Prime minister to attempt comeback

Romano Prodi, forced to resign last week as Italy’s prime minister, will try to reassemble his government in a bid to rescue the nation from crippling political chaos, officials announced Saturday.

Ending intense negotiations, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano asked Prodi to put together a new administration that then must prove it has majority support by winning confidence votes in both houses of Parliament.

Napolitano, who spent the three days since Prodi’s surprise resignation consulting with a wide range of politicians, said he believed Prodi has sufficient backing from centrist and leftist parties to prevail.

Prodi, the 67-year-old former professor, stunned the nation Wednesday when he quit after losing a parliamentary vote called to endorse his foreign policy. His 9-month-old government collapsed, falling victim largely to leftist allies who opposed Italy’s peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and the expansion of U.S. military bases in Italy.

Wellington, New Zealand

Japanese ship drifts from Antarctica

A Japanese whaling ship has begun moving away from Antarctica under its own power, an official said today – 10 days after a fire left it crippled and laden with fuel near the world’s biggest penguin breeding ground.

The Nisshin Maru, an 8,000-ton whale-meat processing ship, was stranded in the Ross Sea after a fire broke out on its lower decks Feb. 15 and has been drifting, lashed to two other Japanese whaling vessels. One sailor died in the blaze.

Paris

Abbas ends tour sans sanctions talks

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ended his European tour Saturday without persuading any country to end crippling economic sanctions based on his power-sharing deal with the rival Islamic militant Hamas.

The bright spot in his trip was a promise Saturday from French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy to work with a government that includes Hamas and Abbas’ more moderate Fatah party. But Douste-Blazy made no commitments on resuming aid that’s been frozen since Hamas won parliamentary elections a year ago.

Europe’s governments remained firm: Any new Palestinian government must recognize Israel’s right to exist before direct international aid can resume.