herdsmen

.

The Syrian military is reported to have intensified its offense against opposition forces in the south of the capital Damascus. Residents say it's some of the heaviest fighting since the army reasserted its control of the city last month. Opposition activists say more than 40 have been killed in a bombardment by tanks and aircraft.

Photographs showing Queen Elizabeth's grandson Prince Harry and a young woman

cavorting

naked in a Las Vegas hotel room have been published on a US website. Our royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell repots.

Harry had gone to Las Vegas with friends on a short break from his military duties. At some point last weekend in what should have been the privacy of his hotel suit, he evidently decided to play a game of "strip billiards" with some women he and his friends had met in the hotel bar. Photographs were taken – it's thought by someone with a mobile phone; and these pictures, showing Harry naked, were then published by an American gossip website and some sections of the mainstream US media. Friends of Prince Harry say this was a young soldier

letting his hair down

before returning to duty; whether his family sees it in those straightforward terms may be open to question.

World News from the BBC

The South African President Jacob Zuma has been given a

cool reception

by striking workers at a platinum mine where 34 people were shot dead last week in a dispute over pay. He told a crowd of several hundred people in the town of Marikana that he was sorry for what had happened and promised to speed up an official investigation into the shootings. The dispute has highlighted a widening gap between rich and poor in South Africa which correspondents say is