Mexico’s Senate has passed legal reforms that could impose up to eight years in jail and fines of up to 226,000 pesos ($12,500) for the production or sale of vapes and electronic cigarettes, a massive ramp-up of enforcement measures that critics call overly restrictive.

The changes to the General Health Law, ratified late Wednesday by pro-government senators after clearing the lower house on Tuesday, now await enactment by President Claudia Sheinbaum, who supports the legislation.

“There’s this idea that not smoking tobacco or a cigarette can be replaced by using a vape, and the truth is that vapes, in some cases, are even more harmful than cigarettes,” Sheinbaum said on Friday. “You shouldn’t smoke cigarettes, and you shouldn’t use vapes.”

Following the rise of anti-tobacco measures worldwide, Mexico banned smoking in most public spaces about two decades ago. In recent years, the government has turned its attention to limiting the sale of vapes and electronic cigarettes, which are also prohibited in Argentina and Brazil amid increasing concern over health impacts.

Mexico has not banned the actual use of vapes.

Sheinbaum said the government is working with state authorities to curb potential illegal markets for these products, noting concerns over organised crime involvement. She did not discuss when the new rules would go into effect.

Opposition Senator Luis Colosio criticised the reforms, calling them “prohibitionist.” During the debate on Thursday, he said the government was avoiding its responsibility to regulate and monitor the industry by opting instead for an outright ban.

“Prohibitions are nothing more than an easy way out of a problem they either don’t want to or can’t control,” Colosio said.

Despite the measures, vapes and e-cigarettes remain readily available in Mexico City’s retail stores, and authorities have yet to outline plans to address street-level sales.

“It would be good if they banned them because people like me keep buying them, and the truth is, they’re very cheap everywhere,” a Mexico City resident identified as Valentina told broadcaster Milenio TV.

• Ukraine resists US demand of unilateral troop withdrawal in Donetsk.
• Zelensky sends 20-point counter-proposal to Washington for review.
• Russia claims capture of Siversk amid contested Donetsk advances.

US President Donald Trump is “extremely frustrated” with Russia and Ukraine, his spokeswoman said on Thursday, as Kyiv said Washington was still pushing it to make major territorial concessions as part of its plan to end the nearly four-year war.

“The president is extremely frustrated with both sides of this war,” Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “He doesn’t want any more talk. He wants action. He wants this war to come to an end.”

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made remarks that appeared to show little had changed in Washington’s core position on how the conflict should end since it sent a 28-point plan to Kyiv and Moscow last month that heavily favoured Russia.

Zelensky said that Washington was still pushing it to cede land to Russia as part of an agreement to end the war that started with Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.

Washington wants only Ukraine, not Russia, to withdraw its troops from parts of the eastern Donetsk region, where a demilitarised “free economic zone” would be installed as a buffer between the two armies, Zelensky told reporters, including from AFP.

Under the latest US plan, Moscow would also stay where it is in the south of the country, but pull some of its troops out of Ukrainian regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not claimed to have annexed in the north.

Ukraine has been revising the original US proposal and this week sent a 20-point counter-proposal to Washington, the full details of which have not been published.

“We have two key points of disagreement: the territories of Donetsk and everything related to them, and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. These are the two topics we continue to discuss,” Zelensky told reporters at a briefing.

“They see Ukrainian forces leaving the territory of Donetsk region, and the supposed compromise is that Russian forces do not enter this territory… which they already call a ‘free economic zone’,” Zelensky said about the US plan.

Zelensky has long said he has no “constitutional” or “moral” right to cede Ukrainian land, and on Thursday said Ukrainians should have the final say on the issue.

“Whether through elections or a referendum, there must be a position from the people of Ukraine,” he said.

‘Great many questions’

Zelensky also pushed back against the idea of a unilateral Ukrainian withdrawal in the Donetsk region.

“Why doesn’t the other side of the war pull back the same distance in the other direction?” he said, adding there were “a great many questions” still unresolved.

Under the US plan, Russia would relinquish territory it has captured in the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions — three areas over which Moscow has not made a formal territorial claim.

In 2022, Russia claimed to formally annex the Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, despite not having full control over them.

Ukraine’s troops still hold around one-fifth of the Donetsk region, according to AFP’s analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Much of eastern and southern Ukraine has been decimated by fighting.

Tens of thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes.

Russia, which has the numerical advantage in manpower and weapons, has been grinding forward on the battlefield.

It claimed Thursday to have captured the town of Siversk in the Donetsk region, where its army is advancing at its fastest pace in a year, according to AFP’s analysis. Ukraine’s army’s eastern command denied the claim.

‘Pivotal moment’

After holding a video conference to discuss the latest proposals, Ukraine’s European allies said that “this is a pivotal moment for Ukraine, its people, and for the security we all share across the Euro-Atlantic region,” the British prime minister´s office said in a statement.

Trump has largely sought to sideline them from the process, preferring to deal directly with Moscow and Kyiv in shuttle diplomacy led by his envoy Steve Witkoff and, lately, his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Zelensky said that although there was no strict deadline to finalise an agreement, Washington wanted to have the contours of a deal ready by Christmas.

He also said that despite the diplomatic scramble, he saw no indication Russia wanted to halt its invasion.

“In my view, they need a pause. They need it, but they’re not taking it. I don’t see any sign that they want to end the war,” Zelensky said.

In Kyiv, a double bomb blast on Thursday killed a serviceman and wounded four others, in what city prosecutors said was a suspected terror act.

Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin said on Thursday he plans to step down midway through his term after February’s parliamentary election, telling Reuters he has felt humiliated by the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.

As head of state, Shahabuddin is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but the role is largely ceremonial, and executive power rests with the prime minister and cabinet of the mainly Muslim country of 173 million people.

However, his position gained prominence when a student-led uprising forced long-time premier Sheikh Hasina to flee to New Delhi in August 2024, leaving him as the last remaining constitutional authority after parliament was dissolved.

Shahabuddin, 75, had been elected unopposed for a five-year term in 2023 as a nominee of Hasina’s Awami League party, which has been barred from contesting the February 12 election.

Bangladesh president says Yunus sidelined him

“I am keen to leave. I am interested to go out,” he said in a WhatsApp interview from his official residence in Dhaka, in what he said was his first media interview since taking office.

“Until elections are held, I should continue,” Shahabuddin said. “I am upholding my position because of the constitutionally held presidency.”

He later said that despite his personal desire to resign, he would let the next government decide his future.

“If they tell me they plan to choose their own president, I will step aside,” he said late on Thursday.

Opinion polls suggest the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former prime minister Khaleda Zia and Jamaat-e-Islami will be the frontrunners to form the next government. They were part of a coalition that ruled between 2001 and 2006.

The president said Yunus had not met him for nearly seven months, his press department had been taken away and, in September, his portraits were removed from Bangladeshi embassies around the world.

“There was the portrait of the president, picture of the president in all consulates, embassies and high commissions, and this has been eliminated suddenly in one night,” he said. “A wrong message goes to the people that perhaps the president is going to be eliminated. I felt very much humiliated.”

Shahabuddin said he had written to Yunus about the portraits, but no action was taken. “My voice has been stifled,” he added.

Yunus’ press advisers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President in contact with army chief

The president said he was in regular touch with Army Chief General Waker-uz-Zaman, whose troops stood aside in August 2024 amid deadly protests against Hasina, sealing the fate of the veteran politician. Shahabuddin said Zaman had made it clear he had no intention of grabbing power.

Bangladesh has a history of military rule, but Zaman has said he wants democracy to return.

Shahabuddin said that, although some student protesters had initially demanded that he resign, no political party had asked him to do so in recent months.

Asked if Hasina, who had governed for 20 years, had tried to contact him after fleeing, Shahabuddin declined to answer. He said he had been independent since becoming president, not affiliated to any party.