President sends condolences after passing of Sheikh Tantawi in Egypt

Hearing of the passing of the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Mosque and head of the al-Azhar University in Cairo, President Mohamed Nasheed sent a message of condolence to Egyptian President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak.

The president said he was deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, 81, who was “a strong voice for the universal Islamic values of peace and tolerance.”

President Nasheed said Tantawi’s death was a great loss to “all those moderate voices in Islam.”

He sent sincere sympathies on the behalf of the people and government of the Maldives to the president, government and people of Egypt, as well as Sheikh Tantawi’s family.

Sheikh Tantawi passed away in Riyadh on Wednesday 10 March. He was buried in Madinah at Jannatul Baqee cemetery after funeral prayers at the Prophet’s Mosque.

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Maldivian fishing depends on British appetite for fish, claims Telegraph

Britain is “essential” to the Maldivian economy, claims an article on the country’s fishing industry published in the Telegraph.

Following a day in the life of a Maldivian fishing vessel, the article does not refer to the government’s recent deliberations over whether to permit environmentally damaging long-line fishing methods in order to make the industry more competitive.

“The appetite for fresh tuna in Western countries has encouraged fishermen to hunt using hi-tech methods that are not permitted in the Maldives,” the article notes.

Journalist Rose Prince travelled to the Maldives with Paul Willgoss, the technical director of UK retailer Marks & Spencer.

“The Maldives have an opportunity to become iconic in the way they manage their fishing,” Willgoss told Prince. “It is up to us to help them increase their returns and take the earnings back to the people of these islands.”

Marks & Spencer imports 700 tons of yellow fin from the Maldives each year, all of it stamped ‘pole-and-line’.

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President asks German scholars to help interpret Sharia law for the Maldives

President Nasheed has asked German scholars with expertise in Sharia law to help apply it to certain fields in the Maldives, during his visit to Berlin.

“I have done my homework and I am quite aware of the amount of German discourse in Islamic jurisprudence”, President Nasheed said, according to German news site deutschenachrichten.

Nasheed told the German press that Maldivian law was based on Sharia, but warned them about “jumping to the wrong conclusions.”

“We are a tolerant and free country, and we want to keep it that way,” he said.

Press S for the President’s Office Mohamed Zuhair said that Germany was a country where a large number of experienced and professional scholars live.

”In the 20th century, the highest standard of Islamic universities was also in Germany,” Zuhair said.

Zuhair said the government had discussed the request for German assistance with the Islamic Ministry, which had expressed its approval.

However spokesperson for the Islamic Ministry Sheikh Ahmadullah said he had no information about the matter and did not want to comment.

Zuhair explained that “many Islamic books also were preserved in Germany” and believed that “German religious scholars would be more experienced than Maldivian scholars.”

”The origins of Sharia code would not be changed,” Zuhair said. ”They will only help in some areas like taxation.”

He said the president had received very positive answers in response to his interest.

State Minister for Islamic Affairs Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed said if good advice was given “it should always be heard and acted upon.”

Shaheem said people should realise “that there are Islamic scholars all around the world, and not only in Arabic countries.”

“The are good scholars in many countries,” Shaheem said, “even in those where Islamic people are in a minority.”

”Even a scholar like Sheikh Bukhari (a famous scholar of the Hadiths) was not from an Arabic country,” Shaheem explained.

“If a scholar in another country can give the right information on Sharia law, we have to accept it. But if anyone gives the wrong information, we have scholars here who can tell us the right way to implement Sharia.”

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President Nasheed attends opening ceremony of ITB

President Mohamed Nasheed attended the official opening ceremony for the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) 2010 travel fair in Berlin on Tuesday night.

The ITB is the world’s leading travel trade show, with as many as 11,127 exhibitors gathering for this year’s show. Travel destinations, tour operators, booking systems, carriers, hotels and other service providers and suppliers were represented at the fair.

The Maldives Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) and other tourism operators from the Maldives participated at the ITB.

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President Nasheed meets with German Minister of State

President Mohamed Nasheed met yesterday with German Minister of State Dr Wener Hoyer.

The meeting was held at the Federal Foreign Office on 9 March. The president and the minister discussed the importance of a binding global climate treaty.

President Nasheed said the Maldives is communicating with other countries, including members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) to ensure a common understanding is reached before COP16 climate summit in Mexico later this year.

Dr Hoyer said Germany is also working with other EU members to reach an understanding on climate change.

President Nasheed discussed other areas of possible cooperation between the two nations, mainly the strengthening of the Maldivian legal and judicial sectors. He sought German assistance to improve the institutional capacity of these sectors.

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Two men injured in a accident

A car and motorbike have collided near Giyasudeen School, injuring two men.

Police reported the incident occurred at 2:30pm yesterday.

The motorbike went against the traffic lights and hit the car, according to police.

The person riding the motorbike was under the age of 18 and did not possess a driving license, police said.

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Finance ministry gives Dhoogas guest house to MTCC

The Finance Ministry has decided to give the guest house at Dhoogas in Seenu Gan to Maldives Transport and Contracting Company (MTCC), reports Haveeru.

Haveeru reported that the land where the guest house was built also was given to MTCC.

On October last year the government gave  Dhoogas guest house to MVK Maldives, according to Haveeru.

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Special Envoy of the President meets with Japanese officials

Special Envoy of the President, Ibrahim Hussain Zaki, is on an official visit to Japan.

Zaki’s visit is mainly focused on meeting with Japanese officials and discussing bilateral relations between the two countries. He will also be promoting the upcoming Maldives Partnership Forum, or Donor’s Conference, to be held at the end of March.

Zaki met with Japanese State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Minister of Environment, Director General of International Corporation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Secretary General of Japan-Maldives Parliamentary League and the Japanese Senior Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry.

He also met with officials from the Japanese Democratic Party and Liberal Democratic Party.

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BBC films as whale shark mobbed by tourists

The Maldivian Whale Shark Research Program (MWSRP) has been featured on the BBC World News fast:track program, which includes footage of a shark mobbed by dozens of tourists from nearby boats.

The MWSRP was recently the subject of controversy over its use of tagging, a method it claims it ceased in May 2009.

Local divers and safari boats claimed the tagging was scaring the sharks away from their habitat in the Maamigilli area of South Ari atoll.

The researchers however argued that the sheer number of tourists swimming with the sharks, together with congested boat traffic around the animals, was to blame, and provided data from their research that suggested the tagging was unrelated. The Maamagilli area, they noted, was unique in that even sharks who travelled as far as India always returned to the same area.

The controversy culminated when the researchers were threatened at knife point by a staff member from a safari boat.

Shortly afterwards, the Ministry of Fisheries suspended the MWSRP’s research permit in late January pending an investigation into the tagging methods. The researchers have meanwhile indicated their willingness to continue the program without tagging, placing greater emphasis on education and community involvement.

In the BBC program the researchers emphasised their work with local schools and resorts. However during a spotting trip with a film crew and a group of school students, the researchers came across a whale shark surrounded by boats and tourists, which BBC journalist Mike London describes as “an almost textbook example of the kind of encounter the program is keen to stamp out.”

MWRSP researcher Adam Harman comments that “there’s a lot of splashing going on in the water and unfortunately too many boats and too many people for us to go in, so we’re just going to avoid it.”

Concluding the program, London reports that through developing ‘best practice’ proceedures and codes of conduct with the tourist industry, the MWSRP “aims to stop large scale whale shark encounters like the one we’ve just seen, which it fears could eventually scare the sharks away.”

President of the Divers Assocication Maldives (DAM), Zoona Naseem, said the organisation favoured the establishment of proper guidelines for whale shark encounters, adding “it does not matter whether it’s tourists or researchers – no one should be touching the whale sharks.”

Watch the program here:

fast:track uncovers the Maldivian Whale Shark

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