When trying to improve ties with a former Cold War-era foe, check a dictionary. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton learned that lesson the hard way on Friday, when she presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a gift bearing an incorrect translation - one that implied hostility, rather than peacemaking.
It seems that someone in the U.S. State Department forgot to double check the translation. Anyone with a sense of the Russian language, and there are quite a few in the State Department, could have told Clinton that there is a mistake in translation.
Clinton handed Lavrov a palm-sized box with a gift-wrapped red button on a black base, which said "Reset" in English and "Peregruzka" in Russian (with Latin script instead of Cyrillic, which could count as another gaffe). The problem was "peregruzka" doesn't mean reset. It means overcharged or overloaded.
Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift. Clinton said she was presenting the gift because it "represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is, 'We want to reset our relationship.' And so we will do it together."
"We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" Clinton asked Lavrov.
"You got it wrong," Lavrov said. "This says 'peregruzka,' which means overcharged."
After the two top diplomats stopped laughing, Clinton said: "We won't let you do that to us, I promise."
Clinton adviser Philippe Reines said "Opechatka [Russian for typo] is being fixed, the gift will correctly read 'Perezagruzka'."
Russian media have been making fun at the US Secretary of State over this translation error.
http://politicom.moldova.org/news/hillary-clintons-gaffe-pushes-wrong-button-with-russians-188042-eng.html
she musta got her dip tips from Plugs
They are both an embarrassment.
0bama blows off the Brits, but he could hardly wait to run off and give his first interview as President to an Arabic station in the middle east...
And just wait until he rolls out the red carpet for 0dinga and Mugabe.
Well, what do you know. There’s no one in the State Department who speaks Russian.
Actually, this kind of treatment from the Obama-ites is a compliment: they showed the same kind of contempt for Sarah Palin.
Cheers!
More than likely the DVD set was made in Mexico, was bought for less than a dollar, is in Region 1 code and thus unable to be played in the Region 2 of the UK, UK is PAL format, the US is NTSC, its a copyright thing.
So basically this “gift” is worthless trash.
Way to go Obama, burn all the bridges so your enemies cannot sneak up on you?
It might not have been a gaffe, but part of the plan to sink the US.
“Oh, give me strength,”
I’m laughing at my desk. Now others are seeing first hand what America has put in the White House.
What do you expect with a President whose foreign affairs experience consists solely of being born in Kenya and Muslim primary schooled in Indonesia and a Secretary of State whose diplomatic credentials are having made travel junkets overseas on the taxpayer’s dime.
Good thing that button didn’t say “launch” in Russian.
Regardless, a really stupid “gift”.
There is a total lack of class, everywhere you look. Incredibly embarrassing...
The Arrogant and the Classless are in charge now. I hope we have SOME friends left when they depart the national stage.
Why aren’t Repubs legislators all over TV and radio blasting the Obamanoids for their incompetence? They cant simply depend on Rush and talk radio to do it.
Perhaps if Hillary simply engaged in diplomacy instead of trying to be cute. I’m so tired of these people.
I’m just shocked that the UK’s fag media has turned on the cool black dude.
Not very hip, progressive and sophisticated of them.
British colonial forces accused of terror tactics in Kenya
February 7 2005-Kenyans who fought in the Mau Mau rebellion have taken the British government to court for alleged humans rights abuses. Their application reflects the fluidity of the concept of terrorism. While the colonial government referred to the Mau Mau as ‘terrorists’ in the 1950s, the Kenyan Mau Mau Trust has now delivered a dossier to the British High Commission in Nairobi, entitled “Kenya: White Terror”. More than 200 000 Kenyan freedom fighters were detained in camps in a bid to force them to abandon their nationalist goals in the 1950s. The dossier catalogues instances of torture and murder by British soldiers and locals under their command. Other documented atrocities in the report include castration and blinding of defiant captives, as well as fatal whippings and r ape by British soldiers. The report is based on more than 6000 depositions alleging numerous cases of human rights abuse. This is the third time Kenya is seeking reparations from the British government for atrocities committed during British colonial rule.
Read the East African report on Allafrica