U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a "serious effort" to end the conflict raging in northern Myanmar, where ethnic minority Kachin rebels accused the military of breaking its ceasefire.

Prime Minister Thein Sein's reformist government announced on Friday that it was ending a military offensive against the Kachin rebels, but fresh fighting erupted over the weekend.

A U.S. Navy minesweeper that has been stuck on a World Heritage-listed coral reef in the Philippines since last week ignored warnings to avoid the area, a government official said Monday.

The comments from the superintendent of Tubbataha marine park, Angelique Songco, added to growing anger in the Philippines over the incident, for which the U.S. Navy has apologized but may still face fines.

Five men went on trial Monday over the fatal gang-rape of student on a bus in Delhi as the victim's father urged the special fast-track court to deliver swift justice and sentence her attackers to hang.

With the case being held behind closed doors and subject to a gagging order, it was left to one of the prosecutors to announce the start of the case to reporters packed outside the sessions court in New Delhi.

Algeria warned other nations to prepare for a higher body count after a four-day siege of a gas plant by Islamist militants ended in a bloodbath, amid fears as many as 50 hostages may have died.

Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was expected to unveil the final grim tally at a 1330 GMT press conference on Monday.

NATO troops joined a fight against a Taliban suicide squad that stormed a Kabul police headquarters at dawn Monday, killing three police officers and unleashing a stand-off that lasted for more than eight hours.

The Taliban claimed the attack, which turned into the longest stand-off between the insurgents and security forces in Kabul since a major coordinated raid on the capital lasted 18 hours in April last year.

A teenager has been arrested and charged in the murder of five people, including three children, with a military-style assault rifle in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico, police said Sunday.

Police said they found the bodies of an adult male and female and two girls and a boy described as "elementary to middle school-aged," dead from multiple gunshot wounds, when they arrived at an Albuquerque home late Saturday.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is "gaining strength" as he finishes post-operative care and enters a "new phase" of cancer treatment, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said Sunday.

Chavez anointed Maduro his political heir before flying to Cuba for a fourth round of cancer surgery on December 11. The longtime Venezuelan leader's condition has been the topic of much debate ever since.

The United States has warned of a "high threat" of terrorism or kidnappings in Algeria and authorized family members of embassy staff to depart following a deadly hostage crisis.

"On January 19, 2013, the Department of State authorized the departure from Algiers for eligible family members following the attack on the In Amenas BP Oil facility," the State Department said in a statement.

Greek authorities on Sunday condemned a bomb blast at an Athens shopping mall that left two security guards lightly injured.

In the latest in a series of violent attacks, an explosive device went off at 10:40 am (0840 GMT) on the first floor of the multi-story Athens Mall, in a northern suburb of the Greek capital, where shops as well as a branch of the National Bank of Greece are located.

The death toll in a gun attack on the convoy of Emir of Kano, an influential Nigerian Muslim figure, has risen to five, the police said, as the monarch and his injured sons flew out of the country on Sunday.

"The interim chairman of Kura local government and his driver were also killed by some gunmen who pursued them from the scene of the attack" on Emir Ado Bayero, Kano police spokesman Magaji Majia told Agence France Presse.