International
Police reinforce the suspicion that Bolsonaro was illegally spying on his adversaries
The Federal Police reinforced the suspicion that former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro maintained an illegal espionage network, with resources from the State, to monitor his political adversaries while he was in power, according to documents declassified this Thursday by the Supreme Court.
The documents are part of an investigation initiated last year and reveal that illegal espionage reached parliamentarians, members of the Judiciary, journalists and governors, among many others considered adversaries of the leader of the far-right.
The decision to disseminate those documents was made by Judge Alexandre de Moraes, responsible for the investigation in the Supreme Court, on the same day that the Federal Police arrested four alleged members of that illegal network, among whom is a former official of the press office of the Presidency during the Bolsonaro Government (2019-2022).
According to the Federal Police, among those monitored was the current president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, despite the fact that at the time he was considered close to Bolsonaro, and at least four of the eleven members of the Supreme Court.
On the network, also according to the Police, the press office of the Presidency and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin), whose director at the time, Alexandre Ramagem, would have been in charge of that illegal espionage, operated together.
The documents also renew the suspicion that Ramagem, now a deputy for the extreme right, would also have used that network to spy on the Police itself in relation to proceedings taking place in the courts against three of Jair Bolsonaro’s sons.
The former president faces various processes in Justice, but so far he has only been charged in two, in which he appears as suspected of illegally appropriating gifts received during his term, which should be delivered to the State acquis, and in which he is accused of having used an illegal network to obtain a false certificate of vaccination against COVID-19.
In the most serious of the open processes, it is about having planned a coup d’état to prevent the investiture of the current president, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated him in the 2022 elections.
After the dissemination of the documents, Bolsonaro made no comments on the matter, at least immediately, but he had already completely rejected the existence of that alleged espionage network.
Last February, when the residence of his son Carlos Bolsonaro, a councilor in Rio de Janeiro, was raided within the framework of this investigation, the leader of the far-right reacted angrily and assured that there is “no proof” of that espionage to his opponents.
As he said at that time, everything would be part of the “persecution” that he says he suffers since Lula came to power and only has as a basis “a lot of ‘fake news’” that will be “disassembled” by his lawyers.
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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