Maldives: In brief : Maldives vying for UN Human Rights Council seat

The Maldives will contest the upcoming May elections for a seat in the UN Human Rights Council.

“I am here lobbying for candidature,” Minivan News quoted Foreign Minister Dr. Ahmed Shaheed as saying, in his address to the 13th session of the UN Human Right Council in Geneva.

“We have very strong support and are very confident of winning [a seat in the Council],” Dr. Shaheed said.

The election will be held at UN Headquarters in New York and besides the Maldives, Malaysia, Thailand, Qatar and Iran are also running for one of the four available seats in the council.

“The Maldives’ own positive experience with the international human rights system lies behind our decision to run for election” said Dr Shaheed. “We believe in the Council and the work that it does. We understand, through first-hand experience, its value and its capacity to bring about change”.

Habib Bank country manager stabbed in Maldives

Mohamed Anjul Jameel, Country Manager of Habib Bank, was stabbed in an armed robbery at his home in Male’ on Wednesday.

“The 56-year-old Pakistani, who had been working in the Maldives for almost six years, was attacked around 5:30pm on Wednesday, by four men who broke in to his three-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of Machangolhi Uraha,” Haveeru newspaper reported.

Jameel, who was treated at ADK Hospital, said the men broke in while he was entering the apartment, the report added.

UK boycott of Maldives Tuna looms large, warns Bite Back

The UK may boycott Maldives Tuna if the country decides to go for long-line fishing, influential and pioneering shark and marine conservation organization, Bite Back has told Minivan news.

“A UK boycott on long line-caught tuna from the Maldives is a real possibility that, of course, could be avoided by the government outlawing longline fishing in Maldivian waters in the first place,” Graham Buckingham, campaign director of Bite Back was quoted as saying in Minivan news.

His comment was prompted by a plan of the Maldives government to introduce long-line fishing.

The government’s decision is due to declining fish catch with pole and line fishing in big vessels, burning more fuel, proving to be not feasible for the country’s fishing industry.

“The Ministry of Fisheries is now poised to provide financial and technical support to fishermen to adopt this new method,” the news report said.

President Mohamed Nasheed in his address to Parliament on March 1,said that experts have told him it would be more profitable to use big vessels for group long-line fishing.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Manik, chairman of the fishermen’s union has told Minivan news that “around 80 per cent of fishermen are against this new method, but the dire situation means there will be those who will adopt this.”

President assures affordable, reliable electricity to islands

President Mohamed Nasheed has promised reliable and affordable electricity in the islands

In his weekly radio address, broadcast on the Voice of Maldives on Friday, Nasheed spoke on providing affordable and reliable electricity, and quality healthcare in the islands, the President’s office said.

Despite the inadequate and unreliable electricity facilities, a number of islands have opposed the policy to transfer the management of powerhouses to utilities companies, Nasheed said.

The President noted that the policy of managing island powerhouses by the utilities companies was based on in depth research, and reiterated the government’s belief in the benefits of the system.

Recalling his visits to the islands since the beginning of this year, the President said he found that utilities companies provided electricity more efficiently than in the previous system where electricity facilities were managed by communities.

President Nasheed said utilities companies could provide electricity more reliably, and manage island powerhouses more effectively.

“Utilities companies would be the way forward, in order to reach our development targets,” Nasheed added.

- Asian Tribune -