It has been known for some time that there is oil under the continental shelf of the Malvinas islands. Now, after several weeks of thorough exploration, the British company Desire Petroleum is in a position to say what the situation really is.

Nothing official, as yet. The actual data will be made public in a few weeks' time. Meanwhile, however, it is known that the drilling has gone to a depth of 3.5 kilometres and that more or less two hundred metres before this there are some pockets of gas whose quality is yet to be analysed. So, next week, when the results of the analyses are known, Desire Petroleum will publish them after calling a press conference.

"It won't be possible to assess the size of the hydrocarbon reserves until the operations are complete and the results analysed, and only then will we be able to decide whether to drill deeper or suspend the drilling", say the heads of the oil company.

In the meantime, the political disputes and controversies rage on. No surrender from Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Buenos Aires, who makes it clear that she'll continue to "give battle" over the Malvinas. On several occasions she has requested a dialogue with London over the sovereignty of the islands, recently having taken this line before the United Nations.

"The battle will be long, but not to the point of using force, like last time. It will be a wide-ranging diplomatic, cultural and political battle, staged wherever legally possible and using all the tools made available by international and domestic legislation in defence of our heritage" said Kirchner.

The wishes of the president will probably never be complied with. The claims of the Argentinian government seem to have made no impression whatsoever on the British, who will never renounce their sovereignty of the Malvinas (the Falklands to them). And they categorically refute the accusations levelled by Buenos Aires that London is maintaining a colonial regime on the island.

"We shall claim it a hundred, a thousand times. Argentinians have the right to defend and claim for themselves what is theirs. Asserting sovereignty from 14 thousand kilometres away - the whole thing is inexplicable. For these reasons we shall take all the steps necessary within international law to claim our rights and do what the United Nations has asked: for Argentina and Great Britain to sit around a table and discuss the sovereignty of the islands" the Argentinian president concluded.

Alessandro Grandi