According to a piece published by the Daily Express and credited to their Defense Editor, Marco Giannangeli, British specialists managed to secure a vital pipeline for the South Atlantic, following an intelligence tip-off that it was being targeted by Russian saboteurs.
The runway at Georgetown Wideawake Airport on Ascencion Island will be repaired by 2022 allowing AirTanker-operated A 330-200 flights to return, Fluor, the company which won the contract, said in a statement.
During remarks at the close of the recent G7 summit in Biarritz, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the Aichi targets—goals set nearly a decade ago as part of the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity—must be “replaced with new, more ambitious targets to help us get back the biodiversity that this planet is losing, and has lost.”
If United Nations goals are met, 10% of the world’s oceans could be marine reserves by 2020, but it has been suggested that many of these reserves will represent protection on paper but not in practice. However, new research trialling remote satellite monitoring of illegal fishing activity in the protected waters of Ascension Island from the Oxford Program of Sustainable Oceans suggests that here at least these “paper park” fears are not fully supported by evidence.
United Kingdom ministers are unilaterally considering stopping EU access to the Galileo satellite earth station in the Falklands and Ascension, according to reports in the UK press. The move comes after Brussels chief Brexit negotiator, Michael Barnier, stated that UK companies would have to be excluded from the development of sensitive Galileo infrastructure following Brexit due to security concerns.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is pleased to announce that a final decision has been taken on the location of the refuelling hub for the South Atlantic Airbridge (SAA). The SAA will continue to transit through Sal, Cape Verde until 2020, when the Ascension Island runway resurfacing project is expected to be complete.
The Falkland Islands and Ascension Island have released two coins from Pobjoy Mint to commemorate the life of former British Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher who passed away at the age of 87 on 8 April 2013.
Britain's only flying Cold War Vulcan bomber and which participated in Operation Black Buck bombing Stanley airport during the Falkland Islands conflict of 1982, will take its final flight next year before being grounded because of soaring restoration costs, according to reports in the UK media.
Britain’s Farnborough International Air-show opened last week with a joint flypast of the Red Arrows and the world’s last airworthy Avro Vulcan bomber XH558 commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War.