Amman - Visiting Austrian President Heinz Fischer on Monday discussed with Jordanian Prime Minister Nader Dahabi the prospects of boosting bilateral ties particularly in the economic and environmental fields, the official Petra news agency reported.

At the meeting, officials from the two countries signed an accord for cooperation in the field of environmental protection, it said.

Amman - Jordanian Prime Minister Nader Dahabi flew to Doha Saturday for a two-day state visit to Qatar designed to open a new chapter in relations between the two Arab countries which have not been on good terms over the past decade.

Jordan's efforts to improve ties with Qatar started last week when the chief of the Jordanian royal court Nasser Lawzi took a message from King Abdullah II to Qatar's ruler Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani.

Amman - King Abdullah II of Jordan met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the Red Sea port of Aqaba on Friday, stressing the need for continuing peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians despite US and Israeli elections.

"The monarch underlined the need for continuing negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians to reach a comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution despite the new developments relating to the US and Israeli elections," a royal court statement said.

Amman - Arab stock markets reacted positively but cautiously to the election of Barack Obama as next US president with investors trying to evaluate the choices open to the new administration to deal with the gruelling economic downturn, financial analysts said Friday.

"Markets sighed relief over the election of Obama, because markets have been under the impression that McCain's win could aggravate the global financial crisis," Nizar Taher, chief of brokerage at the Jordan Ahli Bank, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Amman - King Abdullah II of Jordan on Wednesday congratulated US president-elect Barak Obama and expressed readiness to cooperate with him to push forward peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a royal court statement.

Amman - The Islamic Action Front (IAF), Jordan's largest political party, on Wednesday expressed guarded optimism over the election of Barak Obama as the next US president and said they considered his win an "apology" from the American people to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We welcome Obama's election and believe that his win represents a clear message inside as well as outside America," IAF Secretary General Zaki Bani Ershaid told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.