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AMMAN — The Spanish embassy in Amman on Thursday celebrated the closing ceremony of Tahdir-Masar project, which aims to support “qualified, committed Syrian citizens in their efforts to prepare for multilevel leadership in the transition process towards a peaceful, democratic and inclusive Syria”.

Launched in 2014 under the title “Strengthening Social Cohesion for a democratic and inclusive Syrian Civil Society”, the project concluded after over two years of training for Syrian political and peace activists, lawyers, journalists, humanitarian and medical staff and NGOs staff. 

“Over the past years, we have witnessed with discomfort the militarisation of the Syrian conflict, while sticking to the idea that a military solution to the crisis cannot guarantee a prosperous and peaceful Syria, which is why Spain supports a political solution involving all concerned parties,” Spanish Ambassador Aránzazu Bañón said, expressing hopes for the project to “sow the seed of hope for the future of Syria”.

The ambassador highlighted the “economic and social progress made by Spain over the past 50 years”, showing willingness to “keep building on the Spanish post-conflict experience to support Syria in its future transition”.

Co-funded by the European Union and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), Tahdir-Masar was implemented under a memorandum of understanding between AECID and the Jordanian government. 

In a video played at the ceremony, EU Ambassador to Jordan Andrea Matteo Fontana said: “The EU has supported the Tahdir-Masar project as part of its strategic plan for Syria and we hope that the participants become leaders in the Syrian political transition.”

Head of Cooperation with Arab Countries and Asia at AECID Javier Parrondo stressed: “If Spain was once able to overcome totalitarianism, Syria will also be capable to overcome this conflict. This change requires efforts coming from all parties involved, and we have contributed to this cause by supporting women, the media and civil society leaders.”

Counting over 1,200 beneficiaries, the initiative involved the Arab Women Media Centre, the Jordanian National Forum for Women, the Centre for Strategic Studies, as well as the Complutense Institute of International Studies, the Spanish Radio and Television Institute and the Toledo International Centre for Peace in Spain. 

It comprises three main areas of intervention including the promotion of constructive leadership in a transitional context, the empowerment of women within the Syrian society and the development of media towards democratic governability. 

Director of Nationality and Foreigner Affairs at the Ministry of Interior Basem Dahamseh stressed: “The Jordanian government believes in these elements as progress builders and is keen on transferring them to the Syrian people.”

On behalf of all participants in the project, speaker Zeina Jbeily thanked “all those who believed in the Syrian message and its contribution in helping Syrian people overcome their obstacles”, noting that “the initiative has been successful, and we hope for this efforts to be sustained in the long term to build further cooperation among states and individuals”.

AMMAN — The Jordanian health sector has realised several achievements in the medical tourism field, turning the Kingdom into a destination for patients from all over the world, Private Hospitals Association President Fawzi Hammouri said on Thursday.

Delivering a lecture on the sidelines of the 2018 Kuwait medical conference and exhibition, Hammouri said that Jordan seeks to maintain its international reputation in the field by excelling in all indicators, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

He added that the Kingdom has been keen on receiving injured and sick people from Palestine, Libya, Syria and Yemen over the past few years. 

AMMAN — Royal Court Secretary General Yousef Issawi, head of the follow-up committee for the implementation of Royal initiatives, on Thursday checked on a number of projects in Balqa, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Issawi, accompanied by Housing Minister Sami Halasa, checked on projects of 400-unit housing and a sports complex in the Jordan Valley, the Salt industrial estate, the new Salt Hospital and the semi-Olympic swimming pool.

In a press interview, Issawi said that the projects came upon directives of His Majesty King Abdullah during a field visit to Balqa, 35km northwest of Amman, where he met with some of the governorate’s residents. The projects aim to improve the living conditions of citizens in Balqa.

AMMAN — Participants in the final sessions of the “Social security and its impact on the nation’s unity” conference said that Jordan is historically defined by the Muslim-Christian coexistence.

In their discussion papers, they stressed that the Kingdom’s experiment in achieving social security and fighting extremism has proved successful, referring to His Majesty King Abdullah’s discussion papers which called for reaching a national dialogue on the reform process and democratic transformation, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

AMMAN — “’You are stronger than your disability’ is what I have been telling my trainees over the past 25 years, promising to make them world champions,” said Hussam Ayyad, karate coach of the Jordanian team “Ahel Elhemmeh” (“People with Determination”).

The eight team members, who live with various disabilities, recently won the “Best of the Best” trophy at the 43rd edition of “Battle of Columbus” at the 2018 Arnold Martial Arts Festival in the US, seizing five gold medals, three silver and three bronze.

“The battle was not only the theme of this year’s championship, but the theme of our entire journey towards this achievement,” Ayyad told The Jordan Times.

“It tore me apart to hear a child with special needs saying ‘I can’t’ when asked to join his peers during a sports class 25 years ago. From that moment, it became my duty, as a human and then a coach, to give a helping hand to this forgotten group,” he recalled.

“The team members are real heroes, and their powerful determination made them overcome every difficulty they faced,” team manager Raed Shammout said, explaining: “We travelled with very limited financial resources and, unlike other teams, we did not even have an accompanying medical team and we stayed in a very humble hotel.”

The team received funds from the Youth Ministry and a number of private companies, but that was only enough to cover the costs of two supervisors and eight members out of the 50 trainees who qualified to join, according to Ayyad.

“The team we chose included three members on wheelchairs, three with Down syndrome and three with various motor disabilities,” the coach said. 

“To every parent, never feel ashamed of your disabled child or ‘hide them’ from the society. Let them experience life and learn from its hardships” Hamzeh Al Daboubi, the team captain, said, stressing: “I was born with a disability, but that did not stop me from earning the black belt in Karate, being a world champion, pursuing a job, getting married and having two children”.

For Majd Athamneh, another team member with Down syndrome who went through 15 heart surgeries prior to joining the team, “coach Hussam is like my father, and I love him so much. He trained me until I earned the brown belt and I am on my way to get the black”.

Since 1994, Ayyad has volunteered to train more than 1000 children with different types of disabilities in various regions across the Kingdom. “Training every child constituted a unique battle, as some of them had mental disabilities in addition to the physical ones. I had to make a physical and psychological rehabilitation programme for each child before starting the regular Karate training”.

“I lost some of my battles, but won many in return as a number of the children I trained, who are youth now, have earned black belts,” Ayyad continued.

“In 1999, we participated in a national sports show attended by Their Majesties King Abdullah and Queen Rania, whose encouraging words to me that day were a great motivation that I never forgot,” he recalled.

The students, Ayyad has trained over the years have been paralyse, hunchbacked, knock-knee, blind, deaf, down syndrome, autistic, and on wheelchairs. “These young people are not disabled because once they are given their ‘special needs’, they can become world champions,” Ayyad commented, adding: “I have learnt great lessons from these young people while training them. I’ve learnt the real meanings of love, hope and patience”.

According to Ayyad, the youth he trained had also participated in several European championships in Italy, France and Spain during 2012 to 2016, seizing first places in all.

In addition to the free Karate training the Jordanian coach conducts, he said he is an activist and advocate of the rights of people with special needs: “I believe in the power of sports and that it can be a cure to their souls and bodies”.

Ayyad conducted several awareness campaigns across the Kingdom, the recent of which was to Ariha Charity Society for Social Development in Rusaifeh, Zarqa Governorate, where the team members presented a Karate show in front of disadvantaged and orphan children, sending a “powerful message of hope to every person that with determination, nothing can stand in their ways towards achieving their dreams,” Ahmad Mari, the society director, said. 

AMMAN — For the first time in more than five years, a trade and industrial delegation from the Kingdom will visit Damascus mid this month to discuss cooperation and explore investment opportunities with Syrian counterparts.

"This visit will be the first by a major delegation representing the various economic sectors including traders and industrialists in different areas since the start of the crisis in Syria," President of Jordan Chamber of Industry Adnan Abul Ragheb, who will head the delegation, told The Jordan Times on Wednesday.

The delegation will hold several meetings with Syrian business leaders and representatives from the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, Damascus Chamber of Industry and the Syrian Exporters Union, Abul Ragheb said.

Executives from local construction companies and clearance companies will also be among the delegation, he said.

“The relationship with Syria is very important for us, and it is based on brotherly relations,” he said, voicing hope that the northern neighbour will restore its safety and stability and start its rebuilding process.  

Jordanian industrial and trade sectors are keen on the reopening of the borders with Syria to boost trade exchange and help increase economic growth, he said.

“The Syrian market is very vital for our industries. Syria is also a gateway into several important markets,” Abul Ragheb added.

A total of 1,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables, worth millions of Jordanian dinars, used to be exported every day to Syria and Lebanon, official figures show.

Preparations have been completed for the visit, and necessary security approvals have been issued for the visit, he said.

During the visit, “we will also discuss Jordan’s role and efforts to help in the reconstruction process of Syria, as Jordan can be a key player and contributor in this regard,” said the sector leader.

Several traders voiced optimism about the visit.

“I really hope the border with Syria will reopen. My business was great before the closure,” Anees Rasheed, a trader in Zarqa city, told The Jordan Times on Wednesday, saying that he saw his best times in his career as an importer who used to bring commodities from “beloved Syria”. 

“I have been in this business since the 1980s, and my business was at its peak when I used to import from Syria since the quality was good as well as the prices. After the borders were closed, all traders lost as Syria was a main source for our imports,” Rasheed added on Wednesday.

Jamal Riad, another trader who owns a garment store in Zarqa city, voiced similar remarks.

“We hope that the visit by the Jordanian delegation to Syria will be followed by the reopening of the borders…we hope that security will be restored in Syria so we can resume importing from Syria,” Riad said on Wednesday.

“For traders, Syrian products were very profitable and of high quality, and I believe if the situation returns to normal as it used to be before 2011, we will see a sharp rise in trading between the two sides,” Riad told The Jordan Times. 

In 2015, Jordan closed the Jaber border crossing with Syria for security reasons, while Ramtha, the other border crossing with the war-torn country, has been closed for more than five years.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) seized control of the Jaber crossing in 2015.

In October last year, official sources said that talks over the reopening of the Jaber border crossing with Syria were under way “on a tactical level”.

The sources’ remarks came in response to reports at the time quoting Syrian rebels that Jordan had told the Syrian opposition that it was obliged to deal with a recognised state in order to open the crossing and to allow trucks to proceed to third countries.

Rebel leaders were quoted at the time as demanding that the Jaber crossing with Jordan remain under the FSA’s control with the deployment of an EU monitoring team, as is the case in Syria’s northern border crossings with Turkey.

The FSA also demanded that the so-called “Syrian opposition flag” be raised at the Jaber border crossing.

AMMAN — Deputising for Prime Minister Hani Mulki, Energy Minister Saleh Kharabsheh on Wednesday launched the second national plan to rationalise energy, which aims at lowering electricity consumption by 2,000 gigawatts between 2018 and 2020, with a cost of JD700 million.

Kharabsheh highlighted the importance of the plan in addressing energy challenges, at the top of which is the heavy oil bill that has constituted in some years 18 to 20 per cent of the gross domestic product, five times higher than the international average.

The minister added that such difficulties forced Jordan to seek solutions, including this plan he announced, whose success requires joint efforts slash energy consumption, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

He added that the project aims to annually reduce greenhouse gas emissions by some 962 kilo tonnes of carbon dioxide, which will help the Kingdom achieve targeted goals of its commitments towards climate change and relevant international agreements.

The plan is part of the ministry’s endeavours to realise strategic goals of the energy sector to improve energy efficiency and lower consumption by 20 per cent by 2020, Kharabsheh noted.

The minister described the plan as a “national roadmap”, which entails all programmes, projects and measures necessary to be implemented to reach all targeted indicators in cooperation with stakeholders. 

He said that the plan includes 26 procedures covering the household, commercial, service, industrial, water pumping, street lighting and transport fields, in addition to other eight procedures shared among these fields. 

The procedures included endorsing the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Law and a bylaw on the criteria for exempting renewable energy resources and their devices, and devices of energy rationalisation from customs fees and, wholly or partly, the sales tax, he added. 

Kharabsheh thanked the EU for supporting the plan through providing technical assistance to the renewable energy and energy rationalisation sector.

Representative of the EU Ambassador to Jordan Omar Abu Obeid noted that the funds extended to the Kingdom’s renewable energy sector amounted to 160 million euros, in addition to other forms of support as part of multi-party regional cooperation.

Jordan Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Fund Executive Director Rasmi Hamzeh said that the fund would follow up and evaluate the plan in partnership with all stakeholders.

The Energy Ministry implemented the first national plan on energy efficiency in 2014, under which it has lowered electric power consumption by 7.6 per cent, equivalent to 806 gigawatts.

AMMAN — Traders are expected to incur losses of between JD4,000 and JD5,000 for each hybrid vehicle that arrived in the Kingdom in the first two months of 2018, a sector leader said.

Hybrid car buyers used to pay a reduced special sales tax of 25 per cent of the car's price instead of 55 per cent for regular fuel vehicles.

The government decided to cancel the exemptions in 2012, but the decision kept getting postponed until this year, when the government announced the cancellation of the exemptions and an additional tax on all types of cars ranging between JD500 and JD1,500, calculated on the basis of the car’s weight,. 

The traders have no choice but to suffer the loss incurred by liquidating the vehicles as there is no demand for hybrid cars, Jordan Free Zone Investor Commission President Nabeel Rumman told The Jordan Times.

Every September for the past six years, stakeholders have asked the government if the decision would be postponed again, and always receiving an answer before the end of the year.

"However, in September 2017, we received no answer until the end of December, when the government announced that it will cancel the exemptions and add a new tax depending on weight," Rumman claimed.

Some traders had already bought vehicles in November 2017 and received them in January and February 2018, the sector leader explained, adding that, if traders had known about the decision, they would not have made the purchases.

Traders used to import hybrid cars from the US and have them shipped to Jordan, which usually took around 60 days, he added.

Rumman noted that the sector leaders met with the government last month and presented a set of suggestions to “rescue the collapsed business”, and have received pledges to have their suggestions studied within a week.

The suggestions included lowering the clearance tax from 55 to 30 per cent, increasing the tax of scrapping old fuel-run cars and exchanging them for hybrid vehicles from 12.5 to 25 per cent, Abu Rumman said.

“This would double the public revenues from hybrid vehicles from JD110 million to JD220 million, in addition to the customs clearance tax which generates JD400 million," Rumman stressed, adding that no revenue will be created following the recent decision, which completely deterred residents from buying this type of cars.

AMMAN — A helpline aimed at providing support and advice on issues faced by refugees living in Jordan has answered over 1.7 million calls since its inception ten years ago, a statement by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said.

One of the largest refugee helplines in the world, the Refugee Helpline Jordan offers support on a wide range of topics including cash assistance, resettlement, registration, access to healthcare, among others.

The line also receives queries about other agency programmes such as partners of the Common Cash Facility or the World Food Programme (WFP) voucher programme, which are then referred to the new WFP helpline for direct assistance.

Launched in 2008 to respond to the needs of refugees living in Jordan, the helpline system was upgraded in 2014 to cater for the increasing number of calls following the outbreak of the Syrian crisis.

In 2017 alone, UNHCR received an average of 45,000 calls per month, and was able to answer around 60 per cent of them.

“Before the upgrade, we had an average waiting time of four minutes, which led many of the callers to abandon the calls. We conducted an additional upgrade at the end of 2017, with enhanced automated response features aimed at reducing the number of abandoned and unanswered calls,” a UNCHR representative said, adding that nearly 150,000 calls were answered monthly, amounting to 70 per cent of the calls.

Following the upgrade, the call volume soared from 160 calls per hour in November 2017 to 1,000 calls per hour as of February 2018, the official noted.

“Our calls come from all Jordan, with a majority from the Amman Governorate (40 per cent), followed by Irbid (23 per cent), Mafraq (14 per cent) and Zarqa (10 per cent). This reflects the distribution of refugees across Jordan and helps us better assess the geographical needs,” the UNHCR official added. 

“Our helpline is one of the approaches UNHCR uses for two-way communication, providing information and feedback for more than 730,000 refugees living in Jordan,” the UNHCR said, adding that the line does not only accept phone calls, but also provides outgoing messaging.

The majority of the calls are related to cash assistance, which is currently provided to 27,000 families in the country. Refugees also call to appeal decisions impacting their cash assistance and a small number of calls are related to technical issues around use of the ATM network.

About 15 per cent of the calls to the helpline focus on resettlement, either to enquire about eligibility or request updates on the resettlement process, according to UNHCR.

On registration, which account for 5 per cent of calls, a recorded message advises refugees to visit UNHCR registration centres, as these queries can only be addressed after confirmation of identity. 

The UNHCR stressed that all calls can be made for free by using the Zain SIM card provided by the Agency, noting that, as of February 2018, over 143,000 families benefitted from the free SIM card.

“In addition to our 14 UNHCR staff who speak directly to refugees from 8am to 4pm during weekdays, we also have 46 automated lines that can help callers using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology,” the UNHCR official continued, noting that around 95 per cent of calls can be handled by helpline staff without the need for referral to another section. 

“Our staff is trained to respond to refugees in distress through basic counseling; if an issue arises that require a referral and follow up, a ‘referral ticket’ is provided for refugees to be linked with other relevant professionals,” the statement read.

“Ultimately, the helpline also serves as a public awareness tool to pass messages to refugees in urban settings This is done in collaboration with direct messaging through urban community support committees and helpdesks across the country, which helps reach populations traditionally out of reach," the statement concluded.

AMMAN — A delegation headed by the rector of the As-Syafiiyah Islamic University in Jakarta, Indonesia, Masduki Ahmad, on Tuesday took part in a forum between Jordanian and Indonesian academics with the Imdad Media Centre, with the aim of discussing further cooperation in the field of higher education. 

 Organised in cooperation with the Literature and Culture Salon, the meeting was attended by several professors and university presidents in addition to former ministers and ambassadors.

Ahmad expressed willingness to increase the cooperation between As-Syafiiyah Islamic University and several Jordanian institutions and signed agreements with the University of Islamic Sciences, Al Isra University, Al-al-Bayt University, the University of Jordan, the Jordanian University of Science and Technology and Yarmouk University. 

 The agreements involve a number of scholarships for students to engage in exchange programmes as well as research cooperation deals between Jordanian and Indonesian professors, Chairman of the Imdad Media Centre Nabil Al Sharif told The Jordan Times. 

 "Students based in Indonesian universities are appreciated, respected and welcome," the rector said, thanking the Jordanian government for "its great cooperation in welcoming Indonesian students in Jordanian universities and simplifying all procedures for them".

 Several speakers outlined the efforts that shall be exerted by countries concerned with the image of Islam, discussing ways of cooperation to "protect the true reality of Islam from the distorted image being spread across the world in this context of extremism".

 Sharif stressed: "Jordan and Indonesia share an understanding of Islam as a religion of moderation, tolerance and peace," pointing out that "Jordan has taken several initiatives in order to project the right image of Islam, and it is essential to provide such initiatives with exposure to the world." 

 "Building on Indonesia's interest in the 2004 Amman Message, we are happy to have reached an understanding for our cooperation to continue along these lines," Sharif said, voicing his hopes to meet representatives of other countries and cultures in order to "regain the true reality of Islam".