Iran Focus: London, Jul. 29 – Iran’s ultra-conservative President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be heading to New York in mid-September to take part in the opening ceremonies of the General Assembly of the United Nations, a semi-official Iranian news agency reported on Friday. Fars News Agency said that Iran’s hard-line Majlis (Parliament) Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel would be going to New York about a week in advance of Ahmadinejad’s planned trip.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jul. 29 – The newly appointed head of Iran’s police, or State Security Forces, announced Friday that members of
the Bassij, paramilitary vigilantes loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, were authorised to assist the police in cracking down on dissent.
Brigadier General Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam told a police garrison
in Mashad, northeast Iran, “The Bassij forces can assist agents of
the State Security Forces in their activities”.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jul. 29 – The spokesman for Iran’s judiciary said today that the head of the Islamic Republic’s Judiciary Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi would not grant hunger striking jailed journalist Akbar Ganji a pardon from prison despite an appeal from ex-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Iran Focus: Iran, Tehran, Jul. 29 – Iran’s state television reported last of the arrest of two Iranians in Iraq who were
found smuggling illegal drugs. The state-controlled television station Shabake-2 said that agents of Iraq’s security forces had arrested two Iranians along with an Iraqi for smuggling illegal drugs.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jul. 29 – A leading ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the forthcoming cabinet of hard-line President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be made up entirely of Islamic “fundamentalists”, newspapers reported on Friday. “There will be no outsiders”, he said.