Cricketer may be next head of Pakistan
LAHORE, Pakistan — Imran Khan, a charismatic cricket star who has fiercely criticized U.S. counterterrorism policy in a region plagued by extremism, appeared poised Thursday to become Pakistan’s next prime minister.
After preliminary results showed his party decisively ahead in an election that critics say was marred by military intervention to help him, Mr. Khan addressed the nation on television, outlining what he would do as prime minister.
He said he would fight corruption at the highest levels, improve relations with China, seek a “mutually beneficial” relationship with the U.S. and create a just welfare state along the lines of what the Prophet Muhammad did centuries ago.
He also said he would never live in the prime minister’s mansion in a country of so many poor people.
Self-rule for Muslims
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has signed a landmark law aimed at giving expanded autonomy to Muslims in the south of the country, his spokesman said Thursday, with the legislation expected to bring some measure of peace to a region choked by four decades of separatist violence.
The long-delayed law came four years after the government signed a peace deal with the separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which dropped its bid for full independence in return for the right to self-rule.
The legislation mandates the expansion of an autonomous region that would be led initially by a “transitional authority” composed mostly of former fighters before eventually being governed by its own parliament.
Fiat CEO had been ill
MILAN — The Zurich University Hospital where Sergio Marchionne, founding CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, died says he had been treated there for a “serious illness” for more than a year.
The hospital said Thursday that Mr. Marchionne had received cutting-edge treatment but did not elaborate on the illness.
Fiat Chrysler said it first learned last Friday that Mr. Marchionne’s health had deteriorated and that he would not be able to return to work. The next day the board named a new CEO, Mike Manley.
Beijing embassy bomb
BEIJING — A 26-year-old man is suspected of setting off a small explosive device outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, local police said Thursday.
The suspect, who police say is from the Inner Mongolia region of China, detonated a device made of firework material around 1 p.m. outside the embassy.
The man hurt his hand, but no one else was injured, police said.
The suspect’s family reported that the man had been suffering hallucinations, Beijing police said.
Air China plane scare
PARIS— An Air China flight to Beijing returned to Paris on Thursday after an airline employee misunderstood a call from a passenger and thought he was reporting a bomb on the plane, Paris airport police said.
The passenger, speaking in English, called Air China to say he was stuck behind police lines that were set up at Charles de Gaulle airport’s Terminal 1 while officers investigated an abandoned package.
FlightCA876 returned to Charlesde Gaulle and was separatedfrom other aircraft foran inspection. It was scheduledto take off again later, airport police said.