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THURSDAY MARCH 17, 2016 • T H I S D AY
INTERNATIONAL
email:foreigndesk@thisdaylive.com
Trump, Clinton Win Big as Rubio Drops out
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump won pivotal primaries yesterday, while Governor John Kasich’s long-awaited debut victory in his home state of Ohio raised the chances of a historic GOP convention fight. A humiliating loss on home ground in Florida, meanwhile, ended the White House dreams of Sen. Marco Rubio, who was once hailed as a Republican Party savior. Clinton took big strides toward the Democratic nomination by winning Florida and North Carolina. And in crucial victories, she stopped Bernie Sanders in his tracks in the industrial Midwest by taking Ohio and Illinois. The Republican Party, meanwhile, veered closer to a contested convention after Kasich held his own state and deprived Trump of its 66 delegates. That makes it more difficult for the billionaire to reach the 1,237 delegates he needs to capture the GOP prize. Trump did, however, prevail in the biggest contest of the night, taking all of Florida’s 99 delegates. That resounding win helped force Rubio out of the race after failing to win his
own state and unite the Republican establishment against Trump. The real estate tycoon also won primaries in Illinois and North Carolina. The drama is still unfolding in other key races. Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are locked in a tight battle for Missouri. And Clinton is still hoping for a sweep, with votes still being counted in the close race with Sanders in Missouri. Vote counting was completed for the night in Missouri with both Clinton and Trump clinging to tight leads of less than half a percentage point, but CNN will not project a winner in either contest as the margin of victory in each case is less than 1 percentage point. Trump was already looking forward to the general election as he urged party unity amid growing speculation about the potential for a convention fight. “We have to bring our party together,” he said. “We have to bring it together.” Still, GOP leaders may now look to Kasich as their final chance to unite behind a candidate who could challenge Trump in
the event of a contested convention. “We are all very, very happy,” Kasich told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in a telephone interview. According to CNN estimates, Trump needs to win about 60% of the remaining delegates available in the GOP race -- a goal complicated by the fact that some states award delegates on a proportional basis, rather than doling out their entire hauls to the winner, as is the case
in Ohio and Florida. But it’s unclear how Kasich, a contender who has won only one state and who has been labouring in obscurity for much of the race, can overtake Trump, who has now won 18 states and is far ahead in the delegate race. The billionaire, who has harnessed the anger of grass-roots Republicans against party elites, is responsible for destroying the campaigns of
some of the GOP’s most imposing personalities -- all of whom were once considered strong White House contenders, including Rubio, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie. On the Democratic side, Clinton has won the Illinois, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio primaries -- crucial victories that bolster Clinton’s claim that she is her party’s only candidate who can win diverse states that will
be pivotal in the November general election. Her win in North Carolina completed her sweep of Southern states, where she has enjoyed strong support from African-American voters. “We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Pa r t y n o m i n a t i o n a n d winning this election i n N ov e m b e r,” C l i n t o n said in a victory speech i n We s t Pa l m B e a c h , Florida.
Belgium Names Deceased Gunman, Arrests Two Suspects Belgian authorities have identified the gunman killed in a raid targeting suspects in the Paris attacks as a 35-year-old Algerian, saying police had detained two others while finding an Islamic State flag at the scene. Investigators believe much of the planning and preparation for the November 13 shooting and bombing rampage in Paris that killed 130 people was conducted in Brussels by young French and Belgian nationals, some of whom fought as militants in Syria.
On Tuesday, six Belgian and French police officers arrived to search a flat in a Brussels suburb and came under a barrage of automatic weapons fire through a door from at least two people barricaded inside, injuring four officers. A special forces sniper shot dead gunman Mohamed Belkaid when he tried to fire at police from a window, prosecutors said. They said a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a book on Salafism, a radical branch of Islam, were lying next to Belkaid’s body, and that
he had been living illegally in Belgium though was known to police only for a case of theft in 2014. The apartment in southern Brussels also contained a large cache of ammunition and an Islamic State flag, investigating prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said. Investigators were holding a man admitted to hospital near Brussels with a broken leg that required surgery. The person who brought him to hospital fled as local police arrived. Another suspect was
detained for questioning after a further house search near the scene of the shooting. Prime Minister Charles Michel summoned security and intelligence chiefs for an emergency sitting of Belgium’s national security council on Wednesday to review the country’s level of alertness and possible extra measures. “The threat remains,” Michel told RTL radio, adding that for now Belgium would be on the second highest alert level of three.