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Russia says US journalist Evan Gershkovich to face trial for ‘CIA work’

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Russia says US journalist Evan Gershkovich to face trial for ‘CIA work’

Wall Street Journal rejects ‘false and baseless’ charge against 32-year-old reporter who has been in custody since March 2023.

Russian prosecutors have said US journalist Evan Gershkovich will face trial in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg, where he was detained more than a year ago after he was accused of working for the CIA.

Gershkovich, 32, is accused of “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a facility that produces and repairs military equipment, the prosecutor general’s office said in a statement, revealing for the first time the details of the accusations against him. The statement gave no date for the trial.

Gershkovich, a journalist with the Wall Street Journal, has been in jail since he was arrested in Yekaterinburg, about 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) east of Moscow, on March 29, 2023, and was accused of spying. He denies any wrongdoing.

Following the Russian announcement, the Journal said that Gershkovich was facing “a false and baseless charge”. A joint statement from Almar Latour, the newspaper’s publisher, and its editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, demanded Gershkovich’s immediate release.

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“Russia’s latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous,” the statement said.

“Evan has spent 441 days wrongfully detained in a Russian prison for simply doing his job. Evan is a journalist. The Russian regime’s smearing of Evan is repugnant, disgusting and based on calculated and transparent lies.”

Gershkovich at his appearance in a Moscow court on April 23 [Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo]

The United States designated Gershkovich “wrongfully detained” in April 2023, and President Joe Biden has called his detention “totally illegal”.

Latour and Tucker said they now expected the US government to step up efforts to secure his release.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington would continue to work to bring Gershkovich home.

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“Evan has done nothing wrong. He should never have been arrested in the first place. Journalism is not a crime,” Miller said. “The charges against him are false. And the Russian government knows that they’re false. He should be released immediately.”

Potential prisoner swap

Gershkovich was the first US journalist to be arrested on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War, as Moscow enacted increasingly repressive laws on freedom of speech after sending troops into Ukraine. Washington has sought to negotiate his release, but Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Moscow would consider a prisoner swap only after a verdict in his trial.

Asked last week by The Associated Press news agency about Gershkovich, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the US was “taking energetic steps” to secure the journalist’s release. He told international news agencies in a rare news conference that any such releases “aren’t decided via mass media” but through a “discreet, calm and professional approach”.

“And they certainly should be decided only on the basis of reciprocity,” he added, alluding to a potential prisoner swap.

Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

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The Uralvagonzavod factory, about 100km (60 miles) north of Yekaterinburg, has been sanctioned by Western countries. Based in the city of Nizhny Tagil in the Sverdlovsk region, it plays a crucial role in supplying tanks for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, according to the Russian Ministry of Defence.

The factory, which is run by a state conglomerate controlled by one of Putin’s allies, has publicly spoken of producing T-90M battle tanks and modernising T-72B3M tanks.

The number of tanks which Russia has lost in battle in Ukraine is a military secret in Russia, which says it has ramped up tank production.

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank said in February that Russia had lost more than 3,000 tanks – the equivalent of its entire pre-war active inventory – but had enough lower-quality armoured vehicles in storage for years of replacements.

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Israel slams UN report as ‘political blood libel’ for alleging deliberate targeting of Palestinian children

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Israel slams UN report as ‘political blood libel’ for alleging deliberate targeting of Palestinian children

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Israel reacted angrily over a new United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry report alleging the Jewish state had engaged in the “deliberate targeting of Palestinian children.”

Prior reports from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and Israel garnered accusations of antisemitism and incitement to violence.

The latest report, released Wednesday, said that, “based on the evidence reviewed, and consistent with its previous reports, the Commission finds on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces have continued to commit the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

UN EXPERT REPEATS ISRAEL ‘GENOCIDE’ CLAIMS AFTER US CALLS FOR HER REMOVAL

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A woman kneels by a memorial site in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, as the community commemorates members killed, taken hostage, or who died in captivity following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, told Fox News Digital that “this is not an investigative report. It is a political blood libel disguised as a U.N. document. This commission reaches its conclusions before examining the facts and repeatedly publishes reports that serve one purpose only: to vilify Israel. Instead of addressing Hamas’ crimes, the October 7 massacre, the hostages, and Hamas’ cynical use of children and civilians as human shields, the commission has once again chosen to place Israel in the dock.”

Danon added that “Israel will continue to defend its citizens and fight terrorism, regardless of how many false reports are published by fringe actors within U.N. institutions.”

Representatives from the COI and Human Rights Council did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the concerns addressed about the report.

Asked for a reaction from U.N. chief Antonio Guterres to the report, his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, told Fox News Digital “it’s not his report to comment on.”

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ISRAELI AMBASSADOR LASHES OUT AT UN OFFICIAL, CONDEMNS UK, FRANCE, CANADA STATEMENT ON AID

A bloodied handprint stains a wall inside a house in the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border after a Hamas attack days earlier. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission told reporters during a press briefing that, “The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces.” He said “Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”

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Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, told Fox News Digital that the COI’s “sham ‘inquiry’ makes the totally unjustified claim of legal authority, while at the same time systematically violating every conceivable legal rule of fairness, impartiality, and due process. Since its creation in 2021, every call for submissions, every consultation and every hearing held, has been contrived to take seriously the allegations of only one side – trashing literally millions of data points both historical and current to the contrary.”

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She said, “the first COI report focused on children…fails to even mention the sickening murders of 9-month-old Kfir Bibas and 4-year-old Ariel Bibas.” She says that “also ignored in the COI report are the hundreds of thousands of Israeli children traumatized by October 7th, by the subsequent mass displacement, and by the excruciating longing for parents absent while defending their country against an inhumane foe.”

Photos of the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz, 84, who were kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and later killed, are displayed next to candles in the dining room in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, on Feb. 25, 2025, the day of Lifshitz’s funeral after their bodies were returned under a ceasefire agreement. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)

NETANYAHU SHOWS PICTURE OF BIBAS FAMILY AT COMBAT OFFICERS’ GRADUATION: ‘REMEMBER WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR’

Bayefsky complained that though the current COI report “was produced weeks ago,” the COI members “deliberately withheld” the report when appearing before the Human Rights Council last week. “They didn’t publish it until June 23, minutes prior to holding a stage-managed press conference designed to avoid accountability for their wild, unverified accusations,” she claimed.

Another member of the commission told reporters in Geneva that, “There can be no doubt in anyone who reads today’s report that every international legal norm has been violated by the actions of the Israeli authorities towards Palestinian children and they need to be held accountable.”

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United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 18, 2024. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

Jonathan Conricus, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, told Fox News Digital that the latest report contains “no evidence to support any of the claims against Israel” and is filled with “inconsistencies in methodology.”

He said the report represents “an escalation, and it marks maybe the most severe attempt by the U.N. ecosystem to delegitimize Israel.”

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Salo Aizenberg, director of media watchdog group HonestReporting, who has researched and debunked many of the claims made by those claiming genocide in Gaza, told Fox News Digital that the COI’s “report is built on a fictional battlefield where Hamas and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] do not exist, and where hospitals are treated as purely civilian spaces despite extensive evidence of their military use and infiltration by Hamas operatives. It then accuses Israel of deliberately targeting children without producing a single incident supported by evidence of intent.”

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Conricus said the report erases “Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the battlefield to create the false kind of perception that Israel was operating out of wanton aggression in a vacuum without there ever being a need for Israeli operations and this is a reoccurring theme.” He also noted that this report and others “use the statements of medical professionals as evidence, even when it’s way beyond their medical expertise, specifically when it comes to how wounds were inflicted.”

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Prioritise workers’ health during heatwaves, says ETUI

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Prioritise workers’ health during heatwaves, says ETUI

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Europe is breaking heat records. These extreme events pose a threat to people’s health both at home and at work. The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), a research centre affiliated with the European Trade Union Confederation, presented a report on Thursday laying out solutions aimed at safeguarding workers’ health in the face of climate change.

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One of the report’s authors emphasised that the danger is not limited to the south of the continent.

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“The problem is the worst in the south, of course; that’s where we see most of the accidents. At the same time, though, we have been recording the highest increases in accidents in central and northern Europe,” said Andreas Flouris, professor of physiology at the University of Thessaly.

“The south is already hot, and it’s a problem. But the centre and the north are catching up very fast.”

According to the report, around 130 million workers across Europe are exposed to workplace heat stress, resulting in 277,000 related injuries and 230 deaths annually.

An EU-OSHA (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work) survey from 2025 found that around one in five workers in the EU reported exposure to extreme heat at work in the previous 12 months. Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of these heatwaves, which affect health and reduce work capacity.

“The optimum temperature to work at is 16°C. Beyond that, for every 1°C rise, there is an average productivity loss of around 2%,” Flouris told Euronews.

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“During an average heatwave in southern Europe, productivity losses reach around 20 to 25%. In central Europe, the figure is between 8 and 14%, and even in Scandinavia, we have recorded losses of 3 to 6% due to heatwaves over the course of a year,” he added.

Based on scientific evidence, the report’s authors propose that the European Union introduce legislation specifically targeting heat risks in the workplace.

“What we propose is a mandatory heat risk assessment, in order to oblige employers to assess and identify the risks related to heat exposure in their workplace. Only by knowing what we are dealing with can we protect workers and prevent the risks associated with heat exposure at work,” said Marouane Laabbas-el-Guennouni, a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute.

The report also proposes using a broader index to assess heat stress exposure. The authors argue that temperature should not be the sole indicator, and that humidity and wind speed should also be factored in when determining exposure levels.

The researchers emphasised that heatwaves are a measurable, predictable, and therefore preventable phenomenon.

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Mubi to Publish Lost ‘Faust’ Bible on Centenary of F.W. Murnau’s Silent Cinema Classic (EXCLUSIVE)

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Mubi to Publish Lost ‘Faust’ Bible on Centenary of F.W. Murnau’s Silent Cinema Classic (EXCLUSIVE)

Arthouse distributor, streamer, production company and — since 2015 — publisher Mubi is set to release a book about the silent era classic “Faust” containing material that was until recently thought lost.

“The Faust Bible: The Making of F.W. Murnau’s Masterpiece” is being published by Mubi Editions, presented in partnership with la Cinémathèque française, which will publish globally on Oct. 17.

The book marks 100 years since F.W. Murnau’s fantasy epic, considered one of the prime examples of German expressionist cinema, and brings to light a recently-unearthed artefact of film history: a visual diary of approximately 400 photographs and original illustrations documenting the making of the film almost step-by-step.

Compiled by “Faust” crew members Robert Herlth, Carl Hoffmann, and Walter Röhrig, and originally presented to Murnau inside a prop Bible, this collection was gifted as a memento to the director on the film’s completion and ahead of his move from Germany to Hollywood. However, it was then lost for many years, thought to have been destroyed in World War II, before its recent rediscovery and painstaking restoration by la Cinémathèque française, who acquired it for their collection in 2017.

Now published in full for the very first time, “The Faust Bible: The Making of F.W. Murnau’s Masterpiece” will contain stills and sketches showcasing the film’s lavish costuming and set design, plus detailed storyboarding.

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The publication is guided by Laurent Mannoni, scientific director of heritage at la Cinémathèque française, who also contributes a newly commissioned essay and annotations on the discovery of the Bible and its rare contents. Accompanying him are Stefan Drössler, director of the Filmmuseum München, writing on the production history of the film, and K.J. Relth-Miller, director of film programs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, on the film’s lasting legacy in contemporary cinema.

”Preserving and revitalizing film history is at the heart of what we do at Mubi,” said Daniel Kasman, Mubi’s vice president of publishing. “The discovery of the astonishing Faust ‘Bible’ presents a beautiful opportunity to share this glorious classic of silent cinema with audiences new and old. It offers profound new insight into the mind of one of cinema’s greatest auteurs, revealing the meticulous artistry behind this groundbreaking visual fantasia, created by some of the most talented craftspeople of their day—while standing as a remarkable work of art in its own right.”

To mark both the book’s publication and the centenary of “Faust,” Mubi will present a series of international events and screenings throughout autumn 2026, including a public launch at la Cinémathèque française in Paris on Oct 17. Further details are to be announced.

“One of the most influential and pioneering filmmakers of the silent era, F.W. Murnau was known for the privacy of his film sets,” said la Cinémathèque française’s Mannoni. “Reluctant to welcome visitors, he was even less inclined to reveal his creative process. The rediscovery of the Faust ‘Bible’ offers extraordinary insight into the making of one of cinema’s great masterpieces. Published in its entirety for the first time, it allows readers to trace the creation of this legendary film.”

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