According to ehistorylib, in 2005, Jordan had a population of around 5.4 million people and a GDP of $24.2 billion, making it one of the smaller economies in the Middle East. The economy was largely dependent on trade, with the main exports being phosphates and potash. Unemployment rates were high at around 14%, while poverty levels remained quite high with an estimated 17% of the population living below the poverty line.
Foreign relations in 2005 were generally positive with Jordan being a member of various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN). In addition, it maintained diplomatic ties with many countries in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. It was also an important ally to the United States and had close trade ties to Iraq and Syria.
Politically, Jordan was a constitutional monarchy during this time period with executive power vested in both the King who had absolute authority over foreign policy decisions and could veto any legislation passed by Parliament. Furthermore, there were three branches of government: Executive (King), Legislative (Parliament) and Judicial (Supreme Court). These branches worked together to ensure that laws were properly enforced throughout the country.
Yearbook 2005
Jordan. On November 9, the violence spread from Iraq to Jordan’s capital Amman, where three of the city’s largest hotels were exposed to blast attacks that killed 54 people plus the three suicide bombers. Most of the victims were Jordanians, among them many guests at a wedding party at the Radisson SAS hotel. The al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq, led by Jordanian Abu Musab az-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the act, explaining on a website that the hotels were attacked because Americans and Israelis often visited them. According to al-Qaeda, so many Muslims would fall victim was not the intention. All of the assailants were Iraqi, according to Jordanian records. Days after the attack, dozens of suspects were arrested, among them a woman who was married to one of the assailants and who had tried to carry out one of the assaults but failed. The attacks did not come unexpectedly. According to countryaah, Amman is the capital and one of the major cities within the country of Jordan. Jordan had established itself as a relatively safe enclave for Westerners en route to or from Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. A number of people have been arrested in recent years on suspected acts of terrorism against Western and Israeli targets. On August 19, an American warship anchored in the port city of Aqaba was subjected to a rocket attack for which a group linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network assumed responsibility. King Abdullah’s Western-friendly attitude had no strong popular support, but there were indications that the many Muslim victims of the hotel attacks caused the Jordanians’ sympathies to shift. About a week after the attack, more than 100,000 Jordanians in Amman demonstrated in support of the king and in protest against az-Zarqawi.
- Also see abbreviationfinder.org for how the acronym JO stands for the country of Jordan and other meanings of this two-letter abbreviation.
Domestic politics was characterized by tension between the king and the conservatively dominated lower house in the country’s parliament. One tool in the power struggle became the government. In April, King Abdullah dismissed Prime Minister Faisal al-Fayez and his ministry, reportedly for not planning political reforms. al-Fayez was succeeded by former US Secretary of Education Adnan Badran, who was replaced in November by Marouf al-Bakhit, former Jordan’s ambassador to Israel. The king also replaced a number of other people in the country’s leadership with experienced faith servants with military background.
Badran paid a visit to his colleague Ibrahim al-Jaafari in Iraq on September 10, thereby becoming the first leader of an Arab country to visit Iraq since the fall of the Saddam regime in 2003.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, who was sentenced in 1992 in his absence to 22 years in prison for, among other things. embezzlement, was pardoned in May by King Abdullah.
Economy. – The consequences of the demographic facts mentioned above in the economic structure of the country are extremely complex. However, agriculture and pastoralism remain the fundamental economic activities. In the territory west of the Jordan, agricultural methods are more advanced, despite the poverty of the soil, and a large part of it is used for arborescent and horticultural crops. In the east, however, the methods are more primitive and only half of the area considered to be cultivable is actually cultivated. Cereals are the main products: among them wheat covers 280,000 ha and gives a production of over 2 million q per year. Among the arborescent crops, the vine and the olive tree are of some importance. The breeding is almost exclusively extensive (pastoralism) and mainly concerns sheep (723,000 heads) and goats (696,000); 111. 000 are the cattle, 25,000 the camels. The only product of the subsoil is made up of phosphates, of which about 200,000 tons are produced per year. The country is crossed from N to S by the railway line that from Damascus reaches Ma‛ān and Naqb Ashtar, touching ‛Ammān. The extension from Ma‛ān to Medina (Saudi Arabia) has not been restored.
