Weekly Report - 16 June 2011 (WR-11-24)

ARGENTINA | Falklands dispute. "As things currently stand, we'd have serious trouble defending anything much further than the other side of the English Channel," British Admiral Sandy Woodward, who led the naval task force that recaptured the Falkland Islands exactly 29 years ago, said on 14 June. Woodward, whose comments were widely reported in the Argentine press, was complaining about British defence cuts. His comments coincided with the Argentine government's demand a day earlier that the UN apply more pressure on Britain to negotiate sovereignty over the Islands: President Cristina Fernández raised the issue during an official visit to Buenos Aires by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. They also came on the same day that Fernández conferred Argentine citizenship on James Peck, a Kelper whose father fought for the British in the Falklands War. Peck is the first islander to make the switch, which is of symbolic significance to the Argentine government, although the vast majority of Falklanders favour remaining British, which is the cornerstone of the British government's case for sovereignty which begins and ends with self-determination.

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