Jordan

Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis is set to embark on a working visit to Jordan on Monday, with his destination being the kingdom's capital, Amman.

Tending to his camels in Petra, Jordan's spectacular archaeological marvel hidden deep in a desert canyon, Hussein Bdoul is all smiles: The tourists are back.

After years in which the COVID-19 pandemic turned the storied "Rose City" into a ghost town, the father of seven is back at work, offering visitors rides on his decorated animals.

A chlorine gas explosion killed 12 people and injured more than 250 on Monday, authorities said, when a tank that fell from a crane released a poisonous yellow cloud at Jordan's Aqaba port.

Archaeologists deep in the Jordanian desert have discovered a 9,000-year-old ritualistic complex near what is thought to be the earliest known large human-built structure worldwide.

The Stone Age shrine site, excavated last year, was used by gazelle hunters and features carved stone figures, an altar and a miniature model of a large-scale hunting trap.

The Jordanian Water Ministry was sending technical teams on Saturday to take samples and find out the reason for the color change

Jordan said on April 4 it had foiled a plot against the kingdom involving a half-brother of King Abdullah II, arresting at least 16 suspects it accused of "sedition" and alleging foreign complicity.

Turkey on April 4 expressed concern over April 3's arrests of the former head of the Jordanian Royal Court as well as other former officials for "security reasons."

"We do not see the stability and calm of Jordan, a country that is key to peace in the Middle East, as separate from Turkey's stability and calm," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Jordan's official media warned on April 4 that security and stability are a "red line", a day after several senior figures were detained and a half-brother of King Abdullah II said he was put under house arrest.

For over two millennia the ancient city of Petra has towered majestically over the Jordanian desert. Today its famed rose-red temples hewn into the rockface lie empty and silent.    

As the novel coronavirus spread around the world, Jordanian authorities imposed a lockdown, and the last tourists left on March 16, a day before the Hashemite kingdom closed its borders.    

Jordan's parliament passed a bill yesterday to ban gas imports from Israel, just days after they started under a multibillion-dollar deal struck in 2016 that is opposed by much of the population, Reuters reported.