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AMMAN – The response of owners of abandoned buildings to an appeal by the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) to clean up or lock their properties has been "disappointing", according to a municipal official. 

Raed Haddadin, director of the building control department at GAM, said that only one landlord out of hundreds targeted in the appeal has expressed willingness to repair and close his abandoned building in the Jabal Amman area. 

In an advertisement published in Arabic dailies in early December, GAM urged owners of abandoned buildings to fix and lock, or demolish the buildings within a period of three months, otherwise the municipality will handle the job on its own at the expense of owners.

In the advertisement, GAM described the vacant buildings as health hazards.

"Only one owner visited GAM to enquire about the warning and he pledged to clean and lock his property," Haddadin told The Jordan Times over the phone Tuesday, adding the municipality has prepared a list containing hundreds of deserted buildings to close with steel gates. 

What triggered the GAM warning to landlords was a reported attempt of rape at an abandoned building between the 4th and 5th circles in Jabal Amman in November last year. The botched rape attempt was reported by The Jordan Times and a radio station. 

Haddadin attributed the "disappointing" response to the fact that some of these properties were built some 70 to 80 years ago and inherited by several children and grandchildren "so there is no single person to talk to in order to maintain or renovate them". 

Some owners also live outside the Kingdom, he added. 

In previous remarks to The Jordan Times, the GAM official and police described deserted buildings as a “headache” for both agencies as they have become crime scenes and health hazards.
There are over 1,000 abandoned buildings in the capital, some of which provide shelter to drug dealers and users, and have been reported as scenes of sexual assaults and even murders, according to Haddadin.

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday received a phone call from Moroccan King Mohammed VI, during which both leaders discussed the latest developments in the region. 

His Majesty and the Moroccan king also addressed issues of mutual concern, according to a Royal Court statement. 

Earlier this month, King Abdullah held talks with the Moroccan king in Casablanca, which focused on fostering the “deeply rooted and brotherly” Jordanian-Moroccan ties and addressed ways to activate cooperation in various fields.

A communiqué said the two leaders directed their respective governments to prepare cooperation programmes to be endorsed during the Joint Higher Committee’s fifth session meetings that are scheduled to be held in Morocco this year.

Amman and Rabat said they saw eye-to-eye on various issues on the political scene in Arab and Islamic countries, with the two leaders stressing the importance of endeavours under way to intensify the efforts of the international community in combating radicalism and terrorism.

AMMAN — Taiwan on Tuesday signed a $100,000 grant agreement with the International Medical Corps (IMC) Jordan Country Office in support of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Ramtha and Zarqa.

The support will go to the “Support to Youth, Community Protection and Reproductive Health Programming” project, according to a statement released by Taiwan’s commercial office in Jordan.

Matthew Lee, representative of the commercial office, and IMC Country Director Solomon Goshu signed the agreement in Zarqa.

The Taiwanese grant aims at supporting access to reproductive health services in Ramtha, some 90km north of Amman, through the Jordan Health Aid Society Clinic, and at supporting Protection and Youth Empowerment activities in Zarqa, some 22km east of Amman, through Bayt Al Kol Association, the statement said.

The project “will provide key services where there have been gaps identified in the areas of youth empowerment, protection and reproductive health. These contributions will complement ongoing programmes currently supported by the US government through the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration,”it added.

Earlier this month, Taiwan donated 5,000 sets of special made-in-Taiwan solar-LED lights to the Azraq Refugee Camp. 

In 2013, it donated 50 trailers, five fully equipped ambulances, and 230 wheelchairs for persons with disabilities.

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday sent a letter to Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour directing him to establish a national committee for human resources development. 

King Abdullah said in the letter it is urgent that Jordan develops an integrated, comprehensive, strategic and well-defined system for human resources development, according to a Royal Court statement.

It should provide a clear framework for all sectors concerned with education, in line with the 10-year economic blueprint (2015-2025) and the National Employment Strategy’s executive plan, the King added.

His Majesty said that this endeavour, which should be informed by previous efforts and studies, seeks a human resources development model that equips future generations with tools of knowledge and education, as well as excellence and innovation. 

“We want our youth to be qualified and capable to compete effectively at national, regional and international levels,” the King said.

Following is the official translation of His Majesty’s letter to Ensour:

In the Name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful

Your Excellency
Dr Abdullah Ensour,

Peace, God’s mercy and blessings be upon you,

It is my pleasure to convey to you and your Cabinet my greetings and best wishes for further success in realising national aspirations for greater progress, development and modernisation.

Your Excellency,

Our belief that the Jordanian citizen is the centre of our development process remains constant. Hence, our keenness is to invest in our citizens’ education and training to create a generation of forward-looking young people, who are equipped with the skills necessary to analyse, innovate and excel. 

Ultimately, we seek a generation of youth aware of their rights and responsibilities as well as eager to contribute positively towards their country’s economic, social and political development.

It is worth noting that developing an integrated educational system requires full and swift implementation of existing programmes and plans, which are in line with best international standards and practices. 

It also requires the development of human resources, according to a framework that ensures synergy between programmes and goals. 

This comprehensive approach gives priority to vocational and technical training as well as improving university education, with the aim of enhancing the outputs, quality and efficiency of education.

It is, therefore, urgent that Jordan develops an integrated, comprehensive, strategic and well-defined system for human resources development. 

It should provide a clear framework for all sectors concerned with education, in line with the 10-year economic blueprint (2015-2025) and the National Employment Strategy’s executive plan. 

This endeavour, which should be informed by previous efforts and studies, seeks a human resources development model that equips future generations with tools of knowledge and education, as well as excellence and innovation. 

We want our youth to be qualified and capable to compete effectively at national, regional and international levels.

Cooperation across the board is key, particularly from the private sector and civil society organisations, in order to develop Jordan’s most vital sector, education. Achieving this goal brings opportunities for Jordanian youth and unleashes their potential.

Therefore, the government should establish a National Committee for Human Resources Development, tasked with the following:

Formulating a national strategy, from which emerges a 10-year executive plan that encompasses primary and higher education as well as vocational and technical training and ushers in a qualitative leap for national human resources development and helps identify consensus-based reform policies that support modernisation and progress.

Leading preparations for a national conference, which adopts a national resources development strategy that spans all phases of education, from early childhood until entering the job market. This strategy incorporates workable programmes and plans, key performance indicators, well-defined reform priorities, potential funding options and necessary steps for enhancing the job market. Once approved by the Cabinet, this strategy will become the long-term roadmap, guiding successive governments.

Following up on the implementation and progress of the National Strategy for Human Resources Development to achieve high-quality and tangible strides towards its goals.

The efforts of this national committee will have our constant attention and support. We expect the government and all its institutions to do their utmost to execute programmes emerging from this strategy, and enable this committee to carry out its tasks, achieve measurable results that positively reflect development and serve the country and its people well.

May God grant us all success in fulfilling the aspirations of our faithful people, building our precious Jordan and help you to achieve success in this noble mission.

Peace, God’s mercy and blessings be upon you,

Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein

Amman, Jumada II 3, 1436 Hijri

March 24, 2015

AMMAN — Although Jordan achieved the Millennium Development Goal on reducing hunger in 2013, the impact of the Syrian crisis at regional and national levels is endangering this achievement, UN officials said.

According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) officials, there are signs that the development gains achieved by Jordan in the past might be threatened because of the negative impact of the Syrian refugee influx.

In a recent interview with The Jordan Times, Nasredin Hag Elamin, FAO representative to Jordan, said the challenges facing the Kingdom are not exclusively of a short-term nature due to the Syrian crisis, but are also long-term structural challenges related to the availability of natural resources, the high dependency on food imports and the increasing volatility of food prices on the global market.

Hag Elamin noted that more than 90 per cent of the country’s needs of cereals is imported, but the high dependency on food imports is structural in nature related to the limited natural resources of water and fertile land, which do not allow for producing enough basic food products for the Jordanian population.

“To optimise the low resources of water and agriculture land, it is better to use them to produce high quality products, like fruit and vegetables,” the FAO representative said.

He explained that each country has to use its available resources in the most efficient manner. “What Jordan is currently doing seems appropriate... using the available resources to produce fruit and vegetables that generate better income for farmers.”

“The natural resources constraint can’t allow meeting the rising demand for food products particularly in a period when the population living in Jordan is growing rapidly,” Hag Elamin noted, adding that the dependency on imports is high and this is likely to increase.

Considering that food production is limited by natural factors, an increase in demand can only be met by increasing imports and optimising use of the available land and water, he said.

At the regional level, the disruption of food trade routes across borders is also one of the major problems that affects food supplies in the Kingdom as traders have to find new markets — with Syria and Iraq no longer available options — to sell local products and to utilise longer and more expensive routes to import food products to Jordan,” Hag Elamin said.

To underscore the impact of the Syrian crisis on food security in Jordan, FAO, in cooperation with the Agriculture Ministry and international NGO REACH, has conducted an assessment, the findings of which will soon be released, according to Andrea Berloffa, emergency coordinator and liaison officer at FAO Jordan. 

Berloffa said the assessment seeks to gauge food security at the household level in the northern and central regions, where the highest number of Syrian refugees lives outside the camps. 

Although results of the assessment are yet to be released, it shows that there is an increased level of  poor and borderline food consumption scores among families in the surveyed areas, in terms of “how many times Jordanians are consuming certain products in a week and the nutritional importance of different food items”, according to the official.

In some cases, he explained, those who were interviewed said they are using cheaper food or have reduced the quantity of food purchased at the family level.

To contribute to the efforts addressing food needs in areas most affected by the Syria refugee crisis, FAO will soon implement a new project in Irbid and Mafraq, according to the agency.

“A small pilot project” is aimed at supporting vulnerable households “to look at alternative options of producing food”, Berloffa explained. 

The idea of the project is to give these households an example of how to cope with this kind of situation, and “if it succeeds, it can be replicated on a larger scale so that people can develop their resilience to deal with the new reality,” he added.

Through this project FAO will assist both host communities and Syrian refugees in four selected districts in cultivating micro plots of land and rooftops, using innovative technologies to produce healthy food.

“We need to combine this with nutrition-related knowledge. Producing healthy food and utilising it in a healthy way,” Berloffa noted.

The agency has announced that it is scaling up its support to Jordan and other countries in the region affected by the humanitarian crisis in Syria, which has entered its fifth year.

FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva was in Jordan last week, where he met with officials and stressed the agency’s support for the Kingdom.

During the visit, three projects were launched with the Agriculture Ministry to improve food security and nutrition by making better data available to decision makers, and preventing the spread of animal diseases across borders.

AMMAN — Wheat production is expected to double this year compared to the crop’s yield in 2014 due to abundant rain in winter, an Agriculture Ministry official said on Tuesday.

The country produced 12,000 tonnes of wheat last year, Agriculture Ministry Spokesperson Nimer Haddadin told The Jordan Times, noting that excellent rain during the wet season and last week’s rainfall will lead to an increase in wheat production this year.

“Production of wheat is expected to range from 20,000 to 25,000 tonnes this year. In addition, the land area planted with wheat is expected to increase,” Haddadin added.

A total of 600,000 dunums of lands are planted with wheat every year, according to the spokesperson, who noted that the country’s wheat production meets its needs for only 10 days.

According to the Jordan Meteorological Department, the performance of the wet season was excellent and the majority of the governorates surpassed their long-term annual average of rainfall.

The northern governorates received 99 per cent of their long-term annual average of rainfall; western parts of the central region received 104 per cent; while eastern parts of the central region received 119 per cent.

Western parts of the southern region received 89 per cent and the southern parts of southern region received 114 per cent, while the eastern region received 101 per cent. 

The Jordan Valley also received abundant rain as its northern areas received 110 per cent, the central areas 108 per cent and the southern parts received 134 per cent of their long-term annual average of rainfall.

“The country’s wheat imports used to be around 900,000 tonnes annually, but the figure has increased to 1 million tonnes due to population growth in light of the refugee influx,” Haddadin said.

Jordan imports its needs of wheat from several countries including Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russia, Romania and the United States.

“The government seeks to encourage farmers to plant wheat to reduce imports. The ministry provides farmers with improved seeds at preferential prices and buys their production above the international price,” Haddadin added.

The ministry’s centres for distributing seeds and buying farmers’ wheat production are spread across the governorates, he said.

Farmers grow wheat across the country, but the crop is mainly planted in Irbid and the Houran plains in the north; Madaba and Husban in the central region; and Arrabeh in Karak Governorate in the south, according to the official.

AMMAN — MPs on Tuesday expressed dismay over remarks attributed to Qassem Suleimani, commander of Al Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, saying Tehran can control events in Jordan.

During Sunday's Lower House session, some lawmakers criticised the government's "coy" response to Suleimani's statements, calling at the same time for an apology from Tehran.

Several local and foreign media outlets have quoted Suleimani, Iran's top officer responsible for foreign operations, as reportedly saying that he believed Tehran had the ability to control events in Jordan, as it does in Iraq and Lebanon.

MP Wafa Bani Mustapha criticised Suleimani's "provocative" remarks, calling on Iran to issue an official apology to the Kingdom especially now "when Amman-Tehran relations are improving following Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Judeh's recent visit to Iran". 

In response to the remarks, Judeh said that Jordan’s embassy in Tehran has inquired about the issue through Iran’s foreign ministry which emphasised that the remarks attributed to Suleimani were “baseless”.

Judeh also noted that the Iranian embassy in Amman has also described the alleged remarks as “unfounded”. 

Iran’s mission in Amman has denied the alleged statements attributed to Suleimani, saying in a recent statement that “the alleged statements attributed to General Suleimani about developments in the region and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in particular were unfounded”.

The embassy noted that following the release of media reports, the public relations department in the Revolutionary Guard issued a statement denying all remarks attributed to Suleimani.

Earlier this month, Judeh visited Tehran and met with high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Hassan Rouhani.

Also during the session, head of the House Palestine Committee MP Yahya Saud denounced the Jewish settlers’ storming of Al Aqsa Mosque compound on Monday, calling for a firm response to the Israeli assaults on Jerusalem’s holy sites.

General Director of Muslim Endowments and Al Aqsa Affairs Azzam Al Khatib has been quoted as saying that “a total of 132 Jewish settlers under the protection of Israeli police forced their way into Al Aqsa complex through Al Magharbeh and Hotta gates”.

“A group of 10 settlers mounted the roof of the Dome of the Rock Mosque and tried to perform Talmudic rituals but Palestinian guards managed to prevent them,” he added.

Veteran MP Abdul Karim Dughmi criticised the government’s statement on Monday about Jordan’s intention to train Syrian tribal rebels to fight Daesh terrorist organisation, calling on the government to adhere to the Kingdom’s unaltered stance on Syria which advocates a comprehensive political solution to the ongoing war there.

Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Mohammad Momani said on Monday that Jordan along with other countries in the region are in the process of providing training for Syrian “people and tribes” in areas dominated by terrorist groups, including Daesh. 

Momani added that members of the coalition to fight terrorism continue to discuss how to help the Syrian people and tribes in the areas controlled by Daesh or other terrorist organisations, including through training them to defend themselves and to defeat terrorists “who have been killing their sons and daughters and occupying their land”.

“Jordan is part of that and it is a continuous effort to help Syrian people and tribes fight terrorism,” Momani said at Monday’s press conference.

Also during Tuesday’s morning session, MPs continued their deliberations over the 2002 Audiovisual Law and passed some of its articles.

AMMAN — Agriculture Minister Akef Zu’bi inaugurated the fourth Jordan Olive Products and Technology Exhibition (JOTEX) at the Amman International Motor Show on Tuesday.

Several companies from Jordan, Italy, Germany, Turkey and France are taking part in the exhibition, organised by Jordan Olive Products Exporters Association (JOPEA).

JOPEA Chairman Fayyad Zyoud said the three-day exhibition seeks to promote Jordanian olive oil, according to a statement sent to The Jordan Times.

AMMAN — Jordan on Tuesday signed an inter-governmental agreement with Russia to build and operate the first nuclear power plant.

The agreement represents the legal and political framework between the governments of the two countries, and highlights their support of the plan, which entails building two nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 2,000 megawatts at a total cost of $10 billion.

Jordan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Khaled Toukan and head of Russia’s state-run corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, signed the agreement on behalf of the Jordanian and Russian governments, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

In October 2013, Jordan contracted Russia's Rosatom to build the country’s first two nuclear reactors that are expected to be operational by 2022.

Under the agreement, Jordan will have the option of returning nuclear fuel waste to Russia, said Toukan at a meeting with reporters last week, adding that the age of the reactor is 60 years.

Russia will provide enriched nuclear fuel for the reactors for the first 10 years after which Jordan has the option of whether to buy nuclear fuel from Russia or any other markets as it will seek the “most suitable price”, said Toukan.

AMMAN — The Health Ministry reaffirmed on Tuesday that no cases of bird flu (H5N1) have been recorded in Jordan since 2006, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The agency quoted Mohammad Abdullat, director of the Health Ministry’s communicable diseases directorate, as saying that the only H5N1 case recorded in Jordan was in 2006 and the patient was an Egyptian guest worker.

Abdullat dismissed as baseless reports claiming that new cases of H5N1 have been diagnosed, clarifying that it was confused with the H1N1 virus, previously known as swine flu, which is now a seasonal flu.

The ministry tracks respiratory diseases including flu all year at four selected hospitals across the Kingdom and reports show that the flu season in recent years has been starting later than it used to, Petra reported.

Bird flu or avian influenza (AI) is an infectious viral disease of birds (especially wild water fowl such as ducks and geese), often causing no apparent signs of illness, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). 

AI viruses can sometimes spread to domestic poultry and cause large-scale outbreaks of serious disease. Some of these AI viruses have also been reported to cross the species barrier and cause disease or subclinical infections in humans and other mammals, according to the WHO website.

Most avian influenza viruses do not infect humans; however some, such as A(H5N1) and A(H7N9), have caused serious infections in people.