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By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict began the first Easter of his pontificate on Saturday, urging Catholics to let the risen Christ help them transform a world of violence and corruption. The 78-year-old German Pope, who marks the first anniversary of his election next week, presided at an Easter Vigil mass in St Peter's Basilica to mark the most important day in the Church's liturgical calendar. At the start of the service, the Pope carved the first and last letters of  ...

VALLEJO, California (AP) -- Noelle's given birth in Afghanistan, California and dozens of points in between. She's a lifelike, pregnant robot used in increasing numbers of medical schools and hospital maternity wards. The full-sized, blond, pale mannequin is in demand because medicine is rapidly abandoning centuries-old training methods that use patients as guinea pigs, turning instead to high-tech simulations. It's better to make a mistake on a $20,000 robot than a live patient. The Institut ...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- The death toll from mudslides that cut off the highway to Colombia's main Pacific port rose to 15 on Saturday, with as many as 37 people still missing and 1,000 left homeless. Among the bodies recovered were two soldiers whose roadside checkpoint was swept away in one of 15 landslides that struck on Wednesday and Thursday, said Alfonso Vargas of the Colombian Red Cross. Seven other soldiers were among the missing, said Vargas, who provided the tally of dead, missing a ...

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres responded to veiled threats made by Iran's president against Israel, saying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "will end up in the same way as [Saddam] Hussein." "Ahmadinejad represents Satan, not God," said Peres, who shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with the late Palestinian and Israeli leaders, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. "History knew how to denounce madmen and those who wave their sword, and all those who acte ...

LONDON (Reuters) - A bomb killed a British soldier and wounded three others in southern Iraq on Saturday, the Defence Ministry said. "A soldier from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards has died of injuries received in an improvised explosive device attack in southern Iraq today," the spokesman told Reuters. He said the incident occurred just north of the southern Iraqi city Basra.

Mr Kent said: "He seemed to be worried that he had broken down, but I thought he did very well. "I thought he came over as a very modest self-effacing man who realised there were doubts about his visit and he was willing to face them." Mr Kember wept as he recalled that British special forces asked for "Mr Kember" when they rescued him and his two Canadian colleagues in Baghdad. And, admitting that he considered taking his own life, the Christian peacekeeper said: "When you are really depress ...

A British soldier has died from injuries after an improvised device exploded in southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defence has said. The soldier, the 104th UK military victim of the conflict, was a member of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. Three of his colleagues were slightly injured in the attack. The dead man's immediate next of kin have been informed and have requested his name be withheld until the wider family has been consulted. "I was deeply saddened to hear of this incident; my thought ...

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) -- Thousands rallied Saturday in Chad's capital in support of the president following a defeated rebel attack, while the oil minister threatened to shut down the country's oil pipeline unless the government is compensated for frozen oil revenues. President Idriss Deby's government appears desperate to attract international attention to solve Chad's political, economic and security problems. Deby announced Friday that he was severing relations with neighboring Sudan and th ...

(CNN) -- Relatives of two Milwaukee, Wisconsin, boys missing for nearly a month said Saturday they believe the children's bodies have been found in a park lagoon, but police said they are waiting on autopsy results. The two decomposed, fully dressed bodies were discovered Friday night in McGovern Park, near the homes of Quadrevion Henning, 12, and Purvis Parker, 11. Relatives said they were shown photos and are convinced the bodies are those of the missing boys. (Watch an uncle talk of 'closur ...

A man has been remanded in custody charged with the manslaughter of a police officer who died in a car crash. Pc Joe Carroll, 46, died of severe head injuries on Thursday morning when the patrol car he was driving left the A69 near Corbridge, Northumberland. Steven Graham, 39, a staff sergeant at Sandhurst Military Academy, appeared before magistrates in Bedlington. He is also accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Insp Brian English, who was also in the car. Mr English sustain ...