Edit the Radio
| 08:20 UK time, Friday, 28 April 2006
A number of newspaper websites are starting to provide portal type layouts instead of their standard front pages. You let the newspaper suggest stories you might be interested in, to filter the overwhelming amount of input out there. Increasingly, these portals will be subscription only.
I don't have the power to do that yet. But I can make suggestions of things you might want to listen to from the Â鶹Éç World Service output. I'll keep the list short and try to do it weekly.
And since I have just made a programme about faith in Iran to be broadcast this weekend, I'll start with a bit of self-promotion. Reporting Religion special on Shi'ism in Iran can be heard here from Saturday 29th April.
We had some great help from a range of guests (including women film makers, students and professors in Tehran and the holy city of Qom and Sufi mystics) unravelling the complexities of the link between politics and Shia Islam in Iran.
Remarkably, they concluded that there is a campaign by a significant and growing number of Iranians to depoliticise their faith. They are upset by what they see as the damage done to Islam by politicians.
The word from US intelligence analysis, including from the Pentagon, is that fermenting another political revolution in Iran is a non-starter. Not enough people are sufficiently angry or disillusioned to take part in such active dissent.
Could religious links, through Shia Muslims in the West, possibly be a more fertile route to reform?
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