Canadian firm to install sewerage infrastructure in upper south province

Ottawa-based Clearford Industries Inc. has signed an agreement with The Upper South Utilities Limited (USUL) of the Republic of Maldives to negotiate and enter into sewerage infrastructure projects for up to fifteen of the islands located in the country’s Upper South Province, using Clearford’s Small Bore Sewer system.

Canadian company Clearford Industries has signed an agreement with the Maldives’ Upper South Utilities Limited to install and service sewerage infrastructure on 15 islands.

Solid Waste and Recycling Magazine reported that the “good faith” agreement would enable the Maldives to pay Clearford over a 20 year period, in a deal worth an estimated US$40 million.

Sewers are currently installed on just 12 of the Maldives’ almost 200 inhabited islands.

Groundwater on islands without sewerage systems was frequently contaminated due to the porous coral and sand structures of the islands, the report stated.

“The Maldives has been one of the 10 priority countries for Clearford during the last year of international business development,” the magazine reported Bruce Linton, president and CEO of Clearford, as saying.

“We have interacted with and made proposals for servicing on some of the islands over this period. I am confident that we have a very knowledgeable customer and an optimal technical solution for their requirement.”

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Road to 2013 uncertain for opposition despite election gains, says PA

The path towards 2013’s general election is unclear for the Maldives’ political opposition according to the People’s Alliance (PA) party, despite last weekend’s local council elections serving as an “encouraging” guideline for how they could fare during national polling.

PA Secretary General Ahmed Shareef told Minivan News that in light of the performance of opposition parties, particularly the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) in securing the majority of island councils around the country, the manner in which they would come together to try and hold the government accountable was far from certain.

Shareef said a formal coalition between four or more of the country’s opposition parties was one possible option, but added that this remained far from a certainty in the current political climate.

The claims come amidst reports of further political infighting within the DRP, the country’s main opposition party, as factions supporting current leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali and dismissed former Deputy Leader Umar Naseer vie for control of the party.

The disputes led yesterday to protests outside the DRP headquarters by a crowd calling for Thasmeen’s resignation, followed by his announcement of the signing of a second coalition agreement with the Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP). The PA and DRP already maintain a coalition and together own a parliamentary majority.

Although not wishing to comment on the reported disputes between factions in the DRP itself due to allegations of the involvement of the PA in instigating them, Shareef added that party did not currently believe that the DQP’s coalition with the DRP would affect its own coalition agreement leading up to 2013’s race for the presidency.

“I don’t think the coalition with the DQP will affect our position with the DRP yet,” he said. “If the DRP, DQP, PA and JP came into a formal coalition than that would be provide strength for the opposition.”

However, following a local council elections campaign that saw the DRP obtaining the majority of the island and atoll council seats at the expense of conceding municipal gains in Male’ and Addu Atoll to the rival Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the potential for a formal arrangement between various parties was uncertain, at least according to Shareef.

“Personally, looking at the political status of the Maldives, especially the opposition parties, I don’t see a clear picture of what will happen in 2013 [the date of the country’s next general elections], he said.

Although Shareef said that the PA’s key focus at the elections centred primarily on reducing the number of ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) seats obtained across the country, he claimed that the party was in support of local councils and encouraged them to work for constituents and not their own partisan ambitions.

However, the PA Secretary General reiterated comments made by other political parties like the DRP concerning the lack of details on the exact role and responsibilities that the newly appointed local councils will have on the nation’s politics.

“We really don’t know how system will work or how affiliated it may be with government,” he said.

In this uncertain post council election environment, Shareef said that he believed there were already reports that numerous opposition parties were working to stifle possible developments or strategies planned by elected councils.

“We hear from many councils that they will do this or that to especially make things difficult for the opposition,” he said. “If DRP candidates are there, they will make things difficult for the MDP people in the island, if MDP is in the councils the opposite will occur. That will not be the real objective why we have elected a council.”

The PA secretary general claimed that he believed one problem from the local council elections was the lack of any published rules written within the legal acts outlining decentralised government and objectives for the local councils – legislation he said that should have been in place before voting started.

Shareed claimed that a lack of voter education, particularly on what was expected of them and the significance of their vote, might be problematic in cases where councils provided “favours” such as land rights to their respective parties.

“So far these rules and regulations are not developed,” he said. “There are many important procedures and rules to be developed by the Local Government Authority (LGA).”

With the appointment of members onto the LGA expected to take place soon, he hoped these rules and other mandates would soon be developed and formally published.

“Maybe at the end of the month, with all the election results announced, we would expect for the LGA to be formed,” he said. “It is formed, but it currently only has one member – the Home Minister, who is the President’s representative on the LGA.”

The Home Minister was not responding to calls at time of press.

From the perspective of the PA, emotions were mixed on the reaction to the local council elections.

Due to its ongoing coalition agreement with the DRP, where it opted not to compete directly against candidates perceived to have strong chances of being elected, Shareef said that the PA had itself acquired one atoll council seat out of eight candidates running on a ticket from the party.

While accepting that the elections were free, Shareef said he did not believe they were fair; particularly in terms of the resources available to the ruling MDP, which he alleged had used state funds to aid its election campaigning as well as providing itself disproportionate access to state media at the opposition’s expense.

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Saudi oil reserves could be 40% lower than estimated: US Embassy cable

The Maldives’ economy could be crippled by rising oil prices sooner than expected, after a leaked cable from the US embassy in Riyadh sparked fears that Saudi Arabian oil reserves could be 40 percent lower than previous estimates.

In the cable dated November 2007, geologist and former head of exploration at Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant Aramco told US consul general John Kincannon that the world’s largest oil company may have overstated its reserves by 300 billion barrels.

Saudi Arabia is believed to sit on almost a quarter of the world’s oil reserves, the export of which directly accounts for almost 50 percent of country’s GDP and indirectly for much of the rest of its industry.

In 2007, Aramco reported that it had 716 billion barrels of total reserves, 51 percent of which was recoverable. Within 20 years the company predicted it would have 900 million barrels, and a recovery rate of 70 percent.

“Al-Husseini disagrees with this analysis, as he believes that Aramco’s reserves are overstated by as much as 300 billion [barrels] of ‘speculative resources’,” the cable reads.

“In al-Husseini’s view, once 50 percent depletion of original proven reserves has been reached and the 180 billion [barrel] threshold crossed, a slow but steady output decline will ensue and no amount of effort will be able to stop it. By al-Husseini’s calculations, approximately 116 billion barrels of oil have been produced by Saudi Arabia, meaning only 64 billion barrels remain before reaching this crucial point of inflection. At 12 million [barrels per day] production, this inflection point will arrive in 14 years.”

Al-Husseini was on Aramco’s board of directors from 1986 until 2004, and sat on the company’s Board of Directors from 1996 to 2004. He was, states the cable, “no doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered.”

A decline in the rate of oil production at a time when demand continues to surge, particularly in the developing world, will cause the oil price to skyrocket.

The Maldivian economy is dependent on oil to such an extent that is spends a quarter of its GDP on it – US$245 million – mostly marine diesel. The 15 percent increase in oil prices over the past five months has led to the Maldives spending almost US$100,000 more on fossil fuels, per day.

Recent turmoil in Egypt – home to the Suez canal, one of the world’s major oil routes which sees 3 million barrels pass through daily – has seen oil prices jump twice past the US$100 a barrel mark in the last few weeks.

Were that price to eventually stick, due to either ongoing Middle East instability or concerns over supply such as those cited in the Riyadh leak, then the Maldives could end up spending upwards of US$230,000 a day on fuel when accounting for possible economic growth of about eight percent during 2011.

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Cabinet appoints sub-committee to implement local councils, teachers to be licensed

Cabinet yesterday decided to appoint a sub-committee to oversee the technical and administrative arrangements for establishing local councils, following the elections on Saturday.

Ministers acknowledged that there were also legal requirements that needed to be met before councils could commence their duties.

During Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, ministers also decided to register and license teachers working in the Maldives, after reviewing recommendations in a paper presented by the Ministry of Education.

When the decision comes into effect, all teachers teaching in pre-school to higher secondary levels, school principals, technical staff in these levels, and all those interested in teaching in schools of the Maldives will be required to register and acquire a license to teach.

Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed chaired the meeting as President Mohamed Nasheed is a four day holiday following the local council elections.

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President commends independent institutions on “peaceful and competitive” elections

The Elections Commission, police, state authorities and civil society organisations were to be commended for the generally peaceful local council elections, held last Saturday, President Mohamed Nasheed has said.

The elections were peaceful and competitive without major incident, Nasheed said.

The DRP won 502 seats, 91 island councils and 10 atoll councils, according to preliminary results of the local council elections.

MDP won 375 seats, 61 island councils, four atoll councils and 88 percent of the city council seats. Independents took 160 seats, 15 island councils and one atoll council (Dhaalu).

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IFC and MMA to establish Maldives’ first credit information bureau

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is to work with the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) to establish the country’s first credit information bureau, reports India Infoline.

The creation of a formal mechanism for sharing credit information will improve access to finance for small and medium enterprises, the IFC stated.

“Creating a financial infrastructure that supports informed credit-related decisions and improves access to credit for small and medium enterprises is an important priority for IFC and the Maldives,” said Per Kjellerhaug, IFC Regional Manager. “Establishing a credit information bureau will help the country get closer to achieving this goal.”

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Shareef claims leaked audio was doctored

Opposition Deputy Leader and Spokesperson Ibrahim ‘Mavota’ Shareef has confirmed that while the voice in an audio clip leaked yesterday was his, parts of the conversation had been edited.

During the conversation Shareef questions the support for former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in Addu, and suggested that were Gayoom’s faction to campaign there, “we will beat them up and drag them away [from Addu].”

That led to a crowd gathering outside the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) headquarters calling for the resignation of Shareef and Leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali. When Shareef confronted the crowd he was attacked, and escorted to safety by police.

The source of the leaked phone call, which was aired on MNBC and DhiFM, has not been identified. However Shareef told Haveeru that the recording was engineered by mixing parts of a conversation he had with several different people, after dismissed Deputy Leader Umar Naseer “created conflicts by attending our function.”

“We were have conversations with several people. A group of people recorded such a conversation and leaked it,” he told Haveeru. “The part of the leaked audio, in which I was saying ‘Gayoom cannot go to Addu to campaign’, was edited. I never said it directly.”

Shareef and Thasmeen were not responding to calls at time of press.

Spokesperson for Gayoom Hussein ‘Mundhu’ Shareef was quoted in Haveeru as saying that Mavota Shareef owed an apology to the former President: “Maumoon holds the most honorary position in the DRP and is linked to many people’s spirit. So no-one can make a comment in order to tarnish the reputation of Maumoon,” Haveeru reported Mundhu as saying.

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Google exec galvanises Egyptian protesters in second wave of demonstrations

The protests in Egypt against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak have been reignited following the release from police custody of Wael Ghonim, an online activist and key organiser of the demonstrations.

Ghonim, who is also Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, wept openly on Dream TV and gave an emotional interview that has reinvigorated anti-government protests in Cairo.

The search giant had earlier appealed for public help in locating the missing executive, who disappeared on January 27 and was adopted by many protesters as a symbolic leader.

When he was told about the deaths of 300 people who died during the demonstrations, he cried – “We didn’t do anything wrong. We did what our consciences dictated to us”, he said.

Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators filled the central square of Cairo while marches erupted in cities across the country.

“I like to call it the Facebook Revolution, but after seeing the people right now, I would say this is the Egyptian people’s revolution. It’s amazing,” Ghonim was reported as saying, after he was mobbed by galvanised supporters.

“Egyptians deserve a better life. Today one of those dreams has actually come true, which is actually putting all of us together and as one hand believing in something,” he said.

Prior to Ghonim’s release foreign media present in Egypt had reported a drop in momentum following 12 days of unprecedented demonstrations, with the UK’s Independent newspaper writing that Mubarak was using “all the guile that has kept him in power for so long to produce a series of sweeteners – including a 15 per cent pay rise for state employees – to widen his public support.”

The United States meanwhile backed Mubarak’s perferred successor, recently appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman, as the country’s transitional leader in a bid to encourage President Hosni Mubarak to step aside.

Suleiman was appointed to the position by Mubarak following the sacking of his entire cabinet. Columnist Lisa Hajjar writes for Al-Jazeera that Egypt’s intelligence has CIA links and has “long been favoured by the US government for his ardent anti-Islamism [and] his willingness to talk and act tough on Iran.”

“There are forces in any society, particularly one facing these kind of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own agenda,” said US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, “which is why I think it’s important to follow the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed by vice-president Omar Suleiman.”

The US appears anxious that Egypt avoid the fate of Iran, which replaced a US-backed dictatorial regime with an unpredictable Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the Iranian revolution in 1979. Egypt is central to the region and an unstable Egypt would have a knock-on effect on world oil prices.

Media in Egypt have reported that one group likely to benefit from the fall of Mubarak is the Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Hassan al-Banna 1928 in opposition to the British presence in Egypt.

“Six Egyptian workers employed in the military camps of Ismailiyya in the Suez Canal Zone visited Banna, a young teacher who they had heard preaching in mosques and cafes on the need for ‘Islamic renewal’,” writes the Guardian’s Jack Shenker, in a rare interview with the group.

“‘Arabs and Muslims have no status and no dignity,’ they complained, according to the brotherhood’s official history. ‘They are no more than mere hirelings belonging to the foreigners… We are unable to perceive the road to action as you perceive it…’

Banna later wrote that the Europeans had expropriated the resources of Muslim lands and corrupted them with ‘murderous germs’: ‘They imported their half-naked women into these regions, together with their liquors, their theatres, their dance halls, their amusements, their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims, their silly games, and their vices… The day must come when the castles of this materialistic civilisation will be laid low upon the heads of their inhabitants.’

Banna argued that Islam provided a complete solution, with divine guidance on everything from worship and spiritual matters to the law, politics and social organisation. He established an evening school for the working classes which impressed the general inspector of education and by 1931 the brotherhood had constructed its first mosque – for which the Suez Canal Company is said to have provided some of the funds.”

The BBC reported that a senior Hamas commander from Gaza, Ayman Nofel, used the chaos to escape his three year detention in Egypt on unspecified charges.

“I shouted to other prisoners to break down the doors and gates,” Nofel told the BBC, who used smuggled mobile phones to mobilise local residents outside the jail to storm the prison gates and allow him to fight his way through guards to freedom.

Mubarak’s position continues to weaken, after the state-controlled Al-Ahram newspaper, Egypt’s second oldest, abandoned its support for his regime with a front page lead hailing the “nobility” of the “revolution”.

The state and all its denizens, the elder generation, the politicians and all other powers on the political stage must humble themselves and rein themselves in to understand the ambitions of the young and the dreams of this nation,” wrote editor Osama Saraya.

Even if Mubarak were to be ousted in similar fashion to his Tunisian counterpart Ben Ali, he is unlikely to go hungry – an analysis by Middle East experts published by the Guardian pegs the Egyptian President’s private wealth at US$70 billion, making him among the wealthiest people on the planet. Much of this money is reported to stashed in British and Swiss bank accounts or tied up in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles and acres of Red Sea coast.

Meanwhile, the effect of Egyptian unrest has been felt across the region. Last week Yemeni leader of 30 years Ali Abdullah Saleh promised he would halt constitutional changes that would allow him to be president for life promised not to seek reelection, after civil society groups promised “a day of rage”.

“I will not extend my mandate and I am against hereditary rule,” Saleh said during an emergency session of parliament.

Libyan President of 42 years, Muammar al-Gaddafi, is said to be moving towards transitioning his country back to the monarchy he overthrew in a 1969 coup.

“He’s started to return property, which belonged to the late King Idris, back to the designated heirs of the king,” noted president of the International Strategic Studies Association, Greg Copley.

Tunisia, which started the domino trend after protests forced Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee, has been forced to call up army reservists to confront growing unrest and meet demand for democratic reforms.

Former conscripts and retired soldiers were ordered to report to military posts according to the local news agency TAP.

Gaza is meanwhile facing acute shortages of fuel and supplies as the traffic of goods through underground tunnels crossing the border to Egypt has dried up. Petrol and diesel brought in from Israel costs three times as much as that smuggled into the country, which relies on it for power during extend cuts.

The Maldives is unlikely to escape unscathed either – the country spends 25 percent of its GDP on fuel and its economy, one of the most sensitive in the world, is likely to be susceptible to even minor price fluctuations.

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