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NATO summit highlights the discomfort with Orbán due to its proximity to Russia and China

Different NATO countries expressed on Thursday their discomfort over the recent trips of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, to Moscow and Beijing coinciding with the beginning of his country’s presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU).

During the allied summit that concludes today in Washington, Orbán has been seen on different occasions isolated from the informal conversations between the leaders, or also during his participation in the gala dinner offered on Wednesday night at the White House by US President Joe Biden.

When asked about the possibility of Orbán traveling to Florida to meet with the Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency. The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said that what he does should do as a Hungarian Prime Minister and not as a representative of the Council of the EU.

“It has to be clear that what Mr. Orbán does he does as Hungarian Prime Minister and not on behalf of the Council of the EU,” Scholz said when asked about it by a German journalist upon his arrival at the NATO summit.

In past days, Scholz had expressed himself in similar terms regarding Orbán’s trips to Beijing and Moscow.

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The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, denied that there is division in the Atlantic Alliance over Ukraine and assured that Orbán is “in a frank minority.”

“But I fundamentally disagree with your approach and I will say it out loud. I don’t think it makes sense to have conversations with authoritarian regimes that violate international law,” he said.

He stressed that NATO is an alliance of values that believes in international law, fundamental rights, human rights, territorial integrity and the independence of States.

“We also believe in the prerogative of sovereign states to make their own political decisions in foreign affairs and security. What Russia is doing is promoting an imperial war. And Viktor Orbán does not have any mandate from the Alliance or the European Union to carry out any type of negotiation,” he said.

In Stubb’s opinion, Orbán can perform that task “on his own,” although he assured that he did not understand what purpose it would have.

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The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, who also participates in the allied summit as a guest, made it clear that the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU “does not represent the EU externally.”

He stressed that the rotating presidencies have to play a role of “honest intermediary to defend European unity and help us build compromises.”

The EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs, Josep Borrell, said today in an interview with EFE in Washington that “there is a deep unease in the European Union about this behavior” of the Hungarian president.

A few days after assuming the rotating presidency of the EU Council on July 1, Orbán, the member of the community club closest to the Kremlin, has visited Kiev, Moscow, Beijing and Washington in what he has described as a “peace mission” for the war in Ukraine.

These visits have generated, according to Borrell, “a regrettable confusion,” since Orbán has tried to give his trips an official air using, for example, the logo of his country as president of the Council of the EU on his trips to China and Russia, despite the fact that the community bloc has insisted that it has no competence or authority to negotiate on his behalf.

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Faced with this situation, Borrell expressed his wish that the Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-Seven address this issue in the next Council, scheduled for July 22.

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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.

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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.”

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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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