Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader "We Will Not Surrender"

2100 GMT: Nuclear Watch. The two days of talks between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iranian officials have ended with no news of progress on a protocol for inspections, but with an agreement to resume discussions next month.

Iranian media said the next meeting would be in Tehran on 12 February. The IAEA has made no comment.

2000 GMT: The House Arrests. The children of detained opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, activist Zahra Rahnavard, report again that they have been blocked from seeing or calling their parents.

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Iran Feature: Spotlight Returns to Detained Opposition Leaders Mousavi and Karroubi

Before the Detentions: Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi KarroubiTwo of Iran's main opposition leaders are in their 70s and in poor health but 23 months of house arrest have failed to crush their "unshakeable spirit", their families said last week.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi are standing by their "righteous and principled position", they added in a statement that demanded their immediate release. That position is primarily a call for the "ruling apparatus" to recognise "the people's right to self-determination".

Cut off from the outside world, the two men --- along with Mr Mousavi's charismatic wife, Zahra Rahnavard - have been denied free access to newspapers, television, the internet and regular family visits.

But all three are now back in the Iranian spotlight ahead of polls in June to elect a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Political Prisoners, Freedom of Expression, and Killer Smog (Arseh Sevom)

Hila Sedighi, threatened with imprisonment, recites her poetry

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We have letters for you this week. The most heartbreaking comes from 21-year-old Zanyar Moradi, who begs the world to take notice as he and his cousin face imminent execution. Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi calls on UNICEF to visit children living in prison with incarcerated mothers. The children of former Presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi have called for an end to their house arrest. The Supreme Leader has been deluged with letters demanding free and fair elections.

Meanwhile, Tehran's polluted skies literally take your breath away, claiming more than 4000 lives over one year. Three Iranian writers are honoured with Hellman-Hammett grants for their commitment to free expression, and a group of Iranians in London form an organisation to encourage reading. Iran is said to be working on controls for social networking sites as it steps up its harassment of the families of journalists.

Finally, after her release from prison, Hengameh Shahidi, a former advisor to Mehdi Karroubi, has turned her attention to art.

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Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad v. Parliament...and the Revolutionary Guards

See also Iran Live Coverage: Please Vote (P.S. --- We Did Not Rig the Last Election)

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1916 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). Forty-eight Iranian men, abducted in Syria last August and released yesterday in exchange for freedom for 2130 civilian detainees in Syrian prisons, arrive at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport:

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Iran Live Coverage: The Regime Admits the Oil Squeeze

See also Monday's Iran Live Coverage: Threatening the Reformists

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2055 GMT: Economy Watch. The Central Bank has put Iran's November rate of inflation at 27.4%, a rise of 1.3% from October and of 5.6% from April.

1527 GMT: Elections Watch. Ali Saeedi, the Supreme Leader's representative to the Revolutionary Guards, has said that it is the duty of the Guards to ensure a "reasonable engineering of the elections".

Saeedi put that duty within the context of the claim that the US is pursuing a "proxy war" against the Islamic Republic.

1353 GMT: All the President's Men. Senior Presidential aide Ali Akbar Javanfekr, summoned back to Evin Prison on Monday from a 12-day hospital stay, has been freed on another furlough after a few hours in detention.

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Iran Live Coverage: Threatening the Reformists

See also Iran Special: 5 Steps for a Breakthrough in the Nuclear Talks
Sunday's Iran Live Coverage: The Smog Shuts Down Tehran

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2131 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Labour activist Reza Shehabi has been released from prison on furlough after 23 days on hunger strike.

2108 GMT: Religious Prisoner Watch. Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, the Christian convert re-arrested on Christmas Day after serving nearly three years in prison, was freed today, according to individuals close to the pastor and his family.

Nadarkhani was initially released in November. He had been charged with apostasy and sentenced to death before a higher court commuted the sentence.

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Iran Live Coverage: Nuclear Talks to Resume?

See also Iran Feature: How a Political Prisoner Found Art for Her Activism
Friday's Iran Live Coverage: The Supreme Leader Tries to Bolster His Popularity

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2025 GMT: Smog Watch. An official with the Environmental Protection Agency says 150 industrial units in Tehran Province have been shut because of the high levels of air pollution.

1855 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Detained senior reformist Mostafa Tajzadeh, who was taken to hospital earlier today because of a heart condition (see 1535 GMT), has now returned to prison.

1605 GMT: Smog Watch. An image of air pollution in Tehran --- the smog has forced the closure of schools and Government buildings today and tomorrow:

Jason Rezaian, the Tehran correspondent of The Washington Post, writes:

Level of #pollution in #Tehran today is truly shocking. Local radio got it right, saying going outside in the current conditions is suicide.

— Jason Rezaian (@jrezaian) January 5, 2013

@greenshivz Whatever the cause, no one deserves to have to breathe this.

— Jason Rezaian (@jrezaian) January 5, 2013

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Iran Live Coverage: The Supreme Leader Admits A Crisis

See also Iran Feature: The Top 10 Stories of 2012 --- A Currency Falls, Sanctions Expand, and Political Prisoners Continue to Resist
EA Special: 10 Predictions for 2013 --- Assad Gone, an Angry Middle East, and Little Change on "Human Rights"
Monday's Iran Live Coverage: All-Is-Well Oil Alerts

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2040 GMT: Labour Front. More than 500 workers at the Safa Pipe factory have begun a fourth round of protests over conditions and the delayed payment of wages.

A worker said the demonstration began Saturday after employees were not paid in more than six months.

1940 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Popular singer and activist Arya Aramnejad was summoned today to serve his 91-day sentence.

Aramnejad has been detained on several occasions, including a five-month stay in prison from November 2011 to April 2012.

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Iran Feature: The Top 10 Stories of 2012 --- A Currency Falls, Sanctions Expand, and Political Prisoners Continue to Resist (Farhi)

Closed Cirrency Exchange, Summer 2012This year forcefully disproved the assumption that imprisoning political and civil society activists and critics silences them and fixes the Islamic Republic’s dissident problem.

Former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi remained incarcerated in their homes (the former along with spouse Zahra Rahnavard) without being charged and remained mostly without any kind of access to the outside world. But letters written by political prisoners about prison conditions and solidarity among prisoners — as well as the woeful state of the country’s politics — made it out of the prisons and were sufficiently covered by external news and activist outlets for many inside Iran to become aware of them.

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Iran Live Coverage: Celebrating Victory Over Protests

See also Saturday's Iran Live Coverage: Cheerleading for Sanctions

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Tehran, 30 December 20091759 GMT: At the Movies. The Iranian Directors Union has warned that cinema is on the verge of closure amidst censorship and economic difficulties.

Scores of movie houses have reportedly shut this year. The Ministry of Culture gave the reassurance that Iranians could always watch television.

1750 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been put in solitary confinement for three weeks for "insulting the Supreme Leader" and "disturbing order in prison".

Hashemi is serving a six-month sentence for propaganda against the regime.

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