3 Money Lessons From Prime Minister Narendra Modi

SOURCE:
http://www.msn.com/en-in/money/topstories/3-money-lessons-from-prime-minister-narendra-modi/ar-AAaz4AQ





                        
                           3 Money Lessons
                                    From
                Prime Minister Narendra Modi
                                        By
                            Monika Halan


 PREAMBLE

                          Marketing without AIM or shifting Goal Posts  is a bad business.

A branch manager went to a tailor and said, “I want a suit to be made in seven days as I have to attend a wedding”. The tailor said, “Yes. It will be done.” A week later when he asked for the suit, the tailor handed him a salwar kurta with dupatta. The bank manager got angry and shouted, “Mera suit ka kya kiya (what did you do with my suit?)?” The tailor replied: “Yehi aapka suit hai (here it is).” Bank manager barked back: “Ye ladies suit hai, pagal hai kya? (this is a ladies suit, are you mad?)” and shouted angry words at the tailor. The tailor finally said, “Chup! (shut up!)”

The bank manager went silent. “Ab pata chala kaisa feel hota hai jab main aapki branch mein FD (fixed deposit) karane aaya thaa aur aapne mujhe insurance bech diya (now you know how it feels when I came to do an FD in your bank and you sold me an insurance plan).”




1/4 Pages

© Ap Photo 3 money lessons from Prime Minister Narendra Modi

 

That Narendra Modi is a skilful orator is not news, but to hear him in person and to see him use ground-level common sense to drive home financial lessons to an auditorium full of bankers is quite an experience. The venue was the 80th birthday party of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai. And in case you were wondering, as I did, as to why celebrate 80 years rather than the global norm of 75 or 100, Modi said that 80 years is special to Indians because it marks the sahastra darshan or the 1,000 viewings of the full moon by a person who turns 80.

 

 

The Prime Minister started off by admitting that most of the conversation relating to finance goes over his head—since he’s not endowed with the needed “software” to understand it. But then he went on to demonstrate that jargon is not what is needed and that a commonsensical practical world view does just as well—in fact, better. What struck me were three lessons, two of which could have been out of a financial planning text book and the third is still to be written into financial sector regulation—but it will be. 

 

 

 

 

 

                   Lesson #1: Goal Setting 


    

© Bloomberg Lesson one: 

 

 

Modi wants the RBI to set a goal to get India fully financially included by the time it hits 100 in 2035. A goal that is so far away, like retirement planning, has the ability to get ignored. So financial planning 101 says, break up the goal into smaller bits, and pace yourself. Modi’s roadmap for RBI is to set event-based goalposts over the next 20 years—2019 marks Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary; 2022 is India’s 75th independence anniversary; and in 2025, RBI turns 90.

 

 

                                                   Lesson #2: Habit creation

  

He said that his aim is not to make financial inclusion a “programme” but to make it a swabhav—that loosely translates into the word “habit”. Financial planning is all about inculcating good money habits. Unless you make looking after your money life a habit, hands-free money management will not happen.

 

 

-                                                                                                                              -

 

ALSO READ: 5 tips to make your money grow >>

-                                                                                   -



Lesson #3: Working on Problems Ex-Ante rather Than Ex-Post 
  

© REX Features Lesson three: Working on problems ex-ante rather than ex-post

 

Modi used the example of turning the gas subsidy into a direct cash transfer as an example of working on the problem ex-ante—the corruption of fake accounts declines significantly if the subsidy changes its form.

 

 

The latest work in financial sector regulation is coming around to the view that removing the skew in financial products that lead to cheating consumers should be done ex-ante rather than spending on catching market failure and then punishing ex-post. Writes Luigi Zingales in his 2015 paper, Does Finance Benefit Society: “In designing rules we economists need to think about how these rules will be adapted and enforced under heavy lobbying pressure. For this reason, rules that modify incentives ex-ante rather than repress behaviour ex-post are to be preferred: enforcement can be more easily blocked by lobbying.”

 

 

The Financial System Inquiry set up by the Australian government found it necessary to improve financial consumer outcomes by mandating a design intervention—something that has been off the table in financial sector regulation as the sector had convinced policymakers that any reins on product structure will curb innovation. The Inquiry recommended better consumer outcomes through measures that “improve the design and distribution of financial products through strengthening product issuer and distributor accountability, and through implementing a new temporary product intervention power for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission”.

 

Read it here:

 

http://mintne.ws/1O25L8m.

 

 

 In other words—let’s work ex-ante to kill conflict of interest, rather than chase the white-collar criminals ex-post.

                                    End Note 

   I cannot help but end this banking story with this one. Rajan Mehta, formerly with Benchmark Mutual Fund and now experimenting in the health sector, forwarded me a Whatsapp message. His comment

: “Mis-selling by banks seems to have been acknowledged by common people”.


Here goes:

 

 

 

A branch manager went to a tailor and said, “I want a suit to be made in seven days as I have to attend a wedding”. The tailor said, “Yes. It will be done.” A week later when he asked for the suit, the tailor handed him a salwar kurta with dupatta. The bank manager got angry and shouted, “Mera suit ka kya kiya (what did you do with my suit?)?” The tailor replied: “Yehi aapka suit hai (here it is).” Bank manager barked back: “Ye ladies suit hai, pagal hai kya? (this is a ladies suit, are you mad?)” and shouted angry words at the tailor. The tailor finally said, “Chup! (shut up!)”

The bank manager went silent. “Ab pata chala kaisa feel hota hai jab main aapki branch mein FD (fixed deposit) karane aaya thaa aur aapne mujhe insurance bech diya (now you know how it feels when I came to do an FD in your bank and you sold me an insurance plan).”

 

 

 

 

Monika Halan works in the area of financial literacy and financial intermediation policy and is a certified financial planner. She is editor, Mint Money, Yale World Fellow 2011 and on the board of FPSB India. She can be reached at expenseaccount@livemint.com

 

-                                                                                                       

ALSO READ: Retired? 4 monthly income investment options for you >>                                                                                       

-                                                                                                                                                           -     
















 

Russian Nclear Submarines

Source
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/949.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2015/russia-150407-presstv01.htm?_m=3n%2e002a%2e1387%2eka0ao00b2h%2e19ur





                   Russian Nclear Submarines

Russian nuclear submarine catches fire at shipyard

In-Depth Coverage

 

 Apr 7, 2015

A Russian nuclear submarine has caught fire at a shipyard in Russia's northern province of Arkhangelsk, but there are no casualties or threats as the vessel was not carrying any nuclear fuel.
The 155-meter (508-feet) K-266 Orel (Eagle) submarine was being repaired at the Zvyozdochka shipyard in the city of Severodvinsk, located in the delta of the Northern Dvina River, on Tuesday, when the blaze broke out.


The conflagration started as welding works were being carried out, with rubber insulation catching fire, according to a report published by Russian TASS news agency.

The Russian Emergencies Ministry declined to comment on the fire at the Zvyozdochka shipyard.

Russia's United Shipbuilding Company, however, confirmed the incident, adding that nobody was hurt.


The submarine's nuclear reactor had reportedly been shut down before the blaze.

A spokesperson for Zvyozdochka shipyard, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Interfax news agency that there were no casualties, and all crew and workers left the craft in time.

"Nuclear fuel from the submarine was unloaded in 2013 before repair works began, and there is no weaponry on the craft," the spokesperson stated.


By late afternoon, firefighters had reportedly contained the blaze.

"The fire has been localized, there is no threat to the population or the environment," the spokesperson noted.

A similar fire at a nuclear submarine occurred in Russia in December 2011, when the K-84 Yekaterinburg of Delta-IV class caught fire during welding works in dry dock.

The blaze, which lasted for some 20 hours, left nine people injured after inhaling toxic fumes and caused dozens of millions of dollars worth of damage.

The incident nearly led to a nuclear disaster, even though Russian officials insisted the nuclear-powered submarine was not carrying atomic weapons at the time.

Further Reading

Project 949/949A Project 949/949A Program Project 949/949A Specifications Project 949/949A Ship List Project 949/949A Pictures Project 949/949A References K-141 Kursk Accident

Project 949 Granit / Oscar I
Project 949A Antey / Oscar II

The Oscar-class nuclear-powered cruise missile attack submarine, which displaces more than 18,000 tons when under water, is one of Russia's largest and most capable submarines. As with earlier cruise-missile submarine, the Oscar was designed primarily to attack American aircraft carrier battle groups. 


As with other Russian submarines, the Oscar features a double hull -- and inner pressure hull and an outer hydrodynamic hull, with eight inches of rubber between them to muffle sounds. American submarines have a single pressure hull, with additional hydrodynamic fairings, such as the cap that encloses the bow sonar dome. The 3.5 meter separation between the inner and outter hulls on the Oscar provides significant reserve buoyancy, and improved survivability against conventional torpedoes.


These large submarines are said to be slow to dive and maneuver, though they are credited with a submerged speed of about 30 knots - sufficient to keep pace with their targets. The improved Oscar II is about 10 meters longer than the Oscar I, possibly making room for a quieter propulsion system, and feature upgraded electronic systems. The Oscar II is also characterized by a substantially enlarged fin, which should improve underwater manueverability, as well as the substitution of the Oscar-I's four-bladed propeller with a [presumably] quiter seven-blade propeller.   The Oscars are rather poorly characterized in the open literature, with substantial discrepancies in reported submerged displacement [the upper estimates are probably closer to the mark] and maximum submerged speed [reportedly classified intelligence estimates have tended upward over time.   The submarine is equipped with two dozen SS-N-19 missiles with a range of 550-kilometers -- three times as many anti-ship cruise missiles as earlier Charlie and Echo II class submarines.  The missiles, which are launched while the submarine is submerged, are fired from tubes fixed at an angle of approximately 40 degrees. The tubes, arranged in two rows of twelve each, are covered by six hatches on each side of the sail, with each hatch covering a pair of tubes. The launchers are placed between the inner pressure hull and the outer hydrodynamic hull. The torpedo tubes fire both torpedoes and shorter range anti-ship missiles, and a combination of some two dozen weapons are carried.   The Project 949A submarines have a total of at least ten separate compartments, which can be sealed off from each other in the event of accidents. The compartments are numbered sequentially from fore to aft, with the two separate reactor compartments numbered V and V-bis [which is accounts for the fact that there are ten compartments, though the numbers only run through nine].  

I - Torpedo room
II - Control Room
III - Combat stations and radio room
IV - Living Quarters
V and V-bis - Reactors
VI - propulsion engineering
VII - main propulsion turbines
VIII - main propulsion turbines
IX - electric motors

Access hatches are believed to be located in the 4th and 9th compartments. In common with the larger Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine, the Oscar-class boats are reported to have an emergency crew escape capsule located in the sail. In the 1980s the Rubin Design Bureau was responsible for developing a number of third generation nuclear submarines with cruise missiles, including Projects 949 ("Granit", "Oscar I") and 949A ("Antey", "Oscar II"). The Bureau took the lead in using naval cruise missiles, designing the first cruise missile nuclear submarine -- Project 659 ("Echo I"), then Project 675 ("Echo II") and related modifications.

Operations

In 1994 an Oscar submarine conducted operations off the East Coast of the United States. In July 1997 when the Oscar II submarine K-442 Chelyabinsk [aka Pskov] shadowed several US aircraft carriers off Washington state. The Tomsk transitted to the Pacific under ice after being commissioned on 28 February 1997, and arrived at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy on 24 September 1998. This brought the Pacific Fleet class inventory to seven, with four others in the Northern Fleet. 


On 26 January 1998 a moored nuclear-powered Oscar II submarine suffered a cooling system accident. During routine tests aboard a cooling system pipe broke, releasing ammonia and nitrogen gas into the compartment. A total of 5 crew members were injured, one of whom, a Captain of the 3rd Rank, died two days later. The Oscar II submarine was reportedly the K-512 St.Georgy Pobeditel [formerly named Tomsk]. This eleventh unit of the 'Oscar II' SSGN class had been launched in July 1995 despite irregular materiel and component delivery problems. 


In February 1999 an Oscar-class submarine was observed monitoring a NATO exercise off the coast of Norway. In August 1999 NATO sonar detected the presence in Western Atlantic waters of a Russian Oscar class submarine belonging to the northern fleet, based in the Arctic ports. In the mid-1999 an Oscar II-class submarine sailed from northern Russia to the Mediterranean, the first Russian SSGN patrol in the Mediterranean in a decade. It then sailed on to areas off the eastern United States. In early September 1999 the crew of the Jose Maria Pastor, a fishing trawler registered in Almeria [southeastern Spain] reportedly snagged an Oscar submarine in its nets. The incident occured some 27 miles (50 kilometers) from the Tarifa coast (Cadiz Province), and continued for over half an hour before the submarine broke free. Another Oscar II deployed from the Russian Far East, sailing to the area around Hawaii before arriving in waters off San Diego by October 1999. It reportedly spent a week following the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and the amphibious landing ship Essex.

















 

Russia's Unseen New Armata Battle Tank Captured on Camera

Source:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russias-unseen-new-armata-battle-tank-captured-on-camera/518019.html

Published on Dec 13, 2014

 

Experimental Russian tank "Black Eagle" is based on the Soviet T-80 tank, as a result of extensive modernization

 

      [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIUmHTtEJpU]

Published on Jul 31, 2014

 

The film is about the continuity of Russian arms merchants Demidovs to the present day

         Tanks. Ural Character - the Movie Dmitry Rogozin  

        
                     Tanks. Ural character.


              The history of tank development.



                      The film, Dmitry Rogozin.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFxOu1aGvE0]

     

Russia's Unseen New Armata Battle Tank                Captured on Camera

                      The Moscow Times

Mar. 25 2015

military-informant.comRussia's brand-new T-14 Armata main battle tanks, covered in tarps and resting on a train carriage, are seen in Alabino.

 

Russia's brand-new T-14 Armata main battle tank, which is set to be officially unveiled to the public at a Victory Day parade on Red Square on May 9, has reportedly been sighted readying for the ceremonies outside Moscow.


Photos of tanks resembling the Armata tank design hit the Russian internet on Monday.

According to Russian military blog                               military-informant.com, which published the photos, the tanks, covered in tarps and resting on a train carriage, were gathering with other military units in Alabino, outside Moscow. There they will rehearse their movements for this year's Victory Day celebration, which marks 70 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany.


The Armata is part of a massive rearmament program costing hundreds of billions of dollars that aims to restore some of the military might Russia lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A video taken from a cell phone and uploaded to YouTube on Monday shows what appears to be the Armata tank. The video shows a junction near the factory that produced the tank, Uralvagonzavod, and a tank testing range.

 

The tank's seven wheels give it away as an Armata. Russia's current tanks are all based on variations of old Soviet tank chassis designs and have six wheels.


Another recognizable feature is the long and boxy turret that resembles modern Western tank turret designs such as the U.S. M1 Abrahms and German Leopard 2. Older Russian tanks have more bulbous turrets.


The new tanks, officially designated the Armata T-14 main battle tank, is built on a chassis known as the Armata Universal Combat Platform. Armata will serve as a common base for a series of armored combat vehicles, according to manufacturer Uralvagonzavod.


The chassis will be used to develop new armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery, and even a fully automated drone tank, the company has said. The common chassis will make production and maintenance easier and cheaper, according to Uralvagonzavod.

 

See also:
Student in Russia Builds 20-Ton Soviet Tank Out of Snow

British Embassy Tweets Diagram to Help Russia Spot Its Tanks in Ukraine

Kiev Says Russian Tanks Have Crossed Into Ukraine

























 

The Iranian Nuclear Program and its Bureaucrat-in-Chief

Source:http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/the-iranian-nuclear-program-and-its-bureaucrat-in-chief/?singlepage=1
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/index.html

Iran Special Weapons Guide

Missiles Nuclear Biological Chemical

Organization Facilities Doctrine Contractors

News Reports Sources

in Analysis

    The Iranian Nuclear Program and its                               Bureaucrat-in-Chief

                                  By

                             Aaron Stein   

April 8, 2015 ·

 

 

 

During negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, President Obama repeatedly pressed the intelligence community to make a determinative judgment on the real intentions of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. The intelligence community remained divided, however, and failed to come to a consensus on Khamenei’s policy goals.

 

 

Writing in 2009, Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment described Khamenei as “the single most powerful individual in a highly factionalized, autocratic regime” even though “he does not make national decisions on his own.” Instead, Sadjadpour notes, he rules “the country by consensus rather than decree, with his own survival and that of the theocratic system as his top priorities.”

  Based on the few open-source documents (listed on Jeffrey Lewis’ Arms Control Wonk blog and available in FBIS) describing Iran’s nuclear decision-making after it was revealed that Iran had an undeclared nuclear program in August 2002, Iran’s nuclear policies are made by consensus and based on Khamenei’s careful bureaucratic management of Iran’s political factions. As Farzan Sahbet and this author noted, “Analyzing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s fragmented political system is a notoriously difficult task, and Tehranology is at the best of times an imprecise science.” For simplicity, Iran’s most prominent political currents are divided into four categories forming two broad camps: reformists and centrists, who together form the “moderate” camp, and neo- and traditional principalists, who constitute the “conservative” camp.

 

 

These camps were all represented in the deliberations about the direction of Iran’s nuclear policy after the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the civilian arm of the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK), shined a light on the infrastructure supporting Iran’s two nuclear programs in August 2002. (MEK is a terrorist organization working to overthrow the Islamic Republic’s government.) The camps adopted different policies vis-à-vis engagement with the West, albeit with one key exception: all agreed on the need for Iran to maintain its enrichment program, and thereby ensure that its “right to enrich” was not undermined. Iran’s subsequent decision-making reflected the country’s politics. During times of conservative empowerment (2005-2013), Iran grew more combative. By contrast, during times of “moderate” rule (1998-2005; 2013-Present), Iran was more amenable to political compromise on the nuclear issue.


In the latest round of negotiations, Iran’s moderates have the upper hand, which suggests that the United States has an overarching interest in pushing forward with negotiations intended to reach a final agreement to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.

 The current Iranian government is moderate in its outlook, which means that the international community has an opportunity to finalize an agreement with robust inspections.

A more conservative government, for example, may balk at the terms required to assure the world that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful.


Moreover, Iran’s commitments – released in a U.S. government fact sheet about the negotiations – further suggest that key Iranian moderates are influencing nuclear decisions and, most importantly, have been able to sway the Supreme Leader to tepidly embrace their positions. Iran has made key concessions that if implemented will severely curtail any conceivable route to the bomb. This position is at odds with Khamenei’s history of support for Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as well as the policies pursued by conservative elements between 2005 and 2013. However, they are in line with Iran’s diplomatic history, suggesting that the route to a successful negotiation started in Tehran.



The Nuclear Program

Iran’s nuclear weapons program began in 1985. Two years later, Khamenei personally led a delegation to Pakistan to procure the front-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. A year after, a representative from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp met with a representative from the AQ Khan network in Dubai. Iran ultimately purchased the list of Khan’s European suppliers for specialized centrifuge components, as well as a document detailing the reduction of uranium gas to metal and then the manufacturing of the precise spheres used in the core of a nuclear weapon.


Iran subsequently divided its nuclear program into two. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) oversaw the civil side of the program and was based at Tehran University and later at the Kalaye Electric facility, where Iran first enriched uranium in 1999. The military’s efforts were separate from the AEOI’s work, and further divided into two components: the first centered on procurement and was based at Sharif University; and the second focused on developing the tools and designs needed to deliver and detonate a nuclear warhead. This program, it appears, was based at Lavizan Shian.


Bureaucratic Politics


After the NCRI revealed much of Iran’s undeclared nuclear infrastructure in August 2002, Khamenei put together a bureaucratic entity dubbed the “Council of Heads” to craft and review Iran’s nuclear policies, particularly as they pertained to the then negotiations with the EU-3. The Council was under the direction of Hassan Rouhani, but included key conservative leaders like Minister Ali Akbar Velayati and the Khamenei-appointed director of the AEOI, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh. This entity balanced the interests of the so-called conservatives and moderates, which thus gives Iranian nuclear researchers a glimpse into the inter-bureaucratic dynamics underpinning the Iranian nuclear negotiating position.


During these debates, Khamenei acted as the bureaucrat-in-chief, and ultimately sought to balance the conflicting proposals put forward by Iran’s differing political factions. From the outset, the moderate camp advocated for a more conciliatory approach to the West, whereas Aghazadeh and Velayati both argued in favor of a more hardline approach. The AEOI’s position, it appears, was based on ignorance and a lack of understanding about the IAEA’s environmental sampling techniques used to detect particles of enriched uranium.
According to Rouhani, the AEOI was “taken aback” by the results of IAEA sampling, before learning that contamination came from the centrifuges purchased from Pakistan. These surprises, in turn, resulted in Rouhani working to bring “all issues involving the nuclear case … under one person’s authority” and his “orders be mandatory for all organizations related to the case.” Having learned this lesson, it stands to reason that the IAEA now serves as a deterrent against Iranian cheating at declared facilities – with the contamination at Sharif University remaining a point of suspicion about a potential military program.


The Foreign Ministry, by contrast, was concerned about the possibility of Iran’s nuclear case being referred to the United Nations Security Council, which would imply indirectly the potential for U.S.-led military action. This debate was taking place months after the United States and its coalition partners easily defeated the Iraqi military during its march to Baghdad, and before the start of the insurgency. Indeed, the United States was at the apex of its power in the region, and thus the speculation that Iran could be next was rife in Western and regional capitals.


Despite this threat, Iran still sought to find a middle ground. The Council never endorsed a plan to end enrichment. Instead, the policy was to pursue a strategy of “suspension,” whereby Iran would retain its nuclear infrastructure after the questions about its nuclear program were resolved.

This suggests that threat of U.S. military action, while a salient factor in these early negotiations, was second to that of Iran’s steadfast insistence on maintaining some semblance of an enrichment program.


This position was ultimately reflected in the language in the 2004 Paris Agreement, which entailed Iran “suspending” enrichment and conversion, but not an Iranian commitment to give up its enrichment program. Khamenei’s actions during this period suggest that he was the final arbiter on Iran’s nuclear policy. However, that policy was shaped during debates in the Council of Heads. Between 2003 and 2005, Khamenei sought to balance the moderate and conservatives factions’ against one another and ultimately endorsed a middle ground, whereby he agreed to suspend enrichment and conversion, albeit while keeping elements of the military program in place.


Khamenei’s deference to the moderate position shifted in 2004, owing to the empowerment of the Iranian conservative movement, and the eventual election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Thereafter, Iran’s position began to reflect the more conservative members on the Council of Heads; ultimately resulting in Iran restarting its enrichment program in 2006. This policy shift took place at a time when the U.S. military option had not yet been discredited. This suggests that domestic politics drive Iran’s decision-making calculus – and therefore Iran’s willingness to cooperate after the 2013 election of Rouhani is indicative of the empowerment of Iran’s moderates over that of the conservative movement.





The Return of the Moderates


The United States was caught off-guard when Hassan Rouhani beat the Khamenei-favored Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in the 2013 election. During the campaign, Iran’s moderates endorsed reaching a nuclear agreement with the P5+1. Following Rouhani’s victory, Khamenei authorized the negotiations by calling for “heroic flexibility” and labeling Javad Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister, and his negotiating team as “children of the Revolution.” Iran’s position during the recent multi-staged negotiations was similar to that of its position in 2003.


Enrichment remained the one red line, but in a similar position to that of the Foreign Ministry between 2003 and 2005, the Iranian side was far more willing to make serious concessions.
There are three key differences from Iran’s previous moderate-led negotiations. First, as of 2014, Iran had installed some 19,000 centrifuges under vacuum of which about 10,000 were actually enriching uranium. Second, during the Ahmadinejad presidency, Iran decided to build a secret centrifuge facility, near the city of Qom. The facility is buried under a mountain and is impervious to all but the latest version of U.S. penetrating munitions. Third, within the latest iteration of Iran’s internal bureaucratic debates, the 2003 Khatami position favoring greater transparency appears to have won out.


Balanced against these key challenges has been the centralization of Iran’s nuclear file. Rouhani, speaking in 2005, notes that before the revelation in August 2002 that the program was fragmented and few people inside Iran had a complete understanding of Iran’s nuclear research. This admission further suggests that there was, in fact, two centrifuge programs in Iran. Centralization, in turn, has streamlined Iran’s negotiating position and may explain why the position long-held by Iran’s moderates were reflected in the U.S. fact sheet.




The Agreement and the Challenges

These political changes – and the proposed policy fixes – are evident in the U.S. drafted fact sheet on the parameters of the final agreement the two parties will try to reach before the end of June. Iran has agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges installed at Natanz to ensure that the time needed to enrich a reduced stockpile of low enriched uranium to 90% would be greater than or equal to one year. To do so, Iran will decrease the number of centrifuges installed at Natanz to 5,104. The key P5+1 concession, it appears, is the allowance of 1,000 centrifuges at Fordow, while requiring Iran to remove fissile material from the site and mandating that the installed centrifuges don’t spin uranium hexafluoride gas – and thus will not be producing enriched uranium at the site.



Instead, per Zarif’s comments on the subject, the facility will be upgraded with an unnamed P5+1 member state to produce medical isotopes, which probably entails only a select number of the 1,000 centrifuges on site separating non-fissile isotopes for medical purposes. Similarly, the U.S. fact sheet indicates the core of Iran’s heavy water reactor, the IR-40, will be replaced to decrease the amount of plutonium produced from the fuel rods. Moreover, in a concession that the United States has been trying to wrangle from Iran for close to five decades, the agreed framework includes an Iranian agreement to forego reprocessing.


To further protect against the threat of Iranian “sneak-out,” whereby Iran could try and construct a secret facility to enrich uranium, the U.S. fact sheet calls for inspections in centrifuge machine shops and, critically, the monitoring of Iran’s uranium mines and uranium conversion facility. These twin provisions, once enforced, will allow for the IAEA to monitor the complete front-end of Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle – and thereby ensure with a level of credibility that Iran cannot produce centrifuges in secret, syphon off uranium converted at the conversion facility, and then enrich it in an undisclosed location. These inspections, when paired with the conversion of Arak and the agreement not to reprocess, deprive Iran of any conceivable route to acquiring the necessary fissile material (enrich uranium or separated plutonium) to construct a nuclear weapon.



The potential problems stem from the pace and sequencing of sanctions relief, which appears tied to Iran’s on-going discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency about the allegations surrounding its previous weapons-related experiments. The sequencing and pace of sanctions relief remains the biggest obstacle to the drafting of a final accord. The two sides have never been closer to signing a comprehensive agreement that would address the international community’s justifiable concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. The framework – should it be finalized – is robust and includes hitherto never implemented inspection provisions to ensure that Iran cannot cheat and surreptitiously develop nuclear weapons.


The available evidence indicates that Khamenei remains Iran’s bureaucrat-in-chief and is taking his cues from the moderates beneath him. Enrichment remains a key red line, but at least for now the faction within Iran advocating for greater transparency has the political weight within the bureaucracy to conclude an agreement with robust nonproliferation provisions.

The critical test is still to come. Iran still has to finalize the agreed upon framework. There is little doubt that the sanctions issue will remain difficult to overcome. But there is indication that both sides have sufficient political will to overcome this decades old problem. This political will, in turn, stems from the empowerment of Iranian moderates, who have long advocated for an agreement with P5+1, but lacked the bureaucratic influence to convince the Supreme Leader.
 


Aaron Stein is a doctoral fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.




Source
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2015/iran-150407-voa02.htm?_m=3n%2e002a%2e1387%2eka0ao00b2h%2e19uh

      Obama:

   Iran Could Build Bomb After 13 Years

In-Depth Coverage  

 

by VOA News April 07, 2015

President Barack Obama said Iran would be kept at least a year away from being able to build a nuclear weapon for more than a decade due to a framework deal agreed upon last week. However, he conceded Tuesday the buffer period shrinks to almost nothing after 13 or more years.


Obama, defending an emerging deal agreed to by Iran and six world powers, was pushing back against critics' claims that the deal fails to eliminate the risk because it allows Iran to keep enriching uranium.


The president told the American news media organization NPR that Iran's capabilities will be capped for a decade at 300 kilograms - not enough to convert to a stockpile of weapons-grade material.


Justified concerns could rise in years 13 to 15, Obama said, when Iran could use 'advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point, the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.'



Breakout time

Breakout time refers to how long it would take to build a nuclear bomb if Iran decided to pursue one full-bore - in other words, how long the rest of the world would have to stop it. The framework deal expands Iran's breakout time - currently two to three months - to at least a year. But that constraint would stay in place only for 10 years, at which point some restrictions would start phasing out.


The admission comes as Obama seeks to sell the framework deal to critics and quiet a growing chorus questioning whether the deal his administration, along with other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, have negotiated merely delays the certainty of a nuclear-armed Iran. Obama has insisted that Iran will not produce a nuclear weapon on his watch, which ends in roughly 20 months, but has made no similar assurances about his successors.


'The option of a future president to take action if in fact they try to obtain a nuclear weapon is undiminished,' he said.


Israeli concerns

Obama also rejected a call by Israel that any final nuclear agreement with Iran include a 'clear and unambiguous Iranian commitment of Israel's right to exist.'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had issued the demand Friday while strongly criticizing the framework nuclear deal reached last Thursday at talks in Switzerland.

In the NPR interview, Obama said, 'The notion that we would condition Iran not getting nuclear weapons in a verifiable deal on Iran recognizing Israel is really akin to saying that we won't sign a deal unless the nature of the Iranian regime completely transforms. And that is, I think, a fundamental misjudgment.

'We want Iran not to have nuclear weapons precisely because we can't bank on the nature of the regime changing. That's exactly why we don't want to have nuclear weapons. If, suddenly, Iran transformed itself to Germany or Sweden or France, then there would be a different set of conversations about their nuclear infrastructure,' he said.

Israel insists the framework nuclear agreement reached last week in Switzerland threatens its survival and Netanyahu has said he would press U.S. lawmakers not to give Tehran 'a free path to the bomb.'


Netanyahu, Congress

In appearances on U.S. television on Sunday, Netanyahu said he has discussed the issue with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress - nearly two-thirds of House of Representatives members and a similar number in the U.S. Senate.

Obama said the framework nuclear deal reached with Iran was a 'good deal' that was reached through 'tough, principled diplomacy.'

The framework deal reached last week is aimed at providing relief from international sanctions in exchange for curbing Tehran's nuclear program. The agreement followed months of intensive talks - the latest round in Lausanne, Switzerland - and sets the stage for a final agreement to be completed by June 30, a deadline the sides have set for themselves.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has vowed that Iran will honor all of its pledges in the agreement 'as long as the other side honors its promises as well.'

Obama also said in the NPR interview released Tuesday that the U.S. and European negotiators are trying to reach a deal with Iran in which sanctions could be reimposed without a U.N. Security Council vote, where Tehran-ally Russia could exercise its veto power.

"We are absolutely convinced we can do it again," Obama said of the international sanctions, which have crippled Iran's economy.

He said a reimposition of sanctions would be triggered if the International Atomic Energy Agency were to find Tehran violating the agreement.

Meanwhile, about 200 Iranian hard-liners rallied against the framework deal struck last week, the official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday.

The rally coincided with a closed session of parliament during which Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who led Iran's negotiating team at the talks, appeared before lawmakers to explain the agreement.

The gathering of hard-liners took place in front of parliament in Tehran without permission by authorities, IRNA reported. Protesters carried banners calling the agreement a "defeat" - despite the establishment's overwhelming support of the framework deal, including by Rouhani.

Some material for this report came from Reuters and AP.