One police officer and two suspected militants have been killed in a shootout in Russia's volatile North Caucasus.

Fatina Ubaydatova, spokeswoman in Russia's republic of Dagestan, said on Friday a police squad was trying to stop a car with suspected militants outside the city of Khasavyurt late on Thursday when people in that car opened fire on them. Police identified the two men as local militants who attacked policemen earlier this week in the regional capital, Makhachkala.

German authorities say more than 54,000 migrants, including failed asylum-seekers, received approval for government funding to return to their homeland this year, paving the way for a significant increase in voluntary departures.

Germany is keen to increase the number of rejected would-be refugees leaving the country after last year's influx of 890,000 migrants.

American officials say U.S.-Russian talks on their separate fights against the Islamic State group are improving and becoming more frequent, with each side trading information and even outlining some of their strategic objectives.

Such progress would dispel the notion that ties between the former Cold War foes are "frozen."

After the killing incident of army Corporal Ali al-Qaq on Monday, the Lebanese Army Airborne Regiment stormed several homes at dawn on Tuesday in the border town of al-Qasr in northeast of the Hermel district in search for the culprits, the National News Agency reported.

The army said the homes stormed in al-Qasr were of people suspected of involvement in the death of Qaq, who was gunned down while on vacation in Syria.

Under different circumstances, Syrian President Bashar Assad's capture of Aleppo would project an aura of invincibility. He has survived nearly six years of revolt.

Instead, it has underscored his dependence on outside powers.

Days after the United Nations voted to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Donald Trump questioned its effectiveness Monday, saying it's just a club for people to "have a good time."

The president-elect wrote on Twitter that the U.N. has "such great potential," but it has become "just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!"

Syrian authorities have accused rebel fighters of executing 21 civilians, including women and children, at close range as they quit second city Aleppo last week, state media reported.

The bodies were found in two neighbourhoods in east Aleppo, state news agency SANA said late Sunday. 

Syrian President Bashar Assad has visited a Christian orphanage near the capital Damascus on Christmas Day.

Photographs posted on the Syrian presidency's Facebook page showed the president along with his wife, Asma, standing with nuns and orphans in the Damascus suburb of Sednaya.

Alex Romero was delighted when President Barack Obama came to Havana in March bearing the promise of a bright new future.

Like so many other Cubans, the 42-year-old state photography shop employee thrilled at the president's vision of restored ties between the U.S. and Cuba. Families would reunite. A flood of American business would lift the stagnant centrally planned economy, fueling its slow path toward reform. Even as Obama spoke, an 80 percent surge in U.S. visitors was drenching state-run and private businesses with hundreds of millions of desperately needed dollars.

The Nativity scene and Christmas tree are in place on the corner of the street. Some of the children proudly wear red Santa Claus hats or show off new toys, mostly plastic guns for small boys. Windows and balconies are festooned with colorful balloons.

It is unmistakably Christmas on Friday at the Ankawa camp, home to thousands of Iraqi Christians who have been displaced since the Islamic State group seized their towns and villages in the Nineveh plains of northern Iraq in 2014.