Connect with us

World

Lebanon files complaint against Israel at UN labour body over pager attacks

Published

on

Lebanon files complaint against Israel at UN labour body over pager attacks

Labour Minister Mustafa Bayram says 4,000 civilians were killed or wounded in the September attacks.

Lebanon has filed a complaint against Israel with the United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) over a string of deadly attacks involving exploding pagers in September.

Lebanese Labour Minister Mustafa Bayram filed the formal complaint at the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, he said the attack was an “egregious war against humanity, against technology, against work”.

“It’s a very dangerous precedent if not condemned,” he said of the attacks, which Lebanon says killed and injured workers.

“We are in a situation where ordinary objects – objects used in daily life – become dangerous and lethal.”

Advertisement

The explosions on September 23 were purportedly aimed at targeting the Hezbollah armed group in Lebanon that used the devices to communicate.

The attack was widely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied the allegation. Bayram said it was “widely accepted internationally … that Israel was behind this heinous act”.

The minister added that the casualty count was even higher than first reported, explaining that “more than 4,000 civilians fell – between martyrs and injured and maimed – in a few minutes by this attack.”

‘Contrary to decent work principles’

During a press conference in Geneva, Bayram was asked why he opted to file the complaint at the ILO, to which he replied that the workers who were harmed in the explosions were on the job.

“We deemed it necessary to point out that this runs contrary to work environment, security and safety, contrary to decent work principles … defended by the ILO,” he said.

Advertisement

He added that the Lebanese authorities could still file complaints about pager attacks in other international forums, including the World Trade Organization (WTO).

With the attack on the pagers in September, Israel began a more intense war on Lebanon.

Hezbollah and the Israeli army had already been trading attacks since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.

A week after the pager attack, Israel announced a ground operation in southern Lebanon as well as heavy air strikes on areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

So far, more than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon and 13,492 injured since last October, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

Advertisement

More than a million people have also been displaced due to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.

In the latest attacks on Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed at least 30 people in Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, according to the regional governor, while more strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs.

World

Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

Published

on

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

Continue Reading

World

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

Published

on

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

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

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.

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement

“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

Advertisement

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)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

World

What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe

Published

on

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.

Continue Reading

Trending