Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Sep. 17 – Seven youths were arrested on Sunday opposite a school in the town of Babol, northern Iran, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary announced.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Sep. 18 – Close to 1,600 persons have been arrested in Tehran over the past 10 days as part of a nationwide crackdown, the state-owned hard-line daily Jomhouri Islami reported on Sunday.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Sep. 18 – Iran’s para-military Bassij, which groups together ultra-Islamist vigilantes loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are assisting the newly-installed ministers in the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a semi-official daily reported on Sunday.

Iran Focus: London, UK, Sep. 18 – Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed on Saturday that Iran would continue its nuclear enrichment activities despite repeated pleas by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European trio of Britain, France, and Germany who had been negotiating with the Islamic Republic in order to secure a peaceful outcome to the crisis.

Iran Focus: London, Sep. 18 – Three employees of Iran’s state television and radio broadcasting corporation, IRIB, were detained in Afghanistan by American troops, according to a notice posted on the organisation’s website on Sunday.