[speaking farsi] ♪ [speaking farsi] ♪ [speaking farsi] [gunshot] ♪ [gunshot] ♪ [speaking farsi] >> buthat i learned from people like lieutenant jalil, one of the fine officers of the units. i was learning from my students even as i was teaching them. ♪ >> for example, in the english class i taught at the military academy, the west point of iran, i felt that i was not only their teacher, but also their friend. >> in our country, especially in iran, the southern part, we have very little rain. >> because of our geographical conditions, because of our climate, we have much rain in many parts of the united states. ♪ [speaking farsi] >> the greatest thrill for any advisor is when the men that he advises perform a successful maneuver. with the officers of the special forces unit, we planned on -- an exercise to parachute drop into a particular area to test internal security. flying at night over a training area, simulated as being in enemy hands, we prepared to make our jump in order to rendezvous with a guerrilla force waiting below on the improvised drop zone. ♪ >> in order to be influenti

in farsi.ng point of thinking in the language and from then on, it seemed that i made rapid progress. [speaking farsi] >> my promotion came through very close to graduation day. understandably, a happy day for me. after the graduation ceremony, the faculty gave us a small party. a toast was proposed. [speaking farsi] ♪ >> i had been chosen to answer for the group. [speaking farsi] >> i said, i am amazed that after one year of listening to our farsi, you still remember your farsi. i, and the rest of the students, thank you. because of your understanding and patience, we have achieved our goal. we hope to get acquainted with the iranian people and the iranian culture so that we can repay you for some of your hard work. again, we thank you. [speaking farsi] ♪ >> now i was in iran as an army advisor. how strange it all seemed at first. i had been trained for over a year and brought halfway around the world to serve for two years as a member of the military assistance advisory group in iran. u.s. ar

we do have farsi speaking individuals. when we find a language talent that we need -- >> i have people in my district, native farsi speakers. let me know. >> chairman, i'm always on the lookout for great resumes. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the chair recognizes the vice chairman of the subcommittee, mr. williams. >> secretary billingslea, the obama administration authorized financing the aircraft for the world's foremost jurisdiction of primary money laundering concerns. this allows or costs to be used for a state-owned airline, iran air, that was sanctioned in 2011 for providing support to the islamic revolutionary guard corps. we learned that iranian air flew at least 114 flights between iran and syria between the jpcoa's implementation day and march 2017 likely as an airlift in support of the syrian government's atrocities. so this is an easy question, a simple yes or no. can you certify for us today that iran air has ceased all sanctionable activities? >> i need to get back to you on that, chairman -- or congr

new garnet a savvy is a journalist and commentator who also be bringing us purpose perspective from farsi speakers online thank you everybody for joining us so much talk about what actually happened in the last two weeks nygaard if you could somebody up what happened in iraq. but these protests didn't come out of the economic protests against austerity measures that have been going on for months if not years building gathering here in their front of government buildings and they were scattered they were smaller sometimes even cracked down but this time it was organized and it all started in the religious city of masha which is the second largest city in iran and like you said before miss activists on the ground believe that this was actually started by the hardliners or the conservative who's the base for one of the major. contenders of their previous election against president rouhani is actually a shot but then it escalated it got out of hand and it spread like wildfire to dozens of cities across iran i've got here a tweet from sayed mousavi professor let me just share this with you say

sheinny spoke tajik, russian, a little farsi, and jacqueline and miriam were arabic speakers. in other words, they didn't share a common language. yet they seemed to understand one another perfectly, and they weren't using google translate, nor english. how were they interacting? i could hear all three of them saying the word -- [inaudible] what was that? book, she told me. my language, book. their language, book. same! the word for book was virtually identical in each of their home languages, in arabic, in tajik and farsi. initially, i thought this kind of convergence existed only in the middle east, but as i spent more time with the students from africa, i came to realize i was wrong. one student told me in cue name ma the word were book was kitaba, and in swahili it was kitabu. that was a moment when i finally grasped my own arrogance as an english speaker. i mean, the arrogance harbor by someone who knew only european languages which rendered the well-laced interconnected of the rest of the world invisible to me. i was starting to see it though, the centuries-old ties that

within posts and determine the positive and the negative and they are targeting specifically korean farsi and russian language activity on social media and they want the software to be able to you know monitor posts interpret their sentiments and then provide replies in a similar tone now it's quite interesting especially when you keep in mind that all throughout the media there have been accusations that russia has deployed an army of bots or troll farms or something to try and influence the usa through social media these allegations have surfaced all throughout u.s. media but it appears that there is an apparent call for software to be created by the u.s. military to do exactly that targeting specifically social media activity in those three languages now at this point the questions are being raised about that and.

as the original now the software actually is requested to include a number of languages among them farsi korean and russian now this is quite interesting in light of the fact that all throughout media allegations have been made that in russia there are troll farms or armies of bots being deployed to influence the united states via social media but this advertisement talking about hiring someone on behalf of at the request of intelligence in the united states it essentially calls and it appears as if the u.s. army is looking to do the same thing the very same thing that russia is accused of doing now we have actually reached out to the pentagon for information about this and clarification about what activities this potential software would be deployed for what kinds of operations and such we have not received a reply. five intelligence officer was shown told them. surprise the u.s. might be willing to develop such software if it hasn't already. the most obvious interpretation would be that this is a pushback against the allegations that have been made consistently for the last eighteen mo

messages text messages saying the people are being ordered out actually if you read what they say in farsi they tend to be an invitation quite polite invitation to come out certainly their government workers may feel some pressure to go to some of these marches and since these have been hurt and tear on we haven't been able to attend them we've got a better sense of that if they come sit around tomorrow but i've been on some of these marches in the past and the fact is that there are a lot of people a lot of people in iran who genuinely do support the regime change and whilst so you know it's a mix and it's always hard to tell but you don't want to count out the fact that there is a real cohort that fully support the islamic regime and if general jafari is correct and the unrest has been quelled what happens now the things just go back to the way they were no not at all i think this will shake up the political scene in a number of ways but it's hard to see how it's going to play out or president rouhani is going to have to change tack showed. about the economic problems the country faces a

is a software system that will be able to translate between languages most notably russian korean farsi in arabic and we all know which countries these languages are spoken in the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly dialects slagging and even a mode g.'s plus must be a tool that is capable of analysis all these millions of posts comments and replies and we all that these things can be really dodgy are to be at a loss for emotion and sentiment key question is a guess is it's probably overused but what's it going to be used for potentially they want the software to be able to communicate with users online maybe not one hundred percent like a human being but somewhat close to that just take this requirement that i have printed out right here it is the ability to generate at least three or up to ten unique statements derived from the original social media statement while retaining the meaning and the tone of the original again the software monitor and adult lies its own impact from the messages that it sends then adjust plus it also needs to be self taught in a way tha

for more on the developments in iran we're joined now by many assenting he's an editor at the w's farsi language department good morning to you mehdi iran has a number of organizations and individuals opposed to the regime in tehran can you tell us something about the main players in the opposition and some of their goals. well it's beginning to worry a conservative part of iranian mash at home to the hard line cleric who lost the election to hasn't rouhani in prison or race in may last year protestor has crossed that into the economic situation in the country as well as correction first but in the next day there's slangs become more and to government and political and as we know and or a lot of political activists it iran wrote about it we don't know really who started and how it started these protests in iran but we know the most the protests are are young under twenty five male and then we know they are really angry about the whole situation is not just economy it's about quality case well life style the one they try to live in the different situation and they they lose hope as they

and from our i am joined now by mehdi most any and editor at t w is farsi language department welcome to you there are fears of a greater crackdown there in iran president hassan rouhani has apparently promised to deal with those who break the law who could be targeted as they see the government seems to be holding back for a full crackdown this the most ration why disparate and decentralize and. we don't any leaders it would be really difficult to target the government to target a specific group or people rouhani talk about to side the first talk about the right of people to have a peaceful demonstration and say can things is once a both the violence that's happened i don't i can't see really. specific map or solution for government to go to ireland actually stop these demonstrations and in the meantime i mean when we look at what these protesters are opposing iran just generally speaking has a number of political power players and opposition leaders let's take a closer look at some of the major players there in the country and then i want to get your take there after havel this. he

software system that will be capable of translating between languages most notably russian korean farsi and arabic and we all kind of things are there really that is not like an automatic translator that is true but hold on i haven't gotten to the list of the full requirements to tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly things like dialects slang and even a mole g.'s plus it must be a tool that is capable of analysis and the things to be analyzed are these millions of posts comments replies and we know that they all can be dodgy and this case. how do i hope to use this them do we know any more about the grand plan here the us military wants the system to communicate with other internet users and maybe not one hundred percent like a human being but somewhat close to just take a look at this requirement i got to put it out right here it is the ability to generate at least three or up to ten unique statements derived from the original social media statement while retaining the meaning and the tone of the original and again the software will monitor and analyze the m. packe

if you come in already speaking farsi, urdu, or arabic, you're going to do great. language training is so important. foreign service officers go through a level of promotion, and you have to demonstrate a level of proficiency before you go through your promotion. depending on how difficult the languages, it could take upwards of 10 months to a year for foreign service officers if they are studying what is considered one of the super hard languages. >> even today, the use flashcards in their studies. we have what we call tools of the trade of the diplomat. flashcards, and a very curious object here. it looks like a kerosene lantern. it was a kerosene lantern. it still functions as a lantern. but you can see the protrusion in the slide projector. the light of the lantern then projects an image and its portable. very handy for areas that don't have electricity. this was transferred to us by our u.s. embassy in singapore. they were literally doing cleaning out of closets and came a will across this. i am so glad they did not toss this in the garbage. back in the mid-20

the software actually is requested to include a number of languages among them farsi korean and russian now this is quite interesting in light of the fact that all throughout media allegations have been made that in russia there are troll farms or armies of bots being deployed to influence the united states vs social media this allegation has been very widely circulated in the u.s. press there's been talk about it in congress all kinds of allegations have been leveled about russia allegedly trying to influence the united states through social media but this advertisement talking about hiring someone at the request of intelligence in the united states it is simply piers as if the u.s. army is looking to do the very same thing that russia is accused of doing while the pentagon is still true to our requests for comment on this story but we did discuss the she with the n s a whistleblower william binney and also film and my five agent . well i mean what they really want to do is be able to monitor royce communications or any kind of communications text and be able to assess it and. check it

military's also wanting its a i bought to translate between several languages including russian and farsi. and also be able to assess people's emotional responses to you to calculate how much sentiment influences them online so let's have a look then how these features could actually be applied in real life well. i think we can have a look at them here firstly the us army social media tools checks to conduct effective communication also to monitor and analyze the impact of its messages and also automatically improve its abilities for the first first off the so-called were bought which we said is engaged in communicating with other people or online i think now we can hear some reaction to what's being proposed. what they really want to do is be able to monitor royce communications or any kind of communications text and be able to assess it and. check it for other threats or things like that or even. some from some of the manipulation programs even respond. and try to manipulate the other person at the other end so i mean our intelligence agencies have had this is one of their objectives wh

actually if you read what they are saying in farsi, they tend to be a quite polite invitation to comecertainly government workers may feel some pressure to go to some of these marchers. and since these have not been held in tehran, we have not been able to attend them. we will get a better sense of that if they come to tehran tomorrow. but i have been to some of these marches in the past and the fact is there are a lot of people in iran who genuinely do support the regime. it is a mix and it is always hard to tell, what you don't want to count out the fact that there are a lot of people who do support the regime. phil: if general jafari is correct and that unrest has been quelled, what happens now? do things just go back to the way they were? eric: no, not at all. i think this will shake up the political scene in a number of ways when it will be hard to see how it plays out. president rouhani will have to change tact. show that he has listened to the people about the economic problems the country faces. although the protests may be over, the frustration and the anger that drove them i

as the original now the software actually is requested to include a number of languages among them farsi korean and russian now this is quite interesting in light of the fact that all throughout media allegations have been made that in russia there are troll farms or armies of bots being deployed to influence the united states vs social media but this advertisement talking about hiring someone on behalf of at the request of intelligence in the united states it essentially calls and it appears as if the u.s. army is looking to do the same thing the very same thing that russia is accused of doing now we have actually reached out to the pentagon for information about this and clarification about what activities this potential software would be deployed for what kinds of operations and such we have not received a reply. but let's cross live now to chris kitsa founder of unseen encrypted internet service thanks for joining us so good to have you on the program today first things first i guess why would the u.s. only needs such a piece of software can you think of any reasons well let's look a

is a software system that will be able to translate between languages most notably russian korean farsi in arabic and we all know which countries these languages are spoken in this kind of technology this kind of translation technologies radio there was no hold on because for now i'm far from giving you the full list of requirements the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly dialects slag and even a mode g.'s plus it must be a tool that is capable of analysis all these millions of posts comments and replies and we all that these things can be really dodgy are to be at a loss for emotion and sentiment that's how complicated it gets key question is again it's probably overused but what's it going to be used for potentially they want the software to be able to communicate with users online maybe not one hundred percent like a human being but somewhat close to that just take this requirement that i have printed out right here it is the ability to generate at least three or up to ten unique statements derived from the original social media statement while retaining the mea

is a software system that will be able to translate between languages most notably russian korean farsi in arabic and we all know which countries these languages are spoken in this kind of technology this kind of translation technology is radio there was no hold on because far from giving you the full list of requirements the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly dialects slag and even that mode plus must be a tool that is capable of analysis all these millions of posts comments and replies and we all that these things can be really dodgy are to be at a loss for emotion and sentiment that's how complicated it gets key question is again it's probably over his but what's it going to be used for potentially they want the software to be able to communicate with users online maybe not one hundred percent like a human being but somewhat close to that just take this requirement that i have printed out right here it is the ability to generate at least three or up to ten unique statements derived from the original social media statement while retaining the meaning and the ton

is a software system that will be able to translate between languages most notably russian korean farsi in arabic and we all know which countries these languages are spoken in this kind of technology this kind of translation technologies radio there was no hold for now i'm far from giving you the full list of requirements the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly dialects slag and even a mode g.'s plus must be a tool that is capable of analysis all these millions of posts comments and replies and we all that these things can be really dodgy are to be at a loss for emotion and sentiment that's how complicated it gets key question is again it's probably overused but what's it going to be used for potentially they want the software to be able to communicate with users online maybe not one hundred percent like a human being but somewhat close to that just take this requirement that i have printed out right here it is the ability to generate at least three or up to ten unique statements derived from the original social media statement while retaining the meaning and the t

be able to translate between many languages and these languages include the likes of russian arabic farsi career and some other ones as well so i mean but why should we be afraid of that he leaves. because you know you've got lots of translation apps to the internet surfing and all that because i'm far from giving you the full list of the capabilities and the requirements that were published on that website the tool is meant to understand dialects slang in even emotions in this case plus it must be a tool that's capable of analysis and the content is to be add a life for emotions and sentiment as well. so how could these features then be used well first of all they want the program to be able to communicate with other internet yours users sorry maybe not one hundred percent as a human being but somewhere in that direction just take this requirement that i've got printed out in front of me one of the requirements is the ability to generate at least three or up to ten unique statements derived from the original social media statement while retaining the meaning and the toe of the original o

is a software system that will be able to translate between languages most notably russian korean farsi in arabic and we all know which countries these languages are spoken in this kind of technology of this kind of translation technologies radio there was no hold on because for now i'm far from giving you the full list of requirements the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly dialects slang and even a mode g.'s plus it must be a tool that is capable of analysis all these millions of posts comments and replies and we all that these things can be really dodgy are to be at a loss for emotion and sentiment that's how complicated it gets key question is again it's probably overused but what's it going to be used for potentially they want the software to be able to communicate with users online maybe not one hundred percent like a human being but somewhat close to that just take this requirement that i have printed out right here it is the ability to generate at least three or up to ten unique statements derived from the original social media statement while retaining the

software system that will be capable of translating between several languages most notably russian farsi korean and arabic and we know which countries these languages are spoken in but i mean just listening to see that we've got google translate how can we do something like that i mean why is this a big deal that's true but i haven't gotten to the full list of requirements that were in that request the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly dialects so. even a mold is plus it must be a tool that is capable of analysis and the things to be analyze are all these millions of posts replies comments and we know that these things can be pretty dodgy online and these things are to be analyzed for emotion and sentiment so that's how sophisticated it gets with this particular cell and so what would be their intention then of trying to use something like this well i mean people are afraid perhaps this could be used malevolently i mean what sort of things could it be so as well what the pentagon ones is for the software to be able to communicate with users online maybe not one hu

as the original now the software actually is requested to include a number of languages among them farsi korean and russian now this is quite interesting in light of the fact that all throughout media allegations have been made that in russia there are troll farms or armies of bots being deployed to influence the united states vs social media this allegation has been very widely circulated in the us press there's been talk about it in congress all kinds of allegations have been leveled about russia allegedly trying to influence the united states through social media but this advertisement talking about hiring someone at the request of intelligence in the united states it is simply piers as if the u.s. army is looking to do the very same thing that russia is accused of doing well the pentagon is still too replied to our request for comment on this story but we did manage to discuss the she with the n.s.a. whistleblower william binney and also the film and my five agent i mean my shows. what they really want to do is be able to monitor royce communications or any kind of communications tex

want to stop what they call a western cultural invasion primary schools will focus more on promoting farsi eddie raney and culture the ban will apply to both state and privately owned schools not to chile which is due to open its first memorial to the members of the mapuche a indigenous minority killed by the military dictatorship during the one nine hundred seventy s. many activists vanished and their remains were never found out as there is latin america editor lucien human has more from to move in central chile. needed mapuche a historian it non-coding need want the world to know the new government you're going to do. the center of the plaza goes through here to the quake it's a sacred space where only one day a year the sun rays pass directly from one side to the other even to get out of. it's here surrounded by seven hundred year old trees that the first ever memorial to one hundred seventy one my push of victims of chile's former military dictatorship will soon be formally opened up here by the. shortly after the one nine hundred seventy three military coup could he needs twenty thre

as the original now the software actually is requested to include a number of languages among them farsi korean and russian now this is quite interesting in light of the fact that all throughout media allegations have been made that in russia there are troll farms or armies of bots being deployed to influence the united states of the a social media this but this advertisement talking about hiring someone on behalf of the not at the requests. of intelligence in the united states it essentially calls and it appears as if the u.s. army is looking to do the same thing the very same thing that russia is accused of doing now we have actually reached out to the pentagon for information about this and clarification about what activities this potential software would be deployed for what kinds of operations and such we have not received a reply. so let's now cross live to william binney a former national security agency technical director and n.s.a. whistleblower thanks for being with us here on r t international. so let's get right to it why would the u.s. army need such software. well i mean wh

as the original now the software actually is requested to include a number of languages among them farsi korean and russian now this is quite interesting in light of the fact that all throughout media allegations have been made that in russia there are troll farms or armies of bots being deployed to influence the united states of these social media but this advertisement talking about hiring someone on behalf of at the request of intelligence in the united states it essentially calls and it appears as if the u.s. army is looking to do the same thing the very same thing that russia is accused of doing now we have actually reached out to the pentagon for information about this and clarification about what activities this potential software would be deployed for what kinds of operations and such we have not received a reply former m i five officer any much shaun told my colleague nicky aron that she's not surprised that the us is seeking to develop such software that the most obvious interpretation would be that this is a pushback against the allegations that have been made consistently for

is a software system that will be able to translate between languages most notably russian korean farsi in arabic and we all know which countries these languages are spoken in this kind of technology of this kind of translation technologies radio there was no hold on because for now i'm far from giving you the full list of requirements the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly dialects slang and even a mode g.'s plus must be a tool that is capable of analysis all these millions of posts comments and replies and we all that these things can be really dodgy are to be at a loss for emotion and sentiment that's how complicated it gets key question is again it's probably overused but what's it going to be used for potentially they want the software to be able to communicate with users online maybe not one hundred percent like a human being but somewhat close to that just take this requirement that i have printed out right here it is the ability to generate at least three or up to ten unique statements derived from the original social media statement while retaining the me

is a software system that will be able to translate between languages most notably russian korean farsi and arabic and we all know which countries these languages are spoken in and think this is kind of the point isn't it. this kind of technology this kind of translation technologies radio that i was not well along because i didn't get to the lists of the full requirements right here the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly the dialect slang and also a mode plus it must be a tool that is capable of analysis and the things to be adeline are all these millions of posts replies and comments and these things will be analyzed for emotion and sentiment that's how complicated gets so many layers to it so the key question is again it's probably overused but what's it going to be used for potentially well what the army wants to do is for the program to be able to communicate with the users online maybe not one hundred percent like human being but somewhere close to that if we just take a look at one requirement that i have printed out right here it is the ability to generate

is a software system that will be able to translate between languages most notably russian korean farsi in arabic and we all know which countries these languages are spoken in this kind of technology this kind of translation technologies radio that there was no hold on because for now i'm far from giving you the full list of requirements the tool is meant to understand and know how to use correctly dialects slag and.