ROME – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is expected to resign on Saturday, making way for an emergency government and ending one of the most scandal-plagued eras in Italy’s post-war history.
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ATHENS – Technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos took office on Friday to save Greece from bankruptcy, heading a coalition cabinet filled with many of the same politicians who led the nation into crisis and pushed the euro zone to the brink of collapse.
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TAIZ, Yemen – At least 17 people were killed in heavy clashes in the Yemeni city of Taiz on Friday, a day after a U.N. envoy began a new mission to push President Ali Abdullah Saleh to quit under a Gulf peace plan.
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AMMAN – Syrian security forces killed 20 people on Friday and protesters called on the Arab League to suspend Damascus’s membership in response to continued violence, activists said.
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MEXICO CITY – Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Blake was killed in a helicopter crash on Friday, a blow to the government as it fights powerful drug cartels.
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VIENNA – Very low levels of radioactive iodine-131 have been detected in Europe but the particles are not believed to pose a public health risk, the U.N. nuclear agency said on Friday, saying it was seeking to find the source.
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MONROVIA – Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf promised to involve opponents in her second term after winning a landslide victory in an election boycotted by her main rival over fraud allegations.
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HONOLULU – Japan’s readiness to join Asia-Pacific free trade talks gave a major boost on Friday to President Barack Obama’s drive to assert U.S. leadership in the world’s most economically dynamic region and promote growth at home.
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LONDON – Even if the euro zone manages to relieve the immediate financial pressures threatening it, weaker members in particular look set to keep paying a heavy economic price to tackle the imbalances at the root of the bloc’s debt crisis.
