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AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah is scheduled to visit the Vatican and meet with Pope Francis on Tuesday to discuss the US administration’s announcement to recognise occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to relocate the US embassy to the occupied city.

After the Vatican, the King will head to Paris, where he will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron on latest regional developments, especially those related to the holy city, a Royal Court Statement said on Saturday. 

The Pope and Macron were among the first world figures to reject US President Donald Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, calling for keeping the status quo of the city.

His Majesty has been leading an aggressive diplomatic push to contain any repercussions of the move, meeting and contacting in the process an array of regional and global leaders and taking part in an Islamic summit hosted in Istanbul, Turkey.

As the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, His Majesty has been vocal in criticising Trump over his decision on Jerusalem, Reuters said. 

A popular stand came in tune with that of the leadership, with Jordanians, for the second weekend in a row, took to the streets in Amman and other governorates to protest the decision on Friday.

AMMAN — State Minister for Investment Affairs Mohannad Shehadeh on Saturday said that Jordan has advanced on various business indicators, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The Kingdom has advanced from 118th to 103rd on the Doing Business Index, 56th to 49th on the Global Entrepreneurship Index, and from 70th to 58th on Global Talent Competitiveness Index, according to Petra.

During a panel discussion on business and investment in Jordan, Shehadeh said that the Jordan Investment Commission continuously works to improve the Kingdom’s rankings on these indicators as they enhance investor confidence. Shehadeh noted that the government has drafted an executive action plan to improve the business environment. 

AMMAN — The Public Security Department (PSD) on Saturday announced that the King Hussein Bridge will be closed for passengers and cargo on Sunday from 7am till 12 noon, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Movement of passengers and cargo will proceed normally after the five-hour closure.

AMMAN — A recent report by the local NGO I Learn, drafted in collaboration with the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), gave youth in Jordan the chance to voice their daily concerns and provide recommendations targeted at policymakers.

The “Report on Youth Policies in Education and Entrepreneurship: A Youth Prospective” aims to shed light on issues facing youth and on the related policies in the fields of education and entrepreneurship, according to Hamza Arsbi, the author of the report.

“Because this report was a youth led initiative from the beginning to the end, it has an additional value compared to some other papers as we strongly believe that youth policies should be youth driven,” said Saddam Sayyaleh, founder of I Learn, voicing his pride in having established “a strong network of trusting young people across the Kingdom who participated in a collaboration by the youth for the youth”.

“We took the perspective of the youth themselves on which policies matter to them as well as the hopes and aspiration they have for their future. We also asked them to give examples of possible solutions and ideas they have for policymaking,” Arsbi told The Jordan Times on Saturday.

According to figures by the Ministry of Education, young people under 30 account for 74 per cent of the Kingdom’s population, making Jordan one of youngest countries in the world. While this offers a number of opportunities for the Kingdom, the report listed a series of accompanying challenges ranging from education, healthcare, employment and security, among others.

Through focus groups in the northern, central, and southern governorates, the research teams looked for common concerns and pressing issues shared by young people in Jordan, chiefly of which unemployment. 

“As young people, we have great skills, and we love to go through new experiences to learn and develop our experiences, and we need to be in decision making positions to learn even more,” said a participant in one of the focus groups.

The interviewees’ feedback on joblessness reflected the reality in Jordan, which has the fourth highest unemployment rate among youth in the Middle Eastern and North African region. 

According to the UNESCO, 30 of youth are unemployed -most of whom are women-, compared with only 12 per cent of adults. 

The lack of security resulting from inequality was highlighted as the second overarching issue, along with the lack of ability to express opinions freely due to social norms and government restrictions. 

Finally, the overall dissatisfaction with educational outcomes and the educational system was cited as a crucial concern, compounding most of the other challenges felt by youth. 

On educational challenges, a participant in one of the workshops said: “Good education will create mature minds capable of dealing with the various difficulties facing young people and thus will positively reflect on society.”

Adding to the three main themes of concern, some area specific issues were also raised, such as the lack of action on environmental issues in Aqaba, including the pollution of beaches and the sea. 

Women from the Women Mobilisation Committee centre also highlighted the lack of mobility for females due to harassment as a daily challenge in the southern governorate.

In Maan, the conversation turned to school related issues, with a special emphasis on the deteriorating state of school infrastructure and the abuse inflicted on students by educators.

In the northern governorate of Irbid, where workshops were conducted in the town and the Irbid refugee camp, high school students voiced concerns relating to bullying, violence, and drug abuse. 

The Amman participants indicated different concerns, with a lot of the discussions centred on their involvement in policymaking and the state of research in industry and the economy. 

“While these issues are not exclusive to Amman, they are indicative of the city’s position as both the country’s economic hub and the city with the largest number of research institutions,” Arsbi pointed out.

“The formulation of these local challenges is very interesting as it provides us with an insight into the local concerns specific to the city and not the country in general,” he continued.

After sharing solutions and ideal scenarios at the end of each session, which involved refugee youth, school and university students, young entrepreneurs and members of youth related organisations, the participants came up with a number of recommendations.

Mainly focused on education, they called for overhauling the curriculum, providing teacher training, and introducing policies which create more equality among students across the country.

They also asked for the activation of school labs, which are left inaccessible to students in many cases, and creating club systems to keep students engaged.

AMMAN — Islamic Action Front’s (IAF) women wing staged a sit-in outside their party’s headquarters on Saturday in protest against President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  

“No east and west for Jerusalem… It is all for Arabs, Jerusalem is not a farm for the US but the capital of all Arabs,” protesters chanted.

“We believe that the US has violated all international resolutions regarding Jerusalem, and this is why we are here to condemn such act and say it loud and clear that we only see Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine,” Amman Third District MP Dima Tahboub told The Jordan Times during the protest.

“We believe that this step will create chaos in the world, and we see it as an act of state terrorism because America has given something that does not belong to them to people who do not deserve it,” Tahboub said, adding, “Palestine is an occupied country, and the world should finish the longstanding Israeli occupation and give Palestinians their rights and their land.”

The Islamist MP also stressed the role of Jordan in the Palestinian cause, saying that “the international community sees Jordan as the custodian of the holy sites in Jerusalem, and, therefore, the Kingdom has to take action towards this American unilateral step.”

“The relationship between Jordan and Palestine is deep and strong,” one of the protesters said at the sit-in, calling on the government to scrap the Jordanian-Israeli 1994 Wadi Araba Peace Treaty.  

When asked about the IAF’s female members’ position on the issue, Tahboub said that they “wanted to voice their own opinion to show their solidarity with the Palestinian women and children, who are being subjected to extreme cruelty due to the occupation”.

The IAF will continue to protest Trump’s decision in the following weeks, according to the MP, who noted that members of the party will contact lawmakers and ask them take a stand against the decision and work on spreading awareness through seminars and symposiums.

AMMAN — Authorities on Saturday identified an illegal well in a private farm in Ramtha as the cause for the “unusual” drop in water levels of a main aquifer supplying the northern district’s residents.

The illegal well has been pumping thousands of cubic metres of water from the aquifer that provides drinking water to thousands of people via wells operated by the Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ), an official at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation said.

“Authorities noticed an unusual drop in the amount of water pumped from WAJ’s wells over the past period and also an unusual drop in water levels of the aquifer. After investigation, it was revealed that an illegal well was pumping huge amounts of water from the aquifer,” the official source, who preferred to remain unnamed, told The Jordan Times over the phone.

A technical team and security forces raided late last week the site of the illegal well, where authorities discovered that owner of the farm allegedly extracted drinking water and sold it to people, according to the official.

He added that the alleged violator also filled a large pool with the drinking water and was supplying adjacent farms with water for irrigation.

“The team sealed the well and the security forces arrested two persons at the farm but the farm’s owner fled the scene,” the official said.

The majority of cases of illegal drilling of wells have been recorded in Ramtha and Mafraq, which sit on some of the country’s main aquifers, according to the ministry, which added that the drilling of wells in Jordan was strictly banned to protect underground water levels from declining further.

The ministry banned the drilling of wells in 1998 to limit random pumping of water in order to preserve aquifers from depletion and salinity.

An ongoing campaign, launched by the ministry in the summer of 2013, seeks to end water theft and violations against the Kingdom’s water resources. The campaign has seen the retrieval of millions of cubic metres of stolen water and the prevention of the drilling of illegal wells, according to the ministry.

Stiffer penalties for infractions against the water system have also been introduced under the amended Water Authority of Jordan Law.

Under the new amendments, those involved in the digging of wells without obtaining a licence face a prison term of up to five years and fines of up to JD7,000. Violators of water and wastewater projects can be jailed for up to three years and fined up to JD5,000.

All penalties stipulated under the law are doubled in the case of repeated offences.    

SAHAB — The thrumming of sewing machines came to a halt as the race to meet the production target of the day is achieved. It was Thursday evening, and the garment workers in a Sahab factory were preparing to leave for their Friday holiday.

Empty during the week days, the dorms geared up for the Friday hustle and bustle. Economical in space, the rooms with bunk beds can accommodate six to eight persons. The roommates were busy organising plans and the rest day brought life to the mill town.

Located some 30km southeast of Amman, Sahab is home to more than 400 factories. 

“Usually on Fridays, we cook together in our rooms, though we get food from the canteen. It’s a different feeling, a home feeling,” Mohammad Jayedul Islam from Bangladesh said.

And the weekend’s menu was: rice, beef bhuna (beef cooked in spices) and fish curry.

In between they attend phone calls. “With the arrival of smartphones, it’s much easier to be in touch with the family; Fridays are for long, detailed phone calls,” Mohammad said. 

Though many workers prefer to spend their free time in the zone surroundings, Mohammad said sometimes he and his friends go to Amman “to see the malls”.

As the cooking progressed, humming and beats could be heard from the nearby room. 

Sumudu Sankalpa and his friends from Sri Lanka reached an impromptu musical session in his room. Encouraged by the presence of more friends, he grabbed his guitar from under his bed while friends joined in with bottles and a drum. Some even tapped on the desk to the tune of an old Sinhalese ballad.

“It’s a free day, let’s enjoy and make the best of the holiday,” Sankalpa, 23, said.  

For Mohammad Sabir from India, Friday is a “holy day” as he just returned from the noon prayer.

Prior to his arrival in Jordan, Sabir had his own small-scale garment business in New Delhi. But when the business failed he was forced to look for a job abroad.

“I arranged some cash and gave it to the agent for a job in Dubai, but only at the airport I knew that I was going to Jordan,” the father of five said.

“Work here is going smooth, God willing I will work for one-two years to get back on my feet and return home and restart my business.”

After visiting the rooms of friends and sharing stories and nostalgia the day neared its end, one by one lights turned off in the camp, inviting the next day and another week of competing with machines and production targets.

AMMAN —  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat on Saturday received Canadian Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan and an accompanying delegation, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Freihat and Sajjan discussed cooperation between Jordan and Canada in military fields.

AMMAN — Health Minister Mahmoud Sheyyab on Saturday checked on the health condition of patients with seasonal flu, who are receiving treatment at Maan Public Hospital and Queen Rania Al Abdullah Hospital in Petra.

Sheyyab told the Jordan News Agency, Petra, that all patients are in good condition, noting that this illness usually starts in September and ends in March. He added that the ministry has sufficient stock of medicines in all its facilities. 

AMMAN — Activities of "Amman as the capital of Islamic culture 2017" were concluded on Thursday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Friday.

During the concluding ceremony, Culture Minister Nabih Shuqum, deputising for Prime Minister Hani Mulki, said that Amman is rich in cultural and historical heritage, making it a distinguished contributor to the Islamic culture and mankind.

Shuqum said that during 2017, several cultural activities were organised to celebrate this designation, commending the contributions of various public and private institutions in organising activities. Nakhchivan has been selected as the capital of Islamic culture for 2018.