The coronavirus has been infecting people worldwide for over half a year now. We know more and more about the disease that causes Covid-19. It plays a substantial role in our lives nowadays and many statements are made about the virus. Thierry Baudet, leader of the Dutch political party Forum for Democracy (FVD) said, at…
The information about the intention of the European Commission to finance development of media literacy in Russia was published on the website of Russian international news channel RT on April 15, 2020. It is reported that EC is going to provide EUR 3.200.000 within the framework of the grant for the promotion and protection the freedom…
On the 6th of May 2020, the BBC published a story with the headline “Climate change and coronavirus: Five charts about the biggest carbon crash”. The article goes on to state that “We’re living through the biggest carbon crash ever recorded.” This claim is uncheckable.
Amnesty International published an article on April 3, 2019 on the flawed legal system in Scandinavian countries. “The law leaves victims of sexual violence out in the cold.” We checked whether Amnesty International’s article on the flawed legal system, when it comes to rape, is correct. Little has changed since then in the Scandinavian countries.
Matteo Salvini, former Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and leader of the largest right-wing party, “The League”, claimed in a well-known Italian tv show that “while Greece and Malta are rejecting boatloads of immigrants, in Italy in 2020 more than 5000 sans-papiers arrived by sea, despite the pandemic. He added that arrivals were only 1500…
On the 13th of March, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an article concerning banning the pesticide mancozeb. In the article Jeroen Voorbraak, director of UPL Breda, states that mancozeb is a relatively harmless substance and that it has not been shown to cause Parkinson’s disease or to have hormone-disrupting properties. His claim turns out to…
A supposed corona virus prevention formula was circulating on the internet in previous months. According to the text, shared on the WhatsApp platform by Brazilian users, gargling with water, salt and vinegar is sufficient to eliminate the virus from the person’s throat, where it “stays for four days before going to her lung” (data given…
On April 30, Marcel Ciolacu, the interim president of the Social Democratic Party, the main opposition party in Romania, stated on his Facebook page: “[…] The maximum level of fines in Romania is the highest in Europe, 6 times the average net salary, and the total sanctions applied reach 570 million lei […].”
The Belgian and Austrian railway companies NMBS and ÖBB claim that the new night train between Brussels and Vienna is 10 times more environmentally friendly than airplanes. This claim was published in many Belgian media as ‘Het Laatste Nieuws’, ‘Knack’ and ‘Dewereldmorgen’. The claim turns out to be uncheckable. Both NMBS and ÖBB were unable…
Earlier this month, on April 12th, Margrethe Vestager, the executive vice-president of the European Commission gave an interview to the Financial Times, in which she stated: “European countries should buy stakes in companies to stave off the threat of Chinese takeovers, the EU competition chief has said, as Brussels steps up plans to protect businesses…