A 39-year-old man was killed after being pinned under a lorry near Dharubaaruge on Malé's outer road. Ibrahim Nasih, of house number 20054 (Greenpeak) in Malé, died around 4pm. Police said said initial findings indicated Nasih was crushed under the lorry, and that this was not believed to have resulted from his vehicle colliding with it. The case is under investigation and no further details were available.
Preparations are under way to resume ordinary electronic passports, suspended since May when the country ran out of the booklets used to print them, Controller General of Immigration Ahmed Faseeh said. The material needed to produce the passports is expected to arrive late this month or early next, he said. In the meantime, applicants are being issued ordinary non-electronic passports, which are ICAO-compliant, machine-readable and valid for five years, at a fee of MVR 600 (US$ 4), down from MVR 1,000 for the electronic version. Departing from previous practice, immigration says holders of non-electronic passports who want to switch to an electronic one before it expires can now do so without paying the usual cancellation fee.
BML sold a record US$ 870 million to customers over the past two and a half years to cover Rufiyaa card transactions, the bank said in infographics posted on X, as its monthly foreign-currency sales quadrupled over five years. Rufiyaa cards are the biggest draw on the bank's dollar sales, and 65 percent of that card spending is e-commerce, including online shopping. BML said it sells an average of US$ 39.3 million a month for transactions from Rufiyaa accounts, of which US$ 25.5 million goes to e-commerce websites. Over the same 30 months, US$ 143 million was sold for medical treatment and education, up 88 percent, from US$ 4 million a month in 2024 to US$ 5 million last year and US$ 5.8 million this year. Telegraphic transfers were the second-largest category at US$ 422 million, a 43 percent rise, followed by US$ 264 million for travellers going abroad, up about 70 percent. Monthly sales have risen from an average of US$ 21 million in 2021 to US$ 80 million in the first half of 2026.
President Muizzu established a Greater Malé Transport and Mobility Office under the transport ministry to tackle worsening traffic congestion, encroaching on functions that law assigns to the city council. The office is tasked with devising and running programmes to ease congestion caused by the rising number of vehicles, advising on policy, and leading the modernisation of the region's transport network and the development of parking infrastructure. But the Land Transport Act gives the council the primary mandate to address traffic, including setting a cap on the number of vehicles allowed in Malé. The office comes weeks after the opposition MDP won the Malé mayoralty and a council majority in the recent local elections.
Two men were arrested over the violence at a PNC internal election vote count in Hulhumalé, as officials in government political posts were identified among those involved. A police media official said two men, aged 23 and 24, were detained under a court order. The clash broke out at Kaamil Didi Preschool as ballots for the Hulhumalé North constituency were being counted. Footage circulating on social media shows people throwing chairs and threats being shouted. Police said they are investigating the storming of the school, damage to the building and its property, and assaults on people. Adhadhu identified President's Office public relations staffer Ismail Azumee and senior political director Mohamed Yaish from the footage. Glass in a door to the school hall was smashed and rendered unusable, and witnesses said some chairs were also damaged beyond use. Hulhumalé North MP Hussain Shareef 'Hussenbe' has denied allegations that he sent a gang to the school to instigate the violence, writing on Facebook that no one who knows him would call him a gang member or gang-affiliated.
The dollar shortage and the rising black-market rate are the result of the Muizzu government's incompetent policies, former finance minister Ibrahim Ameer contended at an MDP panel discussion, accusing the government of printing close to MVR 4 billion despite repeated denials. He blamed the weakening Rufiyaa on failure to rein in state spending and secure the foreign currency needed to finance the budget. He said MMA figures showed treasury securities had risen from MVR 9.6 billion to about MVR 21 billion over the past two and a half years and that money in circulation had grown to MVR 78 billion. Ameer said businesses are unable to get dollars for telegraphic transfers were buying on the black market, with TT delays making shipments impossible to plan. Former MP Ilyas Labeeb said the Rufiyaa money supply had nearly doubled from MVR 41.4 billion at the end of 2020 to MVR 78.4 billion this month, while the dollars entering the budget amounted to only about MVR 16 billion at the parallel rate. In a country that imports nearly everything and earns most of its dollars from tourism, that mismatch made a shortage inevitable, he said.
A prisoner transfer agreement between the Maldives and Bangladesh is in its final stage, which would allow Bangladeshi inmates in Maldivian prisons to return home to serve out their sentences on humanitarian grounds.The Bangladesh High Commission said authorities in both countries are working to expedite implementation and that the deal will be signed once formalities are completed. It came after a delegation led by High Commissioner Md Nazmul Islam visited Maafushi Prison and met 44 Bangladeshi prisoners – 34 convicted and serving terms, and 10 awaiting trial – and raised concerns with Maldivian prison authorities.
HDC, the state company that manages Hulhumalé, opened applications for staff wanting to leave; it employs more than 2,000 people. Both cuts follow a directive from the Privatisation and Corporatisation Board for SOEs to reduce staff numbers by 33 percent. HDC gave staff seven days to apply with payouts under its redundancy and severance policies.
