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Tag: Britain


AP/Peter Morrison

‘Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead’ Popular Again After Thatcher’s Death

That’s spelling potential trouble for the BBC, which is being pressured by Britain’s conservative, pro-Thatcher newspapers not to play the iconic song from “The Wizard of Oz” on this Sunday’s BBC Radio 1 weekly chart-topping-singles show.

Posted on Apr 12, 2013 READ MORE



Danny Birchall (CC-BY)

What Margaret Thatcher Really Meant to England and the World

Amid all the suffocating claptrap celebrating Margaret Thatcher in the media, only the British themselves seem able to provide a refreshing hit of brisk reality.

Posted on Apr 11, 2013 READ MORE



dutourdumonde / Shutterstock.com

Two Conservative Lives

Two important conservatives departed this life within days of each other. One was a world-historical figure with extravagant political gifts, the other’s misgivings about politics led him to counsel Christians to undertake a political “fast.”

Posted on Apr 10, 2013 READ MORE



AP/File

Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s ‘Iron Lady,’ Dies

The conservative Thatcher vastly reshaped Britain with her economic policies, pulling the country back from 35 years of socialism and ushering in a new era of privatization.

Posted on Apr 8, 2013 READ MORE



eflon (CC BY 2.0)

The Confiscation Scheme Planned for U.S. and U.K. Depositors

Confiscating customer deposits in Cyprus banks was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England, dated Dec. 10, 2012, shows these plans have been long in the making.

Posted on Mar 28, 2013 READ MORE



Screenshot

Where’s the Beef? Hint: It’s Not in Findus Frozen Beef Lasagne

Tests by the British Food Standards Agency revealed that the European food company’s product contained up to 100 percent horse meat.

Posted on Feb 8, 2013 READ MORE



U.S. Navy/MC1 Eileen Kelly Fors

God Loves Us and We Will Bomb You

The utopian and missionary qualities of American political belief began in the Puritans’ Calvinist theology of “the Elect,” the chosen people.

Posted on Jan 15, 2013 READ MORE



Associated Press

Rupert Murdoch Seeks to Add to His Empire

The recent Leveson Report on the British hacking scandal shows the danger of the media baron adding to his already vast American holdings.

Posted on Dec 5, 2012 READ MORE



AP/Robert F. Bukaty

Prince William and Kate Middleton Expecting (Video)

The pregnancy was announced Monday after the Duchess of Cambridge was admitted to a London-area hospital for treatment of acute morning sickness.

Posted on Dec 3, 2012 READ MORE



OperationPaperStorm (CC BY 2.0)

Why the Western Media Hate Julian Assange

Professional jealousy; dogmatic institutionalism; craven loyalty to power. Glenn Greenwald fires a devastating salvo at the British and American press for their dogged campaign of “disgusting slander” against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Posted on Aug 23, 2012 READ MORE



heipei (CC BY-SA 2.0)

British Health Workers Feel the Pain

Amid a $31-billion budget crisis, thousands of British doctors and nurses will lose their jobs unless they agree to accept lower salaries, longer working hours and other conditions, according to a leaked document obtained by The Sunday Times.

Posted on Jul 18, 2012 READ MORE



Boris SV (CC BY-ND 2.0)

British Government Looked for UFOs, Documents Show

Newly released top-secret files reveal that Britain’s Ministry of Defense took seriously the possibility of alien contact and assigned “UFO desk officers” the task of monitoring potential threats from outer space.

Posted on Jul 12, 2012 READ MORE



Photo by motiqua (CC-BY)

Europe Still Trying to Squeeze Into America’s Jeans

Nearly every step in the federalist direction has produced unnecessary complication and strain in the EU. Portugal is not Iowa. Italy cannot become California.

Posted on Jul 11, 2012 READ MORE



AP/Tim Hales

Truthdigger of the Week: Julian Assange

Few people have so fully devoted their lives to exposing abuses of power as WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange.

Posted on Jun 22, 2012 READ MORE



Photo by (CC-BY)

Brits Tell Assange to Pack for Sweden

The verdict in Britain’s Supreme Court did not go well Wednesday for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been fighting extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. Assange has been granted two weeks to consider his next move, which may be a petition for a retrial.

Posted on May 30, 2012 READ MORE


Contradiction Where Religion and American Politics Meet

Here’s a newspaper headline that might induce a disbelieving double take: “Christians ‘More Likely to Be Leftwing’ And Have Liberal Views on Immigration and Equality.”

Posted on Apr 20, 2012 READ MORE  |  97 COMMENTS



Silvio Tanaka (CC-BY)

Web Inventor: Stop the British Snooping Bill

The British government’s plan to turn the Internet into a national intelligence cache that stores data on every U.K. Web surfer was frustrated Tuesday when Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, condemned such a move as a “destruction of human rights.”

Posted on Apr 18, 2012 READ MORE  |  7 COMMENTS



West Midlands Police (CC-BY)

Private Cops to Replace Public Ones in British Counties

The relentless privatization of everything continues in the U.K., where local governments are offering private security companies £1.5 billion ($2.4 billion) over seven years to conduct services previously carried out by police.

Posted on Mar 3, 2012 READ MORE  |  12 COMMENTS



Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Going Beyond the Tale of a Boy and His Horse

For all the spectacle of thundering cavalry charges, muddy trenches and wartime love and loss, the current popular storytellers of the First World War skip over the conflict’s greatest moral drama by leaving out part of its cast of characters.

Posted on Feb 29, 2012 READ MORE  |  14 COMMENTS



Bogdan Migulski (CC-BY)

Homeland Security Doesn’t Get British Humor

It seems some tweets about plans to “destroy” America, British slang for drinking and drugging too much, and a repeat of a “Family Guy” joke, convinced U.S. officials that a pair of visiting tourists were actually terrorists who flew to L.A. in order to exhume Marilyn Monroe.

Posted on Jan 30, 2012 READ MORE  |  11 COMMENTS


Rupert Murdoch’s Cultural Revolution

It takes master documentarian Adam Curtis only five minutes to explain what Rupert Murdoch’s war on elitism (and taste) has to do with Google.

Posted on Jan 2, 2012 READ MORE  |  2 COMMENTS



Violent Response to Occupy Is No Surprise

The violent police assaults in response to the Occupy movement are proof that Occupy has hit a political nerve; Britain is preparing for the demise of the euro; meanwhile, the student wing of Occupy tries to encourage higher education. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Nov 27, 2011 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS



Alpha (CC-BY-SA)

Prude Power Hits Britain

British Prime Minister David Cameron and four of the country’s Internet service providers are bending over backwards to accommodate parents concerned with the allegedly corrosive influence of titillating adverts and porn sites on youth, because teenagers never thought about sex before billboards were invented. (more)

Posted on Oct 11, 2011 READ MORE  |  8 COMMENTS



Flickr / Images_of_Money

As Another Crisis Looms, a Case for the Euro and Collective Action

In the discussion over how to solve Europe’s financial crisis, opponents of the euro argue “that it is a monetary straitjacket and that the best reform now would be its breakup.” Not so, says Will Hutton, author, columnist and former editor-in-chief of The Observer. (more)

Posted on Sep 21, 2011 READ MORE



AP / Elizabeth Dalziel

U.K. Rioters: Young, Poor, Male and Unemployed

The Guardian put together a database of court cases of those detained during and after the unrest that swept London in early August after Metropolitan Police shot 29-year-old Mark Duggan in the city’s Tottenham neighborhood. (more)

Posted on Aug 19, 2011 READ MORE  |  5 COMMENTS



Flickr / Dana Spiegel

Glenn Greenwald on the Growing Surveillance State

Days after two British men were sentenced to four years in prison for using Facebook to incite disorder that never materialized, Glenn Greenwald writes fluently and concisely about the efforts of governments to maintain power and order by controlling the flow of information and communication online.

Posted on Aug 19, 2011 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS



AP / Nick Ut

America Is a Spark Away From Riots of Its Own

The unrest tearing apart Britain greatly resembles that of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and conditions across the U.S. could set off a new explosion of violence.

Posted on Aug 11, 2011 READ MORE  |  119 COMMENTS


London Riots: The View From Brixton

A student activist living in the middle of London’s riots shares her view from the ground on this week’s Truthdig Radio in collaboration with KPFK. Also on the show: William Cohan and Robert Scheer on Wall Street’s plunge; Robin Wright on Syria, and David Inocencio on juvie journalism.

Posted on Aug 10, 2011 READ MORE  |  26 COMMENTS



Karl-Ludwig Poggemann (CC-BY)

The Difference Between Hacking and Attacking

In this age of terrorism and anxiety, we sometimes let loose a little too freely with loaded words like “attack.” Take the case of LulzSec, the humorous hacker collective that brought down the CIA’s World Factbook, penetrated PBS and resurrected Tupac. (more)

Posted on Aug 1, 2011 READ MORE  |  6 COMMENTS



Flickr / Fresh Conservative

Let’s Unveil One for the Gipper

This Fourth of July, during a transatlantic Age of Austerity, roughly 2,000 people paid to attend a private celebration near the American Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square, where a statue of Ronald Reagan was unveiled. (more)

Posted on Jul 4, 2011 READ MORE  |  12 COMMENTS



Vintage Collective (CC-BY)

Scientists Find the ‘Holy Grail of Heart Research’

Researchers in the U.K. have found a way to make the hearts of mice repair themselves—a feat that the British Heart Foundation calls the “holy grail” (when applied to humans, we’re guessing). (more)

Posted on Jun 8, 2011 READ MORE


Cutting Kids’ Health Care Will Make Deficits Bigger

In the name of curtailing deficits, politicians across the country are hacking away at programs that aim to make children healthier.

Posted on Jun 2, 2011 READ MORE  |  7 COMMENTS



Flickr / Al-Jazeera English

U.K. Cheers On Arab Spring While Training Its Opponents

Just days after the British government pledged $181 million in grants and loans to foster economically viable democratic transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, a Freedom of Information Act report confirmed that British military personnel are training the same Saudi security forces that were used to crush recent popular uprisings in Bahrain. (more)

Posted on May 29, 2011 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS



Libyan Intervention Exposes European Disunity

The European intervention in Libya has provided a needed practical demonstration of the European states’ ability to influence world affairs, while at the same time discrediting the expectation that the European Union itself can or will conduct a united foreign and security policy.

Posted on May 24, 2011 READ MORE  |  7 COMMENTS


Queen Comes Close to Apology in Ireland

Speaking at a historic dinner in the castle that once headquartered Ireland’s British overseers, Queen Elizabeth II expressed regret over the two islands’ violent history: “To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past, I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy.”

Posted on May 19, 2011 READ MORE  |  8 COMMENTS



Nina Stössinger (CC-BY-SA)

Queen Honors Irish Freedom Fighters

The queen has landed in Ireland, where she laid a wreath at the Garden of Remembrance to honor those who fought against British tyranny. And if you think that’s a nice gesture, you should see the emerald green outfit her majesty wore for her arrival.

Posted on May 17, 2011 READ MORE  |  9 COMMENTS



NASA / Bill Ingalls

Queen to Visit the One That Got Away

The queen of England is headed to Ireland despite a bomb threat and other security concerns. She’ll be the first British monarch to visit the republic in 100 years, the first since the Irish—most of them, anyway—cast off British rule.

Posted on May 16, 2011 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS


U.K. Courts to Journalists: Stow It

Parliamentary official John Hemming has drawn attention to a new type of court order forbidding members of Britain’s fourth estate to cover cases deemed too sensitive for public consideration. The order, known as a super-injunction ... (more)

Posted on Apr 17, 2011 READ MORE  |  2 COMMENTS



Ben Chau (CC-BY-ND)

Brits Are Crackers for the American-Style Prom

The once-mighty British television empire has fallen to the blitzkrieg of inane American tele-teens. At least that’s the conclusion we’re drawing from this Guardian report, which says shows such as “90210” and “Glee” are responsible for a 500 percent explosion in prom bookings at just one hotel chain.

Posted on Apr 3, 2011 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT


Unexpected Revelations in Libya Intervention

The always-implausible notion that the European Union could have a common foreign policy has been exploded.

Posted on Mar 29, 2011 READ MORE  |  9 COMMENTS



Wikimedia Commons / Bernd Untiedt, Germany Some rights reserved

U.N. Approves ‘All Necessary Measures’ to Protect Libyan Civilians

On the same day that Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhadi told the people of rebel Benghazi he would show “no mercy,” the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution brought by the U.K., France and Lebanon to allow “all necessary measures” except invasion to protect Libya’s civilian population.

Posted on Mar 17, 2011 READ MORE  |  23 COMMENTS



DigitalGlobe

Foreign Governments Evacuating Citizens From Tokyo

With U.S. nuclear and energy officials offering dire assessments of Japan’s nuclear disaster, the State Department expanded the evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant to 50 miles, four times that ordered by the Japanese government. France, Britain, Australia and Turkey have all ordered evacuations of Tokyo or warned against travel to the region.

Posted on Mar 16, 2011 READ MORE  |  6 COMMENTS


Vejjajiva
Wikimedia Commons / World Economic Forum

Thai PM Is a British Citizen

Thailand’s prime minister may be in some hot water. Abhisit Vejjajiva acknowledged that he holds British citizenship, an admission that may make him vulnerable to prosecution for the deaths of around 90 people in anti-government demonstrations back in 2008.

Posted on Feb 25, 2011 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS



The Laird of Oldham (CC-BY)

Britain to Seize Gadhafi’s Billions

The British treasury suspects that Col. Moammar Gadhafi and his government have more than $30 billion stashed in the U.K., and British authorities are prepared to seize those assets in an effort to force the dictator to step down.

Posted on Feb 24, 2011 READ MORE


Hillary Clinton
AP / Jose Luis Magana

Another Diplomatic Oops for the U.S., Courtesy of WikiLeaks

The U.S. and the U.K. have maintained a diplomatically symbiotic relationship, to all appearances, for decades, but yet another WikiLeaks cable cropped up to harsh that friendly mellow late this week. Let the official backpedaling commence.

Posted on Feb 4, 2011 READ MORE  |  12 COMMENTS


Tony Blair
Flickr / World Economic Forum

Blair Realizes Regret Over Iraq

With regret over the loss of life throughout and after the 2003 Iraq war, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has changed his tune of condolence, saying his historically unapologetic statements defending the war were misinterpreted.

Posted on Jan 21, 2011 READ MORE  |  9 COMMENTS



Flickr / Andrew Mason (CC-BY)

Conservative Brains Have More Fear, Less Courage

Scientists at University College London went poking around the noggins of a couple of MPs and 90 students and were surprised to discover that the brains of right-wing subjects were more prone to fear and anxiety and less so to courage and optimism when compared with their counterparts on the left.

Posted on Dec 29, 2010 READ MORE  |  31 COMMENTS



Flickr / Espen Moe (CC-BY)

Julian Assange Denied Bail, Stays in Gaol

The WikiLeaks founder has been denied bail on the grounds that his ties to the community are weak and he has the means to flee the U.K. Assange, who was arrested Monday by appointment in London, is wanted for questioning in Sweden related to sexual assault allegations that he categorically denies. (See correction inside: Assange has not yet been formally charged.)

Posted on Dec 7, 2010 READ MORE  |  16 COMMENTS


Britain’s Modern Bride

Judging by England’s biggest engagement, relationships have come a long way in the royal family.

Posted on Nov 18, 2010 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS


iPhone
Courtesy of Apple

A Doctor in Your Pocket

In an effort to curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, British doctors and computer engineers are developing small electronic devices that act as tiny STD testing kits, pluggable into a smart phone or computer that then allows users to learn in minutes which, if any, STDs they have.

Posted on Nov 12, 2010 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS


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