By Jerry Guo

The United Nations' inspection of Iran's clandestine nuclear facility outside Qum, slated as of press time for Oct. 25, was already treated as something of a coup in the West. With its air-defense batteries and centrifuges buried deep in the mountainside, the site smacked of dangerous nuclear intentions. But assuming the visit takes place, the progress it represents needs to be kept in perspective. By cooperating with the U.N., Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime gets to look as if it's opening a window on its nuclear program, slowing the momentum toward tougher international sanctions, when it's likely that Qum is only one of many secrets Iran is concealing. 

U.S. arms-control experts say that Qum is probably one of at least a half-dozen undeclared sites in Iran's "nuclear archipelago." At its present rate of production, Qum's estimated 3,000 antiquated IR-1 centrifuges would take two years to churn out enough highly enriched uranium for a single bomb, according to Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. If Iran had another secret site, its parallel fuel cycle would cut down the waiting time to a year.

by Melinda Liu

As of late, Beijing has been very publicly questioning the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency. Yet China actually increased its holdings of U.S. Treasuries to $800 billion in July, compared with $767 billion in Q1. Despite its tough talk, Beijing knows that selling off greenbacks would wipe out much of its own wealth; it holds a whopping $1.6 trillion in reserves, much of it in USTs. Still, speculation that Beijing is plotting the dollar's demise just won't go away. Earlier this month, the U.K.'s Independent reported that Gulf states, along with China, Japan, France, and Russia, were secretly negotiating to denominate oil trades in currencies other than the dollar by 2018. (Officials in most of the nations involved denied the report.) But such a move would be self-defeating and "would only add volatility to the Gulf countries' already volatile oil revenues," since many Gulf nations peg their currencies to the dollar, says Royal Bank of Scotland economist Ben Simpfendorfer. China has another reason to keep purchasing dollars: to hold down the value of the yuan, it must buy foreign assets--lots of them. So for now, China may have to keep amassing greenbacks.

by Christopher Werth
Poland is quickly emerging as one of the few bright spots in a recession-torn Europe hit hard by the economic crisis. In a recent revision upward, the International Monetary Fund now expects Polish GDP to expand by 1 percent, making it the only European economy projected to see positive growth in 2009. And to top it all off, Warsaw just replaced Moscow on a tally of European cities as the No. 1 destination for companies looking to expand over the next five years.

To what do Poles owe the honor? Positive perceptions have gone a long way to assure investors. When the IMF was doling out emergency loans earlier this year, it instead deemed Poland worthy of a $20.5 billion flexible-credit line. Simply having that kind of rainy-day fund at hand was enough to calm markets without the government needing to withdraw a single zloty (Poland's currency), which incidentally has tumbled as much as 30 percent since last year. That's a boon to Polish exporters, and the country's large domestic market has also helped to balance trade flows and shield it from the whims of global consumers, who are starting to save rather than spend. Poland could also be benefiting from its political turbulence earlier this decade, when Jaroslaw Kaczynski reigned as prime minister (his twin brother, Lech, is still the president)--a contentious few years that may have scared off some of the "hot money" that's now wreaking havoc in neighboring Latvia and Hungary. Ironically, Poland's political woes may now be paying off.