By Tuvan Gumrukcu SOKE, Turkey (Reuters) - Those in the small Turkish town of Soke who knew Mevlut Altintas, the smartly dressed, clean-shaven young man who shot dead Russia's ambassador this week, recall a lonely taciturn boy twice rejected by university before leaving home and joining the police.

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As 2016 draws to a close with news dominated by bloodshed, disasters and disease from the Middle East to Africa and Latin America, it may seem there wasn't much to be happy about this year.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A video clip from a car-mounted dashcam appears to show the moment a truck drove into a Berlin Christmas market on Monday in an attack that killed 12 people. The video, obtained exclusively by Reuters, was taken by a taxi driver who was waiting for customers just outside the Christmas market at the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church.

By Ellen Francis BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army said it had retaken complete control of Aleppo on Thursday after the last rebel fighters were evacuated from the battered city, handing President Bashar al-Assad his biggest victory of the nearly six-year-old war.

BEIJING (Reuters) - More than 3,000 people have been punished and 160 billion yuan ($23.02 billion) in problematic funds "rectified" during an audit of last year's budget, China's top auditor said on Friday. In a report sent to the country's largely rubber-stamp parliament, the National Audit office said most of the problems identified had already been fixed.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese state media on Friday expressed alarm and warned of a "showdown with the U.S." after President-elect Donald Trump named Peter Navarro, an economist who has urged a hard line against China, to head a new White House National Trade Council.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The death toll from a chain of explosions at a popular fireworks market on Mexico City's outskirts rose to at least 35 after two more people were added to the list, the local government said on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said on Friday he expected new Syria peace talks backed by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran to take place in the middle of January, the Interfax news agency reported. It cited Gatilov as saying he expected they would focus on discussing what needs to be done to get a nationwide ceasefire for Syria in place.

By Tom Westbrook SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police said on Friday they had foiled a plot to attack prominent sites in the city of Melbourne with a series of bombs on Christmas Day that authorities described as "an imminent terrorist event" inspired by Islamic State.

By Mark Hosenball and Jonathan Landay WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden "has had and continues to have contact" with Russian intelligence services, according to a newly declassified U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee report released on Thursday.