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AMMAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will visit Jordan this week for discussions on bilateral ties and regional developments, the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Sabah Al Rafei confirmed Zarif’s Tuesday visit, saying it comes upon an invitation by Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.

She gave no further details on the issues the two sides will discuss.

The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) cited an informed source from the Iranian foreign ministry saying that Zarif’s visit will also include Iraq and Lebanon.

The source told IRNA that the aim of these diplomatic visits is to consult with counterparts on bilateral ties and regional developments.

Zarif has already visited Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, IRNA said.

Citing Lebanon’s ambassador to Tehran, IRNA said that Zarif is scheduled to meet with senior Lebanese officials on Monday to discuss a variety of issues, mainly the terrorist blasts in front of Iran’s embassy in Beirut.

Zarif’s visit to Jordan will be the first since his appointment as foreign minister by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

In May 2013, former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi paid a visit to the Kingdom and delivered a letter to His Majesty King Abdullah from former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

AMMAN — Jordan and France on Sunday discussed the preparations for the Geneva II conference on Syria.

During a meeting between Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and his French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Paris on the sidelines of the Friends of Syria meeting, the two diplomats discussed the January 22 meeting, which is aimed at reaching a political solution to the Syrian conflict, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During his participation in the Friends of Syria meeting in Paris, Judeh reiterated Jordan’s stand calling for an end to the bloodshed and expediting efforts to forge an inclusive political solution to the crisis that ensures the unity of Syria’s people and territory.

He stressed the need for the Syrian opposition factions to unite and take a collective decision to take part in Geneva II conference.

Judeh highlighted Jordan’s contributions at all levels to reach the envisioned solution, underlining Jordan’s firm rejection of any foreign military intervention to end the conflict.

He also outlined the consequences of the Syrian crisis on Jordan, which hosts more than 600,000 Syrian refugees, renewing a call to the world community to extend more aid to help the Kingdom carry on with its humanitarian mission and ease pressure on its infrastructure.

During his meeting with Fabius, Judeh expressed Jordan’s appreciation of France’s continuous support.

Discussions also focused on the role the Kingdom can play through its UN Security Council membership and the issues that the council will look into this month under Jordan’s presidency.

France is committed to maintaining coordination with Jordan, Fabius said, adding that the election of the Kingdom as a non-permanent Security Council member is testament to the respect it commands internationally.

The two officials also stressed the need for concerted efforts to support the US administration in brokering the ongoing peace negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Also in Paris, Judeh attended a meeting of the Arab ministerial team delegated by the Arab Peace Initiative Committee at the Arab League to contact the US administration to receive an update on the development of Palestinian-Israeli talks.

US Secretary of State John Kerry met with the ministerial team and highlighted the results of his latest visit to Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Judeh reaffirmed the Kingdom’s support to a two-state solution leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state on the pre-1976 border, with East Jerusalem as its capital, noting that having an independent Palestinian state is a higher Jordanian interest, Petra reported.

AMMAN — Criminal Court Prosecutor Ali Abu Zeid on Sunday charged a man with manslaughter in connection with the stabbing death of his friend in an Amman suburb over the weekend, official sources said.

The victim, who was not identified, was allegedly stabbed by the suspect, who is in his twenties, in the waist with a sharp object during a heated argument on Saturday in the Nuzha suburb of the capital, a senior official source told The Jordan Times.”The victim and the suspect were sitting with other friends when an argument ensued,” the source explained.

The argument developed into a fight and their friends intervened and attempted to stop them, but the suspect managed to grab a sharp object and allegedly stabbed the victim in the waist, the source added.

The victim was taken to Prince Hamzah Hospital but was declared dead on arrival, a second source said.”It seems the injury was fatal and caused heavy bleeding that led his death,” the source told The Jordan Times.

The body was taken to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine for an autopsy, he added.

Abu Zeid issued orders for the suspect to be detained at a correctional and rehabilitation centre for 15 days pending further investigation into the incident.

AMMAN — The Development and Employment Fund (DEF) has announced its JD31 million funding plan for 2014, which will provide more than 10,000 work opportunities, a 30 per cent increase compared to last year.

In a statement sent to The Jordan Times on Sunday, DEF Director General Abdullah Freij said the plan is part of the fund’s efforts to encourage citizens to establish small- and medium-sized projects in different sectors, with a focus on residents of remote governorates and poverty pockets.

Freij highlighted the fund’s priorities in funding schemes that meet the needs of local communities with competitive interest rates and grace periods for paying back the loans.

Stressing the need to encourage university graduates to start their own businesses instead of “waiting to be employed”, he noted that the Civil Service Bureau has opened a unit to encourage young people to head to the fund instead of waiting to get a job in the public sector.

Around 30 per cent of the loan beneficiaries are holders of bachelor’s or diploma degrees, according to the DEF director general.

Freij called on those interested in benefiting from the DEF’s financial services to head to its branches across the Kingdom to be able to establish income-generating projects in various sectors, according to the statement.

AMMAN — The Cabinet on Sunday listened to a briefing on developments related to the cooperation with Iraq in the fields of energy and mineral resources.

During the session, chaired by Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, Energy Ministry Secretary General Farouq Hiyari acquainted the Council of Ministers with the meetings held between Jordanian and Iraqi officials a few days ago to follow up on the recommendations of the joint higher committee, which recently met in Baghdad.

The committee’s meeting focused on the implementation of a pipeline to export Iraqi oil through Jordanian territory, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The project entails providing the Kingdom with 150,000 barrels of oil on a daily basis and establishing another 138 million-cubic-feet (mcf) pipeline for pumping natural gas, a total of 100mcf of which will go to Jordan.

The $18 billion pipeline, which is projected to transport 2.25 million barrels of oil per day through the Kingdom, would generate between $2 billion and $3 billion a year in revenues.

Hiyari cited the Cabinet’s preliminary approval of the two agreements with the Iraqi government —one on the scheme in question and the other to organise the cooperation between the Jordanian government and the project’s developer, Petra reported.

AMMAN — Although the number of SMSs Jordanians sent in 2013 to inquire about public services via the e-government programme almost doubled, several citizens called for more efforts to promote the services.

“I didn’t know we could send text messages to inquire about government services. I guess I could use the services to check the weather forecast or if I have any traffic tickets,” Ehab Naieem, a 30-year old employee at a wholesale store in Amman, told The Jordan Times on Sunday.

Ibrahim Adel, who works at an accessories store, also said he was unaware of the services, but does not need to use them.

“If I want to know about weather, I check the Internet on my mobile, and I don’t have a car, so I don’t have to worry about traffic tickets,” the 24-year-old said.

“Sometimes I receive SMSs informing me that I can check the weather or taxes by sending a message to certain numbers, but I delete them immediately.”

Hussam Ahmad, a 34-year-old teacher, said he regularly uses the services to check his traffic tickets, but complained that he sometimes does not receive a response to his inquiries.

“I like to check sometimes because I might be ticketed without actually knowing that I was. So the service helps me know how much I have to pay,” Ahmad told The Jordan Times.

“But sometimes, I send an SMS to inquire about the tickets but do not get a reply,” he said.

Jordanians sent 2.1 million SMSs last year to inquire about public services via the e-government programme, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.

In 2012, they sent 1.083 million SMSs to ask about government services, the ministry’s secretary general, Nader Dhneibat, told The Jordan Times recently.

Citizens can inquire about 40 services provided by 27 public agencies using text messages, according to the ICT Ministry.

They can obtain information by texting the code of a service or a specific keyword to 94444, and will receive the information they request via an SMS from the same short code.

Codes of services can be found at www.jordan.gov.jo.

Mobile users can also access the SMS service by downloading an application from the same website that provides access to the 40 services

Meanwhile, government agencies sent 16.5 million messages in 2013 to mobile users in the Kingdom to highlight the services they provide or raise awareness on certain issues, according to Dhneibat.

E-government services are provided by several public agencies, including the justice, interior and trade ministries, and the Borders and Residency Permits Department.

These services include allowing people to obtain security clearances and background check certificates, renew professional and commercial registrations at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, renew business licences, inquire about traffic tickets and check weather forecasts online.

In 2006, the government formally inaugurated the e-government programme with the intention of streamlining bureaucracy and enhancing access to the Internet in rural areas. 

AMMAN — Speeding up the endorsement of the draft electronic transactions law is crucial to encourage strong adoption of two recently announced projects by the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) that seek to boost the usage of mobile wallets in the country.

“The Lower House should accelerate the discussion of the law, which is required to enhance e-transaction usage in general in the country,” Maha Bahou, executive manager of the payment systems department at CBJ, said at a recent meeting with reporters.

“We need the law to be endorsed so that when we launch the
eFAWATEERcom and the Jordan Mobile Payment projects we see a large number of people using them,” she said.

In April, the CBJ will launch the
eFAWATEERcom project, which will enable Jordanians to inquire about their private sector and government bills and settle them online.

In addition, the CBJ will launch a project enabling mobile holders in Jordan to use their phones to pay for groceries, coffee and even taxi fares as well as to make local money transfers and international ones at a later stage.

Abed Shamlawi, CEO of the ICT Association of Jordan, said the law will set the legal grounds for spreading the use of these projects.

“The law should be endorsed soon because of its benefits for the entire economy, not just the IT sector,” Shamlawi noted.

The draft law, approved by the Cabinet in November last year, seeks to regulate e-transactions and create a safe environment for e-commerce through adopting digital signatures

The bill will now be discussed by the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament. Once they endorse it, the draft will be forwarded to His Majesty King Abdullah for ratification, after which it comes into effect upon being published in the Official Gazette.

The law is expected to be discussed during Parliament’s current ordinary session, which is scheduled to end in two months, MP Rula Hroub told The Jordan Times last week.

“When people use debit or credit cards for their purchases, it is better than using cash, as the money transfer will be faster,” Bahou said.

Citing recent international studies, she noted that the usage of cards, whether debit or credit cards, added about $18 billion annually to the gross domestic product of the region.

“When people use cards, this means there is more money at banks that can be used for financing other issues, which is good for the economy,” Bahou added.

An awareness campaign is planned to educate the public about the two projects that the CBJ will launch in a few months, according to the official. 

AMMAN — When 10-year-old Omran Taqi arrived in Amman with his family, the activity he missed the most was going to school.

Before he left Syria, Taqi was forced to skip school because of the violence in his hometown of Hama.

“In Syria, I could not attend classes because there was fierce shooting in my neighbourhood,” he told The Jordan Times.

A chance encounter in the capital, however, enabled him to go back to school and resume studying his favourite subject: history.

When the Syrian boy was sitting outside his family’s tent, located in a makeshift camp in the capital’s Khreibet Al Souk neighbourhood, he noticed that a number of children gathered in one tent carrying notebooks and bags.

“When I found out that the tent was a small school, I was over the moon and decided to join,” he added.

Taqi is one of 40 students aged between six and 10 who are benefiting from an initiative launched by a Syrian teacher who lives in this 142-tent camp.

The teacher, Majid, who did not give his full name, said he noticed that several children had nothing to do in the camp.

“So I thought of bringing together as many children as possible in one place to teach them and let them do something useful during their free time,” he told The Jordan Times as he waited for the children to finish drawing.

In the beginning, Majid turned his own tent into a classroom and began approaching families to send their children.

“I held classes in my tent for five-and-a-half months. After that, a volunteer group supported me by providing a huge tent to teach students,” added Majid, who worked as a teacher in Syria for 10 years.

Students, he said, are classified into two levels in accordance with their ages.

“Classes begin at 10am and wrap up at 2pm,” Majid said, noting that he teaches students the Syrian curriculum.

He said he volunteered to teach the children, but some families pay him.

The Syrian teacher noted that many children were unable to go to the nearby schools because they could not afford the expenses of public transportation.

Fakhir Abdul Fattah said he was excited when he heard that a small school was established in the camp.

“I like to write a lot. When classes finish, I go back to our family tent and write all day,” the 11-year-old told The Jordan Times as he showed his teacher his notebook.

Abdul Fattah said the teacher rewards students who get full marks.

“I got a toy because I got a full mark,” he said with a smile.

Majid noted that he also organises field trips in the capital to entertain the children and encourage them to keep learning.

“Sometimes I take them to the nearby malls.”

The Syrian teacher said some families did not want to send their children to his school despite several attempts to convince them.

“They prefer to send them to work and make money rather than learn at the school,” he added, expressing hope that his students can receive more support to make the educational process in the camp more beneficial.

Sewar Sawalha, public relations director at Save the Children, said the organisation holds several campaigns at refugee camps and host communities to raise Syrians’ awareness on the importance of education.

“We try to help Syrian children in coordination with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education to enrol them in local schools,” Sawalha said in a phone interview, adding that many public schools have resorted to the double-shift system to accommodate the great number of students.

She said they distribute UNICEF schoolbags, which include textbooks and stationery, to Syrian refugees, adding that they will contact Majid and look into the best way to support the children at the makeshift camp.

For Abdul Fattah, Majid has been a role model.

“I want to follow in my teacher’s footsteps and become a successful educator. When I grow up, I want to help children learn.”