The death toll from devastating floods in the eastern Spanish region of Valencia has risen to 155, authorities have said, as the country began three days of mourning and the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, urged people to stay at home.

With forecasts of more bad weather prompting storm alerts farther north, Sánchez urged residents on Thursday to “please, follow the calls of the emergency services … Right now the most important thing is to save as many lives as possible.”

Local authorities have not disclosed how many people are still unaccounted for after Spain’s deadliest floods in half a century, but the defence minister, Margarita Robles, had said earlier that the death toll was expected to rise.

Flags flew at half-mast on government buildings and a minute of silence was observed nationwide after the floods battered Valencia’s infrastructure, sweeping away bridges, roads and railway tracks and submerging farmland.

Emergency service workers together with more than 1,200 troops combed thick silt in mud-caked towns and villages to find survivors and clear roads of debris, while rescuers used helicopters to winch survivors to safety in areas that were still flooded.

Meteorologists said a year’s worth of rain had fallen in eight hours in parts of Valencia on Tuesday. Television footage showed diggers and tractors fitted with water pumps clearing debris from streets piled high with abandoned cars and vans.

King Felipe VI warned the emergency was “still not over”, and the national weather service, Aemet, put parts of the Valencia region on the highest alert level for more torrential rain on Thursday.

Opposition politicians accused the central government of acting too slowly to warn residents to evacuate and send in rescue teams, prompting Spain’s interior ministry to say regional authorities were responsible for civil protection measures.

The Valencia regional president, Carlos Mazón, defended his administration’s management of the crisis. “All our supervisors followed the standard protocol,” he said.

Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report

Rescue workers in Spain are searching for more victims after deadly floods, as questions are raised about how one of the world’s most developed nations failed to respond adequately to such an extreme storm.

Torrential rains that began at the start of the week led to flooding that has left at least 95 people dead, the deadliest such disaster in the western European country since 1973.

On Thursday morning, the exact number of missing people remained unknown. Hours after the flash floods turned streets into rivers, ruining homes and sweeping away cars, more than 1,200 people reportedly remained trapped on highways, stranded among about 5,000 abandoned cars. Thousands more remained without electricity or phone service.

The defence minister, Margarita Robles, told Cadena Ser radio that a military unit specialising in rescue operations would on Thursday start combing through mud and debris with sniffer dogs in the worst-hit areas.

Asked if the number of victims was likely to increase, she said: “Unfortunately we are not optimistic.” The teams have brought with them 50 mobile morgues.

More heavy rain was predicted for the hardest-hit eastern Valencia region and other areas on the north-east coast on Thursday.

Speaking from Valencia on Thursday, the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, urged people in the affected regions to stay at home. “Please, the storm continues,” he said. “Please heed all calls from the emergency services, their needs, their recommendations. The most important thing is to save as many lives as possible.”

He said the government was doing all it could to locate those who were still missing. “The priority right now is to find those who are missing in order to alleviate the anguish that families are suffering,” he added. “We will support the search by land, sea and air for as long as it takes.”

Some residents appealed for news of their missing loved ones via social media, television and radio broadcasts. Leonardo Enrique told RTVE that his family had last spoken to his 40-year-old son, Leonardo Enrique Rivera, on Tuesday around 7pm. His son had been driving a delivery van near the industrial town of Riba-roja and had sent a message saying it was raining heavily.

In a second message, he said his van was flooding and that he had been hit by another vehicle. Since then the family have been unable to reach him. “We haven’t heard anything,” his father told the broadcaster.

As Spain grappled with the fallout of the disaster, questions were being asked over why it had taken until after 8pm for the civil protection service to issue an alert urging residents not to leave home.

The national weather agency, Aemet, launched a red alert for the Valencia region on Tuesday morning and conditions deteriorated throughout the day. But it was only in the early evening that the regional body in charge of coordinating the emergency services was set up.

For many, it was already too late. The alert came as some were already trapped on roads and left at the mercy of raging torrents of water.

“They raised the alarm when the water was already here, there’s no need to tell me the flood is coming,”said Julian Ormeno, a 66-year-old in the Valencia city suburb of Sedavi.

“Nobody came to take responsibility,” he told AFP.

Another man told news site Eldiario.es that he had been trapped in his car with water up to his chest when the alert arrived. “Just after 8pm, when I had already spent an hour in water up to my neck and swallowing mud, the alert from the civil protection service sounded,” he said.

With weather forecasters issuing warnings beforehand, such tragedies are “entirely avoidable” if people can be kept away from surging flood water, said Hannah Cloke, hydrology professor at the University of Reading.

The devastating outcome suggests Valencia’s warning system failed, she said. “People just don’t know what to do when faced with a flood, or when they hear warnings.”

“People shouldn’t be dying from these kinds of forecasted weather events in countries where they have the resources to do better,” added Liz Stephens, a professor in climate risks and resilience at the University of Reading in the UK.

“We have a long way to go to prepare for this kind of event, and worse, in future.”

Tuesday’s floods were Spain’s worst since 1973, when at least 150 people were estimated to have died in the southeastern provinces of Granada, Murcia and Almeria. In 1996, 87 people died after torrential rain hit a campsite in the Pyrenees mountains.

Europe’s most recent catastrophic floods came in July 2021, killing 243 people in Germany, Belgium, Romania, Italy and Austria.

The intense rain has been attributed to a phenomenon known as the gota fría, or “cold drop”, which occurs when cold air moves over the warm waters of the Mediterranean. This creates atmospheric instability, causing warm, saturated air to rise rapidly, leading to heavy rain and thunderstorms.

Experts say the warming of the Mediterranean, which increases water evaporation, plays a key role in making torrential rains more severe.

The events “are yet another wake-up call that our climate is changing rapidly”, according to Hayley Fowler, professor of climate change impacts at Newcastle University in the UK.

“Our infrastructure is not designed to deal with these levels of flooding,” she added, saying “record-shatteringly hot” warmer sea temperatures fuel storms that dump extreme levels of rain in one place.

Scientists warn that extreme weather events are becoming more intense, last longer and occur more frequently as a result of human-induced climate change.

But in some cases, even the best-prepared warning systems can be caught off guard, analysts said.

Such extreme weather “can overwhelm the ability of existing defences and contingency plans to cope, even in a relatively wealthy country like Spain”, said Leslie Mabon, senior lecturer in environmental systems at Britain’s Open University.

“The floods in Spain are a timely reminder that no country is exempt from the risks of climate change.”

For Linda Speight, a lecturer at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, warnings for intense thunderstorms are “incredibly hard to issue” as the exact location of the heaviest rainfall is usually unknown in advance.

“We urgently need to adapt our cities to be more resilient to floods,” she added, suggesting making space for water to flow through urban environments without causing damage.

“We take preparation for other hazards such as earthquakes and tsunami very seriously,” added Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology, at the University of Reading.

“It is time we afforded the same to flood risk preparedness.”

Spanish government minister Ángel Victor Torres declined to answer directly when asked about the potential delay in sending alerts to the population.

Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Elon Musk failed to show up to a required court appearance in a Philadelphia case challenging his $1m-a-day sweepstakes. His absence from the hearing risks him being held in contempt of court.

On Wednesday, the judge had ordered all parties to attend the Thursday-morning hearing. Musk’s attorneys had attempted to shift the suit from Pennsylvania state court to federal court in a filing late on Wednesday. The lawyers argued that state court was not the proper venue and that the Philadelphia district attorney was engaging in thinly veiled electioneering.

“Rather, although disguised as state law claims, the Complaint’s focus is to prevent Defendants’ purported ‘interference’ with the forthcoming Federal Presidential Election by any means,” the Tesla CEO’s attorneys wrote.

A spokesperson for the Philadelphia district attorney, Larry Krasner, said on Thursday the initial hearing at city hall was still scheduled. In the original suit, Krasner argued that Musk’s petition and associated contest were “indisputably violating” specific Pennsylvania laws against illegal lotteries. Musk’s attorneys said he was engaging in legally protected political speech and spending.

The cash giveaways come from Musk’s political organization, which aims to boost Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in the vital swing state, which is seen as a key to victory by both Trump and his opponent, Kamala Harris.

Krasner, a Democrat, filed suit on Monday to stop the America Pac sweepstakes, which is set to run through election day and is open to registered voters in swing states who sign a petition supporting the constitution. Musk has been tweeting photographs of the winners holding novelty checks.

Krasner has said he could still consider criminal charges, saying he is tasked with protecting the public from both illegal lotteries and “interference with the integrity of elections”.

Election law experts have raised questions about whether Musk’s drawing violates a federal law barring someone from paying others to vote. Musk has cast the money as both a prize as well as earnings for work as a spokesperson for the group.

Rats could be the latest weapon deployed in the fight against endangered wildlife trafficking, according to a study of rodents trained to sniff out pangolin scales, rhino horns, elephant tusks and hardwood.

Researchers trained eight African giant pouched rats to sniff out the contraband, even when it was hidden among items commonly used to hide trafficked goods, including peanuts, leaves, wigs and washing powder.

The market for illegal wildlife products is worth up to $20bn (£15.5bn) annually, Interpol said last year.

The rats were studied by scientists at Apopo, a Belgian-founded, Tanzania-based NGO, whose rodents also sniff out landmines and tuberculosis.

Named after conservationists including David Attenborough, the animals were initially rewarded with a food pellet if they held their nose for three seconds over a sample of pangolin scale, wood, rhino horn or elephant ivory.

In simulations, they were dressed in tiny red vests attached to leashes, with a beeper attached to the front so they could use their front paws to alert their handlers when they found contraband – for which they would receive another reward of food.

The rats were able to perfectly detect pangolin, wood and rhino horn after eight months of not smelling them, according to Apopo’s study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science. The researchers said this suggested that rats could remember smells for as long as sniffer dogs.

But, they said, their results for elephant ivory may not be accurate, as that had been stored with the rhino horn and rats trained only on rhino horn sniffed it out.

In 2023, the rats were also put to the test in a real-world simulation in the port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital. The rats found 85% of planted illegal wildlife samples, Apopo said, even through vents in shipping containers.

Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.

The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.

An 18-month conflict has driven hunger in Sudan by disrupting food systems, causing displacement, and blocking access for humanitarian support. Weather extremes, such as floods, have also played a role in worsening food insecurity.

To identify hunger hotspots around the world, food security experts and analysts from the FAO and WFP conducted risk analysis of conflict, political violence, economic shocks and natural hazards, and assessed the current or probable disruptions to agricultural activities caused by those risks.

They found 22 hunger hotspots where acute food insecurity is projected to worsen between November 2024 and May 2025.

Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Palestine and Haiti were rated at the level of highest concern, meaning they face famine or the risk of famine, or have populations in catastrophe. “People are experiencing an extreme lack of food and face unprecedented enduring starvation,” said Qu Dongyu, the director general of the FAO.

Sudan is in the midst of a deadly war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has lasted 18 months and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In one town, children are reported to have been dying of hunger every day. The challenges have intensified in recent months: famine was declared at one displacement camp and heavy rains caused floods that led to deaths and displacement.

The report says intensification of the war would cause further mass displacement and worsen the regional humanitarian crisis, leading to increased cross-border movements to Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia and Central African Republic.

“Without immediate humanitarian efforts and concerted international action to address severe access constraints and advocate for the de-escalation of conflict and insecurity, further starvation and loss of life are likely in Palestine, the Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali,” said Aurélien Mellin, emergency and rehabilitation officer at the FAO.

The analysis classified Chad, Nigeria, Mozambique, Lebanon, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen as hotspots of very high concern, meaning large populations there are facing or are forecast to face critical levels of acute food insecurity.

Two countries – Namibia and Lesotho – appear in the hunger hotspots list for the first time due to the negative impact of weather events and a significant decrease in agricultural production this year. The other countries in the third highest category of concern are Kenya, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The report says that a La Niña event – the naturally occurring climate phenomenon that affects rainfall patterns and temperatures – is expected from November 2024 to March 2025. This is likely to increase flood risks in Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe, while causing drought in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, it says.

“La Niña-induced climate extremes can have severe consequences on food security,” said Mellin. “Many countries experiencing humanitarian crises risk being further affected by La Niña, which could exacerbate food insecurity, increase human suffering and result in further economic losses.”

Kevin Mugenya, the programme director at the charity Mercy Corps Ethiopia, said the report highlighted “a troubling rise” in food insecurity across Africa, adding: “Unfortunately, it’s not surprising.”

“We’re seeing hunger deepen due to a complex mix of conflict, economic challenges, and climate change – creating the worst hunger crisis in a generation, particularly in countries like Sudan, Nigeria and Mali,” said Mugenya.

“This has been expected as a result of the compounding years of conflict and instability in the region that has disrupted food supply chains and planting seasons for farmers, leaving less and less land under cultivation.”

The report calls for “immediate” and “scaled-up” assistance in hunger hotspots in order to protect livelihoods and improve access to food.

Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.

The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.

An 18-month conflict has driven hunger in Sudan by disrupting food systems, causing displacement, and blocking access for humanitarian support. Weather extremes, such as floods, have also played a role in worsening food insecurity.

To identify hunger hotspots around the world, food security experts and analysts from the FAO and WFP conducted risk analysis of conflict, political violence, economic shocks and natural hazards, and assessed the current or probable disruptions to agricultural activities caused by those risks.

They found 22 hunger hotspots where acute food insecurity is projected to worsen between November 2024 and May 2025.

Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Palestine and Haiti were rated at the level of highest concern, meaning they face famine or the risk of famine, or have populations in catastrophe. “People are experiencing an extreme lack of food and face unprecedented enduring starvation,” said Qu Dongyu, the director general of the FAO.

Sudan is in the midst of a deadly war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has lasted 18 months and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In one town, children are reported to have been dying of hunger every day. The challenges have intensified in recent months: famine was declared at one displacement camp and heavy rains caused floods that led to deaths and displacement.

The report says intensification of the war would cause further mass displacement and worsen the regional humanitarian crisis, leading to increased cross-border movements to Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia and Central African Republic.

“Without immediate humanitarian efforts and concerted international action to address severe access constraints and advocate for the de-escalation of conflict and insecurity, further starvation and loss of life are likely in Palestine, the Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali,” said Aurélien Mellin, emergency and rehabilitation officer at the FAO.

The analysis classified Chad, Nigeria, Mozambique, Lebanon, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen as hotspots of very high concern, meaning large populations there are facing or are forecast to face critical levels of acute food insecurity.

Two countries – Namibia and Lesotho – appear in the hunger hotspots list for the first time due to the negative impact of weather events and a significant decrease in agricultural production this year. The other countries in the third highest category of concern are Kenya, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The report says that a La Niña event – the naturally occurring climate phenomenon that affects rainfall patterns and temperatures – is expected from November 2024 to March 2025. This is likely to increase flood risks in Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe, while causing drought in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, it says.

“La Niña-induced climate extremes can have severe consequences on food security,” said Mellin. “Many countries experiencing humanitarian crises risk being further affected by La Niña, which could exacerbate food insecurity, increase human suffering and result in further economic losses.”

Kevin Mugenya, the programme director at the charity Mercy Corps Ethiopia, said the report highlighted “a troubling rise” in food insecurity across Africa, adding: “Unfortunately, it’s not surprising.”

“We’re seeing hunger deepen due to a complex mix of conflict, economic challenges, and climate change – creating the worst hunger crisis in a generation, particularly in countries like Sudan, Nigeria and Mali,” said Mugenya.

“This has been expected as a result of the compounding years of conflict and instability in the region that has disrupted food supply chains and planting seasons for farmers, leaving less and less land under cultivation.”

The report calls for “immediate” and “scaled-up” assistance in hunger hotspots in order to protect livelihoods and improve access to food.

A British Columbia judge has issued a rare, last-minute injunction barring a woman from accessing euthanasia after physicians in her home province refused to approve the request.

The injunction, granted to the woman’s common law partner, blocks the Vancouver physician Ellen Wiebe, or any other medical professional, from “causing the death” of an Alberta woman within the next 30 days.

The court order comes as the country remains in a fractious debate over the expansion of medical assistance in dying, or Maid. Earlier this week, Quebec became the first province to allow people to make the decision years in advance – a violation of federal law.

While official figures show the vast majority of people accessing Maid have terminal illnesses, critics worry that a small, but growing proportion of the cases reflect poverty and social inequality pushing people to end their lives.

In the British Columbia case, the injunction comes after the woman’s partner filed a notice of civil claim alleging Wiebe negligently approved the procedure for a patient who does not legally qualify, and if she were to administer Maid would “constitute a battery of (the patient), wrongful death and, potentially a criminal offence”, according to the Canadian Press.

According to court documents, the 53-year-old woman traveled from Alberta to BC to access Maid after doctors in her home province refused to grant approval.

The woman had applied for Maid citing akathisia, a movement disorder linked to changing doses of psychotropic or antipsychotic medication. The woman experienced
“distressing side-effects” after reducing her dosage of a medication used to treat bipolar disorder. Among the symptoms were “an inner sense of terror all day long, the inability to sleep at night, nightmares, the inability to lie down during the day due to a feeling of falling, the inability to sit or remain still, suicidal thoughts”.

The woman and her partner were told that the condition was treatable and that the symptoms could resolve within months, according to court documents. As a result, doctors did not approve her request for assisted death.

The woman found Wiebe and met with her via Zoom. “At the end of the first meeting, Dr Wiebe approved [the woman] for Maid,” the claim says.

Wiebe, a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia, has emerged as a fierce advocate for Maid, arguing the current laws are meant to acknowledge “basic human rights”.

The British Columbia lawsuit alleges that Wiebe did not consult with the woman’s doctors, nor did she request the patient’s full medical records. Instead, Wiebe is alleged to have only reviewed a portion of the woman’s medical records by email.

In Canada, the euthanasia framework has two “tracks” – one for terminal conditions and another where “natural death is not reasonably foreseeable”. Applicants whose medical condition is mental illness will remain ineligible until at least March 2027.

In cases where the applicant suffers from a chronic, irremediable physical condition, federal law requires that a second, independent doctor also approve the request. The lawsuit alleges that did not happen in the case of the Alberta woman.

Wiebe declined to comment.

In his ruling, Simon Coval, a BC supreme court justice, said the woman appeared to have a mental health condition with no physical ailment. He said he approved the request because the case was “clearly a situation of extreme irreparable harm” if she followed through on her plan to die on 27 October.

Coval acknowledged the injunction “is a severe intrusion” into the woman’s personal and medical autonomy.

“I can only imagine the pain she has been experiencing and I recognize that this injunction will likely make that worse,” he wrote. But he questioned whether the Maid standards were properly applied, given that her condition “may not only be remediable, but remediable relatively quickly”.

The biggest typhoon to hit Taiwan in decades has crossed over the island, leaving behind a path of destruction but minimal reported deaths or injuries.

Typhoon Kong-rey was the largest in size to make landfall in Taiwan since 1996, and also struck later in the typhoon season, which typically stretches from May to October, than any other typhoon since record-keeping began in the 1950s.

Kong-rey had been declared a “strong typhoon” by Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration (CWA) before it made landfall near the city of Taitung on Taiwan’s south-eastern coast, at about 1.40pm on Thursday.

Although it weakened slightly, the storm maintained typhoon strength as it crossed Taiwan’s central mountain range and entered the Taiwan strait to the island’s west. Its outer bands covered the length of Taiwan’s main island and were still bringing destructive rain and winds well into the evening. Trees, power lines, and buildings were damaged or brought down, including in the capital, Taipei, hundreds of kilometres to the north of the storm’s eye. Severe landslides and flooding were reported, mainly in regions closer to Kong-rey’s centre.

“It didn’t rain too heavily at first, but suddenly I heard the sound of flooding, which sounded like thunder or a train passing by,” said one resident outside a building that had been reduced to rubble.

Workplaces, schools and some transport services were shut across Taiwan on Thursday in preparation for Kong-rey’s arrival, and authorities had advised people to stay inside because of the high risk of landslides, storm surges, destructive winds and flooding, with more than 1.2 metres of rainfall expected. More than 200 injuries had been recorded as a result of the typhoon by the time it made landfall, and one person died after the vehicle they were in hit a fallen tree. Almost half a million homes were without power on Thursday afternoon.

Storm trackers measured Kong-rey as the equivalent of a category 3 to 4 hurricane. As it approached the coast, reports measured gusts of more than 225kph (140mph) and sustained winds of 183kph near its centre. The large typhoon – with a radius of more than 320km and an eye of about 64km – prompted a warning for all of Taiwan’s main and outer islands.

Lanyu Island, which sits off Taitung and was in the direct path of Kong-rey, reported record high sustained winds of more than 213kph, as well as gusts above 260kph before wind speed indicators went offline.

“The size of the storm is very large and the winds are high,” said a CWA forecaster, Gene Huang.

More than 9,000 people were evacuated. Scheduled military exercises were cancelled owing to the typhoon – for the second time this year – and more than 30,000 troops were diverted to stand by for disaster response. By Thursday morning, authorities had already issued 63 landslide warnings, and recorded four landslips. Two Czech nationals who could not be reached after they went hiking inside Taroko national park, near Hualien, were later found unharmed.

Hundreds of domestic and international flights were cancelled or rescheduled, and fishing boats and ferries recalled to harbours on Wednesday. Ship traffic trackers showed the usually busy waters around Taiwan were almost entirely empty on the island’s east side.

The last typhoon to hit Taiwan directly was Krathon, earlier this month, which killed four people and injured more than 700.

Additional reporting by Chi-hui Lin and Reuters

Non-proliferation groups are urging the UK government to make a late about-turn on plans to vote alongside France, Russia and North Korea against a UN resolution to study the effects of nuclear war.

In a debate on Friday, a UN general assembly committee will discuss a resolution to create an international panel of scientific experts to examine the global impact of different nuclear conflict scenarios.

The resolution, drafted by Ireland and New Zealand, is expected to be overwhelmingly approved by the committee and then later by the full assembly. Diplomats involved in preparations for the vote say the US and China are expected to abstain but that the UK, France, Russia and North Korea had indicated they were likely to vote against.

London and Paris joining forces with Moscow and Pyongyang would not stop the resolution but could have an impact on their reputations when it comes to other nuclear proliferation issues.

The UK and French missions to the UN did not respond to requests for comment and diplomats in New York said final decisions could be left until the last hours before the vote.

Arms control advocates expressed disappointment on Thursday that, with just 24 hours to go before the debate, the UK’s new Labour government had shown no signs of changing course.

“People naively thought that, with a Labour government, you would see a shift away from this kind of weird line that the UK has taken on this particular type of thing,” said Patricia Lewis, the head of the international security programme at the Chatham House thinktank. “Maybe this is the Labour party trying to be more Catholic than the pope when it comes to nuclear weapons, but why not vote with the US, and abstain?”

The panel proposed in Friday’s resolution would be the first such UN-mandated study since 1988 and experts say a lot has changed since then, in science and the nuclear threats around the world. For example, Russia and North Korea, countries which have made aggressive nuclear threats, have entered a deepening partnership.

Lewis argued that a no vote by the UK and France would undermine their credibility with other UN member states, especially when London and Paris are trying to rally global support for criticism of Moscow.

“The UK has been struggling to get countries like South Africa and Brazil onboard over the whole issue of Russia’s behaviour, so this is an opportunity for the UK to say: ‘Yes, we hear you,’” Lewis said.

Observers believe the UK position could be the result of a pact with France to fend off criticism of their nuclear arsenals.

“I think this is building bridges with the French,” said Zia Mian, a physicist and co-director of Princeton University’s programme on science and global security. “The French don’t want to be alone with the Russians and the North Koreans and whatnot in voting no.”

The UK, France, Russia and North Korea have been on the same side in a UN vote before. In December last year, they were the only four countries to vote against a general assembly resolution aimed at helping radiation victims of nuclear testing and restoring the environment at past test sites.

Some arms control experts were still hoping on Thursday that the British policy had remained unchanged from the previous Tory government through sheer inertia and could still change if the matter gained the attention of the Labour leadership at the 11th hour.

“People are working hard in London to make sure that the political level knows that this is what’s going on, because often this is done on autopilot,” said Mian, who has argued for a new scientific panel.

The UN panel would be made up of 21 scientific experts and would examine “the physical effects and societal consequences of a nuclear war on a local, regional and planetary scale”.

Scientists say such work is essential as so much has changed in the subject area since 1988, when the last study was done. For example, it was previously thought it would take a full-scale nuclear conflict between superpowers to plunge the world into a “nuclear winter”; it is now thought that even a limited nuclear exchange between regional adversaries could have such a devastating global effect.

“They never imagined that the climate system was so sensitive to these kinds of effects,” Mian said.

In April, the UK Royal Society was part of a joint statement by the national academies of science of the G7 member states, which said: “Among the roles of the scientific community are to continue to develop and communicate the scientific evidence base that shows the catastrophic effects of nuclear warfare on human populations and on the other species with which we share our planet.”

While some governments and national scientific institutions have done their own research, supporters of the resolution said a UN panel could establish a global consensus and a scientific “gold standard”, emulating the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and have an impact on policy.

“Studying the results of nuclear war will flesh out how bad it would be to have one, and maybe add pressure on countries who would otherwise think about using nuclear weapons,” said Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. “Their leaders, their elites would maybe study or read it, or their populations, or partners or allies, who would maybe say we really don’t want this to happen.”

Officials in Georgia said a partial recount confirmed the ruling party had won its disputed election, with Washington and Brussels demanding an investigation.

However, the pro-western opposition said Saturday’s parliamentary vote had been “stolen” by the ruling Georgian Dream party and it refused to recognise the results, plunging the Caucasus country into uncertainty.

The pro-European president, Salome Zourabichvili, who is at loggerheads with the governing party, has declared the election results “illegitimate”, alleging there was a “Russian special operation” to undermine the vote –which the Kremlin has denied.

The central election commission told AFP on Thursday that a recount at about 12% of polling stations, involving 14% of the vote, “didn’t lead to a significant change to previously announced official results”.

“Final tallies only slightly changed at some 9% of recounted polling stations,” a spokesperson said.

Tens of thousands of people thronged the streets on Monday to protest against the alleged fraud.

International observers, the EU and the US have criticised electoral irregularities and demanded a full investigation. Georgia is an EU candidate.

Georgia’s interior ministry said two people had been arrested after alleged ballot stuffing at a provincial polling station, while prosecutors said they had opened 47 criminal cases over alleged electoral violations.

On Wednesday, Georgian prosecutors said they had summoned Zourabichvili for questioning, because she “is believed to possess evidence regarding possible falsification”. The figurehead president refused to comply, saying plenty of evidence of electoral fraud was available and prosecutors should focus on their investigation and “stop political score-settling with the president”.

Opposition parties said they would not enter the new “illegitimate” parliament, and demanded fresh elections.

The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, a Georgian NGO, said in a report released on Thursday that the results “regardless of the outcome, could not be seen as truly reflecting the preferences of Georgian voters”. The group said it had documented “serious (electoral) violations”, including “intimidation, ballot stuffing, multiple voting, unprecedented levels of voter bribery and expulsion of observers from polling stations”.

A group of Georgia’s leading election monitors said earlier that they had uncovered evidence of a complex scheme of large-scale electoral fraud that had swayed results in favour of the ruling party.

Before the elections, Brussels cautioned that they would be a crucial test for Tbilisi’s fledgling democracy and would determine its chances of joining the bloc.

The European Commission said in a report published on Wednesday it could not recommend opening membership talks “unless Georgia reverts the current course of action which jeopardises its EU path”.

Critics of the increasingly conservative Georgian Dream party accuse it of derailing efforts to join the EU and of bringing the former Soviet country back into the Kremlin’s orbit.

The EU halted Tbilisi’s accession process after Georgian Dream passed a law this year on “foreign influence” that opponents said mirrored repressive Russian legislation, and which has prompted weeks of large-scale street protests.

The prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, insisted the elections were “entirely fair, free, competitive and clean” and that EU integration was his government’s “top priority”.

Near-final election results showed Georgian Dream won 53.9% of the vote, compared with 37.7% for an opposition coalition.

The EU has launched formal proceedings against the Chinese shopping website Temu amid concerns it is failing to halt the sale of illegal products online.

A formal investigation was opened on Thursday with the European Commission citing concerns over the platform, which is a cut-price rival to Amazon.

With its tagline “shop like a billionaire”, the service has rapidly grown in the EU market since its launch in April last year, selling everything from cosmetics to clothing as well as furniture and tech, sourced directly in China to about 100 million users.

The European Commission said it had numerous concerns that the platform, owned by PDD Holdings, was breaching the new Digital Services Act (DSA), which regulates tech firms ranging from Facebook to X and Google.

Among them are concerns that it does not have sufficiently robust systems in place to stop the reappearance of “previously suspended rogue traders” with products re-emerging sometimes within days of being removed.

A senior commission official said concerns about the selling of counterfeit products, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and toys had been raised by various authorities across Europe, particularly in Germany, Denmark and Ireland, where the company is headquartered in the EU.

“We have received a lot of input by other authorities, but there is a real kind of suspicion that not enough is done, not in an effective way, to really prevent the dissemination of illegal products,” they said.

The official added that they suspected Temu had not put “effective control systems” in place “reviewing and monitoring and screening what happens on their platform”.

The commission is also concerned about the aggressive sales tactics on the platform with an “addictive design” involving “game-like rewards”, with weak systems to “mitigate the risks stemming from such addictive design”.

If found to be in breach of the DSA the company could face large fines.

Margrethe Vestager, the executive vice-president in charge of the Europe fit for the digital age portfolio at the commission, said: “We want to ensure that Temu is complying with the DSA. Particularly in ensuring that products sold on their platform meet EU standards and do not harm consumers.

“Our enforcement will guarantee a level playing field and that every platform, including Temu, fully respects the laws that keep our European market safe and fair for all.”

Officials said Temu was “extremely responsive” to the EU inquiry, responding “within minutes” to any questions.

Temu’s growth has been rapid, registering 75 million users in the EU in April, rising to 92 million in September.

“I want to stress that these are suspicions at this stage. These are not conclusions, not even preliminary conclusions,” said an official.

They added that the investigation was designed to find out whether there was a “systemic” issue or not.

Complaints were levelled against Temu by a pan-European consumer group that said it was breaching the DSA by failing to provide customers with crucial information about the sellers on its platforms.

It filed its complaint in May, with 17 EU members including France, Italy and the Netherlands also filing complaints to relevant national authorities.

In June the commission sent formal requests for information to Temu and its Chinese rival, Shein, regarding their formal obligations to design online interfaces that strived to protect children and make the source of the goods on sale transparent.

Fernando Hortal Foronda, digital policy officer at the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) which raised one of the original complaints, welcomed the investigation. “There are many problems consumer groups have identified with Temu, which include many dangerous or illegal products on sale or the frequent use of design techniques to trick consumers. This decision by the commission is a promising step, but only the first,” he said.

Rocio Concha, of the British consumer group Which?, praised the commission’s investigation, but said there were barriers to taking such action in the UK where there are similar concerns. “Weak consumer protection laws [in Britain] mean Temu and other online marketplaces are not held responsible for unsafe products being sold by third parties,” she said.

“The government must use its product regulation and metrology bill to give online marketplaces greater legal responsibility for preventing unsafe products from being sold on their platforms and to enable tough enforcement action, including heavy fines, if they flout the rules.”

Temu said: “Temu takes its obligations under the DSA seriously, continuously investing to strengthen our compliance system and safeguard consumer interests on our platform. We will cooperate fully with regulators to support our shared goal of a safe, trusted marketplace for consumers.”

It said it was due to sign a “memorandum of understanding on the sale of counterfeit goods on the internet”, a voluntary agreement facilitated by the commission.

“Counterfeiting is an industry-wide challenge, and we believe that collaborative efforts are essential to advancing our shared goals of protecting consumers and rights holders,” a spokesperson said.