15 Jan 2019; DW: Iran announced on Tuesday that one of its satellites had failed to reach the "necessary speed" to achieve orbit.

Telecommunications Minister Mohammed Javad Jahromi told Iranian state television that the rocket carrying the satellite had passed the first and second launch stage, but that it had developed problems in the third phase.

Washington, Jan 14 (PTI) President Donald Trump has threatened to "devastate" Turkey economically if the NATO-allied nation attacks US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria following a pullout of American troops from the war-torn country, in a stern warning rejected by Ankara saying it will continue to fight the "terrorists".

Last month, President Trump surprised the world by announcing that he is withdrawing 2000 American troops from Syria. The pullout began last week.

Islamabad, Jan 14; PTI/GANASHAKTI: The US' demand for maintaining long-term military bases in Afghanistan has emerged as a sticking point in talks with the Taliban to end the 17-year-long war in the country, according to a media report here.

The report came as the US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, stepped up efforts to bring the Taliban to negotiations, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Russia and Iran involved in discussions with the Taliban over the past few months.

15 Jan 2019; DW: Staff responsible for checking passengers and cargo have started an 18-hour warning strike at Germany's biggest airports. An estimated 220,000 passengers are affected.

German airport association ADV warned that the strike action would "paralyze" the German flight network all day Tuesday. Frankfurt Airport operator Fraport canceled half of its 1,200 flights.

15 Jan 2019; AFP: The new special UN envoy to Syria began his first trip to Damascus on Tuesday, facing the daunting task of rekindling moribund peace talks and succeeding where his three predecessors failed.

Norway's Geir Pedersen, who replaces Staffan de Mistura, is the fourth negotiator to have been appointed UN special envoy to Syria since the civil war broke out in 2011.

14 Jan 2019; DW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Japanese counterpart, Taro Kano, on Monday to discuss a plan to finally end World War II hostilities.

The talks revolved around four disputed islands, which Moscow calls the Kuril Islands and Tokyo dubs its Northern Territories.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Monday marked a "first round of Russian-Japanese talks on the problem of reaching a deal between the two countries."

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. The onboard systems of Russia’s radio telescope Spektr-R operate normally according to the United States’ research data reception station, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said on Monday.

"A research data reception station in the United States has managed to identify the carrier frequency of the separate research data transmitter of the space apparatus Spektr-R, which is indirect evidence the onboard systems operate in accordance with the built-in algorithm," Roscosmos said.

BEIJING, January 14. /TASS/. China is ready to cooperate with Russia in operating its yet-to-be created orbital station and to let some other countries participate in similar projects, the secretary-general of the China National Space Administration, Li Guoping, told a news conference on Monday.

KIEV, January 14. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Kherson Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal against the arrest of Chief Editor of the RIA Novosti Ukraine news outlet Kirill Vyshinsky until January 27, defense attorney Igor Mokin told TASS.

"The court upheld the decision made by a court of first instance, which arrested Vyshinsky until January 27," he said.

LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers were preparing to deliver their verdict on Prime Minister Theresa May’s divorce deal with the European Union on Tuesday after more than two years of political upheaval.

All signs point to it receiving a resounding thumbs-down from Parliament, a development that would throw British politics further into turmoil, just 10 weeks before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29.

BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's foreign trade rose 9.7 percent year on year to a historic high of 30.51 trillion yuan (about 4.5 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2018, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Monday.

The value was 2.7 trillion yuan higher than that of 2017, according to the GAC.

"China effectively tackled changes of the external environment last year, and the foreign trade maintained stable and positive growth, reaching a historic high in import and export volume," GAC spokesman Li Kuiwen told a press conference.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. The United States has not handled well its role as an international arbiter and failed at ensuring global security, Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Zvezda TV channel on Monday.