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(NEW YORK) — If there is any doubt about climate change, look no further than the coldest regions of the planet for proof that the planet is warming at unprecedented rates, experts say.

The Arctic, is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to this year’s Arctic Report Card, released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, occurs when the sea ice, which is white, thins or disappears, allowing dark ocean or land surfaces to absorb more heat from the sun and release that energy back into the atmosphere.

Widely considered by polar scientists as Earth’s refrigerator due to its role in regulating global temperatures, the mass melting of sea ice, permafrost and ice caps in the Arctic is hard evidence of global warming, according to experts.

“The Arctic is the frontline for climate change,” climate scientist Jessica Moerman, vice president of science and policy at the Evangelical Environmental Network, a faith-based environmental group, told ABC News. “We should be paying careful attention to what is happening in the Arctic. It may seem like it’s far away, but the impacts come knocking on our front door.”

Here is how melting in the Arctic could have detrimental effects around the globe, according to experts:

Coastal communities will eventually need to move inland

The biggest long-term effect of warming in the Arctic will be sea level rise, Oscar Schofield, a professor of biological oceanography at Rutgers University, told ABC News.

Melting from he Arctic — and the Greenland ice sheet in particular — is the largest contributor to sea level rise in the world. Although the contribution from the Greenland ice sheet is less than a millimeter per year of rising sea level, those small increments add up to between 6 inches to a foot since the Industrial Revolution — sea levels that infrastructure near oceans was not built to withstand, Schofield said.

A bit “counterintuitively,” the loss from the Greenland ice sheet will have its greatest impact on places far away from the Arctic, in low latitudes such as South America due to changes in the global ocean currents, Twila Moon, an Arctic scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center and one of the authors of the Arctic Report Card, told ABC News.

Sea level rise from melting and continued climate change will exacerbate coastal erosion, flood areas that had previously never seen flooding and even increase inland flooding as the salty ocean waters change groundwater tables and inundate freshwater resources, Moon said.

“If you look at where humanity lives, a great proportion of humanity lives right at the coastlines around the world,” he said. “And if you look at where most of the big, mega cities are, they’re right along coastlines: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco.”

Global weather systems will shift drastically

The environmental conditions in the Arctic affect weather systems across the world. The North and South poles act as the “freezers of the global system,” helping to circulate ocean waters around the planet in a way that helps to maintain the climates felt on land, Moon said.

“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” Moerman said.

The jet stream, a band of strong winds moving west to east created by cold air meeting warmer air, helps to regulate weather around the globe. In the continental U.S., the jet stream forms where generally colder and drier Arctic air meets warmer and more humid air from the Gulf.

But as temperatures in the Arctic warm, the jet stream, which is fueled by the temperature differences, weakens, Moerman said. Rather than a steady stream of winds, the jet stream has become more “wavy,” allowing very warm temperatures to extend usually far into the Arctic and very cold temperatures further south than usual, Moon said.

“These cold air outbreaks are really severe,” Moerman said.

The variability in the climate in the Arctic, specifically the weakening of the polar vortex, which keeps cold air closer to the poles, likely led to the Texas freeze in February that led to millions without power and hundreds of deaths, a study published in Science in September found.

The study cited an “increasingly frequent number of episodes of extremely cold winter weather over the past four decades” in the U.S., despite temperatures rising overall.

Scientists are also looking into whether the phenomenon of atmospheric blocking, is potentially linked with extreme summer or winter weather that occurs when the jet stream ebbs and causes weather patterns to stagnate over a period of time, Moon said.

That stagnation was likely the cause of the extreme flooding that occurred in 2017 in Houston, when the system from Hurricane Harvey remained over the region for days, dumping more than 50 inches of rain, and the multiple heatwaves that blanketed much of the Pacific Northwest this past summer, Moerman added.

“These have real-world impacts, whenever extreme cold air leaks out of the Arctic, because of that weakening polar vortex,” Moerman said. “And it goes into areas that are not prepared for that extreme weather.”

However, despite the existing evidence, more research needs to be done to further establish the link between the weakening polar vortex and extreme weather, Moerman said.

Shipping lanes will open

Melting sea ice in the Arctic is opening up lanes in the ocean for the global trade route — lanes that were previously blocked.

In the near future, the melting will have a big impacts on major shipping laws, Schofield said.

“They’re no longer going to be sending ships all the way down to the Panama Canal,” he said. “They’re going to go directly through the Arctic. And so it’s going to change commerce, and have very large economic impacts.”

But access has the potential to become a “hotbed for new conflict” as nations fight for control over the newly emerged routes, Moerman said.

“There’s a lot of effort by countries to really try to claim as much territory as they can right now, because there’s likely going to be a huge host of economic incentives to go to this new area and harvest what you can,” Schofield said.

Some national security implications could occur as a result of the warming as well, as ice melts and opens up previously blocked landmasses, Moerman added. The U.S. Department of Defense will likely need to restructure its defense profile in the Arctic when there is no longer an ice cap for much of the year, Schofield said.

The pristine ecosystem will likely be ruined

As the woes from a stalled supply chain continue, the ability for shipping containers to utilize more routes in the absence of ice could appear to be beneficial for the world economy.

But it would spell disaster for the regional environment.

Right now, the ecosystem in the Arctic is pristine and untouched, and there are several unique species and ecosystems that have acclimated to the presence of ice, Schofield said.

But as more ships come in and out of the region, the chances that large-scale environmental degradation will occur is high, Moerman said.

“We’re definitely seeing changes in animal populations,” Moon said. “Certainly animals that depend on sea ice as a primary habitat, as we’ve lost the vast majority of our thicker sea ice.”

The “poster child” for the effects of the loss of sea ice on species is the polar bear, Schofield said. Polar bear populations have dwindled so low, and the habitats have become so fragmented, that the animals are inbreeding, which could have disastrous effects on the survival of the species within generations.

In Alaska, the number of beaver ponds has doubled since 2000, likely due to the warming trend that has resulted in widespread greening in what was previously tundra, the Arctic Report Card found. The rapid acidification of the warming ocean waters is likely affecting the marine food chain, Moon said. And the increased marine traffic for both fishing and shipping is also likely affecting stress levels and behavior of species, including how they communicate, Moon added.

In addition to an increased chance of oil spills from increased commercial activity is the possibility of new oil and gas fields opening up in Russian territory could further amplify global warming as those natural gases are extracted, Moerman said.

“The question is, is can we get those policies and strategies set up now before there’s this massive sort of gold rush on the Arctic Ocean?” Schofield said.

Melting permafrost in the Arctic also poses natural environmental risks, Moon said. The majority of the ground in the Arctic is frozen, and as it thaws, microbes and other living organisms within the organic carbon in the permafrost begin to wake up, releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

Temperatures need to be below 0 degrees Celsius to grow and maintain ice, Schofield said. But we will likely never regain that ice, as it took thousands of years of snow layers accumulating on top of each other to create the massive ice sheet, which is several miles thick.

“At some point, we’re likely to cross the line where, you know, there’ll be almost no winter to speak up,” Schofield said. “And we see these kinds of effects in these polar regions, like the Arctic and the Antarctic.”

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(NEW YORK) — Muzhgan Azizy escaped Kabul just weeks before the swift Taliban takeover and chaotic U.S. evacuation, but adjusting to her new freedom in America has been difficult.

“The resettlement journey for me was not easy. Actually so many challenges. It was a struggle, for sure,” Azizy, 36, told ABC News. “From finding a proper spot to do my grocery shopping, to paying my bill in our apartments’ portal. It’s like the worst — only because the system in the U.S. is completely different from what I used to back home.”

Having worked for the U.S. State Department in Afghanistan for five years, she said she was extraordinarily grateful to obtain a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) for her husband and 13-year-old son after waiting more than three years to get approved.

In July, Azizy and her immediate family went straight from Dulles International Airport in Virginia to an empty apartment she found online while still in Afghanistan, as Taliban fighters closed in on Kabul. “Luckily,” she said, the apartment was carpeted. They lived on that carpet for more than 25 days, she said, until she was able to get furniture and other household items.

The hardest part for Azizy is worrying about her elderly parents, who lived with her in Afghanistan and depend on her financially and emotionally. They weren’t able to come with her because under U.S. law, since she is married, they don’t qualify as “immediate family” under the SIV program.

“So that’s why I couldn’t bring them, but I left them all alone,” she said, trying to hold back tears. “And that’s very difficult for me, and they need my emotional support more than any other support because they are that age where they need their children around. I hope in the future I can find a way to bring them here safely, so that they can live with me here, and they also experience the safety, freedom and security.”

She tries to call them every day. Her father, she said, repeatedly tells her they are happy she’s not in Afghanistan to see how much the people are struggling under the Taliban regime.

“I want to say that we’ve left the whole nation behind,” she said. “People there, they suffer from hunger. They send their children [away] so that someone can feed them. The economy of the country is at its worst. So I really want the world to pay attention to them. They are people who have nothing to do with politics, and they suffer right now.”

Since the Taliban takeover in August, several countries halted aid to Afghanistan as they decide whether to recognize the Taliban government — even as the country nears economic collapse. Nearly 24 million people — more than half of all Afghans — are facing acute hunger, with nine million of them nearing famine, according to the United Nations.

In the U.S., Azizy said her family struggles to adjust to a new culture. Her husband worked as a civil engineer in Afghanistan but is now studying to become a site inspector since his education does not carry over, she said. Her 13-year-old son, enrolled in a public school in Virginia, has struggled with changing classrooms in high school, commonplace in America, but confusing to him, she recalled, since his school in Afghanistan had one room and one teacher.

“But I will say that I am grateful for all the challenges,” Azizy added. “When I first came into the United States like, the safety, the feeling of safety, security and freedom, hit us differently. So, I am grateful.”

Advocacy group hires Afghan refugees to help resettle new arrivals

Azizy’s outlook on life in the U.S. got better, she says, when she started working with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), the largest national faith-based nonprofit in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to serving immigrants and refugees.

She is now one of 12 Afghans working for LIRS full-time in a paid role from a new office space inside Lutheran Peace Church in Alexandria, Virginia. Azizy’s job as a senior program officer for Afghan placement and assistance is to ensure Afghan refugees resettling in Northern Virginia arrive safely at their final destination, have basic needs met and resources to start a new life.

Azizy praised the significance of having refugees from Afghanistan like herself employed in the office as they faces a “crisis” situation.

“I have a colleague that spent six days in Kabul Airport only to get into a plane. And when she tells me her story, it’s very sad. She says that, like, for six days she had a small bottle of water and she just kept drinking that little by little to stay alive,” Aziziy recalled. “I want to say that it’s not a normal refugee resettlement. It’s a crisis. So no matter how hard everyone works, there are still gaps.”

LIRS says its welcome centers are intended to fill gaps that other institutions can’t by offering mental health screenings, connections to health care providers, legal services, and referrals to community services such as food banks, faith communities and schools.

Zarmina Hamidi, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1988 after her family fled Afghanistan first for Pakistan due to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and works as a caseworker at LIRS, said it’s a “blessing” to have Afghans represented in the office, where hundreds of new refugees will soon arrive from U.S. military bases.

“I want to reiterate to them that this is temporary, that life will get better, that they’re in a nation where you can build your way up,” Hamidi told ABC News. “It’s a blessing for me to be offering that help, and I feel like they’re also blessed to have such resettlement agencies that have hired particularly Afghan nationals,” she said, “who speak their language, who are culturally aware, who can offer them that smooth transition.”

Hamidi says her own background as a double refugee, offers a helpful perspective for new refugees she meets, adding that when she started working she was happy but “surprised” to see that “every room I looked into – there were Afghans.”

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah – president and CEO of LIRS, who, as a young child, fled a civil war in Sri Lanka in 1980 with her family and came to the U.S. — said it was personally important to her to hire people who walked in the same steps as their clients.

“They literally are, in some ways, going through this experience,” she said of the refugee hires. “They may be a few months ahead of the clients that they’re serving – but they recently were our clients, and now they’re our staff.”

O’Mara Vignarajah cut the oversized, red ribbon to officially open a new office location last week in Alexandria, where Azizy and Hadidi work. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited on Monday to thank them.

“The physical location is where we can bring them in,” Vignarajah told ABC News at the opening. “We can walk them through the paperwork. We can explain how to enroll in public school. You can have a doctor speak with them. We can create that personal human connection, so they don’t feel like they’re just lost in a system that’s been shuffling them from the Kabul airport to a lily pad to military bases.”

With clients and employees who share a common experience, LIRS offers a special necessity for new arrivals — human beings who understand.

With 30K Afghans on US bases, advocates prepare for resettlement ‘crisis’

With 30,000 Afghans still on U.S. military bases, LIRS expects to welcome 700 Afghans through the new welcome center in the upcoming year and another 1,200 Afghans to existing sites. While LIRS has already resettled nearly 1,400 Afghan refugees in Northern Virginia since the summer, O’Mara Vignarajah said approximately 7,000 Afghans have indicated that they want to resettle in Northern Virginia — where the Afghan community is strong.

The launch of new sites underscores the surge in demand for resettlement services, advocates told ABC News, and illustrates nationwide efforts to rebuild the U.S. refugee program after years of budget cuts under the Trump administration. As demand for their services grows, LIRS recently added 12 new sites to their network this year, making for settlement services in 51 sites in 21 states across the nation.

“We are aggressively rebuilding the refugee resettlement infrastructure that was decimated under the previous administration,” O’Mara Vignarajah said in remarks at last week’s opening. “Over those four years, more than 100 local resettlement offices were forced to close their doors or suspend services as a result of severe cuts in the refugee program. We at Lutheran Immigration Refugee Service were forced to shatter 17 of our sites.”

“But spurred by the arrival of our Afghan allies,” she added, “it is the dawn of a new era of welcome.”

LIRS expects to host a job fair in the Peace Lutheran Church space in the coming months for recent refugees and to lease a warehouse nearby to house donations, where refugees can “shop” for basic items like clothes, diapers, books and toys.

Susan Hilbert, 74, of Annandale, Virginia, who is part of a women’s circle at another church nearby, said her friend group decided to write a $250 check to LIRS and another $250 note to the Peace Lutheran Church because, she said, “We wanted to do something for Afghan refugees, and we were finding lots of big organizations, but we wanted to make a difference locally that we could see.” Hilbert brought with her pots and pans to donate to the welcome site.

O’Mara Vignarajah, while praising volunteers like Hilbert, acknowledged there’s only so much her organization can do — and called on the U.S. government to do more.

“While it’s worth celebrating 75,000 Afghans evacuated this summer, history won’t judge us solely on how many we led to safety but on how many we left behind,” O’Mara Vignarajah said, also calling for the Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for evacuees.

O’Mara Vignarajah lamented that the first question they hear from new refugees almost exclusively is: “‘How can I get my family back in Afghanistan out of harm’s way?'”

“It’s a constant source of sleepless nights for those we serve, knowing their loved ones face Taliban, retribution, economic collapse, and a harsh winter amid humanitarian catastrophe,” she said. “So let’s be clear, while the military evacuation is over, our mission to protect our allies is not.”

Azizy is also calling on the U.S. government to make the process easier for Afghans to bring over at-risk and vulnerable family members, like her parents. Until then, she says she’ll keep calling them each day, as she adjusts to her new life in the U.S. — and helps others adjust, too.

“I knocked on all the possible doors to have an easier way for my parents to bring them here,” she said. “But every time, there is something that looks like a big challenge for me.”

ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.

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(SEOUL, South Korea) — South Korea’s government will grant a special pardon to former President Park Guen-hye, who was in prison on corruption charges.

“From the perspective of national reconciliation, former President Park Geun-hye, who is serving a long-term prison sentence, will be granted a special pardon,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement Friday.

Park had served almost five years of the 22-year prison sentence since March 2017.

“In the case of former President Park, her deteriorating health condition after serving nearly five years was considered,” President Moon Jae-in said in a statement on the special pardon Friday morning, according to South Korea’s presidential office.

 

The presidential office statement also said the pardon was a move to overcome the pain of the past and move on to a new era while asking for a deep understanding from those who disagree with the pardon.

There were split views on Moon’s decision to release the 69-year-old former president.

“I see it as an appropriate amnesty in terms of national unity,” Shin Beom-chul, director of the Center for Diplomacy and Security at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, told ABC News. “Conflicts between the ruling and opposition parties are growing too much, which is also an opportunity to resolve and the state needs to come together.”

On the other hand, civil society organization People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy sent out statements opposing the presidential pardon, claiming it is “far from social integration and an amnesty based on political considerations ahead of the presidential election in March.”

Along with Park, a total of 3,094 people will be released from prison on Dec. 31 as part of Moon’s special pardon.

Park was the first female president of South Korea and became the first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office in 2017. Back then, the Constitutional Court upheld a parliament vote to impeach her over a corruption scandal that also landed the heads of two conglomerates in jail.

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(MOSCOW) — Amid fears Russia might invade Ukraine, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has again repeated demands for guarantees from Western countries that NATO will not expand in eastern Europe, but also expressed hope that negotiations with the Biden administration in January could allow the two sides to “move forward.”

Putin offered the mixed messages on Thursday during his marathon end-of-year press conference in Moscow, making menacing accusations against Ukraine but also sounding more hopeful notes around the possibility for negotiation.

Western countries are alarmed that Russia may be preparing a renewed invasion into Ukraine this winter, amid a build up of tens of thousands of Russian troops on its border. Putin has demanded the U.S. and NATO give legal guarantees the alliance will not expand further and withdraw NATO troop deployments from eastern Europe.

The Biden administration has called those demands non-starters but has agreed to hold talks with Russia over its concerns. Putin on Thursday said those talks would take place in Geneva in January and said Russia had seen a “positive reaction” from the U.S. to its demands to negotiate.

“I hope that the first positive reaction and the announced possible start of work in the near future, in the first days of January, will allow us to move forward,” Putin said.

Putin said Russia was forced to confront NATO and Ukraine now to prevent the country potentially becoming a base for NATO missiles in the future.

“And so we put the question directly: there must be no movement of NATO further to the east,” he said. “The ball is in their court. They must answer us something.”

The U.S. and NATO countries have rejected Russia’s demands for a veto on NATO expansion, seeing them as an attempt by the Kremlin to have formal recognition for a sphere of influence over Ukraine. Analysts and Western officials have been trying to understand whether the Russian build up is a negotiating tactic or signals a real readiness to invade.

Putin’s comments on Thursday did little to move the needle. He said Russia did not want conflict but alleged there Ukraine might be preparing a military operation to re-take the Russian-controlled separatist regions in its east, saying Kyiv had tried to do it twice before in the past.

“They keep telling us: war, war, war,” Putin said. “There is an impression that, maybe, they are preparing for the third military operation and are warning us in advance: do not intervene, do not protect these people. But if you do intervene and protect them, there will be new sanctions. Perhaps, we should prepare for that.”

Analysts fear Russia might use the accusation of a Ukrainian attack as pretext to launch its own invasion. There are no signs Ukraine’s government is preparing such an assault, which would risk an overwhelming Russian response.

Russia last week published two draft treaties listing its demands from the U.S. and NATO. The proposals would limit NATO troops and military infrastructure to the countries where they were based before 1997, when the key eastern European members joined.

The Biden administration immediately rejected Russia’s demands limiting which countries can join NATO. But it has said it is ready to hold talks with Moscow about some of the other proposals, which are linked to arms control for example.

Putin spoke at length and angrily about NATO’s expansion eastward since the end of the Cold War, a grievance he has long held.

Asked by a journalist from Britain’s Sky News on Thursday if he would guarantee Russia will not invade Ukraine, Putin said it was Russia that needed guarantees from Western countries over NATO.

“What guarantees must we give you? You must give us guarantees. Right here and right now!” Putin said.

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New research suggests that India’s COVID-19 death toll during its first and second waves might have been significantly undercounted, with the actual number potentially 12 times higher than the official stats — over 6 million people.

That would be by far the highest COVID death toll in the world — greater than the U.S. at more than 811,000.

India was devastated by a crushing wave of the delta variant in April and May, with supply shortages, makeshift clinics and images of funeral pyres burning nonstop.

There was a sense at the time that the number of deaths was an undercount and a study in July indicated that deaths could be 10 times the official toll, although that research had limitations.

The new study, by researchers in the U.S. and India from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, a public health research institute in Washington, D.C., indicates that the “reported COVID-19 deaths greatly underestimated pandemic-associated mortality” and was particularly acute among older and poorer people.

According to government statistics, India logged 478,007 COVID-19 deaths from the beginning of the pandemic, marked at Jan. 3, 2020 to Dec. 21, 2021, and nearly 35 million cases during that time.

The study — which is focused on the Chennai District on the country’s southeast coast — indicates the number is likely much higher, finding that that the death rate there was 5.2 per 1,000, “a 41% increase over typical mortality levels in the city.”

The study uses data on “all-cause mortality” within the district, i.e. the death rate from all causes of death for the population in the given time period are considered.

“On the nationwide figures, the 5.2 deaths per 1000 resident would indicate over 6 million deaths nationwide if the results could be extrapolated to the entire country,” Professor Ramanan Laxminarayan, an economist and epidemiologist and the study’s lead author, told ABC News. He is the founder of the University of Washington’s Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in DC, which contributed to the project.

Deaths were substantially higher in older age groups.

Greater increases in mortality were observed in communities with lower socioeconomic status during the second wave of infections from March 1-June 30, 2021, but not during the first.

Laxminarayan said that there were limitations to the study — Chennai, as an urban area, might have been more affected than many parts of the country which were rural.

“But by the same token, Chennai has some of the best public health and healthcare facilities in the country and so the mortality rates in Chennai were likely lower than in other parts of the country,” he added.

The study notes that the true burden of disease is still “uncertain” due to restrictions in disease surveillance and a lack of official death records.

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(WASHINGTON) — As Afghanistan spirals further toward a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, the international community is allowing greater exemptions to aid groups to try to alleviate the suffering.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution Wednesday to grant humanitarian exemptions to their sanctions on the Taliban, which seized control of Afghanistan this summer after nearly two decades of war with the U.S.-backed government.

In addition, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it has expanded its general licenses to more explicitly allow aid groups to work in Afghanistan, including to support civil society, human rights, and education.

But while both steps were welcomed, many aid groups, U.N. agencies, and U.S. lawmakers, including Democrats, say it is not enough, as more than half of Afghanistan’s 39 million people face acute hunger.

“While this move will enable an essential increase in humanitarian aid, this alone is not sufficient to stave off economic collapse and humanitarian unraveling,” David Miliband, president and CEO of the aid group International Rescue Committee, said after the U.N. vote.

The Biden administration has defended U.S. sanctions against the Taliban — designated by the Treasury as a terrorist organization — and instead blamed Afghanistan’s economic woes on decades of dependence on humanitarian aid, an ongoing drought and COVID-19, and the militant group’s takeover of the country.

A senior administration official said the U.S. was working to mitigate the crisis, but said it is on the Taliban to govern now, address the country’s economic challenges, and meet its commitments if it wants international aid, including on securing women’s and girl’s rights, halting reprisal killings, and countering terrorism.

The Taliban have said international sanctions must be lifted, calling them “punishment of the common people,” in the words of Suhail Shaheen — a longtime spokesperson who the Taliban have cast as their U.N. ambassador, although the group’s government is not recognized.

Afghanistan’s economy has contracted by 40 percent, according to some estimates, with inflation now putting everyday items out of reach for many. Foreign aid, which accounted for some 75 percent of the collapsed former government’s funding and 40 percent of the country’s GDP, has been halted and the government accounts, frozen. Banks have shut down or limited access to funds, with many global financial institutions afraid to run afoul of U.S. and U.N. sanctions. That means salaries, especially for public sector employees like teachers, have not been paid for months, and unemployment has skyrocketed.

With this economic collapse comes real suffering. The U.N. has warned as many as 90 percent of Afghans could be in poverty by next year, and as many as one million children could die this winter from starvation.

Among them could be Mohammed, who at two-years old weighs just 11 pounds — the bones in his face visible as he struggles to eat in a Kabul hospital. His mother unable to afford the medicine he needs, he is one boy among the many Afghans struggling across the country.

“The previous government was bad, but this government is even worse because they have cut our food. Nobody has mercy on us,” a former shopkeeper waiting in line to access food aid told ABC News last week.

That government has done little to deal with U.S. and international concerns about its violent tactics, repression of women and other minorities, and even its ability to govern.

But it’s also clear that U.S. and U.N. sanctions have slowed cash flowing into the country, including the former government’s funds at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Last week, the U.S. and others facilitated a deal to transfer $280 million from the World Bank’s funds to UNICEF and the World Health Organization to provide humanitarian aid — the first of its kind transfer that could set an example for future transactions, but a drop in the bucket compared to the need, per aid groups.

“To ensure that humanitarian work can continue to scale, it is critical that sanction regimes do not hold back operations. Transactions on which humanitarian activities depend must be safeguarded,” the U.N.’s relief chief Martin Griffiths tweeted Wednesday.

Democratic lawmakers have joined those criticisms, with over three dozen urging the Biden administration in a letter Monday to reverse policies that “could cause more civilian deaths in the coming year than were lost in 20 years of war.” They called for the U.S. to provide Afghanistan’s central bank access to the $9.8 billion of Afghanistan’s currency reserves held in the U.S. and “more explicit reassurances” to give aid groups space to operate.

But so far, Biden’s team has shown no interest in doing so. The senior administration official told reporters the U.S. will maintain financial pressure on the Taliban and its leadership, as it seeks to ensure money gets to the Afghan people instead.

ABC News’s Ian Pannell contributed to this report from Kabul.

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(RIO DE JANEIRO) — Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old self-described “moderate socialist,” will be sworn in as Chile’s president in March, making him both the youngest leader in South America and the youngest president in modern Chilean history.

The left-wing former student protester secured 56% of the vote in Sunday’s election, defeating the ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast, 56. Boric has vowed sweeping changes in Chilean society, campaigning on promises to dismantle the economic legacy of the General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I am going to be the president of all Chileans, whether you voted for me or not,” Boric said after his victory.

His campaign was successful in part because it appealed to the interests of younger Chileans. Boric rose to prominence as a key figure of the recent student protests, which included several years of nearly constant demonstrations against inequality and demands for social reforms.

“Boric is a symbol of hope for all Chile not just the rich or the poor,” Mariana Bona, a 27-year-old music teacher and Boric voter from Santiago, Chile’s capital, told ABC News. “We need to become one people.”

Born on Feb. 11, 1986, in Punta Arena in southern Chile, Boric began his activist career a decade ago, as a leader in student marches seeking better and cheaper education for all.

The former law student never finished his studies and instead turned his focus to politics. Striking a casual figure compared to other Chilean lawmakers — Boric rarely wears a tie — he was first elected to congress as a lower-house legislator for the Magallanes region in 2013. He was reelected in 2018.

During his presidential campaign, he promised to “bury” the neoliberal, free-market economy implemented under Pinochet’s rule, vowing to tax the richest in society to improve social services.

The left-winger was able to secure support beyond Santiago, including from ethnic minorities and the LGBT community, eliciting favor through his support of same-sex marriage in a majority Catholic country. Sunday’s high-turnout vote brought with it a message of unification, according to Lucía Dammert, a political analyst at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile.

“So many people went to vote, more than at the first round where Kast was leading,” she said. “This is the presidential elections with the largest number of votes in the history of Chile. This is significant — and it does provide a lot of legitimacy for Gabriel Boric. This is truly an historical event.”

In his post-victory speech, Boric said the country would no longer accept that the poor continue paying the price of inequality.

“Boric’s win will allow the country to grow,” Dammert said. “And it will allow Chile to find and define a new path.”

 

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(LONDON) — The British royal family’s annual Christmas tradition has been canceled for the second year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Queen Elizabeth will remain at Windsor Castle this year for Christmas, canceling her traditional family gathering at Sandringham, her Norfolk estate, a royal source told ABC News.

“Her Majesty has decided to celebrate Christmas at Windsor and will not travel to Sandringham,” said the royal source. “The decision was a personal one after careful consideration and reflects a precautionary approach.”

“There will be family visiting Windsor over the Christmas period and all appropriate guidelines will be followed,” added the source.

It has not yet been announced where other members of the royal family plan to celebrate Christmas this year.

Last week, Queen Elizabeth, 95, canceled her annual pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace that she traditionally holds for extended members of the royal family, again due to the pandemic, a royal source told ABC News at the time.

This Christmas will mark Queen Elizabeth’s first without her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, who died in April at the age of 99.

The queen and Philip spent Christmas last year together at Windsor Castle after the royal family broke their decades-long tradition of spending Christmas at Sandringham.

In past years, the queen and Philip oversaw the family’s multi-day Christmas celebration at Sandringham with their four children — Princes Charles, Andrew and Edward, and Princess Anne — and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The family traditionally holds their gift exchange on Christmas Eve, following the German tradition, where they often swap funny or homemade gifts.

On Christmas Day, they traditionally walk to St. Mary Magdalene Church for the Christmas service and then enjoy lunch at Sandringham before watching the queen deliver her annual Christmas message.

In the evening, the royal family will get together again for a Christmas buffet dinner with 15 to 20 different delicacies prepared by the queen’s chef.

On the day after Christmas, known as Boxing Day in the U.K., the royals traditionally partake in a pheasant shoot on the grounds of Sandringham.

Some members of the royal family gathered Dec. 8 at Westminster Abbey for a Christmas carols service hosted by Duchess Kate.

Kate and Prince William were joined by William’s cousins Zara Tindall, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, as well as William’s aunt, Sophie Wessex, and members of Kate’s family, the Middletons.

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(SYDNEY) — A sixth child has died from his injuries following Thursday’s bouncy castle tragedy at an Australian school.

Chace Harrison, 11, died at Royal Hobart Hospital on Sunday afternoon, Tasmania Police said.

“Our thoughts continue to be with his family, and the families and loved ones of all the children involved, during what is an incomprehensibly difficult time,” Police Commissioner Darren Hine said in a statement.

The tragedy happened on Thursday during an end-of-year celebration at Hillcrest Primary School in Devonport, in north Tasmania. A gust of wind lifted the bouncy castle into the air, causing several children to fall from a height of about 32 feet, police said.

Police on Friday had identified the first five victims as 11-year-old Addison Stewart and 12-year-olds Peter Dodt, Zane Mellor, Jalailah Jayne-Maree Jones and Jye Sheehan.

“The loss of six young lives will be felt by our community for a long time – so please take care of yourselves and those around you,” Hine said on Sunday.

Two children were still in critical condition at the hospital, and one was recovering at home, police said on Sunday.

Officials said their investigation was ongoing, with forensic child interviewers from New South Wales Police Force expected to arrive in Tasmania on Sunday. They will help conduct interviews with young witnesses in the coming days, police said.

“It is paramount we don’t pre-empt any outcome until all evidence is gathered and the investigation is complete,” Commissioner Hine said. “This will allow the Coroner to determine the findings based on all the available evidence and facts.”

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(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Around two dozen U.S.-trained former Afghan Air Force pilots are still trapped in Afghanistan and pleading for the United States government to evacuate them from the country, where they fear they face execution if found by the Taliban.

The pilots belong mostly to two helicopter squadrons and have been in hiding since the Taliban seized Kabul in August. According to several of the pilots who spoke to ABC News, they are living on the run in safe houses and struggling to feed themselves while frantically trying to find a way out of Afghanistan as the Taliban continue to search for them.

The aviators are among thousands of former Afghan military personnel who were left behind during the mass evacuations in August and who, for now, have no route out.

Former and current U.S. military officers who are lobbying to have the pilots evacuated say they are frustrated, because they believe the U.S. government’s current refugee policy treats them as a low priority despite the clear danger to them.

“They’re not really being given any kind of priority right now,” said David Hicks, CEO of Sacred Promise, an NGO created by current and former American military officers trying to help Afghan military personnel leave.

“They’re U.S.-trained, they know English, have worked with the U.S. and have fought the Taliban directly,” Hicks, a former brigadier general, told ABC News. “One would think individuals of that caliber would get some level of prioritization in the big-picture process. And here they are, just sitting in the back of the line right now.”

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Robert Lodewick told ABC News it was aware that former members of the Afghan Air Force remain in Afghanistan and said “we are working all available options to facilitate their departure.”

He said the State Department has helped over 800 Afghan Air Force and Special Mission Wing personnel begin the resettlement process since Aug. 31.

Since taking power, the Taliban have rounded up former Afghan military personnel it believes are a threat or useful to them and, in some cases, have imprisoned or killed them. Human Rights Watch found that Taliban forces have summarily executed or disappeared over 100 former police and intelligence officers in four provinces since August. The total such killings is likely higher.

The pilots say their squadrons killed hundreds of Taliban fighters during the war, including senior commanders, meaning they will almost certainly face harsh retribution.

“Maybe they will cut our skin from our body,” one of the pilots told ABC News by phone from hiding. ABC News is not identifying him or other pilots for their security.

The pilot, a former captain, flew helicopters as part of two squadrons that were based in Kabul and Kandahar. The squadrons’ pilots were highly trained, with many receiving instruction abroad, including in the U.S., and they worked closely with American military advisers.

They were unable to get onto U.S. evacuation flights from the Kabul airport amid the city’s chaotic fall in August. Since then, the Taliban have closed Afghanistan’s borders. Commercial flights from Kabul are stopped, and chartered evacuation flights have slowed to a trickle.

Now scattered across Afghanistan, some with their families, the pilots say they are largely unable to go outside for fear of falling into the Taliban’s hands. Unable to work, their money is running out and they are increasingly struggling to feed their families amid a humanitarian catastrophe in the country, several of the pilots said.

“They left us in the really bad situation. Because even we don’t have money to buy food for our kids,” another pilot said. He has four children, ages 2 to 9, and one has a serious blood disorder.

“We fought years for U.S. goals, but in the end they left us behind alone in poverty,” he said.

More than 500 Afghan Air Force personnel were able to escape Afghanistan in August by flying their aircraft to neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. After they spent weeks in detention, the U.S. succeeded in airlifting them to Dubai, where they will be processed for resettlement to the U.S.

But the pilots trapped in Afghanistan said they have been told there is little prospect of getting them out in the short term.

One or two charter flights facilitated by the U.S. government or organized by private charities continue to leave Afghanistan most weeks, but they are mainly carrying civilians. The number of flights has greatly fallen since August, and those being approved for seats on them has slowed. Only around 3,000 Afghans have been evacuated since late September.

U.S. military officers lobbying to help the pilots said they believe, while difficult, it should be possible to get the pilots onto evacuation flights if they are given the right priority.

Hicks, of Sacred Promise, said he thinks many former Afghan military personnel are currently lower priority than civilians, despite having strong claims for refugee status.

The State Department has been prioritizing the evacuation of so-called Special Immigrant Visa or SIV holders, which are Afghans who worked directly for the U.S. mission. In early August before the Afghan government collapsed, the Biden administration created another type of refugee status, known as Priority 2, or P2, for Afghans deemed at-risk but who had not worked for the U.S. government directly. It was meant for women’s rights activists, journalists and former Afghan military personnel, but applicants must depart the country first — too high a hurdle for many.

Hicks said that system has created a situation where Afghan military personnel, despite often being in more danger than some SIV evacuees, are still stuck behind, with no prospect of fast rescue.

“I don’t understand how literally someone — no offense to anybody — but how someone could be a janitor working at the U.S. Embassy has a higher priority than an Afghan Air Force or Special Mission Wing pilot who’s been fighting the Taliban,” Hicks said.

Sacred Promise’s staff includes current military officers who for years worked as mentors with the pilots in Afghanistan and who are able to verify their identities. Hicks said the NGO has already vetted 2,000 former Afghan military personnel, who he said could immediately start being processed for asylum if evacuated.

Some senators, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) have called for the Biden administration to step up its efforts to get at-risk Afghans out, saying it is not doing enough.

Hicks and the pilots acknowledged that the U.S. government is facing a gargantuan challenge in getting people out. But he said he believes that since his organization is able to help vet the pilots — and considering the urgent danger to them — it makes sense to move faster on them.

“That’s the thing that frustrates us the most, and we’re trying to get the discussion why that prioritization can’t get tweaked or adjusted in this situation,” he said.

The pilots still in Afghanistan fear time is running out for any evacuation. They said they have become particularly alarmed since they now believe the Taliban has found a database that holds their personal details and biometric data, including finger prints.

Trapped at home, one of the pilots has little to do but worry. He finds himself watching videos on social media of executions of ex-Afghan military members.

“As we give them more time, they have more chance or opportunity to find us,” he said. “If I stay in Afghanistan, they will definitely arrest me one day.”

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