Amman - Jordan Monday signed two nuclear agreements with China including one allowing the Hashemite Kingdom to get a Chinese "non-critical" training system, according to the President of the Jordan Nuclear Energy Commission (JNEC) Khaled Touqan.

He said the facility would be designed and constructed in coordination between the Chinese Atomic Energy Corporation and the Jordan University for Sciences and Technology (JUST), where the unit would be built.

The second deal ivolved a blueprint for implementing an agreement initialed in August to build a research nuclear reactor in Jordan and to help the country extract uranium from at least two local areas.

Amman - Jordan's King Abdullah II and Queen Rania flew to Qatar on Monday for a state visit that heralds a rapprochement between the two Arab countries after a decade of strained ties.

The royal trip was preceded two weeks ago by a visit to the oil-rich emirate by the Jordanian Prime Minister Nader Dahabi who said that the two countries were preparing to embark on an era of economic cooperation that involves the investment of Qatari funds in Jordan.

Amman - Arab stock markets continued their downward journey this week, with financial analysts on Friday citing unjustified "panic and psychological pressures" from the turmoil on global markets.

According to a report by the Kuwait-based Global International Investments House released Friday, the stocks of the oil-rich six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, lost 47.5 per cent of their value, or 538 billion dollars since the beginning of the year.

The report put the losses since the beginning of the global financial crisis in October at 373 billion dollars.

Amman - e conferred Thursday at the Red Sea
resort of Aqaba with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and urged
Israel to refrain from taking any "escalating steps" in the Gaza Strip,
according to a royal court statement.

"Any escalating steps on the part of Israel will aggravate tension" in
the territory, King Abdullah said, alluding to reported threats by
Israeli leaders to launch a large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip
following rocket attacks on Israeli towns earlier this week.

Amman - Jordanian Prime Minister Nader Dahabi flew to Damascus Thursday as part of Amman's recent intensive effort to bolster ties with Syria and other Arab countries.

The visit, the second of its type by high-ranking Jordanian officials over the past month, is designed to improve ties with Syria which had soured following Amman's decision to send a low-level delegate to the Arab Summit in Damascus earlier this year.

Amman - Thousands of Jordanians demonstrated Wednesday, demanding an end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The demonstration, which ended in front of the National Assembly building, was organized by the influential Muslim Brotherhood movement, its political arm - the Islamic Action Front (IAF) and trade unions.

The participants raised placards and chanted slogans that criticized Arab countries, particularly Egypt, for their failure to break the siege and re-open the crossing points between the Palestinian territory and Egypt.