Local

AMMAN — The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) launched on Tuesday an $800 million emergency appeal for Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory.

The agency made the emergency appeal as it faces a projected deficit of $200 million in its emergency budget for this year brought on by a cut in half of US aid to an organisation that serves 5.2 million Palestinian refugees, UNRWA Spokesperson Sami Mshasha said.

If the funds are secured, UNRWA will allocate approximately $400 million each for Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory, which consists of Gaza and the West Bank, according to the relief agency, which indicated that the appeal also covers some 50,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria that have fled the war to Lebanon and Jordan. 

“We are sending a message that the agency is here to stay, that it is not for sale and that it will remain operational until a just and lasting solution to the plight of the Palestinian refugees is achieved,” Mshasha told media representatives during a press briefing coinciding with UNRWA’s official appeal launch from Geneva on Tuesday.

Inside Syria, UNRWA is reaching over 400,000 Palestine refugees with cash assistance, one of the largest such programmes in an active conflict setting anywhere in the world, according to the UN agency.

In Gaza, almost 1 million Palestine refugees are dependent on UNRWA for emergency food assistance, which is a ten fold increase on the 100,000 Palestinian refugees who required such support in 2000, according to an UNRWA statement.

“The 800-million-dollar emergency appeal is the minimum requirement for upholding and sustaining our services to the Palestinian refugees, who are completely dependent on the agency’s aid and services of food, water, shelter and medical assistance,” Mshasha said.

Mshasha underlined that the deficit in the emergency programmes’ budget this year is linked to US cuts on funding to the agency, which received $350 million in US aid last year.

UNRWA is funded mainly by voluntary contributions from UN member states, with the US being its largest donor. Washington said on January 16 that it will hold back $65 million of a $125 million aid instalment to the agency.

Although not officially declared by the US administration, the cuts come after the Palestinian leadership refused to meet US Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the region and rejected any future role for the US in the peace process following US President Donald Trump’s decision in December last year to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Trump said: “When they disrespected us a week ago by not allowing our great vice president to see them, and we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and support, tremendous numbers, numbers that nobody understands — that money is on the table and that money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace.”

Mshasha said that while the agency will continue negotiating with the US on the fund cuts, he noted that “there are indications that the US will not donate this amount of money again if the agency doesn’t respond to its demands”.

Such demands entail a review in mechanisms of money disbursement, employment and content of extra-curricular courses taught at the agency’s schools.

“This is not the first financial crisis that UNRWA suffers, but it is certainly the toughest,” Mshasha pointed out.

Under its global fund raising campaign, UNRWA will target countries which did not contribute to its emergency budget before, he said, noting that the agency also targets international funds, the World Bank and the private sector.

“We also urge the Arab countries to up their contributions,” Mshasha said.

At the emergency appeal’s launch event in Geneva, UNRWA Commissioner-General, Pierre Krähenbühl, said that the appeal “enables UNRWA to continue delivering desperately needed relief to those affected by deepening emergency situations. However, the agency’s critical financial crisis following the reduction in US funds threatens our ability to deliver these vital services”.

Krähenbühl stressed that “supporting UNRWA emergency appeals is not a substitute for an urgently needed political solution to the underlying conflict. It is, however, fundamental to sustaining the dignity and strength inherent in the Palestine refugee community”, Agence France Presse reported. 

UNRWA said that it expects facing “a tough situation during the next few months”.

“We are studying our options…, the basic point is that we don’t want our clinics, schools and food distribution centres to be shut down,” Mshasha told The Jordan Times.

In response to the unprecedented financial crisis, UNRWA launched last week the global fund raising campaign #DignityIsPriceless. 

UNRWA was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) of December 8, 1949, to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees. The agency began operations on May 1, 1950, according to the agency’s website.

AMMAN — An Israeli technical team is in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to arrange for the reopening of the Israeli embassy in Amman, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Government Spokesperson Mohammad Momani said Tuesday.

The minister, who did not indicate the exact date for the reopening of the embassy, told The Jordan Times that the two sides were looking into all preparations and details to open the door for the return of Israeli embassy staff to Amman.

“The Israelis are in constant communication with the ministry in this regard,” Momani said.

Earlier in January, Israel officially apologised for an incident when an Israeli embassy guard killed two Jordanians and the 2014 killing of Jordanian Judge Raed Zuaiter by Israeli troops, while crossing to the West Bank.

The Foreign Ministry said then it had received an official memo from Israel’s foreign ministry in which “the Israeli government expressed its apology and deep regrets regarding the Israeli embassy incident in July last year, resulting in the martyrdom of two Jordanian citizens, and also regarding the incident of killing Judge Raed Zuaiter”.

In the memo, Israel officially pledged to carry on with legal action related to the embassy incident and “promised to provide financial compensation for the families of the three martyrs”.  

In the letter, Tel Aviv expressed its keenness on resuming cooperation with Jordan and settling these files.

In response, Amman announced that it would “take the appropriate measures that serve national interests” in response to the Israeli memo, especially since the Israeli government accepted, as indicated in the letter, all the conditions set by Jordan to allow the return of its ambassador to Amman.

On July 23rd last year, 16-year-old Mohammad Jawawdeh was killed, along with Bashar Hamarneh, a doctor, by the embassy employee at a building rented by the embassy for its staff. The killer, who shot both Jawawdeh and Hamarneh, left Jordan to Israel protected by his diplomatic immunity, a matter which triggered widespread public anger in Jordan. 

On his return to Tel Aviv, the guard was warmly welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the footage of the encounter insulting the sentiments of Jordanians.

In March 2014, Zuaiter, a judge at the Amman Court of First Instance, was killed at King Hussein Bridge during an argument with an Israeli soldier. 

AMMAN — Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Fakhoury on Tuesday called on the international community to provide sufficient financing to support the Jordan Response Plan 2018-2020, which will be launched by the government on Thursday, according to a ministry statement.

The plan aims to compensate Jordan for the burden it has borne stemming from the regional crises and securing sufficient grants and concessional financing to address the pressing needs of the general budget over the coming three years, the statement said.

During a meeting on Tuesday with Swedish Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy Heléne Fritzon, Fakhoury outlined the current economic challenges facing the Kingdom due to the regional situation, including the burdens of hosting large numbers of Syrian refugees and the Jordanian approach in dealing with these challenges. 

He said that the government is moving ahead with its comprehensive reform programme aimed at enhancing Jordan's resilience by preserving the stability of macro economy and finance indicators through development plans, such as the Executive Development Programme 2018-2022, which includes the outcomes of the Plan to Stimulate Economy Growth 2018-2022 based on Jordan Document 2025.

Fakhoury said that the government is also following up on the outcomes of the strategies of human resources development, employment, infrastructure (water, transport and energy), poverty , social protection, digital transformation, e-government, the capital expenditures programme, which will be implemented through the public-private sectors partnership, in addition to the outcomes of judiciary development.

The accumulating burdens of the Syrian crisis, which affected all aspects of life and exceeded the Kingdom's capabilities and limited resources have began risking the development gains Jordan has made over the past decades, security, and social cohesion, the minister explained.

The minister briefed Fritzon on the progress of the Jordan Compact, especially the implementation of the agreement to simplify the rules of origin for Jordanian export to the EU, stressing the importance of maximising benefits of the agreement in favour of the Jordanian industrialists and attracting investments.

For her part, the Swedish minister voiced appreciation for Jordan's efforts for hosting refugees under "these difficult circumstances" and its role under the leadership of His Majesty King Abdullah to achieve peace and stability in the region, in addition to fighting terrorism, extremism and enhancing religious dialogue.

She underscored the "strategic" Jordanian-Swedish relations, stressing her country's commitment to supporting the Kingdom overcome challenges. 

AMMAN — The National Campaign for Students’ Rights (Thabahtoona) on Monday issued a press statement criticising the draft higher education law recently approved by the Senate’s Education Committee, denouncing that  “most of the amendments concerning private universities have been in favour of their owners at the expense of their academic and scientific dimensions”. 

The lack of articles related to the students’ rights and freedoms was one of the issues pointed out in the statement, which highlighted the need for regulations on the students’ representative bodies at the universities. 

“A proper higher education law must include discipline orders on those behaviours that shall not be tolerated in order to protect human rights,” Thabahtoona President Fakher Daas told The Jordan Times, pointing out that “the role of elected representative students should not be forgotten”.

The statement also criticised the regulations on the tuition fees, claiming that the new law “deprives the Higher Education Council of any authority in the supervision of the fees for private universities”.

“The private universities are going after students pockets like predators, raising the fees year after year without a reason,” Daas said, adding that “the legal framework will facilitate this even more”.

In addition, Thabahtoona criticised that “according to the draft law, the government is not obliged to allocate funds aimed at supporting the official universities”, stressing the need for an article that “makes it the duty of the government to intervene in the event an official university is not unable to pay its obligations”.

“The absence of financial support for official universities will push them to get their budget directly from the students,” Daas said, concluding that “this will lead to a major breakdown in the educational system in Jordan”.

When contacted by The Jordan Times, Higher Education Minister Adel Tweisi said that “the draft is in the hands of Parliament, we cannot make any comment”.

AMMAN — The Jordan Enterprise Development Corporation on Tuesday issued a study calling for an increase in the support of the business culture among Jordanian women, recommending the development of programmes aimed at enhancing women's confidence to become entrepreneurs. 

Conducted through the small- and medium-sized enterprises observatory, the study found the rate of pioneer activity in early stages among Jordanian women to be the lowest in the Arab region, with only a 3.3 per cent of the women aged 18-64 years old being engaged with entrepreneurial activities. 

In addition, the report identified a decline in the entrepreneurial intentions of women in the period between 2009 and 2016, which resulted in a reduction of the existing business rate in the Kingdom by a 2.5 per cent over the same period. 

The lack of guarantees in the access to financial resources was the reason for most of the surveyed women to not start a business according to the study, while a 42 per cent reported fear of failure as the main reason preventing them from pursuing business. 

The absence of functional incentives such as maternity leave, healthcare, retirement and job security was also among the most influential factors affecting the overall entrepreneurial activity in Jordan, according to the report. 

“We must stop blaming the cultural and traditional beliefs for the lack of female engagement in employment in general,” core member of local NGO SADAQA Saha Aloul told The Jordan Times in a recent interview, noting that “there are many other factors preventing women from becoming both employees and entrepreneurs, and we should recognise them and work hand in hand with the government to overcome them and create better working environments”.

Asked about the climate for female entrepreneurship in the Kingdom, Aloul noted that “women entrepreneurs fall in the same umbrella as working women, and they are all facing the same structural barriers”.

“Lack of daycare for their children, lower wages and absence of transportation means are some of the barriers that most female workers experience, but entrepreneurs face even more challenges than the regular employee,” Aloul added, expressing that “working women in Jordan are still fighting an upheld battle.”

In light of the findings, the study recommended an increase in micro loans guarantee programmes, as well as the allocation of more financial support funds for industrial projects based in the governorates of Irbid and Zarqa in order to open new markets. 

The study also emphasised the need for policies aimed at the promotion of leadership among women in the youngest and eldest age groups, noting that the highest percentage of the total leading activity was found within the age group between 35 and 44 years old, while a lower level of leadership was identified among the age groups of 18-24 and 55-64 years old.

AMMAN  — The Court of Cassation has upheld a January 2017 Criminal Court ruling sentencing a man to eight years in prison after convicting him of molesting three children at a shop in Amman in July 2016.

The court declared the defendant guilty of molesting the three children, aged 8 and 9, on July 11 while at his shop, and handed him the maximum punishment. 

Court papers said the victims went to the defendant’s shop, which sold Playstation for children.

“The defendant offered the boys to play the game for free, and then took each boy to a separate room where he molested them,” court documents said.

The children returned to their families and informed them of the incident, the court added.

When the case was disclosed, investigators discovered that two of the three boys had been molested by the defendant in previous months, the court added.

The defendant had contested the Criminal Court ruling charging that there was “no solid evidence to implicate him and that the court depended on children’s testimonies, which should not be admissible in court”.

 However, the higher court ruled that the verdict was accurate and the defendant deserved the punishment he received. 

The Court of Cassation tribunal comprised judges Yassin Abullat, Mohammad Ersheidat, Mohammad Tarawneh, Daoud Tubeleh and Bassem Mubeidin.

AMMAN — A quartet composed of a Jordanian, a Palestinian, an American and a British recently released a new EP bringing “four corners of the world” into four tracks.

“Music is available to everyone from the day we are born; what is missing in our communities in Jordan and Palestine is the education needed to bring the awareness that music plays a very important role in children’s development and society’s progress,” said Jordanian violinist Layth Al Rubaye. 

“We believe that music helps in changing society but it is a very slow process,” said Rubaye, who stressed that this change is always “inevitably visible”. 

For Palestinian cello player Naseem Alatrash, “music is not only for musicians. It has played a very big role in the lives of scientists, architects, engineers and even heads of states. So I do believe that music can make a change in society but it must start in the change made to one person’s life.”

Started as a classical string quartet under the direction of Sandy Kott at university, Four Corners Quartet gradually developed into a professional group producing a demanding repertoire of classical and non-classical pieces. 

“Although we were all friends attending the same class at Berklee College of Music, we had no idea how much musical chemistry there was between us,” recalled British Alliz Espi, adding “as soon as we started rehearsing together, we knew this was going to be something special”.

The improvising ensemble blends together a mix of jazzy folk, Arabic tunes and classical melodies, which celebrates the multiethnicity of the band.

“We believe that being from different countries brings in the diversity and the cultural element to our music, but also strengthens our bonds because we’re always learning something new about each other,” said American Ellen Story, who plays the violin, adding “we are always breaking stereotypes and making sure that our music represents our vision of how the world should be”.

The band recognises that their style is something people have “never heard before”, noting how they constantly seek to compose new music through improvisations that bring together their instruments’ heritages and their cultural influences. 

The only challenge the musicians face, Espi said, is “finding the time to get together”. “If we were to have been from the same country, there would have been some kind of certainty that we would at some point be altogether in the same place. But, to be honest, this is also what makes us special.”

An artwork titled “Love & Freedom” accompanies the quartet’s EP, offering a visual mirror of the musical compositions.

“When we saw ‘Love & Freedom’ by Iraqi artist Wissam Shawakat, we felt it was a perfect mirror of our work and inspiration as a group. We also resonated with the words he painted within it by the great poet Khalil Gibran, ‘Love is the only freedom in the world’,” Alatrash recalled, noting that “although his art is a completely different medium from ours, we were inspired by his combination of tradition and modernity while celebrating a sense of freedom”.

The quartet is now planning to tour the world “not for fame” as they stressed, but “to spread our message of unity and education through social work”.

“We want to develop an educational programme working closely with all segments of society, especially the youth,” said Rubaye, adding “we really believe that musical education is one of the strongest tools to create concrete change in a community”.

“Individually, we have each produced change in our respective cities but now, we aim to bring our forces together to promote education to the rest of the world and bring as much joy to others as we feel when we compose and perform our music,” he concluded.

AMMAN — Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat on Tuesday received US Security Coordinator Lt. Gen. Eric Wendt, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During the meeting, Freihat and Wendt discussed the latest regional and global developments, and cooperation in issues of mutual interest of the armed forces of both countries. 

AMMAN — The Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the University of Jordan (UJ) ranked the top think tank in the Middle East and North Africa for the second year in a row, according to a statement from the centre said on Tuesday citing a report by the University of Pennsylvania.

CSS, also ranked 128th among the most important think tanks in the world (non-US) which registers improvements from last year by five positions.

The report classifies research centres according to the following set of indicators: managing and organising resources, intellectual and scientific production, influence on policies and trends, and the national attitude towards them. 

AMMAN — Education Minister Omar Razzaz on Tuesday attended a ceremony to launch the Employment and Entrepreneurship Fund as part of the Goal Programme. The programme targets female school students between the ages of 16 and 17 years, and female university students in the age group 18 and 20 in Amman and Irbid, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The programme, an international project, has been funded by the Standard Chartered Bank/Jordan for four years and implemented by Injaz, with the aim of serving and developing the local community through empowering young girls. The programme has trained more than 15,000 students and annually graduates some 2,000 students in Amman and Irbid.