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More than 3,000 shark fins confiscated in Colombia

AFP

Thousands of shark fins were confiscated by Colombian authorities before they could be illegally shipped to Hong Kong, officials said.

Bogota “seized 3,493 shark fins and 117 kilos of fish bladders that were en route to Hong Kong”, environmental ministry head Carolina Urrutia said.

The haul highlights the continued demand for shark fin, served at wedding banquets in some Chinese communities and falsely believed to have medicinal properties.

The fins, removed from 900 to 1,000 sharks measuring up to five metres, were found on Friday in five boxes in Bogota’s busiest airport El Dorado.

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Taken “more than three species” of shark, the fins were likely harvested in “illegal fishing”, said Urrutia, condemning “the irreversible environmental damage to Colombia’s marine ecosystem”.

National police will handle the investigation, she added.

Shark fishing has been banned in Colombia — which is home to 76 of the 500 known shark varieties — since 2020 in an attempt to stem Asia’s fin trade.

The sale and consumption of shark fin is not illegal in Hong Kong but must be licensed, and has remained stubbornly popular despite years of campaigning.

Some of the ocean’s most vital apex predators, shark populations have been decimated over the last few decades with finning and industrial longline fishing the main culprits.

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International

Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.

“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.

“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.

Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.

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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.

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International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

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.”

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