Former President Abdulla Yameen, former vice president Faisal Naseem and former MDP chair Fayyaz Ismail will join a rally against the Eagle Hills deal in Rasmalé on Friday night, the presidential hopefuls said. The rally at the artificial beach is organised by the “Maldivian land for Maldivians” campaign to demand a referendum on allocating 500 hectares to the Abu Dhabi developer. The MDP urged all its members to attend. Campaign leader Imran Abdulla said the rally, first scheduled for 6 November, was postponed so the MDP could join. President Muizzu ruled out a referendum on Monday. Rally coverage was due to begin at 8am on Raajje TV, Channel 13, Aslu TV and Adhadhu.
Police detained two men who were cutting down banners opposing the Rasmalé deal on Malé's roads, after a member of the public followed them and alerted officers. PNF Secretary General Mohamed Maleeh Jamal said the cutting tool had been seized and called on police to find the government officials who funded the men.
The "Maldivian land for Maldivians" movement opposing the Rasmalé project wrote an open letter to Eagle Hills chairman Mohamed Alabbar warning the company, its investors and lenders of substantial political, constitutional, legal and financial risks if it proceeds without public consent, and calling for no irreversible commitments until the agreements are disclosed and a referendum is held. The letter argued that the government had lost the moral authority to hand over 500 hectares of reclaimed land after a series of electoral defeats this year.
Fenaka Corporation owed suppliers MVR3.51 billion (US$227 million) at the end of 2024, up MVR511 million from the previous year, according to an audit report in which the Auditor General declined to give an opinion on the state utility's accounts for a third consecutive year and said it could not determine whether the state utility could continue as a going concern. Fenaka, whose operations have since been transferred to STELCO, lost MVR547 million in 2024 after an MVR811 million loss in 2023, while its current liabilities exceeded current assets by MVR2.74 billion. The auditors were unable to verify fuel costs, administrative expenses and capital work in progress. They also flagged MVR444.6 million in unexplained negative inventory balances, an MVR34.2 million GST balance written off without a breakdown, and MVR20.4 million in interest arrears confirmed by lenders but not recorded in Fenaka's books.
MDP MP Dr Ahmed Shamheed said he will repay the US$281,474 the Civil Court ordered him to pay Maldives Islamic Bank as a guarantor for a loan to Duplex Private Limited, describing the case as a political attack aimed at damaging his reputation ahead of the MDP's presidential primary. Shamheed said the loan was taken for the shareholders' personal use, that he had been paying it himself after the company stopped, and that he only learned of the ruling by email without being summoned to court.
Maldives Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation following the seaplane accident at the Noovilu Seaplane Terminal at Velana International Airport on Wednesday afternoon, injuring the aircraft's cabin attendant. No one else was injured, the MTSB said. The injured attendant is reportedly being treated at Tree Top Hospital and remains in serious condition. A video shared on social media shows staff on the dock jumping into the water to help the aircraft and those on board.
Some WAMCO employees have yet to receive last month's salary, with delays ongoing since last year, and pension contributions deducted from their pay since October 2024 have not been deposited, Adhadhu reported. Staff told the outlet they were also being required to attend Saturday night's launch of the government's national "Respect" campaign despite the unpaid salaries, while WAMCO reportedly blamed the pension arrears on unpaid dues from Malé City Council.
Delayed government payments leave small tech companies struggling to meet their tax bills, Javaabu CEO Mohamed Jailam told President Muizzu on Rayyithunge Adu, a TVM programme aired on Thursday. He also said firms struggle to get dollars to pay overseas providers for cloud hosting and AI services, and called for BML’s international payment gateway to be opened to businesses outside tourism. Muizzu announced both a tax offset for government dues and dollar payments through the BML gateway for small businesses on 24 October, after the programme was recorded.
StatePharma is building a database to track which medicines for chronic illnesses are hard to obtain across the country. It plans to pilot the database in the first quarter of next year, then roll it out nationwide and eventually open it to the public. Its teams are collecting information from islands and institutions, chief commercial officer Ahmed Imad said during a media tour of its Hulhumalé warehouse on Tuesday. Some import delays were caused by regulatory requirements and supply chain problems, he said, but many are being resolved with the MFDA and the health ministry. A separate platform showing medicine availability and prices is due to go live within two weeks.
MMA Governor Ahmed Munawar said changes will be made from January to how the US$1,000 is sold to Maldivians travelling abroad for self-funded medical treatment, acknowledging that some people book a single appointment in India or Sri Lanka to obtain the dollars. Speaking at parliament's budget committee, Munawwar said the MMA was working with Aasandha to improve monitoring but did not give details of the changes, which follow a recent decision to limit the allowance to travel to six countries.
Police took Naushad Moosa into custody after he allegedly exposed himself and committed a sexual act in front of a woman praying at Malé's Furqan Mosque on Wednesday morning, a week after he was released over a previous incident in which he damaged property at the same mosque. Police said he was taken to hospital after being taken into custody and that they were working with relevant institutions to prevent him from repeating such acts.
Police arrested three men, Ayham Adhil, 24, Ifham Ahmed, 19, and Mohamed Shunan, 21, over an incident on 12 October in which two people were held against their will, assaulted and threatened inside a café on Malé's Maaveyo Magu. Ifham was remanded for 15 days after police told the court he held the victims for three hours, filmed them in a humiliating manner and threatened to hit one of them with a glass bottle if they did not hand over their phone.
Police said they were searching for Adam Ikram, 32, from Haa Alif Dhidhdhoo, who has been missing in Malé since Wednesday night, after his family reported that they had not heard from him. Anyone with information were asked to contact the police hotline on 3322111 or Maafannu police station on 9790085.
President Muizzu told a COP31 session on sea-level rise that losing even a small part of Maldivian territory would affect the country's sovereignty, heritage and future, citing elevated Hulhumalé and Rasmalé, which he described as a low-carbon eco-city built above projected sea levels, as investments in climate security. Calling for adaptation support in the form of grants rather than charity, Muizzu also told a high-level roundtable on the Paris Agreement that flaws in the global financial system force countries like the Maldives to take on substantial debt to protect their islands, urging more accessible and affordable climate finance.
President Muizzu met Palestinian Prime Minister Dr Mohammad Mustafa on the sidelines of COP31, expressing "unwavering, unequivocal and unconditional solidarity with the people of Palestine" and reiterating the Maldives' support for an independent Palestinian state along pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Mohamed Razaan Ali Zahir, a 19-year-old private in the Maldives National Defence Force, from Kaafu Thulusdhoo, was remanded for five days after being arrested in a case involving the use and possession of alcohol. The MNDF has not commented on whether action has been taken against him.
MDP called for the withdrawal of charges against Thinadhoo Mayor Saud Ali, saying they are politically motivated attempts to remove him from office and jail him, and that holding him personally liable for a council decision over the island's population figures violates the constitution. The party said the state had not presented sufficient evidence and that police, prosecutors and the Criminal Court had moved unusually quickly on the case, citing PNC MP Saudhulla Hilmy, who it said had claimed in public that the mayor would be jailed.
