The Falklands referendum came out exactly as expected, a Briton shall never be a slave and the argies got a good kick in the cods.
The emphatic Yes-vote is a public relations setback for Cristina Kirchner, president of Argentina, who has reignited the dispute over sovereignty, maintaining that the islanders are an “implanted” population lacking the right to self-determination. Read more »
Just last month, Argentina’s foreign minister Hector Timerman declared that the Falkland Islanders “do not exist”. Well they do exist, and clearly do not wish to live under the boot of Argentina. Many of the Falklands’ 3,000 inhabitants have lived under Argentine occupation, and have no desire to do so again. Argentina’s increasingly unpopular government, desperate to whip up nationalist sentiment against a backdrop of Socialist-driven economic decay, will attempt to dismiss the referendum as an irrelevance. But there can be no doubt that the huge vote in favour of the status quo on the Falkland Islands will make Kirchner’s campaign to turn the Falklands into “las Islas Malvinas” even more futile. It will make it harder for Mrs. Kirchner to stomp around the United Nations calling for negotiations over the sovereignty of the Islands, when barely any of its inhabitants share her views. The Falklands referendum result will only further reinforce the image of Cristina Kirchner as a desperate figure who lives in her own parallel universe, destined to become a laughing stock even among her own Latin American neighbours, who will only grow more and more weary of her Falklands obsession. Read more »
President Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner has got her priorities all mixed up, still bleating on about the Falklands while her country is still having trouble paying its bills. Despite the fact that no Falkland islanders want the island to be handed over and governed by a financially fucked country, de Kirchner is continuing her campaign to get the islands back:
President Kirchner opened Argentina’s Congress with a three-hour speech describing her government’s “victorious decade” in power and defending her management at a time of falling confidence in Argentina’s economy.
She urged the United Kingdom to engage in negotiations about the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, or Las Malvinas, as they are known in Spanish.
“We do not ask that you (the UK) say we are right, just sit and talk with us,” she said.
Nearly 2,800 Falkland islanders are expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of maintaining their status as a British Overseas Territory in a referendum next Sunday.
Héctor Timerman, the Argentine foreign minister, has called the vote “illegal”. The Kirchner administration claims the islanders are “implanted” and ousted an Argentine population in 1833. -source telegraph.co.uk
Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner has pleaded for negotiations over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, saying that Britain was happy to talk to “mass murderers” but not her democratically elected government.
Mrs Kirchner used her annual state of the nation speech to Congress to declare that she would not give up her diplomatic fight for the Malvinas, the name for the islands in Spanish, and ruled out another military invasion.
“The world is clamouring for dialogue,” she said in a reference to support for the Argentine claim from Latin America and Africa. “Argentina once more demands the UK … sit down for talks over sovereignty.”
Uhmm no the world is not clamouring for anything over the Falkland Islands. Read more »
The shit has hit the fan as Argentina pulled out of talks (just like they pulled out of the Falklands in 1982) with British Foreign Secretary William Hague after the UK Government suggested that the people of the Falkland Islands should be able to take part in the talks and tell them to piss off voice their concerns, but the Argies won’t have a bar of it:
Argentina has got one of their frigates back, and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is talking tough again…on the deck of the sailing ship:
Cristina Kirchner hit out at David Cameron and those who want to “invade and militarise” the Falkland Islands as Argentina greeted with pomp a navy frigate released after it was swept up in a debt tussle.Cristina Kirchner hit out at David Cameron and those who want to “invade and militarise” the Falkland Islands as Argentina greeted with pomp a navy frigate released after it was swept up in a debt tussle.
Captain Pablo Salonio said his crew had “fulfilled our obligation” by helping ensure the three-masted vessel’s safe return home after being impounded for more than two months in Ghana. Read more »
Britain is prepared to defend the Falkland Islands with military force if Argentina launched another invasion, David Cameron has said.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, the Prime Minister said troops would be deployed in the event of another attempt by Buenos Aires to re-take the islands.
He made the UK’s “extremely strong” position clear after Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the Argentine president, renewed her accusations that the islands were stolen by Britain.
In an escalation of aggressive rhetoric, she took out advertisements in British newspapers claiming that the islands were forcibly stripped from Argentina in “a blatant exercise of 19th century colonialism”.
Her position has hardened since last year’s 10 year anniversary of the Falklands War and the discovery of potential oil resources off the coast of the islands.
Mr Cameron this morning said he would fight to keep the Falklands in the same way Margaret Thatcher launched forces to protect the islanders in 1982.
Asked if Britain would defend the islands, he replied: “Of course we would and we have strong defences in place on the Falkland islands, that is absolutely key, that we have fast jets stationed there, we have troops stationed on the Falklands.
Cameron needs to park a couple of Astute Class subs in and around the vicinity of Buenos Aires.
David Cameron should stop buggering around and put a Vanguard class submarine off the beach at Buenos Aires. The Argies would crap themselves and start marching backwards.
David Cameron must return the Falkland Islands to Argentina, 180 years after the territories were “forcibly stripped” from the South American country, the country’s president has claimed in newspaper adverts.
In an emotional open letter to the British prime minister, Cristina Kirchner, Argentina’s president, has called on him to honour a United Nations resolution dating from 1965 and start negotiations about handing over the islands.
They have got stuff all chance of taking back the Falklands if they are broke. It would be sensible for the Poms to put a Vanguard class sub a few hundred metres off the beach at Buenos Aries for the summer holidays though.
Argentina could be expelled from the global economic community for repeatedly failing to provide accurate inflation and growth data.
The threat of expulsion comes two months after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that Argentina had “not brought itself into compliance” over the “quality of the official data reported to the Fund” and warned that there could be repercussions.
The IMF set a deadline of Monday for the country to comply. Argentina is yet to respond.
Ejection from the 188-member club could mean the country loses access to vital international credit lines. It will also be the first time a country has been expelled since the former Czechoslovakia was kicked-out in 1954 for “failing to provide required data”.
A resolution requiring a country to withdraw from the IMF would need the support of governors representing 85pc of voting rights.
Argentina, led by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, reported 8.9pc GDP growth in 2011 but independent analysts maintain the government overstated that number by as much as three percentage points.
Official inflation data show prices rising at around 10pc, but independent assessments have prices rising at 25pc and more.
The time is fast drawing near for the Argie pinko who has been freely spending other peoples money to have to pay it all back:
ARGENTINA has finally run out of wiggle room in a billion-dollar showdown over foreign debts unpaid since the country’s world-record default a decade ago.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for President Cristina Fernandez after a US federal judge in New York late on Wednesday ordered her country to pay immediately and in full everything it owes.
Fernandez has referred to the liabilities as “vulture funds” and blamed them for much of Argentina’s troubles.
The total owed is $US1.3 billion ($A1.26 billion) and has to be paid by December 15.
The judge has also barred Argentina from paying other bondholders until it satisfies the judgment, putting the president’s back against the wall.
If she doesn’t reverse her longstanding position and pay up, she risks triggering another historic Argentine debt default, this time totaling more than $US20 billion.
“It is hardly an injustice to have legal rulings which, at long last, mean that Argentina must pay the debts which it owes. After ten years of litigation this is a just result,” US District Judge Thomas Griesa concluded.
