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QNA
Geneva
SPEAKER of the Advisory Council (Shura) HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al Mahmoud has affirmed Qatar's belief in peace and sustainable development as being interdependent and inseparable, calling upon United Nations agencies and regional and international organisations, including the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), to address them together.
In his speech before the 139th IPU General Assembly being held in Geneva under the title 'Parliamentary Leadership in Promoting Peace and Development in an Era of Innovation and Technological Change', al Mahmoud said that conflicts, wars, displacement and migrations to which human population is exposed are a result of the failure to achieve economic development and the absence of stability and justice."Therefore, Qatar has always been calling for addressing the root causes of global problems and not only their manifestations", he stressed.
The speaker added that despite the fact that efforts to achieve sustainable development have led to a rapid modernisation of science and technology and the progress of human society, they have also had negative effects, including non-traditional cyber security threats and interrelatedness with traditional security threats, which have become a threat to international peace and security.
In this context, he noted that some of those who have been devising intrigues against human gains have used modern technology to violate the sovereignty of countries and destabilise their security and economy through falsification, spreading lies and spying on countries and tempering with their currencies. In this regard, he pointed to the damage inflicted on Qatar and others countries as a result of hacking and digital espionage and the abuse of technology and modern science by some countries, stressing that those who misuse cyber technology everywhere must be held accountable.
Mahmoud pointed to the Amir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani's address to the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly last September, where His Highness proposed an international conference to regulate the use of digital and information technology in accordance with an international law governing this area, and expressed Qatar's readiness to work with United Nations agencies to organise it legally as well as its willingness to host this conference.
In this regard, he called on the parliamentarians' meeting in Geneva to link the call for the use of modern technology to the promotion of peace and development.
He noted that in the era of the information revolution and the widening of the spaces of knowledge and communication, parliaments should assume the task of promoting international peace and development by introducing modern methods of communication and harnessing science and technology in the service of members and parliamentary committees.
On the sidelines of the General Assembly, Speaker of the Advisory Council HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al Mahmoud met separately with Speaker of the African Parliamentary Union (UPA) Cipriano Cassama, President of the Latin American and Caribbean Group Rodolfo Urtubey, and Ivan Flores Garcia, member of the Chilean Parliament and head of the Qatari-Chilean Friendship Committee.
