News Update

Food aid for 1 Million poor families mulled
February 14, 2010, 4:53pm

The government is set to spend billions of pesos as it prepares for an emergency food aid program for one million rural families projected to suffer from the devastating effects of the El Niño phenomenon that has affected many agricultural areas.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said the task force in charge of the El Niño mitigation program is working with the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the National Nutrition Council on the mechanics of the food aid program.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration identified an initial 25 provinces that have been experiencing below normal rainfall since the August-December 2009 period.

Among the drought-stricken provinces pinpointed by PAGASA are Benguet, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Batangas, Iloilo, Antique, Guimaras, Capiz, Negros Occidental, Batanes, Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, and Quirino.

"Alongside this food aid, the task force is also studying such mitigation programs as livelihood projects and farm input subsidies for farmers who can no longer plant at this point as a result of the prolonged dry spell," Yap said.

Yap said the DA is fine-tuning its aid package to include livelihood projects along with seed and fertilizer subsidies to enable farmers to plant immediately once the dry spell ends.

The DA started cloud-seeding operations in January but this has been largely futile due to the absence of clouds that could be seeded.

"If we go full blast on cloud seeding operations even in the absence of seedable clouds, then the DA will just be wasting precious funds on airplane fuel and salt," he said.

The DA has also been providing affected farmers with water pumps to help them draw water from shallow sources, he said, but this also failed since aquifers and interstitial sources have dried up.

The department will continue to monitor critical drought areas as well as provide guidance to the National Disaster Coordinating Council during regional visits while the National Irrigation Administration has been tasked to optimize water delivery to affected farms.

Earlier, Yap ordered DA field officials to work with local government units for the speedy distribution of assistance to palay and corn farmers in Isabela, Cagayan and other drought-hit provinces. The aid package includes seeds, open source pumps and other equipment.

In a report to Yap, Director Andrew Villacorta of the Regional Field Unit in Northern Luzon said the worst hit areas in his region are Isabela and Cagayan, where losses have already reached P1.984 billion from projected losses of 180,987 MT from palay and corn crops in 147,537 hectares of farms.

As earlier ordered by Yap and Undersecretary Bernie Fondevilla, chairman of the task force on El Niño mitigation measures, RFUs started carrying out intervention measures in January, including cloud-seeding operations with the help of Aboitiz Corp. covering the Magat Dam, and the distribution of an initial 95 units of open source pumps through RFU 2 and the NIA-Magat River Integrated Irrigation System.

Villacorta said RFU 2 purchased rodenticides and insecticides as early as December and has treated 10,523 hectares as a preemptive measure against possible outbreaks of tungro and other diseases.

He said the RFU is set to distribute 25,000 packets of vegetable seedlings and has bid out the contract for the supply of another P10 million in vegetable seedlings for distribution to farmers.

Also, the RFU is negotiating for the acquisition of open source pumps and has started providing fuel subsidies to farmers who use water pumps, Villacorta added.

Valero is next after Clottey?
February 13, 2010, 5:16pm

This is one match-up that will be sealed in the wink of an eye.
Edwin Valero, the Venezuelan knockout king, has made himself available for Manny Pacquiao, assuming of course the Filipino gets past Joshua Clottey on March 13 in Dallas, Texas.

Still fresh from stopping Antonio DeMarco of Mexico for his 27th straight knockout win in as many fights, Valero, the current World Boxing Council lightweight champion, told fightnews that he will not make it hard for promoters to finalize a deal between him and Pacquiao.

“I am ready to go up to whatever weight Manny wants in order to fight him and, furthermore, I will not require the he be tested for anything,” said the 28-year-old Valero, referring to the arduous ordeal that marred the collapse of the proposed Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather bout.

“I just want to get in the ring with Manny. Whoever beats Pacquiao becomes the top dog in boxing. Pacman is my main objective for 2010,” added Valero, who is almost the same height as Pacquiao at 5-6 and also a southpaw.

Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum said Valero is an ideal foe for Pacquiao in the future owing to his explosive power and devil-may-care style.

In the event talks to revive a Mayweather fight do not materialize, Arum has the likes of Valero on standby.

If Pacquiao disposes of Clottey — as many ringsiders believe he would — a fight with Mayweather should be scheduled next.

Mayweather, however, also has to clear a major stumbling block on May 1 when he faces Shane Mosley

OUT OF THIS WORLD:
Noisy lovebirds expose smugglers
February 3, 2010, 5:42pm
MOSCOW (AFP) – A Russian woman was caught at a border checkpoint in Russia’s far east attempting to smuggle 50 lovebirds from China under her coat, officials said.

Border guards spotted the woman after the birds “woke up and began to talk loudly among themselves,” the Russian border guards service said. “It was impossible for the customs inspector and tourists not to hear them.”

The birds were hidden “under a coat in a special apron with pockets,” the service said in a statement.

The woman had been visiting the Chinese town of Heihe and was returning to the Russian town of Blagoveshchensk, which is located on the opposite bank of the Amur River separating the two countries.

Border guards described the birds as “parrots” but published a photograph apparently showing lovebirds, which are native to Africa. The birds, whose total value is about 10,000 rubles ($329), have been confiscated by environmental inspectors, and the woman faces a fine.

Cigarette-maker repents over exploding product

JAKARTA (AFP) – An Indonesian tobacco company has agreed to pay the medical expenses of a man who lost six teeth when a cigarette mysteriously exploded in his mouth.

Security guard Andi Susanto, 31, told Metro TV in an interview from his hospital bed that cigarette producer PT Nojorono Tobacco Indonesia had offered to pay for his treatment.

“The company’s officials have talked to my family and we agreed to settle it amicably, as an out-of-court settlement. They will pay all the medical expenses,” he said through bandaged lips.

The cause of the explosion remains unknown. Susanto said he wasn’t chewing anything when he lit the Clas Mild cigarette and didn’t notice anything strange about its odor, color or taste. He said he would quit smoking after the incident.

Indonesia is one of the most profitable tobacco markets in the world, and more than 60 percent of Indonesian men smoke.

Global airline industry will take 3 years to fully recover – IATA
By CHAN SUE LING and LIZA LIN (BLOOMBERG)
February 4, 2010, 2:37pm
The global airline industry will take at least three years to recover from a travel slump caused by the worst recession in six decades, said Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive of the International Air Transport Association.

The airline industry globally lost $50 billion in the past 10 years, including $11 billion in 2009 alone. Revenues declined by $80 billion last year, Bisignani said.

“These numbers are really shocking,” Bisignani said in an interview in Singapore yesterday. “We’ve had a terrible 10 years. It would take at least three years to recover the level of growth we have lost.”

Airlines worldwide suffered the worst drop in passenger demand since World War II last year, IATA said on Jan. 27. The global travel slump has pushed carriers including Singapore Airlines Ltd. and British Airways Plc into losses and forced Japan Airlines Corp. to file for bankruptcy.

“It’s going to be a bumpy road,” said Chris Tarry, an independent analyst in London, who has followed the industry for more than two decades. “A lot of capacity is going to come into the industry. Capacity will mean that prices and fares go down, so it will make it even more difficult for a recovery in profit.”

Globally, airlines will probably post losses totaling $5.6 billion this year, the trade group had estimated. That’s about half of last year’s estimated $11 billion deficit.

Traffic, a measure of passengers flown multiplied by the distance travelled, dropped 3.5 percent last year, with declines exceeding 5 percent in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region, said IATA, which represents 230 carriers.

Global spending on new ships declines 88% in 2009
February 4, 2010, 2:41pm

Spending on new ships plunged 88 percent last year as the global recession sapped funding and charter rates retreated, Clarkson Research Services Ltd. said.

Companies ordered vessels worth a combined $17.9 billion, down from $153.6 billion in 2008, the shipbroker said in a report on its Web site Thursday.

Freight rates for commodity carriers and oil tankers averaged at least 50 percent less last year as a drop in world trade curtailed demand for cargoes, according to data from the London-based Baltic Exchange. Bank lending to the shipping industry shrank as ship prices declined.

Brazilian companies ordered $3.1 billion of ships, making them the biggest spenders. Chinese firms spent $2.9 billion and Greek shipping lines $1.8 billion. (Bloomberg)

Malaysia offers Madrasah help
By ANGELO G. GARCIA
February 4, 2010, 2:53pm
Southeast Asian neighbor Malaysia has shown its intentions in helping the country integrate Madrasah education in its education system.

Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Jesli Lapus recently disclosed to members of the media that Malaysia, through its Ministry of Education, has already approved his request for help in the upgrading of Madrasah education in the country during the bilateral meetings conducted at the sideline of the recently concluded 45th Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) conference in Cebu.

“We have sought their assistance in enhancing our Madrasah education and they offered us scholarship slots for secondary students and teachers,” Lapus said.

Malaysia will offer scholarship for students and teacher trainings. The predominantly Muslim country has likewise helped another Southeast Asian neighbor, Thailand, in successfully integrating Madrasah education to their mainstream education curriculum.

Similar to the Philippines, Thailand was faced with the same secessionist problem in their southern provinces several years ago, and the Thai government decided to make education at the forefront of their strategy to arrest the worsening situation.

“We agreed that education can make an impact in the peace process. It must be introduced as a factor, and we’re asking their (Malaysia) intervention. There cannot be long-term peace in the region if we don’t address the education issues,” Lapus said.

Malaysia has been lending its support to the Philippine government in the peace process in Mindanao.

According to Lapus, the country and Malaysia have similar strategies when it comes to Madrasah education.

There are two types of curriculum prescribed in Madrasah education -- the Enriched Curriculum for Public Elementary Schools and the Standard Curriculum for Private Madaris. The former has been implemented in all DepEd regions nationwide for Muslim students and is known as the Arabic Language and Islamic alues Education Program.

Gates: Don't rush to lift ban on gays in military
February 4, 2010, 2:06pm
WASHINGTON, February 03, 2010 (AP) – The United States should not rush into a change as large as repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military without making sure the people it affects are on board, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said an 11-month study into the effects of lifting the ban will examine practical questions such as how the change would affect the numbers of people who decide to remain in the service when their terms expire.

"There is very little objective data on this. It is filled as you know with emotion and strongly held opinions and beliefs," Mullen said a day after announcing his own opposition to the ban as unfair to gay troops.

"That's the work we have to do over the course of this year. We need to understand that in terms of what the senior military leadership's principal concern is, which is the readiness and military effectiveness of the force," he said.

The study is seen by advocates of a quick repeal as an unnecessary delay, or a political convenience designed to stretch any real action to lift the ban until after congressional elections this fall.

Answering critics from both parties during testimony on the proposed defense budget for next year, Gates offered his own resume as a cautionary tale. He noted that he has unusually broad management experience, having run three large public institutions — the CIA, Texas A&M University and the Defense Department.

"In each of those I have led and managed change," Gates told the House Armed Services Committee. "I've done it smart and I've done it stupid. Happily, I think, the stupid was early."

Gates said he learned that imposing change from on high does not work, and he is determined not to repeat that mistake. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said later that Gates was referring to a period in the early 1980s when he headed the CIA's analytical division and made policy changes and sometimes harsh assessments that he came to regret.

"Stupid was trying to impose a policy from the top without any regard for the views of the people who were going to be affected or the people who would have to effect the policy change," Gates said.

Gates has commissioned two reviews, one by the outside consultant Rand Corp. and one to be led by a four-star Army general and the Pentagon's top lawyer. The reviews will look at attitudes about openly gay service among the armed forces, with particular emphasis on those in combat.

The reviews are supposed to look at the effect that lifting the ban could have on soldiers' trust and reliance on one another, as well as practical and legal issues, military officials said.

Mullen is the president's senior military adviser, but he said he does not speak for all the Pentagon top brass. Several of the top uniformed leaders in the military services have deep reservations about repealing the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell," and Mullen was unable to unite them behind his view before Tuesday, when he became the first sitting chairman of the Joint Chiefs to say the policy should be changed.

The attitudes of troops under fire, the ramifications for recruiting, family benefits and other considerations are likely to get a fuller examination later this month, when leaders of the Army, Marine Corps and other services testify separately on Capitol Hill.

"I have discussed this with them at considerable length," Mullen said of the Joint Chiefs leaders. "I would sum up their view to say that they need to understand that impact as well, should this policy change."

President Barack Obama pledged to work this year to repeal the 17-year-old policy that says gays may serve in the armed forces only if they keep their sexuality private. In the decades before that, the Pentagon expelled gay troops but the policy was not written into law.

Congress enacted the ban in 1993 as a compromise short of fully allowing openly gay military service, as then-President Bill Clinton had said he wanted.

Haiti death toll tops 200,000 as aid anger mounts
February 4, 2010, 2:02pm
PORT-AU-PRINCE, February 03, 2010 (AFP) – The death toll in the Haiti quake has swelled to 200,000, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said Wednesday as angry protests over the slow arrival of aid flared on the rubble-strewn streets.

More than three weeks after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake, Bellerive said his tiny Caribbean nation had been ravaged by "a disaster on a planetary scale" and detailed the tragic toll suffered by his people.

"There are more than 200,000 people who have been clearly identified as people who are dead," he said in an interview with AFP, adding that another 300,000 injured had been treated, 250,000 homes had been destroyed and 30,000 businesses lost.

At least 4,000 amputations have also been carried out due to horrific crush injuries -- a shocking figure which is likely to strain the impoverished nation's already meager resources for years to come.

Bellerive said he has proposed the formation of an "emergency government" in Haiti to focus on the crisis, but insisted that the authorities, devastated as their ranks have been by the disaster, remained "in control of the situation."

Despite a massive aid operation, a lack of coordination and the sheer extent of the damage have hampered the distribution of food and water leading to mounting tensions among a million people left homeless.

"The Haitian government has done nothing for us, it has not given us any work. It has not given us the food we need," Sandrac Baptiste said bitterly as she left her makeshift tent to join angry demonstrations Wednesday.

In separate protests after a tense night when shots were fired in the ruined capital Port-au-Prince, some 300 people gathered outside the mayor's office in the once upscale Petionville neighborhood.

"If the police fire on us, we are going to set things ablaze," one of the protesters shouted, raising a cement block above his head.

Another 200 protesters marched toward the US embassy, crying out for food and aid, and about 50 protestors also gathered late Tuesday outside the police headquarters where the Haitian government of President Rene Preval is temporarily installed.

"Down with Preval," demonstrators shouted at the president who has only spoken to the people a few times since the disaster struck.

"There are no tents! There is no food!" protested Bousiquot Widmack, while demonstrators who said they were government workers complained their homes had collapsed, they had not been paid, and that they had nothing to eat.

Meanwhile, a group of US Christians were to learn Thursday whether they would be charged with trying to illegally take children out of the quake-stricken nation, a judge told AFP.

The 10 Americans from the Idaho-based Baptist group New Life Children's Refuge have been detained in Haiti since the weekend after they tried to take some 33 children out of the country to neighboring Dominican Republic.

The case has drawn the attention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said Wednesday it was "unfortunate that, whatever the motivation, that this group of Americans took matters into their own hands" in trying to take the children across the border.

"We are engaged in discussions with the Haitian government... and looking for the best way forward on this," she added.

Amid the mounting frustration in Haiti's streets, UN chief Ban Ki-moon asked former US president Bill Clinton to assume a leadership role in coordinating the international aid.

"The trick is to get the Haitian people back where they can stop living from day-to-day and start living from week-to-week or month-to-month and then start the long-term efforts," Bill Clinton said.

An aid group warned Wednesday against "quick-fix rebuilding" plans before sufficient studies had been done on how to best protect Haiti from future hurricanes and earthquakes.

"Right now the Haitian people need good quality temporary accommodation and emergency relief. But we are also looking at how we can help people to rebuild their lives over the next three years, leaving Haiti better prepared for future natural disasters," said Brendan Gormley, chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee, a British aid umbrella group.

For most of Haiti's one million homeless, the focus was on how to improve on the dire day-to-day conditions.

Marjorie Michel, the Haitian minister in charge of women's affairs, said neighborhood committees were reporting a rise in the number of rapes in the tent camps, although women were reluctant to make a formal complaint.

She said teams were being sent into the camps to try to deal with the situation, and promised segregated bathroom facilities would be installed in new camps.




Malaysia's Anwar pleads not guilty at sodomy trial
February 3, 2010, 6:14pmMalaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim talks to reporters following a court appearance in Kuala Lumpur on February 2. Anwar pleaded not guilty during his sodomy trial, saying the "malicious" charges were a conspiracy to end his political career. (AFP)
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim talks to reporters following a court appearance in Kuala Lumpur on February 2. Anwar pleaded not guilty during his sodomy trial, saying the "malicious" charges were a conspiracy to end his political career. (AFP)

KUALA LUMPUR, February 03, 2010 (AFP) – Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim pleaded not guilty at the start of his sodomy trial on Wednesday, saying the "malicious" charges were a conspiracy to end his political career.

Prosecutors said they had DNA samples and other evidence to prove that Anwar had sexual relations with Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, a 24-year-old former aide in his office.

"It is a malicious allegation. It is a frivolous charge. It is trumped up by political masters using the prosecution for that purpose," Anwar told the High Court.

Anwar, 62, was sacked as deputy premier and jailed on sodomy and corruption charges a decade ago, but since then has reinvented himself as the leader of an opposition alliance that made unprecedented gains in 2008 elections.

He has accused Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife of being "personally involved in the conspiracy and frame-up" and intends to call them as witnesses in a trial that could redraw Malaysia's political landscape.

Sodomy, even among consenting adults, carries a penalty of up to 20 years in Malaysia, a conservative, mainly Muslim country.

Saiful was the first witness called in the trial, which comes after months of delays caused by defence applications to strike down the case and obtain access to evidence including medical reports and closed-circuit television footage.

Prosecutors said the alleged incident took place on June 26, 2008 at an upmarket apartment in Kuala Lumpur, and that Saiful underwent a medical examination at a hospital two days later.

"The prosecution will also bring specimens of semen from Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan's anus which is verified by the chemistry department as belonging to the accused," deputy public prosecutor Mohamed Yusof Zainal Abiden said.

He said that Anwar's guilt would be proven through Saiful's testimony, as well as "forensic evidence from doctors and chemists alongside circumstantial evidence and documentary evidence".

The Barisan Nasional coalition government has ruled Malaysia for half a century but suffered its worst ever results in the 2008 polls, when Anwar rallied the opposition to seize a third of parliamentary seats.

The trial, which defence lawyers say could last eight months, presents a major challenge for both sides of the political divide, and will be a high-profile test of Malaysia's justice system.

It comes as the opposition is increasingly beset by infighting, while the government is struggling to defend Malaysia's image as a moderate and stable Muslim-majority nation.

Human rights group Amnesty International has criticised as "dirty tricks" the charges against Anwar, who in his first trial was brought to court with a black eye after a vicious beating by the police chief.

Anwar, a married father-of-six, was a celebrated finance minister before being sacked in 1998 amid a policy row with then-premier Mahathir Mohamad during the Asian economic crisis.

He was convicted of sodomy and corruption but, after six years behind bars, his sexual misconduct charge was overturned and he was freed in 2004.

Another quake in Haiti feared
February 3, 2010, 5:40pm

MIAMI — The chance of another big earthquake in Haiti in the near future is great enough that people in Port-au-Prince should sleep in tents — not even in buildings that survived the Jan. 12 quake apparently unscathed, geologists said.

A report by the United States Geological Survey says the probability of an aftershock of magnitude 7 or greater in Haiti in the next 30 days is 3 percent, the probability of one magnitude 6 or greater is 25 percent, and of one magnitude 5 or greater is about 90 percent.

“Three percent may not sound big, but it is pretty big in terms of what we might have expected after a standard earthquake,’’ said Dr. Tim Dixon, professor of geophysics at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami. In the three weeks since the Jan. 12 quake of magnitude 7.0, Haiti has had 63 aftershocks, ranging from magnitude 4.0 to 5.9, the USGS says.

Haiti food convoy attacked; UN warns of volatility
By PAISLEY DODDS
February 3, 2010, 10:41am

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – A generous world has flooded Haiti with donations, but anger and desperation are mounting as the aid stacks up inside this broken country.

Bottlenecks at key transportation points and scattered violence, including an armed group's attack on a food convoy, have slowed the distribution of food and medicine from the port, airport and a warehouse in the Cite-Soleil slum. U.S. air traffic controllers have lined up 2,550 incoming flights through March 1, but some 25 flights a day aren't taking their slots. Communication breakdowns between Haitians and their foreign counterparts are also endemic.

"Aid is bottlenecking at the Port-au-Prince airport. It's not getting into the field," said Mike O'Keefe, who runs Bayan Air Service in Fort Lauderdale.

Foreign aid workers and Haitians are fed up with waiting for help. One Haitian father paid a group of men more than $200 on Tuesday to retrieve his daughter's body from his collapsed house, rather than wait for demolition crews.

"No one is in charge," said Dr. Rob Maddox of Start, Louisiana, tending to dozens of patients in the capital's sprawling general hospital. "There's no topdown leadership. The Swiss don't want to cooperate with us. And since the Haitian government took control of our supplies, we have to wait for things even though they're stacked up in the warehouse. The situation is just madness."

Donors say the key logistical challenges are dealing with a backlog of supply flights at the airport, repairing and increasing the capacity of the city's piers and dealing with clogged overland routes from outlying airports and Dominican Republic. Most roads are just two lanes with many pot holes.

Some are also worried that isolated routes are vulnerable to ambush. Haiti is plagued with crime, violence and gangs.

Twenty armed men blocked a road and tried to hijack a convoy of food for earthquake victims Saturday, but were driven off by police gunfire, U.N. spokesman Vicenzo Pugliese said Tuesday.

The attack on the convoy as it carried supplies from an airport in the southern town of Jeremie underscored what the United Nations calls a "potentially volatile" security situation.

Mobs have also stolen food and looted goods from their neighbors in the camps, prompting many to band together or stay awake at night to prevent raids.

Small groups of state employees and lawyers held protests across the city Tuesday, denouncing President Rene Preval's leadership. Prime Minister Max Bellerive defended the government's performance before a quorum of 20 Haitian senators.

"Even the most advanced countries could not respond to this crisis," he said.

Bellerive's speech drew an angry response from senators.

"The government has not been able to even prove symbolically that it exists," said Sen. Endrisse Riche, noting that he heard about Tuesday's meeting from a friend and hadn't been contacted by anyone in government since the quake.

The Jan. 12 earthquake killed at least 150,000 and demolished virtually every government building in the capital. Some 1 million people are homeless, many huddling in crude tents made of sticks and bed sheets.

The Haitian government recently asked private aid organizations to send e-mails detailing what they're doing and where. The goal is to coordinate food being distributed by non-governmental organizations, though not U.N efforts. Officials complain some areas are receiving multiple rations while others have nothing.

"It is true we are in need," said Sen. Jean Joel Joseph. "But don't treat us like dogs ... as if we are animals."

Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Candace Park about 120 to 140 flights a day are landing at Port-au-Prince airport, which pre-earthquake was handling about 25 planes a day.

American Red Cross officials in Washington say there is still a list of 1,000 flights waiting to land at Haiti's airport. And taking supplies overland from the Dominican Republic to the capital now takes 18 hours, where it used to take only six, said David Meltzer, the charity's senior vice president for international services.

In an attempt to avoid long lines at the Port, Meltzer said his agency, which has received some $203 million in donations for earthquake relief, has created a "boat bridge" to unload relief supplies from a Colombian Red Cross ship off shore.

Another way to avoid further aid backup on the tarmac is to buy it in Haiti, said Edward Rees, whose nonprofit Peace Dividend Trust in Haiti is pressing donors to purchase local goods and hire local workers whenever possible.

Rees said he met Tuesday with a rice supplier "who is aghast at all the rice being flown and shipped in, when his warehouses are still half full."

World Food Program spokesman Marcus Priory, whose group was coordinating logistics among relief groups, said despite ongoing problems, distribution is slowly improving.

He said that in addition to opening up new routes from other cities and the Dominican Republic, the fleet of trucks delivering goods has been significantly expanded.

"We have been facing the most complex operation we have ever had to launch because we have massive needs (and) a densely populated urban context, which is not a traditional operating area for a humanitarian mission," Priory said.

Port-au-Prince, near the quake's epicenter, had crippling traffic jams and limited supply routes even before the disaster.

U.S. soldiers took charge of a traffic jam on Tuesday by stepping in and getting vehicles to move.

"It's like this everyday!" shouted a soldier from 82nd Airborne Division near a slum in the city.

O'Keeffe, of Banyan Air, said flights schedules were being complicated by people missing slots. He said that's because the phone reservation line gets so backed up people who get through book landing times even if they are unsure they will need them.

He is advising pilots to use smaller outlying airports.

O'Keeffe recently flew 9,000 meals, baby formula, baby food and diapers into the Jacmel airport, which is being run by the Canadian Air Force and watched the supplies being loaded onto a United Nations truck.

"By the time I was back in Florida, I had photos of babies in diapers being fed the formula I flew in," he said. "Pretty satisfying."

original story: manila bulletin
Feb.04, 2010