Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2024
This week's election: Lithuania Presidential Election Round 2
Euronews
Election Date: 26/05/2023
Lithuanians voted in a presidential election on the 12th of May at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fuelling greater fears about Moscow’s intentions in the Baltic region. Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda appears on course to secure a second term following the country’s first round of presidential elections. In a rerun of the 2019 elections, the president will face off against Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte in the country’s second round of presidential elections as they campaign for differing foreign and security policies as president.
#Healthcare
AAP
False: A video shows high-profile Australians promoting alternative health treatments.
The claim a video shows high-profile Australians promoting alternative health treatments is false. The videos are fake and have been created with the assistance of AI technology. The videos then feature a banned naturopath commentator talking about a “natural joint formula” supposedly developed with the help of experts from Harvard University.
AFP
False: California government warned of cancer and reproductive harm risks of Chinese cooking oil.
California's environmental protection agency has clarified that a consumer label featured on a Chinese brand of cooking oil does not mean that it poses an "imminent danger" to health after misleading posts warned people not to buy the product. The agency said the oil produced by China-based Yihai Kerry Arawana contains ingredients "unlikely to cause harm" if consumed "occasionally".
Snopes
False: Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were, as of early 2024, attempting to ban decaffeinated coffee.
On Jan. 11, 2024, the FDA submitted a proposal that would ban several food additives, including methylene chloride, which is widely used to decaffeinate coffee beans. The EPA finalized a ban on the cancer-causing chemical, which is also used in paint removers and industrial cleaners, on April 30, 2024. However, despite what some sources have suggested this ban is not a ban on decaf coffee — there are other ways to produce decaf coffee that do not involve methylene chloride.
#Politics
AFP
False: Photo shows Moon Jae-in embracing North Korean leader's sister.
A doctored image of former South Korean president Moon Jae-in embracing Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has been shared in multiple social media posts that claimed it showed Moon had "sold out" his country. In reality, Kim Yo Jong's head was added to a Reuters news agency photo of Moon consoling the daughter of a 1980 democracy uprising victim.
AFP
False: These photos show helicopter wreckage involving Iranian president in May 2024.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was declared dead on May 20 after his helicopter crashed into a remote mountainside in heavy fog. However, photos circulated on social media worldwide purporting to show the wreckage of the stricken chopper in fact show a different crash. The images were published in Iranian news reports in 2020 about a police training plane that crashed in Mazandaran province.
Snopes
True: While greeting North Korean dignitaries during his summit meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un in 2018, then-President Trump returned the military salute of a North Korean general.
The image is genuine. It was captured from video footage aired on North Korean television on June 13, 2018, when Trump, as president, attended a summit meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The full video shows Trump being introduced to a line of North Korean dignitaries. When he reached out to shake an unidentified general's hand, the latter quickly withdrew his hand and responded instead with a military salute. Trump respectfully saluted in return.
#Conflicts
PolitiFact
False: Biden wants to immediately stop all aid to Israel.
In May, the United States paused one shipment of weapons to Israel consisting of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs. President Joe Biden said on CNN that if Israel does a full-scale assault on Rafah, "I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem."Biden also said the U.S. will continue to provide aid to Israel.
USA Today
False: The UN admitted to lying about the number of deaths in Gaza.
A May 13 Facebook post makes a claim about the United Nations’ reporting of Palestinians killed during the war in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. changed the way it publishes death totals from the Gaza Strip, but it did not say earlier counts were incorrect. It now breaks out deaths of people who have been “identified" from "reported" deaths, a difference of more than 10,000 people as of May 17.
AFP
False: Photo shows drone attack in southern Israel air base in May 2024.
After reports emerged that an Iran-backed group said they launched a drone strike in southern Israel in May 2024, an old picture of a huge explosion resurfaced in a false context in Thai social media posts about the reported attack. The picture was actually taken by an AFP photographer in March 2019 and shows an explosion in a province in eastern Syria.
#Economy
PolitiFact
Half-True: Tariffs are a direct, regressive tax on Americans and President Joe Biden’s new tariffs on Chinese goods will hit every family.
President Joe Biden said the United States would impose new or higher tariffs on various Chinese goods, including electric vehicles, to target unfair trade practices by China and protect the United States’ competitiveness in manufacturing clean energy products and microchips. There is widespread academic support for the notion that tariffs raise prices for consumers, and that lower-income consumers are hurt disproportionately. Experts said the targeted nature of Biden’s tariffs should limit their impact on consumers.
PolitiFact
False: Biden - Inflation “was 9% when I came to office.”
Inflation hit 9% during President Joe Biden’s tenure, the highest in about four decades. But it reached that level about a year and a half into his presidency. When Biden was inaugurated, year-over-year inflation was about 1.4%. Some of the factors that pushed inflation to 9% were in place by the time Biden was inaugurated, notably supply chain problems. But others, including the American Rescue Plan and Russia’s invading Ukraine, were not.
#Nordics
Tjekdet
Falsk: Flere og flere mennesker bliver fattige i EU, selv om de arbejder.
Denne påstand blev fremsat på de sociale medier af Enhedslistens EP-spidskandidat, Per Clausen. EU's egne statistikker understøtter ikke hans påstand. Faktisk viser de det modsatte - i de seneste år har andelen af arbejdende fattige i EU generelt været faldende.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: King Charles III descends from "Count Dracula," also known as Vlad the Impaler.
When King Charles III of England unveiled his new portrait in May 2024, he set the internet aflame with controversy. The red portrait received passionate but mixed, reactions. Some internet users took the opportunity to share the claim that the monarch supposedly was related to Vlad the Impaler, also known as Count Dracula in fictional tales. Vlad the Impaler’s bloodlust and cruelty were said to have inspired the most famous vampire in literature. Genealogy records of the Windsor prove this to be true.
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