International
Kremlin critic Navalny says has begun sewing labour

AFP
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny announced Tuesday that he is now working in the industrial sewing outfit of his penal colony after being ordered to take up prison labour.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s best-known domestic critic was imprisoned in February and is serving two-and-a-half years on old embezzlement charges in a penal colony around 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Moscow.
Penal colonies, which are the most common form of incarceration in Russia, require inmates to choose from a variety of jobs.
“‘Prisoner Navalny, your correction is impossible without involvement in labour activity,’” the politician quoted prison officials as telling him in a Facebook post run by his team.
“‘You have been with us for nine months — it’s time to work.’”
The 45-year-old opposition leader joked that he chose sewing over baking, although kitchen roles are considered more comfortable jobs. He said he wanted to avoid “nomenklatura” positions — those reserved for officials in the Soviet era — and be closer to the “masses”.
Navalny last year survived a poisoning attack with Novichok nerve agent that he blames on the Kremlin, but which it denies. He was arrested in January after returning to Russia from Germany where he was treated.
Russia has since declared the anti-graft campaigner’s organisations and nationwide network of political offices “extremist” and many of his top allies have fled the country.
Authorities have also launched a slew of new probes against him, including a new “extremism” investigation in September that could see him spend up to a decade more in jail.
In October, he was awarded the European Union’s top human rights award, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
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.
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.”
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