News in Brief – Page 369 – Minivan News

Germany to provide technical assistance on waste management

Investment in waste management solutions in the Maldives had produced very little outcome due to a lack of community involvement, Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam said today following a meeting with the German government.

Visiting Parliamentary Secretary at the German Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Katherina Reiche, said that Germany would provide technical assistance to the Maldives on waste management, but was unwilling to invest in a project.

Germany would “rather provide technical assistance, guidance and support towards managing a long term waste management system,” Reiche said, noting that the Maldives’ ambitions towards carbon neutrality were “very ambitious”.

“Equipment and machinery has been sent to various islands but with little effect and outcome. What we need is a plan with more community participation,” Haveeru reported Aslam as saying. “Waste management is an issue for which we don’t have a solution.”

A previous report from the European Commission into the efficacy of its programs in the Maldives found that millions of euros invested in waste management were “too ambitious”.

“The environmental support program was too ambitiously planned and had to be scaled down to solid waste management only,” the report stated. “Constructed island waste management systems are, with few exceptions, not operational, and waste management centres are unequipped.”

The failings of this project were due in part to “technical” problems, including design weaknesses and missing equipment, “and insufficient involvement of communities in general, notably the Island Women Development committees.”

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Transparency to oversee funds for Climate Governance Integrity Project

The Climate Governance Network held its first meeting today to address the Climate Governance Integrity Project, a two-year pilot project headed by Transparency International and carried out in six countries including the Maldives and Kenya.

The project will identify suitable methods for allocating funds while establishing governing bodies to oversee climate change policies.

Transparency Maldives will assist the project by determining how authorities use funds received for climate change management and adaptation in the Maldives.

Today, the organisation discussed ways to work together with stakeholders within the project’s framework.

Transparency Maldives also raised concerns that corruption was a risk should governance of the project’s mechanisms and funds fail.

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Islam was never in danger in the Maldives: Eurasia Review

Islam was never in danger in Maldives, but what should alarm the people was the way the opposition political parties used this occasion not only to politicise the whole issue but also to whip up frenzy to accuse the Government of trying to wipe out the “Islamic faith of the people” by subterfuge, writes S Chandrasekharan for the Eurasia Review.

But what we saw in Maldives on the 23rd was that the Government need not look beyond Maldivian shores for “extremist preaching” and that they have sufficient otherwise sensible people to whip up religious frenzy to further their own political objectives. As I had said before time and again that the politicians are trying to use religion as a political tool and that it would have disastrous consequences. My paper 4459 of 1st May 2011 and the earlier one 3894 dated 27 June 2010 may be referred to.

There were media reports to indicate that the rally was financed by Pakistan and it could as well be by Saudis too as many of the NGOs do get their money from abroad.

It is regrettable that one person who should have stopped this unfortunate development, instead took a leading role in getting the rally organised and getting his statement read out in the rally as the “star event.”

This was the former president Gayoom – he said in the statement that was read out -”Maldivians are not forced to be Muslims but they chose to believe in Islam and allowing a religion other than Islam in Maldives will create division among the society. Maldivians should have the right to defend the religion of Islam. I call upon the government to stop its efforts to weaken the Islamic faith.” No one least of all the government was trying to introduce any other religion!

Is it not an irony that a person who claims to have brought in democracy in Maldives should go to such low levels to whip up frenzy only in the hope of getting elected once again as President in 2013?

In this he was joined by Dr Hassan Saeed, the former Attorney General who had felt the taste of extremism in Maldives when his book on Apostasy was banned in Maldives.

Look at the irony of the presence of Gasim Ibrahim the multimillionaire and head of Jumhorree party, who is making profits by sale of alcohol and resort “spas” that are alleged in the media to have shady activities? Even the Minister for Islamic Affairs Mohammed Abdul Majeed Bari is said to have stakes in the resort business!

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Maldives at a crossroads: The National

The dramatic decision by the Maldives government to close down health spas in tourist hotels – following recent noisy protests that claimed they were “unIslamic” – provoked fairly predictable headlines in some of the Western media, writes Mark Seddon for The National.

Best was the tongue-in-cheek concern in the London Evening Standard that Tamara Ecclestone, a multi-millionaire British heiress, might have to alter her travel plans, having trilled on at length in glossy magazines about her planned holiday massages in Maldivian tourist resorts.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, there was rather more to the story than the flurry of excitable newspaper headlines might have suggested. For no sooner had the order to close the spas been made than it was then rescinded by the government. The ultimate decision was then passed on to the Supreme Court for final adjudication.

The Maldivian tourism industry heaved a collective sigh of relief, and the Maldives President, Mohammed Nasheed, closed his office door for the evening, quietly confident that he might just have won an almighty PR victory over some of his conservative opponents. Next year, 2013, is election year and barring economic calamity over the next few months, opponents of the president appeared to have played most of their big cards.

A scattered archipelago of more than 1,000 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 200 of which are inhabited and home to 313,920 people, the Maldives now stands at a crossroads. Should the island state, which gained its independence from Britain in 1965, retain its 800-year allegiance to a fairly liberal blend of Sufi and Sunni Islam, or should it resist the encroachment of what some in the country see as Western decadence, and adopt a stricter interpretation of the Islamic faith?

“This,” says a supporter of President Nasheed, “is now a struggle between different visions of the Maldives. Bluntly, do we want a moderate Islamic state or a Taliban state?” On Wednesday, it had been expected that the Supreme Court might be forced to make some kind of official and ground breaking declaration as to exactly what tenets of Islam were appropriate to the Maldives. But at the eleventh hour, the court edged back from its own massive leap of faith. This decision, has for the time being at least, been put on hold.

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Reethi Beach and Kuda Huraa scoop awards from reader rating publications

The Maldives’ Reethi Beach resort has been rated as one of the world’s top beach holiday destinations by users of the Switzerland-based travel ratings website Holidaycheck.com.

The site awarded the top 99 reader-recommended hotels across several categories, drawing on 530,000 reviews received in 2011.

Other winners in the beach holiday category included Hotel Royal Dragon in Turkey, Hotel Iberostar Varadero in Cuba and Hotel Ramada Resort Khao Lak in Thailand.

Meanwhile Four Seasons’ Kuda Huraa resort was named ‘Best Overseas Leisure Hotel’ in the Condé Nast Traveller India Readers’ Travel Awards 2011.

The award, which canvased Indian readers of the upmarket travel magazine, follows the publication’s awarding of ‘Best of the Best’ Award and ‘Best Overseas Leisure Hotel in the Middle East, Africa & Indian Ocean’ to the resort at its UK event.

Reethi Beach currently has a 76 percent rating on Minivan News’ resort review website, Dhonisaurus, which calculates ratings from 10 Maldives-specific categories. The resort currently scores a very high 90 percent rating for its beach, and similarly high ratings for service, house reef, and value. It scored lowest (60 percent) for its rooms.

Kuda Huraa scores 73 percent overall with an exceptional 100 percent for service, and high ratings for its environmental commitment, rooms and its overall look and feel. It scored lower for its house reef.

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HDC opens bids to develop Hulhumale apartment complex

Bids to develop and sell an apartment complex in Hulhumale are now being accepted by Hulhumale Development Corporation (HDC).

Bids will be accepted until Thursday, reports Haveeru. Documents are available for purchase until 2:30 pm today, January 8.

The apartment complex will be developed in two separate plots of 2,4500 feet squared each.

HDC requires that a five-storey complex be built on each plot, with 27 rooms in each complex.

Development of Hulhumale is part of the government’s plan to reduce the level of congestion in the capital Male’, which currently houses one-third of the Maldives population of 350,000.

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State revenue increased 89 percent in 2011

The Maldivian State received Rf4.5 billion (US$290 million) in revenue last year through the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA).

Revenue in 2011 increased by 89 percent compared to 2010’s revenue of Rf2.4 billion (US$155 million).

According to MIRA statistics, most revenue was received from the tourism industry.

Within the industry, resorts pay Rf752 million (US$48 million) as tourism tax, Rf666 million (US$43 million) as Tourism Goods and Services tax (T-GST) and Rf511 million (US$33 million) to extend a resort lease, Haveeru reports.

Airport Service Charge (ASC) raked in the second-highest revnue at Rf337 million (US$21 million).

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CMDA to license companies for Sharia-compliant securities

Capital Market Development Authority (CMDA) has opened applications to companies wishing to provide Sharia-compliant securities.

According to local media, CMDA will screen companies to ensure that their operations and transactions are made in alignment with Islamic Shariah.

Licenses will be awarded following consultation with the Capital Market Sharia Advisory Committee.

Sharia-compliant security services are most notable for their exclusion of interest. Currently, Amana Takaful is the only insurance company licensed to provide Shariah-compliant services to the Maldivian public.

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