Iraqi students congregate outside the Shmeissani Al-Qharbi School in Amman, Jordan. Many Iraqi war refugees have missed years of school, but despite new opportunities to be back in class, they get little help catching up.—Christopher Powers/Education Week
War, displacement, and lack of money have prevented Iraqi children from going to school for lengthy stretches of time. [...]

From Kabobfest.
Written by Emily
In a new Jordan Times article, Hani Hazaimeh reports again that
According to DHAA officials, the complaints included ill-treatment by employers and being overworked, said Faouri, who believes the workers’ reasons for wanting to leave their posts were homesickness and cultural differences between Jordan and the Philippines.
The Jordan Times still fails to mention [...]

No Longer a Novelty: Blogging and Politics in Jordan

Written by Sam Bollier
[Editor's note: This article is the first in a two part series on blogging and politics in Jordan and the wider Arab World. The series is a condensed version that can be viewed in its entirety at: http://saminamman.blogspot.com ]
How much influence do Jordanian blogs [...]

Ahmad Humeid first published this press release on his blog about AmmanNet being refused a permit to open a new community radio station in Zarqa. While details seem sketchy as to why the permit was rejected, we join Daoud Kuttab’s call for the new governmental cabinet to reverse this rejection of a community-based media outlet [...]

The elections are over, (most of) the votes have been counted, the winners announced, and the morning papers are aflutter with post-election coverage. Here’s a rundown of some of yesterday’s highlights as relayed by the local media and Jordanian bloggers:
Despite the gloomy and rainy weather, voter turnout as of today, stood at around 55%, representing [...]

Written By: Maha
Note: The following is based on a true story which took place a few days ago. The author’s mother is a parliamentary candidate.
Once upon a time a candidate was at a dead relatives’ house packed with people paying their condolences to the family. She got the following call from a private number:
-Aloo?
-Marhaba inti [...]

In accordance with the upcoming Parliamentary elections and in the context of last summer’s Municipal elections and the corruption charges which plagued them, 7iber dot com has formed an Election Watchdog. The Jordanian government has allowed for several organizations to monitor the elections however the extent of their participation and/or the potential restrictions they might [...]

Written By: Marwan Asmar
Its election time! As a good non-totalitarian democrat I love the elections, when they happen that is. What I really love about the elections is the time leading up to their finale when voters go up to the polling stations and vote. Although I’ve never voted in my life, I’ve always carefully [...]

Written By: Naseem Tarawnah
Parliamentary elections are officially up and running now. The first two days of candidate registration saw 916 names and as Lina points out, 15.8% of which are women. That’s a pretty decent percentage in my case, considering that the majority of that number are from fairly conservative cities like Irbid and Kerak. [...]

From Khalaf
Yesterday hundreds of people from the town of Mleih, south of Madaba, staged a protest against rising prices, corruption and falling standards of living. It is interesting to note that reports on this do not indicate the involvement of any political party in the organization or staging of this protest. Of course, this is [...]

It’s September. The weather is still wonderfully warm, while the cool air moves swiftly between trees that are preparing to shed their leaves. Ramadan is just around the corner and there’s a lot to talk about on the Jordanian blogosphere. However, it’s only right to start with the biggest story; the one that has dominated [...]