The Shura Council State of Qatar

The Shura Council held its regular weekly meeting on Monday under the chairmanship of HE the Speaker Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Council discussed the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee's report on a draft law on the protection of industrial designs.

After discussion, the Council decided to approve the above mentioned draft law and referred its recommendations thereon to the esteemed government.

At the end of the meeting, HE the Speaker of the Shura Council briefed the Council on his participation along with the accompanying delegation in the Parliamentary hearing at the United Nations headquarters in New York, held on February 17 to 18 under the title (Education as a Key to Peace and Sustainable Development: Toward the Implementation of SDG 4), and on his meetings on the sidelines of the hearing with a number of senior officials of the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

HE also briefed the Council on the Memorandum of Understanding that he signed in New York with the United Nations, in which the Shura Council and the UN enter into direct arrangements to establish the Office of the UN Counter-Terrorism Program, which will be concerned with the parliamentary participation in preventing and combating terrorism. The office's headquarters will be in the State of Qatar and its activities will cover the parliaments of world countries.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding, the Doha-based Office of the UN Counter-Terrorism Program will provide technical assistance and training to world parliaments in order to build capacity of parliamentarians to better understand and respond to terrorism-related issues, support the implementation of major initiatives within the framework of the joint United Nations and Inter-Parliamentary Union program on the role of parliaments in countering terrorism and violent extremism leading to terrorism, and promote a balanced and integrated implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and related Security Council resolutions.