Iran now has 11,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says.

Ahmadinejad reported the figure at a meeting with the country’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khameini and senior regime officials late Tuesday.

It is Khameini who makes the decisions about  nuclear policy, and who has complete control over nuclear development technology projects.

Israel, the U.S. and most other Western nations are convinced that Iran is racing to create an atomic weapon of mass destruction, which it may then aim at the Jewish State.

The Islamic Republic has continued its nuclear development activities despite increased sanctions and four resolutions by the U.N. Security Council condemning Iran for its defiance of the ban on its nuclear development.

Iran has already succeeded in enriching uranium to 20 percent, according to the United Nations’ International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA).  The agency reported on May 25 that 9,333 of the centrifuges in Natanz and 696 of the centrifuges in Fordu, near Qom, were actively enriching uranium at that level, which may be transformed into 90-percent-enriched fuel for nuclear weapons. After that report, the number of centrifuges was increased by another 1,000, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday.

Activists from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) with fake injuriesheld a demonstration on Champs Elysees Avenue in front of the Iran Air airline company in Paris earlier this month condemning the imprisonment of journalists and citizen journalists in Iran and calling for their immediate release.

All of the information that emerges from the Islamic Republic is generally “sanitized” by the regime prior to its publication, other than direct official statements issued through official state news agencies. International news reporters are prohibited from publicizing anything without prior approval of the government, and few photographs are allowed to be published.