Kuwait Times - 13/5/2006

National Assembly Speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi flew back home yesterday from Nairobi where he participated in the 114th conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). Al-Khorafi was greeted at the airport by Deputy Speaker Mishari Al-Anjari, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet and National Assembly Affairs Mohammad Dhaifallah Sharar, and Secretary-General of the National Assembly Sharidah Al-Muawshirg. Al-Kharafi was accompanied by MPs Salem Al-Hammad, Mohammad Al-Fajji, Hussein Al-Qallaf, Walid Tabtabaei, and Ali Ali-Diqbasi. IPU meetings in Nairobi are scheduled to conclude late last night.

Earlier, Al-Qallaf praised the agenda of the IPU conference and said that the conference touched on the mechanisms of reinforcing democracy in the world and the role of parliaments in developing democracy in their countries.
He added that the conference also touched on humanitarian aspects by focusing on the catastrophic living conditions in the Horn of Africa due to desertification, poverty, and contagious diseases.
He noted that the conference accepted the Kenyan recommendation to include this humanitarian crisis as an urgent item in the agenda due to the urgent need for help in that part of the world.
Al-Qallaf said that many sessions in the conference discussed women issues in democracy, noting that women's rights in the third world countries had a great share of the discussions.
He asserted the importance of the Kuwaiti participation in international conventions, noting that Kuwait is a developing country that has been practicing democracy for decades and it is necessary for it to reflect the positive image of this culture to other countries and benefit from other countries' experiences in this field.
Al-Qallaf also praised the speech of head of the Kuwaiti delegation Al-Khorafi before the conference, in addition to the work papers and discussions of the Kuwaiti delegation during the meetings, which touched on democracy, violence against women, women rights, environmental deterioration, and the dangers of concealed weapons.
He added that Kuwait presented a work paper on an issue concerning the Islamic world, which is the cartoons insulting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), noting that was placed among the priorities of the next conference.