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.

Ukraina populaarne endine kaitseminister Mõhhailo Fedorov, kes möödunud kuul ametist vabastati, kutsus teisipäeval üles korraldama sõja tõttu edasi lükatud valimisi.

Tööandjad saatsid taristuminister Kuldar Leisile kaebekirja: nimelt avastasid nad, et Eesti ametnikud ja poliitikud on kirjutanud Euroopa Liidu pakendimäärusesse sisse palju karmimad nõuded kui mujal Euroopa Liidus. Seda hoolimata asjaolust, et valitsuspoliitikud on lubanud bürokraatia vähendamist ning seda, et Eestis euronõuetele veel uusi nõudeid peale ei väänata.

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.

Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO’s Canberra Playbook newsletter. ESSENTIALS One Nation is framing our next big debates (echoes of Trump) The major parties are chalking up legislative wins (echoes of Biden) Sen. James Paterson swings big in our Playbook Interview Can Canberra find an Australian way on AI and data centers? DRIVING THE DAY One Nation is setting the terms for the next round of polarizing debates, as the major parties close in on major legislative achievements: gambling ad reform and NDIS cost reform. Consider this: Pauline Hanson’s dig at Labor’s rigid superannuation access rules, and a claim that Labor plans to raid super funds, has created endless on-air and coffee line chat — and a wedge into housing policy debates. Razor-sharp communications are getting the sort of cut-through Tim Wilson has been dreaming of on those two issues. Barnaby Joyce then used a Radio National interview Tuesday to cast all government politicians as liars and used his assertion as proof that voters will be fleeced in new ways by Labor. Joyce was already dominating the attention of non-Canberrans at that point by promising to cut cigarette packet prices from $46 to $21. That tees up a debate on the massive unintended consequences of government tobacco policy: a huge illegal market. To sideline the Coalition, Labor made One Nation the focus of its House Question Time on Monday, and then Tyron Whitten teamed up with the Coalition in Senate Question Time to pile onto Labor’s handling of veterans. Whether it was Labor and Liberal squeezed on the airwaves, the Coalition squeezed in the chamber, or the Nationals just forgotten about: One Nation has been hogging the attention and and deciding what comes next. LABOR’S PR DISASTER: With gambling and NDIS legislation now agreed, that opens the way for more Coalition and One Nation attacks on Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh. Taylor’s tactics team is this morning focusing on how to press that advantage against Labor. Keogh’s vulnerability here: After Keogh initially argued he didn’t have time to meet visiting veterans angry that Labor’s new price cap on health support ($5,000 annually) discriminated against those with long travel distances for care, he did meet them. But former pilot Tim Nelson said of the eventual meeting: “He walked into the room, refused to shake our hand, sat down with his arms crossed and rolled his eyes.” Keogh rejected that characterization. THREE CHEERS: Anthony Albanese has a trio of problems off his plate, after his first leader-to-leader negotiations with Angus Taylor. NDIS has passed the Senate, and contentious gambling reforms and news media bargaining updates will pass the Senate by tonight with support from the Coalition. Press Gallery veteran Michelle Grattan has you covered. GOOD ENOUGH: Liberal MP Simon Kennedy pushed his party to go further on restricting gambling ads but is satisfied with the dealmaking. “Is it perfect? No. Is it far better than what the PM wanted three weeks ago? Yes,” he told Playbook. Kennedy said the Coalition and Greens forcing a Senate inquiry, which heard gambling companies were offering cocaine and sex workers as inducements, was key. “The PM capitulated to the gambling lobby, but misread the room and had to capitulate to the Australian public,” Kennedy said. LESS TO GIVE: Labor didn’t have to bend as much for a win on its NDIS reforms, fast-tracking a fix to its budget’s so-called widow’s tax — which it was going to do anyway. “It took me a millisecond to say: ‘Yup, we’re up for that’,” the PM said. Big win for Jenny McAllister. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING ON IMMIGRATION? The Cabinet is silent. The Minister’s office only wants to give off-record non-answers. And it wasn’t raised in Labor caucus, according to our sources in the room. What if? A figure from One Nation or the Coalition self-destructs on immigration because Labor is leaving them the space to do it this week? It worked last week: Sen. Andrew Bragg blew up his colleagues at the Press Club, and we all would have paid much less attention if Tony Burke had just given his own Press Club speech on the topic, as planned. BY THE NUMBERS AUSTRALIA’S ILLEGAL TOBACCO MARKET  Pauline Hanson wants cheaper legal cigarettes to stamp out black market trade, and she upped the ante this week, moving from a 50 percent excise cut to a 75 percent cut. PUFF SITUATION: More than 50 percent of nicotine consumed in Australia is now illegal, and the black market is burning a $3.3 billion hole in tax revenue every year. Everyone (except Labor) agrees we’re in our own Prohibition-era. As Barnaby put it to ABC: “If you keep on putting up the price of cigarettes, you’re gonna get more mafia.” The illegal market is now so entrenched, a simple price cut might not nudge people back to legal safety. After all, no one’s come for them so far. Fiddling while your primary vote burns: While One Nation throws out new numbers at the drop of a press release, the Coalition is doing a monthslong policy review. A separate Senate inquiry will hand down its report on Aug. 28. I said it first: The Coalition’s point person on tobacco, Mary Aldred, told Playbook it’s her idea. “I’ll always welcome new support for my long-term calls on sharp cuts.” THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW JAMES PATERSON — SHADOW MINISTER FOR DEFENSE Do you feel Senate Estimates is working institutionally? So many officials either came ill-prepared to answer questions [in July] — which I find very hard to believe — or would deliberately try not to answer questions. I have zero tolerance for that. If they continually obstruct the Senate’s scrutiny function, then it will become a very unpleasant, uncomfortable environment for everyone. Pat Conroy says AUKUS is on track and that Britain is scaling up. The House of Commons is worried. Which assessments do you trust?  We should be optimistic and positive, but realistic. What I don’t want to see is fatalism. These are solvable problems. We’ve got time to get this right: as long as we are honest and realistic about it now. The U.K. is designing and then building its own AUKUS-class subs before we build ours, so the risk in the project is front-loaded onto them. They have a very powerful incentive to get this right because it’s their own national security. The prime minister has appointed John Healey — the former defense secretary — as the chancellor. That shows to me that they’re putting defense and national security at the heart of their economic agenda. What contingencies do we need to be thinking about? Two windows of capability gaps: Between the Collins-class submarines and the Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s; between Virginias and SSN AUKUS [in the early 2040s]. For the first capability gap we really need to investigate alternatives. I put the B-21 stealth bomber on the agenda for examination. We also don’t know what capabilities drones will have in 15 years.  That’s right. It’s rapidly evolving, even in the course of weeks and months. If you became defense minister, is there anything you’d want to subject to an independent review? Anything now? The new statutory defense committee which has been established; I think the core business of that community should be review of delivery of AUKUS. Where do you see the most promise in Australia’s defense industries?  [AUKUS] Pillar 2 is a military technology free trade agreement. It is supposed to get rid of, if not all, then at least most of the barriers to intellectual property, capital and humans moving between the three AUKUS nations. If Australia and the United States and the U.K. can’t work together in a single spot on this, then no other group of countries in the world can. The government is working to be the Pacific’s partner of choice. Do you have any red lines or limits?  [Solomon Islands] Prime Minister Wale, in his [push for a] Pacific-wide multilateral agreement on security and policing, I think if that window of opportunity opens, we must seize it. We need to remember that for Australia’s national interest to succeed we have to succeed in blocking the PRC from establishing military or policing arrangements every time they try. For the PRC’s national interest to succeed, they only have to succeed once. Read the full interview with Paterson here. CANBERRA MEETS WORLD AI, THE AUSTRALIAN WAY Canberra doesn’t want to be your AI landlord, Ryan Heath writes in a piece also featured today in POLITICO Forecast. Instead, it’s trying to pull off a feat that’s eluding national and local governments around the world: Attract AI investment, but on its own terms. That includes investors paying their own way on energy, training the locals, providing compute access and not hogging all the very precious water. To avoid the nasty data center debate unfolding in the United States, the vibe is: move quickly while resisting the idea that speed should settle every question. Ahead of 2027 legislation this middle road has an overarching goal: protect household electricity prices, and bring Australia into more of the AI supply chain. The hope is that social license buys more time to deal with the labor market disruptions that AI use accelerates. Nicolette Boele’s research among 750 constituents found “over 80 per cent were not confident the government will effectively regulate data centers.” The biggest concerns: water and energy impacts. South Australia’s Labor premier, Peter Malinauskas, is alert to the danger: that’s why he announced a Royal Commission into the impacts of AI, Aug. 11. Andrew Charlton, Albo’s AI whisperer, wants more than data centers, and is taking lessons from Australia’s mining boom missed opportunities. The TL;DR: Unlike in mining, we don’t own a choke point. And if we just supply the land, power and buildings while foreign firms retain ownership of the intellectual property, models and customer relationships, much of the value will flow offshore. As Charlton put it in an ANU speech Aug. 18: “Unless we take timely action, Australia is on course to be a large and permanent importer of intelligence.” TOKYO-CANBERRA DEAL: Japan is set to test hypersonic missiles and other advanced weapons on Australian soil as both nations push to increase military cooperation, amid China competitive threat, reported Andrew Greene. QUESTION TIME RED CARD: Incensed by the gambling deal, Greens Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young lost her questions in QT. Hanson-Young asked Penny Wong what her late colleague Peta Murphy would say about the deal — Murphy chaired an inquiry calling for a total gambling ad ban. Clippable content: Hanson-Young’s question violated Senate rules, but with politics now dominated by viral moments, she got what she came for. QUESTION WITHOUT NOTICE: The Hanson-Young incident brings into focus an important question: What should QT be for? Hanson-Young asked a pertinent question, and was penalized for it. That sits in a world where fake questions that we euphemistically call Dorothy Dixers are allowed. Ministers routinely get away with dodging reasonable questions, and others think it’s OK to deliver outbursts designed with the intention of getting kicked out. That’s a form of QT which isn’t going to survive contact with an angry public that’s already telling politicians the two-party system is over. Does QT need reform to avoid being written out of the national conversation? Send us your thoughts: WhatsApp on 0494 380 487 or email canberraplaybook@politico.com.

Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen lashed out at the Trump administration on Tuesday after Washington sanctioned two senior officials at the International Criminal Court over probes targeting alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza. Earlier in the day, Washington had upped the ante in its campaign against the international tribunal by sanctioning ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye. “The Netherlands disapproves of the latest sanctions against officials and staff of the International Criminal Court,” Berendsen wrote on X. “International courts and tribunals must be able to freely carry out their mandates.” He added that the Netherlands “fully” backed the court and had invited Akane for talks to discuss its continued support. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the court of threatening American sovereignty, saying the administration was acting to protect its citizens from a “sham” institution and would never allow Americans to be “transported beyond seas to be tried for pretend offenses.” Tuesday’s sanctions are part of a campaign Washington launched last month to cripple the ICC. The U.S. has already sanctioned at least 11 ICC officials and has urged the court’s 125 member states to withdraw from the organization. The Hague-based ICC, established in 2002, prosecutes genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Its pursuit of charges against senior Israeli politicians on such grounds, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, against whom it has issued an arrest warrant, has been a particular sore point for the U.S. The court issued a statement on Tuesday pushing back against Washington, warning that measures punishing judges, prosecutors and staff for carrying out their mandate “undermine the rule of law” and put the international legal order at risk. Netanyahu, who is wanted by the court for allegedly using starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza, applauded Washington’s move, branding the ICC a “kangaroo court” and praising Rubio for making clear that its officials would “face consequences.”

Arrest comes after attack on activist Nadia Beller, who says she was targeted for her opposition to corruption.

US Agriculture Department says rescinding 2001 rule will help reduce wildfire risk and return control to local managers.

Mykhailo Fedorov’s appeal is most direct challenge to Volodymyr Zelenskyy since Russian invasion in 2022Ukraine’s recently dismissed former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has called for a wartime presidential election in the most direct political challenge to Volodymyr Zelenskyy since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.The politician, whose abrupt sacking last month triggered a wave of protests, said that Ukraine had to “restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war” in a video address released online late on Tuesday evening. Continue reading...

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...

Study compared lung size and function of 1,600 six- to nine-year-olds with a matched group in Luton

Mykhailo Fedorov launches major challenge to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy