ON LEADERSHIP / And now whose foreign policy is naive?

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Presumptive Republican presidential campaigner Toilet McCain have repeatedly accused Barack Obama of wanting to negociate with Iran's ill-famed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hoping to paint a image of the likely Democratic presidential campaigner as naif because of his willingness to open up duologue with U.S. adversaries.

Obama's address at AIPAC last hebdomad may have got set McCain's claim to rest. Obama, in an attempt to travel himself from the left to the centre of Democratic Party, told the American State Of Israel Populace Personal Business Committee, "I will make everything in my powerfulness to forestall Islamic Republic Of Islamic Republic Of Iran from obtaining a atomic arm - everything." Yet he still maintained that he would wish to see the United States "open up lines of communication, construct an agenda, organize closely with our allies, and measure the possible for progress." He clarified his topographic point on treatments with Iran by stating that "as president of the United States, I would be willing to take tough and principled diplomatic negotiations with the appropriate Persian leader at a clip and place of my choosing," with accent on "the appropriate Persian leader."

Yet, the actions of each nation's president make not necessarily reflect widely held positions within those nations. The general perceptual experience is that dialogues with Islamic Republic Of Iran mean value negotiation with Ahmadinejad, whose series of controversial comments about State Of Israel and the Holocaust have got angered many Americans.

In Iran's political system, the president is 2nd in bid to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Khamenei. The Ayatollah is the commanding officer in main and have the last say in foreign policy, law reform, atomic programs, defence doctrine, and even cultural and societal policies.

Ahmadinejad and his protagonists may actually fancy a U.S. armed forces work stoppage and continuance of Bush's confrontational policies through a McCain administration, in hopes of strengthening their powerfulness within Islamic Republic Of Iran by rallying all cabals behind the flag.

Prior to the invasion of Islamic State Of Islamic State Of Afghanistan in 2002, it was Khamenei who allowed Persian diplomatists to sit down side by side with Americans in Federal Republic Of Germany to speak about the hereafter of Afghanistan. However, in tax return for this cooperation, Islamic Republic Of Iran was inducted into the "axis of evil" club.

It was Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad, who authorized three units of ammunition of direct negotiation between Persian diplomatists and Americans over the security issues in Bagdad last year.

Again, this January, it was Khamenei who expressed willingness to reconstruct diplomatic dealings with the United States as soon as ill wills between the two states abated. "I would be the first 1 to back up these relations," state radiocommunication quoted Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Khamenei saying. "Of course of study we never said the severed dealings were forever."

Negotiations are improbable to happen before Iran's adjacent presidential election in 2009 for fearfulness that Ahmadinejad could utilize them to his advantage in a re-election campaign.

Khamenei makes not seek these dialogues because he desires U.S.-Iran relations, but rather he seeks them more than out of necessity. Iran's economic system is fragile: It endures from the peak charge per unit of rising prices in the Center East and a deficiency of foreign investment. It is stymied by the menace of an American attack, and increasing pressure level from Arabian states concerned about Iran's growth regional power. Iranians cannot count on their Arab playing card game (Hamas, Hezbollah and Iraki reserves groups) forever. Iran's Shiite allies in the Center East place themselves as Arabs (rivals of the Irani Iranians) first, and then as Shiites, indicating that their support of Islamic Republic Of Islamic Republic Of Iran will only be lukewarm. In order to defeat these domestic and regional obstacles, Islamic Republic Of Iran must stop the no-peace-no-war state of affairs with the United States. Otherwise, the effects could be disastrous.

Obama's willingness to open up negotiation with Islamic Republic Of Iran proposes that he, unlike McCain, acknowledges this world - and that his foreign policy attack is far from naïve. By gap a duologue with Khamenei, the adjacent U.S. president could seriously sabotage general international percepts of Ahmadinejad's power, while bringing Islamic Republic Of Iran and the United States closer to reconciliation.

Omid Memarian is World Peace Chap at UC Berkeley's Alumnus School of Journalism. He is the receiver of Person Rights Watch's Person Rights Defender award.

Nigeria: NLC, IFJ, NUJ, Others Want FOIB Passed - AllAfrica.com

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Stakeholders at the in progress populace hearing on Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill yesterday said the measure would guarantee accountability, transparence and efficiency in government, and desire the measure passed immediately, just as the Senate President, Senator Saint David Mark desires libel criminalised in teh nation's statutory book.

The secretary general, Transparency In Nigeria, Mister Osita Ogbu, said that entree to information was an indispensable tool for fighting corruption.

"Corruption is not committed in the open. Secrecy in governmental personal business advances corruptness while openness and transparence discourage corruption," he said.

Ogbu noted that Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Nigeria had ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruptness (UNCAC), the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruptness and the ECOWAS Protocol On the Fight Against Corruption.

"The above international anti-corruption instruments, to which Nigeria is party, necessitate state political parties to have got entree to information laws," he said.

In a presentation, Mister Ladi Lawal, the grouping managing director, DAAR Communications Plc, said since the Restoration of democracy in Nigeria, the mass mass media had remained the most cogent tool for entrenching the tenets.

"The media, more than than any other professional grouping, is the lone organ with the capacity to simultaneously attain the people with timely information which determines sentiments about governance," he noted.

He said that the bill, when passed and signed into law, would advance an open, just and just society.

Lawal stated that the Freedom of Information Act was signed into law on July 4, 1966 and had gone through nine amendments since then.

"The Freedom of Information law in the United Kingdom also have a long history. African states such as as Republic Of Angola and Republic Of Zimbabwe have got the law," he added.

He dispelled the fearfulnesses being raised in some living quarters that the mass mass media would mistreat the freedom being conferred on it by the bill.

"My response again is that the intendment of the law and its other commissariat of precautions should do to set everyone at ease.

"Any abuse of information by any journalist in the publication of falsity or libel, are actionable under extant laws in our legislative act books," he added.

Alhaji Baba Dantiye, the President of the Nigerian Club of Editors, also expressed sorrow that nine old age after the measure was submitted to the National Assembly, it had yet to be passed.

He said that media practicians could not be made to let on the beginning of their information because it would be against the ethical motive of the profession.

He called on the National Assembly to guarantee that the measure was passed before the end of the twelvemonth as it would take to truth and dependability of information.

The President, Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Nigeria Union of Journalists, Mister Ndagene Akwu, said the labor union had always insisted on professionalism among journalists.

"NUJ is aware of the fact that there are many aliens in the community and had insisted on professionalism," he noted.

In a entry by the Nigeria Labor United States United States Congress through Mister Olaitan Oyerinde, the Congress emphasised the demand for entree to the records of the Code of Behavior Bureau.

"When you do pay demands, you necessitate some information on it which are not easily available," he said.

The Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) also yesterday said the Bill if passed into law would cut down corruptness in the country.

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NLC, in its entry to the Populace Hearing on the Bill organised by the Senate Committee on Information and Media, also disclosed that to vouch good administration and democracy in the country, there was demand for a general atmosphere of openness and handiness of Information in the public domain.

The labor union added that "given the ill will of openness which characterised colonial and military governance, Federal Republic Of Nigeria have been saddled with a general head covering of terrible over information about authorities and its agencies. Much of this information is generally classified as top-secret."

According to the paper, which was signed by NLC playing secretary General, Companion Olailan Oyerinde, lamented that such as pattern have affected the mass media in respective ways, including fillet Populace Information that is reasonably required to transform authorities and its agencies.

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