EU officials are formulating long-term budget plans that exclude Britain due to Prime Minister David Cameron's insistence he will veto any increases in real-term spending, the FT reported on Monday.

Britain is demanding a freeze to EU spending for the period 2014-20, the details of which are supposed to be thrashed out at a two-day summit of EU leaders in Brussels beginning on Thursday.

A call by two Dutch sexologists for "virtual" child pornography to be legalized so as to assuage paedophiles' desires has sparked fierce debate in the Netherlands.

Sexologists Rik van Lunsen and Erik van Beek of Amsterdam University Hospital (AMC) last month floated the idea of creating child pornography using drawings or computer-generated images.

South Korea will hold a military drill this week on a border island shelled by North Korea in 2010, marking the second anniversary of an attack that triggered fears of a full-scale conflict.

Friday's drill will feature field and simulated exercises by marines stationed on Yeonpyeong island as well as other naval forces, a Marine Corps spokesman told Agence France Presse.

A Russian cosmonaut and two astronauts from the International Space Station touched down early Monday on the steppes of Kazakhstan in a Russian Soyuz capsule after spending over four months aboard the ISS.

Russia's Yury Malenchenko, Sunita Williams of the U.S. and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan touched down as scheduled just before 0200 GMT, the Russian Space Flight Control Center announced as the message "Landing Accomplished" was flashed on a giant screen.

Banking giant HSBC said Monday it was in talks to sell its stake in China's Ping An Insurance Group, the country's second-largest life insurer by premiums.

The British-based but Asia-focused lender said in a statement it was "in discussions which may or may not lead" to the sale of its 15.57 percent stake, which the bank bought in 2002 before Ping An's listing in Hong Kong.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon arrived in Yemen on Monday to mark the first anniversary of a transition deal that resulted in strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh handing over power, media and diplomats said.

On his first visit to the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, the U.N. Secretary General will hold talks with President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi and Gulf Cooperation Council head Abdul Latif al-Zayani who is also in Sanaa, according to official news agency SABA.

Negotiators for the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos and leftist FARC rebels meet in Havana Monday for talks aimed at ending Latin America's longest-running insurgency.

Chief government negotiator Humberto de la Calle said he believed this is "the defining moment" to reach a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas, as both sides have agreed that talks "must end with a final agreement on the conflict."

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon vowed Sunday that peacekeepers will stay in the DR Congo city of Goma after U.N. combat helicopters and government troops failed to stop a rebel advance amid growing international alarm.

Government troops and local officials were already fleeing the city, said several sources.

South Korea's Samsung has hit back at rival LG in a patents row over next-generation display panels, with both firms accusing the other of stealing technology and senior staff to grab a lead in the market.

Samsung Display, an affiliate of Samsung Electronics, asked a Seoul patents court last week to annul seven patents related to organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel technologies held by LG, a company spokesman said Monday.

In a historic trip to a long shunned land, President Barack Obama on Monday showered praise and promises of more U.S. help to Myanmar if the Asian nation keeps building its new democracy. "Our goal is to sustain the momentum," he declared with pride as the first U.S. president to visit here.

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets as Obama packed in diplomacy and soaked in his steamy surroundings. He shared words and an affectionate hug with the Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy activist who endured years of house arrest to gain freedom and become a lawmaker.