Tag Archives: Union Jack

News, Politics, Government

Falkland Islanders, Argentines remember Thatcher

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Falkland Islanders have honored Margaret Thatcher with a memorial service, while in Buenos Aires, Argentine military veterans burned her picture along with a Union Jack.

The competing visions of the late British prime minister Wednesday could not be more different.

Islanders consider Thatcher their savior, while Argentines say she died a war criminal for sinking the Argentine warship Belgrano during Britain’s 1982 war to end Argentina‘s military occupation.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/Ic3XWJKnS4k/

News, Politics, Government

Pro-British fervor plain to see as islanders vote

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The last of the 1,650 voters in the Falkland Islands were casting their ballots Monday in a referendum aimed at showing Argentina and the rest of the outside world that they are determined to remain a British overseas territory.

There aren’t many people to begin with on the remote South Atlantic islands claimed both by Britain and Argentina — just 2,563 residents — but they’ve been doing all they can to show their sympathies, waving Union Jack flags and dressing up their off-road vehicles in red-white-and-blue.

“The referendum will show the world how we feel, that we are British and that we wish to remain British. We don’t want to have nothing to do with Argentina, at all,” islander Barry Nielson said as he voted.

Election observer Juan Henao said the process has been completely normal, and that more than 70 percent of the voters had cast their ballots by Monday afternoon. Polls were closing at 6 p.m., and the results were expected to be announced late Monday night.

The ballot asks a simple yes-or-no question: “Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?”

Most islanders interviewed by The Associated Press said they expect an overwhelming “Yes” vote.

They weren’t given a choice in this ballot for any alternatives, such as full independence or some sort of political relationship with Argentina. The Falkland Islands Government said that in the hypothetical case of a majority for “no,” they could explore alternatives in a second vote later.

The government barred from voting any visiting contractors or personnel from the sizeable British military deployment, as well as anyone who hasn’t resided in the islands for the last 12 months, thus excluding several people with islander status who have chosen to live in Argentina.

Argentines consider the “Islas Malvinas” to be part of their national territory, taken from them by the British more than 180 years ago. One group at the iconic obelisk in Buenos Aires said Monday that it had gathered 100,000 signatures supporting Argentina‘s claim to the territory and the resource-rich seas that surrounds the archipelago.

The islands’ community, which includes families that have worked the land for nine generations, is steeped in British culture, and British Prime Minister David …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

Banksy stolen from London neighborhood spotted at Miami auction

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A London neighborhood wants its Banksy back.

A stencil by the famed but secretive graffiti artist of a young boy sewing Union Jack bunting on an antique sewing machine appeared on the side of a north London bargain store last May. Soon the gritty Turnpike Lane area was drawing art lovers keen to see Banksy’s typically cheeky take on the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s 60 years on the British throne.

Last week it vanished, leaving nothing but a rectangle of exposed brick — only to reappear on the website of a Miami auction house. Listed as “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy),” it is due to be sold Saturday with an estimated price of between $500,000 and $700,000.

London authorities concede the sale is probably legal — the mural was on private property. But they hope moral pressure will make the auction house change its mind.

“(It’s) totally unethical that something so valued should be torn without warning from its community context,” local lawmaker Lynne Featherstone said.

Featherstone said she had asked the building’s owner for an explanation, but had yet to receive a reply. Poundland, the store that occupies the building, said it had nothing to do with the removal.

On Wednesday, the local government authority appealed to the auctioneer for the return of the work.

In an open letter to auction house chief Frederic Thut, Haringey Council called the artwork “a much-loved local landmark” that had been visited by people from around the world.

“We understand that there may be nothing illegal in the way this artwork was quietly removed from our streets and put up for auction by you in Miami,” the letter said.

“But for you to allow it to be sold for huge profit in this way would be morally wrong, and completely contrary to the spirit in which we believe it was given to our community.”

Councilor Alan Strickland said the work had become “a real symbol of local pride” in an area badly hit in England’s August 2011 riots. He said its disappearance had left residents “shocked and angry.”

Strickland said he had asked England’s Arts Council for help retrieving the work.

The government-funded council called the loss of the Banksy “a shame,” but said there was little it could do. The council has the power to stop the export of culturally significant artworks, but only if they are more than 50 years old.

Fine Art Auctions Miami said it had acquired the work legally, but gave few other details. It said in a statement that it had “done all the necessary due diligence about the ownership of the work.”

“Unfortunately we are not able to provide you with any information by law and contract about any details of this consignment,” it said. “We are more than happy to do so if you can prove that the works were acquired and removed illegally.”

Banksy’s publicist did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The anonymous street artist, who refuses to reveal his real name, began his career spray-painting buildings and bridges in his home city of Bristol …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

29 Belfast cops hurt in Catholic-Protestant clash

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Northern Ireland police fought day-and-night street battles with Protestant militants Saturday as a protest march to Belfast City Hall degenerated into riots when many marchers returned home to the Protestant east side.

The Protestants, who have blocked streets daily since Catholics on the council decided Dec. 3 to curtail the flying of the British flag, have frequently clashed with police in hopes of forcing politicians to overturn the decision. The street confrontations have stirred sectarian passions, particularly in Protestant east Belfast and its lone Catholic enclave, Short Strand, flashpoint for the most protracted rioting over the past six weeks.

Saturday’s violence began as police donning helmets, shields and flame-retardent suits tried to shepherd the British flag-bedecked crowd past Short Strand, where masked and hooded Catholic men and youths waited by their doors armed with Gaelic hurling bats, golf clubs and other makeshift weapons. The two sides began throwing bottles, rocks and other missiles at each other and, as police on foot struggled to keep the two sides apart, Protestant anger turned against the police.

Police marched down the street with shields locked, backed by blasts from three massive mobile water cannons. Officers also fired at least a half-dozen baton rounds — blunt-nosed, inch-thick cylinders colloquially known as plastic bullets — at rioters.

After the initial two-hour clash subsided, police at nighttime confronted a renewed mob of Protestant youths on nearby Castlereagh Street, where a car was stolen and burned as a barricade. A police helicopter overhead shone its spotlight on the crowd, which chanted anti-police and anti-Catholic slogans.

Police commander Mark Baggott said 29 of his officers were injured in the two operations, bringing total police casualties above 100 since the first riots outside city hall on Dec. 3. The clashes have cost Northern Ireland an estimated 25 million pounds ($40 million) in lost trade and tourism and in police overtime bills.

Baggott described Saturday’s police deployment as “a difficult operation dealing with a large number of people determined to cause disorder and violence.” He credited his officers with “exceptional courage and professionalism.”

The Protestant hard-liners, however, have accused police of pursuing heavy-handed tactics that have worsened the riots. Police have provided no casualty figures for civilians, who often avoid hospital treatment so that they are not identified as rioters and arrested. More than 100 rioters have been arrested since Dec. 3. The Associated Press photographer in Belfast, Peter Morrison, suffered serious injuries to his head and hand when clubbed by policemen on Dec. 3 outside city hall.

The Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party said 10 Short Strand homes were damaged during Saturday’s clashes. Sinn Fein councilman Niall O Donnghaile, who represents Short Strand, said it was the 15th illegal Protestant march past the Catholic enclave since last month. He said the marchers clearly wanted to attack Short Strand residents.

“People do not come to `peaceful protests’ armed with bricks, bottles, golf balls and fireworks,” O Donnghaile said of the Protestant marchers.

Belfast used to have a strong Protestant majority, but the Dec. 3 vote demonstrated that Catholics have gained the democratic upper hand, stoking Protestant anxiety that one day Northern Ireland could be merged with the Republic of Ireland as many Catholics want.

Sinn Fein council members had wanted to remove the British flag completely from city hall, where the Union Jack had flown continuously for more than a century. But they accepted a compromise motion that would allow the UK flag to be raised on 18 official days annually, the same rule already observed on many British government buildings throughout the United Kingdom.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

Lowered UK flag sparks Protestant fury in Belfast

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At Belfast City Hall, the flagpole is bare — and the streets are filled with nighttime fear and fury.

These are dangerous times in Northern Ireland, a long-divided corner of the United Kingdom that is supposed to be at peace after decades of unrest thanks to its hard-won cease-fires and a Catholic-Protestant government. But the lowering of a single Union Jack has exposed a society still split between two competing identities.

Last month, Catholics who narrowly outnumber Protestants on the council voted to reduce the flying of the flag to just 18 official days a year, ending a century when the British national symbol favored by Protestants flew uninterrupted year-round.

Catholics billed the move as a compromise, since they wanted the flag removed completely. On Wednesday, the flag fluttered for the first time since the vote to mark the 31st birthday of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, but was taken down again at sunset.

Protestant hard-liners have responded with nightly illegal street blockades that often have degenerated into street battles between riot police and masked protesters armed with everything from sledgehammers to snooker balls. Police say 66 officers have been wounded, including six this week, and more than 100 rioters arrested.

Nobody seems to know how, or when, the strife will end. While Northern Ireland suffers intercommunal conflict each summer because of traditional Protestant marches, this is the first time that Northern Ireland has suffered a month straight of angry civil disturbances in the winter.

Some analysts, reflecting on how past Northern Ireland crises have unfolded, suspect that the extremists won’t stop until someone is killed.

“The quickest end looks like it would be in an atrocity. I fear that,” said Duncan Morrow, a University of Ulster lecturer and former chief of Northern Ireland‘s Community Relations Council, a group that tries to bridge the persistent divide between Irish Catholics and British Protestants.

At the heart of the resumed conflict is the rapid change in Northern Ireland‘s population balance and political system.

Northern Ireland was created as a Protestant-majority state in the U.K. shortly before the overwhelmingly Catholic rest of Ireland won independence in 1922. But the days of Protestant domination of politics and the police are distant memories.

The latest census published last month show Catholics in the majority in Belfast and gaining throughout Northern Ireland. The peace process has produced a new system in which a former Irish Republican Army commander now jointly leads the government, and a decade of preferential Catholic recruitment has produced a more Irish-oriented police force that Protestant militants increasingly view as the enemy.

For many Protestants, the change has overwhelmed the senses. Stripping “their” flag from City Hall has brought their central fear into focus — that they could become the minority in a land that eventually could fly the green, white and orange flag of the neighboring Republic of Ireland.

“The vote on the flag was a touchstone. It transformed Protestant and unionist frustration into outright anger,” said Mike Nesbitt, leader of the No. 2 Protestant-backed party, the Ulster Unionists. “Even if you put the flag back up 365 days a year — and I accept it’s not going to happen — that would not fix the anger on the streets.”

Many shop and restaurant owners in downtown Belfast are fuming, too — about scared-off customers, bills they can’t pay and a political culture that wreaks economic havoc over matters of symbolism. They blame Catholic politicians for picking a needless fight right before Christmas, and blame Protestants for inflaming mobs with no ability to rein them back in.

But Peter Robinson, the Protestant first minister of the government who still backs the protests so long as they remain peaceful, insists he’s done all he can.

“I can’t bring them off the streets,” he said.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News