International
The first shipment of food by sea to Gaza is going as planned, according to NGOs
The first shipment of humanitarian aid by sea to Gaza is going as planned and the spis to disembark on the coast of the Strip will be ready when it reaches its destination, World Central Kitchen (WCK), one of the managers of the operation, said on Thursday.
“Our departure and sailing times will fit perfectly with our arrival and construction times of this port. Everything is going as planned,” Juan Camilo Jiménez, Response Manager of World Central Kitchen (WCK), the NGO founded by Spanish chef José Andrés, told EFE.
For security reasons, no details have been given about the crossing or the time of arrival at the Strip.
This organization, together with the Spanish NGO Open Arms, have been planning for months the opening of a humanitarian corridor by sea, which was inaugurated last Tuesday with the departure from Cyprus of a ship carrying 200 tons of food, equivalent to about 500,000 meals.
Jiménez also confirmed that a second shipment is already being prepared in the Cypriot port of Larnaca, of another 400 tons, which will leave in the coming days, with the aim of alleviating the famine caused by the blockade and Israel’s attacks on Gaza in its offensives to try to destroy the Islamist group Hamas after the terrorist massacre of last October 7.
As with the Open Arms, this second boat will unload the food on the 35-meter edor that WCK collaborators are building to make up for the lack of ports on the coast of Gaza.
However, Jiménez acknowledged that since this operation was planned, he was aware that these maritime shipments should not replace other entry routes, such as the Rafah land crossing, between Egypt and Gaza, having more capacity, air supplies or more corridors by sea.
“This is one more way and at the moment there are not enough ways to meet the demand for the needs that exist,” he said.
Regarding the distribution of food on the ground, Jiménez recalled that WCK has been working in Gaza for four months, where it has prepared 35 million meals in collaboration with staff and local communities.
Thus, to avoid crowds and problems with the arrival of aid by sea, the NGO will adapt the logistics and networks it has built in recent months, he said.
Regarding the announcement last Friday by the European Commission of the opening of a maritime corridor, the head of WCK said that he does not know what are the “mechanisms” that European governments or other countries have in place, but his NGO is willing to listen and see how it can join.
At the moment, the first shipment and the one being prepared have been coordinated with Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
Although there is a lot of hope that this maritime corridor will serve to alleviate the serious humanitarian needs of the Strip, its government, controlled by Hamas, has criticized the initiative because the 200 tons of food it loads “does not exceed that of one or two trucks” and also “it takes days to arrive.”
Hamas, like humanitarian agencies, insist on the need to open more land routes for the distribution of aid throughout the enclave, especially in the north, where more than 700,000 citizens are at risk of famine and 27 people, mostly babies, have already died from malnutrition and dehydration.
“The efforts to help our people are weak and remain below the minimum required in the face of the humanitarian catastrophe that afflicts,” the Gaza government lamented yesterday.
Meanwhile, after more than five months of war, hunger and bombs continue to kill people in the enclave, where the death toll amounts to 31,340 dead and 73,134 injured, in addition to about 7,000 bodies trapped under the rubble, according to the Ministry of Health.
International
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links
A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
International
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”
The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
International
Miyazaki’s style goes viral with AI but at what cost?
This week, you may have noticed that everything—from historical photos and classic movie scenes to internet memes and recent political moments—has been reimagined on social media as Studio Ghibli-style portraits. The trend quickly went viral thanks to ChatGPT and the latest update of OpenAI’s chatbot, released on Tuesday, March 25.
The newest addition to GPT-4o has allowed users to replicate the distinctive artistic style of the legendary Japanese filmmaker and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away). “Today is a great day on the internet,” one user declared while sharing popular memes in Ghibli format.
While the trend has captivated users worldwide, it has also highlighted ethical concerns about AI tools trained on copyrighted creative works—and what this means for the livelihoods of human artists.
Not that this concerns OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which has actively encouraged the “Ghiblification”experiments. Its CEO, Sam Altman, even changed his profile picture on the social media platform X to a Ghibli-style portrait.
Miyazaki, now 84 years old, is known for his hand-drawn animation approach and whimsical storytelling. He has long expressed skepticism about AI’s role in animation. His past remarks on AI-generated animation have resurfaced and gone viral again, particularly when he once said he was “utterly disgusted” by an AI demonstration.
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