TV News LIES

The verse was Al Imran 3:13, the passage describing the Battle of Badr, where a vastly outnumbered and poorly equipped Muslim force routed a much larger army “by the will of God”. It was a clear reference to what many are increasingly calling Iran’s victory over the US and Israel in their war on the country.

Badr was fought in what is today Saudi Arabia in 624 CE. The question is whether the recitation was a compliment, a taunt, or both - but it was unlikely to have been random.

Read generously, the verse gestures at one of Islam’s first victories and a shared civilisational memory between Tehran and Riyadh.

But Iran has not only survived the war but arguably, it may have emerged from it stronger, with control of the Strait of Hormuz now tantalisingly close to becoming a fait accompli.

When the Saudi delegation stepped forward to pay respects at the coffin of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, the Quran recitation that followed did not go unnoticed.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is coming under rare public criticism at home, a significant signal of how the pressures from the more than four-year war in Ukraine are hurting the country.

Fuel shortages and rising inflation, high-profile attacks against Russian energy infrastructure and cities, and mounting military casualties are prompting prominent figures to start pinning the blame on Putin.

“It is a crisis,” said Vladimir Milov, a Russian economist in exile who served as deputy minister of energy in 2002. “What we are seeing right now is an extreme acceleration of public admissions that we are in trouble.”

German Gref, head of Russia’s largest bank Sberbank, is one of the most high-profile elites in Russia to issue blunt criticism calling for the war to end. 

“I don’t think there’s a single person who isn’t concerned about anything other than a rapid end of hostilities, that’s clear,” he reportedly said on Russian state TV earlier this week, responding to overwhelming negative economic trends.

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A devastating Russian guided aerial bomb strike tore through the center of Sumy on Friday, killing at least four people, including a child, and injuring dozens of others, Ukrainian officials reported.

The attack came amid a relentless, multi-pronged aerial campaign by Moscow that simultaneously battered cities across Ukraine’s south and east.

“Efforts to deal with the aftermath of the Russian airstrike are ongoing in Sumy,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a post on X. “The Russians used guided aerial bombs against ordinary people in the city center.”https://www.kyivpost.com/post/79557

Zelensky confirmed that multiple children were among the wounded and warned that civilians could still be trapped beneath the ruins of a heavily damaged apartment building. He added that many of those hospitalized sustained severe injuries.

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A string of primary victories by left-wing Democratic candidates has triggered alarm across Israeli media and pro-Israel circles, with commentators warning that support for Israel no longer guarantees "political success".

The victory of democratic socialist Melat Kiros over 15-term pro-Israel US Representative Diana DeGette in Colorado’s primary election on Tuesday added to a series of wins by candidates who have challenged Israel’s influence over US politics, opposed the genocide in Gaza and described Israel as an apartheid state.

Kiros's win followed wins by three Democratic Socialist candidates backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as well as another in a Philadelphia congressional primary and one in the Democratic primary for mayor of Washington DC.

The Democratic Socialists are a left-leaning faction that often contests primary elections with the Democratic Party and is becoming a formidable within the US left.

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The British Museum removed the terms “Palestine”, “Palestinian” and “Israelite occupation” from its displays in direct response to months of lobbying in 2024, a Middle East Eye investigation has found. 

In February 2026, the museum defended its decision to alter some displays, saying that “audience testing” showed the term “Palestine” to be “no longer meaningful”.

However, a new disclosure by the museum to MEE, in response to a freedom of information request, confirms that no such testing was carried out, nor any visitor research related to the term “Palestine”.

The museum’s various conflicting responses appear to obscure the full extent of changes made.

In fact, the changes to displays dating as far as 7,500 BCE came after private and public complaints by organisations and high-profile individuals supportive of Israel between October and December 2024, museum emails show.

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At least two people were killed and 16 others injured, including medical workers, after a barrage of Russian drones and ballistic missiles struck Kyiv early Thursday, city officials said.

The multi-wave overnight assault damaged residential buildings and a medical facility, with destruction reported across several districts of the Ukranian capital.

The attack came hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Ukrainian intelligence had detected preparations for a massive Russian strike.

As air defense units engaged incoming targets, multiple explosions echoed across Kyiv after Ukraine’s Air Force warned that ballistic missiles were approaching the capital.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital was under a “furious enemy attack” involving ballistic missiles and drones.

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