Grinchmas 2012 Universal Orlando Finale Grinch Islands of Adventure
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LAUNCH OF A NEW ERA: The first sea-going hybrid ferry in the world was launched from the Ferguson shipyard in Port Glasgow last month. Picture: Marc Turner

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Damien Henderson Transport Correspondent

Caledonian Maritime Assets (CMAL), which owns the Caledonian MacBrayne fleet of vessels, said new demand for overnight electricity generation will be created by berthing the world's first hybrid and hydrogen cell ferries on the islands.

The first of two Clyde-built hybrid ferries, which are powered by a combination of two lithium-ion battery banks and diesel generators, is due to enter service this spring following a 20 million investment by the Scottish Government.

CMAL is also carrying out a feasibility study into using hydrogen fuel cells created as a by-product of renewable energy generation to power zero emission ferries.

Guy Platten, CMAL's chief executive, said he was hoping to secure Government funding for a further nine hybrid or hydrogen cell ferries over the next decade.

This would ensure 11 of the 18 routes off the west coast of Scotland operated by smaller vessels in the CalMac fleet would use the green technology.

As well as reducing the emissions from the ferries themselves, Mr Platten said they could be a game changer in making wind-farm developments more economically attractive on Scotland's islands.

He said: "It will create a market for green electricity which at the moment has no overnight demand.

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Pioneering ferries boost for islands' wind farms

Fernandez wrote in an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron that the Falklands, known as Las Malvinas in Argentina, were colonized by the UK 180 years ago and should be returned.

"The Argentines on the Islands were expelled by the Royal Navy, and the United Kingdom subsequently began a population implantation process similar to that applied to other territories under colonial rule, she said in the letter, which was also copied to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, CNN reported.

"Since then, Britain, the colonial power, has refused to return the territories to the Argentine Republic, thus preventing it from restoring its territorial integrity."

Fernandez cited a 1965 U.N. resolution, calling on the two countries to resolve the dispute, though Cameron has refused to engage in bilateral talks, emphasizing the rights of the Falkland Islanders to determine their sovereignty.

"Unlike the government of Argentina, the United Kingdom respects the right of our people to determine our own affairs, a right that is enshrined in the U.N. Charter and which is ignored by Argentina," Cameron said, according to the BBC.

"There are three parties to this debate, not just two as Argentina likes to pretend, he added. "The islanders can't just be written out of history."

Argentina went to war with Britain over the islands in 1982, occupying them for more than two months until suffering defeat by a British naval expeditionary force. There were 649 deaths on the Argentine side and 255 on Britains.

The Falkland Islands became a British overseas territory after the colonial period -- which the UK Foreign Office claims extends back to 1765 and conflicts with Fernandezs 1823 date -- and continues to receive British military support.

Residents of the Falkland Islands, currently a population of roughly 3,000, have scheduled a referendum in March that will determine their position on the territorys sovereignty.

Cameron expressed his support for the referendum in response to Fernandezs letter.

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Argentina Demands UK Return Falkland Islands Ahead Of Independence Vote

irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Thursday, January 3, 2013, 08:56

Argentine president Cristina Fernandez called for talks with Britain over the disputed Falkland Islands in an open letter to prime minister David Cameron published in British newspapers today.

Britain and Argentina fought a 10 week war in 1982 over the remote South Atlantic islands, which are part of Britain's self-governing overseas territories.

Ms Fernandez has marked the 30th anniversary of the conflict with a sustained diplomatic campaign to assert Argentina's sovereignty claim.

The Falklands cause is a popular rallying cry in Argentina but the stakes have also been raised by oil exploration in the waters around the islands.

In her open letter, Ms Fernandez accused Britain of breaching United Nations resolutions urging the two countries to negotiate a solution to the dispute over the Falklands, known in Argentina as Las Malvinas.

"The question of the Malvinas Islands is also a cause embraced by Latin America and by a vast majority of peoples and governments around the world that reject colonialism," Ms Fernandez wrote.

Britain's foreign office rejected Ms Fernandez's call for negotiations, sticking to London's long-established stance that the approximately 3,000 people of the Falkland Islands had chosen to be British.

"There are three parties to this debate, not just two as Argentina likes to pretend. The islanders can't just be written out of history," the foreign office said. "As such, there can be no negotiations on the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands unless and until such time as the islanders so wish."

The islanders are due to vote this year in a referendum on whether they want to stay part of Britain's self-governing overseas territories. They are expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of the status quo.

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Call for talks on Falkland Islands

LONDON 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 Fernandez 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.

"180 years ago on the same date, January 3rd, in a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism, Argentina was forcibly stripped of the Malvinas Islands, which are situated 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles) away from London," she says in the letter, copied to U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Britain asserted control of the south Atlantic islands by placing a naval garrison there in 1833. Britain and Argentina fought a brief war in 1982 after Argentina invaded the islands. More than 900 people died, most of them Argentines.

Cameron rebuffed the Argentine president's demand that the islands be handed over. "The future of the Falkland Islands should be determined by the Falkland Islanders themselves, the people who live there," the British prime minister said.

He said Kirchner should pay heed to the result of a referendum to be held on the islands this year, noting that whenever the islanders "have been asked their opinion, they say they want to maintain their current status with the United Kingdom."

The government of the Falklands Islands attacked Kirchner's letter as "historically inaccurate," saying that its relationship with the U.K. is "by choice" and based on shared ideals of "democracy, freedom and self-reliance."

The islands have a right, enshrined in the U.N. charter, to determine their own future and have exercised that to retain links with the U.K, the government said in a statement.

"It is this fundamental right that is being ignored by the Argentine Government, who are denying our right to exist as a people, and denying our right to live in our home," the statement said.

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On the180th anniversary of losing them, Argentina again claims the Falkland Islands

Cristina Fernandez has written to British Prime Minister David Cameron about starting talks to settle the dispute over the South Atlantic island chain.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez called for talks with Britain over the disputed Falkland Islands in an open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron published in British newspapers on Thursday.

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Britain and Argentina fought a 10-week war in 1982 over the remote South Atlantic islands, which are part of Britain's self-governing overseas territories.

Fernandez has marked the 30th anniversary of the conflict with a sustained diplomatic campaign to assert Argentina's sovereignty claim.

The Falklands cause is a popular rallying cry in Argentina but the stakes have also been raised by oil exploration in the waters around the islands.

In her open letter, Fernandez accused Britain of breaching United Nations resolutions urging the two countries to negotiate a solution to the dispute over the Falklands, known in Argentina as Las Malvinas.

"The question of the Malvinas Islands is also a cause embraced by Latin America and by a vast majority of peoples and governments around the world that reject colonialism," Fernandez wrote.

Britain's Foreign Office rejected Fernandez's call for negotiations, sticking to London's long-established stance that the approximately 3,000 people of the Falkland Islands had chosen to be British.

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Argentine president wants to negotiate with Britain over Falkland Islands

Its publication is timed to mark the anniversary of when on January 3 1833, Britain took control of the islands from the Argentinians.

It reads: The Argentines on the Islands were expelled by the Royal Navy and the United Kingdom subsequently began a population implantation process similar to that applied to other territories under colonial rule."

But Prof Dodds said the history of the Islands was a lot more complicated than Kirchner would admit.

In the 1760s and 1770s you find a fundamentally messy history of the Falklands, involving the British, the French, the Spanish, and the nascent Argentine republic as well as a little Irish presence as well, he said.

When the president claims the British threw out the Argentines, I think thats a little bit of a rhetorical over-flourish. It wasnt as if there was an indigenous Argentine population there for centuries; far from it.

"The thing about the letter which I think is very telling is the notion that somehow Britain is the only colonial power. It is laughable, he told BBC Radio 4.

For much of the nineteenth century Argentina did one thing terribly well and that was to colonise other territories. It also, like Britain, makes a claim to the Antarctic and behaves in a colonial-like manner.

He said Mr Cameron should acknowledge the letter, but added: I frankly would not take it very seriously. If anything it is a sign of profound weakness and frustration.

Mrs Kirchner insisted her claim on the Islands was backed by her South American neighbours, but Prof Dodds said it had left Argentina isolated in the region. Chile runs a successful airway to the Falkland Islands, supporting trade and tourism.

This is inconvenient truth for the Argentine president. Argentina is not always the most-liked country in Latin America. It is perceived as a rather arrogant country and a country that is very capable of promoting its own interests when it suits. The frustration for her is she hasnt got more support from its neighbours.

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Falkland Islands row: Argentina's understanding of history is 'laughable'

Two NASA satellites caught a bird's-eye view of Tropical Cyclone Dumile as it barreled over the Indian Ocean islands of La Reunion and Mauritius on Thursday (Jan. 3).

Dumile first formed as an area of disturbed weather on Dec. 30, 2012, and became a named storm on Jan. 1. The storm is currently a Category 1 cyclone with maximum winds of 80 mph (129 kph) and some wind gusts reaching up to 95 mph (153 kph).

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite took a picture of Dumile at 1:50 a.m. EST (0650 UTC) when its center was about 98 miles (157 kilometers) northwest of Reunion Island and Mauritius, according to a NASA release. The strongest thunderstorms within the cyclone's swirling structure appeared to be to the southwest of the storm center, NASA said. Reunion Island and Mauritius lie to the east of the much larger island of Madagascar.

The coldest, highest clouds and heaviest rainfall were found in a ring around the storm's center visible in two infrared images taken by the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite at 4:36 a.m. EST (0936 UTC) on the same day. This infrared imagery also showed that Dumile's central eye had closed off. The collapse of a tropical cyclone's eye typically means the storm is weakening.

Warnings were issued yesterday by the La Reunion-Tropical Cyclone Centre (run by Meteo-France) for La Reunion alerting residents to high winds, heavy rains and rough surf.

The Terra satellite also snapped an infrared picture of the "birth" of Tropical Depression Sonamu off the Philippines yesterday. It is the first tropical depression of 2012 for the western North Pacific Ocean. It currently has maximum sustained winds of about 29 mph (46 kph) and is expected to struggle to intensify as it moves westward over Palawan (an island province of the Philippines) and into the South China Sea, according to a NASA release.

The latest update for Dumile from the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center has the center of the storm located about 300 miles (480 km) south-southwest of La Reunion and projects that it will move to the southeast and weaken into an extratropical storm. Extratropical cyclones are fueled by the temperature differences in the atmosphere, whereas tropical cyclones are fueled by the energy released during cloud and precipitation formation in warm tropical air.

Tropical cyclones are the same phenomenon as hurricane and typhoons different names are used in different ocean basins. The southwest Indian Ocean area sees 9.3 storms in a season on average, according to the Hurricane Research Division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Storm names are set in lists by the World Meteorological Organization and use names found in languages used in the particular region.

Reach Andrea Thompson at athompson@techmedianetwork.com and follow her on Twitter @AndreaTOAP.Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter@OAPlanet. We're also onFacebookand Google+.

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Tropical Cyclone Spotted Slamming Indian Ocean Islands

Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner, president of Argentina, has issued an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron in two UK newspapers.

The letter demands the UK to return the Falkland Islands (known as the Malvinas Island in Argentina) to her country. It was published as an advertisement in the Guardian and the Independent.

You can read the full letter over at the Guardian.

Over the last year or so the centuries-old tension over the ownership of the islands (just off the southern tip of South America) has reignited, with the Mercosur bloc, which includes Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, banning ports in the region from allowing ships with Falkland Island flags, and anti-UK protests in Argentina.

The tension between the two countries, who went to war over the islands in 1982, may well have been sparked in 2011 after UK companies discovered oil near the islands. A complicated history leaves the sovereignty of the islands in question as the BBC notes, the history described in Fernandez's letter does not match the official UK history.

David Cameron has rejected the letter, pointing instead to a referendum due to be held this year in the Falkland Islands. The referendum is widely expected to be won by those who wish to remain linked with the UK most on the island are descended from British settlers and new immigration is restricted.

British popular opinions stands behind those on the islands: one recent poll showed 61 percent of British polled felt they should be defended "at all costs".

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Argentinian President Reignites Falkland Islands Row With Open Letter In UK Newspapers

By Dave Gilbert, CNN

updated 10:30 AM EST, Fri January 4, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

London (CNN) -- Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is once again calling on the UK to hand back the Falkland Islands -- known in Argentina as Las Malvinas -- accusing Britain of blatant colonialism.

In an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, which was published in the British press, she says that Britain stripped the islands away from Argentina 180 years ago on Thursday's date: January 3.

Read more: Falkland Islands will vote on political status

The two countries went to war over the territory in 1982, when the then-Argentinian military government landed troops on the islands.

Argentina put its death toll from the conflict at around 645. Britain's civil and military losses amounted to 255.

Falklands war wounds still fresh, 30 years later

In the letter, which was copied to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Argentinian president writes: "The Argentines on the Islands were expelled by the Royal Navy and the United Kingdom subsequently began a population implantation process similar to that applied to other territories under colonial rule.

Read more from the original source:

Argentina presses claim to Falkland Islands, accusing UK of colonialism