Significant traffic changes are to affect Tallinn public transport, drivers and pedestrians this coming weekend as the city hosts the annual Ironman triathlon event.

Peep Männil, a wildlife expert at the Environmental Agency, says that estimating the numbers of large carnivores involves drones, trail cameras, tracking signs, observations and bioacoustics. No large wild animal in Estonia seeks out humans, he adds.

The new ruling coalition of the Pärnu city council passed a vote of no confidence in Mayor Kristel Voltenberg at its Monday session, even though she announced at the start of the meeting that she would resign. The council elected Siim Suursild (Isamaa) as the new mayor.

Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise, who announced that she has agreed to run for president, will meet with the Riigikogu parliamentary groups on Monday to discuss her candidacy with MPs.

Dozens of kilograms of Lego bricks donated to an Estonian NGO are being eagerly embraced by girls in Kenya.

The Estonian Refugee Council has established an official presence in the Palestinian territories to expand its humanitarian assistance and livelihoods programmes.

USA erisaadikute Steve Witkoffi ja Jared Kushneri visiiti Ukrainasse arutatakse, kuid lõplikku otsust veel ei ole, kirjutas esmaspäeval ukrainlaste rahvusringhääling Suspilne, mis viitas allikana ühele USA ametnikule Valges Majas.

Pariisis peetud ujumise EM näitas karmi tendentsi: ehkki maailmarekordeid püstitati kaks, siis keskmine tase on muutunud selgelt tugevamaks ning koos sellega konkurents tihedamaks. Eesti koondise peatreeneri Toni Meijeli sõnul ei jää üle muud, kui ala arenguga kaasa minna.

Moscow says nine people have been killed in the past 24 hours, while Kyiv reports four deaths.

Lev Schlosberg is found guilty of "discrediting" Russia's army - a verdict he condemns as punishment for his political position.

As we hit peak holiday season, the BBC looks at the dos and don'ts of composing a good out-of-office message.

Mark Carney will need to sell Canadians on any concessions made to the US as negotiators scramble to reach a deal to avoid Trump’s latest tariffs.

ATHENS — Greece’s attempt to lure top scientists back to their homeland after the trauma of the financial crisis has stalled after an ambitious program to reverse the brain drain descended into fiasco. A group of professors who hoped to bring back young researchers through a much-advertised program financed with EU funds are now feeling betrayed, having been left waiting for years only to find out the program won’t happen. To rub salt into the wound, no one from the government bothered to inform them that the scheme was dead, they said. “All this ‘brain gain’ talk isn’t just a joke; it’s a massive step backward,” Aristides Hatzis, a professor at the University of Athens, said. “During the financial crisis, there was only one area where there was money invested: research, as the EU prioritized this. Now there’s nothing; it’s at the very bottom of the list of priorities — a complete abandonment.” An estimated 500,000 people moved abroad during Greece’s financial crisis, which began in 2008, shrinking the country’s economy by a quarter and driving unemployment to 28 percent. Greece had experienced mass migration before, including in the decades after World War II, but this time it was many citizens with high levels of education and skills who emigrated. “Brain Regain,” an initiative by the ruling conservative New Democracy government to reverse the mass exodus of scientists and professionals, comprises several schemes, such as offering a 50 percent income tax exemption for seven years, and is expanding to include high-skilled public sector roles. And overall, the situation has improved since the crisis era. According to the survey OECD Diaspora Review Greece, from 2021 onward, there has been a steady increase in the number of citizens returning to Greece, with 2023 marking a milestone year when — for the first time since the start of the crisis — more people returned than left. Specifically, during the two-year period of 2023–2024, 69,000 Greeks left their country while 98,000 returned. But when it comes to scientists, there is still a major problem. Star-crossed project The current fury of many researchers and scientists hinges on a Greek government project called “Trust your Stars” — an €80 million research funding program backed by funds from EU’s post-Covid recovery fund, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). Research teams were called to submit their proposals, with 145 out of a total 1,241 submissions selected. Thirteen months later, after several complaints regarding the delay, the selected list of projects was finally published on July 22, 2025. Then, it all started to unravel. A man walks outside the headquarters of bank of Greece during a demonstation against government’s austerity measures in central Athens. | Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images Those not selected for funding reacted fiercely, with some 203 submitted objections and calls for reevaluation. Scientists raised their concerns over the evaluation process itself, and some even submitted complaints to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. In January 2026, Greece’s development ministry then issued a statement, saying payments of some €40 million had already been made, and that the remaining half of the program’s budget was earmarked for completion by Dec. 31, 2029. But complaints only escalated, with some of those selected for funding sending formal legal notices to the education ministry, seeking details about where the money had been spent since the program had not yet started. Then, the final bombshell dropped: Trust your Stars was not going to receive the EU funds anymore. In a statement published in May, Greece’s education ministry said the country’s finance ministry had decided to “remove the project during the review of Greece’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan.” It was later revealed that on the day the list of selected proposals was officially published, the government also delisted the program — but no one informed the applicants for 10 months. “It was ultimately not possible to implement the project ‘Trust your Stars’ within the time frame set out by the RRF,” said an official from the education ministry. “For this reason, the project was removed, as part of a review of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan by the Council of the European Union.” “As regards the funds linked to the actions in question, these were redirected to finance other actions undertaken by the RRF and the Education Ministry. Consequently, under no circumstances was there any loss of resources from the RRF,” added the official. Shattered hopes On July 15, Greece’s finance ministry issued a statement, saying it was trying to secure funds “to settle any outstanding financial obligations arising from legal commitments entered into at the time of the revocation of the program.” While the statement rekindled hopes that a solution would be found, Hatzis argues that it was just a legal trick and that the education ministry has no legal commitment since no contracts were signed following the initial announcement of accepted proposals. “What happened violates a fundamental principle, one that is sacrosanct in states governed by the rule of law: ‘reliance,’ the citizen’s legitimate trust in the state,” he said. “There may be no contractual liability, since we did not sign an agreement, but there is a political, moral and even legal obligation. Many young people turned down other offers or did not take up jobs elsewhere because they hoped they would be paid through the program.” Hatzis added that with its handling of the situation, the government had managed to turn the entire scientific community against it — both those who had been successful and those who had not. “If you’re a young scientist and you’re abroad, stay there! If you’re a young scientist and you’re thinking of moving abroad, go for it. Don’t wait a minute!” he wrote in a lengthy social media post. Pantelis Kammas, an associate professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business who was co-leading one of the teams that had a successful proposal, said the program was a chronicle of a death foretold. “The perception within the scientific community was that this was EU money and that it could be handed out hastily through nontransparent procedures. There was a sense of mistrust because this was a one-off emergency program,” said Kammas. “The ministry lacked an organized framework for evaluation, the academic community’s objections were based on these well-known shortcomings, and media that seek to oppose the government jumped on that. This was the perfect storm, so the government decided to backtrack and cancel the program.” Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, an associate professor of the history of science at the University of Athens, said he had gathered a team of 25 young scientists to come to Greece from countries like the U.K. and Germany for a study of medicines used during the Byzantine period, which could serve as inspiration for new pharmaceutical formulations. Fortunately, they had not already traveled by the time the project was canceled. “The most offensive thing is that the government never bothered to meet us or give us a reasonable explanation about what happened,” he said, noting the government’s handling created even greater problems with the scientific community than those that already existed. Bouras-Vallianatos himself returned to Greece in 2022 after a 15-year career in Edinburgh, and has not regretted the decision, as he wanted to raise his children in his homeland. However, he added that while many others wanted to return to Greece, the conditions for doing so were not in place. Some of them do but only for sentimental, personal reasons, he said. “There has been no serious policy by the Greek state to get its scientists back.” According to preliminary statistics, research spending in Greece has declined, dropping to €1.27 billion — or 0.51 percent of GDP — in 2025, from €1.30 billion in 2024. “Funding and low salaries is a big issue,” continued Bouras-Vallianatos. “An independent body should be set up, which would allocate funds for research and adheres to international standards in terms of evaluation. We are a small country; we all know each other, so a large proportion of the evaluators should be foreigners.”

LONDON — Britain’s Liberal Democrats are holding fire against Andy Burnham — for now. The centrist party has studiously avoided criticizing the new Labour prime minister during his first weeks in power, instead pushing the same “constructive opposition” approach followed during predecessor Keir Starmer’s early stint in Downing Street. “I like what he’s doing,” says 2024-intake Lib Dem MP Martin Wrigley. “I like the way he’s going, focusing on things that matter.” The question is: how long can it last? A person familiar with Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey’s thinking, granted anonymity because their job does not authorize them to speak publicly, says the party hopes Burnham removes the “performative hostility” from Westminster. “That style of politics really suits the populist parties, both on the left and the right, and it isn’t the sort of politics that we as Liberal Democrats want to do,” they argued. But while not rocking the boat has landed well with Lib Dem MPs, there is still a call for a distinctive identity for the party in a highly competitive political environment, with Labour enjoying a “Burnham bounce” in the opinion polls on the left, and Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch’s personal brand on the up. Duty of care Davey — whose party enjoyed its best-ever result at the 2024 election but remains only just in double digits in national polls — has already made one big play in the Burnham era: being helpful on reforming social care. The creaking social care system in England is a policy challenge governments of all stripes have failed to meet — leaving families with drained finances and cash-strapped local authorities plugging the gaps. The Lib Dem leader, who cares for his disabled son, attended a virtual cross-party meeting after Burnham, whose own father is in a care home with Alzheimer’s, called for an open conversation on a fix. This proactive approach has so far landed well with Davey’s troops. “I don’t think we’re going to sink the process if we don’t get everything we want,” says Lib Dem Shadow Commons Leader Bobby Dean. “If we can get cross-party consensus on one element, then we should get on with that element straight away.”  Indeed, Mike Storey, the Lib Dems’ co-deputy leader in the House of Lords, says the party will “cooperate fully on social care … and we’ll do it with no strings attached.”  Andy Burnham speaks to the media at HM Naval Base in Portsmouth, England on July 27, 2026. | Pool photo by Aaron Crown via WPA/Getty Images The person familiar with Davey’s thinking laid out the approach, saying “People are put off” by opposition parties that “decide to just immediately say ‘oh, they’re terrible. They’re breaking everything again’” when a new government arrives. Tom Lubbock, co-founder of polling agency J.L. Partners, agrees a conciliatory approach makes sense for now as “you just look a bit mad if you just go in studs-up within the first couple of months.” But there’s some angst about making sure the Lib Dems clearly separate themselves from Labour. Party of the countryside  It’s not the first time the Lib Dems have tried to play nice with a Labour prime minister. But Davey’s party soon found ways to differentiate themselves from the increasingly unpopular Keir Starmer. After Starmer’s government changed inheritance tax rules for farmers, the Lib Dems spied an opening — dubbing it the “family farm tax” and ramping up campaigning. The party has an “extraordinary niche and an extraordinary opportunity” to pose as the “Countryside Alliance arm of the Labour Party,” argues Lubbock — in other words, a progressive rival to Labour that rural voters can still get behind. Burnham’s focus on reviving urban areas may lend itself to this approach, with Lib Dem figures poised to exploit any perception “Avanti Andy” is shuttling between London and Manchester, another major city. Adam Dance, who represents the rural constituency of Yeovil, warns Burnham “can’t be a prime minister just for Manchester and the biggest cities” and says “he needs to understand rural areas.”  Northern MP Tom Gordon also challenges the prime minister’s claim to represent northern England, arguing this “does feel slightly performative.” He reckons voters “don’t hate him [Burnham] yet” as “he’s not had long enough to make any really unpopular decisions.” Left vs. right blocs  Much of the Lib Dems’ success under Davey has come from wooing disillusioned Conservatives, targeting Tory-held seats in the home counties — dubbed the “blue wall.” But winning remaining Tory areas next time round could be harder if the Lib Dems appear too closely aligned with a Labour government.  YouGov data last month put Kemi Badenoch’s net favorability score at the highest of any Conservative leader for more than five years. | Leon Neal/Getty Images Lubbock argues the Lib Dems will do “much worse” if supporters of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK “get on the Conservative bandwagon” to help defeat Labour nationally. That would be a mirror of the way some Labour supporters tactically backed the Lib Dems in 2024 to oust the Tories. Though the Tories are still stuck below 20 percent in most polls, there are signs of recovery. YouGov data last month put Badenoch’s net favorability score at the highest of any Conservative leader for more than five years. Her position is undeniably more stable than it was 12 months ago. While Lib Dems are optimistic Badenoch’s moves to the right on net zero and human rights will push more One Nation, centrist Conservatives in their direction, their Tory rivals sound bullish. Tory MP Gregory Stafford, who saw off a challenge by the Lib Dems to win Farnham and Bordon two years ago, doesn’t think there are more Tories left for the Lib Dems to poach. “All I’m seeing is those people coming back, not the other way round,” says Stafford about voters who bid the Tories farewell in 2024. Despite his narrow win, he thinks some of the 6,000 Reform UK voters in his seat will return — thanks to Badenoch. “They see demonstrably in Kemi a leader that both they like as a person, but also speaks their language and speaks to the policies that they’re concerned about,” he argues. As such, the Lib Dems may settle for a stronger attack against the right. “People just don’t feel listened to,” says the party’s Scotland spokesperson Susan Murray. “When they don’t feel listened to, they are open to populism.” She argues that both the Lib Dems and Labour are “not succeeding in getting that message [of hope and opportunities] across.” Dean adds, “There’s a massive demand out there for a liberal party to make a bold offer to the country and at the moment that space feels vacated.”  It’s a perceived weakness Stafford, the Conservative MP, plans to leap on at the next election. “The real danger for the Liberal Democrats is that they are seen as a patsy party that might champion local issues locally, but actually have nothing to say distinctive on the national stage,” he argues. Roz Savage, who entered the Commons for the Lib Dems in 2024, recognizes the outfit has a “PR challenge that people think of us as the nice party.” Instead, a “bigger story” is required about a future Lib Dem government, she says. “When we talk to Lib Dem voters in focus groups, they don’t really have a clear vision for what the Lib Dem party should stand for,” says Merlin Strategy’s Head of Research, Julian Gallie. People often back them as a vote against other parties, the political analyst says. MPs also want the Lib Dems to reach beyond their traditional strongholds and target historically Labour areas — including Newcastle and Hull. Both have Lib Dem-run city councils, but are the kind of areas in which Burnham will fancy he can improve Labour’s standing. Meral Hussein-Ece, the Lib Dems’ Lords equality spokesperson, says the party must also do more to understand “the diversity of this country, which I don’t think we’ve done very well so far.”  Lib Dem conference in Brighton next month will give the party a chance to lay a marker for the expected general election in 2029. But MPs want more than set-piece events to present a distinctive vision.  “We do have to do better at utilizing the likes of social media and capturing the attention all the time, not just when we get the spotlight shined on us,” argues Gordon, the Harrogate and Knaresborough MP. The Lib Dems, he says, have to drive “conversation on our own terms, rather than always having to just respond.” 

US President Donald Trump has revealed North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has responded ‘very positively’

At least 20 injured and dozens of fuel tankers destroyed as flames rip through warehouse near northern Kurdish city.

Operator granted UK track access for as many as 20 daily return trains to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam from 2030Business live – latest updatesVirgin Trains has been granted track access by the rail regulator to enable it to run services between London and Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam from 2030, in a key step towards breaking Eurostar’s monopoly on the cross-Channel passenger route.The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said it had given approval for Richard Branson’s company to run as many as 20 daily return services using the High Speed 1 line that runs between London St Pancras and the Channel tunnel. Continue reading...

Vegetable and grain growers call for urgent action, warning of ‘catastrophic’ harvests due to continent-wide droughtSuccessive intense heatwaves and an increasingly severe, continent-wide drought have left many of Europe’s farmers in an “unprecedented” crisis, with vegetable and grain growers in particular warning of “catastrophic” harvests.French vegetable production is down by “a very significant extent” compared with previous years, French growers have said, with shortfalls put at 25% for courgettes, 35% for lettuces, 40% for peas, 60% for broccoli and 50% to 100% for artichokes. Continue reading...

Andrei Klepach dismissed after bleak remarks about economic toll of conflict

Boom-bust pattern could become ‘question of financial stability’ for euro area, central bank team writes in blog post