Pesticide residues in Estonia's arable soils are going up, the state Environment Agency (Keskkonnaagentuur) says.

The economy does not grow if we ourselves consistently pound our business environment into the mud and proclaim to the world that there is no point in investing in Estonia, writes Erkki Keldo.

The economy does not grow if we ourselves consistently pound our business environment into the mud and proclaim to the world that there is no point in investing in Estonia, writes Erkki Keldo.

Isamaa will support Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise's candidacy in the presidential election, party chair Urmas Reinsalu said. Just a few hours earlier, it became clear that the Estonian Center Party will support Tiit Land's candidacy.

Prime Minister Kristen Michal (Reform) hosted his predecessors in Tallinn Tuesday for the 10th annual Estonian prime ministers' lunch ahead of Restoration of Independence Day.

On Tuesday, the first four Swedish inmates arrived at Tartu Prison under the prison‑rental agreement concluded between Estonia and Sweden.

16. augusti õhtul Paavli Kultuurivabrikus esinenud Geordie Greep on üks neid muusikuid, kes on samal ajal tuttav ja võõras. Ja ma ei pea silmas pelgalt seda, et on küll palju inimesi, kes teda teavad ja umbes mitu korda rohkem inimesi, kes teda ei tea, vaid pigem seda, et teda kuulates tekib tahtmatult tunne, et ta on nii vana sõber kui ka keegi, keda sa kunagi päriselt tundma ei saa.

New Delhis peetavatel sulgpalli maailmameistrivõistlustel langes Eesti esireket Kristin Kuuba naiste üksikmängus konkurentsist avaringis, kaotades Vietnami esindajale Vu Thi Trangile 13:21, 9:21.

Russia accuses the UK of escalating the Ukraine war by supplying British-made drones as the prime minister vows to support Kyiv in its "hour of need".

The newlyweds, named as Alexander Cromie and Marie Ebert, were killed alongside their Greek pilot.

Interest rates on long-term US, UK, German and Japanese government debt have soared.

Small firms cite labour and operating costs as reasons for scaling back hiring, the UK's statistics body says.

President Donald Trump is waiting for Iran to cave to his economic pressure. Tehran may be willing to wait even longer. Even as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promises a level of economic isolation “never seen before,” former Trump administration officials, U.S. ambassadors and other Middle East experts are skeptical that tightening the economic vise will force Iran to relinquish its desire to toll ships passing through the State of Hormuz and make the other concessions Trump is demanding to bring an end to the war. “It’s an attrition campaign, and I am sure Treasury tweaks this or that to fill gaps or expand coverage of sanctions,” said James Jeffrey, a former ambassador who served in the Middle East during three presidential administrations, including Trump’s first term. “But, it’s hard to believe [there will be] something decisive after 20 years of U.S. sanctions and Iranian experience of going around them.” It’s an acknowledgement that underscores the asymmetry of the situation. The Trump administration is staring down a consequential midterm election amid an unpopular war that has sent oil prices back up to roughly $90 a barrel and helped push long-term borrowing costs to their highest level in nearly two decades as hope dims that a peace deal is near. Iran’s leaders, meanwhile, see the conflict as existential, giving Tehran reason to absorb the extraordinary economic pain rather than accept terms it believes could imperil the regime — especially as U.S. inflation remains elevated and treasuries sell off. The yield on 30-year U.S. government bonds, a figure Trump has in the past been attuned to, jumped on Tuesday to its highest level since just before the global financial crisis. The increase in the yield to its highest level in nearly two decades isn’t solely because of the six-month war; global fuel shortages and broader instability have kept energy prices higher for longer, increasing the threat of persistent inflation. And that’s heaped even more risk on global bond markets that have repeatedly blanched at Trump-related shocks. “We are in a situation where we’re spending more and more to finance more and more,” said Julia Coronado, founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives. And the war has created “a riskier world full of more frictions, full of more supply shocks.” Iran’s outsized incentive to muscle through the pain is partly why some former administration officials doubt that the naval blockade, while unprecedented in its scale in the modern era or whatever new strategies Bessent may unveil, will change Iran’s calculus. “I think the economic pressure would need to hit them in new ways we haven’t seen so far to change the mindset of the regime,” said one former Trump administration official, granted anonymity to candidly assess the impact of the U.S.’s economic pressure campaign. The administration has yet to indicate what further action it plans to take, but options include going after major Chinese banks that facilitate Iran’s oil trade, expand secondary sanctions on countries doing business with Iran and confiscating Iranian assets under U.S. jurisdiction instead of just freezing them. Iranian leaders publicly mocked U.S. efforts to sanction them into submission. “Americans think squeezing Iran harder will win concessions that were never part of the agreement,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, posted on X Tuesday. “Bessent and [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth are way out of their league,” he wrote. “Stop waiting for the clown crew to pull a rabbit out of their hat and clean up the mess you made.” White House aides, however, continue to contend that the leverage is on its side. “The crushing sanctions and one of the most successful blockades that have crippled Iran’s economy and has left Iran completely broke,” said one administration official, granted anonymity to share the U.S.’s thinking. “There are many levers the president can crank harder in the weeks and months ahead.” In the half-year since the Iran war began, the president has deployed an array of pressure tactics to choke Iran economically, including physically preventing the country from selling its most important export — oil — as part of an ongoing naval blockade of Iranian ports. The administration has also sanctioned foreign buyers of Iranian oil, targeted the country’s shadow fleet of ships that ferries it and sought to cut the country off from the financial networks it uses to move money. That economic pressure has sent Iran’s economy, which was already troubled before the war, into a deeper tailspin. Now, Iran is grappling with year-over-year inflation of 88 percent, long lines and rationing at gas pumps and food prices that have more than doubled. But those who have worked on previous Iran negotiations say that’s far from enough to get the regime to cave, especially after six months of U.S. bombing that has killed, by Tehran’s own measure, more than 3,000 Iranians. “It’s undeniable that there is economic pressure. The question is whether there is a breaking point, and I would say for a regime that is fighting for its life and has never hesitated to transfer economic pain to its population, there is no breaking point,” said Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran project director, who helped work to bridge differences between Iran and world powers during negotiations over the 2015 nuclear agreement. Yet Trump continued to project patience on Tuesday, signaling that he was prepared to let the pressure campaign play out. “There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. A senior White House official, granted anonymity to discuss the situation in Iran, insisted that Iran will cave long before the pain in the U.S. or world markets become intolerable. “Ultimately we want a deal, but in the interim, the Iranian economy is tanking … people are lining up for gas, just for a half gallon of gas. And there’s a lot of civil unrest going on in Iran, that’s not being played on the news for whatever reason,” the official said late last week. “We’re fine if that’s the route they want to take.” Still, there are signs inside the White House that the economic impacts are a growing concern. Vice President JD Vance last week said on Fox News that the administration’s first goal in the Iran war was to “keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over the country.” The president, meanwhile, has repeatedly insisted voters will bear the pain of higher gas prices for an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The voters have a more dyspeptic view. A Reuters/Ipsos survey released this week showed Trump’s approval rating at 33 percent, the lowest level of his presidency. Roughly 80 percent of Americans — 87 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans — think U.S. involvement in Iran “will go on for an extended period of time,” the poll found. But some former Trump administration officials, however, are holding out hope that patience will be rewarded and that the administration’s economic pressure campaign will work, in part because they see the other options on the table, including putting U.S. boots on the ground in Iran, as politically untenable. Fred Fleitz, Trump’s former National Security Council chief of staff and vice chair of the American First Policy Institute’s American Security, predicted that the U.S. could be “dealing with a different Iran” in 30 to 60 days. “I think patience is the best approach,” Fleitz said. “I don’t believe that a large-scale military attack right now is going to make a difference in changing the regime’s position, and I strongly oppose the idea of seizing Kharg Island or sending in American troops. The American people don’t want that. That would really bog us down in a quagmire.”

Several independent U.S. oil producers are expected to sign production contracts with Venezuela’s state-run oil company in the coming days, according to three industry representatives familiar with the plans — a step forward for the Trump administration’s efforts to boost production in the beleaguered South American nation. A signing ceremony involving several smaller U.S. producers and the Petróleos de Venezuela had been set for Tuesday evening in Houston, according to the people, who were granted anonymity because details of the event have not been made public. Venezuela’s oil minister is scheduled to attend, as is the head of exploration for PDVSA, one of the people said. The ceremony could be pushed back until Wednesday morning, another of the people added. The White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, is not expected to be formally involved with Tuesday’s ceremony, but it comes after top administration officials traveled to Caracas in late April to secure memorandums of understanding that laid the groundwork for formal production deals in the country that holds some of the world’s largest oil reserves. It marks a sign of progress after the Trump administration’s effort to push new oil development in Venezuela, which began after the U.S. raid that captured former leader Nicolás Maduro in January, had slowed in recent months. Despite a boost from higher crude prices, negotiations have bogged down around key details like dispute resolution, while authorities in Caracas dealt with a devastating pair of June earthquakes that killed thousands. Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez last month unveiled new regulations offering more favorable fiscal terms to international oil companies. The signings come after the Trump administration renewed pressure on Rodríguez to have PDVSA sign contracts with American companies, an industry source familiar with the negotiations. Those efforts included outreach from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss how increased oil revenue could help the country after a devastating earthquake earlier this summer, this person said. “There’s a renewed acknowledgement from Delcy that increased oil production is the pathway to rebuilding after the earthquakes and accomplishing what her government wants to do for the people who are suffering because of the earthquakes,” this person said. David Goldwyn, head of the international energy consulting firm Goldwyn Global Strategies, said investment from independent oil producers and expanded production from existing fields are likely to be Venezuela’s “primary source of new oil growth for the next couple of years.” “While the supermajors bide their time until they see how the politics sort out, and whether they can cherry pick the best assets, independents can derisk their projects in a short period of time,” Goldwyn said. But those investments are only likely to add up to 300,000 barrels a day to the country’s oil production over the next year, far from the increase of millions of barrels the authorities in Caracas and Washington would like to see, Goldwyn said. “Incremental production is all we will see until the framework improves, electricity is restored, and the political picture becomes clearer,” he said.

The Trump administration has led a campaign to 'dismantle' the court, calling it a threat to national sovereignty.

Ivy League schools were pressured into settlements despite a lack of evidence, according to a former DOJ lawyer.

Migration minister asked how he intends to stop deportations of people ‘who had lived in Sweden for decades’The deportation and removal of British citizens from Sweden over Brexit residency rights is damaging relations with the UK amid efforts to improve links with London, a Swedish MP has said.Häkan Svenneling, representative for Vârmland, where a 78-year-old British widow, Joyce Thomas, has been given four weeks to leave Sweden after 21 years of residency, has written to the migration minister, Johan Forssell, asking what he “intends to do to stop the deportations”. Continue reading...

The blaze charring peatland, pine trees and hiking trails grew over the weekend to half the size of ManhattanSome first pictures from this morning’s earthquakes in Granada are emerging on social media…Andalusian president Juanma Moreno urged residents to maintain “maximum caution” as more seismic movements and aftershocks may happen. Continue reading...

The total solar eclipse is the peak experience and one happens somewhere in the world every 18 months

Prime minister praises ‘single biggest act of public control’, even though routes will ultimately be run by private groups