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AMMAN — Three people suffered smoke inhalation when a fire erupted on the ground floor of a three-storey furniture store in Sweileh, according to the Civil Defence Department (CDD).

CDD personnel put out the fire, administered first aid to the injured and took them to the University of Jordan Hospital, where their condition was listed as fair.

A committee was formed to determine the cause of the fire.

AMMAN — Jordan and Australia on Thursday explored ways to enhance medical cooperation.

During a meeting that included Health Minister Ali Hiasat, Geoff Puttick, national vice chairman of the Australia-Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Australian investors in the medical field, discussions covered ways to develop medical cooperation, especially in ophthalmology.

The Australian delegation praised the Kingdom’s “advanced” level in medicine and its popularity in the region as a medical tourism destination.

The Australians are also scheduled to visit hospitals to get a firsthand look at the sector and consider investment opportunities.

AMMAN — A specialised team from the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has been formed to examine the outcomes of the Privatisation Evaluation Committee (PEC) report, ACC President Samih Bino said on Thursday.

Bino said that the PEC report accounted for imbalances and mistakes committed during the privatisation process of state-owned agencies.

Bino said the PEC report unveiled certain companies’ violation of the transparency principle, as well as the weak performance by government representatives who were unqualified to serve on the boards of privatised companies.

AMMAN — Senate President Abdur-Ra’uf S. Rawabdeh on Thursday underlined Jordan’s commitment to fostering cooperation with the Council of Europe.

During a meeting with the council’s deputy secretary general, Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni, Rawabdeh highlighted the Kingdom’s reform efforts and keenness to enhance democracy and pluralism.

Also on Thursday, the Senate president met separately with the ambassadors of Bulgaria and Azerbaijan, Venelin Lazarov and Sabir Aghabayov, and discussed prospects to develop parliamentary cooperation.

AMMAN — Jordan and Bahrain should work towards enhancing cooperation, especially in the higher education sector, Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said on Thursday.

At a meeting with Bahraini Minister of Education and Higher Education Majed Al Nuaimi, Ensour invited Bahrainis to benefit from the “advanced” level of higher education in Jordan.

Also on Thursday, Labour Minister Nidal Katamine met with Secretary General of the Bahraini Higher Education Council Riyad Hamzah and reviewed cooperation opportunities in the area of technical education.

The minister said Jordan is ready to put all its expertise at the disposal of Bahrainis wishing to enrol in vocational and technical training programmes in the Kingdom.

AMMAN — The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry on Thursday honoured the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) for “outstanding performance” in a certified IT programme that caters to young Syrians in the Zaatari Refugee Camp.

ICT Minister Azzam Sleit presented a plaque to NRC acting country director Robert Beer during a seminar on “Implementing the New ICDL and e-Learner Programmes” in Amman, an NRC statement said.

“As an often marginalised group in emergencies, NRC strives to enhance the skills and personal capacities of youth, and this award is a symbol of NRC’s success in implementing internationally certified ICT courses in challenging contexts,” the statement quoted Beer as saying.

AMMAN — The 15th pharmacology conference, titled “Pharmacology in our Eyes… A Renewable Role in the Community Health”, opened on Thursday under the patronage of HRH Princess Basma.

Jordanian, Arab and international experts are participating in the conference, which aims at improving the profession of pharmacology and briefing pharmacists on the latest developments and medical knowledge.

Princess Basma said enjoying good health is a key human right that does not recognise geographical borders or ethnic origins.

AMMAN — Arabian Business magazine has chosen six Jordanians in its list of 100 most powerful Arabs, with three of them tagged under the “Geniuses” category. 

Comprising nine different categories, the list saw Khaldoun Tabari and Fadi Ghandour in the Legends category, Omar Yaghi, Rana Dajani and Daoud Hanania in the Geniuses category and Sami Mufleh in the Creatives category.

Khaldoun Tabari has been leading Drake & Scull since 1998, when he first bought a stake in the firm, according to his CV, which Arabian Business published.

However, his association with the originally British company dates back to 1982 when he first joined the firm to work on a project that involved the installation of 18 radar stations and underground command centres in Saudi Arabia, which were later used in the first Gulf War.

Ghandour is the founder of Aramex, which the magazine described as “one of the great entrepreneurial success stories of the Arab world”.

Ghandour is also founding partner of Maktoob.com; the world’s largest Arab online community which was acquired by Yahoo!.

Currently a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Yaghi has been building metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that could prove crucial in helping develop green energy solutions, such as natural gas vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells and carbon capture technology.

Dajani’s main job is an assistant professor and the director of studies at the Hashemite University in Zarqa, where her research concentrates on diabetes and cancer in ethnic populations in the country. 

“She is perhaps one of Jordan’s most qualified scientists, with a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Iowa, and she is also a Fulbright visiting professor at Yale University. Dajani is a strong advocate of the theory of biological evolution and its compatibility with Islam,” the magazine said.

Hanania has several firsts under his belt; he performed the first heart transplant in the Arab world at the King Hussein Medical Centre in 1985 and the first kidney transplant in the Middle East in 1973. Today, the leading surgeon has a private practice. 

Arabian Business said Mufleh, the CEO of Hills Advertising, has been at the forefront of the industry for over a decade.

“But this promises to be his best year yet. He has struck a huge deal to take over the outdoor advertising in Dubai’s The Beach development — on top of the many locations he already has in the emirate.” 

The list — issued annually by the magazine — originally had 1,200 names, and then was shortened to include 100. 

AMMAN — Military cooperation between Jordan and the Gulf countries including Bahrain is old and continuous, the government’s spokesperson, Mohammad Momani, told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

In response to news reports that published names and salaries of 499 Jordanian Gendarmerie personnel in Bahrain, Momani said that this is part of the military cooperation between the two countries.

The minister reiterated official statements that members of the Jordanian Gendarmerie come and go to Bahrain for training purposes, and some of them have returned home while others are still there.

A report with documents published by the “Bahrain Mirror” opposition website alleged that several Jordanian Gendarmerie members are “deployed” in Bahrain and their work is not limited to training and rehabilitation.

The documents published the details of the salaries of the Jordanian Gendarmerie Forces in the Gulf country, with the average salary according to the website and the document attached published on Thursday is about $3,100, channelled through the National Bank of Bahrain to the Arab Bank of Jordan.

Responding to these news reports, the Bahraini ministry of interior said the cooperation between the two kingdoms is old and continuous, echoing the statement made by Momani.

The statement published by the Bahrain News Agency added that the cooperation is in the field of training and exchange of expertise and is part of an agreement between the two countries. 

AMMAN — Despite Arab countries’ access to technology, the media sector in the region is yet to become global, according to an academic researcher.

“Having a global Arab media means that media outlets should broadcast across borders in different languages, attracting worldwide audiences,” Makram Khoury-Machool, a Cambridge-based scholar, said on Monday. 

Globalising Arab media by purchasing a satellite for media purposes was supposed to start in 1969, but it was delayed until 1991 because of “pressure from the Zionist lobby”, Khoury-Machool added in a lecture titled “Arab Media: From the First Press to New Media”.

The speaker pointed out that Arab ownership of media outlets does not necessarily produce an Arab media.

The rise of the petrodollar shifted the location of Arab media capitals from Egypt and Lebanon to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, he said. 

Khoury-Machool noted that media is a controlling power in societies, along with economy, military and politics, adding that it usually “serves the government financially or by controlling the public”.

Social media seems to resist government hegemony and censorship, he argued, adding that language and media are used in promoting ideologies.

“When an ideology is revealed through language using a media outlet to promote certain social or economic practices, it becomes a form of power,” Khoury-Machool told the audience at the Arab Thought Forum.

It is hard to find “independent” Arab media, because Arab countries are “a non-homogeneous mosaic” and contain several ideologies, the scholar said.

Political turmoil has been the main driving force fuelling the continuation of Arab media, he added.

“The emergence and continuity of Arab media was the result of the world wars, the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and regional wars in the second half of the 20th century, in addition to the current crisis that the Arab world is witnessing,” he concluded.