Previously unpublished extracts from the diary of iconic Welsh actor Richard Burton have revealed his "aching" love for screen siren Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married twice.

Passages from the journal, which will be published in full in October, expose a sensitive side to the notoriously hard-drinking actor.

French international footballers Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema are to face trial for allegedly soliciting an underage prostitute, judicial sources said on Tuesday.

The footballers are among eight people that investigating magistrate Andre Dando has sent for trial as well as the Zaman Cafe on Paris' Champs Elysees where the meetings with Zahia Dehar took place.

New Zealand said it was considering making cyber-bullying a criminal offence Wednesday, amid concerns that existing laws offer inadequate protection from online harassment.

A Law Commission report said adolescents were particularly vulnerable to cyber-bullying, which could lead to depression, self-harm and suicide among victims.

Yemeni security forces arrested Wednesday a leading southern separatist on his arrival in Aden after spending several years in self-imposed exile, an official and an activist said.

Former ambassador Ahmed al-Hassani, who has lived in Britain since 2006 as a political refugee, was arrested at dawn at the airport after arriving onboard a flight from Beirut, said the official requesting anonymity.

Asian countries dominate a league table of economies most at risk from earthquakes, floods, storms and other natural hazards, according to research published on Wednesday.

In an assessment of 197 countries, British risk consultancy Maplecroft said six Asian countries were among the 10 countries whose economies were most vulnerable to catastrophes.

Israel's foreign ministry on Wednesday condemned a decision by the EU to effectively label parts of an Israeli town as a settlement in a new list of locales not entitled to European tariff exemptions.

"For anyone who deals in reality, there is not the slightest doubt that the Modiin, Maccabim and Reut localities are an integral part of Israel, and their future is not in question," the ministry said in a statement.

A Saudi daily insisted Wednesday it had held an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, following denials from Moscow that he had ever spoken to the newspaper.

Al-Watan posted online a recording which it said proved the interview, in which Bogdanov purportedly said Syrian President Bashar Assad's influential brother Maher lost both his legs in a bomb attack, had indeed taken place.

Syrian security forces stormed at least two districts of Damascus in the hunt for rebels, in one area using tanks and army vehicles, according to activists on Wednesday.

It is the third straight day security forces have swept central areas of the capital, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned an attack on peacekeepers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region in which a Bangladeshi police officer was killed.

The attack on Sunday in the South Darfur capital of Nyala came less than two weeks after the Security Council had renewed the mandate of the African Union-UN mission, UNAMID, but also cut its size.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa denied a British media report that his country had granted asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange earlier Wednesday

"The rumor of asylum for Assange is false. No decision has yet been taken. Awaiting report from the foreign ministry," Correa wrote on Twitter.