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AMMAN — Indonesian Ambassador to Jordan Andy Rachmianto on Tuesday said that the Jordanian-Indonesian diplomatic relations are "strong" and "solid", noting that the two countries next year will be celebrating their 70-year anniversary of relations.

During a press conference on the occasion of Indonesia's national day, the envoy said that Amman-Jakarta trade volume reached $300 million at the end of 2018.

Indonesia is the 20th largest trading partner of Jordan, he added, highlighting that Indonesia is working towards achieving $500 million in trade volume by 2020, as Jordan's investment in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-populated nation, reached some $3.84 million in the first half of this year.

Jordan is the fourth largest investor after the UAE, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Rachmianto said, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

Touching on tourism, the diplomat said that the number of Indonesians who visited Jordan stood at 45,000 in 2018, which makes Indonesia the fifth largest tourist group after American, British, Turkish and German tourists, in comparison to 5,700 Jordanian tourists to Indonesia.

He also expressed his country's support to Jordan’s pivotal role under the leadership of His Majesty King Abdullah in backing the Palestinian cause and the Hashemite Custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, as well as in representing the true image of Islam to the world.

Reiterating Jakarta's support to the Palestinian cause, the envoy said: "Our solid and unwavering support to Palestine will continue until they achieve their independent state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

"Since the last decade, Indonesia has granted some $12 million to 2,000 Palestinian officials and non-officials through capacity-building programmes," he said, adding that "to help generating their economies, the Indonesian government recently imposed a zero-tariff policy for olive oil and dates imported from Palestine."

Talks also went over Indonesia’s achievements in various fields, with expectations that the country will be the fourth largest economy by 2050, after China, India and the US.

The envoy also highlighted his country's successful presidential election with the participation of 180 million voters, noting that "Indonesia has become the third largest democratic country, with strong political stability."

Meanwhile, board members of the Amman Chamber of Industry (ACI) discussed the prospects of bolstering the two countries' economic ties with an Indonesian economic delegation, headed by President of the Indonesian-Jordanian Business Council Mayra Andrea.

The Jordanian side affirmed that the Kingdom is seeking to increase Jordanian exports worldwide, mainly to Indonesia, to bolster the national economy, according to an ACI statement.

Andrea, for her part, invited the chamber to take part in the Indonesia-based trade exhibition, scheduled to be held during this year, to showcase Jordanian products; mainly olive oil, dates and Dead Sea products.

AMMAN — A report titled “Citizens of Somewhere” published on Monday takes Amman as a case study to investigate the refugee experience in cities.

The study was written by three authors affiliated with Tufts University in the US and is part of a bigger Refugees in Towns (RIT) project, which has published similar studies on other cities and “promotes understanding of the migrant/refugee experience by drawing on the knowledge and perspectives of refugees themselves as well as local hosts, and working with them to develop case studies and reports of the towns in which they live”, according to the project’s website.

Between June and July 2018, the three authors, Allyson Hawkins, Ruby Assad and Denis Sullivan, conducted interviews with two Sudanese, three Iraqis, three Syrians, three Jordanians, and one Gazan living in Amman and observed “key sites and neighbourhoods”, according to the report.

The report chose Amman as a case study because it “has for years been at the centre of prolonged refugee experiences”, mentioning the arrival of Palestinian refugees after 1948 and again after 1967, the acceptance of Iraqi refugees in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the influx of Syrian refugees since 2012, as well as growing Sudanese and Yemeni refugee populations, the presence of migrant workers from Egypt and that of other migrant workers from African and southeast Asian countries.

Amman hosts 32 per cent of Jordan’s refugees, according to the report.

The report says that since the Syrian crisis  in 2011, Amman has changed and some Jordanians lament the increased numbers of refugees. 

Many Jordanians explained the situation in terms of “before and after” the arrival of Syrian refugees, according to the report. “[Our] access to services and resources was better before the refugees came,” a Jordanian man is quoted as saying.

As for refugees, lack of access to public services, affordable housing and employment represent hurdles to integration. Rental prices in Amman are “notoriously high”, the report said.

“In Jordan, if you have money, then everything is good,” an Iraqi woman is quoted as saying. The ability to pay, as opposed to citizenship status, determines who has access to services like healthcare, because public services are overburdened, the report noted.

Despite these complications, Amman remains a desirable place for many refugee groups to seek stability, the report said.

The report says that refugee experience in general is connected to “pseudo-citizenry”, an unclear status of belonging and citizenship, with only partial rights and obligations.

However, the situation varies drastically and often refugees are not officially recognised as such, the report said.

Iraqis in Jordan experience partial citizenship rights “primarily based on their socio-economic status”, and Syrians without proper identity documentation can be denied access to services in Jordan, according to the report.

Syrian refugees in Jordan receive “certain forms of basic aid that are not available to refugees from other countries”. Sudanese, Somali, and Yemeni refugees, due to their smaller numbers, have not received similar assistance, the report said.

“Our conversations with participants revealed that outsider/insider lines didn’t always coincide with refugee/non-refugee groups but can be drawn along religious, economic, or cultural lines,” the report said.

The report cites tensions that centre around notions of “contribution”. Perceptions about the ways different groups “contribute” to Jordanian society and the economy impact impressions of other refugee groups with economic participation or lack thereof being “often more visible in urban versus rural settings”. 

The report calls for “comprehensive development assistance that involves both refugee and host community members” to overcome insider/outsider barriers. Humanitarian aid, “while essential, does not address the long-term needs of urban refugees”, the report said.

AMMAN — As the new academic year draws near, many parents are struggling to cover the high fees to enrol students in private schools. The Education Ministry earlier this week confirmed that 30,000 students moved from private to public schools. 

Student Rudana Tabrizi told The Jordan Times that her brother, who is going to start fifth grade on September 1, was transferred from a private to a public school in spite of their mother’s fears concerning “the common knowledge that public schools are not as strict as private schools and have negligence”.

“My mom is moving him to reduce costs, because we pay around JD50 per month, and that’s in Irbid, which is supposed to be less than private schools in the capital,” she said, noting that the main cause was financial but also that private schools sometimes might “let a weak student pass a grade just to keep their reputation strong”. 

Amjad Zaytooneh, a 36-year-old father, talked about his daughter, who is going to start school this year. He said that he discovered that to enrol her in a private school, he would need to pay JD1,000 just for fees, excluding books, uniform and transportation, all of which could add JD400, totalling JD1,400 in school expenses. 

“I do not want my daughter to be in a public school. The school I went to does not even have a gate,” he said. “My salary is not enough to cover the expenses, and so I will have to enrol her in a public school and worry about her every single day,” he added.

The father said he does not understand why the fees of private schools are so high. “Some private school advertisements boldly show that the fees per year could amount to up to JD2,000 or even more sometimes. It makes one wonder how the school can be more expensive than a university education,” Zaytooneh said.

He also expressed his worries about poor infrastructure, lack of cleanliness and a lack of heating or cooling in public schools.

Umm Eyad, whose grandsons are going to start the first grade in a private school in Zarqa, said “all my children studied in public schools, which were not that good at the time and have now deteriorated even further, but they want the best for their children and are paying more than a thousand dinars just for enrolment.”

The Education Ministry said it is prepared for the new school year, announcing earlier this week that it received 17 new schools around the Kingdom, and with them 328 classrooms and science and computer labs, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.  

AMMAN — An inscription known as Mesha Stele or Mesha Inscription indicates that in the ancient town of Altaruz, located some 30 kilometres southwest of Madaba, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, was worshipped.

“The Mesha Stele, which was commissioned by King Mesha of Moab, was written in the Moabite language,” professor Christopher Rollston, an American epigraphist, told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.

It is Chemosh who was worshiped at Ataruz and to whom the offerings mentioned on the Ataruz inscription would have been dedicated, Rollston said.

There is a reference in the Mesha Stele to the Moabites conquering Ataruz and killing the Gadite tribe, said Rollston. “The inscriptions are written in the Early Moabite script,” the epigraphist said, adding that the Ataruz inscriptions also use Hieratic numerals, which were originally developed in Egypt. 

“An altar found in Khirbet Al Mudayna has an inscription which identifies the object as a ‘mqṭr’, a Moabite word meaning ‘burner’, which means an altar for burning incense or other aromatic substances,” American researcher Adam Bean, who studied ancient Middle Eastern languages and Near Eastern studies, told The Jordan Times.

The Ataruz inscriptions are the earliest evidence for a distinctive Moabite script, according to Rollston. “It’s clear that ancient Moab had some gifted scribes,” he said.

“There is one word of debated reading in the inscription which might be read as ‘plunder’, which might suggest some scenario such as that a certain amount of bronze was looted from the destroyed city and offered in the shrine. Whether or not that exact scenario is accurate, the recording of the quantities of metal on an altar, in a shrine, suggests some cultic significance such as offerings to a deity,” Bean pointed out.

AMMAN — Deputising for Prime Minister Omar Razzaz, Energy Minister Hala Zawati on Tuesday inaugurated the sixth international and fifth Arab forum on renewable energy to review the developments of the sector, which is expected to amass $500 billion worth of investments by 2040.

Since 2014, Jordan has developed a legislative environment that has facilitated the creation of renewable wind and solar energy projects, providing “clean electricity” to the national grid at a current capacity of 1,200 megawatts, Zawati said at the inauguration, noting that this figure constituted 12 per cent of electricity generated in the Kingdom in 2018, according to a statement from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. 

Clean energy sources are expected to contribute 20 per cent of Jordan’s electricity needs by 2022, compared with 1 per cent in 2014, according to Zawati. 

The value of renewable energy investments has exceeded the $4 billion mark, the minister added. 

The ministry is preparing a “long-term strategy” for the energy sector to last up to the year 2030, Zawati said, pointing to the ministry’s vision for the year 2050, which is to be shared with institutions from the private and public sectors.

The strategy boasts four key pillars, which include  reducing the import of energy, boosting reliance on locally produced renewable energy, achieving energy security and diversifying its sources as well as slashing energy costs, Zawati said. 

The minister highlighted Jordan’s efforts, through cooperation with neighbouring countries, towards enhancing the connection between the Kingdom’s grid and those of stakeholder nations, allowing for the exchange of energy, especially renewable energy, according to the statement.

In 2018, Jordan ranked first among MENA countries and third internationally in terms of renewable and clean energy market growth, taking into account the presence of the necessary policies and the value of investments within the field, Zawati said, citing BloombergNEF’s Climatescope 2018 report. 

“Making the most of renewable energy resources and reducing development and production costs requires more cooperation on the local, regional and international levels,” Zawati noted, pointing to the necessity of “attractive” funding sources that take into account the relatively high investment costs attached to specific technologies, the ministry statement said. 

AMMAN — President of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (APU) and Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh on Tuesday condemned the terrorist attack that struck a football pitch in Daquq, a village in Kirkuk Governorate in northern Iraq, killing and wounding a number of civilians. The attack was reportedly carried out by the Daesh terror group.

In an APU statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, Tarawneh called for setting up efforts to stem terrorism, voicing the union’s absolute support for exceptional Iraqi efforts made to defeat Daesh. Tarawneh expressed condolences over the loss of life and wished the injured a speedy recovery.

AMMAN — The Lower House Palestine Committee on Tuesday condemned provocative Israeli actions, the most recent of which was the summoning of Azzam Khatib, head of the Jerusalem Awqaf Department, for investigation.

The committee called for halting such Israeli practices, which provoke Muslims and Christians in the Arab and Islamic worlds, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Yahya Saud, head of the committee, said that summoning Khatib for investigation is an unprecedented escalation against the employees of the Jerusalem Awqaf Department, reiterating that the Kingdom will continue its support of the Palestinian cause.

AMMAN — The Foreign Ministry is following up on the death of a Jordanian residing in Kuwait, head of the Foreign Ministry’s operations centre, Sufian Qudah said on Tuesday.

The ministry’s operations centre and the Jordanian embassy in Kuwait have begun procedures to bury the deceased in Kuwait based on his family’s request, Qudah said, adding that the citizen died after he was run over by an unknown, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Qudah noted that the Kingdom’s embassy in Kuwait is following up on the investigations with Kuwaiti authorities to identify the culprit as soon as possible. Qudah expressed his condolences and deepest sympathies to the family of the deceased. 

AMMAN — The results of Tawjihi’s (the general secondary education certificate examination) complementary session will be announced on Saturday, Minister of Education Walid Maani announced on Tuesday.

The ministry said the results will be announced at 11am and will be published on its website: www.tawjihi.jo.

AMMAN — Senate President Faisal Fayez on Tuesday met with Kenya's National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi over prospects of furthering bilateral ties in the political, economic and parliamentary fields, as well as the latest regional developments.

Fayez, during the meeting, called for increased trade exchange and investments to serve the best interests of both countries, expressing Jordan's keenness to share expertise in the fields of pharmaceutical industry, medical tourism, construction and chemical industries, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Talks also covered the current regional conditions and the repercussions of the Syrian crisis on Jordan, outlining the economic impacts caused by hosting around 1.3 million Syrian refugees.

Jordan is capable of safeguarding its security and stability despite the political turmoil and economic challenges resulting from the surrounding conflicts, Fayez added.

The Kingdom believes that regional security and stability are linked to a fair solution to the Palestinian cause on the basis of the two-state solution that guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with resolutions of international legitimacy, according to Fayez.

He also called for intensifying efforts to reach a political solution to Syrian crisis, which preserves Syrian territorial integrity and the unity of the people, and secures the voluntary return of refugees. 

For his part, Muturi highlighted the importance of bolstering Jordanian-Kenyan ties, as well as unifying stances and efforts in all international conferences, mainly towards combating terrorism and extremism.

Also on Tuesday, Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh discussed with his Kenyan counterpart the continued Israeli incursions against Islamic and Christian holy sites in Palestine, calling for a decisive stance to halt practices that sabotage peace efforts.

Tarawneh expressed the Kingdom's solidarity with Kenya, which has been affected by the attacks by the Boko Haram terror group, commending Nairobi's efforts made to manage the situation.