24/03/2026

TUESDAY | MAR 24, 2026

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IRAN DENIES TARGETING DIEGO GARCIA BASE ISTANBUL: Iran yesterday denied allegations that it targeted a US-UK military base on Diego Garcia with missiles, dismissing the claim as an “Israeli false flag”. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a statement on X that recent accusations lacked credibility and reflected a pattern of “disinformation”. “That even the Nato Secretary-General (Mark Rutte) declines to endorse Israel’s most recent disinformation speaks volumes: the world has grown thoroughly exhausted with these tired and discredited ‘false flag’ storylines,” he wrote. The denial came after Rutte said the alliance “cannot confirm” Israel’s claim that missiles targeting Diego Garcia were Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that two intermediate range ballistic missiles had been fired towards the base, with neither striking it. Diego Garcia is one of two bases the UK has authorised the US to use as part of its military campaign against Iran. – Bernama ‘STRIKES NEAR BUSHEHR NUCLEAR PLANT DANGEROUS’ MOSCOW: US-Israeli strikes near the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran are extremely dangerous and Russia has shared its concerns with the United States, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday. Such strikes could have irreparable consequences, Peskov said. “We believe that strikes on nuclear facilities are potentially extremely dangerous. Therefore, the Russian side, taking an extremely responsible stance on this issue, has repeatedly voiced its concerns,” Peskov said. The Kremlin spokesman said that the conflict in Iran “as recently as yesterday” should have been channelled towards a political and diplomatic settlement. “This is the only thing that can effectively help defuse the catastrophically tense situation in the region.” – Reuters JALUD: Palestinian residents said on Sunday that Israeli settlers torched buildings and cars in attacks on several villages in the occupied West Bank, with Israel’s army condemning “violence of any kind” after the fact. The reported arson late Saturday came in the midst of a spate of killings of Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank since the start of the Middle East war. AFP journalists saw the charred remains of a house and several vehicles in the village of Fandaqumiya, southwest of Jenin. In the village of Jalud, a medical centre had been torched. Hassan Al-Zoubi, whose home in Fandaqumiya was destroyed, told AFP that some 200 assailants had come from the nearby settlement of Homesh. “They set the house on fire right before our eyes using Molotov cocktails, throwing them through the windows,” Zoubi said. The Palestinian news agency WAFA said several Palestinians were injured in the attacks. – AFP FORMER FRENCH PREMIER LIONEL JOSPIN DIES AGED 88 PARIS: Former French prime minister Lionel Jospin, a Socialist who introduced the 35 hour work week and civil partnerships for gay couples, has died aged 88, his family said yesterday. Jospin, who was head of government from 1997 to 2002 before being overtaken by the far right in presidential polls, died on Sunday. He had said he had a “serious operation” and had returned home to rest in January, without providing details. To supporters, Jospin was honest and strait-laced. To his critics, he was a colourless technocrat. He paid a high price for his lack of pizzazz when he ran for president in 2002. A former economics professor, Jospin cast himself as a clean pair of hands. Jospin began his career at the Foreign Ministry and also worked as an academic before joining Francois Mitterrand to try to reform the Socialist Party. – AFP ISRAELI SETTLERS BURN WEST BANK BUILDINGS

BR I E F S

Debris hangs from a damaged Air Canada Express jet at LaGuardia Airport yesterday. – REUTERSPIC

Runway collision kills two pilots

NEW YORK: A plane carrying dozens of people collided with a fire truck on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia airport, killing the pilot and co-pilot and causing “serious injuries” to others, authorities said yesterday. Due to the crash late on Sunday, aviation authorities halted all flights at LaGuardia, and the port authority said the airport would stay shut until at least 2pm (Tuesday 2am in Malaysia) “to allow for a thorough investigation.” The closure follows the dramatic collision that left the Air Canada Express plane tilted back on its tail on the tarmac with a smashed cockpit and flanked by emergency vehicles with flashing lights. The pilot and co-pilot were killed in the crash, Kathryn Garcia, the head of the city’s port authority, said at a press conference. Forty-one people were taken to the hospital, some with “serious injuries”, though 32 have since been released, Garcia said. Two aircraft rescue and firefighting officers remain in the hospital in “stable condition with no life-threatening injury”, she said. “They were able to speak and we’re notifying their families.” The port authority said the aircraft operated by Jazz Aviation, a regional partner of Air Canada, struck one of its firefighting Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the US and Iran have had “very good and productive” conversations over the past two days about a “complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East”. In his message, written in capital letters, he said he had instructed the Defence Department to postpone the strikes pending the outcome of talks. On Saturday, Trump had warned that Iranian power plants would be destroyed if Tehran failed to “fully open” the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping within 48 hours. Trump set a deadline of around 7.44pm EDT on Monday (Tuesday 7.44am in Malaysia). His comments sparked threats of retaliation from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which said in a statement yesterday they would attack Israel’s power plants and those supplying US bases across the Gulf region if Trump followed through with his threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power network. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher

o NY airport shut down

the plane “was rolling down the runway when it struck” the rescue vehicle as it crossed its path. New York’s emergency management authority warned people to “expect cancellations, road closures, traffic delays and emergency personnel”, and use alternate routes. LaGuardia had already been suffering from flight disruptions due to poor weather, the airport said Sunday on X. Passengers were also waiting longer to pass security due to “staffing impacts” from a federal funding lapse, it said last week. Located in the New York borough of Queens, LaGuardia is New York’s third busiest airport, serving 33.5 million passengers in 2024. – AFP

trucks on Runway 4 on Sunday night as the vehicle drove to a separate incident. Emergency response protocols had been “immediately activated”, it said. A preliminary passenger list showed 76 people on board the flight, including four crew members, Jazz Aviation said. The National Transportation Safety Board said it had sent a “go team” to the scene to investigate the collision. Jazz Aviation said the crash involved a CRJ 900 aircraft that had flown into LaGuardia from Montreal as flight AC8646. Flight tracking platform FlightRadar24 said

Trump puts off threat to bomb power stations WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said yesterday he had given instructions to postpone any military strikes against Iranian power plants for five days, just hours ahead of a deadline that threatened further escalation in the conflict now in its fourth week.

A US B-52 Stratofortress bomber taking off at RAF Fairford airbase in Gloucestershire, Britain, on Sunday. – REUTERSPIC

Iran’s parliament is mulling imposing tolls on shipping through the strait, with Ghalibaf saying maritime traffic would “not return to its pre-war status”. More than 2,000 people have been killed in the war the US and Israel launched on Feb 28, which has upended markets, driven up fuel costs, fuelled global inflation fears and convulsed the Western alliance. – Reuters/AFP

Ghalibaf said vital infrastructure across the region would “be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed” if Trump carried out his threat. In recent days, Iran has allowed a handful of vessels from countries it considers friendly to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, while warning it would block ships from countries it says have joined the “aggression” against it.