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AMMAN – A woman in her 50s died and two other people were injured in a two-vehicle collision on the airport road, a Civil Defence Department (CDD) statement said on Friday.

CDD personnel administered first aid to the injured and took them to King Hussein Medical City, the statement added. 

AMMAN — HRH Princess Basma, president of the Jordanian Association of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, on Saturday inaugurated the activities of the national gathering for girl guides, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The national gathering is organised by the Education Ministry in celebration of the Karamah Battle anniversary and the Great Arab Revolt centennial, and it aims at helping the guides obtain leadership skills and exchange expertise. The four-day gathering included 200 girl guides from around the Kingdom.

Speaking at the event, Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Mohammad Thneibat said his ministry aims at forming a scouts’ and guides’ music band at education directorates around the Kingdom. 

AMMAN — The King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD) said on Saturday it has signed memoranda of understanding with 10 public and private Jordanian universities to develop its Career Guidance and College Graduate Follow Up programme there.

The agreements are part of the second phase of KAFD’s career guidance project, under which it seeks to develop its 25 bureaus at public and private universities. 

KAFD Director Saeb Al Hasan signed the memos with the University of Jordan, Al Balqa Applied University, Mutah University, Philadelphia University, Jerash University, Zarqa Private University, Petra University, Al Zaytoonah University of Jordan and Al Ahliyya Amman University, KAFD said in a statement sent to the Jordan Times.

The bureaus were established in 2003.

Similar memoranda of understanding will be signed with more universities before the end of the year.

KAFD said its Career Guidance and College Graduate Follow Up project plays a vital role in bridging the gap between university life and employment by providing students with designated programmes and activities to enable them to compete at the local and regional levels.

The project seeks to help students make the right decisions regarding their career paths by providing them with the training programmes that will enable them to join the labour market.

With the signing of the 10 memos, the project now covers 18 public and private universities. 

Imad Fakhoury, chairman of KAFD's board of trustees, said the memo signing is part of the fund's ongoing efforts to translate Royal directives to empower youths to be effective and productive citizens by providing them with learning and training opportunities to equip them with the skills to increase their employability, according to the statement. 

Highlighting the significance of collaboration between universities, the private and public sectors and civil society institutions, Fakhoury said optional courses on entrepreneurship were introduced at the Hashemite University and the Jordan University of Science and Technology.

In addition, KAFD launched a campaign to raise awareness on ForUs.jo platform, which is expected to be officially launched this May.

More than 11,000 university students have already benefited from the platform, said Fakhoury. 

AMMAN — An official source at the Royal Court stressed on Friday the depth of relations between Jordan and Saudi Arabia, expressing the Kingdom’s full support to the Islamic anti-terror coalition led by Saudi Arabia to combat terrorism.

In a Royal Court statement, the source expressed Jordan’s pride in its deep-rooted relations with Saudi Arabia and its support for the Gulf kingdom, stressing the importance of combating terrorism through joint Arab and Islamic efforts. 

AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Saturday chaired an Investment Council meeting held in continuation of an earlier meeting that was organised last Thursday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Ensour said the Investment Law is above all other economic laws and that the Investment Council has decision-taking privileges different from all other councils in the Kingdom.

The council discussed the issues listed on its business schedule and took a set of decisions related to giving new exemptions and facilitations to new investments, establishing special development areas and the possibility of having tax exemptions for wider sectors. 

AMMAN — The INTERSOS Humanitarian Organisation in Jordan, in partnership with other NGOs, has distributed direct cash assistance of over JD900,000 to 3,125 Jordanian and Syrian families in Irbid, Karak and Maan governorates, the organisation said in a statement released last week.

The assistance also included critical winter items, such as heaters, plastic sheets, mattresses and blankets within the winterisation programme funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department (ECHO), the statement added.

“The success of the initiative was also possible thanks to the long-term relationship established between INTERSOS and the Ministry of Social Development, community based organisations and municipalities, which permitted the NGO to deliver 30 per cent of the cash and emergency assistance to vulnerable Jordanian families living below the poverty line,” the statement said.  

AMMAN – French Ambassador in Jordan David Bertolotti, his wife and two children, in addition to two other persons, were injured in a car accident on Saturday near the southern city of Aqaba, sources told The Jordan Times. 

A source from the French embassy in Amman said the accident occurred in the afternoon on Wadi Araba road, adding that they “do not seem to be in a critical condition”. 

By 8:00 pm the ambassador and his family were still undergoing medical tests. 

The embassy declined to give further details, but expressed appreciation for sympathies and support expressed by people and valued the cooperation by authorities. 

A security source said an embassy SUV overturned after colliding with another car driven by a Jordanian driver in Wadi Araba area, adding the vehicle was carrying Bertolotti and his family.

The ambassador, his family and the driver of the van in addition to the driver of the other car were all taken to Prince Hashem Military Hospital in Aqaba for treatment.

The accident, the security source said, took place in the afternoon some 60 kilometres north of Aqaba as the ambassador and his family were heading to Amman from the Red Sea resort, some 330 kilometres south of the capital.

AMMAN – His Majesty King Abdullah attended the Nuclear Security Summit, which began in Washington on Friday, with deliberations focused on international and institutional measures to enhance nuclear safety in the world, and ways to prevent the spread of nuclear and radioactive materials that can be used by terrorist organisations.

His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hussein was present at the event, a Royal Court statement said, along with an array of heads of states and representatives of international organisations concerned with nuclear affairs.

The opening session was held under the slogan of "National Actions to Enhance Nuclear Security," focussing on areas of international cooperation in preventing the transportation of nuclear and radioactive materials, and ways to transfer know-how from countries with experience in dealing with nuclear materials and techniques to others to enable them to develop advanced national programmes.

The summit addressed the importance of strengthening national capacities of countries to enable them to detect nuclear materials and prevent smuggling, applying the best practices in the field. .

Jordan has previously signed a joint action plan with the US to combat the smuggling of nuclear and radioactive materials, aimed to build and strengthen the capacity of the Kingdom in the field of preventing and detecting attempts to smuggle these materials and to respond effectively to such attempts.

The plan comes in implementation of His Majesty King Abdullah's initiative to build and strengthen world countries' capacities to prevent the smuggling of these dangerous materials, which was launched by King Abdullah during his participation in the summits of nuclear security in Seoul and The Hague in 2012 and 2014, respectively, and was supported by 39 countries and international organisations.

Jordan joined to the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT) in February of this year, and has carried out several activities and drills in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and has cooperated with the Interpol in this regard, through training and information exchange.

On the sidelines of the summit, His Majesty held separate meetings with heads of delegations, including the prime ministers of Japan Shinzo Abe, Holland, Mark Rutte and Thailand, Prayut Chan-o-cha.

Talks centered on ways to boost cooperation and bilateral relations, in addition to regional and international affairs of mutual interest, including the global fight against terrorism, the Royal Court said.

The Crown Prince attended the meetings with Abe and Rutte, along with senior officials and diplomats.

AMMAN – His Majesty King Abdullah said in Washington DC on Thursday that Jordan was ready to present a nuclear summit slated for Friday "our Gift Basket on Countering Nuclear Smuggling, with 39 co-sponsors."

"Our initiative is important as consolidating our border security is of paramount importance for the security of Jordan and the globe," the King said in his remarks at a dinner held by US President Barack Obama in honour of heads of delegations taking part in the summit.

"We will remain actively engaged in the summit contact group and continue the build-up of our Interagency Counter Nuclear Smuggling Team," he added.

In the Levant, he said, Jordan is the first line of defence against trafficking of arms, narcotics, and counterfeits in the region and beyond.

Commending President Obama for taking the lead on "such an important and current issue", His Majesty told the gathering that "we hope this important process will continue in a sustainable manner and build an enduring architecture to further our achievements and the good work that is being done".

He warned that the "threat level is high: We have a high risk of nuclear, chemical, biological, and radiological proliferation in the Middle East."

He explained that the state of chaos in the Middle East region has increased the risk of moving these materials and technologies to non-state actors that are becoming more sophisticated, including in developing their own delivery systems.

"Our worst-case scenario would be an attempt to smuggle nuclear or radiological material by terrorists and spread terror," he warned, adding that recent attempts to smuggle radioactive material, including Cesium-137 and Uranium within Europe, reinforce that scenario.

The interlinked threats of criminal acts, drug and human trafficking and the financing of terrorism are yet another issue facing the international community, the King said, noting that this is a "global challenge; therefore the importance of working together has never been more acute."

He told his audience: "As I have mentioned at previous conferences, we have to be pre-emptive, we need real-time intelligence sharing; as well as working together in capacity building at the national, regional and global levels; we also need to cooperate and share vital technologies." 

AMMAN — A local centre is employing the “latest technology” in stem cell therapy to benefit patients from Jordan and abroad, with the aim of making the Kingdom a hub in this field and promoting medical tourism. 

“The Cell Therapy Centre [CTC] is a distinguished, state-of-the-art development and applied research centre,” the head of the institution, Abdalla Awidi, told The Jordan Times in a recent interview. 

“Jordan is among the top countries in medical tourism,” Awidi underlined. 

“In order to maintain that status, we need to always have an edge in the medical field. Stem cell-related therapies are the future of medical care, and, therefore, the CTC plays a crucial role in medical tourism, not only in the MENA region, but possibly worldwide.”

The long-term vision of medical experts who established the CTC in 2008 as an integral part of the University of Jordan was to achieve “excellence and distinction in the fields of cell therapy, tissue engineering and biology of stem cells”.

The centre has been involved in research projects, “both basic and applied”, in order to benefit patients from Jordan and abroad, Awidi added.

In 2012, CTC was “the first research centre in the Arab world” to produce a skin epithelial sheet, he noted.

“These ‘sheets’ are considered life-saving as they could be applied to burn victims and patients who suffer from damaged skin,” the professor stressed.

According to Awidi, another notable result was the repairing of damaged cartilage in the knee joint, using “autologous cultured mesenchymal stem cells”. 

Other clinical projects focus on multiple sclerosis, peripheral arterial disease, and diabetic foot ulcers, the expert added, noting that specialists at the centre have developed “a living bone graft tissue and applied it successfully on humans”. 

CTC researchers have also developed treatment for resistant diabetic foot ulcers and resistant corneal ulcers. 

They are now working on a human corneal epithelium that possess self-renewal properties, which could be used to help restore eyesight to patients, Awidi said.

One of the pivotal roles of CTC has been to educate patients, as well as healthcare professionals, on the current and potential applications of stem cells in chronic diseases, he noted.

“In general, all our products are designed to cure patients or reduce their suffering, and hence reduce the total healthcare bill for the country,” Awidi concluded.