One of the most disappointing decisions taken by the previous government was its refusal to grant Radio Al Balad a license to open a community radio for women in Jordan Valley. The decision is totally against all values and principles of media freedom always promoted by the King and by the government itself sometimes. The community radio station was a symbol of a fantastic voluntary work by rural Jordanian... [read more]

In the past couple of days I have been trying to follow the short summaries and promotional materials aired by Al Ghad TV in its experimental broadcasting, and I have a feeling we are anticipating a drastic change in the quality of Jordanian TV and satellite broadcasting. It is obvious that the official Jordan TV is in a pathetic state and it can never be allowed to reflect the true progress in... [read more]

I have a tendency to like the global ranking systems developed by research institutions and networks. They may not be scientifically accurate with a margin of error in collecting data but they do reflect the actual situation in a relative manner. I was interested with the Global Innovation Index (GII) developed by the INSEAD and World Business Magazine. This index tries to measure which nations... [read more]

When the Information Technology hype started in Jordan in 2000 it has been perceived by many observers that this "revolution" will lead to an "information society" or "knowledge society in Jordan". Within the enthusiasm generated by the REACH initiative it has not been noted that REACH did not contain any elements on "knowledge society" or "information society". It was mainly based on developing an... [read more]