But the most spectacular recent arrivals are investors from the United Arab Emirates seeking a European bridgehead.

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Germany's Deutsche Bank AG, for one, is interested in broadening its U.S. bridgehead.

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Mr Farage said that the party's rise to having 147 local councillors gave the party a "bridgehead" to show what it can do.

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Suez Canal, Egypt, 1974: I was with the Second Egyptian Army, who, at the end of the Yom Kippur War managed to cross the Suez Canal and establish a bridgehead there.

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EU, if not yet as a member, include its value as a diplomatic and commercial bridgehead into the energy-rich, newly independent countries of Central Asia, and as a cultural bridgehead into Islam.

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They are a fraction of TCS's 215, 000-strong workforce but represent the bridgehead of its ambitions to go beyond being merely an outsourced back-office and coding shop and take on such consultancy giants as IBM, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Accenture on their home turf.

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Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has said his party has the "right priorities in tough times" while UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said his party is fielding a record number of candidates and would "establish a bridgehead" in county councils across England.

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