From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David Byrd reporting.

President-elect Donald Trump continued to meet with potential cabinet appointees at the Trump Tower in New York on Friday.

Trump met with former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and others. After their meeting, Gates, who also served as CIA director, said he congratulated Trump on selecting General James Mattis as his secretary of defense.

"We had a very wide ranging conversation. I told him I thought his selection of General Mattis to be secretary of defense was terrific, very supportive."

Trump also made several phone calls to world leaders, most notably Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that breaks decades of policy and could risk raising tensions with China.

Trump also phoned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte. And he promised to have most of his cabinet posts filled by next week, calling his nominees tremendous people.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has asked his state Supreme Court to stop a vote recount because the party requesting it had no chance of winning. Schuette argues that the Green Party and its candidate Jill Stein could not justifiably seek a recount because Stein was not "aggrieved" to the extent that the miscounting of votes would have caused her to lose the election.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin, supporters of President-elect Donald Trump filed a federal lawsuit Thursday which contends the recount there threatens the due process rights of those who voted for Trump.

Trump's lawyers have filed a complaint to stop a recount in Pennsylvania, saying there is no evidence or allegations of vote tampering.

This is VOA news.

The World Health Organization reports that hospitals and health facilities are overwhelmed by the number of war wounded from fighting between Iraqi government forces and Islamic State militants in the battle for Mosul.

As Lisa Schlein reports, the WHO says an increasing number of civilians are requiring trauma care but are not able to get it.

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib says the WHO is concerned that a significant number of civilians are trapped and unable to receive urgently needed treatment for their injuries.

"We have seen many undealt people, mainly men but also women and children - children as young as two years old who need treatment for injuries. The main injuries are bullet injuries, mine and shell injuries and mortar injuries."

Chaib says the hospitals in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil are closest to the front lines. The problem, she notes, is that transportation time for Mosul can take two to four hours, reducing patients' chances of survival.

Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva.

Secretary of State John Kerry has urged continued work to deal with the devastating humanitarian situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Speaking in Italy Friday, Kerry said it was important that all parties worked on a framework to provide a passage for people to get out of the besieged city.

Kerry's Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, said that his country is sending humanitarian and medical assistance to east Aleppo. Russia proposed opening four safe corridors for humanitarian aid in October. But the U.N. has not used them because of security concerns.

There were celebrations in the streets of the capital of Gambia after that country's electoral commission says opposition candidate Adama Barrow won an upset victory in the country's presidential poll, beating longtime ruler Yahya Jammeh.

The Independent Electoral Commission announced Friday that Barrow won 263,000 votes, or 45 percent of the total. Jammeh took 212,000 votes, about 36 percent.

Jammeh has ruled the tiny West African nation since taking power in a military coup in 1994. He won four subsequent elections that critics said were neither free nor fair.

American employers hired workers at a brisk pace in November, a reflection of rising confidence in the economy.

The Labor Department said that non-farm payrolls increased by 178,000 last month.

November's 4.6 percent unemployment rate was the lowest since August of 2007.

For more, visit our website voanews.com. I'm David Byrd in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.