Last
year in his five-part "Iran Journal" report,
Steve
Zind took VPR listeners on a personal journey through Iran: from the teeming
streets of Tehran to the mountain village
that was the ancestral home of his grandfather’s family. Now, he returns
to
delve further into Iranian politics, culture and modern life, with a series of reports and follow-up
stories from Iran about the tension between modernity
and tradition, the economic challenges Iranians face, their views of the outside
world and their hopes and fears under the new administration of conservative
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Cultural
heritage and modernity
At the end of his two-week trip to Iran, Steve Zind tells VPR’s Steve Delaney
he is left with the impression that the country of his ancestors is a land in
which cultural heritage is often in conflict with modernity.
Morality
Police
Today, Steve Zind talks with Steve Delaney about Iran’s Morality Police, a group
of paralegal men who have been accused of harrassing people in the past. Today
they are trying to reinvent themselves.
Cholera
in Iran
An outbreak of cholera in Iran has the country’s attention and officials fear
it could get worse in the fall.
Nuclear Capacity
An influential professor advocates for a different strategy in nuclear negotiations.
Journalism
in Iran
A journalist is viewed differently than a tourist.
Politics and prayer services
Politics make a small appearance in a Friday prayer service.
A new administration
A new conservative administration creates a "nation in waiting."
Reporter’s Notebook
A reporter’s notes on his experiences in Iran.
September
7, 2005: Goodbye from Iran
September
5, 2005: Freedom and the law
September
2, 2005: A
separate reality
September
1, 2005: Brain Drain and a freer society
August
29, 2005: Harmonizing with modernity and taxis
August 24, 2005: Credentials, censorship and protest
August
25, 2005: Politeness and humble phrases
See Steve Zind’s pictures of the people and places he describes in the series.
References on Iran
Online Resources:
Tehran Times – English language daily newspaper
Payvand – Roundup of Iran news coverage in world wide media.
Iran Chamber Society – information on art, culture and history
Mage – Listing of links to Web sites with Persian content
Karim Khan Zand – Information from the Iran Chamber
John Malcolm on Karim Khan Zand:
"The happy reign of this
excellent prince, as contrasted with those who preceeded and followed him, affords the historian of Persia that kind of
mixed pleasure and repose, which a traveler enjoys on arriving in a beautiful and fertile valley during an arduous journey
over barren and rugged wastes. It is pleasing to recount the actions of a chief who, though born of an inferior rank,
obtained power without crime, and who exercised it with a moderation that, for the times in which he lived, was as singular
as his humanity and justice." (The History of Persia, 1829)
Books on Iran: