On February, 28, 2007 5:45 PM , Qwaider قويدر
from United States said:

In the current situation of Dibbin forest where it's being neglected and subject to many more natural and socio-economic issues. Such a project might be exactly what the area needs tot PRESERVE dibbin for future generations.
By converting it to a money generating reserve, Dibbin will end up really saved from the measly budgets of societies and charities.

This might be EXACTLY what the doctor ordered

Check the news tomorrow. THe Jordan-Dubai investment firm decided to head to protests and move the location. THey aren't sure where yet, but they are working on it.

On March, 01, 2007 1:11 AM , Moey
from Jordan said:

Thanks for the comment, appreciated from the heart

The question that begs it's self who owns the land and who gave to who????<a href = "http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/glain">Who sold Dibbin forest and why?</a>

Here is the righr link<a href = "http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/glain">here is the right link</a>

It's been blocked by somebody,maybe you know who.

Letter From Jordan: Kingdom of Corruption

Stephen Glain

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Poetry as political manifesto has a long history in the Arab world. The Prophet Mohammed frequently won over converts to Islam with elegant recitals. Caliphs often deployed serrated verses from their court poet to undermine rivals. So in January, when revered Jordanian poet Haider Mahmoud wrote a thinly veiled ode to King Abdullah II warning him about deepening corruption in the Hashemite Kingdom, the palace quickly went to work--on him.

Mahmoud was attacked in Jordan's state-controlled press as a traitor, and his son was pressured into resigning his position at the foreign ministry. Jordan's then-prime minister, Faisal al-Fayez, ordered the mayor of Amman to fire Mahmoud as general director of the city's cultural center. (Faisal backed off after learning the position was unpaid, but Mahmoud resigned anyway.) The offending poem--titled "Saray," a Turkish word for "the palace," but also "the sultan"--became known to Jordanians only after it appeared in a London-based Arabic-language newspaper because no local publisher would touch it.

Mahmoud, who generally avoids controversy, says he wrote "Saray" out of concern that Jordan's vertiginous corruption threatens the integrity, and perhaps the very survival, of the monarchy. "It was not an attack," he says. "I care for this country. The poem was a message from the people to the leader against the corruption around him."

CONTINUED BELOW

etter From Jordan: Kingdom of Corruption

Stephen Glain

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In short, Jordan has degenerated into the kind of despotic kleptocracy the Bush Administration says it will no longer tolerate. But tolerate it the White House does, inclusive of the roughly $450 million in annual economic and military aid that has become the standard rate for maintaining Jordan's peace treaty with Israel and its support for America's "war on terror."

True, Washington has always indulged Jordan, a buffer state between Israel and the other Arab nations--the country is even shaped like a bottle stopper--by turning a blind eye to its human rights abuses. And it was Hussein, after all, who installed as heir apparent the little-known and unseasoned Abdullah just before he succumbed to cancer. In February the State Department gave Jordan a delicate reproach in its annual human rights report. But beyond that, the kingdom is under little public pressure to fight corruption and allow its rubber-stamp Parliament and feeble political opposition to assert themselves.

"The Hashemites are the fair-haired boys," says a US government official. "The King is such a sycophant, telling Washington what it wants to hear and bashing people like [Syrian president] Bashar al-Assad, that they get away with everything."

CONTINUED BELOW

Letter From Jordan: Kingdom of Corruption

Stephen Glain

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The steady erosion of civil liberties is matched only by the seismic growth of corruption. A large share of the private fortunes that fled war-torn Iraq has been deposited in Jordan, where it is leavening an underground economy that had already thrived off the UN-run Oil for Food program. Enormous villas have mushroomed in Amman's most fashionable districts, and luxury cars choke the city's roads. It is a gross and potentially destabilizing display of wealth in a country with an annual per capita income of $1,700, chronic unemployment and a population growth rate of 2.6 percent. And in harmony with Jordan's growing tolerance of corruption, this month King Abdullah agreed to overturn the 1992 conviction of Pentagon outcast Ahmad Chalabi, now a deputy prime minister in Iraq's new government, for his role in the collapse of a major Jordanian bank. "There is a new look to the corruption in Jordan," says journalist Abdullah Abu Romman. "Traditionally, we'd say the corrupt man is a thief. Now we look up to him as someone who was smart enough to avoid getting caught."

Enter the Shaheen brothers. From humble beginnings as West Bank vegetable merchants, Khaled, Riyadh and Akram Shaheen have established themselves as the Jordanian government's contractors of choice. According to a 1999 Times of London story, the Shaheens have known Abdullah since Khaled met him at a sports event in Dubai nearly ten years ago. Khaled, reported the Times, "went on to shower [the King] with gifts, including, allegedly, a Porsche." Not long after Abdullah's coronation, the government dropped Mercedes-Benz as its fleet automobile and logged a massive order with BMW--which had only months before tapped the Shahee

f Corruption

Stephen Glain

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Zaben tours his district, a mere forty-minute drive from Amman, in his son's late-model Jeep Cherokee. He is warmly welcomed as he calls unannounced on homes made of cinder-block walls and corrugated steel roofs suspended by narrow, roughly hewn wooden beams. The average income here is about half the national level and most families rely on the awqaf to get by. Beni Sakhr tribesmen used to be well represented in Jordan's armed forces until the government required new recruits to have at least a high school education.

"We're not getting the schools we need," says Awad Shamoor, a minor sheik, after greeting Zaben in an outdoor circle of tea-sipping notables. Shamoor, a security guard at a high school, makes about $100 a month. He is affluent by Badia standards, with two of his seven children in college. To finance their tuition and other expenses, he has been selling strips of his estate--land that has been in his family for generations--to wealthy Palestinians. "I used to own 200 dunams [about 800 acres]," Shamoor says between sips of tea. "Now I'm down to ten."

As Shamoor's estate has dwindled, King Abdullah has expanded his--or at least that's how some Jordanian dissidents are interpreting a May 10, 2000, government memo. In the memo, a copy of which has been obtained by The Nation, the Aqaba Regional Authority informs the land registrar of a decision "to register all the land that belongs to the treasury that is in field no. 1 and also the land no. 51 which is in field no. 3 from Aqaba land, in His Majesty Abdullah's name"; in a similar memo, dated less than a year later, the registrar orders its regional offices to "register land in Naour, Lipat, Bilalal, Um Qasyr, Samek, in the name o

Zaben tours his district, a mere forty-minute drive from Amman, in his son's late-model Jeep Cherokee. He is warmly welcomed as he calls unannounced on homes made of cinder-block walls and corrugated steel roofs suspended by narrow, roughly hewn wooden beams. The average income here is about half the national level and most families rely on the awqaf to get by. Beni Sakhr tribesmen used to be well represented in Jordan's armed forces until the government required new recruits to have at least a high school education.

"We're not getting the schools we need," says Awad Shamoor, a minor sheik, after greeting Zaben in an outdoor circle of tea-sipping notables. Shamoor, a security guard at a high school, makes about $100 a month. He is affluent by Badia standards, with two of his seven children in college. To finance their tuition and other expenses, he has been selling strips of his estate--land that has been in his family for generations--to wealthy Palestinians. "I used to own 200 dunams [about 800 acres]," Shamoor says between sips of tea. "Now I'm down to ten."

As Shamoor's estate has dwindled, King Abdullah has expanded his--or at least that's how some Jordanian dissidents are interpreting a May 10, 2000, government memo. In the memo, a copy of which has been obtained by The Nation, the Aqaba Regional Authority informs the land registrar of a decision "to register all the land that belongs to the treasury that is in field no. 1 and also the land no. 51 which is in field no. 3 from Aqaba land, in His Majesty Abdullah's name"; in a similar memo, dated less than a year later, the registrar orders its regional offices to "register land in Naour, Lipat, Bilalal, Um Qasyr, Samek, in the name of His Majesty, Abdullah, [and] to cancel land use...from list no. 7...for municipal use and re-register it in the name of His Majesty Abdullah (God protect and preserve him)." The government spokesperson ack

On March, 04, 2007 2:50 AM , batir
from Jordan said:

Al Urduni Al Hurr: I am not really fond of using my blog by someone to promote a piece of irrelevant information to the issue in question. However I am not gonna alter the article but your paranoia is not on the spot here since the land is owned by the SSC and has been sold to the Dubai capital. The King has nothing to do with the trade issues of lands in Dibbin.

Ok Batir,Were Jordanian consulted or asked whether to lease or sell this land to Dubai Capital?,this forest has been owned by our ancestors for thousands of years, and now SSC has sold it to this sleazy group to "invest" .were consulted Batir?,were your neighbors briefed?,you know the answer to that.If we have real democracy,me and you don't have to bother with this question, And with all due respect my piece is very relevant if you look at the whole picture and what is happening to the people.just visit Maan ,Tafelaha or Zarqa,that will give you an idea.

On March, 05, 2007 7:37 AM , batir
from Jordan said:

Al Urduni Al Hurr: you are absolutely right regarding the lack of transparency in selling the SSC leased land to the investors. It also happened in Amman municipality when the Amra Park was sold to build the two ugly towers in the midlle of a family neighborhood. The "oublic benefit" cover on which land is being leased is now used for investment.
Jordanians were not consulted of course, and many people in the area still believe that the environmental movement is robbing them from the investment opportunity and that the "Ammani elites" care about the trees and not the people. In every situation there are different perspectives. In this particular situation my concern was environmental. In the issue of land selling for investment things are very dangerous. The next fear is the Hussein Sports City where a lot of investors are seeking to buy and transfer it into another shopping place for Ammani rich and depriving people from a unique place for outdoor activities.
Your presence here is always welcomed.

Thanks Batir,keep up the good work.As you know the whole country has been sold to "investment Group" and soon enough all public Sectors which were built and paid for by Tax payers like you and me,and your father and mine to companies that their main concern is how to maximize profit,and the people will be left with nothing,mark my words.

<a href = "http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-03-04-us-jordan_N.htm">Batir, do we really needs all these weapons?</a>

<a href = "http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-03-04-us-jordan_N.htm">; Batir,,Do we really need all this expense??</a>