BUENOS AIRES – The war of words between Britain and Argentina is hotting up. Yet behind the escalating tensions is a boiling cauldron of political machinations featuring none other than US President Donald Trump – whose dark game plan is helping Buenos Aires put pressure on the Falklands.
I’ve reported on Argentina since the Falklands War of 1982. Indeed, the late president Carlos Menem finally ended “the state of war” with Britain in an interview with me in 1989. More recently, I was a UN diplomat, then a correspondent from Buenos Aires. But never in all those years have I sensed – from all sides – the serious standoff that is now under way.
From what I’ve seen going on here, Britain should be worried. Trump has given his close ally, the populist Argentinian President Javier Milei, a playbook to squeeze the Falklands and the British Government on multiple fronts – and both behind the scenes and on the international stage, it’s ramping up.
The six Brexit options from rejoin to customs union
Explore what could be on the cards as Andy Burnham has put getting closer to the European Union at the heart of his premiership.
A future with Europe
At Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool last month, the Prime Minister said Brexit had done “more harm than good”.
Over the weekend, he opened the door to a future deal with Europe reintroducing freedom of movement.
Here are the main options which are likely to be on the table.
4 min read
What the options could look like
1. Reverse Brexit fully
The most radical option is to rejoin the EU. Burnham said he would like to see this “in my lifetime”.
2. Rejoin customs union
This allows goods to move freely within the union which would cut much of the bureaucracy created by Brexit.
3. Rejoin single market
It would improve the UK’s access to the EU market. But, it comes with major trade-offs.
What else is on the table?
4. Swiss-style model
Switzerland is not in the EU but has frictionless access to the single market via a web of bilateral agreements.
5. Bespoke UK-EU deal
Burnham could try to secure a tailor-made agreement rather than opting for other ‘off the shelf’ models.
6. A second referendum
On Monday, Burnham said that he would not reintroduce freedom of movement without a referendum.
Women warned against using AI for cancer information
The Eve Appeal, a gynaecological cancer charity, has urged women not to use artificial intelligence (AI) platforms which offer “unreliable” information about common symptoms.
- The charity said that an AI tool “missed” a common red flag symptom of ovarian cancer – persistent bloating which is not improving with changes to diet.
- The popular tool also failed to reveal that vulval cancer could be behind another symptom.
- And the AI platform also gave incorrect information about cervical cancer screening, the charity said.
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Soaring inquiries in recent years
The charity has made its own AI tool, Ask Eve Assist, to ensure people were getting “trusted information” instead of an “online wild west”.
Athena Lamnisos, chief executive of the charity, warned: “The mistakes made by online AI platforms could be fatal.”
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The key takeaways from Russell Brand trial so far
Comedian and actor Russell Brand stands accused of rape, sexual assault and indecent assault. He denies all seven charges and has pleaded not guilty.
What we heard yesterday
- The jury heard from prosecution witnesses, including Brand’s former personal assistant, Helen Berger.
The first witness of the day was the sister of one of the alleged victims who said Brand raped her in the toilets of a Soho bar in 2004.
The manager of another alleged victim told the court that two of Brand’s male associates “both sat and watched and laughed” during the alleged sexual assault.
Berger told the court the comedian’s bad behaviour was “on another level” and she had seen “women being mistreated”.
What else did Berger say?
Berger also told the court that “peacock” Brand found random women online to satisfy his “insane sexual appetite”, but sex often made him depressed.
- “Though I’ve worked with a lot of celebrities before and seen a lot of people normalising bad behaviour, this was on another level,” she said on Monday.
The trial so far
Previously, the trial heard from alleged victims of Brand, with six female complainants making allegations spanning from 1999 to 2009.
One alleged the comedian groped her with a “maniacal grin”, before dragging her into a toilet to rape her. Another alleged he had raped her anally while she “begged” him to stop.
How to be more grateful for daily life in five easy steps
The world feels like a difficult place at the moment, and it can feel very hard sometimes to find things to be thankful for; when we are overwhelmed, we have less capacity to notice and reflect on the good things. Yet, ironically, proactively cultivating gratitude is one of the things that can actually help us feel less stressed.
NHS GP dR RADHA
The science
Research has shown that feeling or expressing thanks can actually alter our brain.
- The balance of neurotransmitters change; more serotonin and dopamine (feel good chemicals) are produced.
- This can be long lasting if we make gratitude a regular habit.
- We also get a decrease in our cortisol (stress hormone) levels which helps lower anxiety.
- Being grateful can strengthen the nerve pathways which triggers positive emotion.
How can we build gratitude?
Change your words
Instead of seeing something as a problem, try to see the opportunities within it.
Our brains are very receptive and what we read or write can alter our emotional system.
Express it
This will not only make you feel good, but you will also get a positive response from others.
How can we build gratitude?
Notice more
Throughout your day, try to notice all the things that are going well; has someone opened a door for you, or smiled?
The basics
By being thankful for the small things every day, we are far more likely to be and stay healthy so that we can enjoy them.
What to do
Gratitude can lead to feelings of optimism, lower our blood pressure, and improve sleep quality.
- Write down what potential good aspects there are to the things you don’t feel like doing, or even what could be worse about it.
- Spend a few minutes writing down three things that you are looking forward to that day, or the good things that have happened to you that day.
- Say thank you to yourself for the things you have achieved, or managed to get through and changed that day.
Sales of battery
electric vehicles hit a record high last year.
Starts at £22,995 for the smaller battery
Available with either a 40kWh battery or a larger 52kWh pack, that offers almost 255 miles, the latest, retro-inspired Renault 5 is both a joy to behold and a hoot to drive.
The interior has been lavished with a level of detail that’s typically reserved for more expensive cars.
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A champion of EV efficiency
It offers a remarkable 491 mile range on a single charge from the 85kWh battery.
It is a technological masterclass inside with the ability to option screens that span the entire width of the dashboard, including an optional display for the front passenger.
Priced from £37,400
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It’s a lot of money to part with, but this is arguably all the car you will ever need.
The £89,000 Macan is a premium SUV that somehow manages to blend Porsche’s reputation for dynamics and sporty driving with everyday practicality.
The 95kWh batteries can go from 10 to 80 per cent in as little as 21 minutes from the fastest public charging outlets.
With the business class-style six seat configuration costing a staggering £76,995, it is by far the most expensive Kia ever made, but it backs up its financial demands with a suite of genuinely useful and impressive onboard technology.
It’s fast, goes a long way between stops and charges relatively quickly but the interior is bland, the onboard technology is infuriating and the experience is devoid of emotion.
All of its gadgetry can’t disguise the fact that performance is weak, even for a typically zippy EV, the ride is fussy at slower speeds and it’s not in the least bit enjoyable to drive on a country road.
- While good value (prices start at £17,935) for the 200-mile max range, there are more interesting options from Hyundai, Citroen and Renault for similar money.
- It attempts to wow with tech, much of which hinders, rather than helps.
- There’s no tangible benefit over mounting your phone to the dash.
- Simply an average driving experience, adequate range and slow charging speeds.
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The kitchen gadgets under £25
Victorinox paring knife
It’s comfortable to hold, with a point sharp enough for scoring pastry.
ProCook cast iron pan
For unbeatable searing and heat-retention, cast iron is the top choice.
Tesco chopping board
Priced at just £22, I’ve yet to find another board that matches it for sheer value and quality.
The kitchen gadgets under £25
Pyrex jug
It is the perfect vessel for blending smooth sauces, melting butter, or warming stock. It won’t stain like plastic and the red measurements never fade.
Salter scales
“I’ve had my slim little set of Salter Disc Scales for over a decade, and I’m delighted to see they are still made to exactly the same reliable design today.”
Microplane grater
It uses photo-etched stainless steel teeth that stay razor-sharp for a decade, something the lookalike copycats simply can’t match.
Braun hand-held blender
It’s an essential for everything from making velvety soup to getting the lumps out of white sauce.
Bodum cafetiere
As well as delivering great results, cafetieres are easy to clean and there’s no ongoing filter paper costs or pod recycling to deal with.
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The kitchen gadgets under £25
Oxo peeler
What truly sets it apart is the chunky, rubberised handle that absorbs pressure and stays completely non-slip, even if your hands are wet. It is inexpensive and incredibly durable.
Falcon pie dish
Made by fusing porcelain onto heavy-gauge steel for smooth durability, it is dishwasher, freezer, hob, air-fryer and oven-safe.
The golden rules for a happy, secure relationship
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr Amir Levine, author of bestselling book , explains why we behave the way we do in love.
Golden rules for happy relationships
Start with your own behaviours
The foundation of a secure, connected life is being what I call CARRP: that means being consistent, available, responsive, reliable and predictable. All of these qualities can be enacted in small gestures every day.
Express your needs
People need consistency and connection to feel safe. This is not, ‘You hurt my feelings by never replying to me’, it’s more ‘this is the kind of contact that helps me feel secure’.
Golden rules for happy relationships
The appendix ‘inflammation’ rule
If a relationship repeatedly inflames your nervous system, you need to disengage and deprioritise it.
Lean on community
You don’t need hundreds of friends. You need people and places that regularly remind you that you belong.
Stop blaming childhood
Humans are much more complicated than: ‘this happened to you, therefore you are doomed to be anxious’.
Reach for a
secure script
When something unsettles you in a relationship, your first reaction is not always the most accurate one.
If you’re anxious, your brain may jump very quickly to: ‘this is the beginning of the end’. If you’re avoidant, your brain may say: ‘this person wants too much from me, I need to get away’. So one very practical thing you can always do is pause and ask: ‘What would a secure person do here?’
Loneliness elsewhere
When people talk about loneliness, they often assume it means you don’t have enough people in your life. But you can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely if those relationships leave you feeling excluded, ignored or disconnected.
What to do
- Build a community that works for your temperament and gives you regular, reliable moments of connection.
- You can still be kind to people while not treating them as someone who belongs in your inner circle.
- Explain what you need. Sometimes people simply don’t realise how you are experiencing them.
- Check in with people: does this person actually feel that I’m reliable? Do they experience me as predictable? That’s the only way that you can start to become more secure.
Do some foods leave
you feeling hungry rather than satiated? Experts say there are…
Foods that leave you hungrier
A bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice
More refined cereals are digested quickly, and fruit juice, whilst one of your five-a-day, contains less fibre than whole fruit. This might mean you find yourself hungry again within 1-2 hours of eating this breakfast.
Swap the orange juice for a whole orange, the cereal for oats and milk or serve it with Greek yoghurt or a boiled egg. This would increase the fibre and protein content; two nutrients strongly linked with fullness.
Foods that leave you hungrier
These pastries are made primarily from refined flour and butter, and are relatively low in protein and fibre.
Toast and jam
Shop-bought packs can contain a lot of white rice, which is digested quickly, and the protein content is often modest.
Foods that leave you hungrier
Vegetable soup
On its own, it is often very low in protein and calories, so hunger can return quickly.
Unless it’s loaded with veggies, it’s probably pretty low in fibre.
Liquids are generally less filling as they require little chewing which may not trigger satiety signals.
Foods that leave you hungrier
Snack bars
They are ideal for a quick pick-me-up, but if reducing hunger is what you’re after, it’d be better to swap it out.
Low-fat yoghurt
A full-fat plain Greek yoghurt with berries and seeds tends to be much more filling due to the protein, fat and fibre.
On an empty stomach, it can actually increase your appetite.
What to eat instead
Instead of thinking about avoiding foods, think about what you can add to them.
- Add beans, lentils or shredded chicken to your vegetable soup and pasta.
- Thicken your smoothies with Greek yoghurt, chia seeds and oats.
- Apple slices with peanut butter, yogurt with berries and hummus with oat biscuits are better snack options than a pre-made snack bar.
- Have alcohol alongside a balanced meal containing protein and fibre.
Just like the US President’s own campaigns to force other countries to heel, this playbook consists of a legal, criminal, economic and, of course, propaganda war. Recently, Milei openly threatened legal action against the British Government unless it halted the Sea Lion oilfield project by Israeli and British companies off the coast of the Falkland Islands, claiming it amounted to an “illegal plundering of our resources”. He warned that Argentina would take the matter before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
The Falklands are a self-governing British Overseas Territory and the UK has said “the islanders’ right to self-determination is paramount”. However, the standoff has become the most serious conflict between the two countries since Argentina’s military junta invaded the islands, sparking a conflict back in 1982.
On Wednesday, Milei said he favoured diplomacy over military solutions to take the Falklands, known as the Islas Malvinas in Argentina.
Yet, don’t expect that so-called diplomacy to be Argentina’s main means of pressuring Britain. Trump’s outsized influence in this conflict is clear – and that means it is only going to get worse.
In Argentina, we are already seeing the evidence of Trump’s hand, in echoes of his administration’s claims that the West is being destroyed by migration. Milei’s presidential adviser and right-hand man Santiago Caputo has claimed that Buenos Aires must recover the Falklands because Britain is being “colonised by Islam”. As such, he says, Argentina’s cause is not just a national one but “a cause of the West” to prevent Islamic takeover of the South Atlantic. It’s like listening to Trump or his Vice President JD Vance bellowing over Islam running Europe and throwing their weight behind the far right.
The rhetoric is hitting such outrageous levels that recently Britain’s ambassador to Argentina, David Cairns, a savvy and engaging fellow, felt obliged to get up and leave an official dinner early, cameras rolling on him for all to see, after Argentina’s foreign minister lambasted “British occupation” of the Islands and “illegal exploitation of resources that belong to Argentina”. The minister then quickly lumped Iran next into the list of Argentina’s enemies.
“The ambassador was made to feel somehow Britain and Iran represent an axis of evil,” said one senior embassy source. The source accepted that the early exit was not a good look for any diplomat. “The squeeze is on, and we fear what might be coming next – a power play to throttle the Islands’ economy.”
Certainly, for those of us who have watched Trump bedevil his enemies with legal, at times criminal proceedings, Milei’s government has clearly adopted the advice that he is understood to have received when he joined Trump for a session at the United Nations in New York, in late September.
“Trump gave our President a sort of game plan for the Malvinas,” one of Milei’s leading allies-cum adviser, told me. “The advice was to squeeze Britain hard into a corner, with Trump ready to help at some point down the road.” So much for Trump glad-handing Andy Burnham, calling him “a natural business person,” at the same time at the UN General Assembly.
You don’t have to look very hard to see the fallout. Milei, issuing calls for national unity ahead of tight presidential elections next year, has launched criminal complaints, sanction proceedings and even gone to Interpol to seek action against executives and companies linked to that Sea Lion oil exploration project in waters close to the Falklands.
“This is so obviously a Trump-like gambit, designed to tie us up in various courts, it’s the Trump way, doesn’t he have everyone from the BBC to the former head of the FBI in court?” said the embassy source.
Maybe. But what’s also at work now is Milei’s future as President. From the moment back in August when Trump gave him the gift of the United States no longer intervening on Britain’s behalf over the Falklands, payback for Britain’s patent ambivalence over his disastrous war with Iran, Milei has used the “Malvinas” as a powerful rallying cry ahead of Argentinian elections next year, with polls currently too close to call.
“Nothing unites Argentines like the Malvinas, OK?” said the key ally of Milei. “Now we have a campaign issue. We have moved the dial on the Islands dramatically with Trump’s support for the President.” He paused, then added: “Can you imagine how this country will react, and the international community will respond, if Trump tells Britain to negotiate an end to this, and questions how far the Malvinas are from London.” He sounds like a man who believes Trump has promised Milei exactly that. He nods quietly when I ask him to confirm.
Indeed, when asked about the Falklands, Trump recently said: “It’s a long way away from Britain”. All of which has one longtime source at the Foreign Office in London a little flustered. “We know this time is geopolitically different, and that Trump’s focus on making the Americas speak with one voice. Well, it moves the goalposts,” said the source.
That’s a far cry from what had been the Foreign Office edict and talking points to the embassy at the start of this latest round of war of words: “Silence, no need to answer Argentina’s bombast…. Leave it to the and the … And remember, this is a unifying issue for Britain too, not just Argentina.”
As for Milei’s re-election strategy, Trump’s help and counsel on the Islands represent a gamble probably worth taking, given the way his numbers have suffered due to Argentina’s rising cost of living, unemployment and the lack of growth promised, even if he can expect little or no movement on the Falklands issue over the next year. Trump himself also divides Argentines.
“Milei has a high number rejecting him, for whatever reason,” says Martha Reale, a leading pollster. “The Malvinas could help him at the margins, because it’s such a populist cause.”
However, whatever the doubts about Trump and his incoherent, at times vicious and vicarious behaviour, he may have done us a favour of sorts. He’s put the Falklands on the radar of issues on which we might seek compromise and have the South Atlantic – with its potential goldmine of resources, from oil and gas to minerals to fish – work for the good and maybe prosperity of all.
Just as long as we don’t give the man at the White House the Nobel Peace Prize for his blatant use of power and muscle for his own cynical, vengeful ends.