Unfortunately for both Nasheed and his Maldivian Democratic party (MDP) that is exactly what he did do when he arrested the Maldives’s chief judge of the criminal court, Justice Abdulla Mohamed, on 16 January. Detained by the army on his orders, Nasheed then refused to release him despite protests from the supreme court in the Maldives, the European Union and the United Nations. Nasheed also denied him access to a lawyer and contact with his wife and children. Mohamed was only finally released over three weeks later when Nasheed resigned on 7 February.

Whatever the case against the judge, arresting him in this way was unforgivable, particularly given his previous status as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience under the former dictator President Gayoom. It also played directly into the hands of the opposition parties on the Maldives and was the catalyst for weeks of protests and violence, which eventually led to his own police force changing sides and joining the opposition. After that whatever the truth surrounding the accusations of a coup, his position had become untenable.

I too interviewed Nasheed, first when I went to the Maldives in 2008 to cover the country’s long and tortuous path to democracy. Speaking with him in his tiny cramped offices in the capital Male, I thought he was an impressive grassroots campaigner whose ability to lead his party and put large numbers of people onto the streets clearly made him a contender to be president. But I concluded that he was untested in high office and there was a great deal of difference between being an effective campaigner and being an effective president.

I then interviewed him again when I covered the country’s first democratic elections later that same year. Despite the ecstatic coverage that greeted his victory, the election was far from being a ringing endorsement for Nasheed. In fact, the outcome was very close and he was only able to beat Gayoom in the second round by putting together an alliance of all the opposition parties. In an ominous sign of the times to come, the coalition broke down soon after he entered office. Formidable politicians like the former attorney general, Hassan Saeed, who came third in the election with nearly 17% of the vote, was cast out into the wilderness.

The result was that the moderate parties like Saeed’s Dhivehi Qaumee party soon formed a working alliance with Gayoom’s former party, Dhivehi Rayyithunge and some of the smaller and more radical Islamic parties. Together they then won a small majority in the parliamentary elections in 2009 and the die was cast for a continuing battle of wills between the president and his parliament over a whole range of issues from ministerial appointments to the building of a new airport.

This culminated in June 2010 in Nasheed’s whole cabinet resigning en masse and taking to the streets after the parliament had passed a vote of no confidence. It was exactly those same opposition players that have now come together to form a unity government under the new president Mohamed Waheed Hassan. Wisely, Waheed has left a clutch of cabinet positions vacant in the hope that over the next week he can persuade some members of the Maldivian Democratic party to join him.

Nasheed now has a clear choice going forward. The UN, British, American and most recently Chinese governments have in recent days all recognised the new unity government and it is highly unlikely that the new president will resign or call fresh elections. There is also increasing evidence that the images of violent protests are beginning to affect the country’s tourist trade, which accounts for nearly 80% of its revenue. If this continues, it could prove disastrous for the Maldives’s economy.

In contemplating his next move, Nasheed would do well to remember Winston Churchill’s famous quote: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Under the Maldives’s constitution there will be another presidential election in just over a year’s time. Nasheed should contest this and in the meantime work with the new unity government to bring peace back to the streets.

Donetiz was the only officer in the German High Command who saw that victory in the Second World War could only be achieved by U-boats winning the Battle of the Atlantic and cutting off supplies to Britain. Since his death historians have been very divided about his legacy, some saying he was an ardent Nazi who should have been put to death, others that he was simply following orders. However, his miltary legacy is probably best summed up ironically by Winston Churchill who said “The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril”.

Karl Dönitz’s New Book Releasing on February 16, 2012

The Memoirs of Karl Doenitz: Ten Years and Twenty Days Karl Dönitz Paperback: £11.21 The story of the last world war, as told by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz himself. His memoir covers his early career with submarines in the First World War and follows both his successes and failures through the Second World War, with great detail on the way the U-boat campaign was waged, as told by … Read More

Today I co-ordinated the launch of a new Co-operative Bill with The Prime Ministers office on behalf of Co-operatives UK. Co-operatives UK is the trade association for co-operative enterprises and has warmly welcomed the announcement. In a speech at the Hub in Westminster the Prime Minister said that they are to refer the legislation governing co-operatives and mutuals to the Law Commission.The announcement means that the 17 separate pieces of legislation governing the sector, much of which dates back to 1965 and has been developed piecemeal, will now be consolidated into one Act. You can see the relevant section from the speech here.

Ed Mayo, Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, said: “The new act is intended to make it as easy and natural to form a co-operative as any other form of business. We are delighted to see the Coalition taking action to put co-operative businesses on an equal footing and create a diverse economy.”

The fair will be the first in a series of monthly events to be held at Stratford Armouries which is on the site of a Second World War training base, RAF Snitterfield. Among the other Titanic memorabilia on sale will be an original front page of the Northern Echo newspaper about the sinking and a memorial scroll which was sold to raise money for the survivors. There will also be a longcase clock made by a Stratford clock maker dating back to 1800 and various items from the First and Second World Wars including a copy of Reach for the Sky, the life story of Douglas Bader signed by 9 Spitfire pilots. They include Geoffrey Hulett, a spitfire pilot who flew with 225 group in the Far East in 1944/45 and came into Stratford Armouries today to sign the book after reading about it in the local paper! Despite the Titanic prices many of the artefacts on sale will be less than £100 so it is a chance for everyone to own a piece of history. A contribution from each fair will go to the Soldier’s Charity, formerly the Army Benevolent Fund.

10. Donald Trump. Who? American billionaire business magnate, property tycoon, on off candidate for President of the United States and proud owner of one of the world’s most talked about bouffant hairstyles. Why? His ruthless efforts to build a golf course on the Menie Estate in Alex Salmond’s Aberdeenshire constituency in the face of opposition from conservation bodies, residents and the council showed how easy it is to destroy a Site of Special Scientific Interest when you can dazzle politicians with controversial promises of jobs. The struggle became the subject of a film in September called You’ve Been Trumped.


9. Tesco. Who? Biggest supermarket in the UK. Why? Despite the recession the supermarket giant which this year notched up profits of £2.55b or £4,800 a minute announced with its rivals in December the biggest store opening programme in its history. If all the plans are approved the UK’s supermarket chains’ trading space will increase by almost 50% to about 1,200 hectares or the equivalent of 500 football pitches. Environmentalists and Tescopoly, the campaign group, believe the result will be “Tesco Towns” in which competition on the high street and many more thousands of small businesses are driven out of existence.

8. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Who? Government department. Why? In the spending cuts last year DEFRAs budget was cut by over a third but this year those cuts became a reality with the abolition of a large number of agencies from the Commission for Rural Communities to the Sustainable Development Commission and the loss of 8000 jobs including mine. Critics also claimed the department failed to stand up for the environment on a wide range of issues from the abandoned forestry sell off to the creation of marine nature reserves.



7. BP. Who? One of the world’s largest oil companies. Why? In September environmentalists severely criticised the company’s plans to prematurely restart oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the worst oil spill in US history there last year. The accident on BPs Deepwater Horizon rig resulted in a spill of over 4 million barrels of oil and killed 11 people. Closer to home the company was criticised for announcing a £10m sponsorship deal for the arts. Sam Chase, of protest group Art Not Oil, said BP was profiting from a product that “is destabilising the climate which is making life on earth increasingly difficult for many millions of human beings and other species”.


6. Peter Kendall. Who? President of the National Farmers Union. Why? In November Kendall made a speech in which he said there was no biodiversity crisis and urged the government to instead concentrate on production. The speech flew in the face of lots of surveys of farmland wildlife which showed big declines in many species and marked the end of an uneasy alliance forged between farming and conservation groups in support of reform of the Common Agricultural Policy over the last decade.




5. Lord Lawson. Who? Former chancellor, father of the celebrity cook Nigella Lawson and founder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Why? This year has seen a concerted effort from climate sceptics like Lord Lawson to criticise scientists and policies in support of climate change from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia to the BBC Frozen Planet programme . In November the GWPF sent a report to Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, which “questions blind faith in climate alarmism” and claims there is “huge controversy about the relative contribution of man-made CO2 versus natural forces”. In response Huhne said the report was “misinformed”, “wrong” and “perverse”.


4. Canada. Who? North American country spanning over 9.9m square kilometres making it worlds second largest country by area. Why? Its decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol in December came just days after the signing by 194 countries of a historic deal at the Durban climate conference. Its stance has once again thrown into doubt the willingness of the world to tackle climate change.






3. The big 6 energy companies. Who? British Gas, EDF, E.ON, Npower, Scottish Power Business, Scottish and Southern. Why? Not only have the big 6 energy companies failed to invest nearly enough in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, this year they announced record price increases hurting the poorest and most vulnerable in society and began a lobbying effort to try to stop the government moving towards nuclear and renewables which they claim will add £300 to energy bills.




2. David Cameron. Who? The Prime Minister. Why? His claim that the coalition government will be the “greenest government ever” turned out to be just political rhetoric. Among a long list of criticisms by environmental groups there was the forestry sell off which resulted in over half a million people signing a petition against it, the Green Investment Bank deemed neither green or a bank , the governments red tape challenge which tried to scrap much of the environmental legislation passed over the last 20 years, the presumption in favour of ‘sustainable development’ in the planning system and just before Christmas solar subsidies being halved.


1. George Osborne. Who? The Chancellor. Why? In his autumn statement the Chancellor slammed ‘costly’ green policies and told Parliament that environmental rules and regulations are a burden on British business.  His attack resulted in the  chief executives of some of the biggest environmental groups in Britain including the RSPB, CPRE, Greenpeace, Wildlife Trusts and Friends of the Earth joining forces and writing to the press saying “rarely have we been as incredulous as we were last Tuesday, hearing the autumn statement. The stunning disregard shown for the value of the natural environment not only flies in the face of popular opinion but goes against everything the government said”.

Key

10. Jonathon Porritt 9. Greenpeace 8. Cooperative Group 7. 38 degrees

6. Mark Avery 5. Michael Schwarz 4. Facebook 3. David Attenborough

2. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 1. Christiana Figueres

When it comes to film-making, I believe the British public would therefore understand why in a very few situations it is necessary to use captive rather than wild animals. As to the narrative, it simply isn’t possible to state under what conditions shots were taken without breaking up the story. The truth is when it comes to some particularly rare, vulnerable or inaccessible species the BBC Natural History Unit can’t win. If they didn’t use captive-bred animals for filming, the tabloid press would no doubt be running with an animal cruelty story rather than a fakery one”.

The course concentrated on writing features and its been really useful to go back to the basics of what makes a good article. I also learnt a lot from the pupils who produced some great work during the ten weeks. We covered a whole range of subjects including writing for an online audience, interviewing, developing a specialism, building an argument, editing, pitching, the law and money. I’ve no doubt we’ll see some of them in print in the very near future. The course is running again next year starting on 12 January 2012 so if you’d like to sign up go to the colleges website at www.stratford.ac.uk