His Majesty King Abdullah’s visit to the Vatican for talks with His Holiness Pope Francis is timely and propitious for more than one reason. To start with, both Jordan and the Vatican are championing inter-faith dialogue, not only to promote positive exchanges of ideas and

The violence that erupted in Zaatari Syrian refugee camp was bound to happen sooner or later.  Three years of warfare in Syria sent a huge number of people fleeing to neighbouring countries in search of security, leaving everything behind. It is not easy to live as a refug

The International Monetary Fund recently gave Jordan’s economy a clean bill of health. The fund is projecting that the country’s economic growth in 2014 will be about 3.5 per cent, a slight increase over the 3 per cent last year, and that the inflation rate would dro

His Majesty King Abdullah gave a fine example of how Jordanians can volunteer to help our fellow citizens: he donated a unit of blood at Al Hussein Medical City. “There are many ways to volunteer and help others in Jordan.

His Majesty King Abdullah on Wednesday met with the chairperson and members of the Royal commission tasked with evaluating and following up on the implementation of the National Integrity Charter plan, urging full compliance with its recommendations, with utter impartiality and t

Some parties involved in the on-again, off-again Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations are scrambling for ways to extend the deadline for these stalled talks set for   April 29. The delaying tactics are now getting all too familiar to be taken seriously; it seems that the

It seems that no matter how much the Ministry of Labour tries to combat child labour, the phenomenon is still widespread. According to the ministry’s latest data, some 30,000 children are still employed in the labour market, especially in restaurants, coffee shops, cafeter

The decision of the Lower House of Parliament to endorse draft amendments to the Higher Education and Scientific Research Law with a view to increasing allocations for scientific research at academic institutions could be a move in the right direction, in principle at least. To

His Majesty King Abdullah has instructed the government to draw up and adopt a 10-year comprehensive and multifaceted blueprint for economic development to improve the financial health of the country and address existing woes and hardships facing it.  In a letter to Prime M