I have to confess, I’ve been rather obsessed with the President Ahmadinejad spotlight this past week since his attendance of the UN General Assembly. First, the guy was refused a room by hotels in New York. Then his speech at the UN resulted in several country representatives walking out in protest. Those who stayed behind [...]

This is just a short rant about something that’s been on my mind lately. Over the years I’ve been called on by numerous people to talk about the Jordanian blogosphere. Many of those people tend to be foreign journalists or graduate students who are researching the extent to which blogs in Jordan create political change. [...]

And the quote of the day goes to… (drumroll please) Interior Minister Nayef Qadi on Monday criticised certain media institutions for their lack of accuracy in covering news, describing some journalists as “agents of foreign agendas”. During a press briefing after a meeting yesterday with Prime Minister Nader Dahabi and governors from across the Kingdom, [...]

There’s an article that’s been floating around the local twittersphere as well as Facebook and quite possibly blogs in a bit. It’s a news article from Ammon’s English-language site that has a slightly misleading, sensationalist headline that reads “The Kingdom drops legal exemptions for honour crimes”. AMMAN – Reduced sentences in cases where a person [...]

Remember when the Bush administration decided to handle protesters simply by taking them to a designated “free speech zone” (also known as a “free speech cage”)? Well, Jordan’s Lower House of Parliament seems set on doing the same thing these days. Essentially, they’ve designated a room by the main entrance of the Parliament building for [...]

Ninety-four per cent of journalists in Jordan practise self-censorship, according to a survey conducted by the Centre for Defending the Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ) to mark World Press Freedom Day. “This year, the survey highlighted self-censorship exercised by journalists in Jordan as well as the phenomenon of bloggers in the Kingdom and the increasing role [...]

It perhaps goes without saying that the most defunct and notoriously futile arm of the entire Jordanian government apparatus, is the Lower House of Parliament; the very small government body that “the people” actually get to “vote” for. The Lower House never ceases to amaze me in its imbecility and it is a constant reminder [...]

“I am proud because I was not prosecuted for corruption, or for spying, but for saying a word of truth.” – Khalid Mahadin on being cleared of charges of slandering the Lower House of Parliament. While it’s good to hear that Mahadin is cleared of these idiotic charges levied against him by an even more [...]