International

Police kill an armed man who wanted to burn a synagogue in the north of France

The French police have killed an armed man who wanted to set fire to the synagogue in the city of Ruán, in the north of France.

This was announced this Friday by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who has so far ruled out the terrorist trail.

“I congratulate the reactivity and courage of the agents,” Darmanin said on Twitter.

For its part, the Prosecutor’s Office has announced the opening of two investigations, one regarding a voluntary fire in a place of worship and another about the circumstances of the man’s death, killed by one of the agents with his regulatory weapon.

The Ruán Prosecutor’s Office is in the process of verifying the identity of the deceased.

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“The individual was carrying only a transport card from Ruan. We are in the process of verifying his identity,” the prosecutor, Frédéric Teillet, told the press.

However, French media assure that this man, whose nationality and age are unknown, was under an expulsion order issued more than a year ago for an irregular stay in French territory, a directive that was not executed due to the legal remedies presented.

Teillet explained that he informed the anti-terrorist Prosecutor’s Office about this incident, but clarified that, for the time being, the Ruán Prosecutor’s Office is in charge of coordinating the investigations, which means that the authorities still do not see enough clues to treat that attack as a terrorist.

As for the agent who shot him, he has been placed in police custody while the images of the events are being investigated and interrogated.

However, Teillet has anticipated that, after seeing the available images of the intervention, the policeman fired his weapon within the regulations.

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According to the French press, the Police arrived at the synagogue of Ruan at 6:45 local time, alerted by the smoke coming out of it.

There they saw a man stationed on the roof of the building. Armed with an iron bar and a knife, he would have jumped on one of his agents, who responded with a shot.

The mayor of Ruán, the socialist Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, has assured on social networks that there have been no other victim of this incident and that the fire is being controlled by firefighters.

“I fully support the Israeli community of Ruhan,” said Mayer-Rossignol.

France has the most numerous Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe. Since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic acts have multiplied in the country.

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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.

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.