Yangon / Bloomberg Over 3,000 people have fled their homes in northern Myanmar following clashes between two ethnic rebel groups, the United Nations said Tuesday, raising fears the government’s fragile peace efforts could be fracturing. Heavy fighting in the northern state of Shan broke out last week between the Restoration Council for Shan State (RCSS) and the Ta’ang National Liberation …

Bloomberg Two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin swiped Crimea, the fallout from his Ukrainian land grab continues to reverberate through nearby budgets. It’s most visible in Lithuania, whose split from the Soviet Union was among the bloodiest of the communist collapse. The government there raised defense spending by more than 30 percent in 2015, outdoing NATO’s 27 other members. …

Bloomberg The European Union’s eastern members agreed that should a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of refugees into Europe fail, the bloc should have a “plan B” that would seal Greece’s northern borders. Leaders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, meeting in Prague three days before an EU summit, offered troops, police and other aid to …