Local

AMMAN — The good citizenship, loyalty and kindness of Jordanians are among the most important factors in bringing about positive change in their communities, Her Majesty Queen Rania said Wednesday. 

The Queen made these remarks while attending the launch of the sixth "Jordan Volunteers Forum" on Wednesday at the Royal Cultural Centre, according to a statement from Her Majesty's office.

The forum highlighted the accomplishments of Jordan Volunteers over the past year, as well as the group’s online and offline initiatives, which are reaching a wider network of volunteers and beneficiaries.

Her Majesty said she was proud of the young volunteers and delighted with their initiatives that have institutionalised the concept of volunteerism in the country.

Jordan Volunteers President Motasem Masalmeh, and its founder, Mohammad Jaber, discussed their newly launched services with the Queen. 

The new services include a smartphone application that makes finding nearby voluntary activities easy in all governorates. It also sends reminders of events, as well as useful tips about volunteerism.

While at the forum, Queen Rania browsed the Jordan Volunteers online platform, which gives members in different governorates access to courses in voluntary work. 

These online courses are designed to enhance volunteers' skills and abilities, the statement said.

Her Majesty also listened to a briefing on the forum, which included overviews of the members’ initiatives, their goals, and how they would like to see the future of volunteerism evolve. 

The brief was followed by a short film highlighting the success story of one of the group’s humanitarian initiatives.

Members of the group gifted Her Majesty a copy of a book titled "Jordan Volunteers Experience", written by the group’s members.

Since its launch in 2009, 33,000 members have joined the Jordan Volunteers group and have been able to organise hundreds of volunteer activities in different sectors. 

The elderly, orphans, people with disabilities and paediatric cancer patients are among the group's beneficiaries.  

Jordan Volunteers is registered as a non-profit company under the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Supply.

AMMAN — The army said on Wednesday that Border Guards received 58 Syrian refugees during the previous 24 hours.

Border Guards transferred the refugees to camps and shelters, and Royal Medical Services cadres treated the injured, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

AMMAN — University students in Maan received scholarships from the Goodwill Campaign on Wednesday. HRH Princess Basma, president of the campaign's higher committee, distributed the support during a visit to the Princess Basma Development Centre in the governorate, some 220km south of Amman, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

She also gave out assistance to several charity societies and was briefed on a number of initiatives by women and young people in the governorate.

The princess stressed the important role of local communities in development and the efforts of youth and women committees at Princess Basma centres to serve society.

She also inaugurated the new premises of the Maan charity society for orphans and distributed gifts to the children. At the ceremony, the princess announced a donation by the Goodwill Campaign to prepare and equip the society's outdoor yard for the children.

AMMAN — A 62-year-old woman was electrocuted to death at her house on Wednesday, a Civil Defence Department statement said. Also on Wednesday four people were injured when their vehicle overturned in Ajloun. They were hospitalised and listed in fair condition.

In another incident, a 17-year-old drowned in an agricultural pond in Mafraq, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, quoted Mafraq Public Hospital Director Smeir Mashaqbeh as saying. Mashaqbeh said the man was dead on arrival.

AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Tuesday said ancient coins were replaced with fakes in national museums in the capital some 15 years ago.

Responding to MPs' inquiries into the case during Tuesday's Lower House oversight session, Ensour said around 315 ancient coins were replaced by fake ones between 2001 and 2002, adding that the case was immediately referred to the judiciary at the time. 

The premier added that the coins had originally been in many museums across the country and had been "probably substituted by fake ones during the distribution of artefacts to museums".

The House Integrity Committee recently asked Tourism and Antiquities Minister Nayef Al Fayez to provide a list of the ancient artefacts, coins and antiquities that are displayed in the Kingdom’s museums.

The request was made following the discovery of fake ancient gold and silver coins in the Citadel Museum in Amman recently, according to MP Amjad Al Khattab (Maan, 1st District).

“There were 401 ancient coins in the Citadel Museum, and someone replaced 400 of these priceless pieces with fake ones,” Khattab told The Jordan Times over the phone last week.

Responding to MPs’ complaints about traffic congestion in Amman, Ensour said the Greater Amman Municipality has been given the go-ahead to implement traffic projects in the heavily populated capital.

The latest national census, conducted late last year, put Amman’s population at around 4 million.

With some deputies raising the issue of repeated drowning accidents in the King Abdullah Canal in the Jordan Valley, the premier stressed the need for more work to avert such accidents and save lives.

Recently, the Jordan Valley Authority and the Jordanian Economic and Social Organisation for Retired Servicemen signed an agreement under which the latter will post guards along the canal, where several drowning cases are reported every summer, most of them children.

Some MPs also warned against Jordan’s participation in any military coalition that could lead to ground operations in Syria, referring to news reports suggesting that Jordanian troops are now training in Saudi Arabia in preparation for Saudi-led operations in war-torn Syria.

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday had several phone calls with Arab leaders and discussed with them bilateral relations, the anti-terror drive and regional and international developments. 

In a phone call with Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the King stressed the depth of bilateral relations and voiced interest to enhance them in different fields, serving mutual interests, a Royal Court statement said. 

They went over regional and international developments, especially in regard to combating terrorism and terrorist groups within a comprehensive approach. 

In a recent interview with  the BBC, His Majesty explained that eliminating terrorists, particularly Daesh, in Syria and Iraq is only one step in a global war against terror that should bring together “Muslims, Christians, Jews and others …, united in a common cause against the khawarej [outlaws of Islam]because that is where the enemy is, whether it’s in Syria or Iraq or East or West Africa, in Libya and elsewhere in the world. And the sooner the international community figures that one out, the better the world would be”.

His Majesty and Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz discussed developments in the Middle East and ways to respond to them.

In the phone conversation with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the two leaders discussed developments in the Middle East in regard to combating terrorism to preserve security and stability in the region and the world.

They also stressed the importance of maintaining coordination and dialogue regarding the different regional and international issues.

AMMAN — The Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) pension fund is a success that must be defended against any rumours, JEA President Majid Tabaa told reporters on Tuesday. 

Tabaa said the fund is not facing financial problems, noting that actuarial studies are conducted by any fund to protect its financial status and rate its performance. 

The recent seventh actuarial study did not bring any surprises and was compatible with previous ones, showing no risk, he said.

Factors taken into consideration in the actuarial study include the increase in the number of JEA members, which stood at 130,000 by the end of 2015 compared to only 40,000 in 2000, according to Tabaa.

Other factors include the increase of female members, who now constitute 25 per cent, according to the seventh study. Women's retirement age is 55, whereas men's retirement age is 60. 

The JEA Council formed a committee to study the recommendations of the study and then presented a proposal that it discussed with nearly 1,200 people from the association before showcasing it to the JEA's general assembly.

The proposal aims at pushing the second and third break-even points from 2019 to 2035 and from 2028 to 2046 respectively to strengthen the fund even more, Tabaa said.

He noted that the JEA Council can only propose but the general assembly is the one with the final decision to accept or reject the proposal. 

The proposal calls for gradually raising fund subscription fees as of 2018 and over a three-year period. No measures will be taken to raise the pension age.

Some JEA members have previously accused the association of investing the fund's resources in "losing projects" and expressed their rejection of any move to raise the retirement age.

"The fund has paid JD158 million in pensions and administrative spending since its establishment until now," Tabaa said, adding that "this value was replenished through revenues by the end of 2014, so what the engineers pay as membership fees is still in the fund, and we indeed have a book value of around JD220 million and a market value of around JD330 million".

Tabaa noted that investments in industry, education and real estate development are part of the JEA's national duty to take part in the Kingdom's different investments. 

Even if the subscription fee is raised, it will still be less than that of similar funds, reaching only 12 per cent of the salary, he said.

AMMAN — Vesicular stomatitis, a disease reported to have infected a shipment of live cattle en route to Jordan, has only a mild impact on animal and public health, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Tuesday.

The viral disease is not registered under the World Organisation for Animal Health's (OIE) 2016 list, which includes 118 animal diseases, infections and infestations, the ministry's spokesperson, Nimer Haddadin, said.

"The OIE has dropped vesicular stomatitis from its list of diseases in 2014 because it doesn’t cause any real danger or impact on infected animals," Haddadin told The Jordan Times over the phone, noting that the cattle shipment is on its way to the country from Columbia.

Vesicular stomatitis is a viral disease that is usually limited to the Americas. 

However, cases have been reported in France in 1915 and 1917 and in South Africa in 1886 and 1897, according to the OIE website, which indicated that the incubation period varies from two to eight days with an average of three to five days, while in humans, the incubation period can vary from one to six days but is usually three to four days.

Mahdi Aqrabawi, director of the Greater Amman Municipality's Slaughterhouse Department, said vesicular stomatitis infects humans who are in contact with the infected cattle, noting that the symptoms in humans are similar to catching a cold, in addition to joint pains and mouth ulcers, while the recovery period is a week.

"The Slaughterhouse Department has previously dealt with similar cases, and it takes standard precautionary measures. The disease, however, is not transmittable to people via meat," Aqrabawi told The Jordan Times.

He underscored that authorities always check the status of animal diseases via the OIE and ban the entry of animals infected with diseases that affect public or animal health.

AMMAN — The EU and the Department of Lands and Survey (DLS) on Tuesday launched a 1 million euro twinning project aimed at enhancing the technical and administrative capacities of the DLS in the fields of cadastre (mapping real estate ownership and values) and administration.

Finance Minister Omar Malhas said public agencies always seek to reach solutions and make use of modern technologies to facilitate procedures in public transactions.

"We aspire to provide an accurate database for buildings that matches reality, especially when it comes to maps and blueprints," Malhas said.

DLS is the main beneficiary of the project — dubbed "Reducing discrepancies between the physical reality and the graphical cadastral information in Jordan" — while co-beneficiaries and participants include the Greater Amman Municipality, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the Royal Jordanian Geographic Centre and the Association of Owners of Land Survey Offices, the minister noted.

Planning and International Cooperation Minister Imad Fakhoury said the project, executed in cooperation with the governments of the Netherlands and Sweden, will be implemented over 18 months and falls under the EU technical assistance framework.

The services that DLS provides have a horizontal impact on the business environment, making it necessary to invest in simplifying and automating its services, as well as those of many other entities of the same nature, he noted at the project's launch ceremony.

"The past twinning project [for] the DLS and the systems associated with the project have significantly improved the skills and practices of the staff and management," the minister said.

Sweden implemented a previous DLS twinning project which concluded "successfully" in April 2013 and was evaluated with the highest score from the EU twinning reviewers, according to an EU statement.

"We encourage our colleagues at the DLS to absorb and sustain the benefits of this twinning arrangement, and to employ the best workable practices provided by their [European] counterparts, and we also encourage them to continue streamlining their services and make them accessible online," Fakhoury said.

In this regard, he noted that after 10 years of implementing twinning projects, it has become evident that twinning is instrumental in exchanging and maintaining international best practices.

EU Ambassador to Jordan Andrea Matteo Fontana praised EU-Jordanian cooperation in the field of cadastral and land surveys, noting that the EU partnership supports national reform efforts.

Swedish Ambassador to Jordan Helena Gröndahl Rietz highlighted the role of the lead partner of the project — Swedsurvey, the state-owned overseas agency of Lantmäteriet (the Swedish mapping, cadastral and land registration authority), which implemented the first project — along with the Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency of the Netherlands.

"The project is multi-dimensional, because beyond the technical role of reducing discrepancies… it is about capacity building and transfer of knowledge," Rietz explained.

Dutch Ambassador to Jordan Paul van den IJssel said the project underlines the importance his country attaches to cooperation with Jordan in various fields.

DLS Director General Moeen Al Sayegh underscored the significance of the scheme in providing accurate information on lands in the Kingdom, commending previous experiences with EU partners.

AMMAN — The Consumer Protection Society (CPS) on Tuesday called on the government to intervene and reduce food prices at restaurants exempt from sales tax, citing a decrease in the prices of ingredients used in cooking.

In a statement sent to The Jordan Times, CPS President Mohammad Obeidat was quoted as saying that prices of raw materials used in traditional dishes have decreased "dramatically", a phenomenon which should require restaurants serving these meals to lower their prices. 

Obeidat noted that prices of materials used in the production of hummus and falafel have decreased by 20 per cent, calling on restaurants exempted from sales tax to lower the prices of these two items, which, he said, are basic meals for most Jordanians.

He noted that prices of olive oil have decreased by JD27 per gallon in the local market, in addition to the falling costs of other types of oil used more often in such restaurants and those of gas cylinders, according to the statement.

Obeidat added that prices of tahini, fava beans, ground foul and chickpeas have seen a "dramatic decrease" to JD34, JD12.75, JD17 and JD670, per gallon, per 25kg bag, per 5kg bag and per tonne respectively. 

The CPS president also noted that prices of plastic and carton containers and electricity have decreased in the local market, as well as fees for job permits.

He highlighted that most of these restaurants employ Syrians and Egyptians, which affects Jordanians' chances of finding employment, adding that "what is being said about Jordanians shying away from such jobs is unrealistic", according to the statement.