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AMMAN — Social Security Corporation (SSC) Spokesperson Musa Sbeihi on Monday said that only 48 charities registered with SSC are subject to the provisions of the corporation’s law with registered workers, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

In a press statement released on Monday, Sbeihi said that the number of covered employees working in charities amounts to 232 in 3,700 registered charities in Jordan, according to data from the Ministry of Social Development, which means that more than 98 per cent of charities do not cover their employees with the SSC.

He added that the SSC law requires each officially registered establishment employing more than one worker to enrol itself and its employees with the SSC. Sbeihi urged all charity organisations with paid employees to register with the corporation.

AMMAN — Public Security Department (PSD) personnel on Monday arrested four suspects accompanied by a fifth who claimed that he was abducted by the other four, a PSD statement said.

After arresting the alleged kidnappers, the personnel searched their vehicle where they reportedly found meat choppers and knives.

The four suspects were found with the alleged victim, and the confiscated items were referred to the relevant authorities for further investigation.

AMMAN — HRH Princess Basma, Honorary Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), on Monday attended the 18th meeting of the National Population Council and Committee of the Arab States, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The meeting, held under the title "Population and Sustainable Development" discussed the establishment of a higher council for population and development under the umbrella of the Arab League, which would be tasked with drafting population related policies.

During her speech at the meeting, which is organised by the Jordanian Higher Population Council, the princess noted that the demographics and population growth in the Arab region are closely linked to economic challenges.

She stressed the importance of an optimal investment of human resources and adopting policies that facilitate the engagement of young people in labour market.

She also highlighted the need to strengthen decision-making networks and harmonise educational outputs with the needs of the labour market.

AMMAN — A team from the Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT) has ranked first in the Levant in a regional collegiate programming contest and fourth among Arab countries, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Monday.

Egypt hosted the competition that saw the participation of 120 teams representing 60 universities from 11 Arab countries, where PSUT Aurora was qualified for the international collegiate programming contest to be hosted by China.

HRH Princess Sumaya, chairperson of the Board of Trustees of PSUT, praised the efforts exerted by the students and their instructors, and their continuous endeavours to participate in national and international competitions that improve their practical skills. 

AMMAN — The Higher Council for Population, in cooperation with the United Nations Population Fund, is scheduled to launch the 2017 updated document of population opportunity policies on Tuesday.

The importance of the document lies in the fact that Jordan is approaching a demographical change leading to a population opportunity that is accompanied by positive impacts on the economic and social conditions of society, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The population opportunity appears when the rate of individuals able to work, whose ages range between 15 and 64, "greatly" exceeds the rate of dependent individuals, those who are under the age of 15 and those who are older than 65.

The opportunity is expected to reach its peak in Jordan in 2014. 

AMMAN — The number of marriages under the age of 18 has increased by 41 in 2016, compared to the previous year, the Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI) said on Monday.

Citing a Department of Statistics' report, SIGI said that the number of marriages stood at 10,907 in 2016, compared to 10,866 in 2015.

The total number of marriages above 18, first or repeated marriages, slightly dropped, standing at 81,343 compared to 81,373 in 2015. SIGI noted that, despite the efforts carried out by various institutions to address the issue of child marriage, the number has been rising over the past two years, accounting for 13.4 per cent of the total marriages. 

AMMAN — After suffering from addiction himself, Yousef Mohammad Mishaal said he was keen to save the lives of others and educate them about the dangers of being an addict.

For that, Mishaal launched a campaign recently called “Happy Life for Awareness” through which he seeks to raise public awareness on the dangers of drugs addiction in the Jordanian community. 

“We are stronger than addiction,” Mishaal stated, adding that “it is necessary to promote knowledge and quality healthcare to better combat drugs and those falling victim to addiction in order to ensure the safety of all”. 

Concerned about the rise of addicts in the country and based on his own experience as an addiction survivor, Mishaal decided to offer a comprehensive treatment catered to those interested in rehabilitating both their personal and professional lives. 

Mishaal has created Al Shabaka, a non-profit organisation which aims to “provide job opportunities and eliminate unemployment, offer rehabilitation and training, supply networking and awareness”, he said.  

“Addiction leads to health deterioration, jail, or even death, so getting away from negative addiction is better for one´s soul and community,” Mishaal told The Jordan Times on Saturday. 

The campaign seeks to help the victims of addiction by providing mental health support and a system to improve their skills — allowing them to better integrate into the community. 

The rehabilitation programme offers emotional support as well as training, strategic workshops, and certificates to promote people in recovery in their job searching process.

“Happy Life for Awareness” offers training lectures at Qaraeen Centre and Al Rashid Hospital in Amman for patients of mental disorders and addiction. The sessions aim at helping the addicts find a way out from drugs by listening to other survivors’ experiences.  

Mishaal said he wants to improve their situation by “filling their free time”, which is all too common among the Jordanian youth. “This time feeds a desire to relapse and fall back to addition," Mishaal claimed.

“Happy Life for Awareness” aims to increase networking by launching its campaign in schools, universities, and places of worship. 

The campaign is currently running through a Facebook page followed by more than 700 people, and a website is scheduled to be launched soon. 

AMMAN — A newly launched social care centre for females in Zarqa has housed around 130 girls since its opening almost two months ago, an official at the Ministry of Social Development said on Sunday.

The centre, which caters mainly to street beggars, was opened by the ministry in September to be a “safe haven for female beggars and other minors who are mostly pushed to the streets by their families who are supposed to protect them”, Social Development Ministry Spokesperson Fawaz Ratrout said.

“The average of female street beggars detained by the authorities is around 130 and the shelter was needed to protect these girls and provide them with proper social services,” Ratrout told The Jordan Times.

Ratrout said that the ministry’s job is to protect minors in accordance with the juvenile law, adding “we have detained dozens of female beggars", many of whom “were caught at late at night”.

“Most of these girls are forced by their families to stand in the street at night and beg for money, because their families know that our society is more sympathetic to females in general. This is extremely dangerous for them and their childhood,” Ratrout added.
The ministry official added that “the girls remain at the centre until the judiciary decides on their cases and when they are safe to return home since many parents use them for begging to make money”.

The ministry’s records over the past few years show that nearly 75 per cent of the detained beggars are Jordanian citizens, while non-Jordanian detainees include Syrians and nationals of 12 other countries.

All detained beggars are referred to court where a juvenile judge decides to “either penalise violators with fines and/or bails that they are usually able to afford”, he added.

AMMAN — "Every 10 minutes, a child in Yemen dies of preventable disease," the United Nations Children's Fund said on Sunday.

Indicating that the two-and-a-half years of war in Yemen have witnessed the killing and serious injury of close to 5,000 children, Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa said: "Today it is fair to say that Yemen is one of the worst places on earth to be a child."

"The war in Yemen is sadly a war on children," Cappelaere said, adding that around 2 million children in the war-torn Arab state suffer acute malnutrition. 

Cappelaere noted that Sunday's press briefing was triggered by "our very successful delivery yesterday [Saturday] of 1.9 million doses of vaccines to Sanaa's airport

A UN plane carrying vaccines landed in the insurgent-held Yemeni capital Sanaa on Saturday after a three-week aid blockade.

The UN humanitarian affairs office had said on Friday that it had been given clearance by the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting the rebels since 2015 to resume flights to Sanaa.

Cappelaere said that more than 11 million Yemeni children are in acute need of humanitarian assistance. "That’s almost every single Yemeni boy and girl," he stated.   

"The reason behind this to be very straight forward is: decades of conflict, decades also of chronic underdevelopment," the director added.

The UN official said that access to children across war-torn Yemen is a "daily challenge" and ensuring that the supplies are reaching the vulnerable children is "another challenge", welcoming Saturday's reopening of Sanaa airport. 

"It [the airport reopening] allowed us to send in a first humanitarian convoy… [of] $1.9 million doses of vaccines that are urgently needed for a planned campaign to vaccinate 600,000 children across Yemen. Vaccinate them against: diphtheria, meningitis, whooping cough, pneumonia and tuberculosis," Cappelaere said.

He added that “much more” supplies are desperately needed by Yemeni people, adding that a number of UNICEF vessels were on their way to Hodeida port carrying “ready to use therapeutic food for assisting malnourished children, chlorine tablets for chlorinating water wells in order to ensure drinking water, medical supplies to support the prevention and also treatment of acute watery diarrhea and cholera”.

More than 2,000 people have died of cholera in Yemen this year, adding to the 8,600 who have died in the ongoing conflict since 2015.

“On behalf of every single boy and girl in Yemen, let me conclude by appealing once again to all parties responsible for today’s situation in Yemen, to all parties and all those with a heart for children: Please take your responsibility, don’t take it tomorrow, take your responsibility now,” Cappelaere concluded.

AMMAN — The 2018 draft state budget law will include for the first time social safety network/cash subsidy with a value of JD171 million, Finance Minister Omar Malhas said on Sunday.

The money will make up for rising cost of living brought about by lifting subsidies on commodities that have been a fixture in the economic system for decades, mainly the bread subsidy.  

Cash subsidy will be directed to all Jordanian families whose total annual income does not exceed JD12,000 and to individuals whose annual income is not more than JD6,000, providing that families do not possess two cars or more, or land and real estate with a value of more than JD300,000, Malhas explained.

In this regard, the minister, delivering the budget speech before MPs, said that the Finance Ministry will launch a website that allows beneficiaries to insert their information, where 2016 will be used as a base year for income, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Civil and military employees and retirees, retirees of the Social Security Corporation and beneficiaries of the National Aid Fund will have the subsidy added to their monthly salaries, while other beneficiaries will receive the cash subsidy through a transfer to their bank accounts, he noted.

Meanwhile, Malhas expected the economic growth to stand at 2.5 per cent in 2018, and 2.7 and 2.9 per cent for the following two years, respectively, adding that inflation rates will drop to 1.5 per cent in 2018 and rise to 2.5 per cent in each of 2019 and 2020, compared to its current level of 3.3 per cent.

He underlined that the economic growth rate stood in the first half of the year at 2.3 per cent, and is also expected to continue at the same level until the yearend, noting that such rate is not enough to create jobs under an unemployment rate of 18.1 per cent. 

The minister stressed that the government would carry on with plans to improve methods of tax revenue collections, curb tax evasion and stiffen penalties against evaders, while adopting a gradual elimination of tax exemptions on goods and services.

He expected the said corrective measures to be implemented by the government, including public expenditure control, to increase revenues by JD450 million in 2018.

As for local revenues, he expected them to stand at JD8.496 billion, compared with JD7.715 billion of re-estimated revenues in 2017, adding that current expenditures are estimated at JD7.886 billion and capital expenditures at JD1.153 billion in 2018.

The minister said that projects in the economic stimulation plan are earmarked an approximate sum of JD426 million, constituting 37 per cent of next year’s capital expenditures. 

The after-grants deficit in 2018’s budget is expected to sway around JD543 million in 2018, dropping by JD209 million in the reestimated value in the 2017 budget, he added.

As for government units, Malhas said that their revenues are estimated at JD1.664 billion and their expenditures at JD1.812 billion with a deficit of JD148 million, noting that with the exclusion of the deficits of the Jordan Water Authority and National Electric Power Company, the deficit will turn into a surplus of JD185 million.

The minister noted that the combined deficit of the central government and government units will drop next year to JD831 million, down from JD1.035 billion in 2017.  

As for the monetary situation of the Kingdom, Malhas said that foreign currency reserves at the Central Bank of Jordan reached $11.7 billion, which is enough to cover the Kingdom’s imports for seven months.

He added that the public debt until the end of 2017’s October totalled JD27.1 billion, which equals 95.3 per cent of the gross domestic product, which means that the government has succeeded in freezing the debt-GDP ratio at this level, yet the issue remains a “source of concern for the government”.

Malhas expected the general debt to equal 93.6 per cent of the GDP in 2018, before dropping to 90.3 and 86.2 per cent in 2019 and 2020, respectively. 

After listening to the government’s speech, the Lower House referred the draft laws to its financial committee.

The house also referred several draft laws and amendments of laws and by-laws to the relevant committees.