- A New Jordanian TV Station, WTV (Watan TV), launched yesterday. It’s headed by previous member of Parliament Raed Qaqish, who said in a press conference yesterday that the station will “highlight tourism attractions and economic achievements in the Kingdom in a bid to support the national economy”, as reported by the Jordan Times. It will also feature special programs on the upcoming Parliamentary elections. Interesting how the main thing Qaqish chose to say about the station is that it will highlight tourism attractions and economic achievements! This is definitely the main thing Jordanians are thirsty for in a private TV station!!! Who needs investigative journalism that would expose anything negative and tarnish the image of the country, right??
- Meanwhile, new ATV director Zaid Rashdan said that the station is working on settling “financial and legal obligations with concerned authorities to pave the way for the start of both terrestrial and satellite transmission”. Al-Ghad reports that Radi Alkhas, regional manager of ART and general director of Jordan's Media City, has been appointed Chairman of ATV, who will go by a new commercial name soon.
- Still in media, a new Arabic-language weekly newspaper Assijil (meaning: the record) will be launching soon. It’s chaired by Mustafa Hamarneh (previous head of the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies, and current parliamentary candidate for the first district of Madaba). Vice-Chairperson is theatre director and social activist Samar Dudin.
- In other news, Toujan Faisal was informed by the governor and head of the elections central committee that her application to run for parliament was rejected, because she had been convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2002 for “insulting the dignity of the state, spreading lies, and offending religious feelings”. She was released back then with a special royal pardon, but was not allowed to run for the 2003 elections. According to reports, last may the court issued a decision allowing her to run. Toujan will appeal the rejection decision but says she is certain the court will not judge in her favor.
- 46 women in Irbid registered to run for parliament! According to the current women’s quota system, the six winners have to get the highest percentage of votes to the total number of voters in their district. This is what enabled previous MP Insaf Al-Khawaldeh from Tafila to get into parliament with only 365 votes (whereas Hayat Massimi, the IAF candidate from Zarqa, got more than 7000 votes). Perhaps women now think that with the quota, it is easy to get into Parliament!! But for a city like Irbid, with a large population and a large number of registered voters, it’s very difficult for a woman to get a percentage of votes that would secure a win, let alone when you have this number of women running! Forty-six!!! (In 2003, the total number of women running all over Jordan was 54, out of 756 candidates)
- In cultural news, there’s a classical music concert tonight at the Hussein Cultural Centre - Ras Al Ain at 7:30pm. There’s also an Iraqi festival week starting at Al-Balad theatre, with screenings at 6:00 pm and at 8:30 pm today and tomorrow.
Good morning :)
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