International

George Clooney campaigns for Biden after criticizing his position on the ICC

Actor George Clooney is one of the last actors to join the campaign for the re-election of U.S. President Joe Biden, and will be present this week at a fundraising event together with actress Julia Roberts, according to several campaign sources.

This announcement comes after it was known last week that Clooney spoke to Biden’s team and criticized his Administration’s position on the International Criminal Court (ICC), which his wife, Amal Clooney, an expert in humanitarian law, advises on the case of the crisis in the Gaza Strip.

According to The New York Times, Clooney passed on his complaint to Steve Ricchetti, Biden’s advisor and who is responsible for campaign fundraising in the past.

Amal Clooney has been a key advisor to the ICC prosecutors in the case against Israel for the humanitarian impact of her offensive against Hamas in Gaza, which has caused more than 35,000 civilian casualties.

The White House has reiterated that it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC and considers “intolerable” the request for arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, and does not consider it comparable to the actions of the Palestinian Hamas militia, whose leaders are also wanted by the Prosecutor’s Office.

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This Saturday Clooney and actress Julia Roberts will participate in a campaign fundraising event in Los Angeles along with Biden and former President Barack Obama.

The event is organized by presenter Jimmy Kimmel, who will moderate a conversation with the president, will host the Hollywood elite in support of the Democrat’s re-election.

Despite the differences created by Biden’s position against the invasion of Gaza, which is costing him support in the most progressive wing, the president has a lot of support among Hollywood celebrities, who have already shown their support on several occasions with fundraising parties and campaign messages.

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.