In the past several years, I've noticed media-types dropping the use of Anglicized names for a variety of places (presumably b/c they wanted to sound smarter than the rest of us).
At some point, Qatar (Kah-tar) became "cutter" or "gutter." Bombay became Mumbai. And, now Turin is Torino. WTH?
The selectiveness with which the media approaches thes pronunciations is very foolish, IMHO. I mean, I don't see anyone rushing to say Deutschland or Espana or Sverige. So why one and not the other? What gives?
How about Kerry and his references to Jen jiss Khan ...
When I was growing up, I learned about gen (rhymes with ben) ghis kahn.
It is pure pretentiousness on the part of liberals. They want to feel they are smarter than us ... so they use the "local" pronunciation and leave the anglicized version so that they may distinguish "us" from "them" in proper society. Rush picked up on this a long time ago ... listen to the way he pronounces the "revarund Jesse Jackson" ... throwing thier preteniousness right back in their face.
I always said Allemagne,,what's arong with you guys.
and Angle-Land....
and Xochiquetzal ...I always nail that one!
and Alba
and....Kernow
I could go on and on...