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‘I thought I would die on that boat’: Mother recalls the horror of month at sea | CNN

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‘I thought I would die on that boat’: Mother recalls the horror of month at sea | CNN


Aceh, Indonesia
CNN
 — 

Hatemon Nesa weeps as she clings to her 5-year-old daughter, Umme Salima, at a rescue shelter in Indonesia’s Aceh province. Their faces seem gaunt, their eyes sullen, after drifting for weeks at sea on a ship with little meals or water.

“My pores and skin was rotting off and my bones have been seen,” Nesa mentioned. “I assumed I’d die on that boat.”

Nesa additionally cries for her 7-year-old daughter, Umme Habiba, who she says she was compelled to depart behind in Bangladesh – she couldn’t afford any greater than the $1,000 the traffickers demanded to move her and her youngest youngster to Malaysia. “My coronary heart is burning for my daughter,” she mentioned.

Nesa and Umme Salima have been amongst round 200 Rohingya, members of a persecuted Muslim minority, who launched into the damaging voyage in late November from Cox’s Bazar, a sprawling refugee camp in Bangladesh crowded with round 1,000,000 individuals who fled alleged genocide by the Myanmar navy.

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However quickly after they left, the engine minimize out, turning what was imagined to be a 7-day journey right into a month-long ordeal at sea, uncovered to the weather within the open-topped picket boat, surviving solely on rainwater and simply three days’ value of meals.

Nesa mentioned she noticed ravenous males soar overboard in a determined seek for meals, however they by no means returned. And she witnessed a child die after being fed salt water from the ocean.

Because the weeks wore on, the passengers’ households and support businesses pleaded with governments in a number of international locations to assist them – however their cries have been ignored.

Then on December 26, the boat was rescued by Indonesian fishermen and native authorities in Aceh, based on the United Nations refugee company (UNHCR). Of the 200 or so individuals who boarded the boat, solely 174 survived – round 26 died on the boat, or are lacking at sea, presumed lifeless.

Babar Baloch, an Asia spokesperson for the company, mentioned after a lull throughout Covid, the numbers of individuals fleeing are again to pre-Covid ranges. Some 2,500 boarded unseaworthy boats final 12 months for the journey, and as many as 400 of them died, making 2022 one of many deadliest years in a decade for Rohingya escaping Cox’s Bazar.

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“These are actually demise traps that after you get in … you find yourself shedding your life,” he mentioned.

Nesa and Salima’s journey started on November 25 from the overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, the place she mentioned her youngsters couldn’t go to highschool, leaving her with little hope for his or her future.

Nesa mentioned she had carried round two kilograms of rice for the journey, however shortly after the boat left the port, its engine died they usually began drifting.

“Ravenous with no meals, we noticed a fishing boat close by and tried to go shut,” she mentioned, crying as she recalled the horror. “We jumped within the water to swim near that boat however in the long run, we couldn’t.”

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The rickety wooden boat that carried Hatemon Nesa and her daughter, Umme Salima pictured in  Aceh province, Indonesia.

Throughout December, because the boat bobbed aimlessly within the Bay of Bengal, the UNHCR mentioned it was noticed close to India and Sri Lanka. However the company mentioned these international locations “constantly ignored” its pleas for intervention.

CNN has contacted the Indian and Sri Lankan Navies for remark however has not obtained a response. Final month, the Sri Lankan Navy mentioned in a press release that its crews had made a “strenuous effort” to rescue one other boat carrying 104 Rohingya, together with many ladies and youngsters, who had fled Bangladesh.

On December 18, Nesa’s brother, Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, who’s in Cox’s Bazar, shared with CNN an audio clip of a harrowing cellphone name he obtained from one of many refugees aboard Nesa’s boat.

“We’re dying right here,” the person mentioned through satellite tv for pc cellphone, based on the recording. “We haven’t eaten something for eight to 10 days. We’re ravenous.”

Hatemon Nesa and her 5-year-old daughter Umme Salima at a shelter in Aceh province in Indonesia.

Nesa mentioned the boat’s driver and one other crew member jumped into the ocean to search out meals, however they by no means returned. “I feel they received eaten by fish within the sea,” she mentioned.

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Twelve different males entered the water, whereas holding onto an extended rope connected to the boat to attempt to catch one thing to eat, however as others on the boat tried to drag them again in, the rope snapped, Nesa mentioned. “They may not return to the boat.”

Whereas all international locations are sure by worldwide regulation to rescue individuals in misery at sea, swift motion just isn’t at all times forthcoming – notably the place Rohingya refugees are involved, based on Baloch, from the UNHCR.

“I feel everybody will agree as human beings that we have now the duty you wish to save one life in misery, not to mention tons of of individuals dying,” Baloch mentioned. “(Close by states) must act to save lots of these determined individuals. It must be an motion which is in coordination completed collectively by all of the states within the area.”

Nesa and Umme Salima have been among the many 174 emaciated survivors proven on video setting foot on land for the primary time in weeks in late December, some instantly collapsing onto the sand of an Aceh seashore, too weak to face.

They’re among the many extra lucky ones – the UNHCR believes one other 180 are presumed lifeless, misplaced at sea on one other boat since early December, when the occupants stopped speaking with their households.

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The survivors from Nesa’s boat are actually receiving medical care in Aceh, nevertheless it stays unclear what may occur to them within the coming weeks and months.

Rohingya refugees rest after being transferred to a temporary shelter following their arrival by a boat in Laweung, Aceh province on December 27, 2022.

Indonesia just isn’t social gathering to the UN Refugee Conference and lacks a nationwide refugee safety construction, based on the UNHCR.

For these discovered to be refugees, UNHCR will start to search for considered one of a spread of what options, together with resettlement to a 3rd nation or voluntary repatriation, if an individual is ready to “return in security and dignity.”

This marks the beginning of a brand new chapter for the group of passengers, who’ve lived for years in overcrowded, unhygienic and unsafe refugee camps in Bangladesh, after fleeing many years of systematic discrimination, widespread brutality and sexual violence of their dwelling nation of Myanmar.

“Stateless, persecuted, these Rohingya refugees have identified little peace,” mentioned UNHCR’s Baloch.

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Rather more must be completed by the worldwide group for the persecuted group, that suffer on a scale most can not think about, he added.

For Nesa, the hope stays that she may be reunited together with her different daughter some day.

“I used to be about to die (in Bangladesh),” she mentioned. “Allah gave me a brand new life … My youngsters ought to get a correct schooling. That’s all that I needed.”

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Video: Heavy Rains and Wind Wreak Havoc on the West Coast

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Heavy Rains and Wind Wreak Havoc on the West Coast

A series of atmospheric rivers has caused flooding and damage in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people.

It just crashed through the front of the house, crashed through the kitchen, and it broke the whole ridge beam. The whole peak of the house is just crushed.

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How long will Trump’s honeymoon with the stock market last?

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How long will Trump’s honeymoon with the stock market last?

Few were surprised when US stocks jumped after Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the presidential election. Amid widespread assumptions of weeks of uncertainty, a clear result was always likely to prompt an initial relief rally. More unexpected was what has happened since.

The president-elect has nominated a string of hardliners to senior positions, signalling his intent to push ahead with a radical agenda to enact sweeping tariffs and deport millions of illegal immigrants that many economists warn would cause inflation and deficits to spiral upward.

Yet the stock market — the economic barometer most closely watched by the general public, and one often referenced by Trump himself — seems to have shown little sign of concern.

The S&P 500, Wall Street’s benchmark index for large stocks, is still up about 3 per cent since the vote, even after a slight pullback. The main index of small cap stocks is up almost 5 per cent.

The relative cost of borrowing for large companies has also plummeted to multi-decade lows, and speculative assets such as bitcoin have surged.

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Under the surface, not every part of the stock market has been so calm. A Citi-created index of stocks that may be vulnerable to government spending cuts, for example, has tumbled 8 per cent since the election, while healthcare stocks have been hit by the nomination of vaccine sceptic Robert Kennedy Jr to head the health department.

The prospect of inflation arising from tariffs and a tighter labour market has also spooked many in the $27tn Treasury market, with some high-profile groups warning about over-exuberance.

But the contrasting signals raise some key questions for traders and policymakers alike: are equity investors setting themselves up for a fall by ignoring high valuations and potential downsides of Trumponomics, or will they be proved right as gloomy economists once again have to walk back their dire prognoses?

“Any time . . . you get to the point where markets are beyond priced to perfection, you have to be concerned about complacency”, says Sonal Desai, chief investment officer at Franklin Templeton Fixed Income.

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But, she adds, “the reality is you also need to very actively look for triggers for sell-offs, and right now . . . I think the underlying economy is strong and the policies of the incoming administration are unlikely to move that significantly.”


The bull case was on full display at the Wynn resort in Las Vegas this week, where more than 800 investors, bankers and executives were gathered for Goldman Sachs’ annual conference for “innovative private companies”.

With interest rates now trending downward, capital markets specialists had already been preparing for a recovery in stock market listings and mergers and acquisitions activity, but the election result has poured fuel on the fire.

Walter Lundon, a trader, shows off his pro-Trump T-shirt on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
Walter Lundon, a trader, shows off his pro-Trump T-shirt on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Investors believe Trump will follow through on pledges to cut taxes and regulation © Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress in addition to the White House, investors are assuming that it will be easy for the Trump administration to fulfil promises to slash corporate taxes and scale back regulation. At the same time, more contentious proposals such as the introduction of tariffs were frequently dismissed by attendees as a “negotiating tactic”.

David Solomon, Goldman chief executive, said at the conference: “The market is basically saying they think the new administration will bring [regulation] back to a place where it’s more sensible.”

One hedge fund manager in attendance sums up the atmosphere more bluntly. “There are lots of giddy investors here getting excited about takeout targets,” he says. “M&A is now a real possibility because of the new administration. That’s been the most exciting [element of Trump’s proposals] . . . I think the mood is better than it’s been in the past four years.”

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The emphasis on tax and deregulation is clear when looking at which sectors have been the biggest winners in the recent market rally: financial services and energy.

The S&P 500 financials sub-index has jumped almost 8 per cent since the vote, while the energy sub-index is up almost 7 per cent. Energy executives have celebrated the president-elect’s pledges to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and open up federal lands for fracking in pursuit of US “energy dominance”.

The Russell 2000 index, which measures small cap companies, has also risen faster than the S&P thanks to its heavy weighting towards financial stocks, and a belief that smaller domestically focused companies have more to gain from corporate tax cuts.

Chris Shipley, co-chief investment officer at Fort Washington Investment Advisors, which manages about $86bn, says that “we believe the market has acted rationally since the election”, citing the concentration of gains in areas that could benefit from trends such as deregulation and M&A.

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Even policies that most mainstream economists think would have a negative effect overall — like a sharp increase in tariffs — could ironically boost the relative appeal of US stocks by hitting other countries even harder.

The Europe-wide Stoxx 600 index, for example, has slipped since the election as investors bet the export-dependent region will be heavily hit by any increase in trade tensions. At the same time, the euro has dipped to a two-year low against the dollar.

“The ‘America First’ policy, not surprisingly, will be good for the US versus the rest of the world,” says Kay Herr, US chief investment officer for JPMorgan Asset Management’s global fixed income, currency and commodities team.


The worry among economists and many bond investors, however, is that Trump’s policies could create broader economic problems that would eventually be hard for the stock market to ignore.

Some of Trump’s policies, such as corporate tax cuts, could boost domestic growth. But with the economy already in a surprisingly robust state despite years of worries about a potential recession, some like former IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard fear an “overheating” that would lead to a resurgence in inflation and a subsequent slowdown.

A shale gas well drilling site in Pennsylvania
A shale gas well drilling site in Pennsylvania. The incoming Trump administration is expected to open up federal lands for fracking in pursuit of US ‘energy dominance’ © Keith Srakocic/AP

Demand-driven inflation could be exacerbated by supply-side pressures if Trump follows through with some of his more sweeping policy pledges.

On the campaign trail, Trump proposed a baseline 10 per cent import tariff on all goods made outside the US, and 60 per cent if they are made in China. Economists generally agree that the cost of tariffs falls substantially on the shoulders of consumers in the country enacting them. Walmart, the largest retailer in the US, warned this week it might have to raise prices if tariffs are introduced.

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Deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, meanwhile, would remove a huge source of labour from the US workforce, driving up wages and reducing the capacity of US companies to supply goods and services.

Economists at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank both predicted this week that Trump’s policies would drag on GDP growth by 2026, and make it harder for the Federal Reserve to bring inflation back to its 2 per cent target.

Tom Barkin, president of the Richmond Fed and a voting member on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, says he understands concerns among the business community about tariffs reigniting inflation, and says the US was “somewhat more vulnerable to cost shocks” than in the past.

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But some investors believe the risks to be minimal. “In our view, the inflationary concerns . . . regarding tariffs are overblown,” says Shipley of Fort Washington.

Fed policymakers have been quick to stress that they will not prejudge any potential policies before they have been officially announced, but bond investors have already scaled back their forecasts for how much the central bank will be able to cut interest rates over the next year.

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Interest rate futures are now pricing in a fall in Fed rates to roughly 4 per cent by the end of 2025, from the current level of 4.5-4.75 per cent. In September, investors were betting they would fall below 3 per cent by then.

Meanwhile, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which rises when prices fall, is up about 0.8 percentage points since mid-September to 4.4 per cent. As a consequence, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage is also ticking upward, to near 7 per cent.

“The bond market has been very focused on deficits and fiscal expansion, and the equity market has been focused, it seems, on deregulation and the growth aspect,” says JPMorgan’s Herr. But “at some point, a higher [Treasury yield] is problematic to equities”.

In part, that is because higher bond yields represent an alternative source of attractive returns at much lower risk than stocks. But the more important impact could come from the warning signal a further increase in yields would represent.

The rise in yields is being driven by concerns both about inflation and also higher government debt levels, says Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco. “2024 marks the first year in which the US spends more to service its debt than it spends on its entire defence budget. And that’s not sustainable in my opinion over the longer term, and so we have to worry about the potential for a mini Liz Truss moment.”

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Former UK prime minister Truss’s attempt to introduce billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts and increased borrowing in 2022 caused a massive sell-off in British government debt that spilled into currency and equity markets.

Demonstrators in New York protests against Trump’s immigration proposals
Demonstrators in New York protest against Trump’s immigration proposals. His plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants would remove a large chunk from the US workforce © Michael Nigro/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

The structure and scale of the US Treasury market makes this sort of “bond vigilantism” less likely, strategists and investors stress, but many institutions have begun paying more attention to the possibility.

“Over the next two to four years, do I think that there’s a very serious risk of bond vigilantes coming back? Absolutely. And that’s entirely based on what the multiyear plan will be, and the impact which comes out of it,” says Franklin Templeton’s Desai.


Trump and his advisers have dismissed concerns about their economic agenda, arguing that policies such as encouraging the domestic energy sector will help keep inflation low and growth high.

Even if they do not, several investors in Las Vegas this week suggested that the president-elect’s personal preoccupation with the stock market would help restrain him from the most potentially damaging policies.

“I think Trump and all his donors measure their success and happiness around where the US stock market is,” says the hedge fund manager. “It’s one reason why I’m pretty bullish despite the market being where it is.”

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Economists have also consistently underestimated the resilience of the US economy in recent years. The combination of Trump’s attentiveness and economists’ poor past forecasting means even sceptical investors are wary of betting against the US market.

“There are risks out there,” says Colin Graham, head of multi-asset strategies at Robeco. “If some of the more extreme policies that were talked about during the campaign get implemented, our core view for next year is going to be wrong.

“But what is our biggest risk here? Missing out on the upside. The momentum is very strong.”

Data visualisation by Keith Fray and Chris Giles

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Can Matt Gaetz return to Congress? He says he won’t.

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Can Matt Gaetz return to Congress? He says he won’t.

Gaetz not returning to Congress

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Gaetz on not returning to Congress after dropping out of Trump attorney general consideration

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Former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida says he doesn’t intend to return to Congress in January, after resigning from his seat and withdrawing from consideration as U.S. attorney general. 

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Gaetz announced his withdrawal Thursday, citing the distraction his impending nomination was causing, and President-elect Donald Trump soon afterward said former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi would be his new pick for the job. But Gaetz won reelection to his U.S. House seat earlier this month, so there were some questions about whether he was considering a return to Congress in January. 

But Gaetz told conservative personality Charlie Kirk on Friday that he doesn’t intend to go back to Congress, though he vowed to continue to fight for Trump and do “whatever he asks of me.”

“I’m still going to be in the fight, but it’s going to be from a new perch,” Gaetz told Kirk. “I do not intend to join the 119th Congress. … Charlie, I’ve been in an elected office for 14 years. I first got elected to the state house when I was 26 years old, and I’m 42 now, and I’ve got some other goals in life that I’m eager to pursue with my wife and my family, and so I’m going to be fighting for President Trump. I’m going to be doing whatever he asks of me, as I always have. But I think that eight years is probably enough time in the United States Congress.”

But it may not be the end of his political career. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, first elected in 2018, will not be running again in 2026, since he’s limited by law to two terms as the state’s chief executive. 

Gaetz stepped down from Congress as the House Ethics Committee was weighing whether to release the report from its yearslong investigation into sexual misconduct and illegal drug use allegations. The committee lacked sufficient votes to release the report earlier this week but will, according to Democratic Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, reconvene on Dec. 5 to “further consider” the matter. 

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