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 Survey, 16.6 per cent of Jordanians, constituting 45.9 per cent of all web users in the country, said they had visited a news website within the last 30 days.
Continue Reading »

For the first time since the Hamas takeover in June 2007, Palestinian national unity talks have a better chance of success than in previous times, and the Gaza situation is probably the reason.

This optimistic prediction can turn out terribly wrong, but I think the time is now ripe: the parties are much more realistic in their expectations and the public disgust with both sides after Gaza might produce the needed tipping point in favour of genuine reconciliation. Both negative and positive factors appear to favour such national unity among Palestinians today.
Continue Reading »

by Daoud Kuttab
The biggest national concern of Palestinians today is to make sure that the Israeli attempts to split Gaza from the West Bank doesn’t become permanent. Egypt and the Palestinian Authority have been made to look bad in the eyes of the Arab world because of their refusal to fall for the trap to make Egyptians responsible for Gaza and possibly Jordan to take care of the West Bank thus destroying the possibility of an independent Palestinian states with contiguity.

For years now the Israeli government has been carefully and methodically trying to permanently cut of the future Palestinian state’s two geographical parts. Attempts by the former US secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to regulate the movement of people and good between Gaza and the West Bank failed to materialize.
Continue Reading »

Community radio in government retreat in Jordan but technical alternatives save the day

By Daoud Kuttab

The Jordanian government took a bad step on January 27th causing a major retreat to the progress made for independent radio. The Jordanian cabinet rejected a total of 13 applications for independent radio and television stations. The decision rolls back progress in the past few years which included the liberalization of the airwaves in Jordan.

Continue Reading »

If there is one thing that Israelis and Palestinians agree to these days, it is on the need to keep civilians out of the decades-old conflict. Unfortunately, neither Hamas nor Israel has done that.

Israel has clearly and unapologetically punished Palestinian civilians, especially those in Gaza, killing, maiming and holding them hostage. Hamas did not care whether the rockets it launched into Israeli settlements would hit or traumatise Israeli civilians. Both are wrong and both must stop.
Continue Reading »