The launch this month by the Falkland Islands Development Corporation (FIDC) of the Import Substitution Programme under the slogan, “Use Spades, Not Ships” bears striking parallels to the Grow More Food campaign established in war-time Britain during the Second World War. A campaign known better by its slogan – “Dig for Victory”.
Royal Navy frigate HMS Montrose has set sail for a six-and-a-half month deployment to the Falkland Islands and other South Atlantic Islands to maintain a continuous presence protecting British interests.
When the Leiv Eriksson, a rig built to hunt for oil beneath 10,000 feet of water in the world’s roughest seas, finishes drilling a well off Greenland’s west coast next month, it will sail for its next job -- a prospect 9,000 miles away, south of the Falkland Islands.
Conservation of penguins, rat eradication and creating a network of protected areas in the Falkland Islands are some of the projects currently under implementation by the UK Overseas Territories Environment Program, OTEP with local organizations.
In a statement from Government House, issued last Friday, the 21st October, it was confirmed that Emma Edwards has resigned as a Member of the Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly (MLA). And that His Excellency the Governor, Mr Nigel Haywood CVO, had accepted “with regret” the resignation.
The British government congratulated Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on her re-election and historic victory in Sunday’s polls but it also insisted that the sovereignty of the Falklands is “not negotiable”.
Spanish jiggers operating in the South Atlantic with Falkland Islands licences complain they are been harassed by the Argentine Navy just a few miles away from the port of Montevideo where they call for discharging, maintenance and bunkering.
Four members of the British Parliament are scheduled to visit the Falkland Islands for a week beginning November 3, reported the Islands government.
The Solidarity with Malvinas Islands Group in Mexico is organizing a round of conferences next April/June in coincidence with the 30th anniversary of the Falklands/Malvinas war to which will be invited academics both from Argentina and the UK.
Britain’s House of Commons strongly supports a closer bilateral relationship with Brazil, which it describes as a democratic, well governed, responsible state but regrets the hardening position of Brazil towards the Falklands and the HMS Clyde incident.