HMS Echo will return to Gibraltar on Friday 31st May for a short visit before heading out to the Med to conduct routine operational survey work. Her last visit was in August 2012 when she stayed for a few days following an 18 month deployment to the east of Suez to help improve charts of the region’s waters and to gather key hydrographic data.
Mr Chairman,
I want to thank the Government of Ecuador for once again hosting the Annual Seminar which is a reflection of Ecuador’s commitment to the cause of decolonisation.
Last year I showed the parallels between my country’s history and Ecuador’s, and I exposed the absurdity of the Spanish stance in opposing our decolonisation.
Spain told you that it will never acknowledge any international legal status to the Gibraltarians. Their contempt for us, the owners of our homeland, is such that they describe us as “the current inhabitants of Gibraltar” as if we were recently arrived illegal immigrants.
The Government has today claimed that the response by the GSD on the issue of the appointment of the Board of GBC is a transparent attempt to avoid praising the way in which the Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, has exceeded his pre-election commitment to make GBC politically independent.
They added, ‘the GSD consistently failed to secure GBC’s partisan independence by appointing close political associates and relatives of the Chief Minister to the Board. At that time, the Board of GBC was the authority that made determinations of partisan balance in the output of the corporation. As a result, the people that the GSD appointed to the Board of GBC were the people who were then empowered to determine whether the GSD or the GSLP Liberals or other parties were right on any particular issues as to balance – with recourse being to the Courts of a party disagreed with any decision of the Board.
The Opposition either does not know how to interpret statistics or fails to understand the complexities of health care. Their recent statement on the hospital waiting lists is a play on figures, which is of little substance and irresponsible in its intent.
