[lbo-talk] Brits' shit fit over seized sailors misfires

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 3/30/07, Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yoshie:
>
> Meanwhile, the Russian sources say:
>
> <http://fr.rian.ru/russia/20070330/62861794.html>
>
> MOSCOU, 30 mars - RIA Novosti. Les États-Unis ont
> pratiquement achevé la préparation d'une frappe contre
> l'Iran, a appris vendredi RIA-Novosti d'une source au
> sein des services secrets russes.
>
> [...]
>
> ..................
>
> Anyone who's curious and who doesn't read French may
> be pleased to learn that, RIA Novosti, the source for
> this disturbing report of an impending American attack
> on Iran, also provides an English language version.

One odd thing is that RIA Novosti has two separate dossiers on the
same subject -- "Possible U.S. strike on Iran" at
<http://en.rian.ru/trend/strike/> and "Rumeurs d'attaque contre l'Iran" at
<http://fr.rian.ru/trend/attaque_Iran/> -- in its English and French
sections, and their contents are not the same.  The most alarming
items appear only in French.  Are the Russians thinking that the
Iranians are better at reading French than English?

It is true that early in the 20th century most Iranian intellectuals
who went abroad to study went to France, till Americanization hit the
Iranian universities -- especially the newly created Economics
departments -- in the 1960s (till then Iranian students had studied
political economy rather than economics at the Faculty of Law and
Politics -- cf.
Sohrab Behdad, "Islamization of Economics in the Iranian
Universities," International Journal of Middle East Studies 27.2, May
1995: 193-217).

The Iranians to this day say,
"مرسی"
(merci),
for "Thank you."  Adorable.
-- 
Yoshie