The British press is revealing some of the facts surrounding the European Union/Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit, held in the third week of July in Brussels when Argentina celebrated that in the controversial final communiqué, a reference to the Falklands was changed to Malvinas Islands.
The UK has announced up to £600,000 for a new secretariat to help advance the work of the Media Freedom Coalition – a partnership of 50 countries working together to advocate for media freedom and safety of journalists and hold to account those who harm journalists for doing their job. The Coalition’s purpose is to defend media freedom where it is under threat.
EU funding for British Overseas Territories organisations and the impact of Brexit on business and travel are all subjects covered in a Brexit update from the Minister for the Commonwealth, the UN and South Asia this week, according to the transcript published by the Falkland Islands weekly “Penguin News”.
Falkland Islands lawmaker MLA Teslyn Barkman pointed out in Cayman Islands how Brexit and a no deal departure by the UK could totally destroy the economy of her country because the bulk of the Islands exports go to the European Union.
“Belongership” and its equivalents are wrong,” it is emphatically stated in a startling paper from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. The paper says the belongership status (known as Falklands Status in the Falklands) as enshrined in the constitutions of a number of British Overseas Territories, including the Falklands, denies legally-resident British Overseas Territory and UK citizens the right to vote and to hold elected office.
The impact of Brexit on the Falkland Islands has been raised in the UK’s House of Lords, with Lib Dem Lord Nigel Jones tabling questions to the Foreign Office. Lord Jones asked the government what assessment they had made of the Falklands’ EU exports, and the impact of World Trade Organization tariffs on Islands fisheries.
Argentina and the United Kingdom have been chosen Monday to co-chair the Equal Rights Coalition for two years starting next June, to succeed Chile and Canada at the helm of the first-ever intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the protection of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBT) people around the world.