Scottish singer KT Tunstall, whose hit single "Black Horse and a Cherry Tree" won her a Grammy nomination in 2007, says her favorite travel destination is Maldives.
I visited the Maldives on my first fancy holiday three years ago when I
first had success and really needed to lie down for a week! I fell in
love with it. What was incredible about the Maldives was that the
entire island we were on consisted of sand. There didn't seem to be any
dirt. You could walk around for hours barefoot with your white trousers
skimming the ground, and they'd still be pristine white.
Although theMaldives was the first country to sign the Kyoto Protocol, that did not help this tiny string of islands reduce the threat of climate change. And it hasn't discouraged them. Instead, they have just set an example.
Maldives' president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who has been in power for the last three decades, is experimenting with not only something new and ambitious, but something very unimaginable for a country like the Maldives. He is building artificial flood-resistant islands!
From the NPR story:
"You catch a ferry from a part of Male where motorcycles clog the
narrow streets and fishermen gut their morning catch on the sidewalk. A
few minutes later, you arrive in a brand new world, the island of
Hulhumale. It's an artificial island built by engineers, not volcanoes.
When the ferry arrives, you step up onto this island. The streets are
straight and wide. There's a new hospital, new schools, new government
buildings, new apartments — all several feet higher than the rest of
the Maldives.
The flood-resistant island was created by a huge
dredge that sucked up sand from the ocean floor and disgorged it into a
shallow lagoon. Eventually, Hulhumale rose from the waters.
That was more than five years ago. Now, several thousand people live here. Gayoom's goal is to attract at least 50,000."
Report says that Gayoom was unhurt but the attacker managed to rip off his shirt when he made a second attempt to stab him.
"Residents of the Maldives showered praise Wednesday on a 15-year-old
Boy Scout who foiled an attempt to assassinate the president of this
island nation by grabbing the attacker's knife.
"Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim, wearing his blue Maldives scout
uniform with a blue kerchief, was among those waiting to greet the
leader Tuesday when the attacker lunged out from the crowd.<snip>
"The attacker hid a knife in the Maldivian flag as he awaited Gayoom's
arrival, then sprang toward the president, Shareef said. Ibrahim
reached out and grabbed the blade, and he was cut on the hand,
according to the government."
The student said the incident happened so quickly that he did not have enough time to think about the risk he was taking.
His left hand was badly cut in the incident - for which he received hospital treatment in the capital, Male, before being discharged on Wednesday.
A number of newspapers in the islands have heaped praise on him as a hero for saving the president's life and many predict he will receive some kind of public award for his actions.
In an interview given to Miadhu Daily yesterday, Mundhu said that there is a hand of the leaders of National Unity Alliance in this attempt. Mundhu questioned “Is this how those (National Unity Alliance) who left this island a few days ago depose President Gayoom by saying national unity? Should they do it by attacking him?”
But the spokesperson from the National Unity Alliance, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed has denied this accusation. In an interview given to Miadhu Daily, Dr. Shaheed said that National Unity Alliance was shocked to hear the stab attack on the President and said that he himself and the Alliance condemn this attack in strongest possible words.
Gayoom is Asia's longest serving leader, who was elected to office in November 1978.
The New York Times has a list of 53 places to visit in 2008. It says, "...the travel choices for global nomads have never been more varied." Lots of interesting places, but only one South Asian destination makes the cut:
The
2004 tsunami, a fragile ecology and a recent bombing have done little
to dampen a hotel boom in this island-nation of about 1,192 coral
islets in the Indian Ocean. Among the high-end hotels expected to open
next year is a Regent Hotels & Resorts (www.regenthotels.com) with 50 villas, many set over the water, allowing guests to observe the rich marine life while still lying in bed.
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