By Alex Calvo (*) - Chinese Leader Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United Kingdom has been met with grand-sounding headlines, including references to a “golden era”. Public statements by both governments have focused on growing economic links, while some voices referred to human rights and US commentators expressed their concern at London’s closeness to Beijing at a time of increased tensions in the Indo-Pacific, above all the South China Sea.
Last December, in a spirit of remembrance and reconciliation, and in the presence of the descendants of the fighting admirals, the Falkland Islands commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Falklands, an action that sent six ships to the bottom and claimed well over 2000 lives.
“If any identification is to take place of combatants buried in the Falkland Islands, it would have to be done with the full agreement and involvement of the Falkland Islands Government”, said the local government in a Monday release from Stanley.
Argentina Malvinas War veterans marched on Friday in Buenos Aires and protested before the UK embassy demanding London collaborates with the identification of the remains of Argentine soldiers buried at the Darwin cemetery in the Falkland Islands.
A group of road workers are expected to start arriving in the Falklands Islands in early December to boost the dwindling local force. Falklands' Director of Public Works Colin Summers said that efforts to obtain agency workers were progressing well with up to nine workers sourced to be split between the FIG Highways Section and the Quarry.
Argentina's presidential candidate Mauricio Macri’s top foreign policy adviser Fulvio Pompeo told British newspaper The Telegraph Argentina will take a less aggressive stance over the Malvinas Islands conflict if the Let’s Change candidate wins Sunday general elections.
Tierra del Fuego is 'absolutely strategic for Argentina's foreign policy because of the Malvinas Islands claim question, integration with Chile and the current process of re-industrialization, according to the country's Deputy foreign minister Eduardo Zuain who this week visited Ushuaia to coordinate actions beginning next December” when the elected governor Rosana Bertone takes office.
The 2015/16 cruise season has taken off in Argentine Tierra del Fuego with the arrival on Monday, of 'Ushuaia' and 90 passengers, one of the 331 calls which are estimated according to Ushuaia authorities. Gianfranco Guardamagna head of the Tierra del Fuego Tourism Institute recalled the significance of the cruise industry for Ushuaia, since the austral city commands 95% of all international Antarctic tourism.
Malvinas war veterans will march next Friday in downtown Buenos Aires up to the British Embassy to demand that DNA tests of the remains in 123 unidentified graves at the Argentine memorial cemetery in the Falkland Islands be allowed to commence.
Falkland Islands demining and ground clearance operations which this season took off in September are advancing rapidly and controlled explosions of ordnance has been announced for later this week. Thousands of antipersonnel and anti tank mines in marked perimeters remain the Falklands, a legacy of the retreating Argentine forces which invaded the Islands 33 years ago in 1982.