Photo of the Day (5.11.10)

by Stephen Greenwood on
If someone asked you to pick out Ushuaia on a map, would you know where to look? That’s the location of today’s Photo of the Day, taken by Flickr user pancha!.

Ushuaia (hear the pronunciation here) is the capital of Argentine province Tierra del Fuego and regarded as the southernmost city in the world. Tourists flock to Ushuaia for skiiing, wildlife, Antarctica-bound cruises, and apparently the beautiful sunsets. Light is key in any great photo, and this is certainly a great example of capturing a photo at just the right moment.

If you’ve been to a remote destination and snapped a great photo of it – share it with us! Drop it in our Gadling Flickr Pool and it could be tomorrow’s Photo of the Day!

Pilot for Dutch low cost carrier arrested for his role in Argentine “death flights”

by Scott Carmichael on

We’ve heard of pilots being removed from their plane because they were drunk, but today’s news is slightly more disturbing.

Pilot Juan Alberto Poch was about to fly back to Amsterdam when Spanish police removed him from his Transavia plane because of his involvement in the Argentine “dirty war” between 1976 and 1983.

An Argentine court had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Poch, and he’ll be deported so he can answer the allegations brought against him.

These allegations are quite horrible. As part of the dirty war, Mr. Poch flew “death flights”. These flights were performed under the disguise of “prisoner transports”, but in reality, the passengers were drugged, and dropped out of the plane plummeting to their death in the ocean. In total, up to 30,000 people disappeared, and many of them may have been killed when pushed out of one of these flights.

The airline had been informed of the arrest, and had prepared a backup pilot to minimize the inconvenience to its passengers. The pilot had been working for Transavia since 1988 and never raised any suspicions.
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Tourists will have to tango with inflation or worse in Argentina

by Josh Lew on

It is starting to look like deja vu for Argentina. The country came out of a terrible financial crisis only a few years ago. The 2001 slide seems like a distant memory for residents of Buenos Aires, who crowd into restaurants and spend their money freely. The government has been busy spending too. They are in debt after revamping the country with new schools and other civic projects.

And, unlike neighboring countries, Argentina did not build up its financial reserves for a rainy day. Now, with inflation at nearly 25% according to economists (the government says its only 10%), there are storm clouds on the country’s horizon. Could there be a repeat of 2001, when the economy came crashing down and tourists became targets of kidnappers seeking ransoms? It’s possible. The US and the IMF, who basically bailed out Argentina in ’01 might hesitate before doing it again. But the chaos of ’01 has not yet hit again. But, with uncertainty in the air, travelers might want to opt for a bit of Southern Hemisphere sun in Brazil, rather than B.A.

[Via Wash. Post]