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New Hampshire Tally, Fabius Leaves, Drive-Thru Drama

New Hampshire Tally, Fabius Leaves, Drive-Thru Drama

TRUMP, SANDERS ROLL IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

Republican billionaire businessman Donald Trump and Democratic Senator and self-described socialist Bernie Sanders notched impressive wins in yesterday's New Hampshire presidential primary.

  • Hillary Clinton will have to work hard to minimize her defeat in the Democratic race, while Ohio Governor John Kasich hopes a surprise second-place showing can catapult him as the moderate alternative on the Republican side.
  • By dawn today on the East Coast, the New York Times was reporting that Trump had finished with 35.1% to Kasich's 15.9%, with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Texas Senator Ted Cruz following close behind.
  • Sander's won in a landslide, with 60% of the votes over Clinton who garnered 38%. "The government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors and their super PACs," Sanders said after his victory.
  • Here's the front page of the Union Leader newspaper in New Hampshire. For more, see The Washington Post coverage.

GERMANY TRAIN CRASH BLACK BOXES RECOVERED

Two of three black boxes from the two trains that collided head-on in yesterday's deadly crash in southern Germany have been recovered by rescue teams, the Süddeutsche Zeitungreports. These boxes will likely provide details on the cause of the accident, which killed 10 and injured scores, including at least nine in critical condition. News reports said an automatic braking system had been switched off to allow one of the trains to make up time, but German police have rejected this as "pure speculation," the local broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunkquoted a spokesperson as saying.


SNAPSHOT

Photo: Richard Ellis/ZUMA

Mardi Gras revelers in traditional costumes participated in the Courir de Mardi Gras run yesterday near Eunice, Louisiana.


SOUTH KOREA SUSPENDS JOINT OPERATIONS WITH NORTH

South Korea announced today it would suspend activities at the jointly run Kaesong industrial park in North Korea in the wake of Pyongyang's recent rocket launch and nuclear test, The Straits Times reports. Seoul said all operations at the park would halt, to stop the North using its investment "to fund its nuclear and missile development." Meanwhile, U.S. officials have reported that the North Korean satellite launched Sunday had achieved stable orbit but is so far not transmitting.


MADAYA AGAIN FACING STARVATION

Just one month after the United Nations delivered much-needed supplies in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya, its residents are again facing starvation, The Guardian reports. The UN has been accused of severely underestimating the number of people living in besieged locations in the country. According to a recent report published by the Syria Institute, more than one million civilians currently live in government and rebel-besieged towns and villages.


VERBATIM

"In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts," Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday during a tour on the Jordan border, after announcing plans to build a "multi-year project to encircle Israel with a security fence," The Jerusalem Post reports. The plan is already facing criticism from the Israeli PM's own cabinet, including from the far-right education minister Naftali Bennett, who said the country was "wrapping itself in fences."


FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER LEAVES

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced today he was leaving the government. Le Monde quoted Fabius as saying that he would move to a post presiding over the Constitutional Council, which ensures that the French Constitution is correctly upheld. Fabius, 69, who in the 1980s became France's youngest ever prime minister at 37, contributed to the signing of two major international agreements in his latest stint as foreign minister: the Iranian nuclear deal in July 2015 and the COP21 climate change agreement in December 2015.


U.S., INDIA CONSIDER JOINT SOUTH CHINA SEA PATROLS

After ramping up military ties in recent years, the U.S. and India could now be set to hold joint naval patrols, including in the disputed South China Sea, within the year, a U.S. defense spokesman has told Reuters. Such a move is likely to anger Beijing, which has been claiming most of the maritime territory and seven man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago. This comes as U.S. President Barack Obama is set to host the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in California on Feb. 15 and 16, where China will not be represented.


ON THIS DAY


The times, they have been a-changing for 52 years. This and more in your 57-second shot of history.


U.S. SUPREME COURT HALTS KEY CLIMATE PLAN

President Barack Obama's key climate change initiative, the "Clean Power Plan," was blocked yesterday by the Supreme Court, which ruled by 5-4 that it could not go forward until all legal challenges had been heard, USA Todayreports. The plan, which aimed to cut the country's gas emissions by 32% by 2030, was introduced last August and faced a petition last month signed by 29 states and industry leaders claiming the initiative was an infringement on states' rights.


WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO

Fed up of waiting for Brussels to act, countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans are building an anti-migrant fortress bloc with Hungary's Viktor Orbán as the architect. "Now the barbed wire stretches as far as the eye can see along Hungary's border with Serbia. Except for the occasional patrol, there is not a single human being in sight, especially no refugee," Manuel Bewarder and Boris Kálnoky write for Die Welt. "Nobody even dares to think about passing through Hungary's border fence. Those who get caught go straight to prison. Only approximately 10 migrants per day enter the country illegally. The border fence seems to be the solution for Hungary's refugee crisis, for now. No sentimentalism, no ‘solidarity,' only national interests. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's popularity ratings prove him right. And in Europe too he feels like a winner. He calls Austria's new border regime a "victory of reason."

Read the full article, The Anti-Migrant "Eastern European Union" — With Orban As Emperor.


MY GRAND-PÈRE'S WORLD



A DEADLY BUT LIVING WEAPON

Joshua James, a 23-year-old man from Florida, is facing charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after attacking a Wendy's drive-thru window in Palm Beach County and leaving with a drink without paying. His weapon? He threw a live three-and-a-half foot-long alligator through the window.

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Geopolitics

The Nagorno-Karabakh Debacle: Bad News For Putin Or Set Up For A Coup In Armenia?

It's been a whirlwind 24 hours in the Armenian enclave, whose sudden surrender is reshaping the power dynamics in the volatile Caucasus region, leaving lingering questions about the future of a region long under the Russian sphere of influence.

Low-angle shot of three police officers standing in front of the Armenian Government Building in Yerevan on Sept. 19

Police officers stand in front of the Armenian Government Building in Yerevan on Sept. 19

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

It happened quickly, much faster than anyone could have imagined. It took the Azerbaijani army just 24 hours to force the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh to surrender. The fighting, which claimed about 100 lives, ended Wednesday when the leaders of the breakaway region accepted Baku's conditions.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

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Thus ends the self-proclaimed "Republic of Artsakh" — the name that the separatists gave to Nagorno-Karabakh.

How can we explain such a speedy defeat, given that this crisis has been going on for nearly three decades and has already triggered two high-intensity wars, in 1994 and 2020? The answer is simple: the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed themselves into a corner.

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