Amman - Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh conferred Wednesday with the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Robert Serry, underlining the importance of the UN role in pushing forward the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, an official statement said.

"The United Nations and the world community have an important role to play in launching serious negotiations aimed at bringing about a settlement for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," Judeh told the visiting US envoy.

Amman - The Jordan Petroleum Refinery Co (JPRC) has signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding with a consortium of 12 Swiss banks that allow them to acquire a 51-per-cent stake in the sole Jordanian downstream facility, a JPRC spokesman said Monday.

The agreement, signed Sunday, provides for "a strategic partnership" that involves the spending of about 1.5 billion dollars by the Swiss banks for financing the JPRC's fourth expansion, the spokesman told German Press Agency dpa, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Amman - Jordan's lower house of parliament is abanonding an attempt to sue Israeli leaders before the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the January offensive on the Gaza Strip because the chamber lacked "legal and constitutional powers," parliament speaker Abdul Hadi Majali was quoted on Monday as saying.

Majali made the revelation in a letter to the Islamic Action Front, Jordan's largest political party.

Amman - Arab stock markets extended gains this week, buoyed by the G20 summit, rallies on global bourses and oil prices edging upwards, financial analysts said Friday.

"We believe that the G20 summit in London and gains scored by the Wall Street and other world markets have a positive impact on regional stocks," Nizar Taher, head of brokerage at the Jordan Ahli Bank told the German Press Agency dpa.

Amman  - Jordan - an active participant in the search for a Middle East peace and one of the few Arab countries with formal ties with Israel - will face trying times ahead as a new government containing far-right takes office in Israel, prominent Jordanian academics and politicians said Thursday.