(WASHINGTON) — The remaining 12 hostages from a U.S.-based missionary group have been released by the Haitian gang that had held them for two months, Haitian authorities and the missionary group confirmed Thursday.
Their release was secured two months to the day after they were first detained by the notoriously violent group that had demanded $1 million for each of the 16 Americans and one Canadian, including five children.
“We glorify God for answered prayer—the remaining twelve hostages are FREE! Join us in praising God that all seventeen of our loved ones are now safe. Thank you for your fervent prayers throughout the past two months. We hope to provide more information as we are able,” Christian Aid Ministries said in a statement.
Haitian police confirmed to ABC News that the hostages were released Thursday morning in a suburb of the country’s capital Port-au-Prince, and a Haitian National Police patrol picked them up.
It’s unclear if that ransom was paid for their release.
The gang, known as 400 Mawozo, released two of the hostages — a couple — in late November as a humanitarian gesture because one of them was sick. Last week, three more missionaries were released, but Christian Aid Ministries declined to provide more information on their identities or how their release was secured.
All 17 missionaries were taken on Oct. 16 as they were returning from a visit to an orphanage in an area dominated by 400 Mawozo, one of the powerful criminal gangs that have operated with impunity in Haiti.
Haiti was devastated by a powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake this August that killed over 2,200 people — and is still reeling from the assassination of its president in July, the constitutional crisis he had created, and the political chaos that has followed his killing.
President Joe Biden has said he was regularly updated on U.S. efforts to free the missionary group, which involved the FBI, the State Department, the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince, and other government agencies. It’s unclear if they played a role in their release Thursday.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration has blacklisted and sanctioned dozens of Chinese government research institutes and private-sector tech firms, accusing them of weaponizing technology for use at home and abroad, the U.S. departments of Commerce and Treasury announced Thursday.
In particular, the U.S. warned that these entities were working as part of a broader Chinese government strategy to develop and deploy biotechnology, including “brain-control weaponry,” for possible offensive use and as part of its crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities — a campaign that the U.S. has determined constitutes genocide.
The penalties seek to bar U.S. technology from being exported to these projects or block their access to the U.S. financial system.
“The scientific pursuit of biotechnology and medical innovation can save lives. Unfortunately, the PRC is choosing to use these technologies to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, using an acronym for China’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China.
“We cannot allow U.S. commodities, technologies, and software that support medical science and biotechnical innovation to be diverted toward uses contrary to U.S. national security,” she added in a statement.
In total, 12 Chinese research institutes and 22 Chinese tech firms have been blacklisted by her agency and barred from any exports or transfers of U.S. technology, except in limited cases with a license. Chief among them is China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and its 11 research institutes.
Taken together, they “use biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end uses and end users, to include purported brain-control weaponry,” the Commerce Department said in its public notice Thursday.
It’s unclear what kind of weaponry might already exist, but Chinese military leaders have talked for years about biotechnology as creating new “offensive capability,” including “brain control” weapons and “specific ethnic genetic attacks.”
“China’s research focus on these technologies is not unique. What is unique is their declared intent to weaponize their inventions,” said retired Lt. Col. Stephen Ganyard, the former top U.S. diplomat for military affairs.
These inventions could include “the stuff of science fiction, such as brain-controlled weaponry” that would allow “a Chinese commando to discharge a weapon with just a thought, not a trigger finger,” according to Craig Singleton, a former U.S. diplomat who is now an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
That could give China military and intelligence advances over the U.S., per Singleton, although it’s unclear if the Pentagon is developing similar weapons programs.
“Some of these technologies may not be easily contained and could have disastrous second- and third-order consequences on civilian populations. China’s seeking to weaponize advanced technologies is putting the whole world at risk of unforeseen and uncontainable consequences,” added Ganyard, an ABC News contributor.
For now, it seems China has focused their alleged use against domestic targets, including the Uighurs in the country’s westernmost province, known formally as Xinjiang.
“Private firms in China’s defense and surveillance technology sectors are actively cooperating with the government’s efforts to repress members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” said Brian Nelson, the senior Treasury Department official for terrorism and financial intelligence.
The Treasury Department designated eight more private firms, cutting them off from the U.S. financial system and threatening sanctions on those that do business with them, for reportedly working with Xinjiang authorities.
That includes developing facial recognition software, cloud computing, drones, and GPS technology, among other artificial intelligence tools.
“One such AI software could recognize persons as being part of the Uyghur ethnic minority and send automated alarms to government authorities,” according to the Treasury, while another firm helped “develop a transcription and translation tool for the Uyghur language to enable authorities to scan electronic devices.”
It’s estimated between one and nearly two million Uighurs and other minorities, like Kazakhs, have been detained in mass “re-education” camps where they are used as forced labor and are taught Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
In addition, independent researchers, Uighur activists, and the U.S. government have accused China of a mass sterilization campaign to sink Uighur birth rates, which have declined precipitously in recent years.
While the majority of the blacklisted firms were designated because of their ties to China’s so-called “civilian-military fusion strategy,” where civilian fields like medicine and biotechnology are allegedly weaponized to support the military, a handful were also designated for exporting sensitive technology to Iran.
That strategy has alarmed U.S. officials in recent years, starting with the Trump administration, which launched a robust all-of-government effort to stymie it. That included deploying this Commerce Department blacklist repeatedly to ban U.S. exports to Chinese firms that the People’s Liberation Army could then access.
The Biden administration has carried that policy on and expanded it — announcing last week during Biden’s Summit for Democracy a small group of countries committed to blocking similar technology exports to China, including the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.
(LONDON) — Queen Elizabeth has canceled her annual pre-Christmas celebration for family for the second year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 95-year-old monarch traditionally holds a lunch at Buckingham Palace before Christmas for extended members of the royal family, but has decided to cancel it again this year, a royal source told ABC News.
“The decision is a precautionary one as it is felt to put too many people’s Christmas arrangements at risk if it went ahead,” the royal source said. “While there is regret that it is cancelled, there is a belief it is the right thing to do for all concerned.”
Buckingham Palace has not yet confirmed where or with whom Queen Elizabeth will celebrate Christmas, her first without her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, who died in April at the age of 99.
Last year, also amid the coronavirus pandemic, the royal family broke a decades-long tradition of spending Christmas at Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth’s estate in Norfolk.
The queen and Philip instead spent the Christmas holiday at Windsor Castle, their home outside London, where they had spent much of their time since March 2020, when the U.K. began its first stay-at-home orders.
In past years, Philip and Elizabeth 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 walk to St. Mary Magdalene Church for the Christmas service.
After the service, the royals enjoy a Christmas lunch at Sandringham and then gather to watch Queen Elizabeth II 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.
William’s aunt, Sophie Wessex, also attended, as did members of Kate’s family, the Middletons.
(HONG KONG) — Four children died in Australia on Thursday when wind lifted the bouncy castle they were in about 32 feet into the air, local police said.
Nine children were in the castle at about 10 a.m. local time when it fell to the ground, Tasmania Police said in a statement. The students at Hillcrest Primary School had been celebrating the end of the school year, the statement said.
“On a day where these children were meant to be celebrating their last day at primary school, instead we are all mourning their loss,” Police Commissioner Darren Hine said.
Two girls and two boys were killed, police said. Another five children were rushed to the hospital with serious injuries, police said. The students were in 5th and 6th grade, officials said.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the incident “unthinkably heartbreaking.”
“Young children on a fun day out together with their families and it turns to such horrific tragedy, at this time of year, it just breaks your heart,” Morrison said.
Police said a “significant local wind event” caused the castle to lift about 10 meters, or 32 feet, off the ground.
Two helicopters and other emergency vehicles rushed to the scene in Devonport within minutes of the incident, police said.
“The loss of any child impacts significantly on our community and this tragedy is understandably distressing for us all,” Hine said. “This incident will impact all of us in different ways so it’s important that we all look after each other at this difficult time.”
Police said they’ve launched an investigation with help from WorkSafe Tasmania, the country’s workplace-safety regulator.
(HONG KONG) — Five children died in Australia on Thursday after wind lifted the bouncy castle they were in about 32 feet into the air, local police said.
Nine children were in the castle at about 10 a.m. local time when it fell to the ground, Tasmania Police said in a statement. The students at Hillcrest Primary School had been celebrating the end of the school year, the statement said.
“On a day where these children were meant to be celebrating their last day at primary school, instead we are all mourning their loss,” Police Commissioner Darren Hine said.
Two girls and two boys were killed, police said in an initial statement. Another five children with serious injuries were rushed to the hospital, where one later died, police said. Three children were still in serious condition at about 1 a.m. local time. The students were in 5th and 6th grade, officials said.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the incident “unthinkably heartbreaking.”
“Young children on a fun day out together with their families and it turns to such horrific tragedy, at this time of year, it just breaks your heart,” Morrison said.
Police said a “significant local wind event” caused the castle to lift about 10 meters, or 32 feet, off the ground.
Two helicopters and other emergency vehicles rushed to the scene in Devonport within minutes of the incident, police said.
“The loss of any child impacts significantly on our community and this tragedy is understandably distressing for us all,” Hine said. “This incident will impact all of us in different ways so it’s important that we all look after each other at this difficult time.”
Police said they’ve launched an investigation with help from WorkSafe Tasmania, the country’s workplace-safety regulator.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of 100 or so potential scholars in the State Department’s prestigious Fulbright Foreign Student Program will have to continue waiting for a final answer on whether their cohort — not shielded from disruption following the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and withdrawal of an American presence there four months ago — will continue.
Maryam Jami, 23, an attorney in Herat who called the program the “venue to her dreams” of earning her Masters of Law in the U.S. next year before returning to help refugees in her native Afghanistan, opened an email update expected from the State Department early Wednesday morning.
Jami says she rose from her bed to read the message on her phone, before sharing it with her three sisters, who were standing by to comfort her.
“We continue to explore options for proceeding with the Program, but we have not yet identified a safe and viable way forward,” the email signed by a State Department official read. “We recognize the impact of this uncertainty about the future of the Program, and we are continuing our efforts to look for pathways forward. By January 31, 2022, we will provide further communication regarding if we are able to proceed with the selection process, including interviews.”
The note went on to remind that not all semifinalists would be finalists chosen for the program, was it to continue, and suggested hopeful scholars consider other evacuation routes and opportunities.
“The safety and well-being of you and your family will always be our highest priority, and our decision-framework is guided by this steadfast principle. Due to the uncertainty of the process and the limited number of semi-finalists who become recipients if the program continues, we recommend that you carefully considering all options and opportunities available to you on a continuing basis, keeping safety as the paramount consideration,” it continued.
“We know the challenging situation you are facing and the fortitude you have shown, and we reiterate our commitment to the future of the Afghan people,” the email said in closing.
The update from the State Department to the potential 2022 cohort, which has seen its in-person interviews delayed twice this year, came two months after the last update on Oct. 18, which some semifinalists believe their email and social media campaign — #SupportAfgFulbrightSemiFinalists2022 — targetting officials in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal triggered.
Jami says she brushed off her sisters’ efforts to comfort her, telling them she was fine, closed her phone went back to bed.
“After seeing that email, I didn’t really feel anything,” Jami recalled in a phone call with ABC News from her home in Herat on Wednesday evening. “Nowadays, we Afghans, any door that we are running to closes to our faces. So this is the story of our life. It’s just something we have just gotten used to.”
After having left a WhatsApp group with other potential scholars, Jami said some friends asked her and others who had left to rejoin it on Wednesday, as the emails from the U.S. official trickled into their phones and computers. Though Jami said some in the group of 63 and counting believe they should now ramp up their efforts, Jami said she’s looking at other options.
“I have given up because I no longer have hope,” she said. “Because they indirectly have told us in this email that we should look for other opportunities. They also say that they couldn’t figure out or find any other way to continue with this — but I’m sure if the U.S. really wants to grant us this opportunity, there are ways.”
She also advised other semifinalists to follow her lead, saying she’s “80% sure” the program will cease for them.
“Everyone should think on other opportunities as well because they indirectly have told us that they are they are not actually willing to continue this program for us,” she said. “It will determine our future if we keep waiting for something which is uncertain and most likely will not happen. It will devastate our futures. It will devastate the future of our communities which we are working for.”
The program, established by Congress in 1946 with a goal of international relationship building by offering both grants to U.S. citizens to study or teach abroad and to non-U.S. citizens to study in the states, of which Secretary of State Antony Blinken is an alum, was disrupted for Jami’s cohort — a group hoping to gain their master’s degrees in the U.S. — first by COVID-19 and then, again, with the end of America’s longest war and diplomatic presence in the country now on the brink of economic collapse and famine.
Still, some of the group, Jami says, are pushing for the State Department to have their interviews proceed virtually instead of at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul — where applicants were to report for the interviews over the summer before the delays — which was evacuated in the middle of August.
“We are reviewing the significant safety, logistical, and programmatic constraints which must be overcome to successfully implement the 2022-23 Fulbright Program,” a State Department spokesperson told ABC News last week. “We are committed to remaining in communication with the semifinalist group about the status of the program, understanding they must pursue the choices that make the most sense for themselves and their families.”
Although Jami gushed earlier this month about how the prestigious program was a “venue to her dreams,” she said she won’t allow its potential suspension, as well as the thought that her test scores will soon expire, to stop her from the real work of helping her people.
“Of course, I had chosen the Fulbright Program as my future path, but my biggest dreams were not just conditioned to the Fulbright Program,” she said. “I will still continue my efforts for Afghanistan.”
“At the end of the day, we are trying to be what we always dreamt of being — not just being a Fulbright Scholar or just studying in the U.S. — but what we expected to do after when we return to our country,” added Jami, who hopes to work for the United Nations or Afghanistan government one day. “This is what really matters.”
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.
(HONG KONG) — Scores of people were trapped in a Hong Kong skyscraper on Wednesday after a major fire broke out, authorities said.
Flames ignited at the World Trade Centre in Hong Kong’s bustling Causeway Bay shopping district at around noon local time, setting scaffolding ablaze and forcing many people inside to flee to higher floors, where they awaited rescue, authorities said.
At least 13 people were injured, mostly due to smoke inhalation, during the incident. One of the people suffering from smoke inhalation was hospitalized in serious condition, according to authorities.
Authorities said they believe the blaze emerged from electrical cables on the first or second level of a shopping mall inside the 38-story complex, which is under renovation. The Hong Kong Fire Services Department had received a notice that the World Trade Centre’s fire safety system, including alarms and sprinklers, were shut off due to the construction, authorities said.
More than 150 firefighters were deployed to the scene, according to authorities. Thick smoke was seen billowing out from the building’s entrance as firefighters used a crane to rescue people trapped on the rooftop.
By 4:30 p.m. local time, firefighters had extinguished the flames and evacuated everyone from the building. Some 770 people were evacuated by rescuers, while 40 others evacuated from the building themselves, authorities said.
The World Trade Centre complex houses offices, restaurants and a mall, but the shops were all closed due to the ongoing renovations.
(LONDON) — A court in Belarus has sentenced the husband of the leader of the country’s pro-democracy movement, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, to 18 years in prison, convicting him in a closed-door trial widely condemned as revenge for challenging authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Sergey Tikhanovsky was jailed on Tuesday along with five other opposition activists who all received lengthy sentences — from 14 to 16 years in maximum security prisons — after they were found guilty of inciting mass unrest and social hatred.
Tikhanovsky, 43, was a popular video blogger who built a following by travelling the country, pointing out problems and criticizing Lukashenko’s rule. Last year, he sought to run against Lukashenko in a presidential election, but authorities blocked Tikhanovsky from the ballot and arrested him, prompting Svetlana to take his place.
She then found herself at the head of the huge protest movement that erupted against Lukashenko following the election in August and briefly seemed close to toppling him. Tikhanovskaya was forced into exile in neighboring Lithuania, and her husband remained behind bars as Lukashenko regained his grip through intense repression.
Tikhanovskaya on Tuesday said her husband’s sentence was Lukashenko’s “personal revenge.”
“The dictator publicly takes revenge on his strongest opponents,” she wrote on Twitter. “While hiding the political prisoners in closed trials, he hopes to continue repressions in silence. But the whole world watches. We won’t stop.”
The verdicts come amid a campaign of relentless repression in Belarus over the past year that has seen many thousands detained and hundreds made political prisoners.
The court also sentenced Artsyom Sakau, who helped on Tikhanovsky’s presidential campaign, and Dmitry Popov, his social media manager, to 16 years in prison. Mikola Statkevich, an opposition activist, received 14 years, and Ihar Losik, a journalist with the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was jailed for 15 years.
The verdicts were slammed by European countries and the United States, which demanded Lukashenko’s government immediately release them and other political prisoners.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement the verdicts were “politically motivated” and further evidence of the Lukashenko regime’s disregard “for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Belarusians.”
Video released from the court room on Tuesday showed the men in a cage, smiling. As the verdict was read out, Tikhanovsky turned his back on the judge.
Losik’s wife later published a video address castigating the court and challenging Lukashenko to meet with her.
She said her husband already had endured two hunger strikes and had slit his wrists in an attempt to die by suicide. She accused a prison psychologist of encouraging him to make another attempt.
“Let’s meet, and I will tell you what our family has gone through thanks to your underlings,” she said, addressing Lukashenko. “And you try to explain to me why we have gone through, and continue to go through, all these torments.”
“I don’t intend to run and hide abroad,” she added. “Prove to me you’re not a coward. I’m waiting for your invitation.”
(NEW YORK) — Scientists have long predicted that sea level rise will be one of the most disastrous consequences of global warming — and now, they’re discovering that the northernmost region, the biggest contributor to sea level rise, is warming at unprecedented rates.
Climate change is transforming the Arctic into a “dramatically different state,” with the region warming at a rate more than twice as fast as the rest of the world due to the melting of white and sea ice, according to the 2021 Arctic Report Card released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Tuesday morning.
The substantial decline in Arctic sea ice extent since 1979 is one of the most iconic indicators of climate change, according to the report. Summer 2021 saw the second-lowest amount of older, multi-year ice since 1985, and the post-winter sea ice volume in April 2021 was the lowest since records began in 2010.
In addition, the period between October and December in 2020 was the warmest Arctic autumn on record, dating back to 1900, according to the report.
The average surface air temperature over the Arctic in the past year, October 2020 through September 2021, was the seventh-warmest on record, and this is the eighth consecutive year since 2014 that air temperatures were at least 1 degree Celsius above the long-term average.
Recent studies on ocean acidification, the process in which the water’s pH levels are lowered as a result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, show that the Arctic Ocean is acidifying faster than the global ocean, but with high spatial variability, the report states.
Since ocean water is typically neutral, the acidification could have implications on the ecosystem of the Arctic Ocean, including effects on algae, zooplankton and fish, according to the report.
In the Eurasian Arctic, terrestrial snow cover in June 2021 was the third-lowest since records began in 1967, the report states. In the North American Arctic, snow cover has been below average for 15 consecutive years.
Beavers are also colonizing the Arctic tundra of western Alaska, transforming lowland tundra ecosystems and degrading permafrost by increasing the amount of unfrozen water on the landscape during the winter, according to the report.
The number of beaver ponds in Alaska has doubled since 2000, likely due to the warming trend that has resulted in widespread greening in what was previously tundra, scientists and local observers have both noted, the report states.
The Greenland Ice Sheet, the largest contributor to sea level rise in the world, experienced three melt episodes in late July and August, according to the report. Satellite imagery provides “unequivocal evidence” of widespread tundra greening. A melt episode on a glacier can include melting, evaporation, erosion and calving in a short period of time.
Retreating glaciers and thawing permafrost are causing local to regional-scale hazards as well, the scientists wrote.
The Arctic Report Card documents how climate change continues to alter the once “reliably-froze” region as increasing heat and the loss of ice drive its transformation into an uncertain future, according to NOAA.
“This year’s Arctic Report Card continues to show how the impacts of human-caused climate change are propelling the Arctic region into a dramatically different state than it was in just a few decades ago,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “The trends are alarming and undeniable. We face a decisive moment. We must take action to confront the climate crisis.”
(WASHINGTON) — Maryam Jami, 23, an attorney in Herat, Afghanistan, who calls herself a “mini-human rights activist,” still dreams of obtaining her Masters of Law in the United States as a Fulbright scholar next year, pinning the program as both a venue to her own dreams and a tool for a better future for Afghanistan.
But she and roughly 100 other semi-finalists in the country now taken over by the Taliban have been left in limbo since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops and unofficial pause of the prestigious program run by the U.S. State Department.
“For me, the Fulbright was just my dream — and my actual path to my dreams,” Jami told ABC News in a video call from her home in Herat. “Sometimes I feel that I’m going to be depressed because it’s really — it’s just getting really too tough for me… I just feel that I’m running out of time.”
Jami planned on studying comparative and international law and taking that training after one year back to Afghanistan to help aid women and refugees. Instead, she’s confined to her small home in Herat with her mother, father, and three younger sisters, unable to go out for coffee or tea, her family fearful of fighters in the street, and confined to watching movies inside while she frantically applies to other scholarships after having turned down multiple offers to evacuate in August, she says, holding out hope for the Fulbright Program.
She used to spend her days prepping for her twice-delayed interview with State Department officials. Now, she says she can no longer look at her notes.
“Before the fall of Kabul, I used to check those papers and check those questions, get prepared for them every day,” she said. “I just feel that a long time has passed since that time, which I was preparing for this program, and I feel so old. I feel that my dreams are shattered and buried and I cannot continue working for them.”
But, Jami added, she tries to keep hope, as might be expected of a Fulbright leader.
“Still, I’m trying to keep my energy and not get disappointed, because if we are intending to be future leaders of our community and our country, we have to be positive in also negative situations. And we just have to keep our hope that better, better days are coming and the best is yet to come,” Jami told ABC News.
The timeline of the 2022 Fulbright Foreign Student Program was disrupted first by COVID-19 and then, again, with the end of America’s longest war and diplomatic presence in the country now on the brink of economic collapse and famine. More than half of Afghanistan experiences severe food insecurity with 72% of the country living below the poverty line even before the fall of Kabul, but with international aid being cut off since the Taliban took control, the situation is even more severe.
Jami, who says the State Department promised another update to her cohort by Dec. 15, fears their opportunity to study in the U.S. — and create a better future for their home country — will soon be vanquished.
“We are reviewing the significant safety, logistical, and programmatic constraints which must be overcome to successfully implement the 2022-23 Fulbright Program,” a State Department spokesperson told ABC News. “We are committed to remaining in communication with the semi-finalist group about the status of the program, understanding they must pursue the choices that make the most sense for themselves and their families.”
“The United States has a longstanding commitment to the Fulbright Program in Afghanistan, which has supported more than 950 Afghan Fulbright students since 2003, including 109 who began their studies in the United States this academic year,” the spokesperson added in response to specific concerns Jami posed to ABC News.
Left in limbo: ‘#SupportAfgFulbrightSemiFinalists2022’
The Fulbright Foreign Student Program, administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, enables the brightest minds from abroad to study and conduct research in the U.S. with about 4,000 foreign students awarded the scholarship each year. Congress established the educational exchange program in 1946 with a goal of international relationship building by offering both grants to U.S. citizens to study or teach abroad and to non-U.S. citizens to study in the states.
Jami submitted her application for the 2022 class by the first deadline of Feb. 15, 2021, when American troops were still in the country and it wasn’t clear the Taliban would swiftly rise to power by the end of the summer. When she learned she was a semi-finalist for the highly competitive program back in April, she first called her mother in apparent disbelief.
“I really felt so happy because I was not believing that it was me achieving this,” she recalled to ABC News. “I just remember that my mother was in the kitchen, cooking something. I just called my mom and said, “Oh, Mom, I received the email. I’m selected. I’m a semi-finalist for the Fulbright Program!'”
“My mom said, ‘Wow, it’s such a big achievement,’ and she was really proud of me,” Jami said with a smile. “My friends were also so proud of me and then, whenever after that day, whenever I thought about or told them about life problems, my friends just told me, “Oh girl, you’re selected for the Fulbright Program and you’re still talking about your life problems?”
With an understanding that she would be accepted so long as she passed the final interview portion, Jami grew disheartened when her interview for June would be postponed due to COVID-19. Then in July, President Joe Biden announced the U.S. military mission would conclude in Afghanistan on Aug. 31, 2021. By August, when Jami expected to have her interview at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the Taliban had already taken over parts of her home city ahead of seizing the presidential palace on Aug. 15.
“After the fall of Kabul, we couldn’t get an update from the officials,” Jami told ABC News.
To that end, Jami joined a What’s App group with dozens of other semifinalists who launched a social media and email campaign to draw awareness to their plight. Using the hashtag, “SupportAfgFulbrightSemiFinalists2022,” Jami credits their efforts with getting the State Department’s attention after, she said, officials had gone silent on them.
“I think they felt that the kind of embarrassment when somebody is pointing at you in front of other people,” Jami said. “I think they wanted to make us silent for a while, but maybe we will receive good news on the 15th of December. Most of the people in the group think, though, maybe it is something just to keep us silent for a while.”
In the past, the State Department has canceled the Fulbright Program for certain cohorts for safety reasons. Typically, scholarships are rescinded and semi-finalists are asked to reapply if they want to pursue the Fulbright again.
Jami, who says she completed her program application when her home didn’t even have electricity, told ABC News there isn’t time to wait another year. Her TOEFL score, or “Test of English as a Foreign Language” expires next August, when she had hoped to begin her studies in the U.S.
“Actually, we don’t have time. We are getting so old. We are getting out of energy. We are getting tired. We are getting exhausted. We are already so tired. So the reconstruction of Afghanistan cannot wait. This is a project, in our minds, which cannot wait. Our dreams cannot wait. That is why education should not be conditioned to the politics because people are starving out there in Afghanistan,” she said.
The State Department told ABC News it’s committed to the cohort and working to review the safe and effective implementation of the program.
“We are committed to remaining in communication with the semi-finalist group about the status of the program while we review the significant safety, logistical, and programmatic constraints which must be overcome to successfully implement the 2022-23 Fulbright Program,” a spokesperson told ABC News.
Jami says despite the fact that officials have promised them an update by Dec. 15, she and other semi-finalists are pushing for a substantial and positive answer — “because just an answer is not enough,” she said.
“They must deem us as an exception, even if they are going to cut ties with the Taliban, cut relations with the Taliban forever because our application is completely pre-Taliban and we have nothing to do with the Taliban government. Not just us but the Afghan youth have nothing to do with the Taliban’s government or with the politics, so this is my message to the U.S. government and the U.S. Department of State,” she said.
“We really put too much effort into our applications and this program. We rejected most of the immigration offers, lots of other scholarships, just for the Fulbright Program. Because this is a different program. It’s obvious from its principle,” she added.
Principle of the program: ‘I belong to Afghanistan’
Jami, who graduated from Herat University with a law degree in 2019 and has worked with international aid organizations on legal and humanitarian needs of refugees, said she was attracted to the Fulbright Program because of its principle to return and work in one’s home country after completing studies in the U.S.
“So this is the time that Afghanistan needs the prospective Fulbright Scholars the most,” Jami said, taking a serious tone.
She believes many of the 100 or so semifinalists have already evacuated the country or went silent due to a lack of hope. Jami told ABC News that she even left the What’s App group last month after the conversations shifted from their campaign to continue the program to participants asking advice on how to leave the country — though has been advised by former coworkers and friends to try and do the same.
“I belong to Afghanistan,” Jami said. “Whether the Taliban are governing Afghanistan or any other government, this homeland is mine and I am committed to serve here, serve its people especially in the time that they need me and people like me the most, and the time they’re at the poverty and homelessness is resonating in Afghanistan and people need someone who can help take their hand and we can do something for them.”
Determined to continue her campaign, Jami still holds out hope for the Fulbright Program so she is ready if the day finally comes that it’s her time to interview to become a finalist in the 2022 group.
“Education cannot wait,” she told ABC News. “And education — and the fate of the Afghan youth — should not be conditioned to political rivalries or political games.”
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.
