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

A truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market in the center of Berlin, Germany, Monday, killing at least nine people and injuring as many as 50.

Police say the incident occurred outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Authorities are trying to determine if the crash was intentional.

The investigation into the incident is being done by federal prosecutors who are tasked with handling terrorism cases.

A police spokesman said the truck was registered in Poland.

In the Turkish capital, Ankara, the Russian ambassador was shot and killed by a Turkish policeman Monday while attending the opening of an exhibition. Dorian Jones reports.

The shooting of Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov was captured by video cameras recoding his speech opening an exhibition in a gallery in the heart of Ankara. As the ambassador was speaking, a gunman approached the podium and opened fire, shooting Karlov four to five times.

Three other people were also injured.

One whiteness explained as Syria appears to be the motivation for the attack.

He shot him behind the podium, she said. The assailant was saying "Allahu Akbar." He mentioned that Russia was killing innocent people in Aleppo and in Syria.

Dorian Jones, Istanbul.

The United Nations Security Council Monday approved a resolution urging the immediate deployment of U.N. monitors to oversee the evacuation of civilians from the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The unanimous approval came despite earlier divisions among member nations on what to do about the Syrian civil war.

Meanwhile, thousands of people were bussed Monday from Aleppo's devastated eastern section after earlier evacuation attempts stalled.

This is VOA news.

Republican Donald Trump was officially chosen by the Electoral College Monday to be the next president of the United States.

Electors from each of the 50 states cast their ballots in their respective state capitals.

Trump as expected surpassed the 270 figure needed to win a four-year term as president.

Because of the bitterness of the race, thousands of supporters of Democrat Hillary Clinton deluged the 306 Republican electors with emails and phone calls, demanding they reject Trump.

But as each state reported their electoral vote Monday, it was cleared that Trump's electors held firm, getting him the final victory in the long presidential campaign.

U.S. President Barack Obama has commuted the sentences of 153 convicts, many of them serving drug sentences. Mr. Obama gave pardons to 78 others.

It was the greatest number of individual clemencies given in a single day by any U.S. president.

Turkey's ruling AK Party has submitted to parliament a package of 21 proposals for constitutional change. The proposed changes would end Turkey's nearly century-long parliamentary rule and replace it with a powerful executive presidency.

Under the proposals, parliament would pass legislation overturning decrees issued by the president, but the president would have the power to veto parliament legislation.

The proposals would also allow a president to lead a political party, ending the present constitutional requirement of neutrality.

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, has been convicted of negligence by a French court.

She was charged with failing to challenge a $422 million payout by a state arbitration panel to a business tycoon.

The case comes from actions Lagarde took when she was France's finance minister.

Christopher Baker is a lawyer on her legal team: "There is no sentence, which means there's no record of this. They recorded any register of sentences. There is no fine. There could have been fine."

The IMF executive board met Monday, affirming its confidence in Laggard's ability to continue to carry out her duties.

The Afghan government revealed Monday more than one million refugees returned home from Pakistan and Iran in 2016. That is the highest number of returnees in 14 years.

The repatriations were described as voluntary.

China has issued a smog red alert closing schools as well as factories and other businesses in dozens of cities. The affected areas are also limiting the number of cars allowed on the streets.

From the VOA news center in Washington, I'm David DeForest.

That's the latest world news from VOA.