With 296 days remaining until the next general elections, Estonian politics is calmer, less polarized and more conservative in its outlook than during the previous election cycle, Mari-Liis Jakobson notes in a commentary on Vikerraadio.

The Estonian Education Personnel Union (EHL) will demand during teachers' salary negotiations that the government fulfill its pre-election promises by raising teachers' minimum salary to 120 percent of the national average.

Varro Vooglaid's recent exit from the EKRE group means that the Riigikogu now has more unaffiliated or independent MPs than at any time before in the 21st century.

EKRE MP Rene Kokk refuted claims according to which whether he will run for the party again in 2027 is somehow connected to the fate of Varro Vooglaid.

The Estonian Education Personnel Union (EHL) will demand during teachers' salary negotiations that the government fulfill its pre-election promises by raising teachers' minimum salary to 120 percent of the national average.

The government has approved new pet identification rules requiring dogs and cats to be microchipped and recorded in a nationwide registry.

Teadust ja kunste siduv sari «Kord ja kaos» jõuab 19. mail kell 11 Tartu ülikooli raamatukogu saalis viienda sümpoosionini, mis kannab pealkirja «Inimene».

Inimesed jälgivad vestluse ajal pidevalt üksteise näoilmeid ja kohandavad oma reaktsioone selle põhjal, mida nad näevad. Tallinna Ülikooli värske doktor Abdallah Hussein Sham töötas välja uue tehnoloogia, mis laseb sama teha ka AI-agendil ja metainimesel.

Mengele fled Europe after the war but for years there were rumours he spent time in Switzerland.

Among the victims in Kyiv was 12-year-old Lyubava Yakovleva, whose father was killed during the war.

Analysts say the moves have been fuelled by concerns a Burnham-led government would increase government borrowing.

The regulator say the energy supplier breached licence conditions aimed at protecting customers in vulnerable situations.

OTTAWA — Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney struck a pipeline agreement with oil-rich Alberta on Friday, presenting it as proof of a “Canada that works” amid a separatist strain in the province. Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith met in Calgary to sign a deal that could eventually move more than 1 million barrels of Canadian oil a day to the Pacific, creating a direct export route to major energy markets in Japan, South Korea, China and India. The agreement marks a major shift in the Liberal government’s energy policies. Under Carney, Ottawa is now embracing Alberta’s decade-long push to expand oil production and export capacity. It’s an effort made possible by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, which exposed vulnerabilities in Canada’s economic dependence on the U.S. And as the Alberta separatist movements flares up, Carney is attempting to show he is listening to the concerns of the province, which has long accused Ottawa of restricting resource development. “Today, is also about building trust in a Canada that works, a Canada rooted in cooperative federalism, where we build together pragmatically and ambitiously to achieve our shared ambitions,” Carney said Friday. “A Canada where our differences are strengths to be nurtured and respected, not risks to be managed.” Smith has also been working to tamp down the separatist movement, which is calling for a referendum on separating from Canada. The premier has blamed “10 years of bad Liberal policy” under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for fueling western alienation, pointing to climate rules and energy regulations she says hurt Alberta’s economy. “I support sovereignty within a united Canada,” Smith told reporters Friday after signing the pipeline pact. “That means Alberta should stay a part of Canada and continue to pursue and support and enshrine our constitutionally invested rights, and also make sure that the federal government respects them,” she added. “That’s what today is about.” Since coming into office over a year ago, Carney has had to manage caucus divisions over oil, while convincing investors Canada is serious about building energy projects. In November, a member of Carney’s Cabinet resigned over his pipeline push. A month later, Carney delivered a wake-up call to his Liberal caucus, telling them a pipeline could help keep the country together. “This was a no-BS kind of thing,” a Liberal MP who was granted anonymity to discuss the December caucus meeting told POLITICO at the time. “This was coming from someone who grew up in that province, who understands that province, and who was very worried about the feelings of alienation.” This week, the prime minister dismissed the idea that a pipeline is necessary to preserve national unity. But Carney also views the pipeline as an economic win. Trade diversification has become a central pillar of his economic agenda. And he considers access to overseas markets critical to Canada’s sovereignty. Alberta’s United Conservative Party, which is acting as the proponent of the project for now, says it plans to submit its application for the pipeline to the federal government by July 1. The federal government is promising to approve it by October following consultations with Indigenous peoples and the province of British Columbia. Construction could begin as early as September 2027, with oil flowing to a port in British Columbia no later than 2033-34. The expectation is a private sector company will eventually take over the project, which the Alberta government has hinted could come by the time it submits its application this summer. The oil-rich province has also signaled there is significant interest in the project from investors in Asia, where demand for Canadian oil has been rising amid instability caused by the war in the Middle East. The deal is contingent on a new emissions framework for Alberta’s oil and gas sector, including the oil sands, and advancing a carbon capture storage hub to help reach net-zero by 2050.

BEIJING — U.S. President Donald Trump seemed very pleased with all that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed during his two-day trip. But how much they actually agreed to is unclear. During a Friday briefing with reporters on Air Force One en route back to the U.S. from Beijing, Trump revealed few substantive agreements while suggesting that at Xi’s behest he was rethinking a key element of U.S. relations with Taiwan. Trump provided no details of a potential U.S. sale of soybeans to China beyond a vague assertion that China would buy “billions of dollars” worth. He touted the sale of 200 Boeing aircraft to China but that was less than half of what some analysts and investors had expected. Beijing didn’t confirm either agreement and Boeing did not respond when asked to confirm the sale. Trump also confirmed that he and Xi had discussed “possibly working together for guard rails” on the development and application of artificial intelligence systems. And despite repeated assurances from White House officials that U.S. policy toward Taiwan would not be on the summit agenda, Trump said that the two leaders had discussed U.S. ties to the island at length. Trump told reporters he was willing to reconsider U.S. arms sales to the self-governing island — a key longtime demand of Beijing — despite long-standing U.S. commitments to provide defensive weaponry to deter potential Chinese aggression. “I’ll make a determination over the next fairly short period,” Trump said when asked if he’ll continue arms sales to the island. Trump added that he would speak to “the person who is running Taiwan” — an apparent reference to Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te — as part of that decision-making process. The “Monumental Event” that Trump pitched does not appear to have materialized, leaving in its place a fragile but stable trade truce. Still, that’s a far cry from the all-out trade war that broke out a year ago, and the Trump administration walked away from the meeting having accomplished its broad goal of preserving the status quo — one that leaves tariffs on Chinese goods at around the same rate as the rest of the world. “The summit produced modest, marketable and managed outcomes, which is about all the U.S.-China relationship can bear right now,” said Craig Singleton, a China fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. Whether Trump would revisit arms sales to Taiwan remains uncertain, but he was clear that he does not feel bound by a 1982 pledge former President Ronald Reagan made to the island that it wouldn’t consult with Beijing on weapons sales to Taiwan. “So what am I going to do?” Trump said. “Say ‘I don’t want to talk to you about it?’ Because I have an agreement that was signed in 1982? No, we discussed arms sales.” Taiwan had emerged as a flashpoint during the meeting, with Xi warning Trump that mishandling of the island, which China considers part of its territory, could lead to “clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.” Trump has delayed signing off on $14 billion worth of arms sales to Taiwan, but this was the first indication that he has discussed the matter with Xi. “An actual kind of haggling or horse trading on arms sales, or a consultation on what we would or would not sell — that would be a break with precedent if that is something that the Chinese asked for, and something that the president is willing to grant,” said David Sacks, a former political-military expert at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Taiwan. Taiwan’s diplomatic outpost in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. While Trump appeared willing to bend to Xi’s sensitivities on Taiwan, the Chinese leader offered no indication that he would use his influence to address one of Trump’s key concerns — Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. A White House readout of their meeting Thursday said the two leaders agreed that the Strait of Hormuz should be open to shipping and that no country should impose “tolls” for passage through the strait. A Chinese readout of the meeting said only that the two leaders discussed “the Middle East situation.” Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he hadn’t asked for Xi’s help in pressuring Tehran to open the Strait. “I don’t need favors,” Trump said of that decision. He then added that he believes Xi will apply pressure on Tehran to stop blocking the strait because “He’d like to see it opened up.” Trump also hit a wall on other key irritants in the U.S. China relationship. Xi parried Trump’s concern about Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure by talking “about attacks that we did in China,” Trump told reporters. Trump was also apparently unable to push Xi into taking more action to stem the flow of Chinese precursor chemicals to Mexico that cartels process into fentanyl. Trump said he raised the issue but pivoted to saying that the fentanyl-related tariffs he’d imposed on Chinese imports had reduced fentanyl flows into the U.S. “way down from where it was,” without elaborating. Xi also refused to budge on Trump’s request that the Chinese leader release imprisoned Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former media magnate Jimmy Lai. Trump had pledged to “bring up” the cases of Lai and an unnamed jailed pastor prior to his trip. Xi said he’d give “very serious consideration” to releasing the pastor, but said releasing Lai would be “ a tough one for him to do,” Trump said Friday. There were low expectations going into the summit. Some of the more serious structural issues that vex U.S.-China ties — government subsidies to China’s industrial sector and Beijing’s increasingly aggressive military footprint in the Indo-Pacific — didn’t appear to make the meeting agenda. “This is a summit again that was heavier on symbolism than it was on substance — focus on managing problems, not on solving the problems that exist between the U.S. and China,” said Rush Doshi, former National Security Council deputy senior director for China and Taiwan in the Biden administration. The lack of substantive outcomes from the summit may reflect the two leaders’ ambitions for more in-depth discussions later this year. Trump and Xi may meet as many as four times this year as part of administration efforts to stabilize U.S.-China relations, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in January. Their next face-to-face encounter will be when Xi makes a state visit to the White House in September. The two leaders may also have sideline meetings at the APEC economic leaders meeting in Shenzhen, China in November and the G20 meeting in Miami in December. “The way that both leaders talked about the future indicates that this is going to be part of a process that will play out this year,” said Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of State in the Biden administration. Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

Sixty-five people have died in a new Ebola outbreak in DR Congo's Ituri province with 246 suspected cases.

At least seven Palestinians were killed when Israeli air strikes hit a residential building and a vehicle in Gaza City.

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All 46 Council of Europe members sign agreement ‘deplored’ by human rights organisations The UK and 45 other European countries have signed an agreement that explicitly endorses plans to send unwanted asylum seekers to third country hubs.A political declaration from the 46 members of the Council of Europe, the body that oversees the European convention on human rights (ECHR), said states had an “undeniable sovereign right” to control their borders. Continue reading...

Alliance chief Mark Rutte set to meet defence groups at meeting in Brussels next week

The bizarre system of credit scoring can punish the prudent and indebted alike