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Aid worker deaths soared after Israel launched latest war on Gaza: UN

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Aid worker deaths soared after Israel launched latest war on Gaza: UN

UN office warns that a record number of aid workers were killed in 2023 and fears further grim milestones could be set as wars rage.

More than half of the 280 aid workers killed worldwide in 2023 died during the first three months of Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the United Nations.

The rise in deaths, mainly due to Israeli air attacks in Gaza between October and December last year, represents a 137 percent increase compared with 2022, when 118 aid workers were killed.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday that aid workers were killed in 33 countries in 2023, the “deadliest year on record for the global humanitarian community”.

But this year “may be on track for an even deadlier outcome”, OCHA warned, with 172 aid workers killed so far this year as of August 7.

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Marking World Humanitarian Day, leaders of humanitarian organisations are sending a joint letter to UN General Assembly member states, calling for an end to attacks on civilians, enhanced protection for aid workers, and accountability for those responsible.

Violence in Sudan and South Sudan has contributed to the death toll, both in 2023 and in 2024, said the UN. Meanwhile, several humanitarian workers continue to be detained in Yemen.

The UN’s acting emergency relief coordinator, Joyce Msuya, said in a statement that “the normalisation of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are unacceptable, unconscionable and enormously harmful for aid operations everywhere”.

She demanded in a statement that “people in power act to end violations against civilians and the impunity with which these heinous attacks are committed”.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said 207 of its staff members have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war in October last year.

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“We demand an end to impunity so that perpetrators face justice,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said on X: “In Gaza, there have been way too many of them since the war started 10 months ago. At least 289 aid workers including 207 UNRWA team members and 885 health workers lost.”

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

new video loaded: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

Prosecutors in Switzerland ordered Jacques Moretti to be detained after investigators questioned him and his wife, Jessica Moretti. Officials are looking into whether negligence played a role in last week’s deadly fire at their bar, Le Constellation.

By Meg Felling

January 9, 2026

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland’s leadership is pushing back on President Donald Trump as he and his administration call for the U.S. to take control of the island. Several Trump administration officials have backed the president’s calls for a takeover of Greenland, with many citing national security reasons.

“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and a longtime U.S. ally, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s statements about U.S. acquiring the island.

Greenland’s party leaders reiterated that the island’s “future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.”

“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” the statement said.

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TRUMP SAYS US IS MAKING MOVES TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND ‘WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT’

Greenland has rejected the Trump administration’s push to take over the Danish territory. (Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump was asked about the push to acquire Greenland on Friday during a roundtable with oil executives. The president, who has maintained that Greenland is vital to U.S. security, said it was important for the country to make the move so it could beat its adversaries to the punch.

“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday. “Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”

Trump hosted nearly two dozen oil executives at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela after the historic capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.

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“We don’t want to have Russia there,” Trump said of Venezuela on Friday when asked if the nation appears to be an ally to the U.S. “We don’t want to have China there. And, by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which, if we don’t take Greenland, you can have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.” 

Trump said the U.S. is in control of Venezuela after the capture and extradition of Maduro. 

Nielsen has previously rejected comparisons between Greenland and Venezuela, saying that his island was looking to improve its relations with the U.S., according to Reuters.

A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

FROM CARACAS TO NUUK: MADURO RAID SPARKS FRESH TRUMP PUSH ON GREENLAND

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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday that Trump’s threats to annex Greenland could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.

That same day, Nielsen said in a statement posted on Facebook that Greenland was “not an object of superpower rhetoric.”

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stands next to Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a visit to the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen on April 28, 2025. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland “should be part of the United States.”

CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.

“The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe

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Euronews spoke to Patrick de Bellefeuille, a prominent Canadian weather presenter and climate specialist, on how Europe could benefit from Canada’s long experience with snowstorms. He has been forecasting for MétéoMédia, Canada’s top French-language weather network, since 1988.

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