Is it the final nail in the coffin of American exceptionalism? With the impeachment of Donald Trump comes fresh revelations about those who plotted both outside and in the US Capitol to overturn the result of the presidential election. US democracy may well weather the current storm in Washington, but the certainty that its 240-year old system of government will always prevail while here in France we have had three monarchies, three dictatorships and five republics, that certainty seems well and truly over.

It has been billed as a generational battle. Africa's gaze is turning to Uganda and the tense homestretch to Thursday's presidential election. 38-year-old pop star-cum-opposition leader Bobi Wine is among nine candidates taking on 76-year-old Yoweri Museveni, the former military leader whose National Resistance Movement took the capital way back in 1986.

Two elections too late? Twitter is permanently banning Donald Trump's account, Facebook has suspended it through Inauguration Day, and other social media are jumping on the bandwagon of curbing false claims of a stolen election. For four years, the US president has been spreading disinformation from the Oval Office. His followers had loudly broadcast on various platforms that they were going to march on the Capitol and they did.

Is America's legacy in doubt? The world's most powerful nation has been a stable democracy for most of the better part of two centuries. As the planet awakens to images of the first storming of the US Capitol since the British did it in the War of 1812, there are those who will focus on security lapses: how did crowd control get so easily overwhelmed?

Is it all just a bit of political theatre by Trump loyalists or is it a coup attempt? Join us for a special edition as we cover what has up until now always been a ceremonial formality: the US Congress' certification of the presidential winner. Some Republicans are vowing to contest Joe Biden's victory. That triggers a recess of the joint session, with senators and congressmen then going to their respective chambers to debate before reconvening.

With vaccines comes the promise of light at the end of tunnel. That said, it is always safer to manage expectations.  As the UK returns to its strictest lockdown since the spring, as Germany and France extend confinement measures, the whole world is watching new strains of Covid-19 out of England and South Africa. Will vaccines be enough? Do new variants mean that humanity has to learn to live with coronaviruses? What future for infectious diseases in a globalised world?

If 2020 was the year of the pandemic, may 2021 be the year we won the race to save lives. Every vulnerable person inoculated against the coronavirus is a small victory en route to the day when herd immunity will get the better of Covid-19. So why are the French so slow out of the starting blocks? As of the weekend, less than 500 jabs had been administered here, while Germany was up to 250,000 and the UK nearly a million. We ask about the French government's rethink of its cautious strategy.

What happens when an always-on-the-go planet finds itself locked down? This time a year ago, we were wondering how to slow down and reduce our carbon footprints, and were exploring concepts like flight shaming and questioning the sense of humanity's insistence on red-eyed flights for business and package holidays at the opposite end of the globe.

He's been gone six decades but after 2020, it feels like French literary great Albert Camus matters more than ever. The year began with tributes for the 60th anniversary of the French existentialist icon's premature death in a car crash. Then came Covid-19. And readers locked down the world over dusted off that go-to guide, “The Plague”, to make sense of the randomly unexpected. We ask our panel about the re-reading of a novel set in Camus's native Algeria in the wake of World War II. But it's not just "The Plague" that is timeless.

If you're looking for that tacky Christmas jumper to provide a dose of light relief from 2020, you've come to the wrong place. Besides the pandemic, we still have a planet to save. The problem is cheap clothes with a short shelf life. It's called fast fashion. Since World War II, what we wear has grown cheaper and cheaper while coming from further and further away. We ask about the scale of the carbon footprint and social cost, and how TikTok and Instagram have further fed that buying frenzy. The world's favourite sport is not football. It is shopping.