New cable car is a big hit with tourists in Jordan’s northern forest city

New cable car is a big hit with tourists in Jordan’s northern forest city
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The Ajloun Teleferique is the first project of its kind in Jordan. It opened to the public in mid-June and immediately proved incredibly popular with visitors from across the country. (Supplied)
New cable car is a big hit with tourists in Jordan’s northern forest city
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The Ajloun Teleferique is the first project of its kind in Jordan. It opened to the public in mid-June and immediately proved incredibly popular with visitors from across the country. (Supplied)
New cable car is a big hit with tourists in Jordan’s northern forest city
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The Ajloun Teleferique is the first project of its kind in Jordan. It opened to the public in mid-June and immediately proved incredibly popular with visitors from across the country. (Supplied)
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Updated 20 July 2023
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New cable car is a big hit with tourists in Jordan’s northern forest city

New cable car is a big hit with tourists in Jordan’s northern forest city
  • The Ajloun Teleferique, the first project of its kind in Jordan, offers panoramic views of the mountainous forest landscape
  • More than 20,000 people rode in it in the first 10 days and 2,500-3,000 people used it each day during the Eid Al-Adha holiday

AMMAN: Visitors are reportedly flocking in large numbers to the northern city of Ajloun in the highlands of northern Jordan, where a newly opened cable car ride is giving people the chance to experience stunning panoramic views of the mountainous forest landscape.
The Ajloun Teleferique, which was created by royal decree, is the first project of its kind in Jordan. Located about 70 kilometers northwest of Amman, it opened to the public in mid-June and immediately proved incredibly popular with visitors from across the country.
After taking a ride on the cable car with his family, visitor Omar Edajah said: “It was a breathtaking experience. Seeing the green mountains (and) the Ajloun Castle from above is such a splendid and unforgettable experience.”
The 49-year-old said he once rode in a cable car with his wife and four children in Antalya during a visit to Turkiye and had enjoyed the views over the green mountains and Mediterranean Sea.
“But I always said to myself, why don’t we have (a cable car) in Jordan, in Wadi Rum or Ajloun?” he said.
“At last, my dream has come true and now, a one-hour drive from Amman, we can always enjoy such an awesome experience.”
The cable car system covers a distance of 2.5 kilometers in about 10 minutes. It begins in the Eshtafina forest and terminates at Ajloun Castle, 1,250 meters above sea level. The cost of a return journey is 4 Jordanian dinars ($5.64). The total cost of the construction project, which began in 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, was 11 million dinars.
Arwa Hiyari, the CEO of the Jordan Free and Development Zones Group, which manages the new attraction, said that more than 20,000 people rode in it in the first 10 days after its official inauguration on June 20.
During the Eid Al-Adha holiday at the end of last month, between 2,500 and 3,000 people used it each day, she added.
The Ajloun Teleferique will boost the tourism sector in the area, Hiyari said, and the project had created a number of investment opportunities.
Mohammed Al-Deek, the director of Ajloun Tourism Directorate, said that between 40,000 and 50,000 people visited Ajloun on Wednesday this week, the Islamic New Year holiday, “with the cable car being their first destination.”
He added that number of people coming to the area each weekend to ride on the cable car is having a knock-on effect on bookings at hotels, resorts and other local attractions.
Jorda historically has focused more on the development of infrastructure projects at the southern tourist attractions of Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba, collectively known as Jordan’s Golden Triangle, than in the cities of Jerash, Ajloun and Irbid in the north, which is a more verdant part of the mostly desert country and is home to hundreds of ancient Roman and Greek sites.
During a visit in May to Jerash, Jordan’s King Abdullah II called for the development of more tourism projects in the city, which he described as “one of the most beautiful places” he had ever seen.
Jerash, which is about 40 kilometers north of Amman, is considered one of the largest and most well-preserved sites of Greek and Roman architecture outside of Italy.
According to recent data from the Central Bank of Jordan, expenditure by Jordanians on outbound tourism rose by 46.5 percent during the first half of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022, reaching $905.5 million. The bank said that in June alone, expenditure on outbound tourism was about $209 million, a 41 percent increase on June 2022.
The bank data also revealed that tourism revenue reached $3.456 billion during the first six months of this year, a 59.4 percent increase compared with the same period of last year.
Spending by Jordanians on tourism abroad reached $1.467 billion in 2022, an increase of 59.6 percent compared with 2021. Tourism revenue in Jordan increased by 110.5 percent in 2022 to $5.816 billion, according to the bank, exceeding the figure for the 2019 pre-pandemic period by 0.4 percent.
 


Lebanese army says it exchanged smoke-bomb fire with Israel

Updated 6 sec ago
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Lebanese army says it exchanged smoke-bomb fire with Israel

Lebanese army says it exchanged smoke-bomb fire with Israel
  • Tensions have flared along the frontier this summer, with rockets fired at Israel during flare-ups of Israeli-Palestinian violence
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army said on Wednesday it had exchanged smoke bombs with Israeli troops at the border, the second such incident in a week.
The Lebanese army, in an online statement, said Israeli troops had fired smoke bombs at a Lebanese patrol that was accompanying workers removing “infringements” that the army said had been set up by the Israelis north of the Blue Line.
Tensions have flared along the frontier this summer, with rockets fired at Israel during flare-ups of Israeli-Palestinian violence, and members of the heavily armed Lebanese group Hezbollah or its supporters facing off with Israeli forces.
Neither the Israeli military nor the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon immediately responded to Reuters requests for comment.
The current demarcation line between the two countries is known as the Blue Line, a frontier mapped by the United Nations that marks the line to which Israeli forces withdrew when they left south Lebanon in 2000.
Lebanese army troops “responded by firing smoke bombs toward enemy troops,” the statement said.
It was the second such incident in a week after the troops exchanged tear gas and smoke bombs over a similar dispute at the Blue Line.

Third Bahraini soldier dies after Houthi drone attack close to Saudi border

Third Bahraini soldier dies after Houthi drone attack close to Saudi border
Updated 2 min 55 sec ago
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Third Bahraini soldier dies after Houthi drone attack close to Saudi border

Third Bahraini soldier dies after Houthi drone attack close to Saudi border

DUBAI: A third Bahraini serviceman died on Wednesday following a Houthi drone attack on Monday against forces of the Saudi-led coalition in Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen, Bahrain’s state news agency said.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement has battled the Saudi-led coalition since 2015 in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and left 80 percent of the population dependent on aid.
The drone attack represents a major escalation after more than a year of relative calm in Yemen as peace efforts gain momentum. It could jeopardize talks between Saudi and Houthi officials who have just held another round of negotiations on a potential agreement toward ending the conflict.


Iran says it puts imaging satellite sucessfully into orbit amid tensions with West

Iran says it puts imaging satellite sucessfully into orbit amid tensions with West
Updated 27 September 2023
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Iran says it puts imaging satellite sucessfully into orbit amid tensions with West

Iran says it puts imaging satellite sucessfully into orbit amid tensions with West
  • here was no immediate acknowledgment from Western officials of the launch

DUBAI: Iran claimed on Wednesday that it has successfully put an imaging satellite into space.
The state-run IRNA news agency, quoting the country’s Communication Minister Isa Zarepour, said the Noor-3 satellite had been put in an orbit 450 kilometers (280 miles) above the Earth’s surface.
There was no immediate acknowledgment from Western officials of the launch or of the satellite being put into orbit. Iran has had a series of failed launches in recent years.
Zarepour said the aerospace arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched the satellite carrier, which has had success in launching satellites from its previously secret launch program. Authorities did not immediately release images of the launch.
The United States has alleged that Iran’s satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and has called on Tehran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The US intelligence community’s 2022 threat assessment claims such a satellite launch vehicle “shortens the timeline” to an intercontinental ballistic missile for Iran as it uses “similar technologies.”
Iran, which has long said it does not seek nuclear weapons, previously maintained that its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003. Iran has maintained its program is for peaceful purposes.


Qatar Airways executive says invasive gynecological examinations of passengers won’t be repeated

Qatar Airways executive says invasive gynecological examinations of passengers won’t be repeated
Updated 27 September 2023
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Qatar Airways executive says invasive gynecological examinations of passengers won’t be repeated

Qatar Airways executive says invasive gynecological examinations of passengers won’t be repeated
  • Qatar Airways Senior Vice President for Global Sales Matt Raos described the incident as “a one-off incident, a very extreme incident.”

CANBERRA, Australia: A senior Qatar Airways executive told an Australian Senate inquiry on Wednesday there would be no repeat of an incident at Doha’s international airport in 2020 in which female passengers were subjected to invasive gynecological examinations.
Australian Transport Minister Catherine King said three weeks ago that the examinations of 13 Australian women who had boarded a Qatar Airways plane to Sydney were a factor in her decision in July to refuse the Qatar government-owned airline additional flights to Australia.
Qatar Airways Senior Vice President for Global Sales Matt Raos described the incident, which occurred when authorities were looking for the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned in a Hamad International Airport trash can, as “a one-off incident, a very extreme incident.”
“We’ve had nothing like it previously in our history and we’re completely committed to ensuring nothing like this ever happens again,” Raos told the committee.
Raos was responding to government Sen. Tony Sheldon, who had asked for a guarantee on behalf of female passengers who feared they would be subjected to such treatment.
The Doha-based executive declined to detail the incident because five women are suing the airline in Australian Federal Court.
“We are participating in that process. We think it’s a very important process and we need to honor it and respect it. It does preclude us from going further into this topic today,” Raos said.
“The outcome of that Federal Court case is something that we will honor and abide,” Raos added.
The five Australian women, whose names are suppressed by a court gag order, say they were taken off the flight to Sydney at Doha at gunpoint by guards and were searched without consent.
Qatar Airways provided no response to their complaints and offered no apology, the women said.
They wrote to Catherine King through their lawyer in June urging that Qatar Airways not be allowed to double its number of Australian services from the current 28 flights per week.
“It is our strong belief that Qatar Airways is not fit to carry passengers around the globe let alone to major Australian airports,” they wrote.
“When you are considering Qatar Airways’ bid for extra landing rights, we beg you to consider its insensitive and irresponsible treatment of us and its failure to ensure the safety and dignity of its passengers,” they said.
Raos said Qatar was “surprised and shocked” that Australia had rejected without explanation its application for additional services to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth which was made on Aug. 22, 2022.
Qatar Senior Vice President Fathi Atti told the inquiry that the airline learned of the decision through the news media on July 10 and did not receive official notification from the Australian government until 10 days later.
The airline said it calculated that the additional services would have provided Australia with 3 billion Australian dollars ($1.9 billion) in economic benefits over five years.
Earlier this month, King said her decision was made in the “context” of women’s complaints about their treatment.
“There is no one factor that I would point to that swayed my decision one way or the other,” King told reporters.
The committee is examining a number of Australia’s bilateral air service agreements.


Small fire at Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel extinguished; occupants have returned to rooms - official

Small fire at Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel extinguished; occupants have returned to rooms - official
Updated 27 September 2023
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Small fire at Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel extinguished; occupants have returned to rooms - official

Small fire at Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel extinguished; occupants have returned to rooms - official

BAGHDAD: A small fire that led to guests and diplomatic personnel being evacuated from Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel has been brought under control, an official at the hotel told Reuters via phone early on Wednesday.

The hotel houses several envoys from Gulf states.

The small fire occurred in kitchen, and an official described the evacuation as a routine precautionary measure, saying guests had safely returned to their rooms.

The hotel is in Iraq’s highly fortified Green Zone which hosts parliament, many government buildings and foreign embassies.