The President’s Office has announced that fishermen’s income has been increasing steadily over the past few months, while the price of fish has remained constant.
President Mohamed Nasheed said the government aims to support income growth for fishermen, and provided there are no changes to the industry’s current operations, profit levels will be maintained.
Speaking in his weekly radio address, the President further stated that retailers have reporters higher profits this Ramadan than in recent years. He noted that market prices have been controlled, and said the Maldivian economy was moving in the right direction.
Crime ratings have dropped in the past few months, and violent crime rates are notably low, the President claimed.
The Bank of Ceylon (BOC) has said it will open a branch in Addu City in time for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit, which is scheduled for that site in November.
The bank’s chairman said construction will start as soon as the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) has approved the proposal, reports Haveeru.
BOC has also provided a US$10 million revolving credit line to the Maldives with a six percent interest rate.
Sri Lankan media is reporting that the credit line will be used to purchase fruit and vegetables from Sri Lanka.
Officers from the Air Wing of the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) participated in the 2011 Pacific Air Rally this week in Colombo. The event is held every two years, but this is the first time it has been held in Sri Lanka, Haveeru reports.
The rally, hosted by the Pacific Air Command of the US Air Force and the Sri Lanka Air Force, took place at the Ratmalana and Ampara Air Force bases between August 22 and 26.
MNDF forces participated in the Command Post Exercise, which focused on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief coordination between participating countries.
A Criminal Court judge handling the case of two persons identified by police as “dangerous criminals” has claimed that police had “not cooperated” with the court and that both may have to be released.
Thursday’s hearing of the case against Ahmed Shareef of Gaafu Dhaalu Nadella and Maadhih Mohamed of Laamu Gan, had to be cancelled after police officers who were supposed to testify as witnesses failed to appear, according to local media.
The media reported the judge as saying that it was the fourth hearing in the trial that had to be cancelled because the two police officers did not appear, and stated that the court was informed that one police officer was on vacation while the other was not turning up for work.
The judge said that a hearing would be scheduled for next week and that if the two police officers failed to appear, the two suspects would be released from custody.
Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam meanwhile said that police had always fully cooperated with the Criminal Court and had always produced persons necessary for trials.
“If we had failed to produce someone to the court we have always informed the court about it, and given a reason as to why we have been unable to present him,” Shiyam said.
Shareef and Maadhih are both charged of assaulting and stabbing Ismail Firdhaus, near the Hulhumale’ ferry terminal.
Both of them denied the charges against them, however, the court granted the police authority to hold them in police custody until their trial was concluded.
On February 17, Criminal Court’ Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed released Ibrahim Shahum Adam, a 19 year-old who was arrested in August last year for allegedly murdering 17 year-old Mohamed Hussain.
Adam was presented to the Criminal Court with a police request to extend the period of detention, but Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed noted that the Criminal Court had already extended the detention of Shahum by six months for investigation which had not yet been concluded.
Police blamed the Health Ministry, and told the judge that the investigation had not concluded because the ministry had not responded to a letter police sent in August 2010 requesting the medical report on the death of Mohamed Hussain.
Judge Abdulla told police this was not reasonable grounds to keep a person in detention.
Later the family of Ahusan Basheer, 21, who was fatally stabbed in a gang fight, accused Shahum of murdering Ahusan and blamed Judge Abdulla for releasing him.
The Maldives’ first contemporary jazz album has been presented to President Mohamed Nasheed by Maldivian artist Shameem Mohamed (Shambe).
The album, Feshun, is an arrangement of guitar, saxophone, drums and bass. It also features Maldivian vocalist Mariyam Rifga Rasheed. The group of six musicians, who studied at the International College of Music, in Malaysia, worked on the music collaboratively, said Shambe.
“I created the main idea, but kept the freedom for each and every person to add their own ideas to the composition.”
Shambe, who majored in composition and contemporary jazz at the college, told Minivan News that after graduating from university he wanted to do something new for the Maldivian music industry. “I looked around and realised that the kind of music I was learning and composing wasn’t available in the Maldives. So I decided to put my mother tongue [Dhivehi] over a jazz fusion and call it Maldivian Jazz.”
Shambe said he had originally wanted to do the album with Maldivian musicians, but limited resources forced him to record in Malaysia.”There are some very good musicians in the Maldives,” he said, “but the recording studios here are not advanced enough to match the work being done by other groups today.”
The group began production for the album last October in Malaysia. They played a live concert on Malé in July, and have lately been on break for Ramadan. Shambe reports a good response from his home audience.
Shambe cited the group Cosmo Squad as an inspiration, and said the album pulls from funk, latino, bossanova, samba and swing styles. He noted that because Dhivehi words are generally short, the group stretched them to create “a more laid back feel.”
“It may sound like it’s not clear, but that’s how it should be in order to feel like jazz. I think the effect will help make the music more accessible to audiences across the world,” said Shambe.
The group’s agent, Mohamed Bassm Adam, told Minivan News that Feshun is targeted for the tourism industry. He thinks the album could encourage other local artists who are interested in Western music styles.
The album has also drawn local attention. Shambe said he was surprised to see a good turnout at the presentation ceremony last night. “I was actually a bit nervous,” he said. The President’s Office reported that the album would refresh the Maldivian music market.
“The President is an admirer of all music genres, especially jazz and the blues,” said President Mohamed Nasheed’s Press Secretary, Mohamed Zuhair.
Shambe said the group will be returning to Malaysia at the end of August to perform and promote the album. He said he would like to market it globally. “It will take some time to promote it, and I will need guidance and advice, but I hope that with time it will work out.”
Feshun is a product of the Maldives, and copyrighted under Universal Publishing Sdn Bhd (Malaysia). Artist Shameem Mohamed is signed under StarMount Records (Malaysia).
The album is available in music shops and online for rf200, and will soon be available in resorts priced from US$20.’
To listen to sample tracks, visit Feshun’s Facebook page
The Finance Ministry has opened a housing project to build 500 housing units across the Maldives, but has limited bid submissions to Indian contractors, Haveeru News reports.
The Indian government allegedly offered the project, along with a US$40 million loan for its development, on the condition that only bids from Indian contractors be considered.
Haveeru News reports that contractors are required to make an initial bid deposit of US$400,000. They must register at the ministry before September 10.
A statement from the Finance Ministry allegedly said proposals must be submitted by September 26, and a pre-bid meeting will be held on September 8.
There is an unbearable emptiness to Maldivian political rhetoric. Everywhere we look are people who say what they do not mean, and mean what they do not say.
Take former President Gayoom’s pre-Ramadan Epiphany: Z-DRP and Adhaalath are ideological twins.
Since when? Does Adhaalath not espouse beliefs that Gayoom once allegedly had people tortured for? Legend has it that the kind of beards that men sport with such pride these days were once shaved with chilli powder by Gayoom’s henchmen. This is a madness in method missing even from the notorious ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ at Guantanamo Bay.
Now, though, we are to believe that this vast ideological chasm between Gayoom and Them has been magically crossed. That somehow, in the turmoil of transition, the ideological kaleidoscope was shaken so much that Gayoom and Adhaalath are now soulmates.
Do you find it hard to believe that an individual could flip-flop across such vast ideological terrain in one lifetime, let alone in one political career (no matter how long)? Is it difficult to grasp how one man can go from actively banning the buruga to aligning himself with those who take the measure of a woman’s morality by the very same piece of cloth?
Do you find it difficult to get your head around how a man who once courted international diplomatic accolade with such rigour would now align himself with a party that thinks Iranian approval is a foreign policy victory? Even bearing in mind that this is Gayoom we are talking about, it is hard to make sense of such a complete volte face, is it not?
Do not be too hard on yourself, though, for no such vast ideological changes have occurred. The truth of the matter is there was no ideology to begin with. We are an ideologically empty vessel, and the proof is not just in the clamour that such vessels tend to make and we hear constantly on our airwaves. It is there to see in the many crossings made over seemingly irreconcilable ideological lines in recent times.
Remember DRP’s most vitriolic and vociferously anti-MDP figure in the Majlis, MP Ali Waheed, moving to MDP in May this year? The air was filled with such a triumphant yellow that everyone looked jaundiced. What was there to celebrate? That MDP was one man closer to an outright parliamentary majority.
Granted, a majority is clearly necessary if MDP is to surmount the blockades to progress set up by the Maldivian Tea Party-ers. But on how firm an ideological ground is a party willing to welcome – if not buy – a man who until the moment of transfer had been against everything the party stood for?
Fast-forward a few months, and there is Mr Ali Waheed, the proud owner of a MRF 4.6 million home, on the beachfront of Hulhumale’. How did he afford it? It is a question that one must not ask for fear of ‘politicising’ the issue, says the man himself. Indeed. These journalists must be insane to find anything political about an MP, even on the outrageous monthly income of Rf 60,000, buying a plot of land for almost Rf 5 million.
Then we have Adhaalath, the party of purists and the gatekeepers of heaven for Maldivians. One day they describe the West as the Great Satan, the Puppet Masters of the religiously weak Dhivehin, the corrupters of our children and the seducers of our youth. The next day they fly in individuals who represent the worst the West has to offer to lecture us on how we should conduct and govern ourselves.
British MP George Galloway
First there was Philip Green, according to whom England is a country full of drunken louts who do nothing but puke and urinate alcohol on the streets of London twenty four hours a day seven days a week.
Then Adhaalath proudly links us via video to George Galloway, former UK MP and Celebrity Big Brother star who once danced on national television in a pink lycra cat-suit. While even sinful liberals found Galloway’s behaviour hard to comprehend, self-righteous Adhaalath seems to have had no such qualms.
If Adhaalath believes what it says, how can it hold Galloway up as a figure of authority to the same people that it wants to cleanse of all alleged Western debauchery? Galloway’s decisions in the Middle East have not been exactly wise, to put it kindly. But that’s all right, because Adhaalath found some perverse use to make of him. And Galloway lapped it all up, like the cat that he was on Big Brother, happily dictating our foreign policy as ‘an entirely Muslim country’.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, in the same week we were celebrating our independence from British protection. It was also the same week in which Gayoom was speaking of the imminent threat we face from a supposed revitalisation of British imperial ambitions.
Ideological complexities? No. Lack of ideology, lack of a purpose except one’s own political or pecuniary power. What matters is knowing which side of your bread your Halal butter is on. What matters is that there is a pot of political gold at the end of the rainbow of beliefs one can feel free to pick and choose from.
This emptiness of rhetoric, of being, is dangerous.
As we saw from the riots in London earlier this month, when the people at the top believe that it is okay to rob from the poor with impunity like the bankers did in the West; and that it is alright to violate the rights of others as Murdoch’s news empire did in Britain – the chances are that the little people below may feel free to do the same.
If we want a society with purpose and belief, we need leaders who say what they mean; not individuals who take a Hypocrite’s Oath when assuming office.
To see the future of things to come if we continue on this path of duplicity, we need only look at the rampant hypocrisy among us from the designation of ‘Top Fashion Accessory’ status to the buruga to the ‘Back to the Prophet’s Day’ men on Harley Davidsons with their orange beards grotesquely flowing in the wind.
If all this is doing your head in, sign up for an Incantation Class at the Islamic Foundation’s Halal Magic Courses. Book early, though. They are proving even more popular than the fishnet stockings and the Botox shots that are to accompany next season’s lamé burugas.
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]
Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday approved a lump sum of Rf160,000 (US$10,376) for every MP, in committee allowance back pay for January through August.
The decision to approve the Rf20,000 (US$1200) monthly allowances in December 2010 was met with protests and widespread public indignation. However in June this year, parliament rejected a resolution proposed by opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Ahmed Mahlouf to scrap the allowance.
A Majlis official, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed to Minivan News that following its decision, the committee asked the Speaker to issue the lump sum allowance with MPs’ salaries this month.
Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim, chairman of the PAC and parliamentary group leader of the minority opposition People’s Alliance (PA), was not responding at time of press.
Article 102 of the constitution states that parliament shall determine the salaries and allowances of the President, Vice President, cabinet ministers, members of parliament, members of the Judiciary, and members of the independent institutions.
The opposition-majority PAC decided earlier this month that MPs who attend less than 50 percent of committee meetings would not receive the allowance while those who attended between 50 and 75 percent would receive Rf10,000 (US$648) a month.
While MPs who attend over 75 percent of meetings would receive the full amount, those who did not wish to take the allowance would be allowed to refuse it.
Few MPs that Minivan News contacted today wished to comment on record regarding the controversial allowances.
Independent MP Mohamed Nasheed told Minivan News that he was not informed of the Public Accounts Committee decision.
“There was a decision to institute committee allowance, I know. [But] I am not in support of a committee allowance at all. And if there is any back pay, that would be awfully irresponsible,” he said.
Nasheed added that he had written to the Speaker requesting that he “not be given it and that it may not be deposited with my salary.”
Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Ahmed Hamza, a member of the PAC, meanwhile said that he too was not aware of the decision.
If a decision had been made, said Hamza, it must have been done while he was either absent or had stepped out of the committee meeting.
“I do not think it is a good idea at all,” he said. “I have expressed my disapproval at the committee when it was first discussed.”
Hamza added that he did not want the allowance. Other MDP MPs on the committee did not respond at time of press.
Parliament’s National Security Committee has voted in favor of signing a memorandum of understanding with the UN to send Maldivian soldiers to UN conflict zones for peacekeeping operations.
According to the parliament, all the members of the committee were present at the meeting last Monday when the voting was held, including Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Rozaina Adam, Peoples Alliance Party (PA) MP Abdulraheem Abdulla and DRP MP Mohamed Nashiz.
The committee will now submit the matter to parliament for approval.
On April 5, the cabinet decided to sign a memorandum of understanding with the UN to deploy Maldivian soldiers to UN conflict zones, noting that it would be important for the Maldives to contribute to these international efforts to ensure that every country, society and individual had the opportunity to live in peace and security.
The decision was then sent to the parliament for approval, and the parliament voted in favor of sending it to the National Security Committee to examine the issue further.
According to 243[b] of the constitution, “if the President, as Commander in Chief, authorizes or orders the employment of the military service in defence of the republic or as part of an international undertaking, the President shall without delay submit the authorisation to the People’s Majlis. The People’s Majlis may at any time approve the authorisation, or revoke the authorisation.”
Speaking on the matter in parliament, opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP, Ahmed Mahlouf, said the issue was concerning.
“This is no joke, this is a very serious issue,” he said. “I do not think any honorable member would want to send some Maldivians abroad to their deaths.”
Mahlouf said death was a real possibility in peacekeeping operations. He also noted that it was possible that terrorists would target the Maldives if Maldivian soldiers were sent to participate in peacekeeping operations.
Religious NGO Jamiyyathul Salaf also expressed concern over the issue and called on the government to withdraw the decision.
Salaf at the that time claimed that any Muslim who assisted non-Muslims in a war against Muslims would themselves be branded infidels.
“Muslims will be obliged to treat him as a non-Muslim in all ways, such as if dead, burying without enshrouding the body, burying the body with other non-believer, and when dealing with inheritance matters the terms and condition that applies to a non-believer who dies in a war against Muslims will be applied to him,” the NGO said.
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