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Geopolitics

After Talks Collapse, Iran Charges Ahead With Nuclear Program

AFP, REUTERS, AL JAZEERA

Worldcrunch

TEHRAN - Iran unveiled on Tuesday a new uranium production facility and two extraction mines, a few days after talks with world powers on its disputed nuclear program ended in a deadlock, reports AFP.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Iran now controlled the entire chain of nuclear energy production -- and promptly called on work to be accelerated.

Iran says it opened the Saghand 1 and 2 uranium mines in the central city of Yazd, extracting uranium from a depth of 350 meters, and the Shahid Rezaeinejad plant at Ardakan, according tot the state news agency IRNA. The Ardakan plant, 120 kilometers away from the mines, is able to produce 66 tons of yellow cake -- raw uranium powder -- annually, according to the report.

The United States and its allies suspect the Islamic Republic of pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. Ahmadinejad says its atomic program, including its enrichment of uranium, is merely for civil purposes. Talks between sanctions-hit Iran and world powers (the Security Council's five permanent members and Germany) last week in Almaty, Kazakhstan failed to unlock the situation.

“They (the world powers) tried their utmost to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but Iran has gone nuclear,” said Ahmadinejad, in a speech at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization on Tuesday, reports Reuters. “This nuclear technology and power and science has been institutionalized...All the stages are in our control and every day that we go forward a new horizon opens up before the Iranian nation.”

Since 2006, the UN Security Council has passed repeated resolutions demanding that Iran halt the advancement of its nuclear program, notes Al Jazeera. A number of sanctions have been implemented, reinforced by international punitive measures targetting its vital oil income and access to global banking system.

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Economy

Lex Tusk? How Poland’s Controversial "Russian Influence" Law Will Subvert Democracy

The new “lex Tusk” includes language about companies and their management. But is this likely to be a fair investigation into breaking sanctions on Russia, or a political witch-hunt in the business sphere?

Photo of President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda

Polish President Andrzej Duda

Piotr Miaczynski, Leszek Kostrzewski

-Analysis-

WARSAW — Poland’s new Commission for investigating Russian influence, which President Andrzej Duda signed into law on Monday, will be able to summon representatives of any company for inquiry. It has sparked a major controversy in Polish politics, as political opponents of the government warn that the Commission has been given near absolute power to investigate and punish any citizen, business or organization.

And opposition politicians are expected to be high on the list of would-be suspects, starting with Donald Tusk, who is challenging the ruling PiS government to return to the presidency next fall. For that reason, it has been sardonically dubbed: Lex Tusk.

University of Warsaw law professor Michal Romanowski notes that the interests of any firm can be considered favorable to Russia. “These are instruments which the likes of Putin and Orban would not be ashamed of," Romanowski said.

The law on the Commission for examining Russian influences has "atomic" prerogatives sewn into it. Nine members of the Commission with the rank of secretary of state will be able to summon virtually anyone, with the powers of severe punishment.

Under the new law, these Commissioners will become arbiters of nearly absolute power, and will be able to use the resources of nearly any organ of the state, including the secret services, in order to demand access to every available document. They will be able to prosecute people for acts which were not prohibited at the time they were committed.

Their prerogatives are broader than that of the President or the Prime Minister, wider than those of any court. And there is virtually no oversight over their actions.

Nobody can feel safe. This includes companies, their management, lawyers, journalists, and trade unionists.

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