livus

Some 7% of Reddit’s free share float (or more) has been sold short so far, according to an estimate from the analytics company Ortex cited by Reuters. That’s something the social platform was worried would happen, noting in its prospectus that retail traders in its subreddits (and particularly on r/WallStreetBets) could cause “extreme volatility” in Reddit’s share price. Those Redditors had already signaled in posts that they were planning to short the stock.

Public data revealing short interest positions on Reddit won’t be available until April 9.

Reddit shares fell as much as 11% at market open to a low of $51.52 after an already-bad Wednesday. Bloomberg reports that Wednesday’s decline was in part due to a Hedgeye Risk Management report naming Reddit as a short idea, saying the stock could plummet 50%.

Reddit’s share price in the low $50 range is still well above its IPO price of $34, and even above its impressive first-day closing price of $48, which had investors chattering about the company’s impressive gains.

Schindler’s List director says in speech marking 30th anniversary of the USC Shoah Foundation that he is alarmed that ‘we may … once again have to fight for the very right to be Jewish’.

In remarks reported by Deadline, Spielberg said: “Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I am increasingly alarmed that we may be condemned to repeat history – to once again have to fight for the very right to be Jewish.”

He added: “The echoes of history are unmistakable in our current climate. The rise of extremist views has created a dangerous environment, and radical intolerance leads a society to no longer celebrate differences but instead conspire to demonise those who are different to the point of creating ‘the Other’… This is happening alongside anti-Muslim, Arab, and Sikh discrimination. The creation of ‘the Other’ and the dehumanisation of any group based on their differences, is the foundation of fascism.”

Spielberg also directly addressed the current conflict in Gaza for the first time, saying: “We can rage against the heinous acts committed by the terrorists of October 7th and also decry the killing of innocent women and children in Gaza.”

A West Papua freedom movement leader is renewing calls for a UN human rights visit to Papua after new videos of Indonesian soldiers torturing a West Papuan man emerged online.

Violence by armed groups has escalated in Haiti, the poorest country in the Caribbean. The issues go back to the era in which Haiti was ruled by the colonizing power France.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that only an expansion of land crossings into Gaza could help prevent famine in the densely populated Palestinian enclave.

Japan's Space One's small, solid-fuelled Kairos rocket exploded shortly after its inaugural launch on Wednesday as the firm tried to become the first Japanese company to put a satellite in orbit. The 18-metre (59 ft), four-stage solid-fuel rocket exploded seconds after lifting off just after 11:01 a.m. (0201 GMT), leaving behind a large loud of smoke, a fire, fragments of the rocket and firefighting water sprays near the launch pad, visible on local media livestreams of the launch on the tip of mountainous Kii peninsula in western Japan.

Space One said the flight was "interrupted" after the launch and was investigating the situation. There was no immediate indication of what caused the explosion, or whether there were any injuries. Pads typically have no people anywhere nearby during a launch. Space One has said the launch is highly automated and requires roughly a dozen staff at the ground control centre.
Kairos carried an experimental government satellite that can temporarily replace intelligence satellites in orbit if they fall offline.

Space One had planned the launch for Saturday but postponed it after a ship entered the nearby restricted sea area.

The young asylum seeker was forced into piloting the boat on which at least four people drowned. Under new ‘stop the boats’ laws, he’s responsible for their deaths – but others say he’s a victim

Ahmad al-Ghuferi's wife, mother and daughters were killed when a strike hit the home where they sheltered.

A secretive committee of senior officials in Ethiopia’s largest and most populous region, Oromiya, has ordered extra-judicial killings and illegal detentions to crush an insurgency there, a Reuters investigation has found.

Reuters interviewed more than 30 federal and local officials, judges, lawyers and victims of abuses by authorities. The agency also reviewed documents drafted by local political and judicial authorities. These interviews and documents for the first time shed light on the workings of the Koree Nageenyaa – Security Committee in the Oromo language - which began operating in the months after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018. The committee’s existence has not been previously reported.

Five current and former government officials told Reuters that the committee is at the heart of Abiy’s efforts to end a years-old insurgency by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which wants self-determination for the Oromo people and greater language and cultural rights. Oromos have long complained of political and social marginalisation. When new protests broke out in 2019, the government cracked down hard. The Koree Nageenyaa took the lead, the five officials said.

The violence in Oromiya has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Ethiopia’s government and human rights officials accuse the OLA of killing scores of civilians since 2019, a charge the group denies.

We unpack some must-see K-dramas and Korean films for 2024, including "Parasite" star Song Kang-ho's first lead role in a drama series.

The United States on Saturday condemned worsening violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), blaming it on M23, an armed group it said is backed by Rwanda.
A statement from the U.S. State Department called on M23 to cease hostilities immediately and withdraw from its current positions around Sake and Goma.
"The United States condemns Rwanda's support for the M23 armed group," the statement said.
It called on Rwanda to immediately withdraw all of its military personnel from the DRC and remove surface-to-air missile systems, saying these threatened the lives of civilians, U.N. and other regional peacekeepers, humanitarian workers and commercial flights in eastern DRC. Rwanda denies supporting the rebels.
The U.S. statement also called on the DRC to continue to support confidence building measures, including by ceasing cooperation with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda armed group.

This is what it takes to organise the largest and most complex single-day election on the planet.