Word: britishism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Street art is an underground movement which emerged in the 1970s and 1980s with the advent of artists such as Blek le Rat, Basquiat, and the British anarcho-punk band Crass. In a youthful reclamation of the street, artists paint political messages and manifestos in an attempt to subvert both the popularized mass-consumption of art and its elitist status...
...Britain has also begun to examine questions of its culpability for civilian deaths. A second public inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa, a 26-year-old receptionist killed in British custody in September 2003, has heard that internal warnings about the treatment of prisoners were ignored. "The procedure for detention and collection of evidence can only be described as a shambles," wrote Lieut. Colonel Nicholas Mercer, the army's senior legal officer in Iraq, in a memo written only months before Mousa's death. A further inquiry has started to examine claims that up to 20 Iraqi detainees were...
...Missions Impossible In Afghanistan, British troops confront unrest, devastation and chaos every day, and the vast majority do so with bravery and honor. Most of Britain's contingent is based in the southern province of Helmand. Deployed among a desperately poor population and struggling to bring stability to an area largely devoid of civil structures and institutions, the troops face an insurgency that is fluid and increasingly deadly...
...before the start of the U.S. surge last summer, morale among British forces was undermined by mounting casualties - three-quarters from improvised explosive devices - and public skepticism about the NATO mission. Operation Moshtarak, this spring's offensive led by U.S. troops, has helped buck up spirits but misgivings remain. Prime Minister Gordon Brown denied that the decision made at a January summit in London - to offer cash to insurgents to lay down arms - amounted to a bribe. But the idea is a hard sell to soldiers who saw colleagues killed providing security last year for presidential elections stained by fraud...
...boosted any time soon. On the contrary, a January report by defense analyst Professor Malcolm Chalmers for the Royal United Services Institute predicts cuts of 20% to military personnel over the next six years. Political leaders justified the last cutback of this scale, the replacement of the British Army of the Rhine in 1994 by a standing force of less than half its size, as a "peace dividend" arising from the end of the Cold War. But with failed states on three continents giving cause for concern, the chance of a new peace dividend seems remote...