ITALY. Berlusconi ?The Knight? loses battle. The man who once said being a loser and giving up was not part of his DNA finally decided to quit on Saturday after three weeks of political wrangling following the narrowest election defeat in modern Italian history.

Berlusconi?s battle to stay on as prime minister was an example of the determination that propelled the son of a bank branch employee to become Italy?s richest man and head of its longest serving government. «It?s absolutely in his character... He doesn?t just give up,» said pollster Renato Mannheimer.

The 69-year-old media tycoon has sold most things in his career: essays to school friends, vacuum cleaners, housing developments, soap operas, adverts, books, magazines, insurance policies and soccer stars.

But survival in the prime minister?s office proved to be too tough to sell after centre-left leader Romano Prodi declared victory in April 9-10 national elections.

MEXICO. Guerrilla leader to march from US Embassy. A coalition of unions and anti-capitalist groups, including Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos, will march in Mexico today to mark international labor day and to support a U.S. immigrant boycott. Marcos, a pipe-smoking icon of the left who led a short but bloody uprising in southern Mexico in 1994, said yesterday: ?We will create a clearly anti-capitalist May Day and we ... are going to take the property from the (owners of) the means of production.? In Mexico, immigrants? rights groups have called for a national daylong boycott of U.S. products and businesses.

AUSTRALIA. Two miners trapped for 5 days found alive. The Beaconsfield Gold Mine, about 150 km (95 miles) north of Hobart, capital of Tasmania state, said yesterday it had located the two men alive more than five days after a tremor triggered a rockslide inside a mine. A third miner was found dead by rescuers on Thursday. United Church Community Minister Frances Seen said a brother of one of the trapped miners told her a camera had ?gotten through to them? and that they ?seemed to be okay?, Australian Associated Press reported. ?They?ve called in all the miners to start work getting them out. And they?ll have them out tomorrow so it?s going to still be a little bit of time but at least they?re still alive,? Seen said.

LIBYA. Gaddafi meets Palestinian foreign minister. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi held talks with Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar, who is tou-ring Arab states to raise funds for his cash-strapped Hamas-led government, state news agency Jana reported. ?The Palestinian minister briefed the brother leader (Gaddafi) about the developments of the Palestinian situation?, Jana said. Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam also attended. Jana gave no further details about Zahar?s stay in Libya. The Palestinian government has warned of economic collapse within months after Israel froze tax receipts and Western nations cut aid to the Palestinian Authority. Zahar was the second Hamas leader to visit Libya in five weeks. Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal met Gaddafi later in March when the Libyan leader reiterated that Tripoli would continue support for the Palestinian people. The Islamic militant group has sworn to destroy Israel and has rebuffed international demands to recognise the Jewish state and disarm. Gaddafi, who is striving to bring back his country to the full embrace of the West after decades of isolation mostly for his support for radical groups in the Middle East and elsewhere, advocates a single state on Palestinian and Israeli land for the two peoples.

EGYPT. Police hunting bombers kill one in gunfight. Egyptian security forces killed one person and captured four others early yesterday in a gun battle in the centre of Sinai while investigating bomb attacks in the resort of Dahab and north Sinai, security sources said. Two people involved in the gunfight escaped.