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Trump ‘not happy’ with Iran situation and says military force is still an option

Donald Trump says he has not made a final decision on whether to launch strikes on Iran but is “not happy” with the situation and military force – including regime change – remains an option. The remarks came at the White House on Friday after talks between the US and Iran on Tehran’s nuclear programme ended inconclusively, with a suggestion that further discussions would be held next week. Trump told reporters he favoured diplomacy but repeated his insistence that Iran could not possess a nuclear weapon. “It’d be wonderful if they negotiated in … good faith and conscience but they are not getting there so far,” he said. Asked whether US strikes could lead to regime change in Iran, he said: “Nobody knows. There might be, and there might not be. [It would be] nice if we could do it without but sometimes you have to do it.” The US has authorised the departure of non-essential government workers and their families from Israel as the threat of an American strike on Iran looms. US citizens should “consider leaving Israel while commercial flights are available”, the Department of State advisory added. It also urged against travel to Israel. The US has assembled two carrier strike groups ready to attack if Trump decides Iran is not serious about ending its nuclear activities. The Department of State warning was supplemented by a message to US embassy staff from the ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, urging those that wanted to leave to “do so TODAY”. Huckabee contacted embassy staff in an email sent at 12.04am local time, urging them to book flights anywhere they could. This move “will likely result in high demand for airline seats today”, he wrote. “Focus on getting a seat to any place from which you can then continue travel to DC, but the first priority will be getting expeditiously out of the country.” The UK said on Friday it had temporarily withdrawn its staff from Iran, citing the security situation in the region. The Foreign Office said its ability to assist British nationals was now extremely limited, with the embassy operating remotely and no in-person consular support available even in emergencies. The US call to leave Israel came as Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, the key mediator in the talks between the US and Iran, flew to Washington in what looked increasingly like a last-ditch effort to persuade the Trump administration to hold back. He was due to brief JD Vance, the US vice-president, and make the case that enough progress had been made in the talks to warrant caution. The urgency of his visit, hours after talks between Iran and the US ended in Geneva on Thursday evening, suggested he believed he needed to act quickly to counter those making the case for a military intervention. In a sign that large gaps exist between the two sides, the Iranian leadership called on the US to drop its toughest demands. The US negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, ominously issued no statement after the talks. Vance is reputedly the senior member of the administration most opposed to military interventions and Albusaidi’s task is to try to convince him that a swift military strike will not change Iran’s basic negotiating stance. However, Washington has formally announced that Marco Rubio will travel to Israel for meetings early next week. It is unlikely Israel or the US would launch a strike on Iran while the secretary of state is in Israel because of the expectation of an Iranian counterattack on the country. Rubio is expected to meet Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, along with other senior Israeli officials. Rubio will travel to Israel on Monday and Tuesday, but in a rare departure from previous trips will not be taking reporters with him. The Department of State did not specify why reporters would not be on the trip. “The secretary will discuss a range of regional priorities including Iran, Lebanon, and ongoing efforts to implement President Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza,” said Tommy Piggott, the principal deputy spokesperson for the department. Washington denied reports that US embassies in Iraq and Kuwait had received orders for the evacuation of non-essential personnel. The reports of the evacuations – strenuously denied by US officials on Friday – were seen as another indication that the US was preparing an imminent strike against Iran. In an interview with the Washington Post, Vance said he did not know whether Trump would back a military strike, but said the US could engage in limited strikes in the region without ending up in a forever war. “I do think we have to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past,” Vance said. “I also think we have to avoid over-learning the lessons of the past. Just because one president screwed up a military conflict doesn’t mean we can never engage in military conflict again.” “We’ve got to be careful about it, but I think the president is being careful,” he added. Iran has held out against Washington’s demand to export its highly enriched uranium stockpile to the US and says it is not willing to end altogether its right to enrich uranium domestically. The Iranian parliament passed a law last July that banned cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and required a recognition of Iran’s “right to enrich” before inspectors could return. In a report for an IAEA board meeting next week, officials confirmed they had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the 400kg of highly enriched uranium inside Iran, adding: “It is critical to have access without delay.” The report said it was particularly disturbing that the IAEA had never had access to an enrichment facility in Isfahan, which was declared for the first time in June. The IAEA also reported that through the analysis of commercially available satellite imagery, it had observed “activities being conducted at some of the affected nuclear facilities, including the enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow”, but added that “without access to these facilities it is not possible for the agency to confirm the nature and the purpose of the activities”. Iran has said it would commit to needs-based enrichment and for now would require only 20% or lower purity levels at its Tehran research reactor. The fuel for this reactor comes from Russia. The site mainly makes medical isotopes used to diagnose illnesses such as heart disease. Iran’s three main nuclear facilities were destroyed by US bombing last June. Iran also has a largely Russian-built facility at Bushehr on the Gulf coast. The first civilian nuclear power plant in the Middle East, it is also supplied with Russian fuel. The separate issue of its 400kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium at 60% could be addressed by diluting or “downblending” it, as happened under the 2015 nuclear agreement. The two sides are scheduled to meet next week at technical level in Vienna at the headquarters of the IAEA, the UN-affiliated body that would be required to verify Iranian compliance.

Ghana says at least 55 of its people killed after Russia ‘lured’ them to fight Ukraine

At least 55 Ghanaians have been killed in Russia’s war with Ukraine after being “lured into battle”, Ghana’s foreign minister has said after a visit to Kyiv in which officials raised the issue of Russian recruitment of African people. Reports of African men being attracted to Russia by promises of jobs and ending up on Ukraine’s frontlines have become more frequent in recent months, creating tensions between Moscow and some of the countries involved. Russian authorities have denied illegally recruiting African citizens to fight in Ukraine. The foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said in a post on X on Thursday: “We were informed that 272 Ghanaians are believed to have been lured into battle since 2022 for which an estimated 55 have been killed and 2 captured as prisoners of war.” At a media briefing on Tuesday, Andrii Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, who was standing alongside Ablakwa, said more than 1,780 Africans from 36 different countries were fighting in the Russian army. Ghana, which has economic and diplomatic ties to Russia, intended to raise awareness about recruitment and to dismantle “dark web illegal recruitment schemes operating within our jurisdiction”, Ablakwa said in his post on X. “This is not our war and we cannot allow our youth to become human shields for others,” he said. The minister said Ghana’s government would intensify public education and work to “track and dismantle all dark web illegal recruitment schemes” operating in the country. He added that the two captured Ghanaians had warned young people against being tempted by financial incentives to join the conflict. South Africa’s government said this week that two of its citizens had died on the frontlines of the conflict. The two were separate from a group of 17 South Africans who were tricked into fighting for Russia in Ukraine and who had mostly been repatriated, South Africa’s foreign ministry said in a statement. In South Africa, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, a daughter of the former South African president Jacob Zuma, is being investigated by police for alleged involvement in luring more than a dozen South African men to Russia. According to a Kenyan intelligence report, more than 1,000 Kenyans have been recruited to fight for Russia. Kenya’s foreign ministry has said 27 Kenyans have been rescued after being stranded in Russia. Musalia Mudavadi, the Kenyan foreign minister, has said he plans to visit Russia in March for talks on the issue.

Von der Leyen pushes through Mercosur deal, splitting European leaders – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU will provisionally apply the heavily controversial EU-Mercosur free trade agreement (11:51), despite the approval process in the European Parliament being on hold amid a legal challenge (12:07, 14:03) and criticism from EU farmers. French president Emmanuel Macron has led the critics in condemning the move, calling it a “bad surprise” and arguing it was “disrespectful” towards the European Parliament (14:01). But German foreign minister Joseph Wadephul hailed the move as “historic,” with German automotive industry expected to be one of the beneficiaries of the deal (14:18). Meanwhile, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni called for a European free trade zone with the US, saying that recent US proposals on tariffs were “a mistake” and urging a move “in a diametrically opposite direction” (15:27). In other news, A local ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine was agreed around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine to facilitate for necessary repairs of the backup power lines to the plant (10:00). At least one person is dead, and at least 20 are reported injured after a tram derailed in Milan in Italy, with the cause of the crash still under investigation (17:21). Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico to visit Kyiv and discuss “all existing issues,” including the thorny topic of the Druzbha pipeline, amid continuing tensions between Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary (10:21, 12:29, 12:48, 12:50). French president Emmanuel Macron will on Monday present his proposals for the country’s nuclear arsenal and how it could be used to protect Europe more broadly (16:55). And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today. If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Pakistan declares state of ‘open war’ after bombing major Afghan cities

Pakistan has bombed major cities in Afghanistan including the capital, Kabul, with Islamabad’s defence minister declaring that the hostile neighbours were in a state of “open war” as a cycle of retaliatory attacks escalated further. Witnesses in Kabul and Kandahar, the southern Afghan city, reported explosions and jets overhead until dawn, while the Taliban government said later that Pakistani surveillance aircraft were still flying over Afghanistan. The wave of attacks came after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night following earlier airstrikes by Islamabad. The operation was Pakistan’s most widespread bombardment of the Afghan capital and its first airstrikes on Kandahar, the southern power base of the Taliban movement, which returned to power in 2021. Afghan authorities in the eastern Nangarhar province said on Friday morning that fighting was continuing in the Torkham border area. The province’s information directorate said that Pakistani mortar fire hit civilian areas, including a refugee camp. In response, Afghanistan was targeting Pakistani army posts across the border, it said. Dozens of casualties were reported, with at least 12 people killed. Tensions have been high between Pakistan and Afghanistan for months, with border clashes in October killing dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harbouring militant groups that stage attacks across the border and of allying with its historic enemy and regional rival, India. A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the fighting last year but several rounds of peace talks in Istanbul in November failed to produce a formal agreement. On Thursday at about 8pm, Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan, saying it was in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas on Sunday. Hours later, Pakistan bombed Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul and two other provinces on Friday, hours after a cross-border attack. At least three explosions were heard in Kabul, with both sides making different claims about the number of casualties and sites hit. A resident in Kabul’s affluent Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood, adjacent to the Taliban headquarters where the Pakistan air force had struck on Thursday night, said he heard a huge blast not far from his house near Taliban administrative offices and ministries. He said: “The blast was followed by firing and we remained in the house under fear and did not go out. We just knew it was Pakistan’s airstrikes like … in October but we did not know if anyone was killed because no one was allowed to go the area and Taliban media said there was no casualties.” The resident, while requesting anonymity fearing Taliban reprisals, said many people in Kabul were anxious and frightened. “It is clear even after the withdrawal of American forces, the war never ends in Afghanistan … We just need to live in peace. Sadly, the civilians always suffer anywhere, particularly in Afghanistan.” Pakistan’s federal minister for information and broadcasting, Attaullah Tarar, claimed the strikes on Friday in Kabul, Paktia, and Kandahar killed 133 Afghan Taliban officials and wounded more than 200, with further possible casualties. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said on Friday that his country’s armed forces could “crush” aggressors, while the defence minister proclaimed “open war”. In a post on X, the defence minister, Khawaja Mohammad Asif, said Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Nato forces and expected the Taliban to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and regional stability. Instead, he claimed the Taliban had gathered militants from around the world and begun “exporting terrorism”. “Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us,” he said. Islamabad frequently accuses its western neighbour of being behind surging militant violence in Pakistan, accusing Afghanistan of supporting the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, and outlawed Baloch separatist groups. Pakistan accuses the TTP – which is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban – of operating from inside Afghanistan. Both the group and Kabul deny that charge. Pakistan has also frequently accused neighbouring India of backing the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban, allegations New Delhi denies. Afghanistan’s defence ministry said that 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed in the border clashes on Thursday, with some bodies taken into Afghanistan, including several “captured alive”. It said eight Afghan soldiers were reported killed, with 11 others wounded. The ministry reported the destruction of 19 Pakistani army posts and two bases. Mosharraf Ali Zaidi, the spokesperson for Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, previously denied that any Pakistani soldiers had been captured. The border clashes began after 8pm on Thursday night when the Afghan Taliban attacked various border posts in several districts of Pakistan’s north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan. The volatile districts of Bajaur and Kurram bordering Afghanistan were worst affected by Afghan Taliban firings and mortar shells. A resident in Bajaur district said mortar shells hit Bara Lagharai village in neighbouring Mahmund district killing at least two civilians and injuring at least six others. The Bajaur resident said: “The village is on the border and mortar shells directly landed at people’s houses as the village remained at the mercy of Taliban firings. They were firing on security posts and the village is [very close to] Afghanistan.” Bajaur’s deputy commissioner, Shahid Ali, confirmed the death toll and injured and said five rounds of artillery were fired by the Afghan Taliban across the border hitting the civilian houses. Tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan have risen steeply in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since deadly fighting in October that killed more than 70 people on both sides. Efforts to produce a lasting agreement between the two nations has failed, with negotiations and an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October looking increasingly shaky. Pakistan and Afghanistan share a 1,640 mile (2,611km) border known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has not formally recognised.

Pakistan declares ‘open war’ against Afghanistan after cross-border attack – as it happened

Pakistan’s defence minister declared an “open war” with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, in a major escalation between the neighbouring countries. Pakistan launched airstrikes last night on major Afghan cities including the capital Kabul in response to what it called “unprovoked firing” from across the border.\ Pakistani forces targeted strikes at 22 locations across Afghanistan, including in Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika. Afghan officials said it attacked Pakistani border troops in retaliation for earlier airstrikes by Islamabad. Both sides claimed to have inflicted heavy casualties on each other, but the true numbers remain unclear. Afghanistan is also claiming to have captured several Pakistan soldiers which Islamabad denies. Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the spokesperson for Pakistan’s armed forces, claimed at least 274 Taliban fighters were killed and more than 400 injured since the Pakistani armed forces launched Operation Ghazab lil-Haq. Afghanistan’s Taliban government says 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed, while eight of its own had died and 11 injured. It added 13 civilians were also injured after a reported Pakistani attack on a refugee camp in Nangarhar province east of Kabul. It marks a major escalation since a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey halted deadly clashes in October. Negotiations since then have failed to produce a lasting agreement. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Taliban government in Afghanistan, said the country wants “dialogue” with Pakistan to resolve the ongoing fighting. Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan – which shares a 1,600-mile long disputed Durand Line – has wavered between cautious diplomacy to open hostility. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of harbouring Pakistan Taliban (TTP) militants who launch attacks against Pakistan from the border. Analysts say the latest violence is the first time Pakistan has directly targeted sites of the Taliban government rather than only alleged TTP positions.

Shell-shocked and tense: inside the Mexican tourist town where ‘El Mencho’ made his last stand

Two days before one of the world’s most powerful drug lords was killed while trying to flee a chalet in the hills outside Mexico’s second biggest city, the Tapalpa Country Club posted an advert on Instagram inviting lovers to visit a place where they could “inhale peace [and] exhale stress”. “Date idea: Escape to Tapalpa,” read the message, advertising romantic private cabins, picnics with spectacular lake views and a golf course “to have fun together”. The Mexican cartel boss known as “El Mencho” – who local people say was a regular visitor to this picturesque tourist hub of pine forests and cobbled streets in Jalisco state – appears to have liked the idea. For it was here that the drug lord’s reign came to a dramatic end on Sunday morning after Mexican special forces – reportedly with the help of CIA intelligence and a US Predator drone – tracked him to a lodge in the gated community where he had been holed up with a girlfriend. A restaurateur who works nearby recalled seeing four truck-loads of cartel fighters racing to the scene at about 8am on Sunday, after helicopter-borne army troops launched their surprise attack about an hour earlier. “They were going into battle,” the food seller said, describing a ferocious five-hour shootout. Videos posted on social media captured the ferocity of the conflict. “You could hear these booms. There was an explosion – I don’t know whether it was a car exploding or a bomb,” the restaurateur said. As El Mencho, whose real name was Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, and two bodyguards fled into the woodland around his bucolic hideout, cartel members took to the streets to raise hell. Two convenience stores at Tapalpa’s entrance were torched. El Mencho’s minions used excavators to carve metre-wide trenches out of the winding roads leading to their boss’s safe house. Felled trees, cars and lorries were doused in petrol and set alight. “It was insane,” said one black-clad special forces police operative in Tapalpa, one of thousands sent to the region to control the chaos that rapidly spread across Mexico. Cartel attacks were reported in at least 20 of the country’s 32 states. Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, and its top beach destination, Puerto Vallarta, were brought to a standstill, stranding tourists and leaving local people cowering at home. More than 60 people were killed. But if the havoc was designed to distract security forces and help El Mencho escape, the strategy failed. On Sunday afternoon, as the gunfire faded, Mexico’s defence ministry announced that the 59-year-old leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG) had died in a helicopter on the way to hospital after being wounded in the firefight. “We’ve … taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all,” Donald Trump boasted on Tuesday, claiming credit for the audacious Mexican military operation to capture their country’s most wanted man. Four days after El Mencho’s killing, the Guardian’s reporters travelled by road to the shell-shocked narcoland tourist town where Mexico’s most feared drug boss made his last stand. Postcards in now empty tourist shops celebrate the rural charms of a region that has also become a playground for narco bosses, whose drug labs and training camps are located in the surrounding sierras. “Tapalpa is tranquillity,” reads one. But driving south from Guadalajara, through cartel-owned fields of agave, blueberries and avocado, the mood was tense and the landscape spoke to a day of terror and a brutal, years-long conflict fuelled by the US’s insatiable appetite for made-in-Mexico drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl. In Techaluta de Montenegro, a quaint dragon fruit farming village at the foot of the mountain where El Mencho was killed, the supermarket had been firebombed, its carbonised facade contrasting with the cyan blue sky. Further ahead, a young man wearing a cap and blue jeans loitered at a deserted intersection monitoring the few motorists brave enough to make the ascent towards the scene of the narco boss’s death. The 30-mile stretch up into Tapalpa was strewn with reminders of Sunday’s violence. A bullet-riddled police station. The charred remains of cars and trucks. The still smouldering carcass of a supermarket surrounded by red police tape carrying the word “Danger”. A few miles past that redundant warning, more cartel lookouts appeared. First, in a white pickup truck which followed the unwanted visitors towards the centre of town. Then, a three-vehicle convoy led by a brawny masked motorcyclist wearing a dark grey tactical vest. Outside the deserted 17th-century St Anthony of Padua temple at Tapalpa’s historical heart, yet another narco scout appeared, this time surreptitiously photographing the outsiders. There was not a single member of the police or army to be seen. With cartel lookouts everywhere, local people spoke in hushed tones about what they called “el evento” – the event – and the downfall of a man respectfully known as El Señor Mencho (“Mr Mencho”). One church official said two local Catholics were injured after being caught in the crossfire while out training for an annual pilgrimage. A woman who introduced herself as a manager at the Tapalpa Country Club recalled receiving orders to abandon the upmarket property at about 7am on Sunday as the operation began. She did not say from which authority those orders came. Only on Tuesday morning were staff allowed to return. In the intervening period, a group of Mexican journalists sneaked into the unguarded compound, discovering what they claimed was one of El Mencho’s abodes. Inside, they found a stash of medicine to manage the kidney disease El Mencho had long been reported to suffer and a handwritten summary of Psalm 91, a sacred text popular among Latin America drug traffickers whose lives hang constantly by a thread. “A thousand may fall dead beside you, ten thousand all around you, but you will not be harmed,” it read. At La Loma, a nearby cluster of chalets, police located another of El Mencho’s sanctuaries, where his heavily armed security detail reputedly stayed when he was in town. In one room the stuffed heads of three animals – a zebra, a gazelle and a deer – were reportedly displayed on a wall. The approach road was scattered with bullet casings and partially blocked by two burned-out cars, perhaps those the restaurateur had seen speeding towards the area as traffickers tried to rescue their chief. The only soul to be seen at the entrance was a gardener watering his employer’s sun-scorched plants. Incredibly, neither address – two of the most important crime scenes in recent Mexican history – was guarded by security forces. Government troops seemed to have other priorities on Wednesday afternoon, as they provided security to construction workers tasked with clearing and rebuilding the roads linking Tapalpa to the outside world. On one back road, police special forces and army soldiers carrying assault rifles and machine guns had taken up position around a trench El Mencho’s underlings had dug to stop reinforcements arriving during Sunday’s attack. As road builders poured sticky black asphalt into the fissure, the security forces clutched their weapons, well aware that despite El Mencho’s death, his Jalisco cartel continued to lay down the law here and across swaths of Mexico. “If anyone thinks Mexican drug traffickers are going to stop operating because of what happened … I think they are delusional,” said John Feeley, a former top US diplomat in Mexico City who first heard El Mencho’s name about 15 years ago at the start of his ultra-violent rise. While Trump has claimed credit for the criminal’s killing, Feeley was certain he would wash his hands of responsibility if – as some fear – the drug lord’s demise sparked a deadly inter- or intra-cartel war in Mexico. “The deaths will be in Michoacán, they’ll be in Jalisco, they will be in Guerrero,” he said, citing three of Mexico’s most notoriously violent states. “And [Trump] will simply say something along the lines of, ‘See, I told you that place is run by the narcotics traffickers’.” As the troops prepared to retreat from Tapalpa before nightfall, a forest fire that local people said was sparked by Sunday’s gunbattle continued to consume the woodland where El Mencho’s life ended. The restaurateur expressed hope the town’s newfound fame as the death place of Mexico’s most feared man would not put off tourists. “We invite them to come, taking precautions of course,” he said, before adding: “Here in the centre of town, nothing happened at all.”

‘More exploitation, fewer rights’: Argentina braces for sweeping overhaul of labor laws

Argentina’s senate is poised to approve a sweeping overhaul of labour laws aimed at weakening trade unions and lowering labour costs for businesses. The government of the self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president, Javier Milei, says the initiative will help revive formal employment, after 290,600 registered jobs were lost between December 2023, when he took office, and November 2025. But opponents say the measure – which includes cuts to severance pay and extends the maximum working day from eight to 12 hours – would neither increase employment nor improve job quality. Informal employment is now at its highest level since 2008, affecting more than 43% of workers. The so-called “labour modernisation act” would overhaul longstanding labour legislation shaped by Peronism, the movement that brought Gen Juan Perón to power in 1946. “It is pro-business, pro-employment and pro-employee. It is anti-trade union and anti-labour lawyers,” said Francisco Paoltroni, a senator from Milei’s ruling party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA). Juan Manuel Ottaviano, a labour lawyer and academic, described the bill as “unconstitutional”. “It imposes severe limitations on individual rights in the workplace and weakens their protection through trade unions,” he said. After making gains in October’s midterm elections, Milei’s party secured congressional backing for the reform. The bill has already passed both houses and returns to the senate because of an amendment introduced in the lower chamber – the elimination of a widely repudiated article that reduced wages during sick leaves, even in cases when workers were suffering from life-threatening conditions. The legislation would allow companies to negotiate directly with employees, potentially overriding sector-wide collective agreements. In Argentina, unions typically represent workers nationwide within each industry, seeking to standardise wages and benefits across regions. The reform would also reduce dismissal costs by creating a severance fund partly financed by the state and by excluding bonuses from compensation calculations. It would eliminate specialised national labour courts and introduce an “hour bank” system that limits overtime pay. Although the weekly working limit would remain 48 hours, daily shifts could be extended to as long as 12 hours with a mandatory 12-hour rest period. The vote comes as manufacturing struggles amid import liberalisation and weak domestic demand. According to the national statistics institute, factories are operating at just 53% of installed capacity. On the eve of the bill’s debate in the lower house last week, the 86-year-old tyre manufacturer Fate announced it would shut down. “We are talking about lengthening working days while the most advanced countries are reducing them,” said Alejandro Assumma, a worker at the plant and representative of the tyre workers’ union, Sutna. “This reform means more exploitation and fewer rights,” said Assumma, adding that some of his fired former colleagues are now Uber drivers or resellers. Martín Rappallini, head of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA), which represents manufacturers and helped draft the bill, said protests would be “very, very limited – they will not be able to occupy factories or block access”. Such actions, he added, had been common under “the previous regime, where excesses and far-left situations were allowed”. Rappallini acknowledged that the reform “won’t create jobs overnight” but said it would provide “predictability for labour relations in Argentina”. As Congress debated the legislation over the past two weeks, clashes broke out in the streets. Police fired rubber bullets at protesters and journalists, while some demonstrators threw a molotov cocktail near officers. Last week, the country’s main trade union confederation, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), called a general strike. Carlos Alberto Dawlowfki, a 76-year-old retiree, was among dozens detained in the demonstrations in front of Congress. “It was very painful to see them shooting young people who were 18 or 20,” Dawlowfki said. “They grabbed them with rubber-bullet shotguns – boom, boom, boom – they shot them.” None of the bill’s more than 200 articles, he added, “are for the worker”.

Hungary’s Viktor Orbán seeking to drum up votes by doing down Ukraine

Paid for by its rightwing, populist government and generated using AI, the billboards – showing Volodymyr Zelenskyy and EU officials with their hands outstretched – blanket Hungary. “Our message to Brussels: We won’t pay!” the taxpayer-funded advert reads, echoing the messaging woven through spots on radio, television and social media. It’s a nod to the election strategy that Viktor Orbán, the EU’s longest-serving leader, has unleashed as he lags in most polls before upcoming elections: convincing voters that the country’s greatest threat is not fraying social services, the rising cost of living or economic stagnation, but rather the neighbouring country of Ukraine. “Effectively, Ukraine is portrayed as a main enemy,” said Zsuzsanna Végh, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund. “This is not just about Ukraine per se, but it fits into the standard strategy of the governing party, of mobilising its electorate through generating fear in society.” In 2018, when Orbán was seeking a third consecutive term as prime minister, he and his Fidesz party sought to stoke fears about migration. In 2022, as voters headed to the ballot box five weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Orbán peddled the baseless claim that the opposition would send Hungarian troops to fight in the war. This election, as Orbán faces an unprecedented challenge from a former top member of his own party, Péter Magyar, the strategy has seemingly been kicked into high gear. “We definitely see a significant escalation,” said Végh. “Besides the rhetoric, AI is extensively used to portray false messages and images to strengthen the government’s message.” In recent days, the campaign has spilled out beyond the country’s borders as Orbán’s government refused to approve the latest EU sanctions package and a €90bn (£79bn) loan to Ukraine, citing disruptions to its supplies of Russian oil that pass through Ukraine. The move prompted exasperation and anger among leaders across the EU. Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, described Hungary’s stance as “shocking” given that Budapest was itself invaded in the 20th century by Soviet troops. Sweden’s Europe minister, Jessica Rosencrantz, accused Orbán of using Ukraine as a “punching bag” in comments made to various media outlets. With most independent polls suggesting that Magyar’s Tisza party has a wide lead over Orbán’s Fidesz, the government has stepped up its lambasting of Ukraine. This week Orbán claimed, without providing evidence, that the war-torn country was plotting to disrupt Hungary’s energy system and said he was dispatching troops to safeguard Hungary’s infrastructure. The following day Orbán posted an open letter to Zelenskyy on social media, accusing the Ukrainian leader of “working to force” Hungary into the war with Russia while also “coordinating efforts” to catapult a pro-Ukraine government into power in Hungary. For many in Hungary, Fidesz’s focus on Ukraine was laid bare after it released an AI-generated campaign video showing a little girl weeping at a window, intercut with scenes of her father being executed in war. Captions for the video read, in part: “This is only a nightmare now, but Brussels is preparing to make it a reality … Let’s not take risks. Fidesz is the safe choice!” Magyar condemned the video, describing it as “sickening, unforgivable and deeply outrageous”, in a statement. “This is not politics, this is soulless manipulation.” With about six weeks left until the vote, it remains to be seen whether voters will be swayed. On the streets of Budapest, László, 39, said he supported Orbán’s efforts to block EU support for Ukraine and would be voting for Fidesz. “The EU is basically in a Schrödinger’s cat dilemma,” the marketing specialist told the Guardian. “It says that Russia poses a threat to its existence and at the same time says it can be defeated with sanctions. But I fear that Europe is not taking steps towards peace, at the expense of the Ukrainian people’s blood.” József, 93, said he planned on voting for the far-right Our Homeland party but that he agreed with Orbán’s stance on Ukraine. “What does all this have to do with us? Why should we care? This is not our business. The Russians have already said they want peace, but the EU and the UK just keep provoking them.” Opposition supporters, however, expressed concerns about the consequences that Orbán’s electoral strategy could have for Hungary in the long term. “It completely isolates Hungary from other European countries, and we will end up under Russian oppression again,” said Mónika, 60. Orbán’s focus on Ukraine had turned the election into a question of “two competing narratives”, said András Bíró-Nagy, the director of Policy Solutions, a Budapest-based political research institute. On one side was Orbán and his emphasis on the existential threat of the war, the threat of rising oil prices and the risk that Hungary would be dragged into the conflict. Magyar, in contrast, had focused his campaign on stemming the rising costs of living, improving social services and reining in corruption. The coming weeks would show which of these concerns motivate voters, said Bíró-Nagy. “Orbán has a vast media empire and also endless resources with which he can push through his messages to the Hungarian people,” he said. “So, for this reason, I would not underestimate Orbán’s power to shape the political agenda.” This influence had already helped to shift Hungarian opinion, said Bíró-Nagy, citing research from his institute showing that in recent years, the majority of Hungarians had swung from approving the EU’s financial support for Ukraine to opposing it. “And Orbán managed to turn Volodymyr Zelenskyy into one of the most unpopular global politicians in Hungary,” he said. The result was that, for many in Hungary, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had come to be seen as a war between two unpopular Slavic countries, creating space for Orbán to try to drum up votes by doubling down on anti-Ukraine rhetoric, he said. “What Orbán has managed to do over the last four years is not to make Russia or [Vladimir] Putin popular in Hungary – they are unpopular,” he said. “But what he managed to do is to ruin the reputation of Ukraine and Zelenskyy in the eyes of Hungarian voters.”