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AMMAN — The Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) has participated in the Joint Gulf Shield/1 drills that were held in Saudi Arabia to enhance cooperation, coordination and the exchange of military information and expertise, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Thursday.

The drills aimed at training forces on joint strategic operational planning, unifying terms among participating armies and executing conventional and unconventional military operations in simulation for potential terrorist and extremist threats.

The exercise is considered one of the biggest at the regional level in terms of the number of participating troops and the quality of weapons and technologies used in different phases of the drill.

AMMA — The Arab League on Thursday congratulated Jordan and Egypt for signing earlier in the day an agreement on the liberalisation of services trade among Arab countries.

In a statement cited by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, the Arab League said that the difficult conditions facing Arab countries require all to stick to implementing the economic integration project.

In a speech during the ministerial meeting of the economic and social council in Riyadh, Arab League Secretary General Ahmad Aboul Gheit said that regional crises have worsened economic conditions in several Arab countries which spent large amounts of money to host waves of refugees who placed extra pressure on their resources, in addition to paying high costs to safeguard their borders. 

AMMAN — Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Economic Affairs Jafar Hassan on Wednesday highlighted the importance of governorate councils in identifying development priorities.

Hassan's remarks came during a visit by the ministerial economic team to Maan, some 220km south of Amman, where the ministers met with officials and local community leaders, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Hassan, who heads the taskforce, said that the meeting reflected the government's willingness to work jointly with stakeholders towards serving Maan residents and detecting opportunities in the area that can stimulate economic growth, expressing the government's support for governorate councils to enable them to contribute to the development process.

The minister noted that this year will witness the start of the first phase of the railway connection between Aqaba Port and Wadi Al Yutom, adding that the second phase will commence next year to connect Wadi Al Yutom with the Maan land port.

Governorate representatives highlighted development, logistic and investment challenges that need to be addressed in the district. In response, Hassan stressed that these issues would be discussed with concerned parties, and demands would be met whenever possible.

As for the rights of workers at the Aqaba Railway Corporation, where many Maanis are hired, the minister stressed that employees’ rights are protected and that the government is keen on and committed to safeguarding these rights.

Maan Governor Ahmad Omoush said that the 2018 budget endorsed by the governorate council included 153 capital projects with a total value of JD19.121 million, in addition to four Royal initiatives’ projects, funded and overseen by the Royal Court, at a cost of JD4.594 million.

The official added that the projects listed in the 2017 budget with a funding from the general budget and external grants amounted to 78 schemes whose value stood at about JD35 million, noting that 61 per cent of the projects were completed.

Issues addressed in the meeting included investments of the Social Security Investment Fund (SSIF) in the region. 

Labour Minister Samir Murad said there are no changes to the work mechanism of the SSIF and no planned amendments to the Social Security Corporation Law.

He added that the ministry is closely following up with the private sector in Maan to find jobs for residents, calling on young people and entrepreneurs to present their ideas to the several entrepreneurship-supporting funds affiliated with his ministry.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Nayef Fayez said that the ministry would not tolerate any environmental violations, underlining cooperation with the water ministry in implementing wastewater networks, monitoring ground water resources and examining pollution levels in line with the best international standards.

Public Works and Housing Minister Sami Halasa said that 60 per cent of the rehabilitation project of the Grand Maan Mosque has been completed, while work was still under way in the Palace of Justice project, while construction would start soon to rehabilitate the King Abdullah I Palace, an old monument in the city.

Work in the military hospital in Maan will also start in two months, Halasa added, noting that the ministry would soon embark on revamping several roads in the governorate and providing them with lighting. 

Minister of State for Investment Affairs Muhannad Shehadeh said that six projects in Maan have benefitted from investment incentives since July last year, while two investment projects in the fertilisers and leather-tanning fields have obtained licenses and are expected to start construction soon.

Tourism Minister Lina Annab said that the ministry has several projects designed to develop the sector and diversify tourism products in Maan, including the establishment of a visitor centre in Othroh, a town on the Maan-Petra road, and holding cultural activities to attract tourists.

AMMAN — Jordan has received 16 technical and financial offers to implement four solar energy power plants with a total capacity of 200 megawatts (MW), the government said on Wednesday.

"We received the offers from local, regional and international companies and consortia under the third direct proposals stage," Amani Al Azzam, secretary general of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources told The Jordan Times on Wednesday.

Four will be selected to build solar power plants with a capacity of 50MW each in Maan Development Zone, the official added.

"We will embark on assessing the technical offers and announce the shortlisted bidders. Then, we will look into the financial offers and announcing the winning bidders that will carry out these projects,"
Al Azzam said.

The ministry will announce the names of the winning bidders for the solar plants in the third quarter of this year, she added.

The four solar plants, she said, are part of the government's plan to diversify energy resources and increase the contribution of renewable energy to the overall energy mix in Jordan and reduce the energy bill.

Also on Wednesday, the ministry announced the extension of the deadline for qualified companies to submit technical and financial offers to build two wind power plants with 50MW capacity, each until November of this year.

The winning bidders of the 14 shortlisted companies will build the plants in the southern parts of the Kingdom.

According to figures by the ministry, renewable energy projects with a total capacity of 732MW were operational by the end of 2017, contributing around 7 per cent to the overall energy consumed in the country.

The total capacity of electricity generated by renewable energy projects is expected to reach 2,400MW by 2021.

In 2014, Jordan cancelled plans to accept proposals to undertake these six projects under the third phase of direct proposals due to the limited capacity of the national grid. However, the Kingdom later resumed the project for the third stage after floating a tender to expand the grid’s capacity by an additional 1,000MW.

Jordan, which imports about 97 per cent of its energy needs annually at about 18 per cent of the gross domestic product, is implementing an energy strategy aimed at boosting renewable energy contribution to the overall energy mix from 3 per cent to 10 per cent by 2020.

AMMAN — Royal Jordanian (RJ) on Wednesday said none of its scheduled flights in the region have been re-routed yet after Europe's air safety watchdog's warning to aircrafts flying in the eastern Mediterranean about potential military strikes on Syria.

Some major airlines were reported as re-routing flights on Wednesday after the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) warned aircraft flying in the eastern Mediterranean to exercise caution due to possible air strikes on Syria, according to Reuters.

EASA said in a notification published on Tuesday that air-to-ground and cruise missiles could be used over the following 72 hours, and there was a possibility of intermittent disruption to radio navigation equipment.

In remarks to The Jordan Times on Wednesday, RJ Media Director Basel Kilani said that there was no change at the time on the national carrier’s operations in the region. 

However, he added that the national carrier was “closely monitoring the situation and will continue to evaluate any developments”.

International and regional airlines heeded the warning. 

“Air France has taken the EASA information into account and modified its flight plans for affected destinations, mainly Beirut and Tel Aviv,” the airline said in an AFP report, adding that it was monitoring the situation.

Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines also decided to change flight paths for planes heading to Beirut, an official at the city’s airport told AFP.

US President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday that “missiles will be coming” in response to the alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta that killed dozens of people. 

AMMAN — Minister of Social Development Hala Lattouf on Wednesday said a building is currently being furnished to house women whose lives are in danger due to reasons related to “family honour”.

“We are in the final stages of opening the first shelter for women whose lives are seriously threatened by their families,” Lattouf said.

The minister told The Jordan Times that the building is expected to open in May and will be called “Amneh [safe] House” or "Guesthouse for Women’s Recreation and Rehabilitation".

Around 30 women are currently in jail for indefinite periods without any charges in what is termed “protective custody” at the Jwaideh Women’s Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre, said Raghda Azzeh, who will be the director of the guesthouse. 

“We have been studying the cases of these women and plan to move them gradually to the guesthouse once it is opened,” Azzeh told The Jordan Times.

She added that the ministry has been working "tirelessly" for over a year to train the staff in cooperation with local organisations, including MIZAN Law Group, which has worked in the past to help release some women from protective custody. 

Azzeh said the guesthouse will consist of furnished independent apartments for the released women to make them “feel at home and not imprisoned”. 

“Our aim is to ensure a temporary residency for these women and for them to be independent,” Azzeh stressed, adding that the guests will be fully provided with life necessities such as food and clothing, and will be ensured legal, health and psychological services.

“We will also make sure that these women are involved in recreational activities and are trained in certain trades that will help them once they leave the guesthouse,” the director added. 

Many women in “protective custody” spend indefinite periods in the correction facility, sometimes exceeding 10 years, without any charges levelled against them. They cannot leave the facility without the administrative governor’s permission, according to activists.

Most of the women in the facilities are inmates held on cases of rape, adultery, incest and for going missing from home, according to officials. 

On some occasions, women were reportedly killed after being bailed out by family members, even after guarantees had been signed to inflict no harm on them. 

Around 20 women are murdered annually for reasons related to cleansing “family honour” in Jordan.

AMMAN — The government will "go ahead" with implementing water desalination projects and will "not wait for anyone", Prime Minister Hani Mulki said on Wednesday. 

Mulki stressed the importance of guaranteeing justice in water distribution to all areas of the Kingdom and of safeguarding water resources, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The prime minister's remarks came during his visit to the Water and Irrigation Ministry where he had a firsthand look at plans to deal with water provision in 2018, as well as the summer plan and projects the ministry is expected to implement.

Mulki noted that the government, through the ministry, seeks to implement several water schemes to ensure the provision of enough amounts of water for various purposes in the coming years.

He called for proper administration of water resources in the Kingdom in light of increasing demand due to an expected good tourism season and soaring temperatures, in addition to the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis.

The premier also highlighted the importance of expanding desalination projects to cope with increasing demands on water, citing the successful project implemented in Aqaba and expected to provide 5 million cubic metres (mcm) of water for industrial and tourist investments annually, Petra added.

Jordan signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel and Palestine in December 2013 to implement the first phase of the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Project. 

Under the first phase, a total of 300mcm of water will be pumped each year, eventually transferring up to 2 billion cubic metres of seawater per year from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, according to the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.

A total of 85-100mcm of water will be desalinated every year, while the seawater will be pumped out from an intake located in the north of the Gulf of Aqaba.

In November last year, Israeli media reports claimed that Israel had told Jordan that a joint agreement for the construction of a pipeline transferring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea would "not go ahead" until Israel would be allowed to reopen its embassy in Amman.

In February 2018, Jordan stressed its commitment to implementing the Red-Dead Project despite repeated withdrawal signals from Israel.

During Mulki's visit, Water Minister Ali Ghezawi reviewed the main challenges facing the water sector, especially the gap between the available and required amounts of water, the repercussions of the Syrian refugee influx, climate change and the increasing demand during the summer due to receiving tourists and the return of expatriates.

Ghezawi added that rainfall averages have been witnessing increasing decline over the past few years, noting that this year's rainfall average did not exceed 78 per cent of the annual general average of 8.4 billion cubic metres, according to Petra.

He highlighted that such low rainfalls affected dam storage, which went down by more than 30mcm of this year's storage capacity of 133mcm, amounting to 39 per cent compared to 50 per cent registered last year, where storage capacity stood at 162mcm.

The minister pointed out that work is underway to raise dam storage capacity to 400mcm by 2020.

AMMAN — With some 43 per cent of Syrian school-aged refugee children in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt having no access to education as of March 2018, according to a report by international children’s rights foundation KidsRights, the need for alternative  learning solutions has become crucial to avoid the formation of a “lost generation”.

“Antura and the Letters” (“Antura wa Al Huruf” in Arabic), a free mobile and computer game, aims to counter this educational gap by providing an interactive and easily accessible resource to teach reading in Arabic to children aged from five to ten.

Launched in March 2018, the app consists of 23 interactive games covering the full Arabic primary school literacy curriculum, in addition to nine types of quizzes that specifically test and reinforce each acquired subject.

The app targets children’s literacy skills including letter and sound recognition, letter decoding and word combinations and vocabulary and oral fluency, according to its developers, who collaborated with educators and psychologists to provide refugees and displaced children an alternative to in-class learning. 

Several families from the Arab region were also involved in focus groups to help develop game content that supports the learning needs of children.

“The world is facing a resource catastrophe; with a wealth of potential human capital, creativity and achievement being lost due to regional crises,” a KidsRights Foundation representative said, pointing out that the new game seeks to “find a way to limit the consequences of the terrible situation”.

And, to the developers’ surprise, the app’s design ended up reaching to a much wider audience than expected, with over 20,000 downloads and a 4.6 out of 5 rating recorded as of February 2018. 

Emmanuel Guardiola, the designer of the game, recalled: “Antura and the Letters was initially conceptualised and designed as an educational application for refugee children who may not have access to regular schooling or require extra assistance in learning Arabic; but, after implementing several tests in Turkey and Lebanon in addition to a third party assessment of pedagogical impact on students in Jordan, we realised that not only was the game being enjoyed by the children, but they also showed significant improvement in their language proficiency and fluency.”

He added: “The results from our tests were so promising and effective that we decided to introduce this application to a greater audience that wants to improve their Arabic reading skills all over the world.” 

Father of a seven-year-old boy Stefano Cecere commented: “My 7-year-old could play most of the mini-games learning basic Arabic letters and words only in a few hours. This is a great start!”

Adults willing to learn Arabic also showed enthusiasm in using the game, like Daniel Gonzalez Lopez who said it was a “very polished and enjoyable app. It’s amazing how you can learn Arabic while having so much fun”.

To ensure Antura’s positive impact on children, a field evaluation developed by All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development and Development and Digital Learning for Development was conducted by Integrated International in partnership with New York University’s Create Lab, with the support of UNICEF Innovation, a statement by the organisers said. 

“For more than a year now, people from all over the world, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, have been working together for the same cause — giving the Syrian children a chance for a future after the war,” Guardiola stressed, noting that the success of the app shows that “Antura, the character within the game, has become a fun companion for children on their educational journey. This is exactly what we are trying to accomplish by bringing innovation and entertainment into Arabic language education.”

Launched through a global collaboration between Cologne Game Lab from the German university TH-Koeln, Video Games Without Borders (VGWB), and Wixel Studio, a Lebanese game development studio, the educational app, which was funded by the Norwegian ministry of foreign affairs, won the international “EduApp4Syria” competition in 2017 and the Titanium Award for the Best Serious Game at the Fun and Serious Festival in 2017.

“Apart from helping children that are out-of-school and the ones in schools, Antura has also helped us prove that it is possible to develop a high-quality humanitarian game in a collaborative way,” VGWB founder Francesco Cavallari told The Jordan Times, voicing his hope to see Antura being available in other languages and to regions to “help kids all over the planet”. 

AMMAN — Authorities on Wednesday made the fourth confiscation of ivory since the start of the year, seizing 23 ivory ornaments displayed for sale in a rest station south the capital.

A joint patrol from the Rangers and the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) seized and confiscated the ivory ornaments, which were on display for sale at a rest station, according to head of the law enforcement section at the RSCN, Abdul Razzaq Hmoud.

“Initial investigation revealed that the ivory products were smuggled into the country over different periods of time and from different sources. Experts inspected the items and proved that they were carved out of elephant tusks,” Hmoud told The Jordan Times.

The trade in elephant tusks or objects made of ivory is illegal as elephants are globally endangered and listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

“The value of the confiscated ivory products is very high, estimated at tens of thousands of Jordanian dinars. They are now in the possession of the RSCN,“ Hmoud noted.

Because ivory trade is illegal, tusks and ivory ornaments are usually sold for hefty amounts of money in the black market with 1 kilogramme of raw or un-worked ivory being sold for $3,000 to $8,000 in the black market, according to the RSCN.

Authorities have fined the owner of the rest station where the items were discovered during an inspection patrol, Hmoud highlighted.

On Monday, the Rangers and the RSCN seized and confiscated three elephant tusks smuggled into Jordan for trade purposes. Earlier this year, several other tusks had already been confiscated.

No confiscations of elephant tusks had happened in at least the past five years in Jordan. “I believe that there are several factors that gave rise to the recent confiscations of ivory in Jordan, including the fact that the Kingdom became a transit point for smuggling such items given the regional instability that weakens law enforcement in neighbouring countries witnessing turmoil,” Hmoud said.

He also cited the campaign to raise awareness of customs department’s employees and Rangers on the CITES through training workshops as another factor that contributed to the rise ivory confiscations.

Hmoud said that the society always notifies the CITES secretariat in Geneva with such confiscations, noting that, in such cases, a representative of the secretariat usually oversees the destruction process of the ivory tusks to prevent any illegal trade. Elephant tusks and ivory objects remain in the possession of the RSCN and are not sent back to their country of origin in order to prevent illegal trade, the society said.

In 1978, Jordan became a signatory to the CITES, a global agreement between governments aiming to ensure that the international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival, according to the convention’s website.

Meanwhile, the 2002 Agriculture Law prohibits trade in wild animals unless a permit is issued allowing the export or import of the animal through the Kingdom, according to the RSCN.

AMMAN — Planning and International Cooperation Minister Imad Fakhoury said that the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD) has agreed on a three-year programme to finance a number of government priority projects.

The remark came during a meeting with AFESD's Director General and Chairman Abdullatif Youssef Al Hamad on the sidelines of the 47th meeting of the Board of Governors of AFESD, which comes as part of the Joint Annual Meeting of the Arab Financial Institutions held at the Dead Sea on Tuesday.

Fakhoury also announced that the fund will increase grants to Jordan and approve a $500,000 grant to finance the second phase of the agricultural census, a Planning ministry statement said on Wednesday.

The minister expressed appreciation for the fund's support, calling for finding new financing mechanisms and increasing grants to assist the Kingdom in implementing its reform programmes and facing challenges stemming out of the Syrian refugee crisis.

For his part, Hamad highlighted AFESD's understanding of Jordan's situation and developments needs.

Between 1975 and 2017, the fund contributed to funding 47 economic and social priority development projects in Jordan, at a total value of $1,914 billion. It also provided $35 million in grants and $130 million in soft loans to fund small-and medium-sized enterprises over the same period, in addition to a $10 million grant to support Syrian refugees' host communities.

Prior to the announcement, Fakhoury chaired a meeting of the supervisory council of private accounts to finance private sector's small and medium enterprises, during which various decisions were taken and the annual report endorsed.

The minister also met with a number of directors of Arab funds with whom he discussed means to boost Jordan's relations with the funds, outlining the economic challenges facing the Kingdom as a result of the regional instability, the statement read.

Fakhoury also met with Director General of the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development Abdulwahab Ahmad Al Bader, to whom he voiced Jordan's appreciation for the Kuwaiti support, especially its contribution to the Gulf countries' grant to the Kingdom and the $1 million grant provided to the King Hussein Cancer Centre.

Al Bader stressed the fund's eagerness to stand by Jordan in securing its priority financial needs and designing a three-year programme to fund capital projects in certain sectors within the general budget.   

Between 1962 and 2017, the Kuwaiti fund contributed to funding socioeconomic projects worth more than $579.5 million through loan agreements, while the total value of grants extended during the same period reached $10.4 million. 

Schemes supported by the fund cover  the areas of energy, education, agriculture, water, roads and sewage networks, according to the statement.

In his meeting with Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Fund for Development (SDF) Yousuf Bin Ibrahim Al Bassam, Fakhoury called for increasing grants and soft loaning to support Jordan macroeconomic reform path.

Al Bassam stressed SDF's keenness on supporting the Kingdom, noting that a technical mission will visit Jordan this month to follow up on current projects supported by the fund. 

According to the ministry’s data, SDF has provided aid worth $488.1 million since 1975, contributing to financing priority development projects in strategic sectors such as energy, sanitation, education, infrastructure and health, in addition to supporting the Jordan Response Plan with $100 million.