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AMMAN — A total of 315 out of 330 Jordanian tourists who were stranded in Taba and Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt on Thursday as a result of floods and heavy rain, returned to the Kingdom on Sunday, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Sabah Al Rafie said.

The ministry’s operations centre had exerted intensive efforts to follow up on the conditions of the Jordanian tourists upon Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh’s directives.

The remaining tourists will return on Monday, Rafie said.

AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Sunday received Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and an accompanying delegation who are currently in the Kingdom to participate in a conference focusing on ways to generate jobs and achieve better growth.  

The conference, titled “Building the Future: Jobs, Growth and Fairness in the Arab World”, is organised by the government, in cooperation with the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the IMF. 

At the meeting, that was also attended by Finance Minister Umayya Toukan and Central Bank of Jordan Governor Ziad Fariz, the premier highlighted the challenges facing the Jordanian economy, noting that the reforms that the country has adopted have helped put the Jordanian economy on the right track, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, said.  

Ensour briefed Lagarde on the impact of the Syrian crisis on the economy, highlighting the increasing pressure on the country’s infrastructure and services, and Jordan’s need for support to overcome these challenges.   

Lagarde, who visited the Zaatari Refugee Camp on Sunday, asserted the need for assisting the Kingdom to overcome the exacerbating repercussions of the Syrian crisis.  

She was accompanied by the finance minister in her Zaatari visit. 

Lagarde, who arrived in Amman Saturday evening to take part in a high level regional economic conference, commended Jordan’s role in hosting and assisting Syrian refugees and donated $15,000 for the hospital in the camp, according to Petra.

She described her visit to the camp as important to understand the mechanism of distributing humanitarian aid to refugees, Petra said. 

AMMAN — The Cabinet on Sunday endorsed draft amendments to the Residency and Foreigner Affairs Law.

The amended bill, to be referred to the Lower House for endorsement, seeks to organise foreigners’ affairs and residency in the Kingdom, in addition to facilitating their entry by issuing “personal numbers” for them.

AMMAN — HRH Prince Feisal, the Regent, on Sunday met with Abdullah Al Matouq, adviser to the Kuwaiti emir and the UN secretary general’s humanitarian envoy.

The Regent underlined Jordan’s commitment to fostering cooperation with Kuwait.

He cited burdens imposed on Jordan due to hosting large numbers of Syrian refugees, thanking Kuwait for its support.

Matouq stressed his country’s keenness to mitigate hardships facing Jordan, particularly in the northern region.

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Sunday attended the 9th Combined Cavalry Memorial Parade as a guest of honour. 

The parade, held in the UK with the participation of senior British military figures, included military exercises, awards and decorations of armoured regiments’ servicemen, according to a Royal Court statement. 

The armoured battalion includes the Light Dragoons, in which the King had served in a leading post while receiving his military training after graduating from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.   

The Light Dragoons is considered the oldest and most important battalion of the UK army. 

The event included a lunch banquet held in honour of the King with the participation of more than 200 military officers and guests, said the statement. 

AMMAN — Jordan and Saudi Arabia on Sunday signed three agreements to finance development projects at a total of $232 million, including a main highway known for a relatively high rate of road accidents.

Of the $232 million, $155 million will be used for the reconstruction of the road linking the central city of Zarqa with the Jordanian-Saudi border at the Omari crossing point.

The road has over the years seen fatal accidents including Jordanian as well as Saudi nationals using the road, blamed mainly on the bad condition of the international road, according to reports.

A total of $54 million will go to construct and rehabilitate other roads, while $23 million will be spent on two sewage water pumping stations in Zarqa Governorate, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The agreements are a continuation of previously signed financing deals between the two sides, totalling $666.4 million, under the first stage of Saudi Arabia’s grant to the Kingdom as part of its contribution to the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) $5 billion grant.  

These funds are earmarked to serve projects in several sectors, including health, education, water and transport.

Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Ibrahim Saif, who signed the agreements with the Saudi fund’s deputy chairman, Yousef Al Bassam, expressed Jordan’s appreciation for Saudi Arabia’s support. 

He stressed the significance of the schemes in light of the political instability and repercussions of the Syrian crisis on the Kingdom, according to Petra.   

The GCC grant aims at financing development projects in the Kingdom during the 2012-2016 period, with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar paying $1.25 billion each. 

AMMAN — Amman Attorney General Tareq Shukeirat on Sunday ordered the detention of five people from Cambridge High School in connection with the death of a seven-year-old student last month.

The girl drowned in the private school’s pool while swimming with her peers.

“The detained are the school’s owner, former principal, pool guard and two sports teachers,” Shukeirat told The Jordan Times over the phone, noting that they face charges of “causing the death of the student”.

The detainees will remain in custody for one week pending investigations, according to the attorney general.

Last month, the high school terminated the services of its principal, Diana Afranji, upon a request from the Education Ministry.

However, the ministry underlined that the decision had nothing to do with the incident, but was the result of complaints filed against her.

In previous remarks to The Jordan Times, Farid Khatib, head of the ministry’s private education department, said the school had not obtained the required approval for extracurricular activities, and the pool, which is now closed, was not licensed.

Khatib noted that the Civil Defence Department notified the school several times between the years 2006 and 2012 of the need to submit the pool’s blueprint in order to meet required safety measures for licensing purposes.

The death of the student prompted the Education Ministry to form a committee that includes members of its private education and legal affairs departments to investigate the incident, and present its report to court.

Khatib on Sunday refused to comment on the attorney general’s decision, saying that the case is now in the hands of the court.

AMMAN — Jordan and Poland on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding for military cooperation, a senior Polish official said.

Robert Kupiecki, Poland’s undersecretary of state for defence policy, said this is the first agreement of its kind signed between Amman and Warsaw.

In an interview with The Jordan Times, Kupiecki explained that the memo specifies the areas of possible cooperation in the military field.

“It sets the basic conditions and points the areas of cooperation like joint training, and military education… It is also about the acquisition of modern military equipment, research and development in the field of military technology,” he said.

According to the visiting official, both Jordan and Poland sometimes operate the same military equipment, and Warsaw is offering Jordan assistance “to modernise it to enhance its operation and capabilities”.

“We in Poland can offer a lot in terms of upgrading the existing equipment and [are] also open for other opportunities,” he noted.

Signing such an agreement with Jordan is proof of Poland’s interest in deepening and extending cooperation with the Kingdom, according to the defence official.

“Despite the geographical distance, there are some striking similarities between the paths of our countries,” Kupiecki said, noting that both nations share very difficult and challenging neighbourhoods which require good policies aimed at stabilisation. 

Poland and Jordan have solid investments in their military capabilities to protect their interests and maintain security and stability, he noted.

Both countries enjoy stability in turbulent areas and their political stability is growing; in addition, Amman and Warsaw invest in the relations with their neighbours, which might pose some challenges to their security, the official said.

Although the two countries already cooperate in the military sphere, this agreement comes to structure and regulate this cooperation, Kupiecki stressed, noting that “our foreign operations participated together in Afghanistan.”

“Over the last couple of years, we were doing our best to increase our presence in Jordan… there has been also an interest among Polish companies in investing in Jordan and collaborating with their Jordanian counterparts,” he added.

In addition, last year Poland established a defence attaché office, and Polish soldiers took part in the Eager Lion international military exercise.

Kupiecki noted that he has invited senior Jordanian defence officials to take part in Kielce, an annual military exhibition that takes place in Poland in September.

AMMAN –– Engineers at the Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company (JPRC) on Sunday started an open-ended strike to demand higher salaries, with assurances that fuel distribution will not be affected. 

Mustafa Momani, spokesperson of the striking engineers, told The Jordan Times over the phone that the vast majority of the 180 engineers at the refinery participated in the work stoppage to force JPRC management to listen to what he described as “fair demands” that include a 25 per cent increase of basic salaries.

He added that several MPs and representatives of civil society organisations visited the striking employees in their tent outside the premises of the refinery in Zarqa, some 22km east of Amman, claiming that they expressed support for the demands of the engineers. 

According to Momani, the engineers want the pay raise in order to be equal to their peers in other mining firms such as the potash and the phosphate companies. 

The spokesperson said the strikers also have other administrative demands, foremost of which is not renewing the contracts of engineers who reached retirement age of 60 years and cost JPRC hundreds of thousands of dinars a year. 

The strikers are against the renewal of the contracts of six employees. 

In remarks to The Jordan Times on Saturday, JPRC CEO Abdul Karim Alaween described the planned strike as illegal, saying the engineers received “unprecedented” pay benefits on March 26.

Their salaries were raised by 15 per cent of the basic wages in addition to increasing the cost of living allowances from JD145 to JD175 a month, Alaween said.

He said an agreement on these benefits –– which included all JPRC workers –– was signed by management and the association representing refinery workers, and sponsored by the government and Parliament. 

Alaween added that the workers were also granted other benefits, such as raising the allowance for experience and university scholarships for employees, in addition to a 5 per cent increase in the annual raise. 

The refinery CEO accused the Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) of being part of the problem, by inciting engineers to go ahead with their strike. 

JEA President Abdullah Obeidat called on the JPRC management to meet the demands of the engineers, which he described as fair and just. 

AMMAN — More than 16 million cubic metres (mcm) entered the Kingdom’s dams over the weekend, after unstable weather conditions brought torrential rain and thunderstorms to different parts of the country, according to the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.

The 10 major dams now hold 168mcm of water, or 51.5 per cent of their total capacity of 325mcm, while desert dams are now at their full capacity following the heavy rain, according to Water Minister Hazem Nasser.

“The Tannour Dam is at full capacity for the first time. The recent rainfall channelled some 9mcm into the dam,” Nasser said in a statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times.

The 16.8mcm-Tannour Dam is located in Wadi Al Hassa between the Tafileh and Karak governorates in the southern region. 

It was established in 1999 and its water is used for the irrigation of crops, according to an official at the ministry.

“The recent rainfall raised dams’ storage levels and will also help recharge the underground aquifers, which suffer from increasing salinity due to random pumping,” Nasser added.

The minister noted that the Kingdom witnessed four main depressions during the 2013/2014 wet season that brought adequate rain; the first was in mid-December last year, which raised the country’s long-term annual average of rainfall by 25 per cent.

The second depression was in the second half of February this year, and it has raised the long-term annual average to 35 per cent, while the third depression in mid-March increased the figure to 72.5 per cent.

“The unstable weather conditions between May 7 and 8 raised the country’s long-term annual average of rainfall to 89 per cent, as the Kingdom received around 7.4 billion cubic metres of rain, the majority of which was in the southern and eastern regions,” the minister said.

Nasser noted that the country witnessed a lack of rain in the northern and central regions between January and February, during which the country usually receives the majority of rain during winter, while the southern region received adequate rain, which is an indication of climate change.