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AMMAN — Thirty-nine people suffered from food-poisoning in Irbid's Hatem village on Sunday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. Director of Irbid's Health Department, Qasim Mayyas, said that 22 of them were transferred to Yarmouk Hospital, two were sent to Princess Basma Hospital, while 15 have left the medical facilities after treatment.

Yarmouk Hospital Director Mohammad Maghyreh said that all necessary medical and emergency measures had been taken, noting that the patients are now in fair condition.

During a visit to the hospital to check on the patients, Irbid Governor Radwan Otoum said that all the concerned agencies were following up on the issue. Mayyas told Petra that the department formed a medical team to check on restaurants in the region, which led to the identification of the restaurant where the patients ate “rotten food”.

He added that the restaurant will be under precautionary closure until the food samples are tested, which usually takes 24 hours. Health Minister Mahmood Sheyyab visited the patients in hospital on Sunday.

AMMAN — Royal Wings said that a Boeing 737, it had leased on ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance) basis from Solitaire Air, a Jordanian carrier, skidded off course upon landing at King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, according to a statement from the airline. No injuries to passengers or crew were reported and another airplane was to be used to carry passengers from Aqaba to Dubai.

AMMAN — Prime Minister Hani Mulki on Sunday visited Luminus Group, which provides vocational and technical training programmes under the National Employment Programme, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During the visit, which included the Australian College for Media and Al Quds College, Mulki was briefed on the technical and vocational programmes that aim to address the labour market’s needs.

The premier toured the college and reviewed its facilities and laboratories. He then spoke with some of the students who benefited from grants of the Employment and Training Fund in partnership with the Labour Ministry.

Mulki also met with pioneer students who established their enterprises at the group and export their products to Europe and the Gulf countries.

The prime minister stressed the government’s vision to develop the vocational education to provide the labour market with a skilled labour to reduce unemployment.

He called for enhancing coordination between the group, the Labour Ministry and credit funds such as the Employment Fund, the Governorates Development Fund and the Exports Development Fund.

The coordination will lead to students benefitting from loans helping them to establish income-generating enterprises and address unemployment.

Ibrahim Safadi, CEO of Luminus, announced the group’s project to establish a hospitality college with a capacity of 1,000 students as well as establishing a training institute for repairing electrical hybrid vehicles.  

Labour Minister Ali Ghezawi said that the visit shows the government’s keenness on improving the vocational and technical education, noting that the government funded the education of 1,500 students.       

AMMAN — Major natural — hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornado, flooding and land sliding — and man-made disasters of the past were relatively sporadic compared to the current trend, according to an Italian architect.

“Natural and cultural heritage worldwide are exposed to all sorts of threats as never before in my memory,” said Claudio Cimino, from Sapienza University of Rome.

The Italian expert added that, during the last few decades, “we assisted to a progressive increase of events of magnitude”.

Cimino lists global warming, climate change, natural and anthropogenic events that are often connected with neglect, misuse and a general mismanagement of the territory as the direct or associated cause of disasters of unprecedented proportions and frequency. 

“We also register a sharp increase in destructive acts against natural and cultural heritage purposely conducted by vandalists, terrorists and irregular armed forces,” Cimino told The Jordan Times in a recent e-mail interview.

A combination of the several factors of risk may cause catastrophic damage or the complete loss of large quantities of natural and cultural heritage, often with a domino effect, to the detriment of the entire humanity, he added. 

“These are phenomena that affect all spheres of our lives and our cultural legacy with it,” he added.

Cimino came for the first time to Jordan in November 1987 to coordinate a project within the framework of the Bilateral Technical Cooperation Agreement between the governments of Italy and Jordan. 

“Since then, I have been active and coordinated projects mainly aimed at creating new job opportunities thanks to the development of cultural industries [in Salt] or through the restoration and conservation of cultural heritage,” he said.

This started with the establishment of the Madaba Mosaic Restoration School that used to focus on the conservation of the ancient mosaics, the scholar explained.

Cimino is also the secretary general of WATCH, an international association working to preserve cultural heritage and, in May this year, he organised the 8th International Conference on Science and Technology in Archaeology and Conservation in Amman. 

The conference was organised in cooperation with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, and the NGOs Cultech (Jordan) and FOCUH (Turkey), together with the Legado Andalusi Foundation (Spain).

“The 8th edition of the International Conference on Science and Technology in Archaeology and Conservation ‘STAC8’ represented a unique opportunity to gather around a table with an international, multidisciplinary and inter-sectoral group of experts from both public and private sectors, all of them engaged in the preservation of natural and cultural heritage around the globe on a daily basis,” Cimino noted. 

The conference's conclusions have been purposely condensed, he continued, under a synthetic document titled “The Amman Declaration”. 

With their presence in Amman, the participants of the conference wanted to express their solidarity to their colleagues in Jordan and in the entire Middle East, who are facing all kinds of threats due to social unrest, terrorism and armed conflicts, the scholar said.

“The 9th edition of the STAC will focus on the latest challenges faced in the sector of natural and cultural heritage conservation worldwide starting from the contents of the Amman Declaration,” Cimino noted. 

He is also planning, along with some colleagues from the region, to contribute to the promotion of sustainable conservation and protection of natural and cultural heritage, which is exposed to natural hazards and anthropogenic threats.

AMMAN — Use of the e-services provided by the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) will be obligatory by 2018, officials said, noting that facilitating its use for all citizens is under way through expanding electronic stations all over Amman.

Renewal of occupational licences and payment of traffic tickets and property tax are the main services GAM will be dealing solely through its e-system, Sultan Kharabsheh, executive director of GAM’s ICT Department, told The Jordan Times on Sunday. 

As part of the Electronic Transformation project 2017-2020, that aims to automate governmental services, GAM last month launched nine stations equipped with Internet and computers, where facilitators and bank officers will be providing assistance and teaching citizens how to use the e-services, he added. 

So far, the stations have served over 5,000 people, with officers training people on how to use e-services and Central Bank officers helping them to open bank accounts for those who require one. This should ease the use of current and future e-payments, Kharabsheh said.

GAM launched 10 e-services, including municipal services such as requesting street lightning, trimming trees and garbage containers, in addition to an e-complaints system. Seven more services will be automated by the end of 2017, he noted. 

“This project aims at saving time, effort and money and restoring people’s confidence in the governmental process, away from wasta [using personal connections to obtain privileges], which should ensure that all people get served equally through the e-system,” Kharabsheh said. 

E-stations are scheduled to cover all areas of Amman, including malls and post offices, which will include all e-government processes, not only GAM’s.

The official said that the requirements and measures of 41 services provided by GAM will be restudied to ease the processes in order to be automated by the end of 2018

Over 100,000 people inside and outside Jordan — expatriates — have used GAM’s e-services, he said, stressing that the execution of the mandatory property tax payment, imposed at the beginning of each year, will increase the use of the stations and system by January 2018. 

AMMAN — The Higher Education Council has accepted 30,941 students at public universities, Higher Education Minister Adel Tweisi said on Sunday.

Tweisi added that the number included 20 per cent benefiting from the Royal makrumas for the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army, 5 per cent for children of teachers and 350 seats for people living in camps, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The number also included 5 per cent for Jordanian students who passed General Secondary Education Certificate Examination (Tawjihi) in previous sessions, 5 per cent for Jordanians who passed Tawjihi abroad, in addition to allocating 3,094 seats for beneficiaries of Royal makruma in badia schools and “schools of special circumstances”.

He added that students can move from one university to another and from one specialisation to another through an electronic application available on the website of the unified admission unit, starting on Monday for three days.

AMMAN — Public Works and Housing Minister Sami Halaseh on Sunday said that the Saudi Development Fund has approved the tender to establish the Princess Basma Hospital, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The project, which will cost $57 million, will be implemented by the Arab Consortium for Construction, which is owned by the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army, and a Saudi Arabian contractor, according to Halaseh, who noted that Prime Minister Hani Mulki has met with the fund’s President Yousef Bassam. He stressed the importance of the project in improving the health sector in Jordan.      

AMMAN — The Middle East and North Africa Summit for Research and Thought Centres is scheduled to start on Tuesday at the Dead Sea, under the patronage of HRH Prince Hassan.

It will be organised by the University of Jordan’s Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS), in cooperation with the Civil Society Programme at the University of Pennsylvania and the Mediterranean Forum of Rome, according to a CSS statement.

More than 50 centres will take part in the event to discuss the latest challenges facing the region, including security, terrorism, extremism and civil state building , in addition to the role of research centres in building the future of the Middle East and resolving its issues.   

AMMAN — A 17-year-old man died of electric shock on Saturday, after he switched on a water pump in his parents’ residence in Northern Badia, the Civil Defence Department (CDD) announced on Sunday.

CDD personnel retrieved the body and transferred it to the Mafraq Hospital, according to a CDD statement.

Also on Saturday night, one man died and three others were injured in a two-vehicle collision in Zarqa.

A CDD source told the Jordan News Agency, Petra, that the body of the deceased and the injured persons were transferred to the Zarqa Hospital, where the injured were listed in fair condition.

AMMAN — A Sudanese National Commission for Human Rights delegation visited the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) on Sunday, according to an NCHR statement. The delegation was briefed on the experience of the centre including its role in the global human rights system.

The NCHR was classified in category A in 2010. The delegation, which will stay until Thursday, also listened to a briefing from the Commissioner General for Human Rights Mousa Buraizat on the official steps and preparations that accompanied the establishment of the centre in 2004 through a Royal commission.