
From Monday's Globe and Mail (*)
The Falkland Islands, a windswept archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, are a British Overseas Territory, and have been since 1833. The 3,000 inhabitants of this Island are proud to be British subjects, and no amount of Argentine huffing or puffing will change that.

By Thomas Harding, The Telegraph Defense Correspondent. The following article referred to the major naval incident of the Falklands’ conflict was published Monday 26 December. Top secret papers are set to prove that the warship ARA Belgrano was heading into the Falkland's exclusion zone when it was sunk in May 1982, and not heading back to port as the Argentines claimed.

Many Members of Parliament and in the Lords, from all parties, are totally committed to standing up for the Falkland Islands and rebutting the actions of Argentina, according to Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell and Secretary of the Falkland Islands Group in Westminster. He added people must know the true facts and intentions behind Argentina’s actions.

The President of the Spanish Association of Marine Fishing Officers (Aetinape), José Manuel Muniz, has asked the new Spanish government to get involved and act against the pressure placed on Falklands-flagged vessels by the Argentines, according to an article in the Galician newspaper Faro de Vigo, which examined the Spanish reaction to the ban on the entry of Falklands flagged vessels to Mercosur ports.

In a piece published last week in London daily The Guardian, and referred to the recent Mercosur support for Argentina in the Falkland Islands dispute, Richard Gott argues that a new scenario has emerged with South America growing in strength, increasingly united and no longer looking to Europe for support and advice which means a different framework for the Falkland Islands s sovereignty dispute.

MercoPress wishes a happy holiday season to all its readers.

Uruguayan Foreign Affairs minister Luis Almagro spoke Friday on the phone with Foreign secretary William Hague for the first time since the Falklands/Malvinas’ flagged vessels controversy, but both sides apparently could only agree that the situation remains stalled according to brief statements

Mercosur latest decision to bar all Falkland Islands flagged vessels from entering its ports is “more symbolic” than anything else because a change of flag is enough, according to Uruguay’s Ports Authority, ANP President Alberto Díaz.

The Falkland Islands weekly Penguin News reports in its last edition that two Argentine aircraft carrying fourteen passengers for a cruise ship docked in Stanley landed last Saturday in the Islands Mount Pleasant Airport.

Following the article published in “The Independent” dated 22nd December 2011, entitled “Time to talk about the Falklands”, the people of the Falkland Islands would like to make the following response.