Local

AMMAN — A group of young people from different countries came together to discuss regional and intercultural issues on Wednesday.

Calgary Centre for Global Community (CCGC) organised the discussion session at Shams El Balad Cafe, as part of a series of events aiming to improve intercultural dialogues and global citizenship.

CCGC is a Canada-based charity organisation that encourages intercultural dialogues to debate basic necessities and human rights of individuals.

The CEO of the organisation, Simmi Stanley – Bhanji, told The Jordan Times the project included a series of interviews over the past week with locals on the political situation in the Middle East.

“We even had the chance to talk to Syrian refugees in Jordan who suffered or are still suffering from the trauma. They shared their experience in detail and we started understanding the impacts of the conflict,” Bhanji said. 

“People’s experiences stimulate empathy and awareness, it makes other citizens of the world want to do something,” she added.

The stories and some belongings shared by people residing in Jordan will be exhibited at a museum in Calgary in the first half of next year, according to Bhanji.

“One of the Syrian refugees gave us a pair of shoes he was wearing while fleeing his country, which will be showcased for the public at the museum with a voice recording of his experience, to put people literally in his shoe,” she said.

Stimulating empathy, to Bhanji, means generating the energy of change and gaining momentum, building and turning things around. 

“… We wanted to take something from the Middle East with us back to Canada,” she added.

To Bhanji, war is not only about buildings being blown up, it is about how it affects people during and after the conflict. 

In the two-hour-discussion, participants shared some personal stories of their experiences abroad.

 Fidaa Musa talked about her experience as an Arab in Spain in 2002, after the bombings of the US twin towers. 

“People do not know much about our culture; they only know what the media shows them. They used to be afraid of the way I dress, but with the right answers and communication they started understanding what we really are,” Musa told The Jordan Times.

She added that
Westerners often used to view all Arab or Muslim women as oppressed or uneducated “objects”.

Another participant, Sabrina Preston, who came from the US on a work-related mission, said the cultural differences, stereotypes and political views of each country depend on how the media covers the events.

“Many people back in America have wrong ideas on what the Middle East looks like; they often generalise the whole region because of a conflict in one country,” Preston added.

Eduardo Bunster, a Chilean participant said travelling and getting to know people and their cultures up-close drives a person to “give up” on the stereotypes and prejudice. 

“Our judgements of other cultures often have nothing to do with reality, everyone has their own ideas based on experiences and how they deal with differences,” Bunster told The Jordan Times.

“Understanding conflicts in this part of the world makes me feel part of it and maybe responsible for other people’s traumas,” he added.

AMMAN — The government’s decision to offer Jordanians and residents free access to archaeological sites during the five-day Eid Al Adha holiday, which starts Wednesday, did not impress tourism sector leaders.

Industry leaders interviewed by The Jordan Times said they expected the recent Cabinet decision to exempt Jordanians and residents from entry fees during the holiday to have minimal impact.

The Jordan News Agency, Petra, quoted Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Nayef Fayez as saying on Thursday that the move was intended to promote domestic tourism and thus boost the national economy.  The minister noted that foreign residents intending to benefit from the exemption should show a valid residency permit at entry points.

However, Khaled Nawafleh, president of the Petra Hotels Association, was not as optimistic. Nawafleh said he believed that the decision to have “zero” impact on the tourism movement. 

“Jordanians can enter archaeological sites for a very nominal amount, paying as less as JD1 to see Petra, for example [foreigners pay JD50]. Entry fees are not what keep citizens away from archaeological sites, but their lack of interest in such attractions,” he told The Jordan Times over the phone on Thursday.

Nawafleh explained that Jordanians prefer “places where there is water”, especially during the holiday. 

“That is why they flock to Aqaba and the Dead Sea during vacations and not to places like Petra,” he noted.

In almost all previous Eid and other holidays, hotels in the Dead Sea and Aqaba were fully booked, while Turkey and Egypt’s Red Sea resorts have been the top choices for Jordanian vacationers. 

While citizens can stay overnight at one of Petra’s hotels at “preferential” prices during the eid holiday — JD30 per night at a three-star hotel — Nawafleh expressed his pessimism over the hoped tourism flow in his area.

Even if the plan was feasible, it is too late, the sector leader said.

“The new decision was made when many Jordanians had already made reservations to spend the holiday outside the country”. 

President of the Jordan Society of Tourism and Travel Agents, Shaher Hamdan, also believes that citizens are more interested in destinations where they can get “entertainment” rather than historical sites and that they prefer the Dead Sea and Aqaba, especially in the hot season.   

On the other hand, Chief Commissioner of Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority Mohammad Nawafleh said the free access to historical sites would encourage “some” citizens to visit them, particularly those who have never been there.

“Even if slightly, I believe the decision would encourage more citizens to explore their country,” he added.   

AMMAN — Education Minister Mohammad Thneibat on Wednesday said the ministry has been preparing an extended preview to address shortcomings in the educational process. 

In a lecture entitled”Civil education: the vision of the Ministry of Education” organised by Al Fuheis Cultural Forum, Thneibat said the first step to develop education lies in revisiting curricula, and working for good governance in the educational process at all levels, especially after the ministry managed to address flaws in the General Secondary Education Certificate Examination (Tawjihi), according to a statement e-mailed by the organisers to The Jordan Times.   

The minister also said that vocational education in the Kingdom attracts only 12 per cent of high school graduates, while the international percentage stands at around 42 per cent.

In this regard, he noted that much money was spent to develop vocational education without achieving the envisioned results. 

Thneibat continued to say that the ministry over the past two years has built 239 schools at a cost of JD200 million, adding that the ministry will build a similar number in the next two years in a bid to reduce the number of crowded classes, renew old school buildings and meet future needs.

As to private education, the minister said it should not be only taken as an investment without providing the required level of educational services, according to the statement.

Investors in private education have the right to make profits, but not at the expense of quality, Thneibat affirmed, adding that the ministry has closed some private education institutions for violating the law, and the ministry will intervene to ensure students’ and teachers’ rights setting tuition fees and educators’ salaries.

AMMAN — The 2015 parliamentary elections bill, currently under deliberation at the House, proposes the most suitable election system to Jordan at this phase of the country’s history, a senior government official said Thursday.

In a discussion over the draft law at Al Rai Studies Centre, Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs Khaled Kalaldeh said the ultimate ambition, as far as he is concerned, is to have the entire Kingdom as one constituency with closed proportional lists, but taking all considerations into account, the bill at hand is the best formula. 

Kalaldeh explained that the bill took into consideration international standards regarding the number of Parliament seats, which include factors related to the level of development in districts, geography and demographics.

Coalitions should be formed on the basis of political and social understandings, he said, noting that the bill does not ban or hinder the formation of party coalitions, in an apparent response to reservations made by political party leaders, who have argued that the law does not encourage partisan action.

This draft law, he said, seeks to achieve more equality when it comes to the number of votes for each seat, adding that seats allocated for Christians, Circassians and women’s quota were not affected by decreasing the number of Lower House seats from 150 to 130.

In fact, women’s quota may give more women a better representation chance, as they may win seats outside the quota as well as through the quota (15 per cent for women who receive the highest percentage of votes in their governorates, not constituencies).   

Commenting on the process of registration for voting, the minister said there will be no voter cards noting that the best method for registration is to be according to the residence, not the area of origin. 

The minister said it is not correct that a law governs the distribution of electoral constituencies, adding that such details must be included in a by-law that the government enacts once the bill is endorsed.

A number of Lower House members and politicians across the political spectrum participated in the session.

Political analyst and former MP Hamada Faraaneh said the national-list system, which the proposed bill replaced with a multi member list system, has encouraged candidates from several backgrounds to form lists, therefore the draft law should have built on that.

Meanwhile, MP Mohammad Qatatsheh said the bill minimises the effect of “political money” and encourages the representation of middle and lower classes.

For her part, former MP Abla Abu Olbeh, secretary general of the Jordanian Democratic People’s Party (Hashed), commended the expansion of electoral circles, suggesting multimember lists to be closed instead of open. 

Abdul Majeed Thneibat, the overall leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Society, said the majority of national forces “welcomed” the bill, adding that the bill “leaves no pretext for boycotting” the upcoming parliamentary elections.

AMMAN — Students from the Hashemite University (HU) have decried injustice of a decision by the university’s administration to change the policy governing the sports excellence programme.

The decision states that a student must be a first-time applicant, not a transfer and cannot apply to the sports excellence if he/she has already joined the university through the parallel admission system. 

Each semester, a committee of six academics evaluates applications filed by students who seek to benefit from the privileges offered by the sports programme, under which eligible candidates secure seats in the regular admission programme, where tuition fees are half those paid under the parallel system.

All applicants customarily have Tawjihi (general secondary school test) scores that do not allow them to enroll in the university for the majors they want under the regular and cheaper admission system. Their achievements in sports earn them exceptions. 

What happened, according to applicants Sari Omar and Enas Mallah, is that when they filed their applications, they were advised by university officials to join the university on the parallel track “just in case” and were promised that they would be later transferred to the regular programme if chosen for the sports achievers list. 

The list was not announced after three semesters, in Omar’s case, and he and other applicants were stuck in an expensive education system they cannot afford, he told The Jordan Times. 

“On Sunday, we were told our list was cancelled and that any student who applied for the parallel programme has no chance to switch to the regular one,” Mallah said.

University president, Kamal Bani Hani, told The Jordan Times that the criteria for the sports excellence programme includes only first-time applicants and those who meet other university requirements. 

This means that Omar and Mallah have lost their chance because they are no more fresh applicants.

“If we accept those who want to transfer from the parallel into the sports excellence programme, we would be doing something illegal, as it would not be fair to the rest of the students in the parallel or other programmes.” “Students are using the sports excellence programme as an excuse to pay less,” Bani Hani added.

AMMAN – The Muslim Brotherhood will hold a demonstration outside Al Husseini Mosque in downtown Amman on Friday.

The demonstration will be in solidarity with Al Aqsa to condemn the Israeli occupation forces’ storming of Al Aqsa Mosque compound, according to statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times by the organisers.

Downtown’s demonstration will be part of several planned activities that will be held across the Kingdom in support for Al Aqsa.

AMMAN — Border guards received 97 Syrian refugees during the past 48 hours and transferred them to shelters and camps set up for this purpose, an army source said Thursday.

Royal Medical Services cadres provided essential healthcare services and medications for the sick and injured. 

AMMAN — Syrian refugees living in Northern Badia areas consume over 38 per cent of water allocations for the Northern Badia, an official said Thursday.

Director of Northern Badia water department, Marwan Turki, said Syrians consume around 5,000 cubic metres of water weekly while weekly allocations for the region is13,000 cubic metres.

ZARQA — A man aged 19 was shot dead while another, 24, was shot in his foot on Thursday at the stockyard market near the Amman-Zarqa highway, according to a security source. 

Ruseifa police said an argument erupted at the market, resulting in a trader shooting at two other vendors.  The shooter fled the scene and the injured man was rushed to the Prince Feisal Hospital where he was listed in fair condition. Police were still in search for the suspect.

AMMAN — A four-year old child died and three persons were injured as a result of a fire that erupted on Thursday in a house in the capital’s Jabal Al Nasser neighbourhood, according to the Civil Defence Department’s media centre.

The injured suffered second degree burns and breathing difficulties. Firefighters extinguished the blaze and rescue teams administered first aid to the injured, before transferring them and the body to Al Bashir Hospital. The fire was caused by an electrical short circuit.