MADOUNEH: A shiny new city is to arise from Jordan’s desert over the next three decades, potentially rivaling the kingdom’s capital of Amman, a rapidly growing and increasingly unwieldy metropolis of 4 million people.
Announcing plans for what it portrays as a high-tech utopia, Jordan joined other Middle Eastern countries betting on multimillion-dollar mega projects as an investment magnet and quick economic fix.
Yet some urban planners warn that “cities from scratch” are risky endeavors and argue it is more efficient to improve existing cities.
In Jordan, the government promises the yet-to-be-named city will draw population away from Amman, relieve its crippling traffic jams, provide middle-class housing and inject momentum into a sluggish economy plagued by high unemployment.
But authorities have released only snippets of information since the prime minister mentioned the new city for the first time, seemingly casually, in a meeting with local journalists in late October.
This perceived secrecy and “top-down” approach has drawn widespread criticism.
Few Jordanians have shown much enthusiasm, even among Amman residents who complain constantly of the city’s traffic. Some suspect the new city is largely meant to benefit Jordan’s powerful and their business cronies. Government officials deny that.
This week, Amman Mayor Yousef Shawarbeh defended the rocky rollout in a meeting with business people, diplomats and representatives of the energy and environmental sectors, many of whom seemed skeptical.
“The topic hasn’t been fully studied yet,” the mayor said when pressed for details. “When we conclude the studies, we will announce plans and have clear roles for government, citizens, investors, and so on.”
Shawarbeh insisted that Amman would not be neglected as Jordan, buckling under record public debt, shifts scarce resources to the new project. “The new city is not a new Amman,” he said. But it is needed, he argued, to relieve pressure on the capital.
Amman was a hamlet just a century ago and is seen as an upstart among the region’s ancient cities, such as Baghdad and Cairo. Today, Amman is home to more than 40 percent of Jordan’s population of 9.5 million.
Almost every hour of the day is rush hour and urban sprawl is rapidly devouring precious green areas. Districts of mid-rise, sand-colored residential buildings spread over hills and valleys, with a few high-rise towers marking the city center.
Rapid growth has been driven by an influx of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian, Syrian and Iraqi refugees in recent decades.
It is also linked to accelerated urbanization across the Middle East and North Africa, where populations flock from underdeveloped rural areas into cities looking for greater job opportunities. By 2050, more than two-thirds of the region’s anticipated 646 million people will live in cities, compared to 56 percent of 357 million people in 2010, according to UN projections.
In the past two decades, some two dozen new city projects were announced in the Middle East. About half remain “power point cities” existing only on websites, said Sarah Moser, an urban geography professor at McGill University in Montreal. Others are well behind schedule.
She said builders of new cities often underestimate challenges, including raising huge sums of capital and finding the necessary expertise. In such for-profit enterprises, plans for less lucrative public transport systems often remain on paper.
“I would suggest Jordan proceed with caution,” Moser said.
Egypt’s multi-billion-dollar plan for a new capital, announced in 2015, fell behind schedule after the country switched contractors. But President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is determined to forge ahead. He plans to rule from the new city by 2019, leaving behind unruly Cairo, the Arab world’s largest city.
When pressed why the government is spending huge sums at a time of economic hardship, he said recently: “Isn’t it our right to have a dream? Is it wrong to have 13 cities like this or what? Don’t we deserve it?”
Jordan’s new city would be built about 30 km east of Amman on a desolate desert plain flanked by roads leading to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and — in the future — the country’s main airport. It’s to be built as a public-private partnership on state land, with first tenders to be submitted by mid-2018.
Officials have said little about how it will look other than describing it as a “smart city” running on renewable energy and boasting public transport. Eventually it would cover 390 square km, an area a little smaller than the borough of Queens in New York City.
The first phase is to be completed by 2030 and the entire project by 2050, but the government has not announced a target population size. Many government departments and public institutions are to relocate there, it said. Housing cooperatives of civil servants, professionals and former members of the security forces would be able to build in the new city.
During a visit last week, the earmarked area was largely deserted, except for the occasional truck and car passing. The closest human activity is a truck station called Madouneh, though further out in the deserts beyond the site lie the Azraq camp for Syrian refugees, a military base and scattered abandoned ancient fortresses called qasr.
Jordan’s plan of shiny city in the desert met by skepticism
Jordan’s plan of shiny city in the desert met by skepticism
Saudi Arabia leads Arab condemnation of Israeli raids on Syrian territory
- Kingdom urges Security Council’s permanent members to address violations in Syria and the region
- Egypt says raids represent flagrant violation of international law
- Jordan reiterates support for Syria’s security, stability, sovereignty
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has led Arab condemnation of Israeli airstrikes which violated the Syrian Arab Republic’s sovereignty and resulted in dozens of civilian and military casualties.
The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Israeli raids were “attempts to threaten the security and stability of Syria and the region through violating international laws.”
The Kingdom urged the UN Security Council’s permanent members to firmly address ongoing Israeli violations in Syria and the region, and called for the activation of accountability mechanisms.
Israeli airstrikes overnight targeted five areas in Syria, including the capital Damascus, and Hama Airport. Multiple people were injured while the actions, and a ground incursion, resulted in 13 fatalities.
Since the fall of the Bashar Assad regime in December, Israel has captured areas of Syria’s southern territory in a bid to keep the forces of the new government back from the border.
Egypt said on Thursday that Israeli raids represented a new and flagrant violation of international law. It called on international actors to compel Israel to end its occupation of Syrian territory and to respect the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates reiterated Amman’s support for Syria’s security, stability, and sovereignty. It stressed the need for Israel to adhere to international law and UN resolutions that call for respecting state sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs.
Uganda’s president arrives in S.Sudan as crisis deepens
- The Ugandan leader, whose military was invited into South Sudan last month to help secure the capital, did not refer directly to the crisis in public remarks at the airport in Juba
NAIROBI: Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni arrived in neighboring South Sudan on Thursday, in the highest level mission there since clashes and the detention of the vice president triggered regional fears of a return to civil war.
Museveni was met at the airport by South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, whose administration has accused First Vice President Riek Machar of stoking rebellion and put him under house arrest.
The Ugandan leader, whose military was invited into South Sudan last month to help secure the capital, did not refer directly to the crisis in public remarks at the airport in Juba.
The visit follows mediation missions by the African Union and an East African regional body this week to de-escalate the crisis.
Museveni told reporters he would hold talks “aimed at strengthening bilateral relations and enhancing cooperation between our two nations.”
Kiir said the two leaders would discuss “current political developments in the country.”
The standoff between Kiir and Machar, who led opposing forces in a 2013-2018 civil war that killed hundreds of thousands, has prompted the UN to warn that the world’s young nation could be on the brink of all-out conflict along ethnic lines.
Uganda backed Kiir’s forces during the civil war.
It sent troops last month amid fighting between South Sudan’s military and an ethnic Nuer militia in Upper Nile state in the northeast.
Machar’s predominantly Nuer forces were allied with the White Army militia during the civil war, but his party denies government accusations of ongoing links.
Uganda’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, also Museveni’s son, said on Tuesday he had ordered Ugandan forces to stop attacking the White Army so long as it ceases offensives against Ugandan troops.
Machar’s party says the Ugandan intervention violates South Sudan’s arms embargo.
Analysts say Kiir, 73, appears to be attempting to shore up his position amid discontent within his political camp and speculation about his succession plan.
Italy plans $22 million for migrant repatriations
- The ministry said the plan would benefit “around 3,300 of the most vulnerable migrants, carrying out their repatriation to their countries of origin sustainably and effectively”
ROME: Italy plans to invest 20 million euros ($22 million) in a new project to help Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia send irregular migrants from their territories back to the migrants’ countries of origin.
The government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has vowed to cut irregular migration to Italy’s shores from North Africa — the majority of whom depart from Libya and Tunisia.
However, many migrants who depart hail from other countries, especially sub-Saharan African countries.
Italy’s new plan “focuses on strengthening the institutional and administrative-managerial capacities of the partner countries,” with the involvement of 400 officials, Italy’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Irregular migration would be better addressed “through the improvement and development of assisted voluntary repatriations from Algeria, Libya and Tunisia to the countries of origin,” it said.
It said the project would collaborate with the International Organization for Migration to ensure migrants’ rights.
The ministry said the plan would benefit “around 3,300 of the most vulnerable migrants, carrying out their repatriation to their countries of origin sustainably and effectively.”
It said Italy’s Agency for Development Cooperation, which helps carry out development activities, would provide technical support.
The agency has also been charged with another plan targeted at the “socio-economic reintegration of returning migrants,” tapping Italian companies and civil society groups, it said.
Most migrants arriving in Italy via the Mediterranean depart from Libya and Tunisia.
Italy has agreements with both countries to provide funding in exchange for help stemming departures.
On Wednesday, Libyan authorities said they would suspend the work of 10 international humanitarian groups, including Doctors Without Borders, accusing them of a plan to “settle migrants” from other parts of Africa in the country.
Hundreds of thousands flee as Israel seizes Rafah in new Gaza ‘security zone’
- Airstrike kills at least 27 Palestinians, including women and children, inside a school building
GAZA: Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced “security zone” they intend to seize.
A day after declaring their intention to capture large swaths of the crowded enclave, Israeli forces pushed into the city on Gaza’s southern edge, which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia, a suburb of Gaza City in the north.
FASTFACT
The assault to capture Rafah is a significant escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 27 Palestinians, including women and children, inside a school building that served as a shelter for displaced families in Gaza City, local health authorities said.
The Israeli military claimed the attack hit key Palestinian “terrorists.”
Medics said three missiles slammed into the Dar Al-Arqam school building in Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City, and the Israeli military said it struck a command center that militants had used to plan and execute attacks against Israeli civilians and army troops.
Rafah “is gone, it is being wiped out,” a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighboring Khan Younis, said via a chat app.
“They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property,” said the man.
The assault to capture Rafah is a significant escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.
In Shejaia in the north, one of the districts where Israel has ordered the population to leave, hundreds of residents streamed out on Thursday, some carrying their belongings as they walked, others on donkey carts and bikes or in vans.
“I want to die. Let them kill us and free us from this life. We’re not living, we’re dead,” said Umm Aaed Bardaa.
In Khan Younis, where a strike killed several people, Adel Abu Fakher was checking the damage to his tent: “There’s nothing left for us. We’re being killed while asleep,” he said.
Israel has not spelled out its long-term aims for the security zone its troops are now seizing.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said troops were taking an area he called the “Morag Axis,” a reference to an abandoned former Israeli settlement between Rafah and Khan Younis.
Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.
They fear Israel intends to depopulate those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless while Israel seizes some of Gaza’s last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.
Since the first phase of the ceasefire expired at the start of March with no agreement to prolong it, Israel has imposed a total blockade on all goods for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, recreating what international organizations call a humanitarian catastrophe.
Israel’s military said on Thursday it was investigating the deaths of 15 Palestinian aid workers found buried in a shallow grave in March near Red Crescent vehicles, an incident that caused global alarm.
The military said troops fired on the cars, believing they carried fighters.
Israel’s stated goal since the start of the war has been the destruction of the Hamas militant group, which ran Gaza for nearly two decades.
But with no effort made to establish an alternative administration, Hamas returned to control during the ceasefire.
Fighters still hold 59 dead and living hostages Israel says must be handed over to extend the truce temporarily; Hamas says it will free them only under a deal that permanently ends the war.
Israeli leaders say they have been encouraged by signs of protest in Gaza against Hamas, with hundreds of people demonstrating in north Gaza’s Beit Lahiya on Wednesday. Hamas calls the protesters collaborators and says Israel is behind them.
The war began with an attack on Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023 with gunmen taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.
Rafah residents said most of the local population had followed Israel’s order to leave as Israeli strikes toppled buildings there.
However, a strike on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah stopped most movement between the cities.
The movement of people and traffic along the western coastal road near Morag was also limited by bombardment.
“Others stayed because they don’t know where to go, or got fed up of being displaced several times. We are afraid they might be killed or at best detained,” said Basem, a resident of Rafah who declined to give a second name.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘The African Revolution’
- The African Revolution demonstrates that “the Scramble” and the resulting imperial order were as much the culmination of African revolutionary dynamics as they were of European expansionism
Author: RICHARD REID
Africa’s long 19th century was a time of revolutionary ferment and cultural innovation for the continent’s states, societies, and economies.
Yet the period preceding what became known as “the Scramble for Africa” by European powers in the decades leading up to World War I has long been neglected in favor of a Western narrative of colonial rule.
The African Revolution demonstrates that “the Scramble” and the resulting imperial order were as much the culmination of African revolutionary dynamics as they were of European expansionism.
