July 26, 2012 – Minivan News

Government demands GMR “temporarily halt” construction of new terminal

The Maldives government has called for a cessation of work on the new airport terminal by Indian infrastructure group GMR, over allegations the company has “violated rules and regulations” regarding the construction.

President’s Office Spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza confirmed to Minivan News that the cabinet, acting on information provided by the Transport Ministry, had requested that building work on the new terminal at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) be halted.

“When the government decides that a project be stopped, we will make sure this happens,” he said. “GMR have not discussed the construction with relevant authorities.”

Abbas did not clarify if the alleged violation of rules and regulations by the company was related to previous reports that construction on the project commenced last month without obtaining construction permits from the country’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Transport and Communications Minister Dr Ahmed Shamheed was not responding to calls at the time of press.

A GMR spokesperson said today that the company itself had received no letter or communications calling for a halt to work.

However, local media has reported that the cabinet opted on Tuesday (July 24) to call for a “temporarily halt” on work on the terminal, over claims GMR had not acquired necessary authorisation and permit approval from the country’s Civil Aviation Authority.

GMR told Haveeru earlier earlier this month that terminal construction had been approved in an existing master-plan agreed with the government. The company has pledged that it will open by July 2014, “irrespective” of outside issues.

Addressing the matter of GMR’s construction work earlier this month, the government at the time claimed that the permit was “not a huge issue” and was believed to have resulted from an error by contractors presently working on the airport’s construction.

Development plans

The development of the airport – expected by the company to total US$511m in costs – is the largest foreign investment project undertaken in the Maldives’ history and includes commitments to renovate INIA’s existing terminal by September both in terms of operational efficiency and customer services, according to GMR.

With contractors already having begun work on the new structure in June, the administration of President Dr Mohamed Waheed has previously stressed that it would not seek to interfere or “disturb” the project that officially commenced back in November 2010 under the administration of former President Mohamed Nasheed.

However, President’s Office Spokesperson Abbas previously claimed that the long-term prospects of the construction ultimately depended on GMR validating the legality of their contract – a document that was overseen by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The IFC is a member of the World Bank group and the largest global institution focused on private sector in developing countries.

Abbas added that should the (now government party controlled) parliament also decide on nationalising the airport in line with the wishes of certain pro-government parties to take back the project from GMR, then the present administration would have to comply with such a decision.

The government of President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan comprises a coalition of former opposition parties that represent the majority of elected representatives. The now-opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) presently has 29 MPs in the Majlis, the largest number of MPs belonging to a single party.

Nationalisation calls

Several pro-government parties – including the Dhivehi Rayithunge Party (DRP), Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP), People’s Alliance (PA) and Jumhoree Party (JP) – advised President Waheed last month that they continued to endorse an agreement signed in June 2010 calling for the airport to be taken back from GMR and nationalised.

The agreement endorsed six main points which included taking legal action to prevent the government’s decision to award the contract to GMR.

Likes

(0)Dislikes

(0)

Nine people to face charges over ‘honeytrap’ nude photo blackmailing scam

The Maldives Police Service (MPS) have sent a case involving nine people to the Prosecutor General (PG), alleging the group was involved in blackmailing people after acquiring nude pictures and videos of them through Facebook.

Last year in February, police arrested 14 persons including a minor for alleged involvement in the blackmailing ring, after the group used a fraudulent Facebook account to acquire videos of politicians, businessman and other members of the public and used the material to blackmail them for money.

In a press briefing held yesterday, police revealed to media the details of the nine persons facing charges, all of them from Hithadhoo in Addu City: Mohamed Mumin (26), Hussain Shah (24), Ahmed Mohamed (26), Mohamed Minsar (24), Azmeen Ishaag (23), Mohamed Ishaag (27), Ibrahim Ishaag (20), Ali Ishaag (26) and Ahmed Athif (21).

Police stated that during the investigation process they retrieved videos of about 60 to 70 people who were blackmailed.

They also said that they have sent cases involving 10 persons to the PG, concerning the content of videos obtained. Police did not reveal the details of those charged.

Speaking at the press briefing, Superintendent of Police Mohamed Riyaz said that police did not reveal the details because the case concerned a lot of people and there remained “certain things” that still needed to be checked before revealing their identities.

Police earlier told Minivan News that they would be revealing the details of those in the videos as the investigation progressed.

Superintendent Riyaz stated that the blackmailers used two Facebook accounts to blackmail the victims and had acquired large sums of money in the process, transferred it using a shop in Male to a shop in Addu City.

Two Facebook profiles identified at the time as being involved in the ring where those belonging to ‘Lyshiaa Limanom’ and ‘Angelic Sharrown’. Both of these profiles show the same picture of a young blonde woman wearing sunglasses, and each profile had between 1200-1300 Facebook ‘friends’ – most of them Maldivian.

Riyaz also said that the blackmailers had also collected money by personally contacting the victims.

“[Before taking money] they first checked the financial capacity of the person. They took large sums of money from some people while collected money from others on a monthly basis for a very long period,” he said.

Riyaz did not reveal the details of exactly how much money that was laundered.

During the investigation, police questioned several officials from the former government including officials of state minister level.

Local newspaper Haveeru reported that the investigation was halted following pressure from the former government, and the investigations resumed following the controversial transfer of power which toppled the government of then President Mohamed Nasheed on February 7, 2012.

Following the arrests made on February last year, police in a statement said they had begun investigations after the issue came to light two months back.

“Police conducted a special operation from February 13-20, 2011 in an effort to stop this crime and present the criminals before the court,” read the statement.

Police at the time said 10 of the 14 alleged perpetrators were arrested in Addu City while four of them, including a 17 year old minor, were caught in Male’. According to police all persons arrested in Addu City were between the ages of 21-26.

Police stated that they discovered “hundreds of nude pictures and videos of Maldivians” in the laptops and external hard drives of those arrested.

“While some of the pictures were taken of people while drunk, other pictures were taken without the consent of the person,” police said.

Police also stated that they had noticed that some people in the videos were performing explicit acts in the presence of minors, and warned that this “could affect the future and discipline of the minors”.

Police questioning Haveeru journalists

During the investigations, police questioned two journalists from local newspaper Haveeru following an article they published on the blackmailing ring.

Haveeru in the article interviewed a person who claimed to have seen some of the material, who said that MPs belonging to both the opposition and the ruling party had fallen for the scam, as well as prominent businessmen and “national figures”.

Haveeru journalists Ahmed Hamdhoon and Ismail Naseer volunteered to take part in police questioning about an article published by Haveeru on February 22 concerning the content of images acquired through Facebook. The paper maintained that it did not have any of the files that were in question.

Haveeru Editor Moosa Latheef told Minivan News at the time that although police had acted politely and without aggression in requesting the identity of the sources said to have viewed the indecent images – a request he said was denied just as politely – the case could have serious ramifications for the national media in the future.

Latheef stressed particular concern that should police repeat their conduct of looking to question journalists about their sources or stories.

“We are very much enjoying the press freedom in the Maldives right now. But I’m afraid that if the police or other institutions try to interfere with our [press] freedom then they will create an atmosphere where we are unable to fulfill our responsibilities,” he said. “If this repeats then we could have journalists who are afraid to write about issues. No one wants to go to the courts to defend himself or herself [over stories].”

Latheef said that in general, it could become very easy to begin such a case by accusing a journalist – or anyone – of having illegal content such as pornographic images on their computer. Yet on a wider level, the editor was wary about police being able to gain access to the computer files of the country’s journalists and their contents that could include confidential sources vital to break stories.

While the paper’s editor accepted that there were situations such as national security issues that could warrant a court to request the identity of a journalist’s source against commonly held industry ethics, he claimed such requests should remain very rare cases.

Latheef said that the Facebook bribery allegations were a story not about an issue of national security, but one concerning prominent members of the government, parliament and the judiciary, which paled in consequence to some of the stories he said Haveeru has previously published.

Police at the time also obtained a court order to search the computers of some Haveeru staff.

However, police officials later said they ultimately opted not to conduct a search on Haveeru’s premises, but that the questioning of the journalists involved was important to an ongoing investigation.

“Attack on free media”

Following the questioning, Maldives Journalist Association (MJA) condemned the police actions describing the actions as a step to suppress free media in the country.

MJA President Ahmed ‘Hiriga’ Zahir said at the time that the action taken by police in questioning Haveeru’s Ahmed Hamdhoon and Ismail Naseer was unprecedented under the current constitution.

A media officer for the Maldives Police Service following the events said at the time that they were unable to confirm what sort of questions the journalists were asked and if they may be called in for further questioning at a later date.

However, Zahir at the MJA questioned why the police needed to summon the journalists about a story and images already thought to be in the public domain.

“I don’t think this was simply a case of police asking journalists to help them with an enquiry,” he said. “I personally believe it is an attempt to censor and suppress the Maldives media, which has been free.”

The case became a subject of intense political debate and conspiracy against the former government of President Mohamed Nasheed where then opposition figures accused his government of trying to cover up the blunders of his party, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) activists who were unfit for top government posts.

Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP), an opposition party at the time sent a letter to the President’s Office, calling the President Nasheed to remove government officials involved in the case from their posts “or if you do not remove them from their posts it will be taken as meaning that you are supporting such activities.”

The DQP called on the government to take action against those involved “as soon as possible.”

However, former Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair brushed off the allegations stating that none of the events reportedly depict “would have taken place inside the President’s office.”

“We don’t have Facebook, MSN or any other social networks on any computer of the President’s Office,” Zuhair said. “It is nothing to do with the government or the president,” he responded.

Several blogs at the time speculated on the names of those caught up in the scandal, but police did not confirm the identities of those compromised.

Likes

(0)Dislikes

(0)

June arrivals show 6.1 percent increase despite fall in traditional markets

The Maldives has recorded a 6.1 percent overall increase in tourist arrivals for June 2012 compared to the same period last year, according to figures from the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC).

The increase came despite continued drops in key markets across Europe, including the emerging Eastern European market.

The German market, which was one of the few large market segments to show a double figure increase over the last few months, declined 9.4 percent in June 2012, compared to the same period last year.

The decline in the longstanding staple UK market – the country’s largest prior to the sudden influx of Chinese visitors in 2010 – slowed slightly, recording a drop of 3 percent to 6146.

Russia, a lucrative and generally consistent emerging market for the Maldives, fell 12.3 percent in June 2012 compared to the previous year.

Italian arrivals continued to plummet, falling 32.8 percent.

Chinese arrivals continued to show strong growth in terms of volume, increasing to 17,809 in June 2012 – growth of 15.6 percent, on the back of strong charter performance. The MMPRC’s figures suggest that in terms of volume, Chinese arrivals are three times greater than the country’s second largest market.

The Middle East region continued to show strong growth, with arrivals increasing almost 110 percent to 2533. The vast majority of arrivals were from Saudi Arabia, which recorded a 152 percent increase in June 2012 on the same period last year.

Total arrivals for the first half of 2012 are up 2.3 percent on the same period in 2011 to 458,068, implying that the country still has a chance at breaking its target of one million visitors despite the ongoing political and economic turmoil.

Head of the MMPRC Mohamed Maleeh Jamal was not responding at time of press.

Likes

(0)Dislikes

(0)

The spirit of Orange Day

Orange has always known to be a powerful color: it stimulates enthusiasm, creativity and symbolises vitality with endurance. It is also said be one of the healing colors.

So what other better color than Orange to show peoples’ solidarity in the fight to end all forms of violence, abuse and discrimination inflicted on millions of women and young girls worldwide in pandemic proportions.

Available country data reveals that up to 70 per cent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime – the majority by husbands, intimate partners or someone they know.

Among women aged between 15 and 44, acts of violence cause more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. It is one the most pervasive human rights violation that is devastating millions lives, fractures communities, and stalls development.

The violence takes many forms and occurs in almost all places – domestic violence at home, sexual abuse of girls in schools, sexual harassment at work, rape by husbands or strangers, in refugee camps or as a tactic of war.

The Global Unite Youth Network, a group of over 40 young activists from around the world working to end gender inequality and violence against women and girls, launched its first action on Wednesday, 25 July: UNiTE Orange Day, under the UN Secretary-General’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women.

The young activists, including myself, decided to raise awareness about the issue of violence against women and girls and bring this pandemic to people’s atention, not only once a year on 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women), but every month.

The goal was simple: Generate interest and conversations about the issue, and encourage people to start thinking and talking about how to end violence against women and girls.

On the same day, the UNiTE campaign also launched the new UNiTE Ribbon as symbol for preventing and ending violence against women and girls. The mission is to make this symbol universal.

Therefore, through social media campaigns,the Global Unite Youth Network members, including myself, asked men, women, boys and girls, young and old in our countries to wear something orange on 25 July and wear the orange ribbon, together creating a historical global movement.

orangedd — Orange Warriors from across the world

Following just almost a week of campaigning, on Wednesday, we witnessed the rise of several hundreds of “Orange Warriors” from beyond borders, nationalities and cultures, ready to stand up to violence committed against women and girls.

From Bosnia to Bangladesh, France to Sri Lanka, Thailand to Phillipines, US to Russia, Georgia to India – both young and old alike – joined the campaign, uploading their pictures shining with multiple shades of orange to social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

From the Maldives a small butspirited group of individuals also joined the campaign, including my family and close friends, colleagues at Minivan News and staff of UN agencies.

The island nation of 350,000 people gripped by widespread gender-based violence including domestic abuse, harassment and discrimination with every 1 in 3 woman reported to be victim of violence.

UN Women Representative in Maldives Michiyo Yamada said violence affects not only women and girls themselves but everyone in a community and society. We all need to understand the gravity of the issue and show a commitment individually.

“It is very encouraging to see young people taking a lead to advocate to end violence against women and girls, as they are a key agent of change.” Yamada noted.

She added: “We hope everyone will join this campaign and say NO every day to emphasise zero tolerance to VAWG.”

Next Orange Day is scheduled for August 25th. Will you wear orange and Say No?

Likes

(0)Dislikes

(0)

The many promises of Mohamed Nasheed: Dr Hassan Saeed

“I have said in the past that many people find it hard to trust Nasheed and recent revelations about his relationship with President Waheed put this into perspective,” writes Dr Hassan Saeed, Special Advisor to President Waheed, in Haveeru.

“At this time of reflection, I want to put on record my own experience.

Shortly after my resignation from President Gayyoom’s cabinet in 2007, I visited London accompanied by two close friends. Through a series interviews with the BBC and the Independent, I and my team launched our 2008 presidential election campaign. We were then known as the New Maldives movement.

Whilst in London we also held a number of meetings. This included some with members of the then opposition UK Conservative Party. One such meeting was with a senior Conservative MP who had been closely working the MDP. During the meeting in his office, he remarked that the MDP leadership lacked experience and competency and that he would ask the MDP leadership to back the New Maldives team in the 2008 presidential election.

Perhaps he did?

Shortly after we returned from London the MDP held primaries to pick its presidential candidate. A number of senior MDP officials from Addu and elsewhere met me conveying a message from Nasheed. That message was very clear; Nasheed would contest the MDP primaries, but he did not intend to contest the Presidential election. If he were to win the MDP primaries, he would back me.

This was not just local MDP officials making rash promises; Nasheed himself came to visit and told me that I commanded substantial support within the MDP. He asked for my support to win those primaries. He even told me further that his own mother supported me. Almost immediately after our meeting an older woman called me. She said she was Nasheed’s mother and how big a fan of me she was and that she would get fully involved in my election campaign.

Many in Nasheed’s door-to-door campaign teams would call and tell me that he was making it crystal clear to MDP voters that if he won in the primaries he would back me.

Nasheed did win. Initially, I did not hear from him for several days. My colleagues contacted him. A meeting was arranged. Nasheed’s team consisted of Ibrahim Mohamed Salih, Ameen Faisal and Nasheed himself. From our side Dr Jameel, Dr Shaheed and myself attended.

Nasheed agreed to be my running mate with the MDP to get 75 percent of cabinet posts. However if elected President on this ticket I would have had the authority to veto incompetent and corrupt nominations from the MDP. In view of what seemed a good arrangement for all sides, we agreed this. We even shook hands on it before we finished the meeting.

Nasheed called an MDP Qawumee Majlis (Nations Council) meeting. He then contacted his close aides to mobilize their support for our agreement. The MDP member for the Constitutional Assembly Mr. Adnan Haleem floated the proposal to the MDP National Council. The Council unanimously endorsed the arrangement for Nasheed to be my running mate.

A meeting of senior officials from both sides was arranged to discuss joint campaign funding.

All seemed to be arranged. We would have change in the Maldives and it would have comprised an alliance that the subsequent first round Presidential election results shows could have secured up to 41.58 percent – ahead of Gayyoom’s 40.34 percent.

However what seemed to be solid turned out to be thin air. To my surprise immediately after the meeting a senior official from Adalat Party called me and said that Nasheed had asked MDP backing for his presidential campaign!”

President to mark 47th Independence Day with Republic Square address

President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan will deliver an address this evening from Republic Square in Male’ to commemorate 47 years since the country became an independent nation.

According to the President’s Office, Dr Waheed will host a special Independence Day function, organised by the Ministry of Home Affairs, that will include a ceremonial hoisting of the national flag at the square.

Maldivian Independence Day commemorates the nation obtaining the right to self determination on July 26, 1965. The country had previously been a British protectorate since the late 19th century.

As part of Independence Day festivities held in the country this week, President Waheed and First Lady Ilham Hussain also hosted an official reception yesterday evening at the National Museum.

Foreign dignitaries, former presidents, Parliamentary Speaker Abdulla Shahid and serving MPs and cabinet members were said to be among invitees to the function, according to the President’s Office website.

Likes

(0)Dislikes

(0)

President Waheed’s brother protests outside London Ruder Finn office

A small group of protesters gathered outside PR firm Ruder Finn’s London offices to mark Maldives Independence Day, reports PR Week, including President Mohamed Waheed’s brother, Naushad Waheed Hassan.

Naushad previously stepped down the post of Deputy High Commissioner to the UK as of now “because I cannot serve a regime that has brought down the democratically elected government of my country in a coup d’état.”

The protest saw placards bearing slogans ‘Islamophobes and dictators’, ‘Ruder Finn: no client too toxic’ and ‘Gold medallists of spin: Ruder Finn’, reported PR Week.

“The criticism came after Ruder Finn was blasted by British-based pro-democracy group Friends of Maldives for accepting a brief to promote a tourism drive by the Maldives government. This followed claims that president Mohamed Nasheed was removed in a coup d’etat in February.

“Agency boss Nick Leonard had not faced protesters himself as he was on holiday. But he defended the agency’s actions, saying: ‘I believe in freedom of speech and they have the right to voice their opinion.’”

Likes

(0)Dislikes

(0)