Category Archives: Maldives

Pro-China party wins landslide victory in Maldives parliamentary elections

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Voters back President Mohamed Muizzu’s tilt towards China and away from traditional ally India

Maldives voters have backed President Mohamed Muizzu’s tilt towards China and away from traditional benefactor India, with his party winning control of parliament in an election landslide.

Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 66 of the first 86 seats declared, according to the Elections Commission of Maldives, already more than enough for a super-majority in the 93-member parliament.

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Modi trip to Indian islands prompts Maldives row

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Maldivian envoy summoned and flights suspended after insults about Indian PM’s visit to Lakshadweep islands

A row has erupted between India and the Maldives after the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, visited the Indian islands of Lakshadweep to promote tourism.

The visit was perceived by some in the Maldives as an attempt to draw tourists away from the archipelago in the Indian Ocean, whose economy is heavily dependent on tourism.

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Pro-China candidate Mohamed Muizzu wins Maldives presidency, upending relationship with India

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Runoff vote was widely seen as a referendum on whether to pursue closer ties with China or India, both vying for influence in the island nation

Pro-China candidate Mohamed Muizzu won Saturday’s presidential election in the Maldives, a result set to once again upend the archipelago’s relationship with traditional partner India.

Muizzu helms a party that presided over an influx of Chinese loans when it last held power in the atoll nation, better known for its luxury beach resorts and celebrity tourists.

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Maldives vote: runoff for presidency begins in shadow of India-China tussle for influence

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Pro-Delhi incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih faces uphill battle against Beijing-leaning frontrunner Mohamed Muizzu as contest remains on knife’s edge

The Maldives started voting on Saturday to decide their next president, in an elections widely seen as a referendum on whether to hitch their fortunes to China or India, both vying for influence in the island nation.

Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, 61, faces an uphill battle to secure a second mandate after a term that saw renewed ties with New Delhi, the archipelago’s traditional benefactor.

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Maldives election run-off pitched as fork in the road between India and China

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Pro-China presidential candidate Mohamed Muizzu accuses incumbent Mohamed Solih of allowing traditional benefactor India too much influence

As the archipelago of the Maldives goes to an election run-off on Saturday, it will not just be two presidential candidates on the ballot.

This election is being pitched as a larger geopolitical battle between India and China, which over the past decade have been engaged in a tug-of-war to gain influence over the Maldives.

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UK joins calls for World Bank reform to focus funding on climate crisis

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Alok Sharma’s intervention puts pressure on Trump-appointed Bank chief who faces calls to resign

The UK has joined calls for sweeping reforms to the World Bank, to focus much-needed funding on the climate crisis, saying that its current structures are not working.

The intervention from Alok Sharma, the current president of the UN climate talks, heaps further pressure on beleaguered World Bank chief, David Malpass. He has faced calls to resign over an apparently climate-dismissing stance, and the Bank’s perceived failures to deliver climate finance.

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Mauritius measures reef hoping to lay claim on Chagos Islands

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Dispute over archipelago in Indian Ocean involves neighbouring Maldives and UK historical claim


Under a glaring sky, Mauritian survey teams set off in two tender boats to measure Blenheim Reef on Sunday morning.

A line of breakers marked the outer line of the atoll. An inflatable, carrying two Swedish marine experts retained by the Mauritian government, found an entrance through submerged rocks and surf into calmer water inside.

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Forget GDP, ‘vulnerability index best gauges aid’ to small islands

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Commonwealth research says UVI is better measure of small island states’ aid needs, especially on climate

Small island nations on the climate crisis frontlines have been overlooked in overseas aid, according to a new index.

Urging a move away from the current benchmark of using gross domestic product (GDP) to measure aid allocation, researchers from the Commonwealth secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (Ferdi), a French thinktank, have developed the universal vulnerability index (UVI) as an alternative. GDP, they claim, fails to reflect the realities nations face, particularly on climate.

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Maldives police arrest prime suspect in blast that wounded former president

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Three of four suspects in explosion targeting Mohamed Nasheed in custody as he recovers in hospital

Maldives police have arrested a person believed to be the prime suspect in an explosion that critically wounded the country’s former president and was blamed on Islamic extremists.

Police said on Sunday they had in their custody three of the four suspects in Thursday’s blast targeting the former president Mohamed Nasheed, who is recovering in hospital after multiple operations.

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Former Maldives president is off life support after bomb attack

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Police make two arrests in connection with explosion at Mohamed Nasheed’s family home in Malé

The former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed is conscious after life-saving surgery, his family said on Saturday, as police made two arrests in connection with an explosion they said was being treated as a terror attack.

Nasheed, the president of the ruling Maldivian Democratic party and the current parliament speaker, was critically injured after a bomb exploded as he left his family home in the capital Malé on Thursday.

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Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed critically injured in bomb blast

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Police treating attack in capital Male that wounded four others including British national as act of terrorism

The former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed has been left in a critical condition following an assassination attempt that also wounded four others, including a British national.

Police said they were treating the bomb blast, which occurred at about 8.30pm local time on Thursday evening, as an act of terrorism.

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Former Maldives president injured in suspected bomb attack

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Mohamed Nasheed rushed to hospital after explosion as he was getting into his car in Malé

Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected president of the Maldives and current parliament speaker, has been injured in a suspected bomb explosion and rushed to hospital.

The blast went off on Thursday as Nasheed, 53, was getting into his car in the capital Malé, an official from his Maldivian Democratic party (MDP) said.

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Maldives apologises to British tourist arrested for wearing a bikini

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Speaker of parliament voices concern after police detained her for two hours for being ‘inappropriately’ dressed and unruly

The speaker of the Maldives parliament has apologised to a British tourist after footage of her arrest by several policemen triggered criticism on social media.

Tourism is a major earner for the Maldives, a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean popular with honeymooners and celebrities.

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