There’s no disputing that Diego Maradona was one of the world’s greatest footballers. But it’s still hotly debated whether or not the Argentine star’s death, five years ago this week, could have been prevented.

Maradona’s family believes it should have been. They are “demanding justice so that he can rest in peace”, said El País. A second trial of seven health professionals, accused of negligent homicide relating to the former footballer’s death at the age of 60, will begin in March, after the first trial dramatically collapsed earlier this year.

Died ‘practically alone’

Maradona, captain of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup-winning team, died in a rented house just outside Buenos Aires on 25 November 2020. He was recovering from surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. “The news that his heart had stopped beating plunged Argentina into collective grief,” said El País.

“No one was prepared,” said CNN. In Argentina, the pain was “atrocious”. His death “managed to unite in desolation a country deeply divided”. Hundreds of thousands attended his funeral, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Adults cried like children”, and the sounds of their weeping mixed with the noise of disturbances – “shouts from the police and hooligans”. His funeral “resembled his life: it was chaos”.

Maradona had “dodged death so many times” during decades of cocaine and alcohol addiction. He seemed to have “indestructible genetics”. But “one of the most famous human beings on the planet” died “practically alone, under medical care that is suspected of being, at the very least, deficient”.

Seven doctors and nurses were accused of “homicide with possible intent”: pursuing a course of action despite knowing it could lead to the patient’s death. Prosecutors alleged that the medical attention Maradona received was grossly negligent. Gianinna Maradona, one of his daughters, said the doctors had promised “serious home care” but what ensued was “a disastrous charade”.

‘Treated like an animal’

The case against the medical team centres on the decision to allow Maradona to recuperate from brain surgery at home “with minimal supervision and medical equipment, instead of a medical facility”, said The Guardian.

The original trial “exposed chilling claims about the footballer’s death”, said The Sun, including allegations that he was “treated like an animal” by his medics. Chief prosecutor Patricio Ferrari said Maradona spent his last days in a “house of horror”. He “shocked the room” with a “grim” photo of Maradona “lying on his back with his bloated stomach exposed”.

The post-mortem report concluded that Maradona had died from acute pulmonary oedema secondary to an acute exacerbation of chronic heart failure. His heart, the court was told, weighed “more than twice the normal size.”

Maradona had suffered at least 12 hours of extreme pain before dying, one of the experts who performed the post-mortem examination told the court. His heart “was completely covered with fat and blood clots, which indicate agony”, said forensic medic Carlos Cassinelli. He had “been collecting water” for days; this was “something foreseeable. Any doctor examining a patient would find this.”

But, months in, the trial dramatically collapsed in scandal. One of the three judges had secretly authorised recordings of legal proceedings for “Divine Justice”, a documentary about the case that would feature her as the star. Julieta Makintach recused herself, and the two remaining judges chose to annul the trial rather than replace her. This month, Makintach was fired and disqualified from holding any judicial position in the future.

The defendants, who deny all the accusations, will stand trial again in March. If they are found guilty, they face a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

Maradona continues to captivate Argentina. Banks have issued a special silver coin ahead of the 2026 World Cup, commemorating his so-called “Goal of the Century” against England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup.

A vast high plateau in the far northwest of Argentina, the Puna de Atacama is “how the planet looked before us, almost before anything, the Earth’s skeleton laid bare”, said Stanley Stewart in the Financial Times.

It is contiguous with the Atacama Desert in Chile, but receives a bit more rain, and far fewer visitors. Covered in volcanoes, bubbling hot springs, steaming fumaroles and immense salt flats, the landscape here is “dramatic and surreal”. It unfolds across “unfathomable” distances and is wreathed in “profound” stillness and silence. It feels harsh and alien – Martian, perhaps – and yet the Puna is astonishingly beautiful, “streaked with colour as if by a child let loose with crayons – carnelian and rust reds, magnesium greys, chalky white, obsidian black, malachite green”.

The nearest airport is in Salta, a city known for its gaucho culture and for the high-altitude wines of the Calchaqui Valley. On a recent trip, my guide and I drove out in a 4x4 from there to Tolar Grande, deep in the Puna. Perched at 3,508 metres above sea level, this small settlement, home to 150 people, feels like “a Wild West town”, with its wide streets of low adobe buildings. From there, we went on to Antofalla and El Peñón, other tiny towns with “delightful” guesthouses. Among the extraordinary sights along the way were flocks of flamingos stepping “delicately” through the saline waters of the Laguna Grande; the Cono de Arita, a black pyramid of magma that seems to hover above the dazzling salt flats of Arizaro; and – outside El Peñón – blocks of pumice “the size of houses”, sculpted into “bizarre” forms by the desert winds.

Finally, we gazed up at the snow-capped, 6,739m peak of Mount Llullaillaco, where in 1999 archaeologists found the mummified bodies of three children, who had been sacrificed in an Inca ritual. They now lie in the museum at Salta – a reminder of a time when the high Andes were a divine realm, from which children such as these were believed not to have truly died, but to be watching the world below.

What happened

Argentine President Javier Milei came out on top in midterm elections Sunday for a third of the senate and about half the seats in the lower house. Milei’s libertarian La Libertad Avanza party took about 41% of the total vote, versus 31% for the left-leaning Peronist opposition bloc, putting his free-market reforms and radical austerity measures on a more solid footing.

Who said what

Milei’s victory, which far exceeded expectations, was projected to give his party “at least one-third of the seats in both chambers,” a “critical threshold” that allows him to “preserve his veto power and defend his sweeping decrees,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Voter turnout was just under 68%, “among the lowest recorded since the nation’s 1983 return to democracy,” The Associated Press said. But few Argentine legislative elections have “generated so much interest in Washington and Wall Street.” President Donald Trump had conditioned a $20 billion currency bailout and an additional $20 billion in private funds on Milei doing well in the midterms. “Critics — and Trump administration officials — have portrayed the move as a blatant effort to influence politics in Argentina and the rest of the region,” The Washington Post said.

What next?

“We think it is much better to use American economic power up front to stabilize a friendly government” and “set the tone in Latin America,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. Sunday’s win “buys Milei time with investors,” the Journal said, but the “domestic pain” from his policies “has been severe.”

Since Donald Trump began his second term, he has put increasing pressure on multiple Latin American nations – including US allies. And the seemingly haphazard nature of his attacks is raising questions about his motives.

The US president has imposed 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico, the US’s largest trade partner. He has threatened to seize the Panama Canal and has carried out mass – allegedly unlawful – deportations of Latin Americans. He has tried to use punitive 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports, in an attempt to influence the outcome of the trial of Brazil’s former president and Trump ally, Jair Bolsonaro.

The US military has sharply increased its presence in the southern Caribbean, deploying 10,000 troops and multiple warships and aircraft. It has struck at least seven Venezuelan vessels that Trump claimed were trafficking drugs – without offering evidence. At least 32 people have been killed as of Friday. Trump has slammed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and admitted to authorising covert CIA operations against him.

And on Sunday, Trump escalated his feud with Colombia, one of America’s closest allies, slashing aid and increasing tariffs on its exports because it “does nothing to stop” cocaine production. Trump called Colombian president Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader”, after Petro accused the US of committing “murder” in the Caribbean. He warned that Petro “better close up” drug operations or the US would “close them up for him”.

What did the commentators say?

One “lament often heard from Latin America” is that the US has “paid insufficient attention to the region”, said the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But now Trump has given it “more attention in nine months than many past administrations of either party have since the Cold War” and those countries may well “regret getting what they wished for”.

The US pivot stems from a fear that, for too long, it has “prioritised power projection and policing global hotspots over attending to its ‘shared neighbourhood’”. This has led China to “expand its influence” in the region, and allowed organised crime, drug trafficking and migration to “threaten US security”. In response, Trump “seems to be adopting a ‘Monroe Doctrine 2.0’”: abandon soft-power initiatives in favour of threatening (or deploying) military force, while “relying on economic coercion” in the form of tariffs.

The problem is that the tariffs and the cutting of “already-slashed levels” of US development and aid to Colombia will “make it harder” for Bogotá to combat the cocaine trade, said Keith Johnson on Foreign Policy. Colombia is, by far, the primary source of cocaine in the US, and, historically, “the biggest chunk” of US aid “has come in the form of counternarcotics and law-enforcement support”.

“If the US were truly interested in countering drug trafficking, the last thing you would do is to alienate the one military in the region” capable of fighting drug traffickers, Elizabeth Dickinson, senior Colombia analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Johnson.

US military assets in the Caribbean “are not much use” in fighting the drug trade, said The Guardian’s foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall – especially if their focus is on Venezuela, through which only small quantities of cocaine are trafficked to America. So what is Trump up to here?

President Maduro claims the White House is attempting to “forcibly impose regime change” on his country and is waging “undeclared war”. Analysts suggest Trump “covets Venezuela’s abundant oil, gas and mineral resources”. And there’s a personal aspect: Marco Rubio is “a long-time critic of left-wing rulers in Cuba and Nicaragua” – for him, Maduro is “unfinished business”. But, given Trump’s “hapless blundering on other key foreign issues”, the most likely explanation is that “he hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing – in Venezuela or Latin America as whole”. There is no plan.

What next?

America is Colombia’s biggest trading partner, so Trump’s threats of further tariffs have “some potential leverage”, said Johnson on Foreign Policy. But “the pain will be felt as much by US consumers as by Colombian exporters”.

In Venezuela, the Trump administration thinks “its campaign against Maduro is working”, and that increased US military pressure will convince the Venezuelan leader “he can’t remain in power”, said The Wall Street Journal. “The idea is to make him miserable enough to go away,” a senior administration official said. But, far from weakening Maduro, it might “achieve the exact opposite”, said Tisdall in The Guardian. Maduro is using the crisis to increase his grip on power.

More broadly, Trump’s “bullying of other left-leaning Latin American countries”, including Colombia and Brazil, and his “presumptuous cheerleading for right-wing populists in Argentina and El Salvador”, is “spurring a regional backlash”. Trump’s efforts to “reprise the role of Latin American neighbourhood policeman” are ultimately “self-defeating”. Long-term, the “big winner” will be China.

For a few months, our president was “the ‘golden boy’ of global politics”, said Agustino Fontevecchia in the Buenos Aires Times. An eccentric former TV pundit and devotee of the free market who owns five cloned dogs named after monetarist economists, Javier Milei is beloved by right-wingers for taking a “chainsaw” to government spending and regulation.

Scenting blood

Elon Musk has lauded him as a “beacon of hope”; Kemi Badenoch has held him up as the “template” for all conservative leaders. And for a while, his highly controversial economic blueprint “appeared to be working”: since his election in 2023, Argentina’s inflation has dropped from 211% to 43%, and in January, the country posted a fiscal surplus for the first time in 14 years.

But now “the first anarcho-capitalist president in world history”, as he proclaims himself to be, is “under siege”. His administration has been embroiled in an explosive corruption scandal involving his sister; and early last month, his party, Liberty Advances, suffered a shock defeat in local elections in Buenos Aires. The markets then went haywire – forcing the central bank to spend $1 billion propping up the peso. The Peronist opposition is now scenting blood.

Cue Donald Trump, said Claudio Jacquelin in La Nación (Buenos Aires). Last week his administration stepped in with a “game-changer” – $20 billion in emergency credit to get Milei through the next few months. It’s an “extraordinary” payment for what are essentially junk bonds, said The Economist. Trump is offering this lifeline solely because he doesn’t want his libertarian pal’s wild economic project to fail. Uncle Sam is now “underwriting Milei’s laboratory”.

A foolish loyalty

Even more precarious is the increasingly weird situation with the president’s sister, said Javier Lorca in El País (Madrid). Karina Milei, referred to by Javier as “the boss”, wields enormous power. One of her previous jobs was selling cupcakes over social media: now she’s effectively both first lady and vice-president. But recently, an aide was recorded claiming she took a 3% cut of state pharmaceutical contracts, and she has become a real liability. The president dotes on her, however – she has been a huge emotional support since childhood, he says, when she shielded him from their violent father. So he’s stubbornly sticking by her, claiming the tapes are lies.

A foolish loyalty maybe, said James Neilson in Buenos Aires Times, but he has clearly learnt from some of his other mistakes. Gone is the insult-throwing madman who governed largely by decree and dismissed critics as “vaselined baboons”; in his place is “a soft-spoken technocrat” who, in the run-up to October’s midterms, wants to retain the support of the moderates who backed him in 2023. Perhaps he has finally realised that chainsaws may be useful for “slaying inflationary dragons”, but if he wants Argentina (and his political career) to prosper in the long term, he’ll need some allies.

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Incorporating your love of music into a vacation is as simple as do-re-mi. Here are six ideas sure to make you break out in song, from tangoing the night away in Argentina to learning about the blues where it began in Mississippi.

Tango through Buenos Aires

Tango is the sound of Argentina's capital, a dance and music style formed from a "mixture of cultures and migratory currents" that arrived here during the 19th century, said Lonely Planet. Buenos Aires is known for its milongas, or venues where new and experienced dancers can pick up and sharpen their tango moves. La Viruta Tango Club is one of those "iconic" spots, blending "tradition and modernity," said Time Out. Milongas across the city offer classes, shows and open dancing every night of the week.

Have a gigcation in Las Vegas

The stars are always out in Las Vegas, as some of the biggest names in music — Kelly Clarkson, Eagles, Pitbull — take the stage for residencies. Bruno Mars stands out from the crowd, with his "electrifying" set at Park MGM's Dolby Live, Ebony said. His two-hour performance flies by, thanks to his incredible voice, smooth moves, lively band and frequent use of fireworks.

Pre-show, go to the Cosmopolitan for drinks in the sparkling, three-level Chandelier, where the cocktails are delicious (try the Verbena, with a Szechuan button that makes your mouth tingle and go numb) and the surroundings spectacular (a two-million-crystal chandelier cascades over each floor). For dinner, head upstairs to LPM for a taste of the French Riviera. The dishes and drinks here are light and flavorful, like the slightly sweet warm prawns in olive oil, citrusy yellowtail carpaccio and signature Tomatini cocktail.

Check into Grand Universe Lucca, a music-embracing hotel in Tuscany

Lucca feels like a Tuscan dream, a "fairytale-like city" filled with "towering Renaissance walls" in the "shadows" of the Apuan Alps and Monte Pisano, Condé Nast Traveler said. This "hub of culture" has long been a favorite for musicians, and composer Giacomo Puccini and jazz legend Chet Baker are among the artists who flocked to the "stately" Grand Universe Lucca. In honor of its melodic history, the hotel offers guests the chance to book the Prelude of Existence Experience. This includes a private meeting with a composer, who will turn the guest's interests into a personalized piece of music.

Follow the Mississippi Blues Trail

The Mississippi Blues Trail honors the "people and places that secured the music's legacy," with more than 200 stops across the state, Afar said. Blues was created by Black musicians and "pioneers" of the genre often learned from one another while "sharecropping on plantations in the Mississippi Delta." Stops include cotton fields, train depots, clubs, churches and cemeteries, with markers explaining the significance of each place. Highlights include the Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia, the "oldest surviving juke joint in Mississippi," and the "unmissable" city of Clarksdale, which offers "live music every day and festivals every month."

See the K-pop sights in Seoul 

K-pop fans can follow in their idols' footsteps at landmarks across Seoul, starting with K-Star Road in Gangnam. This boulevard is "dedicated entirely to K-pop artists," with 10-foot cartoon bear statues representing bands like BTS and Girls' Generation, Lonely Planet said. This is also where you will find the agencies that represent K-pop stars and restaurants and boutiques they often visit. Spend the rest of your day visiting K-pop music video filming spots, catching a taping of Idol Radio Live and, if possible, enjoying a performance by your favorite group.

Go on a road trip through Tennessee

The birthplace of Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton and country music, Tennessee has "always punched way above its weight class musically," Afar said. Start exploring in Memphis, where you can "honor rock history" at Sun Studio and Graceland and "listen to the blues" on Beale Street. Head east to Brownsville for the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center, home of the Tina Turner Museum, then take a guided tour of Loretta Lynn's Ranch in Hurricane Mills. You could spend a "day or a week or a month" in Nashville and "still not see all the greatest hits," including the National Museum of African American Music, Ryman Auditorium and The Bluebird Cafe.

Catherine Garcia was a guest of MGM Resorts

"I thought all the Nazis ran away to Argentina." That line in the 2024 film "The Holdovers" got "a big laugh in cinemas in Buenos Aires", said Sam Meadows in The Spectator. Audiences recognised the uneasy truth: the flight of thousands of Nazi party members to Argentina after the Second World War remains "an extremely uncomfortable period" in the country's history.

Argentina has not been good at "reckoning with its past as a haven for war criminals". President Javier Milei, however, "appears to have changed tack". On 29 April, he released 1,850 documents from the national archives containing details, said the Buenos Aires Herald, of "prominent Nazi criminals who escaped to Argentina" – including Josef Mengele, the notorious Auschwitz doctor known as the "Angel of Death".

'A haven for Nazis'

Most of the documents, a mix of police and intelligence agency files, were declassified in 1992 but "remained almost impossible to access", said The Times. They were only viewable "by appointment, in a single designated room".

Milei pledged to "lift the shroud with which Argentinian governments have long concealed the level of assistance that their predecessors provided to war criminals". And the documents, now viewable online, confirm "a long-known dirty secret": the "ease" with which senior Nazis lived in Argentina. "At one point," said defence minister Luis Petri, "Argentina became a haven for Nazis".

Mengele, "notorious" for his inhumane experiments on prisoners, arrived in 1949 and lived under "various aliases", said The Times of Israel. The documents include "nearly 100 pages detailing his time in Argentina" and show, for the first time, that he filed a request to travel from Argentina to West Germany in 1959, using his real name, according to German public broadcaster MDR. This means "several countries likely had more accurate information on Mengele than previously thought," said historian and Nazi expert Bogdan Musial.

There are also several files on Adolf Eichmann, another SS officer and one of the principal architects of the "Final Solution". He arrived in Argentina in 1950 under an alias.

The Supreme Court in Buenos Aires has also discovered Nazi material among its archives, reported The Associated Press on Sunday. An anonymous judicial authority said the court had come across boxes of photos, postcards and propaganda "intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler's ideology" in Argentina during the Second World War. The court's president, Horacio Rosatti, has ordered "a thorough analysis".

Exposing the 'ratlines'

The Nazi officials who fled to Argentina may be "long dead" but "their hunters insist their work is not done", said The Times. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a US-based human rights organisation, wants to "expose" the so-called "ratlines" – the networks, individuals and institutions that helped Nazis flee Europe and start new lives in South America. For nearly 20 years, the NGO has petitioned successive Argentine governments to release the files.

In January, the US Senate Judiciary Committee released two reports into Swiss bank Credit Suisse, concluding that "70 Argentine accounts with plausible links to Argentina-based Nazis" were opened with the bank after 1945. And, the report claimed, one of these accounts was still active as recently as 2022.

A previous investigation had found also "significant connection" between Credit Suisse and individuals who ran the ratlines, said Le Monde. "Money is not innocent," Ariel Gelblung, the Latin America director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the paper. Credit Suisse, which was taken over by the UBS Group in 2023, has pledged to provide "all necessary assistance". And after meeting with representatives from the Simon Wiesenthal Center earlier this year, Milei ordered the release of the documents.

In a 1999 report by the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina, historian Holger M. Meding "identified the facilitators of Nazi exfiltration to Argentina" as the Catholic Church and the Red Cross, said Le Monde. But the role of then-President Juan Perón was "decisive". Perón had "a preference for all things German", wrote Meding.

It might have been this that spurred Milei's decision to release the files, said The Spectator's Meadows. The president has "made no secret of his hatred of Peronism", and these documents could lead to "further scrutiny" of Peron's role.

Why was Latin America's first Pope so divisive in his homeland? Could marriage increase your risk of dementia? And what is the true cost of that viral pistachio chocolate?

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.

A podcast for curious, open-minded people, The Week Unwrapped delivers fresh perspectives on politics, culture, technology and business. It makes for a lively, enlightening discussion, ranging from the serious to the offbeat. Previous topics have included whether solar engineering could refreeze the Arctic, why funerals are going out of fashion, and what kind of art you can use to pay your tax bill.

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Ask someone to think of an animal beloved around the world, and more often than not, their reply might be, "horse." These beautiful, intelligent creatures form tight bonds with humans, both through work and pleasure. They also embody the urge so many of us have to wander and roam. Whether you want to interact with or simply better appreciate horses, consider one of these equestrian activities during your travels.

Attend the Argentine Open Polo Championship in Buenos Aires

Polo got its start approximately 2,000 years ago when a "very inventive person living in central Asia" hopped on a horse, grabbed a stick and started to "knock around a ball with some friends," The Times said. Today, one of the sport's most "prestigious" events is the Argentine Open, held at the Campo Argentino de Polo, or Cathedral of Polo, every November and December. Tickets are pricey, and if you visit another time of year, you can instead watch local clubs play. Even if you are a newbie to polo, there is "something thrilling about watching athletes on ponies racing across a field," Condé Nast Traveler said.

See the wild horses of Assateague Island in Maryland and Virginia

No one is sure how the first wild horses arrived on Assateague Island several hundred years ago, and the mystery is part of the equines' charm. This mid-Atlantic barrier island is shared by Maryland and Virginia, and during the spring, it is "not uncommon to spot mares strolling around with their foals," Travel and Leisure said. Horses are spotted more frequently on the Maryland side, but you can ride them year-round in Virginia (this is a seasonal offering in Maryland). Assateague Island does not have any hotels, but camping on the Maryland side is an option and lets you "fall asleep to waves crashing" and "wake up to horses roaming free along the beach."

View Przewalski's horses at Hustai National Park in Mongolia

In Mongolia, horses play a "significant" role in the country's culture, Travel and Leisure said, inspiring music, art and even drinks: Airag, made of fermented mare's milk, is the national beverage. Hustai National Park was created in 1998 as a refuge for Przewalski's horse, or takhi, the only wild horse species still left in central Asia. The animal was hunted to extinction in the wild five decades ago, but thanks to a successful reintroduction program, there are now more than 400 takhi living in the national park.

Go trail riding through Iceland

Seeing Iceland from the back of a horse is quite memorable. Icelandic horses are "unique," Condé Nast Traveler UK said, with a "fifth gait, the famously smooth tölt." When riding, it feels like the "equestrian equivalent of driving in a Rolls-Royce," and makes a long journey seem over in the blink of an eye.

Visitors can book multi-day trail rides that take them along golden and black sand beaches, through lava fields, past waterfalls and between glaciers, depending on the season and weather. During these treks, you "travel through spaces that cannot be traversed on foot," and it is "amazing" how the horses navigate "difficult, rocky terrain with such plucky, surefooted lightness."

Check out the International Museum of the Horse in Kentucky

The connection between horses and humans is strong and has been for centuries. At the International Museum of the Horse, the ties that bind are on display in fascinating exhibitions like Legacy of the Horse, which looks back on five million years of history; Black Horsemen of the Kentucky Turf; and Draft Horse in America. Fans of horse racing will enjoy spaces dedicated to Triple Crown winner Affirmed and Calumet Farm's Thoroughbred racing trophies. The museum covers 64,000 square feet and is filled with more than 16,000 artifacts, from folk art to horse-drawn vehicles.

Visit the Royal Mews in London

You can't stroll into Buckingham Palace and meet the king, but you can visit his stables at the Royal Mews. Considered one of the world's finest working stables, it is home to about 30 horses and the royal family's dazzling collection of coaches and carriages. The centerpiece is the opulent 260-year-old Gold State Coach used during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the Platinum Jubilee in 2022 and the coronation of King Charles III in 2023.

Witness the Sa Sartiglia festival in Sardinia

The start of the yearly Sa Sartiglia festival may look like "some occult apocalypse," Atlas Obscura said, but this "strange and fascinating sight" is an ancient medieval celebration dating to the 1500s. It involves "horsemen in terrifying doll masks" racing through the streets of Oristano and trying to grab a tin star with their sword. Being part of the "raving" crowd, watching the action unfold, is a thrill.

The president of Argentina is facing legal action and calls for his impeachment after he promoted cryptocurrency on social media.

Javier Milei's controversial post "caused a political firestorm", said The New York Times, with opponents describing him as a "crypto scammer".

'Rug pull'

On Friday, Milei, a former private sector economist, posted on X about the $LIBRA coin which he promised would help fund small businesses and start-ups.

He shared a link to buy it, causing its price to "shoot up", said the BBC, but within a few hours, he deleted the post and the cryptocurrency "nosedived" in value, meaning investors lost most of their money.

He's been accused of a "rug pull" – where promoters of a cryptocurrency deliberately "draw in buyers", only to stop trading activity and "make off with the money raised from sales", said the broadcaster. But Argentina's presidential office insisted that the decision to remove the post was to avoid "speculation" following public reaction to the post.

"Few Argentines" were financially affected by the currency's crash, said the Financial Times, because analysis of X posts suggested most $LIBRA buyers were in the US and Asia, but the episode has still caused a headache for him at home.

'Slap in the face'

In a television interview, Milei said the scandal was a "slap in the face", and he described himself as a "techno-optimist" who was just trying to "help fund Argentine projects". Lashing out at political opponents who had criticised him, he said that "every day they confirm how lowly politicians are".

The "most interesting lesson" of the scandal, said Milei, is that "I need to put up more filters", adding that "it can't be so easy for people to reach me". So the president who is "reported to spend hours a day on X" might be "forced to become a little quieter", said The Spectator.

His opponents "appear unlikely" to secure the two-thirds majority needed in congress to impeach him, because centrist blocs said they won't support the proposal, but analysts said investigations into the president could "nonetheless weigh on his approval ratings", said the FT.

In the "medium to long term" this episode will "stain the president's credibility", Marcelo García, from the consultancy Horizon Engage, told the newspaper, particularly because he "brags about his abilities as an economist".

Polo is already known for its "frenetic pace" but in Argentina the sport is about to become "even quicker", said The Times.

Scientists in the polo-obsessed nation have produced the world's first genetically edited horses, modifying DNA from a champion mare using a technique called Crispr to increase "explosive speed" in her offspring, said the paper.

The five foals, born in October and November, have mostly the same genes as award-winning Polo Pureza and should inherit her natural agility, according to the biotech firm behind the project. But by tweaking a specific gene associated with sprinting, they are engineered to one day outrun her.

A multimillion-dollar gamble

This "futuristic experiment" dates back to 2006, a decade on from the birth of Dolly the sheep (the world's first cloned mammal), said The Washington Post.

When world-renowned polo player Adolfo Cambiaso's "beloved stallion" Aiken Cura "limped off the field, and it became clear that the horse was in his final days", he "decided to take a gamble" and asked a vet to save some of the horse's skin cells. Cambiaso then had a Texas-based laboratory clone Aiken Cura, and later repeated the process with his champion mare, Dolfina Cuartetera.

But what began as "an effort to immortalise those champions" has grown into a "massive, multimillion-dollar industry". (Argentina's President Javier Milei himself owns four clones of his deceased dog.)

In 2016, one Argentinian player rode six horses cloned from the same mare. The South American nation has "fundamentally transformed" the sport of polo, but the long-term possibilities – and risks – are "yet to be fully understood".

'What nature does, but faster'

In 2013, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports lifted a ban on cloned horses competing internationally, after a review found they were unlikely to have an advantage over naturally bred horses. However, gene editing is banned. Likewise, the British Horseracing Authority has banned any "gene therapy or cellular manipulation" that could give an animal an advantage, said The Times.

But Kheiron, the biotech firm responsible for the five genetically edited foals in Argentina, argues that the new horses' genes could have theoretically occurred naturally, through selective breeding or genetic mutations. That's what distinguishes Crispr from genetic modification, which introduces DNA from one species into another. This means the horses "comply with current Argentine regulations", said Reuters, because they do not count as "genetic doping or genetically modified organisms".

"There are certain muscle fibres that give it more explosiveness, a faster contraction, and the animal can have this greater explosive speed," said Gabriel Vichera, co-founder and scientific director of Kheiron.

"We are not inventing anything artificial, but rather we are taking that natural sequence and introducing it into another natural horse, which is what nature does, but we do it faster and more targeted."

The UK is investing in nuclear-capable fighter jets amid "rising nuclear risks", Defence Secretary John Healey has said. Speaking at the Nato summit in The Hague this week, Healey confirmed that the government would purchase 12 F-35A jets, capable of carrying US-supplied B61 tactical nuclear weapons. The jets will be used for conventional missions but, in "extreme circumstances", they would enable the UK to "participate in the nuclear mission for Nato".

While the government hopes the expansion of its nuclear arsenal will deter attacks, some believe that it will simply "fuel a global nuclear arms race" and "the normalisation of nuclear warfare", said Simon Tisdall in The Guardian. Once that "taboo is broken", the world is on a "fast-track ticket to oblivion".

Amid such rhetoric, and the recent exchange of missiles between Israel, Iran and the US, it's no surprise that interest in nuclear shelters has increased dramatically. Matt Wright, director of bunker firm Burrowed, told the Daily Mail that the company had received ten times as many orders as usual in the past few days. "We've got thousands of enquiries coming in," he said. "It's gone up dramatically and I can only put that down to what's been happening."

If a £100,000 bunker is out of budget, here are some of the safest alternative places to be in the event of a nuclear blast.

Safest places in buildings

A study published in the Physics of Fluids journal examined the safest places to take shelter within a building should a devastating attack occur.

Researchers from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus used advanced computer modelling to investigate what impact a 750-kiloton-rated nuclear blast wave would have on humans inside a building close to the fictional attack. Their results suggested that "even if you're hiding indoors" and relatively far from the explosion, the blast's high-speed winds "could still be enough to kill or seriously injure you", reported the tech and science site Gizmodo.

For that reason, the most dangerous places to hide are likely to be "in the direct vicinity of the windows, door openings and hallways, since this is where the air will be most funnelled through in the shockwave". Following the same logic, the study concluded that the best place to shelter would be "in a sturdy building at the far end of the room from any door or window, and ideally in a corner", said Newsweek.

Safest types of building

Ready.gov, an official website of the US government, advises that people "get inside the nearest building" should nuclear sirens suddenly sound – but not all buildings offer equal protection.

Concrete-reinforced buildings are generally thought to be the safest option as they would "largely remain intact" should a blast occur – however "not necessarily everyone inside them would survive", said Gizmodo.

In "Protect and Survive", a UK public information campaign that ran in the early 1980s, people were advised that, if they lived in a block of flats five storeys high or more, it was best not to shelter on the top two floors. The basement or ground floor will give you the best protection, and central corridors on lower floors will provide good protection.

For city-dwellers, the best places to shelter include underground spaces, reported Newsweek. "One would be much safer" in an "underground purpose-built blast or fallout shelter," Jack L. Rozdilsky, an associate professor of disaster and emergency management at York University in Canada, told the site. But "even locations like basements of buildings or deep sections of subway tunnels would provide better protection than being in buildings above the surface."

In 2022, the Daily Express reported that the safest places in the UK would be those furthest from major cities. The 20 locations recommended included Cornwall, Folkestone, Skegness and Anglesey.

Safest areas of the UK

As you might expect, anyone living in or around London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds or Glasgow will have the lowest chance of survival if Britain's major cities are targeted. Being "outside the blast zone" will be "crucial" to a chance of making it through, said the Daily Express.

The impact of a nuclear blast depends on numerous factors, "including radiation, fireball, air blast, and thermal radiation", and the distance dangerous radiation could spread varies with the weather conditions.

Remote places, such as the Shetland Islands, will be the safest if the bomb drops. Other locations like Cornwall, Inverness, and Aberystwyth could also be safe from the effects of the initial blasts, given their distance from major cities.

However, you wouldn't necessarily "be safe if you lived hundreds of miles from where the bomb dropped", said The Spectator. A subsequent nuclear winter would lead to "drastic falls in temperatures and sunshine, a global agricultural collapse and disaster for virtually all forms of life on Earth for decades".

Safest countries

The countries "with the best hope of at least seeing their civilisation survive" during the 10 years after a nuclear war would be Argentina and Australia, said The Times. A 2022 study published in Nature Food suggests that these two countries – and several others across central Africa – would be able to maintain life because "they already grew more resistant crops, such as wheat, in large quantities and also had low populations".

Closer to home, you could consider Iceland. The Smart Survivalist named the Nordic country as the safest place in the event of a nuclear war. "Because Iceland is isolated from the rest of the world by the North Atlantic Ocean, it would be very difficult for a nuclear missile to reach Iceland without being detected first," it said.

Also, it added, Iceland generates all of its electricity from geothermal sources, so even if the entire electrical grid went down, Iceland "would still have power thanks to its natural hot springs".

The site also noted that Canada has a "large landmass and population spread out over a wide area", making it "less likely that a single nuclear strike could wipe out the entire country".

Modelling by The Guardian in 2016 found that, "should atomic annihilation be on the cards", the safest places to live would be Antarctica, because the "sub-zero continent" is "miles from anywhere", or Easter Island in the South Pacific, which is more than 2,000 miles from South America.

In the US, modelling by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst starts with the midwest as a "prime target" as the country's intercontinental ballistic missile launch facilities are based in the region, and "taking them out early would be a strategic advantage for any foreign adversary", said the Daily Mail.

Landlocked states like Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri would also be "decimated in the immediate aftermath of the explosion", the researchers said, while coastal states such as Oregon, Washington, Florida and New York "might be able to bide their time for at least four days, before radiation poisoning spread to those areas".

With mounting anxieties around the risk of a nuclear conflict, some countries have begun ramping up preparations in case the worst happens. In Switzerland, the government last year announced plans to modernise the country's extensive system of bomb shelters, due to the "global security situation", the Zurich-based Tages Anzeiger reported. The work is projected to cost 220 million Swiss francs (£198 million).

Argentina and Spain share some cultural similarities, but now, just as an ocean separates them geographically, a split seems to have occurred between the two nations' diplomatic engagements. What began as a feud over comments made by Argentinian President Javier Milei has snowballed into Spain recalling its ambassador to Argentina. 

The ambassador, María Jesús Alonso Jiménez, will return to Madrid and Spain "won't [have] an ambassador in Buenos Aires" for the foreseeable future, said Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, per Bloomberg. This marks a low point for the two countries, which have had mostly good relations since Argentina declared independence from Spain in the 1800s. How did the two nations get to this point and why is Milei at the center of the rift? 

What caused the feud? 

The incident appeared to stem from a series of comments made during a populist rally in Spain organized by the country's far-right Vox Party. The rally was attended by many populist world leaders including Milei, who gave a speech in which he called Spain's Socialist Party "cursed and carcinogenic." This caused a rift among Spanish officials given that the Socialist Party and its leader, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, currently control Spain's government. 

The feud reached its main boiling point, though, when Milei began calling out Sánchez's wife, Begoña Gómez. Gómez is currently the subject of an influence-peddling and corruption investigation prompted by Spain's far-right coalition, though the investigation is seemingly unfounded and "Madrid's prosecuting authority has appealed to drop the case due to lack of evidence," Reuters said. However, Milei said Sánchez "has a corrupt wife," saying Spanish politics had gotten "dirty" as a result.

Spanish officials expressed outrage at Milei's speech, with Albares saying the words were a "frontal attack" on Spain. There is "no precedent for a leader coming to the capital of another country to insult its institutions," he said to reporters, per the Financial Times. Albares demanded that Milei apologize for the speech, but the Argentinian president refused. 

Instead, Milei accused Spain's leadership of working in tandem with Argentina's left-wing coalition. Upon the recall of Spain's ambassador, he called the move a "typical crazy [decision] for an arrogant socialist."

What's next for the two countries? 

The dispute "raises the potential for turbulence for investment and the economy," said the Financial Times, as "Spanish businesses are the second-largest investors in Argentina after U.S. companies." This could prove to be problematic for economic harmony between both countries. When it comes to pumping money into Argentina, Spanish companies "invested 140 million euros ($152 million) in the country in 2022. Some 495,000 Spaniards live in Argentina, according to Spanish government statistics, while 97,000 Argentines reside in Spain," said The Associated Press. The recalling of the ambassador could make Spanish brands think twice about further investments. 

Beyond economic hurt, the feud will likely worsen the already deepening divide between Spain and Argentina diplomatically. The recalling of the ambassador "escalates a long-running diplomatic spat" that began when Sánchez "backed [Milei's] left-wing opponent in last year's presidential election and declined to congratulate Milei on his victory," said the AP. The continuation of the spat indicates that Milei is hoping for more support on his right-wing side — particularly, if a certain former American president were to make it back into the White House in 2025. 

Milei "might be sensing that the socialist party has short legs, and so he's trying to prepare Argentina to get a really close ally when Spain gets a right-wing government, in the same way he's betting on Trump," Sebastián Mazzuca, an Argentine political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, said to the AP. As a result, Milei "is taking gambles, taking risks." 

While Spain may be upset, in Argentina, the public is "reacting to it with a bemused shrug," said Politico. While Milei has only been in office six months, Argentinians are "already accustomed to their president fighting with political leaders around the world," including Mexico's president, Colombia's president and Pope Francis. 

Milei is a "crazy person, he can't help it," Luis, an Argentinian office worker, said to Politico. "It's not like we don't have problems at home … but he's a showman, and I guess we're entertained."

This April, escape from the ordinary. Now is the time to go big and try something new on your vacation. That could mean spending the night at a zoo, booking a suite at a resort where you can swim straight to your room or staying at a hotel with a pet psychic on stand by. Here are six options that promise a fresh way to hotel.

Wildlife Retreat at Taronga in Sydney, Australia

When you look out your window at the Wildlife Retreat at Taronga, expect to see a koala gazing back. This boutique hotel is at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, and gives guests who book Animal View Rooms an incredible, immersive wildlife experience. Those who want to be at the zoo but prefer some distance from the animals can stay in rooms with bushland or Sydney Harbor views. Rates include two-day access to Taronga Zoo, a special guided tour of the wildlife sanctuary, sustainable amenities and daily breakfast. 

Romeo Napoli in Naples, Italy

April is a great time to visit Italy. You can enjoy the sights before the large crowds and sweltering temperatures arrive in the summer. For a taste of contemporary luxury, book Romeo Napoli. The hotel's 79 rooms and suites feature warm tones and original photography and have fantastic views of the city of Naples, Gulf of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. Wellness is a focus, with some rooms including infrared saunas, sensorial showers and private Zen gardens. Keep the pampering going downstairs at La Spa by Sisley Paris, where guests can relax in the Finnish sauna, frigidarium with snowfall, steam bath and cold immersion bath.

Sky Rock Sedona in Sedona, Arizona

Sky Rock Sedona makes a stunning first impression. Walking into the lobby, guests are greeted by a sparkling amethyst-encrusted wall, and the titillations only increase from there. The rooms feel like sanctuaries, with cozy neutral tones and leather accents, and some have fireplaces perfect for cooler nights. Up on the rooftop, there are fire pits and couches so guests can take in the 360-degree views of Sedona's red rocks, including the iconic Snoopy Rock, Coffee Pot Rock and Thunder Mountain. Sedona pulls in many New Age seekers, and Sky Rock guests can take advantage of offerings like on-call pet psychics and vortex hunters.

Generations Riviera Maya on Riviera Maya, Mexico

As long as you pack a bathing suit, you will do just fine at Generations Riviera Maya. This family-friendly resort on Mexico's Caribbean coast is known for its massive pool with a swim-up bar. All of the suites have ocean views, and several have direct access to the pool from their private balconies, making it easy to go swimming whenever you please. Rates are all-inclusive and cover meals, butler service and access to a private beach.

Akara Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand

The Akara Hotel is in the middle of everything in Bangkok's Ratchathewi district. Museums, shops, night markets and restaurants are all a short walk away — for those willing to leave the hotel, that is. Akara offers a lot of amenities, from a rooftop swimming pool to a culinary school and library, and some guests might want to stay put and take good advantage. The sizable rooms feature wood and marble decor, separate living and work areas and mini-bars with local delicacies. For even more space, book the large Akara Suite, which comes with a rain shower, jacuzzi tub and television in the bathroom.

Legado Mitico in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Learn all about Argentine history and culture without having to leave your hotel. At the elegant Legado Mitico in Buenos Aires, the 11 rooms are themed, honoring the people, arts and sports that shaped Argentina. The Liberator, for example, recognizes José de San Martín, a general who fought for independence and earned the nickname the Father of the Country. Paintings of the national hero hang on the walls, and books are stacked on a desk for guests wanting to read more about him. Legado Mitico is in the Palermo Viejo neighborhood, close to restaurants, bars and shops.

David Cameron said that British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands would "not be up for discussion" ahead of his visit to the South Atlantic today.

The foreign secretary is the first cabinet minister to travel to the Falklands since 2016, fulfilling a commitment made last year by his predecessor James Cleverly in response to Argentina "flexing" its muscles over the disputed islands.

Argentina has long laid claim to the self-governing British overseas territory, which has been under British sovereignty since 1833. In 1982, the military junta that ruled Argentina invaded the islands, known in Spanish as "Islas Malvinas", sparking a 10-week war that claimed the lives of 255 British servicemen, three islanders and 649 Argentinian personnel.

What did the commentators say?

Speaking before his trip, which kicks off a multi-country tour of South and North America, Cameron said the Falkland Islands remained "a valued part of the British family, and we are clear that as long as they want to remain part of the family, the issue of sovereignty will not be up for discussion".

His visit comes amid a "renewed push from Argentina over the sovereignty of the contested territory", said Politico. Argentina's new president, Javier Milei, has insisted that his country has "non-negotiable" sovereignty over the islands. "The Malvinas are Argentinian," Milei said during a election TV debate. 

The "radical libertarian", who claimed power in December, has "suggested the UK should approach the issue in a similar way to the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997",  said Sky News. "That agreement, however, followed the end of a 99-year lease." 

Despite the persistent calls from Argentina, in a 2013 referendum, 99.8% of voters on the Falkland Islands opted to remain a UK overseas territory, with just three people voting against.

Argentina's claim is based on having inherited the islands from the Spanish crown in the early 1800s, and also their proximity to the South American mainland – the archipelago lies 300 miles from Argentina and 8,000 miles from the UK. Britain "rests its case" on its "long-term administration of the Falklands", said BBC News, and on "the principle of self-determination for the islanders, who are almost all of British descent".

Last March, Argentina pulled out of a 2016 agreement that sought to improve cooperation in the South Atlantic between the two countries. Buenos Aires then scored "a major diplomatic win" last summer when the term "Islas Malvinas" was used for the first time in an official capacity by the European Union in a communiqué with Latin American nations, said Politico.

Behind the scenes, London had fought a "rearguard action", said the news site, "applying pressure at the very highest level to discourage Brussels from including the wording".

What next?

Milei has previously downplayed the prospect of military action over the Falklands, stressing that war "is not a solution" and that "we have to make every effort to recover the islands through diplomatic channels". However, his government has announced plans to buy fighter jets, submarines and warships as part of a tripling of its defence budget by 2032, in order to make the armed forces "fundamental institutions of the country".

 At the same time, there is "heightened concern" in the UK over the Falklands' security, said The Telegraph, after revealing that the Royal Navy has abandoned major warship patrols because of ship shortages.

 Admiral Lord Alan West, who was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his part in the Falklands War, told the paper earlier this month that an invasion of the islands was still "highly unlikely at the moment". But he called on the Ministry of Defence to ensure it has "sufficient defence assets in the Falklands to show that if anyone did anything stupid, that they would have some assets that they would have to overcome".

Many people, when asked what country is "the therapy capital of the world", might reasonably guess the United States, thanks to navel-gazing La La Land, or neurotic New York. 

But the answer is Argentina. According to 2016 data from the World Health Organization, it had 222 psychologists per 100,000 people; the US had 30. But the high supply of psychologists, especially in the cosmopolitan capital of Buenos Aires, can barely cope with demand, said Drew Ambrose, presenter of "Mindset", Al Jazeera's video series on mental health. 

"We are very peculiar in Argentina," one Buenos Aires resident told Ambrose. "Everybody goes to the psychologist."

'A very important battle was won'

Porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) "don't have the same stigma about seeking mental health treatment as Americans", said CNN. Mental health is seen as just another aspect of wellness, along with fitness and nutrition. "In Argentina a very important battle was won, which was giving space to emotional health," said Gabriel Rolón, a psychoanalyst and author. 

And what a battle it has been. Over the past 100 years, Argentina went from being seen as a paragon of stability and success to brutal military dictatorship, experiencing violent coups and, at the turn of the century, economic collapse. Although reported rates of anxiety, depression and psychological illnesses have risen sharply all over the world since the Covid-19 pandemic, Buenos Aires endured the world's longest continuous lockdown – of 234 days, in 2020. 

In the past two years alone, the country has endured intense political instability and an inflation rate that hit 211% at the end of 2023, largely thanks to the shock election of far-right President Javier Milei last autumn. 

The self-described anarcho-capitalist, chainsaw-wielding economist beat both establishment coalitions with the promise of an economic panacea. Ironically, his election provoked the sharp devaluation of the peso. At the time of writing, four in 10 Argentinians live in poverty, a rate that has been rising.

'The paradox of Buenos Aires'

Some Argentinians are actually going hungry to pay for therapy, reported Phoebe Hennell in The Times last summer, seeing it as better value nourishment than food amid such high inflation. 

"We have to focus on the short term," said Renata Anelli, 21, who skips two meals a week to make up the cost of her sessions, "so we spend our money on overpriced psychoanalysis that will get us through the week."

It is the "paradox of Buenos Aires", Gabriela Goldstein, president of the Psychoanalytical Association of Argentina, told the paper. "In the middle of a brutal economic crisis, [both] during and after the pandemic, consultations are on the rise."

Buenos Aires is also the only city where psychoanalysis, popularised by Sigmund Freud, remains the most popular form of therapy. The practice, which explores the unconscious mind via dreams and childhood memories, took the world by storm in the 1960s, but is now "viewed as somewhat obsolete" elsewhere in the world, said CNN. But more holistic, physical forms of group therapy are growing in popularity in the city.

In 2004, maestros of the nation's two passions, psychology and tango, joined hands in Buenos Aires to create what became known as "psicotango" – part group dance class, part meditation. "Tango remains from its origins as a hug, an embrace, to rescue us from pain and loneliness, central pathologies of consumer society," said the founders. 

Milei's 'shock therapy'

Even the Pope, born in Buenos Aires, is "not immune to the national pastime", said Hennell. When Pope Francis was still known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he visited a psychoanalyst for six months at the age of 42 – a process that he said left him feeling spiritually "free".

Therapy itself isn't free – but to put it in context, the price of one session last August was 5,600 pesos (roughly £15.86). It had been 3,300 pesos in January. The question is, how quickly will that price rise again?

In December, the new president unveiled what he called a "shock therapy" economic plan – which, Reuters explains, "will likely hurt Argentines" rather than heal them. The high rate of inflation isn't coming down any time soon. 

This week, Milei faces the first major challenge to his radical "shock therapy" legislation, with the unions preparing for a general strike and protest on Wednesday. Argentinians' need for therapy is set to continue. 

With wars raging in Ukraine and now the Middle East, a belief in the power of the ballot box to enact change has been somewhat dented.

As two billion people prepare to go to the polls around the world in 2024, we look back at four key elections – and one coup – from each continent that have had widespread implications far beyond their respective countries.

Poland

Following Slovakia's turn towards populism with the election of pro-Russian former PM Robert Fico in September, all eyes in Europe were on October's Polish parliamentary elections. Widely acknowledged as the most important in Poland since the fall of communism, it pitted the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) – described by the former Labour Europe minister Denis MacShane in The New Europeanas "Europe's most important nationalist, right wing, anti-women, homophobic, anti-European party" – against a broad coalition led by former PM and European Council president Donald Tusk.

Despite PiS enjoying near-total control over state institutions and mainstream media, the bitterly fought campaign delivered a clear majority for the opposition coalition, driven by a record turnout of 74%, and a huge showing from the young.

Tusk and his coalition partners still face significant challenges "repairing the civic and constitutional damage" done by eight years of PiS rule, said The Guardian, but they nevertheless have an opportunity to halt the "oppressive, authoritarian and confrontational direction of travel" that has gripped Europe in recent years.

The result in Poland was "most of all a win for representative democracy", agreed foreign policy think tank Chatham House, and should also "immediately affect the political balance of power in the EU". Given Poland's status as one of the bloc's most strategically significant member states, it will "bring a vital boost to European unity in deeply challenging times", concluded The Guardian.

Niger

In the wake of France's withdrawal from Mali in 2022 and Burkino Faso earlier in the year, July's shock military takeover in Niger felt like a watershed moment for the historic French influence in West Africa.

The toppling of President Mohamed Bazoum, widely condemned by the US, UK and EU as well as a majority of Niger's neighbours and the Africa Union, was part of the "anti-Western revolt sweeping across the Sahel", said Thomas Fazi on UnHerd.

Thousands of junta supporters taking to the streets to wave Russian flags and sing the name of Vladimir Putin was an early indication of how the coup "shifts the geopolitical influence map of Africa", said Al-Monitor. French forces began withdrawing from the country in October, after being ordered to leave by Niger's new military rulers. It came as the US formally declared that Bazoum had been removed in a military coup, "which results in officially suspending assistance" to the regime, Al Jazeera reported.

While Niger’s economic and social indicators place it at the bottom of global development indices, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank said that "its geographical position at the crossroads of North, West, and Central Africa; its mineral and oil resources; its potential for the development of renewable energies; and its strong demographic growth help explain the seemingly outsize interest of medium and large powers" in the country's future.

Thailand

In May, voters in Thailand rejected nine years of military rule in favour of the reformist opposition to deliver what the BBC described as a "political earthquake".

Move Forward's shock victory at the polls followed "a campaign pitting a young generation yearning for change against the conservative elite", who strongly opposed reform of the country's monarchy, said the Bangkok Post.

What followed was months of political deadlock. Move Forward's charismatic leader Pita Limjaroenrat was eventually forced to make way and give the runner-up populist Pheu Thai Party a chance to form the next government.

The return in August of Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted former prime minister of Thailand and patriarch of the Pheu Thai political juggernaut, after more than 10 years in exile "added a new layer of intrigue", said CNN. 

Some suggested his return was part of a "wider arrangement with the country's powerful conservative and royalist establishment that involved a reduced jail term or possible pardon in exchange for keeping the election-winning Move Forward Party from enacting its reformist policies that targeted the heart of this establishment".

New Zealand

October's general election result saw the conservative National Party sweep to power at the head of a right-leaning coalition, after former airline executive Christopher Luxon vowed to put New Zealand "back on track".

The result marked an incredible reversal of fortune for the Labour Party and its former leader Jacinda Ardern. The former prime minister, who won a landslide just three years ago before surprisingly stepping down in January, had a "star power and brand of 'kind' politics which won her fans globally – even as her popularity waned at home", said the BBC. 

By contrast, her successor Chris Hipkins had to face an "increasingly irate and fed-up electorate, battling the hangover of the pandemic and a struggling economy", added the broadcaster.

New Zealand's "prominence on the global stage in recent years was defined by the young, progressive" Ardern, said Foreign Policy. Now, it is led by a National Party that is "distinctly out of step with other conservative politicians in Five Eyes [an intelligence sharing partnership comprising Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, and US] because of its pro-China approach".

Argentina

Having emerged seemingly out of nowhere earlier in the year, libertarian populist Javier Milei stunned Argentina's political establishment by convincingly winning November's presidential election.

The "potty-mouthed political outsider", said The Guardian, has been described as "an Argentinian mash-up of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson". Milei drew on public anger over economic mismanagement that saw inflation at almost 140% and the value of the peso plummet, to deliver a landslide victory against centre-left economy minister Sergio Massa.

Now in power, the former television presenter has vowed to push ahead with a series of radical campaign pledges that include replacing Argentina's currency with the US dollar, eliminating the central bank and 10 of Argentina's 18 federal departments, and slashing taxes, regulations and government spending. Having called climate change a "socialist lie", he also looks set to wage a culture war against the "woke" left, as well as introducing new laws giving people the freedom to sell their organs. And in his victory speech, he committed to holding a referendum over whether to re-criminalise abortion, which was legalised in Argentina in 2020.

The shock election result, in which Milei won all but three of Argentina's provinces, represents the "biggest defeat in its history for Peronism – the statist system of government named after its founder President Perón – which has governed the country for most of the last 75 years", said The Times. It also serves "as yet another indicator of the far-right's rise across the Americas and around the world", said Vox.

Javier Milei has officially been president of Argentina only since Sunday, but even before then the populist leader had reopened the debate over the Falkland Islands.

Milei declared in late November that Argentina "has non-negotiable sovereignty over the Falklands", a statement that has become a "political ritual", said Tom Jones on UnHerd. 

However, his comments in the final presidential debate earlier that month clouded his stance on Falklands sovereignty. Milei drew heavy criticism for saying that the British prime minister during the Falklands War in 1982, Margaret Thatcher, was one of "the great leaders in the history of humanity".

'Unusual diplomatic position'

An "anarcho-capitalist" who has promised a "shock treatment of economic austerity", Milei's campaign, based on those of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, catapulted him to an unexpected victory in the Argentine election, wrote James Blair at Nacla.

But while his "strident views" attracted some voters and turned off many others, unlike his rivals he "toned down much of his rhetoric to appeal to moderate voters" in the final weeks of campaigning, said Phoebe Hennell at The Spectator.

That appears to extend to the divisive issue of the Falkland Islands, on which he has seemingly taken an "unusual diplomatic position for an Argentine politician", said Blair, even suggesting that the "will of the people living in the Islands" should be recognised.

Even if Milei is determined to reopen the Falklands issue in earnest, he is certainly considering it "not militarily but by diplomacy", said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian, and has suggested a transfer of power similar to what happened in Hong Kong. But despite the rhetoric, the issue will remain "far down the list of priorities" for the new president, added Hennell, with Argentina in the latest of a "series of crises", including the "third-worst annual inflation rate globally" – 138%.

'Enough to make Sunak bite'

It is a "must" for Argentine politicians to "create noise over the Falklands", explained Jones, but the latest declaration may "still be enough to make [Rishi] Sunak bite". As the "spectral presence" of Thatcher still "broods over the wasteland of Conservative politics", the prime minister may eye a "Falklands bounce" to overcome a string of domestic problems ahead of the next election.

After Milei's comments, it "didn't take long for Britain to hit back" said Hennell, with  Defence Secretary Grant Shapps saying it was "non-negotiable and undeniable" that the Falklands were British.

There is a clear "refusal to return" to negotiations by the British government, added Jenkins, despite the "sensible" notion that "tiny islands thousands of miles away" would be "best advised to forge a relationship with their close neighbour". The key reason the British government will not return to negotiations is "frankly that the Falklands were Britain's last spark of military glory", adding that it had abandoned "all common sense".

There will be hope in some quarters that many of Milei's "more polemical views will not actually pass through congress", said Hennell. But while the rest of the world will watch on "entertained by his eccentric personality", it remains to be seen whether a "fallen nation can be saved and if Milei will deliver his promises".

Argentina has a new leader: Javier Milei was inaugurated as the South American country's president on Sunday. Milei, a populist and far-right libertarian, shot to stardom from relative obscurity amid anger over the nation's dire economic circumstances. To deal with these issues, Milei said during his inaugural address that there was "no alternative to shock treatment."

This "shock treatment" would seek to combat Argentina's longstanding economic crisis. The country is dealing with inflation of 143% — widely cited among the highest in the world — along with $43 billion in debt and four in 10 Argentines living in poverty. In his inaugural address, described by The Associated Press as "[not] the most uplifting," Milei laid out his plans for the country, including mass spending cuts across government agencies in an effort to combat hyperinflation and self-described "anarcho-capitalism." 

But many Argentines are wondering just how Milei will go about implementing his "shock treatment" and what it means for them. The AP noted that people across the country are also wary of which version of Milei they will get going forward: "the chainsaw-wielding, anti-establishment crusader from the campaign trail, or the more moderate president-elect who emerged in recent weeks."

A 'hail Mary plan' 

Milei is "really trying to remake the Argentine government in Argentina itself in his libertarian view of the world," The New York Times' Jack Nicas reported for the outlet's flagship podcast, "The Daily." This mostly includes a massive reduction in the size of Argentina's government and central banking system — Milei has proposed eliminating 10 out of 18 government ministries and has previously said he will "take a chainsaw to the state."

The new president has created a "hail Mary plan to rescue" Argentina's economy, Sabrina Tavernise said for the Times. But the central part of his economic campaign is a plan to eliminate the Argentine peso and "use the U.S. dollar as Argentina’s national currency." American currency is already highly embedded in Argentina's economy, as Nicas noted that the country "is already deeply comfortable with the U.S. dollar and is already using a lot of U.S. dollars, and Milei "basically wants to formalize that."

However, it's estimated that Argentina needs an additional $30 to $40 billion in U.S. currency to formally dollarize. This "could be a big problem for Milei and his plans," Nicas opined, because as a result of Argentina's current debt, "they basically have zero."

This plan is part of some "disconcerting policies" that Milei has floated, David Riedel of the think tank Riedel Research Group told CNBC. There could be "unintended consequences" of dollarization, and it "would not cure the main issue in Argentina, which is a really large fiscal problem," Elijah Oliveros-Rosen, chief economist for emerging markets at S&P Global, told Reuters.

The 'best and last chance'

Milei's campaign promises would mean that many Argentines — including those in poverty — "would be subjected to significant austerity," business journalist Stephen Bartholomeusz wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald. While dollarization would help dampen inflation, "it would cause financial shocks" and the shutting down of the peso printing presses "would almost certainly plunge the economy into recession," Bartholomeusz added. 

Given Argentina's history of monetary mismanagement, Milei's plan "will be a bold but risky attempt to undo the legacies of decades of poor government," Bartholomeusz said. But it may also be the country's "best and last chance of breaking free of a destructive cycle."

But doubts continue to arise in Argentina "about what kind of government the notoriously erratic economist might lead and what measures he would announce in the coming days," Tom Phillips and Facundo Iglesia wrote for The Guardian. While the changes will be dramatic, one Milei supporter told The Guardian that Argentina could "either turn around completely or we are going to sink like the Titanic" and that the population "have to sacrifice ourselves … if we are to see light at the end of the tunnel."

Not all of Milei's government-busting plans are going to be implemented right away — including, it appears, his plan for U.S. dollarization. Despite touting the agenda for weeks after winning the election, Milei chose a former head of Argentina's central bank to lead the organization's dollarizing efforts. But that person declined the job amid signs that Milei "is backing away from his flagship policy of dollarizing the sickly economy," the Financial Times reported.   

A self-avowed "tantric sex coach" and chainsaw-wielding far-right libertarian might seem an unlikely attraction for a country grappling with serious financial woes.

But Javier Milei, a former economics professor and daytime TV star, has been elected president of Argentina, "catapulting South America's second-largest economy into an unpredictable and potentially turbulent future", said The Guardian. The "volatile" Milei, 53, secured 56% of the vote, with 44% going to his opponent Sergio Massa, the economy minister in Argentina's centre-left Peronist government. It was a result that shocked the political establishment. 

Argentina's "sharp swing to the right" comes amid an economic crisis, said Politico, with inflation "soaring" to 143% and two-fifths of the nation "living in poverty". Milei, a "self-described anarcho-capitalist" and admirer of Donald Trump, campaigned on "radical changes" like swapping the Argentine peso for the US dollar, shutting the central bank and "gutting public spending".

"Today the reconstruction of Argentina begins," Milei told supporters at his campaign headquarters in Buenos Aires, calling his victory a "miracle".

'An academic, not a politician'

Milei's popularity with voters is partially down to his use of social media, said the Buenos Aires Times. There are "hundreds of accounts online that support him", including one – "Juego de Milei" (Milei's game) – that includes a link to a mobile game through which users can play as Milei and "fight against leftists, the political caste and the central bank". 

Milei's online campaign used a form of "horizontal communication", according to the journalist and data analyst Diego Corbalán, in which the candidate himself is not in control of the flow of information, but many social media accounts endorsed by him disseminate his message. The message is conveyed through what Corbalán calls "a natural movement of the young people" on social media that are sharing content, as opposed to the more traditional "vertical" campaigns that are based on information coming from the candidates. 

Indeed, one key factor has been "the devoted following he has whipped up among young, largely male voters", said Al Jazeera: some are "devoted libertarians"; others "merely curious" and "disaffected" with the political establishment. Milei has "consistently led polls of voters between the ages of 16 and 35", unlike other right-wing populists like Trump and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, who "struggled to win over younger generations". 

"I think what moved me the most was the simple way he explained concepts," David Urbani, a 20-year-old economics student from Mar del Plata, told Al Jazeera. "The guy is an academic, not a politician."

Massa's 'electoral millstone'

Despite the "fervent" support for Milei, his success owes more to the failures of his opponent, said Sam Meadows in The Spectator. Sergio Massa took the lead in October's first poll, with Milei coming second, but the finance minister's "inability" to tackle the nation's economic woes over the past year "ultimately proved an electoral millstone he was unable to shrug off". Inflation is the fourth highest in the world, and the country owes "gargantuan" debts to the IMF. 

In order to "halt the slide", the majority of voters have placed their trust in Milei's "radical ideas", said the South America-based Meadows. He intends to do this by "smashing up years of economic orthodoxy", and even suggesting liberalising markets for guns and human organs. However, "perhaps in a bid to appeal to moderates", Milei "had rowed back on his commitment to these ideas in recent weeks". 

Amid these uncertainties, for many Argentinians the "overwhelming reaction" to his success was "fear at what their country could become". 

After spending most of a century "in thrall to one self-destructive economic ideology", said the Financial Times' newsletter "Trade Secrets", Argentina has "decided to have a shot at another" after Milei takes office in December. "How a country manages to hop straight from Peronism to reactionary anarcho-capitalism without ever having a go at boring old liberal social democracy is a wonder to behold."

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Abdulwahab Tahhan, Harriet Marsden and Suchandrika Chakrabarti

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped wherever you get your podcasts:

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In this week's episode, we discuss:

Butt lifts

UK health officials are to meet with counterparts in Turkey after the death of a British woman during so-called Brazilian butt lift surgery at a private hospital in Istanbul. Since January 2019, at least 24 Brits have died as a result of medical tourism trips to Turkey, according to the Foreign Office. Are patients being adequately informed of the risks? And is cosmetic-surgery tourism out of control?

Ransoms

The British Library fell victim to a cyberattack in October, resulting in a substantial theft of employee data from the world's largest library. Notorious ransomware group Rhysida has claimed responsibility, posting pictures of what appears to be the stolen data on the dark web and promising to auction it off to the highest bidder by Monday morning, with a starting price of 20 Bitcoin – equivalent to nearly £600,000. But who is Rhysida? Should government-funded bodies pay a "ransom" to cybercriminals to keep their systems secure? And how safe are any British institutions?

Argentina's right turn

Former TV pundit and far-right libertarian Javier Milei – nicknamed "the madman" by his followers – has stunned political experts by becoming the new president of Argentina.  What does his election mean for Argentina's future? And what can the country expect from its new president? 

Argentina's federal police have raided and closed down an online bookshop that sold Nazi content and material after a two-year investigation.

Police found "hundreds of books plastered with swastikas" when they raided a home in San Isidro, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, said The Washington Post, some of which "glorified Adolf Hitler" while others denied the Holocaust. According to officials, it was the largest seizure of Nazi propaganda materials in recent Argentinian history.

More than 200 texts in total were produced by a "prolific" clandestine printing press, known as Librería Argentina. 

The online bookshop's alleged owner, a 45-year-old man who has not been identified, was arrested after police raided his parents' home. The raid "was the tipping point" in an investigation that began in 2021, said The Washington Post, after the Delegation of Israelite Associations of Argentina (DAIA), who represent the country's Jewish population, "raised alarms".

"We're still astonished by the amount of material," federal police chief Juan Carlos Hernández said. "It's historic. It's truly a printing press disseminating and selling Nazi symbology, books and indoctrination." The arrested man, Hernández said, sold "high-quality material" and had "a high level of purchases and inquiries".

Librería Argentina sold books with "images of swastikas, iron crosses and the imperial eagle" of the Nazi party, said Reuters, as well as "Nazi propaganda texts". Displaying Nazi symbols is a crime in Argentina.

"We are shocked by how profuse the material is," said Marcos Cohen from the DAIA. "I don't remember anything like this being found before."

According to El País, the man was "operating as Argentina's largest Nazi material distributor from his family home". The investigation began when the DAIA made a complaint about a website disseminating antisemitic content and selling it through Mercado Libre, South America's foremost e-commerce platform. Police said the man's account was terminated, but he began to sell the materials through his own website.

Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, with many moving there after their expulsion from Spain and pogroms in Eastern Europe, and during the Nazis' rise to power before the Second World War. After the Nazis were defeated, many of their officials also emigrated to Argentina to avoid trials for war crimes.

A “tantric sex coach” and Donald Trump admirer has capitalised on Argentina’s economic woes to pull off a shock landslide win in the primary elections.

The value of the peso plummeted by more than 20% after Javier Milei, 52, gained more than 30% of the total vote with his coalition, La Libertad Avanza (Liberty Advances) in Sunday’s primaries, in a result that has “upended Argentina’s political universe”, said The Guardian.

The far-right economics professor “shot to daytime TV fame” in the 2010s, a self-described “tantric sex coach who spoke openly about his preference for threesomes”.

He beat candidates from the governing centre-left Peronist coalition, Union for the Homeland (27%), and the main opposition coalition, hard-right Together for Change (28%), which have traded power back and forth for a decade.

Milei won in 16 out of 24 of the country’s regions, “appealing to voters angry about inflation at 116% and the country’s cost-of-living crisis”, said Sky News. He is frequently compared to Donald Trump, and told the news website Infobae in 2021 that his alignment with the beleaguered former US president was “almost natural”.

The “deeply unpopular” president Alberto Fernandez is not seeking re-election in October, said Al Jazeera, and, against all predictions, Milei goes forward as a “real contender”, said AP News.

Who is Javier Milei?

Milei was born in Buenos Aires in 1970, the son of a bus driver who became a businessman. He decided from a young age to pursue a career in economics, according to El Cronista.

He gained a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees in economics, and has held various high-profile positions including as a government consultant. He has written nine books and more than 50 academic papers.

The “libertarian” economics professor entered the public eye in the early 2010s, said Economist Intelligence, with “blusterous diatribes against the political establishment” in newspapers and television interviews.

He was initially dismissed as a “buffoon”, said The Guardian, but began to attract support by calling for Argentina to replace the peso with the dollar. He founded his far-right coalition in 2021, which secured two seats in the lower house of Argentina’s Congress.

Despite “boasts over his sexual prowess”, Milei “claims to be a staunch Catholic”, said The Telegraph. The “anarcho-capitalist” has “built ties with Spain’s hard-Right Vox party”, and pledged to “spearhead an austerity programme to help pay off the country’s $44 billion debt”.

According to the Buenos Aires Herald, Milei told a journalist that anyone who supports abortion rights is “brainwashed by a homicidal policy”. He said he would hold a referendum on the country’s abortion law, which allows the procedure up to 14 weeks.

Milei has been nicknamed el peluca (“the wig”) for his unkempt hair. He previously sang with a band known for its Rolling Stones covers, and sings songs to his supporters.

He has also pledged to abolish the central bank, which perhaps explains why it devalued the local currency by 22% after the primaries.

What are his chances?

He is an “outsider candidate”, said The Associated Press: a “shaggy-haired”, leather-jacketed singer who has described sex education as “a ploy to destroy the family”, wants to legalise the sale of human organs and believes climate change is a lie.

The primaries are effectively “a dress rehearsal for the general election”, said The Telegraph, as voting is obligatory for most adults. They give a “clear indication” of the favourite.

The results are “a stinging rebuke” to the Peronist Union for the Homeland coalition, said CNN: a reflection of political frustration and a repudiation of Kirchnerism.

It seems unlikely, said The Guardian, that the Peronist candidate and economics minister, Sergio Massa, will win in the first round. Thus Massa might, in a second-round November run-off, face an “unbeatable” alliance of Milei and the hard-right United for Change candidate, Patricia Bullrich.

However, turnout was under 70%, the lowest since primaries were first held in the country a decade ago. To win, Milei will have to increase his share of the country’s votes by 15%, to 45%: “a high hurdle even in a nation where voters tend to favour candidates they see as winners”, said AP News.

Nevertheless, says Al Jazeera, his rise reflects a wider trend in Latin America, of outsiders gaining prominence by “pledging to break up the status quo”.

​Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández has announced he will not stand for re-election in 2023, plunging the country into further political uncertainty following corruption charges and an alleged assassination attempt on current vice-president and two-time former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

In a video message on Friday, President Fernández said he would “hand over the presidential sash to whomever has been legitimately elected at the polls by the popular vote” in October and not seek a second term in office, “throwing open a race to lead the ruling Peronist coalition at the ballot amid a deepening economic crisis”, said Reuters.

The president and vice-president have “at times been at loggerheads”, added the news agency, and Fernández de Kirchner, often known as CFK, had been thought to also be stepping down at the next election too.

But the Buenos Aires Times reported earlier this month that CFK told a meeting of trade union officials: “Those who are thinking that I am going to devote myself to looking after the grandchildren… it would be better for them to forget about it.”

The prospect of an unlikely third presidential term for CFK has caused some consternation in the South American country, with the 70-year-old having faced an alleged assassination attempt in September and been found guilty of corruption in December.

Why is President Fernández stepping down?

Fernández has seen his opinion poll ratings tank as Argentina “has been stuck in economic doldrums for years, with more than 50% of children living in poverty and a galloping annual inflation rate of more than 100%”, said Le Monde.

“The economic context put too much pressure on him,” Mariel Fornoni, director of Management & Fit, told Reuters. She said that “internal pressures” had forced Fernández’s hand, though in reality with his approval rating under 20% he never had much chance of winning.

“Alberto Fernández is taking himself out of a race he was never really in,” Fornoni said.

The question of who takes over the leading party’s coalition remains up in the air though. Agustino Fontevecchia, digital director for Argentine weekly newspaper Perfil, wrote for Forbes in February that Fernández and economy minister Sergio Massa “have an explicit agreement” to try to sideline CFK in favour of Massa. Despite repeatedly saying himself that he won’t run, Massa “barely hides the excitement at the possibility of becoming president”, said Fontevecchia.

Who is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner?

CFK is a “powerful and divisive figure” in Argentina, said The Guardian. She was first lady from 2003 to 2007 alongside her husband, President Néstor Kirchner.

In 2007, she became the country’s first elected female president, part of the so-called “pink tide” of populist, left-wing Latin American leaders in the 2000s.

CFK and her husband “gave rise to Kirchnerism”, said The New York Times, “one of the most powerful political forces in Argentina”.

CFK, 70, served two terms until 2015. When she was elected vice-president in 2019 she was “seen by many as more powerful than even the president”, added the paper.

While she is loved by Peronistas, supporters of former president Juan Perón’s legacy, Argentina’s right wing “has long made her its top target”, the paper said.

In 2018, she became embroiled in charges of corruption relating to her time as president, all of which she denied. The charges sparked a wave of protests, and at the time of the alleged attempted assassination last September she was preparing to face trial.

Levels of “verbal violence” had increased significantly, said The Guardian, with some Argentinian politicians calling for the death sentence to be reintroduced for the vice-president.

In December, CFK was found guilty of “fraudulent administration” and sentenced to six years in jail, suspended while she finishes her term “in a case that has shaken the country”, said BBC News.

Prosecutors said she had “created a kickback scheme which steered lucrative public work contracts towards a friend of hers in return for bribes”, added the broadcaster. CFK said the charges against her were politically motivated, speaking after the verdict, and described herself as the victim of a “judicial mafia”, the Associated Press news agency reported. She is expected to appeal.

What happened during the ‘attempted assassination’?

On 1 September 2022, CFK was greeting people outside her flat in Buenos Aires, after hundreds gathered to show support ahead of the corruption trial.

TV cameras covering the demonstrations filmed Fernando Montiel, 35, pushing through the crowd and raising a semi-automatic weapon to CFK’s face. A witness said she heard “the sound of the trigger being pulled”, according to the Associated Press.

Fernández de Kirchner “only survived” because the semi-automatic .32-calibre Bersa jammed, said The Daily Telegraph.

Police immediately arrested Montiel. His girlfriend, Brenda Uliarte, 23, also at the scene, was arrested a few hours later. Both have been charged with attempted murder, which they deny, and are awaiting trial.

A semi-automatic pistol was found with its serial number partially removed, reported La Nación. The gun was loaded with five bullets, but there was no bullet in the firing chamber.

“Imagine how nervous I was,” Montiel told television news channel C5N, while in pre-trial detention. “I pulled the trigger and the shot didn’t go off.”

In a national broadcast, President Fernández called it “the most serious incident since we recovered democracy” in 1983. “They wanted to kill her,” tweeted Argentina’s foreign minister, Santiago Cafiero.

Elections in 2022 swept the far-right to power in Sweden, Italy, Hungary (and most recently Israel), while leftist leaders in South America won in Columbia and Brazil.

Elsewhere, Emmanuel Macron managed to hold off a challenge from populist Marine Le Pen in France, while the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos won a landslide victory in the Philippines.

“This year’s elections are less clear-cut – and instead overlap in surprising ways,” said Foreign Policy. “This may be in part because they are overwhelmingly parliamentary as opposed to presidential, which makes term limits much less of a factor.”

Fears of a global populist wave have receded somewhat, but “democracy is on the ballot in a number of nations” this year, said The Conversation, “while common themes – such as the handling of inflation and corruption – may determine how incumbent governments and presidents fare at the ballot box”.

Here are five elections around the world to look out for in the year ahead.

Thailand (7 May)

In Thailand “the military’s quotidian role in political life is due to face a reckoning” as the country’s autocratic leaders hope to consolidate power, said Foreign Policy.

The 7 May vote will be only the second since the military rewrote the constitution in 2017 to give it greater influence in selecting the legislature. With incumbent former army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha, from the pro-military Palang Pracharat Party, deeply unpopular, Pheu Thai, Thailand’s main opposition party with links to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, is seen to have the best chance of forming the next government, according to the latest polls from Bloomberg.

Yet despite this, Foreign Policy said that “observers are not optimistic that they will prevail. Instead, they surmise that the most likely election scenario will involve the military-monarchy complex once again finding a way to further dilute the will of the people – and wrest power from those parties the majority of Thais support.”

Turkey (18 June)

“People in Turkey tend to call every presidential election historic – but the June 2023 election will truly be historic,” said Ahmet Kuru, professor of political science at San Diego State University, for The Conversation.

The lengthy rule of the increasingly autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has governed Turkey since 2003 first as prime minister then since 2014 as president, “could be put to its toughest test” on 18 June, said Time magazine.

Erdoğan has lost support in recent years as his economic reforms have failed to turn the country around, leading to massive inflation and a collapse in the currency. This in turn has prompted a further crackdown on the opposition and press.

“The 2023 presidential election will be fought over politics, economics and religion,” said Kuru. “If Erdoğan wins, he will frame himself as the second founder of Turkey, after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. If he loses, his political, business, and religious allies will face the risk of being expunged.” The stakes could not be higher.

Poland (expected October or November)

“Probably the most pivotal and important election of 2023 in emerging Europe” is Poland’s parliamentary vote, expected in October or November, said Craig Turp-Balazs in Emerging Europe.

The ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) is expected to face its biggest opposition since retaking power in 2015 in the face of mounting public anger to its increasingly illiberal policies and economic stagnation. However, the government’s strong response to the war in neighbouring Ukraine, including accepting millions of refugees, has won it support both internationally and at home.

“As usual, the extent to which the country’s opposition is able to unite and galvanise the anti-PiS vote behind a clear, coherent alternative will be crucial,” said Turp-Balazs. He noted that “in the previous two elections, in 2015 and 2019, the opposition appeared divided and weak, handing PiS easy victories”.

Pakistan (12 October at the latest)

Last year was a tumultuous one for Pakistan, which faced a perfect storm of political, economic and environmental crises.

In April 2022, the former cricketer turned populist prime minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote and replaced by Shehbaz Sharif of the centre-right Pakistan Muslim League (PML) until this year’s elections, which have to be held by 12 October.

Opinion polls are hard to gauge “but it appears that Khan continues to be the darling of public opinion – and a thorn in the side of Pakistan’s security establishment”, said Foreign Policy. It cites his “unique” willingness to challenge the Pakistani military, which effectively rules the country.

Time magazine said “the big question-mark is when elections will take place – especially since Khan is pressuring the government to hold them earlier”.

“Khan has been gaining a lot of popularity, so politically speaking, the sooner the elections happen, the better for him,” said Michael Kugelman in the Time article.

Argentina (29 October)

The country may still be basking in World Cup glory, but 2023 promises to be a gruelling year for Argentina in the run-up to elections in the autumn.

With sky-high inflation, low growth and one of the highest debt-per-capita ratios in Latin America, the economy looks set to dominate the campaign. President Alberto Fernández and his powerful vice-president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, have both been plagued by corruption scandals, with the later sentenced to six years in jail last month over bribery charges.

“Some are even predicting that the combination of mishandling the economy and the corruption scandal could bring an end to Peronism, the political philosophy that has governed Argentina for much of last 70 years,” said Eduardo Gamarra, professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University, for The Conversation.

The opposition party of former president Mauricio Macri is similarly divided and struggling to agree on a candidate. “These political and economic circumstances may favour a third contender,” suggested Gamarra, specifically Javier Milei, “a populist libertarian who has been rising in the polls and whose brusque style has drawn comparisons with Donald Trump”.

A victory parade for the World Cup-winning Argentina men’s football team had to be cut short after millions of people gathered to celebrate in central Buenos Aires.

The Argentina squad, who won the World Cup on Sunday for the first time since 1986 after beating France in a penalty shoot-out, began a “planned eight-hour journey” to celebrate with the public, said the BBC. The bus parade began at the Argentine Football Association (AFA) training complex around 20 miles outside of the capital and was meant to end at the Obelisk monument in Plaza de la República in the city centre.

There was a “sea of colour” awaiting the players, with “the majority of the jubilant fans” decked out in the national light blue and white colours. Local sources estimated that four million people had gathered on the streets of Buenos Aires.

The open-top bus had been “moving slowly for more than four hours” before authorities took the decision to cancel the parade over safety fears, said Sky News. The players then returned to the AFA complex before taking a helicopter ride along the route to see the crowds.

Social media videos showed fans attempting to jump on the bus from bridges as it passed through. South American football journalist Tim Vickery, who was in Buenos Aires, told Sky News that he thought “it could go disastrously wrong” before the parade was cancelled.

Following the decision, some fans clashed with riot police who “were sent in to disperse the crowds”, said Metro. Local medical services confirmed a number of non-fatal injuries, while one person died after falling through a roof. A five-year-old boy suffered a serious head injury and remains in a coma after a “piece of marble fell from a monument in Plaza San Martin”, the paper reported.

Jubilant fans crowded into the Plaza de la República in central Buenos Aires as they waited to celebrate with the victorious national team.

The players, who arrived back from Qatar on Tuesday morning, celebrated on top of the bus before the parade was abandoned. They then were able to witness the throngs of supporters by helicopter later in the day.

Lionel Messi, widely touted as one of football’s greatest-ever players, led the Argentina team to victory in his fifth and final World Cup finals, beating France 4-2 in a penalty shoot-out.

While crowds were waiting for the players in the centre of the capital, the bus was unable to make significant progress with so many people on the streets.

While some fans climbed lamp-posts and on to roofs to catch a better glimpse of the players, the majority were decked out in the light blue and white national colours. Victorious captain Messi was pictured on banners and flags alongside Argentina’s last World Cup-winning captain, Diego Maradona.

Temperatures reached around 30 degrees in the middle of the day as fans waited hours on the streets to see the players before the parade was abruptly cancelled.

Riot police were deployed later in the day after the parade was cancelled. Video footage shows some of those remaining in central Buenos Aires clashing with police.

Vladimir Putin could be planning to flee to South America as his war in Ukraine turns into a “disaster”, according to reports.

Amid mounting military losses, the Russian president is “doing his best to keep out of the public eye”, said The Times. As such he is planning, the paper said, to dodge his traditional ice hockey match with his bodyguards and his annual state of the nation address to parliament.

Abbas Gallyamov, a former speech-writer for the president, said the Kremlin is preparing safe havens for Putin in case Russia suffers a humiliating defeat and he is forced to flee. He cited a Kremlin source who said that Putin would escape to Argentina or Venezuela, under a plan thought to be codenamed “Noah’s Ark”.

What did the papers say?

Forecasts of defeat for Russia have grown after the UK’s defence secretary announced a “bleak” set of figures on Russian military losses, said Business Insider.

“We can say that we estimate over 100,000 Russians are either dead, injured, or have deserted,” Ben Wallace told the House of Commons, following a similar estimate from the top US general Mark Milley last month.

Wallace painted a wider picture of Russian setbacks, announcing that Moscow has lost 4,500 armoured vehicles, 63 fixed-wing aircraft, 70 helicopters, 150 unmanned aerial vehicles, 12 naval vessels, and over 600 artillery systems.

As the prospect of a Russian defeat in Ukraine becomes more realistic, so does discussion of its wider implications.

Defeat for Russia “would open up all sorts of opportunities for a better world – and, indeed, a better Russia”, wrote Jon Moynihan for CapX. A “major opportunity” could arise that would allow parts of Europe and the Caucuses to “break free from Moscow’s yoke”.

However, he added, the West would need to negotiate with “either a more, or quite possibly a less, reasonable government” inside Russia, “to get the gas flowing again and energy prices down”.

A Russian defeat would be regarded as bad news in Beijing. Xi Jinping would be “displeased”, wrote Pavel K. Baev for Brookings, as “every step Russia takes down the de-escalation ladder and away from confrontation with the West” would “signify a setback for China”.

Beijing would become “irrelevant”, he said, and though this “might seem mind-boggling” given its current power, China would pay the price for “influencing the trajectory of the Ukraine war, from its shocking start to the gradual disgraceful end”.

However, wrote Janusz Bugajski in the Washington Examiner, Beijing might seek to benefit by exploiting the “failing state” through “arranging cheap energy deals and beneficial investments”. It might also bid for the “eventual absorption of Russia’s far eastern regions that nationalists claim as Chinese territory unfairly appropriated by Moscow in the 19th century”.

The “Russian elite and all those ultranationalists who dominate the media” would have to “contemplate a world in which Russia and many of its leaders remain under Western sanctions, with a weak and globally isolated leader” and Russia “carrying little weight on the world stage”, wrote John McLaughlin, a former acting director of the CIA, for Grid.

Russian military and security service leaders “might act as a kind of informal ‘politburo’” and inform Putin that they can no longer support him, and that it is time for him to retire “with some honour intact”. However, if he refused, there might be a “slow fading away” for a “weakened Putin” and Russia “would for a time simply exist as a dispirited and weak country”, in stark contrast to his “early years in power” when Russia “had attained a place of significant influence and respect in the world”.

What next?

Were Moscow to discover it could not defeat Ukraine, this could even rewrite the history books, argued defence editor Michael Peck, for Forbes, as it would open the question of whether Russia could ever have conquered Europe.

He concluded that “the answer is a definitive… maybe” but added that based on the “fumbling Russian military in Ukraine” it is likely that Soviet tank columns would have “barely crossed the West German border before they ran out of gas”.

This would shed a new light on 50 years of Cold War speculation, in which “fear of Soviet tank columns blitzing across the Rhine led to massive peacetime defence budgets, forced generations of young men to be drafted into uniform, and made novelists like Tom Clancy rich”.

Other dictators would be dismayed by a Russian defeat, said the head of Britain’s armed forces. The West’s collective response in Ukraine has brought “real victory within our grasp” and sent a powerful message to other authoritarian states, said Admiral Sir Tony Radakin.

There would also be ramifications for diplomacy and public relations, argued Mick Ryan for Foreign Affairs. Were Kyiv to defeat the Russian military, Ukraine’s “international influence campaigns” would become a “model for other democracies to study and emulate”.

Eight members of the medical staff who cared for the football superstar Diego Maradona are to be tried for homicide in Argentina.

The group, which includes doctors, nurses and a psychologist, are accused of “simple homicide”, a serious charge that means taking a life with intent. It carries a sentence of between eight and 25 years in prison.

In a 236-page ruling seen by Reuters, the judge in charge of an investigation into the Argentinian’s death questioned “the behaviours – active or by omission – of each of the accused” that “led to and contributed to the realisation of the harmful result”.

Maradona “was considered one of the greatest football players in history, though the diminutive player nicknamed ‘Pelusa’ for his long mane of hair and ‘D10S’ as a play on the Spanish word for ‘God’ using the number on his shirt, battled drug and alcohol abuse for years”, said The Guardian.

The newspaper noted that Argentinian prosecutors began investigations shortly after his death in November 2020 at a house near Buenos Aires, including ordering searches of properties of his personal doctor and investigating others involved in his care.

Last year, the panel of 20 experts appointed to examine his death found the star’s medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless manner”.

Maradona, who captained Argentina’s 1986 World Cup-winning team, was 60 when he died. He had undergone surgery for a blood clot on his brain a few weeks prior to his death from a heart attack.

Mario Baudry, a lawyer for one of Maradona’s sons, said that the former footballer was “in a situation of helplessness” by the time of his death. “As soon as I saw the cause, I said it was homicide,” he recalled. “I fought for a long time and here we are, with this stage completed.”

The defendants named in the document were Maradona’s neurosurgeon and personal doctor, Leopoldo Luque, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, psychologist Carlos Diaz, nurses Gisella Madrid and Ricardo Almiron, their manager Mariano Perroni, and doctors Pedro Di Spagna and Nancy Forlini.

They have denied responsibility for Maradona’s death, and Vadim Mischanchuk, a lawyer acting for Cosachov, said they would appeal the decision. “A guilty party is being sought at all costs and objectivity is being lost,” the lawyer said.

The BBC noted that, in an “emotional” press conference in November 2020, Dr Luque had cried, saying he had done all he could to save the life of a friend.

He added: “You want to know what I am responsible for? For having loved him, for having taken care of him, for having extended his life, for having improved it to the end.”

An English ship made the first recorded landing on the islands, an uninhabited archipelago about 300 miles from the South American coast, in 1690, naming them after the expedition’s sponsor, Viscount Falkland. The French, however, established the first settlement there, in 1764: they called them the Îles Malouines after the port they’d sailed from, Saint-Malo. (Hence “Las Islas Malvinas” in Spanish.)

The British founded a rival settlement one year later, and thereafter, the islands’ status has always been contested. France ceded its claim to the Spanish empire; Britain and Spain nearly went to war over the issue in 1770, but reached an inconclusive compromise. In the early 19th century, newly independent Argentina claimed the islands.

But a row over seal-hunting led the Royal Navy to recapture the Falklands in 1833, founding a colony there in 1840. Apart from two months in 1982, the islands have been a British possession ever since.

How significant were they to the British empire?

Not very. At the time of the 1770 crisis, Dr Johnson said it was absurd to go to war over such “a bleak and gloomy solitude”. From the 1840s until the Falklands War, sheep farming was the only profitable activity. From the late 1960s, British governments resented the expense of owning them, and saw them as a barrier to good relations with South America; efforts were made to reach a deal. “Unless sovereignty is seriously negotiated and ceded,” a Foreign Office minister wrote in 1968, “in the long term we are likely to end up in a state of armed conflict with Argentina.”

There was talk of a “Hong Kong solution”: ceding the islands to Argentina and leasing them back. However, Parliament gave the islanders an effective veto, and its 1,800 inhabitants, mostly descended from Scottish and Welsh settlers, wanted to remain British. On 2 April 1982, an Argentinian military government, led by Leopoldo Galtieri, put a stop to talks when it invaded.

Why did Argentina invade?

Argentina’s right-wing dictatorship, in power since 1976, was being shaken by civil unrest and an economic crisis; a patriotic victory would be a useful distraction. The Falklands/Malvinas was one issue on which most Argentines agreed, and it was a long-standing obsession of Admiral Jorge Anaya, who had drawn up the invasion plan while still a junior naval officer.

In General Galtieri’s view, Margaret Thatcher’s government would be unlikely to engage in a distant war: “that woman wouldn’t dare”, he said. The Argentinians also thought that they could rely on a certain amount of international sympathy, in an age of widespread decolonisation.

Was there support for Argentina?

Not nearly as much as it had expected. The principle of self-determination for the islanders partially neutralised the anti-colonial argument. And even countries that rejected Britain’s claim on the islands conceded the point that international disputes shouldn’t be settled by force. It didn’t help that the aggressor was a dictatorship notorious for human rights abuses.

Britain won the day at the UN. In the meantime, with the full support of Michael Foot’s Labour Party, Margaret Thatcher hastily assembled a task force of 127 ships and 30,000 men, which would be sent 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic to retake the islands – a task the US navy had assessed as “a military impossibility”. The official historian of the campaign, Lawrence Freedman, described it as “an enormous gamble”.

How did Britain win?

It nearly didn’t: the task force was within range of Argentina’s air force, and seven ships were lost to its Exocet missiles and bombs, causing many casualties. The task force’s crucial landing at San Carlos, it is often said, could have gone very differently; many Argentinian bombs hit British ships but failed to detonate. Lord Craig, an RAF air marshal, is said to have declared: “Six better fuses and we would have lost.”

As it was, though, the 74-day campaign was a triumph for Britain. It generated some of the most iconic moments of the early Thatcher years: the PM declaring “Rejoice!” after the recapture of South Georgia; the sinking of the Belgrano; the fierce firefight at Goose Green; marines “yomping” to Port Stanley. A total of 258 British and 649 Argentinian lives were lost; 11,000 Argentinians were captured.

What political effects did it have?

The task force returned to Portsmouth in glory, and Thatcher rode a wave of nationalistic fervour to a landslide re-election victory in 1983. Many Conservatives believe that the war initiated a reverse of Britain’s postwar decline. Thatcher was forthright in linking the conflict to her domestic aims. She told the Tory backbench 1922 Committee that, after defeating the “enemy without”, she would take on the “enemy within”: the unions.

In Argentina, the defeat shattered the junta’s claim to represent the nation, and paved the way for the first free election in a decade. Even so, sceptics in both nations regarded the conflict as slightly absurd: the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges described the conflict as “a fight between two bald men over a comb”.

Is it all settled, 40 years on?

Far from it. Argentina never dropped its claim. Since 1994, the Argentinian constitution has made sovereignty over the Falklands a “permanent and irrevocable objective”. A poll last year suggests that 81% of Argentine voters support that.

The Falkland Islands are still a British Overseas Territory, and the UK insists that the wishes of the islanders remain the crucial principle; in 2013, 99.8% of them voted to remain British in a referendum. The islands are self-governing, and thanks to increased investment and the sale of fishing licences, are now relatively rich; they are defended by a garrison of 1,200 military personnel, which costs the UK about £60m annually.

Argentina may remain stuck on the red list, but an exciting new restaurant is offering Londoners a slice of authentic Buenos Aires right in the heart of Soho.

Two decades after opening the original Sucre in the Argentine capital, chef Fernando Trocca (formerly of high-end UK steak chain Gaucho) and bartender Renato “Tato” Giovannon have launched a London instalment of their acclaimed eatery.

As Sucre is widely considered one of Buenos Aires’ best food spots and has twice been featured in Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants, there has been considerable buzz around Trocca and Tato’s new joint since it opened in July.

The space

Sucre and its new cocktail bar, Alma, occupy a 310-year-old building just down the road from luxury department store Liberty and a stone’s throw from Oxford Circus underground station. After entering the main door, you find yourself in a swanky but dimly lit reception area which doesn’t quite prepare you for the majesty of the dining room it leads on to.

The restaurant - which was designed by Japanese architect Noriyoshi Muramatsu - has no natural light but you’re barely aware of this thanks to its extraordinarily high ceilings (it was formerly the London College of Music’s concert hall) and stunning chandeliers which are made up of more than a thousand cut-glass decanters.

An open kitchen at the back of the room, which features a wood oven and enormous “parilla” (grill), give the cavernous space a homely, relaxed feel.

Open fire cooking is at the heart of Sucre’s concept, along with the use of seasonal ingredients (the menu changes regularly). Dishes are cooked over charcoal, Argie-style, using embers rather than live flames. “We are open-minded about the flavours, ingredients and influences we work with but less open-minded about how they should be treated on fire” say Trocca and Tato, who are long-term friends.

The food

Sucre’s à la carte food menu begins with a small selection of reasonably-priced empanadas (what else would you expect from an Argentinian restaurant?) and chorizo criollo, another traditional dish.

A mixture of vegetarian, pescatarian and meaty “small plates” act as starters; my dining companion and I shared a Dorset crab “tostada” (toasted tortilla) which came with avocado and a deliciously smokey tatemada salsa, and an Insta-friendly salad made of golden and deep purple beetroot, cumin, yoghurt and orange.

Mains are split into two sections: fire and stove. Wanting to try one dish from each, we opted for the monkfish tail (which was coated in an umami seafood sauce and served with black beans) and Sucre’s speciality: veal osso bucco (slow-braised veal shanks) which sat upon a vibrant, melt-in-the-mouth saffron risotto. Our side of tomatoes, capers and onions was simple but its crisp tanginess perfectly offset the rich flavours of the monkfish and veal.

Guests may be surprised to find just one steak option on the menu (when we visited, it was an 800g bone-in ribeye to share) - but this feels like a conscious decision by Trocca to widen Londoners’ perception of his country’s diverse culinary scene.

Dessert helped Sucre live up to its sweet namesake; we sampled a citrusy pavlova made with fig leaf and a decadent dulce de leche fondant. Neither were quite as stand-out as our mains, but were pleasant enough to end our experience with.

The drinks

We enjoyed browsing through the creative cocktail list, which features charming illustrations, before settling on a Membrillo Bellini (sparkling wine, fig leaf liquor, quince and wild honey) and Sucre’s expert take on a classic Bloody Mary which was made with fresh tomatoes and red peppers cooked on the grill.

Our attentive waiter helped us choose a wine that would go well with our food choices (an in-house sommelier is also on hand for advice). He suggested a crisp Argentinian La Cayetana Criolla Blanca which contained notes of honey, apple and citrus, and was a perfect accompaniment to our meal.

A wider selection of drinks can be found in the basement bar, Alma. There, cocktails are mainly served on underlit neon coasters, contrasting with the space’s dark, moody interior.

The verdict

The restaurant opened less than three months ago but you wouldn’t know it - it was almost at full capacity when I visited and the service was impeccable.

With all of mainland South America firmly on the red list, the prospect of visiting Argentina is out of the question - at least for the time being. With its explosive, authentic flavours, Sucre is the perfect spot for some alternative tastebud travelling, no passport required.

Sucre, 47 Great Marlborough Street, London W1F 7JP; sucrerestaurant.com

Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s dreams of a second term are fading in the wake of his heavy defeat in the country’s primary elections this weekend.

The vote, a “forerunner to October’s presidential election”, resulted in a landslide victory for Alberto Fernandez, a centre-left populist who has former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as his running mate, The Times reports.

Fernandez won 48% of the vote, a 15.5-point lead over Macri, whose austerity programmes have proved extremely unpopular among Argentine citizens since he came to power in 2015.

Speaking after the results were announced, Macri appeared undaunted, saying: “Recognising that we have had a bad election, that forces us, starting tomorrow, to redouble our efforts so that in October we will get the support that is needed to continue the change.”

However, the BBC reports that analysts say his chances of beating Fernandez in the presidential election in October now look very slim.

What are Argentinians voting on?

Prior to presidential elections, Argentina holds a primary election - known by its abbreviation Paso - in order to choose which candidates make the ballot on 27 October.

To qualify for the general election, tickets must receive more than 1.5% in the Paso, which was introduced in 2009 to cut down the number of candidates in the race, says debate forum Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA).

The Paso is also seen as a litmus test for public opinion in the South American country, where voting is mandatory for citizens over the age of 18.

In the general election in late October, citizens will choose the president and vice president, as well as nearly half of the country’s congressional seats and a number of governorships.

A presidential candidate wins the race if he or she attracts 45% of the vote (or 40% with a ten-percentage-point lead). If no candidate reaches this benchmark, a run-off vote will be scheduled for 24 November.

Who are the main candidates?

Macri, the incumbent president, is the pro-business leader of the centre-right Propuesta Republicana (Republican Proposal) party, itself part of the wider Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change) coalition. He is fighting for a second term, but faces an uphill battle.

Deutsche Welle reports that despite attempting to tackle a sluggish economy by promoting an ambitious “zero inflation” campaign pledge, Macri has overseen a dramatic decline in Argentina’s economic fortunes. Last year, inflation hit 50% and the peso lost half of its value against the dollar.

In response to the crisis, Macri struck a controversial $55bn (£45.5bn) deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial support, but in return has initiated a “painful” austerity programme that has been blamed for helping to push 35% of the population below the poverty line, says the German newspaper.

His main rival, Fernandez, heads the left-wing Partido Justicialista (Justicialist Party), is often described by experts as “Peronist”.

Named after former Argentine president Juan Peron and his wife Eva, Peronism is a loosely defined cross-spectrum ideology that juxtaposes elements of nationalism and populism, pushing major social welfare reforms aimed at helping the country’s working class, and encouraging “cooperation between businesses and labour”, says Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Fernandez has “not clearly outlined what his economic policies will be”, but is a “staunch critic” of Macri’s IMF deal, according to the BBC.

Speaking after the primary vote, Fernandez took a populist stance focusing on change.

“We are confident that Argentina needed to end with this chapter and start another page,” he told his supporters. “I am confident that today Argentines have started to write another story.”

An Argentinian police officer has become a viral sensation after she was photographed breastfeeding a malnourished baby.

The six-month-old girl was the youngest of six siblings brought to Sor Maria Ludovica children's hospital, where officer Celeste Ayala was on patrol.

The children, who had been removed from their drug-addicted parents by social workers, were dirty and malnourished when they were admitted last Tuesday night. Several were suffering from scabies, Argentinian daily Clarin reports.

Hearing the infant crying for food while waiting to be seen by doctors moved Ayala, who has a baby daughter of her own, and she spontaneously volunteered to breastfeed the hungry child.

Ayala told local media that the baby calmed down immediately when she began to feed her, with the permission of social workers.

“Later, when they told me she was malnourished, I thought: ‘how long has it been since she had eaten?’,” she said, adding that she initially mistook the baby for a boy due to its clothing but had since learned the infant was a girl.

An image of Ayala coming to the aid of the neglected child has been shared on Facebook more than 110,000 times.

On Friday, she was invited to meet Buenos Aires police chief Cristian Ritondo, where she was informed that she is to be promoted to the rank of sergeant in recognition of her quick-thinking compassion.

“We wanted to thank you in person for that gesture of spontaneous love that managed to calm the baby's cry,” he said in a tweet.

Despite the outpouring of positivity and praise her actions have attracted in Argentina and around the world, Ayala says that she has not lost sight of the tragedy behind her much-publicised good deed.

“I was sad because of the situation that was happening to the kids, and I thought about the girls that I have at home,” she said. “Sometimes you complain about such little things and those kids who have nothing are suffering.”

The infant remains in hospital, along with two of her siblings, while the other three have been moved to a children’s home.

Turkey’s currency crisis could be about to go global, leading to a rout in emerging markets that would have a devasting effect on the world economy.

The Turkish lira has fallen 40% against the dollar in recent months, driven by a diplomatic row with the West and current account deficit that has triggered a currency meltdown.

The plunge in the Turkish lira has set off a wave of selling across emerging market assets, “reviving fears of contagion that has been the sector’s Achilles heel for decades”, says Reuters.

Earlier this week India’s currency fell to an all-time low, reaching 70 rupees against the US dollar, while the South African rand and the Argentinian peso have also seen big drops in recent days.

The devaluation of the rupee has led to fears the Fragile Five economies, comprising of Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey which overly rely on growth fuelled by foreign investment, “may be again treated as one asset class by investors [which] could trigger further capital flight from the countries, sparking a contagion that could spread throughout global markets”, says the Daily Telegraph.

“The timing couldn’t be worse for emerging markets” says Market Watch, with many already struggling with the prospect of trade wars, as well as a strengthening US dollar and rising US interest rates.

Highlighting the “spreading turbulence” among emerging markets, the Financial Times says Indonesia’s central bank reportedly intervened to support the rupiah, while Argentina’s central bank unexpectedly lifted its main interest rate by another 5 percentage points to 45%. The unexpected rise came after the Argentine peso had fallen for a sixth consecutive day to hit a record low against the dollar.

Some analysts believe differences between the Fragile Five economies make widespread contagion less likely, with Christian Maggio, head of EM strategy TD Securities, describing the Turkey crisis as “largely idiosyncratic”.

But even idiosyncratic problems can cause a chain of dominoes to fall, warned Scott Minerd, global chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners, who called on investors not to be complacent.

Argentina’s Senate has rejected a bill to legalise elective abortion, following a bitterly contentious debate in the predominantly Catholic country.

Senators debated for more than 15 hours before eventually voting down the proposal 38 to 31, with two abstentions and one absentee.

The measure had already passed Argentina’s lower house of Congress, and President Mauricio Macri had said he would sign it if the Bill was approved by the Senate.

Current laws only allow the procedure in cases of rape or when the mother’s health is at risk. The Bill would have expanded abortion rights to allow women to end a pregnancy by choice within the first 14 weeks.

According to activists who supported the proposal, the Catholic Church is responsible for the outcome of the vote.

“The Church put pressure on senators to vote against the Bill,” Ana Correa, a member of the #NiUnaMenos (“Not one woman less”) feminist movement told The Guardian.

During the debate, conservative Senator Mario Fiad called abortion a “tragedy” and said he opposed the legislation, arguing that it was “unconstitutional”.

“The right to life is about to become the weakest of rights,” he said.

But opposition Senator Pedro Guastavino said that while he was initially against the proposal, he had changed his mind after learning about the extent to which illegal abortions are putting lives at risk.

“The only way to understand this is through the point of view of public health,” said Guastavino.

The issue has bitterly divided Argentinians, “pitting conservative doctors and the Roman Catholic Church against feminist groups and other physicians”, says The Sydney Morning Herald.

Anti-abortion activist Victoria Osuna told Reuters that the rejection of the Bill showed that “Argentina is still a country that represents family values”.

However, Celia Szusterman, director of the Latin America programme at the London-based Institute for Statecraft, told CNN that is was “a step backward for women’s rights and women’s health”.

She said it was a “sad day... not only because of the way the vote went but the way the campaign for and against went. It was so divisive.”

Despite the setback, campaigners still believe that Argentina will have legalise abortion eventually.

Mariela Belski, Argentina’s Amnesty International director, told The Guardian: “A survey we did this year showed 60% support for an abortion law.”

Argentinin journalist Silvina Marquez added: “We might not have a law today, but it is going to happen. Argentina is not going back to this, it is important for the women, especially for the young women. So sooner or later we’ll have an abortion law.”

This time it was the finger, not the hand, that stunned the football world as Diego Maradona suffered what The Sun described as “a meltdown” during Argentina’s tense 2-1 World Cup win over Nigeria in St Petersburg.

The victory ensured the South Americans’ passage into the last 16, and a showdown with France on Saturday, but it appeared to be all too much for the pint-sized genius.

At the 1986 World Cup it was Maradona’s “Hand of God” that eliminated England from the tournament but when Marcos Rojo scored the winner for Argentina five minutes from time, the 57-year-old was “caught on TV lunging forwards from his executive box seat and giving opposing fans below ‘the finger’ with both hands”.

Gary Lineker, who played in the 1986 encounter, said later on the BBC that Maradona had let himself down by his reaction and “there’s a danger of him becoming a laughing stock, I’m afraid, in many ways”.

Minutes after Maradona’s wild celebrations he appeared to collapse and he had to be helped from his seat to the hospitality suite at St Petersburg’s Zenit Arena.

Medical staff checked his pulse and reports claim that he was taken to hospital in the city for precautionary checks where, according to the Sun, a “preliminary diagnosis later confirmed he had high blood pressure and a heart murmur”.

That didn’t stop him boarding a private jet for a flight to Moscow in the early hours, a suitably bizarre end to a bizarre evening.

Maradona later said he was “fine” after seeing the doctor, the BBC reports. He posted on social media: “I want to tell everyone that I am fine. I was checked by a doctor and he recommended me to go home before the second half, but I wanted to stay because we were risking it all. How could I leave?”

Despite the drama of Argentina’s 2-1 win, which saw Nigeria level from the penalty spot in the second half after Lionel Messi had scored his first goal of the tournament on 14 minutes, Maradona appeared to doze off several times during the match.

Argentina call off Israel friendly

Saturday’s controversial friendly match between Israel and Argentina has been cancelled.

The match was to be played in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Malha, but the BBC reports that Argentina were under pressure to cancel the game because of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

Argentina were going to use the fixture as a warm-up for this month’s World Cup. ESPN reports that the squad’s training camp in Barcelona was marred by “threats to the team” over the Israel game.

This week the Spanish newspaper Marca reported that Palestinian Football Federation president Jibril Rajoub had called on Arab and Muslim fans to “burn shirts and images” of Argentina and Barcelona star Lionel Messi if he attended the game in Israel.

Rajoub said: “Don’t come Messi, don’t be the mask for the face of racism.”

In response to the decision to cancel the game, Argentine Football Association vice president Hugo Moyano told Radio 10: “I think it’s a good thing that the match between Argentina and Israel was suspended.

“The right thing was done, it’s not worth it. The stuff that happens in those places, where they kill so many people, as a human being you can’t accept that in any way. The players’ families were suffering due to the threats.”

Argentina striker Gonzalo Higuain told ESPN: “They’ve finally done the right thing.”

Rose tells family to stay at home

Tottenham and England defender Danny Rose has told his “heartbroken” family not to travel to the World Cup finals over fears of racism in Russia.

In an interview with the London Evening Standard, Rose says he feels “numb to racism” and has hit out at Fifa for not doing enough to combat the issue. In March Fifa fined Russia £22,000 after fans chanted racist abuse at France players – a punishment described as “laughable” by Rose.

He told the Standard: “I’m not worried for myself. But I’ve told my family I don’t want them going out there because of racism and anything else that may ­happen. I don’t want to be worrying [for my family’s safety] when I’m trying to prepare for games.

“If anything ­happens to me, it wouldn’t affect me like it would if my family had been abused. I’m fine with whatever may or may not happen, and I like to think I’ll be able to deal with it in the right way.”

Meet Costa Rica’s Celso Borges…

Sky Sports believes it has found the World Cup’s most interesting player – Costa Rica midfielder Celso Borges.

The Deportivo La Coruna player, who is 30, is the son of a national icon – Costa Rica 1990 World Cup star Alexandre Guimaraes. He is also the drummer in a heavy metal band, Sky reports.

Borges has been described as “the brain of Costa Rica” because of his ability to speak four languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese and Swedish.

He does have one flaw: his cooking skills. Borges’s best friend Renato Coto said: “He’s very clumsy with his hands, sometimes when he helps to cook he cuts himself.”

Messi: we will give it our all in Russia

Lionel Messi has played down Argentina’s chances of winning the World Cup but says the squad will go to Russia and “give it our all”.

The Argentines only qualified for the World Cup after Messi’s sublime hat-trick secured a 3-1 victory in the must-win match against Ecuador last October. Then, on 28 March, their preparations took a major hit when they were thrashed 6-1 by Spain in Madrid.

Messi hit another treble for his country in the 4-0 friendly win against Haiti last night. After the match the Barcelona star admitted his side were not tipped to lift the trophy in Moscow but were working hard ahead of the finals.

Quoted by the BBC, he said: “We’re not going as favourites but will give it our all. More than the result we were able to say goodbye to our fans. We had a complicated time in the qualifiers, but we are training well.”

Argentina face Iceland in their first World Cup group D game on 16 June followed by matches against Croatia on 21 June and Nigeria on 26 June.

VAR to issue ‘retrospective red cards’ at World Cup

The International Football Association Board (Ifab) has confirmed that the video assistant referee (VAR) can issue a red card for off-the-ball incidents missed by on-field officials.

The Guardian reports that VAR will be used for the first time at a World Cup this summer. Thirteen dedicated officials have been selected by Fifa.

David Elleray, Ifab’s technical director, told The Times: “If there is something away from the action that has been missed and it later comes to the attention of the VAR or the assistant VAR, then they can inform the referee and he can send the player off, even if it is later in the match. We do not anticipate this happening very often… this would only be for serious red-card offences.”

No holding back in Germany training

The Germany squad is training hard ahead of their World Cup title defence in Russia – almost too hard judging by some of the challenges.

The Daily Mail reports that after a strong tackle by Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger on Bayern Munich’s Joshua Kimmich the duo had to be separated as they squared up to each other. ESPN also adds that PSG midfielder Julian Draxler was floored by an accidental elbow from Manchester City’s Leroy Sane. Germany head coach Joachim Low will name his final 23-man squad before 4 June.

Peru beat young Scotland side

Peru continued their World Cup preparations with a 2-0 victory against an inexperienced Scotland in Lima last night. Christian Cueva opened the scoring with a penalty after 37 minutes before Jefferson Farfan doubled Peru’s lead with a second two minutes after half-time. The South Americans have two final World Cup warm-up matches – against Saudi Arabia in Switzerland on Sunday and then against Sweden on 9 June in Gothenburg.

Marcos Rojo’s 86th-minute volley saved Argentina’s blushes and sent them into the World Cup knockout stages.

The two-time winners looked on the brink of elimination but secured their spot in the round of 16 after beating Nigeria 2-1 to finish second in group D. Table-toppers Croatia who won 2-1 against Iceland.

Argentina star Lionel Messi opened the scoring after 14 minutes but Victor Moses equalised for Nigeria with a penalty six minutes after the interval.

With four minutes left Rojo volleyed home to send the Argentina fans wild and his team into the last-16 where they will meet France on 30 June in Kazan. Croatia will face Denmark in Nizhny Novgorod on 1 July.

Rojo told the BBC: “We needed it, now the World Cup begins for us. Lionel Messi had told the guys he was going to score a goal more than ever. The goal is for my family and for this group that deserves it. Let’s go Argentina!”

Croatia’s win means they won nine points out of nine while second-placed Argentina finished on four points. Nigeria were third with three points and Iceland finished bottom with one point from three matches.

Group D results

• Argentina 1 Iceland 1
• Croatia 2 Nigeria 0
• Argentina 0 Croatia 3
• Nigeria 2 Iceland 0
• Iceland 1 Croatia 2
• Nigeria 1 Argentina 2

Group D team profiles

Argentina

• Head coach: Jorge Sampaoli
• Fifa ranking: 5
• Number of World Cup appearances: 16
• Best finish: champions in 1978 and 1986
• Player to watch: Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

Argentina World Cup results

• Argentina 1 Iceland 1
• Argentina 0 Croatia 3
• Nigeria 1 Argentina 2

Argentina 23-man squad

• Goalkeepers: Willy Caballero (Chelsea), Franco Armani (River Plate), Nahuel Guzman (Tigres)
• Defenders: Gabriel Mercado (Sevilla), Federico Fazio (Roma), Nicolas Otamendi (Manchester City), Marcos Rojo (Manchester United), Nicolas Taglafico (Ajax), Javier Mascherano (Hebei Fortune), Marcos Acuna (Sporting Lisbon), Cristian Ansaldi (Torino)
• Midfielders: Ever Banega (Sevilla), Lucas Biglia (AC Milan), Angel Di Maria (Paris St-Germain), Giovani Lo Celso (Paris St-Germain), Cristian Pavon (Boca Juniors), Maximiliano Meza (Independiente), Eduardo Salvio (Benfica), Enzo Perez (River Plate)
• Forwards: Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Gonzalo Higuain (Juventus), Paulo Dybala (Juventus), Sergio Aguero (Manchester City)

Iceland

• Head coach: Heimir Hallgrimsson
• Fifa ranking: 22
• Number of World Cup appearances: none
• Best finish: 2018 is Iceland’s debut
• Player to watch: Gylfi Sigurdsson (Everton)

Iceland World Cup results

• Argentina 1 Iceland 1
• Nigeria 2 Iceland 0
• Iceland 1 Croatia 2

Iceland 23-man squad

• Goalkeepers: Hannes Thor Halldorsson (Randers FC), Runar Alex Runarsson (FC Nordsjælland), Frederik Schram (FC Roskilde)
• Defenders: Kari Arnason (Vikingur), Ari Freyr Skulason (Lokeren), Birkir Mar Saevarsson (Valur), Sverrir Ingi Ingason (FC Rostov), Hordur Magnusson (CSKA Moscow), Holmar Orn Eyjolfsson (Levski Sofia), Ragnar Sigurdsson (FC Rostov)
• Midfielders: Johann Berg Gudmundsson (Burnley), Birkir Bjarnason (Aston Villa), Arnor Ingvi Traustason (Malmo FF), Emil Hallfredsson (Udinese), Gylfi Sigurdsson (Everton), Olafur Ingi Skulason (Kardemir Karabukspor), Rurik Gislason (SV Sandhausen), Samuel Fridjonsson (Valerenga), Aron Gunnarsson (Cardiff City)
• Forwards: Alfred Finnbogason (Augsburg), Bjorn Bergmann Sigurdarson (FC Rostov), Jon Dadi Bodvarsson (Reading), Albert Gudmundsson (PSV Eindhoven)

Croatia

• Head coach: Zlatko Dalic
• Fifa ranking: 18
• Number of World Cup appearances: four
• Best finish: third place in 1998
• Player to watch: Luka Modric (Real Madrid)

Croatia World Cup results

• Croatia 2 Nigeria 0
• Argentina 0 Croatia 3
• Iceland 1 Croatia 2

Croatia 23-man squad

• Goalkeepers: Danijel Subasic (Monaco), Lovre Kalinic (Gent), Dominik Livakovic (Dinamo Zagreb)
• Defenders: Vedran Corluka (Lokomotiv Moscow), Domagoj Vida (Besiktas), Ivan Strinic (Milan), Dejan Lovren (Liverpool), Sime Vrsaljko (Atletico Madrid), Josip Pivaric (Dynamo Kiev), Tin Jedvaj (Bayer Leverkusen), Duje Caleta-Car (Red Bull Salzburg)
• Midfielders: Luka Modric (Real Madrid), Ivan Rakitic (Barcelona), Mateo Kovacic (Real Madrid), Milan Badelj (Fiorentina), Marcelo Brozovic (Inter Milan), Filip Bradaric (Rijeka)
• Forwards: Mario Mandzukic (Juventus), Ivan Perisic (Inter Milan), Nikola Kalinic (AC Milan), Andrej Kramaric (Hoffenheim), Marko Pjaca (Juventus), Ante Rebic (Fiorentina)

Nigeria

• Head coach: Gernot Rohr
• Fifa ranking: 47
• Number of World Cup appearances: five
• Best finish: round of 16 in 1994, 1998 and 2014
• Player to watch: John Obi Mikel (Tianjin TEDA)

Nigeria World Cup results

• Croatia 2 Nigeria 0
• Nigeria 2 Iceland 0
• Nigeria 1 Argentina 2

Nigeria 23-man squad

• Goalkeepers: Francis Uzoho (Deportivo La Coruna), Ikechukwu Ezenwa (Enyimba), Daniel Akpeyi (Chippa United)
• Defenders: William Troost-Ekong (Bursaspor), Abdullahi Shehu (Bursaspor), Tyronne Ebuehi (Benfica), Elderson Echiejile (Cercle Brugge), Bryan Idowu (Amkar Perm), Chidozie Awaziem (Porto), Leon Balogun (Brighton), Kenneth Omeruo (Chelsea)
• Midfielders: John Obi Mikel (Tianjin Teda), Ogenyi Onazi (Trabzonspor), Wilfred Ndidi (Leicester), Oghenekaro Etebo (CD Feirense), John Ogu (Hapoel Be'er Sheva), Joel Obi (Torino, Italy)
• Forwards: Ahmed Musa (Leicester), Kelechi Iheanacho (Leicester), Victor Moses (Chelsea), Odion Ighalo (Changchun Yatai), Alex Iwobi (Arsenal), Simeon Nwankwo (Crotone)

Argentina’s 23-man squad for the Fifa World Cup will feature a strong attacking line-up that includes Barcelona’s star striker Lionel Messi and Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero.

Juventus duo Paulo Dybala and Gonzalo Higuain are also in the national squad for the finals in Russia, but Inter Milan star striker Mauro Icardi will miss out.

Although Icardi finished the season as joint top-scorer in Italy’s Serie A, that was not enough to see him selected by Argentina coach Jorge Sampaoli to join “one of the most potent strike forces heading to Russia”, says The Independent.

Sky Sports reports that Aguero is one of six Premier League players selected by Sampaoli. The others are Aguero’s Manchester City teammate Nicolas Otamendi, Manchester United duo Sergio Romero and Marcos Rojo, West Ham’s Manuel Lanzini and Chelsea’s Willy Caballero.

Announcing his squad line-up, Sampaoli said that Argentina’s star player, Messi, is “ready” for the finals. According to Goal.com, Sampaoli said: “I’ve talked to Messi and I [found] him very excited about what’s coming, physically he’s in a good moment.”

Argentina are in World Cup group D with Iceland, Croatia and Nigeria.

Argentina World Cup squad

• Goalkeepers: Sergio Romero (Manchester United), Willy Caballero (Chelsea), Franco Armani (River Plate)
• Defenders: Cristian Ansaldi (Torino), Gabriel Mercado (Sevilla), Federico Fazio (Roma), Marcos Rojo (Manchester United), Nicolas Otamendi (Manchester City), Marcos Acuna (Sporting Lisbon)
• Midfielders: Javier Mascherano (Hebei China Fortune), Maximiliano Meza (Independiente), Angel Di Maria (PSG), Manuel Lanzini (West Ham), Giovani Lo Celso (PSG), Ever Banega (Sevilla), Lucas Biglia (AC Milan), Eduardo Salvio (Benfica), Cristian Pavon (Boca Juniors)
• Forwards: Paulo Dybala (Juventus), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Gonzalo Higuain (Juventus), Sergio Aguero (Manchester City)

The Argentine Football Association has scored an own goal by handing journalists heading to the World Cup in Russia a manual with a chapter about “how to stand a chance with a Russian girl”.

The advice in the handbook, given out to reporters, players and coaches during a free course about the Russian culture, includes: “Make sure you’re clean, smell good and dress well.”

Russian woman “don’t like to be seen as objects”, the guide says, adding: “Because Russian women are beautiful many men only want to sleep with them... the advice is to treat the woman in front of you as if she is someone of value.”

The so-called flirting manual has caused an “outcry” on social media, with the national football assocation, or AFA, criticised for its “sexist” depiction of Russian women, the BBC reports.

The AFA released a statement on Wednesday insisting that the material was included accidentally and that it does not represent the views of the federation.

‘‘An internal investigation... concluded that part of the material was printed in error,’’ said the statement.

‘‘[The manual] does not reflect the thinking of the AFA, nor its president, Claudio Tapia, nor any of its directors.’’

Tapia visited Russia House, a cultural institute, in Buenos Aires on Wednesday to personally apologise for the gaffe.

The incident comes just months after thousands of activists marched through the streets of the city to protest against “rampant sexism and demanding an end to violence against women”, says the BBC.

The flirting advice was reportedly taken from a blog about Russian women, adds The Sydney Morning Herald.

News emerged today that the Argentine navy has called off its attempts to rescue 44 crew members on board a submarine that went missing two weeks ago.

“Despite the magnitude of the efforts made, it has not been possible to locate the submarine,” navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said yesterday.

The ARA San Juan’s oxygen reserves were estimated to have run out over a week ago, extinguishing almost all hope of finding the crew alive.

However, reports of a “suspected explosion” near the craft’s last-known location have sparked numerous theories about what could have happened to the submarine.

Battery failure

Before going missing, the ARA San Juan had experienced issues relating to its battery, reports Sky News.

Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi told reporters that the captain of the submarine said water had entered the battery compartment through the vessel’s snorkel while its batteries were being changed.

State television in Argentina reported that the last communication from the crew revealed a leak of sea water had caused a short circuit and “the beginnings of a fire” in the batteries, the Daily Telegraph writes, but adds that the Argentine navy refused to comment on this theory.

The Washington Post theorises that the battery may have exploded, “inflicting critical damage”.

Torpedo explosion

Another theory revolves around the ARA San Juan’s arsenal of torpedos, which the San Francisco Gate hypothesises might have exploded while still attached to the sub.

This would be a similar fate to Russia’s K-141 Kursk submarine, which sank in the Barents Sea in 2000 after a fire caused by a faulty weld detonated eight of its torpedos simultaneously. The explosion killed all 118 crewmen and was registered on Richter scales as far away as Alaska.

Hydroacoustic engineer Mario Zampolli, who is conducting a search of the marine area for clues, told Nature.com that this may have occurred on the ARA San Juan, but adds that it is hard to prove that the sound recorded shortly after the craft disappeared was an explosion of that nature.

“The fact that it was detected with a good signal-to-noise ratio at Ascension [Island] — 6,000 to 8,000 kilometres away from the source — means it must have been fairly loud. Some aspects of the signal are consistent with what has been seen in explosions before. But it is really very difficult to say that this was an explosion.”

Crush depth

Another possible cause is that the ARA San Juan may have sunk below its “crush depth”, or “collapse depth”, at which point “its structure (would) not be able to withstand the water pressure”, writes the Straits Times.

The “crush depth” of most submarines is classified, but CNN reports that a modern submarine may begin to struggle at depths of around 500-600m below sea level. The ARA San Juan search location lies on the edge of the continental shelf, where ocean depths vary, but reach as deep as 3,000m.

“If a submarine goes below its crush-depth, it would implode, it would just collapse,” James H Patton Jr, a retired navy captain, told the Straits Times.

“It would sound like a very, very big explosion to any listening device.”

Attack from other craft

The most unlikely of the scenarios theorised, there was quiet speculation that the ARA San Juan may have sunk after being attacked by a foreign submarine.

In a new meeting with the press last week, Argentinean navy spokesman Enrique Balbi stated that he had no reason to believe the ARA San Juan was attacked, writes the Guardian, but with limited evidence, Balbi did not entirely rule it out.

The Argentine navy has announced it will scale back the rescue mission for its submarine, the ARA San Juan, which has been missing since 15 November with 44 crew on board.

“Despite the magnitude of the effort made it has not been possible to locate the submarine,” navy captain Enrique Balbi said. “No one will be rescued.”

Balbi said that after extending the mission to “more than double the number of days than it would have been possible to rescue the crew”, the search for the submarine would be scaled back to the area where the submarine was thought to have vanished, in waters of up to 500 metres deep.

“Relatives of the crew are bitter at the amount of misleading misinformation they received from the government in an apparent attempt to keep their hopes alive in the first few days after the submarine disappeared,” The Guardian says.

Several families have told local media that they are planning legal action against the Argentinian government, and one family member has already travelled to speak to the judge in charge of investigating the incident.

The submarine is thought to have broken up shortly after reporting a “short circuit” in the vessel’s batteries. “Water had entered the submarine’s snorkel, which can be used to take in air from above the surface when the submarine is submerged,” the BBC says.

The ARA San Juan was ordered back to port, before the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organisation detected a “hydro-acoustic anomaly”, which the navy says could be the noise of the submarine imploding.

Argentina have sacked coach Edgardo Bauza after only eight months in charge as last season's beaten Copa America finalists look in danger of failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

With only four games left to qualify, Argentina lie fifth in the South American group, with a record of three wins, three defeats and two draws under Bauza. Only the top four gain automatic entry, with the fifth-placed team facing a play-off against a team from Oceania.

Argentina's remaining games are away against third-placed Uruguay and at home against lowly Peru and Venezuela, while the final match, against Ecuador at high altitude in Quito, could be decisive. Ecuador are currently sixth in the qualifying ladder, just two points behind the Albiceleste.

Just as worrying for Argentina is that Lionel Messi, who Bauza talked out of international retirement after the Copa America defeat last year, is expected to be suspended for three of those games. And although Peru and Venezuela do not pose much of a threat on paper, Argentina drew against both under Bauza and also lost at home to Paraguay.

"Bauza's final match was a 2-0 defeat in Bolivia, which came hours after captain Lionel Messi was given a four-match ban for verbally abusing an official," reports the BBC. "Argentina have four games left in qualifying, with their next match against third-placed Uruguay on 31 August. They last failed to qualify for a World Cup in 1970."

Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli, who masterminded Chile's run to the last 16 of the 2014 World Cup and victory in the Copa America in 2015, is favourite to take over.

Chiqui Tapia, head of the Argentine football association, "will now fly to Europe to attempt to convince Jorge Sampaoli to replace the hapless Bauza", says The Independent.

The delegation will also talk to Messi, says the paper, and hold talks with Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone, although he "is not thought to be interested in a full-time international role".

Lionel Messi has paid for his potty mouth with a four-match ban. The Barcelona striker was informed of the suspension just hours before Argentina's World Cup qualifier against Bolivia on Tuesday evening, a punishment that included a £8,100 fine.

That's small change for the South American superstar but the ban will hurt both him and his country, and Argentina's 2-0 defeat against Bolivia - coupled with Chile's 3-1 victory over Venezuela in their qualifying match - drops them to fifth in the Conmebol qualifying pool. The nations that finish in the top four qualify for next year's World Cup in Russia while the team in fifth plays off against their Oceania counterpart.

The BBC says that Messi was hit with the ban for directing "insulting words" at an assistant referee in Thursday's 1-0 victory over Chile. The 29-year-old Argentina captain scored the tie's only goal but that evidently didn't do much for his temper, and he was seen losing his rag when he was flagged by the assistant Marcelo van Gasse.

According to Argentine newspaper, Ole, match referee Sandro Ricci said he was unaware that Messi had insulted any official during the match and didn't mention the incident in his original report.

But according to Goal.com Messi went mad in the second half when Van Gasse ruled that he'd committed a foul, directing a foul-mouthed tirade at the official, insulting his mother. He still was still smouldering at the end of the match and refused to shake Van Gasse's hand.

After studying television footage of the confrontation, Fifa intervened on Monday and insisted that a Conmebol disciplinary panel investigate the incident. "If I had heard any offensive word, I would have acted in according the rules of the game," said Ricci, when asked why he'd overlooked the contretemps.

He did award a controversial penalty to Argentina, however, after adjudging Angel di Maria to have been pushed in the area, and Messi duly scored the spot kick.

Messi can appeal against the ban to Fifa but as it stands he will sit out the World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay, Venezuela and Peru in the stands, presumably cursing his misfortune.

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A bribery scandal which brought down one Brazilian president now threatens the political future of leaders across the continent.

What is the scandal?

Investigators have uncovered a secret "bribery department" at Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht that oversaw £641m of corrupt payouts to politicians and political parties across Latin America, reports The Guardian.

The investigation, using plea deals and leaked documents, follows the so-called "Car Wash" corruption scandal which led to the impeachment of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff last year.

Through the testimonies of 77 senior Odebrecht executives, including former boss Marcelo Odebrecht, the full extent of the corrupt system and the identities of those who benefited from it are slowly coming to light.

Who is implicated?

Brazil's current president, Michel Temer, and Panama's Juan Carlos Varela Rodriguez have both been accused of taking campaign funds from Odebrecht, while a federal judge in Argentina is trying to determine whether the head of the country's spy agency took a £481,000 bribe from the company. All three deny wrongdoing.

Perhaps the most surprising accusations came last week, "when authorities implicated two men who have based their political careers on a reputation for integrity in countries plagued by graft", says the Guardian.

On Friday, Peru sent out an Interpol arrest warrant for its former president, Alejandro Toledo, on charges of taking £16m in bribes. In Colombia, the chief prosecutor has said Nobel peace prize-winning President Juan Manuel Santos may have taken money for his reelection campaign from Odebrecht. Both men have strongly denied the charges.

Is there more still to come out?

Earlier this year, Odebrecht agreed to pay £2.8bn to authorities in Switzerland, the US and Brazil to settle the case. However, "many in Latin America and beyond believe that agreement could mark just the beginning of efforts to unravel a complex and entrenched network of corruption", says the Guardian, with few counties where the company operated immune.

Quarter-final weekend in the Rugby World Cup served up a sensational mix of drama, dexterity and damned bad luck but the outcome is that no northern hemisphere nation is in the semi-final.

It's the first time in the 28-year history of the tournament that the semi-finalists all hail from the southern hemisphere, and while no one would deny the right of New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina to be in the last four, Scotland woke this morning wondering might have been.

Four years ago in New Zealand, the Scots failed to make it out of the group stage for the first time and in this season's Six Nations they finished last with five defeats. But coach Vern Cotter, their taciturn New Zealand coach, has worked wonders with the Scots in the last six months and they almost pulled off an extraordinary feat in beating Australia.

The second favourites, who have beaten England and Wales in successive weekends, were expected to make short work of the Scots, and they began yesterday's quarter-final in blistering fashion, running in their first try through Adam Ashley-Cooper in the right-hand corner.

But the Scots were in no mood to roll over and, in one of the great World Cup encounters, scored three tries of their own. The last, an interception try by Mark Bennett seven minutes from time, looked to have secured the Scots a semi-final place for the first time since 1991.

But with barely a minute left on the clock, referee Craig Joubert controversially penalised Scotland for a deliberate offside, even though TV replays suggested the ball had come off an Australian. Wallaby fly-half Bernard Foley - who had suffered an indifferent day with his place-kicking - kept his cool to kick the three points and secure his side a 35-34 victory.

"I don't know if I've got ice-cool nerves, I'd rather not be kicking them right at the death," reflected Foley. "There is a lot of character in this side. Even when we were behind with five minutes to go, we knew we had a chance."

Social media reacted with fury to Joubert's decision to award the last-minute penalty, reports the Daily Telegraph, and he did his cause no favours by sprinting from the field seconds after blowing the final whistle. But the Scotland players were more philosophical with scrum-half and captain Greig Laidlaw, admitting: "It's something we could have controlled from the line-out [but] it's the toughest defeat I've ever had to take."

Wales showed similar courage against South Africa in their quarter-final on Saturday, but a try on 75 minutes from Springboks captain Fourie du Preez proved decisive as the Welsh went down 23-19. Wales' fly-half Dan Biggar scored 14 points and created the opening for Gareth Davies to score his fifth try of the tournament, but it wasn't quite enough against a South African side who meet New Zealand next Saturday at Twickenham.

The All Blacks will be favourites to progress to the final after their nine-try demolition of France in Cardiff. The French, who had upset the Kiwis in two previous World Cups, were blown apart in a 62-13 defeat, the most points they have ever conceded in an international. New Zealand were sublime. Combining pace with power and precision they destroyed French pretensions of being a major rugby power.

Australia's reward for beating Scotland is a clash with Argentina next Sunday. The South Americans brushed aside the challenge of Ireland, who were tipped by many as the northern hemisphere side with the best chance of making the final. But the Pumas started well and raced to a 17-0 lead thanks to slick tries from Matias Moroni and Juan Imhoff. Luke Fitzgerald's try reduced the deficit to 20-10 at the break, and a score from flanker Jordi Murphy gave Irish fans hope of a stirring comeback, but the Argentines came strong in the final quartet with tries from Joaquin Tuculet and a second for the outstanding Imhoff as they ran out 43-20 winners.

As Argentina prepares for presidential elections later this October, president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has decided to start the party early.

On Thursday, at a political rally in Buenos Aires for her Victory Front party, Kirchner was filmed dancing on stage alongside Daniel Scioli, Buenos Aires governor and her chosen successor in the upcoming elections.

Her moves quickly went viral, with Clarin, Argentina's largest newspaper, pointing out that "Cristina's little dance" is a fitting exit (having already served two terms, Kirchner can no longer run for president).

The Independent says the president's "dad-dancing routine" should "only be reserved for inebriated wedding celebrations or in front of the mirror listening to guilty pleasures – not in front of a huge crowd".

Kind of harsh, suggests La Nacion, which highlights the Independent's "scathing" tone. The Daily Telegraph points to her repeated open-finger salute, referencing her party's "Kitchnerista" signature gesture.

Kirchner’s dancing video has gone viral, with more than 100,000 people so far watching it on YouTube.

It is not the first time Kirchner has been in the news for dancing with the crowds – just last December, a video of her dancing in the Plaza de Mayo alongside hundreds of people celebrating the country's 31st anniversary of democracy was watched by half a million.

Unfortunately for Kirchner, says IBTimes, this stunt isn't going to win back her popularity, which has been constantly waning as corruption allegations, a stagnant economy and political scandals have plagued her presidency.

Let's hope Scioli has better political moves.

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Eight years ago, in France, Argentina shocked the rugby world when they took third place in the 2007 Rugby World Cup, beating the host nation, France, twice along the way. Last time out Los Pumas won three of their four pool stage games before going out 33-10 to the eventual winners New Zealand in the quarter-finals.

This time, it's the All Blacks who'll be their toughest opposition in Pool C and that, in itself, means they have an excellent chance of progressing to the knockout stage. It's unlikely, though, that they'll go as far as they did in 2007 and a place in the second phase of the tournament will probably be the limit of their ambitions, despite a morale boosting victory against South Africa earlier this year.

Star man: Juan Martin Hernandez

Nicknamed 'El Mago' (The Magician), Hernandez was signed by French Top 14 club Toulon last September, having already starred for the likes of Stade Français, Natal Sharks and Racing Metro. His brilliance lies in his versatility, as he's equally adept at fly-half, centre or full-back.

One to watch: Juan Imhoff

The 27-year-old wing showed his class in the historic defeat of South Africa in August, scoring a hat-trick of tries and overshadowing opposite number Bryan Habana. First capped as a 21-year-old in 2009, Imhoff marked that occasion with four tries against Uruguay.

Coach: Daniel Hourcade

With over 20 years of coaching experience, Hourcade is charged with returning Los Pumas to former glories. He has made a decent start, guiding them to their first win in the Rugby Championship last year when they beat Australia 21-17, and following that up with their stunning 37-25 victory in Durban this summer.

Lionel Messi added to his collection of unwanted losers medals on Saturday and reportedly refused to accept the player of the tournament award as Argentina lost the final of the Copa America to Chile on penalties, to extend the Albiceleste's trophy drought beyond 22 years.

But while there was misery for Argentina, host nation Chile was left celebrating its first ever international title, clinched by Alexis Sanchez of Arsenal, who wrapped up the shoot-out with a scuffed Panenka penalty.

"Right now, both Chile and Argentina bask in golden generations, but for the hosts, giddy after powering, pressing and harrying their way to their first Copa America final since 1987, the wait for a maiden major title is finally over," says John Aizlewood of the Sunday Times. "Argentina, meanwhile, have not won the Copa since Gabriel Batistuta's brace against Mexico in 1993 and, bar a delightful semi-final trouncing of Paraguay, they had not so much flattered as failed to deceive."

Messi endured his quietest game of the tournament as a physical Chile threw everything they had at Argentina. He cut a "diminished, a frustrated and often isolated figure on the right, shirt untucked, shoulders slouched", says Jonathan Wilson of The Guardian.

After the match a disappointed Messi tore off his loser's medal, but at least avoided the indignity of having to accept the player of the tournament award as he did in Brazil last summer after losing the World Cup final to Germany.

Argentine media has claimed that the Barcelona star refused to accept the award after being told he was to be presented with the trophy. Footage from the final appears to back up the claim, as an official can be seen removing the trophy from the stage shortly before Argentina were handed their medals.

"Following a season in which Messi was often unplayable as Barcelona claimed the La Liga title, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, Messi was hoping to round things off with a first senior international accolade," repoirts the Daily Mail.

But Chile "upset the odds to record a historic first Copa triumph and leave Argentina the nearly-men once again", says the paper, which recalls that in 2014 "a sullen Messi was forced to go up on stage and receive the Golden Ball trophy [and] pose alongside victorious German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer."