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Today the Telegraph is reporting that British Royal Navy strategists take seriously the nationalistic trash-talk emanating from leftist twit Cristina Kirchner: there's already planning for contingencies ranging from a simple show-of-force to another direct military challenge to British sovereignty in the Falklands (which Argentinians refer to as El Malvinas).... In a situation that eerily echoes that of today -except replace 'left wing' with 'right wing'- in April 1982 the South American country had a failing right-wing junta in Buenos Aires -desperate for some populist appeal/diversion to quell domestic (economic) unrest- attempt to buoy public support through an ill-advised nationalistic military conquest. And it worked, for a while: not...

A series of military options are being actively considered as the war of words over the islands intensifies. It is understood that additional troops, another warship and extra RAF Typhoon combat aircraft could be dispatched to the region ahead of the March referendum on the Falkland Islands’ future. The options being proposed by planners at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, north-west London are also said to include a “show of force” such as conducting naval exercises in the South Atlantic. These could involve the deployment of the Royal Navy’s Response Task Force Group, a flotilla comprising destroyers, a frigate,...

Defence chiefs prepare new plans to defend Falkland Islands Defence chiefs have drawn up new contingency plans designed to prevent hostile action by Argentina towards the Falkland Islands. By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 9:00PM GMT 12 Jan 2013 A series of military options are being actively considered as the war of words over the islands intensifies. It is understood that additional troops, another warship and extra RAF Typhoon combat aircraft could be dispatched to the region ahead of the March referendum on the Falkland Islands’ future. The options being proposed by planners at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, north-west...

London (CNN) -- Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has again opened the dispute over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, accusing the British government of blatant colonialism. Known to the Argentinians as Las Malvinas, the two countries went to war over the territory in 1982 after the then military government in Argentina landed troops on the islands. In an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron and published in British newspapers Thursday, the Argentinian leader said "Britain, the colonial power, has refused to return the territories to the Argentine Republic, thus preventing it from restoring...

Argentina’s president called on Britain on Thursday to relinquish control of the Falkland Islands, accusing London of taking part in an act of “blatant colonialism” in claiming the wind-swept archipelago. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner published an open letter in the Guardian newspaper urging Prime Minister David Cameron to honor U.N. resolutions which she says backs her case for the return of the islands, which Argentina calls the Malvinas. She has made several similar demands in the past. …

Sir Rex Hunt, who was governor of the Falkland Islands during the Argentine invasion in 1982 which triggered the Falklands War, has died aged 86. A statement said Sir Rex, who had retired to Stockton on Tees, died in hospital on Sunday night. The Legislative Assembly of the Falklands said he would be forever remembered for his years of service. He was captured by the Argentine invasion force during the Falklands War and expelled from the islands. He was granted the Freedom Of Stanley in 1985 to recognise his contributions to the islands. Sir Rex, who grew up in Redcar...

Sir Rex Hunt, who was in charge of the Falkland Islands when Argentina invaded in 1982, has died aged 86. Sir Rex was considered a hero in the Falklands for his courage in organising the resistance to the Argentine invasion. He was taken prisoner by the Argentine invasion force and expelled to Uruguay. But when Britain recaptured the islands following the 74-day war he returned as Governor and remained in post until 1985. The Falkland Islands Government said it had received the news with 'great sadness'. In a statement it added: 'He will forever be remembered in the islands for...

One was an Australian computer hacker; the other a head of state. They did not speak each other’s language; and their first encounter was a videolink conversation across 6,000miles. ....“Welcome to the club of the persecuted!” a beaming Mr Correa[President of Ecuador]told the grinning Australian. ...on Mr Assange’s Russian television chat show in May, the Ecuadorean discussed at great length his resentment of American“imperialism”, and his vehement dislike of big business, media barons and “elites”. ..........Mr Assange nodded knowingly....... The two men laughed and joked as they congratulated each other on their pariah status. ......On Thursday, Mr Correa’s government announced...

While publicly claiming neutrality between Argentina and the U.K. during the 1982 Falklands War, President Ronald Reagan’s administration had developed plans to loan a ship to the Royal Navy if it lost one of its aircraft carriers in the war, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, told the U.S. Naval Institute on June 26. Lehman and then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger agreed to support U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with the loan of the amphibious warship USS Iwo Jima , he said.

The Falkland Islands, the South American islands subject to a bitter territorial dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina, are to have a referendum over their links to the UK. Here's a full statement from David Cameron, via The Guardian: "I have always said that it is up to the Falkland Islanders themselves to choose whether they want to be British and that the world should listen to their views. Thirty years ago they made clear that they wanted to stay British. That's why British forces bravely liberated the island from Argentine invaders. Now the Argentine Government wants to put...

The Argentine foreign ministry on Monday declared "illegal and clandestine" the activities of Desire Petroleum, Falkland Oil and Gas, Rockhopper Exploration, Borders and Southern Petroleum, and Argos Resources on the grounds that they are drilling in Argentine waters. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said the companies were operating "in a sovereign area of the Argentine nation and as such fall within its specified laws and rules". The companies "are not authorised by the Argentine government under law 17.319 on hydrocarbons", she added. According to the Argentine foreign ministry, her declaration opened the way for the "immediate launch" of criminal proceedings....

In his talks with President Obama in March, David Cameron reportedly gained assurances from the White House that Washington would stop pressing for negotiations between London and Buenos Aires over the sovereignty of the Falklands. If such an assurance was given, it was surely worthless. As Mercosur Press (South Atlantic News Agency) has just reported, the State Department is once again calling for UK-Argentina negotiations, ahead of next week’s Organisation of American States summit in Bolivia:

In his talks with President Obama in March, David Cameron reportedly gained assurances from the White House that Washington would stop pressing for negotiations between London and Buenos Aires over the sovereignty of the Falklands. If such an assurance was given, it was surely worthless. As Mercosur Press (South Atlantic News Agency) has just reported, the State Department is once again calling for UK-Argentina negotiations, ahead of next week’s Organisation of American States summit in Bolivia: “Our policy is unchanged. We believe that this is a bilateral issue that needs to be worked out directly between Argentina and the United...

Bristling with cutting-edge technology and carrying an awesome array of weaponry, the Royal Navy’s new destroyer HMS Dauntless is said to be one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful warships. But the £1 billion ($1.61 billion) vessel was left helpless and stranded—when a £10 ($16) fuse apparently blew. Dauntless was left without power and plunged into darkness. According to one source on board, the ship was ‘drifting for several minutes’ before the fault was corrected. No official cause for the problem has been given, but Navy insiders suggested that the fuse blew because a complicated water-cooling system had not been...

Alicia Castro tried to pull Argentina's immediate neighbours into the dispute, claiming UK diplomatic and business relations could be damaged if the islands were not handed over to Buenos Aires. She said Las Malvinas – Argentina's name for the Falklands – would be better off if they cut their ties with the UK.

Argentina has riled the Falkland Islands by broadcasting a political advert filmed on the territory without authorisation. The advert features an Argentine athlete training in the Falklands ahead of the London Olympics in July. It ends with the slogan: "To compete on English soil, we train on Argentine soil." Falklands legislator Ian Hansen dismissed it as a piece of "cheap and disrespectful propaganda". The advert - broadcast in Argentina on Wednesday night - is the latest measure by Argentina to reassert its claim to the British overseas territory it calls the Malvinas.

Life on Royal Navy's Falklands-bound HMS Dauntless It is one of the Royal Navy's most advanced and powerful warships, now on its way to the other side of the world; destination - the Falkland Islands. HMS Dauntless is the largest destroyer ever built for the Royal Navy, made from nearly 3,000 tonnes of steel. Its wide hull helps to support its two massive radar. This Type 45 destroyer is radically different in design from earlier warships. The sleek, angled lines means it appears no larger than a fishing boat on another ship's radar. It is the navy's first stealth warship....

30 years ago today, one of the RAF’s greatest missions of all time: a long range surprise attack to the Falklands April 30, 2012 At 22.30, on Apr. 30, 1982, the first engine of some 13 Hadley Page Victor K2 Tanker aircraft spooled into life and announced the start of one of the RAF’s greatest missions of all time. It all started a few weeks previously, when some Argentinean scrap metal merchants had claimed some remote British Islands called South Georgia in the name of Argentina. It culminated in General Leopold Galtiere invading the British dependency of the Falkland Islands...

While President Barack Obama's latest gaffe at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena was largely overlooked by the national media, fixated as it is on the Secret Service hooker scandal, it was not lost elsewhere -- especially in the United Kingdom and in Argentina. The gaffe, if that is what it was -- and not a premeditated slap at the British -- came during the joint press conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos after the conference. A Colombian television reporter asked Obama why it was that neither the issues of Cuba nor the "Malvinas" were taken up at...

Barack Obama has no interest in standing with Britain over the Falklands ... Barack Obama's latest knife in the back for Britain – and there have been many - should be a wake-up call for David Cameron, whose recent trip to Washington was an undignified exercise in hero-worship toward a Left-wing president who doesn't even like the British. The prime minister should understand that Barack Obama is no friend of Britain and never will be. And nor is his Secretary of State, who has actively backed Argentina's calls for UN-brokered negotiations between London and Buenos Aires over the sovereignty of...