character encoding in email

[Richard Lyons <richard@the-place.net>]

OT again, I fear.  But can someone enlighten me as to why a steadily
growing proportion of email is full of wierd codes.  I can only suppose
they are characters encoded in a way either exim or mutt is failing to
interpret.

A typical example at random of the kind of thing I mean:

    Annan\222s view is shared by many experts on international law. In
    March 2003, the International Commission +of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva
    expressed its \223deep dismay\224 that a small number of states were
    \223poised +to launch an outright illegal invasion of Iraq, which
    amounts to a war of aggression\224. According to the +ICJ, such

Am I right in guessing this is something to do with unicode?  And if so,
how does one get all emails to be converted to a readable format?

-- 
richard