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MAFRAQ — The national initiative to combat drugs titled “Drugs Kill Us,” concluded on Saturday, under the patronage of Sharifa Zein Al Sharaf Bint Nasser, chairperson of the board of trustees of the Hashemite Fund for Badia Development.

The initiative was held in the Northern Badia to raise awareness on the dangers of drugs.

The general coordinator of the initiative, Ahmad Shurufat, said the programme targeted 800 students.

The media spokesperson of the initiative, Mohammad Faori, said that 497 university students were detained in connection with drug cases in 2013, 95 of whom were non-Jordanian, citing Anti-Narcotics Department statistics.

AMMAN — Alaa Eddine Zuaiter, the son of Judge Raed Zuaiter who was killed by Israeli soldiers earlier this month, died on Saturday, local news websites reported.

The five-year-old, who was suffering from a terminal illness, was hospitalised at Istiqlal Hospital’s intensive care unit.

His father was shot dead by Israeli soldiers on the King Hussein Bridge on March 10.

Zuaiter, an Amman Court of First Instance judge, was going to visit relatives in Nablus to reportedly ask for funds to treat his son abroad.

AMMAN — Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani will pay a visit to Jordan on Sunday during which he will meet with His Majesty King Abdullah. 

The Monarch and the emir of Qatar will hold talks that will focus on bilateral relations and ways to boost them in various spheres, according to a Royal Court statement.

This will be the first time Sheikh Tamim visits the Kingdom after he rose to power in the Gulf state last year. 

The visit comes after Doha’s ties with three other Gulf monarchies, namely, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, were strained over bilateral and regional files. 

Arab leaders were encouraged in their just-concluded summit in Kuwait to work for mending fences between their states and cast off differences.

Jordan has maintained a neutral “non-interference” stand on the Gulf crisis. 

AMMAN — The police on Saturday arrested two suspects for robbing 17 houses in the capital.

The suspects confessed to breaking into many houses in several Amman neighbourhoods and stealing money, jewellery and electrical devices.

Investigators found some of the stolen items in the suspects’ possession.

AMMAN — Minister of Public Works and Housing Sami Halaseh met with his Palestinian counterpart Maher Ghneim during his official visit to Palestine, which concluded on Friday.

In remarks on Saturday, Halaseh said discussions covered ways to enhance cooperation and expertise exchange between the two ministries.

Halaseh said he also met Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mohammad Mustafa.

The visit was aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation in the construction sector, which began in 1997, he added.

Halaseh said he and his Palestinian counterpart visited several projects implemented by the Palestinian ministry of public works in Nablus and Ramallah.

RAMTHA — British Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Hugh Robertson on Saturday visited a secondary school for boys in Al Shajara town, one of the villages of Sahl Houran Municipality in Ramtha.

Robertson checked on the football pitch and the multipurpose theatre at the school, which are part of the achievements of the Leadership and Community Development Project implemented by Mercy Corps and financed by the British embassy in Amman.

The initiative aims at reducing the burdens of hosting Syrian refugees in the Kingdom and includes about 39 development and service projects in 12 villages and local communities in Ramtha, Mafraq and Irbid.

AMMAN – Economists and sector leaders on Saturday welcomed His Majesty King Abdullah’s instructions to the government to draw up a 10-year strategy to stimulate the Kingdom’s economy.  

In a letter sent to Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, the King stressed the need to improve Jordanians living conditions and secure jobs that provide them and their families with a decent living and hope for a better future.

Calling on the government to provide socio-economic solutions and programmes to alleviate the financial burdens of citizens, he said that the economic blueprint should have a comprehensive framework to enhance financial and monetary policies, improve economic competitiveness, enhance values of high productivity and self-reliance to realise sustainable and comprehensive development.

Jawad Anani, former Royal Court chief and a several-time minister, said he was “overjoyed” with the news about the King’s letter, saying the economy is in dire need of a long-term plan to exit the challenges it has been facing for the past years. 

“This is the best news I have heard in a while,” Anani told The Jordan Times over the phone, adding it is important to know where the economy will be standing in 10 years. 

“It is important that we stop saying Jordan is a poor country with a wide budget and trade deficit. What we need is to find solutions for our economic woes,” he said, adding it is unacceptable that unemployment among young men is around 25 per cent and nearly 48 per cent among females. 

“It is unacceptable that the education system graduates young people who cannot find jobs,” Anani said, adding that the performance of the public administration is also on a decline. 

The plan should address all these challenges in addition to finding a permanent solution to Jordan’s biggest problem, which is energy insufficiency, he said, highlighting other priorities such as better management of the Kingdom’s human, fiscal and natural resources. 

Economist Zayyan Zawaneh said in the Royal Letter of Designation to the current government in late 2012, the King stressed the need to address economic challenges and to work on improving peoples’ living standards. 

“Unfortunately the government has not paid the attention the economy really needs,” Zawaneh said, adding that Saturday’s instructions aim at reminding the government of the need to draw up genuine remedies for Jordan’s economic challenges through a long-term plan.

Indicating that the incomes of households are being eaten by rising living costs, the analyst stressed the importance of improving the performance of key sectors such as the energy, public transportation and investment. 

Former industry and trade minister Mohammad Halaiqah said that Jordan has made important strides in political reforms and it is time to pay more attention to the economy, particularly in light of regional and global uncertainties. 

Part of Jordan’s economic woes are beyond its control such as energy, the Syrian refugees influx and declining capital inflows, he said, adding that the government and the private sector and all stakeholders can work together to overcome the challenges. 

Halaiqah called on the government to speed up its alternative energy projects and to increase its efforts in attracting investments and tourists. 

Maen Nsour, former chief of Jordan Investment Board and the Social Security Corporation, said the King’s instructions to the government is also a letter to future decision makers to devise long-term policies for the economy. 

Jordan needs decent planning that can be reflected on citizens’ living conditions, he said, adding that there should be stability in economic legislation. 

“I hope the government gets the message and starts on putting plans in place while taking into account local and regional developments,” he added. 

Economist Maher Mahrouq said policy planners will not start from scratch in drafting the long-term plan as they can take advantage of previously drawn up strategies such as the National Agenda, Governorates Development Strategy and National Employment Strategy. 

Highlighting the importance of long-term planning, Mahrouq said the government was unable to properly facilitate the $5 billion grant from Gulf countries due to lack of medium- to long-term plans. 

He said that long-term planning has helped countries like Malaysia and Turkey achieve sustainable economic development. 

Musa Saket, board member of the Jordan Chamber of Industry, said energy and employment issues should top the priorities of any economic policy, stressing that need to implement the plan once drafted. 

President of the Jordan Housing Developers Association Kamal Awamleh described the letter of the King as a strong message to decision makers to start paying more attention to the challenges facing both people and the business environment in the country. 

He said the strategy the government is expected to draw after the directions of the King should include a plan for the housing issue, which has become a pressing concern for the majority of Jordanians who cannot afford to buy decent residential units.      

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday directed the government to draw up a clear 10-year blueprint for economic development.

In a letter to Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, the King said the envisioned plan should result in a stronger economy, in both macroeconomic and monetary aspects, and ensure consistency, increased competitiveness and productivity, and self-reliance.

The ultimate goal, His Majesty said, is to achieve comprehensive development and ensure Jordanians a “decent living and hope for a better future”.

“This economic blueprint should have a comprehensive framework targeting the following: enhancing financial and monetary policies and assuring their consistency; improving economic competitiveness; enhancing values of high productivity and self-reliance to realise sustainable and comprehensive development,” the King said. 

He added that the success of devising this blueprint hinges on adopting a participatory and consultative approach towards all stakeholders, namely governmental institutions, Parliament, the private sector, civil society organisations and local communities.

The blueprint should build on accumulated efforts and institutional studies.

Following is the official translation of the letter: 

In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate, 

Your Excellency Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, Peace be upon you, God’s mercy and blessings,

 I extend to you and to your colleagues in the ministerial team, my greetings and wishes of success, as you carry on your responsibilities diligently and proceed with executing the Letter of Designation I entrusted you with to realise specific goals, chief among them is securing our citizens with decent living conditions.  

Today, the Jordanian economy faces a set of difficult challenges, resulting from successive crises as well as international and regional conditions, namely continuous suspensions in Egyptian gas supplies and the ramifications of the Syrian crisis, particularly the influx of Syrian refugees, as Jordan currently hosts 1,300,000 of our brethren Syrians, which is depleting our limited resources and creating enormous pressures on our infrastructure and national economy. 

This situation has led to an increase in the deficit and debt over the past few years.  The implications of these difficult economic conditions have left their mark on the standard of living our citizens enjoy.

Today, the number one priority and the foremost challenge our citizens face is to improve their living conditions and to secure better jobs that provide them and their families with a decent living and hope for a better future. These are concerns that I witnessed first-hand during my ongoing field visits. Price hikes and financial pressures our citizens face today are the hard realities we need to address. Accordingly, the state — in all its institutions — must provide socio-economic solutions and programmes to alleviate these burdens.  Over the last few months, I have followed closely the government’s performance, and the diligent and well-appreciated efforts it has exerted, which resulted in passing the budget, implementing economic reforms and enacting legislation in cooperation with Parliament.

In light of the recent challenges, we affirm our determination to continue developing our national economy and chart our future direction in tandem with efforts to secure decent living standards and a promising bright future for the men and women of our beloved Jordan. Against this backdrop, it is of the utmost urgency that the government devises an economic blueprint to guide our national economy over the next 10 years. This economic blueprint should have a comprehensive framework targeting the following: enhancing financial and monetary policies and assuring their consistency; improving economic competitiveness; enhancing values of high productivity and self-reliance to realise sustainable and comprehensive development.  In this context, I emphasise that the success of devising this blueprint hinges on adopting a participatory and consultative approach towards all stakeholders, namely governmental institutions, Parliament, the private sector, civil society organisations and local communities.   The blueprint should build on accumulated efforts and institutional studies, such as the “Privatisation Evaluation Committee”, “Governorates Development Strategy” and “National Employment Strategy,” in an effort to benefit from these strategies in devising future socio-economic policies, with specific programmes and work plans that address short- and long-term challenges. The blueprint must also build on the government’s policy statement and its programme for the years 2013-2016, which have been presented to the 17th Lower House in its Extraordinary Session, on which the government won a vote of confidence, in addition to other national economic and political reform programmes. This shall provide a frame of reference for the current and successive governments in achieving sustainable growth rates and enhancing economic reforms.  It is important to emphasise here that the requested economic blueprint should be based on the following principles:

1.Preserving macro-financial stability and developing financial policies; improving Jordan’s business environment; enhancing policies that promote innovation and sectoral development; enhancing local governance and implementing decentralisation. 

2.Supporting engines of growth; limiting budget deficit; preserving financial and monetary stability; enhancing competitiveness and investment attraction to generate more jobs for Jordanians.    

3.Strengthening programmes targeting poverty and unemployment alleviation as well as consumer protection and channelling subsidies to those who deserve it in order to enhance Jordan’s social safety net in an effort to protect and expand the middle class. 

4.Supporting productive and entrepreneurial projects as well as small and medium enterprises, through encouraging competition and preventing monopolies.  

5.Elevating the quality of governmental services provided to citizens in various fields in a manner that builds on public sector reform programmes; giving priority to health and education sectors, in addition to training and employment programmes that meet labour market requirements; and assuring the highest levels of equality and justice in providing these services. 

6.Ensuring a just distribution of developmental dividends by giving priority to governorates’ development programmes. 

7.Devising a comprehensive system to enhance food, water and energy security and its diversification, in addition to expediting the execution of mega-projects.

Your Excellency Prime Minister,

I shall emphasise here the importance of addressing this task with utmost attention and care to achieve feasible working plans, based on a specific time frame with clear priorities and adopting successive action points, which are assessed in an institutional manner and are binding to governments. I also stress the importance of upholding accountability in measuring progress and achievement and a collective sense of shared responsibility as well as keenness to overcome shortcomings in the future.  It is of equal importance that these directives are handled with the utmost seriousness and avoid laxity in execution, in order to enhance the credibility of the state and all its institutions in addressing citizens’ concerns and assuring the decent standard of living they rightly deserve. Above all, we do not wish for this economic blueprint, upon which we have very high hopes, to be a mere document that gets shelved away, but rather a productive endeavour, with tangible results and a clear time frame.  We face numerous and difficult challenges, but our cherished Jordanian citizens deserve the best we can provide. We are confident that Jordan, empowered by the will of its sons and daughters, will overcome these challenges through teamwork, diligent efforts and follow-up, aiming to realise our vision for the future of Jordan.  Praying to God Almighty to preserve Jordan’s pride and prosperity through the hard work of all Jordanians and to help us realise the aspirations of our beloved people.

Peace be upon you, God’s mercy and blessings,   

Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein, Amman, Jumada Al Awwal 28, 1435 Hijri  March 29, 2014

AMMAN — A police officer, who was shot and injured during a raid on a marijuana farm in Balqa Governorate last week, died in hospital over the weekend, official sources said Saturday.

Corporal Hussam Abbadi, 23, died at dawn on Friday as a result of bullet wounds he sustained in his thigh during the March 25 raid, a senior Public Security Department (PSD) official said.

“He was shot in a vital vein at close range from an automatic rifle and lost a lot of blood, and his chances of survival were slim,” the PSD source told The Jordan Times.

The official added that the officer and the team, which comprised Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) agents, engaged in a shoot-out with three men while raiding their farm in Balqa, some 35km northwest of Amman.

“The suspects used automatic weapons in an attempt to resist arrest, resulting in the injury of Abbadi and a second officer who remains hospitalised in stable condition,” the official said.

The Special Forces and AND team managed to contain the situation and arrest the suspects, he added.

Upon searching the premises, they found “two automatic weapons, a gun and a stash of marijuana”, PSD Spokesperson Major Amer Sartawi told The Jordan Times last week.

Abbadi had been in police service for the past six years, a second source said, noting that “he was preparing for his wedding that was due in two weeks.”

Deputising for His Majesty King Abdullah, Interior Minister Hussein Majali paid condolences to the Abbadi family on Saturday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The PSD official said five police and AND officers were killed in the line of duty over the past four years in the war against illegal drugs in Jordan.

Dozens of police officers have also been injured by drug dealers or individuals who own illegal drug farms, the official added.

“This is a real unfortunate incident, but it will never deter us from fighting illegal drug activities in Jordan… It is our duty to try to keep Jordan a drug-free country,” he said.

AMMAN — HRH Prince Hamzah celebrated his 34th birthday on Saturday. 

Born in Amman on March 29, 1980, Prince Hamzah received his elementary education in the capital before completing his secondary studies at Harrow School in England.

He then enrolled at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, passing out as a commissioned officer on December 10, 1999 with several prizes including the Sandhurst Overseas Sword, granted to the best overseas cadet and the Prince Saud Abdullah Prize, presented to the cadet with the best aggregate mark in academic subjects.

His Majesty King Abdullah officially named him as crown prince on February 7, 1999 until November 28, 2004.

Serving as an officer in the Jordan Armed Forces’ 40th Armoured Brigade, Prince Hamzah attended several military courses and attachments in Jordan, the UK, Poland, Germany and the US.

Currently holding the rank of colonel, he served with the Jordan-United Arab Emirates force operating in the former Yugoslavia under the umbrella of international peacekeepers.

The prince graduated from Harvard University in 2006. He obtained his master’s degree in defence studies from King’s College, London, in July 2011.

He was sworn in as Regent on numerous occasions and deputised for King Abdullah on a number of missions in the Kingdom and abroad.

Prince Hamzah headed the Royal Advisory Committee on the Energy Sector and was also honorary president of the Jordan Basketball Federation.

The recipient of several decorations from Jordan and other countries including Bahrain, Italy and the Netherlands, Prince Hamzah chaired the Royal Consultative Commission on energy. 

The prince is also the chairman of the board of trustees of the Royal Automobile Museum, president of the Royal Aero Sports Club of Jordan and president of Al Shajarah (Tree) Protection Society.

The prince’s daughter HRH Princess Haya was born on April 18, 2007.

He married Princess Basmah on January 12, 2012, and on November 3, 2012, they welcomed a baby girl, named HRH Princess Zein.

The prince is a qualified rotor and fixed-wing aircraft pilot, and enjoys other sports such as free-fall diving, target-shooting and horseback riding.