Pakistan minister's attacker a hardline youth

ISLAMABAD • The gunman accused of shooting and wounding Pakistan's interior minister is a youth leader of a hardline religious group that sees its mission as enforcing death for blasphemers and ridding government of secular influence, police said in a report.

The suspected gunman who was arrested at the scene is Abid Hussain, 21, a youth leader of the Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik party, police said in an interrogation report seen by Reuters yesterday.

The party known as Labaik has made the emotive issue of blasphemy its rallying cry.

REUTERS

Philippine tourism secretary resigns

MANILA • Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday accepted the resignation of his tourism secretary, the ninth official to leave his Cabinet, after the state audit agency flagged a questionable deal in her department.

Ms Wanda Tulfo-Teo, a small tourist operator from Davao City prior to her current role, was engulfed in controversy after a department advertisement worth US$1.2 million (S$1.6 million) ended up on her brother's television show for a state-run network.

There was no announcement on a replacement.

REUTERS

Sri Lankan president calls for end to power struggle

COLOMBO • Sri Lanka's president yesterday appealed to his prime minister to end a bitter power struggle and said the coalition government had failed to deliver promised reforms.

Mr Maithripala Sirisena told Parliament that the coalition partners should commit to a reform agenda to revive the island nation emerging from a decades-long ethnic war that claimed more than 100,000 lives.

But the President suffered a new blow when 16 of his MPs joined the opposition as he entered the Parliament building.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE