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AMMAN — As part of its discussions over the draft 2014 State Budget, the Finance Committee of the Lower House on Monday discussed allocations for the Royal Court for the first time ever.

Senior officials from the Royal Court attended a meeting of the committee, presenting their case as to the funds the Royal Court needs to spend on its functions this year.

Head of the Finance Committee Mohammed Saudi prevented reporters from attending the meeting, although the committee’s meetings are open for the media most of the time, triggering criticism, especially since the unprecedented move was seen as a sign of more transparency, reflecting a major goal of the reform process.

According to the draft 2014 State Budget as presented by the government, the Royal Court’s budget is set at JD35.7 million this year, including JD2.25 million in salaries for 192 staff members.

The amount also includes expenditures on communications, transportation and vehicle maintenance, in addition to almost JD6.1 million set aside as “social assistance” for citizens.

The amount allocated for His Majesty King Abdullah and the Royal family was set at JD828,000.

The Royal Court helps in humanitarian cases like healthcare for those uncovered by any insurance plan and dispenses financial assistance to poor students, along with other similar gestures.

According to parliamentary sources, the allocation is “a reasonable amount for such an institution”. 

AMMAN — The government will announce the name of the investor with the winning bid to provide Fourth Generation telecom services before the end of this month, a senior official said Monday.

“We are in the final stages of studying two bids we received from two companies. The committee in charge of deciding on the best bid has been meeting for the past three months to choose the best offer,” ICT Minister Azzam Sleit said.

The 4G service includes data transfer rates of up to 150 megabits per second.

“The specialised committee that was formed to study the two bids will choose the offer that is in the interest of the Treasury and citizens,” he told The Jordan Times.

In June, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) opened five new radio frequencies, including 4G services, to enable faster mobile Internet use and announced in October that it received two bids.

The country’s three telecom operators — Orange Jordan, Zain Jordan and Umniah — have opposed the introduction of 4G technology in Jordan, describing the move as “premature”.

They also said issuing a licence to a fourth operator is unfeasible, arguing that it would harm the sector and reduce the government’s revenues, because “the Jordanian market is saturated”.

Mobile penetration in Jordan reached 155 per cent by the end of September 2013, with 10.227 million subscriptions, according to the TRC.

Internet penetration stood at 72 per cent at the end of the third quarter of 2013, with 4.864 million users, according to figures posted on the TRC website. 

AMMAN — The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), also known with its Arabic acronym DAESH, is not a threat to the Kingdom, and the country’s borders are tightly controlled, sources said on Monday.

A government source speaking on condition of anonymity said the operations that ISIL are performing are in “the very heart” of Iraq and far away from the Jordanian border, and so there is no need to seal the country’s borders with its eastern neighbour.

The remarks were echoed by Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Mohammad Momani, who stressed that the country’s borders have never been a weak spot.

“We continue to control and guard our borders from any situation. Our border security has proven a tremendous success over years,” Momani, who is also the government spokesperson, told The Jordan Times over the phone on Monday.

ISIL, an Al Qaeda-linked faction, currently has control over Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in Iraq’s Anbar province, which borders the Kingdom.

According to news reports this is the first time that militants have exercised such open control in any major city since the US-led invasion in 2003.

The group also controls parts of Syria and is being battled by other Islamist rebel groups (see separate story).

The threat is considered as an unexpected scenario even by the Jihadi Salafist group in Jordan, who also denied any organisational connection to ISIL, except in “a few cases when individuals joined it”.

ISIL will not threaten the security of the Kingdom, “unless it is targeted by Jordan or any country of the region”, a local Jihadi Salafist leader told The Jordan Times on condition of anonymity.

“ISIL’s present concern is to have control over some of the Iraqi and Syrian areas, and they will not threaten the security of Jordan,” he said, a view also held by political analyst and expert in Islamic groups, Mohammad Abu Rumman, who explained that Al Qaeda has removed Jordan from its list after the killing of Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, who reportedly masterminded terrorist bombings in Amman in 2005.

Although the Islamist leader stressed that there is no connection between his group in Jordan and ISIL, he claimed that there are a few Jordanians who joined ISIL individually.

“We are not an organised party to have connections with ISIL, but there is communication at the personal level,” he told The Jordan Times.

Abu Rumman agreed that they are not a threat and “would not be a threat even in the future”.

“There are some exaggerations when talking about the threat that ISIL poses to Jordan,” Abu Rumman told The Jordan Times over the phone.

He attributed that to two reasons: The first is that Jordan is not a priority for ISIL, like Iraq and Syria, explaining that Jordan was a priority for Al Qaeda before 2005 at the times of Zarqawi, “who targeted the Kingdom for personal goals then”, but after the death of Zarqawi, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon topped their priority scale.

In addition, he explained that the Jordanian Jihadi Salafist group led by Abu Mohammad Maqdesi has announced sometime ago that they believe in “peaceful daawa [preaching Islam]” and Jordan will not be a land for violent acts.

“This statement will weaken any plan to target Jordan in the future,” Abu Rumman argued.

However, he noted that the only scenario through which ISIL will threaten Jordan is if they are going to have full control over enclaves adjacent to the Jordanian borders with Syria and Iraq, “which is a far-fetched possibility”.

He explained that the Sunni community in Iraq and Syria does not consider Al Qaeda and any of its affiliates as the right candidate to fill the “political gap” on the Sunni landscape in the war-torn country.

“They are in conflict with Al Qaeda and they are defending their identity,” the analyst said, adding that the talk about the control of the Syrian-Jordanian border being under the control of the Islamist Syrian rebel group Jabhat Al Nusra is “a big lie”.

“Jordan has a very tight grip on its borders,” he said.

Having said that, the analyst recommends that Jordan look inwards and focus on its reform programme. 

AMMAN — HRH Crown Prince Hussein on Monday launched the “Qusai Initiative” seeking to improve the performance of sports therapy staff, a month after a Faisali player died during a football match, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

The initiative aims at bettering the capabilities of sport therapists on and off the field, creating programmes that can be implemented to ensure the safety of the players.

The initiative is named after Faisali’s Under-20 player Qusai Khawaldeh, who died in November during his team’s match with Al Jazeera after losing consciousness on the field.

Khawaldeh died of asphyxiation as his tongue blocked his airway when he fainted.

The Crown Prince met with the initiative’s preparatory committee and was briefed on the steps taken as part of the upcoming sport therapy strategy and the panel’s recommendations to be applied to sports fields and training centres.

Representatives from the education and health ministries, Prince Hussein Academy for Civil Protection, Royal Medical Services, Civil Defence Department, Jordan Olympic Committee, Higher Youth Council (HYC), Military Sport Federation and the Hashemite University attended the meeting.

Participants presented briefings on the different components of the initiative, including data collected from sports federations on the current situation of the physical therapy staff, the training sports therapists need to receive and the possibility of teaching sports therapy at the university level.

HYC Secretary General Atef Rweidan stressed the need for legislation obliging sports clubs to hire qualified physical therapy staff during matches to offer specialised treatment in case of injuries, adding that there are 28 sports federations, 340 sports clubs and more than 1,000 training centres in the Kingdom.

AMMAN — Hundreds of Syrians poured into Jordan early Monday as regime forces reportedly intensified bombing campaigns across southern Syria.

According to the Jordan Armed Forces, some 600 Syrians crossed into the Kingdom early Monday, raising the total number of new arrivals over the past 48 hours to over 1,000.

The influx came as regime forces allegedly intensified shelling across southern Syria, with Jordanian security sources and Syrian rebel officials reporting heavy clashes and bombardment in the border towns of Daal, Al Taybeh, Al Shajarah and Daraa.

Local residents and activists claimed that the shelling directly threatened the lives of some 5,000 displaced civilians who had reportedly sought refuge in the under-siege border towns and villages.

Monday's bombings killed 10 displaced civilians across the border region, according to Free Syrian Army officials, raising to 200 the total number of refugees allegedly killed in Damascus’ ongoing aerial offensive across southern Syria.

The endangered refugees are among an estimated 18,000 displaced civilians who have been prevented by the violence from crossing into Jordan and remain stranded in the border region.

Jordan has opened its borders to over 1 million Syrians since the onset of the conflict in March 2011 — over 600,000 of them classified as refugees.

UN officials have renewed calls on the international community to step up its support to host countries such as Jordan, warning that Syria’s neighbours may reconsider their open-border policies due to dwindling resources and growing security concerns.

AMMAN — Police on Sunday announced the arrest of four men who allegedly responsible for dozens of vehicle thefts and armed robberies in various parts of the country.

“We arrested four individuals last week and are looking for eight more suspects,” a senior police source told The Jordan Times.

He said the four men were arrested in “a joint and clean operation” conducted by personnel from the Gendarmerie and preventive security departments.

The suspects were referred to the State Security Court prosecution and were charged on several counts, including attempted murder, forming an armed group, armed robbery, assault and aggravation against civilians, abduction, possessing automatic weapons and vehicle theft.

The group was behind the theft of 105 vehicles in various parts of the country, according to an official statement released by the Public Security Department press office.

“The suspects would negotiate with the owners of the vehicles to give them back in return for ransom,” the source explained.

He said the police are looking for eight other suspects, noting that “such arrest campaigns are ongoing to protect citizens and their properties.”

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania kicked off the new year with a visit on Monday to two orphan care centres where she joined orphans in several fun activities and checked on the level of services provided to them.

Queen Rania’s first stop was at the Hamzah Bin Abdul Muttalib Society where she checked on its orphan care centre.

Located in the east Amman neighbourhood of Marka, the centre currently provides social services to 21 girls aged between six and 18 years who are either orphaned or come from broken and impoverished families, according to a statement from Her Majesty’s office.

The services provided by the care centre range from providing food and shelter to parental guidance and education.

The facility also has a general medical and dental clinic that provides healthcare services to orphans as well as the local community, the statement said.

Her Majesty toured the centre accompanied by Abd Al Latif Rashdan, director of the society, and Rabia Al Khasawneh, director of the care centre.

The Queen then visited the Dar Al Aytam-Society located in downtown Amman, where she spoke with orphans benefiting from the society and checked on the services they receive from the society and its school.

Founded in 1969, the Dar Al Aytam Society currently cares for 28 boys aged between six and 12 years who are either orphans or come from disadvantaged families.

The Public Security Directorate recently renovated the facility as part of its corporate social responsibility, according to the statement.