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AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Monday stressed Jordan’s commitment to boosting ties with Indonesia.

During a meeting with a delegation headed by Sidarto Danusubroto, speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly of Indonesia, the premier highlighted prospects for cooperation in the education and religious tourism sectors.

He asserted Jordan’s interest in boosting its economic cooperation with Indonesia.

Danusubroto commended Jordan’s reform drive and its stability, stressing his country’s desire to develop its relations with the Kingdom.

AMMAN — One of the main streets in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, was named after His Majesty the late King Hussein on Monday, in commemoration of his contributions at the Arab and international levels and in recognition of his efforts to develop relations between Jordan and Kazakhstan.

Amman Mayor Aqel Biltaji is scheduled to attend a ceremony on this occasion.

During a several-day visit to Astana, Biltaji and Astana Mayor Imangali Tasmagambetov will look into ways to activate the twinning agreement signed between the two cities in 2005.

AMMAN — HRH Princess Muna, president of the Jordanian Nursing Council (JNC), has said that the irregularities in the medical labour force is the main challenge facing developing countries.

In a council statement issued following her participation in the recently concluded fifth Global Forum for Government Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officers in Geneva, Princess Muna was quoted as calling for a concise strategy to improve the leadership qualities of nurses and midwives to be prepared by all educational institutions, the World Health Organisation and its affiliated bodies.

Inaugurating the forum, Princess Muna said planning and coordination between the health sector and higher education institutions is one major means to address imbalances in the medical workforce.

AMMAN — The Foreign Ministry on Monday urged Jordanians in Libya to exercise extreme caution due to the current unrest in the country.

The ministry called on Jordanians to avoid areas of conflict.

The ministry's operations centre is available around the clock on 5735166, while Jordan's embassy in Tripoli can be reached on 00218213614763 and 00218917126480.

AMMAN — The State Security Court (SSC) on Monday charged five Syrians with the possession of automatic weapons with the intent of using them illegally and attempting to export ammunition without a legal permit.

The five men were also charged with planning hostile actions harmful to the Kingdom and its citizens; illegal entry into Jordan; and illegally attempting to leave it.

The defendants illegally crossed into Jordan last September. During their stay in Mafraq, some 80km northeast of Amman, the defendants met with another group of Syrians and agreed to export ammunition to Syria to be used in the ongoing conflict.

The Syrians were heading to the Hammad-Rweished area last October with the intent of crossing into Syria when border guards detained them and seized their equipment, while the other group escaped.

Their six vehicles were carrying automatic weapons, ammunition clips, cellular phones, JD33,500 and $30,000, in addition to an undisclosed amount of Syrian pounds.

The court adjourned the session until early June to give the defendants time to hire attorneys.

AMMAN — The State Security Court (SSC) on Monday released two political activists detained during separate protests earlier this month.

The court moved to release Mohammad Balawi, a member of a popular protest movement group due to a lack of evidence in an alleged lèse-majesté case.

The court also released veteran Muslim Brotherhood member Adnan Abu Arqub on bail after detaining him for 15 days in an Amman prison.

The opening trial for the Islamist, who faces up to seven years in prison for “undermining the state” with statements made in a recent anti-government protest, is slated for May 26.

Also on Monday, the court moved to postpone the sentencing of 11 citizens in an alleged Al Qaeda terror plot to May 28.

In another case, the SSC charged Jordanian Medhat Marar with “membership in an illegal organisation” and the distribution of “propaganda deemed harmful to the state” for his alleged affiliation with the banned Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb Al Tahrir).

Marar pleaded not guilty to the charges, denying ties to the party.

The court announced that it would present its evidence against the Amman resident in a session on May 26.

The defendant was arrested at Queen Alia International Airport earlier this month upon his return from a regional party conference in Sudan.

Jordan has outlawed the regional political movement, which stands for the reinstatement of an Islamic caliphate, due to their calls for the ouster of current Arab governments and monarchies.

AMMAN –– A number of university students, in collaboration with local architects, will renovate former prime minister Ibrahim Hashem’s residence in Jabal Amman. 

The project, to be implemented under an agreement signed by the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and the German-Jordanian University (GJU), will cost around JD700,000, according to a source at the university who preferred anonymity.

Hashem formed five governments in 1933, 1944, 1955, 1956 and 1957. He was also president of the Senate in 1951 and 1955, according to a GAM statement.

He died in Iraq in 1958 during the uprising of Abdel Kareem Qasem, the statement said. 

The house will be used for GJU’s college of architecture and provide students with a venue for heritage, architectural and cultural activities.  

“Students will document the whole process until they finish the job,” the GJU source told The Jordan Times.

The project will provide students with a great opportunity to implement what they learn at university and further encourage them to be creative in their work, according to the source.

Amman Mayor Aqel Biltaji said the agreement reflects GAM’s partnership with the university and the local community. 

A GAM statement quoted  him as saying that the municipality extended its scope of heritage areas in the capital, covering downtown Amman, Jabal Hussein, Jabal Luweibdeh and Jabal Jofeh.

GJU President Natheer Abu Obeid expressed hoped that the project will positively contribute to promoting Amman’s heritage, adding that the university is proud to partner with GAM. 

There will be future collaboration between the university and the municipality in preserving heritage sites and implementing cultural projects in Amman, the GJU source said.  

AMMAN — Thirty-two per cent of the 280,275 work permits the Labour Ministry issued in 2011 were for guest workers in the agriculture and fishing sector, according to a report released on Monday.

Issued by the Tamkeen Centre for Legal Aid and Human Rights, the report indicated that 89,415 of the total number of work permits issued in 2011 were for agriculture sector labourers, 97 per cent of whom were Egyptians. 

The remaining 3 per cent were from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Yemen and Syria.

One-third of the work permits in the agriculture sector were for workers in Balqa Governorate.

The majority of guest workers in the agriculture sector had “expired work permits and had been exploited illegally by employers”, the report said. 

It classified the illegal workers in the agriculture sector in three categories: those who arrived in the Kingdom as tourists and pilgrims and worked on local farms before the issuance of work permits; guest workers who failed to renew their expired work permits; and Syrian refugees who work in rural areas.

The report said a number of issues related to child labour, exploitation and human rights violations always take place when it comes to the recruitment of Syrian families in agriculture and other sectors. 

The majority of Syrians without work permits are paid less than other workers, approximately JD1 per hour or JD110 per month, according to the report. 

Interviews with legal and illegal guest workers conducted by Tamkeen teams revealed that 50 per cent of them used to be paid less than JD90 in their countries and they immigrated to Jordan with the expectation that their monthly salary would increase by 50 per cent.

Eighty per cent of the interviewed sample said they are paid JD150-JD250 per month, the report said, adding that around 50 per cent of the guest workers worked for between 4-8 and 8-12 hours daily.

Despite the fact that the Social Security Law obliges employers to register their staff at the Social Security Corporation, the report said 99 per cent of the interviewed guest workers did not have any social security coverage.  

The report was launched on Monday during an EU-funded brainstorming session attended by officials from the labour and agriculture ministries, as well as legal and human rights experts. 

AMMAN — One hundred cases of tuberculosis (TB) were diagnosed in Jordan in the first three months of the year, 50 of them among non-Jordanians, a Health Ministry official said on Sunday.

Khaled Abu Rumman, director of the ministry’s respiratory diseases department, said 30 cases were diagnosed among workers in the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs).

Abu Rumman noted that several cases were detected among workers in the QIZs, which “prompted us to move to these zones and conduct tests there”.

Other cases, he added, were among guest workers and foreigners residing in Jordan.

Meanwhile, 37 cases of hepatitis were diagnosed among non-Jordanians in the period in question, in addition to 19 cases of HIV/AIDS.

Although Abu Rumman declined to comment on the latest TB cases diagnosed among Syrian refugees, in March he said that 109 TB cases have been detected among Syrians in Jordan, 40 of them in the Zaatari Refugee Camp.

In addition, four of the cases were diagnosed as multi-drug resistant TB.

Abu Rumman said the ministry supervises the medication of all refugees diagnosed with TB as part of the “Public Health Strategy among Syrian Refugees” launched earlier this year.

He noted that the strategy — launched in cooperation with the International Organisation for Migration, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNHCR — seeks to reduce TB transmission among Syrian refugees.

The official told The Jordan Times that even before the refugee crisis started in 2011, the prevalence of TB among Syrians was 24 cases per 100,000, while in Jordan the rate is six per 100,000 people.

AMMAN — A total of 73 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in the Kingdom are generated by the energy sector, according to a report, which indicated that the figure is set to increase in the future.

The sector’s greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise to 77 per cent by 2015 and to 83 per cent by 2040, according to the preliminary results of the Kingdom’s Third National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“The energy sector is the main contributor to the emission of greenhouse gases in the Kingdom, and it is increasingly emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” Mahmoud Eis, an official at the Energy Ministry, said during a seminar to present the preliminary results of the third national communication.

“The other sectors’ emissions are also increasing with time, but not as much as the energy sector,” he added.

The energy sector emitted 18.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2006 and 26 million tonnes in 2013, according to Eis, who noted that the amount is expected to increase to 48.6 million tonnes in 2040.

The report proposed six mitigation projects that could lead to noticeable and cost-effective emission reductions, including loss reduction in electricity transmission and distribution; improving combustion efficiency in the Rihab Power Plant; combined cycle gas turbine in the Risha plant; the natural gas distribution network in Aqaba; demand side management in the electricity sector; and a nuclear power plant. 

The report also presented its initial findings in other sectors responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases, including transport, waste, industrial processes, and land use conversion and forestry.

The Kingdom prepares a national communication report every four years with the aim of identifying the amount and sources of greenhouse gases in the country.

Climate change scenarios indicate that Jordan and the Middle East could suffer from reduced agricultural productivity and water availability, among other negative impacts, according to the 2013-2020 Jordan Climate Change Policy.

The report said Jordan faces serious potential impacts on its natural ecosystems, river basins, watersheds and biodiversity, then cascading to impacts on food productivity, water resources, human health, public infrastructure and human settlements.

The report indicated that climate change projections suggest a 1-4°C increase in temperatures and a 15-60 per cent decrease in precipitation.

An opinion survey on public knowledge and perception of climate change in the Kingdom, released in February this year, indicated that 78 per cent of Jordanians believe that the climate has “really changed” over the past few years and around 67.1 per cent said this change is “negative and annoying”.

Meanwhile, 38 per cent of the survey sample said they have a “very good” knowledge of climate change issues, while 72.9 per cent said climate change is a man-made phenomenon caused by industries, transportation and energy activities.

The Royal Scientific Society conducted the survey within the context of the third national communication report.