To find out more about Oxfam in Haiti visit their website here.

It is my third week in Haiti – have not had time yet for a day off, but in good spirits.

For the rest of Oxfam there is a strong emphasis in getting the job done and making sure each of our activities are running, but I think there is a frustration that we need to be better organised and become more efficient.

That is part of the difficulty and the challenge in working in this type of environment.

On the one hand we have to do things quickly which means you need a lot of people, but on the other organising all those people and building a structure also takes time.

Outside of Oxfam there are efforts ongoing by both: UN and NGO. Some organisations are working on cash for work, which is basically an activity that helps poorer people in the community without jobs to earn an income whilst carrying out a job that is worthwhile such as clearing the mountain of rubbish that has accumulated in the city.

The World Food Programme has also distributed rice to the whole of Port au Prince. This was very well organised and will provide some support to the people here.

For the Haitians there is a long way to go. in the areas Oxfam works people are starting to come together more than they did previously to help one another. As in many cities across the world people tend to be more individualistic than in rural area.

Now this shock has had a benefit in bringing people together to share food and other resources. This is very heartening and something humanitarian organisations need to support and encourage.

Last week, I was walking around an area called Carrefour Feuille, into an area where people living there said they had not yet seed an aid worker.

I stopped off to talk with a group of about 50 people living under a shelter made out of sheets. They passionately explained that they needed shelter, food, wanted a job and many other things.

In response I asked them how they are able to support their families at the moment. They said that it was through working together and sharing what they have, helped them to live, but only just.

This is part of the puzzle for me. We need to assist as quick as possible the groups of families like the one I talked to, but at the same time, work with them to support their present ways of coping with the situation without causing damage to it.

Should we just give a big lump of money to everyone? Should we take a little longer, see how people live and cope, then do something more targeted?

Should we only work with the most vulnerable and poor or with larger traders who could support a much larger group of people?

These are just some of the questions we need to puzzle through to make sure that the money donated to Oxfam is spent is the right way, is given to the right people and has the biggest impact in the shortest time-frame.

Last year official Iranian government figures showed EU trade at $35bn, and trade with China at $29bn. But according to the Financial Times today, those figures ignored the trade that enters Iran through the United Arab Emirates – some $15bn.

In the meantime China’s dependence upon Iranian energy represents 11 per cent of her total energy consumption.

So, at the very moment when the US, France and the UK edge towards a new sanctions regime against Tehran, realities on the ground ensure that China will not go along with them.

Russia reportedly looks a little more disposed to a new sanctions regime, but in truth, the world community should be looking at other routes to relating to the Islamic republic.

As I discovered at Christmas, when I visited Iran and met with Ahmadinejad, there is division, chaos and uncertainty in the upper echelons of power in the Islamic Republic.

It has become a well worn tradition that amid such tensions, President Ahmadinejad likes to play the “nuclear card“. The UN inspectors are bemused by the under use of centrifuges at Natanza (the enrichment plant near Esfahan).

There is also a suspicion that scientists have managed to enrich uranium to a level of 20 per cent and have enough of it to build one bomb, or not. In other words the UN inspection process doesn’t really know precisely where Iran has got to in its bomb making capacity.

I have always believed that this is exactly how the shambles at the top of Iran wants it.

I have always believed that relating to Iran through the nuclear non-dialogue is a blind cul-de-sac. The real problem remains – with whom should we try to relate?

Well, it is still possible to talk with Ahmadinejad, but I could not sense when I met him whether he actually runs anything at all. I suspect he has influence upon much and control of almost nothing.

The real power is supposed to reside with the supreme leader – Ayatollah Khamenei. But he’s made some serious mistakes in the course of attempting to deal both with the electoral fraud and the “green revolution“. There is widespread talk of his having to step down or aside – ill health, or some other pretext.

No, the real power, the real control lies in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards and the thuggish gangs that constitute the Basij.

But they are split too – between the old seasoned revolutionaries who deposed the Shah and survived that ghastly war with Iraq in the 1980’s, and the young upstarts who have seized many of the economic leavers, and enriched themselves in the process.

These new groupings don’t travel outside the country, and are very focused on the mosque. They will be particularly hard to hit with targeted sanctions.

Hence the alternative – engagement – but with whom? Anyone and everyone. Trade, commerce, banking, oil, culture – there are problems with every segment of Iranian life.

But beating beneath all these problems reside a vast numbers of hearts in men and woman who want change.

The Islamic revolution has become deeply polluted according Mr Mousavi – the opposition leader and no radical himself.

Starving the discontented with more sanctions will achieve nothing beyond the beating batons of renewed internal repression. I have advocated carpet bombing Iran with laptops before on Snowblog.

But conceptually that is what the world should do, drench the place with supply. There is a rich and ready market.

Exploiting it will empower the people and terrify the agents of repression.

That’s a second cave-in, the Tories will claim, after pre-briefing on David Cameron’s speech this morning seemed to trigger Labour to suspend its three MPs from the party.

In the same paragraph of his speech David Cameron said it was wrong for the MPs to use Labour’s lawyers.

The Tories think some of their most successful attacks on Gordon Brown have come from moments like this when they feel they’ve forced him to act. They believe this plays into some the negatives that voters have of the prime minister.

They must also recognise that few will be focused on the minutiae of this saga and that putting the expenses story in the headlines, layered with personal abuse against the prime minister, risks reviving the public’s “plague on all your houses” view of the parties.

The Liberal Democrats have been told that their hopes to put in an amendment to the Constitutional Renewal Bill tomorrow tightening up the laws of parliamentary privilege are too late.

The party must now ponder whether to bring an amendment at report stage later on or heed the subtle hint delivered this afternoon by the Speaker that MPs really should consider belting up on this one or risk being the politician labelled as the one who collapsed the trial.

Less than a week later he says they’ll enrich it at home and the rest of the world can go hang. Who knows what he’ll say next week? By the time any government formulates a response to Iran’s latest pronouncement on nuclear policy, it’s changed again.

Is this flip-flopping a cunning plan or a sign of chaos at the heart of the Islamic Republic?

Western diplomats suggest it’s President Ahmadinejad’s faction trying to shore itself up by sending different messages to different audiences. Last week’s apparent concession gives ammunition to the Chinese, trying to hold the line against new sanctions.

If China can point to conciliatory statements or signs that Iran is complying with IAEA requests, its diplomats find it easier to counter US and European officials pushing for tougher measures against Iran.

Today’s announcement placates the hardliners within the regime who like to blow loud public raspberries to the US and Europe.

Adding in a few missile launches keeps them happy and shows the internal opposition – the biggest threat – that the government is powerful and determined.

So maybe that’s the main thing. Later this week, Green Movement protesters will be out on the streets demonstrating against the government on the 31st Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

All these contradictory nuclear pronouncements distract international attention from the regime’s biggest worry – its own divisions and weaknesses in the face of continued unrest by the opposition.

My sources suggest more MPs, and more particularly more peers, will be charged in the coming days and weeks. It’s clear this morning that some MPs are trying to find a way of extracting party advantage from the hysteria.

It will be confusing for many voters, that some politicians have behaved so badly that they require charging, that others have ‘paid back’ much larger sums of money and evaded any contact with the law.

One of the most mysterious aspects of the whole sage is the fact that in both the Lords and the Commons, extraordinarily wealthy people in their own right have felt it worth ‘fiddling’ their expenses to achieve such modest moneys in comparison to their vast worth.

Is this a facet of the human condition? That once you have it, you want still more?

The bits of judgement that seem to me to have been missed from Sir Christopher Kelly and Sir Tom Legg (the investigating authorities) are those that centre on the wholesale preparedness by all MPs to tolerate a system they knew was being abused (either by themselves or others); and the ‘culture of deference in parliament’.

If you go down to Westminster these days, MPs may not want to be seen much outside Parliament, but inside they still swan about the place as if it is theirs and not ours.

The current period of pain and revelation has done nothing to reduce the evidence that the culture, practice, environment, establishment of politics in Parliament require root and branch reform.

From the voting system to the all but unaccountable Executive, the need for reform is great; the chances that it will occur – all but nil.

Nott says Landina urgently needs to be transferred to a specialist unit abroad if she is to survive, but yesterday his request was turned down. Moving children from the earthquake-stricken country is a sensitive issue: earlier this week, US missionaries were charged with kidnapping after trying to remove Haitian children from the country.

The story has attracted worldwide interest, with offers of help flooding in via the micro-blogging site Twitter. “This is clearly a tragic and upsetting case,” the Foreign Office told Channel 4 News today. “We stand prepared to help.”

Medecins Sans Frontieres Tweeted to say a Ministry of Health neuro-surgeon was evaluating Landina today for local care or medical evacuation abroad.

Update: read more about the latest developments and watch a new video report here.

Watch Inigo Gilmore’s original video report below:

The story was also covered in the Mail on Sunday today.

Pictures: Chris Schlemon/Channel 4 News

In a few days I will officially be a year older than I am now. Time is passing. The bulldozers in the centre of Port-au-Prince which was badly hit, are working hard to clear the piles of collapsed buildings and start preparing for a new beginning.

I still have no idea what happens to the bodies that are being excavated along with the rubble. They will not be in good shape by now. As we return home we see a foot sticking out of the debris being scooped up by our house.

The warnings on the radio of further quakes have been adding to the hysteria of listeners. We talk to people in a new camp that we will work in. They are not considering returning home for a long time yet. They are afraid.

Rainy season is rapidly approaching. We ask what support they would need to return to their homes. They need building materials like sand and cement and cash to pay carpenters and masons to help with reconstruction.

Read previous Oxfam blogs from Haiti

A building specialist has been flown in for a few days. He is trying to decide how we can best demolish our damaged office without it falling on the part of our workplace that is still standing. Thankfully all the staff homes still standing that he inspected were proclaimed safe to return to.

We are continuing with our water distribution and latrine digging. I am responsible for evaluating new sites. Most of the large camps now have organisations covering the water and sanitation needs but there are still tens of thousands of affected people staying in their communities or smaller camps who are yet to be reached.

The needs are so great it is still impossible to reach everyone immediately but every day we reach more people.

I have noticed a huge increase in flies over the last week. They pose a public health risk that we need to work on. I end the day returning to a camp I visited yesterday. There is barely room to pass between the makeshift wood and sheet shelters.

One corner of the camp has children playing on it rather than these haphazard constructions hanging on it. It is the rubbish heap. Covered in flies and smelling bad.

We have ordered a skip and I have taken shiny new wheelbarrows, shovels and protective clothing so that 10 men and 10 women can work for three days to clear the waste. We will then be able to construct latrines in the space that they clean up.

Popping into one of the women’s bathing spaces that we have created, Karine my colleague is greeted by over 30 women washing themselves. They just keep saying “merci, merci”, ”thank you, thank you”.

The security situation remains tense. A colleague was robbed at her house this morning so she is staying with us tonight. A woman was held at gunpoint in her car outside our office earlier this week, she had her handbag stolen.

Driving back from an assessment today I pass a guy lying on the side of the road with his T-shirt pulled over his head, I imagine he was killed for stealing.

I find it intriguing that the traffic lights are still working but the electricity system has been severely damaged. We rely on the generator at home but most nights by 10pm the power runs out.

It looks like it has been snowing on our street but the bushes are covered in beige dust not snow.

The combination of sweat from being out in the field and the powder held in the air, by the end of the day I resemble a scarecrow more than a humanitarian worker. Am still dreaming of a nice warm shower!

As I leave the field to come home a young girl in a green glittery dress and her beaming friend tell us in perfect English, “I love you very much!”.

It is good to know that the most important English words are being spread across the world.

The scandal of Britain’s libel laws and their facility for libel tourism is well known. So too is our traditionally cavalier attitude to freedom of speech.

But even against this background, the idea that a country with one of the worst records for press freedom and human rights was able to use the UK’s broadcast regulations to challenge legitimate reporting of allegations about cold-blooded killings in a brutal civil war surely takes the UK to a new place.
Whatever private individuals and corporations may be able to do, our legal system does at least prevent states, governments, and political parties from suing for defamation in our courts.

I and my colleagues at Channel 4 News are emerging from a storm that saw Sri Lanka bypass our libel laws and attempt to use Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, to do what the law would not allow – silence our journalism.

Ofcom’s job is to protect “people who watch television and listen to radio from harmful or offensive material” and to further the interests of UK citizens in respect of communication matters. It does this well.

Ofcom’s job has never been to protect governments or organisations from criticisms or to further their political or commercial interests.
 
Last year, we broadcast a video showing nine bound and naked men, two of whom were shot, on camera, by soldiers who appeared to be wearing Sri Lankan army uniform.

On the night in question the script made clear that while we couldn’t authenticate this video, sent to us by a group called Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, it nevertheless raised matters of such importance that further investigation was warranted.

The Sri Lankan High Commission immediately denied the atrocities that the video appeared to show.
 
Two weeks later, at a news conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka said “independent” analysis had declared the video a “fake“.

It mounted a high-profile global campaign to discredit the report, protesting outside Channel 4’s London headquarters. The Sri Lankan government opened up a second front in the UK, filing a series of complaints with Ofcom – one for accuracy and impartiality, one for fairness and privacy.

What had begun as a media campaign to try to destroy the credibility of the Channel 4 News report had become a private battle using the UK’s broadcast regulator. It was a battle in which they were initially allowed to hide anonymously behind the confidential nature of the procedures.

In the end, battle was spared by the findings of a UN committee which recently concluded that the “offending” tape did appear authentic, and dismissed Sri Lanka’s analysis.

Strangely, on the eve of the UN report’s publication the government of Sri Lanka dropped its Ofcom complaints. Whether it had got wind of the verdict, we do not know.

The Sri Lankan video affair has revealed how the Ofcom procedures are potentially open to abuse that threatens to curb not only investigative reporting, but coverage of countries who have repressive and litigious trouble spots and who would rather hide this from public scrutiny.

In short the way Ofcom’s complaint procedures are framed raises serious implications for the reporting of issues of global significance,
 
Ofcom has come of age in my reporting life time and I regard it as an unexpected regulatory success. But we all need to look to the very real risk of governments “hijacking” the regulatory process for their own political ends.
 
In this case, Ofcom was placed at the centre of an international row over Sir Lanka’s human rights record and was being asked to take decisions which could have had a major bearing on the country’s attempts to defend its reputation. This cannot be a proper use of the Ofcom process and nor can this be in the interests of UK public at large.
 
Before Sri Lanka’s complaints were dropped, we were prepared to put these arguments in front of a court.

We felt a clear ruling that denied countries access to Ofcom’s complaints procedures would be beneficial not just too political debate in the UK, but would also help the regulator to avoid being drawn into major international crises. In the absence of a legal ruling, only parliament can change the basis on which complaints can be brought to Ofcom and we urge them to find time to do so. 
 
Without such clarity, we have a serious concern that other countries could follow the Ofcom route.
 
Ofcom surely needs to ensure that Sri Lanka is the last country ever to be allowed to attempt to pervert the regulator’s domestic complaints procedure for its own reputational needs.

The reports are worrrying, confusing and intriguing in equal measure.

The charges are very serious, but no one has yet been able to establish the woman’s identity.

It seems that the mystery defendant may also be linked to other murky, reports about two German policemen, attached to the Tehran embassy, who were recently flown home in a hurry amid a flurry of allegations of espionage and love trysts with “an Iranian woman”.

The German ministry of foreign affairs is not exactly clear that it is the same woman who is implicated in both incidents, I am told. All they would say to us officially was the enlightening: “We cannot give any names or say anything”. German federal police say they are conducting an investigation.

Last month, the Iranian intelligence minister said “several foreign nationals” were among those detained after clashes during Ashura, on 27 December, in which at least eight protesters died.

It has taken a long time for it to emerge that one of them is apparently British, although it is reported that she may only have been arrested within the past three weeks.

The Iranian government chooses not to differentiate between Iranian citizens and those holding dual nationality.

They have a habit of refusing to recognise dual citizenship if doing so could benefit the individual concerned, but trumpeting foreign meddling when it suits.

What is particularly intriguing about this case, and is nonplussing diplomats and analysts alike, is that the Tehran regime has so far chosen not to make a big noise about the fact they are apparently detaining a Briton, whom they are accusing of serious offences.

Usually Iran makes the most of every opportunity to lambast the country it brands the ‘wily old fox’ and ‘little satan’.

Whitehall has long been accused by Tehran of conspiring to foment revolution. An Iranian employed by the British embassy as its chief political analyst has already been convicted of organising protests following the disputed presidential election last June.

Hossein Rassam is currently on bail, pending appeal of his four-year sentence.

The British woman is among 16 alleged oppostion protestors on trial, five of whom are charged with ‘moharebeh’, the capital offence which translates as ‘waging war against God’.

An Iranian news agency says she does not face the death penalty however.

The reported charges against her include espionage, immoral relations with foreigners, drinking alcohol and insulting high-ranking officials.

She is apparently accused of sending text messages encouraging attendance of ‘green’ demonstrations.

The foreign office said: “We have seen reports that a dual national appeared in court in Tehran yesterday. We are in contact with the Iranian authorities to seek urgent clarification on whether a British national is involved and to request consular assistance.”

The Iranian weekend closed in before any clarification could be obtained.

Iran’s Mehr news agency reported that one of the defendants (and the implication is that it was the British woman) told the court: “I do not think that taking to the street means spreading corruption.”

It is impossible to obtain independent confirmation of what was said in court as no independent observers are permitted to attend.

We were unable to reach her state-appointed lawyer. The trials have themselves been condemned as unfair by international human rights groups.

More than 80 people have now been jailed for up to 15 years after being convicted of fomenting unrest.

Five have been sentenced to death, and two of those convicted of moharebeh were executed last week.

A hardline cleric, Ayatollah Jannati, has called for more such executions, branding protestors “corruptors on earth”.

He told worshippers at Tehran university last week: “I thank the judiciary chief for executing two rioters and urge him to execute others if they do not give up such protests”.

The regime seems intent on putting the fear of God into would-be demonstrators as the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution approaches, next Thursday, when an upsurge of ‘green’ opposition protest is widely expected.