Armenia PM claims victory

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's party won 53.9 percent of the vote in snap parliamentary polls called in an effort to defuse a political crisis after a war with Azerbaijan, official results showed yesterday. An alliance led by his rival, ex-leader Robert Kocharyan, came second with 21 percent, according to the results based on ballots from 100 percent of precincts counted.  A winning party or bloc needs to obtain at least 50 percent of seats plus one and can be assigned additional seats in order to form a government.