Word: britishized
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...Iran-Iraq war and Iraq's occupation and retreat from Kuwait, brutally punished for uprisings against Saddam Hussein only to see his tyranny give way to the mob rule of Shi'ite militias, both the city and the province of Basra have sustained deep wounds over three decades. British forces and government agencies based in Basra after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion expected to be received as liberators. But they failed to convince locals that they could deliver on their promises of reconstruction and development, leaving young Basrawis prey to the blandishments of the militias, says Hilary Synnott, the British...
...British lost the battle to stabilize Basra and spent four years dealing with an increasingly chaotic province. Things changed for the better only after March 2008, when local units of the Iraqi army - trained by the Brits and in control of the region from September 2007 - launched an operation to disperse the militias. Now violence has been replaced by an uneasy calm, and with Britain preparing to withdraw all but a small rump of its 4,100 troops by May 31, Basra is daring to dream of peace. (See pictures of Basra back in business...
That walk is strewed with trash; the streets of Basra are full of stinking tangles of plastic and organic matter. Indeed, since last fall, private polling undertaken by the British government has seen the poor state of public services and infrastructure leapfrog security as a popular concern. Phone-in programs on the local radio station are dominated by discussions of sewage and the electrical brownouts that hit the city several times a day. (See pictures of life returning to Iraq's streets...
When western diplomats seek concessions from Iran, they typically dish out tough rhetoric and threaten sanctions. Neil MacGregor, the cherub-faced director of the British Museum, uses a more refined arsenal: cultural relics and priceless artifacts. In January, MacGregor traveled to Tehran to finalize the loan of treasures from eight of Iran's best museums. In exchange, he promised to loan the National Museum of Iran the Cyrus Cylinder, a 2,500-year-old clay cylinder inscribed with decrees from the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great. Following a request by the Iranian Vice President's office, he also vowed...
...time when more conventional channels of communication between Britain and Iran have stalled, MacGregor's cultural diplomacy is opening up another avenue for dialogue. The British Museum, especially since MacGregor took the helm in 2002, has used traveling exhibitions and curatorial exchanges to successfully engage museums from China to North Korea to Sudan. "The more difficult the political relations are, the more important it is to try to understand the history of the country with whom we're having difficult conversations," he says. (See pictures of 250 years of the British Museum...