Amman - Saudi Arabia announced Monday to be the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and Tuesday as the first day of Eid al-Fitr festivities.

A statement from the Saudi legal moon sighting panel said that the crescent of the month of Shawal was sighted in Saudi Arabia. According to Koranic rules, fasting should end when the crescent of the lunar month of Shawal is sighted.

Amman  - King Abdullah II of Jordan on Monday accepted the resignation of royal court chief Bassem Awadallah, according to a royal court statement.

Awadallah, a US-educated economist, was recently the target of attacks by lawmakers and the local press for allegedly advocating the privatization of more Jordanian businesses.

He was also accused of encroaching on the powers of Prime Minister Nader Dahabi and forming a type of "shadow cabinet" at the royal court.

Amman- Jordan's King Abdullah II on Saturday condemned the ex

Amman  - The Jordanian government Tuesday signed a 132- million-dollar contract with Chinese firm Sibco for the expansion of the Samra power plant, the Ministry of Energy said.

The expansion, which raises the plant's capacity to 500 megawatts from 400 megawatts, will be financed by a loan from the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Developent (AFESD).

The expansion plan, which seeks to meet the growth in demand for electricity, will go into operation in June 2010, Energy Minister Khaldoun Qteishat said.

Amman  - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed "understanding of Jordan's concerns" over excavations being conducted by Israel at the al-Aqsa Mosque's al-Magharebah Gate in East Jerusalem, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry reported Tuesday.

In response to a message from Jordanian Foreign Minister Salah Bashir, "the Secretary General said in his letter that he was well- aware of the circumstances surrounding the excavations and the planned building near al-Magharebah Gate and that he understands Jordan's concerns in this respect," the Foreign Ministry statement said.

Amman  - The first shipment of oil from Iraq to Jordan arrived at the Iraqi side of the border and is expected to enter Jordanian territory later in the day, Jordan's Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Khaldoun Quteishat said Tuesday.

He said the shipment was carried by 16 cargo tankers that were scheduled to unload at the Jordan Petroleum Refinery near Zarqa, 30 kilometres east of the capital Amman.

Over the past three days, a total of 18,500 barrels of Iraqi oil were loaded by tankers for Jordan from the Kurdish region's Biji station, one of the three main refineries in Iraq, Quteishat said.