Day: December 16, 2010

President Nasheed praises Cancun climate talks, but warns more work ahead

President Mohamed Nasheed has praised the outcome of climate change talks that concluded last week in Cancun, Mexico as helping to restore confidence in international commitments like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Writing to Mexican President Felipe Calderón, Nasheed said that the country “strongly supports” the Cancun Agreements and the impact they could have on helping countries all over the world in pursuing sustainable economies.

A source in the President’s Office told Minivan News that is was encouraging that the Cancun Agreements effectively “anchored” many of the main aspects of the Copenhagen Accord that the Maldives had supported in its own commitments to tackle impacts of climate change.

However, the source conceded that commitments outlined during the Cancun talks alone would not be enough to combat concerns held by the Maldives and other nations over the impacts climate change could have on rising sea levels and the wider ecosystem.

“Cancun alone won’t be enough,” said the source.  “We need to do more in raising green awareness.”

The aspects that are thought to have been anchored in Cancun include securing emissions reductions from every developed and developing nation alongside the raising of US$100 billion in funding each year to aid sustainability initiatives based on low carbon developments for smaller economies from 2020.

For the Maldives, 2020 proves to be a very big year with President Nasheed committing to make the nation Carbon Neutral, an ambition the president last month claimed will be a disaster for the nation if not met.

However, the source said that Cancun did not require any significant changes in the Maldives green policy, claiming the country had made the most ambitious commitments of any nation in the world.

The exact nature of what this carbon neutral commitments will entail for the nation has not yet been outlined, with a “masterplan” currently being compiled with funding from the La Compagnie Benjamin de Rothschild.  It is hoped that this “carbon Neutral Masterplan” will outline definite measures that can be adopted by other nations to follow in attempts to pursue more sustainable economies.

“Adopting carbon neutrals goals is not just important because climate change is a major global problem, which it is, but because it also makes economic sense,” added the President’s office spokesperson.

Climate change consideration

However, not everyone has been convinced that the potential impacts of climate change on rising sea levels within low lying nations like the Maldives are a vital issue to address for business.

Andrew Harrison, who was recently appointed CEO of GMR Male’ International Airport, said that at least from the viewpoint of insurance companies, the risk of sea levels increasing to a point that disrupted operations at the site were not even considered in its premiums.

“When we became involved in the bid process, we engaged three leading companies who are at the forefront of analysing geophysical activity, climate change and the impact rising sea levels,” he said.  “Insurers are notorious for considering even unimaginable risks, so I can tell you that if no insurance company considers this in any of their policies for the Maldives, we think that the risk is pretty low.”

Speaking to Minivan News last month, environmental organisation Greenpeace said it believed the Maldives acted more as a symbol than a practical demonstration of how national development and fighting climate change can be mutually exclusive.

Wendel Trio, Climate Policy and Global Deal Coordinator for Greenpeace International, believed that the Maldives can nonetheless play an iconic role in promoting the potential benefits of adopting alternate energy programmes.

In looking specifically at the Maldives, the Greenpeace spokesperson accepted that the country is somewhat limited by its size in the role it can have as an advocate for more sustainable business and lifestyles.

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“Hysterical outbursts” reflect dissatisfaction over Israel aid, says Islamic Foundation

Founders of the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives (IFM) NGO have claimed that although they do not believe in “hysterical outbursts” and theories of an imminent “Jewish invasion” in the country, a week of anti-Israel protests and flag burning across Male’ has reflected “strong dissatisfaction with the government’s open attitude” to the Jewish state.

During the last six days, Maldivians both in Male’ and some islands have engaged in protest marches and burning the Israeli flag, calling for the deportation of a group of Israeli doctors conducting eye surgery at a number of hospitals around the country as part of a humanitarian work for a group called ‘Eye from Zion’.

Some 739 people in Male’ and 879 in Addu and Fuvahmulah had registered for treatment at eye camps run by the NGO as of  December 9.

The furore over the visit of the group of Israeli surgeons led to groups such as Jamiyyathusalaf to call for the provision of “military training to all Muslim Maldivians and familiarise citizens with the use of modern weaponry” before “Jews take over the country”.

Distancing itself from these statements, the IFM told Minivan News it believes that by adopting a “pro-Israel” stance, the Maldivian government was losing support and credibility among its people.

While the government said it has been “consistent” in its opposition to Israel’s foreign policy concerning Palestine, the President’s Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair said the Maldives had tried to maintain positive diplomatic relations with almost every nation and that it welcomed humanitarian aid, such as the services provided by Eye from Zion.

Speaking to Minivan News this week, IFM co-founders Ibrahim Nazim and Ibrahim Fauzee said that although they were not actively involved in protests and flag burnings as an organisation, they did not wish to “prohibit its members” from taking part in the week’s protests that it saw as a “spontaneous reaction” to concerns over Israel’s attitude towards Palestine.

“We’re very concerned about Palestine, but we are neither anti-Israel or pro-Israel,” said Nazim. “We understand there are genuine feelings of concern about Palestine, which is always a central issue for Muslims.”

Nazim said that the IFM did not favour violence as an organisation and that claims by “other organisations in the country” that Jewish people were planning to take over the country were setting back legitimate concerns over the visit of Eye from Zion and Israeli foreign policy.

“What I feel is that some groups are trying to win publicity by making radical statements,” he said. “We do not believe this is good and in the long-term it is not be favourable [towards effectively opposing Israeli activities in the Maldives].”

Nazim said the IFM “understood concerns about offensive nature of burning flags”, but added that “it’s not the first time flags have been burned around the world.”

Fauzee said that he believed the protests reflected the fact that “many people in the Maldives do not accept Israel as a state.”

As an organisation, he said, the IFM backed “the official Iranian position” in regards to Israel and its legitimacy as a state, though he distanced himself from any potential calls for violence against the nation itself.

“[The IFM supports this position] not because the Iranian leader is a great or respected person, but because of the issue of legitimacy regarding the land [Israel] occupies,” claimed Fauzee.

He added that opposition to the Eye from Zion group was very much tied in to Israel’s foreign policy in relation to Palestine and its conduct in Gaza.

Amidst claims that a majority of Maldivians were opposed to the notion of an Israeli state, Nazim said the IFM itself feared that the government were having both open and “secret” negotiations with Israel.

“What are these negotiations? As an NGO we are concerned at this, and such suspicion is shared across the country,” he added. “The more the government gets involved in relations with Israel, the more problems it creates for itself.”

Nazim claimed that President Mohamed Nasheed was now suffering very low approval ratings as a result of allowing Eye from Zion to operate in the country.

“We feel the government should not have any diplomatic relations with Israel,” he said. “There is [political] opposition that wants to exploit this situation; the President is giving them opportunity to do so.”

Nazim added that as an NGO, beyond opposition to allowing collaboration with Israel, it was not opposed as a group to humanitarian aid from interfaith groups as long as they did not try and conduct missionary work in the country.

“Eye from Zion is a radical group that is trying to win the support of islands across the Maldives,” he said. “What we believe is that the protests will die down once the Zionists go back.”

In response to this week’s anti-Israel protests and criticism that the government was engaged in a pro-Israel agenda, Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair said that the government “holds friendly relations with Israel, as it does almost every other nation in the world.”

“We are not at loggerheads with any states, thugh we have some differences with Burma over the treatment of [formerly arrested dissident] Aung Sun Suu Kyi,” he said. “There is nothing special in terms of agreements with Israel.”

Though Zuhair claimed that the Maldives government has been “consistent on criticising Israel over Palestine and other foreign policy issues it did not agree on”, this was not a barrier to humanitarian cooperation, he said.

Zuhair added that by having bilateral relations with a large number of nations, the Maldives was able to benefit from cooperation based on technical assistance, education and humanitarian aid.

He claimed that the medical expertise offered by Eye from Zion was a strong example of this.

“We ourselves don’t have the means for this type of surgery, which has so far treated 140 patients in Male’ and 40 people across islands in the outer atolls,” Zuhair added. “In this case, the patients that thankful for the treatment they have received, which outweighs the protests against [the doctors].”

David Goldfarb, spokesperson for the Embassy of Israel in New Dehli, claimed that “too much emphasis” has been placed on protests against the visit of Eye from Zion to the Maldives compared to the work they had conducted.

“There will always be extremists ready to sacrifice their own people’s welfare in order to achieve extreme political goals,” he told Minivan News. “The major success of the project has been proven by well over 1000 men, women and children who have flocked to the doctors to receive ophthalmological care, and this is where the emphasis really lies.”

Goldfarb claimed that Israel had conducted a wide range of humanitarian work around South Asia beyond the current project relating to eye surgeries.

“Israel is actively involved in international development and humanitarian cooperation in India, Sri Lanka and in many other countries in South Asia,” he told Minivan News. “This was especially noticeable, for example, after the Tsunami, when Israel was one of the first countries to offer and provide assistance to South Asia.”

When considering ongoing conflict and the difficulties being experienced in Gaza, Goldfarb claimed that the Hamas leadership had themselves “declared an existential war with Israel”, but this was not related to wider aid projects that the country was involved in.

“This has nothing at all to do with the extremely large scale Israeli humanitarian projects in the Maldives and around the world, including in many countries in Asia and Africa,” he said.

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Female badminton champion battles badminton bureaucracy in ongoing court battle

One of the Maldives’ most successful female badminton players is battling the country’s Badminton Association in court claiming she was dismissed for unspecified disciplinary reasons.

Neela Ahmed Najeeb, formerly the only female badminton player on the national team, holds a string of championship medals and several international competitions to her credit. Najeeb said that her abilities meant she could play against men during training sessions “and even beat a few of the good players, enough to compete with them.”

She claims the Association has sought to obstruct her from playing the sport ever since it sent her home from a competition in Sri Lanka in 2006 for allegedly smoking a cigarette.

In May last year, the 25 year-old was suspended from the Association altogether after clashing with her Indonesian coach, whom she alleged attempted to make her run for four hours in punishment for missing a training session – half an hour short of the average marathon.

“I had just started training again and I was not even physically fit,” she says. “I missed practice one morning and the coach told me to run for two hours, but I couldn’t do it – I’ve been in the national team for eight years and we’ve never had to do anything like that before. I ran for 30-45 minutes but I could not run anymore.”

The coach, she said, “didn’t like it, and said I could not join the training unless I ran for another 1.5 hours. I didn’t make it a problem.”

However, Najeeb said that, “a few days later, I missed another training session because of my work, and the next day [the coach] asked me to run for two hours again. I could only do 30-40 minutes, and he said that because I had only run 30-40 minutes the last time, I now had to run three hours.”

Najeeb says she took the matter to the Badminton Association, explaining she did not feel she was capable of running the three hours and was afraid of injuring herself early in the training. But she claimed they sided with the coach, “reasoning that he had a degree in Physical Education.”

“The last time I went to training I said I would run 30-40 minutes, but he said no, now I had to run for four hours.”

“I couldn’t believe it. I told him that was impossible. He became angry and said I was useless, and some things that really hurt me. He asked me to leave the stadium, and made a complaint about my behaviour, and filed a disciplinary case,” Najeeb says.

The next day, according to Najeeb, the Badminton Association sent her a letter saying she was terminated from the national team.

“They didn’t even talk to me. If they are going to fire a player from the national team, they have to give me a chance to appeal. They didn’t do that. I don’t want to be against them, they should be advising me.”

Najeeb had been selected to travel to Greece on June 10 last year for a youth training session by the International Olympic Committee.

However, athletes attending the training required the backing of their local association – and Najeeb claims the national chairman “said he was not going to give it.”

Instead, Najeeb said she was informed her application was invalid following the disciplinary report filed by a coach four years ago for the alleged smoking of a cigarette while attending the Sri Lankan tournament in 2006. “Which,” she added, “was not true.”

“I think this must be personal – this is not what you do to an athlete. You don’t just terminate them,” Najeeb claimed.

“I think Maldivian players deserve better. If you have a problem with a coach, [sporting associations] are supposed to advise you – but the Badminton Association takes everything personally.”

President of the Badminton Association, Ali Amir, told Minivan News that he was unable to comment on Najeeb’s disciplinary action as the case was pending in court, but did confirm that the Association was defending the case.

A senior badminton player Minivan News spoke to, who requested anonymity, said he felt it was unfair that Najeeb had been obstructed from practising for 4-5 years.

“She was not supposed to smoke [while attending the Sri Lankan tournament in 2006], and she did smoke, and was sent back to Male’. We have to sign an agreement [with the Badminton Association], but there was nothing in it saying that if we smoke we are sent back to Male’.”

“After that she was unable to play on the national team for two years. Eventually she was allowed a new coach, but then she was suspended again in May last year.”

“It’s a big loss for her,” he added, speculating that “there is something going on between [Najeeb] and the Badminton Association. I have no idea what.”

“She can’t even play alone – if anyone from the Association sees her in the stadium, they call the guards to take her out. The Association is doing this, not the players.”

The new coach’s running regime was “very ruthless”, he claimed. “If we do not come to the morning session we have to run 1-2 hours that night and lose time training. It’s useless.”

Najeeb said she “will not quit playing a sport I love”, but confirmed that she has been escorted from the stadium “because I don’t have an association membership card. It is really frustrating.”

Najeeb and the lawyer representing her in the case, Mizna Shareef of Shah, Hussein & Co, allege that her suspension contradicts the termination procedure of the Constitution of the Badminton Association as she was not given a chance to defend herself.

“The Association unfairly and quite harshly terminated Neela without establishing adequate cause and without giving Neela the opportunity to defend herself,” Shareef told Minivan News. She added that outside the Association’s own regulations “there are no applicable laws covering this type of situation.”

The case was lodged in May this year but despite having three hearings, Shareef claimed “the Badminton Association has stalled the case by appearing in court without having prepared their statements.”

“The longer this case gets delayed, the longer Neela suffers without being served justice. At this point, there is no certainty as to when the case would end,” Shareef said.

“Neela,” she added, “has personally experienced gender discrimination where the Association has held a different set of disciplinary standards for its male players. If we are successful in getting a judgement in Neela’s favour, it would definitely encourage more woman players to play the sport at a professional level, without fear of discrimination and unfair treatment.”

Najeeb, for her part, describes the time she has been away from badminton as “one of the most difficult times in my life”, and that if she is allowed to continue playing on the national team, “I have faith I can achieve more for my country.”

“I resigned from my job to make the training sessions, but they just took their decision [to terminate me] without thinking. They are misusing their power. For me badminton is my life, and they’ve taken it away from me – twice.”

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US funds $640,000 ILO project on labour reform in the Maldives

The US Department of Labour will fund the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to conduct a US$640,000 project implementing fundamental rights, labour law and administration reform in Maldives.

The Department said the grant would assist the Maldives “in developing a well-functioning system of labor relations, labor law and labor administration”, and would involve the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Human Resources, Youth and Sport, the Labour Relations Authority, Employment Tribunal, and worker and employer organisations.

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DRP claims will file case with police over disruption of rally

Opposition Leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali has said he will ask police to investigate the disruption of a Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) rally on Tuesday evening, reports Miadhu.

The meeting was disrupted when former Deputy Leader Umar Naseer and his supporters attempted to enter the venue. Naseer had recently been dismissed by the party’s disciplinary committee, raising the potential for a split in the party.

Miadhu reported Thasmeen as saying thatthe disruption was “planned out by certain individuals.”

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India and Australia offer scholarships to Maldivian students

Australia and India have both announced scholarships to Maldivian students, which President Mohamed Nasheed has said will “fill a huge gap in our human resource needs”.

Australia has doubled the number of scholarships offered to the Maldives, offering a total of 31 scholarships under the ‘Australia Awards’ program, with a total value of AUD$4.1 million. Six students have been awarded an Australian Leadership Award Scholarship (ALAS), while the remaining students have been awarded Australian Development Scholarships (ADS).

“If we didn’t get these we would have to spend amazing amount of funds,” President Nasheed said, while Australian High Commissioner to the Maldives and Sri Lanka, Kathy Klugman, said while Australia had a “very long standing, a very deep and a productive relationship” with the Maldives, stating that as a result of the interactions with the Australian government by President Nasheed this year, “we’ve just now taken [Australia-Maldives] relationship to an entirely new level”.

Following President Nasheed’s meeting with the then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Canberra earlier this year, the Australian government announced Australia’s aid programme for the Maldives, including an increased number of scholarships.

India has also announced 37 scholarships this year for Maldivian students to institutes of higher education in the country, through the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR).

A statement from the Indian High Commission said the scholarships for Graduate/Post Graduate courses were open to all Maldivian students who have completed their A level exams and prerequisite subjects.

The High Commission noted that besides providing students placements in prestigious Indian Institutes, the scholarships also included airfares, tuition fees and a living allowance. More details available on www.iccrindia.net.

India provides approximately 90 scholarships/training slots to Maldivian citizens every year.

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President meets US naval chief

President Mohamed Nasheed has discussed the issue of piracy and maritime counterterrorism Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, Admiral Robert Willard.

Admiral Willard and the President Nasheed discussed ways of strengthening cooperation “on areas of mutual concern”, the President’s Office said in a statement.

President Nasheed stated that maritime safety was a great concern to the Maldives.

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President praises Maldives’ “biggest sporting achievement”

The Maldives national cricket team have been greeted back in Male’ by President Mohamed Nasheed after their triumph last week in the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Trophy Challenge 2010, which he labelled as the country’s “biggest sporting achievement” to date.

The president congratulated the team for their efforts after they defeated Saudi Arabia by a single wicket during the tournament finale in Bangkok, after they had overcome a number of regional teams to secure the title.
Nasheed stated that the victory highlighted the potential for further development of cricket in the country.

This year’s Trophy Challenge tournament, which began December 4, 2010, saw eight teams including China, Brunei, Iran and Myanmar compete against the Maldives.

The victory sees both finalists promoted to the ACC Trophy Elite tournament in 2012, where they will face teams such as Afghanistan, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

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