Armenia, Azerbaijan OK new cease-fire after first truce fails

GORIS, Armenia — Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a new cease-fire in their conflict over a disputed territory, the countries said Saturday, days after a truce negotiated a week earlier had unraveled.

Thewarring neighbors in the southern Caucasus region announced the agreement over the disputed territory, Nagorno-Karabakh, in terse statements issued by their foreign ministries late Saturday, describing it as a “humanitarian truce.”

But the intense fighting leading up the announcement raised questions of whether this cease-fire would be any more durable than the deal reached after 10 hours of talks inMoscow last weekend, which failed to end the fierce conflict along the front line.

The new truce took effect at midnight, but neither side provided a timeline for how long itwould last.

The war has already killed more than 600 Armenian soldiers, scores of civilians and an unknown number of Azerbaijanis. It has threatened to spiral into a wider regional conflict, with the potential to further draw inTurkey, Azerbaijan’s main ally; Russia, which has a mutual defense agreement with Armenia; and even the region’s southern neighbor, Iran.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an ethnically Armenian enclave that is part of Azerbaijan under international law but is closely aligned with Armenia.

A previous war over Nagorno-Karabakh, in the early 1990s, killed some 20,000people and displaced about1 million, mostofthem Azerbaijanis. Years of tensions since then between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave’s status erupted into open warfare Sept. 27, with Azerbaijan seeking to take control of the territory by force.

On Saturday, Azerbaijan said 14 people were killed in the city of Ganja, the country’s second-largest, in an overnight missile attack by Armenia.

Abortion ruling: A federal appeals court has upheld a decades-old Kentucky law requiring abortion clinics to have written agreements with a hospital and an ambulance service in case of medical emergencies.

The 2-1 decision by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals reverses a federal judge’s ruling, who had said the 1998 Kentucky law violated constitutionally protected due process rights.

However, in Friday’s ruling, the appeals court rejected that argument and countered the “district court erred in concluding that Kentucky would be left without an abortion facility.”

In 2017, EMW Women’s Surgical Center— the state’s only clinic that provided abortions at the time — decided to challenge the state law after becoming embroiled in a licensing fight with then-Gov. Matt Bevin.

The Republican’s administration had claimed the clinic lacked proper transfer agreements and took steps to shut it down.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky later joined the suit, claiming Bevin’s administration had used the transfer agreementsto block its request for a license to provide abortions in Louisville.

Critics of the law claimed such licensing requirements were designed to give the

Party amid a pandemic: Thai dragon dancers perform Saturday in Phuket, Thailand, on the first night of the annual Vegetarian Festival, in which nine emperor gods are honored. The nine-day festival is expected to draw15,000 people daily. Thailand has fewer than 3,700 cases of coronavirus and just 59 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. state a reason to ban abortions. Supporters said the lawbolstered patient safety.

Thetwo clinicshave since been allowed to provide abortions after Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who supports abortion rights, took office in late 2019.

New Zealand election: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won a second term in office Saturday in an election landslide of historic proportions.

With most votes counted, Ardern’s liberal Labor Party was winning49% of the vote compared to 27% for its main challenger, the conservativeNational Party.

Labor was on target to win an outright majority of the seats in Parliament, something that hasn’t happened since New Zealand implemented a proportional voting system 24 years ago. Typically, parties must form alliances to govern, but this timeArdern and Labour can go it alone.

In a victory speech in front of hundreds of cheering supporters in Auckland, Ardern said her party had gotten more support from New Zealanders than at any time in at least 50 years.

A record number of voters cast early ballots in the two weeks leading up to the election.

Rockies wildfires: The largest wildfire in Colorado history grew overnight as high winds pushed the blaze through rural communities and the forecast predicted more “extreme fire behavior” on Saturday.

Gusts of up to 70 mph overnight created “very significant” fire activity, especially along the southeast section, said Cass Cairns, a spokeswoman for the Cameron Peak fire efforts.

“Theplan todayis totry to holdthe firetothe east,” Paul Delmerico, operations chief for the Cameron Peak fire said early Saturday. “We’re facing the same critical fire conditions today as we did yesterday.”

They were expecting gusts of 60 mph midday, he said.

The fire grew to 293 square miles by Saturday morning and only 57% was contained.

TurkishCypriots topolls: Turkish Cypriots vote Sunday in a leadership runoff that could decide whether they retain more control over their own affairs or steer even closer to an increasinglydomineeringTurkey.

Veteran incumbent Mustafa Akinci, 72, backs the long-held federal framework for a deal with rival Greek Cypriots to reunify ethnically dividedCyprus.

He’s also a champion of Turkish Cypriots who oppose Turkey’s complete domination of their affairs.

His hardline challenger Ersin Tatar, 60, advocates fully aligningTurkishCypriots with Turkish policies, such as pursuing a two-state deal instead of a federation.

Lebanon protest anniversary: A year ago, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese took to the streets protesting taxes and a rapidly deteriorating economic crisis. A spontaneous and hopeful nationwide movement was born, denouncing an entire political establishment that had for decades pushed Lebanon toward collapse.

Today, as crises multiply and the country dives deeper into uncertainty and poverty, protests seem to have petered out.

On Saturday, thousands marked the first anniversary of the protest movement in different parts of Lebanon including its three largest cities, Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon. But the protesters were far fewer than those last year.

Some argue the protests lost momentum because of the political elite’s moves to hijack and weaken the movement. Protesters have been met with violence, arrest and intimidation. Others say Lebanese have become numb to incompetence and corruption among the political class.

But Lebanon’s confessionalpower-sharing system also proved difficult to bring down. A revolt against the status quo means breaking a sectarian patronage network cultivated by the ruling elite.