Tag: maldives

Low-lying Maldives seeks easier funding to battle waves

MALÉ, Maldives, May 25, 2024 (AFP) – The Maldives on Saturday demanded international funding to battle rising sea levels, saying the low-lying Indian Ocean archipelago was being unfairly excluded from the most generous support measures. “The Maldives is liable for just 0.003 percent of global emissions, but is one of the first countries to endure the existential consequences of the climate crisis,” President Mohamed Muizzu wrote in Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “Wealthier nations have a moral […]

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Maldives signs China defense deal as India prepares exit

MALÉ, Maldives, March 5, 2024 (AFP) – The Maldives has signed a “military assistance” deal with China after ordering Indian troops deployed in the small but strategically-placed archipelago to leave, officials said Tuesday. Some 89 Indian military personnel in the country will be gone by May 10 after having been previously ordered out by pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu, who came to power last year on an anti-Indian platform. The Maldivian defence ministry said they signed […]

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Maldives tells India to withdraw troops by March as row deepens

MALÉ, Maldives, Jan 14, 2024 (AFP) – The Maldivian president told India Sunday to withdraw its nearly 100 troops by March 15, a day after returning from China where he signed a raft of deals. New Delhi considers the Indian Ocean archipelago to be within its sphere of influence, but the Maldives has shifted into the orbit of China — its largest external creditor. The March deadline was set during talks with Indian officials in […]

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Muizzu: Pro-China winner of Maldives election

  MALÉ, Maldives, Sept 30, 2023 (AFP) – The next president of the Maldives is an ardent advocate of Chinese investment who promised to steer the luxury tourism hotspot back towards Beijing’s orbit if he wins. Mohamed Muizzu, 45, roundly defeated incumbent leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Saturday and is set to be sworn in on November 17. A British-educated civil engineer, he was an unlikely candidate for the presidency after serving as construction minister […]

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Former Maldives president wounded in ‘assassination attempt’

MALE, Maldives (AFP) — Former Maldives president and current parliamentary speaker Mohamed Nasheed was recovering in hospital Friday after an assassination attempt left him with shrapnel wounds. The Indian Ocean archipelago’s first democratically elected leader was hurt when a device attached to a motorcycle was detonated as he got into a car late Thursday, an official said. “Nasheed escaped an assassination attempt,” a Maldivian government official told AFP. “He is injured, but his condition is […]

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Maldives to reopen tourist resorts from mid-July after virus closures

MALE, Maldives (AFP) — The Maldives will reopen its tourist resorts from mid-July after a months-long virus-enforced shutdown, the country’s president said Tuesday, adding that international travellers would be welcomed to the Indian Ocean holiday hotspot. Tourism is a major earner for the Maldives, a tropical island paradise popular with honeymooners and celebrities. “The country will reopen its borders for international travel, and the government will allow resorts to welcome visitors from July 15,” President […]

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Former Maldives leader jailed for money laundering

MALE, Maldives (AFP) — Disgraced Maldives ex-president Abdulla Yameen was sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering on Thursday after a corruption probe into the former strongman’s rule of the luxury tourist destination. Yameen, who ran the Indian Ocean archipelago with an iron fist before his shock election loss in 2018, was accused of illegally transferring one million dollars from one of his bank accounts during an ongoing graft investigation. The 60-year-old was […]

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Maldives issue warning amid spike in tourist drownings

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Five tourists including a honeymooning couple have drowned in a single week in the Maldives, officials said, prompting a nationwide safety warning to holiday resorts in the pristine islands. Tourism officials said all resort operators in the paradise archipelago were urged Monday to keep a close eye on their clients after the spate of deaths. Strong currents caused by a north-east monsoon were blamed for the slew of drownings in […]

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DFA: Remains of newlyweds flown to Sri Lanka from Maldives

(Eagle News)–The remains of the newlyweds who drowned while on their honeymoon in the Maldives have been flown to Sri Lanka. In a statement on Wednesday, Jan. 16, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the remains of Leomer Lagradilla and his wife Erika left the Maldives on board a Sri Lankan Airlines flight for Colombo at 12:50 a.m. Tuesday, Manila time. The couple’s remains will be embalmed in the Asian country before they are flown […]

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DFA to shoulder repatriation costs of the remains of the Filipino newlyweds who drowned in the Maldives

(Eagle News)—The Department of Foreign Affairs will shoulder the repatriation costs of the remains of the Filipino newlyweds who drowned while on their honeymoon in the Maldives. In a Facebook post, Nikko Quiogue, friend of victims Erika and Leomer Lagradilla, said the information was relayed to him by Leomer’s sister Mhapz, after the family met with Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. The DFA tweeted a picture  of the meeting, tweeting alongside it Locsin’s condolences […]

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New Maldives leader secures $1.4bn from ‘closest friend’ India

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — The new Maldives president, seen as closer to the West and India than his predecessor, secured $1.4 billion from New Delhi on Monday in his first visit abroad to his country’s “closest friend”. Ibrahim Mohamed Solih said after talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they would also “strengthen maritime security” through patrols, aerial surveillance and exchanging information. “India is our closest neighbour and our people are bound by ties […]

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Relief as Maldives strongman concedes defeat

  by Amal Jayasinghe Agence France Presse COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — The strongman leader of the Maldives on Monday conceded defeat in the presidential election, easing fears of a fresh political crisis in the archipelago at the centre of a battle for influence between India and China. “The Maldivian people have decided what they want. I have accepted the results from yesterday,” President Abdulla Yameen said in a televised address to the Indian Ocean […]

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