MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

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  ElaineB

  This is down to the policies of CFK when she allowed her temper to overrule good sense. She ordered the over-fishing of squid to try to stop them reaching the waters of The Falklands. Another of her legacies.

  Aug 05th, 2016 - 04:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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  Marti Llazo

  @1 Actually, there is another side of the CFK regime here as well. Although CFK called for overfishing to damage the possibility of a successful catch in the Falklands' waters, the Argie fishing fleet was woefully unprepared to actually take advantage of this opportunity. On the other hand, the majority of the catch in the area was from Chinese boats, and there were nearly 200 of them during that season. Since Argentina's ability to effectively guard its coasts and frontiers was degraded to nearly nonexistence under the Kirchners, the Chinese pirate fleet was at very little risk in its very active illegal illex fishing within Argentine waters, for which Argentina gained nothing. The occasional interception of a Chinese fishing boat by the overwhelmed Argentines was newsworthy but hardly made a dent in the Chinese take. Meanwhile, the Chinese (and others') fishing boats usually showed the good sense to not challenge the UK surveillance of the Falklands' waters.
  
  There is now an opportunity for Macri to pretend to take a mature interest in responsible multilateral agreements for decent protection of the illex production and harvest, which would necessarily involve Falklands' interests. But Macri is likely still too incompetent and otherwise distracted to make serious management moves in this area.

  Aug 05th, 2016 - 05:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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  ElaineB

  @2 Do you think he will challenge the Chinese given how dependent the economy is on investment from them?

  Aug 05th, 2016 - 05:50 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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  Marti Llazo

  @3 Macri has few physical resources with which to effectively challenge incursions into Argentine economic zones or terrestrial frontiers -- another legacy of the CFK regime. Parts of the northern frontiers are still insanely porous and thus drug smuggling is still big business there. But the maritime situation in the south is even more complicated for want of resources.
  
  The limp response from China in March this year from the sinking of a Chinese fishing boat by the Argie coast guard suggests that there may not be much political risk in keeping the pirate boats at bay.

  Aug 05th, 2016 - 06:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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  ElaineB

  @4 So they are just incapable of managing their waters or much of their border.

  Aug 05th, 2016 - 07:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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  Marti Llazo

  @5 The count for fixed-wing aircraft as of about March this year I think was only one (and occasionally two) older C130 cargo aircraft, one older P3 Orion patrol aircraft, and one Pucará were close to fully operational for any sort of aerial surveillance and/or interdiction (in the case of the Pucará). In March none of the fast-movers or even the ancient Skyhawks were fully operational ( I am told that all the Skyhawks “had puddles of hydraulic fluid” under them and most were hanger-queens.) Also as of March, for the enormous coastline and thousands of square km of “economic zone” waters I seem to recall that there were only 12 potentially available watercraft, and not all of those are fully operational at all times. Given the predicted reliability and MTBF it's likely only 10 or fewer are even close to fully operational at any given time.
  
  One of the two sometimes- operational C130 cargo aircraft was recently updated in the US, something that the CFK government was not able to arrange, but the Macri government is in a little better standing now with the US. The one that was refitted is an ancient model and was just about worn out during the 1982 Falklands war . At least one C130 was shot down by UK forces during that war.
  
  There is also the problem of “deferred maintenance” on what used to be CFK's fleet of presidential aircraft. That is a another sort of time bomb. The cost to bring those aircraft up to date in maintenance is extraordinarily high and I think that Macri is planning to sell off most of them.

  Aug 05th, 2016 - 10:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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  Islander1

  Such a disastrous shame and shows how thick and stupid that woman and her husband were. prior to 2002 there was South West Atlanic Fisheries Co-Operation between Falklands and Argentina - all done under the Sovereignty Umbrella - whatever was done together or by one with approval of the other had no bearing at all on either side,s political position.
  Catch info was shared- preseason Joint Exploratory catch level expeditions were at times jointly carried out - and if stocks low - both sides agreed zone closure dates, and both sides had the right of “hot persuit” into the other,s zones - right up to territorial limits.
  I recall at least one case where a pirate on the Arg side fled into the Falklands zone towards a British warship when being chased by Arg coastguard - I think the RN Vessel basically sat quite and said the the Arg Coastguard - “he went that way”!
  Both sides had I think an agreed buffer or no-mans bit of water inbetween of a few miles where neither side patrolled as such to avoid any instances of 2 armed vessels from each side coming up against each other. A lot of it was quietly done between both Fisheries Depts with little political ”hulllaballoo.

  Aug 06th, 2016 - 12:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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  ChrisR

  The 15M Peronistas voted TMBOA in and the whole country is in the shitter because of them.
  
  And still they clamour for her to come back.
  
  There's no helping some people.

  Aug 06th, 2016 - 06:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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