Russia’s ties with Cuba

by Brenda Yun on

Russia’s President, Dmitry Medvedev, completed a four-nation tour of Latin America late last week with a final stop in Cuba. The relations between the two countries appear to be strained and, at present, intense; however, Russia, like China, has an interest in drilling for oil off Cuba’s shores and is seeking further military cooperation from the advantageously positioned Castro-ruled nation.

Medvedev’s visit comes just over two weeks after Russia and Cuba signed important trade and economic agreements that signaled a strengthening of ties between the two nations. Russia was also the first nation to send aid for Cuba’s hurricane relief efforts.I find the recent talks between Venezuela, China, and Russia somewhat — if not outright — suspicious, and wouldn’t be surprised if the three socialist nations expressed a serious interest in bringing Cuba into the mix. Ever since Fidel Castro’s brother, Raúl, officially took the reigns in February, and Hurricanes Gustav and Paloma hit Cuba’s shores in August and November, the spotlight has slowly settled upon this world-famous cigar country. Cuba’s precarious relations with the United States and its recent strengthening of ties with China, Venezuela, and Russia signal a real and tenable threat to its democratic neighbors. Despite this, Raúl Castro remarked in an interview with actor/interviewer Sean Penn this fall that he would be open to reconsidering his nation’s relationship with the U.S. with President-elect Barack Obama come the new Year. What this means for American-Cuban relations following Obama’s inauguration is speculative at best.

To be certain, all eyes are on Cuba — yet most uncertain is what Cuba will do and how it will handle the outpouring of interest, diplomatic or otherwise, that it has received these recent months.

Thai government dissolved as protesters finally leave Bangkok’s airport

by Josh Lew on

The Constitutional Court of Thailand decided that the ruling People Power Party had to dissolve. Its leader, now former PM Somchai Wongsawat, was forced to leave office. That was exactly the result that the anti-government mob occupying Suvarnabhumi International Airport was hoping for. Their goal was to shut down the airport until the government was taken from power or stepped down voluntarily. Their goals achieved, the mob at the airport dispersed earlier today.

Supporters of the government criticized the court’s ruling by calling it a judicial coup. However, the court claimed it had evidence proving that the PPP, as well as several other parties, cheated and bribed their way to victory in last year’s elections. The party’s leaders will be banned from politics, but other members are already at work forming a new party called Puea Thai.

Suvarnabhumi is now empty, but it was damaged during the protests. The head of Thailand’s airports, Serirat Prasutanont, said that the airport would remain closed until 6 pm on December 15th. Equipment and systems must be checked prior to the reopening. The closure cost the airport more than $10 million.

[Related coverage @ The Nation]

Through the Gadling Lens: SLRs vs point-and-shoots, and how to edit photos without feeling like you’re cheating

by Karen Walrond on

One of the common statements I hear from people is, “well, of course your holiday images are great — look at that huge camera you use!” The truth is that with as much technology as is crammed into those tiny little point-and-shoots these days, it’s absolutely possible to take images with a point and shoot of close to equal quality to an SLR.

Don’t believe me? Then let’s try an experiment: take a look at the following three pairs of images, all taken in Bath, United Kingdom, during my recent vacation. In each pair, one of them was shot with my Nikon D300 digital SLR camera (a serious bad-boy, if I do say so myself), and the other was shot with my Nikon Coolpix (a very respectable point-and-shoot). See if you can guess which of each pair was shot with the SLR. Ready?

(A) The Royal Crescent, Bath


(B) Susannah, a local artist and photographer


(C) The Circle

Have you guessed?

Here, I’ll give you a minute.

Okay.

So, in each pair, the first image was taken with the digital SLR, and the second with the point-and-shoot. Now you might argue that the colours are warmer in the images taken by the SLR than the compact camera, or you find that you notice more contrast in one set, but I’ll wager that in each case, the clarity of the images is on par with each other, and in fact, in the pair of the Royal Crescent, I think the point-and-shoot resulted in a better image.

Besides, issues like colours and contrast can be taken care of with Photoshop.

I can hear some of you already gasping in horror, and I admit, when I first started shooting with a digital camera, I was very anti-Photoshop. “Hmph,” I sniffed, “Photoshop is used by people who don’t know how to take photos. Besides, the digital manipulation of photography is just plain dishonest.” And then I would turn my heel and vanish in a cloud of self-righteousness, all the while secretly lamenting the fact that every photo I shot didn’t look anything like I thought it looked like when I first framed it in the viewfinder of my camera.

Then one day, I was at my local camera shop, confessing to one of the guys that I worked there that I really wished I could get the kinds of images other people got. “Like that one,” I said, pointing to the display image behind him. “Why don’t my photographs look like that?”

“That?” he smiled. “It’s a great shot, agreed, but you realize that that’s been digitally manipulated, right?”

“NO!” I responded, in horror. “Seriously? That’s not just the shot he took? How… how… disappointing!”

“Why?” he asked, genuinely confused. “There’s nothing wrong with Photoshop, Karen. It’s just processing – similar to what we used to do with chemicals, back in the olden days. I mean, do you really think Ansel Adams really shot those beautiful pictures without dodging and burning and manipulating the processing of the photograph?”

That’s when it dawned on me: digital processing doesn’t have to be about deception, and it can be all about artistry. It can be a tool to help communicate what you saw or felt at the time you took the image. But if you were amazed by the colours, or the sparkle in someone’s eyes, or the moodiness of the sky, then why not make sure that people who see your images are struck by the same things?

Eventually, over time, I’ve come up with a few unofficial rules for myself when using Photoshop (or any other photo-editing software) that helps ensure I’m using the tool as honestly as possible. Understand that I’m not suggesting that others using the tool in a different way are being dishonest — again, art is in the eye of the beholder. I’m just saying that for my own warped sense of morality, using Photoshop in this way feels the most honest to me — and in fact, once you read the following, you might feel that I’m the cheatingest cheater who ever cheated. I just offer these as a jumping-off point of discussion.

1. I don’t delete pixels. I was admiring the image a friend of mine shot when coming out of a Tube station in London a few years ago. “This is great,” I said. “Thanks!” he responded. “And the best part? There was a person standing right over here,” he motioned to a substantial portion of the image, “and I just Photoshopped him out!”

Now, obviously, this didn’t change the fact that the photograph he’d taken was still beautiful; however, for me, the fact that he’d removed an item from the image made the photograph feel a bit more contrived. So my rule is that I don’t remove objectionable objects from my images — I’d much rather check through the viewfinder before I take the shot to see if it there are people or things in the way, and fix it that way, before I squeeze the shutter.

2. I don’t blatantly change colours. Let me clarify: I do sometimes bump up the hue of a colour, or accentuate the contrast in an image — because frankly? Sometimes my camera just can’t capture how amazingly blue-green the ocean is, or how shockingly yellow the fall foliage happens to be without a little help. I won’t, however, change someone’s red sweater to blue, just because I think she’d look better in that colour. All colour-clashes remain as-is.

3. I do sharpen and increase the contrast of almost every image I shoot. Not a lot, you understand, but I think it pretty much enhances every image.

4. I sometimes manipulate the lighting so that the viewer focuses on exactly what I want them to focus on, creating a “vignette” effect.

To help illustrate my point, here’s how I processed a couple of images, step-by-step:

Ellie:

This is Ellie, my niece, sitting on a large rock on Maenporth beach, in her native Cornwall, England. This image was taken right out of the camera, with no processing whatsoever:

This is a perfectly acceptable image; however, the thing is, I know that in real life, when you see Ellie, you can’t help but notice her piercing blue eyes, possibly more than any other physical characteristic. For this reason, I think a bit of tweaking might help make this point.

First, as I do with every shot, I enhanced the sharpness and the contrast a bit:

The changes are subtle; however, the added sharpness shows a bit more detail in her hair, and her eyes are starting to look more striking — more like she actually looks in real life.

Finally, I’ll use a gradient tool to “burn” the colours around her face a bit more (i.e., warm up the colours around her):

The final result, while not drastically different from the original image, communicates a bit more about her spirit-filled eyes and the warmth of her personality. In my opinion, therefore, this is a far more “accurate” image of Ellie than the original.

One more, more elaborate example:

St. Ives:

Again, the following shot of the little town of St. Ives, Cornwall, was taken straight out of the camera:

Again, not a bad photograph, but really nothing special. Still, what I remember about the moment I took this picture is that after a really beautiful day, the clouds were beginning to accumulate, and we could tell we were on the verge of seeing the last of the sun, as the rain settled in for the rest of the day. The moment actually seemed rather magical, as we watched the weather in transition. And so, in processing the image, I wanted to capture the mood of that transition.

First, as with almost every shot I take, I enhanced the sharpness and the contrast:

Already, this photograph is starting to look a bit better to me — the clouds are beginning to capture the transitional mood, and the additional sharpness has brought out the detail in the windows of all the little buildings in the town.

But watch what happens when I pull out the gradient/colour “burn” tool again:

Now the image, with the deepened hues of the sky and the ocean, really communicates the moment when the image was taken: the sky was beginning to get gloomy, the sea was mirroring the sky’s atmosphere, and the town was dearly hanging on to that last bit of sunshine. It’s exactly as I remember.

The tweaks I’ve done above are relatively minor, but for me, they make a world of difference in honing the feeling I was trying to communicate with the images. In certain cases, I modify the images even more; however, the final results still feel very honest and true. So if you’ve been reticent about trying Photoshop (or Lightbox, or Picnik — which is free! — or any other photo editing tool), perhaps what you’ve seen here will make you consider trying to add some digital magic to your photos. And once you’ve handled that, if you start to feel like you’ve finally found the artist in you, there are some really wild things you can do with textures and filters and all kinds of other treatments — go nuts!

In the meantime, if you have any questions you’d like to ask, please e-mail me at karen.walrond@weblogsinc.com, and I’ll do my best to answer them in future posts.

Karen is a writer and photographer in Houston, Texas. You can see more of her work at her site, Chookooloonks.
And for more Through the Gadling Lens, click here.

Galley Gossip: A question (and a poll) about breastfeeding on the airplane

by Heather Poole on

Dear Heather,

Is it okay to breastfeed on the airplane–specifically take-off and landing. Do the flight attendants allow it? Do you need to cover up?

Maggie R.

Dear Maggie,

Of course it’s okay to breastfeed on the airplane! And if you are going to do it, take off and landing is the best time to do it. A constant swallowing motion will help ease those little ears in a pressurized cabin when a pacifier just won’t cut it.

While flight attendants do allow breastfeeding, there are always a few bad apples in the bunch who may throw a hissy fit if you are showing too much skin – or any skin at all. Therefore I suggest you cover up with a blanket you’ve brought from home. Don’t depend on the airline to provide you a blanket, since most airlines do not carry blankets anymore and some even charge for blankets. Not to mention the filth and bacteria that probably live on those synthetic blankets. Or just use whatever you want to keep those prying eyes off your chest. Trust me, you are not imagining those glares, and even worse, those who stare.

“A man can not not look at a breast. If I see a breast I have to look at it. It could be an eighty year-old woman, but if there’s a nipple involved I’m looking. I’m sorry, I can’t help it, a breast is a breast,” said the husband a man who prefers to remain anonymous.

Unfortunately (or would that be fortunately?) not everyone feels the same as the man above, especially when the breast in question belongs to a woman caring for a child. Sure it’s socially acceptable to come onboard scantily dressed (and whine about the airlines not having blankets) and flaunt it down the aisle, but to use that same breast to feed a hungry baby is still a tad bit controversial for some reason. STILL.

Your question, Maggie, reminds me of an incident I experienced aboard a flight from New York to Los Angeles just a few months ago…

I was sitting on the jumpseat chatting with a passenger, when another passenger came to the back of the airplane carrying an infant in her arm and holding hands with a little girl who looked to be about two or three. The young mother stood in front of the lavatory door squinting.

“It’s vacant,” I told her.

She blushed. “I need to breastfeed, so it may take awhile. Just knock if someone needs to use the bathroom and I’ll come out.”

I gave her a look, the are-you-crazy-look, because as a mother of a two year-old I know it’s not easy sharing that tiny space just to change a diaper, let alone sharing it with a toddler and an infant who needs to be fed. Seriously, no one should be stuck in that germ infested port-o-potty for any length of time, particularly a newborn!

“You don’t want to do it at your seat?” I asked the mother of two very quiet children, and when I asked this question I could feel the eyes of the other flight attendants glaring at me. I looked at them, smiled, and then looked back at the passenger. “Because you can do it at your seat. If you want. But if you don’t want to that’s fine also.”

“Well…there’s a little boy sitting beside me and…I don’t know…I’ll just go in here.”

“It’s up to you,” I said, and like that the lavatory door shut and the vacant sign changed to occupied.

I know a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the idea of a breastfeeding mother sitting next to them, or even near them, on the airplane. It’s normal to feel that way. But it’s also normal to breastfeed a baby! Even on the airplane.

“Yeah well I once had this woman on my flight pull down the top of her sundress and breastfeed a child that was big enough to sit in the seat. Right out in the open. She wasn’t hiding a thing. The kid looked to be about five or six years old!” my mother said when I told her about what I was writing.

Thankfully most mothers who breastfeed are usually very good about doing what needs to be done without anyone knowing it’s even happening. Sure there are a few mothers out there who are not discreet, who do not care to be discreet, mothers who make even me uncomfortable, especially when I have to reach over the boob to place a drink on the tray table, but the majority of mothers I come into contact with feel a little weird about breastfeeding on an airplane, just as weird as you do about seeing a baby being breastfed on the airplane. But a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do! Better a breastfed baby than a crying baby I say. So unless the kid is big enough to….well…you know, JUST BIG, as in real big, give the mom a break! It’s not easy traveling with a baby.

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Photo of mother and child courtesy of Bertabetti

Tuesday Travel Trivia (Week 6)

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Your long wait is over– Tuesday travel trivia has finally arrived. Congrats to last week’s winner Matthew O’Connor, who got 8 out of 10 very tough questions correct. (Good friend Eva also wins participation points.)

This week’s questions are listed below. Answer them in the comments for your shot at fame and fortune. No Googling!

  1. The indigenous name for this Australian landmark is Uluru. What is it otherwise known as?
  2. The satirical newspaper The Onion recently released a mock atlas of the world. What is it called?
  3. The names of at least four Southern-hemisphere countries have been used as the titles of feature films in the last 25 years. Name two of them.
  4. What popular travel website owned by the Travel Channel has the slogan, “Travel Dispatches from a Shrinking Planet”?
  5. The popular tourist destination of Goa is located in what country?
  6. Which of the following countries is not a member of the European Union: Finland, Sweden, Croatia, or Bulgaria?
  7. What is the name of Russia’s largest airline, also one of the world’s oldest?
  8. In what North African country would you find the “imperial city” of Fes?
  9. What scenic highway runs along much of California’s Pacific coast?
  10. Vientiane is the capital of what Southeast Asian country?

Look below the fold for the answers to last week’s questions.

  1. What New York Times travel writer pens the “Frugal Traveler” column? Answer: Matt Gross
  2. What portable tent-like structure, popular with nomads in Mongolia, is made from a wooden frame and covered with wool felt? Answer: a yurt (or ger)
  3. What is the most widely spoken language in Hungary? Answer: Hungarian (duh!)
  4. The Galápagos Islands are a province of which South American country? Answer: Ecuador
  5. With roughly 7,000,000 people, Baghdad is by far Iraq’s most populous city. Which Iraqi city is second? Answer: Basra
  6. Lake Turkana is almost entirely within the borders of which East African country? Answer: Kenya
  7. What’s the name of Hawaii’s largest island? Answer: the Big Island
  8. When participating in international sporting events like the Olympics and the Asian Games, Taiwan usually goes by what name? Answer: Chinese Taipei
  9. Pirates from which African country have recently made news by demanding $25 million dollars for the return of a Saudi oil tanker. Answer: Somalia
  10. Everyone knows that Buenos Aires is Argentina’s capital and largest city. Name one other city in Argentina. Answer: Cordoba, Mendoza, Rosario, Ushuaia, more here