Armenian PM wins snap vote by landslide

Yerevan: Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has won a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections, results showed on Monday, cementing his authority months after sweeping to power in a peaceful revolution. Pashinyan, a 43-year-old former journalist, has pledged to root out endemic corruption and address widespread poverty in the impoverished, landlocked ex-Soviet republic of three million people. With all votes counted, the bloc led by Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party had taken 70.43% of the vote, the central election commission said. The Prosperous Armenia party led by influential oligarch and former arm wrestler Gagik Tsarukyan came a distant second with 8.27%. AFP

Emotional Kiwi PM apologises over backpacker’s murder

Wellington: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern choked back tears on Monday while offering a heartfelt apology to the family of murdered British backpacker Grace Millane, as the man accused of killing the young traveller made his first court appearance. Her voice cracking with emotion, Ardern said there was a collective feeling of shame in the South Pacific nation over the fate of Millane, whose body was found on Sunday in parkland just outside Auckland. “There is this overwhelming sense of hurt and shame that this has happened in our country, a place that prides itself on our hospitality, on our manaakitanga,” she said, using the Maori word for welcoming others. AFP  

Tesla CEO Musk taunts US financial regulatory agency

Washington: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, openly derided the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in an interview, having settled fraud charges with the regulatory agency over an errant tweet. “I want to be clear. I do not respect the SEC, I do not respect them” he said in an interview on the CBS network news programme “60 Minutes.” Musk had to resign as Tesla chairman under a September arrangement with the SEC to settle fraud charges stemming from a tweet in which he said he planned to take the firm private and already had the financing to do it. Musk and Tesla each had to pay a $20 million fine to the agency. He was forced to resign as chairman but allowed to remain CEO. AFP

I’m scared by him, his possibility: Streep on Trump

Los Angeles: Hollywood veteran Meryl Streep says that she is scared by the possibility of Donald Trump’s return as the US President. The 69-year-old actor was termed as “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood” by Trump after she criticised him during her Cecil B DeMille acceptance speech at the 2017 Golden Globes. Streep said: “I’m scared. I’m scared by him, by his possibility. And I do empathise with him. I can’t imagine what his 3am is like. There’s a gathering storm - everyone feels it, he feels it. His children are in jeopardy, and I feel that. I think, ‘What if my children were in jeopardy?’ I would do anything - anything - to get them out of trouble. So we should be afraid. That’s what I think.” PTI