The Russian-Jordanian Hashim RPG-32 rocket launcher system is considered a threat to US Security and it was listed by the US Army as part of its intelligence brief on 'Asymmetrical Threats to Current and Future US Forces'.

Back in 2006, Jordan Russian Electronics Systems Co (JRESCO) revealed the development of Hashim as a new 105 mm rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher system. JRESCO is a joint venture between the KADDB and Russia's Rosboronexport.

In a recent news story, the Arabic version of CNN reported that Hashim RPG-32 represents one of the security threats for the United States of America, together with other ballistic missiles which can destroy all types of military tanks. The Hashim RPG-32 is the result of cooperation between Jordanian and Russian engineers, CNN stated.

Labels: Jordan

How much time does it take to convert Jordanian Bedouins from "gahwa sada" with cardamom to Swiss-made Nescafe?

(Photo from Nescafe page on Facebook).

Labels: Fun, Jordan

Even if the Jordanian-NATO ties might be something new for some bloggers, stories of Jordanian troops in Afghanistan were on everyone's lips (even official media) for years!

The Jordanian blogosphere inexplicably reported this story some days ago, and we were enchanted by titles like "Blogger Exposes a State Secret" as well as links which flourished everywhere, from girls-only forums to the official Muslim Brotherhood website, all of them claim to expose a terrible secret, a secret that Jordanian officials are trying hard to defend.

The supposed secret is that there are Jordanian troops in Afghanistan (wow!), it was found written in an unclassified NATO document uploaded by an anonymous user on Wikileaks. By reading the related blog post, it seems that it was very difficult and hard to find the document (probably Google was not used) and publishing this kind of information will get the blogger "in trouble".

Reality is different. The truth is that the secret is not so "secret". Jordanian-NATO cooperation was always considered a glory for the government, joint US-Jordan military exercises make the headlines of local newspapers and Arab TVs reported about the presence of Jordanian special forces back in 2001!

Imagine that the state-run news agency Petra, revealed the "hidden state secret" and provided a nice photo of Jordanian soldiers leaving to Afghanistan...

Now it is my turn and I want to expose some state secrets: There were important relations between big Jordanian officials and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, there is a cooperation between the Jordanian intelligence and CIA and, this is brand new, we have American nuclear waste in Jordan!

Labels: Jordan, Politics

Labels: Arabic

Yedioth Ahronoth apologized its readers and corrected a previous story that reported King Abdullah's dog was treated in Israel.

The newspaper reported the story on April 1st. (Was it an April's fool?). It said that the dog's treatment was strictly hidden by Jordanian officials and added that the dog was sent to an Israeli veterinary hospital during the Israeli attack on Gaza.

Yedioth Ahronoth now says the report was "incorrect". This is not the first time an Israeli newspaper reports news stories about Jordan that are then revealed wrong.

Jordanian media remained silent about the Israeli paper's story, a single exception was AmmanNet that displayed the report on its front page for a short time. The blogosphere was very careful not to post stories like this that, true or not, are still considered "taboos" here in Jordan. Exceptions were Jordan Reform Watch and Naseem in his Del.icio.us Pickings.

Labels: Jordan, Politics