Customs confiscated 13.6 million sticks of smuggled cigarettes at the Hulhumalé sea cargo terminal. In a separate case, the criminal court ordered the police to return 49,000 locally manufactured cigarettes seized from an office in Malé. The company was instructed to obtain tobacco permits and licenses before the cigarettes could be released. But police were ordered to immediately return the machinery.
The EPA slapped a fine of MVR 400,000 (US$ 25,940) on Soneva Fushi for illegally entering the protected Nelivaru Finolhu sandbank. The resort admitted to multiple violations, including lighting a fire, using flood lights, creating noises and refusing to leave the protected site when ordered to by EPA rangers and the police.
A year after land reclamation began in the Fushidhiggaru lagoon south of Malé for the current administration’s flagship “eco-city” project, only 101 hectares out of a planned 1,009 hectares have been reclaimed over the past year, according to the Housing Development Corporation.
Speaking at a Girl Guide event, First Lady Sajidha Mohamed encouraged women “to be religiously conscious, to uphold the national spirit, and to remain receptive to contemporary knowledge and skills.”