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AMMAN — Jordan recorded its fourth Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus-related death on Monday, a Health Ministry official said on Tuesday.

Mohammad Abdullat, director of the Health Ministry’s communicable diseases directorate, said the latest fatality was a 56-year-old man who died at the University of Jordan Hospital on the same day he was admitted to the facility.

Abdullat noted that the man, who used to work as a respiratory therapy technician in one of the country’s hospitals, was also diagnosed with pneumonia.

“This is the second coronavirus-related death this year, and the fourth since 2012,” he told The Jordan Times over the phone, adding that the virus might lead to death even among people who do not have other respiratory diseases.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) website, coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause a range of illnesses in humans, from the common cold to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. 

Viruses in this family also cause a number of animal diseases. 

MERS is a strain of coronavirus that was first identified in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. “Our understanding of the virus and the disease it causes is continuing to evolve,” WHO said.

So far, there is no medication for the virus, Abdullat said, adding that the ministry has informed hospitals across the Kingdom to report any suspected MERS case.

“Since 2012, eight cases of MERS were diagnosed in Jordan and some of them were not Jordanians,” he noted.

Although the highest number of MERS cases was reported in Saudi Arabia, Abdullat said there will be no restrictions for entry on the border between the two countries or any measure to prevent Jordanians from travelling there.

According to news reports, the total number of cases discovered in Saudi Arabia is 371, with 107 deaths.

Meanwhile, the National Committee for the Prevention of Epidemics on Monday formed an on-call “treatment” committee that will be entrusted with following up on MERS cases.

The committee comprises representatives of the Health Ministry, the Royal Medical Services, university hospitals and the private sector.

During a meeting on Monday, Health Ministry Secretary General Daifallah Lozi stressed the importance of joint efforts to confront the disease.

AMMAN — Construction work in the second phase of the Amman Water System Improvement Project has commenced to improve water supply in the capital and reduce energy costs, officials said on Tuesday.

The project’s second phase includes building a new pump station at Dabouq in west Amman, improvements to the existing Al Kharabsheh Pump Station, and the installation of new valves and six kilometres of pipeline, the officials said.

The project will cost JD4,629,050, 85 per cent of which is funded by USAID and the remainder the Jordan Water Company (Miyahuna).

Water Minister Hazem Nasser and USAID Mission Director Beth Paige laid the cornerstone for the project’s second phase at the Dabouq Pump Station on Tuesday.

“The project is scheduled to be completed in October 2015… it seeks to improve water supply in several of Amman’s northern neighbourhoods, including Khalda, Al Rashid, Abu Nseir, Um Shujeirat, Sweileh and Shafa Badran,” Nasser said during the ceremony.

In addition, water mains will be extended in Al Hashemi and Tareq neighbourhoods, whose residents suffer from weak water supply, the minister said, underscoring that the project is one of many that accompanied the launch of the Disi Water Conveyance Project last year.

Paige said energy costs are increasing the cost of water in Jordan, noting that energy constituted about 50 per cent of Miyahuna’s operating costs in 2013, and will be high again this year due to the increase in energy prices.

Underscoring that one of the primary advantages of the project is energy savings, she explained that because the water supply will enter the system at a higher elevation than its delivery point in Amman, much of the city’s water will be delivered by gravity.

“Based on a study by USAID contractor CDM International, it is estimated that annual energy savings from the project’s two phases will be more than JD1 million annually,” Paige said during the event.

She highlighted that this project is a continuation of US-Jordanian cooperation in the water sector, which dates back over six decades. 

Since 2000 alone, the US government has spent nearly $700 million on Jordan’s water sector, including the Zara Maeen Water Supply Project and Assamra Wastewater Treatment Plant, Paige added.

AMMAN — Intel Corporation announced late Monday the winners of its “Youth-Tech” programme, which seeks to enhance employability of young Jordanians by providing them with entrepreneurial skills and familiarising them with the latest technologies.

During a ceremony at the Royal Scientific Society, ICT Minister Azzam Sleit honoured the winners, stressing the importance of the ICT sector to the country’s economy.

“The sector contributes 14 per cent of the overall gross domestic product and employs more than 11,000 people. Programmes that provide innovative technologies, entrepreneurship and employability training are vital to keep the sector flourishing,” the minister said at the event.

Stressing the importance of Intel’s programme, which is piloted for the first time globally in Jordan, Sleit said such initiatives will motivate entrepreneurship and provide a suitable environment for innovators.

A project called AIR, which entails developing a small chip that is placed on farm animals to keep count of their numbers and control their movement, won first prize.

Second place went to the Youth Entertainment Services project, which includes a variety of entertainment programmes for young people like outdoor cinemas, camps and parties.

“MODA” (or fashion), a shopping website dedicated to local fashion designers, won the third award.

The Youth-Tech programme, fully designed and funded by Intel Corporation, seeks to empower unemployed graduates who hold ICT and business university degrees to compete in the local and global economies.

About 21 unemployed youths took part in the programme and formed six teams that generated creative and competitive ideas. 

The concepts were tested and put in a business model canvas. Throughout the development of the ideas, professionals in different fields provided participants with mentorship while working on their prototypes for their projects and ideas, according to organisers

“The programme comprised six weeks of intensive training and included several workshops on soft skills, idea generation framework, technology and business, and entrepreneurship and mentorship,” Rula Habash, Intel’s corporate affairs manager for the Levant and North Africa, said at the ceremony.

The Youth-Tech pilot programme was launched in March this year by Intel Corporation in partnership with Jordan Education for Employment as an implementing partner in collaboration with the Labour Ministry, the ICT Association of Jordan and the Queen Rania Centre for Entrepreneurship.

Organisers said a few companies in Jordan have expressed interest in incubating some of the projects or providing internships for the participants.

The programme will now be presented to all stakeholders to consider for national scale implementation in Jordan, as well as other countries in the region, organisers said.

AMMAN — A Jordanian jihadist died in Amman on Tuesday from wounds sustained in Syria amid a growing exodus of young Jordanians joining Syrian Islamist militias.

Abu Baker Obeideh Al Qaramseh, a 23-year-old Maan resident, died at his family’s home less than 48 hours after returning from Syria, local Islamist sources told The Jordan Times.

Qaramseh, a member of the hard-line Jihadi Salafist movement, had served alongside the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat Al Nusra coalition in southern Syria over the past five months, according to Mohammad Shalabi, or Abu Sayyaf, head of the jihadist movement. 

Qaramseh’s death brings the total number of Jordanians reportedly killed while battling Syrian regime forces alongside Islamist militants to over 200, Islamist sources say.

An increasing number of Jordanians are reportedly joining Islamist militants in Syria, with some 2,300 crossing into Syria to join jihadist groups over the past two weeks alone, according to Jordanian and Syrian Islamist sources.

Over 2,200 Jordanians are currently fighting in Syria, the vast majority reportedly serving under the banner of Jabhat Al Nusa or its rival, former Al Qaeda affiliate the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

AMMAN –– Around 5,847 underprivileged Jordanian and Syrian families have benefited from a winter campaign that lasted for over four months, organisers said on Tuesday.

Launched by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in collaboration with Save the Children Jordan (SCJ) in December last year, the initiative covered all parts of the Kingdom, SCJ CEO Manal Wazani said.  

“The campaign was designed to ease as much as possible the difficulties people face during winter,” she told reporters at a press conference to announce the conclusion and outcomes of the campaign, financed by the Swiss agency.  

Under the initiative, gas heaters, blankets and packages of winter clothes were distributed to the beneficiaries.

In a previous interview with The Jordan Times, Wazani said information about eligible families was obtained from the SCJ database, which includes more than 20,000 Syrian refugees and underprivileged Jordanian families. The information was collected through SCJ programmes that address education, protection, nutrition and livelihood.

Nour Abdul Hadi, the Swiss agency’s national programme officer, said the campaign is part of the Swiss government’s attempts to alleviate the suffering of Syrian refugees in Jordan, who number over 600,000.

Wazani told The Jordan Times that the campaign focused on the capital and the southern region, since most societies and organisations focus on the northern region, where thousands of Syrians have taken refuge among host communities and at camps.  

“We found that many families in Amman are also in need of help,” she said.   

The majority of Syrian refugees live among host communities, with some estimates suggesting that over 1 million Syrians have taken refuge in the Kingdom since the crisis erupted in their country in 2011.

Jordan now has three official Syrian refugee camps: Zaatari, Mreijeb Al Fhoud and Azraq, which officially opened last week.

AMMAN — Parliament will most likely reconvene in an extraordinary session as of early June, Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh said Tuesday.

The session will have a “packed agenda”, with more than 15 draft laws awaiting discussion and endorsement, Tarawneh told reporters.

“I have submitted a request to hold the session, but the final decision is in the hands of His Majesty King Abdullah,” he said.

At a press conference to highlight the achievements of the Lower House during its last ordinary session, which was prorogued by the King as of May 3, Tarawneh noted that the 150-strong Chamber of Deputies endorsed 34 laws in 56 meetings.

The endorsed pieces of legislation included key bills such as the State Security Court, anti-terrorism, Anti-Corruption Commission, and illicit fortune laws, in addition to the state budget.

Also, MPs submitted 762 questions out of which the government provided answers to 542, he said.

The Lower House convened for its six-month Ordinary Session on November 3, 2013.

In a “new practice by the Lower House”, deputies submitted proposals to the government to amend two laws — the Constitutional Court Law and the Penal Code, according to Tarawneh.

In addition, the Lower House submitted 140 memos, three of which were requests for a revote of confidence in the government. One confidence session was held in response to these memos, where the government again won the vote.

Tarawneh highlighted the Lower House’s participation in several regional and international conferences, noting that there was more focus on “parliamentary diplomacy” during the last session than previous ones.

But the speaker said the legislature was not yet ready to produce a parliamentary government.

The country must first develop the roles of political parties to enable them to form solid blocs within Parliament, he added. “In my opinion, it is not convenient at present to make such move.”

He expressed his support for the coalitions and the alliances that MPs have formed.

“In order for the Lower House to deal with these entities in a legal and systematic manner, they must develop into registered blocs,” Tarawneh noted.

A significant number of MPs have gathered in coalitions outside the Dome, instead of in blocs, including the so-called “Mubadara” group led by veteran MP and former speaker Saad Hayel Srour and Deputy Mustafa Hamarneh. 

Another alliance includes MPs who are ex-servicemen, with First Deputy of the Lower House Speaker Ahmad Safadi among its members, while a third group comprises women deputies.

The speaker said the ordinary session witnessed only two occasions of loss of quorum, which is “a reasonable figure” when compared with leading parliaments across the world.

Tarawneh said the absence of MPs from meetings is a challenge that the House must face and overcome to realise better achievements in future sessions.

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Tuesday emphasised the importance of guiding young people towards vocational training opportunities that best suit the demands of the current job market. 

Queen Rania made the remarks during the annual meeting of the board of trustees of Al Aman Fund for the Future of Orphans, an organisation Her Majesty established in 2006 to provide orphaned youth in Jordan with the necessary education and skills to become self-reliant members of the community after they turn 18 years old and leave their care centres.

During the meeting, board members discussed Al Aman Fund’s achievements last year, as well as current and upcoming projects, according to a statement from the Queen’s office. 

They also talked about possible ways to improve the fund’s methodology and programmes in order to increase the number of collected donations.

Deputy Chairman Ziad Fareez said the fund is looking into offering donors a new set of projects for them to support. 

He added that the fund is also working on setting new strategies that aim to build solid partnerships with other organisations and individuals concerned with supporting orphans in Jordan.

Al Aman Fund Board Chairman Laith Al Qasem noted that in the last few years, young beneficiaries who have pursued vocational training opportunities have outnumbered their peers who major in different academic streams. 

Ibrahim Al Ahmad, deputy director of Al Aman Fund, spoke about the organisation’s main achievements and successes. 

He explained that, since 2006 and until last year, the fund’s primary beneficiaries, which include orphans who have resided in orphan care centres, increased by 19.2 per cent, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the number of secondary beneficiaries, that include orphans who live with one parent or with an extended family, has increased by 80 per cent. 

To date, the number of Al Aman Fund’s overall beneficiaries has reached 2,304. Out of the total, 1,132 have graduated from various vocational and academic universities and colleges, while 497 will start their studies this year.  

AMMAN — The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on Monday issued an urgent appeal for $7 million in additional funds to meet the sustainability of the humanitarian programme UNFPA Jordan and its partners are carrying out and to meet the needs of the growing number of Syrian refugees arriving in Jordan, especially women and young girls.

A statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times said the funds that were given to UNFPA Jordan for the past two years are almost finished, and until now the agency has not received any new funds for 2015. 

This “will threaten the sustainability and continuity of the huge humanitarian work and services UNFPA and its partners have been providing since 2012”, the statement said.

“Getting extra funds is an important and major component right now to cover the emergency needs of Syrian refugees entering Jordan and sheltering mainly in the camps and surrounding communities in Jordan, and for the sustainability of all UNFPA services provided in the past two years,” the statement quoted UNFPA Humanitarian Coordinator Dr Shible Sahbani as saying.

He noted that UNFPA will provide services in more than one clinic in the newly inaugurated Azraq camp.

“One of the main challenges we at UNFPA Jordan are facing with the limitation of funds is the planning process, as instead of the yearly planning we are now working on semi-annual planning,” Sahbani added. 

UNFPA Jordan said it has been active from the onset of the crisis in responding to the needs of the Syrians both in host communities and in the established camps, as well as the “reproductive health needs of women and girls and to ensure high quality life-saving protection services”. 

To date, UNFPA and its partners are supporting 27 women’s clinics, and the agency is the only organisation providing normal delivery services in the Zaatari Refugee Camp through specialised male and female gynaecologists since mid-2013, the statement said.

UNFPA and its partners are also supporting 14 safe spaces for women and young girls; seven of them are in the camps and provide “comprehensive psycho-social support on gender-based violence issues, in addition to many recreational edutainment activities” for young people aged between 15 and 25.

In its appeal, UNFPA thanked all its donors, especially the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department, the Norwegian government, Kuwait, the US, UNFPA Programme Funds and the UN Central Emergency Response Funds.

AMMAN — Farmers’ education and empowerment should be a sustainable process in Jordan, especially since agriculture is one of the sectors in the Kingdom that employs guest workers, officials said on Monday.

In a country with a growing population that has almost reached 10 million, there has to be continuous education for agricultural workers, Agriculture Ministry Secretary General Radi Tarawneh said at a workshop organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Tarawneh added that the sector is very important to the country’s economy, but there are several challenges that should be overcome.

These challenges, he noted, include contradictory pieces of legislation and urban encroachment on agricultural land.

However, local crops and agricultural products are tested and free of pesticides, the official stressed.

“There were news reports claiming the opposite, while others claimed that wastewater treated at the Khirbet Al Samra plant is used to irrigate crops for human consumption… this is false news,” Tarawneh said.

During the workshop, the FAO announced the conclusion of its 10-year Regional Integrated Pest Management (IPM) project, which was launched in 2004 and also implemented in Jordan.

Andrea Berloffa, emergency coordinator and liaison officer at FAO Jordan, said the project was aimed at improving the food and nutrition security of rural populations through development and implementation of sustainable agriculture practices in six countries, including Jordan, and was expanded in 2010 to include another four countries in the region.

According to Berloffa, education and empowerment of farmers was a “key activity of the IPM programme” that is based on the utilisation of farmer field schools (FFS).

He cited figures indicating that the project established more than 150 FFS in Jordan and over 2,500 farmers — 20 per cent of whom were women — benefited from these schools.

Berloffa explained that the FFS gives farmers the opportunity to learn how to deal with problems they face on their farms, exchange experience and learn how to improve the quality of their crops.

One achievement of the projects, according to the FAO official, is the institutionalising of the FFS approach by the National Centre for Agricultural Research and Extension (NCARE).

“Since 2008, the FFS approach has been incorporated and budgeted into the annual plans of the NCARE… initiating for the first time the participatory extension unit.”

Due to its impact on the country’s agricultural sector, the project received the International IPM Award of Recognition in 2012 from the US, according to National IPM and FFS Project Coordinator Ashraf Hawamdeh.

Hawamdeh noted that the project also had a direct impact on farmers’ livelihoods and some of the FFS beneficiaries succeeded in exporting more than 800 tonnes of tomatoes and 200 tonnes of cucumbers in 2009.

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Monday was questioning a man and his mother in connection with the stabbing death of their Saudi neighbour in an Amman suburb a day earlier, official sources said.

The 67-year-old victim received multiple stab wounds to different parts of his body, allegedly inflicted by his 22-year-old neighbour in the capital’s Rabia neighbourhood on Sunday night, a senior judicial source said.

In his initial testimony to police, the suspect told investigators that he “murdered his neighbour who lived above him because he was annoyed by a pounding noise the victim was making”, a second source told The Jordan Times.

The two had a heated argument that ended with the suspect reportedly stabbing his neighbour to death, the source said.

However, investigators are also looking into the possibility that the suspect’s 64-year-old mother might be involved in the stabbing, according to the judicial source.

“The mother is claiming to be the perpetrator although initial findings point to her son as being the main suspect in the case,” the judicial source explained.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Ishaq Abu Awad is still examining evidence, and questioning witnesses and the suspects.

“Abu Awad will press charges once he concludes who the perpetrator is,” the second source said.

The criminal prosecutor ordered the detention of the male suspect at a correctional and rehabilitation centre pending further investigation into the incident.