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YEREVAN — Armenia on Monday launched joint military drills with the United States, a move that reflects its leader's efforts to forge closer ties with the U.S. and other Western allies as the country's relations with old ally Russia sour. The "Eagle Partner" war games are aimed at increasing interoperability of units participating in international peacekeeping missions, according to Armenia's Defense Minister Suren Papikyan. They involve Armenian peacekeeping forces, servicemen of the U.S. Army Europe and Africa, and the Kansas National Guard. It wasn't immediately clear how many troops were taking part. The exercises were scheduled to last through July 24. Russia has been Armenia's main economic partner and ally since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Landlocked Armenia, which used to be part of the Soviet Union, hosts a Russian military base and is part of the Moscow-led security alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia's ties with Russia, however, have grown increasingly strained since Azerbaijan waged a lightning military campaign last year to take the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatist rule there. Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers who were deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after a previous round of hostilities in 2020 of failing to stop Azerbaijan's onslaught. Moscow rejected the accusations, arguing that its troops didn't have a mandate to intervene. Russia has engaged in a delicate balancing act, trying to preserve close relations with Armenia while also maintaining warm ties with Azerbaijan and its main ally Turkey, a key economic partner for Moscow amid Western sanctions. The Kremlin has been angered by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's efforts to deepen Armenia's ties with the West and distance his country from Moscow-dominated alliances. Russia was particularly vexed by Armenia's decision to join the International Criminal Court, which last year indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes connected to Russia's war in Ukraine. As the rift with Russia kept widening, Armenia froze its participation in the Russian-dominated security alliance, canceled its involvement in joint military drills and snubbed the bloc's summits. In September 2023, Armenia also held the "Eagle Partner" drills, eliciting dismay in Moscow, where officials called the move "unfriendly."

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.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Police in Kenya said Monday they have arrested the main suspect after nine dismembered bodies of women were found in a quarry in the capital, Nairobi.  The head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Mohamed Amin, said Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, had confessed to killing 42 women, including his wife, since 2022. They gave no evidence to support his claim of killing 42.  He was expected to be arraigned in court Tuesday.  Police said several smartphones and identity cards were found in his house a short walk from the quarry.  Police said the bodies were discovered after relatives of one missing woman claimed to have had a dream in which she directed them to search the quarry. The relatives asked a local diver to help, and he discovered the bodies wrapped in sacks.  Acting police inspector general Douglas Kanja said officers in a nearby police station had been transferred to make way for investigations. Locals had accused police of negligence due to the proximity of the quarry and the unresolved missing persons cases filed there.  A statement signed by human rights groups over the weekend urged Kenya’s security agencies to “expedite investigations into all reports of enforced disappearances.” There were initial concerns that the bodies could be linked to abductions and arrests of young people during recent anti-government protests. 

London — A Chevron-chartered oil tanker seized by Iran more than a year ago has dropped anchor near the United Arab Emirates port of Khor Fakkan, ship tracking data showed Monday. The Marshall Islands-flagged Advantage Sweet was boarded by Iran's military in the Gulf of Oman in April 2023 after an alleged collision with an Iranian boat. After sailing away from Iran last week, its latest position was located close to the UAE, LSEG data showed Monday. A Chevron spokesperson said Saturday it was aware of reports that the tanker was released on July 10. "We are pleased to see the safe release of the vessel and crew," the Chevron spokesperson said in an emailed comment, without providing further details. The U.S. State Department welcomed reports that the vessel has been released and again condemned the Iranian regime's unlawful seizure of the vessel from international waters, an agency spokesperson said. The State Department in March had called for the immediate release of the tanker. Also in March this year, an Iranian court found in favor of patients who had sued the U.S. government over sanctions which they said stopped Iran from importing medicine desperately needed for a rare skin disease, causing deaths and suffering. After the ruling, Iranian authorities said they would unload about $50 million worth of crude from the Advantage Sweet, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The report did not specify whether Iran's seizure of the tanker's oil would contribute to any compensation for the patients.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Scientists have confirmed a cave on the moon, not far from where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed 55 years ago, and suspect there are hundreds more that could house future astronauts. An Italian-led team reported Monday that there's evidence for a sizable cave accessible from the deepest known pit on the moon. It's located at the Sea of Tranquility, just 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Apollo 11's landing site. The pit, like the more than 200 others discovered up there, was created by the collapse of a lava tube. Researchers analyzed radar measurements by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and compared the results with lava tubes on Earth. Their findings appeared in the journal Nature Astronomy. 

Yaoundé, Cameroon — Officials in Chad say urgent international help is needed to save the lives of more than 2 million people caught in a severe humanitarian crisis caused by conflicts and climate shocks. Officials say the country is among the poorest nations in the world, and food is particularly scarce now, as hunger peaks in the June-to-August lean season between harvests.  Abdelmadjid Abderahim, Chad's minister of public health, said he is pleading with all international partners to help Chad during a severe humanitarian crisis affecting over 2 million civilians in the country of about 18 million people. Abderahim said flooding, an influx of refugees, increasing numbers of displaced persons, and armed conflicts between communities are inflicting suffering on civilians that Chad's government alone cannot meet.  Abderahim, speaking Monday on Chad state TV, described the food insecurity and humanitarian crisis as unprecedented. He said the crises are exacerbated by insufficient agricultural production due to climate change, droughts and an influx of destructive migratory birds and crickets.  Chad hosts over 600,000 refugees displaced from conflict-ridden Sudan, and their numbers and humanitarian needs are growing.  Chad is also home to tens of thousands of civilians fleeing violence between rebels and government troops in the Central African Republic.   Several hundred thousand civilians displaced in Chad by Boko Haram terrorism are also in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.  Added to that are the millions of people affected by floods and drought that hit Chad over the past year.  Rasit Pertev, representative of the World Bank in Chad, said the World Bank is contributing $60 million to help Chad's government cope, and will mobilize an additional $100 million to assist a government response plan.  Last week the World Food Program, the World Bank, the European Commission, Japan, and the United States said they are also contributing to help Chad by distributing food, seeds and sharing cash transfers to families most exposed to hunger.  They said the program will target the most affected provinces including Ennedi East, Wadi Fira, Ouaddaï, Sila, Logone Oriental, Lac, Kanem, and Bahr El Ghazal on the border with Sudan. Foreign donors did not say how much they will be giving to assist Chad in the emergency response plan.  The plan also envisages the provision of nutritional supplements for children under 2 years old, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.  The World Food Program said to reduce the increasingly severe and recurrent crises, substantial investments in agriculture and support to reduce climate shocks should be intensified. Reinforcing the purchasing power of the most vulnerable populations is also a key to improving living conditions, the WFP added.  The World Bank reported that poverty and vulnerability are pervasive in Chad, with over 42% of the population living below the national poverty line. 

Northern Ukraine — Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international assistance, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement. An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians. Defense startups across Ukraine — about 250 according to industry estimates — are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops. Employees at a startup run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can put together an unmanned ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days at a shed used by the company. Its most important feature is the price tag: $35,000, or roughly 10% of the cost of an imported model. Denysenko asked that The Associated Press not publish details of the location to protect the infrastructure and the people working there. The site is partitioned into small rooms for welding and body work. That includes making fiberglass cargo beds, spray-painting the vehicles gun-green and fitting basic electronics, battery-powered engines, off-the-shelf cameras and thermal sensors. The military is assessing dozens of new unmanned air, ground and marine vehicles produced by the no-frills startup sector, whose production methods are far removed from giant Western defense companies. A fourth branch of Ukraine's military — the Unmanned Systems Forces — joined the army, navy and air force in May. Engineers take inspiration from articles in defense magazines or online videos to produce cut-price platforms. Weapons or smart components can be added later. "We are fighting a huge country, and they don't have any resource limits. We understand that we cannot spend a lot of human lives," said Denysenko, who heads the defense startup UkrPrototyp. "War is mathematics." One of its drones, the car-sized Odyssey, spun on its axis and kicked up dust as it rumbled forward in a cornfield in the north of the country last month. The 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) prototype that looks like a small, turretless tank with its wheels on tracks can travel up to 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) on one charge of a battery the size of a small beer cooler. The prototype acts as a rescue-and-supply platform but can be modified to carry a remotely operated heavy machine gun or sling mine-clearing charges. "Squads of robots … will become logistics devices, tow trucks, minelayers and deminers, as well as self-destructive robots," a government fundraising page said after the launch of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces. "The first robots are already proving their effectiveness on the battlefield." Mykhailo Fedorov, the deputy prime minister for digital transformation, is encouraging citizens to take free online courses and assemble aerial drones at home. He wants Ukrainians to make a million of flying machines a year. "There will be more of them soon," the fundraising page said. "Many more." Denysenko's company is working on projects including a motorized exoskeleton that would boost a soldier's strength and carrier vehicles to transport a soldier's equipment and even help them up an incline. "We will do everything to make unmanned technologies develop even faster. [Russia's] murderers use their soldiers as cannon fodder, while we lose our best people," Fedorov wrote in an online post. Ukraine has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI and the combination of low-cost weapons and artificial intelligence tools is worrying many experts who say low-cost drones will enable their proliferation. Technology leaders to the United Nations and the Vatican worry that the use of drones and AI in weapons could reduce the barrier to killing and dramatically escalate conflicts. Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups are calling for a ban on weapons that exclude human decision making, a concern echoed by the U.N. General Assembly, Elon Musk and the founders of the Google-owned, London-based startup DeepMind. "Cheaper drones will enable their proliferation," said Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. "Their autonomy is also only likely to increase."

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Islamabad — The government of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif plans to seek a formal ban on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, the party of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan. “We feel we have very credible evidence that Tehreek-e-Insaf should be banned,” Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar said at a press briefing in Islamabad on Monday. Alleging the party had received foreign funds and organized anti-state rioting, Tarar said the government would approach the Supreme Court of Pakistan to seek a ban. Khan’s party denies any wrongdoing.  The announcement followed a Supreme Court ruling that granted Khan’s party a share in seats reserved for women and non-Muslims across all legislatures. The decision gives PTI roughly 80 seats. It also deprives Sharif’s ruling coalition of a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan’s bicameral parliament. On Monday, the government filed a petition seeking a review of the top court’s verdict. PTI leader Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari said the government’s plan to ban the party was “a sign of panic.” “They have realized the courts can’t be threatened and put under pressure,” Bukhari said in a statement to the media. Calling the decision unconstitutional and a blow to democratic norms, the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan urged the government to immediately withdraw the ban. “It will achieve nothing more than deeper polarization and the strong likelihood of political chaos and violence,” the commission said in a statement posted on social media platform X. The government will present the move to the Cabinet on Tuesday for approval, Tarar said. Grounds for ban Khan’s party emerged as the single biggest national party in the February 8 general elections. PTI-backed candidates, forced to run as independents after the party was stripped of its unified electoral symbol, won 93 seats. If the party is dissolved, it will not only lose the share of reserved seats granted by the top court, but its current lawmakers will also have to quit all the legislatures. Pakistan’s federal government can dissolve a political party but must refer the decision to the Supreme Court within 15 days for formal approval, explained Rashid Chaudhry, national coordinator of the Islamabad-based electoral watchdog Free and Fair Election Network. “If the Supreme Court upholds the reference, then the party is dissolved,” Chaudhry told VOA. The Supreme Court might turn down the government’s request, said Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, president of the Lahore-based Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency. He cited major legal victories that various courts handed down to the former prime minister and his party recently, including a decision on Saturday acquitting Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, of engaging in an illicit marriage. “PTI supporters and those who are neutral already hold very negative views about the government and the military,” Mehboob said. “They will become even more critical, and sympathy for the PTI will increase.” Freedom eludes Khan Despite courts overturning nearly three decades’ worth of prison sentences in recent months, Khan has remained in jail since August 2023. He faces numerous charges, including corruption and violence against state institutions. Earlier this month, the Geneva-based Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council, said Pakistani authorities have “no legal basis” for Khan’s detention. Late last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution urging “the full and independent investigation of claims of interference or irregularities” in Pakistan’s election. Slamming that resolution as interference in the country’s internal matters, the Pakistani parliament passed a counter-resolution. Sharif’s government accuses PTI of seeking support from foreign capitals and lobbyists against Pakistan. It has also repeatedly rejected international calls to investigate the alleged manipulation of the February 8 vote.

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.

Tripoli —  Libyan authorities on Monday ordered the arrest of an airline official on charges of helping to illegally transport migrants to the United States via Nicaragua.  The commercial director of Ghadames Air was under investigation for "committing an activity harmful to the interests of the country," said a statement from the Tripoli-based Attorney General's office, which did not name the suspect.  It said Ghadames Air had transported hundreds of people to the Central American country of Nicaragua, who intended to then illegally enter the United States.  Ghadames Air is a private airline founded in 2021 and headquartered in Tripoli, according to the company's website.   The carrier could not immediately be reached for comment.  "The company had engaged in an activity ... operating flights carrying hundreds of people from East Asian countries without taking into account the obligations of the air carrier and national legislation related to immigration," the Attorney General's office statement said.  It gave no further details on the origin countries of the migrants.  Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos following the toppling of long-time ruler Moammar Gadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011. It has since become the main gateway for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.