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AMMAN — The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Supply said on Sunday it issued 1,309 tickets for market violations during the first two months of 2016 compared to the 987 tickets issued in the same period of 2015, registering a 32.6 per cent increase.

According to a ministry report, 629 of the violations were in Amman, 265 in Irbid, 172 in Zarqa, 70 in Balqa and the rest in other governorates. The violations include not announcing prices, not committing to announced prices, not announcing sales and refraining from selling or hiding basic commodities. 

AMMAN — HRH Princess Sumaya on Sunday inaugurated the 16th Mother’s Day Exhibition, which aims to honour mothers and empower Arab women in the fields of handicrafts and traditional crafts.

The princess toured the exhibition, which showcases jewellery, decorations, clothes and other handicrafts.

Participants are from Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. Iraqi Ambassador to Jordan Safia Al Suhail attended the event, organised annually by the Promising Hands Foundation, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

AMMAN — The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) on Sunday urged owners of shops that serve argileh (water pipe) to abide by the law and not serve customers unless they are licensed, according to GAM regulations and provisions of the Public Health Law.

The decision applies to shops which are classified as tourist facilities or any other type of licence, according to GAM.

Regulations released in April 2014, stipulate that a coffee shop can either stop serving food to be allowed to continue serving argileh, or stop serving argileh and only serve food. Under a third option, cafés should designate two separate areas, one to serve food and the other to serve argileh in areas where smoking is allowed. Starting from April 1, GAM said that it will have to take legal action against violating shops.

AMMAN — Over 200,000 students of 85 nationalities are enrolled at Jordan's public schools, Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Mohammad Thneibat said Sunday.

At a discussion session on means to address education challenges for refugees held in Dubai within the fourth Global Education and Skills Forum, Thneibat said education services for Syrian refugee students cost JD250 million annually.

The ministry, he added, has built 5,000 classrooms at a cost of over $600 million to absorb the Syrian students, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The minister thanked donors and international organisations for supporting education services for refugees, but noted that the support only covers 38 per cent of the total cost of the refugee crisis, and 25 per cent of the cost of education.

The focus on addressing the added pressure on schools brought on by the refugee crisis has delayed the implementation of education reform plans, Thneibat said.

Noting that more than 145,000 Syrian students are enrolled in the ministry's schools, he said 98 public schools have started operating on the double-shift system to cope with the pressure, while 100 more schools will start operating on that system in the upcoming academic year.

Warning that failure to offer education services to refugee children will lead to negative consequences that could affect the world, Thneibat urged the international community to shoulder its responsibility and not leave Jordan facing this issue alone.

According to the 2015 census, around 1.3 million of the Kingdom's 9.5 million population are Syrians.

AMMAN — A protest by University of Jordan (UJ) students over tuition fees entered its 15th day on Sunday, with the protesters still at odds with the UJ administration.

The students want UJ to reverse a decision to raise tuition fees for the parallel and post-graduate programmes, but the administration says the hikes affect a limited number of students, noting that the move was necessary to narrow the university's budget deficit.

In a statement issued by UJ on Sunday, the administration said the board of trustees and the protesters only met on March 7 aiming to reach an agreement regarding the issue.

The statement added that the protesters “did not find solutions to serve both parties”, despite the fact that representatives from the student body agreed initially to the conditions discussed by the board.

Students started protesting on February 28 demanding the reversal of the decision on tuition, taken in 2014, raising the fees for the parallel and post-graduate programmes by 100 to 180 per cent.

UJ President Ekhleif Tarawneh emphasised in a press conference late last week that the reversal of the decision is not the responsibility of the president, and that the board of trustees, which consists of 12 members, is the authority that can change or reverse the decision.

Following up on the protest, Tarawneh on Sunday wrote on his Facebook page that he will start working on ​​phasing out the parallel programme, describing UJ as "the umbrella for many Jordanians and to others who saw it as a path to accomplish their dreams".

The parallel programme, which according to the UJ president was approved in the 1980s to cover the cost of the regular programme, is allocated for students whose General Secondary Education Certificate Examination scores do not qualify them to study specific subjects at public universities through the regular programme.

Tuition fees for this programme are higher than regular programmes.

Tarawneh said in his post that the group targeted through the parallel programme was the “more privileged” class, whose members can afford the more expensive credit hours, to cover the cost of the regular programme.

He did not give a specific timeline for the phasing out of the programme, but said that members of a committee from the trustee board will examine the possibility of treating excelling students as regular programme students in terms of tuition fees.

Commenting on Tarawneh's Facebook post, some students said scrapping the parallel programme is not the answer, while others said such a decision should not be posted on Facebook, and should be implemented on the ground through long-term plans. 

Tarawneh was unavailable to comment on the matter later that day despite several attempts by The Jordan Times. 

AMMAN — Jordan's first experiment in artificial rainmaking is scheduled to take place during spring in the Jordan Valley over the catchment area of King Talal Dam, a government official said on Sunday.

The first experiment will be implemented after Jordan and Thailand sign a memorandum of understanding on March 23 to benefit from the East Asian country's vast experience in rainmaking technology, Jordan Meteorological Department (JMD) Director General Mohammad Samawi said.

"Deciding on the date of the experiment relies on specific weather conditions. However, preparations for the experiment will start when a team of Thai experts from the Bureau of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation arrive to Jordan on Tuesday and the experiment can only be implemented after the memo is signed," Samawi told The Jordan Times.

The department has rented a plane from the Royal Jordanian Air Force, Samawi added, noting that machines for grounding the substances that will be sprayed by the plane over the clouds for rainmaking should arrive this week.

Artificial rainfall entails attempting to induce or increase precipitation.

According to the clouds' different physical properties, this can be done using airplanes or rockets to sow the clouds with catalysts such as dry ice, silver iodide and salt powder to increase precipitation, according to web sources.

In Jordan, the JMD is planning to use two groups of seeding agents depending on whether a cloud is cold or warm, including calcium chloride and compressed carbon dioxide as freezing agents and a compound of urea and ammonium nitrate for the absorption of moisture.

"Using artificial rainmaking techniques seeks to raise the amount of precipitation in Jordan, 90 per cent of which receives an average of 20-200 millimetres of rain per year… Increasing precipitation will raise storage at the dams, expand the country's green cover and boost natural pastures," Samawi underscored.

Jordan tried making artificial rain on its own between 1989 and 1995, but the experiment failed as the airplane and equipment used for this purpose stopped functioning, and the project faced several challenges.

The Thai technology was developed in 1969 by King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand who holds an international patent on the rainmaking method, which involves introducing certain chemicals in cloudy areas to “seed” the clouds with increased moisture that would eventually result in precipitation.

In 2009, Jordan received permission from Thailand to use the technique.

Already a victim to climate change, Jordan will witness a 15-60 per cent decrease in precipitation and a 1-4°C increase in temperatures, which will in turn have serious potential impacts on its natural ecosystems, river basins, watersheds and biodiversity, as the 2013-2020 Jordan Climate Change Policy has suggested.

Climate change over the past two decades has also caused a drastic drop in rainfall and prolonged dry spells in the Kingdom, according to a recent study issued by the Water Ministry.

Recent official figures indicate that 80 per cent of the Kingdom's long-term annual average rainfall of 8 billion cubic metres has been achieved since the start of the wet season. 

Until late February, Jordan had received 6.638 billion cubic metres of rainwater, leaving its 10 major dams at 59 per cent capacity out of a total capacity of 325 million cubic metres.

AMMAN — The Labour Ministry on Sunday announced "a new approach" to create 5,000 job opportunities for Jordanians in remote areas.

The jobs will be created through plans for 15 new projects funded by the Employment-Technical and Vocational Education Training Fund (E-TVET), a statement quoted Labour Minister Nidal Katamine as saying.

Katamine said the projects will target local communities in remote areas including Wadi Araba, Deir Alla, Southern Ghor, Tafileh, Maan, Karak, Rweished, Aqaba, Jerash and Ajloun.

The minister said the projects will provide around 14 rehabilitation and care centres, affiliated with the Social Development Ministry, with hundreds of capable human resources from their areas to serve people with disabilities and their families.

He added that the plan also entails funding small- and medium-sized enterprises — such as beauty salons, gyms and kindergartens — affiliated  with these centres to help them generate their income in the future to create more jobs. 

There are also plans to hire unemployed people in the private sector in Aqaba, Zarqa and Amman, providing them with jobs and incentives that allow them a decent living, as part of their salaries will be paid by E-TVET for two years, until they are qualified to assume certain jobs. 

The ministry statement quoted Katamine as saying that there are "very little" opportunities for Jordanians living in remote areas because of the lack of industrial investments and expertise in vocational and technical fields.

He added that residents cannot work far away due to expensive commutes to the capital and living expenses.

AMMAN — The Ministry of Social Development seeks to engage families of disabled children under six years in a home-based early intervention programme, a ministry official said Sunday.

The programme, which was recently referred to the Prime Ministry for approval, entails providing a team of specialists (early childhood specialist, a psychiatrist and a physiotherapist) to provide services for children with all sorts of disabilities at their houses, said the ministry's spokesperson, Fawaz Ratrout.

This way, disabled children do not have to be "uprooted" from their homes to receive specialised care and can easily integrate into their families and communities, he said, adding that the move, if approved, would decrease costs and leave room for serving disabled children with no families.

Ratrout pointed to a lack of communication between persons with disabilities at care centres and their families, noting that "few" families maintain regular or frequent communication with their disabled family members, and "a lot" of them rarely or never communicate.

He cited the example of a 35-year-old man suffering from autism and intense mental disability, who was enrolled in one of the ministry's care centres over the past six years and recently returned to live with his family once the ministry could identify them.

The man was later found at the front door of the centre, neglected by his family and looking "untidy" with long hair and nails. The centre took him back in, according to Ratrout.  

To address this issue, the ministry will have families of people with disabilities enrolled at care centres sign an official paper in which they commit to visiting their children and hosting them at their homes on holidays.

Families are usually either ashamed of their disabled members or do not know how to deal with them, especially since it could be expensive to look after them, the spokesperson noted. 

"It is dangerous that persons with disabilities stay with such families," he told The Jordan Times over phone.

Ratrout said some 700 persons with disabilities receive care at the ministry's five centres, in addition to some 1,500 enrolled in private care centres, all of which witness "weak" familial communication.

AMMAN — The Cabinet on Sunday reviewed the initial plan for a shopping festival to be held in Jordan this summer, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The festival aims at stimulating commercial movement in the Kingdom through a set of activities and events for a whole month during summer.

During the festival, there will be sales at shops and malls and events for Jordanians and visiting tourists and expatriates, Petra reported. 

AMMAN — The army said on Sunday that Border Guards received 312 Syrian refugees during the previous 72 hours.

The troops transferred the refugees to shelters and camps, and Royal Medical Services personnel treated the injured, according to an army statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.