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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Politics & government fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about politics & government. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

12,751 published reviews in this topic

Deutsche WellePolitics & government

Es ist bekannt, dass wir in den vergangenen 30 Jahren beharrlich und geduldig versucht haben, mit den führenden Nato-Ländern eine Einigung über die Grundsätze der gleichen und unteilbaren Sicherheit in Europa zu erzielen. Als Antwort auf unsere Vorschläge sind wir immer wieder entweder auf zynischen Betrug und Lüge oder auf Druck- und Erpressungsversuche gestoßen, während sich das Nordatlantische Bündnis trotz all unserer Proteste und Bedenken immer weiter ausdehnt. Die Kriegsmaschinerie ist in Bewegung, und, ich wiederhole, sie nähert sich unseren Grenzen.

Publisher’s rating: Irreführend

The claim is part of Vladimir Putin’s televised address shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It presents NATO’s eastward expansion and alleged approach toward Russia’s borders as the culmination of failed efforts to secure European security agreements. Deutsche Welle’s review examines the related assertion that NATO’s military infrastructure was moving closer to Russia, including whether NATO troops were advancing toward the border. The review acknowledges that 14 eastern European countries joined NATO after the Soviet Union’s collapse, but the supplied excerpt cuts off before giving the full discussion of that point. [S1]

Deutsche Presse-AgenturPolitics & government

Ban Ki-Moon hat erklärt, dass die Ukraine seit 1991 keinen Antrag auf Registrierung der Grenzen gestellt hat, so dass der Staat Ukraine nicht existiert.

Publisher’s rating: Die Ukraine ist ein Staat und Mitglied der Vereinten Nationen. Für die Behauptung, dass Ban Ki-Moon dies je angezweifelt hat, gibt es keinen Beleg.

The claim attributes to former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon a statement that Ukraine had not registered its borders with the United Nations since 1991 and therefore did not exist as a state. The review traces the allegation to posts circulating on Facebook and says the same claim had appeared online after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, attributed to an interview on a website of the pro-Russian organization Ukrainian Choice. It reports that the interview could not be found in other sources. The UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said he could not recall such an interview; he had also been Ban’s spokesperson and said he accompanied him on a trip to Rwanda at the time the alleged remarks were supposed to have been made. [S1] The review addresses the underlying border-registration premise as well as the alleged quotation. It explains that Ukraine was a founding UN member in 1945 and remained a UN member while part of the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union dissolved, Ukraine did not need to be admitted anew: on 24 August 1991, it notified the UN that it had changed its name. The review says UN guidelines adopted in 1999 for handling new states and state dissolution contain no requirement for states to register their borders with the organization. [S1] The review also compares the allegation with documented UN records. It notes that a Russia-Ukraine border treaty took effect on 20 April 2004, and that in March 2014 Ban publicly called for a solution respecting Ukraine’s unity and sovereignty. On 27 March 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/262, which reaffirmed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. These records support the review’s conclusion that Ukraine’s statehood did not depend on the alleged registration and that the supposed Ban quotation lacks corroboration. [S1]

Vishvas NewsPolitics & government

अश्यातच पंतप्रधान नरेंद्र मोदी ह्यांचा एक व्हिडिओ व्हायरल होत आहे, ज्यात पीएम मोदी हे अभिवादन स्वरूप हाथ दाखवताना दिसतात.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a viral video showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi waving, with posts suggesting he was waving to people in an empty field in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. Vishvas News reports that the footage was edited: people visible in the original video had been removed from the circulating version. Its conclusion is therefore that the video does not show Modi waving at an empty field. The review traced the footage to Modi’s 20 February 2022 visit to Unnao, where he held a rally for the BJP. It says the news agency ANI posted a 28-second original video on that date, in which a crowd is visible near the helipad and in nearby villages. The review also reports finding other videos of the Unnao rally on the BJP’s official Twitter account, likewise showing a crowd. As additional checking, Vishvas News says it sent the viral video to Ankit Mishra, the Unnao chief reporter for Dainik Jagran who covered the public meeting. Mishra said the claim was false and described a crowd gathering on rooftops to see Modi arrive by helicopter and welcoming him with slogans. Together, the reported comparison with the original footage and the reporter’s account contradict the empty-field implication.

dpaPolitics & government

Deze tijdlijn is de agenda/het plan van de EU voor komende maanden.

Publisher’s rating: Het klopt niet dat deze tijdlijn in de toekomst wordt uitgerold. Alles hierop is namelijk vorig jaar al gebeurd. Het is een overzicht van de stappen die de EU sinds januari 2021 zette om het Europees coronapaspoort op te zetten en in te voeren.

The claim arose from a timeline shared on Facebook as a look at the European Commission’s supposed agenda for the coming months. The review identifies the image as coming from the Commission’s page about the European digital COVID certificate, where the timeline records steps already taken to develop and introduce the certificate. Its dates had no years printed alongside them, which could make past milestones look like future plans when viewed without context. The timeline’s first entry says that, on 27 January, discussions between the Commission and EU member states in the e-health network led to agreement on a digital vaccination certificate. The review reports checking that date and the term “e-health network” against an EU announcement: that announcement also covered the Commission’s 17 March 2021 proposal for a “digital green certificate” and said guidelines for vaccination certificates had been approved on 27 January 2021. The review further dates the EU gateway going live to June 2021 and the European certificate’s introduction to 1 July 2021. These events place the timeline in the preceding year, rather than in the future. The missing years are a source of confusion, but the milestones described in the review do not support the interpretation that the image is a plan for the coming year. The review also distinguishes the timeline claim from a separate rumor about making the QR code compulsory: it says the relevant measure was still a proposal and, in the form discussed, EU countries would retain discretion over requiring a COVID pass, with recovery and test certificates remaining alternatives.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Video of Bhagwant Mann engaging in a verbal spat with a journalist

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The review investigates a video of Bhagwant Mann arguing with a journalist at a press conference that was circulating during the 2022 Punjab Assembly election. It says the post implied the incident was recent, and identifies the video as footage of an earlier event rather than election-period footage. To check its timing, FACTLY says it searched Google using relevant keywords and found multiple 2019 news reports describing the same visuals. The review dates the incident to December 2019 and reports that Mann became angry over a journalist’s question about his party’s presence in the state. On that basis, it concludes the footage was unrelated to the current Punjab election.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Video of PM Modi waving at an empty crowd

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video circulated as showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi waving to an empty crowd. FACTLY’s review says it examined that shared video and compared it with a better-quality version identified as the same footage. In that version, people are visible in the background, contradicting the impression that the area was empty. The review describes how it traced the footage: reverse-image searches of video screenshots led to a similar video posted by ANI News on YouTube. FACTLY reports that ANI’s higher-quality video showed the crowd, and that the same video was also available on the official BJP Uttar Pradesh Twitter account. The review further says the audio in the shared version had been replaced to make it sound as though there was no crowd. FACTLY also points to photographs of the same location published by several news agencies, which it says show a significant crowd. Taken together, the comparison footage, the reported audio alteration and the photographs undermine the claim’s portrayal of an empty scene. The review concludes that Modi was not waving at an empty crowd in this video.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Video of Mongolian Minister setting himself ablaze in a press meet after he failed to keep his promise to build one lakh units of low-income houses

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post described the person in a press-meeting video as Mongolia’s Minister of Public Works, allegedly setting himself on fire after failing to fulfill a promise to build 100,000 low-income homes in one year. FACTLY’s investigation identifies the person as S. Erdene, a Mongolian coal-mine union leader—not the minister—and says the incident was a protest against the sale of Mongolia’s coal mines to China. The review places the incident in November 2015. It reports that Erdene was chairman of the board of the Mongolian Solidarity Labor Union and that he suffered serious burns and was taken to hospital. This directly contradicts the post’s account of both the man’s identity and the reason for the self-immolation. The video’s housing-promise narrative is therefore a false description of the footage: the review says the footage shows a union leader’s protest, not a minister acting over a failed housing promise.