ARGENTINA'S biggest trade unions mounted one of their fiercest challenges to the free-market fundamentalist government of President Javier Milei today with a mass general strike.

The walkouts led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and halted key bus, rail and subway lines. Main avenues and streets, as well as major transportation terminals, were left eerily empty.

The 24-hour strike against Mr Milei’s contentious austerity and deregulation agenda threatened to bring the nation of 46 million to a standstill as banks, businesses and state agencies closed in protest.