Local

AMMAN — Crime detection rate went up to 77 per cent last year, compared with 62 per cent in 2012, according to the Public Security Department (PSD).

Detecting car theft, a recently widespread crime, stood at 81.5 per cent in 2013.

The number of crimes and misdemeanours stood last year at 21,308, slightly down from the year before “despite the refugee influx and the demographic changes the country saw in 2013”, said directors of PSD branches during a conference held on Saturday, quoted by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

As for repeat offenders, security agencies have been arresting and referring them to court, said Director of the PSD Criminal Investigation Department Brig. Gen. Jamal Bdour, noting that this issue requires amending laws governing police work.

During the conference, Director of the Preventive Security Department Brig. Gen. Zuhdi Janbek announced that an Irbid-based arms manufacturing workshop was raided last year. Suspects were also accused of involvement in weapons trade.

Anti-Narcotics Department Director Col. Sami Askar said 8,945 suspects were involved in around 6,504 drug cases last year, adding that the authorities seized over 22 million Captagon pills, 444 kilogrammes of hashish and 5,007 kilos of marijuana in 2013.

AMMAN — Around 30 Jordanians gathered outside the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) premises in the capital on Saturday in solidarity with the residents of the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria.

In Damascus, meanwhile, a UN official warned on Friday that the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian-dominated Yarmouk district was deteriorating as aid access to the area remains cut, The Associated Press reported.

The event was organised by the Save Yarmouk Camp Campaign-Jordan as part of similar events held in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Algeria, Germany, Sweden, Canada and France, according to the initiative’s Facebook page.

Organisers handed the ICRC a memorandum asking the international organisation to support the camp’s residents and calling for forming a committee to assess the dangerous humanitarian conditions there and provide residents with food and medicines.

The memo also called for securing a safe route to deliver aid to the camp, which has been under siege for more than 180 days, resulting in severe shortages in food and supplies.

At least 35 people have died in the camp, mainly old people and children, according to the memorandum.

Christopher Gunness, an UNRWA official, cited reports of widespread malnutrition and the absence of medical care, including for pregnant women, AP reported.

“The profound civilian suffering in Yarmouk deepens,” he said.

Syrian rebels seized Yarmouk more than a year ago, part of a swathe of neighbourhoods around Damascus now held by opposition fighters.

Before the Syrian conflict, Yarmouk was a densely populated district of cheaply built multi-storey homes, but was called a “camp” since Palestinians came there as refugees during the 1948 Mideast war after Israel was created on Palestinian land, AP reported.

Hassan Masoud, one of the participants in Saturday’s demonstration, called on the ICRC to support the residents of Yarmouk camp.

“The mission of the ICRC is a humane one, so they should help the camp’s residents by providing them with aid,” he told The Jordan Times outside the ICRC premises in Amman’s upscale Deir Ghbar neighbourhood.

Mohammad Khawaja, another participant, said Palestinian refugees are paying the price of the internal conflicts in Arab countries.

“Palestinians were affected by the sectarian war in Lebanon. Now, Palestinians are paying the price of the conflict between the Syrian regime and the armed opposition,” he noted.

“I am really sad when I see [Arab countries] spend huge amounts of money on celebrations. When it comes to Palestinians, Arabs do nothing because they are afraid of Israel and the US,” Khawaja charged.

“We do not want the world to send them weapons, only food.”

Ahmad, who refused to give his family name, called for the withdrawal of armed groups from the camp to put an end to the siege.

“I ask all parties not to involve Palestinian camps in any internal conflict.”

Ahmad said both the regime and the rebels are to blame for the humanitarian crisis inside the camp.

Masoud claimed that the goal behind the siege of the camp is to send a political message that all Palestinian refugees will be deported.

Mohammad Saud, another participant, accused the Syrian regime of starving the people to break the opposition.

“The Syrian regime found that it could not stand against the people, so it decided to starve them. When a person sees his child dying of hunger, he will think twice before speaking against the regime.”

AMMAN –– The Ministry of Labour is scheduled to launch a job fair on Monday to offer over 1,400 employment opportunities for job seekers in various sectors.

The four-day event will put those looking for employment face-to-face with employers, the ministry said on its website, urging job seekers to register for the fair through labour offices in the governorates.

The ministry said it will secure transportation for job seekers to the site of the fair, which will be held at the Amman employment office in Abdali near Parliament headquarters.

On the first day of the fair, those seeking jobs in the telecommunications and services sectors will be able to navigate through 435 available opportunities that include programming engineering, telecom engineering, information technology, human resources, auditing, project management, and sales and marketing.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the job fair will showcase 720 jobs available in the textile sector in the Dleil and Sahab industrial zones.

The last day of the event will focus on the hospitality sector, hotels and restaurants, where 274 vacancies are on offer, according to the ministry.

The ministry launched the National Employment Campaign in January last year with the goal of creating thousands of jobs for Jordanians in cooperation with the private sector.

More than 12,000 unemployed Jordanians were secured jobs during the first phase of the campaign, titled “We are all partners.”

The second stage of the campaign, launched on December 15 with the aim of creating 25,000 job opportunities in 11 sectors, was extended until further notice due to the “huge turnout” of job seekers. 

AMMAN –– The Labour Ministry has released a list of the names and nationalities of guest workers whose work permits expired by the end of 2013.

The new list, which the ministry published at the beginning of this month, includes 105,270 illegal guest workers, of whom nearly 60 per cent are Egyptian.

The report, posted on the ministry’s website, named 62,784 Egyptians whose work permits expired at the end of last year.

Sri Lankans constituted the second largest number of workers with expired permits after Egyptians (12,133), followed by Filipinos (7,840), Bangladeshis (7,461) and Indonesians (4,859).

With regard to illegal workers from other Arab countries, the ministry report named 2,224 labourers from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco.

The ministry said the work permits of 7,969 guest workers from various countries — such as China, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Ethiopia — also expired in late 2013.

This is the third time that the Labour Ministry has published the names of illegal guest workers on its website.

It previously issued a list of 92,837 guest workers whose permits became invalid by the end of 2012 and a list of 98,962 labourers whose work permits expired by the end of 2011.

Labour Ministry Secretary General Hamadah Abu Nijmeh told The Jordan Times late last year that there are around 265,000 guest labourers who have valid work permits and around 500,000 illegal workers.

Egyptians make up around 60 per cent of the guest labour force in Jordan, according to the official.

AMMAN — Five people, who suffered from smoke inhalation during a fire that claimed the lives of two children in a house in Zarqa on Friday, were discharged from hospital on Saturday, official sources said.

The five people and two children, all from the same family, were sitting in a room in their two-storey house in the Bireen area in Zarqa Governorate, a senior official Civil Defence Department (CDD) official said.

“Our investigation showed that there was a leak from a gas heater in the room which caused the fire,” the CDD official added.

The two children, both under the age of 10, suffered third degree burns and died instantly, he told The Jordan Times.

The five other family members suffered from smoke inhalation and were rushed to Prince Hashem Military Hospital, according to the source.

The official added that firefighters managed to control the blaze and prevented it from spreading to other parts of the house.

In late December, three people, including a woman with a disability, were killed in two separate incidents related to gas heaters in Irbid, some 80km north of Amman.

A 65-year-old woman with a disability was burned to death by a gas heater in her room in the basement of a building, with an initial investigation indicating that the victim was attempting to move the heater but could not because of her medical condition, and it overturned, causing a fire.

In the second incident in Irbid, an 85-year-old man and his 75-year-old wife died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to insufficient air circulation in their room where they had a gas heater on.

CDD officials have repeatedly warned that insufficient ventilation, leaving gas and kerosene heaters on overnight and filling heaters with kerosene while they are on are some of the major causes of accidents, in addition to failure to follow proper safety procedures.

AMMAN — The National Library Department (NLD) confiscated more than 183,000 pirated DVDs, CDs and books in 2013, a 10 per cent increase compared with 2012, according to NLD Director General Mohammad Abbadi.

The number of Intellectual Property Rights violators the department referred to court also increased from 467 in 2012 to more than 480 in 2013, Abbadi said in a recent interview with The Jordan Times.

“The majority of the cases we referred to court are repeat offenders. In 2013, we succeeded in arresting owners of stores that produce pirated CDs and DVDs. We had major operations that helped us seize more pirated items,” he added.

More than 60 per cent of the pirated items are video games, Abbadi said, adding that they also included movie DVDs and CDs.

“We witnessed a huge drop in the number of pirated movie and music CDs and DVDs in 2013 because many people get these online nowadays.”

Amman continued to account for the lion’s share of trading in pirated content in 2013, followed by Irbid and Zarqa, according to the NLD director general.

“Trading in pirated software in general dropped significantly because smuggling from Syria was halted completely. The majority of pirated software came from Syria in the past, but not a single CD is entering Jordan from Syria into now because of the situation there.”

Monitoring at the borders has also been intensified after customs personnel were trained on the Copyright Law and how to identify pirated items, Abbadi noted.

The Jordanian Copyright Law stipulates that it is a crime to download software, music or movies that are protected under the legislation.

Offenders face a prison sentence of between three months and three years and a fine ranging from JD1,000 to JD6,000. The government loses about JD5 million annually in revenues, as traders of pirated items do not pay taxes or fees.

BAPTISM SITE — Thousands of pilgrims from across the world prayed for peace and stability in the region during the Epiphany celebration at the Baptism Site on Friday.

Epiphany marks the revelation of Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the second person of the Holy Trinity — along with God and the Holy Spirit — which Christians believe took place at the time of his baptism by John the Baptist.

Epiphany is celebrated in Western churches, while Eastern churches observe a similar feast known as Theophany.

Pilgrims from Jordan, Iraq, Syria, the Philippines and Europe flocked to the site, where Jesus Christ was baptised by John the Baptist according to Christian belief, to celebrate the occasion and visit the area.

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad Twal led the Epiphany mass at the Church of the Baptism of Jesus Christ.

“We pay tribute to the Kingdom for receiving the arrivals who we do not call refugees, but rather human brothers, friends and fraternal Arabs,” he said.

“We pray for peace in their country and for ending the whirlpool of violence and destruction,” the Latin Patriarch told the congregation during the mass at the church, which is still under construction.

Twal also called for the release of religious figures such as archbishops, priestsandnuns who were kidnapped in Syria.

Rifaat Bader, spokesperson of the Catholic Church in Jordan, told The Jordan Times that this year’s celebration is unique because it commemorates the visit of Pope Paul VI to Jordan 50 years ago.

“Pope Francis also will visit Jordan and the Church of the Baptism of Jesus Christ, where the mass was held,” added Bader, who is also director of the Catholic Centre for Studies and Media.

The Baptism Site Commission and various church representatives in the Kingdom began organising Epiphany celebrations at the site in 2000.

Saaida Habeeb, who came from Iraq with her family, said she attended the mass to pray for peace and stability in the region.

“I hope that God will listen to our prayers and make our wishes come true.”

Azar Qusai, Habeeb’s husband, said visiting the Baptism Site in the Jordan Valley was the main reason that drew him to the Kingdom.

“I hope that peace will prevail in my country,” he told The Jordan Times.

Iraqi pilgrim Thamer Bolos prayed for peace in Syria, which has been witnessing violence for more than two years.

“I hope that the region will be as peaceful as it used to be in the past,” he said as he took video footage of the site, also known as Bethany Beyond the Jordan.

Ayoub Al Lamaa, who came from the northern city of Irbid, prayed for his family’s well-being.

“One of my relatives is a Tawjihi [General Secondary Certificate Examination] student and I wish him all the best,” he said.

Meanwhile, the pilgrims commended the Baptism Site’s services, which develop and improve every year.

Adham Asem, a 23-year-old Jordanian who visited the site for the third time on Friday, said reaching churches and places of worship within the Baptism Site has become easier compared to the past.

“It is now really easy to walk around the site,” he noted.

His friend, Lamaa, agreed, explaining that they walked long distances in the past, but can use buses now.

“Transportation to the site is really easy and accessible for everyone,” he added.

Elisa Flores, a visitor from the Philippines, said she has been to the site several times, but was attending the Epiphany ceremony for the first time.

“It is a really nice event and well-organised,” she added.

Shammas Steifan, a visitor from Iraq, said what impressed him most was how secure the site and the event were.

“You can feel the security in Jordan amidst the instability in the region these days.”