Falkland Islands

Walter Gonzalez hawks military pins, key chains and ribbons from a makeshift stand at a bustling plaza, peddling memories of a war few care to remember. "When we returned from there, we remained in the shadows," says Gonzalez, a fatigue-clad, shaggy-haired survivor of battle and years of postwar therapy. "No one wanted to talk about it."

LONDON -- The funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Britain's longest-serving leader of the 20th century, will be held in St. Paul's Cathedral on April 17, officials said Tuesday. Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, are expected to attend what will be the most elaborate funeral to be staged in London since the death of the queen's mother in 2002. It will be the first funeral of a prime minister that the queen will have attended since Winston Churchill's in 1965.

Some of the biggest winds in the world blow through the stormy South Atlantic, but none stormier than the political hyperbole that's sweeping through the region lately. It's just 30 years since the Falkland Islands war that took 900 young lives and saved the government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher while bringing down one of South America's foulest military dictatorships. All this for possession of some 770 chilly islands totaling about half the area of Los Angeles County and with about the same year-round population (3,200)

Argentine veterans of the bitter war over the Falkland Islands said Monday that they had no sorrow over the death of Margaret Thatcher, who launched British forces to recapture the South Atlantic islands more than three decades ago. “She won't be remembered as someone who has contributed anything to peace,” Mario Volpe, president of the Center for Malvinas Veterans, told  Agence France-Presse . The islands are known by Argentines as...

Britain launched a plan Sunday to encourage more people to emigrate to the Falkland Islands, a move that already has angered some islanders because of a chronic housing shortage. Under the plan, applicants will be given free one-way air fares to the remote South Atlantic islands, scene of a British victory over Argentine invaders in 1982. Volunteers will also receive assistance in selling their homes in Britain and refunds for the costs of shipping possessions.

Argentina called on Friday for a Security Council meeting on current British military maneuvers around the Falkland Islands, Argentine U.N. Ambassador Marcelo Delpech said. Argentina claims the maneuvers violate its sovereignty.

A British Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter crashed Friday near Mt. Pleasant airport in the Falkland Islands, killing all seven military personnel on board, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

Several hundred people gathered Saturday to commemorate two sea battles that underlined the importance of the Falkland Islands as a major South Atlantic base for the Royal Navy in two world wars. The veterans and survivors marched past the Cenotaph memorial to Britain's war dead to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Falkland Islands in World War I and the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the River Plate in World War II.

Argentine President Raul Alfonsin will reschedule a trip to the United States because of the latest dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands, a government source said. Alfonsin originally planned a lecture tour of the United States beginning Nov. 16, with a possible stop in Washington, causing speculation that he would meet with President Reagan. But Reagan is scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Washington on Nov. 15.

Twelve islands, complete with a country house and 9,000-acre sheep farm, have just gone on sale for $67,600. But the buyer will have to like solitude. The Swan Islands are in the remote South Atlantic British colony of the Falkland Islands, off southern Argentina, and are about 100 miles from the colonial capital of Stanley. Included in the price are the three-bedroom farmhouse and 2,900 sheep. The name of the seller was not made public.

ROME - He called her policies an “attack on God's plan.” She described him as “medieval.” But Pope Francis and President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the leader of his native Argentina, kissed and made up Monday - literally - at a private meeting at the Vatican. “Never in my life has a pope kissed me!” Fernandez exclaimed after the encounter, during which she presented the pope with her own token of reconciliation: a mate gourd, which he can use to drink traditional Argentine tea. Fernandez was the first world leader to meet the new pontiff, who before his elevation last week was known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Nearly 200 years after Charles Darwin wondered how a fox-looking wolf came to live on South American islands hundreds of miles from the mainland, scientists think they have the answer. The Falkland Islands wolf, the only land animal believed to have occupied the Falkland Islands before it was hunted into extinction in the 19 th century, trekked to its final home over ice sheets during the last ice age, researchers concluded. The wolf, Dusicyon australis , became isolated from its sister species, Dusicyon avus, on the South America mainland about 16,000 years ago, according to the study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.

LONDON -- In an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, published as an advertisement in the Guardian and other newspapers Thursday, the president of Argentina demanded the return of the British-ruled Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.   In the letter, copied to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called for a U.N. resolution to return the Malvinas, as they are known in Argentina, to...

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Some of the biggest winds in the world blow through the stormy South Atlantic, but none stormier than the political hyperbole that's sweeping through the region lately. It's just 30 years since the Falkland Islands war that took 900 young lives and saved the government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher while bringing down one of South America's foulest military dictatorships. All this for possession of some 770 chilly islands totaling about half the area of Los Angeles County and with about the same year-round population (3,200)

Francis Pym, an antagonist of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who served as her foreign secretary during the Falklands War, died Friday after a long illness, his family said. He was 86. Pym served two years as defense secretary during Thatcher's first term as prime minister. In 1982, while Britain was battling Argentina to keep control of the Falkland Islands, he was named foreign secretary after the resignation of Peter Carrington. Thatcher fired Pym after winning the 1983 election, and he became increasingly critical of her policies.

Walter Gonzalez hawks military pins, key chains and ribbons from a makeshift stand at a bustling plaza, peddling memories of a war few care to remember. "When we returned from there, we remained in the shadows," says Gonzalez, a fatigue-clad, shaggy-haired survivor of battle and years of postwar therapy. "No one wanted to talk about it."

Re "Pizza joint takes pesos -- and abuse," March 6 Some people need to get a life. I recently returned from a cruise in which we went to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and the Falkland Islands. Every one of those countries took our American money. It made us feel welcome (and was very convenient for us besides). EVE REAGAN Van Nuys