SCIENCE & NATURE

                 

            Customs officers take the fight to poachers

            By David King

            May 27, 2004

            ARMED with pistols, capsicum spray and batons and using hi-tech

            wireless communications, a team of Australian Customs officers are

            ready to patrol the Southern Ocean in search of illegal fishing

            vessels.

 

            After five months of intensive weapons and communication training,

            the group of 30 officers will serve on Australia's first armed

            vessel to carry a deck-mounted .50-calibre machine gun.

            Displaying their newly acquired skills, a dozen officers conducted a

            final training exercise in Fremantle yesterday.

            "For the first time, Customs officers were training to board a

            vessel, under circumstances where we're seizing a ship and our

            people are armed," Customs Minister Chris Ellison said.

            Senator Ellison said that over the next two years the officers would

            be sent on 40 to 50-day patrols around the remote Heard Island and

            McDonald Island, about 4000km southwest of Fremantle as part of the

            Government's Southern Ocean Initiative.

            The program, expected to cost $89 million over the next two years,

            is designed to protect the lucrative Southern Ocean fishing stocks

            from foreign poachers.

            "This signals to anyone interested in illegal fishing that we're

            deadly serious about policing our waters," Senator Ellison said.

            "But this is not just about economics, it's about protecting the

            environment and protecting our southern waters."

            The highly prized patagonian toothfish has been the favourite target

            of foreign poachers in recent years but Customs has been successful

            in seizing several vessels and prosecuting their crews.

            "Since 1997, we've seized eight vessels in the Southern Ocean and in

            the past 12 months we've seized two vessels," Senator Ellison said.

            The Government has put out an international tender for an

            ice-protected vessel, but will proceed with the first patrol in June

            using a Customs vessel equipped with a machine gun.

 

                  

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STANLEY SPORTS ASSOCIATION

2004

92^nd annual meeting

C/- Box 414

Stanley, Falkland Islands

FIQQ 1ZZ

[email protected]

 

PRESS RELEASE

5 August 2003

 

The Stanley Sports Association are currently reviewing their 2004 Event Schedule.  Any individuals or companies wishing to sponsor an event should contact the Association Secretary Steve Dent for further details and an Event Sponsorship Form.  This review will cover the next 5 years, so now is your golden opportunity to get your name into one of Stanley’s most distributed Event Programmes.  The closing date for all forms is Friday 2^nd July.  We have space for a number of new events and are especially looking for sponsors for events that involve Junior riders.

 

Please contact the Association Secretary for any further details on;

 

e-mail – [email protected]

Phone – 22021

Fax – 27147

 

FIBS NEWS DIRECT: 08 JUNE 2004:

 

RESOLUTION:

 

Argentina’s claim over the Falklands is expected to be top of the agenda today when the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Rafael Bielza, addresses the Organisation of American States General assembly in Ecuador.  A draft declaration will be debated at OAS’s 3-day conference.  It calls on the Governments of the United Kingdom and Argentina to resume negotiations to find, as soon as possible, a peaceful solution to the sovereignty dispute.

 

Mr. Bielza gave an interview to LaNacion, where he said he believes the UK will authorise a direct flight from Argentina to the Islands in the next 12 months by generating a climate of reciprocal trust.

 

 

REMEMBERING THE FALLEN AT FITZROY:

 

There was a service this morning this morning to commemorate Service men and women of the Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram, who fell during the 1982 Conflict.  The service began at 1000 at the Welsh Guards’ Memorial with wreaths laid there, at the RFA Memorial and at 5 Brigade and the Army Medical Memorial in the settlement.

 

COUNCILLORS HEAD FOR THE UN:

 

Two Councillors, Mike Summers and Roger Edwards, will be leaving the Islands this week to meet with the UN’s Decolonisation Committee, also known as C-24.  The committee discusses developments in what it regards as non-self governing territories it wants to see decolonised.  The Falkland Islands are one of the territories on the list.  I asked Cllr. Summers (MS) what he thought the outcome of the meeting to be.

 

MS:  The resolution effectively will say that the United Nations calls on Britain and Argentina to solve the sovereignty dispute in the South Atlantic by discussions and amicable means or something like that.  And, of course, we can’t subscribe to that because discussions on sovereignty indicate some willingness to compromise.  And, there is no willingness to compromise on that issue.

 

CINDERS:

 

The Falkland Islands Operatic and Dramatic Association is holding an open meeting tonight to recruit thespians, stage-hands, and anyone else who thinks they could help stage the next production, “Cinders, the True Story.”  The panto will be put on later this year and everyone’s welcome to get involved.  The meeting is at 1700 on Tuesday.  Director, Jason Lewis (JL), joined Liz Elliot on this morning’s Lifestyle Programme to tell her more.

 

JL:  We don’t just look for actors.  We also look for back stage and people to help with costumes.  Being a panto, people don’t have costumes in their wardrobes so we are going to need people to actually make some for us.  We haven’t cast anyone in any of the acting roles so everyone’s got the chance to be anyone.  We will take anyone, basically.  We’re not fussy.  If there is a group for people from MPA we would welcome people for rehearsals or to help with the actual back stage.

 

QE2:

 

The QE2 is planning to visit the Falklands again this year, calling in on November 29th.  Last years stop by the QE2 was cancelled due to bad weather.  Cabins are advertised for 31 nights will go from £2139.00 per person.  The vessel will anchor off Stanley from 0800 to 1800.

 

ARGENTINE SQUID FISHERY CLOSED:

 

Argentina has officially closed its squid fishery north of the 44^th parallel for conservation purposes.  The fishery closed at midnight on Friday rather than its usual closure date in August.

 

(100X Transcription Service)

 

NEW CONTRACTOR FOR MPA

 

A Report for BBC World Service “Calling the Falklands” by Deborah Vogle (DV) 08/06/04

 

It’s just been announced that Inter-serve, one of Britain’s biggest industrial services companies, has won the contract to support the MOD’s operations on the Falklands and Ascension Island.  The deal, which is worth £80Million, means that the Company will provide wide-ranging services for the Military for a period of five years, with the option of a two-year extension.  Inter-serve is currently providing some services on the Islands already.  So, I asked Inter-serve FM Managing Director, Sam Morrelly (SM), how much more they would be providing under the new arrangements.

 

SM:  We currently run what’s called the work services management contract with MOD, which is a 30-strong workforce.  Under the new contract, we would employ in excess of 200 employees, individuals, which would be expatriated from the UK.  And, more importantly, quite a lot of locally employed people.

 

DV:  What exactly will you be doing?  What will those people you employ be doing?

 

SM:  We would provide the mechanical and electrical maintenance, which means looking after the kit that MOD have on the Island.  We would be responsible for the power generation, sewerage and water treatment, plant and equipment maintenance, waste disposal, ground maintenance, airfield ground lighting and stuff like that.

 

DV:  Obviously quite a wide range of skills are going to be needed by your workforce.  Are you going to be providing training for people who live and work on the Islands at the moment?

 

SM:  It is absolutely part of our contract strategy and, indeed our strategy for being part of the community in which we work.  That is the theme of inter-serve – to be part of where we are working.  Training and developing the workforce is something we will want to do.  We do it here in the UK and we want to do it on the Falkland Islands as well.

 

DV:  Because I think some of the fears that people may have is that you are creating new jobs but perhaps they require certain skills that, at the moment, they don’t possess.

 

SM:  I am sure that those will be concerns that are held by people.  Indeed, those are the concerns that we encounter in the UK as well.  The reassuring message I give is that is a challenge that faces all of us and it is something that the fear of the future is greater than the reality.  Most people find it easy to grab hold of the skills that they need, if only they are given the chance.  What Inter-serve wants to do is to provide people with a chance to do that.

 

(100X Transcription Service)