Amman - The UN Children's Fund plans to return to Baghdad "gradually" so that its offices there would be re-opened within a few months, the agency's Executive Director Ann M Veneman said Wednesday.

"Some of our senior officials will leave Amman in the coming few months and the rest of employees will leave for Baghdad gradually," Veneman was quoted as saying by the official Petra news agency.

Amman - The SNC-Lavalin Group of Canada has recommended the extraction of uranium from phosphate ores in Jordan to fuel the nuclear reactors the country plans to set up, Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) President Khaled Toukan said Monday.

"The feasibility study conducted by SNC-Lavalin has come up with very positive results as to Jordan's potential to produce uranium from phosphate ores," Toukan said.

Amman - Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon on Saturday discussed with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh the latest efforts to re-launch peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a foreign ministry statement.

"Judeh underscored the importance of a serious international move to resolve the conflict peacefully on the basis of the two-state formula, a solution that is winning universal consensus," the statement said.

Amman - US Middle East envoy George Mitchell held talks Saturday with Jordan's King Abdullah II and pledged Washington's commitment to the establishment of an "independent Palestinian state" that lives in peace with Israel, according to a royal court statement.

"We seek the establishment of comprehensive peace, the setting up of an independent Palestinian state that lives in peace and security alongside Israel and building up a prosperous future for all peoples for the region," the royal court statement quoted Mitchel as telling King Abdullah.

Amman - Arab stock markets plunged further this week under the pressure of bad news coming from world financial markets and retreating oil prices, financial analysts said Friday.

"Regional markets are still fragile and responsive to bad news coming from western capitals where governments struggle tentatively to deal with the deepening recession," Wajdi Makhamreh, Chief Operating Officer of the Amman-based Sanabel International Holding, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Amman - A subsidiary of the United Arab Emirates conglomerate, Al Maabar International Investments, on Thursday unveiled the largest real estate and tourism project in Jordan's history, a 10-billion-dollar Marsa Zayed complex at Aqaba.

The developer, Al Maabar Jordan Real Estate Development Company, said in a statement that the 3.2-square kilometer Marsa Zayed complex with a 2-kilometre waterfront would be "one of he most significant developments in the region".