Category: Jordan

The hall where a lively debate had taken place for 80 minutes suddenly went silent. A courageous Jordanian journalist had just asked a feisty candidate for Jordan’s parliamentary elections a question rarely asked. “Are you in favor of a constitutional change that will allow prime minister’s to be elected and would curtail the King’s power’s…

(this was published in June 23rd, 2010) By Daoud Kuttab Media and governments have always had a love-hate relationship. While they both need each other, the attempts by one to overwhelm the other (especially when governments try to control media) have often led to unpleasant results.If one agrees that both want what is best for…

(This was published in June 16th, 2010) By Daoud Kuttab The visitor from Washington, who represented an independent democracy foundation, asked two questions to a group of Jordanian intellectuals: “Where do you see the potential for genuine reform in Jordan and the Arab region? If we were to fund any particular group which would it…

      It began with a short press release issued by the US embassy in Amman late last Thursday and has since mushroomed. The 20 words given about the topic were: “Vice President Biden met with civil society representatives to discuss preparations for the upcoming Jordanian elections and ongoing domestic reforms.”

By Daoud Kuttab   Orphanages are notorious the world over for being a very sensitive place. Losing one or both parents is a shocking and highly emotional condition. Having the same young parentless children living away from the warmth of a natural home produces even more trauma and tends to make such children more vulnerable….

Although the Arabic word karameh simply means dignity, it has become an expression that has many more usages and meanings. Karameh is also a Jordan Valley town in the Shuna District which witnessed a fierce battle against the Israelis. The date was March 21, 1968, and the Israeli army was trying to stem attacks by…

By Daoud Kuttab Reforming and regulating Jordan’s media appears to be one of the priorities of the administration of Samir Rifai who is considered a friend of many Jordanian journalists, editors and publishers. As in all efforts that seek greater freedom for the press, two global issues must always be remembered. One is that press…

By Daoud Kuttab AMMAN – Anthropologists define themselves as scientists who observe the behaviour of people. I doubt that there were any anthropologists at the screenings this Monday and Tuesday at the Royal Film Commission. But the unique documentaries made by Arab filmmakers that hundreds of people saw would certainly qualify as visual anthropology. These…

In the service of the community By Daoud Kuttab Jordan, like many other Arab countries, seems to be having a hard time understanding and dealing with the idea of public service broadcasting. After decades of government-owned and controlled radio and television stations, under King Abdullah, Jordan began a new era of opening up the airwaves…

AmmanNet came first on a new survey of newsweb sites By Taylor Luck AMMAN – Almost half of Jordanian Internet users rely on news websites, a trend web journalists believe will pave the way for the medium to play a greater role in how the Kingdom gets its news. According to the 2009 Jordan Media…