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AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Friday visited Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (CBMSO) (Centre for Molecular Biology), and Medialab-Prado, in Madrid on Thursday.

Queen Rania, who was accompanying His Majesty King Abdullah on an official visit to Spain that concluded later on Friday, toured the facilities at CBMSO, accompanied by Queen Letizia of Spain. 

Her Majesty met with senior staff members and prominent scientists of the centre and listened to a presentation about the CBMSO’s scientific structure and research areas, according to a statement from her office. 

Queen Rania and Queen Letizia were also briefed on various areas of research such as physiological and pathological development of human T-lymphocytes. 

T-lymphocytes are the cells of the immune system that coordinate the cellular immune response, and they are the cells affected in T-cell lymphomas.

In addition, Her Majesty was briefed on research into “rare diseases”, which are a heterogeneous group of human diseases that generally have a genetic cause. 

Each rare disease affects less than 1 in 2,000 people, and an estimated 50 per cent of them affect children. Only about 400 treatments are approved for the known 7,000 rare human diseases.

Queen Rania and Queen Letizia concluded their tour with a visit to the Lab 421, which works on Drosophila melanogaster developmental biology.

Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly) is used as a model experimental organism for studies in genetics, developmental biology and modelling of human diseases, among other biomedical fields.

In the centre, Drosophila is used to analyse cell signalling, gene expression and neural development, and also for the modelling of human diseases such as cancer and kidney failure.

During their last stop, Queen Rania and Queen Letizia spoke to the laboratory personnel and viewed different specimens of drosophila through microscopes, including homeotic mutations, different eye coloured flies and flies expressing fluorescent proteins in the muscular and cardiac organs, the statement said.

On Thursday, Her Majesty visited the Medialab-Prado in the Spanish capital. She met with its director, Marco Garcia, and senior staff members. 

The Queen toured the lab and checked the various programmes that it works on, including the atomic microscope, emotional furniture, a DIY (do-it-yourself) book scanner, an experimental video game, an open source prosthesis workshop and The Fablab. 

Medialab-Prado is a citizen laboratory for production, research and broadcasting of cultural projects which explores the forms of experimentation and collaborative learning that have emerged from digital networks. It is part of the department of culture and sports of the Madrid City Council, according to the statement. 

AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Thursday visited a job fair that forms part of the fourth phase of the National Employment Campaign, and attended the signing of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) related to boosting employment. 

The fourth phase of the campaign, titled “My job — My future”, which began November 15 and ends on November 26, offers 14,000 job opportunities, according to Labour Ministry Secretary General Hamadah Abu Nijmeh.

The 359 companies taking part in the campaign operate in 11 sectors: hospitality, fuel, banks, construction, retail, textiles, industry, health, services, ICT and restaurants.

Labour Minister Nidal Katamine accompanied the premier on his tour of the job fair, held at Amman Grand Hall in Al Hussein Youth City.

At the signing ceremony, Katamine highlighted the challenges faced by the local labour market due to illegal guest workers and the influx of refugees fleeing crises in the region. 

The annual unemployment rate calculated by the Department of Statistics (DoS) at the end of each year stood at 11.9 per cent in 2014, the best figure for the past 10 years, the minister said.

He added that this is the appropriate unemployment rate to observe given temporary fluctuations over the course of the year, such as around university graduation dates.

Nonetheless, unemployment rates are still high and fresh graduates face many hindrances that prevent them from joining the job market, Katamine said. 

He highlighted the limited number of job opportunities, the lack of compatibility between students’ choice of majors and labour market demand, and a decline in the capabilities of fresh graduates as some of the major obstacles. 

Abu Nijmeh said the campaign aims to increase job opportunities in remote areas, boost the participation of women and people with disabilities in the labour market, and fund training and employment programmes.

During the first three phases of the National Employment Campaign, jobs were secured for 100,800 people, 33.9 per cent of whom are women, Abu Nijmeh noted in his presentation, citing statistics from the Social Security Corporation, the Development and Employment Fund (DEF), and private employment offices that sent 13,000 of the total to work abroad. 

The National Employment Campaign began in January 2013 with the goal of creating thousands of jobs for Jordanians in cooperation with the private sector. 

The MoUs signed on Thursday entail training Jordanians in the health sector at public institutions, opening an employment office at the Zarqa Chamber of Industry, and offering training and employment in the tourism sector.  

During his tour of the fair, Ensour spoke with job seekers who came from across the Kingdom as well as representatives of companies participating in the event.

DEF Director General Abdullah Freij told The Jordan Times that the fund spent JD31 million on loans in 2014 that benefited 8,000 projects, which created more job opportunities.

He said the fund’s role is to encourage job seekers, especially young people, to establish their own projects rather than look for office jobs as is usually the norm.

Ghassan E. Abuyaghi, general manager of the Employment, Technical and Vocational Education Training (E-TVET) Fund, said the fund supports institutions that offer training and employment.

He added that its part in the campaign is to get to know these institutions, as well as guide job seekers to the employers that best match their majors and skills. 

AMMAN — An Irbid school initiative aiming to “spread the practice of social work and offer help to the underprivileged in Irbid” has attracted attention from news agencies, radio stations, social media pages and donors as far away as the US, its founder said Wednesday. 

Around 550 students from Aydoun Elementary School in Irbid participated in the “Kaset zeit min kul beit” initiative, under they donated olive oil from their homes. 

Aydoun is a small town with a population of around 80,000 in Irbid Governorate, located some 90km north of Amman.  

Zaher Bataineh, a Jordanian businessman living in the US, said he would donate around JD100 every month to support first grade students, Yousef Telfah, the teacher who started the initiative, told The Jordan Times. 

“He saw my initiative on Facebook and commended the students’ and teachers’ efforts in collecting oil for underprivileged families and students. He said this is not something we usually see in Jordanian public schools,” Telfah said. 

The money contributed by Bataineh will be used to improve social and cultural activities, he explained. 

“We also have a ‘star of the week’ programme to support and encourage students, in which four students who succeed in school activities will receive money as a reward each month, as requested by the businessman,” he added, noting that this will encourage children to participate in initiatives and excel in their subjects.

The idea for the initiative originated from Kafr Abbush, Tulkarm, in the West Bank, Telfah said in previous remarks.

The Irbid school has collected almost three gallons (60 kilogrammes) of oil, which will be donated to underprivileged students and families around Aydoun, according to teachers.

AMMAN — A gathering of government and civil society representatives in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday will review the progress of torture prosecution and the government’s commitmment to the international convention on torture.

Jordan submitted its report on the implementation of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which will be reviewed by the Committee Against Torture at its 56th session.

The committee “is the body of 10 independent experts that monitors implementation of the convention” by its state parties, according to the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“All states parties are obliged to submit regular reports to the committee on how the rights are being implemented. States must report initially one year after acceding to the convention and then every four years. The committee examines each report and addresses its concerns and recommendations to the state party in the form of ‘concluding observations’,” according to the UN office.

Local organisations that will submit shadow reports to the committee during the Friday meeting include the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR), Adaleh Centre for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS), Tamkeen Fields for Aid, Centre for Defending the Freedom of Journalists, and the Jordanian Civil Coalition against Torture.

ACHRS, which followed many cases of alleged torture or mistreatment and has monitored detention centres and trials, said there is confusion between what the law stipulates and what is really being applied when it comes to accusations of torture.

The Constitution prohibits torture and other forms of ill-treatment or punishment, the ACHRS report said.

Article 8 Paragraph 2 of the Constitution stipulates that: “Any person who is arrested, detained, imprisoned or whose liberty is subject to any restriction shall be treated with dignity, safeguarded from any form of torture or bodily or mental harm and held in no place other than a legally designated holding facility. Any statement obtained from any person by means of torture or the use of harm or threats shall be deemed invalid.”

The ACHRS said the provision is “an important acknowledgement from the highest level of legislation in Jordan of torture as a serious crime and human rights abuse”.

However, articles that safeguard individuals in the Constitution are not reflected in the Penal Code “because punishments for perpetrators of torture are very light and do not reflect Jordan’s commitments to international conventions on torture,” the ACHRS report stated. 

Meanwhile, the NCHR pointed out shortcomings in the definition and criminalisation of torture in the Penal Code, which result ineffective prosecution and conviction of its perpetrators.

The NCHR listed several shortcomings in the complaint and investigation mechanisms that address allegations of torture, in addition to the non-independence of inquiry commissions.

Such issues, according to the NCHR report, include failure to compensate and rehabilitate torture victims, and to provide due legal safeguards for detainees (access to a doctor and a lawyer of their own choice, and contact with the outside world).

The NCHR has established a national alliance — comprising over 500 representatives from public institutions, civil society organisations (CSOs) and human rights groups — which conducts sensitisation and awareness-raising sessions for official entities, CSOs, the government and Parliament.

The most important developments in combating torture, according to the NCHR, include the appointment of a public prosecutor in 2014 to investigate torture allegations and register the cases prior to referring them to the Police Court or any other special court.

The NCHR also started reforming the criminal justice system by reviewing penal legislation, especially the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedures, to ensure fair trial guarantees and the provision of legal aid to those in need.

The centre said it recently submitted a draft that entails amending laws to explicitly allow unannounced access for NCHR teams to all detention facilities across the Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Alkarama Foundation — a Geneva-based independent human rights organisation established in 2004 to assist people in the Arab world subjected to or at risk of extra-judicial executions, disappearances, torture and arbitrary detention — has also prepared a report on Jordan.

Since its last review in 2010, Alkarama Foundation claimed that it has received accounts of torture and other ill-treatment in Jordan, especially at the hands of the General Intelligence Department (GID), which systematically arrests, detains incommunicado, and tortures individuals arrested or accused of “terrorism” and opposition figures, as well as peaceful protesters and media personnel.

They are then prosecuted and often sentenced to heavy penalties by the State Security Court — a special tribunal that tries “acts of terrorism” — on the basis of confessions “extracted under torture” by the GID, Alkarama said.

The foundation recommnded that the government review its legislation to ensure that the definition of torture is consistent with the UN convention. 

It urged the government to guarantee that the penalties stipulated by the law are commensurate with the gravity of the crime and that no statute of limitation applies to torture cases. Alkarama also called for incorporating a provision into the legislation stating that no exceptional circumstance may be invoked as a justification of torture.

To date, “no police or intelligence officer has ever been convicted for acts of torture under Article 208 of the Penal Code,” according to the foundation,

The government’s 11-member delegation will also present its report on Friday.

“Jordan attaches great importance to combating torture and consistently endeavours to make progress in this area. The constitutional amendments introduced in 2011 include a provision prohibiting torture,” the report said.

The government also cites several improvements related to detention centres such as appointing public prosecutors in prisons, facilitating both official and unannounced visits for human rights organisations and installing complaint boxes for inmates. 

It also mentions that centres are subject to supervision by the Office of Grievances and Human Rights in the Public Security Department (PSD).

In addition, the government report highlights the establishment of an internal committee to conduct periodic inspections of prisons in order to ensure that their working standards are in accordance with human rights principles and international norms in various areas.

Since the establishment of the Office of Grievances and Human Rights, the PSD has included the topic of human rights and agreements signed by Jordan, including the convention against torture, in all training courses held for its personnel, the government said in its report.

Moreover, specialised courses were held in cooperation with civil society institutions, principally the NCHR, to strengthen the role of public security in human rights, the report added. 

AMMAN — Several Jordanian women organised a ceremony marking Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (WED) on Thursday and discussed methods to support women in the workplace, highlighting  achievements and challenges in the business world.

Fida Taher, the co-founder of Atbaki — an Arabic digital recipe platform, said some 98 per cent of the Jordanian economy relies on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and women lead only 5 per cent of these ventures.

“Women’s representation in the labour market has been deteriorating recently... currently standing at 12.7 per cent,” added Taher, who is also a Jordan WED ambassador. 

She called on participants to find solutions to this issue.

Taher also noted that WED is a UN initiative which 144 countries around the world celebrate annually.

During the event, Senator Haifa Najjar, director general of Ahliyyeh School for Girls and Bishop’s School for Boys, noted that only 7 per cent of women in Zarqa make economic contributions to their families, despite the high rate of educated women living there.

Majda Labadi, corporate vice president of human resources at Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC, reflected on her job search after she left Lebanon for Germany to pursue her master’s degree in health economics and later returned to Jordan.

“In the mid-1980s, I went for an interview at Hikma and met with Samih Darwazeh, the founder of the company, who told me the only vacancy was at the IT department,” Labadi said, noting that she did not have any experience with computers at that time.

She returned to Darwazeh a week later and told him she would accept the job if the company provided her with the necessary training; he agreed, and she started working at Hikma where she gradually rose to her current post.

Salma Nims, secretary general of the Jordanian National Commission for Women, also recounted obstacles she faced after receiving her master’s degree in sustainable development from London in 1998.

“I chose to focus on water in my degree due to its importance to Jordan,” she said, adding that she applied for a job at all the relevant ministries at the time and did not receive any replies, which led her to work in graphic design.

In 2004, Nims completed her PhD degree in development planning, but could not find a job until she saw a small advertisement that the Planning Ministry needed a project coordinator.

Former ICT minister Nadia Al Saeed, now CEO of Bank al Etihad, spoke about a women’s market programme dubbed “Shorouq” that the bank launched in 2014 to empower women, underscoring the importance of having a supportive environment for women.

“Empowering women economically includes providing them with access to financing, information and markets, in addition to improving legislative and legal environments,” Saeed said.

AMMAN — The Independent Elections Commission (IEC) will conduct a by-election on December 19 to fill the Lower House seat left vacant by the death of MP Eteiwi Majali (Karak 2nd District).

Following Majali’s death on October 24, the House informed the government and the IEC to carry out a by-election in the district in accordance with Article 88 of the Constitution.

The article states that when a seat becomes available in the Senate or Lower House as the result of death, resignation or any other reason, it must be filled by an appointment in the case of a senator; if a deputy position is vacant, the IEC must hold a by-election within two months of the date on which the government is notified about the vacancy by the House. 

The new member holds the position for the remainder of his/her predecessor’s term.

IEC President Riyadh Shakaa told the Jordan News Agency, Petra, on Wednesday that 10 candidates will run in the by-election, amidst speculation that Majali’s brother, Sameh, is the strongest contender.

Three other members of the current Lower House have died: Mohammad Khasawneh (Irbid, 2nd District), Mohammad Mahseiri (Amman, 2nd District) and Mahmoud Hweimel (Karak, 4th District).

A fifth seat was left vacant when deputy Talal Sharif (Amman, 1st District) was expelled from the House after attempting to shoot his colleague MP Qusai Dmeisi (Zarqa, 4th District) in 2013.

MP Nayef Leimoun (Karak, 6th District) lost his seat after the Lower House received a court decision voiding the district’s election; Leimoun was re-elected by default in April 2013.

During the 16th Parliament (2010-2012) two by-elections were conducted to fill the Amman 1st District seat and Karak’s 5th District seat, which were left vacant by MP Rashed Odeh Barayseh and Deputy Sharif Rawashdeh, respectively. 

Barayseh passed away, while the IEC cancelled Rawashdeh’s membership because he held dual citizenship, which violated Article 75 of the Constitution. According to the amended article, deputies, senators, ministers, and senior officials cannot hold dual nationality. 

AMMAN — HRH Prince Hashem on Thursday was sworn as Regent, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. His Majesty King Abdullah is currently on a working visit to Europe.

The tour started in Kosovo on Tuesday and continued in Austria on Wednesday and early Thursday. Later on Thursday, the King arrived in Spain, the final stop of the tour.

AMMAN – A charter flight carrying 220 Russian passengers arrived at King Hussein Airport in Aqaba on Thursday, according to the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB).

The JTB said the number of flights carrying Russian tourists to Jordan is expected to reach six flights a week.

According to official figures, between 25,000 and 30,000 Russian tourists visit Jordan every year. The JTB expects the figure to grow by the end of this year. 

AMMAN — Border Guards and Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) personnel have confiscated “huge amounts” of drugs and arrested the suspects who reportedly attempted to smuggle them into the Kingdom, according to a Public Security Department statement released Thursday and carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

The Border Guards and AND agents confiscated 620,000 narcotic pills and 120 kilogrammes of hashish found in the border region but did not arrest the suspects at the scene. Investigations led to seven suspects, two of them Arabs, who were all later arrested.

AMMAN — HH Princess Dana Firas, the vice-president of the Petra National Trust (PNT) board, on Wednesday attended a ceremony to honour participants in a programme to safeguard the ancient city of Petra.

Princess Dana highlighted the importance of partnerships with international institutions and individuals to preserve the cultural heritage in the city through implementing training and awareness programmes that target children and young people, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

PNT held the training programme with the support of the Australian embassy in Amman. Princess Dana praised the role of the Australian embassy and the sense of responsibility Jordanians carry in their communities, according to Petra.