By Natalia Zinets and Max Hunder

KYIV – Ukraine pleaded to Western countries for faster deliveries of weapons as better-armed Russian forces pounded the east of the country, and for humanitarian support to combat growing outbreaks of deadly diseases.

In Sievierodonetsk, the small city that has become the focus of Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine and one of the bloodiest flashpoints in a war well into its fourth month, further heavy fighting was reported.

The war in the east, where Russia is focussing its attention, is now primarily an artillery battle in which Kyiv is severely outgunned, Ukrainian officials say. That means the tide of events could be turned only if Washington and others fulfil promises to send more and better weaponry, including rocket systems.

“This is an artillery war now,” Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

“Everything now depends on what (the West) gives us. Ukraine has one artillery piece to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces.”

Germany, among the largest suppliers of weapons since Russia invaded but criticised for being slow to supply the heavy weaponry Kyiv says it needs, plans to revise its rules on arms exports to make it easier to arm democracies like Ukraine, Der Spiegel reported on Friday.

CHOLERA

To the south, the mayor of Mariupol – reduced to ruins by a Russian siege – said sanitation systems were broken and corpses were rotting in the streets.

“There is an outbreak of dysentery and cholera,” Vadym Boichenko told national television. “The war which took over 20,000 residents … unfortunately, with these infection outbreaks, will claim thousands more Mariupolites,” he said, adding some wells had been contaminated by corpses.

Boichenko called on the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to establish a humanitarian corridor to allow remaining residents to leave the city, which is now under Russian control.

In a snapshot of the war’s wider impact, the U.N. food agency said reduced exports of wheat and other food commodities from Ukraine and Russia could inflict chronic hunger on up to 19 million more people globally over the next year.

IN RUINS

Russia is hoping to capture all of the eastern province of Luhansk, which it demands Ukraine cede to separatists along with neighbouring Donetsk. The two provinces make up the Donbas region, where Moscow has backed a revolt by separatist proxies since 2014.

To that end, the Kremlin has concentrated its forces into a battle for Sievierodonetsk, which is in Luhansk.

Ukrainian troops have largely pulled out of the city’s residential areas but have not yielded their foothold on the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets River. Russian forces are also pushing from the north and south to try to encircle the Ukrainians, but have made limited progress.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia was trying to “break every town in the Donbas.”

“Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk, Bakhmut, Sloviansk, many, many others,” he said in his nightly address. “All these ruins were once happy towns.”

Both sides say they have inflicted mass casualties. Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield reports.

Zelenskiy adviser Oleksiy Arestovych estimated the Russian army is losing on average five to six times as many fighters as the Ukrainian side.

Asked in a social media interview whether that suggested the Ukrainian army had lost up to 10,000 fighters in the first 100 days of the war, Arestovych said, “Yes, something like that.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he terms his “special military operation” in Ukraine in February, saying his aim was to disarm and “denazify” Russia’s neighbour. Kyiv and its allies call it an unprovoked war of aggression to capture territory.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday reinforced Washington’s commitment to the region in light of Russia’s actions.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is what happens when oppressors trample the rules that protect us all,” Austin told an Asian security forum in Singapore. “It’s a preview of a possible world of chaos and turmoil that none of us would want to live in.”

Zelenskiy is expected to give a virtual address to the conference later in the day from 0800 GMT.

(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Max Hunder; Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Kim Coghill, Peter Graff, John Stonestreet and Michael Martina; Editing by Grant McCool, Cynthia Osterman and William Mallard)

By Daniel Ramos and Brendan O’Boyle

LA PAZ -A Bolivian court found former President Jeanine Anez guilty on Friday of orchestrating a coup that brought her to power during a 2019 political crisis.

She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. An former military commander and ex-police general were also convicted.

Anez, 54, was convicted of making “decisions contrary to the constitution” and of “dereliction of duty.”

The prosecution said Anez, then a right-wing senator, violated norms that guarantee the constitutional and democratic order after Bolivia’s 2019 presidential elections.

Anez’s defense said it would appeal to international bodies to seek justice, and several sectors of the opposition planned marches to protest the ruling.

Bolivia has been split over whether a coup occurred when then-President Evo Morales resigned in 2019, with Anez ascending to the presidency amid a leadership vacuum left in his wake. Morales’ departure followed mass protests over a disputed election in which he claimed to win a controversial fourth consecutive term in office.

Anez maintains she is innocent.

The contentious case has further exposed the fault lines in a deeply divided country while also fueling concerns about the judicial process in Bolivia.

“We are concerned about how this case has been pursued. And we call on superior courts to examine how the proceedings were conducted,” Cesar Munoz, senior researcher for the Americas at Human Rights Watch, said in an interview before the verdict.

Anez was not allowed to attend the trial in person, instead following the hearing and participating from prison. She has been detained since her arrest in March 2021 on initial charges of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy.

Members and supporters of Morales’ Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, which returned to power in 2020, say Anez played a key role in what it says was a coup against Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, who oversaw a dramatic reduction in poverty as president from 2005 to 2019.

As president, Anez was accused of political score-settling when her administration prosecuted former MAS officials.

Anez’s supporters say her trial was illegitimate and political. In her trial, Anez said she was the product of circumstance and that her ascension to the top office helped calm a tense nation and lay the groundwork for elections in October 2020.

“I didn’t lift a finger to become president, but I did what I had to do. I assumed the presidency out of obligation, according to what is established in the constitution,” Anez said in her final statement to the judge.

(Reporting by Daniel Ramos in La Paz and Brendan O’Boyle in Mexico City; Writing by Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by William Mallard)

By Michael Erman

(Reuters) -U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff reviewers on Friday said Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine appears safe and effective for use in children aged 6 months to 17 years old as a committee of scientists will meet next week to vote on whether to recommend the regulator authorize the vaccine in children.

The FDA’s reviewers said in briefing documents published on Friday evening that the vaccine had generated a similar immune response in the children than that observed in adults in previous trials.

“Available data support the effectiveness of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in pediatric age groups from 6 months through 17 years of age,” the FDA staff said.

The FDA staff also said the vaccine generally had a similar side effect profile in children as seen in adults, although younger children had fevers more frequently.

Both of the messenger RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have been linked to rare instances of a type of heart inflammation called myocarditis, particularly in young men.

Some countries in Europe have limited the use of Moderna’s shots for younger age groups after some studies showed that it was tied to a higher risk of the heart inflammation.

The FDA said myocarditis is a known risk associated with the vaccine, but that the drugmaker’s pediatric trials were not large enough to quantify the frequency of the rare heart inflammation in pediatric age groups.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is already authorized in the U.S. for people aged 5 and older. The U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) said in May that reports of myocarditis after that vaccine have been much lower in 5- to 11-year-old boys than in adolescents and young men, representing only a slightly elevated rate than normal.

(Reporting by Michael Erman in New Jersey; editing by Grant McCool)

By Andrew Hay

TIERRA MONTE, N.M. -When U.S. President Joe Biden visits New Mexico on Saturday to meet victims of the state’s largest ever wildfire, Daniel Encinias hopes to ask him for a new house.

Encinias’ home and hundreds more in northern New Mexico were torched in April after controlled burns by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), meant to reduce wildfire risk, ran out of control.

The resulting Hermits Peak Calf Canyon Fire has torched around 320,000 acres (129,500 hectares), an area the size of Los Angeles, in mountains northeast of Santa Fe.

It is burning simultaneously with the second-largest blaze in state history which has blackened over 300,000 acres in the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico.

Encinias and his family are among locals invited to Biden’s visit to Santa Fe where he is expected to address USFS mistakes, federal compensation and the West’s climate-driven wildfires.

“I don’t need an apology, I need a home,” said Encinias, 55, standing in the ashes of his house next to burned forest and the recreational vehicle his family of five now calls home.

The rancher and retired electrician has so far received $37,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), probably not enough for a new house foundation.

Like many residents in this low-income area of the second-poorest U.S. state, he built his house paycheck to paycheck and has no homeowners insurance.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham visited the area on Tuesday and told locals she was trying to gain full federal compensation for recovery efforts, Encinias said.

Some people who lost homes are leaving the area’s Indo-Hispano communities, which have their own dialect of Spanish, raising concerns that centuries-old traditions will disappear.

Some 50 residents of hard-hit Mora County on Wednesday sued the USFS for failing to give them information on its role in starting the wildfire, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. The agency declined to comment on pending litigation.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Tierra Monte, New Mexico; Editing by Donna Bryson, Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)