Such is the alarm about the fragility of French in Quebec that a few years ago the provincial government passed a nonbinding resolution calling for shop attendants to replace “bonjour hi” — a common greeting in bilingual, tourist-friendly Montreal — with just “bonjour.”

At five in the morning on August 28, during the brief incapacity of Zhou Enlai due to severe angina, Kang Sheng approved a plan of action for Ningxia submitted by the Lanzhou MR: the increasingly serious conflict between two Muslim factions paralyzing Qingtongxia county was—once all other options had been exhausted—to be resolved by having the PLA open fire on civilians. Kang quickly blamed local “party power-holders taking the capitalist road” for the bloodbath that ensued but also expressed regret at the “casualties on both sides,” dismissing as unfounded “rumor” a claim that the total number of dead had been “more than 400.” Eventually, three weeks after the event, he was able to defend himself by saying that the resolution of the Qingtongxia “issue” had been endorsed by Mao and Lin Biao, but what remains unclear is when that endorsement was given, before or after the event. A post-Cultural Revolution official inquiry by the central authorities into Kang Sheng’s involvement in the incident determined that the PLA shot dead 101 and wounded 133 members of “the masses.” An official history produced in Ningxia describes the incident as one involving two opposing factions of the “masses” and has it that the PLA shot dead 104 and wounded 133 members of one of these factions.

Far from closing the door on the leadership of the ’60s generation, Mr. Obama’s presidency seems to have brought it back in full force.

The deal is conditional upon a transfer of Bombardier Transportation's contribution to the V300 Zefiro very high-speed train, and an offer of Intellectual Property (IP) licence to Hitachi for the train co-developed with the Japanese manufacturer for future VHST tenders in the UK.