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AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Thursday urged all to monitor and evaluate the progress of the economic programme and its packages, which are aimed at improving citizens’ living standards.

While participating in part of the fifth workshop held at Al Husseiniya Palace in continuation of an ongoing series of workshops on the economy launched last week, the King called for clear timeframes and key performance indicators for the economic programme’s measures, stressing the need for the public to sense their impact, according to a Royal Court statement.

The government announced the first stimulus package under the programme on Sunday, and several other packages will follow, with the goal of reflecting positively on citizens’ living standards.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State Rajai Muasher participated in Thursday’s workshop, alongside several economic, political, parliamentary and media figures.

AMMAN — HRH Princess Basma on Wednesday inaugurated the 12th international conference of the Jordan Orthopaedic Association (JOA) at the Jordan Medical Association.

The four-day conference is witnessing the participation of 800 physicians from Jordan and across the world, who will be discussing specialised topics in orthopaedics, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.  

Princess Basma highlighted the importance of medical care in alleviating the suffering of patients, noting the role of orthopaedics in view of the fact that 40 per cent of visitors to general medicine clinics in the Kingdom suffer from bone and joint pains.

The princess said that low incomes and a shortage of specialised doctors in some fields, as well as lack of awareness and fear of surgical intervention, exacerbate the health conditions of orthopaedic patients.

The princess noted that the success rate in orthopaedic surgeries exceeds 90 per cent, which necessitates raising the awareness of patients. 

Princess Basma said that hundreds of cases with orthopaedic diagnoses during the field visits of the Goodwill Campaign, whose higher committee is chaired by the princess, are treated through voluntary efforts of doctors, surgeons, technicians, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.

Health Minister Saad Jaber said that the ministry has introduced orthopaedic departments in its hospitals, where surgeries are conducted by “professional” surgeons, noting that in September alone, Al Bashir Hospital performed more than 271 bone surgeries. 

JOA President Wael Azzazi said that the conference is held with the participation of 14 US, European and regional associations specialised in orthopaedics.

AMMAN — Young people on Wednesday set off on this year’s Climate March, which will take them 300 kilometres in total walking from Amman to Aqaba, to highlight the role of Jordanian youth in establishing an environmentally safe future.

“This is the fourth time we organised the Climate March,” said Haya Alghrair, this year’s Climate March coordinator and the secretary of Green Generation Foundation, in an interview with The Jordan Times on Wednesday. 

Green Generation Foundation is the initiator and main organiser of the march, which is being held in cooperation with the Middle East University (MEU) under the title “Sustainable Green Action”.

Green Generation Foundation was established in 2014 as a youth environmental organisation aiming to “empower a new generation” able to “understand ongoing global environmental changes”, according to the organisation’s Facebook page.

On Wednesday evening, the climate march set out from MEU’s campus in a launch ceremony attended by participants, organisers and supporting organisations.

The ceremony included speeches and a short sketch displaying how human action has destroyed the environment, said Alghrair.

According to the MEU, “60 university students, walking enthusiasts, and youth” are now walking from Amman through Madaba, Al Mujib, Karak, and Maan on the King’s Highway to eventually arrive in Aqaba on Monday.

“As an international student, I think it is important to advocate for the environment, which is housing me and taking care of me, and to join Jordanians in their efforts,” US-American student Ryan Mackler, who is participating in the march, told The Jordan Times on Wednesday.

“I am interested in how civil society in Jordan is combatting the effects of climate change. I hope to learn a lot from fellow participants,” said Alexander Gunnerson, another international student from the US, also taking part in the march.

“Each day we have a certain stop and a camping station,” said Alghrair, adding: “We walk about 50 kilometres per day.”

The march is also prepared for eventual rainfall, in cooperation with Al Arab weather, which provides the group with an updated weather forecast every two hours, according to Alghrair.

The march will end at the Aqaba castle on Monday, she added.

“Since the first year, we have faced a lot of challenges, also in regards to acceptance by the communities. People didn’t understand why we march,” the coordinator recounted.

“Back then, we didn’t find a lot of organisations that supported us. This definitely changed,” she said.

AMMAN — The government has “full sovereign rights” over Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA), including assets, lands, terminals and facilities, according to Transport Minister Anmar Khasawneh.

Khasawneh on Thursday said that the Airport International Group was granted a 25-year Build-Operate-Transfer concession agreement, signed in 2007 and valid until 2032, to rehabilitate, expand and operate QAIA through a public-private partnership (PPP) plan, which the minister regarded “among the best 40 PPPs” worldwide.

Implemented at a cost of some JD1 billion, the Treasury will not pay any operational or capital amounts towards the project, Khasawneh noted, stressing that QAIA is still registered under the Treasury’s name. 

The government’s share of QAIA’s gross revenues is “one of the highest” among similar international projects, he said, pointing out that the Treasury in 2018 received JD101 million, while up to the second quarter of 2019, Treasury revenues from the airport totalled some JD790 million.

Jordan’s “prime gateway” has welcomed about 74 million passengers since the contract started, in comparison with receiving 3.8 million travellers on an annual basis before that, he said, pointing out that in 2018, the arrivals totalled 8.65 million.

QAIA, in the Airport Service Quality Survey, has been named the “best airport of its size” in the Middle East, he added.

AMMAN — During the Bronze Age, olives became “an integral part of Jordanian social fabric”, having been domesticated in the Levant, then in Greece, before moving westward to Spain, according to an Australian archaeologist.

“The Mediterranean has optimal conditions for olive growth — temperatures are hot, dry summers, cool winters — but anything that drops below -7°C is no good for olives,” said scholar James Fraser at a lecture titled “The Archaeology of Olive Oil”, held at the American Centre of Oriental Research in Amman on Wednesday.

He added that there are 1,200 domesticated species of olives in the Mediterranean basin.

“The process of harvesting olives has remained more or less the same up till now,” he noted.

Fraser leads the Khirbet Ghozlan Excavation Project, and investigates an ancient olive oil “factory” in Wadi Rayyan that is about 4,500 years old. He is particularly interested in how the continued production of high-value liquid products such as olive oil helps illuminate rural responses to the collapse of Jordan’s earliest cities between 2600 and 2000 BC (the Early Bronze IV period). 

“The site of Khirbet Ghozlan lies in the eastern escarpment of the Jordan Rift Valley and dates back to the Early Bronze IV period,” the scholar said.

He highlighted the enclosure wall circling the settlement, despite its area of only 4 dunums. 

“Why enclose such a small site?” he asked.

In 2017, the British Museum commenced excavations to test the hypothesis that Khirbet Ghozlan was an ancient olive oil factory, Fraser explained, and as such, it likely served as a “specialised production centre” for upland horticultural crops such as olives, and was enclosed to protect seasonally produced caches of high-value commodities such as oil.

“Such sites were used just for the production of olive oil,” he stressed, noting that the economic implications of this industry are “profound”, as this period is characterised as a rural ‘Dark Age’ between the collapse of the region’s earliest urban centres in 2600 BC, and their rejuvenation as a mosaic of Canaanite city-states around 2000 BC. 

Although communities of this period are thought to have reverted to simple forms of agro-pastoral subsistence, the excavations at Ghozlan suggest a complex rural economy, in which the production of olive oil was reconfigured within local settlement networks in niche environmental zones.

“The best analogies for understanding the archaeology of this 4,500-year-old factory are the small olive mills that are producing oil around Jordan at the moment,” Fraser underlined, adding these factories are closed for most of the year, and only open for harvest in October-November. 

“The people who pressed olives at Khirbet Ghozlan seem to have worked the site seasonally in exactly the same way — but 4,500 years before,” Fraser concluded.

AMMAN — A mother and her two daughters, who survived an alleged stabbing incident by her husband in an east Amman neighbourhood last week, were still recovering at a government hospital on Thursday. 

The husband reportedly jumped from the balcony of his residence after the alleged attack on the morning of the incident on October 28. 

The man, who died as a result of the fall, reportedly attacked his family with a knife over a domestic dispute in Ashrafieh neighbourhood, Police Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi had told The Jordan Times shortly after the incident.

“The three victims are all in stable condition but the mother’s condition remains critical,” Al Bashir Hospital Director Mahmoud Zureigat said.

The victims underwent several surgeries after they were rushed to hospital and the physicians on duty played a crucial role in saving their lives, according to Zureigat. 

The 45-year-old woman was stabbed the most and “parts of her stomach had to be taken out during surgery”, Zureigat told The Jordan Times.

The hospital director added that the 13- and 11-year-old girls were also stabbed mostly in the stomach, but their injuries were “not as life-threatening as their mother’s”.

Zureigat said that the Criminal Court prosecutor has been following up on the victim’s medical condition and was able to record the testimonies of the two girls.

A second source told The Jordan Times that initial questioning of the victims indicated the “the father went into a fit of rage over something that bothered him in the house and started stabbing his family”. 

“We are reviewing the husband’s medical records to determine if he was suffering from any illnesses to determine the reason behind the stabbings,” the second source told The Jordan Times.

The official refused to reveal any additional details other than saying that investigations are ongoing in the case. 

AMMAN — Police on Thursday said they arrested a man who reportedly shot and killed his married sister in Irbid earlier in the day.

Police Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi said that the authorities were alerted to a shooting incident involving a woman at her home in the early morning on Thursday in a house in west Irbid.

“The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital, but died shortly after being admitted to hospital as a result of the gunshot wounds,” Sartawi told The Jordan Times.

The police official said that investigators became suspicious that “one of her brothers might be the perpetrator in his sister’s murder”.

Upon confronting the defendant, Sartawi maintained, the suspect claimed that he murdered his sister because of “family disputes”.

 The police official did not reveal any further details and said that investigators are currently questioning other family members in the incident.

Sartawi added that police also retrieved a weapon that was allegedly used by the suspect.

The weapon was sent to the criminal lab for a ballistic match, the police official added.

A post-mortem conducted at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine on Thursday indicated that the victim died of two bullets to different parts of her body, a senior medical source told The Jordan Times.

Sisterhood is Global Institute (SIGI) issued a report on Sunday stating that 20 women have been killed in Jordan since the beginning of the year in gender-related violence incidents.

The institute pointed out that this year’s figures are three times higher than last year’s, with seven cases reported in the Kingdom during the same period of 2018.

SIGI called on the government to “increase prison punishments for perpetrators of crimes that target women and children”.

AMMAN — The Cabinet on Wednesday decided to expand exemption measures and lower the registration and purchase fees of apartments and lands. 

The move is aimed at stimulating the sector and enabling citizens to own “proper” residences.

Under the decision, the first 150 square metres of apartments and lands have been exempted from registration and ownership transfer fees until the end of the year, regardless of the seller or the total area of the apartment or the number of apartments owned by Jordanians.

The remaining area of the apartment is now subject to lower fees and taxes, which total 50 per cent of the rates mentioned in the law, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The decision also lowered land sale fees by 50 per cent of the rate mentioned in the law, including transactions among relatives, partners and others.

The tax on selling real estate has also been lowered to 50 per cent of the rate stipulated in the law.

These exemptions and lowered rates are effective until December 31. 

The new decisions and procedures are in response to demands of citizens who hope to benefit from the incentives that the government launched under the category of “stimulating the economy and investments”, and aim to help Jordanians, mainly limited-income segments, own apartments.

Prime Minister Omar Razzaz on Sunday announced new government measures to stimulate the national economy and investments. 

The programme comprises four facets: Stimulating the economy and investments, management and financial reform, improving citizens' livelihood and improving services comprehensively.

At the beginning of 2020, all aspects will have been completed, except for the aspect of improving services, Razzaz said during the launch ceremony for the programme.

AMMAN — The National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on Thursday signed an agreement to connect renewable energy sources to the national electricity grid and increase the reliability of the Kingdom's electric power system. 

Under the agreement, JICA will offer aid and conduct technical studies in the electricity sector. As part of a feasibility study, grants will be awarded for energy storage technology, electricity connection and increasing the efficiency of the Kingdom's grid. 

The agreement aims to improve the Kingdom's electric power system and was signed by Energy Ministry Secretary General Amani Azzam, NEPCO Director General Amjad Rawashdeh and Chief Representative of the JICA Office in Amman Chie Miyahara, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

Drawing attention to the role of the agreement in supporting NEPCO's efforts to produce renewable energy projects, Azzam voiced appreciation for the Japanese cooperation, especially in the field of energy.

Miyahara, stressing that the energy sector is a “pillar of development”, voiced keenness to further cooperation between the two countries in this arena.

In addition to underpinning NEPCO's work towards integrating renewable energy projects into the national grid, Rawashdeh said that the new agreement would ensure the Kingdom's electric system operates in accordance with the highest international standards.

He also expressed thanks for JICA's support to the company's projects, which are designed to increase the security of energy supply and enhance the stability of the electric system.  

AMMAN — Economists on Thursday welcomed the Central Bank of Jordan’s (CBJ) decision, for the third time this year, to lower interest rates on all monetary policy instruments by 25 basis points, saying it will have a “positive impact” once banks comply.

The decision “coincided with the Federal Reserve System in the US which lowered its interest rate as well, and here we are talking about the accumulation of three-quarters of one percentage point this year,” Economist Husam Ayesh told The Jordan Times over the phone on Thursday. 

He continued: “This could have a positive impact related to lowering interest rates on loans and facilitations, and thus lowering their costs for economic sectors, investors, and even the government.”

The decision is intended to improve the performance of related sectors, which would increase investments and revenues, which Ayesh said are crucial to improve economic performance. 

Although the CBJ made the decision in line with regional and global changes and effects, this time the decision also coincided with the government’s plan to stimulate the economy, and could “support forward progress”, Ayesh said.

The economist noted that banks should respond to the lowering of the interest rate quickly, in order to ensure the decision’s impact on investors and borrowers from the banking sector.

A delay in implementing the lower rates would “hinder” investors and economic sectors from receiving facilitations from banks, Ayesh said.

“This maybe the last time the Federal Reserve System lowers the interest rate this year, but the CBJ could still take the initiative and study lowering the rates once more by a quarter to reach a full percentage point this year, which could significantly impact the costs borne by economic sectors and investors, increasing growth as well,” he concluded. 

The CBJ attributed the decision to the positive indicators such as national exports, tourism income and the continued flow of remittances, which have “reflected positively” on foreign currency reserves. 

The decision was also made in light of low inflation rates, in addition to growth in deposits and credit facilities in the private sector, the CBJ said.

Economist Wajdi Makhamreh said that the CBJ has “good reserves”, the economy is improving and lowering interest rates will benefit loan costs, in addition to encouraging increased funding in investment projects, or new funding to expand existing projects. 

Makhamreh said that this will also vitalise the real estate and housing sector, in line with the government’s recently announced plan to stimulate the economy. 

When the banks implement the decision, it might lower interest rates on deposits, and people might move their finances to another sector, such as the stock market or the real estate sector, which Makhamreh said could be one of the reasons why banks bide their time in lowering interest rates.