WAR 02-28-2015-to-03-06-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

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http://www.businessinsider.com/any-...ng-to-have-this-one-huge-inherent-flaw-2015-3

Any nuclear deal with Iran is going to have this one huge inherent flaw

Armin Rosen
2 minutes ago

This week, lawmakers in both parties continued to debate a possible nuclear deal with Iran, with some leading Senators proposing several legislative options to scuttle or alter any agreement.

But opponents of the deal may be faced with a more fundamental issue since any agreement won't be legally binding, according to legal scholars.

A bill proposed by Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) would require the president to submit a nuclear deal with Iran to the chamber for approval. And although Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell decided not to force a vote on the bill this week, the measure is just one of several weapons the Republican-held Senate could wield against a possible deal.

The Senate could pass additional sanctions that would come into effect if Iran ever cheated on the agreement, or it could hold a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" vote forcing lawmakers to put their stance on the deal on record. And as former US ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey recently argued, the Senate could even preemptively authorize military force to be used in the event that Iran was ever caught developing a nuclear weapons capability.

But the body doesn't have an actual veto over an agreement, despite the premise of Corker's bill. Its power in halting or even complicating an agreement is fairly limited. And that's because of one of the more curious yet least commented-upon aspects of the Obama administration's negotiating position: the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) and Iran are not negotiating a legally binding agreement. In fact, the agreement being discussed right now is specifically structured to sidestep the issue of its US domestic legal status.

In October, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration was pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran that would avoid the Senate altogether. That means that the deal would technically be an "executive agreement" in which the president reaches an understanding with a foreign government that doesn't require any changes in US law — rather than a treaty, which requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate and could supersede certain laws.

The trouble is that Congress has passed numerous sanctions bills relating to Iran. And while Obama has the right to grant sanctions waivers under certain circumstances, he doesn't have the power to just take them off the books by decree.

"An executive agreement never overrides inconsistent legislation and is incapable of overriding any of the sanctions legislation," says David Rivkin, a partner at Baker Hostetler LLP, who served in the Department of Justice and White House Counsel Office under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "A treaty that has been submitted for Senate's advise and consent and if it's self-executing could do that."

An agreement would have the same vague status under US domestic law as an executive order. The US wouldn't be legally compelled to actually do anything. And according to Thomas Moore, a former nonproliferation advisor for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Proliferation Prevention Program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, none of the obligations that an agreement would place on Iran would be legally binding, either (Tyler Cullis, a legal affairs associate with the pro-engagement National Iranian American Council, tweeted something to this effect as well).

As Moore explained to Business Insider by email, "The only things Iran is legally obligated to uphold are contained in its safeguards agreement and additional protocol with the IAEA and its binding [Non-Proliferation Treaty] obligations." Any other safeguards are "all matters of political agreement with the P5+1, period."

This means a nuclear deal would be structured as a series of understandings in which Iran would agree to certain limits on its nuclear program in exchange for a commitment from the other signatories to stop enforcing various sanctions against Tehran. But the applicable international law wouldn't change.

"What we'll see this month is merely going to be another recitation of agreed frameworks for approaches to duration, inspections and etc. What we won't see from Iran is any assessment of the degree to which any of it would or should be considered binding on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, now, 10 years from now, or in perpetuity," Moore told Business Insider. "The deal and its various and rather vague public descriptions will all rest on Iran's political willingness to accept the agreements it makes."

The US has signed executive agreements on nuclear-disarmament-related matters before. In 1994, the Clinton administration entered into its Agreed Framework with North Korea, in which Pyongyang ceased certain nuclear activities and accepted a intensified verification regime in exchange for economic and humanitarian aid from the US. The deal — which did not require suspending the enforcement of existing US statutes, as an Iranian nuclear agreement would — collapsed within a decade, and North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in 2006.

Weakening a nuclear agreement's legal bite may well be the price of reaching a final deal. Other major arms control agreements, including the 2010 New START treaty with Russia, have been submitted to the Senate for ratification. But the current Republican-held Senate is unlikely to give Obama the constitutional 2/3 majority needed to ratify the Iran agreement as a treaty.

From the administration's perspective, the choice may be between an executive agreement and no agreement whatsoever.

But that agreement will come at a cost. As Rivkin notes, Tehran may interpret the US's failure to lift sanctions statutes as an immediate sign of bad faith. "What if early in the life of this deal it turns out that the president cannot deliver on his commitments relating to sanctions and the US is branded as the agreement's violator?," he wondered. "The Iranians wouldn't have to worry about their obligations. That's the ultimate nightmare scenario."

And a political agreement lacks the specificity and legal rigor of a binding treaty.

An agreement might sow confusion as to the actual obligation of each side towards the other. And it also means that the sides might not be obligated to publicly divulge the entire content of the deal — after all, the actual text of the implementation agreement of the Joint Plan of Action, the interim nuclear agreement signed in Geneva in November of 2013, can only be viewed by individuals who possess a secret-level federal security clearance.

As Moore puts it, "Non-binding nuclear nonproliferation agreements end in non-ending compliance fights among nations that should enforce sanctions when in doubt."

So it could be that a non-binding deal is the best that the Obama administration can reasonably get. But in being nonbinding, that agreement might not be capable of erasing the uncertainty around Iran's nuclear program that a deal was supposed to resolve in the first place.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.cato.org/blog/russia-befriends-north-korea-punish-us-over-ukraine

March 6, 2015 3:32PM

Russia Befriends North Korea to Punish U.S. Over Ukraine

By Doug Bandow

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reached out to one of the poorest and least predictable states on earth: North Korea. So far, the new Moscow-Pyongyang axis matters little. But the effort demonstrates that Russia can make Washington pay for confronting Moscow over Ukraine.

The United States and the Soviet Union divided the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II. Moscow’s zone became the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, while the U.S. zone became the Republic of Korea, better known as South Korea. But North Korea denounced Moscow in 1991 after it recognized South Korea. Since then, Russo-North Korean relations have been minimal.

In contrast, Seoul provided investment and trade in abundance. After President Vladimir Putin held a summit with South Korean President Park, Russia leaned toward Seoul in denouncing the North’s missile and nuclear programs.

However, Moscow is rebalancing its position. Last year North Korea and Russia exchanged high-level visitors and inked a number of economic agreements. Russia indicated its willingness to host a summit. Both governments talked of “deepening” economic and political ties.

Although Russia’s North Korea initiatives are new, the interests being promoting are old: regional stability, denuclearization, improved transportation links, expanded commercial and energy activities, and enhanced diplomatic clout.

So far Moscow has invested little. There is no aid. Last year the Russian government formally wrote off $11 billion in Soviet-era loans, which were never going to be repaid.

As for security, the Putin government is focused elsewhere. Joint military maneuvers with North Korea are planned for later this year, but no one imagines the two countries will ever fight together. Pyongyang wants to purchase Moscow’s best fighter, the Su-35, but has little money to do so.

Pyongyang desires to diversify its international relationships and find a counterweight to Beijing. The Chinese have grown increasingly irritated with North Korea’s determination to build nuclear weapons and refusal to adopt meaningful economic reforms.

Thus, North Korea hopes for Russian investment and trade. The North would welcome another friend on the United Nations Security Council whenever nuclear and human rights issues arise.

For Moscow, North Korea offers some economic possibilities, but the latter’s poverty and unpredictability reduce its attractiveness as a market. Instead, Russia’s chief economic interest in the North is as a transit route—rail, gas, and electricity—to South Korea. In this way the Putin government is interested in north Korea, not North Korea.

As U.S.-Russia relations have deteriorated, especially after events in Ukraine over the last year, Moscow has been looking for other fields to compete with the United States. Pressing for resumption of the Six-Party Talks, intended to peacefully resolve concerns about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, raises Moscow’s diplomatic profile and applies pressure to the United States.

Russia is also applying subtle pressure on Seoul, encouraging it to distance itself from U.S. policy toward Moscow. The Putin government does not expect the South to formally break with America, but would benefit from a less enthusiastic application of U.S.-led sanctions.

Russia also is interfering with Washington’s attempt to isolate and pressure the North. Enhanced economic ties between Moscow and Pyongyang would reduce the effects of existing sanctions and make Moscow less receptive to new U.S. proposals to tighten controls on North Korea.

The Putin government could do more to upend the Korean balance. However, so far the Russo-North Korean performance is largely international Kabuki theater. Greater Russian interest in North Korea will hinder Washington’s efforts to force North Korea to relent. But China was not going to allow that to happen and the Kim regime was not planning to negotiate away its nuclear weapons.

However, as I point out in the National Interest, “Russia’s attention to Pyongyang should remind Washington that Moscow matters to the U.S. Ukraine is of little security interest to America, but Russia may respond to U.S. pressure there by targeting more serious Washington interests elsewhere, such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Korea.”

So far, Moscow has exacted only a small price for U.S. opposition. But the expense could grow. The Obama administration should carefully consider the costs before engaging in a new Cold War with Russia.

_____

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http://nationalinterest.org/feature/friends-benefits-russia-north-koreas-twisted-tango-12369

Friends with Benefits: Russia and North Korea's Twisted Tango

Russia and North Korea are using each other...again.

Doug Bandow
March 6, 2015

Russia and North Korea make up the latest international odd couple. President Vladimir Putin has recently reached out to one of the poorest and least predictable states on earth. So far, the new Moscow-Pyongyang axis matters little. But Russia has demonstrated that it can make Washington pay for confronting Moscow over Ukraine. It may try to leverage its influence in North Korea to make things harder for the United States.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) exists only because of Russia’s predecessor state. The United States and the Soviet Union divided the Korean peninsula, which had been a Japanese colony, after Tokyo’s surrender in World War II. Moscow set up the DPRK in its zone of control.

In 1950, Joseph Stalin approved Kim Il-sung’s plan for a military offensive to conquer the southern half of the peninsula, where the Republic of Korea (ROK) had been established. As the leader of global communism, Stalin could hardly say no to Kim Il-sung. But he distanced the USSR from Pyongyang’s invasion in order to avoid conflict with America.

After the United States and its allies threatened to overrun North Korea, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) intervened massively. The PRC then eclipsed the USSR in Pyongyang’s halls of power; the Sino-North Korean relationship was said to be as close as lips and teeth.

In practice, however, the DPRK’s relations with both communist giants were tempestuous as Kim balanced the two while extirpating all domestic opposition. He disapproved of de-Stalinization and denounced Khrushchev; Kim was later angered by Chinese opposition to turning the North into a de-facto monarchy under the Kim family. North Korea denounced Moscow in 1991 after it recognized South Korea. The North reacted more calmly when Beijing did the same the following year only because Pyongyang had no other patrons to turn to.

Over the last two decades, Russo-North Korean relations have been minimal. The DPRK welshed on its debt and offered few economic opportunities. In contrast, Seoul provided Russia with investment and trade in abundance. Moscow even transferred weapons to the ROK to help pay off Russia’s debts to the South.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met with [4] “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il in 2011, but little came of this meeting. Two years later, President Vladimir Putin held a summit with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, by when it appeared that Russia was beginning to lean towards Seoul. Russia only played a minor role in the Six-Party nuclear talks with North Korea, in keeping with its emphasis on Europe and the “near abroad.”

However, a new entente now appears to be in the works. Last year, Kim Yong-nam, the North’s formal head of state, attended the Sochi Olympics [5]. Throughout the year, the two countries exchanged high-level visitors and inked a number of economic agreements. Pyongyang sent more officials to Russia than the PRC in 2014, capping the year with a trip by Choe Ryong-hae, the unofficial number two in North Korea, Choe sought Moscow’s aid in blocking UN attempts to charge the DPRK with human rights violations. Russia indicated its willingness to host a summit between the two nations’ leaders.

Both governments supplied copious rhetoric. Last fall, Putin harkened back [6] to a “long-standing tradition of friendship and cooperation” and declared [7] that “a further deepening of political ties and trade and economic cooperation is definitely in the interests of the peoples of both countries and ensuring regional stability and security.” Earlier this year, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry declared [8] that the two governments would “deepen political, economic and military contacts and exchanges.”

Putin invited both North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Park Geun-hye to Russia’s Victory Day celebrations in May. If Kim were to go, it would be his first foreign trip as North Korea’s top leader. In contrast, China rebuffed Kim’s request for a meeting with President Xi Jinping. Neither Kim nor Park have announced whether they will attend the celebrations or not. It is also possible that a Kim-Putin summit would take place somewhere else in Russia or perhaps during a Putin stopover in North Korea during a future trip to Tokyo.

Although Russia’s DPRK initiatives are new, the interests at stake are old: stability on the peninsula, denuclearization of the North, improved transportation links through Asia, expanded commercial and energy activities, and enhanced diplomatic clout. Pyongyang is more ready to respond to these overtures with Beijing having turned hostile and diplomacy with the ROK and America going nowhere.

So far Moscow has invested little in its relationship with the DPRK. There is no aid, like the energy and food provided by the PRC. Last year, the Russian government confirmed a 2012 agreement providing for a 90 percent debt write-off of the $11 billion Soviet-era loans North Korea owed Russia. But this came at no cost anyhow, since the debt wasn’t going to be repaid. Despite talk of economic deals, profit is likely to prove elusive for Russia. The North is impoverished, its people lack training, and its countryside has little infrastructure.

As for security, Putin’s government is focused elsewhere. Joint military maneuvers are planned for later this year, but no one imagines the two countries actually fighting together. Pyongyang wants to purchase Moscow’s best fighter, the Su-35, but has little money to buy, let alone maintain and fuel, the planes.

Although the two governments have moved closer, their underlying interests are divergent. Pyongyang wants to diversify its international relationships. Korea is often known [9] as a “shrimp between whales,” a statement especially true of the North, which has been left behind all its neighbors economically, most embarrassingly South Korea. Even the once comparably poor nation of Burma has abandoned isolation and is beginning to move forward economically.

North Korea also wants to find a counterweight to Beijing. During the Cold War, Kim Il-sung maneuvered adroitly between the Soviet Union and China. Since then, the DPRK has unsuccessfully sought to engage America, Japan, and South Korea. The Chinese have grown increasingly irritated with Pyongyang’s determination to build nuclear weapons and refusal to adopt meaningful economic reforms. As a result, the North is more isolated than ever, despite periodic outreach efforts.

Thus, Pyongyang hopes for Russian investment and trade. The DPRK would welcome another friend on the UN Security Council whenever nuclear and human rights issues arise. Even if Moscow provides little of practical value—economic plans are not always executed in the North—possible Russian involvement may encourage the PRC to overlook Pyongyang’s blemishes.

Moscow has a very different perspective. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared [10] last fall that economic ties were “reaching a whole new level,” but that isn’t saying much. While the DPRK offers some economic possibilities, its poverty and unpredictability reduce its attractiveness as a market. Nor is resource-rich Russia looking for new mineral supplies. Ironically, Moscow’s chief economic interest in the North is as a transit route to South Korea. Already Russia is shipping some coal to the South via a cargo terminal in the DPRK. Among the projects being discussed are railroad, gas pipeline, and power transmission lines from Russia passing through North Korea to the South. In this way the Putin government is interested in northern Korea, not North Korea.

However, as Russo-American relations have deteriorated, especially after events in Ukraine over the last year, Moscow has been looking for other places to counter the United States. Pressing for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks raises Russia’s diplomatic profile, moves Moscow closer to China, and applies pressure on the United States.

Moreover, threatening to turn the Korean peninsula into a new ‘Great Game’ targets the United States in two ways. The first is to apply subtle pressure on Seoul, encouraging it to distance itself from U.S. policy toward Moscow. For instance, Mikhail Bondarenko, Moscow’s trade representative in the South, visited [11] North Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Complex, which is mostly filled with South Korean firms. Russian investment there would leave the North less dependent on its southern neighbor, where some have suggested closing the facility to cut hard currency transfers to Pyongyang. The Putin government does not expect the South to formally break with America, but would benefit from a less enthusiastic application of sanctions.

The second effect of Russian involvement in Korea is that it interferes in Washington’s attempt to isolate and pressure the North. Alexander Galushka, in charge of economic development of Russia’s Far East, predicted [12] a ten-fold increase of trade between Russia and the North to $1 billion annually by 2020. He also cited greater investor interest in the North. Enhanced economic ties would reduce the impact of existing sanctions and make Moscow less receptive to new U.S. proposals to tighten controls. Indeed, in the midst of the Sony hacking controversy, Russia denounced U.S. [13]“threats” against the North.

The Putin government could do more to upend the balance of power in Korea. However, so far, the Russo-North Korean performance is largely an international Kabuki Theater. Greater Russian interest in the DPRK will hinder Washington’s efforts to force North Korea to submit, but China was not going to allow that to happen anyhow, despite Beijing’s deteriorating relations with Pyongyang. The Obama administration may find the North in a less giving mood though. But then, the Kim regime was never planning to negotiate away its nuclear weapons, its most important leverage with the rest of the world.

However, Russia’s increased attention to Pyongyang should remind Washington that Moscow matters to the United States in many ways, big and small. Ukraine is of little security interest to America, but Russia may respond to U.S. pressure there by targeting more serious Washington interests elsewhere, such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Korea. So far, Moscow has exacted only a small price. But the cost could grow in the years ahead. The Obama administration should carefully count the cost before engaging in a new Cold War with Russia.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author and editor of several books, including Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire

Topics
Diplomacy [14] [3]
Source URL (retrieved on March 6, 2015): http://nationalinterest.org/feature/friends-benefits-russia-north-koreas-twisted-tango-12369


Links:
[1] http://nationalinterest.org/feature/friends-benefits-russia-north-koreas-twisted-tango-12369
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/doug-bandow
[3] http://twitter.com/share
[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-Jong-Il-meets-Dmitry-Medvedev-in-Russia.html
[5] http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussi...ficial-to-attend-Sochi-Olympics-opening-5522/
[6] http://thediplomat.com/2014/11/the-renaissance-in-russia-north-korea-relations/
[7] http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/uk-russia-northkorea-idUKKCN0J317J20141119
[8] http://tass.ru/en/russia/774485
[9] http://thediplomat.com/2012/04/korea-a-model-for-southeast-asia/
[10] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-11/20/c_133803774.htm
[11] http://tass.ru/en/economy/748220
[12] http://sputniknews.com/business/201...ee-to-Settle-Payments-in-Rubles-in-Trade.html
[13] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/russia-calls-north-koreas-anger-sony-hack-understandable/
[14] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/diplomacy

 

[mzkitty]

5m
US woman kidnapped in central Nigeria, Phyllis Sorter, is free, police say - @AFP


24m
Indian fishermen will be shot if they cross into Sri Lanka waters, says Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickramesinghe - @timesofindia

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=timesofindia

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nes-400-times-a-year-stretches-japan-top-guns

Chasing Chinese Planes 400 Times a Year Is Wearing Out Japan's Top Guns

by Isabel Reynolds
7:00 AM PST March 5, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- Fighter pilot Jun Fukuda sits edgily on the couch in his flight suit, waiting for the call that sends him sprinting to his jet. On any given day, he will chase and warn off Chinese military planes nearing Japanese airspace.

The 35-year-old motorbike enthusiast and soon-to-be father is a captain in the fighter squadron based at Naha, the nearest Japanese base to islets in dispute with China. The single squadron at the Okinawan capital operates in a high-octane environment, scrambled on average more than once a day -- a record of more than 400 times in the year through March 2014.

China outnumbers Japan almost eight-to-one in air force manpower and is building its capacity, debuting its newest stealth fighter in November. Even so, Chinese pilots lag their Japanese counterparts in training and experience, raising the risk of a near miss or collision. The fly-bys also highlight the obstacles to warmer ties between Asia’s two largest economies.

As the Japanese pilots on stand-by watch television, read and sip tea in a lounge, the atmosphere is tense, according to F-15 flying Fukuda, who goes by the call-sign Mars, the Roman god of war. To save time, they wait in the tight-fitting anti-G suits needed to protect them from otherwise deadly acceleration forces, and keep life jackets and helmets in their planes.

“A scramble is when something could actually start with another country,” he said. “You know you can’t make a mistake.”

Fukuda said Naha’s location close to the disputed islands in the East China Sea adds to the pressure. “We are very near, on the front line,” he said, as jets roared outside a prefabricated office on the base. “That gives you a sense of purpose.”

‘Every Day’

When Major General Yasuhiko Suzuki was first posted as a fighter pilot to subtropical Naha in the 1990s it was a military backwater. Now the commanding officer, he says China’s assertiveness has made it Japan’s most important base.

“It’s practically every day,” Suzuki, dressed in a uniform of white shirt and dark blue trousers, said in his office. “It’s absolutely extraordinary to ask one squadron to deal with more than 400 scrambles a year. It’s an extremely heavy burden.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking to bolster Japan’s defenses, particularly in the southwest islands. On Naha, buildings are being demolished to prepare the way for a second squadron, set to move to Okinawa by March 2016 and double the number of fighter jets to about 40. The military won’t disclose how many pilots are in the current squadron at Naha.

Ferrying Troops

Japan is set to establish a new military observation unit on Yonaguni island, close to the contested outcroppings. The defense budget for the year starting April includes funds for amphibious vehicles and the development of a nascent Marines-style unit on the southern island of Kyushu. Plans are in place to ferry troops from as far away as Hokkaido in the event of a conflict.

Japan and China each claim ownership of the uninhabited islets -- known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China -- that are administered by Japan. The dispute has been cited as a factor behind an almost 39 percent drop in Japanese investment into China last year, even as China was Japan’s top trading partner in 2013. China says it has records of the islands going back about 600 years and that it administered them until it lost a war to Japan in 1895.

Seeking Data

Japan sent aircraft to head off foreign military planes flying close to its airspace a total of 744 times in the nine months to December 2014, up more than 30 percent on the same period the year before and heading for the highest annual total since the end of the Cold War.

While dispatches against Russian aircraft are back down after an increase last year, sorties against Chinese aircraft, almost all from Naha, have continued to rise.

China is probably seeking to glean data through its fly-bys, said Bonji Ohara, a research fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, a former navy pilot and ex-military attache at Japan’s embassy in China.

“They can see what the delay is before planes appear, and gather information about Japan’s response,” he said.

In 2013, China set up an air identification zone covering the disputed islands, sparking criticism from Japan and the U.S. Last year Japan protested after Chinese fighters flew “abnormally close” to its military planes on two occasions. China has also complained about the activities of Japanese military planes.

White Paper

China is rapidly expanding its air force -- boasting a total of 398,000 personnel according to a 2013 White Paper on defense. It is updating its equipment and training to catch up with its neighbor, long seen as the benchmark for the region. Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force has about 50,000 personnel.

China says its domestically produced J-11 aircraft is similar in capability to the F-15, which was first introduced in the U.S. in 1974. It has more recently developed the stealth J-20 and J-31, while Japan has opted to buy the Lockheed-Martin F-35, though it will not initially be deployed to Okinawa.

It’s not just a lack of numbers that hampers Naha’s 83rd Air Wing. The base shares a single runway with the adjacent civilian airport. While scrambles take priority over passenger flights, fighter jets embarking on daily training sessions must wait in line behind planes taking visitors back to Shanghai and Beijing, as well as Taiwan and the Japanese mainland.

Fukuda said he joined the armed forces because he wanted to become a pilot and travel, rather than a desire to defend the nation. Now that his wife is expecting a child this year, his feelings have changed, he said.

“It’s for the country,” he said. “And on a smaller scale it’s for your family. You get the feeling you need to protect them.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.net; Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net Rosalind Mathieson, Andy Sharp

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/06/us-iran-nuclear-fabius-idUSKBN0M21UE20150306

Iran nuclear commitments do not go far enough: France

By Adrian Croft
RIGA Fri Mar 6, 2015 12:33pm EST

(Reuters) - Commitments offered by Iran in talks with six world powers on its nuclear program do not go far enough and more work needs to be done, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday.

Fabius said he had invited U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the foreign ministers of Germany and Britain to Paris on Saturday to review the state of the Iran nuclear negotiations.

"We are in favor of a solid agreement ... for now there remain difficulties," he told reporters in Riga where he was taking part in a European Union foreign ministers' meeting.

"There has been progress but as far as the volume, checks and duration of the envisaged commitments are concerned, the situation is still insufficient, so there is more work to be done," he said.

The participants in Saturday's talks in Paris - Kerry, Mogherini, Fabius, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond - are the Western members of the six powers negotiating with Iran.

The six powers, also including China and Russia, have given themselves an end-June deadline to reach an agreement that curbs sensitive Iranian nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief. The Western powers hope to have a political framework agreement by the end of March.

The West suspects Iran of secretly preparing the way for production of nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear research program is strictly for peaceful purposes.

Fabius took a more downbeat view of the Iran talks than Mogherini, who said earlier in the Latvian capital that a good deal was at hand in the negotiations.

"I also believe that there is not going to be any deal if it is not going to be a good deal. And this is something we have to pass as a message to all our friends and partners," Mogherini said in apparent reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's criticism of the nuclear deal under negotiation.

Mogherini said the "last mile" of the nuclear talks would involve political will more than technical negotiations.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Reuters on Monday that Iran must commit to a verifiable freeze of at least 10 years on sensitive nuclear activity for a landmark atomic deal to be reached between Tehran and six world powers.


(Additional reporting by Aija Krutaine)