Police have arrested an escaped prisoner with illegal drugs in Male’.
Police reported that they arrested the man while he was sitting near Dharubaaruge, in possession of 24 packets of suspected narcotics.
The first time police attempted to arrest the man at his home, he escaped through a ventilation duct, police said.
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(0)Telemedicine is a combination of medical and telecommunication equipment that allows doctors to examine patients hundreds of kilometres away, usually with the assistance of a trained nurse at the patient’s end.
The Maldives’ first telemedicine facility was donated by Dhiraagu in late December 2010, and installed on Thinadhoo in Gaaf Dhaal at a cost of Rf 2 million (US$155,000). Further services are to be rolled out to Kudahuvadhoo (Dhaal Atoll), Eydhafushi (Baa Atoll), Naifaru (Lhaviyani Atoll) and eventually the southern atoll of Fuvahmulah, in a Rf 5.8 million (US$450,000) joint project between the government and the UAE-based Khalifa Al Nahyan Foundation, and will ultimately service 35 islands across the country.
Technologically ‘telemedicine’ ranges from two laptops and a webcam with a consulting doctor at one end and nurse at the other, to set-ups involving remote diagnostic equipment capable of compressing and sending complex medical imaging data across low-bandwidth connections – a challenge in many isolated areas with poor connectivity. Such deployments are seen as a practical application for unified communications technology developed by networking giants such as Cisco and Polycom, and is used all over world to supply medical expertise in remote and isolated communities in places such as Africa and Australia.
The particular system donated by Dhiraagu includes a cart consisting of a general exam camera, digital electronic stethoscope, dermascope, ENT otoscope, telephonic stethoscope, digital spirometer, 12 lead interpretive ECG, and digital vital signs monitor.
“Many patients currently need to travel to their regional hospital or Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) in Male’. With telemedicine, a health assistant and a consulting hospital can mean the patient avoids having to travel long distances and gains increased access to medical care. And the doctor at the other end can be anywhere in the world.”
(0)Dislikes(0)Youth Minister Dr Hassan Latheef has said the ministry has budgeted Rf 19 million (US$1.5 million) to be given out as loans for young people to pursue higher education.
Latheef said the money would be distributed to provinces equally, with a view to increasing the number of educated professionals in the islands.
While Latheef claimed that during the MDP’s campaign across the islands he had witnessed a great amount of support for the ruling party among youth, the ongoing lack of education and employment opportunities for young people in the Maldives has led many to become involved in crimes, drugs and gang violence.
President Mohamed Nasheed has previously said that there is “not even a single family in the Maldives that has not been affected by drugs.”
In an effort to understand the country’s drug trade and its impact, Minivan News interviewed several self-described drug dealers in May last year, and was told that more treatment facilities and job opportunities would curb addiction.
One claimed to earn “at least Rf15,000 every day” (US$1167) selling drugs, approximately Rf465,000 per month (US$36,186).
”Everyday one person will buy at least three to five packets, sometimes people from the islands come and buy 40 packets also,” he said, claiming that each 0.03 gram ‘packet’ (of brown sugar) cost Rf 100 (US$7.70).
“All gangs are operated by people and money. Gangs earn money by selling drugs. If someone gets stabbed also the gangs would provide them with medication and financial assistance,” he told Minivan News, adding that drugs were imported into the country 1-2 kilograms at a time “with the assistance of high-profile people in the country.”
“Real drug dealers” did not use drugs themselves, he added.
Police statistics for 2010 showed that most arrests made across the Maldives in 2010 were for drug offences (1153), assault (941) and theft (773), and that most of these were first time offenders.
While the bulk of those arrested were young men aged between 17-23, key crimes committed by minors (aged under 18) were assault, theft and drug offences – albeit with an overall decline in 2010 on 2009.
(0)Dislikes(0)Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) parliamentary group leader and MP Moosa ‘Reeko’ Manik has denied rumours the MDP is planning forward a no-confidence motion against Speaker of the Parliament, DRP MP Abdulla Shahid.
Late last week, opposition leader of the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Ahmed Thasmeen Ali alleged that some DRP and coalition partner People’s Alliance (PA) MPs were plotting with MDP MPs to forward a no-confidence motion against the Speaker.
‘’MDP MPs will always, always vote according to the party line,” claimed Moosa, dismissing rumours of a planned no-confidence motion against Shahid.
“MDP is not a party divided into factions and groups,’’ he added, in reference to the recent factional turmoil within the opposition.
He claimed the intention of the rumours was to divide the MDP parliamentary group, “because DRP has already been split,’’ he claimed. “MDP will never fall into factions, no matter how much the opposition tries.’’
Thasmeen last week told the media he would not support such a vote, and assurances that “most” of the DRP MPs would not vote against Shahid.
The PA Secretary General Ahmed Shareef told Minivan News that no information on the accusations raised last week by Thasmeen.
“Nothing has been done to forward a no-confidence motion [against the Speaker],” said Shareef.
DRP MP Ahmed Nihan also dismissed rumours of the joint no-confidence motion against the Speaker as false.
”There are a few who are trying to split our party and they are taking advantage of this,” said Nihan. ”They are circulating this rumor through the media, and as far as I am concerned, it has never been discussed.”
He said that no DRP MPs had informed him of a potential no-confidence motion.
Meanwhile, DRP MP Dr Abdulla Mausoom emphasised that DRP MPs “will not join the no-confidence motion against Shahid and have not even discussed anything like that.”
Dr Mausoom said he could confirm that DRP MPs had not planned to put the motion forward.
”There maybe someone bitter about Shahid who wishes to do so, but he is the best Speaker of parliament I have ever seen,” Dr Mausoom said. ”He has worked in a very volatile environment, but he has handled the situation well as a smooth operator.”
Dr Mausoom said he was ready to breach the party’s three-line whip in the event the DRP did decided to put forward a motion to dismiss the Speaker.
However, daily newspaper Haveeru has quoted a DRP MP anonymously that discussions about forwarding a motion to dismiss Shahid have been going on for two months, along with potential candidates for the speaker position.
Leader of the DRP Ahmed Thasmeen Ali originally raised the matter when he told the media that he had information that a no-confidence motion against Shahid was to be filed in parliament in what would be rare cooperation between DRP, MDP and PA MPs.
(0)Dislikes(0)The Islamic Ministry received a record amount of money as alms last year, reports Haveeru.
The Ministry received Rf 36 million (US$2.8 million) last year, an increase of Rf 9 million (US$700,000) on 2009.
Assistant Director General Ahmed-ulla Jameel told Haveeru that the number of people giving alms had also increased, as a result of “an increased public awareness about religious matters.”
The Ministry’s Alms Committee would distribute the money to the poor, Jameel told Haveeru.
(0)Dislikes(0)The government will resettle 500 people from Maavaidhoo to Nolhivaranfaru in Haa Dhaal atoll over the next few days, reports Haveeru, along with islanders from Kunburudhoo and Faridhoo.
Haveeru reported that 134 houses have been built in Nolhivaranfaru to accommodate the influx of residents, with an additional 47 constructed with Chinese assistance.
The President’s Office has also stated that the regional utilities company is upgrading electricity and water on Nolhivaranfaru at a cost of US$1.6 million.
(0)Dislikes(0)It is a little known fact that many of the brightest, well-known stars in the sky have Arabic names.
The luminous Aldebaran of Taurus, the majestic Rigel of the Orion constellation… the night sky is studded with shining reminders of an age where the early Muslim astronomers mapped the heavens and the Earth, and committed the knowledge to thousands of paper manuscripts and stored them in the world’s first public lending libraries.
In the early centuries following the Prophet’s death, Muslims made tremendous intellectual and scientific breakthroughs in areas as varied as astronomy, arts, science, math, philosophy and literature: a period accurately portrayed as the ‘Golden Age’ of Islam.
Referring to what he called “civilization’s debt to Islam”, US President Barack Obama said in his famous speech at Cairo University in June 2009, “It was Islam… that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance.”
From the pinnacle of scientific and intellectual achievement 800 years ago, the downward spiral of Muslims to outcasts of the knowledge society has been spectacular, and devastating.
Astronomy, like other scientific disciplines, is today largely the dominion of Western scientists. The Soviets fired man into space in 1961. NASA landed man on the moon in 1969.
Nearly five decades later, only one Islamic nation, Iran, has managed to even launch a domestic satellite – in 2009. Meanwhile, the Voyager 1 spacecraft, that left the Western hemisphere 33 years ago, continues to send back images from the farthest edges of the Solar System.
Statistics paint a bleak picture.
Out of every 10 students who attempt the O’Levels in the Maldives, only three achieve passing grades. Maldivian citizens have an average of a mere 4.7 years of schooling.
The Sachar Committee Report, commissioned by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 to evaluate the social status of Indian Muslims, revealed that 25 percent of Muslim children under 15 didn’t attend schools, or dropped out early, despite free public education. Muslims were way behind the curve in literacy as well.
By the 10th century, Islamic centres like Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba and Tripoli boasted great libraries containing between 600,000 and 3 million volumes, but the UN Human Development Report 2010, which weighs in literacy as a development factor, records only five Muslim states among the top 50 countries on its index, and none in the top 30.
Muslims take pride in the fact that the Guinness Book recognises Al-Qarawiyyin University in Fez, Morocco as the world’s first university to issue degrees. Ironically, not a single university from a Muslim country figures in the top 100 Times Higher Education world university rankings for 2010.
Only nine Muslims have ever won a Nobel Prize. Out of a population of 1.57 billion, exactly two have won the science prizes. In comparison, Jewish scientists and intellectuals have racked up 178 Nobels.
Some insight into this dismal performance can perhaps be gleamed from the reception to Nobel laureates at home.
Dr Abdus Salam, who won the Physics Nobel in 1979, was deemed a heretic in his home country of Pakistan. Dr Salam was certainly devout – he quoted from the Qur’an in his acceptance speech – but he subscribed to the Ahmadi sect which was declared un-Islamic in Pakistan in 1974. Consequently, the epitaph on his grave was defaced, by court order, to remove the word ‘Muslim’. His tombstone now reads, quite inaccurately, ‘the first Nobel Laureate’.
In Iran, religious conservatives criticized Nobel Peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi, a Human Rights lawyer, for not covering her hair during the ceremony, and alleged that the award was a conspiracy to “ridicule Islam”. Following attacks and raids on her home and office, Ebadi fled Iran and now lives in exile in UK.
These are reasons, perhaps, why President Musharraf of Pakistan, observed in February 2002, “Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race.”
Egyptian scientist Dr Ahmed Zewail, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999, said in an interview that it was not Islam that prevented progress in the Muslim world, but “politicised Islamic scholars who profess that knowledge is restricted to the study of scriptures.”
Indeed, a study by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute of Pakistan found that the Curriculum Wing of the Ministry of Education, which is controlled by Deobandi Islamists, had altered school textbooks to include material that allegedly glorified war and incited violence against minorities.
A government proposal to introduce science subjects in Pakistani madrassas was met with hostility. The five madrassa boards formed an umbrella organization – the Ittehad Tanzimat-e-Madaris-e-Deenia (ITMD), which vowed to defy all government attempts at reforms.
Likewise, religious conservative parties in the Maldives objected strongly to plans by experts in the Ministry of Education to make Dhivehi and Islam subjects optional to senior Secondary students.
The Ministry argued that students should be free to focus on subjects that would help them get enrolled into Universities. Religious groups, however, accused the Ministry of “anti-Islamic” policies.
In September 2010, the Adhaalath party condemned government plans to introduce co-education in 4 schools. They claimed co-education was “a failed concept”. Incidentally, all of the Top 10 universities of 2010 were co-educational institutes.
Similar objections were raised by clerics in Saudi Arabia towards the inauguration the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology – a vast, new $10 billion dollar, co-educational institution.
Maulana Syed Kalbe Sadiq, a senior Indian Muslim cleric and Vice President of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board rejected this view. Noting that even co-worship was permissible during the Hajj, he stated there was no basis to deny co-education to Muslim students.
Speaking at Aligarh Muslim University in 2010, he said, “In the 21st century, only those who adopt high-level modern education will survive”.
The late Sheikh Tantawi, Egypt’s top cleric and the influential head of Al-Azhar University, ruled that Muslim girls in France should obey French Law and continue their education despite the ban on Hijabs, because sacrificing one’s education would be ‘the greater evil’.
Nevertheless, young Muslim girls continue to be kept at home by religious conservative families in Muslim countries, including the Maldives.
“Read!” -the archangel Gabriel’s first words to an illiterate prophet sparked the beginning of a movement which led to one of the greatest periods of human cultural achievement and enlightenment.
Muslims have a legacy of generating a volume of knowledge that, historians say, outweighs the combined works of ancient Greece and Rome.
That legacy of reason and science appears to have been overwhelmed by dogma in the 21st century. A culture that produced intellectuals of the calibre of Al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd is today more closely identified by gun-toting militants.
In the Maldives, it appears increasingly implausible that Islam might someday be represented less by Islamist preachers and more by scientists like Dr Hassan Ugail. But such a day, if it were to come, would pay rich obeisance to the legacy of learned Muslim ancestors.
It could be argued that such intellectuals are equally, if not more, deserving of the title ‘ilmuverin’, or ‘Scholars’.
Perhaps what it takes to fire up the uninspired young Muslim generation is a set of healthy intellectual role models to finally step in to inspire and guide them.
Alternatively, they could look up at the same Arabic stars that fascinated their cultural ancestors, and be inspired by the distant, faintly-glowing reminders of their fiery intellect from an age gone by.
Image: An astrolabe made in Yemen in 1291, an ancient ‘computer’ used to calculate time and triangulate location, relative to the sun and the stars. They were also used to determine the time for Salah (prayers).
(0)Dislikes(0)Its a music launch with a difference: no pop concert, album promotion or even iTunes premiere – a Malaysian rock band aims to break into the Maldivian music market through cell phone ringtones.
Pop Shuvit, the Kuala Lumpur-based band, has four successful albums to its name. Its adrenalin fuelled live performances have won it fans across Asia and the band is often touted as the continent’s leading hip hop rock outfit.
The band has followed an unusual route to stardom. Their first single ‘Skaters Anthem’ was released exclusively online, where it became an instant hit and lead to the channel ESPN licensing the song for use in their Summer X-games broadcasts.
Not content to rest on its laurels, Pop Shuvit has ambitious plans for global stardom, with tours planned in Europe and the US. Their fifth album, ‘Cherry Blossom Love Affair’, is going to be released in March.
Pop Shuvit is also making a foray into the Maldivian music scene with the imminent release of their singles as ring tones in Maldives.
Minivan News caught up with Pop Shuvit’s lead vocalist ‘Moots’ at Huvafen Fushi, to discuss the band’s interest in working with local Maldivian talent.
Aishath Shazra: What does the name Pop Shuvit stand for, and how was the band formed?
Moots: ‘Pop Shuvit’ is a skateboarding trick also known as a kick flip 360° where you flip the board under your feet and it does a 360° flip. The band has been together for 10 years now, but we have known each other for over 15 years since we were in high school. We each started out in the music industry with various bands and groups until we got together and started Pop Shuvit. We have been a solid unit ever since.
AS: The band’s gamble in releasing the first single Skaters Anthem exclusively on the internet paid off. How did the idea come about and were you expecting this success?
M: This was the time before MySpace and when the internet was still in its infant stages. We knew the internet would be the next step in the evolution of music marketing and being tech geeks ourselves, we were one of the first few bands in Asia that had a full fledged website and actively used the net to market our music to the kids. It was then only natural that we gave our fans first access to the song. Before we knew it, the song started circulating the net and ESPN came knocking and the rest they say is history.
AS: Despite establishing a good fan base in countries such as Japan, Thailand and Singapore, Pop Shuvit is still a relatively unknown band in Maldives, are you hoping to change it with the release of your singles as ring tones?
M: We want to share our music with the whole world! Maldives, Sri Lanka and India seemed to have been the only countries to have eluded us thus far but we hope to change that. I think the Maldivians are going dig the Shuvit sound and we have to come down for a show in the near future to rock the islands!
We are also looking to collaborate with local artists and we are thinking of shooting one of our songs in your beautiful islands.
AS: With whom are you collaborating on the ring tones and is Pop Shuvit going to do a performance in Maldives to promote it?
M: We have linked up with Sri Lankan based Maharaja Entertainment who then signed on our music as ring tones with Dhiraagu. We definitely hope to head down as soon as things come together for us and play a few shows here. We have also linked up with Per AQUUM in terms of DJ sets at their resorts and we hope to have a full band gig there soon.
AS: Do you think it’s necessary for a music band in Asia to sing in English to break into the global stage or do you think language and culture pose no barrier in music?
M: Music is universal and our story is proof of that. We broke Japan, a market that does not speak English or Bahasa Malaysian as their first language, but they understand the language of music. I think if beautiful music is made, it will get noticed regardless of the language.
AS: How is your holiday so far at Huvafen Fushi and are you open to doing a performance on your next visit?
M: Name the time, date and place and we will be there to rock it. I am amazed at the beauty of the Maldives and had an awesome time at Huvafen Fushi. It was breathtaking and this will not be my last visit to the island. I’m hoping to come back again for both work and play.
Pop Shuvit’s website is http://popshuvitmusic.com/wordpress/
(0)Dislikes(0)European travel and tourism group TUI has awarded the Eco-Centre at Kuramathi its ‘International Environmental Award’, “recognising its exemplary contribution to the protection and conservation of nature and biodiversity” and in particluar its work protecting coral reefs in the Maldives.
The award, which includes a prize of €10,000 (US$13,500), was presented during a ceremony held at the resort yesterday attended by President Mohamed Nasheed.
While many resorts in the Maldives now run eco-centres and environmental awareness programs, a trend that has grown in parallel with the increasing eco-awareness of guests from leading markets such as the UK. The Kuramathi centre, currently headed by Dr Reinhard Kikinger, is one of the oldest such facilities in the country. It was founded in 1999 by Director of Universal Resorts Ali Noradeen, in response to catastrophic coral bleaching caused by the el Niño effect which destroyed 95 percent of the country’s shallow reef coral – a disaster from which the country’s coral is still recovering.
“Water pollution and over exploitation through tourism can lead to irreparable damage,” TUI said in a statement following the event.
“The compelling concept of the Kuramathi Eco Centre was bringing nature conservation and tourism into harmony based on research, the sustainable use of resources and the raising of public awareness, which are performed in cooperation with TUI and the local population.”
Eco-conscious trend
Many resorts in the Maldives now run eco-centres and environmental awareness programs, a trend that has grown in parallel with the increasing eco-awareness of guests from leading markets such as the UK.
Marine biologist Verena Wiesbauer Ali, currently a consultant with Male’-based Water Solutions but who has worked at resorts all over the country, explained that the concept of running an eco-centre and employing a resident marine biologist was one that took off in the Maldives after increasingly eco-conscious guests began to ask more and more questions of resort staff.
“The first centre was opened at Kuramathi, but in 2009 I counted 12-15 centres at resorts across the Maldives. There will be many more by now,” she said.
Many of the marine biologists and eco-centres in the Maldives communicate with each other over a lively online newsgroup, reporting aquatic abnormalities and swapping tips on how to convince resort managements of the potential impacts of practices such as manta and sting ray feeding exhibitions (with one suggesting that feeding mantas leads them to mob snorkelers, who can panic and potentially stand on a sting ray).
Initially, Wiesbauer said, there was an assumption among many resorts that a marine station generated no income and was just “a luxury addition” to the resort – “but I believe that if run properly, they do [generate revenue] – I did my Masters thesis on it. ”
Guided dives and snorkel tours, and presentations on marine life and reef protection, might be the most self-evident activities of a marine station or eco-centre, Wiesbauer explained, but broadening the role of marine biologists to incorporate other aspects of the resort could greatly improve its sustainability – literally, in cases of beach erosion.
“As well as guiding snorkeling tours they can help improve things like energy efficiency, and even things like the purchasing department – for example, there are currently a lot of illegal transactions going on around the purchase of lobsters [from local fishermen]. Only a few resorts have asked their marine biologists to make sure the lobsters they are buying meet minimum size limits.”
Some resorts, Verena noted, were heavily involved in marine research – with academic work carrying the potential to greatly enhance the prestige of a resort.
“For a resort to fully benefit, the marine biologist has to be involved in many departments,” she explained. The end result – ‘going green’ – was a highly marketable benefit in key European markets such as the UK, and at upmarket resorts such as Soneva Fushi, a key feature of the resort.
A rising trend at many resorts with eco-centres was to develop them into focal points for environmental awareness programmes and marine biology classes in nearby communities and schools – effectively exporting the resort’s eco-knowhow to the community, as the Kuramathi centre does with neighbouring Rasdhoo.
“This is something that is especially important for resorts in the outer atolls,” Wiesbauer said, observing that in her experience many local teachers lacked enthusiasm for the field work and expeditions needed to bring the subject alive for young students.
“Mostly it is taught [in the Maldives] as a scientific, book-based subject, and the kids say it is not being made clear to them. Things like the nature expeditions for schools organised by Soneva are very successful.”
However resorts, she acknowledged, were very different from each other and not all had the scope for an in-house marine biologist – some relied on visiting consultants, others disregarded the concept altogether.
“Some resorts focus on diving and snorkelling, while at others guests hardly ever go in the water,” Wiesbauer said.
Nonetheless, she suggested, while there was a balance to be struck between sustainability and providing the five star luxuries such as monsoon showerheads that many guests expected, it was important to provide visitors a choice when it came to simple things – such as reusing towels. Far from feeling inconvenienced, guests were usually very supportive of such measures, she said: “across all the resorts I’ve worked, I haven’t once had a guest come up and say to me ‘I’ve paid thousands to be here, I can do what I like.’”
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Verena Wiesbauer Ali was presently completing her Masters. She has completed her Masters and is now working on her PhD.
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