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AMMAN — An army source said on Tuesday that Border Guards received 83 Syrian refugees over the previous 24 hours.

The troops transferred the refugees to shelters and camps, and Royal Medical Services personnel treated the injured, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, quoted the source as saying.

Border Guards in 2015 received 16,997 Syrian refugees, an official source at the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army said earlier this year.

AMMAN — The Lower House on Tuesday passed the draft 2015 parliamentary elections law with minor changes following six marathon sessions that began Sunday.

With the endorsement of the bill, all political reform-oriented laws are now completed, after three key pieces of legislation have been passed, namely the Political Parties Law, Decentralisation Law and Municipalities Law.  

The notorious one-person, one-vote electoral system, which was introduced in 1993, is history under the version of the law adopted by MPs. The new law is based on the at-large voting system in which candidates can run for parliamentary elections on one large multi-member ticket.

The number of Lower House members was reduced to 130 from 150 under the 2015 elections bill, which is based on the open proportional list at the level of the governorate/constituency.

Under Article 9 of the 68-article law, 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 candidates of his/her choice from the same ticket.
Under the 2012 law, on the basis of which the 2013 parliamentary elections were held, each voter was given two votes: one for a candidate at the district level and another for a closed proportional list that competed for 27 seats at the national level.

The House endorsed a provision dividing the Kingdom into 23 electoral districts, one for each of the 12 governorates, except for Amman, which was split into five districts, Irbid into four and Zarqa into two, while each of the three badia districts (northern, central and southern) was considered a governorate for the purposes of the bill at hand.

The draft law allocates 115 seats for the constituencies and 15 seats for a women’s quota: one seat for each governorate and one seat for each badia district.

The draft law stipulates that running for elections for women’s seats has to be within tickets without affecting the maximum limit of candidates in the list. 

The draft law also stipulates that each ticket include no fewer than three candidates and not exceed the number of seats allocated for the constituency in which the ticket is competing.

The draft law stipulates that candidates for Circassian, Chechen and Christian seats can only run through lists in the districts where these groups have been designated seats in the House.

The proportional electoral system allows winning lists to have seats according to what they achieved of the total percentage of votes cast, and these seats won will be distributed among the ticket members depending on the number of votes each candidate has garnered.

People in public office, including ministers, ministry employees, and mayors, are not allowed to run for the elections unless they resign their posts at least 60 days before the date of voting.

According to the draft law, anyone who intends to run for the elections must be registered in the final voter lists and unlike the draft submitted by the government, which said they must pay JD1, 000 each, nominees must pay only a non-refundable JD500 to the Treasury.

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday left on a working visit to the US and is scheduled to hold a summit meeting with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday at the White House, a Royal Court statement said. 

The two leaders will discuss strategic relations and partnership, regional and international efforts to combat terrorism, the latest developments in the Syrian crisis and efforts to resolve the conflict through a political solution and ways to revive Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations. 

His Majesty visited the US last month and met with senior administration officials and key lawmakers. No meeting was scheduled with Obama, but the two leaders met briefly at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, and agreed to meet in February. 

HRH Prince Feisal was sworn in as Regent.

AMMAN — Jordan has been very helpful in facilitating delivery of humanitarian aid to the south of Syria, a UN official has said, as the conflict in the area across the northern border has intensified over the past three months.

United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Jordan Edward Kallon said that the escalation has resulted in large-scale devastation of civilian infrastructure and an unprecedented displacement of some 70,000 people.

“As we speak, there are approximately 43,000 new internally displaced persons (IDPs) in southern Syria, most of whom had been displaced two or three times,” Kallon told The Jordan Times in an interview on Tuesday.

“We work with the government of Jordan in delivering the aid and officials have been very helpful in facilitating the logistic arrangements to deliver humanitarian assistance to the south of Syria,” the UN official said, adding that humanitarian assistance is transported through the northern crossing point to areas of high need. The UN and NGO partners work with local NGOs in Syria that are distributing humanitarian assistance to the affected population, Kallon added.

“With the cessation of hostilities that was announced and is expected on the 27th [of February], I am hoping the situation will change and that international staff and national staff will be able to travel across the border into the south of Syria to monitor the delivery of humanitarian assistance and enhance accountability” in the process, Kallon explained.

However, he voiced concerns that with the current bombardment and the shelling of medical facilities in southern Syria, things might not go as smoothly as hoped.

“In order to continue responding effectively to the rapidly evolving dynamics on the ground, the UN and its partners have developed a contingency plan to scale up our humanitarian response in southern Syria,” the international official said. 

Immediate plans are in place to deliver food rations for an additional 55,500 IDPs and pre-position basic household items for up to 100,000 people.

London conference

Meanwhile, the UN representative expressed optimism regarding the pledges made at London conference early this month.

“I agree that [previously] Jordan had a very bad experience with international pledges, especially with the Palestinian cause, which has not been very successful over the years,” he said. However, “I was delighted with the international response at the London conference. It was unprecedented and the largest humanitarian pledges have been made for one single humanitarian crisis”. 

“I am convinced of a strong political commitment from the London conference, leading to commitment for change of transformative policy adoptions, which was unique,” he said.

The Jordan Compact, the statement Jordan issued upon the conclusion of the gathering, was “innovative, focussing on strategic partnership to a holistic approach”, according to the official, who noted that the document was meant to turn the challenge of the refugee problem into development gains that would benefit Jordanians and Syrians.

The challenge at hand, however, is to translate the pledges into facts on the ground. 

“This is the challenge for the UN system and for the government of Jordan and for the multilateral development banks,” he said.

Jordan Response Plan 2016-2018

The UN official also described the Jordan Response Plan (JRP) to the Syrian crisis as a manifestation of a “bold and innovative decision” by the government to bring together humanitarian and development programming under a common nationally led resilience framework. 

“The JRP has been recognised as a leading global effort in finding innovative and sustainable solutions to mitigate the impact of protracted crises,” he said.

In addition, Kallon said, the JRP outlines a coherent and sequenced response to the impact of the Syria crisis. It embodies a multi-year vision to guide short and medium-term interventions, while ensuring immediate and concrete improvements to the lives of refugees and people living in host communities. 

“The introduction of a multi-year plan will allow donors to undertake multi-year budgeting and resource allocation, while facilitating greater funding predictability for operational partners,” he explained.

Receiving more refugees

Meanwhile, Kallon said the UN always encourages governments to offer asylum to people seeking safe refuges, but for Jordan, it has “reached a saturation point, given the small economic base of the country”.

Although “we keep advocating to the government of Jordan to allow in vulnerable groups that have been affected by this crisis”, he said, the UN “understands the government position, we also have to be very thankful for the hosting of 630,000 registered refugees”.

UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF)

In 2014, the UN decided the transition of the UNDAF into the UN Assistance Framework. 

This transition, according to Kallon, was done to adopt the assistance framework to address the priorities of this country. 

The impact of Syrian crisis is still very severe, the UN official said, so in the next generation of UNDAF, “we will continue to use this approach to ensure that we deal with the priorities of this government”.

The new UNDAF cycle that will start next year will include the needs of Jordan to address the impact of the Syrian crisis and also to support the government and the structural development.

The employment of Syrian refugees

The UN views Syrians’ access to the local job market as a unique economic opportunity for Jordan that needs to be supported by donors and multilateral development banks with investment on concessional terms as stated in the Jordan Compact, Kallon said. 

He added that this move will transform the refugee problem into an opportunity to make development gains and attract investment for macroeconomic recovery.

“My appeal is that Jordan needs more than just resilience support and assistance; Jordan needs investments,” Kallon stressed.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The UN is working with the Ministry of Planning to raise awareness on the 2030 SDGs that were recently endorsed by the member states and the UN country team is working with the ministry to develop a roadmap to implement the SDGs in the national planning process. 

“A workshop is planned very soon to develop this roadmap, but the government of Jordan has already addressed some of the SDGs in the 2025 vision and the executive programmes that have already been developed,” said the UN resident.

“So we will build on this effort that has already been started,” he added, to lay the foundation for Jordan to start working on the SDGs and to address its structural development needs.

AMMAN – Municipalities owe the Social Security Department (SSC) only JD4 million in unpaid subscription fees after dues went down from JD19 million last year, SSC Spokesperson Musa Sbeihi told The Jordan Times Tuesday. 

Sbeihi said in a phone interview that the value of debts declined after Zarqa Municipality, which was the largest indebted entity, and the SSC reached a debt swap agreement under which 32 dunums of land in the city of Zarqa owned by the municipality were sold to the corporation few weeks ago. 

The municipality used to owe the SSC around JD10 million, he noted. 

Sbeihi said that the corporation has frequently advised municipalities to pay subscription fees for their employees on a monthly basis to avoid debt accumulation, but the advice was not heeded. 

The spokesperson indicated that the corporation and the state-owned Cities and Villages Development Bank (CVDB) are cooperating in the field of unpaid financial dues owed by municipalities to bring down their debts. 

He cited a 2014 agreement between the two institutions, under which CVDB agreed to bail out financially troubled municipalities by paying JD16.5 million. 

Sbeihi said that private sector establishments currently owe the corporation tens of millions of dinars in unpaid subscription fees, indicating that there are around 15 companies that owe the SSC over JD1 million each in unpaid fees for their employees. 

AMMAN — Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) has reconsidered its plan to sell Umniah after it announced earlier that it was considering a sale of the company.

“Having explored received interest, the Batelco board of directors has decided that it is in the best interests of stakeholders to retain its full ownership of Umniah and not to progress any further with the sale process,” Ahmad Hussein Al Janahi, secretary of the board and general manager of corporate affairs at Batelco, said in a statement to the Bahrain stock market this week.

In January, Batelco said it had decided to launch a private sale process for Umniah, one of Jordan’s three mobile operators.

Batelco noted that non-binding offers from potential interested parties were received in January.

It added: “Over the coming period, together with our advisers, we will evaluate the offers received and update the market in due course.”

Last year, several media outlets reported that Batelco had reached out to potential buyers including Emirates Telecommunications Group and Qatar’s Ooredoo QSC about a sale of its Jordanian mobile operator.

The number of Umniah subscribers reached 3.8 million at the end of the second half of 2015, according to the latest available figures.

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Tuesday challenged an audience of international leaders to break inherited moulds that have been imposed on women, and pursue innovation in improving their standing.

Her remarks came in a keynote speech at the opening of the Global Women’s Forum in Dubai, where she was also awarded the Mohammed Bin Rashid Medal of Honour for Women, according to a statement from Her Majesty's office.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE vice president and prime minister and ruler of Dubai, personally conceived the medal to honour and celebrate leading women for their achievements.

The award was given in recognition of Queen Rania’s invaluable impact as a champion for women's empowerment across the Arab region, the statement said.

Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, crown prince of Dubai and chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, presented the award to Her Majesty.

In her speech, Queen Rania said that “a society’s expectations of women directly reflect its confidence in their abilities and potential”.

Her Majesty explained that the infiltration of Arab societies by extremist ideologies requires an exceptional urgency for change and demands leaps in progress. 

“We need to actively fight currents that are trying to throw us centuries behind,” the Queen said at the forum, which has attracted more than 2,000 participants from 70 countries.

“Many Arab women have faced so many tragedies that their lives have been turned around into worst case scenarios,” she added.

Referring to the growing and complicated problems of the Arab world, Queen Rania stated that “we are stuck hovering over the same ground, prevented by the winds of conflicts, inherited boundaries and backward ideologies”.

Her Majesty said that “a powerful push forward” was necessary. She explained that modern technology can help transform education, create jobs and overcome the barriers women face.

“We have tools that give women a louder voice, and a wider space to participate and advocate,” the Queen said. 

She underlined the importance of using creative skills, unconventional solutions and new approaches to prompt quick and lasting change.

Her Majesty also referred to the success stories of several Arab women, who have employed modern technology to serve their societies, as only a sliver of countless initiatives by Arab female pioneers.

Underlining the breakthroughs the UAE has achieved through its leaders' vision, the Queen said: “there is no better place than the UAE to inspire participants to innovate.” 

She commended the determination and wise leadership of Sheikh Mohammed in developing the emirate of Dubai into an oasis of prosperity.

Queen Rania also highlighted Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak’s role in pushing the women of her country to excel in many sectors. 

She added that Sheikha Fatima became “a role model for women by raising the bar and encouraging them to look beyond boundaries”.

In the conclusion of her speech, the Queen underscored the Arab world’s dire need to catch up with global trends. She said this would “require strong, knowledgeable and ambitious women that can help our societies stand strong again and help us realise our full potential”.

The forum, which concludes on Wednesday, brings together leaders from around the world, including women and men, representing business, government, academia and culture with the aim of creating a global network capable of boosting the influence of women throughout the world.

AMMAN — An expert in Jordan's mediaeval history has challenged popular beliefs about the 12th-century Crusader occupation, arguing that the sparse European presence did not spark radical changes in the area, as well as that the decline of Petra after the Roman era was more gradual than usually assumed.

"Because their numbers in the region of Transjordan were very limited, the Franks [Western European crusaders] went through a process of skillful adaptation to the local environment to be able to hold the new territories," said Micaela Sinibaldi, a recent postdoctoral fellow at Berlin's Humboldt-Universität and Freie Universität.

The scholar told The Jordan Times in a recent interview that patterns of adaptation and continuity were far more important than those of disruption and change during the Crusader occupation in Transjordan, contrary to the widespread but old-fashioned idea that Europeans always brought about deep changes when they settled in the Near East.

Unlike other archaeologists and historians, who maintain that the Crusades had a significant impact on Transjordan and Petra, Sinibaldi said there were actually very few Franks in Transjordan compared to other areas of the Near East, to the extent that they had to use local Christians to hold many of their castles.

However, they did establish "fortified sites which were to survive to our days", such as the castles of Karak and Shawbak, which were "re-fortified in time through the whole Islamic period, mainly the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods" on account of their strategic locations.

She noted that the agricultural conditions in areas near the Petra Valley and the presence of a local Christian population were among the main reasons why the Franks chose to settle in Petra, some 235km south of Amman, and other areas in southern Jordan.

Sinibaldi, who is planning to publish two books on archaeology in the region, also challenged the "popular belief, often found in magazine articles and guidebooks, that the whole Petra region was completely abandoned after the Byzantine period, apart from a short parenthesis during the Crusader period".

"The current scholarly understanding is that Petra lost its leading role after the Roman period... and it is clear from archaeological research that settlement in the Petra Valley gradually diminished over the later periods," she acknowledged.

However, the researcher stressed that "settlement has never stopped existing in  Petra", arguing that "the commonly held idea of a complete abandonment of the Petra Valley has been created on the basis of the almost complete lack of studies of ceramics of the Islamic period".

The expert explained that the lack of surviving buildings from this historical phase, due to people making use of already-built structures, as well as the "remarkable prosperity" of Petra in earlier eras, caused scholars to overlook habitation in the early Islamic periods.

Sinibaldi, an Italian archaeologist, came to Jordan for the first time as a student in 1994 and has spent long periods in the Kingdom ever since doing fieldwork.

She has obtained a PhD from the UK's Cardiff University on the subject of Transjordan in the Crusader period.  

Her other main research interest is the Petra region during the Islamic and mediaeval eras, historical phases she sees as neglected compared to earlier periods. 

The scholar plans to publish two books this year. One of them is the result of her PhD research, under the title "Settlement in Crusader Transjordan, 1100-1189". The other is a collection of essays she is co-editing on the Crusader period in the Levant.

"I am also planning several presentations on my current research and more fieldwork in Petra for the newly launched Islamic Bayda Project, which I direct," Sinibaldi concluded.

The Islamic Bayda Project, begun in 2014, involves the excavation of an Islamic-period agricultural village near Petra.

AMMAN — Procedures are under way to establish a JD1 billion industrial complex for the production of fertilisers in Aqaba in partnership with a Chinese company, according to Khalil Farrayeh, spokesperson of the state-run Aqaba Development Corporation.

The Jordan Phosphate Mines Company and China’s Chongqing Minmetal and Machinery Import and Export Co. (CMMC) have signed a memorandum of understanding to build the industrial complex, Farrayeh told The Jordan Times over the phone on Tuesday.

“We are currently in the process of determining the amount of land that we will lease to the two sides for the industrial complex and procedures are going ahead for the implementation of this new significant investment in Aqaba,” he said.

The first phase of the project will cost around $350 million, according to Farrayeh, who said the fertilisers produced by the industrial complex will be exported to several markets across the world.

The industrial facility, he added, will use raw material from the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company and the Arab Potash Company.

The project will create job opportunities and will help support the economy, Farrayeh noted.

CMMC, which was founded in 1983, specialises in contracting overseas projects, exporting labour services, acting as an agent for the import and export of various commodities and technologies, and engaging in domestic trade. 

The company is a member of the the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, the China International Contractors Association and the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters, according to its website.

AMMAN — A Public Sector Development Ministry team has conducted an unannounced visit to a healthcare centre in Qweismeh, uncovering various irregularities. 

During the visit team members did not find the director in his office or any of the officials in the vaccination room, according to a ministry statement sent to The Jordan Times on Tuesday. 

The team found children playing around with important files as the rooms were open, which could lead to the loss of important documents or the damage of machines and appliances.

The team recorded their observations in a report that was sent to Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, and a copy was also sent to the Ministry of Health.  

Before the visit, the team collected information related to the centre’s website and the method of which the operator answers those in need of health services, the statement said, adding that only the mobile number was available which they attempted to call five times with no answer.  

According to the report, the centre is located in a commercial and crowded area, occupying the second and third floors of a building. 

There are no parking spots for patients, and no signs showing where the health centre is located.  

The entrance of the building is not accessible for people with disabilities, and the space inside is small with an evident hole in the ground that could injure people as they enter. Due to the small space inside the building, it would also be hard for people to move around, the statement said. 

The lack of organised queues in the centre causes chaos when customers buy medicine, aside from the fact that the walls and rooms are in need of maintenance and rehabilitation. 

The report also said that there are no waiting rooms available for patients or seats that would accommodate the number of people in the centre. 

The three restrooms available in the building are also unsuitable, as the one on the first floor is being used a storage room, the one on the second floor is being used by all patients in the centre, and the third is only to be used by employees. All three restrooms also show to have poor hygiene.  

The report revealed that employees use labs and emergency rooms as spaces to “eat and socialise”; labels for rooms are spread randomly and some are not even printed but rather handwritten on walls and doors. 

The ministry report also revealed that the receptionists give priority to patients they know rather than serving everyone. 

Patients in clinics are diagnosed in front of everyone with no privacy as doors stay open, and people in the waiting rooms were seen smoking, the statement said.

The ministry team also highlighted the absence of signs explaining the procedures to admit patients, noting that there are no complaints and suggestions boxes either. 

The team observed that the employees did not wear ID badges, while some doctors were seen prescribing medication for patients without proper diagnosis.

Recommendations called for coordination with the Greater Amman Municipality to rehabilitate the centre and address the problems that were found 

Unannounced visits are made to evaluate public services as part of the executive plan of the Public Sector Development Ministry.