MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Breaking News from Stanley.

Visit from Mr. Christian Simon

The desk officer responsible for Caribbean and Atlantic Territories is currently visiting the Falklands at the invitation of Falkland Islands Government. Mr. Christian Simon is the co-ordinator of Falkland matters within the European Union and more recently has been dealing with the abattoir project. While here he will be talking to Councillor and Senior Administrators about the Overseas Countries and Territories Decision. The OCT decision describes the relationship and rights between Overseas Territories and the European Union such as what we are entitled to in relation to tax-free and quota free rights for meat and fish. The OCT Decision also includes all rights of access to the STABEX fund.

First Stamp Issue for 2201

The Post Office and Philatelic Bureau will be releasing their first stamp issue for 2201 today. The new issue consist of four stamps and a First Day Cover designer by Ian Strange and depicting local sunrises and sunsets. The 10 stamp shows an autumn sunrise at New Islands; the 20p. a dramatic sunset over Stanley during the eruption of Mt. Hudson in Chile in 1991; the 37p. stamp a winter sunset over Stanley and the 43p. a summer sunrise over the south-west of the Islands.

Expatriate's 1950 bid to diffuse Falklands crisis.

More than three decades before the Falkland War, the Foreign Office considered asking the inhabitants of the Islands to pledge their allegiance to the King in a bid to diffuse the long running dispute with Argentina over the territory. According to an article in The Scotsman, documents released by the Public records Office show that a British expatriate living in Buenos Aires sparked the idea in 1950 in a letter sent to the charge d'affaires at the British Agency. The letter sent by a former First World War RAF servicemen, Harold M. Taylor dismissed the controversy over the islands as insignificant and patty from a British point of view. He also wrote that the inhabitants of the Falkland Island's were of British descent and had no desire to be anything but British. He went on to say that is Islanders were to declare allegiance to the British Empire and state that they owe no al