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AMMAN — Authorities are currently amending regulations to grant investors further legislative protection to enhance Jordan's competitiveness, an official said Thursday.

Jordan Investment Commission (JIC) President Montaser Oqlah said the article on legal protection of investors in the current Investment Law is "below expectations" when it comes to international arbitration.

"The current wording of the article does not give the investor enough assurances regarding international arbitration tools, which becomes an option only after the case is referred to local courts," he told The Jordan Times.

Therefore, the commission is studying amendments that will "make investors feel more secure", including specific arbitration tools and allowing international arbitration without local arbitration being a prerequisite.

Out of the six investment-related lawsuits that have been filed, some have been ruled on, such as the “Housing Bank Stakes” case, while others are still undecided and are "of minimal effect on Jordan's investment environment".

The recently launched World Economic Forum 2015-2016 Global Competitiveness Index ranked Jordan 121 out of 140 when it comes to the strength of investor protection measures.

Commenting on the ranking, Oqlah said the report did not consider the 2014 Investment Law, which created the investment window, a one-stop-shop to handle paperwork for investment projects in order to cut down bureaucracy.  

However, he expected the intended amendments to boost Jordan's ranking in the index.

For his side, Economist Maen Ensour encouraged further legislative protection of investors, especially in local arbitration, which "needs to be faster".

AMMAN — Jordan and Romania on Saturday discussed ways to boost relations in various fields.

During meetings co-chaired by prime ministers of the two countries, the two sides reviewed the latest developments pertaining to the Palestinian question, and the crisis in Syria and its consequences, especially in relation to Syrian refugees. 

At the meeting, Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour asserted the solid relations between the two countries and their ongoing coordination regarding regional and international issues of joint concern. 

He also pointed out that trade exchange between the two countries is below the desired level, stressing the need to seize opportunities available to boost it and to increase bilateral economic and commercial cooperation. 

While highlighting challenges facing the Kingdom, Ensour expressed his appreciation for Romania’s continued support for Jordan, on the bilateral level and through the European Union. 

Ensour also stressed the need for further efforts to arrive at a political solution for the crisis in Syria.

The Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta expressed his country’s understanding of the burdens the Kingdom is shouldering as a result of hosting large numbers of Syrian refugees. 

Ponta said he is accompanied on the visit by his country’s Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu, noting that this depicts the level of bilateral coordination on political issues, adding that he is also accompanied by Romania’s Economy Minister Mihai Tudose who will return to Jordan in less than a month to look into joint investment opportunities and ways to expand cooperation between both countries.   

Also on Saturday, the Romanian premier visited the Baptism Site where he was received by Tourism Minister Nayef Fayez and Baptism Site Commission Director Dia Madani.

Ponta and his accompanying delegation toured the holy place and were briefed on various churches and monasteries which the site features.

AMMAN — Cybercrime experts recommended that an article on cybercrimes be added to the Penal Code to supplement the existing “advanced” Cybercrime Law.

Raed Kordiyeh, an advocate and cybercrime expert, also recommended stricter penalties for violators, who are usually fined up to JD300 under current regulations, to reflect the severe breaches of privacy involved in many cybercrimes.

Kordiyeh’s remarks came at a recent seminar on the subject of protecting Jordanian women against cybercrimes, which was organised by the International Women’s Forum.

He also suggested establishing a specialised court for cybercrimes to make it more likely that such crimes are reported to the authorities, and developing lawyers’ and judges’ expertise on cyber issues.

Regulations must keep pace with “very intelligent and professional” cybercriminals, who are usually aged between 20 and 45, with a high level of education, said Kordiyeh.

The Kingdom has witnessed an active legal advocacy against cybercrimes, said Rabab Tal, a legal consultant at the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.

Tal added that the ministry is working on a guidance manual on cyber safety for Internet users and service providers.

However, she mentioned that current regulations include articles punishing online abusers of children, but none pertaining to the abuse of women, who are victims of nearly 80 per cent of cybercrimes.

Users should treat their smartphones and online accounts as “glass houses” keeping no secrets to avoid becoming victims of cybercrime, warned Lt. Col. Sahem Jamal, chief of the cybercrime section at the Public Security Department’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

Jamal said the CID and the ministries of education and higher education have reached an agreement to include a section on cybercrimes in the tenth grade computer science textbook and to create a mandatory “security sciences” course for university students.

He noted that around 95 per cent of cybercrimes use information technology only as means to perform a “typical” crime, such as theft or blackmailing, while the remaining 5 per cent represent crimes specific to information technology, such as stealing access to databases.

Common cybercrimes in Jordan include sexual abuse of children, promoting prostitution online, blackmail, fraud, identity theft on social media networks and stealing credit card numbers, according to the CID.

There are some 6 million regular Internet users in Jordan, where population, including refugees and guest labour reaches around 10 million, along with around 4.5 million Facebook accounts.

AMMAN — After Friday prayer this week, around 2,000 political, association, party, parliamentary and popular figures participated in a march to support Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which moved from the Professional Associations Complex in Shmeisani towards the Prime Ministry near the 4th Circle, according to a Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) statement released Saturday. 

The participants, who held Jordanian flags as they proceeded, rejected the recurrent Israeli violations of holy sites in Jerusalem and chanted slogans demanding the government to shoulder its responsibility towards Al Aqsa.

JEA President Majid Tabaa urged the government to take “real measures” against Israeli acts of aggression against Al Aqsa Mosque. 

Tabaa made his remarks during the march, held in cooperation with the Jordanian Commission to Defend Al Aqsa Mosque and other Holy Sites in Jerusalem.

Tabaa said it is time to cancel the Jordan-Israel peace treaty, expel the Israeli ambassador, and cut all ties with Israel, as well as offer support to those defending the mosque to help them withstand Israeli measures. 

The commission to defend Al Aqsa announced rally for October 16 in Quweismeh, calling for a mass participation, according to the statement.

Also on Friday, a similar protest commencing in front of the Omar Bin Al Khattab Mosque in downtown Zarqa was held to support Al Aqsa Mosque. Participants chanted slogans demanding Muslims to stand for the mosque and defend sanctuaries in Palestine, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

AMMAN – The southern District of Ai in Karak is once again the centre of attention for many Jordanians. Previously, the district was in the spotlight for being the hometown of air force pilot Muath Kasasbeh, killed by the Daesh terror group early this year. This time, it was host to another traditional “condolence” gathering,  for a young militant  member of the same terror group that murdered Kasasbeh. 

Late last week, media reports said that Mohammad, the 23-year-old son of MP Mazen Dalaeen, was killed after blowing himself up in a suicide attack in Iraq’s Anbar province. The reports cited websites managed by Daesh.

Dalaeen, a lawmaker from Karak, confirmed the death of his son, who used to study medicine in Ukraine. 

He said his son left his studies in June, when he was persuaded by Daseh to head for Turkey and then infiltrate into Syria to join them. He then moved to Iraq, according to Al Rai daily. 

A relative of the grieving family gave The Jordan Times on Saturday the details of how the young man joined the terror group. 

Dalaeen attempted to see his son in mid-June in Ukraine. It was then that he became aware of the fact that Mohammad had started to propound extreme religious views, said the relative, who preferred to remain unnamed.  

The son was married to a Ukrainian woman wearing niqab, the full face veil, the source said. 

The following day, Dalaeen was supposed to meet his son but could not find him, the relative added. 

As he was searching for his son, Dalaeen was told by Jordanians in Ukraine that Mohammad had headed for Istanbul to join Daesh in Syria and Iraq. He followed him to Turkey but could not find him, according to the relative. 

“He did his absolute best to find Mohammad but could not. He even offered over JD100,000 in cash rewards in return for any information on his son,” the relative added, saying that the information he was providing to The Jordan Times was recounted to him by Dalaeen himself. 

The last contact between Mohammad and his family was on August 20, when he told them that he was in Mosul, in northern Iraq, and that he was preparing to join a suicide attack. 

“The contact was in a message to his mother. He asked her to forgive him,” said the relative of the family, who added that after joining Daesh Mohammad considered his family as apostates. 

The MP held a traditional “condolences house” in Ai, some 140 kilometres south of Amman, on Friday and Saturday.

AMMAN — The German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD), in collaboration with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the German embassy in Jordan, celebrated the granting of scholarships to a total of 40 Syrian and Jordanian graduates seeking to pursue master’s degrees. 

The scholarships will provide the students with an opportunity to pursue programmes at local universities.

The scholarships were granted to the beneficiaries earlier this year, according to the German-Jordanian University website.

Starting from the fall semester of this year, the programme aims to provide outstanding candidates with the mandatory requirements to apply for master’s programmes at four local universities: the University of Jordan, the German-Jordanian University, Jordan University of Science and Technology and Yarmouk University. 

DAAD’s Amman representative Andreas Wutz said that the project began last autumn, with more than 400 applications submitted. The pre-selection process shortlisted 122 students for the interview, 40 of whom received the scholarships.

The scholarships give students the opportunity to pursue their studies in any field except medicine, veterinary medicine, dentistry and law, Wutz said.

To receive the scholarship, both Jordanian and Syrian applicants required a Bachelor’s degree, English language skills, and excellent interpersonal skills. The students were also required to have some knowledge of the Syrian conflict, according to DAAD. 

GIZ country director, Micheala Baur, stressed the importance of both education and the exchange of experiences to overcome hardships in the region.

“Syrians don’t want to be seen firstly as refugees, they want to be seen — and this is more than understandable — as human beings like the rest of us,” Baur said.

A preparatory course for the 20 Syrian scholarship recipients was held at local universities. The courses began in June and continued over a period of three months, with students attendeding classes in English, research methodology and statistics.

The programme tuition fees at local universities range from $3,000 to $5,000 per year, depending on the field of study, according to Wutz.

He noted that call for new scholarship application started on October 1 and the submission deadline will be November 30, 2015. 

AMMAN — The Jordan Gaming Taskforce on Saturday encouraged Jordanian entrepreneurs and digital gaming companies to focus on developing mobile games, one of the most rapidly growing sectors within digital gaming. 

The mobile gaming sector’s revenue is expected to reach $12 billion worldwide this year, an increase of 13 per cent compared to 2014’s figure, and $12.6 billion in 2016. The sector’s growth exceeds that of other types of digital games such as console games, video games or online desktop games, Nour Khrais, chairman of the Jordan Gaming Task Force, told The Jordan Times on Saturday.

“Mobile games are the future. This sector’s revenues will continue to grow in the years to come, and companies and developers focusing on mobile games will profit from this trend,” Khrais said Saturday.

In Jordan, where the penetration of smartphones is estimated at around 70 per cent with some 11 million active mobile subscriptions, mobile gaming is very popular and becoming more so. However, the market for developers is not only Jordan but the region and the whole world.

Recent figures from Ipsos Jordan indicate that Jordanians spend around 40 minutes a day on average playing all types of digital games.

Mobile games will generate more revenue than online games and console software in 2015. Where mobile games make up $3 of every $10 spent by gamers in 2015, that figure will go up to $4 out of every $10 by 2018, according to a recent forecast by Digi-Capital.

“Many Jordanian companies have developed games that are very successful in international markets including India and the US. Developers can penetrate any market in this industry,” said Khrais on Saturday.

According to the taskforce, around 15 companies work in the field of digital gaming in Jordan, which is the largest producer of digital games in the region, contributing about 60 per cent of the games developed in the Middle East.

Founded in 2011, the Jordan Gaming Taskforce seeks to develop the electronic gaming industry in the region.

AMMAN — Minister of Industry, Trade and Supply Maha Ali said on Saturday that when there is a significant drop in grain prices on the global market, the ministry makes forward purchases to import wheat and barley. 

In remarks to The Jordan Times, Ali noted that the ministry is in charge of strategic reserves, adding that in addition to covering six months-worth of wheat stocks, the ministry prepares shipments to cover two additional months of supply. 

As current policy indicates that barley reserves should be sufficient to cover the Kingdom’s needs for four months, forward purchases for two additional months are also made.

Ali said that the forward purchases “ensure their [wheat and barley’s] availability to be distributed at subsidised prices in the domestic market”, adding that the ministry floats tenders to buy 150,000 tonnes of wheat and barley on a monthly basis. 

The minister said that the agency bought 100,000 tonnes of wheat on September 5 and plans to float tenders next week to buy 100,000 tonnes each of both wheat and barley. 

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), export prices of wheat declined significantly in August with the benchmark US wheat price averaging $216 per tonne, 9 per cent lower than in July. 

The FAO attributed the decline in international quotations to abundant supplies, supported by further upward revisions of production forecasts as northern hemisphere harvests come to a close and shrinking import demand. 

The organisation said export prices of wheat remained around 20 per cent lower than in August last year.

Ali indicated that the authorities recently reviewed articles of tender invitations related to imports of wheat and barley in order to encourage more suppliers to apply and increase competition, adding that the review aims at protecting the rights of the ministry and suppliers in case shipments are rejected by oversight agencies. 

Annual consumption of wheat went up from 750,000 tonnes prior to the Syrian crisis, which erupted in 2011, to over one million tonnes over the past four years, according to previous remarks by the ministry’s spokesperson, Yanal Barmawi. 

Last year, Jordan imported over 1 million tonnes of wheat at a cost of more than $294 million, and bought 750,000 tonnes of barley at a cost of around $193 million, according to Barmawi.

Official figures estimate that over 1.4 million Syrians reside in the Kingdom.

AMMAN – A recent broadcast of Um Al Krum, a renowned Jordanian TV drama produced 16 years ago, beat viewing figures for modern TV shows locally and regionally and prompted calls for a return to Jordanian drama’s “age of glory”, stakeholders said. 

Shayesh Al Naemi, a veteran actor who took part in the soap opera, noted that despite a modest budget of around JD45,000 and simple production techniques, the series had a positive impact on Jordanian drama.

"The Jordanian audience is smart enough to differentiate between good-quality and low-quality products. Um Al Krum is highly appreciated even by today's generation because it has an important message to deliver and it highlights Jordan’s culture and daily life," Naemi told The Jordan Times over the phone. 

Jordanian actors interviewed by The Jordan Times said that local drama is in abject condition today compared to the “good old days”. 

The Jordanian Artists Association (JAA) President Sari Asaad attributed the lack of production of Jordanian dramas to a shortage of funding. 

"The cheapest good-quality series will cost between JD700,000 and JD1 million today. Many production companies cannot take this much risk. However, people need to understand that we should use dramas to send messages to our audience as well as to generate money," he told The Jordan Times. 

Asaad noted the importance of drama to political participation: "Drama series is closer to the people’s hearts than political speeches and can also have positive effects on tourism. Turkish producers have done this particularly well.” 

Actress Abeer Issa, who was the star of several golden-age drama series, said a “political decision” is necessary to bring Jordanian drama back on track. 

"Jordanian TV stopped producing series. There is an urgent need for collaboration between the private and public sector to make new works," Issa told The Jordan Times. 

Yet Zuheir Noubani, who acted in more than 70 works over a 40-year career, expressed pessimism about legislation’s ability to encourage local drama, but he believes that audiences who remember the old days would continue to call for new works similar to the hit series of the past, when made-in-Jordan series used to receive applause all over the Arab world.

Fuoad Abu Mazer, a Jordanian viewer who remembers the golden age of Jordanian drama, told The Jordan Times that the new generation requires works similar to Um Al Krum to counteract what he described as the "cheap shows" broadcast on regional TV channels, which are “without meaning” to the Jordanian public and do not “respect the culture and heritage of the Kingdom”.

"I liked that the old series talked about our stories and our daily life,” echoed Bilal Hiyari, another viewer.

Naemi, the Um Al Krum star, stressed the importance of “real drama” to the development of Jordan’s politics and educated class.

"Countries are protected not only by rifles, but by educated people who have great awareness. Local drama can make people aware of issues around them," he concluded.

AMMAN — A delegation from the United Arab Emirates ministry of development and international cooperation visited Syrian refugees at Mreijeb Al Fhoud Refugee Camp in Zarqa Governorate on Friday.

The delegation had a firsthand look at the services and assistance provided to refugees.

Deputy Camp Director Abdullah Shihi received the delegation, headed by the assistant coordination department director at the ministry, Rashid Al Shamisi, and presented a briefing on the establishment of the camp and the services the UAE Red Crescent Society provides to refugees.

Shamisi said the visit aimed at following up on a sewerage network project that was implemented by the UAE and UNHCR at a cost of $4 million, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, said.