Argentina, Latin America: Week in Review, Southern Cone

Falkland Islanders To Vote On Sovereignty

June 13, 2012 By Staff

Top Story — The Falklands Legislative Assembly announced Tuesday that voters on the Falkland Islands will hold a referendum to decide whether the approximately 3,000 inhabitants of the remote islands will remain part of Britain’s self-governing overseas territories. The vote is expected to be held in early 2013 and will come more than 30 years after the brief war between Britain and Argentina over the islands, known as Las Malvinas in Argentina. “I have no doubt that the people of the Falklands wish for the islands to remain a self-governing Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom,” Gavin Short, chairman of the assembly, said. According to Short, the British government fully supports the referendum and is seeking to counter Argentina’s continued claims of sovereignty over the Falklands. Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has argued that Britain’s claim to the islands is an obsolete legacy of British colonialism in the southern hemisphere, and has insisted on bringing the dispute before the international community, an idea that Britain has continued to reject.

Read more from Reuters.

Headlines from the Western Hemisphere

North America

  • Officials allege that leaders of Mexico’s Zetas cartel have established a prominent horse breeding association in the U.S. that has allowed them to launder millions of dollars.
  • Data shows that the Obama administration’s new policy of “prosecutorial discretion” towards lower-priority deportation cases has led to a dismissal of less than 10 percent of pending deportation cases, frustrating immigration reform advocates.
  • A Mexican zoo has acquired nine young elephants from Namibia’s Namib Game Services private reserve, but claims that the elephants were orphaned babies is reportedly not true.

Caribbean

Central America

Andes

Southern Cone

Image:.v1ctor. @ Flickr.

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