World

The cosmic cliffs of a stellar nursery, a quintet of galaxies bound in a celestial dance: the James Webb Space Telescope released its next wave of images Tuesday, heralding a new era of astronomy.

“Every image is a new discovery,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson. “Each will give humanity a view of the universe that we’ve never seen before.”

Released one by one, the new images demonstrated the full power of the $10 billion observatory, which uses infrared cameras to gaze into the distant universe in unprecedented clarity.

On Monday, Webb revealed the clearest image to date of the early universe, going back 13 billion years.

The latest tranche included the “mountains” and “valleys” of a star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula, dubbed the “Cosmic Cliffs,” 7,600 light years away.

“For the first time we’re seeing brand new stars that were previously completely hidden from our view,” said NASA astrophycisist Amber Straughn.

Webb also revealed never before seen details of Stephan’s Quintet, a grouping of five galaxies including four that experience repeated close encounters, which provide insights into how early galaxies formed at the start of the universe.

The telescope dramatically captures shockwaves as one of the galaxies smashes through the center of the cluster.

A dim star at the center of the Southern Ring Nebula was revealed for the first time to be cloaked in dust, as it spews out rings of gas and dust in its death throes.

Understanding the molecules present in such stellar graveyards can help scientists learn more about the process of stellar death.

– Exploring the cosmos –

The telescope also found water vapor in the atmosphere of a faraway gas planet. The spectroscopy — an analysis of light that reveals detailed information — was of planet WASP-96 b, which was discovered in 2014.

Nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, WASP-96 b is about half the mass of Jupiter and zips around its star in just 3.4 days.

“We’ve seen the effect of what happens when a planet and its atmosphere passes in front of the star, and the star light filters through the atmosphere, and you can break that down into wavelengths of light,” said NASA’s Knicole Colon.

“So you’re actually seeing bumps and wiggles that indicate the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere of the planet.”

Launched in December 2021 from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, Webb is orbiting the Sun at a distance of a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, in a region of space called the second Lagrange point.

Here, it remains in a fixed position relative to the Earth and Sun, with minimal fuel required for course corrections. 

A wonder of engineering, the total project cost is estimated at $10 billion, making it one of the most expensive scientific platforms ever built, comparable to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Webb’s primary mirror is over 21 feet (6.5 meters) wide and is made up of 18 gold-coated mirror segments. Like a camera held in one’s hand, the structure must remain as stable as possible to achieve the best shots.

After the first images, astronomers around the globe will get shares of time on the telescope, with projects selected competitively through a process in which applicants and selectors don’t know each other’s identities, to minimize bias.

Thanks to an efficient launch, NASA estimates Webb has enough propellant for a 20-year life, as it works in concert with the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to answer fundamental questions about the cosmos.

Russian and Ukrainian delegations were due to meet with UN diplomats in Istanbul on Wednesday in a bid to break a months-long impasse over stalled grain deliveries across the Black Sea.

The four-way meeting with Turkish officials comes as food prices soar around the world due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest exporters of wheat and other grain.

But its shipments have been blocked by Russian warships and mines that Kyiv has laid across the Black Sea.

NATO member Turkey — on good terms with both Russia and Ukraine — has spearheaded efforts to resume the grain deliveries.

Turkish officials say they have 20 merchant ships waiting in the Black Sea that could be loaded quickly with Ukrainian grain.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Tuesday that the meeting would involve the three countries’ military delegations and a team from the United Nations.

“Military delegations from the Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian defence ministries, and a delegation of the United Nations, will hold talks tomorrow in Istanbul on the safe shipment to international markets of grain waiting in Ukrainian ports,” Akar said.

– ‘Still a way to go’ –

A Russian foreign ministry spokesman stressed that Moscow was entering the meeting with a list of firm demands.

“Our understandable conditions include the possibility to control and search the ships to avoid the contraband of weapons, and Kyiv’s commitment not to stage provocations,” ministry spokesman Pyotr Ilyichev was quoted as saying by Russia’s Interfax news agency

The Russian spokesman added that the UN team would act as “observers” at the talks.

But Ukraine stressed the UN’s importance to the negotiations and said it wanted its own set of security guarantees.

“We are grateful to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for his active role in reaching for a solution that could guarantee the security of our southern regions,” Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko told Interfax-Ukraine.

Guterres played down expectations heading into the talks.

“We are working hard indeed, but there is still a way to go,” the UN chief told reporters.

– Putin-Erdogan talks –

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tried to use his good relations with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Kyiv’s Western-backed leaders to thrust Ankara into the centre of negotiations about Ukraine.

Erdogan is due to meet Putin for the first time since Russia’s invasion when the two leaders are hosted by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran next Tuesday.

The talks are officially due to focus on the situation in war-ravaged Syria.

But the Kremlin said Putin and Erdogan will also hold a separate meeting that is almost certain to focus heavily on Ukraine.

Turkey has been sending defence delegations to both Moscow and Kyiv in a bid to break the deadlock over Ukraine’s grain.

A plan proposed by the United Nations would see the shipments start along specific corridors that avoid known locations of mines.

– Snake Island –

Ukraine has refused to de-mine the area out of fear that Russia might then stage an amphibious assault on cities such as the Black Sea port of Odessa.

Ukraine’s port authority said last week that Kyiv’s recapture of Snake Island in the Black Sea has allowed it to resume shipments into neighbouring Romania along the Danube River.

But those deliveries can only cover a small fraction of the 20 to 25 million tonnes of grain believed to be blocked in Ukraine.

The negotiations are complicated by mounting suspicions that Russia is stealing and exporting grain from farmers in Ukrainian regions now under its control.

Ukraine summoned Ankara’s ambassador to Kyiv after Turkey last week failed to seize a Russian-flag ship suspected of carrying confiscated grain.

The ship returned to a Russian port after spending nearly a week anchored off Turkey’s Black Sea coast.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply disappointed” with Turkey.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution Tuesday extending a system for cross-border aid to Syria by six months, the duration demanded by Russia while other members had sought a full year.

The measure received support from 12 of the Security Council’s 15 members, including Russia, China, and the grouping’s 10 non-permanent members.

Western nations had called for a year-long extension, arguing that six months was insufficient to properly plan the delivery of aid to war-ravaged Syria.

Britain, France and the United States abstained from the vote, marking their disagreement with the shorter duration.

“Russia forced everyone’s hand: either the system would be ended, or it was extended for six months,” an ambassador told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss the extension agreement reached in principle on Monday between the council’s 15 members. 

“We could not let people die.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed similar concern, saying extending the aid — particularly for the people of Idlib in Syria’s rebel-held northwest — “is a matter of life and death for many of them.” 

“We asked for a renewal of one year. The Security Council approved six months,” he said. “But I strongly hope that after six months it will be renewed.”

The aid delivery mechanism across Turkey’s border into rebel-held Syria at the Bab al-Hawa crossing is the only way UN assistance can reach civilians without navigating areas controlled by Syrian government forces.

The system, in place since 2014 and which more two million people rely on for assistance, had expired on Sunday.

The agreement, introduced by Ireland and Norway, breaks an impasse that had threatened to derail the life-saving supplies.

It also provides for a renewal in January 2023 for another six months, subject to the adoption of a new resolution, diplomats said.

– ‘Outrageous’ –

Both Ireland and Norway expressed relief Tuesday that aid would continue to flow.

But non-governmental groups offered withering critiques of Russia and slammed the United Nations process as unsustainable and inadequate.

“It’s outrageous that Russia once again succeeded in blackmailing Council members, this time by slashing the renewal period to six months so that the authorization expires in the middle of winter,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

British-founded charity Oxfam said the system of repeated renewals of short-term aid windows places unnecessary uncertainty on an already precarious situation for vulnerable Syrians.

The resolution “is deeply disappointing and could potentially leave more than four million people in northwest Syria without the assistance they depend upon to survive when the harsh winter months arrive,” said Oxfam’s Brenda Mofya.

In contrast, the World Health Organization hailed the UN for voting to avoid a near-total cut off of vital aid, saying they will continue to deliver “life-saving supplies” to the vulnerable population.

The renew of cross-border aid operations “is very good news for the nearly four and a-half million Syrians whose lives and health depend on this humanitarian access,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.

Russia, a Damascus ally, vetoed a Security Council resolution Friday that would have prolonged the mechanism by one year. Western powers then voted down Moscow’s initial competing resolution that proposed extending approval by just six months.

The new Irish-Norwegian text provides for a renewal in January 2023 for another six months, subject to the adoption of a new resolution.

More than 4,600 aid trucks, carrying mostly food, have crossed Bab al-Hawa this year, helping some 2.4 million people, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Kyiv said Tuesday it had launched artillery barrages that a destroyed a Russian arms depot and carried out a “special operation” to free military captives in the Moscow-controlled Kherson region.

The bombardments in the south came as Washington and the EU announced nearly $3 billion combined for Ukraine and Turkey said delegations from Moscow and Kyiv would meet in Istanbul Wednesday to discuss restarting stalled grain deliveries across the Black Sea.

Ukrainian military officials said the strikes had destroyed artillery, armoured vehicles “and a warehouse with ammunition” in the town of Nova Kakhovka.

Russian-backed authorities accused Ukraine, however, of damaging civilian infrastructure and killing at least seven people, a toll that could not be independently verified.

“Warehouses were hit, as were shops, a pharmacy, petrol stations and even a church,” the head of the city’s Moscow-backed administration, Vladimir Leontiev, said on social media.

Ukrainian military intelligence said separately its forces had free five captives in a “special operation” in Kherson, including a military serviceman and former police officer, without specifying when.

The Ukrainian army has for several weeks been waging a counter-offensive to recapture Kherson, which was taken by Russian troops early in the February invasion of Ukraine.

The deputy head of the pro-Russian authorities in Kherson, Ekaterina Gubareva, said Ukraine had used long-range, precision artillery systems supplied by the United States in the strikes in Nova Kakhovka.

– Western financial aid –

Military analysts are crediting newly arrived systems from the West — including HIMARS from the United States — with attacks deeper into Russian-controlled territory across the front line.

EU member states, which have been supplying Ukraine with military support, on Tuesday approved one billion euros ($1 billion) in financial support for Kyiv, billing it as the first instalment of a promised nine-billion-euro rescue package agreed in May.

The United States separately announced $1.7 billion to Ukraine to help fund the country’s recovery from Russia’s invasion.

“This aid will help Ukraine’s democratic government provide essential services for the people of Ukraine,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said of the funds that are part of a $7.5 billion aid package signed by President Joe Biden in May.

Moscow was striking back across Ukraine, with officials in the southern city of Mykolaiv saying Russian forces had bombed two medical facilities and homes, injuring 12 people.

Six people were injured in Russian shelling on Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, said regional governor Oleg Synegubov, after strikes the previous day left seven dead across that region.

But the heaviest fighting in recent weeks has centred on the Donbas where Moscow’s forces have slowly advanced under fierce resistance since failing to capture Kyiv after the February 24 invasion.

Ukrainian emergency services said the death toll had risen to 38, two days after Russian bombardment flattened a residential building in the eastern town of Chasiv Yar, in the Donetsk region of the Donbas.

In Bakhmut — one of the few remaining cities under Ukrainian control in Donbas — AFP journalists could hear nearby artillery fire.

– Toll rises to 38 –

“The front is getting closer,” said municipal official, Dmytro Podkuyidko, estimating that more than one-third of the town’s population of 73,000 have fled.

“If it gets worse, I’ll end up leaving too,” Podkuyidko said.

Turkey announced meanwhile that Russian and Ukrainian delegations had agreed to meet in Turkey Wednesday for talks to break an impasse on allowing Ukrainian grain to leave its southern ports which are mined and blocked by Russian warships. 

The four-way meeting with Turkish officials and the United Nations comes as food prices soar around the world due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time since the invasion at talks hosted by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran next Tuesday.

The talks are due to focus on the situation in war-ravaged Syria, but the Kremlin said Putin and Erdogan will hold a separate meeting that is almost certain to focus heavily on Ukraine.

The Kremlin has been working to consolidate its hold over territories it controls like Kherson, both militarily and bureaucratically since the beginning of the conflict.

After Putin on Monday passed a decree fast-tracking Russian passports for all Ukrainians, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was expected Tuesday to open a representative office for separatist authorities in Moscow.

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Turkey said it will host Russian and Ukrainian delegations with UN diplomats on Wednesday to discuss the resumption of stalled grain deliveries across the Black Sea.

The four-way meeting with Turkish officials comes as food prices soar around the world due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest exporters of wheat and other grain.

But its shipments have been blocked by Russian warships and mines that Kyiv has laid across the Black Sea.

NATO member Turkey — on good terms with both Russia and Ukraine — has spearheaded efforts to resume the grain deliveries.

Turkish officials say they have 20 merchant ships waiting in the Black Sea that could be loaded quickly with Ukrainian grain.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Tuesday that the meeting would involve the three countries’ military delegations and team from the United Nations.

“Military delegations from the Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian defence ministries, and a delegation of the United Nations, will hold talks tomorrow in Istanbul on the safe shipment to international markets of grain waiting in Ukrainian ports,” Akar said.

– Erdogan-Putin talks –

A Russian foreign ministry spokesman confirmed the meeting but also insisted that Moscow had a list of demands.

“Another round of expert consultations is planned for July 13 in Istanbul,” ministry spokesman Pyotr Ilyichev was quoted as saying by Russia’s Interfax news agency.

“Our understandable conditions include the possibility to control and search the ship to avoid the contraband of weapons, and Kyiv’s commitment not to stage provocations,” Ilyichev said.

The Russian spokesman added that the UN team would act as “observers” at the talks.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tried to use his good relations with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Kyiv’s Western-backed leaders to thrust Ankara into the centre of negotiations about Ukraine.

Erdogan is due to meet Putin for the first time since Russia’s invasion when the two leaders are hosted by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran next Tuesday.

The talks are officially due to focus on the situation in war-ravaged Syria.

But the Kremlin said Putin and Erdogan will also hold a separate meeting that is almost certain to focus heavily on Ukraine.

– Snake Island –

Turkey has been sending defence delegations to both Moscow and Kyiv in a bid to break the deadlock over Ukraine’s grain.

A plan proposed by the United Nations would see the shipments start along specific corridors that avoid known locations of mines.

Ukraine has refused to de-mine the area out of fear that Russia might then stage an amphibious assault on cities such as the Black Sea port of Odessa.

Ukraine’s port authority said last week that Kyiv’s recapture of Snake Island in the Black Sea has allowed it to resume shipments into neighbouring Romania along the Danube River.

But those deliveries can only cover a small fraction of the 20 to 25 million tonnes of grain believed to be blocked in Ukraine.

The negotiations are complicated by mounting suspicions that Russia is stealing and exporting grain from farmers in Ukrainian regions now under its control.

Ukraine summoned Ankara’s ambassador to Kyiv after Turkey last week failed to seize a Russian-flag ship suspected of carrying confiscated grain.

The ship returned to a Russian port after spending nearly a week anchored off Turkey’s Black Sea coast.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply disappointed” with Turkey.