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CAIRO — The Arab Women’s Coalition Consultation meeting has recommended including the findings and key messages of the International Cairo Population and Development (ICPD) Beyond 2014 Review as part of the international post-2015 development agenda.

At a meeting organised last week in Cairo by the UNFPA and the Centre of Arab Woman for Training and Research, representatives of the coalition, youth organisations and media personnel said pushing for including these findings should be lobbied for before the meeting of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD).

The CPD will hold its 47th session in New York on April 7, and it will come up with an index report that will be submitted to the UN General Assembly for discussion in September this year.

UNFPA Arab States Regional Director Mohammed Abdul Ahad said the findings of the review are still priorities for the countries of the region and should be included in the next development agenda.

Noting that these findings do not contradict post-2015 priorities, the UN officials called on representatives of women coalitions and youth organisations to work with their governments to lobby for including them as part of the agenda.

These findings and priorities according to Abdul Ahad include gender equality, right to access reproductive and sexual health, and investment in youths and adolescents to achieve sustainable development.

In an interview with The Jordan Times on the sidelines of the meeting, Abdul Ahad said there should be more work on these priorities. 

He explained that although women took to the streets to call for change in some of the “Arab Spring” countries, there was a setback in realising their rights after the revolutions.

Shahrazad Abdul Wahab, a representative of Women Rights Organisation in Iraq, agreed with Abdul Ahad.

She said a draft law in her country is being studied, where the minimum age of marriage is proposed to be reduced to nine years for girls and 15 years for boys.

Criticising the bill, Abdul Wahab called for international interference to prevent such laws from being enacted. 

Youth empowerment also remains a priority after the Arab Spring according to Ahmad Abdennadher, an expert in population and development issues.

Abdennadher, who is based in Tunisia, told participants in the Cairo meeting that unemployment among Arab youths increased after the revolutions.

The ICPD Beyond 2014 Review is an opportunity to influence the future of global population and development policy at national, regional and global levels, according to the UNFPA website.

“It provides a once in a generation chance to define what needs to be done to deliver a more equal, more sustainable world for the seven billion people — and more — who share it.”

The review identifies progress and achievements towards the goals set out in the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, when 179 governments committed to a 20-year programme of action to deliver human rights based development.

AMMAN — This year’s student union elections at the University of Jordan (UJ) went “peacefully and more successfully” compared to last year, with very minor violations, according to a UJ official.

At a press conference to announce the election results on Thursday evening, UJ Vice President Azmi Mahaftha, who heads the elections higher committee, said 437 candidates competed at the department level for 74 independent seats, after “students won 21 seats by default.”

“Around 57 per cent of UJ students voted for individual candidates, while some 45 per cent voted for the proportional lists at the university level,” he said.

Out of 41,122 eligible voters, 23,302 voted in Thursday’s polls (around 56 per cent), according to official UJ figures.

“The highest vote rate was at the faculty of rehabilitation sciences, with 89.19 per cent, while the lowest was at the King Abdullah II Faculty of Information Technology with 43.78 per cent,” Mahaftha noted, adding that voter turnout at the university’s Aqaba branch reached 71.5 per cent.

“Each of the departments that offer undergraduate programmes has one seat at minimum, in addition to a second seat per 300 students,” he said, adding that each one-department-faculty is represented in three seats. 

“According to the recent amendments of the rules governing union elections, proportional lists that receive 4 per cent or less of the votes are automatically discounted,” the UJ official added.

Mahaftha noted that 23 non-Jordanian students ran for union seats.

Regarding the proportional lists, eight of them competed for the nine allocated seats: the Islamist “Ahl Al Himmeh” won four seats, followed by “Al Nashama” with three and “Awdah” with two.

Al Nashama and Awdah are in talks to form a nationalist bloc titled “National Unity”, a source from the group told The Jordan Times.

UJ President Ekhleif Tarawneh said the university intensified its security, and administrative and legal preparations to deal with any issues that could arise during the elections. 

“We want to grant our students complete freedom to choose their representatives,” Tarawneh told The Jordan Times ahead of the polls.

Despite the university’s security measures, fights erupted among students at the arts, educational sciences and business faculties, according to eyewitnesses. There were no details on injuries or damages.

AMMAN — Representatives of various popular movements at Palestinian refugee camps participated in a ceremony marking Land Day at Wihdat camp on Friday. 

Land Day commemorates the events of March 30, 1976 when a general strike and marches were organised in Arab towns from the Galilee to the Negev after the Israeli government announced a plan to expropriate thousands of dunums of Palestinian land. 

In ensuing confrontations with the Israeli army and police, six Arabs were killed and about 100 were wounded, while hundreds of others were arrested.

At Friday's event, several speakers called for safeguarding Palestinians' rights, especially the right of refugees to return. They also called for the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

Deputy Raed Kouz (Amman, 2nd District) commended the Jordanian position led by His Majesty King Abdullah in this regard, asserting the role of the Hashemites as custodians of Islamic and Christian sites in Palestine. 

Moreover, the Jordanian People’s Democratic Party (Hashed), the Coalition of Leftist and Pan-Arab Parties and the Muslim Brotherhood movement called on the Palestinian leadership not to succumb to US pressure and to end the state of division. 

In separate statements issued on Saturday to mark Land Day, they stressed the importance of confronting the Israeli occupation and its crimes, calling for activating Palestine’s membership at all UN institutions and safeguarding Palestinians’ rights.

The coalition expressed its solidarity with the Palestinian people in their drive to achieve their rights and establish their independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital, while the Muslim Brotherhood called for unifying all efforts to defend the Palestinian cause. 

The movement’s statement was issued after an emergency session held by its shura council on Thursday, during which Islamists stressed the importance of empowering people and giving them the freedom to exercise their rights to ensure a better life for the coming generations. 

Also on Friday, the “Popular forum for protecting Jordan and Palestine” held a rally in front of Al Husseini Mosque in downtown Amman, calling for confronting schemes seeking to sideline the Palestinian cause and expressing their rejection of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s plan. 

They also called for releasing Ahmad Daqamseh, who is serving a life sentence for killing seven Israeli schoolgirls in 1997, Petra reported. 

In addition, the protesters called for political and economic reform and for holding the corrupt accountable. 

AMMAN — The government is expected to launch a smart interactive portal before the end of the year to enable citizens to conduct transactions such as renewing passports and paying traffic tickets, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MoICT).

Under the scheme, each citizen will have a unique user ID and a password to access the portal, ICT Minister Azzam Sleit recently told The Jordan Times.

The portal will show outstanding income tax dues, property tax, water and electricity bills, and the user can settle such payments online, Sleit said.

Users of the portal can renew their driving licence and submit a request for renewing their passport, identification card or birth certificate. They can also choose the address for the documents to be sent, the minister said, adding that users can pay the required fees electronically.

“The tender for the project will be floated in the second quarter of this year, and the portal is expected to be operational before the end of 2014,” he noted.

“The project is part of the government’s efforts to integrate technology into the lives of Jordanians. It will provide convenience to citizens and reduce their costs,” Sleit noted.

Reviewing the latest project in the field of integrating technology in government services, he announced that MoICT and Microsoft Jordan have co-launched an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) platform that enables government entities across the Kingdom to effectively manage and measure the performance of sector projects and strategic initiatives.

The EPM platform provides relevant ministry departments with an effective tool to centrally manage and monitor the progress of national projects and initiatives within various sectors, subsequently enhancing efficiency, productivity and project governance, according to Sleit.

Currently in its pilot phase, the EPM platform is fully funded by Microsoft Jordan.

In addition to installing the platform at several government entities, Microsoft Jordan also trained employees on how to use it in collaboration with Para Solutions.

AMMAN — Temperatures on Sunday will drop below their annual average for this time of the year as the country remains under the impact of a depression, according to the Jordan Meteorological Department (JMD).

The depression, which was expected to start affecting the country on Saturday night, is forecast to bring scattered rain to the northern and central regions of the Kingdom, a JMD meteorologist said.

“A noticeable drop in temperatures is expected on Sunday. The weather will be cloudy and rainy at times, while winds will be northwesterly brisk, raising dust in the eastern and southern regions,” the weather forecaster told The Jordan Times on Saturday.

Maximum temperatures will be two degrees below their annual average of 20°C during this time of the year, while the minimum will be 7°C in Amman.

“As of Sunday night, the weather will start to stabilise as the impact of the depression tapers off,” the forecaster said in a phone interview.

Temperatures will rise gradually on Monday and Tuesday, when daytime mercury levels will be 19°C and 22°C respectively.

On Tuesday afternoon, the country will be affected by unstable weather conditions, with clouds starting to form; rain is forecast, especially in the southern and eastern regions.

“Dusty weather is expected on Tuesday as well as moderate to brisk winds,” the meteorologist noted.

The JMD issued warnings to the public of possible low road visibility due to the sand-raising winds.

“Road visibility will not exceed three kilometres; therefore, we urge motorists to be cautious while driving,” the weather forecaster said.

Temperatures in the capital will range between a high of 22°C during the day and a low of 9°C at night.

Multiple spells of unstable weather and khamsini depressions are expected to affect the country during spring, which started on March 20.

According to the JMD, 7 per cent of the country’s long-term annual average of rainfall of 8 billion cubic metres is usually received during spring. 

AMMAN — The Domestic Violence Law should be amended to include a clear definition of violence against women in order to criminalise it, parliamentarians said on Thursday. 

Despite being considered a major stride in recognising domestic violence, the law, endorsed in 2008, suffers from many loopholes that fail to protect vulnerable women, according to members of the Forum of Jordanian Parliamentarian Women. 

During a workshop on domestic violence, held by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), they noted that abuse victims could also experience a form of violence when reporting their assaults.  

“It is not enough that it is considered a very courageous and difficult decision for battered women to speak out, but they might also be at risk when filing a complaint,” said Senator Asma Khader, secretary general of the Jordanian National Commission for Women.

To this end, the Social Development Ministry is training its staff to improve their efficiency in handling domestic violence cases, which currently stand 19,000.

Abdullah Smeirat, the ministry’s deputy secretary general, said the demographic changes witnessed in the Kingdom has amplified violence against women and children. 

On the other hand, women are now more aware of their rights and the channels through which they can protect themselves, he noted, citing 33,963 cases of violence reported in 2013, compared to 39 cases in 1998. 

Deputy Wafaa Bani Mustafa pointed out that there is no credible data on violence against women in Jordan, due to the absence of an explicit definition of violence, which comes in many forms: physical, sexual, psychological, economic and social.  

Participants at the two-day workshop, attended by parliamentarians and scholars from 10 Arab countries, noted that depriving women of their inheritance and forcing them to take loans on behalf of their spouses are common forms of violence witnessed in the Kingdom nowadays. 

Khader said domestic violence has been rising over the past three years, particularly due to the social, economic and political developments surrounding Jordan.

However, participants agreed that the Kingdom has come a long way in protecting women and providing abuse victims with care, including at the legal and service levels. 

Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh cited efforts to eliminate violence against women, noting that the Kingdom recently joined the “COMMIT” initiative, which calls on world leaders to make concrete commitments to end violence against women and girls by establishing a roadmap for the future.

Dina Melhem, head of the WFD’s programmes in the MENA (Middle East, North Africa) region, said the workshop aims at looking into practices of Arab countries in terms of fighting domestic violence and providing a platform to come up with a holistic strategy to address the phenomenon. 

“The workshop comes in sequence to a previous MENA regional workshop that took place in London in late January, where a coalition of Arab women MPs was launched to combat violence,” she said.  

At the conclusion of the workshop on Friday, participants are expected to come up with a protocol on domestic violence to serve as reference for policy makers. 

The WFD is implementing two regional programmes; the first focuses on enhancing women MPs’ capacity and the second supports connections between them and think tanks. 

The initiatives are funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and implemented in cooperation with the Arab Inter-parliamentary Union and the Arab Institute for Parliamentary Training and Legislative Studies, according to the WFD.

AMMAN — University students in the Kingdom are planning to conduct studies on preserving Jordan’s culture and heritage in the Kingdom, according to representatives of local universities.

At a seminar organised by the Greater Amman Municipality at Al Hussein Cultural Centre earlier this week and attended by university students, discussions covered ways of promoting Jordan’s heritage sites, especially old houses in Amman and other cities, as tourist attractions.

The planned studies will focus on various “darat” or heritage houses in the Kingdom to expose them to tourists and increase their economic feasibility, said Ibrahim Bazazo, head of the Department of Tourism Management at Middle East University.

“Jordan is one of the few countries that was home to followers of the three monotheistic religions over different time periods. This should be used to our benefit,” he added.

Wadi Rum, Um Al Rassas, Petra and Quseir Amra are four local sites recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage Centres, said Al al-Bayt University Representative Muhannad Trad, in addition to “many other sites” that witnessed major historic events like the migration of Circassians, Armenians and Palestinians.

“If this approach [studying cultural and heritage sites] starts off according to plan, it will encourage tourism, but this does not happen overnight; it will be a long process…” Trad added.

Raouf Abu Jaber, a Jordanian historian and scholar who was deputising for Amman Mayor Aqel Biltaji, discussed means to conserve Amman’s culture from the 1930s, when the capital’s population stood at 30,000. 

Abu Jaber briefed university students on the iconic buildings that date back to that era, including the Catholic Church and Nicola Ghanma’s house in Jabal Luweibdeh. 

The Bishop School and the Ahliyyah School for Girls were identified recently as historical landmarks in what was known as the “new Jabal Amman” back in the 1930s, he added.

The buildings did not increase until 1948, when many iconic houses were built and now reflect Jordanian heritage. The Terrasancta College was owned by Muhammad Tash back then, along with other historical landmarks in Luweibdeh, Abu Jaber said, noting that these should be sites visited by tourists and given more attention by university students in their papers. 

Bazazo pointed out that there are many mosaic cities in the Arab world, but none of them witnessed historical events like Madaba, calling for more attention to the first Mosaic Festival that will be held there next week.

Authorities should also prepare for Pope Francis’ visit in May by promoting “the best of the best historical and religious sites in Jordan”, he added.

University students and professors presented a historical review of heritage houses around the Kingdom, such as the Hindawi and Sarayrah houses in Irbid, highlighting the stories they hold. 

They called for enhancing the living conditions of local societies near these houses and restoring them to become tourist attractions.

These iconic sites, they said, will stand to witness more historical and religious events to reflect the identity of the new Amman for future generations.

AMMAN — The defence team for extremist cleric Abu Qatada on Thursday requested a delay in proceedings from the State Security Court, citing a lack of funds to produce expert witnesses for their client.

In a session on Thursday, defence attorney Ghazi Thneibat requested a two-week stay in court proceedings in order to produce expert witnesses for his client Mahmoud Othman, known Abu Qatada, who faces terrorism charges. 

“We currently do not have the funds to provide and register expert witnesses who are vital to my client’s defence, and to protest these charges,” Thneibat told the state prosecutor, and later The Jordan Times.

“We simply cannot proceed under the current circumstances.”

The court granted Thneibat a two-week period to produce the witnesses, calling for the trial to resume on April 10. 

Thursday was to mark the opening of defence witness testimonies in the five-month-old case. 

According to Thneibat, the cleric’s legal team aims to produce a telecommunications technology expert, and translate dozens of pages of phone transcripts and court papers from Othman’s previous trial in Britain in order to disprove claims that he had conversations with multiple individuals regarding carrying out terrorist attacks in Jordan.

Thneibat claimed that the translation and authentication of British court documents is set to cost the legal team JD8,000 alone — a sum he says his client does not currently possess.

Meanwhile, Abu Qatada claimed that a fear of “arrest” and persecution in Jordan drove him to request political asylum in Britain and avoid returning to his adopted homeland.

In his first public statements on his life in Britain, Othman told the court that after a period of travelling through Malaysia and Pakistan, he opted to request political asylum in Britain in 1993 rather than return to Jordan, where he would be later be tried in absentia for plotting alleged terror attacks.

“I travelled to Malaysia at the beginning of the 1990s and then on to Pakistan where I served as a teacher at the university of applied technology for a brief period,” Othman told the court prosecutor. 

“At the time, many of those returning from Pakistan to Jordan were being arrested, which frightened me... I then went to Britain to request political asylum.”

The often animated and charismatic Othman remained calm and quiet as he carefully responded to the prosecutor’s inquiries, refraining from making political statements or commentating on the growing rift between jihadist groups in Syria as in previous sessions.

The West Bank-born cleric faces a life sentence with hard labour for his alleged role in plotting a series of attacks in Amman, including on the American School and a former intelligence chief. 

The British government deported Abu Qatada, a Jordanian national and an influential scholar within the hard-line Salafist movement, to Jordan in August 2013 despite concerns by an EU human rights court that he might face torture or fail to receive a fair trial.

Despite entering a brief hunger strike in protest over access to wider prison facilities, the cleric has largely been “treated well” during his detention and has not suffered duress or torture, according to Othman’s family and his defence attorney. 

AMMAN — Four soldiers were killed and four others were injured on Thursday morning in a traffic accident near the Yarmouk River in the Kingdom’s northern region, a Jordan Armed Forces source said.

The military vehicle carrying the eight soldiers was heading to a battalion stationed in Irbid’s Bani Kinanah District near Yarmouk village on the border with Syria, when it overturned and fell into a valley near the river, some 90km north of Amman, the source said.

The accident took place at around 7:40am, the army source told The Jordan Times on condition of anonymity.

The injured were taken to Al Hussein Medical Centre, where they were reported to be in fair condition.

Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Abdullah Ensour visited the injured later on Thursday and wished them a speedy recovery, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Royal Medical Services (RMS) Director General Maj. Gen. Khalaf Sarhan briefed Ensour on the condition of the soldiers.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Gen. Mashal Al Zaben also visited the injured servicemen on Thursday and checked on their condition, according to Petra.

He urged the RMS director to ensure that they receive the necessary medical services.

AMMAN — After three years of conflict in Syria, hundreds of thousands of refugees living in urban areas in the Kingdom are struggling to meet their daily needs, according to a new report by the UN Refugee Agency.

The study by UNHCR and its longstanding partner International Relief and Development (IRD) "highlights for the first time the struggle and day-to-day survival of 450,000 Syrians who live outside Jordan’s formal refugee camps, as they face rising rents, inadequate accommodation and educational challenges for their children".

The report was based on 92,000 interviews during home visits in 2012 and 2013, and marks growing concern that as the war enters its fourth year, many refugees have reached the limits of their ability to cope, according to a UNCHR statement sent to The Jordan Times.

"The report shows the dilemma that refugees face to survive in urban areas, despite the outstanding generosity and significant support that Jordan has continued to offer them, including free public health and education. Less than 3 per cent of Syrian refugees reported having to spend money on healthcare, as Jordan has offered primary, secondary and some tertiary healthcare since May 2012," the statement said.

“After escaping the horrors of war at home, hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have fled the violence and deprivation are facing a second crisis in their place of refuge,” said Andrew Harper, UNHCR’s representative in Jordan. “Syrian refugees in Jordan are hanging on by a thread, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and earn enough money to get by,” the statement quoted Harper as saying.

Almost four in five Syrian refugees in Jordan live outside the formal camps, but only get a fraction of the international attention, contrary to the focus on the Zaatari Refugee Camp, the UN Refugee Agency noted. 

UNHCR and IRD workers visited and interviewed tens of thousands of households to identify needs and help the hidden majority of refugees who live in towns and cities throughout the country.

The report comes amid indications that as the last of their assets are drying up, many families are turning to negative coping mechanisms to make ends meet, sometimes placing themselves at risk of exploitation, the statement said.

“Syria’s children have already lost their past. We cannot now allow a generation to lose its future,” Harper said.

“Syrian children in Jordan must be given the skills to rebuild, for themselves and the future of their country,” he added.

The report said cash for rent and better accommodation is urgently needed by many refugee families, as almost 80 per cent of Syrian refugees in Jordan have found homes outside the camps — the vast majority in apartments and some in basements, prefabs, tents and even mud huts. 

Paying for rent has become a primary concern, as prices have risen from 2012 to 2013 by 15-25 per cent depending on the location, and rent accounts for almost two-thirds of their expenditure, according to the study. 

Half of the refugees feel they live in "inadequate" dwellings, such as apartments suffering from damp and mould.

Refugee families reported that 61 per cent of school-age children covered by the study did not go to school during the 2012-2013 academic year, while 5 per cent of children who were in school reported having dropped out. 

UNHCR said the agency continues to investigate this issue in ongoing home visits, but known reasons include challenges in adjusting to the Jordanian curriculum, inability to catch up, working in order to earn money for their families.

The study also found that 16 per cent of refugees do not have adequate water and sanitation, while 84 per cent of families considered their water supply was adequate.

A quarter of all respondents said their families had become separated from either nuclear or extended family members and one in three households with minors were headed by women, the report indicated.

"Syrian refugees in Jordan are becoming increasingly self-reliant" and although access to legal employment is challenging, the percentage of refugees receiving income from work increased between 2012 and 2013 from 28 per cent to 36 per cent, according to the survey.

Meanwhile the percentage of refugee cases receiving income from humanitarian assistance and charity decreased from 63 per cent to 49 per cent.

By the end of 2013, UNHCR had given close to $32.5m in cash assistance to 120,000 Syrian refugees, identified on the basis of this study, the statement said. 

In 2013, UNHCR Jordan received $237m from the US, Kuwait, the EU, Japan, the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Canada and many more donors from the private sector and from Gulf countries such as Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to the agency.