Uncertainty is the winner and incumbents the losers so far in a year of high-stakes global elections
Voice of America
FILE - A voter fills out a ballot paper during general elections in Nkandla, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, May 29, 2024.
Discontented, economically squeezed voters have turned against sitting governments on both right and left during many of the dozens of elections held this year, as global power blocs shift and political certainties crumble.
Screenshot of an X post showing bounty notice for Carmen Lau.
Loraine Mwanza, chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), speaks at the launch of the USAID-Funded MISA Freedom of Expression Report at the Protea Hotel in Lusaka, Dec. 17, 2024. (Kathy Short for VOA)
FILE - Former members of Syria's Bashar al-Assad's security forces wait in line to register for the identification and reconciliation process, after the ousting of al-Assad, in Aleppo, Syria, Dec. 23, 2024.
FILE - Police officers detain Alesya Marokhovskaya of the Vazhniye Istorii news outlet outside the Russia's Justice Ministry. The banner reads: "There are no foreign agents, there are journalists," in Moscow, Sept. 8, 2021.
Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba poses for photographs as he arrives for a press conference at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on Dec. 24, 2024.
FILE - Orphans and children separated from their parents in Kadugli gather to eat boiled leaves at an IDP Camp within the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) controlled area in Boram County, Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan, June 22, 2024. FILE - A WFP worker stands next to a truck carrying aid from Port Sudan to Darfur and other famine-stricken parts of Sudan, Nov. 12, 2024. (WFP/Abubakar Garelnabei/Handout via Reuters)
FILE - Students attend a class on media literacy at the Hiidenkiven Koulu school on November 19, 2024 in Helsinki, Finland. In Finland -- a country consistently ranked Europe's most media literate -- the skills needed to spot online hoaxes are on the school curriculum, amidst a boom of mis- and disinformation campaigns.
FILE - A flag of Shiite group Sayyid al-Shuhada is placed on the wall of the U.S. Embassy during a protest, in Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 31, 2019.
FILE - This May 9, 2015, photo shows state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad's Tun Razak Exchange development in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Israeli emergency services work at the scene of a missile strike that, according to Israel's military, was launched from Yemen and landed in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, Israel, December 21, 2024.
FILE - Pope Francis opens the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Dec. 8, 2015. FILE - Pope Francis pushes open the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica, formally launching the Holy Year of Mercy, at the Vatican, Dec. 8, 2015. FILE - Pope Francis walks inside the Paliano detention center, south of Rome, April 13, 2017.