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AMMAN — Jordanians, Lebanese and Tunisians get news more frequently from TV than online sources, while majority of  Qataris, Saudis, and Emiratis turn to the Internet instead of the TV for news, according to the fifth annual survey of media use and public opinion by the Northwestern University in Qatar

Nationals of the above mentioned Arab states “hesitate” to pay for news content, the survey, a copy of which wase-mailed on Tuesday to The Jordan Times, indicated.

Around 74 per cent of Jordanians are unwilling to pay for any news be it digital, TV, newspapers, or magazines. In Lebanon, the proportion is 75 per cent, while in Qatar it is 71 per cent. 

When asked about their favourite news organisation, majority of nationals in every nation except Saudi Arabia prefer a local news station  based in their home country, according to the survey.

Over 75 per cent of these Arab nationals, including Jordanians get news on their phones and two-thirds do so at least once a day. Using smartphones for daily news checks comes after the decision to access news via TV. 

In terms of Internet penetration, the survey showed that compared to five years ago, Internet penetration rose in all six countries surveyed and most dramatically in Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia.

Smartphone ownership tracks closely with Internet use in the six surveyed countries. Nearly all nationals in Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE own a smartphone compared with 83 per cent of Jordanians and 65 per cent of Tunisians.

The surveyed indicated that the use of Arabic online has increased proportionally with the increase in Internet users. In comparison, use of the Internet in English remains essentially flat, 25 per cent in 2013 and 28 per cent in 2017, despite the increase in Internet use.

Most nationals in the surveyed states still watch TV, but the rate declined modestly since 2013 (98 per cent in 2013 vs. 93 per cent in 2017). Rates of newspaper readership, however, declined more steeply from 47 per cent in 2013 to 25 per cent in 2017. Radio and magazines also declined in popularity since 2013 (radio: 59 per cent in 2013 vs 49 per cent in 2017; magazines: 26 per cent in 2013 vs 19 per cent in 2017).

Since 2013, perceptions of news credibility increased in most countries, but fell in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Two-thirds of nationals say they trust mass media from their own country compared to only half who trust media from other Arab or Western countries.

On most used social media platforms, the survey showed that the messenger application WhatsApp tops the list of social media used by nationals across the region with two-thirds of nationals in all of surveyed countries using it compared to a marginally lower rate for Facebook and only one-half using YouTube. 

While stable in Lebanon, Facebook penetration declined across all other countries by at least 10 per cent since 2015.

Nearly three-quarters of Internet users across the region use Wi-Fi or mobile data services to connect to the Internet. However, Wi-Fi use varies by country from less than half of Jordanians to two-thirds of Tunisians and nine in 10 across the other nations (40 per cent in Jordan versus 63 per cent in Tunisia, 91 per cent in Lebanon, 87 per cent in Qatar, 84 per cent in KSA and 97 per cent in the UAE).

Just over half of nationals use news apps and just over one-quarter use them daily. Using news apps is most popular in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and least popular in Qatar. In Jordan, only 52 per cent use news apps.

With regard to privacy online, only one in five nationals say concerns about privacy have changed the way they use social media, ranging from three in 10 Jordanians and Emirates to half that among Lebanese.

The study explores patterns of news use, perceptions of news bias, and attitudes towards free speech in seven countries: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia and Egypt. Some questions were replicated in the US for context and comparison.

The 2017 survey was conducted in collaboration with the Harris Poll in February and March of 2017. Findings reflect nationally representative samples of over 1000 respondents in each country, 7,196 in total. Interviews were conducted face-to-face in most countries, and by phone in Qatar. Because data from Egypt were collected later in the year (June and July), it is not included in region-wide figures reported here.

AMMAN — Eight community-based organisations (CBOs) on Tuesday received grants worth $350,000 to implement pilot projects enhancing the role of local communities and users of natural resources in addressing environmental issues.

The pilot projects are to be sponsored by the Global Environment Fund and supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which signed the grant agreements with the eight CBOs.

The grants were distributed to employ the environmental pilot projects under the Mainstreaming Rio Convention Provisions into the National Sectoral Policies in Jordan, which aims at including the provisions and principles of the Rio conventions into the national development policies and processes.

The Rio convention refers to three legally binding agreements which resulted from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil: the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, according to web sources.

The Mainstreaming Rio Convention Provisions into National Sectoral Policies in Jordan is expected to enhance the National Rangelands Strategy and the National Drought Management Plan through introducing wise management principles and practices embedded in Rio conventions, according to organisers of the event, during which the agreements were signed between the UNDP and the CBOs.

UNDP Jordan Country Director Sara Ferrer Olivella said that the CBOs implementing the pilot projects will “work hard” to meet the national obligations towards the Rio conventions, indicating that honouring these obligations is not only the responsibility of the government represented by the Ministry of Environment, but also of all the institutions, including UN agencies, NGOs and CBOs.

“The grants will contribute to capacity development, particularly for local women [and] youth groups, as the pilots entail
socioeconomic development activities…,” she said, noting that the grants will also play a significant role in empowering women, particularly those living in rural areas.

She underlined the role of UNDP’s Jordan office in supporting the government in implementing its obligations towards the international environmental conventions.

Minister of Environment Yaseen Khayyat indicated that environment societies in Jordan play a major role in protecting the natural environment, noting that there are over 100 registered environment societies in Jordan.

While 30 to 40 environment societies are actually regarded as active in the field of environment protection, Khayyat underscored that the ministry seeks to reach out to the rest of them and assist them in delivering their messages.

“Protecting the environment needs the involvement of all community stakeholders to establish a clean environment,” Khayyat said.

The minister also said he was pleased   that two of the CBOs which received grants on Tuesday are women societies led by women.

The pilot projects entail the reproduction of Al Ghaddah tree in Wadi Rum protected area, sustainability of natural plants and medicinal herbs in the badia of Maan Governorate and a project to provide irrigation water for home-grown fruits and vegetables through the use of water-saving technologies in Zarqa Governorate.

The projects also include the restoration of rangelands and the enhancement of the vegetation cover in the Shoumari Nature Reserve in Azraq, Zarqa Governorate, a project for building the capacity of journalists to cover environmental issues, another for supporting traditional transhumance practices to reduce pressure of winter grazing on natural resources in Humret Maeen in Madaba Governorate, a project for improving water harvestion and soil properties in Balqa Governorate and finally a community-based rangeland rehabilitation project.

AMMAN — “A 16-year-old girl in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon once told me ‘we are made up of stories not atoms’,” said Serene Huleileh, board member of the Arab Education Forum, adding: “Since then, this statement has been the guiding principle of our Hakaya collective and programme.”

Launched in 2007 by the Arab Education Forum and Al Balad Theatre, the Hakaya festival 10th edition will wrap upon Thursday, after a week spent celebrating the “centrality of stories in individual development and cultural growth”, a Hakaya statement said.

“The Jordanian society, just like all Arab societies, is primarily an oral society where oral tradition is the first means of transmitting knowledge, identity and history,” Huleileh told The Jordan Times, adding, “however, with modernisation and urbanisation, these traditions were completely lost and that has led to a loss of identity amongst youth and the development of low sense of belonging”.

Understanding that this trend has had negative effects on the cohesiveness of society, and on learning and creativity for its youth and children, the Hakaya collective has been working to gather storytellers from around the world, to offer the people of Jordan a chance to “spark their imagination to new levels of creative endeavours”.

With participants coming from places as diverse as Palestine, Ireland, Algeria, Tunisia and the UK, among others, the festival mixes Eastern and Western influences, looking at storytelling in a “cross-cutting” way.

While this year’s festival themes can appear slightly glum at first — tales of the revolution, travel and migration, among others — they transform into activities of resilience and empowerment.

 Huleileh explained: “We are going through very dark times in the region and the main issues that are on people’s minds and in their everyday life are as morose as migration and revolution.”

“We felt like it was important to encourage applicants to reflect on current events that are affecting our world today,” she said, noting that the performances feature lively storytelling initiatives in dance, music, theatre, architecture and education.

On Monday, British Steven Camden offered his audience a glimpse into the life of a young Birmingham boy, through a very touching spoken photo album based on his personal experience. A day earlier, Al Balad Theatre had screened the award-winning “Ghost Hunting” documentary by Raed Andoni, which plunged the viewer into a captivating mix of
mise en scene and animation techniques portraying the traumatic experience of an Israeli detention centre.

“Our mission is not so much to revive storytelling as it is to reinvent it as a new artistic form with deep roots in our tradition and history,” Huleileh explained, noting that “it is also a way to reclaim the importance of stories to artistic expression and to learning, which happens and should happen everywhere and at every point in our lives and not just in schools and academic institutions”.

Hakaya provides storytellers, both experienced and aspiring ones, with the opportunity to meet a diverse public, and to experiment different forms of storytelling.

Outlining the diverse benefits of storytelling, Huleileh noted: “In the Middle East this is of utmost importance as it helps improve education, promotes critical thinking, expands people’s horizons, therefore, increasing tolerance.”

“By reclaiming the conviviality that has long been the main characteristic of our communities, Hakaya works to bring back the magic of stories to people’s lives,” Huleileh concluded.

AMMAN — Germany is most certainly well-known for its cars, engines, heavy industries, architecture and football, but Deutschland also reveals some extraordinary talents in another unique domain: food.

It was a special event on Sunday that saw the German Ambassador to Jordan Birgitta Siefker-Eberle welcome her guests with a traditional German menu she cooked herself. 

With the help of the French Ambassador to Jordan David Bertolotti in the kitchen, Birgitta cooked “Rouladen”, the traditional German braised beef rolls.

While cooking, Birgitta was briefing the guests and the chef assistants about the traditional German cuisine and the way to cook Rouladen, saying that she loves to eat what she cooks despite her busy daily schedule, “especially these days, with the German federal election 2017 just a few days ahead”. 

The ambassador said that the culinary event was part of a plan to introduce Jordanians to the German culture and tradition, expressing her pride in the advanced Amman-Berlin relations.

“Food from a different culture brings us closer,” Siefker-Eberle said.

Cultural attaché at the German embassy, Jaime Sperberg, underlined the importance of the food event, saying: “Germans are not only automakers, industrialists, architects and footballers but good cooks as well and they have their own distinctive food.”

The cooking event was held at the Wild Jordan Centre in Amman which started putting German dishes on its food menu as of Monday.  

The Sunday food event was part of the German Week 2017, which kicked off on Saturday.

Running from September 16 till 21, the week started off with the opening of a marketplace where German institutions in Jordan, including the German Agency for International Cooperation, the German Jordanian University, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, among many others, will present their work and projects.

AMMAN — A group of international experts, officials and activists met in Amman over the past two days to discuss new “bold and new initiatives” that deals with refugee problems worldwide.

“The old protocol for dealing with refugee issues is outdated and this is an international effort that aims to find bold and new initiatives to deal with international refugee response system,” said former minister Marwan Muasher on Tuesday.

Muasher was speaking during a press conference, held by the World Refugee Council (WRC) and the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), held at Rotana Hotel in Abdali.

Muasher, told the press that WRC members heard from Jordanian government officials, civil society representatives — including young people and refugees — as well as technical and financial experts “who offered perspective and called for more support of their efforts”.   

“Jordan is currently host to an estimated 1.4 million registered and non-registered Syrian refugees; 51 per cent are children,” according to Muasher, who is one of the WRC councillors.

He added that Jordan has welcomed refugees from the Syrian conflict and has made significant efforts to provide basic services, from food and water to healthcare and education. 

But every country has limits to its capacity, Muasher, who is the vice president for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research in Washington and Beirut on the Middle East, added.

Funding for host communities and providing support to refugees directly “is more important than ever and efforts must be made to counter donor fatigue”, he added. 

Meanwhile, the chair of the WRC and former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy outlined the tasks of the council including confronting the structural and political constraints of the current refugee system and developing new, effective, predictable, fair and just approaches to international cooperation for protecting refugees.

It also aims to promote “our findings and research globally and regionally in the context of the negotiation of a Global Compact for refugees”, Axworthy told the press.

“Many of the things we’ve heard in Jordan confirm the need for this group to push for a transformation of the global refugee system,” Axworthy, who has worked extensively on human security, refugee protection and human rights in Canada and abroad, added. 

Axworthy praised Jordan’s handling of the refugee crisis saying the Kingdom has been in the “centre of the storm in this region for many years”.

 “The burden on Jordan is big and the efforts that were exerted by the Kingdom to resettle the refugees was amazing and brought a lot of admiration from around the world, given the limited resources of the country,” Axworthy added.

The WRC is also concerned about the security and challenges of protecting refugees in Jordan and the Syrians who will eventually return to their home country, Axworthy stated. 

“Surveys among refugees in Lebanon and Jordan show that security is the number one issue affecting desire to return, preventing the majority from returning even though they want to return home,” the former Canadian minister added.  

He also touched on the fact that there were 10 countries, which he did not name, that pledged to help resettle refugees “but that only three complied with their pledges”.

As a result, many refugees today “are suffering from economic hardship and hunger”, Axworthy noted.

“Our role here is to change the current system to ensure that all countries that pledged to help refugees to comply with its pledges and find a better solution to resettle refugees worldwide,” Axworthy added.

Shaima Al Zarooni, also a WRC councillor, said during the press conference that “one of the biggest challenges for refugees is finding opportunities to work and support their families in a new country, having left behind their livelihoods.” 

This is especially true for the most vulnerable among them: women and children, who have few options available, Zarooni, who is the founder and president of Camp01, a US-based public benefit corporation, which enables partners and clients to plan and manage humanitarian and development projects worldwide for vulnerable populations, said.

 “The message we heard loud and clear from refugees and civil society organisations this week was that refugees themselves must be part of the discussion and the solutions,” according to Zarooni, a former director of Special Initiatives for HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein.

She also stressed that the private sector can play an important role for host communities.

One way to do this is, Zarooni added, was by developing programmes that integrate refugees into the workforce based on the employment needs of specific industry sectors.  

Muasher concluded by saying that the meeting is expected to come up with recommendations to the UN to applied worldwide on “new ways of responsibility sharing and financing host countries to be able to deal with the burden of refugees”.

The WRC is a group of leaders, innovators and influencers aimed at devising a new, predictable and cooperative refugee system. It was established by the Centre for International Governance Innovation in May 2017 to compliment the efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’  consensus-driven effort to produce a new Global Compact for refugees in 2018.

Meanwhile, ARDD is a non-governmental organisation that was founded in 2008 to address the gap in free legal services for marginalised groups and refugees in Jordan. ARDD maintains nine offices throughout Jordan, including two in Zaatari and Al Azraq refugee camps, as well as international office in Lebanon.

AMMAN — Pearson and Save the Children on Tuesday announced the launch of a new pilot education project in Jordan to help Syrian refugees and children living in host communities to improve their academic results and build resilience, while helping to make their schools safer, a joint statement said.

Run in partnership with the Ministry of Education, the project will consist of the “fun and engaging” maths learning app, “Space Hero”(Batl Al Fada’a), developed by Pearson, in collaboration with refugees and Jordanian children using learner-centred design approaches. 

The app will support a broader Save the Children led in-school programme focusing on teacher professional development, enhancing school-community relations, after-school learning and psychosocial support, according to the statement.

The project will be launched in three boys’ schools for the 2017-2018 academic year. For the 2018-2019 academic year, the project will be scaled up to an additional five schools, including four school for girls.

The app will also be available for free download so children can access learning anywhere at any time, the statement said.

“The crisis in Syria has had a devastating impact on children’s lives, depriving millions of young people of an education for many years now. The world cannot stand by and allow this to become a lost generation of Syrian children, set back decades by a brutal war,” said Kevin Watkins, chief executive of Save the Children. 

“If we want to make the biggest difference for children, we must harness the expertise of partners to ensure the world’s most vulnerable are given the chance to learn in safe and secure environments. This programme will improve the delivery of education in Jordan and give both Syrian refugee and Jordanian children the chance to fulfil their potential,” he added.

“Since 2015, we are proud to have been working with Save the Children on our ‘Every Child Learning’ partnership, to improve access to quality education for Syrian refugees and vulnerable children in Jordan. I am delighted that we are now announcing the next important step for this work. Our innovative education project, in partnership with the Jordanian Ministry of Education, will help Jordanian and Syrian children to accelerate their learning and improve their wellbeing,” said Kate James, chief corporate affairs and global marketing officer of Pearson. 

“At Save the Children Jordan we are committed to ensure that every last child affected by the Syrian crisis has access to quality education in an enabling and inclusive environment. In order to do, so we need to make sure that we offer different strategies and approaches to education rather than a ‘one-size fits all’ approach,” said Rania Malki, CEO of Save the Children in Jordan.

Mohammad Al Okour, the ministry’s secretary general, emphasised the importance of the Every Child Learning project in supporting the Education Ministry’s role in improving the educational process and its outcomes. 

“The project also supports the provision of utilities needed for a safer education for students,” Okour said, referring to the efforts exerted by the ministry into providing an educational environment in public schools.

“I’m delighted to welcome the Pearson team to Jordan as they celebrate the next phase of their partnership with Save the Children, which is helping more than 3000 Jordanian and Syrian children to improve their maths skills,” said British Ambassador to Jordan Edward Oakden, who expressed his admiration for the “Space Hero” app, in which “British innovation meets the imagination and energy of the Jordanian and Syrian children who helped with its design”.

AMMAN — US troops and allied Arab fighters have evacuated a garrison set up in June in the Syrian desert near the border with Iraq and relocated to their main Tanf base, rebel sources said on Tuesday.

They said the move follows a deal between Washington and Moscow to abandon the Zakf site, located around 60-70km northeast of Tanf.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has gained momentum in the six-year civil war but rebel groups still control large, populous areas in both the northwest and southwest of the country as well as other pockets elsewhere. 

Zakf was established to stop the Syrian army and allied Iranian-backed militias advancing from territory north of Tanf towards the Iraqi border after they managed to cut off and encircle rebels backed by Washington. 

“We have left the garrison after our allies reached an agreement with Russia to pull back to Tanf. We have moved all the equipment and destroyed some of the fortifications so they are no longer usable,” said a source who belongs to Maghawir Al Thawra.

Maghawir Al Thawra is a Pentagon-backed rebel group that maintained the base and patrols around Tanf.

Zakf was set up at a tense moment when jets of the US-led coalition hit Iranian-backed militias several times to stop them advancing towards Tanf, located near Syria’s border with Iraq, to ensure the safety of its forces.

“The base was a first line of defence and now the justification behind it is no longer present and the aim is to concentrate in Tanf,” the senior commander in the group said. 

Western-backed rebels had also hoped at the time that it could be used to take more territory along the Iraqi border and to push towards Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria. 

However, advances by the Syrian army and its allies from central Syria, as well as by coalition-backed forces from northern Syria, have since approached the city, making a rebel drive there from the south redundant. 

As the fighting has moved to Deir Ezzor, most Iranian-backed forces have pulled away from the area around Tanf, said a Western diplomat familiar with the situation, based on intelligence reports. 

At the same time, Western and Arab countries, have put pressure on rebel groups they back in the sparsely populated desert area to pull out of Syria and retreat to Jordan, which the groups have so far resisted.

Washington and Moscow have now moved closer to cooperation in Syria, brokering a ceasefire in the southwest which was the first such understanding between them since the start of the conflict.

The diplomat said the latest move is part of a broader effort that included that ceasefire. 

“This is the latest outcome of the ongoing secret US-Russian talks over southern Syria,” the diplomat, who requested anonymity, told Reuters. 

Tanf is the only position with a significant US military presence in Syria outside the Kurdish-controlled north, where it has much larger air bases.

AMMAN — Prime Minister Hani Mulki on Tuesday met with Tan Sri Yeoh Tiong, executive chairman of YTL Corporation Berhad, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The group is a member of the Sino-Estonian-Malaysian Consortium “Atarat” that is implementing a project in Jordan to produce electricity from oil shale.

During the meeting, attended by Energy Minister Saleh Kharabsheh and Bassam Qaqish, the project director, Mulki was briefed on the project’s progress, which is being implemented in Atarat region in the Kingdom’s Southeast.

Mulki stressed the importance of the strategic project, which will contribute to increasing dependence on local resources to produce energy through burning oil shale.

He called on stakeholders to accomplish the project before the deadline in 2020.

The premier referred to the attractive investment environment in Jordan, a safe and stable country, which can function as a gateway to YTL’s investments in the region, Petra said.

For his part, the chairperson of YTL said that the project is the first investment for the group in the Middle East, and that it is looking to expand its investments in the region in the fields of infrastructure, water, roads, telecommunications, tourism and industry.

He noted that the group has initiated construction works to build on oil-shale power station that aims to generate 470 mega watts annually, which will account for 15 per cent of total energy generation in the Kingdom with a total investment value of $2.1 billion.

The chairman also stressed his group’s commitment to the environmental standards.

He noted that the project will provide “thousands” of jobs during the mine constructing period, with 70 per cent reserved for Jordanians, in addition to 1,000 permanent jobs once the project is completed.  

AMMAN — Prime Minister Hani Mulki has decided to exempt Iraqi trucks parked in the border area on the Jordanian side from penalties imposed on them as parking fees, in the framework of government efforts to overcome obstacles in trade movement with Iraq, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Tuesday. The decision aims to facilitate and encourage movement of goods through the borders of Karama and Turaibil, as well as easing procedures for shipping employees and drivers.

AMMAN — The construction of the Princess Basma Hospital project will start in the second-half of October, Public Works and Housing Minister Sami Halaseh said, in the presence of Prime Minister Hani Mulki, on Tuesday.

The cost of the 400-bed hospital is around JD65 that was financed by the Saudi Development Fund, adding that the project tender was referred to the national company affiliated with the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During a tour on several projects that the ministry is supervising, he added that the standards and design of the hospital are “the best” used in big and comprehensive health facilities.