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NARC, FAO agree to organize agricultural festivals to empower rural families

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the National Center for Agricultural Research (NARC) on Saturday signed a cooperation agreement to organize festivals for Jordan’s agricultural products with the aim of empowering rural families and farmers.

The agreement offers training to farmers, engineers and rural women on how to “best” handle product marketing management to access the “highest” marketing outlets to come up with a “pioneering” product and a “leading” sales quantity.

The agreement also includes organizing the National Olive Festival, the Rural Products Exhibition, the Pomegranate Festival in Irbid, and Southern Ghor Festival for agricultural products.

Signing the agreement, FAO representative in Jordan, Nabil Assaf, said this agreement aims to assist the Ministry of Agriculture and NARC in empowering rural families and farmers by providing marketing outlets for their rural and agricultural products, especially olives and olive oil.

NARC’s Director-General, Dr. Nizar Haddad, said the successes on the national festivals were made, thanks to the concerted efforts of national institutions in the private and public sectors, and the support of international and local partners, especially the FAO.

Haddad pointed to the Ministry of Agriculture’s role in promoting local products by regulating and preventing import operations in light of self-sufficiency, as well as organizing festivals, primarily the National Olive Festival, as a key marketing opportunity for local olive oil.

These festivals open an opportunity for citizens looking for high-quality local products, he said.

Source: Jordan News Agency

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Affairs

JREEEF wins 2021 WeMed Mediterranean Sustainability Award

Jordan Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Fund (JREEEF) of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources won the 2021 WeMed Mediterranean Sustainability Award in the category of Public Authorities.

In a press statement on Saturday, the JREEEF said the WeMed Award is granted to contributors to raising awareness of sustainable entrepreneurship as the main driver of the transition towards green and blue circular economy (BCE) in the Mediterranean region.

The WeMed Award is divided into two categories, the first is a Sustainable Business Models, and the second is Public Authorities, according to the statement.

The Award is a flagship initiative of the UNEP/MAP Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development. The first edition of WeMed is funded by the EU regional, subregional and national levels of the Mediterranean region.

Source: Jordan News Agency

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Affairs

Supporting investment in production inputs is priority: Agriculture Minister

Minister of Agriculture, Khaled Hneifat, said that the ministry is following up on the development of the production input industry and technologies that will reduce production costs and increase the efficiency of irrigation water use.

In a visit on Saturday to the Manaseer Industrial Complex in Qatraneh, southern Jordan, Hneifat said that supporting investment in production requirements is a priority for the advancement of the agricultural sector.

He pointed out that Jordan is rich in a large number of production input industries, calling for promoting local production requirements at regional and international levels and to remove obstacles facing local products in foreign markets.

During a presentation presented by the “Manaseer Group” in the presence of its chairman Ziad Manaseer and factories managers, Hneifat said: “through this product (fertilizers), we look forward to improving production and supporting farmers with quality and price balance.”

Source: Jordan News Agency

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Technology

Ministry discovers forged high school certificates in universities applications

The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research said that it is following up, in full coordination with the Ministry of Education, on the case of forged high school certificates, and names of students whose high school certificates have been proven fake.

The ministry said it will circulate the names of these students to all public and private Jordanian colleges and universities to cancel the admission of any of them directly, and it will inform the Attorney General to take the required legal actions against them.

During the process of submitting applications for Unified Admission Unit to join the current academic year, the ministry had announced that while its employees were checking the equivalency certificates received by the unit from students, it discovered a number of fake (forged) certificates.

The ministry, then, collected the certificates and sent them back to the Ministry of Education, which in turn confirmed that they were fake and weren’t issued by the ministry’s non-Jordanian certificate equivalency department.

It explained that it had contacted the Attorney General to take the required legal actions against the persons who submitted those fake documents, and their unified admission applications were canceled and they were denied competition for university seats.

The ministry added that it will continue to intensively pursue any activities or actions that harm the reputation of higher education institutions and the reputation of the Jordanian higher education sector.

Source: Jordan News Agency

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Health

Kreishan visits 6 municipalities, checks on cleanup campaign progress

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Administration, Tawfiq Kreishan, checked on work of six municipalities on the ground, as part of the (With Our Hands) cleanup campaign, which was launched by the ministry and in cooperation with the municipalities.

The minister’s surprise visit, which included six municipalities across Kingdom, in order to check first-hand on the campaign progress in these municipalities, including cleaning their desert roads and within their borders.

Kreishan told the municipalities heads and officials that the ministry began reflecting royal visions and government plans with a comprehensive and continuous national campaign to clean forests, archaeological and tourist areas, public parks, and international and main roads.

The minister said that the continuation of the campaign needs cooperation from everyone to ensure its success.

He added that the municipalities that have succeeded in consolidating their national and local role in development, public service, health and safety, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, are proudly able to be a major part of this comprehensive national campaign, which aims to clean and beautify cities, villages, countryside and deserts.

He urged municipalities to coordinate and work jointly with each other in the neighboring areas in order to ensure the cleaning of these areas and international and main roads.

Source: Jordan News Agency

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Health

COVID kills 11 in Jordan, positive tests at 4%

COVID-19 killed 11 in Jordan in the last 24 hours, as the death toll stands at 10,941 and a total of 758 cases were recorded, pushing the caseload to some 849,758, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH).

“4.12 percent of the 18,381 tests conducted today came back positive,” the MoH said in Saturday a press statement.

It said 34 people had recovered and were discharged from hospitals while 96 others were admitted, as the total number of COVID-19 patients receiving medical treatment in hospitals hit 590.

The number of active COVID-19 cases in the Kingdom hovers around 17,359, it added.

Some 821,458 COVID-19 patients, including patients who had been self-isolating, have fully recovered so far.

Source: Jordan News Agency

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Health

UK reports 135 COVID fatalities

The UK’s health department Saturday reported 135 COVID-19 deaths, taking the toll to 139,461.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said 44,985 people tested positive for the highly contagious lung disease, as the caseload hovers around 8,7 million.

Source: Jordan News Agency

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Health

Russia sets new COVID-19 daily record

Russia reported a record number of daily COVID-19 cases after 37,678 cases and 1,075 deaths were recorded on Saturday.

The Russian Coronavirus Control Center said that the total number of cases rose to 8.2 million and the death toll to 229,528, while the total number of recovery cases has reached 7.14 million.

Source: Jordan News Agency