AOSTA - POPE Benedict XVI celebrated mass on Saturday with his broken wrist in plaster but bemoaned an inability to clasp his hands together in prayer, his closest officials said.

'He is learning to live with a right wrist in plaster,' Mr Federico Lombardi told AFP, the day after the pope was hospitalised after a fall while on holiday. 'The most difficult thing for him is having to give up writing.' Mr Lombardi said the 82-year-old pontiff, who is on a two-week holiday in northern Italy, had slept well and would fly by helicopter on Sunday as planned to Romano Canavese, in the nearby Piedmont region, to recite the evening Angelus prayer.

WASHINGTON - US OFFICIALS are looking into organising a team of interrogators from several government agencies to specialise in questioning high-value terrorist suspects, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The small team will likely also be tasked with drawing up new interrogation methods, the Journal said, citing people familiar with a proposal that will be submitted to the White House.

RIO DE JANEIRO - FIVE major hospitals in Brazil's crime-ridden city of Rio de Janeiro are to be bullet-proofed because of frequent gunfights involving drug gangs, the state news agency Agencia Brasil reported on Saturday.

The federal hospitals, all located in risky zones, will have concrete walls built around them and steel shutters installed over the windows, some of which will also be reinforced to stop bullets.