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AMMAN — Four people died and four others were injured in road accidents over the weekend, a Civil Defence Department (CDD) statement said.

In Al Hasa and Um Kharoubeh areas, two motorists died on Saturday when their vehicles overturned.

Also on Saturday, a man died in Tafileh and another was injured when their truck overturned. CDD cadres administered first aid to the injured man and took him to Prince Zeid Military Hospital, where he was listed in fair condition.

On Friday, a man died and three people were injured in a two-vehicle collision in Yajouz area. The injured were taken to Prince Hamzah Hospital, where they were listed in fair condition.

AMMAN — Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Thursday met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss the latest developments in the Palestinian arena and efforts to resume Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. 

At the Ramallah meeting, Judeh stressed that there is no alternative to negotiations that address all final-status issues and lead to an independent Palestinian state within the June 4, 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on relevant international terms of reference and the Arab Peace Initiative.

He added that the envisioned solution should ensure that Jordanian higher interests are preserved and guarantee the security and stability of the region's peoples, emphasising that such is the unwavering stand of the Kingdom, which it consistently promotes at each platform worldwide, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Islamic and Christian sites are a top priority for His Majesty King Abdullah and Jordan, and the Kingdom will always protect them and respond decisively to any violations against the sanctity of these places, the minister said.

Judeh also highlighted Jordan's success as a non-permanent member at the UN Security Council to impose the term “Al Haram Al Sharif” (noble sanctuary) in reference to Al Aqsa Mosque in the literature of the international organisation.

The minister also conveyed King Abdullah’s greetings to Abbas and the Palestinian people, voicing His Majesty’s keenness to sustain communication and coordination with Palestinians, as well as supporting their aspirations to establish their independent state on their national soil, Petra added.

For his part, Abbas expressed his appreciation for His Majesty’s support for Palestinians to attain their legitimate rights, highlighting the high esteem King Abdullah enjoys at regional and international levels. 

In remarks to the press following the meeting, Judeh said that regardless of the regional events and the threats they pose, the Palestinian issue remains the central cause and the main driver of the region’s instability.

He also said the meeting addressed the installation of cameras at Al Aqsa Mosque, stressing that this Jordanian initiative aims at exposing all violations and assaults against holy sites.

The Jerusalem Awqaf Department, affiliated with the Awqaf Ministry, will be in charge of the cameras, which will cover an area of 144 dunums, monitored from a control room, Government Spokesperson Mohammad Momani recently said, stressing the legal, moral and religious importance of this step, aimed at safeguarding holy sites against Israeli transgressions.

Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator with Israel, praised the King’s endeavours in telling the international community that victory over terrorism in the region requires ending the Israeli occupation and establishing the independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, according to Petra.

AMMAN – As Nadia Salem drives her taxi on the streets of the capital, many drivers find it a strange sight.

The looks of surprise from other drivers and passers-by have not embarrassed Salem, saying that she is determined to work hard to succeed in this new career.

“My colleagues and I are always subjected to some comments by male taxi drivers mocking our job. I don’t care because I believe that the idea will be successful in the future,” she told The Jordan Times while driving to a mall in Amman. 

Salem is among 10 other female drivers who have been recently appointed by Noor Jordan for Transport — Taxi Moumayaz as part of an initiative to include women in the transport sector. 

“I like driving, and when I found the vacancy announcement published by the company on Facebook, I decided to apply, and they later accepted me. I used to work at an office, so I wanted to have a new experience — to work on the street and see how it feels,” she added.  

The company’s chairman, Eid Abu Al Haj, said the female drivers will be using hybrid vehicles.  

“Many women want to help their husbands meet the needs of their families, and this is a decent job,” he told The Jordan Times in a recent interview. 

Abu Al Haj said the company pays the expenses of the public transport licence, which is required for any person who wishes to work as a driver.

“We also provide them with courses on how to deal with their customers. The driver is paid a monthly salary, and we provide them with social security and medical insurance,” he added.   

The female drivers do not drive around the city looking for customers. They receive the order through the company’s call centre, or customers approach them at specific parking spots allocated for the company outside some of the capital’s malls, Abu Al Haj said. 

The drivers do not work for late hours in order to respect social norms, he added.

Salem said many of her customers have received the idea of a female driver positively, taking her phone number should they need a lift.

Sabreen Shoroufi, a mother of seven, said she wanted to work because this is a service many other women are comfortable with. 

“I did not find any challenge in this profession because it is similar to any other profession and my family has supported me,” she told The Jordan Times.   

Yola Marcel, who was outside a mall chatting with one of the drivers, said she liked the idea because “this is a scene you rarely see in either Jordan or in the Arab world and it is good for the comfort of girls.,” 

But several male taxi drivers are not comfortable with the project, and are doubtful that the new drivers will be successful in this kind of job. 

Khader Abu Anas said this is not a good idea because taxis “in our culture are only associated with men”.

“Many of my customers told me that they are scared to get in a cab with a woman because they are not good drivers,” he claimed. 

A photo of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu shared by social media users in Jordan recently, claiming that it shows a Jordanian judge kissing the hand of a defendant

AMMAN — Social media outlets are increasingly becoming a source for rumours in Jordan, and news websites are mostly to blame for publishing them as facts, media experts said Thursday.

Recently, a video went viral on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp in Jordan showing a schoolgirl that fell off a Ferris wheel at a theme park and died on the spot. 

Social media users shared the video, saying it took place at an amusement park in Amman, and several news websites wrote articles about the incident, which later prompted the Ministry of Education to dismiss the news as baseless. 

The video later turned out to be of an accident in Iraq.

Also this week, social media posted several comments saying four Yemenis died of food poisoning after eating at a well-known restaurant in Amman. 

Several websites rushed to report the rumours as facts. Next day, the authorities said the Yemenis died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

“Social media users cannot be controlled, but it is news websites that are to blame. Not all of them, but unfortunately a large number of these websites publish these rumours without verification and start even writing analyses and articles on the topic without checking,” Nabil Al Sharif, former minister of state for media affairs, told The Jordan Times.

“When there is a vacuum, rumours grow like a snowball, and the less information there is, the more harm there will be and the bigger the rumours will become,” he said.

The former official stressed the need to train media personnel to increase professionalism, especially when it comes to dealing with social media.

The experts said authorities’ “sluggishness” in releasing information, as well as the “weak” levels of professionalism at many news websites exacerbate this issue.

“There is bureaucracy when it comes to providing information, and if the information is not provided on the spot, there will be a gap that will be filled by rumours,” said Jordan Media Institute Dean Basim Tweissi. 

“Nowadays, information travels fast, and with a large number of social media users, authorities need to respond faster to any rumours before they are circulated at a large scale and cause a major harm,” Tweissi added.

Nidal Mansour, head of the Centre for Defending Freedom of Journalists, said social media is not to blame.

“Social media users should not spread lies and rumours. But it is not their job to check facts. It is the job of media outlets to make sure that anything they report is correct, objective and answers all questions,” Mansour said.

“More training is needed and such mistakes are more likely to be seen in news websites with a small staff and which tend to focus on speed at the expense of accuracy,” he added.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia executed two convicted murderers on Thursday, one of whom was a Jordanian, bringing to 78 the number of death sentences it has carried out this year.

Jordanian Ammar Al Sager was found guilty of stabbing Saudi citizen Osama Al Bukhaitan to death, the Saudi interior ministry said.

Turki Al Gahtani was convicted of shooting dead fellow Saudi tribesman Ghanem Al Gahtani during a dispute, said a ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Both executions were carried out in the Eastern Province city of Dammam.

Most people put to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.

The executions so far this year include 47 for “terrorism” carried out in a single day on January 2.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, most of them for drug trafficking or murder, according to an AFP count.

Human rights group Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi Arabia last year was the highest for two decades.

Saudi Arabia has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.

AMMAN — Participants in a study on the Euro-Med Ministerial Conclusions on Strengthening the Role of Women in Society and its impact on Jordan called on Thursday for applying its findings in the state’s policymaking and its work plan to advance women’s status.

On Wednesday and Thursday, activists, government officials, and representatives of various governorates gathered in Amman to discuss the study’s findings and the best means to implement it on the ground to ensure gender equality.

The Euro-Med Ministerial Process on “Strengthening the Role of Women in Society” is a tool for promoting and supporting women’s rights and gender equality in the whole region, said Boriana Jönsson, executive director at the Euro-Med Feminist Initiative.

The third Ministerial Conference 2013 held in Paris as part of the process reaffirmed the importance of this initiative, especially in the context of the ongoing political transformations in the Southern Mediterranean, recognising the important role women play in them, Jönsson explained. 

The study discussed this week was implemented by the Euro-Med Feminist Initiative, a network of women’s rights organisations from 20 countries from the two shores of the Mediterranean, over a year under the Ministry of Political and Parliamentary Affairs’ “Support to Democratic Governance in Jordan” programme funded by the EU.

Lilian Halls French, co-president of the Euro-Med Feminist Initiative, said the study is a tool to organise multi-sector discussions on local and national level, utilising the Paris Ministerial Conclusions as a policy document.

It strives to offer better knowledge of the perception, role and impact of the Ministerial Conclusions in Jordan, according to French, providing an up-to-date overview of the status of women’s rights in Jordan and elaborating on policy recommendations in the context of the upcoming fourth Ministerial Conference planned for 2016. 

The participants warned that equality and women advancement should not be at the cost of security and fighting terrorism.

“People’s priority is security, but this issue is being exaggerated and it does not mean that we should stop calling for women’s rights and equality,” said Laila Naffa, from the Arab Women Organisation.

Others called on the women’s movement to form a strong and effective group to lobby politicians and the governments to keep women’s issues on the government’s table.

“We have had enough of workshops and lectures… it is time the women’s movement formed real pressure groups that would lobby the government and follow up on its compliance with the international conventions when it comes to women’s issues,” said Jerash MP Wafaa Bani Mustafa.

Bani Mustafa accused the government of “schizophrenia” because “it provides a modern dialogue for the West but back home it is a different story”.

“The real reform by the government should be for Jordanian men and women and not to improve the image of Jordan abroad,” the lawmaker added.

Turning to education, the participants said the government should take concrete steps to improve women’s image and role in school textbooks.

“The image of women in school textbooks is still limited to certain professions,” said Jordanian National Commission for Women Secretary General Salma Nims.

Political and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Khaled Kalaldeh, who addressed the gathering on Wednesday evening, said women’s political participation has witnessed an increase especially after the introduction of quotas in municipal councils and in Parliament.

“Allow me — women of Jordan here and elsewhere — to whisper [in your ears]: why don’t you ask for your rights for a quota in professional and labour unions as well as in political parties and civil society organisations?”

“Why don’t these institutions designate seats for women on their boards and councils?” the minister asked.

Summary of conclusions

•Gender sensitive education and awareness raising for women and men are crucial to counteract the negative impact of culture and traditions on women’s rights

•Discriminative laws must be amended or annulled

•Mainstreaming gender equality on a ministerial level should be done through the creation of an operational mechanism

•Governmental measures supporting meaningful participation by women in all spheres of public life should become a priority

•Promotion of women’s leadership is a necessity to support their access to decision-making spheres

•Dialogue between decision makers, opinion leaders and women’s rights organisations is key to developing a society where women and men are of equal worth

•Jordan can and should strengthen its leading role in the Euro-Med Ministerial Process

AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Thursday attended a ceremony to launch the second phase of the Government Financial Management Information System, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The system, which is implemented at all ministries and public institutions, contributes to enhancing transparency and accountability in the allocation, use and monitoring of public resources, Petra reported.

In remarks during the ceremony, Ensour said the project is of great economic, political, administrative and financial importance as it saves both time and effort and provides accurate information.  He thanked USAID for the technical aid it provided for the implementation of the project.

AMMAN — Jordan has succeeded in overcoming different challenges by “dealing wisely” with regional crises, Royal Court Chief Fayez Tarawneh said Wednesday.

At a dialogue session dubbed “Jordan in the third world war” and organised by the Abdel Hameed Shoman Foundation, Tarawneh said Jordan’s regional and international role in the Middle East enabled it to safeguard its higher interests in an area hit by conflicts, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

AMMAN – The municipality of Zaatari and Manshieh plans to implement several investment projects financed by the World Bank, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Mayor Abulkarim Khalidi said on Thursday that the JD527,000  grant will be used to finance several initiatives, including the thyme farming project, which will create a number of jobs for residents, building a new fruit and vegetable market, and recruiting six additional sanitation workers.

The municipality has accomplished a number of projects through last year’s grant, which included JD140,000 for opening and repaving roads, a stadium that cost JD230,000 and a facility attached to the stadium that cost JD85,000, Khalidi added.

AMMAN — Public Security Department (PSD) Assistant Director Brig. Gen. Walid Battah on Thursday honoured women police officers working at the Central Traffic Department, in celebration of the occasion of Mother’s Day.

In a speech delivered during the honouring ceremony, Battah commended the efforts and professionalism of policewomen, noting that this honour for mothers working at the department is “only a simple gesture of appreciation” for their “unique efforts”.