Afghanistan

• A rare suicide bombing targeted a line of government employees waiting to collect their paychecks outside of a bank in Kandahar, killing at least 21 (according to a doctor at the regional hospital; the Taliban maintains only three people died).
• The target and site selection suggests this was intended as an attack on the Taliban government - whose reclusive leader rarely leaves Kandahar - and not one of Islamic State's usual assaults on Afghanistan's Shia minority. No group has claimed it yet.

• Indonesia's election commission confirmed Prabowo Subianto the winner of last month's poll, with 59% of the vote - far more than the simple majority required to avoid a runoff. It was the largest single-day election in world history, with 80% of Indonesia's 205 million registered voters - or 165 million people - turning out to vote.
• Subianto's two rivals rejected the result and plan to contest it, but Indonesian law only gives them three days to legally object and their grounds for doing so are shaky: they won far smaller shares of the vote than Subianto did (25% and 16%), and their main complaint against Subianto's campaign is more of a gripe with how incumbent Pres. Jokowi seemed to favor Subianto over them (Jokowi's eldest son was running for vice president on Subianto's ticket). The also-rans are organizing protests alongside their legal objections.

Haiti

• One of the political parties tasked with nominating a representative for the transition council set to govern Haiti - Pitit Desalin - initially refused to participate in the process, but capitulated yesterday and appointed a nominee to the council.
• Pitit Desalin likely held out initially because its leaders - including Guy Philippe and Jean-Charles Moïse (no relation to slain president Jovenel Moïse) - are oddly friendly with the gangs that have made threats against anyone who joins the transition council. They may have made a deal with gang leaders like Barbecue.

Russia

• The EU figured out a plan for using frozen Russian assets to help pay to arm Ukraine without breaking sanctions, and the plan is expected to be approved today.
• It provides for 97% of the profits (e.g., interest, dividends) from Russian assets frozen in the EU as of Feb. 15 to be sent to Ukraine in tranches that could start as soon as July [the assets themselves will remain frozen].
• The European Central Bank cautioned that this will make foreign countries think twice about keeping their assets in the EU.

• PM Netanyahu said he would "soon approve plans to evacuate the civilian population" of Rafah ahead of a ground offensive that he acknowledged "will take some time" - in part because Israel is contending with U.S. objections to its plan.
• Meanwhile, Israeli forces are still fighting Hamas at Gaza City's Al Shifa Hospital. Israel says it killed over 50 armed militants and discovered caches of weapons inside the hospital over the past day alone.

• Russia condescendingly chided Armenian PM Pashinyan for rushing to unilaterally concede four border villages to Azerbaijan in order to avoid war that he warned "could erupt by the end of the week."
• Russia would prefer that Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiate under the framework of their border delimitation commission, which Russia is conveniently "ready to help with."

• The U.S. Air Force conducted a final prototype test of Lockheed's hypersonic air-launched rapid response weapon (ARRW) on Tuesday, and said the test was successful - although the program to develop it has faced lengthy delays and extensive criticism for failing to keep up with Russian, Chinese, and even North Korean programs. [To give you an idea of how long the U.S. program has been working toward this final prototype test: I worked on a tiny part of the hypersonic testing program as a college intern 20 years ago.]
• Two world leaders unexpectedly stepped down yesterday: Ireland's PM Varadkar resigned for "personal and political" reasons (i.e., waning political support for his party), and Vietnam's Pres. Thuong bowed out after his Communist Party leadership determined he'd broken party rules - reportedly because of his links to a provincial corruption scandal.