‘Benvenuto’! It’s Monocle’s Italian special: meet the politicians, designers and manufacturers determined to re-establish their country’s standing on the world stage.

The biennial Singapore Airshow is a magnet for the world’s most important aerospace companies, all of them eager to sell to the high-flying Asia-Pacific market. Monocle got strapped in to gauge the state of a soaring industry.

Revamping forgotten brands is a growing trend in France, where entrepreneurs are tapping into pre-existing DNA and ready-made heritage. Monocle meets the brains behind some of these French revivals.

It's the largest and most important pit stop on the global toy calendar. Monocle films visits the Spielwarenmesse International Toy Fair in Nürnberg to meet the up-and-coming innovators and old-school stalwarts keeping the industry afloat.

They make the news mainly for the number of would-be emigrants attempting to leave their troubled shores. We visit the volatile islands off East Africa to find out how they became a hotbed of political intrigue.

Cape Town's reign as World Design Capital for 2014 focuses on the problem-solving potential of design: an approach that’s more gritty than pretty. As South Africa celebrates 20 years of independence, Gillian Dobias explores the city's design-for-social-change agenda.

Punctual? Rigorous? Romantic? What does it mean to be typically German? Rolf Sachs, a half-German, half-French artist and designer with a wry eye and a scarf made from dusters, explores the clichés that form his notion of a nation in a new exhibition at MAKK, Köln's Museum of Applied Arts. Culture editor Robert Bound went along to sort the ‘schadenfreude' from the 'sehnsucht'.

The Texan energy capital has a huge oil-driven economy and business infrastructure. As it welcomes a growing number of entrepreneurs we document this changing city.

Make issue 70 the starting point for your travel, business and leisure projects this year – our worldwide forecast brings together the people to meet and places to visit to put your 2014 plans into action.

Contemporary Czech designers are embracing regional Bohemian glass-making traditions while investing in new techniques to create modern products with soul. Monocle films pays a visit to some of the country’s most clear-thinking glass alchemists.