TV News LIES

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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Ukraine says it has conducted a long-range drone attack on a supply ship that it claims was carrying drone components from Iran, striking it at a port north of the Caspian Sea, in a show of force hours before Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet for a summit in Alaska.

Photographs showed a partially sunken cargo vessel at Olya, near Astrakhan, more than 500 miles from the frontline. Ukraine’s military claimed credit for the attack and the overnight bombing of an oil refinery at Samara on the Volga River, deep inside Russia.

Ukraine’s general staff said the ship hit, the Port Olya-4, was “loaded with components” for Shahed-type drones “and ammunition from Iran”. The port, it added, was an “important logistics hub for the supply of military goods”.

Kyiv’s forces have repeatedly shown they can strike military logistics and energy targets hundreds of miles inside Russia, although the attacks only appear to have a dampening impact on the Kremlin’s long-term war effort.

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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has ruled out any U.S. military Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has ruled out any U.S. military “invasion” into Mexico following the Trump administration’s reported plans to use military force against Latin American drug cartels.

"The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military," Sheinbaum said Aug. 8 at her regular morning news conference. "We co-operate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out."

Sheinbaum comments are in response to a New York Times report Aug. 8 that President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. military to target transnational fentanyl traffickers that use Mexico as a base of operations.

The Times said Trump had secretly signed a directive to begin using military force on foreign soil against cartels. In February, the U.S. designated the Sinaloa Cartel and other Mexican drug cartels as global terrorist organizations, which some analysts have warned could be a stepping stone to such military action.

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Germany will suspend arms exports to Israel that could be used in the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced Friday, marking Berlin’s clearest shift yet in response to Israel’s escalating military campaign.

“Under these circumstances, the German government will, until further notice, not approve any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip,” Merz said in a government press release. He added that Israel’s intensified operations in Gaza — approved by its Cabinet overnight—make it “increasingly difficult” to see how stated goals like the release of hostages or the disarmament of Hamas can be achieved.

The move stops short of a full weapons embargo and leaves open the possibility of continued exports for systems unrelated to the Gaza campaign, such as missile defense or naval equipment.

Germany has long emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense and reiterated Friday that “the disarmament of Hamas is essential.”

However, Merz sharply criticized the humanitarian consequences of Israel’s planned offensive, urging the government to allow “full access for aid deliveries, including for U.N. organizations and other non-governmental institutions.”

“The Israeli government carries greater responsibility than ever for the civilian population’s supply,” Merz said.

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The Trump administration is doubling to $50m a reward for the arrest of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest narcotraffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said on Thursday in a video statement announcing the reward.

Maduro was indicted in Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency, along with several close allies on federal charges of narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. At the time, the US offered a $15m reward for his arrest. That was later raised by the Biden administration to $25m – the same amount the US offered for the capture of Osama bin Laden in 2001, after the September 11attacks.

Despite the big bounty, Maduro remains entrenched after defying the US, the European Union and several Latin American governments who condemned his 2024 reelection as a sham and recognized his opponent as Venezuela’s duly elected president.

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