International from Monday, March 23rd, 2026

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would permanently strengthen its nuclear forces and treat South Korea as its most hostile state, as he set out policy priorities in a speech to parliament, state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Ukrainian intelligence believed Russian forces were preparing a new, imminent mass attack on the country.

At least seven rockets were launched from the Iraqi town of Rabi'a towards a US military base in northeastern Syria on Monday, two Iraqi security sources said, the first attack of its kind since the start of the US-Israeli military campaign on Iran.

A Colombian military plane crashed in a takeoff disaster on Monday, killing 66 people as rescuers shuttled dozens of survivors to nearby hospitals and searched for four who were still missing, according to a top official.

Hong Kong police can now demand that people suspected of breaching the city's national security law provide mobile phone or computer passwords in a further crackdown on dissent.

US immigration agents began deploying at more than a dozen US airports on Monday to aid security screening as staffing absences by unpaid airport security officers have caused massive delays.

Iran denied on Monday that it had engaged in negotiations with the United States, after President Donald Trump postponed a threat to bomb Iran's power grid because of what he described as productive talks with unidentified Iranian officials.

A fuel reservoir in Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, Russia's largest western oil exporting hub, caught fire after a drone attack, revealed governor of Leningrad Oblast Alexander Drozdenko on messaging app Telegram on Monday.

Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organisation in north London were set ablaze, police said on Monday, adding that the incident was being treated as an antisemitic hate crime.

An Air Canada Express jet collided with a fire truck while landing at New York's LaGuardia airport late on Sunday, killing both pilots, injuring dozens and closing the facility, authorities said.