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Air Canada's fleet of hundreds of planes remained grounded on Monday morning after striking flight attendants refused a government-backed order to get back to work and called on the airline to return to the bargaining table, Reuters reported.

The carrier, which normally carries 130,000 people daily and is part of the global Star Alliance of airlines, had planned to start ramping up operations on Sunday evening, after a labor relations board ordered the union to return to work and start binding arbitration.

The union said no, setting up an almost unprecedented standoff with the Canadian government, which had requested the back-to-work order.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 10,000 Air Canada cabin crew, had pushed for a negotiated solution, saying binding arbitration would take pressure off the airline, according to Reuters.

A prominent Sudanese human rights group has accused the country's army and security forces of torturing people to death and operating "execution chambers".

The Emergency Lawyers group said it had documented hundreds of arrests in the capital Khartoum. It said that in the "worst cases", some captives had later been found dead with evidence of torture, BBC reported.

The Sudanese army recaptured the city from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in March, against which it is fighting a bitter civil war that has killed tens of thousands in two years.

The army did not respond to the BBC's request for comment on Sunday.

South Korea and the United States began their annual large-scale joint military exercise on Monday to better cope with threats by nuclear-armed North Korea, which has warned the drills would deepen regional tensions and vowed to respond to “any provocation” against its territory, Associated Press reported.

The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield, the second of two large-scale exercises held annually in South Korea, after another set in March, will involve 21,000 soldiers, including 18,000 South Koreans, in computer-simulated command post operations and field training. 

The drills, which the allies describe as defensive, could trigger a response from North Korea, which has long portrayed the allies’ exercises as invasion rehearsals and has often used them as a pretext for military demonstrations and weapons tests aimed at advancing its nuclear program, according to Associated Press.

Donald Trump has said the Ukrainian president can end Russia's war "if he wants to", but there would be "no going into Nato by Ukraine" as part of a peace deal, BBC reported.

Hours before he was due to host Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, Trump also said there would be "no getting back" of the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion.

Trump's remarks follow his summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska that resulted in the US president dropping a demand for a ceasefire and calling instead for a permanent peace deal.

After arriving in the US late on Sunday, Zelensky reiterated his call for allies' effective security guarantees, according to BBC.