WASHINGTON: Hedge fund manager Steven Eisman, known for a big winning bet against the US housing market dramatized in the movie “The Big Short,” was put on leave by his firm on Friday after he said on social media he was celebrating devastation in the Gaza Strip.
His firm, Neuberger Berman, said Eisman did not speak on its behalf and called his actions “objectionable.” More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s nearly year-old war in the enclave, the Gaza health ministry has said.
An X user posted that the world was silent about war-ravaged Gaza. Eisman responded: “You must be kidding. We are not silent. We are celebrating.” His account has since been deleted.
Eisman could not immediately be contacted. In comments cited by media reports, he apologized for his remarks and said he had intended to refer to Israel’s attacks on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.
A Neuberger Berman spokesperson distanced the firm from Eisman’s comments.
“Even though Mr. Eisman has acknowledged that he mistook the content of the post he responded to, his actions on social media were irresponsible and objectionable,” the company spokesperson added. Eisman joined the firm in 2014.
Eisman profited from the 2007 crisis in the US subprime mortgage market, which turned into a global financial crisis, by shorting the stocks of American banks. The episode was the basis for the 2015 film “The Big Short.”
Human rights advocates have warned about rising dehumanization of Arabs, Muslims and Jews amid Israel’s war in Gaza which has displaced nearly Gaza’s entire 2.3 million population, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Israel’s actions followed an attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which governs Gaza, on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 were killed and about 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. It sparked the latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
US hedge fund executive sent on leave of absence for post celebrating Gaza catastrophe
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US hedge fund executive sent on leave of absence for post celebrating Gaza catastrophe
- Hedge fund Neuberger Berman said manager Steven Eisman did not speak on its behalf and called his actions “objectionable”
- Eisman profited from the 2007 crisis in the US subprime mortgage market, which turned into a global financial crisis, by shorting the stocks of American banks
Trump in phone call advised Putin not to escalate in Ukraine
Trump advised Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of “Washington’s sizeable military presence in Europe,” the Post reported.
During the election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the war “within a day,” but did not explain how he would do so.
Trump had also spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, according to media reports.
On Friday, the Kremlin said Putin was ready to discuss Ukraine with Trump but that did not mean that he was willing to alter Moscow’s demands.
On June 14, Putin set out his terms for an end to the war: Ukraine would have to drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from all of the territory of four regions claimed by Russia.
Ukraine rejected that, saying it would be tantamount to capitulation, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has put forward a “victory plan” that includes requests for additional military support from the West.
Bangladesh to seek Interpol alert for Hasina loyalists
- Dozens of Hasina loyalists accused of involvement in bloody crackdown have been arrested
DHAKA: Bangladesh said Sunday it would request an Interpol “red notice” alert for fugitive leaders of the ousted regime of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was toppled in a revolution in August.
“Those responsible for the indiscriminate killings during the mass uprising in July and August will be brought back from wherever they have taken refuge,” Asif Nazrul, the interim government’s law adviser, told reporters on Sunday.
“We will ensure they are arrested and brought to justice.”
Dozens of Hasina’s allies have been taken into custody since her regime collapsed, accused of involvement in a police crackdown that killed more than 700 people during the unrest that led to her ouster.
France-based Interpol publishes red notices at the request of a member nation, based on an arrest warrant issued in their home country.
Nazrul did not mention any individual by name, but Bangladesh has already issued an arrest warrant for 77-year-old Hasina — last seen arriving in India after fleeing by helicopter as crowds stormed her palace.
Hasina’s 15-year rule saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents.
Red notices issued by the global police body alert law enforcement agencies worldwide about fugitives.
Nazrul said they would request a red notice “as soon as possible”.
India is a member of Interpol, but the red notice does not mean New Delhi must hand Hasina over.
Chad troops killed in clashes with militants
N’DJAMENA: Numerous Chad troops have been killed in a clash with militants in the Lake Chad region, the latest such incident in the central African nation, officials said on Sunday.
“I present my sincere condolences to the families of the martyrs who fell defending the homeland during this clash and I wish a speedy recovery to the wounded,” President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said in a post on Facebook, without providing any other details.
The clash was the latest since late October, when an attack by Boko Haram militants on a Chadian military base killed at least 40 people. In response, the army launched an operation against the militants.
In a statement, the army chief of staff said on Saturday that there was a clash during the day and after several hours “numerous terrorist elements were neutralized” and that a toll would be published later.
According to military sources, the fighting took place in the afternoon on the Karia island, in the northwest of the Lake Chad region.
Several local media published what they said were lists of the troops killed and wounded.
Elsewhere in Africa, gunmen killed 15 people in an attack on a northwest Nigerian village, officials confirmed, amid reports of a newly arrived militant group operating in the area.
The deputy governor of Kebbi State said the assault on Mera, around 50 kilometers from the Niger border, had been carried out by “unknown gunmen.”
But the latest massacre came after officials warned that an Islamist group known as “Lakurawa,” thought to hail from Mali and Niger, had crossed into Nigeria.
Kebbi’s deputy governor, Umar Tafida, and senior security officials attended funeral prayers for the 15 victims in Mera, his office said in a statement.
Nigeria has been plagued by armed violence since the 2009 emergence of the Boko Haram group in the Lake Chad basin, in the northeast of the country.
Various militant groups have split from or emerged alongside the insurgency, notorious for several mass kidnappings of school girls, despite a military crackdown.
Armed bandits and kidnap gangs have also spread chaos across the region, alongside sometimes bloody conflicts between farming communities and nomadic herdsmen.
Dutch police arrest pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Amsterdam
- Hundreds of protesters defy prohibition to gather in the Dutch capital
AMSTERDAM: Riot police in Amsterdam began breaking up a pro-Palestinian protest on Sunday after a court upheld a ban on demonstrations following clashes this week involving Israeli soccer fans.
Hundreds of demonstrators defied the prohibition to gather in the Dutch capital’s Dam square, chanting demands for an end to violence in Gaza and “Free Palestine.”
But after a local court ratified the city authorities’ ban, police moved in, instructing protesters to leave. Several people were dragged away by police, a journalist saw.
The three-day ban was imposed from Friday after attacks on Israeli soccer supporters following a soccer match on Thursday between visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam.
At least five people were injured early on Friday, as Israeli fans were assaulted by what Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema described as “antisemitic hit-and-run squads.”
Prosecutors said late on Saturday that four suspects remained detained on suspicion of violent acts, including two minors, and that 40 people had been fined for public disturbance and 10 for offenses including vandalism. They added that they expected to make more arrests.
A large group of Maccabi supporters was seen in a video posted online by news site Bender arming themselves with sticks, pipes and rocks and twice clashing with opponents when they marched into the city after the match.
Local police chief Olivier Dutilh told the court on Sunday that the ban was still needed as antisemitic incidents were also reported on Saturday night, local TV station AT5 reported.
Dutilh told the court that people had been pushed out of taxis and intimidated by others who asked to see their passports on the streets.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has said it only targets militants, whom it accuses of hiding among civilians in homes and shelters. Israeli strikes often kill women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants blew holes in the border fence and stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
US claims Hamas is standing in the way of a ceasefire
WASHINGTON: US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that it is Hamas, not Israel, that is standing in the way of a ceasefire in Gaza.
Sullivan, appearing on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” added that the US will make a judgment about the progress Israel has made over a letter that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote last month regarding humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Ceasefire talks mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt have repeatedly stalled since the start of the year.
Qatar, which has served as a key mediator with Hamas, said over the weekend that it had suspended its efforts and would only resume them when “the parties show their willingness and seriousness to end the brutal war and the ongoing suffering of civilians.”
Israeli bombardment and ground invasions have left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and displaced around 90 percent of the population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
Hundreds of thousands of people are living in crowded tent camps with few if any, public services and no idea when they might return to their homes or rebuild.
Israeli forces have encircled and largely isolated Jabaliya and the nearby towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun for the past month, allowing in only a trickle of humanitarian aid.
Hundreds of people have been killed since the offensive began on Oct. 6, and tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City.
An Israeli strike on Sunday on a home sheltering displaced people in the northern Gaza Strip killed at least 17 people, according to the director of a nearby hospital that received the bodies.
Dr. Fadel Naim, director of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, said the dead include nine women and that the toll was likely to rise as rescue efforts continue.
He said they were killed in a strike on a home in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp.
The military said it targeted a site where militants were operating without providing evidence.
It said the details of the strike are under review.
On Friday, experts from a panel that monitors food security said famine is imminent in the north or may already be happening.
The growing desperation comes as the deadline approaches for a request the US gave Israel to raise the level of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on US military funding.
