Leak at port of Aqaba happened after tank filled with gas fell while being transported, says state news agency
Thirteen people have died and 251 have been injured in a toxic gas leak from a storage tank at Jordan’s Aqaba port, state television reported, as authorities called on residents to shut windows and stay indoors.
The leak on Monday came after a cable lifting a tank filled with 25 tonnes of chlorine snapped, sending the container crashing down.
Continue reading...Quartet targeted by clients – thought to be Jordanian government agencies – of Israeli company even after Apple sued in November
New evidence has revealed that an Apple iPhone was successfully hacked by a government user of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in December, weeks after the technology giant sued the Israeli company in a US court and called for it to be banned from “harming individuals” using Apple products.
A report published on Tuesday by security researchers at Front Line Defenders (FLD) and Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto found that phones belonging to four Jordanian human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists were hacked by government clients of NSO – which appear to be Jordanian government agencies – from August 2019 to December 2021.
Continue reading...Leak shows King Abdullah was beneficial owner of at least six Credit Suisse accounts
In 2011, as popular revolts reverberated around the Middle East, a monarch in the midst of it all made some banking decisions. Sometime that year, as neighbouring Egypt and Syria withered in the face of momentous civil protests, King Abdullah II of Jordan opened two new accounts with Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank that had discreetly served the region’s well-heeled for decades.
Abdullah, one of the world’s longest-serving current monarchs, had chosen a banker that shared his approach to secrecy, particularly surrounding his personal wealth. Over the next five years, the king was the beneficial owner of at least six accounts with Credit Suisse, while his wife, Queen Rania, had another.
Continue reading...Scuffles broke out in Jordan's parliament where lawmakers were discussing a proposed amendment to the constitution on Tuesday. Heated arguments degenerated when MPs began pushing and shoving each other during the session in Amman
Continue reading...Jordanian intelligence officer tells Guardian Lafarge factory was used by intelligence agencies to gather information on IS hostages
A cement plant in Syria at the centre of a terror financing investigation in France was used by western intelligence agencies to gather information on hostages held by Islamic State, sources connected to the operation have said.
A Jordanian intelligence officer who was central to the spying effort has confirmed to the Guardian that the Lafarge factory, which continued operating after the terrorist group overran eastern Syria, in one of the most controversial episodes of the war, was the regional hub of a failed effort to rescue up to 30 hostages. Those IS held included the American journalist James Foley, British photographer John Cantlie and Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, two of whom were later confirmed to have been killed.
Continue reading...Ex-royal aide Bassem Awadallah and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a royal family member, convicted of plotting to foment unrest
A Jordanian state security court has sentenced two former officials to serve 15 years in prison over an alleged plot to foment unrest in the western-allied Middle East kingdom.
Bassem Awadallah, who has US citizenship and once served as a top aide to King Abdullah II; and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a member of the royal family, were found guilty of sedition and incitement charges. Each was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
Continue reading...Discussions took place before Prince Hamzah was put under house arrest
Aides to the former Jordanian heir Prince Hamzah sought pledges of allegiance on his behalf from tribal leaders and former military officers in the weeks before he was detained, conversations caught on phone intercepts and listening devices suggest.
The recordings are key pieces of evidence in the Jordanian government’s case against two men accused of acting as proxies for Hamzah in a failed attempt to oust his half-brother, King Abdullah, as monarch. Both men – Bassem Awadallah, a former envoy to Saudi Arabia, and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a cousin of the king – are expected to stand trial in Amman starting on Monday.
Continue reading...Alleged sedition and a royal family feud may have been driven by a broader plan to reshape the Middle East
The phone call that shook the Jordanian government came in the second week of March this year. On the line to the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) in Amman was the US Embassy, seeking an urgent meeting about a matter of national importance. The kingdom’s spies were startled. Danger was brewing on the home front, they were told, and could soon pose a threat to the throne.
Within hours, the GID had turned its full array of resources towards one of the country’s most senior royals, Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, a former crown prince and half-brother of the king, whom the Americans suspected was sowing dissent and had begun rallying supporters. By early April, officials had placed Hamzah under house arrest and publicly accused the former heir and two close aides of plotting to unseat King Abdullah.
Continue reading...Women in the Middle East and north Africa say social codes leave them unable to talk about social media abuse as pandemic pushes sexual harassment off the streets
The first pornographic picture sent shivers of shock through Amal as she stared in horror at the phone screen. Until now, she had responded politely to the older man who had been messaging her on Facebook, hoping to deter his questions about her life with curt, one-word replies.
More lurid pictures followed, some from pornographic magazines, others of the man himself in sexual poses. “I started to blame myself and feel that I invited this because I had replied to him,” says the 21-year-old, who is a university student in Amman, Jordan.
Continue reading...Monarch says authorities foiled an act of sedition with arrests of former crown prince and others
Jordan’s king has claimed authorities foiled an act of sedition with the weekend arrests of a former crown prince and 17 other people, describing the events as the “most painful” ordeal of his reign.
“Nothing can come close to the shock and the pain and anger I felt, as a brother, and head of the Hashemite family, and as a leader to this dear people,” the king said in a written statement on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Information clampdown to keep investigation into king’s half-brother ‘secret’, says prosecutor general
The prosecutor general in Jordan’s capital, Amman, has banned the publication of any information about an alleged plot said to involve the king’s half-brother, Prince Hamzah, state television said.
“In order to keep the security services’ investigation into Prince Hamzah and the others secret, [it is decided] to ban the publication of anything related to this inquiry at this stage,” the prosecutor Hassan al-Abdallat said.
Continue reading...King Abdullah’s half-brother says he will disobey the army’s orders not to communicate with outside world
Jordan’s estranged Prince Hamzah bin Hussein has said in a voice recording that he will disobey orders by the army not to communicate with the outside world after he was put under house arrest.
The half-brother of King Abdullah and the former heir to the throne said in the recording released on Monday by the country’s opposition that he would not comply after being barred from any activities and told to keep quiet.
Continue reading...Deputy PM says authorities intercepted communications between prince and foreign parties
A senior Jordanian official has claimed authorities foiled a “malicious plot” at the “zero hour”, as a new round of arrests reached the closest aide to Prince Hamzah, the royal alleged to have unsuccessfully conspired to oust his half-brother, King Abdullah, in a weekend coup.
The foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Ayman Safadi, said on Sunday that the country’s intelligence services had intercepted a plot as it was about to be carried out. He offered scant details but said Hamzah had liaised with a foreign government to destabilise the kingdom.
Continue reading...The half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Saturday that he had been placed under house arrest and accused the country’s leadership of corruption and incompetence. Prince Hamzah bin Hussein said in a video statement that Jordan’s military chief had visited and told him he was not allowed to go out, meet other people or communicate with them. He said his security detail had been removed and his phone and internet service cut
Continue reading...Authorities also arrested two aides after raiding King Abdullah’s half-brother’s palace in capital Amman
Jordanian authorities raided the palace of the kingdom’s former crown prince on Saturday and arrested two senior aides after uncovering what intelligence officials believe was an attempted coup against the ruling monarch, King Abdullah.
The arrests focused on a network allegedly connected to Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, a half-brother of King Abdullah, who was removed from his post 16 years ago.
Continue reading...At least six patients in died due to shortage of oxygen supplies, state media reports
Jordan’s health minister has stepped down after at least six patients in a hospital Covid-19 patient ward died due to a shortage of oxygen supplies, state media reported.
The Jordanian prime minister, Bisher al-Khasawneh, ordered an investigation into the deaths early on Saturday morning at a government hospital in the town of Salt, 13 miles (20km) north of the capital, Amman.
Continue reading...An era of uprisings, nascent democracy and civil war in the Arab world started with protests in a small Tunisian city. The unrest grew to engulf the Middle East, shake authoritarian governments and unleash consequences that still shape the world a decade later
A decade ago this month, protests forced Tunisia’s authoritarian president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee his country. It was a quick and relatively peaceful revolution, coming after decades of stagnant but entrenched regimes across the Arab world.
Few at the time understood the power of the images of unrest being broadcast online and into homes across the Middle East. Within weeks, other significant protest movements would emerge, and by the middle of 2011, leaders in Cairo, Tripoli, Sana’a, Damascus and elsewhere were under serious pressure or had been swept away by a tidal wave of peaceful demonstrations and armed resistance.
Continue reading...Amman fears warming Israel-Saudi relations may threaten its hold on holy Islamic site
Jordan is scrambling to affirm its custodianship of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem after a meeting between Israeli and Saudi leaders raised fears in Amman that the fate of one of Islam’s holiest sites could be up for grabs in a normalisation deal between the two countries.
Warming relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, capped by a weekend visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, have alarmed Jordanian leaders already unnerved by Riyadh’s regional posturing. They fear al-Aqsa could be in play as the Trump administration tries to secure a regional legacy in its dying weeks.
Continue reading...Protests take place in several countries against French president in aftermath of crackdown
On the front page of a hardline Iranian newspaper, he was the “Demon of Paris”. In the streets of Dhaka he was decried as a leader who “worships Satan”. Outside Baghdad’s French embassy, a likeness of Emmanuel Macron was burned along with France’s flag.
Rage is growing across the Muslim world at the French president and his perceived attacks on Islam and the prophet Muhammad, leading to calls for boycotts of the French products and security warnings for France’s citizens in majority-Muslim states.
Continue reading...Activist groups work towards improving labor conditions in textile factories but abolishing the industry’s ‘norms’ is an uphill battle
Mehedi Mehedi, a 36-year-old Bangladeshi garment worker who had spent 14 years working in Jordan, left the country forever last December. It was not an easy decision to make: Mehedi had met his wife in Jordan, he had no guarantees of finding a job back in Bangladesh, and he was desperate to work in order to support his chronically ill father.
In Jordan, Mehedi had been working for a subcontracting factory that supplies apparel to brands like Ralph Lauren, Under Armour, and American Eagle. But after spending his last six months without regular pay, he had reached a breaking point.
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