Author: Minivan News

Mauritius awards Nasheed country’s highest honour

Mauritius has awarded Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed one of the country’s highest honours, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Star and the Key of the Indian Ocean (GCSK).

President of Mauritius Sir Anerood Jugnauth presented Nasheed with the award over the weekend.

Among the few foreign dignitaries who has been conferred the award are Former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela, and Former President of Guyana Cheddi Jagan, the President’s Office noted.

Nasheed was in the country to attend Mauritus’s National Day celebrations. During his visit, Nasheed met with Prime Minister of Mauritius Dr Navinchandra Ramgoolam and discussed the creation of a body representing Indian Ocean countries to collectively promote development cooperation and common interests at the world stage.

Nasheed also discussed security cooperation, including joint economic zone surveillance.

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Budget halted for Shaviyani Atoll council pending court order

The budget for the Shaviyani Atoll council has been frozen by the national office of the upper-north region until a court decides where the council secretariat should be established, reports Haveeru.

Assets belonging to the Atoll Office and Atoll House will be placed under the care of the police and national office until a court orders the transfer of the assets to another party, the Finance Ministry noted according to Haveeru.

In response, the council passed a resolution requesting the assets be transferred to the council, after passing a resolution to transfer the secretariat from Milandhoo to to Funadhoo.

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Maldivian bone-marrow transplant patient recovering in Italy

The first Maldivian Thalassaemia patient to be treated under and agreement between Italy and the Maldives is recovering following a bone-marrow transplant operation.

Haveeru reported that a second patient has now arrived in Italy and is awaiting treatment. The risky procedure is one of the only potential cures for Thalassaemia, a genetic blood disorder common in the Maldivan population.

Italy, which is a world leader in the procedure, has agreed to treat 10 Maldivian patients.

Under the agreement made between the governments of Maldives and Italy on January 23, bone marrow transplants of 10 patients are to be conducted in Italy.

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Two candidates remain for MDP presidency: report

Two candidates will contest the position of president for the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) after a third potential nominee was ruled ineligible for the post, Haveeru has reported.

According to the paper, Ali Shakeer of Mafannu Navacone was rejected from the race after reportedly failing to correctly submit certain required documents.

The decision, which has been taken by the party’s National Elections Committee, leaves Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, the Special Envoy to President Mohamed Nasheed, and Dr Ibrahim Didi in the running.

Four candidates are also running for the party’s deputy president post including Mohamed Aslam, Aslam Shakir, Alhan Fahmy and Hussein Adam of Galolhu Kakaage, Haveeru added.

Elections for the posts are set for 30 April 2011.

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Vehicle-free zone planned for Male’

Transport Authorities are said to have announced that as of later this month, the use of vehicles will be restricted in the Lonuziyaaraikolhu area of Male’ – situated in the southeast corner of the capital – following cabinet consultation on the issue.

According to Haveeru, Mohamed Latheef, Permanent Secretary of the Transport Authority of the Maldives, said that the vehicle-free zone is expected to come into force on 26 March and incorporate Raiyvilla Hingun in the northeastern corner of Henveiru Park and Ameenee Magu to the southwest of the area.

Latheef said that vehicles will still be able to travel around Moonlight Hingun and Hithigas Magu even after the restrictions are put in place.

According to the report, the decision was made in collaboration with Male’ City Council and is tentatively scheduled to launch in order to coincide with the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Earth Hour initiative. The scheme attempts to encourage citizens and organisations around the world to turn all their lights off for an hour to try and drastically cut global energy usage and the planet’s combined environmental footprint.

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Meltdown fears raised in Japanese tsunami aftermath

Concerns have been raised of a potential meltdown may be taking place in Japan at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, just 24 hours after the country was devastated by an earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale and an ensuing tsunami.

With more than 600 people thought to have already been killed as a result of yesterday’s tsunami, the BBC reported today that a “massive” explosion had taken place at one of two nuclear plants in Fukushima, situated 250 miles northeast of Tokyo. The incident has raised fears of a meltdown, despite claims from Japanese officials that both sites’ container housing had not been damaged.

An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale hit Japan yesterday, prompting a tsunami warning to be issued for nations in the Pacific Ocean. Media reports today have speculated that the total number of fatalities in Japan alone from the quake and tsunami could stretch into the thousands.

The first earthquake occurred 382 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, reported the US Geological Survey.

According to today’s BBC report, a state of emergency has been put in place at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini power plants by the country’s Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, with engineers now working to clarify if any of the reactors have gone into meltdown after shutdowns had automatically occurred following the earthquake.

Television pictures from Japan have since shown what news sources claim to be the collapse of one of four buildings at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant as a result of the explosion, though no information has been officially confirmed on what part of the site had exploded or the cause behind it.

However, the government representing the Fukushima prefecture in which the plants are based confirmed that radiation levels at the plant during one hour were equal to the normal annual allowable expenditure at the site, the BBC said.

Meanwhile, the Agence France Presse (AFP) news organisation has reported that the Japanese prime minister’s deputy, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, has sent a “hyper rescue team” to the plant site as part of government contingency measures including collecting iodine, which can used in trying to combat radiation sickness.

Following yesterday’s earthquake, tsunami warnings were immediately issued for Japan, Taiwan, Russia and the Mariana Islands, while Guam, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Micronesia and Hawaii were placed at a lower warning level.

Hussein Waheed from the Maldives Department of Meteorology confirmed that a tsunami warning was issued for the Pacific Ocean a minute after the earthquake had struck. No warning had been issued for the Indian Ocean region, he said yesterday.

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Tsunami warning only for Pacific region after 8.8 Japan quake: Met office

An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale has hit Japan prompting a tsunami warning to be issued for the Pacific Ocean.

Although the earthquake shook Tokyo, one of the world’s most congested and built-up cities, no fatalities were reported.

The first earthquake occurred 382 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, reported the US Geological Survey.

A tsunami warning was issued for Japan, Taiwan, Russia and the Mariana Islands, while Guam, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Micronesia and Hawaii were placed at a lower warning level.

Hussein Waheed from the Maldives Department of Meteorology confirmed that a tsunami warning was issued for the Pacific ocean a minute after the earthquake had struck. No warning had been issued for the Indian Ocean region, he said.

The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that followed a quake off the coast of Indonesia killed 83 people in the Maldives and displaced over 20,000. Worldwide, more than 220,000 people were killed.

The structure of the Maldives and the sharp drop-off of the atolls protected the Maldives the brunt of the 2004 tsunami, unlike the gradual gradient of the coast of southern Sri Lanka which allowed the waves to gather power and momentum.

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Maldives backs creation of International Human Rights Court

The Maldives has asked the UN Human Rights Council to consider an International Court of Human rights, offering redress for the victims of human rights violations and strengthening the international human rights system.

State Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Naseem spoke at the opening of the UN Human Rights Council and again at an event hosted by the Maldives yesterday, attended by over 150 diplomats, UN officials, and NGOs workers.

The event was organised by the Permanent Missions of Maldives, Switzerland and Uruguay, in cooperation with the International Commission of Jurists, the Panel on Human Dignity and the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, focusing on accountability for human rights abuses. Speakers noted that there was no way in which an individual whose rights have been violated can hold a State to account at international level, and discussed how such a court might function practice, as well as the challenges to its establishment.

Speaking at the event were Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, Commissioner and Rapporteur on Children, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; former Independent Expert of the UN Secretary-General for the study on violence against children; Professor Manfred Nowak, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, former member of the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances; Judge Theodor Meron, former president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Judge on the Appeals Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the ICTY; and Judge Philippe Texier, Judge, Cour de Cassation, France, member (and former Chair) of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and Commissioner at the International Commission of Jurists.

The speakers noted that, under the existing human rights system, Asia was problematic because unlike Europe and South America, there was no regional human rights court. They therefore proposed that the UN return to the idea, first debated by the UN in 1947 but put on hold because of the Cold War, of establishing an International Court of Human Rights as “the final guarantor of human rights”.

In her address to the meeting, the Maldives Ambassador Iruthisham Adam said that it is vital, in countries suffering systematic human rights abuses, that individuals have recourse to effective remedy at international level.

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Maldives trounced in second-leg Olympic qualifier

Hong Kong soundly saw off the Maldives yesterday for a place in the second round of the Asian football qualifying matches for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, scoring three goals that allowed them ultimately to finish 7-0 victors over the course of two matches.

Three goals, all scored within the first half of the second leg match, allowed Hong Kong to confidently move into the next round of qualifiers to be drawn against other victorious teams from the around region at the end of the month.

Already four goals down from their first encounter in Hong Kong, any hopes for a Maldivian comeback were extinguished within twenty minutes of yesterday’s game when Lam Hok Hei netted his first goal of the match. Stephen Ha added to the score line four minutes later and a third was later claimed by Lam in the closing minutes of the first half.

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