The Malvinas cause will only come to an end when Argentina has definitive possession of the Islands, said Argentine defence minister Arturo Puricelli during a military ceremony to remember the 31st anniversary of the loss of cruiser ‘General Belgrano”, during the Falklands’ conflict torpedoed on 2 May 1982 by a Royal Navy submersible with the loss of 323 lives.
For some, the prospect of the Falkland Islands becoming an oil-producing country creates exciting visions of opportunity, while for others it seems like a nightmare. What is certain is that oil, like sheep and fishing before it, will inevitably bring changes to both our wealth and our way of life.
The International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, IAATO, with over a hundred member organizations held in April its latest annual meeting in Punta Arenas, Chile with a numerous delegation from the Falkland Islands attending given the growing economic significance of the cruise industry and Antarctica tours.
Argentina’s ongoing attempts to strangle the Falkland Islands economy by intimidating cruise vessels from calling at Stanley and other islands has been picked up by the Daily Mail in an article written by Ian Drury.
Defence minister Arturo Puricelli said that Argentines “are not prepared to tolerate the usurpation” of the Malvinas Islands ‘for the rest of our lives’ and the honour and glory for those who fought in the South Atlantic “is going to be recalled until we obtain absolute and exclusive sovereignty over our Islands”.
Two Falkland Islands fishing companies were awarded in Brussels last week the Superior Taste Award which was extended to Marfrío a Spanish processing company that works with Patagonian squid caught in the Islands waters.
An Argentine radical group involved in actions against cruise vessels and maritime traffic with the Falkland Islands has promised a similar campaign against Lan Chile offices in Buenos Aires, the airline which flies the only link of the Islands with the continent.
Argentina’s scientific research vessel “Dr. Eduardo L. Holmberg” left on Friday from Mar del Plata for the South Georgia area for a thirty day cruise in the framework of the Convention for the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources, CCAMLR, reports the Foreign Ministry from Buenos Aires.
By Harold Briley - The Falkland Islands, South Georgia or the British Antarctic Territories stand to benefit from an ambitious science research project to commemorate Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 trans-Antarctic expedition.
This week penguins are celebrated through World Penguin Day (Thursday April 25) and Sarah Crofts from Falklands Conservation explains why more research is desirable on them in the Islands.