The Falklands government announced on Friday that MLA Mike Summers will be attending a meeting in Geneva, chaired by the Red Cross to forward agreements for DNA identification of Argentine combatants buried in Darwin. A follow up meeting in London for the signing of the agreements is scheduled, which will also include MLA Phyl Rendell, and to advance in other issues related to the September UK/Argentina joint statement referred to additional flights and fisheries scientific data exchange.
While in the rest of the world, budget shortfalls and downplayed soaring deficits are the norm, a lively discussion ensued at this week’s Falkland Islands Standing Finance Committee when MLA Michael Poole suggested the forecasting process needed revising when most years a deficit was forecast, but then resulted in a surplus.
“Is a monthly stopover in Argentina too high a price to pay for a direct weekly flight to Sao Paulo, the biggest flight hub in South America,” is the question we all have to ask ourselves, said lawmaker MLA Mike Summers this week as he set out the situation and options available to progress and develop the Falkland Islands’ economy.
The Falkland Islands Government (FIG) has welcomed the agreement made between the Argentine and United Kingdom Governments, laid out under this morning’s joint statement. Speaking to the media, Members of the Falkland’s Legislative Assembly stated they “looked forward to a better relationship with Argentina”, especially in the areas of hydrocarbons, fisheries, shipping and tourism.
We are a people in our own right, who care deeply for our country and our home. We are Falkland Islanders. It has taken us around 160 years to de-colonise from the United Kingdom, and we have no intention of becoming a colony of any other claimant, emphasized MLA Mike Summers before the UN Special Committee on Decolonization.
Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly members, Mike Summers and Gavin Short, speaking early today at the Special Committee on Decolonisation at the United Nations in New York argued that the Falkland Islands and its people have the right to determine their own future. Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra is scheduled to present Argentina’s case to the C24 claiming Argentine sovereignty over the Falkland Islands later this afternoon.
The Falkland Islands and Argentina will be making their case on Thursday in New York before the United Nations Special Decolonization Committee, or C24, an annual event where the Islanders demand recognition of their right to self determination, as clearly expressed in the UN charter for all peoples of the world.
The Falkland Islands government is considering a review of the response protocol to actions committed by visitors who ignore Islands' rules or are involved in misbehavior, harassing locals as happened this month, reports the Penguin News in this Friday's edition. The different branches of Falklands' government act coordinately and effectively, in such cases and admit it usually involves a minority of Argentine visitors.
Falkland Island’s Legislative Assembly member, Mike Summers, recently travelled to North America on a three week trip to gauge support for the Falklands’ right to self-determination from the new Canadian Government. In addition to visiting Canada, MLA Summers also made stops in Miami and the Bahamas.
Lord Penguin is in town. Actually he's no Lord or penguin, but ”I was after an intriguing headline for the meeting between Mike Summers, member of the Falklands' Legislative Assembly, Malouins in French, who this week is in Montreal to see his friend...the dragon (software programmer) Serge Beauchemin. I hope he forgives me for this fantasy”.