President Donald Trump will hit Iran harder if Tehran fails to accept that ​the country has been “defeated militarily,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said ‌on Wednesday.

“President Trump does not bluff and he is prepared to unleash hell. Iran should not miscalculate again,” Leavitt told reporters in a press briefing.

“If Iran fails to accept the reality ​of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have ​been defeated militarily, and will continue to be, President Trump will ⁠ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before,” she ​said.

As the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran entered its fourth week, there have ​been efforts by multiple countries such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt to mediate.

Iran is still reviewing a U.S. proposal to end the war, despite an initial response that was negative, ​a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday, indicating that Tehran had so ​far stopped short of rejecting it outright.

Talks with Iran were still under way, Leavitt said. “Talks ‌continue. ⁠They are productive, as the president said on Monday, and they continue to be,” she added.

Citing unnamed sources, media outlets on Tuesday reported that Washington sent Tehran a 15-point plan on ending the war. Leavitt said on Wednesday that elements of ​the reports were not ​fully accurate, but ⁠she did not provide specifics.

“The White House never confirmed that full plan. There are elements of truth to it, but some ​of the stories I read were not entirely factual, so ​I am ⁠not going to negotiate on behalf of the president here at the podium,” Leavitt said.

Global equity markets regained some ground while oil prices dipped on Wednesday after the ⁠reports ​about the plan, with investors hoping for an end ​to a war that has disrupted global energy supplies and raised inflation concerns.

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.

The Lockheed Martin-built Hercules C-130 transport plane was carrying 128 people, including 11 Air Force members, 115 army personnel and two national police officers, according to Hugo Alejandro Lopez, head of the nation’s armed forces, Reuters reported.

The death toll was nearly double that of the previous figure given by ​authorities, who continued search and recovery efforts at the site of the deadly crash.

The accident occurred as the plane was taking ​off from Puerto Leguizamo, on the border with Peru, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said on X.

The plane was believed ⁠to have suffered an impact near the end of the runway as it was taking off, firefighter Eduardo San Juan Callejas told Caracol, ​with a wing of the plane later clipping a tree as it was plummeting.

The crash caused the plane to catch fire and detonate some ​sort of explosive devices on board, he added.

Residents of the remote area were the first to pull out survivors, with videos showing men speeding down a dirt road with wounded soldiers on the back of their motorcycles.

Military vehicles later arrived, though authorities said the crash site was difficult to reach, impeding rescue efforts.

Lopez said that 57 ​of the survivors had been hospitalized, with 30 of them in non-serious condition at a military clinic.

MODERNIZING THE MILITARY

President Gustavo Petro, in the ​twilight of his administration, on Monday criticized bureaucratic obstacles for delaying his plans to modernize the military.

“I will grant no further delays; it is the lives of ‌our young ⁠people that are at stake,” he said in a post on X. “If civilian or military administrative officials are not up to this challenge, they must be removed.”

Several candidates in Colombia’s upcoming May 31 presidential election offered condolences and called for an investigation.

A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin said the company was committed to helping Colombia as it investigates the incident.

Hercules C-130 planes were first launched in the 1950s and Colombia acquired its first models ​in the late 1960s. It has ​more recently modernized some older ⁠C-130s with newer models sent from the U.S. under a provision that allows for the transfer of used or surplus military equipment.

Hercules C-130s are frequently used in Colombia to transport troops as part of the military’s ​operations amid a six-decade-long internal conflict that has claimed more than 450,000 lives.

The tail number of the plane ​that crashed on Monday ⁠matches that of the first of three planes delivered by the U.S. to Colombia in recent years.

At the end of February, another Hercules C-130 belonging to the Bolivian Air Force crashed in the populous city of El Alto, barely missing a residential block.

More than 20 people died in that incident ⁠and another ​30 were injured, and banknotes from the plane’s cargo scattered around the crash site, prompting clashes ​between residents and security forces.

North Korean leader ​Kim Jong Un was reappointed as president of state affairs, ‌state media KCNA reported on Monday, after the isolated nation convened the first session of its Supreme People’s Assembly a day earlier.

The meeting in Pyongyang will discuss amendments ​and supplements to the socialist constitution, as well as the ​election of the chairman of the State Affairs Commission and ⁠other state leadership bodies, Reuters reported.

The assembly, North Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature that formally approves ​state policy, typically meets following a ruling Workers’ Party Congress to turn ​party decisions into law.

The meeting will also review the country’s economic five-year plan announced at the ninth party congress held in February, KCNA said.

Attention has been focused on whether ​Pyongyang will revise its constitution to formalise leader Kim Jong Un’s “two ​hostile states” policy toward South Korea.

In recent years, Kim has abandoned Pyongyang’s long-standing goal ‌of peaceful ⁠reunification and redefined the South as a hostile state.

Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, was notably absent from KCNA’s list of members of the State Affairs Commission, the country’s highest leadership body, on which she ​had served since ​2021.

South Korea’s ⁠Unification Ministry said it was looking into why she was no longer listed, but analysts said the move ​did not necessarily signal a loss of influence.

“Her absence ​suggests not ⁠a decline in status but a strategic division of roles,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University, adding that the younger Kim continues to ⁠wield ​real power as a department director in ​the ruling Workers’ Party, where she may play a higher-level, party-centred role coordinating policy.