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AMMAN — HRH Crown Prince Hussein on Friday wished all students going through exams the best of luck.

The Crown Prince posted a picture of himself studying for university exams on his Instagram account with the caption: “A few more nights of hard work before I go back home inshallah. Good luck to all of us going through exams #jo#jordan#finals#goodluck”.

AMMAN — Border guards opened fire and killed an Arab national attempting to cross into Syria on Friday after he failed to respond to “repeated warnings” from security forces, according to the Jordan Armed Forces (JAF).

Jordanian officials declined to disclose the nationality or age of the deceased.

The incident comes less than two days after border forces clashed with a group of alleged jihadists attempting to cross from Syria into Jordan. 

According to Islamist sources, the man was a member of Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat Al Nusra coalition.

Hard-line Jordanian and Syrian Islamists identified the deceased as Mohammed Abu Baker, a Saudi Arabian who had been recruited by Al Nusra to join Islamist militias in their fight against Syrian regime forces.

Islamists claim that over 15 foreign and Jordanian jihadists have been injured or killed along the 370-kilometre border with Syria over the past two weeks.

Over 2,200 Jordanians currently serve alongside Islamist militias in Syria, the majority under the ranks of Al Nusra coalition or its rival, former Al Qaeda affiliate Islamic Sate of Iraq and the Levant.

On Saturday, an army helicopter destroyed two cars that crossed the border from Syria, laden with “a large amount of contraband”, a JAF source said in a statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

The source added that border guards received 263 Syrian refugees, including five injured people, over the past 24 hours.

Royal Medical Services personnel administered first aid to the injured and took them to the nearest hospital, while border guards moved the rest to refugee camps.

AMMAN — Orange Jordan will resort to international arbitration in the US if no deal is reached soon with the government to set a “reasonable” price for renewing its second generation (2G) licence, its CEO Jean-François Thomas said on Saturday.

Orange Jordan, 51 per cent of which is owned by France Telecom, filed lawsuits at the Higher Court of Justice and the Amman Court of First Instance against the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), which decided to charge it JD156 million for renewing the 2G licence for 15 years.

“We... may soon resort to the US-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes after the government decided to charge us a high price for renewing the 2G licence,” Thomas told reporters. 

“This amount is too high and will negatively affect the company and the sector,” he added.

The company’s 2G licence expired on May 8, which means that the TRC can notify the operator to stop accepting new subscribers or eventually disconnect services.

“We [will] not pay the JD156 million because we believe it is unfair and unreasonably high,” Thomas said.

TRC officials were unavailable for comment despite attempts by The Jordan Times to reach them, but ICT Minister Azzam Sleit said in late April that the decision to set JD156.4 million as the renewal fee was taken after objective studies.

He said the fact that the government, through the Social Security Corporation, owns 30 per cent of Orange Jordan’s shares does not entitle it to special treatment in 2G licence pricing.

The government will pay around JD50 million of the licence fees as a shareholder, the minister noted.

The TRC has also said that the price was in accordance with the law and the actual value of the licence in the market at present.

“We do not and will not stop services for our customers. We tried to reach a compromise with the TRC but to no avail,” Thomas noted.

Raslan Diranieh, chief financial officer of the Jordan Telecom Group, said if the company pays JD156 million for renewing the 2G licence, its ability to further invest in the country will be harmed. 

Orange Jordan invested more than JD700 million in Jordan over the past 15 years.

“It will also be difficult for Orange Jordan to invest in the fourth generation, which is a big loss to the company,” Diranieh added.

The company said the TRC should have issued regulations three to five years before it was time to renew the 2G licence. Such regulations should clarify the renewal process and how the fee is calculated.

“Orange Jordan employs about 2,000 persons in terms of direct jobs and provides jobs for 7,000 families indirectly,” the CEO said. 

Last week, Orange said it was in talks with the government to renew its 2G licence for five years instead of 15 years, but no breakthrough in the talks has been reported.

AMMAN  — Their Majesties King Abdullah and Queen Rania left on Friday on a working visit to London and the US, according to a Royal Court statement. 

In London, King Abdullah will deliver a lecture at the Royal College of Defence Studies on the latest regional and international developments.  

The King will head for San Francisco and Los Angeles in California, where he will meet with several leading economic figures, academics and representatives of civil society institutions.  

He will also meet with Jordanian entrepreneurs who are working in the US, to brief them on the incentives offered by the Jordanian business environment and to promote chances for attracting US investments to the Kingdom, especially in the telecommunications and IT sector; one of the key growth drivers in the Kingdom (see more details of visit in infograph).

The King will conclude his working visit in New York, where he will attend a special conference, held by the Clinton Foundation.

The conference will represent an opportunity to rally international efforts in support of Jordan in shouldering the various burdens that have resulted from hosting Syrian refugees, and to highlight the impact of the large influx of refugees on the country’s limited resources, according to the statement. 

Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq have taken in the majority of the 2.5 million Syrians who fled their country since the onset of the conflict in March 2011, with around 600,000 of them living in the Kingdom, according to UN figures, but unofficial figures suggest they could amount to one million.

HRH Prince Feisal was sworn in as Regent during the King’s absence.  

AMMAN — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will on Sunday open in Amman a two-day regional conference to discuss policies that can generate jobs and lead to better growth and equity in the region.

Over 200 participants, IMF officials, policy makers from the Middle East and North Africa, and leading members of the private sector, academia, civil society and media will gather for the meeting. 

Under the theme “Building the Future: Jobs, Growth and Fairness in the Arab World”, the high-level conference will see the participation of Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, whose visit to Jordan will be the first as the fund’s chief.

The event is co-organised by the government and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, and the IMF. 

Finance ministers and central bank governors from several Arab countries will take part in the conference. 

According to the agenda of the two-day gathering, on day one, a first set of two parallel thematic sessions will explore macroeconomic policy priorities and transparency, and governance issues. 

These will be followed by a second set of parallel sessions that will focus on tackling unemployment and improving the business climate. 

The sessions will be chaired by high-level policy makers, where speakers from the Arab region and beyond will explore challenges and opportunities. 

On day two, the conference will be opened by a panel including Ensour, Lagarde and Director General of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development Abdlatif Al Hamad. 

KARAK — Health Minister Ali Hiasat on Thursday checked on the situation at Karak Public Hospital after the ceiling of the neonatal unit collapsed as a result of the heavy rain.

The minister pledged to have the unit restored as soon as possible.

The unit is part of a new ward that has been recently inaugurated as part of an expansion project financed by USAID.

Hospital Director Ali Hamaideh said heavy rain caused part of the unit’s internal infrastructure to fall, and because water started to leak, the babies were transferred to the old neonatal unit at the hospital and to the neonatal unit at Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein Military Hospital.

None of the babies was hurt in the incident, he added.

AMMAN — The Public Security Department (PSD), in cooperation with Royal Badia Forces, on Thursday arrested two suspects in east Amman involved in drug trafficking and seized huge amounts of narcotics.

In a raid of the suspected Jordanian dealers’ house, PSD personnel seized 15,000 pills of illegal drugs and 10 kilogrammes of hashish.

The case was referred to the State Security Court prosecutor.

Meanwhile, a joint force from the Anti-Narcotics Department and the Royal Badia Forces raided a tent in the Southern Badia used to sell smuggled fuel in the area.

The forces also seized 53,000 illegal pills that suspects planned to smuggle to a neighbouring country.

Three Arabs and a Jordanian were arrested in the raid and referred to the prosecutor.

TOKYO — A humanitarian aid shipment for Syrian refugees left for the Zaatari  Refugee Camp from the Kuwaiti embassy in Tokyo on Thursday.

The shipment includes blankets, clothes and other supplies.

Jamila Oteibi, the wife of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Japan, said the shipment is expected to arrive in Jordan within a month.

AMMAN — Tourism Minister Nidal Katamine on Thursday called on tourist and travel agencies to abide by regulations when advertising for trips and to commit to their announced programmes.

Katamine said some agencies promote domestic and foreign trips through the media in a way that violates the tourist and travel agencies by-law.

Under the by-law, agencies are obliged to acquaint the Tourism Ministry with their tourist programmes 15 days ahead and commit to the announced agenda.

AMMAN — The Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) on Thursday expressed surprise over a visit by Awqaf Minister Hayel Dawood to Al Aqsa Mosque, saying it encourages normalisation with Israel and gives recognition to the occupation.

In a statement, the JEA said such visits will not prevent Israeli assaults against Al Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites in occupied Jerusalem.

The JEA also said a recent fatwa by Muslim scholars ending a ban of Muslim visits to Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem legitimises the Israeli occupation.

The fatwa was issued by a number of Muslim scholars and intellectuals from various Islamic countries and schools of jurisprudence and announced during the three-day “Road to Jerusalem” conference, which concluded last week in Amman.