Comments on issues raised by BBC WHYS

In his first interview with a foreign media outlet – Al-Arabiya television – President Barack Obama promised to extend the hand of American diplomacy to Tehran if the regime froze its nuclear programme.

Despite welcoming the change of tone in US foreign policy towards his country, Iran’s president demanded an apology for past US “crimes” committed against Iran.

Iran should equally apologize to the United States for the 52 American hostages it took after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, before it asks the US to apologize for the economic sanctions it has successively imposed on it.

If Iran seeks good relations with the US both should work to build trust between them. Continuing diplomatic conflict will delay the resolutions of many problems affecting the region, especially the conflicts between Israel and Hamas on one hand and Israel and Hezbollah on the other.

The differences between Iran and the US are so deep extending from Iran nuclear program to the attitudes towards the conflicts in the Middle East, involving Israel with Hamas, Hezbullah and Syria. Iran has strong relations with these. It can exert strong influence on Hamas and Hezbullah either way as long as it gets or doesn’t get what it wants. It’s using them as a tool to indirectly wage wars against Israel.

In view of this complex differences regulating Iran’s relations with the US and Israel , there is so much hard work to do on all sides to heal the rifts that has been taking place since 1979.

For the US and Iran, they can be friends if they leave the past behind them and turn a new page. However the harsh tone of Iranian president in his last speech in which he demanded an apology from the US for its “crimes” against his country and the extended hand of friendship from Obama to the Iranian leaders shows that there is “love” just from one side. The rift whose causes are much more complex can’t be healed easily.

Many countries around the worlds have tried to turn a new page concerning human right abuses in the past as a means to foster national reconciliation and to compensate the victims or their relatives.

Morocco is the first Arab country to compensate for the victims of human rights abuses between independence in 1956 and the end of King Hassan’s reign in 1999, during which 592 people were killed, the Equity and Reconciliation Committee. Some received more than USD 300,000 in compensation.

Money is just a means to compensate the victims, but there is no money to compensate for the lost years in imprisonment under torture. Many leave the prison in critical health conditions and die just after receiving their compensation.

For Morocco, the compensation of former victims of human rights abuses has been a success. Outstanding political prisoners have become involved in politics, by joining existing or newly formed political parties. Many exiled politicians returned. At least the compensations have secured political stability in Morocco – although the Islamists, hundreds of whom are now in prison, still constitute a dangerous factor for the regime in Morocco.

A US woman has given birth to eight babies , becoming just the second person recorded in the US to have delivered a set of living octuplets.

There was the case of a Russian mother who gave birth to 69 children in the span of 40 years from 1725 to 1765.

Having so many babies at the same time can be a blessing if the parents have the means and the time to support them. It can be fantastic to have a big family all of a sudden. But the effort and the cost of raising a child in today’s world isn’t so easy.

For many parents, the beauty of having many children is that they come one by one. At least parents enjoy having babies over a period of time.

For woman who is past 40 and has never had children before, it must be a good thing for her to have a triplet or a quadruplet as she will have secured having more than one child before the menopause. For a young mother, it must be difficult as she will have to care for more than one baby at a time, which can be burden on her physical health, mainly when it comes to sleep deprivation during the first years of the new born babies.