2024 began with conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East that are sending shockwaves around the world. It continues with a scramble for innovation in energy and tech that's got the superpowers beefing up protection for homegrown industry and along the way, a series of elections that often pit populists against the guardians of globalised trade.

He is charged with inciting a mob to try to overturn his defeat in 2020. So why is it that just three years later, Donald Trump may have already killed suspense in the race to the 2024 Republican nomination? We ask about the former president's record win in the Iowa caucuses, where he barely campaigned in person and stayed so far ahead of the rest of the field that he did not even bother with candidates' debates.

Beijing’s message to Taiwan’s voters just does not seem to be getting through.

Three candidates, two superpowers and one island. Taiwan is picking a president and a parliament on Saturday amid steadily surging nationalism in mainland China and all the talk of decoupling and derisking by the United States. Who will succeed the outgoing pro-Western president, Tsai Ing-wen? How high are the stakes?

It is only on a voluntary basis. So how much to make of Russian authorities offering their citizens a ride out of Belgorod? The western city across from Ukraine's Kharkiv is increasingly the target of Moscow's own medicine: a steady diet of missiles from the sky. As NATO leaders meet in Brussels, the battle for air superiority is squarely on the radar of both sides.

New year, new face. France's youngest-ever president has named the country's youngest-ever prime minister. We ask why Emmanuel Macron chose to replace Élisabeth Borne with Gabriel Attal and chart the meteoric rise of a 34-year-old Parisian who has already enjoyed stints as city councillor, party spokesperson, budget minister, government spokesperson and most recently, education minister.

Second front or wind it down? The new year begins with yet another trip by the US Secretary of State to Israel. What message does Antony Blinken carry for Benjamin Netanyahu? As the war in Gaza enters its fourth month, we ask about Washington's calls for restraint and the potential for escalation with Lebanon, this in the wake of last week's air strike that killed a senior Hamas official in a Hezbollah stronghold of Beirut.

Thirteen short months ago, an innocuous tweet from the head of a Silicon Valley nonprofit launched something called ChatGPT. But within five days, more than one million people had taken up Sam Altman's offer and tried out the new baby of OpenAI. Out were decades of grappling over the theoretical dangers of powerful artificial intelligence systems. In was a race to corner the market, with the parent companies of rivals Google and Facebook scrambling to match Microsoft’s $13 billion investment.

The stakes are as high as the wait is long in DR Congo. Voting rolled over for an unscheduled second day in a sprawling, often unruly Central African nation that’s picking a president, as well as national, regional and municipal lawmakers. The logistics are challenging and the politics are rough in a resource-rich country that’s dogged by poverty, corruption and decades of insurgencies in the east.

Are we at a turning point in French politics? Emmanuel Macron's ruling party is in crisis after the far right threw its weight behind an immigration bill stiffened after a parliamentary compromise. The government insists it had the votes without Marine Le Pen's party, but there's more than one way to read the outcome.