in the U.S.

"I’m just simply a referee who’s trying to live his dream, the biggest dream of my life, to come to the World Cup."

Artan told The Times he flew to Miami International Airport on Saturday, June 6 − five days before the tournament's opening games. However, he was stopped by U.S. border officials, who took him into a small room and questioned him for 11 hours.

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Volkswagen is considering plans to convert one of its German car factories into a production hub for Israel’s missile defence systems, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The carmaker has held talks with Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems about repurposing its Osnabruck plant, shifting from vehicle production to manufacturing components for Israel’s Iron Dome system.

The move underscores growing pressure on Germany’s automotive sector, which is struggling to compete with Chinese electric vehicle makers.

It also carries historical resonance: during the Second World War, Volkswagen halted car production and switched to arms manufacturing for Nazi Germany.

The proposal points to a wider shift, as parts of German industry move closer to defence production with support from Berlin.

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Danish shipping giant Maersk is still shipping smaller weapons components to Israel that include rifle and pistol parts, as well as bomb bodies, despite its assertion to the contrary last year, according to a report published on Monday by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and Oxfam Denmark. 

The bullet parts Maersk has reportedly helped to deliver are the same kind that killed Hind Rajab in 2024 and also countless other children in Gaza, as shown in a New York Times essay published later that year, the authors of the report said.

The bomb bodies provide the casing for the 900-kilogram "bunker buster" MK-84 bombs that Israel has used in Gaza and Lebanon.

The investigation is part of the #MaskOffMaersk campaign. 

"Our question to Maersk is: What's a weapon? You don't ship weapons, so what is a weapon?" Nadya Tannous, the international coordinator for the initiative, told Middle East Eye.

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When Lebanon and Israel announced a ceasefire agreement on April 16, Nasreen Abd Elaal and her husband and four children packed their few belongings and departed the public school in Marj al-Zuhoor where they had taken shelter—for the last time, they hoped.

They returned the next day to their home in Ain Arab, a small village nestled in the plains near the southern border, where they run a small butcher shop and corner store. That same day, Israeli forces entered the village and established a curfew, warning local residents not to leave their homes after dark, before setting up a checkpoint on the exit road leading south.

Twelve days later, Abd Elaal was working behind the counter at the store when she saw a large armored bulldozer lumbering down the road, followed by a swarm of army vehicles carrying, by her estimation, more than one hundred Israeli soldiers. The troops spread through the village, pointed their guns at residents and told them that the area was located within Israel’s new “yellow line”—a line demarcating an Israeli zone of control along the southern border inside Lebanese territory that was unilaterally declared by Israel using the same terminology as in Gaza. The soldiers told Abd Elaal and the other village residents that they had two hours to evacuate north.

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