Briefly

RUSSIA

Moscow still 'open' to idea of peace talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had barely gotten started in Ukraine and dared the West to try to defeat it on the battlefield, while insisting that Moscow was still open to the idea of peace talks. In a speech to parliamentary leaders more than four months into the conflict, Putin said the prospects for any negotiation grow dimmer the longer the conflict is dragged on, though he also referred to the possibility of negotiations. It was the first reference to diplomacy in many weeks after repeated statements from Moscow that negotiations with Kyiv had totally broken down.

FRANCE

Govt unveils 20b euro inflation relief package

France's minority government unveiled on Thursday a 20 billion euro ($20.29 billion) inflation relief package that will include fuel discounts, rent caps and a boost to pension benefits, but will need backing from some of the opposition members to be adopted. The package includes a 4 percent increase to welfare and pension benefits, raising civil servant pay by 3.5 percent and prolonging a state-financed rebate on fuel prices at the pump. With households increasingly struggling in the face of record inflation, the government is under pressure to pass the bill quickly, while opposition parties are impatient to wield their new power to rewrite proposed legislation.

UNITED STATES

James Webb telescope 'teaser' photo released

NASA provided an engineering test photo on Wednesday ahead of the highly anticipated July 12 release of the first deep-space images from the James Webb Telescope. The $10 billion observatory－launched in December and now orbiting the sun 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth－can look where no telescope has looked before with its enormous primary mirror and instruments that focus on infrared, allowing it to peer through dust and gas. The teaser photo is the result of 72 exposures over 32 hours that shows a set of distant stars and galaxies.

UNITED NATIONS

EU and UN hold 1st high-level dialogue

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first EU-UN high-level dialogue on Thursday in New York's Long Island by saying that the need to work together is critical, especially at a time when the conflict in Ukraine has created a global food and energy crisis. Von der Leyen said this comes "at a crucial time" because" the world is at a major inflection point" and the global system is at stake. Guterres said multilateralism is needed more than ever to tackle the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, "a dramatic climate emergency" and multiplying conflicts.

Agencies - Xinhua