World

(LONDON) — When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician who has made a reputation for providing abortion services overseas in countries that restrict reproductive rights, saw a huge increase in emails from the U.S.

“When the draft of the decision leaked, we already saw a huge increase in the amount of requests for the service indicating that people were really scared and panicking,” she told ABC News. “But I think what is more important is what I feel is that the enormous fear that we hear in the voices of the women or the parents.”

Though she is licensed in Austria, in 2018 Gomperts founded Aid Access, a team of doctors and advocates that work with counterparts in the U.S. to provide abortion medication and information, and has continued to work despite a Food and Drug Administration request to cease their activity. Medication abortions done at home involve patients taking a regimen of two drugs — mifepristone and misoprostol — which are approved by the FDA to end pregnancy up to 10 weeks.

Before Roe v. Wade was overturned, Aid Access would receive around 400 emails per day from the U.S. On June 24 — the day the landmark ruling was struck down in the Supreme Court — they received 4,000 emails, a record for the organization, and now comfortably see 1,000 emails per day, two-and-a-half times more interest than before the draft leak, Gomperts said.

“I’ve been working in this field like creating different possibilities with different laws for more than 20 years,” Gomperts told ABC News. “But this service specifically, it’s under my Austrian doctors license and in Austria it’s allowed to provide abortion services or to write prescriptions for medication abortion up till 14 weeks of pregnancy. The conditions under which I do it are also allowed. Which is telemedicine.”

The legal position of such services in states that have banned abortion is unclear. In December of last year, the FDA permanently lifted restrictions allowing mifepristone to be delivered by mail.

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, part of the confusion lies in states passing multiple laws that have overlapped, but states could go further in criminalizing people who obtain abortion pills in online pharmacies. The confusion, Gomperts said, has already led to cases where the authorities have misapplied the law.

Already providing for women in states with restrictive laws, Aid Access has also been used by those who cannot afford in-clinic care. One study from the University of Texas found that requests increased ten-fold after the legislature banned abortion after six weeks. But while data is still being collected on telemedical services post-Roe, all the indications are that requests for the service will be significantly higher.

Telehealth services such as Aid Access, operating in part outside of the jurisdiction of states where abortion is banned, could now be one of the few ways to end pregnancies in post-Roe America.

One trend that Gomperts has noticed is the uncertainty surrounding the laws themselves, with women fearful that they, rather than providers and those who aid them, could be liable for prosecution.

Aid Access has explored a way to potentially circumvent the strict laws in parts of the U.S. by administering abortion medication for future use — essentially as a preventative measure for women who can access the pills when they need it from their own medicine cabinets.

“Time and time again, medication abortion has been scientifically proven to be a safe and effective method to terminate a pregnancy,” Nimra Chowdhry, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights Abortion, told ABC News. “Abortion restrictions flagrantly disregard people’s health and put people and providers at risk of punishment just for accessing and providing essential health care. We have started to see more and more states target the use of medication abortion because they recognize that medication abortion is safe, effective, and in-demand. People should not have to live in a state of fear when obtaining or providing abortion care including medication abortion.”

One U.S. study into the safety and effectiveness of self-managed medication abortions provided by Aid Access found that 96% of people self-reported they were able to end their pregnancies using the pills alone after consulting with online telemedicine. These are numbers, according to one of the study’s authors, Abigail Aiken, that are on par with what can be expected in a clinical setting.

In her work, Gomperts has found that obstacles to abortion services, and not abortions themselves, have proved most traumatic. One of the fundamental misconceptions about abortion, she said, is that it is treated as an “exception,” rather than one “part of our reproductive lives.”

“The discourse around trauma is something that is created by society,” she said. “It’s not based on our experience of the stories of women. They experience the trauma because their access to the abortion has been taken away and restricted.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Jul 29, 8:28 AM EDT
US ambassador to Ukraine speaks to ABC News as grain ships prepare to leave

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink told ABC News on Friday morning that she is “optimistic” ships carrying grain will begin leaving Ukraine this weekend, but that it’s up to Russia to keep its side of the deal.

During an interview in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Brink declined to say whether the United States would impose consequences on Russia if it disrupted the United Nations-brokered deal or attacked the ships. But she underlined her country’s support for Ukraine and the deal, saying it was important that Ukrainian grain starts reaching countries that need it.

When asked if there was a “Plan B” if the deal failed, Brink said the focus was on doing everything to ensure “Plan A” works.

Earlier Friday, Brink and ambassadors of other G-7 countries held a press conference in Odesa while overseeing the preparations. She told reporters that she hopes an agreement confirming the safe corridors of the grain ships to sail through this weekend would be reached. Under the deal, Ukraine and Russia have been negotiating the precise routes the vessels will take through the Black Sea.

Since Russian forces invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, the cost of grain has skyrocketed worldwide. Russia and Ukraine — often referred to collectively as Europe’s breadbasket — produce a third of the global supply of wheat and barley, but Kyiv has been unable to ship exports due to Moscow’s offensive. Last month, the Ukrainian Grain Association warned that Ukraine’s wheat harvest is expected to plummet by 40%.

In recent weeks, there has been an all-out push from the U.S. and the U.N. to facilitate exports from war-torn Ukraine, desperate to offset what they foretell is a looming global food crisis with the potential to devastate the developing world. A Russian blockade in the Black Sea, along with Ukrainian naval mines, have made exporting siloed grain and other foodstuffs virtually impossible and, as a result, millions of people around the world — particularly in Africa and the Middle East — are now on the brink of famine.

-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell

Jul 29, 7:11 AM EDT
Ukraine says 1st grain ships should leave this weekend

Ukraine announced Friday that it hopes the first ships carrying grain will finally be leaving two ports this weekend under a United Nations-brokered deal to end Russia’s blockade.

The departure of the first ships will be a major test of whether the deal with Moscow will hold and Ukrainian food can begin to ease the global hunger crisis worsened by the blockade amid Russia’s war.

Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Oleksander Kubrakov, who is overseeing the operation, told reporters in Odesa on Friday morning that the port as well as the nearby Chernomorsk port are prepared to begin, with 17 ships already loaded with grain.

A final agreement mediated by the U.N. and Turkey needs to be signed off on the routes the vessels will take out of the heavily mined ports. Kubrakov said Ukraine had provided a number of options and that, from its side, the country is ready. Ukraine is waiting for the U.N. to confirm the routes are accepted by both sides.

Kubrakov said the first ships should leave by the end of the weekend.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was also in Odesa on Friday morning to see the preparations and meet with Kubrakov as well as other officials, including U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink.

-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell

Jul 27, 2:51 PM EDT
Blinken and Lavrov to discuss US proposal to free Griner and Whelan

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he plans to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the coming days, marking the first time the two leaders will speak since the war began.

Blinken said a critical topic of discussion would be securing the freedom of detained Americans Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, revealing that the U.S. has already put forward a plan to accomplish that.

“We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and I hope move us toward a resolution,” Blinken said.

“I can’t and won’t get into any of the details of what we’ve proposed to the Russians over the course of some many weeks now,” Blinken said.

Blinken said President Joe Biden played an active role in crafting the proposal for Griner and Whelan.

Blinken also stressed, “My call with Foreign Minister Lavrov will not be a negotiation about Ukraine,” adding, “Any negotiation regarding Ukraine is for its government and people to determine.”

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford

Jul 27, 9:32 AM EDT
Ukraine uses US rocket system to strike key bridge in Russia-held Kherson

Ukrainian forces struck a strategic bridge in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson early Wednesday, according to local officials.

High-precision missile strikes by the Ukrainian military damaged the Antonivskiy bridge, forcing the occupied authorities to close the structure to civilian traffic. The mile-long bridge across the Dnieper River is an essential artery used by Moscow to supply its troops occupying southern Ukraine.

“Strikes were delivered on the bridge, on its road. The bridge is currently closed to the civilian population,” Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration for the Kherson region, told local media on Wednesday.

The bridge’s pillars and spans were still intact as of Wednesday morning, according to Stremousov.

“It is simply that the number of holes on the road has increased. The strike on the bridge has affected only the civilian population,” he added.

According to Stremousov, Ukrainian forces hit the bridge with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) supplied by the United States. He said ferry crossings across the Dnieper River will be organized during the bridge’s restoration, and that traffic will resume in the near future.

“We have prepared a pontoon bridge. We have a ferry link,” he told local media.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukrainian military officials said the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war has surpassed 40,000, just more than five months after Russia launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine in late February.

-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Max Uzol and Yuriy Zaliznyak

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Trevor Reed, a former Marine from Texas who served nearly three years in a Russian prison before he was freed in a prison swap this spring, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that a similar deal can be worked out in the high-profile cases of two other Americans currently detained in Russia.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced this week that the U.S. has offered Russia a proposal to bring WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan home.

The White House wouldn’t confirm details of the proposal, but three sources familiar with the offer confirmed to ABC News that the U.S. had proposed exchanging convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout in order to secure Griner and Whelan’s release from Russia.

In an interview with ABC News on Thursday, a day after news of the possible deal broke, Reed said he was “extremely excited” when he heard the latest development.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that that trade is going to work out, and I hope it does,” he said. “I’m watching along with the rest of America to see if that happens.”

Reed, 30, was arrested in Moscow in the summer of 2019 while visiting his Russian girlfriend. Russian authorities accused him of assaulting officers while being driven to a police station after a night of heavy drinking. He was convicted by a Russian court in 2020 and sentenced to nine years in a prison camp.

As his family grew increasingly worried about his health in the dire prison conditions, Reed was released in April as part of a prisoner exchange between the Biden administration and the Kremlin. Reed was freed in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot from Russia who was sentenced in 2011 to 20 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.

Reed told ABC News he did not want to hear any news of a possible release while he was in prison.

“I didn’t hope for anything, I didn’t expect anything,” he said. “I asked my parents not to tell me about any news that was positive regarding my situation there because I didn’t want to have that hope. And I didn’t want to have the possibility of me losing that hope. That was my strategy.”

For Griner and Whelan, though, he said he would want them to have hope and “hang on to that.”

The experience of finally coming home was “surreal,” he said.

“In these situations, you never know if that’s going to work out until your feet are on U.S. soil,” he said.

He said he was surprised by the announcement of the proposal, but sees it as a good sign for Griner and Whelan.

“They may be doing that to show the Russians that they’re serious about this exchange, that they want to get this done, that they’re willing to get that done,” he said.

“It may represent a change in policy with the administration,” he continued. “Maybe the administration now is going to be more open to prisoner swaps for all Americans who are wrongfully detained.”

Reed sees a swap with Bout as a “win-win” for the U.S. and Russia.

“If the Russians are not idiots, then I think that they will accept that deal,” he said.

Since coming home, Reed has been vocal about the plight of Griner and Whelan and has called on the U.S. government to negotiate a prisoner swap like the one that freed him.

He previously has argued that the U.S. should trade Bout, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2012 on federal narco-terrorism charges, for the two Americans’ release. Bout has repeatedly been suggested by Russian state media as a possible trade as well.

Blinken said Wednesday that he will hold a call with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “in the coming days” to discuss securing the freedom of Griner and Whelan. He revealed the U.S. government had already “put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release” and remains hopeful for a breakthrough in their cases.

At a press conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova confirmed that “the issue of mutual exchange of Russian and American citizens, staying in places of detention on the territory of the two countries, was discussed at one time by the presidents of Russia and the United States,” but “a concrete result has not yet been achieved.”

Griner, 31, has been detained in Russia since Feb. 17 and is currently on trial for drug charges. She was arrested at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Khimki after she was accused of having vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in the country.

Griner, a Phoenix Mercury player who had been returning to Russia to play during the WNBA’s offseason, testified this week that she did not mean to violate Russian law when bringing vape cartridges into the country and that she was in a hurry and stressed after recovering from COVID-19 that month.

Griner has reached out to President Joe Biden, urging him in a letter earlier this month to help get her out of Russia.

“As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote to the president in the handwritten letter, portions of which were made public by her representatives.

A verdict in the case is expected early next month. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison. She does have the right to an appeal.

Whelan, 52, a Michigan-based corporate security executive, was arrested in December 2018 on espionage charges while visiting Moscow for a friend’s wedding. In June 2020, he was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years of “hard labor” in a Russian prison. Both he and the U.S. government have said the claims are false.

“We do worry about his condition,” his twin brother, David Whelan, told ABC News’ Robin Roberts during an interview Thursday on “Good Morning America.” “He’s in a labor colony in Russia — the food’s not great, the environment’s not great. He’s lost about 20% of his weight since he was arrested. We know that he is not being given proper nutrition because that’s the normal diet in a Russian prison and we have to supplement that with quarterly packages of dried fruits, nuts, things like that to make sure he stays healthy.”

David Whelan expressed optimism following news of the U.S. government’s proposal.

“The offer that the U.S. government has made — and extraordinarily made public — is super. Hopefully, the Russian government will take the concessions that have been made and allow Paul to come home,” he said.

Calls to free both Americans have escalated in the months since Reed’s release, and the State Department has said their cases are an “absolute priority.”

“We’re still hoping that this proposal will be accepted by the Russians and that we can move forward and bring Brittney and Paul home to their families where they belong,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during an interview Thursday on “Good Morning America.”

ABC News has learned that the proposed swap does not include American Marc Fogel, a 60-year-old teacher who was recently sentenced to 14 years in a Russian penal colony on drug charges.

His attorney, Thomas Firestone, told ABC News on Thursday that he hopes the U.S. government will designate Fogel as wrongfully detained and “use all of its efforts to try to get him out.”

Firestone said Fogel’s spirits are “not good.”

“We’re very concerned about him,” Firestone said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The family of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed in May while on assignment covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank, wants the United States to conduct an investigation into the fatal shooting so they can get answers — and justice.

Lina Abu Akleh, Abu Akleh’s niece, and her family met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken Tuesday.

“Unfortunately until today, we haven’t seen any meaningful action from the U.S. administration. That’s why we are here as a family in D.C., demanding an investigation, a U.S. investigation that is transparent and credible…all that we’re asking for is justice and accountability. And we do have so many questions that haven’t been answered,” Lina Abu Akleh told ABC News’ Linsey Davis during an interview for ABC News Live Prime.

“He [Blinken] reiterated the same statement as he did previously. Yes, he did show some words of sympathy and condolences but, at the same time, we want to see meaningful action… And at the same time, we asked for more transparency,” said Abu Akleh, who added that the Biden administration has not been helpful in providing additional information about her aunt’s death.

Shireen Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old reporter with many years’ experience covering Palestinian and Arab communities who was a dual Palestinian and American citizen, was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid on May 11 in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli Defense Forces said exchanges of gunfire erupted between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants, and Abu Akleh, who had been wearing a protective vest identifying her as a member of the press, was shot in the head. She was rushed in critical condition to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

According to Palestinian witnesses, she was killed by Israeli troops despite being a distance from the war zone.

“How can we ensure that [U.S.] taxpayer money that continues to fund the Israeli military annually didn’t go into killing my aunt?” Abu Akleh told ABC News Live Prime.

Abu Akleh said she hopes the meeting with Blinken will lead to a future sitdown with President Joe Biden.

“Meeting President Biden is very important because it will allow us to talk to him directly and for us to understand that he is taking this matter seriously. We will tell him that we want a U.S. investigation. We will tell them that there needs to be accountability,” Abu Akleh says.

“The final moments before she was killed, she was with her colleagues, walking in the area where the crime happened. She was there reporting, on her way to report. The scene was quiet. And that was it. She was shot doing what she loved the most, which is reporting truth, reporting facts and giving voice to the voiceless Palestinians,” Abu Akleh said of her aunt.

The State Department released a statement on July 4 determining that Israeli forces most likely fired the shot that killed Shireen Abu Akleh, but gave no indication that she was shot intentionally.

“We found no reason to believe that this was intentional, but rather the result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic jihad,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

Lina Abu Akleh said the State Department statement left her family with more questions.

“In the report that they published, Mr. Blinken said that they couldn’t determine intent. So this made us question as to how did they conclude that the shot was not intentional? When he’s telling us that they couldn’t determine intent. So there were clear contradictions with the statements and that’s why all we’re asking for is a U.S.-led investigation that is independent and transparent. At the end of the day, my Aunt Shireen was a U.S. citizen, and this is their duty to protect their citizens and to support us and finding justice and accountability,” Abu Akleh says.

Lina Abu Akleh said she and her aunt had plans to travel together before her aunt’s death and remembers Shireen as funny and compassionate.

“Shireen was one of the most empathetic people I’ve met in my life. She was compassionate. That’s what made her stand out as a journalist. She used her voice to give voice to the voiceless Palestinians… She was very funny. She has a sense of humor that made her stand out. She was so unique and she was fun. She was the cool aunt who I enjoyed traveling, where we even had travel plans — we were supposed to be in the U.S. together now. And not my family alone here trying to fight for justice and accountability. Shireen was someone that will be forever remembered and every Palestinian household,” Abu Akleh said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration’s unusual decision to publicize its offer to Russia to free Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan — the basketball star and former Marine whom the U.S. says are wrongfully held by Moscow — was made in part to reassure Americans rather than entice the Russians, White House aides said Thursday.

White House spokesman John Kirby said on Good Morning America that the deal the U.S. proposed for Griner and Whelan had been “set forth many weeks ago” and that the administration decided to publicize it to show Americans what President Joe Biden was doing to try to free them amid months-long scrutiny.

“This isn’t something that just happened … This has been going on for a while, and we just haven’t been able to come to fruition on it,” Kirby said.

“There was a lot” that went into the U.S. decision to reveal the proposed deal, he said, “both in terms of what was happening, what wasn’t happening and certainly in the context of Mrs. Griner having to testify yesterday.”

Kirby attested to the administration’s investment, amid criticism from some quarters that they weren’t more engaged. Highlighting the offer to Russia now was valuable even if it hadn’t been accepted, Kirby insisted.

“It was important to put this out there, that the American people know how seriously President Biden takes his responsibilities to bring American citizens home when they’ve been unjustly detained, but we also thought it was important for the world to know how seriously America takes that responsibility,” he said.

Griner was arrested and later pleaded to illegally bringing hashish oil into the country, though she said it was “inadvertent” and was part of her vape cartridge. Her court case is expected to go into next month.

Whelan, who worked in corporate security after being discharged from the Marines, was convicted in Russia of espionage — which he and the U.S. deny.

Sources confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that the possible deal, which the State Department described to reporters as a “substantial proposal,” included exchanging convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner and Whelan.

Bout, dubbed the “Merchant of Death” by the media, was an internationally infamous weapons trafficker before his 2008 arrest in Thailand. He is serving a 25-year sentence.

State Department spokesman Ned Price declined on Wednesday to shed much light on the government’s offer to Russia but he acknowledged there was precedent for prisoner trades.

Often, however, such deals only become public once they are confirmed and in motion.

“We demonstrated with [Marine veteran] Trevor Reed, who came home some months ago, that the president is prepared to make tough decisions if it means the safe return of Americans,” Blinken told reporters, referring to the former Marine jailed in Russia before he was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence in the U.S. for drug smuggling.

Reed has publicly urged the White House to do more for Griner and Whelan.

He felt the administration was “not doing enough,” he told ABC News earlier this month.

“I hope that President Biden and his administration will do everything possible to get both, you know, Brittney and Paul out of Russia, and that they will do that immediately,” Reed said then. “Because every day that, you know, they sit here and wait to make a decision is one more day that, you know, Paul and Brittney are suffering.”

Both Whelan’s family and Griner’s attorneys said they were gladdened by news on Wednesday of a potential deal for their freedom — but also noted the future was unknown.

“The offer that the U.S. government has made, and extraordinarily made public, is super. Hopefully the Russian government will take the concessions that have been made and allow Paul to come home,” Paul Whelan’s twin brother, David Whelan, said Thursday on Good Morning America.

An attorney for Griner, Maria Blagovolina, said the “defense team learned about [the] U.S. offer from the news” and “is not participating in the swap discussions. From the legal perspective, the swap is possible only after the court reaches a verdict. In any case, we would be really happy if Brittney will be able to come home and hope it will be soon.”

At a press conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova confirmed that “the issue of mutual exchange of Russian and American citizens, staying in places of detention on the territory of the two countries, was discussed at one time by the presidents of Russia and the United States,” but “a concrete result has not yet been achieved.”

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that “there are no agreements in this area yet.”

ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva, Shannon K. Crawford and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — A rare pink diamond has been unearthed in Angola and is claimed to be one of the largest ever recovered in the world.

The 170-carat precious stone, called the “Lulo Rose,” was found at the Lulo alluvial mine in Angola’s diamond-rich Lunda Norte region, according to a press release from the mine’s Australia-based owner, the Lucapa Diamond Company.

Lucapa said the Lulo Rose is believed to be the biggest pink diamond recovered in the last 300 years and the fifth-largest diamond ever discovered at the Lulo alluvial mine, where the stones are extracted from a riverbed. It’s the 27th diamond of 100 carats or more to have been found at the mine, according to the company.

The two largest diamonds ever recovered in Angola were previously found at the same mine, with the biggest being a 404-carat clear diamond, according to Lucapa, which is now searching for the mine’s kimberlite pipes, or underground deposits that would be the main source of the stones.

“Lulo is an exceptional alluvial resource and is truly a gift. We are once again made very proud by yet another historic recovery,” Lucapa’s CEO and managing director Stephen Wetherall said in a statement Wednesday. “We too look forward to our partnership progressing its exploration effort, where we are now bulk sampling the priority kimberlites, in search for the primary kimberlite sources of these exceptional and high-value diamonds.”

The rare colored gemstone will be sold via international tender by Angola’s state-owned diamond marketing company, Sodiam.

Angola is among the world’s top 10 producers of diamonds. Only one in 10,000 diamonds found are colored, according to the Gemological Institute of America, a California-based nonprofit that researches gemology.

“This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage for diamond mining and demonstrates the potential and rewards for commitment and investment in our growing diamond mining industry,” Angolan Minister of Mineral Resources, Petroleum and Gas Diamantino Azevedo said in a statement Wednesday.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — In September 2016, Kai Li stepped off a plane from the United States to his native China to visit relatives and attend a memorial for his late mother. He never returned.

The Chinese government had imprisoned the 59-year-old Li, an act the United Nations has condemned, and which his family says is based on bogus charges of espionage. A U.S. citizen who lived in Long Island, New York, since 1989, Li is only allowed to call his wife and son once a month for conversations that last just minutes.

His six-year absence has been “devastating,” said Harrison Li, his son. Not only did it throw his family into debt, but it also forced them to shutter two gas stations Li owned and operated as a way to make his family prosper in his adopted country, he said.

“Our government has failed us by allowing this to continue for so long,” he said. “They need to find the will and motivation to get him released.”

Li joins the chorus of dozens of families who say the Biden administration is failing to adequately confront a crisis that experts say is only getting worse. According to the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, a Washington organization that advocates for hostages and journalist safety, at least 67 U.S. citizens are currently being held overseas; 90 percent of those are wrongly detained by foreign governments hostile to the U.S.

Cynthia Loertscher, director of research, hostage advocacy and legislative affairs for the Foley foundation, says there is a greater interest among countries like Venezuela, Russia and China to use U.S. citizens as “geopolitical pawns” whose imprisonments can be leveraged to demand change in U.S. policy or to force concessions like a prisoner exchange.

“They become human collateral to try to get the United States to budge on its policies on a very large scale which is why these cases are so difficult to solve,” Loertscher said.

The problem, she said, “is absolutely” worsening as an increasing number of countries are testing the waters for potential gain.

Last week, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that allows federal agencies to impose financial sanctions and other consequences on parties involved in hostage-taking or wrongful detentions. It also creates a new State Department indicator to alert Americans where there’s a risk of being wrongfully detained by a foreign government.

Loertscher said the new tools show the administration is taking the issue seriously, but it is too soon to tell of its lasting effect considering the order did not name specific countries or cases like Li’s.

For Neda Sharghi, whose brother Emad has been wrongfully detained in Iran since 2018, she says nothing short of meeting with Biden directly will be satisfactory. Emad Sharghi, an American-Iranian dual citizen based in Washington, is one of at least four Americans wrongfully detained in Iran currently. Months after his capture more than four years ago, he was released, but not allowed to leave the country.

Two months before Biden took office, Emad Sharghi was rearrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for charges that remain unclear to his family.

Neda Sharghi said her family has written to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken but have not received a response from either. She said the issue “transcends politics” and should be one that both political parties could work on together.

Holding people captive fraudulently “cuts against every principle we as Americans hold onto,” Sharghi said.

“It’s baffling to me why it’s so difficult to get them released and why it isn’t a more focused priority for our administration,” she said.

A senior State Department official would not discuss specific cases with ABC News, but said that the new executive order is an example of the administration being “willing to make tough but important decisions” on the issue.

“Anyone who has worked on these issues for any period of time knows that strategies need to be case specific. They have to be informed by the intelligence and information about a particular case. They need to take into account country-specific facts, regional facts and anything we can bring to bear to get what we all ultimately want, which is an American home with his or her loved ones,” the official said.

Biden recently met with the families of Austin Tice, detained in Syria since 2012, and Trevor Reed, who was recently released from Russia in a prisoner exchange. Families say the media attention thrust on both cases, along with that of basketball star Brittney Griner, detained in Russia on drug charges, are bringing public awareness to an issue that for so many years has been lost in the news cycle.

For Alexandra Forseth, the “biggest obstacles” for families like her own “is not the government holding our own people — it’s our own government.”

Her father, Alirio Zambrano, and uncle, Jose Luis Zambrano, are members of the so-called “Citgo 6,” a group of Houston-based Citgo oil executives imprisoned in Venezuela since 2017 on corruption charges. Last year, the men were released under house arrest but in November were suddenly sent back to prison where conditions are so poor their families say they must purchase their clothes and food and ferry them in through intermediaries.

The arrests came around the same time the U.S. extradited a Colombian financier with close ties to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. In February, a Venezuelan court upheld the executives’ prison sentences.

In March, the Biden administration announced the release of one member of the Citgo 6, Gustavo Cardenas, along with another American held in the country, Jorge Fernandez.

“We did get a couple of Americans out and that was a great thing,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters this month regarding the release of the men. “But it was bittersweet because there’s a lot of Americans still there, and we’ve got to get them home.”

Forseth said her family has been working closely with Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs (SPEHA), a special State Department position created during the Obama years. While Carstens has “unanimous support” by the families, she said he and others working on their behalf are ultimately hindered by bureaucracy.

The characterization is supported by Loertscher who said these efforts ultimately need the full support of the administration to be fully effective.

“There are some people absolutely working their tails off for us. They are going way above what to do, but there are some people who are full-on obstacles to making creative solutions because don’t want to bring up these men as priorities to the president,” Forseth said.

“The short answer is, I’m mad at the people who won’t allow the negotiating process to be dynamic and swift,” she said.

Families banded by Bring Our Family Home, an organization tasked to raise the profile of the missing, unveiled a block-long mural in Washington last week that features the portraits of 18 loved ones being detained by foreign governments, including Griner and the Citgo 6.

“We would love it if President Biden came to look at it and hopefully inspire him to reach out and want to meet with us,” said Sharghi.

The project is also a catalyst for hope, something Li said, for him, is in short commodity over the years.

“There’s always hope and hope always gets dashed,” he said. “My father is still suffering behind bars.”

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(WASHINGTON) — In a sharp reversal, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday that he will hold a call with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “in the coming days,” which will mark the first time the two have spoken since the war in Ukraine began and will be a meaningful step toward reopening high-level diplomatic channels between the two countries.

Blinken told reporters during a press briefing that a critical topic of discussion will be securing the freedom of WNBA superstar Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, both of whom are held in Russia.

The secretary revealed that the U.S. has already put forward a plan to accomplish that and is hopeful for a breakthrough on their cases.

“[They] have been wrongly detained and must be allowed to come home,” Blinken said. “We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and I hope move us toward a resolution.”

Blinken has not spoken to Lavrov — or indeed, any top Russia officials — since January, when they were locked in a flurry of talks as the U.S. tried to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The men were in the same room during the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia earlier this month but had no direct contact.

Blinken was asked at the time if there was a cost to pay for the Americans wrongfully detained in Russia by freezing out Lavrov.

“The problem is this: We see no signs whatsoever that Russia is prepared to engage in meaningful diplomacy,” he responded, adding that the U.S. would seize the opportunity should it detect a shift from the Kremlin.

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(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Jul 27, 2:51 PM EDT
Blinken and Lavrov to discuss US proposal to free Griner and Whelan

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he plans to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the coming days, marking the first time the two leaders will speak since the war began.

Blinken said a critical topic of discussion would be securing the freedom of detained Americans Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, revealing that the U.S. has already put forward a plan to accomplish that.

“We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and I hope move us toward a resolution,” Blinken said.

“I can’t and won’t get into any of the details of what we’ve proposed to the Russians over the course of some many weeks now,” Blinken said.

Blinken said President Joe Biden played an active role in crafting the proposal for Griner and Whelan.

Blinken also stressed, “My call with Foreign Minister Lavrov will not be a negotiation about Ukraine,” adding, “Any negotiation regarding Ukraine is for its government and people to determine.”

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford

Jul 27, 9:32 AM EDT
Ukraine strikes key bridge in Russia-held Kherson

Ukrainian forces struck a strategic bridge in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson early Wednesday, according to local officials.

High-precision missile strikes by the Ukrainian military damaged the Antonivskiy bridge, forcing the occupied authorities to close the structure to civilian traffic. The mile-long bridge across the Dnieper River is an essential artery used by Moscow to supply its troops occupying southern Ukraine.

“Strikes were delivered on the bridge, on its road. The bridge is currently closed to the civilian population,” Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration for the Kherson region, told local media on Wednesday.

The bridge’s pillars and spans were still intact as of Wednesday morning, according to Stremousov.

“It is simply that the number of holes on the road has increased. The strike on the bridge has affected only the civilian population,” he added.

According to Stremousov, Ukrainian forces hit the bridge with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) supplied by the United States. He said ferry crossings across the Dnieper River will be organized during the bridge’s restoration, and that traffic will resume in the near future.

“We have prepared a pontoon bridge. We have a ferry link,” he told local media.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukrainian military officials said the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war has surpassed 40,000, just more than five months after Russia launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine in late February.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Jul 27, 9:32 AM EDT
Ukraine strikes key bridge in Russia-held Kherson

Ukrainian forces struck a strategic bridge in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson early Wednesday, according to local officials.

High-precision missile strikes by the Ukrainian military damaged the Antonivskiy bridge, forcing the occupied authorities to close the structure to civilian traffic. The mile-long bridge across the Dnieper River is an essential artery used by Moscow to supply its troops occupying southern Ukraine.

“Strikes were delivered on the bridge, on its road. The bridge is currently closed to the civilian population,” Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration for the Kherson region, told local media on Wednesday.

The bridge’s pillars and spans were still intact as of Wednesday morning, according to Stremousov.

“It is simply that the number of holes on the road has increased. The strike on the bridge has affected only the civilian population,” he added.

According to Stremousov, Ukrainian forces hit the bridge with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) supplied by the United States. He said ferry crossings across the Dnieper River will be organized during the bridge’s restoration, and that traffic will resume in the near future.

“We have prepared a pontoon bridge. We have a ferry link,” he told local media.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukrainian military officials said the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war has surpassed 40,000, just more than five months after Russia launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine in late February.

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