The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, denounced an alleged “sabotage” and asked for an investigation into the power cuts generated since last weekend in different parts of the country, in the face of the impossibility of meeting all the national demand.
“We have initiated an investigation for sabotage, because, in certain areas, in certain power plants, there has been sabotage. We are not going to allow that to happen, and they do it miserable the last week before a popular consultation because they know that they had it lost,” he said without mentioning any name of possible perpetrators.
Noboa added that they have declared the country’s energy sector in an “emergency” and said that he has requested the resignation of the Minister of Energy and Mines, Andrea Arrobo, who last Friday had assured that there would be no blackouts in the short term despite pointing out that the largest reservoir in the country was at its minimum level.
“This investigation is not going to rest, we have already submitted (the complaint to) the Prosecutor’s Office,” he said, adding that “every person involved will be considered, not only a traitor to the homeland, but a threat to national security.”
The ruler added: “No one is going to ‘count’ me (tell a story) in the last second that we have to give five hours of blackout to (the province of) Guayas. We are not going to give more blackouts this week,” he said without mentioning whether the decision applies only to Guayas, whose capital is the port city of Guayaquil, or to the whole country.
Advertisement
20250301_vacunacion_vph-728x90
20241211_mh_noexigencia_dui_728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
domfuturo_netview-728x90
20240604_dom_728x90
CEL
“To counteract the actions of these miserable people, we will cover 50% of the electricity sheet of the homes of the month of April,” he said amid the applause of the attendees of a scholarship ceremony.
The ruler opined that there are those who “today want to deceive Ecuador into saying that we are not prepared for this fight, that we are not prepared to face narco-terrorism.”
“But here, forcefully, with courage, we will not give rest to any of these criminals, nor to the politicians, nor to the former officials, nor to the former presidents, nor to any of these terrorists who today want to end the hope of our youth and the Ecuadorian family,” he added.
His adversaries, he said, take advantage of the needs of the most vulnerable “to see if they turn around a popular consultation that Ecuador requested and that Ecuador is going to vote ‘Yes’.”
More than 13 million Ecuadorians are called to the polls next Sunday to vote in a referendum on security, justice and employment issues.
Advertisement
20250301_vacunacion_vph-728x90
20241211_mh_noexigencia_dui_728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
domfuturo_netview-728x90
20240604_dom_728x90
CEL
Among the questions are the possibility of the military permanently supporting the Police in the control of the security of the country and the extradition of Ecuadorians required by the Justice of other countries, among other issues such as the recognition of international arbitrations in any jurisdiction and hourly labor contracts.
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.
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.”
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.
