Pope to wear cast for month after breaking wrist

DOCTORS say Pope Benedict XVI will have to stay in a cast for a month after breaking his right wrist in a fall in his chalet while vacationing in the Italian Alps.

Pierluigi Berti, the director of the Umberto Parini hospital in Aosta, said doctors had successfully performed a 20-minute operation and the pope would be released last night.

The surgery to reduce the fracture, a procedure to realign the broken bone fragments was performed under local anaesthesia.