JO Magazine

JO looks back at some of the best, the most important and most controversial stories of last year.

HELPING THE HELPLESS

January

We kicked off the year with an investigation into just how far huge amounts of international aid had gone to improve the lot of Iraqi refugees in Jordan. In the

three years up to 2008, at least $350 million (though probably much more) flowed into the Kingdom to assist displaced Iraqis.

Humanitarian groups said these funds had helped greatly when it came to providing some basic services, but cautioned that much more had to be done before Iraqis were likely to return home.

THE RACE TO PRESCHOOL

January
Competition for entry into Jordan’s top private schools can be pretty tough. So tough, in fact, that some ambitious parents go to extraordinary lengths to ensure their children get a head start in the race for enrollment. One young mother described how she signed her unborn twins on to a four-year waiting list for a place in the Amman Baccalaureate School’s highly-regarded kindergarten.

AFTER THE BOMBS

February
The aftermath of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza was hard to avoid in February. The stark statistics summed up all we really needed to know: 1,300 Gazans dead to 13 Israelis, more than 22,000 buildings destroyed and billions needed for reconstruction.

We examined the sad, dispiriting affair from several angles, including that of anti-war protesters in Israel and a look at how Gaza might be rebuilt by famed urban architect Michael Sorkin. But we focused particularly on the hundreds of passionate demonstrations against the attack that were attended by a broad cross section of Jordanian society. Most protests went by peacefully, but some didn’t, with clashes breaking out between demonstrators and security forces.

THE DYING ART OF FALCONRY

March

The threats facing Jordan’s ancient tradition of falconry was the focus of our cover story in March. The noble art is being slowly eroded by economic factors and environmental concerns, and fewer and fewer of the Kingdom’s southern Bedouin are choosing to keep the practice alive.

ENDING THE ABUSE

April

Stung in large part by a rebuke from the United States for not doing enough to stop human trafficking, Jordan’s Parliament decided in March to pass its first draft law to stop the pattern of mistreatment of foreign domestic workers. The legislation criminalized the receipt, harboring or transfer of persons for the purpose of forced labor, servitude or sexual exploitation and set sanctions for these offenses ranging from three months to 10 years in prison, along with hefty fines. The law was one of a number of legal changes undertaken in late 2008 and early 2009 in order to better regulate Jordan’s labor sector.

WATER WORRIES

April

In February 2009, a group of Jordanian, Israeli and international researchers published a paper warning of high levels of radioactive isotopes in the water of the Disi Aquifer—the same aquifer that Jordan is now tapping with a $1 billion pipeline to secure Amman’s drinking water. But rather than study the problems raised in the report, government officials and newspapers responded with a smear campaign against the study and its researchers, using the presence of Israeli-born scientists on the team to suggest that the research was untrustworthy. Construction of the Disi pipeline began in December.

THE COMEDOWN

May

We visited the global economic collapse in May with a story on how the downturn forced a significant number of Jordanians out of their jobs in once-booming Gulf cities like Dubai. But along with their lucrative employment contracts went the enviable, free-wheeling lifestyle that has been the aspiration of so many young Arabs for decades. JO talked to these returning expats about the collapse of their lifestyles and dreams, and how they were trying to pick up the pieces.