Category: General

Deputy Executive Director of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Chi Fang, praised Jordan’s “active” role as a CICA permanent member.

Fang, speaking to the press and “Petra” during a visit to CICA’s headquarters, on Thursday, stressed the importance of the organization’s role in promoting cooperation among countries, addressing issues of common concern, cooperating with the international community in this regard, building confidence and achieving peace.

CICA, which was established with an initiative by the first Kazakhstan president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, on October 5, 1992 during the 47th session of the United Nations General Assembly, then officially began its activities in March 1993, according to Fang.

CICA compromises 27 permanent members: Jordan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Russia, and Tajikistan. Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.

For his part, expert and ambassador to CICA, Dulat Kwanishev, said preparations are underway to hold CICA’s summit at the level of leaders next year, noting that member and observer countries’ ministers will hold pre-summit preparatory discussions next October.

Source: Jordan News Agency

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Major Gen. Yousef Huneiti, on Thursday attended the closing activities of multinational military “Bright Star” 2021 Exercise in Egypt, which was carried out by armies of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Cyprus, Greece, Pakistan and Britain, along with 13 countries as observers.

Speaking at the closing ceremony, Huneiti lauded level of the joint military exercise and conveyed greetings of His Majesty King Abdullah II, the Supreme Commander of the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF), to the Jordanian troops participating in the drill.

Huneiti also lauded the JAF’s participating units for their “good reputation, training efficiency and high professionalism” in carrying out the tasks set in the exercise activities, which reflected the JAF’s “bright” image.

The exercise sought to enhance the participating countries’ security ties, train on atypical combat acts, exchange expertise and boost military cooperation, according to a press statement by Egyptian army.

Source: Jordan News Agency

Jordan News Agency (Petra) took part in the 17th Eurasian Media Forum (EAMF), which started its activities at the Nazarbayev Center in Nur-Sultan on Thursday.

Speaking at the opening session, State Secretary of the Republic of Kazakhstan,Krymbek Kusherbayev, said “the forum, over 19 years, has truly become a leading media platform in Kazakhstan and the region as a whole, traditionally bringing together talented journalists and media managers, as well as well-known politicians and experts.”

The minister noted: “In a period of comprehensive global transformation and social processes, the importance emerges to openly discuss and solve the most pressing issues,” adding that the event is an opportunity to discuss ways to fight fake news.

The forum, which concludes Friday, includes panel and roundtable discussions, on the most professional and regional issues, primarily the Covid-19 pandemic-induced impact worldwide, media and technology, future of education and labor markets.

Since its establishment in 2002, the forum seeks to foster open dialogue and support the development of Eurasian media.

Source: Jordan News Agency

State Minister for Media Affairs Sakher Dudin, on Thursday at the Prime Ministry, met with a number of Radio talk-show hosts, within his periodical meetings with media outlet representatives.

The meeting touched on the government’s economic priorities, cultural activities aiming at supporting tourism sector and the latest developments related to national COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

Dudin, who is also the government spokesperson, noted to the importance of the organizing the 2021 Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts, stressing that the cultural extravaganza will take place in accordance with a health protocol liked to vaccine recipients.

The minister praised the Radio stations role during the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the content that warns of its danger and encourages people to receive vaccines.

Source: Jordan News Agency

World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed Al-Mandhari, said the Eastern Mediterranean Region have seen, over the past few weeks, the overall number of cases and deaths decline, but the situation remains fragile and unpredictable

“As of 12 September 2021, the Eastern Mediterranean Region has reported more than 15 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 278,000 deaths,” Al-Mandhari said in a virtual press conference held by the regional office.

Al-Mandhari added that “over the past few weeks, we have seen the overall number of cases and deaths in our Region decline, but the situation remains fragile and unpredictable. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have seen the trends evolve in waves, so despite recent decline in our Region over recent weeks, this pandemic is still far from over.”

“Five of 22 countries in our Region — Egypt, the occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, the Syrian Arab Republic, and Yemen — are currently reporting significant surges in COVID-19 cases and deaths,” Al-Mandhari added.

“Looking closely at the epidemiological curve, there is a need to speed up the vaccination process and continue to respect all public health and social measures in all countries,” he stressed.

Low vaccination coverage in several countries, especially low- and lower-middle income countries, Al-Mandhari said, is also of concern due to limited deployment capacities.

“Unfortunately, this means that nine countries are far from achieving WHO’s global target of 10% vaccination coverage by September 2021,” he noted.

SOURCE: JORDAN NEWS AGENCY

Irbid Governor, Radwan Al-Atoum, stressed the importance of this project as it targets a vital park, which is one of the largest in the northern region and serves a large segment of the population.

He also stressed the importance of spreading this experience to include all governorates of the Kingdom.

Al-Atoum said that the municipality is working to add many beautiful landmarks to the parks and continuously develop them in line with goals that were set for them, including providing the requirements for people with disabilities to access all park landmarks and facilities.

HCD Secretary-General, Muhannad Al-Azza, lauded the participatory relationship between the HCD and the municipality, expressing the HCD’s readiness to continue providing the necessary technical and supervisory support to the municipality’s cadres to ensure that the requirements of access for persons with disabilities are provided within this project and future projects.

For his part, the President of Yarmouk University, Islam Massad, underscored the university’s keenness to provide the necessary support to students with disabilities, noting that the university will set a time frame within an executive plan to prepare the university to ensure the right of male and female students with disabilities to move and access the campus freely and independently.

SOURCE: JORDAN NEWS AGENCY

President of the Higher Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (HCD), His Royal Highness Prince Mired Bin Raad, visited Wednesday the northern governorate of Irbid, and checked on procedures for resuming the provision of access requirements for persons with disabilities within the designated area in the governorate, King Abdullah II Parks and Yarmouk University.

During the visit, Prince Mired met the Governor of Irbid Radwan Al-Atoum, President of the Greater Irbid Municipality Committee Qablan Al-Sharif, and President of Yarmouk University, Islam Massad.

The visit aims to check on the accessibility requirements in several areas in Irbid and ensure their suitability for persons with disabilities.

Prince Mired emphasized that the establishment of prepared areas in vital places that include a large part of services, as it is in the selected area in Irbid, is a qualitative step in consolidating the concept of a prepared and accommodating environment for all.

His Royal Highness underlined the need to overcome all obstacles and diligently follow up the progress of work in accordance with the memorandum of understanding concluded between the Council, the Greater Irbid Municipality and Yarmouk University to implement the first phase of the national plan for accessibility to rectify the conditions of existing buildings before the Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities No. (20) of 2017 enters into force.

Prince Mired said the HCD is ready to provide the necessary technical support that would enable the project owners to move forward with the completion of work in various facilities of the project, in accordance with the code of construction requirements for people with disabilities, and international best practices in this field.

SOURCE: JORDAN NEWS AGENCY

Al-Mandhari pointed out that under WHO’s goal of Universal Health Coverage, the most vulnerable people, including migrants, refugees, and other displaced populations, must have access to vaccines.

“Many countries have included these vulnerable groups in their national vaccination plans, and we urge the international community to scale up support to host countries so that they can provide equitable access to COVID-19 care and vaccines,” he added.

Thanks to the COVAX facility, the Region has received 51.54 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines out of 89 million doses allocated to countries so far, he noted.

“To increase coverage further, we urge high-income countries, donors and partners to spare no effort to increase vaccine supplies for lower-income countries,” he explained.

“COVID-19 has caused much grief and loss. It has placed unprecedented challenges on the capacity of humanitarian agencies and countries. It is now more crucial than ever to work collaboratively, utilize all resources, and implement all available preventative tools so we do not lose more chances to defeat this pandemic,” Al-Mandhari concluded.

SOURCE: JORDAN NEWS AGENCY

“Variants of concerns continue to pose further challenges to our response. To date, 21 countries have officially reported the detection of circulating variants of concern, and the Delta variant is most likely the main variant currently circulating in our Region,” Al-Mandhari pointed out.

“Based on evolving trends over the past months, we have seen that countries with a high vaccination coverage and adequate implementation of public health and social measures report shorter waves of COVID-19 and fewer cases,” he added.

“There are no shortcuts. We can break the chain of COVID-19 transmission only when we apply all available measures at once.” Al-Mandhari noted.

He further added:”We must quickly and effectively scale up vaccination coverage and simultaneously apply all other preventative health and social measures, including maintaining physical distancing, handwashing, avoiding crowded and closed spaces, and mask-wearing.”

“Ahead of potential COVID-19 surges, we continue to work closely with countries in the Region to upgrade their surveillance, sequencing, and testing mechanisms to prevent and better respond to these surges,” he emphasized.

Al-Mandhari called for solidarity and equitable access to vaccines, to move towards the target of all countries protecting 10% of their population by September, 40% by the end of this year and 70% by mid of next year.

“While we know that the targets for 2021 will not be met in all countries, we must do our absolute best to come as close as possible and then to accelerate our efforts further in the months ahead,” Al-Mandhari explained.

SOURCE: JORDAN NEWS AGENCY

COVID-19 killed 201 people in the UK Wednesday, taking the death toll to 134,640, according to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

More than 30,600 people tested positive for the highly contagious respiratory disease, as the caseload tops 7.3 million, the DHSC added.

SOURCE: JORDAN NEWS AGENCY