Booms from rocket launchers and automatic gunfire crackled around Mali's fabled town of Timbuktu, known as an ancient seat of Islamic learning, for its 700-year-old mud mosque and, more recently, as host of the musical Festival in the Desert that attracted Bono in January.

On Sunday, nomadic Tuaregs who descended from the people who first created Timbuktu in the 11th century and seized it from invaders in 1434, attacked the city in their fight to create a homeland for the Sahara's blue-turbanned nomads. Their assault deepens a political crisis sparked March 21 when mutinous soldiers seized power in the capital. The Tuaregs have rebelled before, but never have they succeeded in taking Timbuktu or the major northern centers of Kidal and Gao, which fell Friday and Saturday as demoralized government troops retreated.

Victory is the only option for Barcelona as the reigning champions welcome AC Milan to the Camp Nou in the most finely balanced of the Champions League quarterfinals this week.

With Real Madrid and Bayern Munich all but through to the semifinals and Chelsea also in a great position to progress after a first-leg away win, most attention will be on Tuesday's return match between two continental heavyweights.

The potential impact from an earthquake off Japan’s southern coast is very likely, Japan experts say, and estimates show that much of the country's Pacific shore could be inundated by a tsunami more than 34 meters (112 feet) high, the Agence Presse said Monday.

A government-commissioned panel of experts says a tsunami unleashed by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake in the Nankai trough, which runs east of Japan's main island of Honshu to the southern island of Kyushu, could top 34 meters. An earlier forecast in 2003 put the potential maximum height of such a tsunami at less than 20 meters (66 feet).

Oil prices rose slightly above $103 a barrel in Asia amid signs that China's economic growth remains strong, the Agence Presse said Monday.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 22 cents to $103.24 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 24 cents to settle at $103.02 per barrel in New York on Friday.

Aung San Suu Kyi claimed victory Monday in Myanmar's historic by-election, saying she hoped it would mark the beginning of a new era for the long-repressed country.

Suu Kyi spoke to thousands of cheering supporters who gathered outside her opposition party headquarters a day after her party claimed she had won a parliamentary seat in the closely watched vote.

Disneyland Paris celebrated its entry into adulthood in spectacular style this weekend, with a 20th birthday extravaganza replete with celebrities, parades and a new state-of-the-art show, the Associated Press said Monday.

The resort 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) east of Paris has a lot to celebrate. After overcoming a rocky childhood, the "Magic Kingdom" now makes up a chunk of the French economy and of Disney's own revenues.

Coming for the Olympics with money to spend? Then there's still time to ensure you can take tea at The Ritz, drink at the Savoy's American bar, or sleep in an Art Deco room at Claridge's.

Most of London's most exclusive hotels have been booked for the Olympics, snapped up by Olympic officials or companies block-booking rooms for favored customers, but there are still amazing places to stay.

A passenger plane crashed in Siberia shortly after taking off Monday morning, killing 31 of the 43 people on board, Russian emergency officials said. The 12 survivors were hospitalized in serious condition.

The ATR-72, a French-Italian-made twin-engine turboprop, operated by UTair was flying from Tyumen to the oil town of Surgut with 39 passengers and four crew.

Consumers probably won't have to pay more for iPads, iPhones and other popular consumer electronics despite a Chinese company's pledge to trim work hours and raise wages for its hardscrabble assembly workers.

The paychecks have already been steadily growing even before this week's pledge, and labor expenses remain a small portion of the total bill for most gadgets made in China.

U.S. regulators on Friday rejected an appeal by environmental groups to ban an industrial chemical known as bisphenol-A, saying there was not enough scientific evidence of harm in humans.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) however said its latest ruling on the petition brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) was not the final word and expressed support for further research on the safety of BPA.