x <- c("1 Afghanistan 6.4", "2 Albania 22.9", "3 Algeria 7.7", "4 Angola 5.7", "5 Argentina 37.2", "Armenia 22.0", "7 Australia 34.3 [2]", "8 Austria 43.4") gsub("\\s*\\[\\d+]", "", x)
Standard input is empty
[1] "1 Afghanistan 6.4" "2 Albania 22.9" "3 Algeria 7.7" [4] "4 Angola 5.7" "5 Argentina 37.2" "Armenia 22.0" [7] "7 Australia 34.3" "8 Austria 43.4"