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Nepal's annual retail inflation accelerated to 8.56% for the month ending mid-June, central bank data showed on Monday, pushed by a spurt in food and fuel costs amid pressure on the country's currency, Reuters reported.

The latest inflation rate, highest in nearly six years, accelerated from 7.87% the previous month and 4.19% a year earlier, data showed.

Nepal's central bank faces a tough task of tightening monetary policy enough to cool consumer demand and tame prices, while avoiding major damage to the economy - hit hard during two years of pandemic.

A rise in crude oil and commodity prices since Russia invaded Ukraine in February has pushed up inflation globally, forcing many central banks to raise interest rates.

Earlier, speaking to lawmakers central bank governor Maha Prasad Adhikari, hinted interest rates could be raised to contain inflation.

Prakash Kumar Shrestha, head of the central bank's Economic Research Department, told Reuters Nepal could experience some more months of surging inflation because of higher oil prices.

The average monthly year-on-year inflation in the first 11 months of the fiscal year ending mid-June was 6.09% and is expected to stay within the average annual target of 6.5%, bank officials said.

Retail food and beverage prices rose 7.43% year-on-year in the month ending mid-June while non-food and service inflation stood at 9.44%, data showed, according to Reuters.

Nepal, a country of 29 million people landlocked between China and India, has banned luxury goods imports until mid-July but after one month dropped its move to a two-day weekend aimed at cutting fuel consumption amid opposition from hospitals and schools.

The Nepali currency, which weakened 4.4% over the year to mid-June, making fuel and food imports costlier, traded at 127.11 to the dollar on Monday, a record low, central bank data showed, Reuters reported.

A bicycle rider died after being hit by a petrol tanker near Radhakrishna Rice Mill in Biratnagar-14 on Monday.

The deceased has been identified as Bijay Baniya (55) of Biratnagar-13.

Inspector Raj Kumar Karki, Chief at the Morang Traffic Police Office, said that the tanker (Na 6 Kha 1834) hit him around 8 pm yesterday.

Critically injured in the incident, Baniya was rushed to the Koshi Hospital but doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

Police said that they have arrested Jogendra Kumar Mandal (27) of India for investigation.

The first full-colour picture from the new James Webb Space Telescope has been released - and it doesn't disappoint, BBC reported.

The image is said to be the deepest, most detailed infrared view of the Universe to date, containing the light from galaxies that has taken many billions of years to reach us.

US President Joe Biden was shown the image during a White House briefing.

Further debut pictures from James Webb are due to be released by Nasa in a global presentation on Tuesday.

"These images are going to remind the world that America can do big things, and remind the American people - especially our children - that there's nothing beyond our capacity," President Biden remarked.

"We can see possibilities no-one has ever seen before. We can go places no-one has ever gone before."

The $10bn James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched on 25 December last year, is billed as the successor to the famous Hubble Space Telescope, according to BBC.

It will make all sorts of observations of the sky, but has two overarching goals. One is to take pictures of the very first stars to shine in the Universe more than 13.5 billion years ago; the other is to probe far-off planets to see if they might be habitable.

The image unveiled before President Biden showcases Webb's capabilities to pursue the first of these objectives.

What you see is a cluster of galaxies in the Southern Hemisphere constellation of Volans known by the ungainly name of SMACS 0723.

The cluster itself isn't actually that far away - "only" about 4.6 billion light-years in the distance. But the great mass of this cluster has bent and magnified the light of objects that are much, much further away.

It's a gravitational effect; the astronomical equivalent of a zoom lens for a telescope.

Webb, with its 6.5m-wide golden mirror and super-sensitive infrared instruments, has managed to detect in this picture the distorted shape (the red arcs) of galaxies that existed a mere 600 million years after the Big Bang (the Universe is 13.8 billion years old).

And it's even better than that. Scientists can tell from the quality of the data produced by Webb that the telescope is sensing space way beyond the most far-flung object in this image.

As a consequence, it's possible this is even the deepest cosmic viewing field ever obtained.

"Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. And that light that you are seeing on one of those little specks has been travelling for over 13 billion years," said Nasa administrator Bill Nelson, BBC reported.

"And by the way, we're going back further, because this is just the first image. They're going back about 13 and a half billion years. And since we know the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, you're going back almost to the beginning."

Hubble used to stare at the sky for weeks on end to produce this kind of result. Webb identified its super-deep objects after only 12.5 hours of observations.

Nasa and its international partners, the European and Canadian space agencies, will release further colour imagery from Webb on Tuesday.

One of the topics to be discussed will touch on that other overarching goal: the study of planets outside our Solar System.

Webb has analysed the atmosphere of WASP-96 b, a giant planet located more than 1,000 light-years from Earth. It will tell us about the chemistry of that atmosphere.

WASP-96 b orbits far too close to its parent star to sustain life. But, one day, it's hoped Webb might spy a planet that has gases in its air that are similar to those that shroud the Earth - a tantalising prospect that might hint at the presence of biology.

Nasa scientists are in no doubt that Webb will fulfil its promise.

"I have seen the first images and they are spectacular," deputy project scientist Dr Amber Straughn said of Tuesday's further release.

"They're amazing in themselves just as images. But the hints of the detailed science we're going to be able to do with them is what makes me so excited," she told BBC News.

Dr Eric Smith, the programme scientist for the Webb project, said he thought the public had already grasped the significance of the new telescope, according to BBC.

"The design of Webb, the way Webb looks, I think, is in large part the reason the public is really fascinated by this mission. It looks like a spaceship from the future."

India is expected to surpass China to become the world’s most-populous nation in 2023, four years ahead of an earlier estimate by the United Nations, Economic Times reported.

The UN expects global population to hit 8 billion on Nov. 15 and grow to 8.5 billion by 2030. More than half the projected rise between now and 2050 is expected to be in just eight countries: Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania, according to a report titled World Population Prospects 2022.

China is expected to experience an absolute decline in its population as early as next year, the report said. A Chinese official had earlier this year estimated that the country’s population may peak as early as 2022 as its population of 1.41 billion grew at the slowest pace since the 1950s, according to government data. An earlier report projected India surpassing China by 2027.

Lower mortality rates and demographic changes may ensure that central and southern Asia become the world’s most-populous region by 2037. Numbers in sub-Saharan Africa may almost double by late 2040s to cross 2 billion. Population growth rates in Europe and Northern America were almost zero in 2020 and 2021, data show, according to Economic Times.

The global population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion in 2100, lower than the UN’s 2019 estimate of 11 billion. In India, the total fertility rate may decline to 1.29 births per woman by 2100 instead of the UN’s earlier estimate of 1.69 births, according the report, which cites data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Women and men are expected to be equal in numbers by 2050 as the current global count of 49.7% women compared to 50.3% men is expected to be inverted, the report said. Sustained high fertility and rapid population growth present challenges to achieving sustainable development, it said, Economic Times reported.