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AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania, chairperson of the Jordan River Foundation (JRF), on Tuesday expressed her gratitude to major donors, including organisations, corporations, and individuals, that have supported JRF this year, commending their crucial role in building the capacity of Jordanian communities, a statement by Her Majesty's office said.

 Speaking at a luncheon held in honour of JRF supporters at Al Husseiniya Palace, Queen Rania lauded donors’ support of JRF’s mission and its empowerment of women, explaining that an investment in women is also an investment in their families and communities.

 Noting that generosity has never been more important than it is today in light of difficult economic conditions, Her Majesty added that it is unfortunate that women are always last in line for opportunities. 

Through donor contributions, JRF is able to train women in various handicrafts, “lifting them from a life of dependency to one of productivity, and replacing a sense of helplessness with one of dignity and pride”, Her Majesty added. 

Since its establishment in 1995, JRF has launched numerous socioeconomic projects for women, providing employment and training opportunities to enhance their livelihoods.

 Over the past year, JRF has focused on the development of its Social Enterprises initiative, which strives to create sustainable economic opportunities for local community women and female Syrian refugees by capitalising on their potential as independent breadwinners for their families. This includes training in labour market skills, entrepreneurship and management, as well as handicrafts and cooking.

 Under these efforts, JRF has partnered with IKEA to integrate Syrian refugees and local community women into the workforce through the creation of a series of exquisite handicraft collections reflecting Jordan’s traditions and heritage.

 The collaboration aims to help sustain social and economic stability across refugee-hosting communities, offering Jordanian women and Syrian refugees jobs to produce handmade carpets and embroidery items, sold exclusively by IKEA, locally and regionally.

The honourary launchon was attended by JRF’s Board of Trustees and Director General Enaam Barrishi, as well as several key JRF supporters, including Ali Kolaghassi, Arab Potash Company, Sabih Al Masri, Housing Bank for Trade and Finance, Arab Bank, Hamid Najjar, Saleh Eddine Bitar and Eyad Mesbah.

 JRF is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation with a focus on child protection and community empowerment. Contributing to social justice, alleviating poverty and socio-economic empowerment, especially among women and youth, JRF implements a wide range of programmes to achieve its mission of transforming Jordanian communities.

 The foundation’s social enterprises include Al Karma Embroidery Centre, which employs women artisans in the Jabal Al Natheef area, and the Wadi Al Rayan Project, which repurposes cattail reeds and banana leaves as raw manufacturing materials. JRF has also empowered 1,600 women in 13 different villages through the Bani Hamida Weaving Project, which revives the long-celebrated tradition of bedouin weaving.

AMMAN — Leaving the Palestinian issue unsettled will remain the key reason behind regional conflicts and will keep hindering development, security and building of the future, HRH Prince Hassan said on Tuesday.

His remarks were made at the opening of the international conference "The Palestinian Issue, Where To?" held at the University of Jordan (UJ) in the presence of diplomats, lawyers, activists, artists and musicians.

Marking the 70th anniversary of Nakba, the three-day conference includes working papers, presentations and perspectives presented by more than 70 speakers from the US and the Middle East, aiming to shed light on the Palestinian cause and the measures needed to achieve justice and peace in this regard.

The international community must confront the issue with courage and objectivity, act in accordance with international law and legitimacy, and recognise that two neighbouring states must be live side by side, Prince Hassan stated.

A Palestinian state where all the rights of all Palestinians are secured, including the right of return of refugees, must be accepted, Prince Hassan said, criticising the Israeli polarising approach in seeking solutions, including their request for unconditional negotiations and refusing the right of return for refugees.

On Jerusalem, the prince said: "There is no similar city in the globe in terms of diversity and coexistence and its Arab people and identity must be protected with the assistance of Muslim and Arab nations.”

He stressed the importance of the Muslim awqaf and Christian endowments management in the holy city, urging more efforts on the political level that benefit from the internationally recognised status quo of East Jerusalem as an occupied land, and intensify the mobilisation of Jerusalemites through cultural movements such as arts and "soft resistance" to refute Israeli claims. 

Prince noted the international community's duality in dealing with war crimes, comparing the measures that were taken during the Bosnian-Serbian conflict and the "weekly shooting of children" by the Israeli soldiers.

Prince Hassan underscored the Hashemites’ role in the preservation of the city's holy shrines, referring to his great grandfather Sherif Hussein, who reconstructed Al Aqsa Mosque/AL Haram Al Sharif in 1924 with a cost of 39,000 Palestinian pounds, equivalent to 24,000 golden liras.

In 1949, King Abdullah I personally helped extinguish a fire that almost destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and ordered its restoration and maintenance, said the prince.

He highlighted the UNRWA's role in assisting the Palestinian refugees since 1949, noting the financial pledges made by a number of Arab and other countries, worth $150 million to address a funding gap left after the US downsized its contribution to the agency drastically.

He called for establishing an international Zakat fund to help refugees, urging more studies on the permissibility to use Zakat money for this purpose.

Regarding the US decision to move its embassy to occupied Jerusalem, the prince noted that it will be built on a land that was used for a British military camp during the mandate period and was rented to the US for $1 annually with a request from Israel that the land be used for a future US embassy.  

It has been proventhat the land is a property ofan Arab family, the prince said.

He added that US President Donald Trump fulfilled his pledge to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on the basis of two principles: Israel being a sovereign country with the right to choose its capital, and the condition of peace with Palestinians if they accept it. 

The prince called for increasing the world's awareness of the Palestinian issue and holding periodical meetings by the public and the private sector on the subject.

"Have the Arab snot learned from the successive defeats and schemes that started with the Sykes-Picot agreement?" the prince asked in conclusion.

For his part, UJ President Azmi Mahafzah said that the future of Jerusalem is a "red line" as always asserted by His Majesty King Abdullah.

Mahafzah said that Israel attempts to justify building settlements by saying that Jews did so 3,000 years ago.

Meanwhile, archaeological excavations that have been ongoing for centuries have revealed no tangible evidence related to Israel's presence at that time, he added.

The president highlighted UJ's efforts to keep the Palestinian issue alive for all generations, noting the university's curriculum on Jerusalem and the award of the best PhD on Jerusalem every two years. 

The papers that will be presented at the conference will cover the political, legal and economic dimensions of the issue, heritage and culture and civic pressure movements.

AMMAN — Jordan's first helicopter pilots’ training academy has launched its operations and flight training programmes for military and paramilitary cadets.

The Golden Eagle Aviation Academy (GEAA), in partnership with the Royal Jordanian Air Force, is providing "top of the line" flight training programmes to cadets in the region with a future plan to include a civilian flight training programme as well, a GEAA statement said on Tuesday.

GEAA aims primarily to provide "exceptional" skills and aviation knowledge to military cadets to enable them to meet the rapidly growing demand for skillful pilots, the statement said. 

The academy has a team of ex-military experts who possess long and rich experience in aviation, and it follows the highest aviation standards that meet with the rigorous air force and international aviation requirements, according to the statement, which noted that GEAA aims to be the premier aviation distention to train military and paramilitary cadets in the region.

GEAA has indicated that in addition to its helicopter training programmes,  it is ready to provide military training programmes on combat and aircraft transport in cooperation with the Royal Jordanian Air force, as well as an aviation engineering programme that can also be arranged  for military needs. 

The academy has been certified by the International Air Transport Association as an "authorised training centre" for courses in aviation management and aviation safety among many other aviation-related programmes, according to the statement.

"We are so confident that GEAA training programmes will make a considerable shift in aviation training in the region as we aim to graduate pilots with profound knowledge, outstanding skills, and high spirit full of confidence," GEAA's CEO Maj. Gen. Nabil Ababneh said.

He added that GEAA is "the right destination for future pilots who seek uniqueness and excellence in the world of aviation". 

AMMAN — Deputising for HRH Crown Prince Hussein, Tourism Minister Lina Annab on Tuesday inaugurated the second conference of the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA), dubbed Adventure NEXT Near East.

Annab said that hosting the conference for the second time in the Kingdom stresses Jordan's significance on the world tourism map and provides an opportunity to highlight the unique adventure tourism experiences in the country, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The conference, held at the Dead Sea, will provide a platform to present and discuss creative ideas for developing tourism products in the adventure tourism field, the minister added.

"Adventure tourism is a rapid-developing sector in the world in general and Jordan in particular," said Annab, adding that the sector has achieved several successes that made Jordan a global tourist destination.

In a press conference that followed the inauguration ceremony, the minister said that the Kingdom is considered "one of the best destinations" for adventure tourism according to international agencies specialised in the field. 

Jordan has a diversified nature and distinguished social fabric that combines the past and present in a harmonious way, making the Kingdom "the best destination" for adventure tourism, Annab added.

Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) Director Abed Al Razzaq Arabiyat said that organising the event for the second time was a result of joint efforts towards its success, adding that the Kingdom is the best place for adventure tourism agents to meet.

He reviewed JTB's efforts in organising the event through its offices in North America and ATTA, stressing that the conference will provide an opportunity for international media coverage to the adventure tourism in Jordan, as invitations were extended to 37 journalists, bloggers and photographers specialised in this kind of tourism, in addition to 200 tourist agents.  

AMMAN — A game co-designed by children, education specialists and Ministry of Education (MoE) officials is testing a new approach aimed at helping refugee children catch up on the academic years they lost due to displacement and regional turmoil.

"Can’t Wait to Learn" [CWTL] was designed and led by the NGO War Child (WC) with the aim of offering easy and understandable educative games to young refugee learners, according to WC country director, Patrick Sweeting, who noted that the game is "fully aligned with Jordan's national curriculum".

"WC Jordan has been developing this game based on national standards and in line with the best international practices in the field so as to create a learning tool that can later be scaled up to larger groups of learners," he told The Jordan Times in a recent interview. 

"Some of the kids who found refuge in Jordan have been out of school for several years, and are sometimes way behind in terms of academic knowledge for their age," noted Ziad Twissi, WC education technical adviser, adding that "therefore, we needed to find a way to condense a year worth of learning of specific subjects into a short amount of time to help these children catch up".

Along with officials from the MoE and designers from WC, he customised an interactive learning game to adapt Jordan's national curricula materials to a condensed learning pattern, with reduced literacy and numeracy items and increased playing tools to enhance students' engagement.

"Some of these children have been deeply affected by the regional crisis and are still suffering from many psycho-social consequences. Thus, we need to pay extra attention to their well being if we want to create a sustainable educational impact for these kids," the education expert said, stressing that "many drop-outs recorded among these groups are due to the lack of an enjoyable learning environment, combined with financial factors, which push the kids more easily into the traps of child labour or child marriages".

The strength of CWTL, according to Sweeting, is its child centred design which took into account all parties involved in the young learners' lives. "Our designers co-created the game with local children, ministry officials and local communities. We had kids tell us which characters they wished to see in the game and the environment they wanted to see those characters evolved in, among other things," he explained, referring to the custom-made Jordanian game that includes backgrounds such as Wadi Rum, Petra, and other known locations.

"This game is truly research informed, which means that it was designed to fit the specific needs of the students' lifestyle and circumstances, therefore becoming highly attractive to both boys and girls learners," said Hussein Al Amoudi, WC communications officer, stressing that "even children who have never learned to read or write can learn with this game".

Provided with a tablet at the start of each CWTL class, students are in full control, having to make decision at each stage of the game. "They cannot access the next level until they fully acquire the skill they need to learn; this is a formative assessment of their progress which is very challenging yet rewarding for them," said Twissi, recalling a "complete silence" in the room once the 45-minute session starts. 

The programme is currently piloted in Azraq refugee camp and host communities in Zarqa, along with NGOs which are trained on conducting the game independently in Makani centres. 

"At first, some teachers were reluctant, because it is a new technology they are not used to," recalled Twissi. "But, after a week of training, they started mastering the game and enjoyed playing it as much as the children themselves!," he remembered.  

CWTL works to support and supplement the traditional education model in conflict-affected areas for a short term as it enables vulnerable children in both formal and informal learning environments to work towards acquiring MoE competency levels, thus moving towards an eased transition into formal education systems, a CWTL statement said.

The organisation is now waiting for the results of the research studies measuring the learning outcomes, psychosocial effects and overall effectiveness of CWTL compared to other traditional approaches. "These results, which should be published early next year, will inform future development of the curriculum and help up progress to the next scale-up phase in the whole region," said Sweeting, stressing the importance of "making sure that all aspects of the game are fully supervised and under control before we decide to expand any further."

AMMAN — The Jordanian Pharmacists Association (JPhA) on Tuesday decided to cancel the escalation of measures against the recent amendments made by the legislative council to the draft system for the licensing of pharmaceutical institutions.

The decision comes in light of the recent move by the Cabinet to return the draft system to the Legislative Council for further consultation with the JPhA, the union’s president, Zeid Kilani, told The Jordan Times on Tuesday.

The escalation measures were initiated in April after the syndicate’s annual meeting determined that the amendments to the licensing system were made “without prior consultation with the union”, Kilani said. 

“The union showed its keenness to discuss the new licensing system, but no invitation to participate in the dialogues was extended,” Kilani said, expressing “surprise” over the approval of new regulations prior to any negotiations with the union.

Strikes, temporary closure of pharmacies and the spread of messages across the media were some of the activities scheduled by the syndicate to protest the lack of inclusion of JPhA representatives in the discussions and the amendments to the licensing system. 

“The Cabinet decision shows us that the government is willing to listen to our point-of-view,” Kilani noted, extending his thanks “to the Prime Minister and his deputies for working on the issue”. 

“This is a good gesture but nothing has been confirmed yet,” he pointed out, adding that the syndicate is currently waiting for an official invitation to discuss the technical details on the measurement of the distance between pharmacies.

“This is our only objection and we have no complaints about any other clauses in the system,” Kilani stressed, criticising the “inaccuracy” of the current methods used for the measurement of the distance between pharmacies and the need to install a GPS measurement system. 

“Jordan is currently suffering from clusters of pharmacies concentrated in the same location, while citizens based in other areas have to take transportation from their homes to access a pharmacy,” he told The Jordan Times in a recent interview, stressing that “the minimum distance between pharmacies should be raised to 500 metres if we want all citizens to be able to access the service while preventing competition and malpractice”.

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a February Criminal Court ruling sentencing a 28-year-old Syrian refugee to ten years in prison after convicting him of beating his wife to death and attempting to conceal the murder in Mafraq in February 2017.

The court ruled that the defendant, who works as a shepherd, was guilty of beating his 20-year-old wife to death on February 3 and handed him a ten-year prison term.

The defendant then attempted to conceal the death by hiding his wife’s body in a cave and pretending that he was looking for her, the court documents said.

The minimum punishment for causing death by beating is seven years, but the tribunal decided to increase the sentence by three years because of the heinousness of the murder and because the defendant concealed the incident from the authorities, the Criminal Court ruled.

Court documents said the defendant and his wife, both Syrian refugees, had “constant marital problems since the day they were married and that he used to beat her”.

On February 3, an argument started between the two and “the defendant beat his wife with a wooden stick,” the court maintained, adding that “he left the house and, the following day, discovered that his wife was dead."

The defendant carried his wife’s body to a cave, dumped it in a seven-metre hole and covered it with rocks. He then went to a police station to report his missing wife, according to court papers.

But the victim’s family had suspicions that “the suspect might have had something to do with her disappearance, so they kept pressing him until he confessed 20 days later”, the court maintained.

Registered as refugees, the couple, who has two boys aged three and two years old, lived outside refugee camps.

The Higher Court ruled that the Criminal Court’s ruling was accurate and the defendant deserved the punishment he received.

 The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Naji Zubi, Yassin Abdullat, Bassem Mubeidin and Saeed Bughied.

AMMAN — The controversies sparked by US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the ensuing reactions by Palestinian leaders in Ramallah and Gaza were the themes of a talk “The Trump Administration and Jerusalem”, conducted last Saturday by Rashid Khalidi at the Columbia Global Centres in Amman.

Khalidi, who taught at the Lebanese University, the American University in Beirut and the University of Chicago, is currently a professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York.

“We should no longer be surprised or shocked by anything done by Donald Trump,” the scholar began, noting that the US president carried out the "most sweeping change" in the US policy on Palestine since 1947.

We are actually witnessing "a revolution" in the US policy towards Palestine, Khalidi stated.

Following a brief outline of Trump’s foreign policy, including that of the Middle East, the scholar said: "If you pay any attention to what has been happening in the United States, you’ll have noticed that there’s been no coherence in the policies of this administration towards any foreign policy issue, whether it has to do with Russia, China, Korea, trade, or the Middle East.”

It is because this administration has been characterised by" a deep division between the hard-line, erratic and very unconventional inclinations of the president and his closest advisers on the one hand, and the deeply conservative orientations of the major governmental branches and the individuals leading this bureaucracy on the other hand", Khalidi outlined.

"Looking carefully at the second group, you’ll find people who emerged from military and intelligence services, including Secretary of Defence General James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson [now gone], White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Three of the four are retired military officers, two of them are former Marines,” Khalidi underlined.

After firing Tillerson and McMaster, and with Kelly also on the exit door, Trump is replacing them with hardliners, the professor said.

Those establishment figures are opposed to by a group of ideologues, most of them foreign policy neophytes, neoconservatives dedicated to stalking the ultra-nationalistic inclinations of people who voted for Trump in November 2016, he claimed. 

According to the scholar, Pompeo, Bolton and Haley belong to a group of radical ideologues and ardent Zionists.

"The US has been a status quo power preserving traditional alliances, as every president since WWII has attempted to maintain the US alliances and avoid adventurousness and excessive involvement in further armed conflicts," Khalidi said.

The gap between these two groups is most visible regarding the US Middle East policy since Trump became the president, he emphasised. Trump personally intervened on the Palestinian issue against the advice of prominent bureaucracy members. "He did it to a much greater extent than any other president since Harry Truman[ the US president between 1945 and 1953]," the scholar stressed. 

"Everything related to Israel is not related to the foreign policy, it's essentially a matter of domestic policy," he highlighted, saying that Truman's decision to support partition and recognise Israel was met with opposition from all his advisers.

People whom Trump appointed to lead negotiations on the final status of East Jerusalem and Palestine — David Freidman and Jason Greenblatt — are not experienced diplomats, but "they are committed far-right Zionists who are long-term financial supporters of Israeli settler projects", according to Khalidi.

Moreover, the decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem was ideologically motivated, driven by domestic considerations and largely by ideology rather than a foreign policy decision, he claimed.

"How should Palestinians respond to this seismic shift in the position of the US?," Khalidi asked.

As the weaker side, Palestinians cannot afford to be divided and must present a unified front, he stressed, saying: "There should be a redefinition of what the Palestinian people want. There are new realities on the ground, new challenges, new threats and a new regional environment in 2018."

Furthermore, one necessary change of the Palestinian political discourse is to acknowledge that the diplomatic strategy followed by PLO has been” fatally flawed”; the second is that the US cannot be a mediator and honest broker as it cannot be a neutral party, Khalidi underscored.

"The United States will continue with this subversive approach unless and until the Palestinian national movement undertakes both mass, unarmed resistance and dedicated grassroots political and informational work outside of Palestine, especially inside the United States," Khalidi stressed.   

Major shifts already take place in key sectors of the US public opinion regarding Palestinian question among the younger generation, among blacks and Puerto Ricans, among other minorities, among Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, and also, very importantly, within the considerable segments of Jewish American community, professor concluded.

AMMAN — Interreligious dialogue refers to people of different faiths, both individual and institutional, coming to a mutual understanding and respect aiming to cooperate with each other and have positive interactions in spite of their differences, while remaining true to their own beliefs and respecting the beliefs of others, Vatican officials explained. 

Monsignor Khaled Akasheh, head of the Islamic relations office at the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) at the Vatican City on Monday gave a briefing about his 25 years service at the PCID.

He said that in dialogues, religious awareness is transformed form words into actions, and that the Jordanian heritage is rich of stories that reflect the mutual respect and coexistence between Christian and Muslims which should be documented. 

Monsignor Akasheh, born in Karak Governorate, who speaks French, Italian and English beside his mother tongue,  joined the PCID in 1994 holding the title as the secretary of the commission for religious relations with Muslims.

He stressed on the importance of creating "suitable" channels of cooperation between societies' establishments, mainly the academic institution, in order to promote the outcomes of interfaith conferences, “thus taking these conferences' outcomes to the practical level”.

In dialogue, there are four types, he explained, and mentioned the dialogue of life, mutual work, that of theology and the dialogue of spiritual experiences.

According the priest, the most important interreligious dialogue is the dialogue of life.

Monsignor Akasheh explained that the dialogue of life comes with a mission towards creating and maintaining peace between all faiths and, in the case of Jordan, it is between Muslims and Christians. 

He told The Jordan Times that the need is to enhance the relationship between followers of different faiths.  

“Believers, mainly Christians and Muslims, are called to be credible witnesses of God’s mercy and love for all humanity and of his care of the world in which we live.” 

He added that the focus should be more on the youth to be educated and taught to respect and love others which “ will be a precious heredity we will leave them”.

During the seminar that was organised by the Catholic Centre for Studies and Media, Monsignor Akasheh talked about the “wounded humanity” quoting His Holiness Pope Francis. 

“Humanity needs healing; this requires compassion, mutual pardon, and reconciliation, which are necessary conditions for genuine peace and shared values as well,” he said

 Among the challenges he faced during his mission, Monsignor Akasheh said that “some wishes to hear what you do not wish to say”. 

The Vatican priest briefed on the PICD efforts since it started in 1964 in promoting dialogue and paving the path of peace with different faiths around the world.

 Monsignor Akasheh was ordained a priest in 1978, and from 1978 until 1982 he served as vicar in the Latin parish of Madaba Governorate, where later he was appointed to the Latin Patriarchal Seminary until 1993. 

AMMAN — Deputising for the chairman of the joint chiefs-of-staff, Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army’s Inspector General Maj. Gen. Mohammad Sabaileh on Monday attended the concluding ceremony of the 10th Annual Warrior Competition.

The seven-day international competition, which took place at King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre (KASOTC) between April 29 and May 7, has witnessed the participation of 40 teams from 25 countries, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

KASOTC Director General Col. Osama Zu'bi commended the efforts of the participating teams who showed "great joint work" and "team spirit" during the competition which aimed at measuring teams' ability and endurance under psychological and physical pressure factors.

Participating teams also took part in two tourism trips organised to the ancient cities of Petra, Jerash and Umm Qais. A Lebanon team seized the first place, a Chinese the second and an American the third, Petra reported.