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AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Tuesday attended a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the UNDP and its 40th year in Jordan. Ensour highlighted the UNDP's role in supporting international development efforts and enhancing states' resilience.

The premier also said the recent historic visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim to Jordan expressed the international organisation's keenness on supporting the Middle East.

He also noted that the UNDP has been an important partner for the Jordanian government since 1976, and has had a clear impact on financing and implementing several development projects and initiatives, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

AMMAN – Border Guards received 101 Syrian refugees over the previous 24 hours, and transferred them to shelters and camps, the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army said on Tuesday.

Royal Medical Service personnel treated the injured and wounded, according to a statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

AMMAN — Interior Minister Salameh Hammad on Tuesday met with EU Ambassador to Jordan Andrea Matteo Fontana and discussed ways to help Jordan apply decentralisation.

They also discussed Jordanian-EU cooperation in fields of mutual interest, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. Hammad reviewed the requirements to apply decentralisation at the technological, technical and financial levels.

For his part, Fontana expressed the EU’s keenness to support the Kingdom’s development and reform programmes, Petra added.

AMMAN — Three years after students at the Zarqa-based Hashemite University launched a campaign to protest the “relatively high” price of meals on campus, the administration is floating a tender for opening a popular restaurant to sell food at affordable prices, an official said on Tuesday.

“The university president has appointed a committee to review the needs of students, emphasising the importance of opening a traditional restaurant offering meals at prices that suit students,” Omar Batayneh, assistant dean for student affairs, told The Jordan Times over the phone.

“The prices of the university cafeteria match the prices set for cafeterias in Zarqa, but students have compared them to the prices of meals at other universities and found a difference in price and quality, so we responded with the idea of the restaurant,” Batayneh said.  

The restaurant on campus is expected to open within the upcoming month to sell different types of meals at "reasonable prices", he said.

The move comes after students launched the “My mother’s sandwich is tastier” campaign some three years ago to protest prices at the university's cafeteria, according to initiative co-founder Ibrahim Obeidat.

“We started the initiative to ask the university to review the cost of some of the goods being sold at the cafeteria, knowing that there is no official restaurant on campus that sells meals at a reasonable price,” he added.

The campaign gained popularity on campus, with many students “boycotting” the cafeteria, according to Obeidat.

The activities of students pushed two of the businesses on campus to slightly reduce prices, he added.

The initiative’s initial aims were to demand more supervision on the quality of the meals sold at the cafeteria and to ask for a “cheaper” choice that students can afford, Obeidat said.

AMMAN — The Cabinet has endorsed the validating reasons for the draft electoral constituency by-law, which divides the country into 23 constituencies, down from 45 under the previous elections law, the government announced on Monday.

The move follows a Royal Decree endorsing the Elections Law for 2016 that reduced the number of Lower House seats from 150 to 130, of which 15 are allocated as a women’s quota.

The draft by-law, which will be sent to the Legislation and Opinion Bureau, divided the capital into five constituencies.

Amman’s first electoral district will have five seats, the second will have six seats. 

The capital’s third electoral district will have six seats, while the fourth will have four seats and the fifth electoral district will have seven seats, Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs Khaled Kalaldeh said at a press conference on Monday.

Irbid Governorate was divided into four electoral districts. Six seats were allocated for the first district, four for the second, four for the third and five for the fourth district, according to the minister.

Zarqa Governorate was divided into two districts. Eight seats were allocated for the first district and four for the second.

Al Balqa Governorate was divided into one district and 10 seats were allocated for it.

Ten seats were also allocated for Karak Governorate, which will be dealt with as one constituency.

The same goes for Maan Governorate, which will have four seats.

The governorates of Mafraq, Tafileh, Madaba, Jerash and Ajloun are also considered as one electoral district, each of which will have four seats, according to Kalaldeh, while Aqaba, also one constituency, will have three seats.

Each of the Badia’s three districts will have three seats.

“The new by-law will ensure that candidates tailor their electoral platforms for a wider audience that candidates will not only rely on their relatives, tribes, or neighbourhoods to win. They will have to do more to encourage citizens to vote for them,” Government Spokesperson Mohammad Momani said at the presser on Monday.

“We expect the upcoming parliamentary elections to be historic by all means,” said Momani, who is also minister of state for media affairs and communications.

The notorious one-person, one-vote electoral system, which was introduced in 1993, is now a history, under the 2015 law, which is based on an at-large voting system, in which candidates can run for parliamentary elections on one large multi-member ticket.

Eligible voters will have a number of votes equal to the number of seats allocated for their district in the Lower House. 

During the elections, each eligible voter has to vote for a multi-member list as a whole and for individual candidate of their choice from the same ticket.

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah is scheduled to participate in the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit to be hosted in Washington this week, a Royal Court statement said on Monday.

On the sidelines of the summit, His Majesty is scheduled to meet with several political leaders, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, with whom he will discuss regional and international developments. 

The King has taken part in the three nuclear security summits held in Washington in 2010, Seoul in 2012 and in The Hague in 2014. 

The nuclear summit was initiated by US President Barack Obama who, in a speech delivered in Prague in 2009, described nuclear terrorism as one of the gravest threats to international security and called for joint-international efforts to prevent it.

During the 2012 and 2014 nuclear security summits, the Kingdom presented a Statement of Activity and Cooperation to Counter Nuclear Smuggling, signed by as many as 20 countries. In support of the commitments outlined in that statement, Jordan has over the past two years hosted two multilateral counter-nuclear smuggling workshops.

AMMAN — An issue of Islamic sukuk (bonds) worth around JD250 million is expected in the second quarter of 2016, Central Bank of Jordan Deputy Governor Maher Sheikh Hassan said on Monday.

“We have completed all the legal and the legislative measures for the issuance of the Islamic bonds. We are in the final stages of some more minor steps and we are then ready to conduct the sukuk issue any time,” Hassan told The Jordan Times on Monday.

An Islamic Sharia-compliant issuance totalling around JD150 million will be issued to cover the purchases of the National Electric Power Company, while another worth JD100 million will be conducted for the benefit of the Water Authority of Jordan.

“A company was registered for the purposes of the issuance of the Islamic bonds as required by law and we expect the issuance to take place in the second quarter of this year,” said the official.

In 2012, Parliament passed the Islamic Finance Sukuk Law to allow both public and private entities to issue Islamic bonds in dinars and in foreign currencies. In April this year, the government chose the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, an arm of the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, to support the country’s debut for the planned domestic sukuk offering.  

AMMAN — Syrian refugees have increased the occupancy ratio at public hospitals, while the ratio of prescriptions has increased by no less than 30 per cent due to the mounting demand on these services, official figures indicated. 

According to a periodical report launched by the office of the government’s human rights coordinator, Basil Tarawneh, issued every two years to update the situation of medical care offered to Syrian refugees, all medical services were offered to the refugees free of charge until November 2014.

After that date, Syrian refugees were charged for the services, which are subsidised by 80 per cent, treated equally with non-insured Jordanians. The decision to levy fees was dictated by the rising cost of medical care, according to the report, which was released on Monday. 

Nonetheless, maternal medical care, medicines for Thalassaemia patients and vaccines are still offered at no cost to both Jordanians and Syrians.

Pressures on the health sector, the report indicated, include a lower operational age of medical devices and increased workload of the medical staff, among other strains.

Moreover, some diseases that were eradicated in Jordan have appeared among refugees, which required a sequence of vaccination campaigns, “which are costly and require a lot of efforts”, the document said.

Some 1,441,084 vaccines have been given to refugees, according to the report, which added that around 233,455 Syrian patients used the services of Health Ministry hospitals in 2014, whereas in 2015, the figure was 83,857. 

In 2014, around 20,238 patient refugees were admitted to hospitals, while in 2015, the number reached 10,880 patients who stayed overnight in health facilities. 

Moreover, 5,450 underwent surgeries in 2014, compared to 2,685 in the following year.

In 2014, a total of 504,962 Syrian patients benefited from the services of health centres while in 2015, around 169,000 patients used the services of health centres. 

Jordan’s population is 9.5 million, according to the 2015 population census, and Syrians constitute 20 per cent of that population, amounting to 1.266 million, the treatment of whom cost around JD1.4 billion since the beginning of the Syrian refugee influx until the end of 2015, according to the report.

The most significant cases among refugees are war injuries, such as lost limbs from shell bombing as well as cases related to mental health like anxiety, depression and bipolarity. 

The report shows that cancer cases among Syrian refugees in Jordan increased from 2011 to 2013 respectively as follows: 134, 188, and 317 cases.

In addition to the Health Ministry’s hospitals and health centres that receive Syrian refugees, the ministry facilitates the work of around 60 associations and organisations that offer medical services to the refugees. 

Primary healthcare services offered to refugees include vaccination, under a national programme, epidemiological surveillance, treatment of communicable diseases and full supervision on health in schools built for refugees. 

As for the environment, ministry cadres conduct supervision programmes mainly at the Zaatari, Mreijeb Al Fhoud and Azraq refugee camps where they, for example, analyse drinking to examine the water’s bacteriological nature. 

The ministry also works continuously to enhance its facilities’ infrastructure to cope with the increasing numbers of patients.

Syrian refugees’ use of medical services in Jordan (2012-2015)

Source: Office of Government Human Rights Coordinator

AMMAN — Privately-owned disability care centres with lodging facilities in Jordan will be shut down and replaced with daycare centres over the coming 10 years, as part of efforts to enhance the integration of people with disabilities into society, under the 2016 draft law on persons with disabilities.

Only a few public disability care centres dealing with special cases will be kept, Government Spokesperson Mohammad on Momani told reporters Monday.

“The new law is a great push towards further integration of the disabled into the society, the schools and the entire community,” said Momani, who is also minister of state for media affairs and communications.

“It is not acceptable that the disabled are isolated and live in these centres. It is their right to live with their families, to go to school and to engage with the community,” said the spokesperson, stressing that the bill, which the Cabinet endorsed on Monday protects the rights of people with disabilities.

Minister of Social Development Reem Abu Hassan said that to ensure the proper enforcement of the law, it will be implemented gradually and over different phases.

The law stipulates the integration of people with disabilities in all educational facilities over the next 10 years and gradually ensuring accessibility, said Abu Hassan.

She added that an annual report will be issued detailing the progress made and abidance by the law.

Commending the bill, Senator Muhannad Azzeh, who is also adviser to the Higher Council for Persons with Disabilities, said it was drafted following extensive discussions with all stakeholders, including families of people with disabilities.

“This legislation sets a model to be followed in the region. It follows a right-based approach. It addresses all issues of concern to disabled people,” said Azzeh at the press conference. 

A statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, said the draft law is aimed at providing equal opportunities and addressing discrimination against people with disabilities.

It comes in line with the relevant international conventions signed by Jordan, and in the implementation of the comprehensive national strategy for persons with disabilities aimed at integrating them in public life, Petra reported.

AMMAN — Renowned Islamist group expert Hassan Abu Haniyeh argues that terrorism is not merely the result of poverty and marginalisation, as is widely conceived, but rather a complicated phenomenon of ideological, religious, cultural, socioeconomic, political and even tribal dimensions.

In his first opinion piece in Al Rai daily published on Monday, Abu Haniyeh explained that there has been a “traditional” approach linking terrorism and radicalism to poverty, marginalisation and illiteracy, but the recent deadly attacks on European capitals have “revolutionised” the stereotypical interpretations of terror motives. 

With the Brussels attacks this month and last November’s bloodshed in Paris, the columnist said the “new European jihadists” all belong to the middle class and have received secular education. 

“As such, the notion that poverty and unemployment are the reasons for terrorism is no longer valid.”

On jihadists’ recruitment efforts, the researcher also challenged theories dwelling on the Internet and social media as the major channels to attract young people, arguing that it is a more complicated process carried out through friend networks and family connections.

He cited Scott Atran’s book “Talking to the Enemy”, in which the author argues that terrorists tend to be ordinary people driven by their peer group rather than being brainwashed by militant recruiters.

With terrorism turning into a complicated issue of ideological, cultural, religious, social, tribal and political dimensions, Abu Haniyeh explained that security and military solutions are “certainly not successful and will definitely increase terror and make it more violent”.