By Terry Karl (*) - The death of Margaret Thatcher will not change the necessity for or the timing of negotiations on the Falklands/Malvinas issue. This political football has re-emerged repeatedly – regardless of the leaders in power – usually for domestic reasons in both Argentina and the United Kingdom. There is little political will for a settlement in the short-term on either side, especially now that offshore oil is publicly and definitively in the picture.
Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday paid tribute to Baroness Thatcher as an extraordinary leader and an extraordinary woman. Cameron told the British parliament at the start of a specially convened session the former prime minister defined and overcame the great challenges of her age.
The New York Times has introduced a new section called The Opinion Pages, Room for Debate and this week’s theme was “The Falkland Islands without Thatcher”. For that purpose it invited six opinions related to the issue.
The Uruguayan parliament voted overwhelmingly to legalise gay marriage, becoming the second country in Latin America to do so, after Argentina. The bill was approved by more than two-thirds of the lower chamber, despite opposition from the Catholic Church.
Argentina’s state oil and gas company YPF CEO Miguel Galuccio announced that fuel production could drop 7% because of a fire at its refinery in La Plata. A return to full operations at the 180.000 bpd facility is expected in 30-45 days time.
Borders & Southern announced this week it has completed the 3D seismic program in the South Falkland Basin offshore the Falkland Islands. The group acquired 1,025 sq km of full fold seismic data collected by the ‘Ramform Challenger’, which will be processed by Petroleum Geo-Services.
Election fever in Argentina: the administration of President Cristina Fernandez froze the price of gasoline and diesel sold at service stations for six months and convinced banks to cut interest payments on arrears. Last month supermarket chains and other suppliers agreed to extend the current price freeze.
The opposition candidate in Venezuela’s next Sunday’s presidential again pounded on his country’s foreign policy and claimed that Argentina has a pending debt of 13 billion dollars arising from oil contracts.
WTO Director General Pascal Lamy warned that 2013 could turn out even weaker than expected, especially because of risks from the Euro crisis as countries might try to restrict trade further in a desperate attempt to shore up domestic growth.
Spanish police will erect barriers around politicians' residences to shield them from protests over the growing number of home evictions and to call for changes to mortgage laws.