British Navy On Standby Over Falkland Oil Dispute, Gordon Brown Issues Explicit Warning To Argentina

"Royal Navy warships were on standby on Thursday to protect commercial shipping to the Falkland Islands as Gordon Brown said Britain would take a robust stand against Argentine encroachment on the resource rich South Atlantic territory." One would guess that a war between Britain and Argentina is simply the latest thing that would bring the market to an uncontrolled, frenzied melt up (on give or take 3 shares). And while the US market responds to no external stimuli any more, this latest development reported by Telegraph, will likely not help the Gilt's recent concerns.

HMS York, a type 42-destroyer, was on a "tight leash" patrolling the seas around the islands in response to rising tensions over British firms oil explorations activities near the Falklands. Argentina has demanded a halt to "illegal" oil drilling around the Falkands and on Wednesday imposed a permit system on ships passed from its ports to the island.

Gordon Brown, the prime minister, issued an explicit warning to the Argentinian government that the South Atlantic show of force – which also included a survey vessel backed up by a 1,000-strong military detachment on land – would respond to any disruption of the Falklands links to the outside world.

A statement from the Ministry of Defence pointedly referred to the deterrent role that all British forces, including the Navy, were playing in the South Atlantic. "A deterrence force is maintained on the islands. That deterrence force comprises a wide range of land, air and maritime assets which collectively maintain our defence posture."

Navy commanders said the prospect of the Argentine disruption of shipping in the area was real.

"This is modern defence diplomacy in action," an MoD official said. "The warships are there to protect the UK interests in the South Atlantic. If the Argentines were interfere with the free movement of shipping on the high seas that would be illegal and we would make a decision to use our deterrence force."

So let's get this straight: we are hearing Iran is working on a nuclear warhead, an alleged rogue Mossad force in Dubai killing Hamas operatives, Greece about to file, Britain getting punished by a term that was in vogue when people still listening to a Flock of Seagulls, tax refunds getting halted, and now a possible redux of the Falklands war, and what do we have? A market that is up nearly 1% on vapor as a major "technical level was breached." The backstop - assorted central banks will be forced to rotate the "print" dial to Turbo Max. All we can say is LOL.