General news about King Abdullah, Queen Rania & Family Part 2: February 2012 -


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Naomi was visiting Jordan and she and Queen have had several meetings before.
 
That makes perfect sense Salma, especially as the picture was taken at the same event. It's nice to get such pictures of their private life which we don't always see.
 
 
King Abdullah II joins twitter:
https://twitter.com/KingAbdullahII
@queenrania:Honored to be @KingAbdullahII’s 1st follower on @Twitter. Your voice of moderation and calls for dialogue is much needed in our world today
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King & queen with prince Hussein at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

@queenrania:Beaming and proud as any parent would be- with Hussein at company dinner night at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst...
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https://www.instagram.com/p/BSGk5pBBAeE/?taken-by=queenrania
 
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:previous:
Perhaps just a holiday. King Abdullah will visit the Vatican & France next week. I wonder If queen Rania will join him.

@RHCJO:His Majesty King Abdullah II is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis and French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday to discuss the developments related to #Jerusalem #Jordan
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So, they are still in the US. I hope they will return back and spend the new year eve at home as usual.
 
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New photo of the family. King Abdullah, Queen Rania, CP Hussein, Prince Hashem and Princess Salma.

Queen Rania's twitter
https://twitter.com/x/status/948123145101332480

مع بداية عام ٢٠١٨ من عائلتنا- وإيمان الموجودة في الجامعة- نتمنى لكم جميعا عاما سعيدا
As we begin 2018, best wishes from my family (in addition to Iman who is away at college) to yours
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asturiana said:
Article from Daily Mail:

Queen Rania of Jordan spent £200K on wardrobe in 2017 | Daily Mail Online
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"The palace has stated is not funded by the Jordanian taxpayer" - I don't understand this sentence. She is a queen, she represents people of her country and if anyone pays for her work, that would be the Jordanian taxpayer. I think it's shameful for the monarchy that queen of a poor country is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for clothes. Plus jewelry, of course. How can she travel the world wearing Dior and diamonds and ask for help other countries, saying that problem of education, refugees etc. coast so little. Who will pay for that? Queen Rania? No, ordinary people through increased taxes. It's dishonest - that's my opinion. She should stop her lavish lifestyle and THEN ask people with no 200K euros wardrobe annual budget for anything. Imagine a millionare asking his housekeeper to help the poor. The same ridiculous situation. First of all the queen should set a good example.
 
Aga.135 said:
"The palace has stated is not funded by the Jordanian taxpayer" - I don't understand this sentence. She is a queen, she represents people of her country and if anyone pays for her work, that would be the Jordanian taxpayer. I think it's shameful for the monarchy that queen of a poor country is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for clothes. Plus jewelry, of course. How can she travel the world wearing Dior and diamonds and ask for help other countries, saying that problem of education, refugees etc. coast so little. Who will pay for that? Queen Rania? No, ordinary people through increased taxes. It's dishonest - that's my opinion. She should stop her lavish lifestyle and THEN ask people with no 200K euros wardrobe annual budget for anything. Imagine a millionare asking his housekeeper to help the poor. The same ridiculous situation. First of all the queen should set a good example.
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Absolutely correct. People are not stupid. We can figure this out without the help of the palace.
 
An article appears in the Sunday Times today - "Hungry Jordan vents anger at prodigal royals".

When Queen Rania visited the Taj Mall in Amman for lunch in 2014, it was crowded with members of the Jordanian upper crust, drinking frappés as they shopped at royal favourites Burberry and Armani.

Now the hulking glass shopping centre is half-empty, its customers driven away by a crippling economic crisis that has sparked an outpouring of fury. Jordan’s royal family and glamorous queen are in the firing line.

“We’re suffering, and the royal family don’t give a crap,” said Asma, a 19-year-old shop assistant, as she stared into an empty store in the Taj Mall. “They have to reduce their spending and their costs, because they have to at least look like they’re with the people. But they don’t.”

The turmoil of the Middle East is encroaching on the carefully guarded stability of this key ally of the West. Its constitutional monarchy survived the 2011 Arab Spring, but seven years on the omens have changed.

Though Jordan appears peaceful and prosperous, economists say it is hurtling towards economic disaster, all the faster because of its reliance on foreign aid.

An economic downturn became a crisis after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait — hit by falling oil prices — failed to renew a £2.6bn aid programme last year.

America, which sees Jordan as a vital buffer of stability, has increased its funding but the government deficit has reached £757m, and the national debt is 95% of GDP, up from 71% in 2011.

Last month, the government increased taxes on 169 commodities, including flour, causing the price of bread to double. Protests broke out immediately. Videos on social media and independent news websites show gatherings of hundreds of people across the country chanting: “The people of Jordan are on fire, all because of the rise in prices.”

“Give it two or three months,” one local commentator, who did not want to be named, said last week. “It’s getting extremely volatile, and we don’t know what the consequences will be. There’s no limit to what people can do when they’re hungry.”

In increasingly loud voices, Jordanians are accusing the government of corruption and incompetence. More quietly, they are starting to break a strict taboo: accusing the royal family of ignoring the crisis, and of flaunting their lavish lifestyles as ordinary Jordanians suffer.

The queen last year wore clothes valued at £236,000 during public appearances, according to a website monitoring royal fashion. “Everything she wears is so expensive,” said one person living in Amman. “People see the way other royals, like Kate Middleton, dress in high street brands, and they compare it. It’s not a good look for her with the economy as it is.”

Hussein, who took the throne at 17 in 1953 and ruled through tumultuous times until his death in 1999, created a constitutional monarchy that provides for elections but gives his son, Abdullah, extensive influence over policy making. The country is firmly under the royal thumb.

Abdullah has published papers calling for a more inclusive, pluralistic political system, yet those charged with “disrespecting” him can face three years in jail. Since 2016, independent press coverage of the royal family has been in effect banned after the government prohibited local outlets from publishing any news about it except for statements directly from the royal court.

The 56-year-old king and his family are publicly revered. Almost all criticism happens in private. [...]

Pictures of Abdullah, whose mother, Princess Muna al-Hussein, was born in Chelmondiston, Suffolk, adorn shopfronts and offices. [...]

Yet the criticism of the royals, analysts say, is growing across the social strata. “It is modern women and men who are saying this as well as the working class,” said a local journalist. “The king and queen are both educated, they’re westernised, but somehow they don’t understand this.”

Jordan’s large middle class has been severely hit by the economic crisis. Although education and literacy are among the best in the region, almost a third of young people are unemployed. Rents in Amman are steep, making it difficult for them to live independently.

Asma, like most of her friends, wants to leave the country. Though she is from a well-to-do family, she struggles to get by on the £280 a month she earns working seven days a week as a shop assistant to finance her degree. “They’ve basically managed to wipe out the middle class in a year,” she said. “Why would I ever stay here?”

A third of Jordan’s population lives below the poverty line for at least a quarter of the year, and has been hit hardest. “We’ve been giving people bread because they can’t afford it,” said Majid, a baker, as he dusted off his floury hands in a souk just a few miles from the Taj Mall. “People are going hungry.”

At a nearby barber shop, Ahmed, 37, sat drinking coffee — passing the time without customers. Three months ago, his electricity bill doubled.

He believes corruption lies at the heart of Jordan’s problems. Last year, it was ranked 59 out of 180 on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index — below Rwanda and Saudi Arabia. “I know the government is corrupt,” Ahmed said, lighting a cigarette. “I’m angry, and I feel this is an injustice but as an ordinary citizen I can’t speak out because this will cause me problems. People are willing to accept corruption if we have security. I know for sure the government steals, but I can’t do anything because I don’t want Jordan to be like Syria.”

That fear of contagion from the war raging next door is a powerful force for stability. But analysts say economic reform is vital. Much of the state’s budget goes on salaries and pensions in the bloated public sector.

“The fundamental problem is that the government is too large and the spending is not directed towards productive activities,” said Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister and vice-president of the Carnegie Endowment, a Washington think tank.

“We should have seen it coming. We have relied on the rentier system and foreign aid for too long and we find ourselves in a crisis that we don’t know how to get out of. People are angry because there’s no end in sight. Every time that the government has an economic crisis, it is them who are being asked to pay the price. You can’t ask people to keep giving sacrifices without giving them a voice. This is what caused the Arab Spring in the first place.”
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/hungry-jordan-vents-anger-at-prodigal-royals-8s05rlqvl
 
The people are angry... the queen and the princesses should in the next time wore clothes that arent expencive like some royals who wores mango or zara...
 
To be honest I've always wondered how Rania was justifying a wardrobe of extremely expensive foreign designers given the relative poverty of her country compared to the western European nations. Kate can wear Burberry and McQueen and make the argument that she's supporting British fashion, Rania can't use that excuse.

Having said that, no one could claim her jewellery collection is over the top compared with other Queens consort.

Worrying times for Jordan, particularly coming on the back of the strange 'attempted coup' by some members of the family recently.
 
King Abdullah can quell dissenting voices or unrest without fear of being ostracised by the democratic regimes. It is unfortunate though that Queen Rania is not shrewd enough to revise her spending habits.
 
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