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Putin Denies Russia Preparing to Give Iran Advanced Satellite System

The report of Russia's planned delivery to Iran comes just days before Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with US President Joe Biden - AFP
The report of Russia's planned delivery to Iran comes just days before Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with US President Joe Biden - AFP
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Putin Denies Russia Preparing to Give Iran Advanced Satellite System

The report of Russia's planned delivery to Iran comes just days before Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with US President Joe Biden - AFP
The report of Russia's planned delivery to Iran comes just days before Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with US President Joe Biden - AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday denied a US media report that Russia is set to deliver an advanced satellite system to Iran that will vastly improve its spying capabilities.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Moscow is preparing to give Iran a Kanopus-V satellite with a high-resolution camera, allowing Islamic republic to monitor facilities of its adversaries across the Middle East.

Putin, who is expected to hear a range of complaints from US President Joe Biden when they meet Wednesday in Geneva, dismissed the report as "garbage", AFP reported.

"We have cooperation plans with Iran, including the military and technical cooperation," he told NBC News in an interview ahead of the summit.

"It's just fake news. At the very least, I don't know anything about this kind of thing, those who are speaking about it probably will maybe know more about it. It's just nonsense, garbage."

Biden, who is on his first foreign tour since entering the White House, is expected to raise a slew of complaints with Putin including over election interference and hacking purportedly linked to Russia.

The Washington Post, quoting current and former US and Middle Eastern officials, said the launch of the satellite could happen within months, and is the result of multiple trips to Russia by leaders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

The satellite, while not of US capabilities, could allow the monitoring of Israeli bases and the US troop presence in Iraq, the report said.

Iran has a tense relationship with many nations in the region including Israel, raising fears by its adversaries it could share imagery with proxies in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon.

The satellite could be launched in Russia, although Russian trainers have assisted ground crews who would operate the satellite near a new site near the northern Iranian city of Karaj, The Post reported.

Details of the sale also come at a delicate time when world powers are meeting to bring the United States back to the Iran nuclear deal and Tehran back into compliance with it.

The 2015 landmark accord has been hanging by a thread since the United States left it in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, leading to Tehran to step up nuclear activities long curtailed by the deal.

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World

Glitch Delays Restart of World's Biggest Nuclear Plant in Japan

Local Japanese authorities have approved the restart of the world's biggest nuclear power facility, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. STR / JIJI Press/AFP
Local Japanese authorities have approved the restart of the world's biggest nuclear power facility, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. STR / JIJI Press/AFP
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Glitch Delays Restart of World's Biggest Nuclear Plant in Japan

Local Japanese authorities have approved the restart of the world's biggest nuclear power facility, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. STR / JIJI Press/AFP
Local Japanese authorities have approved the restart of the world's biggest nuclear power facility, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. STR / JIJI Press/AFP

A technical glitch pushed back the restart of the world's biggest nuclear reactor in Japan, its operator said on Monday, a day before local media reported it would go online.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said it would need another day of two to check the equipment at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which media reports said was set to restart on Tuesday.

The plant was taken offline when Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima plant into meltdown in 2011.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility would be the first nuclear plant that Fukushima operator TEPCO restarts since the disaster.

The company has never publicly announced a date to switch on the plant.

TEPCO has decided to run more checks after detecting a technical issue on Saturday related to an alarm linked to one of the reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, company spokesman Isao Ito told AFP.

The alarm issue had been fixed by Sunday, he added.

After the final checks, the utility will explain to nuclear authorities what had happened and proceed to restart the plant, the spokesman said, without providing an exact timeline.

More than a decade since the Fukushima accident, Japan now wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet growing energy needs from artificial intelligence.

But it is a divisive issue, with many residents worried about nuclear safety.

About 50 people gathered Monday outside TEPCO's headquarters in the capital Tokyo, chanting "No to the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa!"

"TEPCO only mentions a possible delay. But that's not enough," said Takeshi Sakagami, president of the Citizens' Nuclear Regulatory Watchdog Group.

"A full investigation is needed, and if a major flaw is confirmed, the reactor should be permanently shut down," he said at the rally.

The reactor has cleared the nation's nuclear safety standard.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has voiced her support for the use of nuclear power.

Japan is the world's fifth-largest single-country emitter of carbon dioxide, and is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels.

World

Trump Says 'World Is Not Secure' Unless US Controls Greenland

Danish soldiers walk in front of Joint Arctic Command in Nuuk, Greenland, January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
Danish soldiers walk in front of Joint Arctic Command in Nuuk, Greenland, January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
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Trump Says 'World Is Not Secure' Unless US Controls Greenland

Danish soldiers walk in front of Joint Arctic Command in Nuuk, Greenland, January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
Danish soldiers walk in front of Joint Arctic Command in Nuuk, Greenland, January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica

President Donald Trump told the Norwegian prime minister in a message published Monday that the world would not be secure unless the US controlled the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland.

"The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland," Trump said in the message to Jonas Gahr Store.

The authenticity of the message was confirmed to AFP by Store's office.

World

Death Toll in Spanish Train Collision Rises to at Least 39 as Rescue Efforts Continue

Members of the Spanish Civil Guard, along with other emergency personnel, work next to one of the trains involved in the accident, at the site of a deadly derailment of two high-speed trains near Adamuz, in Cordoba, Spain, January 19, 2026. (Reuters)
Members of the Spanish Civil Guard, along with other emergency personnel, work next to one of the trains involved in the accident, at the site of a deadly derailment of two high-speed trains near Adamuz, in Cordoba, Spain, January 19, 2026. (Reuters)
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Death Toll in Spanish Train Collision Rises to at Least 39 as Rescue Efforts Continue

Members of the Spanish Civil Guard, along with other emergency personnel, work next to one of the trains involved in the accident, at the site of a deadly derailment of two high-speed trains near Adamuz, in Cordoba, Spain, January 19, 2026. (Reuters)
Members of the Spanish Civil Guard, along with other emergency personnel, work next to one of the trains involved in the accident, at the site of a deadly derailment of two high-speed trains near Adamuz, in Cordoba, Spain, January 19, 2026. (Reuters)

Spanish police said Monday that at least 39 people are confirmed dead in a high-speed train collision the previous night in the south of the country, and rescue efforts were continuing.

Video and photos showed twisted train cars lying on their sides under floodlights. Passengers reported climbing out of smashed windows, with some using emergency hammers to break the windows, according to Salvador Jiménez, a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE, who was on board one of the derailed trains.

He told the network by phone Sunday that “there was a moment when it felt like an earthquake and the train had indeed derailed.”

The crash occurred when the tail end of a train carrying some 300 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails at 7:45 p.m. It slammed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to rail operator Adif.

The collision took place near Adamuz, a town in the province of Cordoba, about 370 kilometers (about 230 miles) south of Madrid.

Spanish police said 159 people were injured, of whom five were in critical condition. A further 24 were in serious condition, authorities said. Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the death toll was not final.

In Adamuz, a sports center was turned into a makeshift hospital and the Spanish Red Cross set up a help center offering assistance to emergency services and people seeking information. Members of Spain’s civil guard and civil defense worked on site throughout the night.

Puente early Monday said the cause of the crash was unknown.

He called it “a truly strange” incident because it happened on a flat stretch of track that had been renovated in May. He also said the train that jumped the track was less than 4 years old. That train belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train, which took the brunt of the impact, was part of Spain’s public train company, Renfe.

According to Puente, the back part of the first train derailed and crashed into the head of the other train, knocking its first two carriages off the track and down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. He said the worst damage was to the front section of the Renfe train.

When asked by reporters how long an inquiry into the crash’s cause could take, he said it could be a month.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his condolences to the victims' families. “Tonight is a night of deep pain for our country,” he wrote on X.

Spain has the largest rail network in Europe for trains moving over 250 kph (155 mph), with more than 3,100 kilometers (1,900 miles) of track, according to the European Union.

The network is a popular, competitively priced and safe mode of transport. Renfe said more than 25 million passengers took one of its high-speed trains in 2024.

Train services Monday between Madrid and cities in Andalusia were canceled.

Spain’s worst train accident this century occurred in 2013, when 80 people died after a train derailed in the country’s northwest. An investigation concluded the train was traveling 179 kph (111 mph) on a stretch with an 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit when it left the tracks.