International

Up to 13 hours of power cuts in Ecuador due to severe drought

Ecuador lives this Thursday with power cuts of up to 13 hours, a measure caused by the reduction of hydroelectric energy generated due to the drought and that led the Government to ask, without much success, that working hours be suspended.

The reservoirs register alarming storage levels on the eve of the holding of a binding referendum on the measures proposed by President Daniel Noboa to try to tackle the growing violence linked to drug trafficking.

The movement in the large urban transport stations of Quito was the usual one, despite the Government’s request. The buses left for several points in the capital, bypassing the lack of traffic lights in some sectors, where the electricity service had been suspended.

The cuts began on Sunday without warning, for shorter periods, but they have been getting longer with the passage of the days.

“Yesterday I was taken from eight to eleven (in the morning) and it is the time it takes to work. Today with eight hours (of suspension) it will be worse, it affects us a lot,” Segundo Guacho tells AFP.

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The 45-year-old man owns a computer rental business in downtown Quito and maintains that in three days he has lost about $200 in income due to the interruption of the service.

The Executive suspended the working day in the public and private sectors on Thursday and Friday, as well as classes, after announcing that the Mazar (the most important) and Paute reservoirs, both in the south of the Andean area, are in “critical conditions” by registering storage levels of 0% and 4%, respectively.

The flow rate in the largest hydroelectric power plant, Coca Codo Sinclair (northern Amazon), with the capacity to generate 1,500 MW of power to cover 30% of national demand, is 60% of the historical average.

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”

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.”

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.