November 24th, 20230CAIRO – On a recent evening in Cairo, a worker cleaned tables in an empty McDonald's restaurant. Branches of other Western fast-food chains in the Egyptian capital also appeared deserted.
All have been hit by a largely spontaneous, grassroots boycott campaign over Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip since the surprise Hamas...
September 8th, 20230On September 7, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi announced that the Hashemite kingdom could no longer accept Syrian refugees. He stressed that the future of displaced Syrians lies within their own country.
During a joint press conference in Amman with Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin, Safadi said, “Jordan will not be...
December 24th, 20220AMMAN — Jordanians staged sit-ins on Friday, Dec. 16 and activists called for more protests over fuel price increases that have added to a cost-of-living squeeze, a day after riots in a southern city left one police officer dead, witnesses and security sources said.
Authorities said the policeman was killed the night of Dec. 15 by a...
September 13th, 20220DEARBORN — The Dearborn Public Library will host Dearborn resident Mariya Fogarasi for a virtual Zoom presentation on Tuesday, September 20 at 6:30 p.m., to share her family’s travel experiences through the Middle East with the help of stories and pictures.
Fogarasi and her family lived overseas for many years and traveled...
May 20th, 20220AMMAN — Jordan's King Abdullah said on Thursday he was restricting the movements of his estranged half brother Prince Hamza and curtailing his contacts with the outside world to ensure he does not act against his country's interests.
Hamza, a former heir to Jordan's throne who was placed under house arrest last year, was accused in...
April 29th, 20220Jordan has intensified efforts to push Israel to respect the historic status quo of Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque and avoid violent confrontations that could threaten a wider conflict, Jordanian officials and Western diplomats said on Thursday.
The officials said Jordan had notified Washington it was ready to discuss the issue with...
April 4th, 20220AMMAN — Prince Hamza bin al-Hussein, a former heir to Jordan's throne who was placed under house arrest last year, announced on Sunday he was giving up his royal title in protest over Jordan's current policies.
Hamza was accused last April of trying to destabilize the monarchy in a foreign-inspired plot, but was spared punishment...
October 8th, 20210Jordan’s monarchy was back in the headlines this week, with the news that King Abdullah II purchased luxury homes through an offshore scheme that worked to hide a large flow of wealth into tax havens.
Last year, with the country hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, Jordan's government had promised to track every dinar that the...
July 17th, 20210TROY — Dr. Haifa Fakhouri, founder, CEO and president of the Arab American and Chaldean Council (ACC), wrote to President Biden on Thursday, urging "moral and financial support" for Jordan's King Abdullah II, on the occasion of his visit to the White House on July 19.
"As Jordan being the United States' longest and strongest ally...
April 8th, 20210AMMAN — Unprecedented public criticism of Jordan’s monarchy by a senior royal who has been placed under house arrest has shaken the country’s image as an island of stability in the Middle East.
On April 3, Jordan’s military told King Abdullah’s half brother, Prince Hamza bin Hussein, 41, to halt actions targeting...
January 28th, 20201WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Trump and his hard-line, right-wing ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unveiled Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan on Tuesday. The plan has been preemptively rejected by Palestinians, who see no signs in the plan of an end to Israeli occupation and illegal settlements. Netanyahu, on...
April 12th, 20190ROCKVILLE, MD — “They Called Me Wyatt”, coming out in June from California Coldblood Books, is a murder mystery set in Jordan and the United States that deals with issues of immigration, race and the need for belonging in a new land.
“I originally wrote it as a short story," said author and journalist Natasha Tynes. "I shared...
December 14th, 20180AMMAN — Jordanian authorities deployed hundreds of riot police in the capital and warned activists to stay within the law on Thursday as hundreds of demonstrators staged more protests against tough austerity measures backed by the International Monetary Fund.
Large demonstrations in the summer over an unpopular IMF-backed tax bill...
October 26th, 20180Thirty-four people were rescued in a major operation involving police helicopters and hundreds of Jordanian army troops following a flash flood, police chief Brigadier General Farid al Sharaa told state run television. Some of the people rescued were in a serious condition.
Many of those killed were children under 14. A number of...
October 1st, 20180The U.S. government’s decision to slash funds provided to the United Nations agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is part of a new American-Israeli strategy aimed at redefining the rules of the game altogether.
As a result, UNRWA is experiencing its worst financial crisis. The gap in its budget is estimated at around...
July 22nd, 20180BEIRUT/AMMAN — President Bashar al-Assad is set to recover control of the Syrian frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in a major victory over rebels who have agreed to surrender terms, sources on both sides said on Thursday.
Backed by Russian air power and unopposed by Assad’s foreign adversaries, government forces...
July 1st, 20180AMMAN/WASHINGTON — Four Arab states have backed the U.S. plan for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, regardless of the position of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, an Israeli newspaper reports.
The Israel Hayom daily interviewed officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan who...
June 5th, 20180AMMAN — Amman was ranked the most expensive city in the Arab world and 28th worldwide, exceeding some of the main Gulf, European and North American cities such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, London, Rome, Washington D.C. and San Francisco, according to a recent report by The Economist.
Titled "Worldwide Cost of Living Survey", the study was...
February 2nd, 20180The real danger of seeing the world through a narrow ideological lens is that while the lens may be your own, the world being viewed through it is not yours to control.
By Dr. James J. Zogby
Vice President Pence's recent foray into Middle East politics has been nothing short of a disaster. Because he sees the world through the lens...
December 8th, 20170On Wednesday, Arabs and Muslims across the Middle East condemned the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital as an incendiary move in a volatile region and Palestinians said Washington was abandoning its leading role as a peace mediator.
The European Union and United Nations also voiced alarm at President Trump's decision to...
December 5th, 20170WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM - President Donald Trump told Israeli and Arab leaders on Tuesday that he intends to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a decision that breaks with decades of U.S. policy and risks fueling violence in the Middle East.
Senior U.S. officials said Trump on Wednesday, Dec. 6, is expected to recognize...
December 3rd, 20170WASHINGTON – President Trump has not yet made a decision on whether to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said on Sunday, a move that would break with decades of U.S. policy and could fuel violence in the Middle East.
“He’s still looking at a lot of different facts, and...
December 1st, 20170CINCINNATI — "Every year, 15 to 20 women and girls in Jordan are burned, beaten or stabbed to death by family members because they are seen as having transgressed social codes of 'honor,'" according to a recent report from Rothna Begum, a researcher in the Women's Rights Division of HumanRightsWatch.org.
Ruling unanimously in "Olga...
September 22nd, 20171DETROIT — Palestinian activist Rasmea Odeh, was deported to Jordan and left the U.S. from Chicago O'Hare Airport on September 19. Odeh was convicted of lying on immigration forms and sentenced last month.
Federal prosecutors said Odeh lied about being convicted in Israel in the late 60s for two bombings, one of which killed two...
August 15th, 20170DETROIT — On Thursday, Aug. 3, the Honorary Consulate of Jordan in Michigan hosted a reception and forum welcoming a Jordanian trade delegation to Detroit.
The key objective of the mission was to promote the growth of trade and business diversification of the Jordanian exports to the U.S. in several manufacturing sectors that are...
