Pope Francis named two Palestinian women as saints yesterday, in a ceremony in Saint Peter’s Square days after the Vatican formalised its de facto recognition of the State of Palestine.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his first Easter message as pontiff, today urged the use of diplomacy to defuse nuclear crises in a clear reference to worries over Iran, and prayed that Palestinians would have their own state alongside that of Israel.

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has quit the Likud party to join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, another aftershock from the political earthquake Sharon set off when he formed his new centrist party.

More than 1,000 people gathered in Bethlehem’s Manger Square today, listening to carols playing through loudspeakers and watching the annual Christmas Eve procession into the church that holds the traditional birthplace of Jesus.