International
Nobel Prize winner Óscar Arias: Maduro leads a “narco-state” and it is difficult for him to surrender power
The former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Óscar Arias, said in an interview with EFE that the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, leads a “dictatorship” and a “narco-state,” so he considers it difficult for him to hand over power.
“I feel very sad but it hasn’t been something I wouldn’t have imagined. It’s not a surprise. I anticipated it because the dictators do not know how to move away from the presidential chair and, in addition, there is something very peculiar about the Government of Venezuela, and that is that it is a narco-state,” Arias said.
The 1987 Nobel Peace Prize assured that the elections of last July 28 in Venezuela were “a farce” in which Maduro “stole” the triumph and the Venezuelan people do not “deserve” that.
“The Venezuelan people deserve the government to be handed over to the winner but, unfortunately, I am very skeptical. It is not easy for a narco-state, knowing that they are going to rot in a dungeon, to hand over power,” Arias said.
The president of Costa Rica, who ruled between 1986 and 1990 and between 2006 and 2010, considered that it is “difficult” for Maduro to leave power, but that he still hopes that the situation may change because “putting Venezuela to produce is impossible with a dictatorship like the one that Maduro has.”
“Unfortunately what is going to happen with six more years of Maduro is that that people, already miserable, suffering from hunger, are going to become more and more impoverished. It is impossible, with that ideology that the Chavistas have, to be able to take out (before) that country, think about foreign investment, domestic investment, that they can diversify the economy, end inflation,” he said.
Arias, 83 years old, regretted that Mexico, Colombia and Brazil have not been so blunt when referring to the Venezuelan elections, although he clarified that it may be understandable if their intention is to be mediators.
“I thought that Mexico, Colombia and Brazil were going to tell Maduro: ‘your choice was a robbery, you stole the election of the Venezuelan people disrespecting the will of that people expressed at the polls, you committed a fraud that cannot be hidden’, but I was wrong, they didn’t do that. I understand that if the role is to mediate, they don’t have to be so blunt,” he said.
Arias assured that in advance all the polls gave as the winner the opponent Edmundo González, supported by the leader María Corina Machado, in a context in which there is “a very great discontent” with the Maduro Government and Chavismo, in general.
“The rulers of Venezuela, (Hugo) Chávez (already deceased) and Maduro have done a lot of damage. In Venezuela, killing a person is called homicide, but starving an entire people is called Chavismo and that’s what has happened. The best example is that more than 7 million Venezuelans have left (emigrated),” he said.
The Government of Venezuela denounced on Thursday to ambassadors that the electoral records released by anti-chavism are false and intend to “ignore the results” of the presidential elections, in which the electoral body ratified Nicolás Maduro as the winner, a victory questioned inside and outside the country.
For its part, the largest opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), disclosed on a website “83.5%” of the electoral acts that, they insist, demonstrate the triumph of its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, something that the Government of Venezuela rejects when considering that they are “forged documents.”
The Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office announced last Wednesday an investigation for “conspiracy” and other crimes on the website where the majority opposition disclosed the minutes of the presidential elections.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) has not published the minutes that certify Maduro’s victory, as indicated by the legal regulations, and left in the hands of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) the process of “certification” of the official result, at the request of the president.
Former President Arias said that “for a long time” there are no independent institutions in Venezuela, since they all respond to Maduro’s orders.
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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