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The U.S. military says large groups of drones and ground robots can be managed by just one person without added stress to the operator. As VOA’s Julie Taboh reports, the technologies may be beneficial for civilian uses, too. VOA footage by Adam Greenbaum.

BERLIN — German flagship airline Lufthansa has announced that it is extending its suspension of flights to and from Tehran until April 18. The airline will not use Iranian airspace during that time, the company said Friday.  The carrier said the decision was taken after a "careful evaluation" using government security assessments about the situation in the Middle East and its own information.  Lufthansa first announced it had canceled a flight from Frankfurt to Tehran last weekend to avoid the crew having to disembark and spend the night in Iran.  Middle Eastern countries and the United States have been on alert for a retaliatory attack by Iran since April 1, when the Iranian embassy compound in Syria was bombed by suspected Israeli warplanes.  Lufthansa and its subsidiary Austrian Airlines are the only two Western carriers that fly into Tehran, which is mostly served by Turkish and Middle Eastern airlines.    The company did not release the actual number of flights that would be affected by the suspension. 

MAE SOT, Thailand — Thailand's foreign minister on Friday said he urged Myanmar's military authorities not to violently respond to its army's loss of an important border trading town to its opponents, and that so far they seemed to be exercising restraint.  Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara spoke during a visit to Mae Sot, which lies directly across a river from Myanmar's Myawaddy, where army troops abandoned their last defensive position early Thursday.  Their hasty escape ceded virtual control of the busy trading town to guerrillas of the ethnic Karen National Union and its allies, including members of the pro-democracy People's Defense Forces.  Myanmar's once-mighty armed forces have suffered a series of unprecedented defeats since last October, losing swathes of territory including border posts to both ethnic fighters and guerrilla units. Civilians took up arms after the generals seized power in 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The military has frequently hit back heavily, using air power.  Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for Myanmar's military government, told the BBC's Burmese language service Thursday night that the soldiers at the army's last base outside Myawaddy town abandoned the post for the safety of their families who were living with them. He said Myanmar was in talks with Thailand about getting them safely back, and acknowledged that Karen guerrillas were inside the town.  There is concern that the Myanmar military might launch a concerted counter-attack against Myawaddy, which could send thousands fleeing into Thailand for safety and badly disrupt border trade.  Speaking to reporters after inspecting the area, Foreign Minister Parnpree said Thailand had already spoken with Myanmar's military and told them they did not wish to see violence, offering Thailand's help.  "Now, what we are most concerned about is that we want to see peace in Myawaddy, not only because of the trading, but it's our neighbor," he said. "We do not wish for any violence to happen. If talks are possible, among their groups, we will be very welcoming of that, and if they want us to be the mediator, we are ready to help coordinating."  He said he hoped there could be talks between the opposing sides to prevent retaliatory attacks.  "We have already sent people to talk to them. And for the situation today, they already said that there will not yet be any violent retaliation. If they wanted to be violent, they would have already done that days ago."  On Friday evening, however, there were at least two loud explosions emanating from the area on the Myanmar side of one of the two bridges connecting Myawaddy and Mae Sot. Their cause could not immediately be discovered.  Residents from both sides of the river said earlier there have been frequent explosions in the past few days from airstrikes against captured positions outside Myawaddy town, but that Friday was quiet. Thai immigration officials said visitor numbers from Myanmar were unexceptional.  But for some, the quiet was the problem. A Myawaddy resident who only gave his name as Sulai told The Associated Press it unnerved him so he fled.  "They fear the quiet. They are afraid of silence with no sound of fighting. Those with experience say it means the fight is much more likely to continue," he said.  Thai troops were keeping watch in Mae Sot on Friday, especially near the bridges. Besides reassuring residents of their safety, they served to block pockets of trapped Myanmar soldiers from slipping across the border.  On the Myanmar side, a small group of men lounged in the stifling heat. Thai troops said they were from the Border Guard Force, a Karen group that was aligned with Myanmar's military who recently severed their links.  The Karen National Union — the leading political body for the Karen ethnic minority — said in a statement on its Facebook page on Friday that it will establish administrative mechanisms, prevent illicit businesses, contraband and human trafficking, and implement stability and law enforcement as well as facilitate trade in the Myawaddy area when it secures its position there.  The KNU said it's deeply concerned about the security of the people living on both sides of the border, seeks to have stability and access to humanitarian aid and is working to achieve meaningful cooperation with the Thai government and local and international partner organizations.  The Karen, who are native to the eastern state of Kayin, have been fighting for more than seven decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar's central government. A wider struggle including other ethnic minority groups and pro-democracy militants began after the army's 2021 takeover.  The Karen make up a large part of about 90,000 refugees from Myanmar who live in nine long-term refugee camps in Thailand after fleeing previous rounds of fighting.  The army's setbacks of the past few months have been noted by Myanmar's neighbors, who have generally been wary of intervening in the crisis there, said Moe Thuzar, a Myanmar scholar who is a senior fellow at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.  "Already, we have heard the Thai prime minister acknowledge that the Myanmar military is losing strength. How will the various opposition forces coordinate and consolidate these gains towards the resistance's stated objectives for the country's political future, is yet unclear," she told The Associated Press in an email. "Unclear too, is how neighboring capitals will react or respond to the implications of the change in tax and administrative control of these border crossings."

NAIROBI, Kenya — Heavy rains pounding different parts of Kenya have led to the deaths of at least 13 people and displaced some 15,000 people, the United Nations said, as forecasters warn that more rains can be expected until June.  The U.N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, citing the Kenya Red Cross Society, said Thursday that nearly 20,000 people were affected, including an estimated 15,000 people displaced by heavy rains and flash floods across the country since the start of the wet season in mid-March.  The East African country has seen thousands of people killed by flooding in previous rainy seasons, mostly in the lake regions and downstream of major rivers.  The Kenya Red Cross Society said that five major roads were cut off by floods, including Garissa Road in northern Kenya, where a bus carrying 51 passengers was swept away on Tuesday. All passengers were rescued.  Kenya's disaster management agency issued a flood warning to residents of Lamu, Tana River and Garissa counties, which are downstream of Tana River, after flooding breached dams upstream. Residents have been urged to move to higher ground.  So far, nine out of 47 counties in the country have reported flooding incidents  Mudslides have been reported in the central regions. On Tuesday four people were killed in Narok county, in the western part of the country.  The Kenya Red Cross Society's secretary general, Ahmed Idris, told Citizen TV that "lifesaving assistance," including shelter and clean drinking water, was being offered to those displaced and living in camps to avert outbreaks of waterborne diseases.  The rainy season is expected to reach its peak toward the end of April and subside in June, according to the meteorology department. 

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today posted a Federal Register notice establishing procedures for Palestinians covered by Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) to apply for Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) that will be valid through Aug. 13, 2025.

DAKAR, Senegal — State television in Niger broadcast footage on Thursday of Russian military trainers arriving in the country aboard a plane equipped with military supplies to boost its air defenses amid deteriorating relations between Niger and the United States.  Two Russian trainers were filmed in front of the plane wearing military uniforms, caps and face coverings. The plane arrived Wednesday night, the report said.  "We are here to train the Nigerian army to use the military equipment that is here," one of the Russian trainers said in French in the broadcast. "We are here to develop military cooperation between Russia and Niger."  Until recently, Washington considered Niger a key partner and ally in a region swept by attempted coups in recent years.  A U.S. airbase was established as the heart of Niger's counterinsurgency operations in the sub-Saharan region known as the Sahel. Since 2012, the region has been gripped by a worsening insurgency fought by groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.  The U.S. invested heavily in training Niger's forces to beat back the insurgency that has ravaged the country and its neighbors, but last summer, some of those elite U.S.-trained forces took part in a coup that ousted the elected president.  U.S. relations with Niger took a further downturn last month when the junta announced on state television the flights from its airbase were illegal and that it no longer recognized the American military presence in the country. The junta criticized the U.S. for trying to force it to choose between partners, warning them against cooperating with Russia and Iran.  Niamey has yet to order American troops out, U.S. officials have said.  The broadcast said the arrival of Russian trainers followed a call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country's military leaders in March. Niger's military leaders are seeking to diversify their partnerships and achieve greater sovereignty, the broadcast said. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

WARSAW, Poland — Polish lawmakers voted Friday to continue work on proposals to lift a near-total ban on abortion, a highly divisive issue in the traditionally Roman Catholic country, which has one of the most restrictive laws in Europe.  Members of the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, voted to work on four separate bills. Two of them propose legalizing abortion through the 12th week of pregnancy, in line with European norms.  One plan proposes decriminalizing assistance for a woman who terminates a pregnancy. And a fourth would keep a ban in most cases but allows abortions in cases of fetal defects — a right that was eliminated by a 2020 court ruling.  The party of centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk is seeking to change the law to allow women to terminate pregnancies up to the 12th week of pregnancy.  Abortion rights advocates said the decision to continue working on the bills, and not reject them outright, was a step in the right direction. But they also say that no real change in the law is likely to come soon.  And any liberalization bill would likely be vetoed by President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who last month vetoed a bill making the morning-after pill, which is not an abortion pill but emergency contraception, available over-the-counter to women and girls 15 and older. Duda’s second and final term runs until the summer of 2025.  Abortion opponents are also mobilized in a country that has long considered Catholic faith to be a bedrock of national identity, but which is also in the process of fast secularization.  The Catholic church called on the faithful to make Sunday a day of prayer “in defense of conceived life," in a statement carried by the state news agency PAP.  Currently abortions are only allowed in the cases of rape or incest or if the woman's life or health is at risk. Reproductive rights advocates say that even in such cases, doctors and hospitals turn away women, fearing legal consequences for themselves or citing their moral objections. According to Health Ministry statistics, only 161 abortions were performed in Polish hospitals in 2022.  The reality is that many Polish women already have abortions, often with pills mailed from abroad. Groups that help provide the pills estimate that some 120,000 abortions are carried out each year by women living in Poland.  It is not a crime for a woman to perform her own abortion. But assisting a woman in such a case is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.  One of the four bills that passed for further work is a proposal by the Left that would decriminalize assisting a woman who has an abortion.  The European Parliament adopted a resolution Thursday demanding the inclusion of the right to abortion in the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights.  Lawmakers called on Poland and Malta, the two countries with the toughest limitations on abortion, to lift restrictions on the issue.

MOSCOW — Russell Bentley, an American who fought against Ukrainian forces, is missing in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, police there said Friday, adding that a search was underway. Bentley went missing on April 8, according to police. The online news outlet Mash said he had disappeared after a district in the city of Donetsk was shelled by Ukrainian forces. Mash cited his wife as saying he had gone to see if anyone needed help but had not returned. She was quoted as saying she had found his car with his baseball cap in it along with his smashed mobile phone and a pair of glasses. Bentley, 64, is a self-declared supporter of Russian-backed forces in Ukraine. He joined pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and used the military call-sign "Texas," the Russian state news agency RIA reported. It said Bentley had later swapped his gun for journalism and had worked with the Sputnik news agency, another state-owned entity, and obtained Russian citizenship. Russian state media have described Bentley as a war correspondent. In 2022, Rolling Stone magazine ran an interview with Bentley titled "The Bizarre Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Became a Front-line Putin propagandist."

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Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas today announced the extension and redesignation of Ethiopia for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months, from June 13, 2024, to December 12, 2025, due to ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions in Ethiopia that prevent individuals from safely returning.

Javier Milei was sworn in as Argentina’s president in December 2023 on a pro-Western, anti-corruption platform. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was there for the inauguration, and this week Milei said he is considering sending aid to help Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Iryna Shynkarenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Maxym Shulga.

Sometimes it’s the little ideas that can make the biggest difference. And that definitely goes for delivery pizza. From Buenos Aires, Gonzalo Bañez Villar has the story of a little idea that had a big impact, in this report narrated by Veronica Villafañe.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Body of Bate Urgessa of the Oromo Liberation Front found on a road outside Meki on Wednesday

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.