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Italy

Top Italian Universities Close Doors To Students Who Don't Speak English

LASTAMPA (Italy)

Worldcrunch

VENICE- You no speeka the English? Well then, signori, you will not be welcome at Italy's prestigious Ca’ Foscari and Bocconi universities.

La Stampa reports that Ca" Foscari, a 145-year-old public university in Venice, and Bocconi, the private Milan business and economics university, are requiring that all students enrolling for the next academic year to attest to their knowledge of English. The level must be at least equivalent of the European Union’s B1 (intermediate).

This follows the decision last year by Milan's Politecnico University to offer master's studies only in English. Italy's Minister for Higher Education Francesco Profumo stated then that students upon leaving high school should already have a workable level of English. But others expressed alarm at the measure. Linguist Luca Serianni from Rome’s La Sapienza University described the move as “excessive and not only in the ideological sense.”

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Arts & Philosophy Building at Ca" Foscari, Venice by Paolo Steffan

But Ca’ Foscari President Carlo Carraro says knowing English is a priority "in all fields, all professions. If you don’t know English you’re out. It’s also a question of culture: English is a language of connection.”

A criteria for which universities are allocated new resources is its internationalization. Ca’ Foscari university has had an increase of 30% in matriculation in just two years, so the mantra now is quality, not quantity. This new certification is just an additional filter during a period in which new staff cannot be hired, and the old staff can’t retire.

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Geopolitics

Why The Latin American Far Left Can't Stop Cozying Up To Iran's Regime

Among the Islamic Republic of Iran's very few diplomatic friends are too many from Latin America's left, who are always happy to milk their cash-rich allies for all they are worth.

Image of Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, Romina Pérez Ramos.

Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, Romina Pérez Ramos.

Bolivia's embassy in Tehran/Facebook
Bahram Farrokhi

-OpEd-

The Latin American Left has an incurable anti-Yankee fever. It is a sickness seen in the baffling support given by the socialist regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela or Bolivia to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which to many exemplifies clerical fascism. And all for a single, crass reason: together they hate the United States.

The Islamic Republic has so many of the traits the Left used to hate and fight in the 20th century: a religious (Islamic) vocation, medieval obscurantism, misogyny... Its kleptocratic economy has turned bog-standard class divisions into chasmic inequalities reminiscent of colonial times.

This support is, of course, cynical and in line with the mandates of realpolitik. The regional master in this regard is communist Cuba, which has peddled its anti-imperialist discourse for 60 years, even as it awaits another chance at détente with its ever wealthy neighbor.

I reflected on this on the back of recent remarks by Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, the 64-year-old Romina Pérez Ramos. She must be the busiest diplomat in Tehran right now, and not a day goes by without her going, appearing or speaking somewhere, with all the publicity she can expect from the regime's media.

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