Former justice chancellor Ülle Madise was sworn in as the next president of Estonia on Monday, taking the oath of office in the Session Hall of the Riigikogu.

This past summer was the best in years for grain growers, but a good harvest does not necessarily translate into strong financial results. The outlook for grain prices remains uncertain.

Former justice chancellor Ülle Madise was sworn in as the next president of Estonia on Monday, taking the oath of office in the Session Hall of the Riigikogu.

As Ülle Madise takes office as Estonia's next president, politicians are debating changes to the presidency itself, from its powers to how the head of state is elected.

Former justice chancellor Ülle Madise was sworn in as the next president of Estonia on Monday, taking the oath of office in the Session Hall of the Riigikogu.

The Ministry of Education wants to make it easier to study regional varieties of Estonian in schools. Students would be able to replace their second foreign language classes with lessons in a regional variety of Estonian.

Kui asusin 2010. aastal tööle Euroopa Parlamenti, oli minu maailmavaade noorpoliitikuna üsna mustvalge ehk olin harjunud nn erakondadevahelise kaevikusõjaga, kus kompromissidele sisuliselt kohta ei olnud, kuna vastasel korral olevat konkurentidest raske eristuda.

Saudi Araabia pealinna raputasid esmaspäeva hilisõhtul mitmed võimsad plahvatused, teatasid kohapeal viibivad uudisteagentuuri AFP ajakirjanikud.

Despite the US president announcing energy infrastructure would not be targeted strikes have continued, Ukraine says.

While Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky suggests he would sign up to a ceasefire on energy infrastructure, Russia has said little.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the government will need a "top-up" of billions of pounds if it wants to meet its spending plans.

People are increasingly falling behind on credit card repayments, so here's the best way to get debt advice.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant rejected furious accusations from the U.K. region’s unionists Monday that he had “bent the knee” to Irish republicans blocking a long-disputed Protestant march. Bryant told the House of Commons that his decision to ban what had been a legally authorized parade by the Orange Order — a pro-British Protestant brotherhood reviled by many of Northern Ireland’s Catholics — had been taken principally to avoid violence. Thousands led by Sinn Fein, the main Irish republican party, had spent nearly two weeks blocking the Orangemen’s intended path down the Garvaghy Road, the main Catholic district in the town of Portadown, but police kept the two sides apart.   “The Orange Order obtained a legal right to parade, but … upholding the determination does not come at any cost. Upholding the law also means judiciously preventing serious disorder,” Bryant said in defense of his intervention Friday night. Democratic Unionist leader Gavin Robinson accused Bryant of bowing to a threat of violence from Irish Republican Army militants who featured prominently within the Garvaghy Road crowd. Most IRA members have observed a cease-fire since 1997 and officially disarmed in 2005, but several small factions still plot occasional bomb and gun attacks. Robinson said Northern Ireland’s unionists “know that this British government has bent the knee to them.” But Bryant said his decision to bar the Orangemen — despite a decision last month by the region’s independent Parades Commission to permit a heavily restricted march by 35 Orangemen — had so far kept violence at bay. “I utterly reject the charge that I have in any way succumbed to mob rule. The truth is, things have actually passed remarkably peacefully,” he said, adding: “I don’t think anybody seriously proposed that the police should drag people off the street.” He spoke hours after two courts in Northern Ireland tangled with the conflict of rights stirred up by the revival of the Orange marching demands in Portadown, a sectarian dispute that triggered bloodshed and rioting across Northern Ireland in the mid-1990s. The Court of Appeal, overseen by Northern Ireland’s highest judge, rejected a lawsuit by the Garvaghy Road protesters seeking to challenge the original Parades Commission ruling. Orange supporters said this judgment kept the door open for an eventual parade down Garvaghy Road for the first time since 1997, when police backed by British soldiers forced the parade through with the use of armored vehicles and volleys of plastic bullets. A separate Belfast High Court hearing gave the go-ahead for Portadown’s Orange lodge to pursue a legal challenge against both Bryant and Northern Ireland’s police commander, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher. That case will be heard starting next Monday. Boutcher, rejecting unionist calls for him to resign, issued his own lengthy defense of his officers’ management of the Portadown standoff. He appealed to both sides to respect a legal process that could take months to conclude — including potential charges against senior Sinn Féin figures involved in the Garvaghy Road blockade. The legal fight over whose rights should prevail is fracturing Northern Ireland’s cross-community government, a bitterness on full display Monday night at Stormont, the center of government on a hill overlooking Belfast. After a three-hour debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly, unionist members voted unanimously to oust the four Sinn Féin ministers from their supposed unity government. Unionists accused all four, led by First Minister Michelle O’Neill, of breaking their ministerial pledge to uphold the law of the land by joining and encouraging the Garvaghy Road protests. O’Neill accused her accusers on the other side of the chamber of being reactionary bigots. “It’s no surprise to me that the three unionist parties have signed up to this motion. They have never accepted the reality that an Irish republican is now the first minister, and a woman at that. They have never accepted equality,” she said. The unionists’ motion of no confidence bore no legal weight because of Stormont’s peculiar power-sharing rules. This would have required Sinn Féin members to join the unionists in voting to punish their own leaders. In the end, four motions — seeking the expulsion of office for a year of O’Neill, Finance Minister John O’Dowd, Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald and Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins — all failed on virtually identical sectarian tests. While 33 to 34 unionists voted to kick out each one, 35 lawmakers from Sinn Féin and a smaller Irish nationalist party, the SDLP, voted to keep them in office. O’Neill’s official co-leader of Northern Ireland’s four-party government, Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly of the Democratic Unionists, said she understood the law as a barrister — and her government colleague had broken it by leading a “mob” that included well-known figures from multiple IRA factions “threatening violence and disorder.”

EU capitals must be able to intervene to stop new legislation from Brussels if they say it’s too burdensome for governments and businesses, the leaders of Germany, Italy and Belgium wrote on Monday. In a letter addressed to European Council President António Costa and seen by POLITICO, the three leaders said the bloc needs an “emergency brake” mechanism to help boost its flagging economic competitiveness. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever also called to “significantly accelerate planning and approval procedures,” suspend “certain regulatory areas for a specified period” under a new “priority rule.” “We call for further ambitious simplification packages to decisively advance the cutting of red tape in the European Union,” they wrote, adding that the Commission must ease the burden “first and foremost” on small and medium-sized businesses. “More broadly,” the letter reads, “our common objective should be to prevent unnecessary regulatory burdens and related costs from causing permanent losses of European industrial capacity and further weakening investment and competitiveness.” Coming days before an EU leaders’ meeting, the call echoes demands first stated in March after a summit focused on European competitiveness, and it comes amid worsening signs for the bloc’s industrial sector. Leaders will debate the EU’s long-term budget, energy prices, and support for Ukraine when they gather in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day European Council summit.

Israeli authorities have demolished 80 structures in Al-Dahiya village in Israel’s Negev Desert

Shadrack Sibiya, who is in prison after his arrest last month, denies corruption, rape and child grooming allegations.

PM hails next month’s ‘reset’ summit as first step to closer ties, but tensions over trade may prove problematicAndy Burnham has promised a “serious dialogue” over the UK’s future place in Europe, saying the existing relationship is “not good enough” as he framed next month’s Brussels summit as a possible first step to EU membership.The prime minister said Britain must take a “clear-eyed rational look” at its long-term relationship with the bloc to boost economic growth and control immigration, which needed to go beyond Labour’s existing red lines. Continue reading...

Luca Olmetto was trapped roughly 10 metres below ground in the Gorroppeddu cave in the Urzulei mountain rangeA 31-year-old man has been pulled alive from a cave on the Italian island of Sardinia after being trapped roughly 10 metres below ground for 26 hours following a rockslide.In a huge and complex operation, rescuers worked non-stop after Luca Olmetto became trapped in the Gorroppeddu cave in the rugged Urzulei mountain range in central-eastern Sardinia on Sunday afternoon. Continue reading...

Agreement would push back Europe’s phaseout of combustion engines and boost car production on the continent to combat Chinese competition

Paris set to become top shareholder as states race to secure critical mineral supplies