NASA has announced that its James Webb space telescope has fully aligned, and is now capable of capturing "crisp, well-focused images" from around the universe. 

The space agency said on Thursday that the Webb space observatory's massive mirrors are properly feeding light to instruments that are fully capturing images from space.

“With the completion of telescope alignment and half a lifetime’s worth of effort, my role on the James Webb Space Telescope mission has come to an end,” Scott Acton, a scientist working on Webb's wavefront sensing and controls, said in a statement.

“These images have profoundly changed the way I see the universe. We are surrounded by a symphony of creation; there are galaxies everywhere! It is my hope that everyone in the world can see them.”

The announcement marks the latest advancement for what is hailed as the world's most advanced space observatory. But even though the alignment of its mirrors is complete, some calibration is still required for Webb's instruments, NASA said.

Webb is now "ready to move forward into its next and final series of preparations, known as science instrument commissioning," it said.

The process is expected to take roughly two months before full scientific operations can commence.

NASA released a mosaic of images on Twitter from Webb that depict a part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which the agency said is "a small, irregular satellite galaxy of the Milky Way."/aa

Business magnate Elon Musk has sold around $8.5 billion worth of his electric carmaker Tesla's shares in the three days following Twitter's approval of his $44 billion purchase offer, according to filings on Friday. 

Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla, sold 3.7 million shares of Tesla stock on Tuesday for $3.3 billion, and an additional 735,000 shares for almost $700 million on Wednesday.

In addition, he sold another 5.2 million shares worth $4.5 billion on Thursday, according to filings made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

In total, Musk has sold more than 9.6 million Tesla shares, for an average price of around $883 per share.

"No further TSLA sales planned after today," Musk wrote on his personal Twitter account late Thursday.

The stock price of Tesla, with ticker TSLA on the Nasdaq, was up 3.5% to $908.50 at 12.05 p.m. EDT on Friday.

Musk is estimated to have sold around 5.6% of Tesla shares he owned. After the transactions, percentage of the shares he owns in the company fell from around 17% to approximately 16%.

Twitter announced Monday it has accepted Elon Musk's offer to be purchased for $44 billion.

Musk was exploring a tender offer to buy Twitter, as he received a $46.5 billion commitment for the deal, according to a securities filing last Thursday./aa

Syria's Bashar al-Assad and his family are likely worth $1-2 billion, according to a recently published State Department report. 

The department said in a report mandated by Congress that it could only provide an "inexact estimate" on the Assad family worth based on publicly-available information.

It pointed to a number of difficulties in properly estimating the Assad family net worth, including assets that are spread across and concealed in a multitude of bank accounts, as well as assets hidden in real estate investments, corporations and offshore tax havens.

The Assads have further used false names and other individuals to obscure any off-shore assets they hold in an effort to evade US and international sanctions, the report published on Thursday said.

"The Assad family runs a complex patronage system including shell companies and corporate facades that serves as a tool for the regime to access financial resources via seemingly legitimate corporate structures and non-profit entities, and launder money acquired from illicit economic activities," it said.

That includes smuggling, arms trading, drug trafficking, and protection and extortion rackets, according to the department./agencies

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called Thursday on the council’s 46 member states to urgently set up an international criminal tribunal on the principle of universal jurisdiction to bring Russian perpetrators of war crimes against Ukraine to justice.

The assembly unanimously adopted a resolution at the spring session in Strasbourg, France to ensure accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law by Russia in Ukraine. The resolution said it is appalled by reports of the use of rape and torture as weapons of war and President Vladimir Putin’s felicitation of the alleged mastermind of the civilian atrocities in the city Bucha, which “cynically encourages Russian troops to continue committing similar actions.”

It urged the international community to send a clear message that the political and military leadership of the Russian Federation -- responsible for launching the war, carrying out war crimes and possible genocide -- will be held to account. The assembly appealed to member states to make use of the principle of universal jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute such crimes committed outside its territory.

According to the resolution, the tribunal’s mandate should be to "investigate and prosecute the crime of aggression” as defined by international law “allegedly committed by the political and military leadership of the Russian Federation,” a statement from PACE said. The tribunal should also “have the power to issue international arrest warrants and not be limited by State immunity," it noted

The council expelled Russia in March for seriously violating human rights, the rule of law, and fundamental freedoms as a result of Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine./aa

The European Union’s border agency has been involved in Greece’s illegal pushback of over 900 asylum seekers in the Aegean Sea, according to a new investigation, a French daily reported Thursday.

According to the findings of a joint investigation carried out by France’s Le Monde newspaper, German weekly Der Spiegel, Swiss news outlets SRF Rundschau and Republik and Netherlands-based Lighthouse Reports, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) was involved in 22 pushbacks between March 2020 and September 2021.

Frontex recorded the incidents -- in which at least 957 asylum seekers were taken off dinghies, put into Greek life rafts and left adrift at sea -- as “prevention of departure,” the investigation underlined.

Speaking to SRF, Nula Frei, an expert in migration law at Switzerland’s University of Fribourg, said Greece carried out pushbacks without giving people the chance to go through an asylum procedure, which is not permissible under international law.

SRF however drew attention that Greece has denied allegations of pushbacks, despite the presence of proof and complaints by Turkiye and numerous international non-governmental organizations.

Republik furthermore maintained that in at least two cases, the asylum seekers, including women and children, who had already landed on a Greek island, were then illegally dumped in Turkish waters.

Even these clearly unlawful cases were labeled in Frontex’s database as "prevention of departure," it noted.

On March 17, publishing the findings of an investigation by OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud watchdog, Der Spiegel revealed that Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri and other top officials not only knew of but also covered up the Greek pushbacks in the Aegean Sea.

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Greece's illegal pushback policy

Human rights advocates and leading media outlets have frequently reported illegal pushbacks and other rights breaches by Greek authorities violating EU and international law.

Besides seaborne pushbacks, Greek border forces are also accused of apprehending and forcibly expelling migrants who manage to cross into the country by land.

In February, at least 19 irregular migrants were found frozen to death near the Turkish-Greek border after being pushed back to Turkiye by Greece.

Turkish officials criticized Athens for inhumane and degrading treatment of irregular migrants, saying those who were found dead had been stripped of their clothes and shoes by the Greek border guards. Greece denied any involvement./aa