International

Salvadoran culture takes center stage at SalviFest in Los Angeles

Salvadoran culture will make its presence felt in the heart of Los Angeles, California, with the SalviFest, a festival organized by Salvadoran entrepreneurs abroad. Scheduled for September 28 and 29, this event marks the celebration of Salvadoran Independence for the third consecutive year.

Salvi Productions is the company responsible for bringing the blue and white of Salvadoran national festivities to the Salvadoran community in California, while also generating interest among people from other countries who attend the event to learn more about Salvadorans and their culture.

The festival will showcase Salvadoran culture and traditions, including food, indigo artisans, painters, and a variety of Salvadoran tastes. This year, the festival will adopt a more innovative, youthful, and Americanized approach to help Salvadorans born in the United States connect with their country of origin.

More than 50 sponsors, over 30 bands and Latin artists, and more than 30 vendors are set to welcome over 7,000 visitors daily to the festival.

“Now, thanks to the positive image of our President Nayib Bukele and his government, people from other countries want to learn more about El Salvador and Salvadorans. Why not invite them to our festival?” said Salvador Pascasio, President of Salvi Productions.

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In this regard, Pascasio mentioned that this year’s festival aims to include participants from other countries in the region to promote inclusivity.

“This year we will include all Central American countries and Mexico. We are doing things differently because we need to understand that culture and communities should include other nationalities,” he said.

The event will also feature officials from the United States government, the Los Angeles City Council, and is expected to see the presence of Salvadoran government representatives.

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.