Should fat people pay more to travel?

Hi there. Ros here.  We’re off air now but you can listen again here.

SHOULD FAT PEOPLE PAY MORE TO TRAVEL?

Dr John Tickell is an Australian author and nutritionist and he says it’s time to take a stand against obesity… And his suggestion of how to do that is a ‘fat tax’ which requires people to pay more to fly if they are overweight. He wants to help people lose weight, but some of you are also highlighting the seating benefits of keeping fat people off planes.Do you think your country’s airlines should introduce a ‘fat tax’? What about the idea of it applying to all public transport? And of course, just as importantly, regardless of whether you think it’s acceptable, would it persuade people to stop eating so much? Here’s the story

THE SPANISH KING V THE VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT

It went something like this. The scene is the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago. Hugo Chavez calls Spain’s former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a ‘facist’. Spain’s King Juan Carlos tells Mr Chavez to “shut up”. The next day Mr Chavez asks if the King knew of the coup that briefly removed power from Mr Chavez in 2002. People are lining up to take sides on this… who do you support? Here’s the story

THE HOMELESS VETERANS
Many of you responded to the story last week that a quarter of homeless Americans are veterans. It was a story we know you wanted to talk about, and we wanted to make sure we got in touch with some of the people directly affected. Today we’ll hear from veterans in Nigeria, Russia, the UK and the States to hear why they think so many veterans end up on the streets. If you’d like to speak with them or send them a comment, do get in touch. Here’s the story
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WHYS’ autumnal world tour has reached its natural finishing point – the little clutch of desks in London that we call home. So thanks to all of you who came along in South Africa, Namibia and most recently San Francisco and Phoenix. It been a real thrill to meet so many of you. But that’s it for our 2007 travelling – which isn’t such a bad thing for what I have left of a green conscience. I should have news of the first trip of 2008 soon – but we’re open to suggestions… Welcome to the Daily Email to Gregor from San Francisco, Jill in Texas, Bjorn in Iceland and Lydia in rural Virginia. Thanks for signing up. The routine is a simple one – I run you through the day’s news and stories, you head to the blog if you want to comment on any of it. So here we go….

GOOD NEWS 1: JOACHIM GIVES US A KISS FM
Joachim is the BBC World Service’s business development person for East Africa and he had some happy news for us while we were in the States. Kiss FM is a fantastic Tanzanian station and it’s started broadcasting WHYS – something I got very excited about from the safe distance of Phoenix. Check out KISS FM

GOOD NEWS 2: WHYS JOINS KALW IN SAN FRANCISCO
The show we broadcast from SF was in conjunction with the two main public radio stations there – KALW and KQED. I had an inkling KALW might be considering taking WHYS when they interviewed me about the show and said they’d ‘play it at a later date’. And it was confirmed when we got back to London. I loved visiting the station – everything from the staff to the programmes to the way there’s a school through the office door made me want to stay in touch. Clearly finding a place in their schedule’s going to help that. We’ll be on KALW in January. Check out KALW

You’d never guess from the length of this email that I’ve been off for a bit. I shall calm down by tomorrow I promise. Speak to you later. Cheers, Ros
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fat tax and veterans

Iain here and good morning from Television Centre in West London.

Should obese people on planes pay more for their ticklet?  One Australian doctor thinks so..

“If you are going to charge for excess baggage, then charge fat people for excess weight”

Dr John Tickell, an Australian expert in nutrition and weight-control, believes obese passengers should be liable for a penalty.

Is he right?  Would a fat tax work?

Also like many of you I expect, I watched yesterday as people across the world remembered their war dead.  According to the US Department of Veteran Affairs

“Americans are blessed to live in a Nation of democracy and freedom. For these blessings we thank our veterans”.

Well it seems thanking the veterans is one thing.. Housing them is quite another.  It’s a statistic that some might say shames America: military veterans make up one in four of all the homeless people in the United States.

Figures are also bad in here in the UK.I’ve read statistics as high as 1 in 8 of homeless in the UK is a former soldier..

What is going on here.. don’t our veterans deserve better?

She wrote an ode to beheading – now she faces a jail term..
“You’ll feel the knife hit the food pipe. But don’t stop. Continue with all your might”

Samina Malik who dubbed herself the “Lyrical Terrorist” has became the first Muslim woman in Britain to be found guilty of terrorism offences.  Samina Malik, who worked air-side at Heathrow airport,  posted a series of poems on websites across the internet about killing non-believers, pursuing martyrdom and raising children to be holy fighters.

Police chiefs, politicians and football administrators in Italy are meeting today to discuss the weekend’s violence across the country which flared up after a policeman accidentally shot dead a football fan in his car.   One listener has already emailed us here to say ‘Violence in Italian football occurs every weekend.”  So is Italian foootball out of control

Foreign ministers from Commonwealth countries are meeting in London later today to discuss possible sanctions against Pakistan. How can the Pakistan crisis be resolved? 

 post on the blog here or email us at  worldhaveyoursay@bbc.co.uk