French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he would not do a deal with the far-right, but insisted those who vote for Marine Le Pen's National Front should not be demonized.

Both Sarkozy and his Socialist challenger Francois Hollande finished ahead of Le Pen in Sunday's first round vote in France's presidential race, but the far-right flag-bearer won almost 18 percent of the vote.

South Sudan's president would cut short his visit to China due to "domestic issues", a Chinese official said Wednesday, as violence between the world's newest nation and Sudan intensified.

The curtailment of South Sudan President Salva Kiir's visit to China was confirmed by Wu Bangguo, nominally the second-ranking Chinese leader, during a meeting between the two men in Beijing.

A Chinese naval ship is visiting Ho Chi Minh City, state media said Wednesday, as the U.S. and Vietnam continue a separate week-long naval exchange amid rising tensions in the South China Sea.

The Chinese vessel, which arrived in Vietnam's southern port city Monday on a three-day visit, will carry out "professional exchanges to share experience and foster friendly relations," the official Vietnam News Agency said.

Britain is giving "increased emphasis" to its relationship with Asia and is expanding its diplomatic presence in the region, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday in Vietnam.

Hague, the first British foreign secretary to visit Hanoi in 17 years, said the two-day visit was part of a new drive to bolster the "very important" relationship between the two countries, particularly improving business ties.

Special forces from Burkina Faso swept into rebel-held northern Mali on Tuesday aboard a helicopter and whisked a Swiss hostage to safety in a pre-arranged handover by Islamist rebels.

Beatrice Stockly, her face clear of the black turban the rebels had her wear, appeared tired but in high spirits on the helicopter flying her to Ouagadougou after the rebel group Ansar Dine handed her over in Timbuktu.

Pakistan successfully test fired a nuclear-capable intermediate range ballistic missile on Wednesday, the military said, less than a week after India test launched a long range missile.

The exact range of the missile was not revealed, but retired General Talat Masood, a defense analyst, told Agence France Presse it would be able to hit targets up to 2,500 to 3,000 kilometers (1,550 to 1,850 miles) away -- putting arch-rival India well within reach.

Three U.S. Marines and a State Department employee were punished over their involvement with a Brazilian prostitute in December, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday.

The admission came as officials were still reeling from the fallout of a prostitution scandal implicating Secret Service agents and military personnel working on a visit to Colombia by President Barack Obama.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday commemorated the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, calling for "a full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts" of the "brutal" killings.

While denouncing the massacre of 97 years ago as "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century," Obama did not use the term "genocide," but he implicitly called for Turkey to acknowledge its role.

The trial of Bosnian Serb ex-army chief Ratko Mladic, who faces charges for his part in some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II, has been put back to May 16, a U.N. court said Tuesday.

"The prosecutor's opening statement will start on May 16," an International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) official told Agence France Presse, adding "his statement will continue until May 17."

A bomb exploded near a luxury train waiting lounge at the main railway station in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing at least two people, police said.

"It was a bomb blast, two people have been killed and 10 injured," senior police officer Abdul Razzaque Cheema told Agence France Presse.