International
“We have to generate more fissures in commands that support Ortega,” says Nicaraguan opponent
Former Nicaraguan presidential candidate Juan Sebastián Chamorro said in an interview with EFE that Daniel Ortega’s regime is increasingly similar to that of North Korea, for its cruelty and histrionism, and asked the opposition not to give up in its attempt to “generate more fissures” in the commands that hold the Sandinista leader.
Chamorro, 53, was one of the 222 political prisoners who in February 2023 were banished to the United States and stripped of their nationality by “traitors” and “vendepatrias”.
Considered one of the main opponents of the regime and a member of one of the best-known families in Nicaragua – his aunt Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was president between 1990 and 1997 -, the economist is in Paraguay to denounce within the framework of the 54th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) that Nicaragua “has become a huge prison.”
“We were in prison for 611 days as political prisoners, but there are more than 6 million Nicaraguans who currently live in prison: all civil and political freedoms are violated,” he said.
Although Nicaragua formally left the OAS last November on the initiative of Ortega himself, the organization’s plenary will analyze until this Friday the crisis unleashed in the country after the massive protests of April 2018, which left at least 355 dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
“Even the Nicaraguan Academy of Language, the Boy Scouts and the Red Cross have been eliminated. They have even canceled NGOs that gave shelter to stray dogs and cats! That is the level of repression we are experiencing,” Chamorro added.
Ortega, who returned to power in 2007 and since 2017 has governed with his wife, Rosario Murillo, has established a “family dynasty,” which reminds Chamorro of both the absolutist monarchies of centuries ago and the current regime that governs from Pyongyang: “We are Latin American North Korea.”
“We are not talking about a Cuban-style dictatorship, where the Communist Party chooses within its undemocratic mechanisms, where there is a certain institutionality. Ortega has destroyed his own party, the Sandinist National Liberation Front,” he explained.
This dynastic logic is, in his opinion, one of the great “weaknesses” of the regime, since it generates claims among its acolytes and truncates the aspirations of the highest commanders close to Ortega, but at the same time it is an opportunity for the opposition.
“We have to try to generate more fissures like the one we saw with his own brother,” he said in reference to Humberto Ortega Saavedra, former head of the Nicaraguan Army and one of the historical leaders of the Sandinista revolution.
In an interview with the Infobae media last May, the retired general launched unusual criticisms against the Government headed by his brother and sister-in-law and questioned the plans attributed to the presidential couple to designate their son, Laureano Ortega Murillo, as a successor.
Hours after the publication, National Police officers broke into Ortega Saavedra’s home and he was in total isolation.
“We must continue to send messages to the cadres and tell them that if they have not committed a crime, if they are not complicit in the commission of crimes against humanity or corruption, they have a space in the democratic Nicaragua of the future,” Chamorro added.
Despite certain voices that advocate an armed popular rebellion to remove Ortega from power, the former presidential candidate declared that the only way out is to continue diplomatically and economically close to the regime, although the peaceful struggle “is slower than the navy.”
“The statistics show that democratic and peaceful transitions are more effective,” he concluded.
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.”
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.
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