
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.

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.

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.

By John Fowler for Penguin News, Stanley, Falkland Islands - My first contact with Latin America came in 1971, when my wife and I spent four days in Montevideo while waiting for a ship to carry us to the Falkland Islands. We received such amazing hospitality and kindness from the Uruguayans we met then, that this small, but perfectly-formed country has had a place in my heart ever since.

One day after the summit in Montevideo, Uruguay criticized the functioning of Mercosur, particularly the lack of cooperation, trade barriers and impediments and delays to essential infrastructure works for the group.

“We will always maintain our commitment to you on any question of sovereignty because your right to self-determination is the cornerstone of our policy”, said British Prime Minister David Cameron in his Christmas message to the Falkland Islands.

“It is unacceptable to engage in an economic blockade of the Falklands, there can be no justification, legal, moral or political, for efforts to intimidate the people of the Falkland Islands”, said Foreign Officer Minister Jeremy Browne on Wednesday.

President Hugo Chavez claimed that a small group of Paraguayan lawmakers, manipulated by a “powerful black hand”, are impeding the long-delayed access of Venezuela as full member of Mercosur.

Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo called for the free flow and free access of his country’s goods to Mercosur senior members’ markets and insisted on the energy integration of the block.