A passenger waits for a delayed flight at Heathrow airport’s terminal four in London.

SYDNEY - Should airlines charge overweight passengers more if they need an extra seat? Yes, according to three-quarters of travelers in a poll.

A survey by travel Web site Skyscanner found that 76 percent of people believe airlines should charge a “fat tax.”

Only 22 percent of the 550 people questioned disapproved of introducing extra payments for overweight passengers.The poll was conducted in the wake of a heated debate that started after Air France was misreported earlier this month to be planning an extra charge for passengers unable to fit into a single seat.

Air France has, since 2005, offered overweight passengers the option to buy a second seat at a 25 percent discount.

Skyscanner co-founder Barry Smith said a so-called “fat tax” was a very sensitive issue for airlines who would need to tread carefully so as not to alienate heavier passengers.

“On one hand, it’s not unreasonable for airlines to charge passengers extra if they occupy more than one seat. On the other, many would argue that it should be the responsibility of airlines to adjust their standard seat size, enabling them to comfortably accommodate all passengers,” he said in a statement.

These gently rolling hills once a playground to Port-au-Prince’s most privileged, is now home to its most desperate, after American troops here set up one of the largest camps for survivors from the January 12 quake.

The posh Petionville district on the outskirts of the Haitian capital sustained less damage than lower-lying, poor neighborhoods and the expansive golf course was relatively unscathed, making it a perfect place to shelter thousands of ordinary Haitians for whom in normal times it would be off limits.

Soldiers from the 82nd airborne unit have set up camp poolside, overlooking a breath-taking view over the bay of Port-au-Prince.

An M-4 rifle rested on a garden table and bullet-proof vests littered the terrace, underscoring the dramatic change in the golf course’s clientele.

General view of a makeshift camp in the Petionville golf course in Port-au-Prince. AFP PHOTO

Nearly two weeks after a 7.0 earthquake killed some 150,00, the impeccably appointed clubhouse no longer serves up whiskey sours and martinis, but has become a makeshift apothecary, dispensing drugs and medical supplies for doctors and volunteers who tend the wounded and sick.

A volunteer with the Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT), Stephen Brickman, 72, is the quartermaster for the stockhouse of vital supplies.

“You can call it a full field pharmacy,” he declared, standing proudly before a carefully labeled supply of anesthetics, antibiotics, and other medications.

Another major difference at the golf course from pre-quake days is the constant noise, from squealing babies to the rumble of motors from a half-dozen Humvees used by the US soldiers.

In one corner of the camp, a doctor examined a baby’s ears, one of the multitude of patients she sees over the course of a day.

“We can do everything here except surgery and radiology,” said Lea Collins, a French-speaking US interpreter for the medical unit, who said her labors can range from delivering a baby to tending a festering head wound.

On another part of the green, soldiers wearing sand-colored tee shirts removed 50 kilogram sacks of wheat, soy, and bulgar from the backs of trucks.

“A thousand bags all together,” said private first class Trevor Brook, 19, from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne unit.

Volunteers with the Catholic Relief Services meanwhile have erected metal posts tethered with white rope to try to maintain order. The crowd is also kept in check by commands in Creole blasted over enormous loud speakers.

But efforts at crowd management, as often as not, fail, particularly when food supplies are distributed to the desperate masses.

The crowd grew restless as a helicopter replenishing supplies landed, heralding the impending distribution of fresh provisions. Two men came to blows as they waited in line, as the queue of thousands of homeless people grew.

“We haven’t been waiting too long,” said Ruth Jacce, 17, whose weary expression belied her words.

A Red Cross volunteer punched her yellow ticket allowing her to exit the line with her prize of a half bag of wheat, four portions of peas and a cannister of cooking oil. (Caribnet)

PJ Crowley. AFP PHOTO

“The disaster in Haiti has displaced many people and separated numerous children from their families, posing great risk and higher vulnerability to human trafficking,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Thursday.

Crowley provided no specifics on the number of missing children, but the UN Children’s Fund a week ago said there have been 15 documented case of children disappearing from hospitals.

The United States was mobilizing a coordinated effort to protect vulnerable children with UNICEF, the Haitian government, the Red Cross and other non-governmental organizations, Crowley said.

Among other things, he said the United States was helping to remobilize the Haitian police’s child protection brigades, and other efforts to register unaccompanied children and reunite them with their families. (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) – It will be difficult to convince Haitians to spend extra money and rebuild their quake-ravaged country with structures able to withstand another powerful earthquake, experts said Friday.

Some 170,000 people were killed in the devastating January 12 quake that toppled weak buildings across the Haitian capital.

Two fault lines run under the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, but Haitians have long forgotten about the danger of earthquakes.

“Between six and eight generations of people have gone by who lived with no awareness of earthquakes,” Haitian engineer Hans Zennid told AFP.

The previous earthquakes known to have struck the island nation took place in 1742, 1772 and 1842, said Zennid. The 1842 quake was so devastating it forced the government to move the capital from Cap Haitien to its current location.

Despite the devastation, President Rene Preval has said that Port-au-Prince will continue being Haiti’s capital.

The presidential palace, built in the 1920s, the Congress building, and virtually every ministry building collapsed when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck.

However an 11-floor building belonging to the telephone company towers over the rubble, largely intact.

Zennid was the engineer responsible for making sure that building was earthquake-ready.

“From the start I planned to make the building strong enough to resist a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, because the possibilities of a 7 (magnitude) like the one that just happened is something that happens every 150 years,” said Zennid, as he surveyed the building.

A report by US structural engineers giving people the green light to use the building is posted at the entrance, perhaps to ease the fears of workers desperately seeking a semblance of normality. The report said that only one of the pillars suffered minimum damage.

Zennid said he increased the building’s strength after a soil analysis.

“When we began to lay the building foundation and I analyzed the soil quality, I added 20 percent to the security level, which allowed it to resist a 7.3,” he said.

That meant adding 15 percent more reinforced concrete and steel to the foundation, which meant increasing the cost by some 150,000 dollars.

At first his employers “were upset, but in the end they accepted the price increase,” he said.

Haiti’s elegant presidential palace can be rebuilt on the same site, even keeping the same style, Zennid said, but engineers will have to completely re-work the building’s foundation.

That also applies to the vast majority of homes in Port-au-Prince, including the most luxurious mansions and hotels, many of which collapsed when the quake struck, he said.

As in most underdeveloped countries, even rich Haitians tend to expand their homes in stages instead of building them according to a single, structurally sound blueprint.

In order to do that builders need a large pot of money, and “there is no tradition of home loans here,” said French architect Christian Dutour, who has carried out several projects in Haiti.

It will be difficult to explain the importance of proper building codes to a population that overwhelmingly lives below the poverty line.

In the noisy, chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince, street vendors are already selling metal rods salvaged from the earthquake rubble.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which tracks earthquakes around the world, Haiti’s quake could represent the beginning of a new cycle of earthquakes after nearly 170 years of geological peace.

The quake’s epicenter was just 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Haiti and struck at a very shallow depth of 13 kilometers (eight miles).

The USGS estimated recently that there was a 25 percent probability that one or several magnitude 6 aftershocks could strike in the coming weeks, although they will space out more and more over time.

The January 12 quake freed much of the tension accumulated on one portion of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, which runs along the southern portion of Hispaniola — but another segment east of the epicenter and adjacent to Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince has barely moved, according to the USGS.

“We are sitting on a powder keg,” geologist Claude Prepetit, an engineer from the Haitian Mines and Energy bureau, told AFP.

“We are faced with the threat of future earthquakes and have to decentralize, and depopulate Port-au-Prince,” he said. (Caribnet)

This was revealed in an analysis “Forging Ahead – Increase Target and Maintain Rating” by a financial services firm, on January 21.

According to Canaccord Adams report, this time span is the “most likely” scenario adding that the Corentyne Licence has the potential for 400 million barrels of crude oil.

It said CGX Energy will be partnering with a major international oil and gas exploration company for the first exploration well in Corentyne, given the major players involved in offshore Guyana and Suriname.

CGX Energy Inc had announced in December that it had recommenced the search for a joint venture partner to participate in Guyana’s drilling.

Speaking of investors’ risks, the analyst said an investment in the company’s securities would be speculative.

“This is due to the nature of the company’s involvement in the exploration, the development and production of oil and natural gas and its present stage of development… capital requirements and liquidity risks associated with the exploration, development and production of oil and natural gas from the Guyana assets can contribute to the risks,” the report outlined.

It also said any swing in crude oil and natural gas prices could impact CGX Energy prosperity.

“Any adverse changes to government regulations and fiscal terms could impact CGX Energy’s execution and profitability,” the analyst said, adding that a left- leaning government which can be perceived as less business-friendly could affect the profitability of the company’s operations.

Recently the company had announced its plans to complete the first well by mid-2010. (Caribnet)

Authorities in the British overseas territory said it was unclear if the 122 people on the craft, which was intercepted by marine police on Wednesday, had left because of the quake or were trying to escape poverty.

The Haitians are being held in a sports complex rather than sent back. The Turks and Caicos last week suspended the deportation of illegal Haitians, saying, “Clearly it will be some time before the situation in Haiti returns to anything approaching normal.”

The earthquake killed up to 200,000 people and left nearly a million homeless in the impoverished Caribbean country.

Haitians regularly risk the 90-mile (145-km) voyage north to the Turks and Caicos in overcrowded, unseaworthy boats. Most vessels are caught, but some reach shore undetected and others crash on reefs surrounding the popular tourist destination.

The Turks and Caicos Islands have about 30,000 residents, many of whom are Haitians. (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) – Haiti’s desperate earthquake survivors faced a new deadly threat Friday as the United Nations reported a rise in cases of diarrhea, measles and tetanus in squalid tent camps for victims.

A vast foreign aid effort is struggling to meet survivors’ needs 17 days after the disaster, which killed around 170,000 people and left one million homeless and short of food, water and medical attention.

And with medicine running low amid efforts to treat hundreds of thousands of injured and homeless cramped into makeshift camps, officials and aid groups are scrambling to avoid a potential public health calamity that could push the death toll higher.

“Several medical teams report a growing case load of diarrhea in the last two to three days,” World Health Organization spokesman Paul Garwood said.

“There are also reports of measles and tetanus, including in resettlement camps, which is worrisome due to the high concentration of people,” he told journalists in Geneva.

UN agencies and Haiti’s government aim to launch a vaccination campaign against measles, tetanus and diphtheria next week. Just 58 percent of Haitian infants were immunized before the quake, Garwood said.

He highlighted a “critical” need for surgeons, with an estimated 30 to 100 amputations being carried out every day in some hospitals, while supplies of anesthetics and antibiotics were also needed.

The 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12 decimated Haiti’s already meager health system, creating conditions for disease to thrive in cramped refugee camps.

Only one person in two among the Haitian population of more than nine million people has access to clean drinking water, and only 19 percent have decent sanitation.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa (L) gives a joint press conference with his Haitian counterpart Rene Preval on arrival in Port-au-Prince. AFP PHOTO

On Friday, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa became just the second foreign leader to visit Haiti since the quake, lending his voice to international calls for more emergency relief and assistance with reconstruction.

“This is a tragedy, a humanitarian tragedy. Haiti at this moment represents the pain of victims but also hope,” Correa said.

Haitians living in sprawling makeshift camps in the ruins of Port-au-Prince and elsewhere complain that the flood of international aid arriving in the country is trickling down too slowly.

Many are trying to rebuild their lives, with marketplaces springing up on streets around the capital, although business is tough.

“It’s very hard — there aren’t many buyers, but there are lots of sellers,” said 24-year-old Rose Gardy-Joseph, sitting next to a basket full of colourful sweets, soft cheese and napkins.

But survivors also face rising insecurity, with thousands of criminals on the loose after the main jail collapsed in the quake and reports of rape and violence plaguing the weak and vulnerable.

The deputy head of the UN mission in Haiti, Anthony Banbury, said the United Nations did not want huge tent cities later turning into slums where there was poor sanitation, no security and child abuse.

The United Nations, along with aid agencies and security forces, must “do things smart, as well as fast, and that’s a big challenge for us now,” Banbury said.

The US State Department said it was spearheading a coordinated effort together with UNICEF, the Haitian government, the Red Cross and other agencies to combat the potential trafficking of children.

The aid effort has also been dogged by complaints over a lack of coordination between UN officials, the 20,000 US forces in Haiti, and a swarm of aid groups helping the country.

There were no signs of further survivors beneath the rubble after a 16-year-old girl was pulled alive from the ruins Wednesday after surviving 15 days without any food or water.

Rebuilding the western hemisphere’s poorest nation could take decades, said Edmond Mulet, the acting head of the UN mission in Haiti, whose predecessor was killed in the quake.

“I think this is going to take many more decades than only 10 years and this is an enormous backwards step in Haiti’s development. We will not have to start from zero but from below zero,” Mulet told the BBC.

But anti-government feeling runs high on the streets, with residents distrustful of Haitian President Rene Preval’s intentions with the relief flooding in from around the world.

“The government is going to take all the aid and give it to their friends, not to the people,” said money changer Sorel Charles. “The rich people are getting richer, but we aren’t getting anything.” (Caribnet)

-Kristy Ramnarine

Carnival interest groups are changing the rules for media who want to cover the upcoming Carnival events.

National Carnival Bandleaders Association (NCBA) president David Lopez said the interest groups have taken a decision that all media must go through the Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG)-which has the broadcast rights for Carnival 2010-to cover Carnival events.

Print media are being asked to get permission from Pan Trinbago, the NCBA and the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation (TUCO) in order to cover their respective events.

’Anybody who wants to take photos of the Carnival event must get permission from the three interest groups before they go to the NCC and pay,’ Lopez said.

The NCBA also wants to cut down on the number of media personnel being accredited for Carnival 2010 as well as change the areas where accredited media personnel are allowed to cover events.

’The other issue we have with the media, it’s not an issue really, accommodation,’ Lopez said.

’Parade of the Bands is the main judging area outside the Queen’s Park Savannah. The problem with that is the media is in-between the bands. There is discussion with the NCC to try to accommodate the media at a different level. I’m not going to say where at this point in time.’

However, NCC chairman Howard Chin Lee said the media will not be stopped from covering Carnival on the road.

’With respect to the media covering events on the road and taking photos, that remains an open field for the media,’ he added.

’Because I’m not sure if you could restrict the media from taking a photo on the streets of Port of Spain or as you come around the Savannah after the judging points.’(Trinidad Express)

Government has agreed in principle to the expansion of the Faculty of Law at the St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies, to provide for a full three-year LLB programme for nationals of Trinidad and Tobago in particular.

This will replace the one-year programme now in effect and allow for a greater intake of students on an annual basis, Minister of Tertiary Education Christine Kangaloo said in the House of Representatives yesterday.

In a statement, Kangaloo said not only would this allow increased access to the UWI LLB programme and its positive implications for entry into the Hugh Wooding Law School, but it would significantly reduce the costs of UWI LLB students, who notwithstanding the GATE and HELP programmes, must meet the additional expenses of attending school at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados.

’Expanding the Faculty of Law at St Augustine will bring additional benefits to nationals of Trinidad and Tobago, through the offering of new postgraduate programmes in law relevant to the development of Trinidad and Tobago and as well the provision of courses in law to other students on campus outside of the Faculty of Law, for example those in faculties of the Social Sciences, Medicine and Engineering. The expanded faculty will also provide opportunities for continuing education of those practising law in Trinidad and Tobago,’ she said.

Kangaloo said a site of approximately 69,940 square feet, which is located at Cheeseman Avenue off Gordon Street, St Augustine, and owned by the University of the West Indies, has already been identified as the location for the expanded faculty of law.

Kangaloo said the 2007 Report of the Dean of the Faculty of Law noted that there were ’1,700 applications for 124 places available under the quota system. In 2009 there were 2,660 applicants to the Faculty of Law in the three campuses of the UWI, with 982 of these coming from Trinidad and Tobago’. It is clear that the demand for places in the Faculty of Law at the UWI far exceeds the capacity and students are accessing other means of attaining the LLB-studying in the UK, registering in ’off-shore’ or ’on line’ LLB programmes.

Kangaloo said in making this decision to expand the Faculty of Law at St Augustine, Government recognises that attention must be paid to the expansion of the facilities of the Hugh Wooding Law School. This matter is under active consideration by the Office of the Attorney General, she said. -Ria Taitt (Trinidad Express)