Local

AMMAN — Secretary General of the Judicial Council Judge Ali Masri on Monday said that the number of adjudicated lawsuits has increased by 27 per cent during the first third of 2018 while the postponed lawsuits decreased by 12 per cent compared to the same period last year, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Masri added that the number of lawsuits brought before the courts during the first third of 2018 rose by 15 per cent compared with the same period last year, while the number of postponed lawsuits in all courts has reached 113,000 since 2017.

AMMAN — The role of women in political processes in the Middle East is one of the main topics of research for American political scientist Sarah Bush, who stressed the importance of women as political actors in the region and beyond. 

“Nowadays, many countries are witnessing more women serving as representatives in national parliaments and local councils, more than ever before. The increase in women’s representation is important due to the issues that are debated in those circles,” Bush, who received her PhD from Princeton University said, adding that “it greatly modifies how the public perceives women’s leadership”.

Bush studied the impact of women on Jordanian political institutions, parties and informal groups, noting their increasing representation in the Kingdom’s politics throughout history. She cited the shift between the Parliament elected in 1997, where no women were present, and the current share of female representatives in Parliament, which stands at 15 per cent. 

More broadly, Bush’s research focuses on historical trends in women’s representation in Jordanian politics. 

‘A study published in ‘Comparative Politics’ and co-authored with Eleanor Gao of the University of Exeter examined which political groups took the most advantage of the quota laws by nominating women candidates,” the pundit explained, adding that the study drew on comprehensive data about the candidates nominated in the 2007 municipal election.

She found that the incentives to nominate women candidates were especially strong for smaller tribes with relatively few members as nominating women helped them gain representation. 

In this way, quota laws do not only affect the representation of women but can also have important implications for the representation of other political groups. 

Bush recommended quotas as an important tool to “encourage women to run for office and participate in politics”. 

In a study she co-authored with Amaney Jamal of Princeton University, she noted that survey data suggest that quotas enjoy “fairly high levels” of public support. 

“However, such policies are not enough to ensure that women representatives can influence policy, in Jordan or elsewhere,” she pointed out, adding that “nor do they address the many challenges faced by women in politics, including discrimination and harassment”. 

Although supporting women’s political participation may be a good policy for advancing gender equality, encouraging more women to get involved in politics is a trend that may run parallel to the survival of undemocratic governments, Bush underlined.

“Sometimes, foreign aid programmes given under the label of ‘democracy promotion’ can help undemocratic governments stay in power,” she warned.

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Monday discussed in a phone call with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama bilateral ties and efforts to fight terrorism within a holistic approach, a Royal Court statement said.

HRH Prince Ghazi, His Majesty’s chief adviser for religious and cultural affairs and personal envoy, on behalf of His Majesty King Abdullah, had participated in an international anti-terror conference in Albania earlier this month.

The gathering, part of the “Aqaba Meetings”, was a follow-up on international efforts in the war on terror, hosted in the Albanian capital Tirana.

The meeting addressed security challenges in the Western Balkans and included security and political officials from several countries, as well as officials from the Balkans, international partners and the EU.

AMMAN — The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs on Monday announced that the Eid Al Fitr prayer will be performed at 7am on the first day of Eid, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. Eid Al Fitr is the Muslim feast marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

This year, Eid starts on Friday or Saturday based on the sighting of the crescent moon of the new Hijri month of Shawwal.

AMMAN — The number of Jordanians travelling outside the Kingdom is expected to plummet during this year's Eid Al Fitr holiday as compared to last year, stakeholders said.

Reservations for trip packages have dropped by 70 per cent for this year's Eid break, in comparison to 2017, Jordan Society of Tourism and Travel Agents President Mohammad Samih told The Jordan Times on Monday.

He attributed the shunning of overseas trips to the economic situation of Jordanians this year. "Travel agencies are complaining about the low demand for outbound tourism for the Eid holiday. We know that Jordanians decide about their travel plans at the last minute, but it is too late now to expect a better turnover," he commented.

During Eid Al Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, a number of Jordanians tend to travel to their favourite destinations, which mainly include Turkey, Georgia and Egypt, Samih said.

Eid Al Fitr is due to start Friday or Saturday, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon (hilal) of the new lunar month. The official holiday has been announced to begin Friday and continue until Monday.

The number of Jordanians who spend their holiday in vacation spots in the Kingdom this year is expected to go up, according to Hussein Helalat, member of the Jordan Hotel Association.

"Local tourists prefer to visit Aqaba and the Dead Sea, not Petra or other archaeological sites, which means that we will witness an increase in the occupancy rate at the seaside hotels of up to 90 per cent," Helalat stated.

As per inbound tourism (foreign tourists coming to the Kingdom), Samih said that despite the Eid holiday falling during the low season, the sector could benefit from attracting international expats working in the Gulf countries to visit Jordan for a holiday.

"If they do not have enough days to go back home, some Westerners usually pay a visit of one week or less to Jordan to see Petra and other destinations," he commented, noting that the inbound reservations for the coming season, starting in September, were not influenced by the recent protests against the government's austerity measures.

"Travel agents received no trip cancellations but rather some inquiries," he stressed. 

The protests came to a halt last Thursday after the government of Hani Mulki resigned and former education minister Omar Razzaz was designated to form a new Cabinet.

The popular movement came one day after the professional associations staged a general strike and a rally to protest the new income tax draft law, which Razzaz has since promised to withdraw from the Lower House.

AMMAN — "People are telling me, 'We're ready to die. We’re so tired and so hopeless. It’s not getting any better.'" These are some of the words that Jordanian Laila Soudi remembers about her conversations with her connections in the rebel-held suburb of Douma, the site of suspected chemical attacks in April this year.

Born in a family that traces its roots to Syria and Palestine, Soudi, 26, has worked as an activist and mental health professional across the Middle East, where she collected testimonies from Syrians who fled the civil war and are now living displaced lives in refugee camps and host communities. 

"Sometimes without a home, school, clean water, or basic medical care, I also noticed that what they lack the most is mental health support in the aftermath of traumatic experiences," Soudi told The Jordan Times.

"The stories I heard are just heartbreaking," the young Jordanian recalled from her office in the California-based Stanford campus, adding "it is just a level of inhumanity that I honestly never thought was possible. This displacement crisis is far from over, and Syrians need support more than ever before, which is where Stanford can fit in". 

Frustrated by the lack of action from her university in this regard, she submitted a proposal written with the help of advisor Nadia Roumani, which was approved and financed by Stanford’s president Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Dean Lloyd Minor, and implemented under the title "Stanford Refugee Research Project (SRRP)".

Conducted under the leadership of Michele Barry, director of the Stanford Centre for Innovation in Global Health, the 18-month project aims to “uncover all faculty, staff, and students working on refugee projects, connect them, and identify opportunities to collaborate and contribute meaningfully to the ongoing, worsening displacement crisis”, according to its website.

“The idea of bringing people together from across the university is to really look at the refugee crisis holistically and in a multi-disciplinary perspective,” Soudi stated, noting that “as a mental health worker/researcher who has been working with Syrian refugees for a while, I was interested in looking at the trauma within refugee population in Jordan and Lebanon and what impacts children, what causes resiliency and how kids cope with such trauma, among other perspectives".

With an unprecedented 65.6 million people displaced from their homes as a result of conflict and persecution around the world, the number of refugees across the globe has reached its highest levels since World War II, said Katherine Burke, deputy director of the Centre for Innovation in Global Health

Syria stands at the top of this dramatic podium, with over 11 million people displaced by the eight-year civil war, one of the largest numbers of refugees globally. 

Officially launched in September 2017, the project will span through March 2019, when concrete opportunities for local and international engagement of Stanford faculty, staff and students in refugee crises will be unfolded.

Built around three work pillars, the SRRP seeks to “engage Stanford's seven schools to identify key players with extensive experience or commitment to refugee work, as well as faculty, staff, and students interested in engaging more actively in refugee-focused work”, according to its website.

The SRRP aims to convene and engage a cross-campus community to address in an innovative and sustainable way the global challenge presented by the Syrian refugee crisis and to help alleviate conditions for the victims of such crises in the Middle East.

“We have developed a team of 11 research ambassadors comprised of undergraduates, graduates, interns and fellows at Stanford, who represent the seven schools of the campus. They are key actors in the project as they are ambassadors of the SRRP in their respective schools, assist with mapping efforts across the university and lead student engagement efforts,” Soudi explained.

The second pillar aims to collect research to assess the needs of Syrian refugees in the Middle East, especially in Jordan and Lebanon and those of the agencies and organisations providing services to them.

Finally, the SRRP will work to implement a pilot project, based on identified needs and resources, to deploy Stanford faculty, staff, and students to improve refugee conditions in these two target countries.

AMMAN — The Senate on Monday extended a JD100,000 financial support to the fund of fallen soldiers’ families of the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) and security departments. Members of the Senate’s social solidarity fund, which was established early last year, handed in the support to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Senate President Faisal Fayez said that the Upper House places special attention for the social and humanitarian initiatives of JAF and other security apparatuses.

Fayez called on banks, industry and commerce chambers, companies and professional association to establish similar social solidarity funds under the difficult economic conditions facing the Kingdom.

AMMAN — The Jordanian Breast Cancer Programme (JBCP) recently concluded a six-day Training-of-Trainers (TOTs) course for a group of community-based women activists, volunteers and health workers in Irbid and Zarqa, a statement by the JBCP and the King Hussein Cancer Foundation (KHCFD) said. 

Funded by the European Union, the course involved capacity building activities and  the facilitation of training sessions in health areas such as raising awareness on the importance of the early detection of breast cancer. 

The training also discussed the need to follow healthy, lifestyle by exercising regularly, eating healthy food, stopping smoking and especially smoking hookah due to its significant impact on increasing the chances of cancer in general and breast cancer in particular, the statement read.

The TOTs course addressed issues of gender and leadership with the aim of emphasising the importance of educating women about their rights and stressing the importance of their financial and economic independence in order to support their decisions, especially regarding their health.

This training came as a part of the activities conducted under the EU support project for civil society organisations in Blended Learning and Behaviour Change for Local Development, dubbed "Training of Trainers". It will be followed by a series of training session aimed at sensitising the community to these topics before conducting community activities to deliver these health and community messages to the target group in Zarqa and Irbid, according to the statement.

The JBCP is a national programme under the leadership of the KHCF and The King Hussein Cancer Centre that aims to orchestrate breast cancer early detection efforts nationwide, provide screening services to Jordanian women and raise public awareness about breast cancer.

AMMAN — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE pledged early Monday $2.5 billion in support for Jordan’s economy, they declared at the end of a four-way summit, attended by His Majesty King Abdullah and HRH Crown Prince Hussein. 

In a communiqué issued at the end of the gathering in Mecca, participants said that assistance, which will come through four means, is driven by “the fraternal ties between the four states, Islamic and Arab principles and values,” detailing a package that includes a deposit at the Central Bank of Jordan, guarantees to be presented to the World Bank in favour of Jordan, budget support for five years and funding of development projects by development funds in the three countries. 

According to the Royal Court, which published the communiqué, King Abdullah thanked the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman Bin Abdulaziz for convening the summit, and for Kuwait and UAE for responding to the invitation, adding that the aid package would help Jordan overcome its economic crisis. 

King Salman on Saturday called the rulers of the three other nations to set up a meeting in Mecca after demonstrations rocked Jordan over a proposed tax hike. 

“They agreed to hold a meeting comprising the four countries... to discuss means of supporting Jordan to overcome its current crisis,” the statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency said.

On the sidelines of the summit, His Majesty met with UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Dubai Ruler Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, with talks focusing on bilateral ties and regional developments.

At the meeting, the King and Sheikh Mohammad agreed to sustain coordination between the two countries. His Majesty thanked the Gulf states for their support for Jordan, a Royal Court statement said. 

His Majesty and the Crown Prince had performed Umra, or minor pilgrimage to Mecca, upon arrival in Saudi Arabia on Sunday. 

AMMAN — A Jordanian-American-Russian monitoring centre is operating in Amman to monitor any violations to a ceasefire in the de-escalation zone, which was created in south Syria last year, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the caretaker government Ayman Safadi said on Sunday.

The centre is "monitoring and dealing with these violations effectively", Safadi told reporters during a joint press conference with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

The minister said Jordan had started intensive talks with the US and Russia on the need to preserve the de-escalation zone created in the south of Syria following last year's tripartite deal among the three sides.

"The zone is a necessity and an important step to reach a political solution… All parties are committed to preserving the deal as they all know its feasibility and that it helped in reaching a ceasefire," Safadi said, adding that maintaining the zone will help end the crisis in Syria and work out a political solution that ensure that the bloodshed, chaos and destruction are ceased.

"Many voiced concern about the eruption of violence in south Syria and we say that no one will benefit from violence…. We in Jordan are closely following up on the situation," he said.

“We do not want to see any violence in the south of Syria…We do not want to see more Syrians losing homes and being forced to leave and immigrate and thus we will work on preserving this agreement in cooperation with our direct partners in the deal and other regional and international partners,” he added.

Mogherini stressed the EU’s support for efforts preserve the zone.

“We support efforts to maintain the de-escalation zone. We have all interest to maintain the zone in the south of Syria for the stability and security of Jordan and the Jordanian people,” said Mogherini.

The tripartite deal, which was signed in Amman last year, entailed a ceasefire along a line of contact agreed upon between Syrian government forces and associated troops on one side and rebels on the other.

The three parties agreed that the ceasefire aims to permanently de-escalate the tensions in southern Syria, ending acts of hostility, restoring stability and allowing free access of humanitarian aid for this key area in Syria.

Government officials said then that the deal was key for uprooting terrorist groups such as the so-called Khalid Ibn Al Walid Army, Al Nusra and any pockets affiliated with Daesh near the borders.