Militants shelled a United Nations barracks in northern Mali's largest city on Monday, without inflicting casualties or damage, peacekeeping and local government sources said.

An official within the U.N.'s MINUSMA force told AFP "terrorists" targeting its Dutch contingent had launched at least four shells at the camp in Gao early in the morning.

A Rwandan minister who was sentenced to life in jail for her role in the 1994 genocide had her sentence cut to 47 years on appeal Monday, as the U.N. tribunal wrapped up its operations.

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, 69, a former women's minister, was found guilty in June 2011 on genocide charges for atrocities committed in Rwanda's southern Butare region. She has been in custody since July 1997.

The controversial founder of France's National Front (FN), Jean-Marie Le Pen, said Monday he feared the country electing a "President Mustafa" in 2017 after the party's drubbing in regional elections.

The 87-year-old firebrand blamed the FN's failure to win a single region on the fact that its opponents rallied Muslim supporters, particularly around the southern city of Marseille where his 26-year-old granddaughter Marion Marechal-Le Pen was campaigning.

Nigerian troops on Monday evacuated the bodies of Shiite Muslims killed in two days of clashes with the army in northern Zaria, home base of the pro-Iranian group, its spokesman and residents said.

The army carried out crackdowns on Saturday and early Sunday against the pro-Iranian Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) led by Ibrahim Zakzaky, whose whereabouts were unknown, they said.

Russia's top prosecutor on Monday accused both a major Western investor who fell out with the Kremlin and the U.S. secret services of being behind an opposition film alleging serious corruption among his family members. 

An online video released earlier this month by leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption fund accused the two sons of Russia's prosecutor general Yury Chaika of illegally amassing large fortunes with the help of officials under their father's command. 

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday he will shake up the leadership of his opposition Republicans party after the weekend's regional elections, with an eye on his possible bid for the presidency in 2017.

Sarkozy is sidelining the right-wing party's outspoken number two, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who has been openly critical of his approach.

Russia on Monday said a summit between President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan penciled in for December 15 had been canceled, with ties between the two leaders in tatters over the downing of a Russian warplane.

The meeting between the two strongmen had been agreed at the G20 summit in Turkey on November 16, just over a week before Ankara shot down one of Moscow's warplanes at the Syrian border. 

EU leaders will debate sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict at a summit this week and are expected to extend them for another six months, officials said on Monday.

Italy has called for a disussion when the leaders of the 28-nation bloc meet on Thursday and Friday, meaning that the sanctions rollover did not happen as planned at a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels last week.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged Monday to reduce a massive refugee influx but insisted on keeping the door open to the world's neediest, drawing a rousing standing ovation from her party.

After weeks of infighting over the expected arrival of around one million asylum seekers to Germany this year, Merkel appeared to unite her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) behind a centrist line of generosity with clear limits.

U.S.-based advocacy group Refugees International said that men and boys in Rwanda's Mahama camp, run by the United Nations and Rwandan authorities, were being recruited into "non-state armed groups" and faced threats if they refused.

The charity added that the Burundian recruits are trained in Rwanda and efforts are made to send them back to Burundi via neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.