The avant-garde (literal translation, advance guard) valiantly leads the rest of the culture into the uncharted future.

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And in areas such as Schengen, there can be little real objection to an advance guard plunging ahead.

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Mr Clinton's advance guard on a recent visit to Britain was as big as Mr Blair's entire executive staff.

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Mobile phones, it seems, are the advance guard for mobile-broadband networks that will extend internet access to the whole of mankind.

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And the advance guard of this revolution is neither a console nor a computer, but a flat, thin, palm-sized piece of plastic.

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The BBC's Sarah Grainger in Caracas says it appears that prisoners who had heard about the search in advance from news reports were waiting for the National Guard when they arrived.

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