Maldives lost Cup Glory!

India had won Bangabandhu SAFF Championship 2009 after beating Maldives in Penalty Shootout (3 – 1) in the final match held at Bangabandhu Stadium at Dhaka.

From the beginning of the game Maldives kept pressure on Indian side, but the Indian team’s strategy was very positive as they were lucky without conceding a goal and keeping the score line blank until the end of 90 minutes and also in the extra period of the game.

Maldives who beat Sri Lanka 5 – 1 in the semi-final of the tournament was not in the best form throughout the game, but the countless goal scoring chances were created by the tiny Islanders and overall the match control was on Maldives side.

India who played a defensive game got a golden opportunity to win the match on extra period, but the skipper Sushil wasted the open chance in front of the goal. In the other hand Maldives would have won the match if their open chances in the game were converted in to goals, most noticeably the chances fallen to Thariq and Ashfaq even in the dying minutes of the game.

After the goalless draw in the penalty shootout, India decided to take the first penalty and Jibon, Denzil and Subodh got their target but Nirmal fired his one wide.

From four penalties Maldives win only the one scored by Ibrahim Fazeel, while Tahriq and Mukhthar saw their penalties saved by Arindam and Ashfag flies his chance over the bar.

Ahmed Thariq (Maldives), Channa (Sri Lanka) and Enamul (Bangladesh) were the joint Top scorers of the tournament with 4 goals. And Indian keeper Arindam who played in four games of the tournament and achieved 100% clean sheet was awarded to the Most Valuable player of the tournament.

India team who became the Champions of Bangabandhu SAFF Championship 2009 extends their record in the regional tournament as winning the 5^th title out of 8 played since 1993. Also this years’ tournament has built another record to India as to clinch a title with the least number of goals scored in a tournament. India scored only 3 goals in five matches but it should be noted that India had conceded only 2 goals in five matches.

Maldives scored 11 goals in this tournament while conceded 3 goals in five matches.

Foreigner in Kinbidhoo arrested on charges of trying to spread Christianity

A foreigner who had visited Thaa atoll Kinbidhoo was arrested on Friday on charges of trying to spread Christianity.

A resident of the island said that the man named David was from the UK and that Police had arrested him after entering the house where was staying. Some books on Christianity were also confiscated from his room during the arrest, the resident said. He further said that the man, who could speak fluently in Dhivehi, was a very friendly man who got along very well with the residents of the island and was held in high regard.

He also said that most of the residents weren’t sure exactly what he was doing in the island.

“He would give different answers to different people when asked,” the resident said. “Sometimes he would say that he was doing export business in Maldives. Other times he would say he was from the Red Cross. He has introduced CDs containing information about Christianity to some of the residents of the island.”

Six taken into Police custody in Dhidhdhoo during disturbance near DRP “jagaha”

Six people were arrested by the Police during a disturbance that occurred in Haa Alifu atoll Dhidhdhoo when some people tried to take apart the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) “jagaha” (camp) near the island’s harbor area and were confronted by the group manning the camp.

A Police Media Official said that six people were taken into Police custody in Dhidhdhoo “in order to keep the peace” during a confrontation between the two groups. The Official said that all six were released after being cautioned.

The leader of the DRP camp, Mohamed Naseer Nasru, said on Monday that the camp had been taken apart by a group of MPD people who said that plots of land were being given out from the harbor area. He said that when those inside the jagaha had refused to leave, they had been arrested by the Police.

Dhidhdhoo Councilor Ahmed Shareef said that no one had been authorized to set a political camp in the harbor area and that the land belonged to the Government. He further said that the area was a commercial zone and plots of land from there were being distributed now. He further said that there were no structures belonging to anyone in the area and stressed that no “incidents” had occurred in the area either.

According to Naseer, they had set up the DRP camp in the area without asking for permission because many such places had already been constructed near the harbor area of the island.

“If our camp was taken apart then they would have to destroy the other such structures in the area too, that’s all I’m saying,” he said. “There is no justification for this; it’s just plain unfair. We asked them not to take the place apart as we are willing to pay the rent for it.”

He said that many DRP and MDP supporters had gathered in the area when the camp was being destroyed.

Bad weather disrupts scheduled ferry services to Hulhumalé, Villimalé

The bad weather being experienced across the country disrupted ferry services to Hulhumalé and Villimalé on Wednesday.

Officials from Maldives Transport and Contracting Company (MTCC), which is responsible for providing ferry services in Malé region, said that the seas had become so rough in the Villimalé and Hulhumalé area that they had decided to cancel the ferry services on Wednesday morning. Due to the disruption, there were no ferries travelling between Villimalé and Malé between 5:30am and 7:30am. The ferries scheduled between Malé and Hulhumalé were also cancelled between 6:00am and 7:30am.

Those who wished to travel from Hulhumalé to Malé between 7:30am and 12:00pm had to travel via the Hulhulé route.

“The ferry service was stopped because the seas were too rough for safe travelling,” an official from MTCC said. “Those in Hulhumalé who wanted to come to Malé had to go to Hulhulé and then take a ferry to Malé.”

Some of the passengers who arrived in Malé via the Hulhulé route complained about it. Some of them were unhappy about having to pay Rf2 to the bus that took them to Hulhulé.

MTCC has said that they might have to cancel some of the scheduled ferries in the near future, depending on the weather.

DRP members call for action against Alhan Fahmy

Two members of Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party’s (DRP) parliamentary group has called on the Party to take severe action against Seenu Feydhoo MP Alhan Fahmy for going against the Party’s decision and not taking part in the vote of no-confidence against Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed.

Speaking at the DRP rally held at the Artificial Beach on Tuesday night, Thoddoo MP Ali Waheed and Villi-Maafannu MP Ahmed Nihan Hussain both criticized Alhan and called on the Party to take action against him. Although they did not directly refer to Alhan by name, their choice of the words left no doubt about whom they were speaking about.

Ali Waheed, who had presented the no-confidence motion against Dr Shaheed, said that if the “party member who voted against the Party’s policies” was given even one more chance to speak at the Party’s podium, then it would be the last time that he, Ali Waheed himself, would speak there. He further said that he wished to work with trustworthy people who won’t turn out to be hypocrites.

He went on to say that an emergency Party council meeting was required to discuss the matter of the DRP member who didn’t take part in the vote and that strict measures should be taken against the member who had tried to destroy the Party’s policies.

Addressing the supporters gathered at the Artificial Beach, Ali Waheed said that what really saddened him wasn’t the fact that DRP had not won the vote of no-confidence against Dr Shaheed, but that it was a DRP member that had backstabbed them. He said it was due to such treacherous people that the 30-year rule of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom had come to an end.

Government signs agreement with Shri Educare to privatise Ghiyasuddin School

Government of Maldives has signed an agreement with Shri Educare to privatise Ghiyasuddin School.

The agreement was signed on behalf of the Government of Maldives by Education Minister Dr Musthafa Luthfee while Mr Karikeya Bharat Ram signed on behalf of Sri Educare Pvt Ltd.

Speaking at the agreement signing ceremony held at the President's Office, President Mohamed Nasheed reiterated the Government's long-term ambition to dramatically improve the state of education in the Maldives. He added that the Government's aim was for at least 60 per cent of student who finish school to pass all their exams with higher than C grades.

Stating that Ghiyasuddin School was the first school to be privatised under the Government's public-private partnership policy, the President said that more such schools would be established in the Maldives.

The President added that he was confident that such partnerships would improve the quality of education, make schools more efficient and give parents a choice of different schools.

Speaking at the function, Education Minister Dr Musthafa Luthfee said that privatisation of schools would provide more choices to parents and increase competition within the system. Minister of Civil Aviation and Communcation, Mahmood Razi and Kartikeya Bharat Ram from Sri Educare Pvt Ltd also spoke at the function.

Umar Naseer’s case submitted to Prosecutor General’s Office

The Maldives Police Service last Monday sent the case of Islamic Democratic Party President Umar Naseer, charged with assaulting a man during the protest held outside the President’s Office on last October, to the Prosecutor General’s Office.

A Police Media Official said on Wednesday that the Police had concluded their investigation and sent the case to the Prosecutor General.

Umar has denied that he assaulted anyone during the protest. He said that he was aware that there was a video clip which apparently shows him assaulting a person that day but said that it just appeared that way because of the angle the video was shot from. Umar further said that he had another video clip of the same incident taken from another angle which clearly shows that he did not physically attack anyone.

He went on to say that it was a political move and that the Government had been trying for a year to press charges against him. He added that the charges wouldn’t stick.

There had been some clashes between MDP and DRP supporters during the protest.

Government calls on Maldivian students in Pakistan to return

The Government of Maldives has asked Maldivian students in Pakistan to return home, amid fears that the wars in Pakistan could spread further and pose a danger to the students.

In an interview with Haveeru, the Press Secretary of the President’s Office Mohamed Zuhair said that the Pakistan army’s war against the terrorist was at a critical phase now and that the Maldivian Government had received secret information that the situation was about to get worse. He further said that those students who wished to return home would receive the full cooperation and help from the Government. He said it wasn’t safe for the Maldivian students to remain in Pakistan as the war was going to spread further in the near future.

“The Government wants all the Maldivian students in Pakistan to return home on their own free will,” he said. “This is because the situation in Pakistan is already very dangerous for them.”

He said that the Foreign Ministry was ready to lend whatever aid they could in order to bring the students back home, but added that so far no one had made such a request.

Zuhair said that they had information that revealed that a lot of the Maldivian students were in places that were not even registered with the Pakistani Government. He further said that the Government knew the places that tried to convert students towards religious extremism.

“They don’t really want to return home,” Zuhair said. “However, even they admit that it was now dangerous to stay there. So we can’t really force them to come back.”

Human Rights Commission confirms existence of underage concubine

The Human Rights Commission (HRC) has said that they have been able to confirm that an underage concubine had been tested for pregnancy at the Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital and that the results of the test were positive.

According to the Commission, an underage girl complaining about abdominal pains been taken to the Emergency Room at IGMH, and the woman who had accompanied the girl had told the doctor that the girl was a ‘jaariyaa’ (concubine).

“A woman had accompanied the girl,” Vice President of the HRC Ahmed Zahid told reporters. “After being questioned several times the woman finally said that the girl was a ‘jaariyaa’. At first the doctor wasn’t sure what the woman meant and had to rephrase the question and the woman clarified that the girl was a concubine kept by her husband.”

Zahid said that even though the Islamic Affairs Ministry had denied the reports of the underage concubine, the HRC’s investigation had confirmed that the reports were real and that they were now trying to find the identity of the child.

“We want to assure you that the Human Rights Commission is certain that the events had indeed transpired,” Zahid said. “An underage girl said to be a concubine was taken to IGMH where she did a pregnancy test. And the test was positive. So today I want to notify the media that this isn’t just an unconfirmed rumour or something we read off a blog.”

The HRC refused to give additional details about the case as it could hinder their investigation.

Maldives' underwater cabinet meeting was a sorry stunt

In the avalanche of publicity stunts being staged in advance of December's Copenhagen conference on climate change, none was more bizarre than the meeting of the cabinet of the Maldives government 20 feet beneath the waves. President Mohammed Nasheed and his ministers sat before desks in scuba gear to discuss the forthcoming submergence of their country, due to global warming.

This prompted an open letter to President Nasheed from Dr Nils-Axel Morner, the former head of the international Inqua Commission on Sea Level Change. The Swedish geologist, who has been measuring sea-level change all over the world for over 30 years, reminded the president that his commission had visited the Maldives six times in the years since 2000, and that he himself had led three month-long investigations in every part of the coral archipelago. Their exhaustive studies had shown that from 1790 to 1970 sea-levels round the islands had averaged 20 centimetres higher than today; that the level, having fallen, has since remained stable; and that there is not the slightest sign of any rise. The most cautious forecast based on proper science (rather than computer model guesswork) shows that any rise in the next 100 years will be "small to negligible".

President Nasheed is well aware of this, because in 2001, Professor Morner offered to explain his team's findings on the local TV station, to reassure viewers that their homes were not about to disappear underwater as they had been told. The government refused to allow his film to be shown. Egged on by climate alarmists, successive Maldivan leaders since the 1980s have pleaded for vast sums of international aid to save them from rising sea levels.

"For Heaven's sake," writes Prof Morner in his open letter, "lift the terrible psychological burden you have placed on the shoulders of all people in the Maldives", who have been made to live with "a wholly false notion that is nothing but an armchair fiction artificially constructed by mere computer modelling consistently proved wrong by meticulous real-world observation".

If President Nasheed really believed his own propaganda, he would of course immediately ban all flights into his country and turn off the lights in all its hotels. But since this would put an end to the international tourism which is almost his country's only source of income, he would rather carry on staging his publicity stunts, while holding out the begging bowl which he hopes gullible world leaders such as Gordon Brown will soon fill with large quantities of Western taxpayers' cash.

- By Christopher Booker -

Has Arsenal's Professor turned into a mad scientist?

However, even admirers of the Arsenal manager – and I count myself among them – can’t shake a nagging concern.

Is Arsene Wenger’s obsession with beautiful football masking an ugly neglect for winning titles?

I know. I know. That sounds like one of Carrie’s diary entries from “Sex & The City” but you don’t have to be an Arsenal fan to have a crush on Wenger’s young Gunners. Their silky skills and pretty passing can set pulses racing and hearts fluttering.

But the coach who once talked about the metaphorical “prettiest wife at home” must know the best romances are marked with permanent reminders. After four trophy-less seasons, the Arsenal groupies want something to show for their courtship.

In an exclusive interview for CNN, Wenger told me that it was the intelligence of his players which made him confident Arsenal can win the Premier League. He said, “I believe that we have a fair and true chance.”

However, the biggest strengths of his team – its youthful exuberance and technical ability – is also its biggest weakness. The average age of Arsenal’s squad is 23.3, more than a year younger than any other in the Premier League and more than five years younger than the oldest squads. But how often does the youngest squad top the table?

Arsenal’s youth system has been prolific in recent seasons but Wenger has been forced to trust it because the club want to pay off the debt from their new stadium before they splash out on star names.

They have signed experienced players. Andrei Arshavin and Thomas Vermaelen both look like good signings and neither were particularly cheap. But over the same period Wenger sold Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor.

In the five years up to the end of the 2007/8 season, Arsenal’s net spending (transfer money spent minus transfer money received) was $60 million versus $730 million by Chelsea, $208 million by Liverpool and $157 million by Manchester United.[1]

Those figures prove there is an element of genius about Wenger’s work. He is a master at delivering a lot for very little. Surely, though, now is the time for Arsenal to win a major competition instead of merely illuminating it with their brilliant brand of football.

The longer the wait for another trophy goes on, the stronger the argument that Arsenal’s professor is more of a mad scientist.

Dr Shaheed: No-confidence motion is a vote against Government

Voting for the no-confidence motion against Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed, submitted by the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party-People's Party alliance (DRP/PA) at the People’s Majlis, was not a vote against him, but against the Government, Dr Shaheed has said.

Speaking to the media at a press conference held at Dharubaaruge, Dr Shaheed said that the no-confidence motion against him had been filed as an attempt to vex the Government. He further said that the aim of the motion was to block the good work being done by the Government for the good of the people.

He said that everyone was aware that the new leaders of a country which has been able to achieve democracy after many years would be very tired. Which was the DRP was trying to topple the MDP’s Government as soon as possible, he said.

“The Government will become more powerful after a year,” he said. “It’s during the first year that the Government would be at its weakest. That’s why they think it’s possible to topple the administration now, but that will never happen. Once the IMF program ends and the meetings are over, the country will begin receiving aid. From then on it will be very difficult to catch up.” He said that was the reason why the DRP/PA is trying to get the no-confidence motion, based on false accusations, passed as soon as possible.

The Foreign Minister further said that he did not believe that he would have to do anything in order for the no-confidence motion to fail at the Majlis.

“I don’t see this as a vote against me,” he said. “This is a vote being taken against the Government. In reality, I don’t even have to concentrate on winning the vote. The Government is doing everything necessary at a very fast pace. The Government will win.”

Former Legal Reform Minister resigns from DRP

Haa Dhaalu atoll MP and former Legal Reform Minister, Mohamed Nasheed, resigned from the main opposition party, Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), last Sunday.

DRP Secretary General Dr Abdulla Mausoom on Tuesday confirmed that Nasheed had resigned from the Party. Dr Mausoom said that Nasheed did not specify his reason for leaving the Party.

In his personal blog, http://www.mnasheed.com/, Nasheed said that he had not included his reasons for leaving the Party.

He further said in his blog that he had disassociated himself from DRP activities since February this year and that he had won a seat at the Parliament by campaigning as an independent candidate.

“All these months, I have had no political contact with the party,” he said in his blog. “For all political purposes, I have stood by myself in politics and in parliament. Therefore, the decision to leave DRP is not expected to create any surprise or bear any significance. It is for all practical purposes, a foregone conclusion.”