Local

AMMAN — Fifty-two new university graduates were honoured on Saturday at a ceremony recognising their completion of Ruwwad Al Tanmeya's scholarship and volunteerism programme.

The event was the non-profit organisation's 10th annual celebration for students graduating from its community service project.

The graduates studied at local universities and colleges with the support of scholarships from the Mousab Khorma Youth Education and Empowerment Fund, while simultaneously devoting four hours a week to volunteer work to serve the community.

The students selected for the programme come from marginalised communities around Jordan such as Jabal Al Natheef, Al Beida and Tafileh, according to organisers.

“For us this is not a graduation celebration per se; it is a celebration of thousands of hours of community service and volunteerism that the youth have engaged in,” said Samar Dudin, regional director and head of programmes at Ruwwad.

"We wanted to highlight the journey of empowerment. This is not a regular journey — these young people access cultural nourishment and business skills development, as well as the experience of being part of the community service programme," she added.

According to Dudin, the activities involved in these programmes focus on skill building and preparing young people to enter the job market.

“Our programmes are foundations on which we build these youths' characters. We focus on listening and on time discipline, as well as involvement in debates and open cooperative discussion. That becomes the culture of the work through which we engage,” she told The Jordan Times.

Hazem Zughayer, one of this year’s graduates, said his journey with Ruwwad is not over after five years of volunteering with the organisation.

“The programme helped me gain more confidence, especially when speaking in public and when expressing my opinions. It shapes your personality and makes you grow socially and intellectually in ways that university doesn’t provide,” Zughayer told The Jordan Times.

“I graduated with a bachelor's degree in information technology, and I want to give courses on this subject at Ruwwad for free. Before, we were volunteering in return for the scholarship. Now, I want to really volunteer my time and efforts — for nothing in return,” he added.

Ruwwad Al Tanmeya, a nonprofit organisation founded in 2005 by Aramex founder and vice chairman Fadi Ghandour and a group of Jordanian entrepreneurs, works in the areas of child development, youth organising and community support, according to its website.

Since 2005, 955 people have benefited from educational scholarships offered through Ruwwad. 

Ruwwad supports 450 young people in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine each year, who in turn contribute 84,600 community service hours in their neighbourhoods, schools and Ruwwad community centres, the NGO said in a statement.

The organisation is currently supported by Aramex and Cairo Amman Bank.

AMMAN — Border Guards on Friday foiled an attempt by three men who to cross from Jordan into a neighbouring country, an official source at the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army was quoted by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, as saying on Sunday.

Two of the men have a foreign nationality, the source noted. Border Guards observed the rules of engagement followed in such cases, apprehending the three men and referring them to the concerned authorities.

Also on Sunday, an army source said Border Guards received 51 Syrian refugees during the past 72 hours and sent them to shelters and camps.

AMMAN — King’s Military Adviser and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Gen. Mashal Al Zaben on Sunday met with Commander of the US Army Central Lt. Gen. Michael Garrett, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

At the meeting, attended by HRH Prince Feisal, the two officials discussed bilateral cooperation and coordination between the two armies, in addition to recent developments in the region.

AMMAN — Senate President Faisal Fayez on Sunday met with Qatari Ambassador to Jordan Bandar Al Attiyah and discussed bilateral ties and ways to develop them.

Fayez said Jordan enjoys security, stability and diplomatic presence in regional and international arenas, yet it faces economic challenges due to the surrounding conditions and hosting a large number of Syrian refugees, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Attiyah said Jordan plays a pivotal role in the region and has “distinguished relations” with Doha, adding that Qatari investors in the private sector are encouraged to establish businesses in Jordan.

The diplomat also called on Jordanian investors to participate in economic conferences and commercial exhibitions in Qatar to promote investment opportunities in the Kingdom, Petra added.

AMMAN — The Cabinet on Sunday approved the mandating reasons for the draft mediation to resolve civil disputes law. Justice Minister Bassam Talhouni said the bill provides for an alternative way to resolve conflicts through special mediation centres.

Talhouni said that if the draft law is approved, civil cases at courts will decrease substantially, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

AMMAN — The two Houses of Parliament are scheduled to present their replies to the Speech from the Throne during a meeting with His Majesty King Abdullah on Sunday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Saturday.

The King delivered his speech at the opening of the current ordinary session of the 17th Parliament on November 15.

According to Article 79 of the Constitution, "the King shall inaugurate the ordinary session of the National Assembly by a Speech from the Throne addressed to a joint meeting of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. 

"He may deputise the prime minister or any of the ministers to perform the inauguration ceremony and deliver the Speech from the Throne. Each of the two Houses shall submit a petition which shall contain its Reply thereto."

In his speech, the King underlined that Jordan has succeeded in turning challenges into opportunities by adopting a comprehensive roadmap seeking to achieve progress, sustainable development and a better future for Jordanians.

His Majesty cited the municipalities, decentralisation, political parties and elections laws as the cornerstones of the envisioned reform, calling for "the highest degree of cooperation and coordination between all institutions" to build on success achieved in various sectors.

Improving the living conditions of Jordanians is the first and foremost national priority, he told lawmakers, calling for more efforts to achieve that.

AQABA — Fifteen years after the establishment of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), the Red Sea resort  city “has matured and is ready to give back”, ASEZA Chief Commissioner Hani Mulki said, adding that increasing the city’s accessibility is a priority to achieve the planned goals.

Moreover, ASEZA will focus on the supply-driven approach so that investors and visitors coming to Aqaba can find what they look for immediately, rather than ask for a certain service and wait until it is provided.

In a meeting with journalists last week, Mulki noted that in the last 10 to 12 years, ASEZA was working on a demand-driven approach, waiting for something to happen to provide services. 

But “today, we are moving to a different approach”, he said.

In this regard, ASEZA is now working on establishing its own airlines or partnering with a regional airline to serve the different purposes of the region’s countries and increase accessibility to the Kingdom’s only port.

“The centre of doing business and tourism in Aqaba is accessibility…we have to improve accessibility”; thus, “we are looking for a regional airline to improve accessibility” and promote Aqaba better, the former minister said.

Contacts have been already initiated to find a regional airline, with which “we can partner”.

Although this service is not demand-driven for now, and there will be losses in the beginning, Mulki said, it is crucial and “we can’t wait for somebody to order [it]”.

According to the ASEZA chief commissioner, there will be no fewer than 1,000 apartments from different projects next year, and accessibility is needed for potential buyers — expatriates in Gulf Arab countries who would prefer to come to Aqaba directly rather than fly to Amman and then to the port city, in addition to retirees from around the world.

“We are almost done with the feasibility study. We have the partners lined up… the only problem is that do we start with a full fledged regional airline or do we start with one single plane?”

Aqaba, which only had 500 hotel rooms in 2000, now has 5,000 rooms, and the number is expected to reach 8,000 by the end of 2016.

A regional gateway

The ASEZA official stressed the importance of investing in Aqaba now before the reconstruction of Syria and Iraq starts, as it is a gateway for trade to flow into these two countries.

“We are telling everybody — today is the time to invest; do not come tomorrow. After reconstruction starts, then maybe it will be late… today is the time that we need to start investing with an eye on a market bigger than Jordan, a market that [encompasses] Iraq and Syria,” Mulki told reporters.

Although Syria is on the Mediterranean, trade movement is now coming from the East to the West, which adds to the uniqueness of Aqaba as a destination and its potential to be the gateway for this flow, he noted.

Today, Jordan’s economic ties with Syria and Iraq are more important than ever, Mulki underscored. 

“We know exactly what is going to happen there in reconstruction. You can’t get somebody who doesn’t know about Syria or Iraq. So, when I am talking about... investments... I always like to talk about the regional market,” he explained, noting that economic boundaries no longer exist in the region, just political ones.

“People know if they come here... they can export to Syria very simply, [in addition to] Iraq and the northern region of Saudi Arabia,” Mulki said.

Neighbouring governorates, including Maan, would also benefit from the development of Aqaba, as in the case of governorates neighbouring Amman and Irbid, according to the official.

To avoid economic disparity, “we have to make sure that whatever developments come in Aqaba spill over to neighbouring governorates”.

One of these planned benefits is having the Aqaba-Maan oil pipeline that can later be linked to the Iraqi pipeline.

In addition, Mulki noted, having nine ports in Aqaba without having a dry harbour will affect efficiency; therefore, there is a plan to establish one in Maan, some 220km south of Amman.

Challenges

One of the main challenges, however, is how to improve the service sector to encourage national and international businesses to come to Aqaba, according to Mulki.

The local service sector, he said, has moved outside of Jordan because of taxes. “We hope we can bring them back to Aqaba.”

“If we can bring back the law, engineering and accounting firms, and give them the same tax incentives they get in Gulf Cooperation Council countries, this would solve our problem in the real estate [sector], because these people need houses,” Mulki added.

Other challenges include the need to improve the commercial sector in Aqaba, which now has a population of around 160,000 — up from 60,000 in 2000.

AMMAN — The crisis brought on by the Syrian conflict is not a refugee issue alone; it is also a grave issue of national resilience, especially for the neighbouring countries that absorbed Syrian refugees, according to Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Fakhoury.

Speaking at the 31st session of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
(COMCEC) in Istanbul last week, Fakhoury said the protracted crisis has brought devastation to the whole region and challenged even Europe.

“Such crises cannot be resolved except through political solutions that are accompanied by firm international commitments to alleviate the effects of the crisis. The Syrian crisis, which is now in its fifth year, resulted in 4 million refugees in neighbouring countries, in addition to 8 million internally displaced people,” a ministry statement quoted him as saying at the meetings.

The minister added that Jordan is currently hosting more than 1.4 million Syrians, with only 8 per cent living in refugee camps, according to the statement, released Saturday. 

This has greatly affected the financial and economic situation of the country, as the total financial effects of the crisis, including direct and indirect costs since 2011, are estimated at $6.6 billion. 

These estimates, Fakhoury said, do not include the costs of humanitarian and resilience interventions, and the additional expenditures on education, healthcare, subsidies and income losses that the government has been enduring since the outbreak of the crisis. 

To address this situation, the government is implementing a resilience-based response, which puts together the humanitarian and development efforts in a unified national framework that serves the interests of refugees and host communities at the same time, he said, referring to the Jordan Response Plan, developed in cooperation with the international community and UN agencies.

Participants at the two-day COMCEC session discussed internal trade between member countries and enhancing the role of the private sector. 

The minister and representatives of OIC member countries exchanged views on improving and advancing economic and trade cooperation to face global economic challenges, the statement said.

In a speech at the event, Fakhoury said the meeting comes at a time of difficult political, security and economic conditions facing the world in general and the Middle East in particular. 

These challenges, he noted, are aggravated by low growth rates and the increase in unemployment and poverty, which requires exceptional efforts to contain challenges and adopt new tools to counter them.

He reviewed the Jordanian experience in paving the way for the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Jordan continues to enhance its path towards democracy, transparency, good governance. It is enhancing integrity, combating corruption and boosting our new democratic institutions,” the statement quoted him as saying.

The minister highlighted Jordan’s recognition of the important role played by the
COMCEC but said economic institutions should not depend on traditional tools in development. They should create, instead, non-traditional solutions in light of the unprecedented challenges to help their member countries bear these burdens. 

The OIC should also provide a supportive political umbrella to push the international community to bear its responsibilities towards the geopolitical challenges that the region confronts, and help the countries that are paying the price of their humanitarian, security and legal commitments towards the region and the world, the minister said. 

All of those challenges, he reiterated, affect the countries’ ability to achieve sustainable development goals 2030.

On the sidelines of the conference, Fakhoury held bilateral meetings with the OIC undersecretary, the Kuwaiti and Egyptian delegations and the Turkish ministers of economy and development to discuss bilateral relations and ways of enhancing mutual cooperation.

AMMAN — A specialised Jordanian medical team has performed several cochlear implant surgeries over the past two days under the "Hearing without Borders" initiative launched by HRH Crown Prince Hussein in late 2014.  

The team performed surgeries on 21 patients with the support of a Russian surgeon specialised in the field, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, quoted Royal Medical Services (RMS) Director General Maj. Gen. Muin Habashneh as saying. 

So far, 405 patients who needed cochlear implants have benefited from surgeries under the initiative, which is intended to help deaf children in the country, Habashneh told Petra.

The operations are conducted at RMS hospitals, King Abdullah I University Hospital and Prince Hamzah Hospital, with financial support through the initiative, he added.

The father of Noor Bani Hani, who has benefited from the initiative, told Petra that the surgery brought joy to his daughter and the entire family, thanking the Crown Prince for his support.

The mother of patient Tareq Masri, from Tafileh Governorate, said the cochlear implant will brighten her son’s future.

Volunteers in the Crown Prince’s “Haqeq” initiative distributed gifts to the patients, noting that their participation comes within the joint framework of the Crown Prince’s various initiatives, according to Petra.

Approximately 172,000 babies are born in Jordan every year. Two children in every 1,000 births have congenital hearing defects, the initiative’s director, Sakher Fayez, previously told The Jordan Times.

Currently, there are approximately 19,000 deaf Jordanians, he said.

Most of those who suffer from hearing difficulties cannot fully communicate and interact with the community although they have learned sign language, he added.

The cost of education and rehabilitation per person is JD6,000 per year, while the cost of one cochlear implant and the subsequent rehabilitation process is JD16,000 and will allow the child to fully communicate with the community, according to Fayez.

The Hearing without Borders initiative supports the rehabilitation of deaf children who receive cochlear implants, providing the needed language therapy and training to the patients after their surgery.

It also aims at creating community awareness of the causes of deafness and plans to establish rehabilitation centres across the Kingdom for children who receive cochlear implants to enhance their speech and pronunciation.

AMMAN — The information the public will provide for the 2015 population census will not entail any obligations on their part, Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said Saurday.

During a visit to the Department of Statistics (DoS), the second in less than two months, Ensour stressed that the population tally aims at identifying every single person residing in the Kingdom at the time of its implementation, including refugees, diplomats and tourists, even if they are visiting the Kingdom for just one night. 

The premier, who chaired the meeting of the 2015 census higher committee, said the process of collecting information from each household will take around 15 minutes, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

“We are a civilised nation,” Ensour said. “While we are planning for a population census, organising our economy and planning our country’s future, some of our brothers — unfortunately — are busy shedding each other’s blood.”

He added that this is a testament to the awareness of the Jordanian people and leadership, embodied by the peace that Jordan has been blessed with, Petra reported.

Around 25,000 DoS employees and teachers are taking part in the census to collect the necessary information, according to Petra. 

Planning and International Cooperation Minister Imad Fakhoury said the census begins on November 30 and continues until December 10, Petra reported. 

According to the 2012 amendments to the 1950 General Statistics Law, a population and housing census is to be conducted every 10 years. 

The last census was carried out in 2004, putting the total number of the Kingdom’s population at 5.1 million.

According to the Interior Ministry, Jordan’s population is estimated to have reached around 8 million by 2015, but other unofficial figures indicate that the population of Jordan stands at nearly 9 million, including 2.5 million foreigners.