Please help Sappe!

After my post (see here) MDP has cut funding to Sappe of Dhivehi Observer (internet tabloid). Golhabo (Gayyoom) has also stopped Skyping him because nephew Yaamin has hijacked the submarine cable. All this is making Sappe very poor. He has filed to receive unemployment benefits from British Government but this process takes a lot longer than he expected. So by far he is doing the best he can to earn money by adverting on his website. He also anticipates to become the lucky winner of the e-lottery very soon to overcome filing for bankruptcy.

HOW YOU CAN HELP!
Go and click on the google advertising on the right side of his website (the last desperate attempt). It wont cost you anything and if Sappe gets some good click throughs you could save a 'nation', an imagination.

Over weight on Dash 8

Today I got an invitation to go to Laamu atoll for Eid break to install the Internet to a computer of a friend. I will be going in the new Dash 8 of our country's national airline. Dash 8s are quite small compared to air lines of other small countries. We had a big Air Maldives before which is used by Maldivian students studying in Malaysia for going and coming back from holidays.

Coming back to the installation I have been collecting a lot of information about how to do that. I have got a windows XP cd which works. None of the new two submarine cable has reached any islands yet. It is only used to make calls to Singapore's hotel (where our president lives) by the ministers. This is a good investment otherwise they have to fly to Singapore or the president have to come to Male' for communication. Now that he is with our main consultant things will be much better via the submarine cable.

Coming back to the installation again, the internet available to Laamu atoll travels a bit faster than the speed of Maldives Posts office. My solution is downloading the internet to a CD-ROM and take it to him. Today I have downloaded the most important parts of the internet. The D.O. and Google. Wikipedia and few porn sites for tomorrow. To carry over 10 kilobytes of data onboard the small dash 8 is still an issue.

Gayyoom (Golhabo) loves Dhivehi Observer

This morning after I came to the cybercafe as usual I started reading D.O and Minivan with my skype, msn and all sorts of unknown things on this Microsoft Windows XP computer. Suddenly things started to get mixed up and guess what I picked up? the sound of infamous Sappe of Dhivehi Observer talking to our President Gayyoom (also known as Golhaboo among Maldivian adults and Golaabo among children). Both were having a laugh about what was written on D.O. Gayyoom said he is very happy about the work Sappe is doing everyday and his greatest enjoyment is the skype conversation they have every morning in which Gayyoom briefs Sappe on what to write on D.O for the next day. Sappe also praised Gayyoom and said that 'all my inspirations are from you'. Besides praising each other I also heard that 'Golhabo' is a name designed by Gayyoom himself.

Sappe is paid over 10 thousand pounds monthly (over 2 Million Ruffiya annually) by MDP and its supporters and Gayyoom and his supporters pays him twice as much. This is the reason why a person who stays with his family (frequently bringing and sending back his extended family) in the 'Minivan Javvu' of Salisbury with such funding from MDP has managed to do nothing more than damaging the so-called reformers of Maldives among local and all International Organizations.

Although Sappe and Golhabo try hard to hide it if you read back some back issues of D.O you will see the close connections between both of them. Starting from the time Sappe was studying with Golhabo's money and his son in the UK, his open contributions to Ilyas Ibrahim from time to time, specially during the time Ilyas ran against Anni for parliament membership and his connections with Buruma, Jaabir.. the list goes on. I am sure that even Sappe is aware that Maldivians are not going to forget it ever!

Their conversation this morning ended with Gayyoom promising Sappe a Million dollars from the 80 Million (from the Tsunami funds) GPC (Global Protection Committee) found in Gayyoom's banks in the UK. Sappe agreed to try a big 'rocketu' to make up a story to make it unbelievable to the international community and also to the local people. They laughed.. and laughed...

TVM: Maldives Fisherman's Day changed from December 10th to December 29th permanently

According to TVM, the president's office has issued a notice today (December 7th 2006) stating that from this year onwards Fisherman's Day for Maldives is December 29th. The main reason for this is that the current day marked as Maldives Fisherman's Day (December 10th) coincides with the International Human Rights day. "I think this is a very good move towards the current reform movement which is guided by foreign pressure and public relation firms." said Mr. Robert Willey of UNHCST.

This is also what a lot of fishermen from my atoll feel is better. I could not believe this just from TVM news, of course no one believes TVM now. But things like this which came from the presidents office are true even on TVM.