LONDON -- As Prince William prepares to head 8,000 miles from home to serve as a helicopter pilot in the remote Falkland Islands, the traditional "Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves!" refrain seems rather far-fetched.

Britain's naval fleet was once twice the combined size of its two closest rivals. But austerity cuts have seen billions of pounds vanish from military budgets. Even the Royal Navy's flagship aircraft carrier hasn't been spared -- HMS Ark Royal was sent to the scrapyard last year.

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Tensions have been increasing between Argentina and the U.K. as the 30th anniversary of their 10-week war over the Falklands approaches. Argentina claims sovereignty over the British-ruled islands, which are about 300 miles off its coast in the South Atlantic.

'Provocative act'
Britain's oil prospecting on the seabed near the islands has added fuel to the fire. Buenos Aires has condemned such exploration as illegal. There has also been a war of words over territorial fishing rights and President Cristina Fernandez has pledged an "eternal fight" to reclaim the islands.

Britain has ruled the Falklands for more than 180 years.

When Prince William's posting was announced by the Royal Air Force, one Argentine official described the move as a "provocative act."

Reuters reported that Britain's National Security Council discussed the islands' defenses on Tuesday.

Prime Minister David Cameron subsequently accused Argentina of "colonialism" in its claim to the Falklands, saying Britain was committed to protecting the islands and insisting that people there should be allowed to decide their own nationality.

"These people want to remain British and the Argentinians want them to do something else," Cameron told lawmakers.

Florencio Randazzo, Argentina's interior minister, later described Cameron's comments as "totally offensive," Reuters reported.

Olympic protest?
Even this summer's Olympics in London appear in danger of becoming entangled in  the spat. Some Argentine athletes have discussed plans to wear a logo on their uniforms stating: "The Falklands are Argentine."

According to The Associated Press, Britain maintains about 1,000 troops in the territory, which is home to about 3,000 people.

Lasting 74 days, the 1982 conflict ended with 258 British lives lost and six ships sunk. The cost to Argentina was even greater: 649 killed with 11,313 others captured. Its navy lost a submarine, a cruiser and 75 fixed-wing aircraft.

Some now wonder if the Royal Navy would be able to respond to a similar overseas crisis today.

When asked if Britain would be sending an aircraft carrier to the Falklands during Prince William's military service, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense told NBC News: "No, we don't have one." HMS Ark Royal was decommissioned in March.

The Ministry of Defense spokesman pointed out the Falklands boast a "well-defended airfield with Typhoon aircraft."

But Admiral Sandy Woodward, who commanded the task force that liberated the Falklands' British population from Argentine occupation in 1982, believes the islands "are now perilously close to being indefensible."

Major General Julian Thompson, the brigadier who led the initial British assault 30 years ago, told NBC News he believed that if Argentina invaded the islands now, the U.K.'s military could not get them back without an aircraft carrier.

He dismissed reinforcement by air instead of sea as "sheer nonsense."

"We certainly won't get over-flying rights or basing facilities within range of the Falklands – assuming the Argentines have taken the airfield and destroyed the Typhoons there," Thompson added.

So how powerful is today's Royal Navy? Critics highlight that when Russian ships were spotted off the Scottish coast last year, Britain could only send the aging  frigate HMS York on an 800-mile journey from a base in England.

Two under-construction aircraft carriers are behind schedule and won't be ready for about another decade.

Bearing that in mind, might Argentina be prepared to move beyond rhetoric when Prince William's presence draws the world's attention to the Falklands beginning next month?

One thing appears likely. Before his six-week tour of duty, William will have surely discussed the Falklands war with his uncle. Prince Andrew was a helicopter pilot during the conflict.

By Jason Jouavel, NBC News

LONDON -- A plaque near a bus stop in south London marks where murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence took his last few breaths and serves as a grim reminder of one of Britain's most notorious racist crimes. 

The memorial at the site of Lawrence's killing -- which has been described as the U.K's "Rosa Parks moment" -- has been vandalized several times. That strikes me as a sign that deep hatred still exists.

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• Racist killers sentenced in UK's 'Rosa Parks moment'

I'm a black south Londoner. And almost two decades after the slaying, I still feel very anxious walking through certain streets in Eltham after dark.

Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths in an unprovoked attack as he waited at the bus stop in Eltham in 1993. The investigation was bungled and despite multiple court appearances by suspects over the years no one was convicted until Tuesday.

At least three people involved in Lawrence's slaying remain at large and to this day a notable lack of local people have come forward with information about what happened.

Duwayne Brooks, who was with Lawrence at the time of the attack, told investigators that they had been racially abused before the stabbing. However, police initially treated Brooks like a suspect -- as opposed to a key witness.

The crime also resulted in a 1999 public inquiry that branded London's Metropolitan Police force as "institutionally racist."

 Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, have waged a nearly 19-year battle for justice, which finally paid dividends with this week's murder convictions of Gary Dobson and David Norris.

I've seen the slain teenager's courageous mother several times on the streets of south London as she continues her fight to clean-up the police, strengthen laws and support victims of racially motivated crimes. My immediate impulse is always to just salute her.

'Deep darkness'
Although there was celebration in some quarters over the conviction and sentencing of Dobson and Norris, I have to agree with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He summed up this week's events as "little light with deep darkness."

It's important to remember that the people who killed Lawrence have been harbored by their community for years and some are still being protected.

Some progress has undoubtedly been made since Lawrence's slaying.

However, recruitment drives aimed at attracting more black and Asian officers have failed to make the Metropolitan Police representative of London's ethnic diversity.

A disproportionate number of black people are still stopped and searched by the police. It's something I've been through several times. On one occasion, I was driving to work when I was stopped. The police officer said that I looked "suspicious."

Many young black men in London complain about being prejudged and stereotyped. 

I was astonished when a well-educated acquaintance told me she thought that black people should be stopped because they commit most crimes as we casually discussed last summer's London riots. I wonder whether this is also the view of some police officers.

The police must be commended for pursuing Lawrence's killers for close to two decades. But let's not forget that if the investigating officers had been more rigorous when the crime was committed, the Lawrence family may have had justice much sooner.

 
News analysis
LONDON – From Occupy protesters popping up worldwide, to students marching against tuition fees, to the anti-nuclear movement – people are angry and social activism seems to be on the rise. 

But now in the U.K. there is a question on the lips of many activists: Whom can we trust?

Their suspicions stem from stunning revelations in Britain about the infiltration of activist groups by undercover agents working for the police.

Imposture activist
For seven years Mark Stone lived and breathed the cause of British environmentalism. He was known as “Flash” because he usually drove a van, and seemed to be never short of cash. Over the years he became close to a key group of activists, attended rallies with them, traveled across Europe and appeared to wholeheartedly support their causes. He also developed personal relationships with several female protesters.

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And yet, his true identity was in fact very different: He was an undercover police officer, real name Mark Kennedy, tasked with infiltrating environmental activist groups. He was unmasked when a fellow activist discovered his passport containing his real name.  

A string of prosecutions based on evidence Kennedy had gathered (like recorded conversations) have since collapsed after it became clear the evidence was not offered to lawyers defending the activists, even though it may have had an impact on their ability to establish their innocence.

So what was the purpose of the seven-year assignment, and the many thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on it?

Who else is being watched?
The case has raised questions about how many undercover operatives there are, and what sort of causes they are infiltrating. There are now at least a dozen investigations into police infiltration of the protest movement in the U.K.

Kennedy himself estimates that he knows of about 10 underground police officers who have infiltrated the environmental movement in the U.K.

But climate change campaigners are quick to ask: Why? They insist their movement is peaceful. The green activists say this level of police activity and intrusion would be fitting for terrorists – and that they do not pose a comparable risk.

Issues regarding the police operatives’ behavior have also raised concern. Undercover officers are strictly forbidden from entering into sexual relationships with their targets – and yet this seems to have happened on several occasions with Kennedy. And are they permitted to break the law while acting with their groups? And what accountability is there if they do overstep the mark?

There seems to be little clarity about what other protest organizations might have been selected for infiltration and why. While the public asks how these activities can be justified, the protesters themselves are increasingly looking over their shoulders and asking who among them may in fact be an undercover officer.

By Heather Lacy, NBC News assignment editor

LONDON - We’ve been on five-day roller-coaster here in the NBC News London bureau, what with riots and looting breaking out across the capital and the country.

We’re all wondering if the “criminality pure and simple,” as Prime Minister David Cameron put it, will pop up again, or if the uneasy calm we have now will hold. 

Everyone in the newsroom has been discussing the recent violence, the worst this country has seen in three decades.  Why would people set fire to stores, cars and homes, looting, wounding, killing and destroying property as they go? Who could do this?  How did the police
fail to bring order for days? 

As everyone in the newsroom debated the use of force – whether to use rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons, Tasers, even bean-bag guns –  I wondered why they were wasting their breath.

“If your cops had guns, day number 2, 3, 4 and 5 of this, it would NOT have happened!” I said at a recent meeting.

People stopped talking and looked at me.  A couple giggled. Those who know me weren’t too horrified, but others stared at me like I’d just drop-kicked a puppy.

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Transplanted Texan
I’m a relatively recent London implant, having moved from Texas a few years back.  I’m surrounded mostly by Brits who are usually amused and occasionally appalled at some of my comments.

“In fact, why are we even talking about this?” I asked.  “A couple batons aren’t gonna do the trick when the rioters have Molotov cocktails, bricks and knifes, and they outnumber the police.”

When I first moved here I was surprised when I discovered that “bobbies on the beat” (cops on the street) don’t carry guns. Apparently, when the Metropolitan Police Service was founded they thought arming the officers would scare the public.  How quaint, I thought.

There is an armed contingent, the Authorised Firearms Officers, which makes up about a third of the Met’s numbers, but they don’t patrol routinely and are only called in when needed.   And getting a firearms certificate as a private citizen is very difficult, if not impossible, unless you live in the countryside. 

Now, I’m not suggesting police just go out and start capping people carte blanche, but I can assure you those brave and defiant “hooded youths” (as they were described by many a British broadcaster) would not have been so brave or defiant if they had a lethal weapon pointed at them.

Yes, there’s an argument for unarmed police, and yes the British police do have an armed unit, but I’m not going to get into the minutiae. I just want to know, what’s so bad about a show of force in the form of a gun?

I mean, you don’t see anything like this kicking off in Texas, do you?

By Jason Jouavel, NBC News assignment editor

LONDON - As authorities and society at large condemn the rioters and looters who ran amok in cities throughout England over the last week, one theme jumps out at me -- the anger many here feel towards the police.

“The police have too much power and they’re using it,” a young man in London told reporters after violence broke out at a march in north London to protest the fatal shooting by police of father-of-four Mark Duggan.  Another man said he couldn’t remember how many times he had been stopped by police but was sure it was more than 20.

These comments prompt ugly memories of my own.

I’m well-educated, I’m law abiding and have a full-time job.  But as a black person, I’m also 26 times more likely than a white person to be stopped and searched by the police, according to Ministry of Justice’s own figures.

I've been stopped on at least three occasions by the police, and while most of the time they have been professional, one incident has stuck with me.

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Despite it being the law, the policeman didn’t offer a reason for flagging down my car.  He simply told me I looked “suspicious.”

Here's a line from the Police Stop and Search guidelines:

"A police officer, or a community support officer must have a good reason for stopping or searching you and they are required to tell you what that reason."

Then he went through my jacket and pockets.  He wrestled my wallet out my hand as I tried to get out my driver’s license, which he’d asked me to give him.

Then he said the picture on my license didn’t look like me.  So while my car was searched by two other officers, the first one disappeared into his van, I assume to authenticate my documents. 

He returned a few minutes later, seemingly intent on humiliating me further.  He asked me to stand against a wall and look straight at him to validate the photograph on my license.  He stared hard at my eyes and nose even though his earlier checks had shown my license was real.

“I don’t want to say this again,” he screamed when I lost eye contact with him a couple of times. “I’m going to tell you for the last time, look at me!”

What made this worse is that this was happening outside a church right as the congregation was leaving.  What must they think of me, I wondered?

I asked again why he was doing this.

Black and Asian people sometimes swap licenses or use each other to do their driving tests, he responded. 

“I want to be sure that you wasn’t one those,” the policeman said.

Finally convinced that I wasn’t “one of those,” he let me go. 

The anger, humiliation and above all feelings powerlessness remain with me to this day so much so that I still remember the officer’s badge number. That’s why, while I don’t condone the violence of the last week, part of me understands the frustrations that many here assume helped fuel it. 

Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron has been uncompromising.

"This is not about poverty, it's about culture,” Cameron said on Thursday. “A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities.”

“We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done,” he said.

While there no excuse for the outbursts that ruined lives and livelihoods, as a Londoner it strikes me that we should use this opportunity to reflect on what may be behind some of the violence.  After all, understanding does not equal condoning.

So as Britain cracks down on those who lashed out at their fellowman we must find out why so many of our young people feel such anger at authority, so detached from society, and make sure the last five days don’t happen again.

Perhaps fostering a culture of respect for all Britons, of whatever color or religious domination, could be a start.

Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent 
 
LONDON – It was awful to see: four teenagers in black sweaters and hoods beat a young man, kicked him twice in the face and stole his backpack. The victim was left bleeding on the ground as the thugs strolled away.

It was another scene of terrible violence after days of rioting and looting across the U.K. that’s left at least four dead.
 
Prime Minister David Cameron said the violence is “simply not acceptable, and it will be stopped. We will not put up with this in our country. We will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets."

He sees the immediate issue as one of crime and punishment: “If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishment,” he said.

London’s Mayor Boris Johnson agrees, calling for government to drop it budget plans to cut the number of police by 16,000 – ironically, the exact number of police on the streets in London.
 
But the media and community workers are still agonizing over the causes, over what turned a segment of the population into muggers and looters.

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Abandoned by society?
One column that ran in the Independent newspaper has been universally praised. In it Camila Batmanghelidjh wrote "Caring costs – but so do riots. These rioters feel they don't actually belong to the community. For years, they’ve felt cut adrift from society.”
 
Sixteen thousand police were on London’s streets, every available person, and they put the lid back on the pot. But the problem is still there.
 
The young man I saw being mugged put his finger on it. We recorded the conversation. Here is the exact transcript, and remember, I’m a Londoner.
 
Me: “Oy mate, what happened to yer.”

Him (bleeding, panting): “”I got mugged. They nicked the lot. Camera, wallet, keys, everything. Bastards.”

Me: “Yeah, I saw, he kicked you in the face.”

Him: “Why didn’t you bloody ‘elp then?”

Me: “Good point, mate.

Actually we were too far away to help. But why hasn’t society helped the young people, before it got to this crazy outburst of violence and looting?
 
It begins at home.

Where are the parents?
Community workers complain of a lack of strong parental guidance, over-stretched school teachers who place little emphasis on discipline and traditional social values, and weak communities with little moral leadership. Its members are left behind by society’s more successful strata. Left to their own devices, jobless youngsters hang around aimlessly and, in the violent outburst we have just witnessed, loot, steal and mug.
 
Where are the parents? A Reuters reporter began his report on the riots with this:
 
“Residents of a London housing estate laughed at a televised plea by police for parents to call their children and help rein in the youths who looted and burned swathes of the city.” He went on to write that some parents took part in the riots. 
 
So far there has not been one report of angry parents returning stolen goods.
 
But unfortunately there are some things you can count on here these days.
 
As we drove away to file our report, down a side street, we saw a flurry of arms and legs like a pin cushion rolling along. It was a man being beaten and mugged.

Related Links:

Grace of a grieving father speaks to a wounded Britain

British police arrest more than 1,200 

By Martin Fletcher, NBC News correspondent

BIRMINGHAM, England - In these turbulent days in Britain, the grace of a grieving father shows the country how it can heal.

His friends told me what happened.

Tariq Jahan reacted quickly. Moments after a hit-and-run driver ripped through a crowd of Pakistani Muslims, he knelt over a victim, desperately giving him CPR and save his life. Until he heard these chilling words from a friend: “Tariq, your son is behind you."

He turned and saw. His 21-year-old son Haroon had been hit too, landing on his head after being tossed into the air.

Tariq Jahan held his dying boy in his arms and gave him CPR, in vain.

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Haroon and two friends, brothers, also of Pakistani descent, were among a crowd of residents gathered in the streets to protect their neighborhood from thugs and looters.

One described how cars with black men had driven up and down the road, cursing and taunting the Pakistanis. One car accelerated and ripped into them, hurling the three young men into the air.  The driver raced off.

Everyone I spoke to on that street corner said they knew who did it and why: racial tensions in Birmingham are usually close to boiling point. They blamed blacks.

They also blamed the police.

A hostile crowd gathered around police constable Ahmed, furious. One shouted in his face, waving his fist, “I don’t believe in the police. If you’d done your job last night these three wouldn’t be dead today. You were drinking cups of tea at home.”

Young men swore revenge.

“It’s our turn. Guns tonight,” a young man told me, refusing to give his name. His friend joked, “Let’s go to the gym and work out, get ready.”

Rumors swirled of weapons and violence and revenge.

Then Tariq Jahan spoke, quiet and intense. His wisdom is worth quoting at length. In unimaginable pain, this is what he told his enraged friends, and all of Britain listened:

“Last night we lost three cherished members of our community. They were taken from us in a way that no father, mother, sister or brother should have to endure. Today we stand here to plead with all the youth to remain calm, for our communities to stand united. As we stand here this is not a race issue,” he said.

“The family has received messages of sympathy and support from all parts of the community, all faiths, all colors and backgrounds. Please respect the memory of our sons and the grief of our family and loved ones by staying away from trouble and not going out tonight. Basically, I lost my son. Blacks, Asians, Whites, we all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? What started these riots and what’s escalated? Why are we doing this? I lost my son, step forward if you want to lose your sons, otherwise calm down and go home please.”

Tariq Jahan was heard. Since his son and two friends died, the violence and looting has almost died with them. It’s probably more due to the robust, if somewhat late, police clampdown on city centers than his call for sanity, but Tariq Jahan’s impassioned appeal will echo through the land.

Forget about revenge, he said, and let the law follow its path.

Already police have arrested a man and charged him with the killings. In London alone more than 800 people have been arrested for looting, theft and violence, and security camera pictures of rioters are circulating with appeals for people to identify the perpetrators. The law is taking its course and justice will be done, says Prime Minister David Cameron.

But as a nation licks its wounds and everyone wonders how on earth all this could have happened, a grieving father, an immigrant from Pakistan who made his home in the motherland, will stand as the rallying call for sanity and unity in the United Kingdom.

 By William Kennedy for msnbc.com

LONDON - As riots continued for a fourth day around the U.K., supporters of controversial far-right group English Defence League begged mates to ditch the booze when forming neighborhood watches.

"Leave the beer alone today guys," wrote Paulie Pow on the group’s facebook page.  "The D stands for DEFENCE, not Drinking."

Another commenter, Chris Howard colorfully echoed those sentiments: "NOBODY F***ing GET PISSED! We'll need to be totally sober, that is EXTREMLEY [sic] important for all sorts of reasons including public image."

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He concluded by urging strong action against the rioters: "DESTROY THE BASTRDS [sic]."

The EDL’s stance against what it dubs the "creeping Islamisation" of the United Kingdom has attracted considerable attention, especially after reports that Anders Breivik, who has confessed to killing 76 people in Norway in July, admired and contacted the group.

The EDL officially condemns violence, but has routinely clashed with police and anti-fascist groups during more than two dozen marches and protests around England, from Birmingham to Manchester in the north (both sites of current rioting) to Portsmouth in the south.

The arrest of EDL founder, Stephen Lennon, 28, for instigating a soccer-related brawl earlier this year spurred ongoing claims that a hooliganism culture defines the group.

On Tuesday league members patrolling the streets complained officers were diverted to monitor them, while rioters remained unchecked.

Whether sober or not, vigilantism appears likely to increase around England; Reuters reported that sales of batons and baseball bats grown by more than 5,000 percent on Amazon’s UK site between Monday and Tuesday. As of Wednesday afternoon sales of a German-brand telescopic baton had jumped nearly 36,000 percent.

 

By Martin Fletcher, NBC News correspondent

LONDON -- As political and social protests grip the Middle East, are growing in Europe and a riot exploded in north London this weekend, here's a sad truth, expressed by a Londoner when asked by a television reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

The TV reporter from Britain's ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard,  more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.

The truth is that discontent has been simmering among Britain's urban poor for years, and few have paid attention. Social activists say one out of two children in Tottenham live in poverty. It's one of the poorest areas of Britain. Britain's worst riots in decades took place here in 1985. A policeman was hacked to death. After these riots, the same young man pointed out, "They built us a swimming pool."

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Poverty, joblessness cycle
Police and local leaders in Tottenham made real progress in improving community relations in the intervening years and that's true about all of Britain. The best way to prevent crime, the theory goes, is to improve the lot of the people, then they won't need to commit crimes. But caught in a poverty and joblessness cycle, young people in many British urban areas have little hope of a better life.

So when a local 29-year-old father, described by police as a gangster, was shot dead by an officer, the response came quickly.
 
Mark Duggan was killed Thursday. On Saturday night about 50 relatives and friends protested outside the Tottenham police station.

Local young men, almost all with their heads covered by hoods -- known here as "hoodies" -- took advantage to indulge themselves in a favorite sport: cursing the police. This quickly escalated into a night of hurling rocks, bottles (Jack Daniels, one young man told me -- "we broke into the liquor store, drank the Jack Daniels and threw the bottles at the cops"), burning two patrol cars, torching buildings, smashing shop windows and carting off hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of phones, cameras and clothes.
 
The looting and rioting had nothing at all to do with the killing of Mark Duggan. That was the spark. The bonfire had been prepared by years of neglect, fueled by the anger of young men with no stake in the system, angry at everybody and quick to exploit fury at the killing of a local man, even if he did allegedly fire at the police officer first.

So now the question people in Tottenham are asking is: Will the government pay attention to the social issues underlying the anger?

And a wider question is: Would anyone care at all if there had not been violence?