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MARIUPOL: An airstrike on a maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol wounded women waiting to give birth and buried children in the rubble as Russian forces intensified their siege of Ukrainian cities. Bombs also fell on two hospitals in another city west of Kyiv. The World Health Organization said Wednesday that it has confirmed 18 attacks on medical facilities since the Russian invasion began two weeks ago. Ukrainian officials said the attack at a medical complex in Mariupol wounded at least 17 people. The ground shook more than a mile away when the series of blasts hit. Explosions blew out windows and ripped away much of the front of one building. Police and soldiers rushed to the scene to evacuate victims, carrying a bleeding woman with a swollen belly on a stretcher past burning and mangled cars. Another woman wailed as she clutched her child. In the courtyard, a blast crater extended at least two stories deep. “Today Russia committed a huge crime,” said Volodymir Nikulin, a top regional police official, standing in the ruins. “It is a war crime without any justification.” In Zhytomyr, a city of 260,000 to the west of Kyiv, bombs fell on two hospitals, one of them a children’s hospital, Mayor Serhii Sukhomlyn said on Facebook. He said there were no injuries. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Mariupol strike trapped children and others under debris. “A children’s hospital. A maternity hospital. How did they threaten the Russian Federation?” Zelenskyy asked in his nightly video address, switching to Russian to express horror at the strike. “What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?” He urged the West to impose even tougher sanctions, so Russia “no longer has any possibility to continue this genocide.” Video shared by Zelenskyy showed cheerfully painted hallways strewn with twisted metal. “There are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenseless,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be held “to account for his terrible crimes.” The WHO said it had confirmed 10 deaths in attacks on health facilities and ambulances since the fighting began. It was not clear if its numbers included the assault on the maternity hospital. US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken condemned Russia’s “unconscionable attacks” in a call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, the State Department said. Two weeks into Russia’s assault on Ukraine, its military is struggling more than expected, but Putin’s invading force of more than 150,000 troops retains possibly insurmountable advantages in firepower as it bears down on key cities. Despite often heavy shelling on populated areas, American military officials reported little change on the ground over the previous 24 hours, other than Russian progress against the cities of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv, in heavy fighting. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the military situation. Authorities announced new cease-fires to allow thousands of civilians to escape bombarded towns. Zelenskyy said three humanitarian corridors operated on Wednesday, from Sumy in the northeast near the Russian border, from suburbs of Kyiv and from Enerhodar, the southern town where Russian forces took over a large nuclear plant. In all, he said, about 35,000 people got out. More evacuations were planned for Thursday. People streamed out of Kyiv’s suburbs, many headed for the city center, as explosions were heard in the capital and air raid sirens sounded repeatedly. From there, the evacuees planned to board trains bound for western Ukrainian regions not under attack. Civilians leaving the Kyiv suburb of Irpin were forced to make their way across the slippery wooden planks of a makeshift bridge, because the Ukrainians blew up the concrete span leading to Kyiv days ago to slow the Russian advance. With sporadic gunfire echoing behind them, firefighters dragged an elderly man to safety in a wheelbarrow, a child gripped the hand of a helping soldier, and a woman inched her way along, cradling a fluffy cat inside her winter coat. They trudged past a crashed van with the words “Our Ukraine” written in the dust coating its windows. “We have a short window of time at the moment,’’ said Yevhen Nyshchuk, a member of Ukraine’s territorial defense forces. “Even if there is a cease-fire right now, there is a high risk of shells falling at any moment.” Previous attempts to establish safe evacuation corridors over the past few days largely failed because of what the Ukrainians said were Russian attacks. But Putin, in a telephone call with Germany’s chancellor, accused militant Ukrainian nationalists of hampering the evacuations. In Mariupol, a city of 430,000 people on the Sea of Azov, local authorities hurried to bury the dead from the past two weeks of fighting in a mass grave. City workers dug a trench some 25 meters (yards) long at one of the city’s old cemeteries and made the sign of the cross as they pushed bodies wrapped in carpets or bags over the edge. About 1,200 people have died in the nine-day siege of the city, Zelenskyy’s office said. Nationwide, thousands are thought to have been killed, both civilians and soldiers, since Putin’s forces invaded. The UN estimates more than 2 million people have fled the country, the biggest exodus of refugees in Europe since the end of World War II. The fighting knocked out power to the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant, raising fears about the spent radioactive fuel that is stored at the site and must be kept cool. But the UN nuclear watchdog agency said it saw “no critical impact on safety” from the loss of power. The crisis is likely to get worse as Moscow’s forces step up their bombardment of cities in response to what appear to be stronger Ukrainian resistance and heavier Russian losses than anticipated. The Biden administration warned that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine. The White House rejected Russian claims of illegal chemical weapons development in the country it has invaded. This week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova — without evidence — accused Ukraine of running chemical and biological weapons labs with US support. White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the claim “preposterous” and said it could be part of an attempt by Russia to lay the groundwork for its own use of such weapons against Ukraine. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Russia’s assault will get “more brutal and more indiscriminate” as Putin tries to regain momentum. Britain’s Defense Ministry said fighting continued northwest of Kyiv. Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol were being heavily shelled and remained encircled by Russian forces. Russian forces are placing military equipment on farms and amid residential buildings in the northern city of Chernihiv, Ukraine’s military said. In the south, Russians in civilian clothes are advancing on the city of Mykolaiv, a Black Sea shipbuilding center of a half-million people, it said. The Ukrainian military, meanwhile, is building up defenses in cities in the north, south and east, and forces around Kyiv are “holding the line” against the Russian offensive, authorities said.

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia: Indonesia’s Mount Merapi continued to erupt Friday, forcing authorities to halt tourism and mining activities on the slopes of the country’s most active volcano. The volcano on the densely populated island of Java unleashed clouds of hot ash shortly before midnight Wednesday into early morning Thursday and fast-moving pyroclastic flows — a mixture of rock, lava and gas — traveled up to 5 kilometers down its slopes. It was Mount Merapi’s biggest lava flow since authorities raised its danger level in November 2020, said Hanik Humaida, the head of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center. Dozens of light eruptions continued during the day Thursday with a river of lava and searing gas clouds flowing 2.5km down its slopes. No casualties were reported. About 253 people were evacuated to temporary shelters but they returned to the volcano’s fertile slopes after the activity subsided, Humaida said. The volcano eruption on Friday spewed a column of hot clouds rising 100 meters into the air with avalanches of incandescent lava at least 15 times, according to the Geological Disaster Technology Research and Development Center. Using seismic and other data, the agency estimated the lava spread less then 2 kilometers from the crater. Eko Budi Lelono, who heads Indonesia’s Geology and Volcanology Research Agency, said residents living on Merapi’s slopes were advised to stay 7km away from the crater’s mouth and should be aware of the danger posed by lava. He said the lava dome just below Merapi’s southwest rim and the lava dome in the crater both have been active since last year. The volume was estimated at 1.5 million cubic meters in the southwest rim dome and 3.2 million cubic meters in the crater before partially collapsing in the past two days, sending pyroclastic flows traveling fast down the southwest flank. “We estimate the potential danger is not more than 7 kilometers,” Humaida said. Authorities have closed at least five tourism attractions located within the danger zone of 5km from the crater and halted mining activities along the volcano’s rivers, Humaida said. Activities out of the danger zone remained open. Mount Merapi is the most active of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia and has repeatedly erupted with lava and gas clouds recently. The Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center did not raise Merapi’s alert status, which already was at the second-highest of four levels since it began erupting last November. The 2,968-meter peak is near Yogyakarta, an ancient city of several hundred thousand people embedded in a large metro area. The city is also a center of Javanese culture and a seat of royal dynasties going back centuries. Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people and caused the evacuation of 20,000 villagers. Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean. Its last major eruption was in December, when Mount Semeru, the highest volcano on Java island, erupted with fury and left 48 people dead and 36 missing in villages that were buried in layers of mud. Several of the injured had serious burns, and the eruption damaged 5,200 houses and buildings.

TOKYO/SEOUL: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol said they had agreed on Friday to ramp up three-way ties with the United States in responding to North Korea’s evolving military threat. Kishida told reporters after a phone call with Yoon the two agreed to stay in close contact over North Korea and shared the view it would be good to meet as soon as possible. North Korea recently used what would be its largest ever intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system in two secretive launches, likely paving the way for a resumption of long-range tests, US and South Korean officials said on Friday . Kishida said pretty much all diplomatic options are open in dealing with North Korea, possibly including sanctions, and that Japan will stay in close contact with the United States and South Korea on any response. A spokeswoman for Yoon, who won Wednesday’s presidential election, said he expressed hopes for greater trilateral cooperation involving the United States in dealing with North Korea. Relations between the two neighbors have been strained over issues stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonization over the Korean peninsula, including victims of Japan’s forced labor and mobilization of wartime brothels. Good bilateral ties are essential and need to be advanced given the state of world affairs, Kishida said. Yoon told Kishida it would be important to resolve bilateral pending issues in a “reasonable, mutually beneficial manner,” adding both sides have many areas of cooperation including regional security and the economy. Yoon also shared condolences to the victims and the families of the 2011 earthquake that struck off the northeastern Japan, marking its 11th anniversary, she added.

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council scheduled a meeting Friday at Russia’s request to discuss what Moscow claims are “the military biological activities of the US on the territory of Ukraine,” allegations vehemently denied by the Biden administration. “This is exactly the kind of false flag effort we have warned Russia might initiate to justify a biological or chemical weapons attack,” Olivia Dalton, spokesperson for the US Mission to the United Nations said late Thursday. “We’re not going to let Russia gaslight the world or use the UN Security Council as a venue for promoting their disinformation.” The Russian request, announced in a tweet Thursday afternoon from its first deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, follows the US rejection of Russian accusations that Ukraine is running chemical and biological labs with US support. In response to this week’s accusations by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova — without evidence — White House press secretary Jen Psaki issued a public warning Wednesday that Russia might use chemical or biological weapons against Ukraine, the neighbor it has invaded. Psaki called Russia’s claim “preposterous” and tweeted: “This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine.” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Wednesday called the Russian claim “a bunch of malarkey.” Dalton said “Russia has a well-documented history of using chemical weapons and has long maintained a biological weapons program in violation of international law” as well as “a track record of falsely accusing the West of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating.” Dmitry Chumakov, another Russian deputy UN ambassador, repeated the accusation Wednesday, urging Western media to cover “the news about secret biological laboratories in Ukraine.” A tweet from Russia’s Ministry of Defense, after Polyansky’s tweet calling for a council meeting, referred to a “briefing on the results of the analysis of documents related to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine.” The UN announced Thursday evening that the meeting will take place at 10am EST but then pushed it back to 11am EST. UN disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu and UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo are scheduled to brief the council. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated Thursday what he said Wednesday — that the World Health Organization, which has been working with the Ukrainian government, “said they are unaware of any activity on the part of the Ukrainian government which is inconsistent with its international treaty obligations, including on chemical weapons or biological weapons.” The United States for months has warned about Russian “false flag” operations to create a pretext for the invasion. The White House warning, and Dalton’s statement Thursday, suggested Russia might seek to create a pretense for further escalating the two-week-old conflict that has seen the Russian offensive slowed by stronger than expected Ukrainian defenders, but not stopped. The international community for years has assessed that Russia used chemical weapons in carrying out assassination attempts against Putin enemies like Alexey Navalny, now in a Russian prison, and former spy Sergei Skripal, who lives in the United Kingdom. Russia also supports the Assad government in Syria, which has used chemical weapons against its people in an 11-year-long civil war. The Security Council held its monthly meeting Thursday on Syria’s chemical weapons with disarmament chief Nakamitsu criticizing the Syrian government for repeatedly refusing to answer questions about its chemical weapons program and urging the Assad government to do so.

Last June, the head of the international chemical weapons watchdog, Fernando Arias, said its experts investigated 77 allegations against Syria and concluded that in 17 cases chemical weapons were likely or definitely used. Nakamitsu ended her statement on Thursday by saying: “The use of chemical weapons is a grave violation of international law and an affront to our shared humanity.” “We need to remain vigilant to ensure that those awful weapons are never used again, and are eliminated, not only in Syria, but everywhere,” she said. US deputy ambassador Richard Mills said that unfortunately Syria has help on the council from its ally Russia, which he said “has repeatedly spread disinformation regarding Syria’s repeated use of chemical weapons.” “The recent web of lies that Russia has cast in an attempt to justify the premeditated and unjustified war it has undertaken against Ukraine, should make clear, once and for all, that Russia also cannot be trusted when it talks about chemical weapon use in Syria,” Mills said. Britain’s deputy ambassador, James Kariuki, told the council that “the parallels” between Russia’s action in Ukraine — “besieging cities, killing civilians indiscriminately, forcing millions to flee in search of safety” — and its actions in Syria “are clear.” “Regrettably, the comparison also extends to chemical weapons, as we see the familiar specter of Russian chemical weapons disinformation raising its head in Ukraine,” he said.

TIJUANA, Mexico: US authorities allowed a Ukrainian woman and her three children to seek asylum Thursday, a reversal from a day earlier when she was denied entry under the Biden administration’s sweeping restrictions for seeking humanitarian protection. The 34-year-old woman and her children — ages 14, 12 and 6 — entered San Diego for processing after authorities blocked her path hours earlier, triggering sharp criticism from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats. Blaine Bookey, legal director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, was returning to San Diego Wednesday from Tijuana, where she was helping Haitian migrants. She saw the Ukrainian woman crying with her children, looking “very uncomfortable” with a reporter “in her face.” Bookey’s tweets and media coverage sparked renewed criticism of a Trump-era order to deny people a chance to seek asylum under an order to prevent spread of COVID-19 known as Title 42 authority. Schumer raised the Ukrainian woman’s case as he called for an end to use of Title 42, which the Biden administration has defended as health risks from COVID-19 have subsided. “They requested refuge in one of the ports of entry on our southern border, but were turned away because of Title 42,” Schumer said on a conference call with reporters. “This is not who we are as a country. Continuing this Trump-era policy has defied common sense and common decency.” US Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Migrants have been expelled more than 1.6 million times since Title 42 was introduced in March 2020. The Ukrainian woman, who identified herself to reporters only as Sofiia, tried entering the US in a car with a relative this week but was blocked, Bookey said. Another attempt on foot Wednesday was also stopped but Bookey found her before she returned to her Tijuana hotel to wait for news. Erika Pinheiro, litigation and policy director for Al Otro Lado advocacy group, said she got a call from CBP early Thursday, telling the woman to pack her bags and be ready on short notice. She was told to come hours later. “She’s just been very stoic for her kids and I think she let herself get emotional,” Bookey said. The woman left Ukraine with her children Feb. 27 as friends warned her that Russia might invade. She went to Moldova, Romania and Mexico, arriving in Tijuana on Monday. She plans to settle with family in the San Francisco area and seek asylum. The woman pulled a small red suitcase and carried a pink backpack patterned with tiny dogs as she walked into the US with her 6-year-old daughter beside her and her older children behind. Mexico accepts citizens from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who are expelled under Title 42 authority. People of other nationalities are subject to expulsion but many are released in the United States to seek asylum due to difficulties flying them home. They must be on US soil to claim protection, though, and authorities often block their path. Thousands of Russians have sought asylum at San Diego border crossings in recent months after flying to Mexico. People from Ukraine and other former Soviet republics use the same route but in much lower numbers. In January, 248 Ukrainians crossed the US-Mexico border, with three out of four in San Diego. A 27-year-old Ukrainian who asked to be identified only as Kristina was left behind on the Mexican side of the border Thursday with her fiancé, a US citizen. She said she had been living in Kyiv when the fighting started. “It was so scary,” Kristina said. “We just woke up and there was bombing. We never expected this.” Kristina fled to Poland but hotels and apartments were full. She flew to Mexico where her fiancé was trying to help her get into the US They spent hours waiting at the border. “They don’t listen to us,” she said. ___ Associated Press writers Ben Fox in Washington and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed.

WASHINGTON/BOGOTA: President Joe Biden told Colombian President Ivan Duque on Thursday he plans to designate Colombia as a major non-NATO ally, granting the strategic status to a key country in a turbulent region as the United States seeks to isolate Russia. In White House talks, Biden and Duque said they would work toward signing a regional migration agreement at the Summit of the Americas in June in Los Angeles. Colombia is currently home to 1.9 million migrants from neighboring Venezuela. Major non-NATO ally status is a designation bestowed by the US to close allies that have strategic working relationships with Washington but are not members of NATO. Argentina gained this status in 1998 and Brazil in 2019. “Colombia is the linchpin” in the Southern Hemisphere, Biden told Duque. The two countries have had diplomatic ties for 200 years. The two leaders gave no details on the shape of the expected framework on migration. The United States has struggled to contend with thousands of migrants seeking asylum on its southern border with Mexico. Their meeting took place days after secret negotiations between senior US officials and representatives of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arranged the release of two American detainees. The move had raised eyebrows in Colombia, which has tense relations with Venezuela. There was no sign of tension in their public remarks. Both presidents condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Duque said Colombia was offering assistance to countries in that region on handling the mass of people evacuating “the bloodbath” in Ukraine. Asked about the contacts between the United States and Maduro representatives after the meeting, Duque told reporters, “I’m not going to start questioning” US policy. “We will maintain our same foreign policy, condemning the dictatorship, calling Nicolas Maduro what he is, a criminal who has committed crimes against humanity, and we will continue to support our Venezuelan brothers in Colombia with fraternity,” Duque said. In a joint statement following the meeting, the two leaders underscored their mutual commitment to “support the restoration of democracy” in Venezuela. The US delegation’s weekend visit to Venezuela and talks with Maduro focused on the fate of the detained Americans and the possibility of easing US oil sanctions on OPEC member Venezuela to fill a supply gap if Biden banned Russian oil imports — something he did on Tuesday. Venezuela is Russia’s closest ally in South America, and the United States is gauging whether the country would distance itself from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Maduro’s management of Venezuela has caused a humanitarian crisis that has affected Colombia. Duque’s visit came ahead of legislative elections and presidential primaries in Colombia on Sunday, where several left-leaning candidates have floated changes to the cornerstone of the US-Colombia relationship — the fight against drug trafficking. Duque, who will leave office in August, came under sustained pressure from the Trump administration to decrease cultivation of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine. Colombia has long been a top producer of the drug, despite billions in US funds meant to combat it. In their joint statement, Biden and Duque agreed to work on a more holistic approach to counternarcotics that includes better access to prevent, treatment and recovery services, and renewed efforts to block money-laundering and beef up interdiction. During the meeting, Biden also pledged to donate an additional two million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Colombia.