MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

FIBS Direct News.

Argentine trawler inside FOCZ

The British Embassy in Buenos Aires are said to have made representations to the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the sighting of three of their trawlers inside the Falklands Conservation Zone eight days ago. The trawlers were spotted in the North of the zone on the morning of September 10. Two were said to be fishing but stopped when asked to despite disputing whether or not they were in Falklands waters. The Councillor with responsibility for Fisheries, Richard Cockwell, told FIBS yesterday that the incursions appeared to be more of a political statement rather than genuine attempts to catch fish. He added that some Argentine fishermen seem to want to embarrass their country's government over other grievances and that if such incidents continued, stronger representations would be made by the Falkland Islands Government through the proper channels.

Cable & Wireless

Communications provider Cable & Wireless say Falklands subscribers attempting to telephone certain areas in Britain yesterday may have had difficulties making their connection. A spokesman for the company said today that at between 7 and 8 am yesterday a fault developed in the British Telecom transmission network that prevented access to a number of area codes. BT provide one of the two communications gateways used by Cable & Wireless to Europe and the rest of the world. According to the company's spokesman most area codes in Britain were still accessible and by midnight last night BT had corrected the fault. And a second, unrelated fault may have interrupted users of the internet facility provided by Cable & Wireless between 6.30 and 7 last night. This was a local fault which engineers repaired quickly. The company say the service was back on line within twenty minutes.

Squid 2000 in Madrid

Stuart Wallace, a director of the Island based fishing company Fortuna Limited, is to address an international forum of squid experts in Madrid yesterday. Squid 2000 is the bienniel conference for the international squid industry being held yesterday and today in the Spanish capital. Mr Wallace will be talking about a number of issues among them the importanc