Falklands faced with new conflict

The British oil company Desire Petroleum began drilling for oil in the waters off the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory, on Monday. The Argentinian government considers this illegal. After the Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 this could now prompt another conflict, writes the daily Corriere del Ticino: "It is true that the loss of popularity which both Argentina's President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are suffering ahead of elections has made new waves of nationalism possible. But they would be too weak to start a war were it not for the addition ... of a classical component: the highly desirable energy source. For the seabed surrounding the island is said to contain around 60 billion barrels of crude oil. ... Even if no one can yet say that Port Stanley, the capital of the Falklands, will one day be the Dubai of the southern Atlantic ... both sides are defending with increasing fierceness their conflicting positions regarding the unresolved problem of state sovereignty over the islands."

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