LONDON — A statue of Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin will stand guard along one of London’s most important thoroughfares for the next 12 months, the British Council said — a gesture intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned flight into space. The aluminum-and-zinc likeness of the pioneering space hero will go up Thursday in honor of Gagarin’s successful flight around the Earth from Baikonur, in modern-day Kazakhstan, the council said in a statement. […]