The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has expelled member Aishath Sherin from the party after she decided to run as an independent candidate in the Local Council Elections, in opposition to head of Male’ municipality council ‘Sarangu’ Adam Manik.
Sherin had openly criticised Manik and alleged that he was influencing people using money, the MDP said in a statement.
”The party decided to expel Sherin because the area of Mahchangolhi South, where Sherin decided to run, was won by Sarangu Adam Manik by the primaries conducted by MDP to choose candidates,” said the MDP in a statement, further accusing the candidate of “smearing respect” for both Manik and the party.
MDP alleged that Sherin had been “continuously criticising the party and candidate in front of people of South Mahchangolhi area”, and declared that t it would “take action against other such candidates.”
In an interview to SunFM, Sherin has denied running for the election as an independent candidate with the intention of confronting MDP.
”I have always said, I will run against Sarangu Adam Manik, and I will try my level best to win because he is influencing people with money,” she told the station.
She said her expulsion had “made it easy” for her to win the election.
The Civil Service Commission (CSC) has questioned the professionalism of civil servants who circulated a petition against the Education Ministry’s permanent secretary Dr Aamal Ali, around the media.
The petition, signed by 44 civil servants, includes a ream of complaints against Aamal including allegations that she was misusing her power and taking actions against the Constitution.
The CSC said that the Civil Servant’s Act required civil servants to work according to the Act, follow the code of conduct and work without prejudice: “It is necessary to follow professional manners in a working environment,” said the Commission.
It called on civil servants to report cases regarding permanent secretaries or other civil servants in a professional manner, as required by law.
“Civil servants have the right to file complaints against the permanent secretary if they were unsatisfied by any decision they make, according to the Civil Servant’s Act,” said CSC. ”If any such case was presented to the commission, the commission will always proceed the case and look in to the matter and take necessary measurements.”
Minivan News attempted to contact Dr Amaal Ali, however she was in a meeting and unavailable for a comment at time of press.
News agency Al-Jazeera has published thousands of confidential documents concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East, providing an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at peace negotiations between US, Israel and Palestine.
The leak includes nearly 1700 files including thousands of pages of diplomatic correspence, as well as memos, emails, maps and minutes of closed meetings between 1999-2010.
According to Al-Jazeera, the revelations include the surprising willingness of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to concede settlements to Israel in East Jerusalem, compromises made by the PA regarding the return of refugees, and details of security co-operation with Israel.
The leaks have already led to widespread condemnation of the PA across Palestine, after it was revealed that its negotiators privately conceded Israel’s definition of itself as a Jewish state while refusing to recognise Israel’s existence in public, and offering Israel “the biggest Jerusalem in history” – an offer which was rejected.
The leaks further reveal that Palestinian negotiators had agreed to Israeli demands that only 10,000 refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, out of a total refugee population of 5 million.
Al-Jazeera and the UK’s Guardian newspaper, which was also granted access to the leaked documents, described the overall impression of the decade of leaks as revealing “the weakness and growing desperation of PA leaders as failure to reach agreement or even halt all settlement temporarily undermines their credibility in relation to their Hamas rivals.”
The Guardian contends that the leak also reveals “the unyielding confidence of Israeli negotiators and the often dismissive attitude of US politicians towards Palestinian representatives” – at one stage former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice suggests that Palestinians could live in Latin America, and in the minutes of a meeting with Palestinian negotiators in 2009, Rice’s successor Hillary Clinton is heard to ponder why Palestinians were “always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy”.
Palestinian authorities have responded to the leaks by attacking al-Jazeera for “distorting the truth” and playing “a propaganda game through the media in order to brainwash Palestinian citizens”.
Chief negotiator Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat has dismissed the minutes were “a bunch of lies and half truths”, while angry protesters stormed al-Jazeera’s offices in Ramallah before being stopped by police.
The Maldives has fallen from third to fifth place on the New Seven Wonders of Nature listing.
Haveeru reported Director of the Maldives Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) Mohamed Adam as saying that the board was preparing new activities to generate more votes for the Maldives.
“We will participate in several fairs in order to get more votes to the Maldives,” Haveeru reported Adam as saying.
At current pace the MTPD predicts Maldives with finish seventh on the list when voting ends in November 2011.
Only 10 percent of the votes for a seven wonder coming from inside its country are considered – 90 percent must originate from outside the country containing the wonder.
People wishing to vote for the Maldives can do so by calling +44 203 347 0901 (international call) and entering 7718 after the automated message. Votes can also be lodged here.
Social protection programmes have had a positive impact on many islands, ensuring access to essential services while injecting money into island economies, President Mohamed Nasheed has said during a tour of Kelaa in North Thiladhunmathi Atoll yesterday.
Money injected into Kelaa’s economy every month in the form of social security payments were instrumental in revitalising and sustaining the island’s economy following the tsunami and the economic downturn in 2009, President Nasheed said.
The President added that 368 Kelaa residents were registered in the government’s Madhana social health insurance programme, while 123 residents received the old age pension of Rf 2000 (US$155).
The Centre for Community Health and Disease Control (CCHDC) has held a workshop for Maldives Red Crescent volunteers on the Maldives Tobacco Control Act, in an effort to curb the harmful effects of smoking.
Workshop participants also discussed the impact of tobacco on health, society and the economy.
More than Rf 114 million (US$8.8 million) worth of tobacco was imported to the Maldives in 2009, Haveeru reported.
The government intends to utilise the rich natural resources of Baarah in North Thiladhunmathi Atoll, President Nasheed has said during a tour of the northern atolls yesterday ahead of the local council elections.
The island has naturally-occuring brackish water lakes, a large lagoon, land and human resources, the President noted, adding that aquaculture projects would be conducted on the island in collaboration with he Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company Limited (MIFCO).
Nasheed also said the construction of the island´s sewerage system has been contracted to Works Corporation Limited and was expected to be completed by the end of the year, while funding had been allocated to construct a larger T-jetty to expand use of the harbour.
The President is now heads south to Kulhulhuffushi, to attend the first cabinet meeting held outside Male’. Ministers traveled to the island last night.
Ambitious plans by Lithuanian mega-brand Olialia to develop an ‘all blondes’ resort – in the shape of a gigantic high-heeled shoe – have entered phase two, after the company reported that a delegation had visited the Maldives and selected three islands suitable for the project.
Olialia did not reveal the name of the islands, but did publish CGI images of the planned resort, designed by “famous Lithuanian architect” Valerijus Starkovskis, and claimed it that construction would begin “in a few years” with a grand opening in 2015.
Tenders for operators of the hotel, restaurants and serivce providers “would be announced soon”, the company said, also claiming that it would hold a “worldwide competition” to select the manager of the blonde island, “which every citizen in the world will be able to participate in.”
Aside from reclaiming an island in the shape of women’s footwear, the present draft includes an initial 61 guest villas, several restaurants, a nightclub, a beauty salon and spa centers, a marina, a boardwalk, mall, helipad and a “centre of harmony and psychology”. Olialia said it intends to eventually increase the resort to 500 rooms.
The central gimmick of the proposal is to staff the resort entirely with blondes and ensure all buildings “comply with the spirit and the worldview of blondes”, because, according to Olialia’s managing director Giedre Pukiene, “blondes are a great power that should not be underestimated. We are smart, beautiful, reckless and purposeful.”
Olialia's MD Giedre Pukiene
In addition to the resort, a specially designed charter airline staffed only by blondes, ‘Olialia airlines’, will deliver tourists to the island, Pukiene claimed.
Investors apparently include interests in Lithuania, Russia, UK, Germany, the United Arab Emirates and an as-yet undisclosed Maldivian travel company.
Olialia is a highly recognisable brand within Lithuania with a reported income of $US10 million. It claims to be an Eastern European version of Richard Branson’s Virgin company, and is well known for its gratuitous use of blonde women in its marketing. The company now markets an assortment of products ranging from Cola and Italian pizza restaurants to luxury limousines, a nightclub and a (blonde) modelling agency.
Olialia made headlines worldwide in September after it first proposed the Maldives resort concept, sparking heated debate over whether such a resort would be discriminatory or too controversial for the country’s conservative self-image – or even whether the whole idea was a devious marketing gimmick.
If legitimate, the resort faces several practical obstacles – the first being that so far, the Maldivian Tourism Ministry knows nothing about the project.
“I’m sure I would have heard about this,” said Minister of Tourism Mariyam Zulfa, adding that such project would eventually pass through the tourism ministry, be subject to the Tourism Act and ultimately require cabinet approval “and debate over the various merits and demerits.”
However, she said, the government “promoted private enterprise, and was not in the [business] of either killing or encouraging ideas. What a private party does is their prerogative and we do not interfere in how resorts are run.”
After lowering cabinet’s raised eyebrows, a second challenge for Olialia would be Maldivian employment regulations, which state that resorts must employ a minimum of 50 percent Maldivian staff – few of whom are naturally blonde.
Thirdly, several local marine biologists contacted by Minivan News who were shown images of Olialia’s resort pronounced it “ridiculous”.
“I couldn’t comment until I see the shape of the original island,” said one, “but there’s no visible beach protection and the island would suffer from huge erosion – the beach would just disappear – while sedimentation could kill the surrounding reef.”
“I don’t know if I should laugh about it or cry about the degradation of human species,” said another, after seeing the images.
Nonetheless should the Maldives hesitate in its embrace of the concept, “we have received offers of cooperation from the owners of islands in Greece and the Carribean,” Pukiene noted.
“Currently, the experts are studying the benefits of 12 islands. We do not exclude the possibility of opening several blondes resorts, because the interest in the project is huge.”
Police are investigating reports of a person being beaten in police custody, after a 17 year-old boy told Minivan News he was arbitrarily arrested on Boduthakurufaanu Magu on Saturday night before being driven in a police vehicle to a dark spot near Male’s artificial beach where he was violently beaten by officers with batons.
The 17 year-old told Minivan News that he had been on the phone in front of a police officer’s house earlier that day, before the officer came out of the building and confronted him.
“I did not answer him and asked him to wait, as I was on the phone,” he said. “Later that night, while I was on Boduthakurufaanu Magu near the ‘Ekuveni Stadium’ in Galolhu, I saw police officers searching for me with a picture of me in their hands.”
As soon as he neared the stadium, all the police officers jumped on him and locked him inside police vehicle, he claimed.
”They said I had tried to attack a police officer by waiting near his house, and said I was not to threaten the police. They took me near artificial beach,” he said.
”It was around midnight when we reached the beach. All of the officers got out of the police bus and took me to a dark area near ”Andhiri Stage” [literally ‘Dark Stage’- a stage formally used to perform music shows but now unused].
The 17 year-old said the squad, consisting of “around 22″ police officers then started beating him simultaneously with their batons.
”They kept saying that it was what someone would get for trying to attack police,” he explained. ”They kept beating me until they received an urgent call to attend a fight that was occurring near Bandeyrikoshi, so they took me with them to the crime scene in the police bus.”
He said that one of the groups involved in the fighting had fled before the police arrived, but that the other group attacked police while he was kept inside the vehicle.
”They arrested some of the boys and drove to drop them off to police custodial,” he said. ”They were planning to drop them off and take me back to the artificial beach to beat me again.”
However, when the bus reached police custodial, the 17 year-old said he jumped out of the bus and ran inside the building, where he begged for help from a Serious and Organised Crime (SOC) officer who was on duty at the time.
”He told me to stay inside the interview room, then went outside and shouted at the police officers who had attacked me and told them that they couldn’t touch me again,” he said.
The boy said he went to meet President Mohamed Nasheed last night during the launch of a campaign office for an MDP candidate ahead of the local council elections, and told him what had happened to him.
”He was shocked to hear what the police officers told me inside the vehicle – they said they would make the people turn against ‘Anni’ (the President’s nickname) and would make citizens run after him with swords,” the boy alleged.
The boy said he had attended hospital for treatment and an X-ray of his injuries, where doctors discovered his spine had suffered internal injuries.
Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam confirmed that police had received reports of a person who was tortured while in police custody, and were now investigating the incident.
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