A Decades Old Dispute Over the Falkans Islands Is Heating Up Again

A Decades-Old Dispute Over the Falkland Islands Is Heating Up Again FALKLAND ISLANDS After the British government announced sanctions against Israel over the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, Israeli officials accused the United Kingdom of “occupying” a territory in the South Atlantic, the Falkland Islands. The spat arose during a recent gathering of world leaders at the United Nations when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called British and French critics of Israeli policies hypocrites. “They accuse Israel, tiny Israel, of colonialism – some colonialism,” said Netanyahu. “And who’s accusing us? Among them are people in Britain and in France. For God’s sakes, they invented the term.” Argentine President Javier Milei jumped in soon afterward, saying the international community was “looking the other way” as Argentina's claim to the islands has been ignored. He added that the islanders do not have a right to self-determination, while calling for negotiations with the UK to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. Beyond the contretemps at the United Nations, a very real dispute over the Falkland Islands has been heating up lately, more than 44 years after Britain and Argentina went to war over the British overseas territory. In early September, Milei, seizing on statements by US President Donald Trump that the US may reconsider its neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty, blasted an oil drilling project just north of the islands, which lie about 300 miles from the Argentine mainland. “Argentina will not stand idly by,” Milei said in a televised address to the nation in September. “Any further advance on the [Falkland] Islands will be considered a violation of our national security.” The project, Sea Lion, promises to transform the Falklands’ economy, which has long been dependent on fishing. However, Argentina opposes the project that would allow foreign companies to extract oil deposits it regards as its own. Argentina has sought to impose sanctions on the companies involved in the project and has filed three criminal complaints against Tel Aviv-listed Navitas, the UK’s Rockhopper Exploration and eight other companies and their executives for allegedly violating Argentine law by pursuing oil operations without the country’s authorization. An Argentine judge has ordered it to halt. Meanwhile, the dispute escalated further this week, with Argentina vowing to use legal and diplomatic means to stop the project as Navitas said it was replacing two contractors that would no longer work on it amid the sanctions campaign. Rockhopper Exploration and Navitas Petroleum have said they would continue with the project under licenses granted by the Falkland Islands government and backed by the UK. Meanwhile, Argentina has also pledged to expand a military base in Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of the country, making it easier to deploy ships to the Falkland Islands – which Argentines call Islas Malvinas – in case of war. The UK has more than a thousand troops, jets and Royal Navy patrols in and around the Falklands. The history of the islands plays into the dispute. The Falkland Islands are a self-governing British territory, but Argentina has claimed them since 1833. In 1982, Argentina invaded but lost the subsequent 10-week war, helping bring an end to the military junta then running the country. In 2013, the islands’ roughly 4,000 inhabitants voted overwhelmingly to remain British. Argentina dismissed that referendum, however, saying Britain placed settlers on the islands when their status was disputed. Milei won’t deport those inhabitants, he says, if Britain gives up control of the islands. Meanwhile, the UK has repeatedly insisted it would not relinquish control over the Falklands. “The UK’s position on the Falkland Islands is unwavering,” Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said on X. “The Islands are British and will remain so because that is the overwhelming position of the Islanders.” The US has long formally recognized the UK’s de facto administration of the islands but has not taken a formal position on sovereignty. However, in April, the Trump administration floated the possibility of reversing its position to punish NATO allies such as the UK for declining direct involvement in the US-Israeli war on Iran. “Your country was not there to help me,” Trump said in early September. “We didn’t need help, but I did ask NATO, and I asked your former leader [Keir Starmer], ‘Why don’t you send a couple of ships?’ He said, ‘We don’t have any.’ It was pretty sad, the whole thing.” Meanwhile, Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Falklands is enshrined in Argentina’s constitution and frequently invoked as an expression of national pride – it is also one of the few issues that cuts across the country’s partisan divides. Still, some believe Milei, who is up for reelection next year, is seizing on the issue because of a decline in his approval ratings. “When you have political troubles, this is a tried and true way to try to get out of them and boost support,” Michael Shifter of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank, told the Wall Street Journal. “So it’s not surprising that Milei is trying to take full advantage of it for political reasons, because he is in trouble.”

Argentina Bonds Are Still A Good Investment

Emerging Markets International Trader Argentina’s Economy Stumbles. Its Bonds Are Still Attractive. By Craig Mellow Follow Oct 01, 2026, 3:00 am EDT Gift Article Listen (4 min) President of Argentina Javier Milei addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images) Key Points About This Summary Argentine President Javier Milei is losing momentum a year before his re-election bid, with his approval rating dropping. Argentina’s annual inflation rate is stuck around 30%, poverty is increasing, real wages are stagnant and unemployment is rising. Despite the economic challenges, some investment managers view Argentine bonds as potentially attractive due to the country’s fiscal situation. Argentine President Javier Milei is losing momentum a year before his bid for re-election. Luckily for him and bondholders, his Peronist opponents are stuck in reverse. The libertarian firebrand, in office since December 2023, achieved global celebrity as his shock therapy whipped near-hyperinflation and doubled currency reserves in the world’s most-defaulting nation. But he has largely squandered a political boost he got from successful 2025 midterm elections. Advertisement - Scroll to Continue At home, Milei’s drawn-out defense of cabinet chief Manuel Adorni against corruption allegations left vital structural reforms of taxation and pensions to languish. “The Adorni scandal consumed way too much oxygen,” says Bruno Binetti, a fellow at Chatham House. Adorni stepped down in late June. Abroad, Milei’s administration whiffed on a chance to re-enter bond markets before the summer surge in global yields. “If they didn’t want to issue at 9%, they won’t come to market now at 11%,” says Jeff Grills, head of emerging markets debt at Aegon Asset Management. That has left the economy to drift in the wrong direction for most of Argentina’s 46 million citizens. Inflation is stuck around a still-punishing 30% annual rate. Poverty is increasing again after a sharp contraction in Milei’s first two years. This year’s 2% to 3% economic growth is concentrated where jobs aren’t, in oil and mining exploration and agriculture. “Real wages are stagnant and unemployment is rising,” summarizes Thierry Larose, portfolio manager for emerging markets local debt at Vontobel Asset Management. Milei’s poll numbers have dropped accordingly, with voters disapproving of his stewardship by a 60-to-40 margin, according to pollster AtlasIntel. So have bond prices. Benchmark paper maturing in 2038 has fallen from 83 cents on the dollar to 74 cents over the past two months. Advertisement - Scroll to Continue Argentines may well see the alternative as worse when they cast ballots in October 2027, though. Peronism’s leading lights, former President Cristina Kirchner and Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, have feuded with each other and rehashed the disastrous policy prescriptions that ushered Milei into power. “The Peronists are very nostalgic about a golden age that disappeared more than 15 years ago,” Binetti says. “With the information we have today, continuity is more likely than change” next year, says Alejo Czerwonko, chief investment officer for emerging markets at UBS Global Wealth Management. On that assumption, Argentine bonds are a buy. “They are trading at a steep premium over other B-rated credits despite one of healthiest fiscal situations on the planet,” Czerwonko argues. Aegon’s Grills is a tad more cautious, seeing Argentine credit as “not too far from an entry point.” Yields are near, if not at the top of, the emerging market charts, paying a percentage point more than neighboring Ecuador and nearly as much as Gabon, he notes. Vontobel’s Larose considers “the outlook for Argentine bonds as challenging but potentially attractive.” Advertisement - Scroll to Continue Stagnation might get incumbents thrown out in other countries. In Argentina, it is something of an achievement compared with past chaos and contraction. “Milei is delivering a modicum of stability in the ultimate boom-and-bust economy,” Czerwonko says. He has powerful friends to buttress that stability if necessary, at the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury, which opened a $20 billion credit line to Buenos Aires to fortify the peso before last year’s midterms. Milei’s reforms could still fail, like those of Mauricio Macri before him. But investors may be getting paid adequately for that risk. Write to editors@barrons.com

Bolivia Arrests Attorney General Over Alleged Drug Ties

Bolivia Arrests Attorney General Over Alleged Drug Ties After US Pressure BOLIVIA Bolivia Bolivian police arrested Attorney General Roger Mariaca this week, days after the United States blacklisted him and more than a dozen other officials over alleged ties to drug trafficking cartels. He was arrested Wednesday, with local media reporting that police detained him at Viru Viru International Airport in Santa Cruz. Police also arrested Santa Cruz prosecutor Alberto Zeballos. He and Mariaca were among nearly 20 people from Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador whom the US State Department accused this week of corruption, links to drug trafficking or conspiring against their governments. The State Department said Monday that Mariaca received “bribes to facilitate drug trafficking” and help violent criminals evade justice. Washington revoked the visas of 12 Bolivian officials and made nine other Bolivian nationals who did not have visas ineligible to receive them. Mariaca denied the accusations Monday, describing Washington’s decision as an act of “interference” and “political pressure” in response to his investigations. The Office of the Attorney General also denounced Wednesday’s police action as illegal. The crackdown comes months after notorious Latin American drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, who had eluded police for years, was arrested in Bolivia and handed over to US authorities earlier this year.

Banking Scandal and US Pressure Campaign Roil Brasil's Tight Presidential Race

Banking Scandal and US Pressure Campaign Roil Brazil’s Tight Presidential Race BRAZIL Brazil A month ago, crime and cost of living – along with foreign interference – were the top issues for Brazilian voters ahead of the presidential election on Oct. 4. But that was before the eruption of a sprawling banking scandal implicating the son of the last president, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, who is vying to unseat incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) in an extremely tight race. Now, corruption has become a major issue in the vote. “Brazil’s voters hate it,” wrote the Economist. “As the scandal unfurls, corruption has become their primary concern.” On Sept. 11, court documents were unsealed that showed Flávio Bolsonaro is ​under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering tied to now-defunct lender Banco Master. The case has also implicated other politicians and a justice from the country’s highest court. The allegations against Flávio Bolsonaro center on his role in securing at least $12 million from banker Daniel Vorcaro to finance “Dark Horse,” a sympathetic film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who has faced multiple corruption allegations and is serving a 27-year prison sentence for plotting to remain in power after losing the 2022 election to Lula. Vorcaro is the former owner of Banco Master, which was shut down last year over a multibillion-dollar fraud case involving fake loans that cost Brazil’s deposit insurance system billions. Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes is accused of feeding Vorcaro information about the investigation. Flávio Bolsonaro and Moraes deny wrongdoing. The turmoil comes as Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro are locked in an exceptionally tight race, with the 11 other candidates trailing far behind. Lula, 80, is seeking a fourth nonconsecutive term. A poll released Sept. 23 put Lula’s share of the vote at 45.8 percent and Flávio Bolsonaro at 43.4 percent in the first round, while they were statistically tied in a hypothetical Oct. 25 runoff, required if no candidate wins a majority. Flávio Bolsonaro’s share of the vote has not dropped since the banking scandal unfurled, polls show. However, some voters like Laiza Sousa, a 22-year-old grocery store worker from the northeastern state of Bahia, say corruption has now become their main issue and see little to like in either candidate. “Neither of them brings anything to Brazil. Flávio … he's from [Jair] Bolsonaro's inner circle,” she told Brazil’s Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. “I haven't seen them improve Brazil, things only get worse.” The case has shaken the race even as voters also worry about violent crime and foreign involvement in the election: US tariffs and sanctions have intensified scrutiny of Washington’s role in an already volatile campaign. Despite a declining national homicide rate, violence remains a top concern for Brazilians, while powerful criminal organizations increasingly control territory and economic activity. In May, Flávio Bolsonaro urged the Trump administration to designate Brazil’s two largest criminal groups as terrorist organizations, a step Washington later took, which Lula opposed as foreign interference. “The main driver of this decision was politics, to pressure Lula and help Flávio prior to the October election,” Latin America analyst Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of US publication Americas Quarterly, told the Washington Post. US tariffs have further drawn Washington into the campaign since Trump imposed new duties on Brazilian goods in July. Flávio Bolsonaro, whose family has close ties to US President Donald Trump, lobbied Washington to postpone them until after the election, arguing the timing could benefit his rival. Lula’s approval rose to its highest level last year after an earlier Trump tariff hike raised duties on Brazilian goods to 50 percent and sanctioned de Moraes at the urging of another Bolsonaro son, Eduardo, a former lawmaker convicted of coercion and sentenced to four years in prison who was granted asylum in the US last year. “What is certain is that the issue of sovereignty and tariffs will be in the campaign,” Cila Schulman, CEO of Brazilian pollster Ideia, told Brazilian business publication Exame. “Foreign policy is (usually) never an issue in Brazilian elections. This time, we will see the relationship with the United States in the debate through the economy.” Lula has increasingly presented US pressure as a challenge to Brazilian sovereignty, while Flávio Bolsonaro’s ties to Trump have become part of broader public concern about foreign involvement, New York University political scientist Patricio Navia told Al Jazeera: “Even right-wing Brazilians, when they see President Trump trying to meddle with Brazilian elections, are not very pleased, because they think that Brazilian problems should be solved in Brazil, not in Washington, DC.”

Hidden Paths In Peru

Hidden Paths Polish and Peruvian archaeologists recently discovered more than 1.5 miles of previously unknown roads beneath the dense forests surrounding Machu Picchu, providing new clues as to how people may have moved through the mountainous landscape around the famous Inca citadel. The archaeological team uncovered the pre-Hispanic routes on the slopes of Mount Yanantin, at altitudes of around 6,500 to 8,860 feet, an area thick with tropical vegetation that has made conventional archaeological surveys difficult. The findings follow preliminary reconnaissance carried out in July 2023 around the Mandor wall, east of Machu Picchu, within the Machu Picchu National Archaeological Park. To see through the dense canopy, researchers turned to Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). The technology fires laser pulses from a drone toward the ground, allowing scientists to digitally strip away vegetation and build a detailed 3D model of the terrain underneath. The scans exposed narrow, zigzagging paths hidden by the cloud forest, alongside possible agricultural terraces, platforms and circular structures. The longest clearly identified stretch of road runs for at least 0.7 miles and displays features associated with Inca construction techniques, according to Heritage Daily. Although archaeologists have not yet conclusively determined the age of the roads, the discovery could reshape researchers' understanding of the wider landscape surrounding Machu Picchu. More than 60 archaeological sites around the citadel are already linked by roads, but most known sites are located on the same side of the Urubamba River. The newly detected routes suggest substantial activity also took place across the river. “The roads we have discovered alter this picture – it turns out that the other side of the river also underwent significant cultural transformations during the Inca period,” Mariusz Ziółkowski, director of the Center for Andean Studies at the University of Warsaw, said in a statement. Machu Picchu – built high in the Peruvian Andes and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – has undergone more than a century of archaeological investigation. Yet its surrounding forests continue to conceal evidence of a much broader network of human activity. Ziółkowski and his colleagues are planning additional LiDAR surveys and possible excavations to determine when the roads were built and whether they formed part of the wider Inca Road system. “This discovery complements and significantly revises hypotheses regarding the functioning of the entire complex,” he said.

Deep Political Unrest in Venezuela

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcIy7x-kW-A

Concerns Rise Over Venezuela Oil Deal

Black Gold Dreams and Nightmares: Concerns Rise Over the US-Venezuelan Oil Deal VENEZUELA Venezuela From the US to Russia, and almost everywhere in between, drivers around the world are feeling tremendous pain at the fuel pump. The US, however, has a plan to help American drivers: use Venezuela’s oil. More than nine months after American troops seized former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now in New York facing federal charges that include narco-terrorism and drug trafficking, officials in both countries recently released details about how the US plans to acquire as much as a quarter of Venezuela’s oil. Citing Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, the Associated Press described how the US government and Barbados-based North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), the biggest private oil company operating in Venezuela, formed a joint venture with rights to drill for oil in the South American country for a century. The expectation is that the joint venture will tap 65 billion barrels of crude that will require $100 billion of investment into Venezuelan infrastructure and generate $209 billion in tax revenues for the country. The US Department of Defense will own 35 percent of the joint venture. The US State Department will have the right to purchase 20 percent of its output at cost. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump “reveled” in the new US access to Venezuela’s oil fields while addressing the UN General Assembly in New York. “It’s perhaps the biggest deal ever made,” he told the audience. “To the victor belong the spoils.” However, the deal has been strongly criticized by some US officials, Venezuelans and others who echoed World Politics Review when it wrote that it “does not pass the sniff test.” One major concern is the involvement of Venezuelan oligarch Alejandro Betancourt, who controls NABEP and who is a close ally of Rodríguez: He owes his fortune in part to no-bid contracts his companies were awarded under former President Hugo Chávez; he has been investigated for money laundering in Switzerland and Spain and was arrested twice in the United Kingdom last year on warrants related to those charges. The US has pressured Switzerland to drop its case and the UK to release Betancourt. He has not yet been charged with a crime. However, observers say Betancourt is extremely controversial in Venezuela, not least because it was his company that was awarded a no-bid contract under Chávez to upgrade state electricity power plants. Venezuela suffers from blackouts to this day. Then there are the worries over the echoes of “imperialism,” as French newspaper Le Monde labelled the deal. What right, they asked, does the US have to abscond with Venezuelan oil, even if the deal benefits ordinary Venezuelans – a big “if” given the rampant corruption and the country’s broken economy? “Nothing about this deal, closer to an ultimatum than a real compromise, rings right,” it wrote. “It represents a predatory move reminiscent of the worst eras of colonial empires, imposed on the land of Bolivarian ideals, which once championed mutual respect between nations.” Meanwhile, free-marketeers at the conservative Cato Institute worried about the lack of transparency, the lack of legitimacy, and the expansion of state corporatism with the US government getting involved directly in the oil business after years of American leaders criticizing meddling socialist governments like Venezuela’s. “This isn’t even ‘creeping’ socialism anymore,” they said, adding that the legality of the deal with an unelected leadership and one not approved by the legislature was in doubt. Regardless, after announcing his intentions to strike the deal months ago, Trump said the deal would unleash a massive wave of foreign investment into Venezuela. So far, observers say he’s right. Continental Resources recently announced a plan with state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) to develop and operate a 126,000-acre patch in the Orinoco Belt, an oil region in the country’s center. Exxon is also preparing to make a big investment to start pumping black gold even though the CEO of ExxonMobil told Trump at a White House meeting earlier this year that Venezuela remains “uninvestable.” Such a move would be a “staggering reversal” for Exxon, Reuters noted: The company left Venezuela after Chávez, a socialist, nationalized its facilities, sued the country and is still owed billions in damages for the expropriation. Regardless, if and when the joint venture starts shipping crude, it will likely be years before that oil helps oil consumers abroad, wrote PolitiFact. The Venezuelan oil industry is decrepit after decades of mismanagement and corruption under the Chávez and Maduro administrations and will take years to upgrade. Armed groups control some areas that are necessary to access in order to drill for oil. Between then and now, a new US administration could scuttle the deal – or the Venezuelans could, if they shrug off their dictatorship in the future. Already, the Venezuelan opposition, which was not party to the deal, has reacted angrily to the agreement, which it sees as theft of national resources. The public is just as dismayed – with 87 percent opposed according to recent polling. Now, the opposition, observers and analysts also worry that the deal will disincentivize any push to restore democracy despite progress that was made in August with the first talks between the government and the opposition, a “National Dialogue” that is supposed to lead to reconciliation and a restoration of democracy. However, such an outcome would likely threaten the arrangement for Rodríguez and the US, analysts say. US officials counter that the deal is key to getting Venezuela’s destroyed economy back on track before any election is held. They say it’s necessary to give democracy a solid foundation. But Venezuelans, many of whom supported the US action to capture Maduro, aren’t buying that, as one Venezuelan told the Economist: “This is all being done behind the people’s back by people who are illegitimately in power.”