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GAZA — The staff of Jordan’s military field hospital in Gaza celebrated His Majesty King Abdullah’s 52nd birthday last Thursday.

Representatives of official and local community organisations in Palestine attended the ceremony.

Since the hospital began operations in Gaza five years ago, its medical teams have treated more than 1.18 million patients, Gaza 28 Commander Mohammad Hammouri said at the ceremony.

AMMAN — Two people suffered smoke inhalation on Saturday when a fire broke out in one of the parking lots of Istiqlal Mall in east Amman.

Civil Defence Department (CDD) staff extinguished the fire and took the injured to Prince Hamzah Hospital, where they were reported to be in fair condition.

AMMAN — Public Works Minister Sami Halaseh on Saturday visited several road projects implemented by the ministry in Balqa Governorate.

Halaseh checked on progress at the Baccalaureate/Um Al Naaj road and the planned detours, work on which is expected to conclude within a month to allow the ministry to begin the main road project, which costs JD4 million.

Halaseh also inspected work on the Salt entrance intersection, which more than 50,000 cars pass through every day.

The road rehabilitation project is estimated at around JD9 million.

In addition, the minister visited the second part of the Salt ring road, which extends from Balqa Applied University to three kilometres southeast of the Wadi Shuaib road.

The project costs JD24 million.

AMMAN — Abdul Munem Abu Hilaleh and Riyad Shraideh were sworn in on Saturday before Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour as members of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority’s board of commissioners.

AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Saturday said that the government has picked a 70,000-dunum area to distribute among the residents of Maan, around 220km south of Amman.

The premier also announced, as he met community leaders at his office, that the green light was given to build a military-run hospital in the area, which is among the poorest regions in the Kingdom.

Ensour noted that the land-distributing plan, a Royal makruma (initiative) announced during His Majesty King Abdullah’s visit to the area in 2011, will see each of the areas’ residents, who hold national identity numbers, receive one dunum free of charge, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

During the meeting, attended by Minister of Municipal Affairs Walid Masri and Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Mohammad Momani, the premier said the Wadi Al Aqiq area in the governorate, the largest in area in the Kingdom, has been selected to implement the initiative. 

Wadi Al Aqiq is around 15km to the south of the town of Maan on the Aqaba highway, according to Maani residents contacted by phone. 

According to the Department of Statistics’ (DoS) 2012 figures, the total population of Maan Governorate was estimated at around 121,000, while the region comes last among the country’s 12 governorates in terms of population density. 

DoS figures also show that unemployment in Maan, which has witnessed major violent incidents over the past four decades attributed mostly to socio-economic factors, stood in the same year at 19 per cent, trailed only by Tafileh at 19.6 per cent.

The report did not specify if the land would be distributed to the residents of Maan town, or the wider governorate, which is home to bedouin tribes and other towns like Shobak, Husseiniyeh and Wadi Mousa, among others.

Petra quoted Ensour as noting that Wadi Al Aqiq was an alternative site for the project, replacing another 5,000-dunum site, whose area “is not enough to distribute among the people of Maan, let alone its rough terrain”.

The original site was opposite to Al Hussein University to the west of the town.

Ensour added that the new site will be the location of “New Maan” and that it will be provided with all the needed infrastructure, stressing that “we are keen to implement this project as soon as possible”.

He stressed that the “other areas of Maan are all for the people of Maan and will be utilised to their benefit”.

The premier said that he would hold more meetings with Maan community leaders to discuss other issues, including “security”, adding that he agrees with the signatories that Maan, like other districts, is entitled to “the revenues of development” in the district. 

He said that authorities are mulling the establishment of a medical school at Al Hussein University. 

The Maani dignitaries took turn to comment on the development, with all expressing appreciation for the gesture and satisfaction with the site selected for the development project, whose area is almost double the zoned area of Maan city, according to Petra, which quoted officials at the meeting as saying that work will commence in Wadi Al Aqiq in March and the ownership documents would be ready soon after the zoning process is completed by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. 

The military hospital will be adjacent to the university, according to Petra. 

PARIS — With the government expected to announce the name of a new mobile operator this week, French Telecom executives warned that giving a new licence will negatively affect existing operators in Jordan and the state’s revenues from the sector.

Licensing a new operator to introduce fourth generation (4G) services in the Jordanian market, where there are over 10 million mobile subscriptions, will lead to a “price war” and force all operators to tighten their belts on investments in networks, the executives said at a recent meeting with the press in Paris. 

Lower investments in networks will eventually affect the quality of services, they added.

“In France, there was a war in prices because of introducing a fourth operator in the country. We expect the same for Jordan,” Patrice Loze, chief commercial officer of Orange France, said during a meeting at France Telecom headquarters in Paris last week.

“A fourth operator will certainly lead to a drop in revenues of operators. This affects quality of networks and services and eventually affects customers and government revenues,” Loze noted.

“You cannot make Jordan a hub for ICT if you do not have good quality networks. You cannot build an ecosystem where start-ups and companies that rely on telecom can grow without good telecom networks,” he added.

Revenues of France Telecom, which owns 51 per cent of Orange Jordan, already declined by 10 per cent in 2013 after the entry of a fourth operator in his country, according to Loze. The group’s annual revenues stand at about 43.5 billion euros.

At the meeting, Orange Jordan CEO Jean-Francois Thomas said licensing a new operator at this time in Jordan was a “mistake”, noting that prices of telecom services in Jordan are “very low and competitive”.

“I do not expect that a new operator will be able to offer lower prices as prices are already very low in Jordan,” Thomas added.

The Kingdom was ranked as the second most competitive cellular market in the Arab world in 2012, according to the Cellular Competition Intensity Index by the Arab Advisers Group.

The index took into account the number of operators, packages and services available in each of the 19 Arab states covered by the study.

The country’s three telecom operators —Zain Jordan, Orange Jordan and Umniah — have repeatedly called on the government to cancel plans for introducing a new operator, arguing that the competition in Jordan is “fierce”.

ICT Minister Azzam Sleit told The Jordan Times recently that the government is keen on opening the door for new technologies and services in the market, including 4G services, which prompted it to open the door for a new licence.

“We are not really after having a fourth or a fifth operator; we just want better services in Jordan and that users have access to more advanced services,” the minister said.

According to the latest figures by Arab Advisers Group, the revenues of the three operators declined to JD124.8 million in the third quarter of 2013 compared to JD136.2 million in the second quarter after the government doubled taxes on mobile subscriptions from 12 to 24 per cent.

Mobile penetration in Jordan reached 155 per cent by the end of September 2013, with 10.227 million subscriptions, according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.

Internet penetration reached 72 per cent at the end of the third quarter of 2013, with 4.864 million users.

The ICT sector, mainly the telecom sector, contributes about 14 per cent to the gross domestic product annually and employs more than 60,000 people. 

AMMAN — Criminal Court Prosecutor Ramzi Nawayseh on Saturday charged a 44-year-old woman and her two daughters with the murder of their husband/father on Friday in the town of Jiza near Queen Alia International Airport, according to an official source.

The mother and her daughters, aged 17 and 19, allegedly confessed to the murder, a senior official source told The Jordan Times.

“The suspects claimed that the victim returned home drunk and they had a heated argument about the matter,” the source said.

In their initial confession to the police and Nawayseh, the suspects claimed that one of them pushed the victim and he fell and hit a gas heater.

“The three then jumped on him and strangled him to death with their hands,” the source added.

“Family problems could be behind the killing but further investigation will help us learn more about the incident,” he noted.

The victim’s body was sent to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine for autopsy, and blood and tissue samples were sent to the criminal lab for further analysis, according to the source.

Nawayseh issued orders for the woman and her 19-year-old daughter to be detained at Jweideh Women’s Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre, while the 17-year-old was sent to a juvenile correctional centre pending further investigation.

AMMAN — Construction work on a new dam in Karak Governorate has commenced, according to government officials.

The 4-million cubic metre (mcm) Ibn Hammad Dam, to be built at a cost of JD26 million, will provide drinking water for residents of the southern Karak and Tafileh governorates among other towns in the region, according to Water Minister Hazem Nasser.

Under an agreement signed between the ministry and the Arab Potash Company, the former will provide the company with 2.5mcm per year for industrial use over 12 years at preferential prices, while the latter will fund the construction of the dam, a ministry statement said.

In addition to providing drinking water, the dam will also develop the surrounding land and recharge underground water, Jordan Valley Authority Secretary General Saad Abu Hammour said.

Named after the Ibn Hammad Valley, the 52-metre-high dam will help meet the increasing demand for water in the country, according to Water Ministry Spokesperson Omar Salameh, who noted that construction will be completed within three years.

A total of 10,000 people reside in villages scattered across Ibn Hammad Valley, which attracts hundreds of tourists from across the world every year. 

The 86-square-kilometre valley, announced in 2010 as a special conservation area, stretches from the mountains of Karak to the Dead Sea, at altitudes ranging between 800 metres above and 400 metres below sea level.

Dams, though expensive to build, are vital for the Kingdom to secure its water needs, according to experts.

The Kingdom’s 10 major dams are: King Talal, Wadi Al Arab, Sharhabil, Kafrein, Wadi Shuaib, Karameh, Tannour, Waleh, Mujib and Wihdeh.

Jordan, which is considered the world’s fourth water poorest country, suffers an annual water deficit of 500mcm, while per capita share of water does not exceed 150 cubic metres annually, well below the water poverty line of 500 cubic metres per year.

According to official figures, 91 per cent of the Kingdom’s total area of 97,000 square kilometres is arid land with an annual average rainfall of 50-200 millimetres (mm), while 2.9 per cent is categorised as semi-arid with an annual average rainfall of 400-580mm.

AMMAN –– The government on Friday lowered the prices of main oil derivatives by 1 to 2 per cent for February.

Under the decision taken by the government’s pricing committee, effective February 1, one litre of unleaded 90-octane gasoline is now being sold at JD0.820, down from JD0.830 in January, while one litre of 95-octane costs JD1 compared to JD1.010 last month.

On the new price list, both diesel and kerosene are JD0.670 per litre, down from JD0.685.

The price of cooking gas, which is also used by households for heating purposes, remains unchanged at JD10 per cylinder under the committee’s decision, which was announced by Minister of Industry, Trade and Supply Hatem Halawani.

Fuel prices, except those of gas cylinders, are no longer subsidised by the government, which lifted oil subsidies in November 2012.

A government pricing committee meets monthly to adjust fuel prices in a manner that corresponds to changes in the international market.

The committee, comprising representatives from the ministries of energy and finance and the Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company, calculates the updates based on average international prices during the preceding 30 days and other costs, such as freight and handling, and announces a new price list every month.

AMMAN — A newly founded youth initiative was officially launched on Saturday with the goal of eliminating social violence in Jordan.

Action on Societal Violence, KAFA (enough), comprises 45 young Jordanians from nine governorates and is organised in cooperation with the German Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) office in Amman.

During the launch, KAS Representative in Jordan Otomar Oehring said community violence is a universal phenomenon that is not restricted to specific countries or societies. 

Jordan has recently witnessed a noticeable rise in incidents of societal violence, he added, noting that acts of aggression will diminish the rule of law, which is not in anyone’s best interest. 

Oehring said there is a dire need for holding seminars and dialogues to raise public awareness on this issue.

Lina Abu Nuwar, the director of KAFA, said societal violence, whether at universities or local communities, has become a worrying phenomenon.

She stressed that the responsibility for resolving this issue does not lie with just one party, but rather on all components of society. 

Violence will only end if all parties concerned cooperate to end it, including young people, Abu Nuwar said. 

“This is why KAFA Youth was born.”

Muthanna Arabiyat, one of the people behind the initiative, said the institutionalised campaign aims first and foremost to eliminate social violence based on a scientific and legislative approach that examines the reasons behind the phenomenon and comes up with solutions.

For the initiative’s organisers, there are basic concepts on which any endeavour to combat social violence should be based, including peaceful and democratic dialogue, the belief in Jordanians’ “collective” identity, institutionalised voluntary work, and the freedom of speech aside from defamation and character assassination.

One major step to combat community violence is to revisit related laws, they said. 

Responding to a question by The Jordan Times on how to tackle the legislative side, which is the responsibility of Parliament, Abu Nuwar said members of the initiative will target the Lower House and will engage in dialogue with MPs on laws that need to be revisited to eliminate social violence.

“We will lobby for amending these laws,” Arabiyat said.