Kylian Mbappé has branded the first-round results of France’s snap parliamentary election “catastrophic”, urging voters to turn out in force and fend off the threat of a National Rally-controlled government when polls open for the runoff vote on Sunday.

In the latest of several interventions by members of the France national football team, the influential captain Mbappé warned that the country must take its chance to ensure the far right, anti-immigration party is unable to seize power in what has become a tumultuous political battle.

“It’s an urgent situation,” he said when asked for his thoughts on a parlous state of affairs that saw National Rally win 33% of the popular vote in last weekend’s first round. “We cannot let our country fall into the hands of these people. It is pressing. We saw the results, it’s catastrophic. We really hope it’s going to change: that everyone is going to rally together, go and vote, and vote for the correct party.”

Mbappé emphasised the importance of voting “now, more than ever”. France’s players are currently in Germany for the European Championship but they have maintained close attention on events back home and, unlike their English counterparts, a number of them have felt comfortable commenting on political matters.

Speaking on Monday after their victory over Belgium, the defender Jules Koundé said he was “disappointed” with the level of support for a party that “seek to take away our freedom and take away the fact that we live together”. He stated that previous non-voters must be persuaded to the ballot box in order to ensure the extreme right do not gain an absolute majority.

Before the tournament began, the forwards Marcus Thuram and Ousmane Dembélé both made similar exhortations to those eligible to vote. Mbappé joined them, saying at the time that he is “against extreme views and against ideas that divide people”.

Those comments were criticised by, among others, the National Rally leader Jordan Bardella. Mbappé, who recently signed for the Champions League winners Real Madrid, is France’s star player and a figure whose voice holds considerable weight among the country’s youth.

France face Portugal in a quarter-final on Friday and it means Mbappé, who will again play in a mask after breaking his nose in the group stage, will face a former Real Madrid forward in Cristiano Ronaldo. It is widely held that this could be the moment Mbappé, who is 25, takes the baton of greatness from the 39-year-old Portugal legend. “He is one of a kind,” Mbappé said. “He has shaped football, inspired generations, scored goals. I can only sing his praises.”

Hurricane Beryl is barrelling through the Cayman Islands after causing death and destruction in Jamaica.

The British overseas territory is bearing the brunt of the hurricane, which has been causing “utter devastation” in the Caribbean since Monday, when it almost destroyed parts of Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Now a category 3 hurricane with wind speeds of up to 120mph (193km/h), Beryl has brought thunderstorms and gale forces winds to the Cayman Islands.

Earlier on Thursday, meteorologists said the hurricane was 50 miles south-west of Grand Cayman and moving away from the island. However, they issued strong reminders to stay sheltered until the all-clear was given.

On Wednesday, Beryl touched down in Jamaica, forcing airports to close and sending nearly 1,000 people into government-designated shelters.

The hurricane’s eyewall skirted Jamaica’s southern coast as a powerful category 4 storm, ripping off roofs, uprooting electric poles and trees and causing widespread flooding.

“It’s terrible. Everything’s gone. I’m in my house and scared,” said Amoy Wellington, a 51-year-old cashier who lives in Top Hill, a rural farming community in southern St Elizabeth parish. “It’s a disaster.”

According to the most recent reports, many people in the country are without water, and on Wednesday night, officials said 60% of the population was without electricity.

On Wednesday evening, there were reports of a man being washed away, and confirmation that a woman had died in the parish of Hanover after a tree toppled on her house, bringing the death toll to at least nine across the countries affected by the hurricane.

But officials in the multi-island countries of Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) have said the death toll could increase as they struggle to assess the damage on some islands.

In Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro told state television three people had died, four were missing, and more than 8,000 homes had been damaged.

Mexico’s tourist centres of Cancún and the wider Yucatán peninsula lie in Beryl’s predicted path. Cancún’s airport was thronged with tourists hoping to catch the last flights out before the storm arrived. Workers filled bags with sand and boarded up doors and windows of businesses for protection.

Mexico’s defence ministry opened about 120 storm shelters and asked visitors to heed instructions on evacuation or other measures.

Beryl is the 2024 Atlantic season’s first hurricane and at its peak earlier this week was the earliest category 5 storm on record. The prime minister of SVG has decried a lack of political will in western Europe and the US to tackle the global climate crisis.

Scientists say human-caused climate breakdown has increased the occurrence of the most intense and destructive tropical storms, because warming oceans provide more energy and increase their strength.

As the storm charts its deadly course through the region, leaders are seeking support for what they describe as the “herculean effort to rebuild”.

The SVG prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, expressed his concern about accessing grants to rebuild, while his Grenadian counterpart, Dickon Mitchell, told reporters he was hoping to trigger his country’s catastrophic risk insurance policy.

Since Monday, individuals, groups, countries and regional and international organisations, including the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the UN, and the Commonwealth, have pledged support to the devastated islands.

On Thursday, the Royal Navy said it would deploy its warship HMS Trent to deliver aid, including bottled water, basic emergency supplies, and equipment to the Cayman Islands.

King Charles has asked to be kept closely informed of the developing situation, and it is understood he will be making a substantial donation to the disaster recovery and relief efforts.

In a message to the people of the Caribbean who had been affected by Beryl, he said: “My family and I have been profoundly saddened to learn of the dreadful destruction caused by Hurricane Beryl across the Caribbean. Above all, we send our heartfelt condolences to the friends and families of those who have so cruelly lost their lives.

“I have seen the extraordinary spirit of resilience and solidarity that people across the Caribbean have shown in response to such destruction – a spirit which has been called upon too often – and so I also send my particular gratitude to the emergency services and volunteers who are supporting the rescue and recovery efforts.

“At this most difficult of times, please know that our most special thoughts and prayers are with all those whose lives, livelihoods and property have been so utterly devastated.”

“A broken-down pile of crap” on the verge of “quitting the race” was Donald Trump’s summation of Joe Biden in a surreptitiously filmed video leaked on Wednesday.

The clip, obtained by the Daily Beast, shows the 78-year-old former president sitting in a golf cart, holding a pile of cash, and with son Barron alongside, as he offers an analysis of the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump asked a group off-camera: “How did I do with the debate the other night?” before predicting that Biden would not seek re-election.

“He just quit, you know – he’s quitting the race”, Trump said. “I got him out of the – and that means we have Kamala.”

The White House and most Democrats maintain Biden will remain the party nominee, though voter polls suggest that he has slipped six points behind Trump and that the vice-president, Kamala Harris, could be a stronger Democrat candidate in November.

“I think she’s gonna be better” as an opponent, Trump continued in the video, but added: “She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic” and appeared to say: “She’s so fucking bad.”

Biden’s campaign has denied he is stepping down. “Absolutely not,” said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, on Wednesday. Several Democratic governors repeated the phrase “in it to win it” after meeting with Biden.

The Trump campaign has not commented directly on the video but on Wednesday predicted the “total collapse” of the Democratic party following Biden’s poor debate performance and mounting calls for him to step aside.

The Biden-Harris campaign responded to the video in a statement: “The American people have already seen low after low from Donald Trump,” it said, described the video as a “new rock bottom” for him.

The clip was leaked hours after the Trump campaign released its first attack ads against Harris, who is the most likely candidate to replace Biden if he decides to quit the race.

Leaked video and audio clips have previously been a source of embarrassment for Trump, including in 2016 with the notorious Access Hollywood tape in which he described women in vulgar terms and bragged about sexually harassing them.

In the latest video Trump expressed disdain for Biden’s ability to deal with foreign adversaries, including Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and China’s president, Xi Jinping.

“Can you imagine that guy dealing with Putin?” Trump asked. “And the president of China – who’s a fierce person. He’s a fierce man, very tough guy. And they see him.”

New research aimed at identifying foods that contain higher levels of PFAS found people who eat more white rice, coffee, eggs and seafood typically showed more of the toxic chemicals in their plasma and breast milk.

The study checked samples from 3,000 pregnant mothers, and is among the first research to suggest coffee and white rice may be contaminated at higher rates than other foods. It also identified an association between red meat consumption and levels of PFOS, one of the most common and dangerous PFAS compounds.

The authors said the findings highlight the chemicals’ ubiquity and the many ways they can end up in the food supply.

“The results definitely point toward the need for environmental stewardship, and keeping PFAS out of the environment and food chain,” said Megan Romano, a Dartmouth researcher and lead author. “Now we’re in a situation where they’re everywhere and are going to stick around even if we do aggressive remediation.”

PFAS are a class of about 16,000 compounds used to make products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. The chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems.

Though regulators have focused on reining in pollution in water, food is thought to be the most common exposure route. The Food and Drug Administration, however, has drawn criticism for what some say is a failure to protect the nation’s food supply. Among other controversies, it altered its testing methods to make it appear as if the food it tests does not have PFAS in it when it actually does contain what many advocates say are concerning levels.

PFAS can end up contaminating food through a number of routes. In rice, the researchers suspect it stems from contaminated soil or agricultural water. Non-stick cookware also often contains the chemicals, or it could be in water used for cooking.

Researchers found higher levels of PFAS associated with eggs from backyard chickens, which Romano said could be attributed to the birds more commonly being fed with table scraps. PFAS-fouled sewage sludge, which is used as a cheap alternative to fertilizer, may also contaminate the soil from which chickens feed, and has been found to contaminate beef. The chemicals also could be in the birds’ feed.

In coffee, researchers suspect that the beans, water used for brewing, or soil could be contaminated. Previous research has also found coffee filters to be treated with PFAS, and paper cups or other food packaging also commonly contain the chemicals.

Seafood, meanwhile, has regularly been found to be contaminated with PFAS because water pollution is so widespread.

Public health advocates say a ban on the chemicals except for essential uses is the only way to begin addressing the problem broadly. Romano said the research found diets high in fruit, whole grain and higher dietary fiber were associated with lower levels of some PFAS, and eating a varied diet so no one protein source comprises too large of a proportion of intake is beneficial.

“That helps you not only reduce your exposure to PFAS but other contaminants we might anticipate are in food,” Romano said.

Soon after Labour forms a government, it will find itself in a new world. It now seems likely that Donald Trump will win the presidency of the United States. If he does, this should bring an end to our abiding fantasies about a special relationship.

It was always an illusion. After the astonishing, heroic intervention of the US in the second world war preserved us from invasion and fascism, we built a romantic fairytale of enduring love. But both countries act in their own interests. While the UK and Europe have leant on the US for security, the dominant power has long used us as an instrument of policy.

Our joint enterprise has often been devastating to other people. Take, to give just a few examples, the US-UK coup that overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953, the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the 2003 Iraq war, or the staunch support offered by Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak for the unfolding genocide in Gaza.

Our countries have also collaborated in developing a global trade and legal regime that favours capital over the democratic state. One example is the system known as investor-state dispute settlement, which grants offshore courts primacy over national sovereignty.

If Trump is installed in the White House again, the US government, always a questionable friend, is likely to become a clear threat to our peace, security and wellbeing. It will rip up what remains of global security and detente, environmental and human rights agreements, and international law. The age of multilateralism, flawed as it always was, would be over, and something much worse will take its place. In short, the UK and Europe will need to find the means of defending ourselves against a Trump regime and its allies. We might also need, as the lessons of the past century are unlearnt and the far right rises again, to defend ourselves against each other.

Trump has developed a special relationship; not with us, but with Vladimir Putin, to whom he defers as the iron dictator he would like to be. Russia sought to help Trump win in 2016, tried again in 2020 and has long backed Trump for 2024.

As if in return, when he was president, Trump announced that he trusted Putin ahead of US intelligence agencies. Subsequently, he praised Putin for his invasion of Ukraine, and has stated he would encourage Russia to attack any Nato member that doesn’t spend heavily on defence.

One result of this special relationship is that Trump, if elected, is likely to end US military support for Ukraine. This means that if European nations don’t step up, Putin will be able to complete his invasion. It seems unlikely that he will stop there. A Kremlin memo last year announced that Russia would take “symmetrical and asymmetrical measures necessary to suppress” such “unfriendly acts” as the use of sanctions. In February, the Danish defence minister warned that Russia could launch an attack on a Nato country within five years. Poland, the Baltic states … ? With a supporter in the White House and the possible collapse of Nato, why would Putin not pursue his advantage?

Ukraine’s strongest ally in western Europe, Emmanuel Macron, is now flailing, while Putin’s friends in Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Slovakia sense that history is on their side. When circumstances change, so should our positions, however disquieting it might be. I have long called for disarmament. This made sense when the Ministry of Defence concluded in 2003 that “there are currently no major conventional military threats to the UK or Nato … it is now clear that we no longer need to retain a capability against the re-emergence of a direct conventional strategic threat” and when Nato decided a few years later that “large-scale conventional aggression against the alliance will be highly unlikely”.

But the situation has changed. With great discomfort, I find myself open to arguments for rearmament. I now believe we need to enhance our conventional capabilities, both to support other European nations against Russia and – something that seemed unimaginable a few years ago – perhaps to defend ourselves.

Currently, according to a former senior official at the MoD, the UK’s forces would be unable to “fight and win an armed conflict of any scale”. We would rapidly run out of ammunition, could not prevent missile strikes and could not stop an attack on our territory.

Conversely, this is also a good moment for the UK government to rethink its position on nuclear weapons. It’s time to recognise that our “independent nuclear deterrent” has never been independent. Because key components are supplied and controlled by the US, we cannot operate it without US consent. So, if Trump regains the White House, it would not be a deterrent, either: Putin knows we cannot use it. The UK’s nuclear programme is a £172bn heap of bricks. Why waste more money on it?

We are faced throughout our lives with a choice of consistencies. Either our values or our positions can remain unchanged, but not both. Consistently defending our values – such as opposition to imperialism, fascism and wars of aggression – demands that we should be ready to alter our assessments as the nature of these threats changes.

The UK’s foreign policy will require other sharp turns. On Israel and Palestine, a Labour government should defend peace, justice and international law. Following Keir Starmer’s initial moral failure, Labour’s position has begun to change: David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has said that if the international criminal court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, he would be prepared to implement it. Now he should also demand a complete embargo of British arms to Israel.

As Trump rips up US environmental commitments, other countries will have to redouble theirs to avoid planetary catastrophe. It will do us no economic harm to embrace 21st-century technologies while the US remains in the fossil age. All this becomes especially urgent in the UK if that gurning minion of both Trump and Putin, Nigel Farage, achieves a foothold in politics. The collaborators are already lining up to betray their country.

Independence from the US is difficult, hazardous and uncertain of success. But remaining a loyal servant of the US if Trump becomes commander-in-chief is a certain formula for disaster. There is nothing we can do to stop his election, except to plead with US voters not to let a convicted felon, coup plotter, sex assaulter, liar, fraud and wannabe dictator into the White House. But we can seek to defend ourselves against it.

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It resembles an enormous, malevolent robot from 1980s sci-fi but West Japan Railway’s new humanoid employee was designed with nothing more sinister than a spot of painting and gardening in mind.

Starting this month, the large machine with enormous arms, a crude, disproportionately small Wall-E-like head and coke-bottle eyes mounted on a truck – which can drive on rails – will be put to use for maintenance work on the company’s network.

Its operator sits in a cockpit on the truck, “seeing” through the robot’s eyes via cameras and operating its powerful limbs and hands remotely.

With a vertical reach of 12 metres (40ft), the machine can use various attachments for its arms to carry objects as heavy as 40kg (88lb), hold a brush to paint or use a chainsaw.

For now, the robot’s primary task will focus on trimming tree branches along rails and painting metal frames that hold cables above trains, the company said.

The technology will help fill worker shortages in ageing Japan as well as reduce accidents such as workers falling from high places or suffering electric shocks, the company said.

“In the future, we hope to use machines for all kinds of maintenance operations of our infrastructure,” and this should provide a case study for how to deal with the labour shortage, company president Kazuaki Hasegawa told a recent press conference.

A disrupted climate and diminished natural world are widening the dividing lines of ideological debate. Left unchecked, this will undermine democracy.

That may not be the first thing on the minds of British voters as they go to the polls on Thursday. It is probably also a minority view in the rest of Europe or the US, where people are too much in the thick of a polycrisis to consider anything outside politics and economics as usual. But from a distance, in my case from the Amazon rainforest, there is a very different explanation for the tremors being witnessed in the old world and the new.

How rising emissions distort our political ecosystems is not nearly as well understood as the scientific certainty that they are heating our world. Hundreds of academic papers detail the tipping point risks of an anthropologically altered climate, but very few look at the feedbacks on governance and ideology. One thing, however, is certain: all of the world’s systems – biological, physical, economic and political – are coming under more climate stress and the longer this is left unabated, the greater is the likelihood that something will break.

Democracy is starting to look almost as fragile as the rainforest. Politicians in the traditional parties will not face the fact that they are no longer living in the stable climate in which that political system was created. The right wants to go back to a past that no longer exists. The left wants to move towards a future that it will not dare to fund.

Meanwhile, market zealots and xenophobes, fuelled by fossil fuel money, are using the unfolding chaos to frighten voters and take the opportunity to replace social safety nets and environmental protections with higher walls and rapacious extraction.

Here in Brazil we saw, with the previous, far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, the extremes that the ancien regime is willing to go to hold on to what it has and to burn what remains of the forest. The return of the left in the guise of President Lula has brought a respite but only slowed the pace of destruction. This is a global story. The climate crisis has pushed the right towards zealotry, and made the left appear timid.

The latest tremor shook France, where the far right – once a reviled fringe – secured more votes than any other bloc in the first round of voting in a snap parliamentary election. This followed European elections in which mainstream political parties were shaken by the alarming gains of candidates with anti-immigrant, anti-science, pro-Russian agendas. Meanwhile, the threat of a second Donald Trump victory looms in the US and Britain’s Nigel Farage hopes to ride into parliament on the waves of fear, doubt and deception that have discombobulated the country since Brexit.

These ever more extreme politics are, not coincidentally, coming at a time of ever more extreme weather.

In the past month alone, more than a thousand hajj pilgrims died of heatstroke and related diseases as temperatures soared to 51.8C in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Record heat in Delhi and other Indian cities killed at least 176 people, followed soon after by record floods. Roads also turned into rivers in northern Italy, Switzerland, central China and eastern Malaysia. The wildfire season has already started in Greece. A category 5 hurricane has formed in the Atlantic in June for the first time in history, wreaking havoc across the Caribbean. Social and political norms are taking as much of a battering as infrastructure and livelihoods.

Alleviating this situation requires state intervention and mass redirection of capitaltowards renewables, heat pumps, electric vehicles, sustainable agriculture and the whole net zero shebang. Just as important is patience, international cooperation and belief in a better future – all of which seem to be in decline.

In the UK, until recently, there was strong cross-party support for action. When the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008, only five of the 646 MPs voted against it. The vote in favour of net zero in 2019 was also overwhelming. But in the last two or three years, that consensus has started to unravel as the stakes started to rise, patience thinned, and the right went on the offensive.

Since 2021, Britain’s rightwing press – the Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Sun – has mostly treated net zero as a wedge issue, with numerous politicians following suit. The Conservative politician and former Ukip deputy leader Craig Mackinlay recently told the US news site Politico he expected net zero and energy security to be the political battleground for the next 10 years: “It is an infinitely bigger issue than Brexit.”

This is gnawing into the roots of conservatism. The Tory party’s traditional instinct to conserve national and natural heritage is being eroded by a neoliberal urge to tear up regulations and exploit every resource to extinction. Rishi Sunak has backtracked on net zero and made North Sea gas and motoring central thrusts of his election campaign.

If the Tories lose this week, as the opinion polls predict, the party’s hard right will push harder still against climate action. Any success by the Reform party, which is partly funded by climate sceptics, will add to the pressure. If a Farage-isation of British conservatism seems outlandish, consider the fact that the US Republican party also used to consider itself a stout defender of the environment.

The story is similar in other countries, where democracy’s failure to deal with the causes of the climate crisis has opened the way for ultranationalists to score points by focusing on the consequences, particularly migration. The far right no longer denies climate change, it uses it as a bogeyman to frighten voters and argue for stronger barriers to keep out refugees.

The climate scientist Michael Mann has identified a “coalition of the unwilling” that knows international cooperation and regulation is the only way to deal with the climate crisis, and so sows dissent, doubt and distraction. As examples, he cites Russia’s use of bot armies, trolls and hackers to get climate activists to fight one another, to dig up private emails, which led to the “Climategate” scandal and damaged Hilary Clinton’s campaign against Trump in 2016, and to seed arguments on social media against carbon pricing in Canada or stir up yellow-vest protest in France.

Some far-right parties have received funding or support from Russian banks and businessmen, such as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France and Trump in the US. It is alleged that more than a dozen MEPs from across five countries also took substantial sums of money from Russia’s Voice of Europe news agency, a matter that is still under investigation.

More brazenly, Trump has asked oil executives for $1bn for his campaign and promised, in an effective offer of a quid pro quo, that, if he wins, he will loosen drilling regulations, cut support for electric vehicles and withdraw the US once again from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The left finds itself on the back foot, not entirely sure of how to respond to these attacks, just as with the anti-immigration line. The Labour party in the UK, like the Democrats in the US and the New Popular Front in France, has rightly focused on environmental justice and the benefits of climate action: clean-tech jobs, energy security and healthier communities. But it is trapped within the constraints of neoliberal economic orthodoxy, which means it can only move as fast or as slow as the market allows it to go.

That could delay some of the worst climate impacts, but it almost certainly will not be enough to change the perception that the situation is deteriorating. So it will start to seem that action on the consequences produces more results than action on the causes, which will play into the hands of the right, the petrostates, the oil firms, the warmongers and nationalist media.

In that sense, the traditional left is almost as poorly equipped to deal with this challenge as the mainstream right. Both emerged in the industrial era, strapped into the straitjacket of national self-interest and capitalist economics. In every country for most of the last century, left and right happily colluded on the need to materially “develop” the nation and expand gross domestic product with infrastructure projects, increased trade and greater consumption. The argument between them was only about how much of the economic pie the government should distribute between rich and poor.

The dividing line is far more complex in today’s climate-disrupted, nature-depleted world. Just as important now is the quality of the pie, where the ingredients came from, and the extent to which overconsumption is leading to obesity, cancer, climate instability and global conflict. Put more simply, politics is now a battle between those who want to fix what is broken and those who want to keep breaking. Many on the old left may not be comfortable with this 21st-century dividing line, but this is the issue that will determine the habitability of our world.

Facing up to that is an essential step in envisaging a better future. It will not be easy while so many other countries are drifting towards hostility, insularity and short-termism. But in the long run, it is the only chance democracy – and, indeed, humanity – has got. Labour’s challenge, should it win, will be enormous.

On a bright spring day, the sun dances over the water of Havannah Bay on the island of Efate in Vanuatu. Below the surface, pockets of seagrass that can just about be seen from the shoreline, sway in the current. It’s here, if they are lucky, that onlookers may spot a dugong bobbing in the shallow water, orbiting the seagrass meadows they feed on.

“It’s wonderful seeing them swimming by and grazing off the seagrass in front of the resort,” says Greg Pechan, the owner of a local hotel, the Havannah, which sits at the tip of the bay. Pointing out beyond the jetty that stretches into the Pacific Ocean, he says Vanuatu’s sea life is a big attraction for visitors to the Melanesian country.

Light grey in colour, dugongs, sometimes known as “sea cows” and whose closest relatives are freshwater manatees, can grow up to four metres long and weigh up to 400kg (900lb). They are a “friendly species” and respected by islanders, says Heidi Joy, a marine science student from Efate.

A few years ago, it would not be unusual for Joy, who lives close to Havannah Bay, to spot a dugong in the morning and then again at sunset. That has since changed, she says. “We rarely see them now.”

Dugongs are considered vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The exact number roaming Vanuatu’s waters is, however, unknown and this uncertainty is hindering conservation efforts, experts say.

“A lot of studies have been done where you’ve got large populations of dugongs in large seagrass meadows [such as] Australia or Abu Dhabi, but we’ve got a different dugong population. We’ve got small groups or individuals,” says Christina Shaw, the CEO of the Vanuatu Environmental Science Society.

She says that a national assessment of dugongs and seagrass in Vanuatu is urgently needed so it is clear just how many there are, where they are and if they are suffering in the same way as in other parts of the region.

In 2023, the status of neighbouring New Caledonia’s population was downgraded to “endangered” while east African dugongs have become “critically endangered”. “In those two areas, there is enough information to do a regional assessment,” says Shaw.

In Vanuatu, however, only one aerial survey – in 1987 – has been carried out to assess the national distribution, abundance, cultural importance and threats, according to Helene Marsh, an emeritus professor in environmental science at James Cook University.

Dugongs globally are threatened by gill-net fishing, boat traffic, coastal development and hunting.

In Vanuatu, dugong meat used to be considered a source of protein, their oil used for cooking and other parts whittled into handicrafts.

But since the 1980s, certain islands have introduced local prohibitions known as tabu, which mandates their protection. In 2010 the government also signed the Convention on Migratory Species’ dugong memorandum of understanding, committing it to protecting the sea cows and the seagrass they eat. This means hunting is now rare, says Shaw.

Instead, another predator threatens the dugong: the climate crisis. On a spring evening in Efate, rain hammers relentlessly until nightfall, rendering the ocean a murky green. It’s downpours such as this, becoming more common, alongside storms and cyclones, that damage the seagrass so vital to the dugongs.

Vanuatu sits in the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a tectonic belt of volcanoes and earthquakes, and a tropical cyclone region, making it prone to disasters. When these batter the bays and beaches of Vanuatu, the seagrass is swept up by the heavy winds, while the rain and debris creates sediment on the water surface, smothering the seagrass from the sunlight it needs to thrive. It is estimated that 7% of the world’s seagrass is lost every year.

After twin cyclones Judy and Kevin hit in March 2023, the seagrass meadows in Havannah Bay were depleted.

Richard Leck, head of oceans at WWF Australia, says: “When that happens dugongs have no choice but to get on the move and sometimes they have to go into deeper water, expend much more effort to graze seagrass and when that happens they often get emaciated and lose condition really quickly.”

Since the cyclones, Joy says she rarely sees a dugong. On a boat across the bay to Moso Island, known to be frequented by dugongs, the waves give way to mangroves and none are spotted near the surface. They are seen on dive excursions, says Shaw, but “you do need to be lucky”.

As with dugongs, there is limited data on the prevalence and condition of seagrass in Vanuatu. This makes it hard, says Shaw, to advocate for investment in conservation. “Funders don’t like paying for studies,” she says. “But how do we do [conservation] if we don’t know what’s there?”

Emma Raducanu has said she did not realise voting for the general election was happening on Thursday, saying she would be having a lie-in instead.

The 21-year-old former US Open champion was asked about her plans after she thrashed Belgium’s Elise Mertens 6-1, 6-2 on Wednesday and moved into the third round of Wimbledon.

At a press conference, Raducanu was asked if she would vote before practising on Thursday, and if she would keep an eye on the general election in the evening. “No,” she replied, smiling. “I think I’ll have a lie-in, then I’ll come to practise.

“I didn’t even know it was tomorrow, to be honest! Thanks for letting me know.”

Raducanu, who faces the Greek ninth seed, Maria Sakkari, on Friday, was not the only British player who said they would be focusing on their tennis this week.

Katie Boulter, the British No 1, was asked if she would vote before her second-round match against fellow Briton Harriet Dart on Thursday. “For me, I’m going to stick to the tennis right now,” the 27-year-old told a press conference following her first-round triumph against Germany’s Tatjana Maria on Tuesday.

“I don’t see myself as someone who’s going to get involved in anything but tennis that day for the moment. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

Dart, the 27-year-old British No 2, was also asked if she would get a chance to vote on Thursday. “I haven’t given it much thought,” she replied, smiling. “Albeit, my sister works for an MP. I’m sure she’ll be on at me to vote. But yeah, we’ll see.”

Meanwhile, Jack Draper, the British No 1, was asked on Wednesday if he took an interest in politics, to which he simply replied: “No.”

After defeating Sweden’s Elias Ymer in a five-set battle, the 22-year-old from Sutton was also asked if he would be watching any of the news leading up to Thursday’s election.

“No,” Draper replied. “No. It’s a crazy busy time for us tennis players. There’s not much TV-watching. There’s not much time to be thinking about that.”