Day: November 8, 2010

Maldives joins the International Rowing Federation

The Maldives has been welcomed as the 131st member of the International Rowing Federation (FISA), following the association’s congress in New Zealand.

The landmark membership comes as British Olympic rower Guin Batten returned to the Maldives last week with a team of four champion female rowers, to try and break the record she set for crossing the equator between Huvadhoo Atoll and Fuahmulah in March.

Batten crossed the 60 kilometre ‘zero degree’ channel in seven hours 16 minutes, in an epic struggle against the the swells, tides and currents of the open Indian Ocean in her 35 kilogram rowing boat.

The 42 year-old silver medallist, who also holds the world record for her solo row across the English Channel, attempted the crossing again together with elite rowers Rachel Woolf, Ali Gill, Elise Cope and Louise Wymer.

The aim, says Batten, “was to trash my record for the single crossing, in a quad (four rowers, one coxswain).”

“Unfortunately the weather against us. We started quickly, and might have managed it in 5.5 hours, but we were not fast enough for currents and it began to look like it would take us 15 hours – which meant the support vessel was going to run out of fuel,” she says.

The team had trained for an endurance slog, but the brief window in the weather had closed and conditions rapidly began to deteriorate and the attempt was reluctantly called off after three hours.

“But the record is still there for the taking, and there’s a good chance somebody local could break my time of 7:16,” Batten says.

Batten may keep her title for the meantime, but the main purpose of the visit was to inspire local islanders – particularly women – to pick up the oar and re-embrace the country’s traditional mode of transport.

British Airways' quad rowboat is unloaded

Acting as the Sports Development Coordinator for Friends of Maldives (FOM), Batten arranged for two four-person ‘quad’ rowboats to be brought to the Maldives, with the support of British Airways (BA), British Rowing and Westminster School.

Meanwhile, the mission to reintroduce rowing to the country has been ticking away ever since Batten left her rowboat behind following her attempt in March. Primary school teacher and coastal rower James Cowley has been working as a volunteer based in Thinadhoo to develop the sport of rowing in the Maldives, and has already established the Rowing Association of the Maldives: “I believe it’s the first national sporting association to be based outside Male,” Batten says.

Cowley told World Rowing in October that getting appropriate equipment to the country remained a key challenge for the project: “It is amazing how much the young people have learnt using only Guin’s rowing boat, a canoe and the goggles Speedo sent out last month,” he said.

The equipment problem was been somewhat addressed with Batten’s latest visit, but other challenges remain: “For starters, a lot of people here don’t swim, which was quite surprising, so James taught 30 young people to swim and got them rowing in the lagoon while they developed safety procedures.”

Currently Cowley is training a group of male rowers and some younger men, as well as four girls “who are facing a lot of pressure because James is a male coach,” Batten says. “Elise Cope will spend three weeks coaching, but we need to have a female coach based out here too.”

Rowing, she notes, “is one of the fastest growing sports for women worldwide”, and an art not entirely lost to the Maldives, “but most of the people who know how to do it are in their 60s, and there’s a risk the knowledge will be lost with this generation,” says Batten.

Despite the challenges locals have really taken to the project, and the arrival of the new boats will get many more out onto the water. Saad Ibrahim, representing the Rowing Association of the Maldives, observes that “the boat allows us to take multiple young rowers out at the same time so they can learn to row together and develop their team skills”.

Batten describes it as a “fantastic opportunity to bring rowing back to the Maldivian community. The vision for this long term initiative is to bring sport into the community to encourage life skills such as team work amongst the local people and to give them the chance to see more of their surroundings.”

Locally, the project’s ambition is to set up six water sports clubs throughout the Upper Southern Province. Ultimately, Batten says, the Maldives may one day look to host the World Coastal Rowing Championships, “which will introduce a lot of people to the country who would not normally visit otherwise – it’s quite a different group of people to the surfing and diving community,” she adds.

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Parliament immobilised for third week running over cabinet endorsement issue

The parliament sitting today was again cancelled this morning, with the political deadlock over the cabinet endorsement issuing immobilising the legislative branch of government for the third week runnig.

Speaker of Parliament Abdulla Shahid canceled the sitting and suggested the political parties come to an understanding over the cabinet endorsement issue, the same request he made last week.

The previous sitting was also canceled after the opposition and ruling party MPs clashed over the issue of cabinet endorsement, and MPs refused to debate other bills.

The opposition and the ruling party MPs have been continuously blaming each other for parliament’s repeated cancellation.

Opposition MPs claim that the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MPs were declining to follow the parliament’s rules of procedure and alleged they were trying to influence parliamentary proceedings.

Opposition MPs have demanded individual approval of each member of the cabinet, and announced that they intend to disapprove six current cabinet ministers.

However, MDP MPs believe that the parliament should amend the rules of procedure and shall give consent to the cabinet as a whole rather than voting individually, as the no-confidence motion already exists.

President Mohamed Nasheed has said in his weekly radio address that although the parliament voted to dismiss any member of the cabinet, they will still remain in office, despite parliament’s disapproval.

Opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Ahmed Nihan once again said that MDP MPs were deliberately forcing the speaker to cancel the parliament by constantly creating point of orders, to try and dismiss the cabinet endorsement issue from parliament’s agenda.

”After what the president said during his radio address, we were comforted at the thought that MDP MPs would remain silent as they were told and would let the cabinet endorsement issue continue,” said Nihan. ”We condemn this act of the ruling party, it is regrettable that the parliament has malfunctioned for nearly three weeks now.”

Nihan said there was a lot of other work that the parliament needs to complete.

”There will be the budget that has to be passed by the end of November, work on the Tax Bill is also at a halt, and the committee meetings as well,” he said.

He called on all the political parties to discuss the issue and to arrive to a common understanding so that the parliament could reinstate its work.

President Nasheed said during his weekly radio address that disapproval by parliament would mean ministers would be dismissed, and suggested MDP MPs to remain silent during the vote so parliament’s agenda could proceed.

Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair told Minivan News that it was unfair to say that only MDP MPs were responsible for the parliamentary deadlock.

”The real issue is due to a misconception in the meaning of the constitution, for there are MPs in the parliament who still have an ancient way of translating the constitution,” said Zuhair. ”It is regrettable that the parliament have arrived to a halt .”

Zuhair said the opposition was now effectively obstructing the president from establishing his government.

”Some of them cannot accept defeat and are attempting to obstruct the president from establishing a government,” he said. ”

Speaker Shahid said that the next sitting will be held tomorrow.

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Hackers target Islamic Foundation website, circulate false press release

The religious NGO Islamic Foundation of the Maldives has said a press release issued to several media outlets regarding the resignation of Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Religious Council leader, and supporting the government’s education policy, was not from the Foundation.

Sheikh Adam ‘B.A’ Naseem resigned from the party yesterday, in opposition to the government’s education policy.

“The press release was sent in the name of the Islamic Foundation supporting the Education Minister Dr Musthafa Luthfy, and opposing the leader of MDP Religious council Sheikh Naseem,’’ said the President of the Islamic Foundation Ibrahim Fauzee. “The press release is misleading and could potentially harm the reputation of the foundation.”

‘’The statement alleges that Adam Naseem resigned due to political issues and for his own political interest.’’

Fauzy said the case had been reported to police for investigation.

‘’The press release was first uploaded on our website yesterday, it came to our attention and we removed the press release, and again it was uploaded to our website,’’ said Fauzee.  ‘’By then we realised our website had been hacked.’’

He said that he had no idea who was responsible for the attack on the NGO’s website.

”We also have information that the statement was distributed on the streets,” he added.

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Man sentenced for possession of pornography

The Criminal Court yesterday sentenced a man to six months imprisonment after the court found him guilty of possession of pornography.

The Criminal Court identified the person as Ali Jinah of Gulhi in Kaafu Atoll.

The Court said the police officers who went to search Jinah’s house on last year October discovered eight magazines containing pornographic pictures, one file containing  large number of pornographic pictures and one CD containing pornography.

He was sentenced for possessing contraband.

The Court said Jinah denied the charges, claiming that the police did not find the materials inside his room and that he had never showed such materials to anyone.

The Criminal Court said that according to the word of the police officers who went to the scene, “it is known that the materials were found inside Jinah’s room.”

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November 16 to be Eid-Al-Adha

The Saudi Arabiya has declared November 16 as the day of Eid Al Adha following the sighting of the crescent moon, reports Ahlul Bayt News Agency.

The ABNA reported that the Saudi Supreme Court have also declared today is the first day of Dhul Al Hijja, the month of pilgrimage.

The annual Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah will begin on November 14, reported ABNA.

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Thasmeen says will support ‘majority’ in parliament on endorsement issue

Opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali has said he will support the majority view of parliament in the matter of the controversial cabinet reendorsement.

Miadhu reported Thasmeen as saying he was confident the majority would require ministers to be endorsed individually, and claimed that the government only wanted a “ceremonial” wholesale vote because it wished to defend certain ministers.

President Nasheed said over the weekend that ministers would not be dismissed if disapproved by parliament.

The disagreement over the procedure has deadlocked parliament for the last two weeks.

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Comment: When we just can’t agree

This article originally appeared on the website of Idris Tawfiq. Republished with permission.

Some time back, the Russian foreign minister was interviewed by a British journalist on television. The journalist gave him a hard time, but the minister seemed able to give back as good as he was getting! He was asked if he thought relations between the United States and Russia had worsened over the last few years, especially since both countries seemed to be criticising each other a lot at the moment.

The foreign minister’s reply was very clever. He said that because of these criticisms, he thought relations between the two countries were actually better rather than worse because only real friends can offer constructive criticisms of each other.

It isn’t our aim here to talk politics or about relations between the world’s powers, but this incident is a good starting point for us to talk about relationships and about how we fit into the whole scheme of things. There are times in our lives when we don’t agree with others. We might disagree with members of our family. We might disagree with close friends. We might even find ourselves in disagreement with some teaching at the mosque or with the society in which we live.

This needn’t mean the end of the world. It just means that at times we just can’t agree, for a variety of reasons. It could be that we are just digging our heels in and being awkward — it does happen!

It could be that we are not really getting our own point across well and so we are being misunderstood. It could be that we don’t fully understand the other. The important thing is that disagreements need not signal the end of a relationship or a breakdown in communication. In fact, disagreements can often, in a strange way, strengthen relationships.

Take the first years of marriage, for example. After the rosy period of first settling down together, little things start to happen that can annoy us. We begin to realize that we haven’t married Mr Perfect or Miss World, and we begin to get annoyed and find ourselves arguing over things that really aren’t that important at all. This doesn’t mean the end of the marriage. It just means we are realising that there are two people involved here and we need a bit of give-and-take for the marriage to work.

If you want to paint the living room red and your spouse wants it white, the marriage need not break up. You have to come to a compromise. At other times, though, there are things you won’t agree on. You support one political party, for example, and your spouse supports another. You will have to learn to disagree, respecting what the other one wants. We don’t need to make our loved ones agree with us in everything for us to carry on loving them.

A real friend is someone in life who can disagree with you and yet still be your friend. A real friend respects who you are and loves you for who you are, but can still tell you things you might not want to hear.

Only a real friend can tell you how stupid you look in that particular outfit. Only a real friend can tell you what a fool you are being by behaving in a certain way. Only a real friend can tell you that you should be praying when you are not. We listen to what friends have to say because we know that when they criticise something we do, it is not an attack on us but a criticism of our behavior. Real friends are often the ones who can tell us what is staring us in the face. We don’t need to reject them if they disagree with us or hold a different point of view.

There are many occasions, then, when we have to admit that we don’t agree. After having tried everything, we need to accept that there are times when we just can’t agree all the time. This will happen in the family, with parents, or with brothers and sisters. It will happen with the broader issues of what is going on in society.

Sometimes we need to speak out against what we believe is wrong in our society, but we still need to respect the right of others not to agree with us. It may be that after a while our opinions begin to converge, either at home or in the broader community, and we realise that there isn’t such a big difference after all. The important word is respect. Our opinions deserve the respect of others, and we should give to others the same respect we are looking for.

As Muslims we should be the most caring nation. Six years after leaving Makkah, our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) signed a peace treaty, the Treaty of Hudaibiyah, with his enemies. This didn’t mean that he agreed with the idol worshipers or with what they believed, but that for the sake of Islam he was prepared to disagree with them for the time being. The treaty didn’t mean he became their friends, either. It just meant that it was wise to make peace despite their disagreements. In the Qur’an, Almighty Allah describes this peace treaty in the following terms:

“Verily We have granted thee a manifest victory. ” (Al-Fath 48:1)

The victory was peace. The Muslims didn’t set aside their differences with the Makkans. They didn’t pretend that all was well between them. They just admitted that there were big differences and they would leave them on hold for the moment, allowing Almighty Allah to solve them. This peace treaty, broken very soon by the Makkans, led the way to the conquest of Makkah.

So in our own lives there are times when we just can’t agree. We need to use these occasions to grow. We need them to become sure of what we really believe. We need them to develop relationships and to understand where we stand in the scheme of things. We are always attentive, as Muslims, to what our community is saying, and we take examples from the life of our beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).

Disagreeing with others does not make us odd. It is quite normal and quite healthy, and it will lead us to be better people and better Muslims. Almighty Allah knows what is best for us. By trusting in Him we can’t go wrong.

Idris Tawfiq is a British Muslim writer and broadcaster.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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