The Debate

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.

Does the buck stop in Brussels? The EU has opened its first-ever proceedings over social media content. In its crosshairs is Elon Musk’s X – formerly Twitter – over illegal posts and disinformation. It follows an initial warning over a deluge of hate spewed on the social networking site in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack and the war with Israel. We ask about this litmus test for Europe's brand new regulation, known as the Digital Services Act.

How long can Israel's government dismiss the pressure? The US defence secretary is in town after a week in which Joe Biden and Binyamin Netanyahu, for the first time in 10 weeks of war, pointedly aired their differences publicly over the way Israel is conducting its ground operation in Gaza and the plan for what happens next.

Is it too little, too late or a milestone moment? The gavel has gone down on the annual UN climate summit, with a final declaration that for the first time recognises the need to "transition away" from fossil fuels. That was not a given when it was announced that the UAE, the world's seventh-largest oil producer, would be hosting COP28 in Dubai. As always, these summits conclude with statements of intention, at best. So how much will this one matter?

Last week he sent his defence minister. This time, Volodymyr Zelensky made the trip in person to Washington to try to convince Republicans to lift objections to a desperately-needed financial lifeline for Kyiv. That is not the furthest Ukraine's president has gone. Zelensky travelled all the way to Buenos Aires, nominally to attend the inauguration of new president Javier Milei – but more importantly, to lobby the pro-Milei, pro-Trump leader of Hungary: Viktor Orban.

It's the second coming of Donald Tusk, with implications well beyond Poland’s borders. Two months after a general election win marked by huge turnout comes a comeback for the centre-right leader. Tusk's first stint as prime minister was followed up by a move to Brussels where as president of the European Council, he found himself clashing with the leadership of his own country.

As a nation enters a third winter of fighting for its very existence, it must wait – one ocean away – on a domestic partisan feud. Republicans in the US Senate have shrugged off Joe Biden's plea not to gift a win to Vladimir Putin and have blocked aid for Ukraine over a dispute on funding for the border with Mexico. It's classic Beltway horse trading. But what are the life-or-death consequences? What about Washington's street cred as guarantor of the NATO alliance?