MUNICH, Germany — NATO members on Saturday weighed the U.S.’ possible withdrawal from the military alliance if Donald Trump returns to the White House, with Hillary Clinton saying he would waste no time in quitting if re-elected.

Clinton urged delegates at the Munich Security Conference to take her one-time presidential rival’s tough talk “literally and seriously” as anxiety mounts over the future of the U.S.-led pact.

“He will pull us out of NATO,” Clinton told attendees during a lunchtime session.

Trump stoked fresh concerns over the U.S.’ commitment to NATO last weekend when he said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any member that doesn’t meet its spending targets. He has long criticized the alliance’s failure to ensure members make good on their obligation to contribute 2% of gross domestic product to defense.

Amid such rhetoric, the U.S. Congress passed a bill in December aimed at preventing any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing from the alliance without congressional approval.

U.S. Republican Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, on Saturday dismissed talk of the U.S. quitting NATO, saying: “We have answered that question.”

“It would take a two-thirds vote in the United States Senate to get out — that is never going to happen,” he told CNBC in Munich.

Clinton said, however, that Trump could actually just refuse to fund the alliance. “The U.S. will be there in name only,” she said.

Concerns over the U.S. and Europe’s continued military coordination have dominated discussions at this year’s annual defense summit in Germany, as the specter of a second Trump presidency looms large and a contentious aid package for Ukraine hangs in the balance in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte earlier Saturday referenced constant “moaning and whining” at the event about the future of NATO under Trump.

“Stop moaning and whining and nagging about Trump,” he said.

He was one of many European voices, including that of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who said that Europe needed to become self-sufficient in the face of a more uncertain future with its closest diplomatic ally.

“No matter what happens in the U.S. … we have to be able to protect ourselves,” Frederiksen said.

Indeed, Germany’s defense minister said that his country’s commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense should be just the start, noting that the threshold could rise to 3.5% if necessary.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg struck a more sanguine tone on transatlantic coordination, however, saying that believes the U.S. will remain “a staunch and committed NATO ally” whatever happens in the upcoming election.

“I expect that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, the U.S. will remain a staunch and committed NATO ally,” he told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro. “It is in the security interests of the United States to have a strong NATO.”

Stoltenberg acknowledged Trump’s frustration with member spending, but said “that is now changing.” On Wednesday, NATO announced that 18 of the alliance’s 31 members will meet the 2% spending target this year.

NATO member countries first committed to minimum spending targets in 2006, but by 2014 only three had met the threshold.

The alliance will mark its 75th anniversary this year at an annual summit to be held in Washington in July. Senator Risch said he would like to see all members committing to meeting their target by that point.

“Talk about it happening years in the future isn’t now, and we’re always interested in now,” he said. “That’s helpful to the relationship: everybody keeping the commitments that they made.”

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s presidential hopefuls are pulling out all stops to win over voters on social media ahead of the Feb. 14 election.

In the country of 274 million, millennials and Gen Z voters make up 56.5% of the electorate — and campaigning on social media is heating up.

One platform in particular has emerged as a key battleground: TikTok.

“In 2019, it was the Instagram election. This time it’s the TikTok election,” says Aryo Seno Bagaskoro, a young spokesperson for the presidential campaign of Ganjar Pranowo, the former governor of Central Java.

With 125 million monthly active users, Indonesia is TikTok’s second biggest market, making the platform key for Indonesians trying to get news and updates about the election.

All three candidates have taken note and are churning out youth-oriented content on TikTok, with Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto dancing for the crowds, the former governor of Jakarta Anies Baswedan courting K-pop fans, and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo promoting penguin-related posts.

For Prabowo, the clear frontrunner who’s polling in the mid-40s, the messaging on TikTok fits into the wider “gemoy,” or cute, image of his presidential campaign.

The approach is markedly different from the macho image adopted by 72-year-old during his previous runs for the presidency in 2014 and 2019.

Rather than videos of him arriving at rallies on the back of stallions and rousing crowds with nationalist speeches, the most popular content on TikTok has portrayed him as having a sensitive — even vulnerable — side.

One of the most popular campaign posts on TikTok, with 49 million views, appeared to show Prabowo on the verge of tears after tough questioning in the second presidential debate. Many supporters of Prabowo, often young women, posted videos of themselves weeping in solidarity and alleging that Prabowo was a victim of bias.

Anies’ signature has been live broadcasts on TikTok dubbed locally as “Desak Anies,” or “Interrogate Anies.”

Polling in the mid-twenties, he is running neck-and-neck with Ganjar, and cultivating followers who send questions directly to him. Topics vary from his political program to advice on first dates.

Anies has found unexpected popularity among K-pop fans, mainly young women, belying his past associations with conservative Islam.

One of his supporters is a 22-year-old female student who posts on social media platform X about Anies and his campaign using Korean hangul captions. Much of the footage posted is taken from TikTok.

“He is the perfect fit for K-popification,” the owner of the account told CNBC, asking not to be named for fear of backlash.

“When he did live TikTok, the background is like the ones used by K-pop idols, maybe it was the curtain.”

The Anies campaign and its official supporter groups have taken note, occasionally sending her photos or videos they’d like her to promote.

The Ganjar campaign has gimmicks of its own too, such as “Top Gun”-style jackets and penguin symbols. But, according to his campaign team, they are most interested in videos of him interacting naturally with voters on the ground to showcase his humble roots.

“TikTok has unique characteristics. The algorithm values so much the authenticity and the originality of the videos,” says Karaniya Dharmasaputra, deputy for media channels on the Ganjar campaign team. “On TikTok we prefer an unpolished kind of video. Instagram, I think values more the polished content.”

Older politicians have had to embark on a crash course for TikTok campaigning.

Ganjar’s running mate, Mahfud MD has taken a lead role here, copying Anies’ signature live broadcasts. But introducing the 66-year-old minister and former chief justice of the constitutional court to the platform was tricky at first.

“When we first encouraged Pak Mahfud to do a livestream, it was a bit awkward to be very honest,” said Karaniya. “But he adapted very quickly.”

With the power of TikTok becoming clear, worries about its potential for misuse have also grown.

Misinformation has been a major issue on social media in past Indonesian elections, with outright lies spreading widely boosted by bots and “buzzers,” persons employed to churn out and promote propaganda by one group or another.

TikTok is now trying to limit not only the spread of misinformation, but also its role as a platform for political messages.

Paid political advertising or fundraising by politicians and political parties is not allowed on the social media platform. The company has also forged partnerships with government bodies, local NGOs, and newswire agency Agence-France Presse to combat misinformation.

“The short video format used on TikTok means most of the misinformation we see circulating on the platform consists of edited clips or footage shared out of context with a misleading or false caption,” said a representative for AFP.

Some examples include clips doctored to make them appear like crowds at a Prabowo rally — who were in fact his supporters — were cheering on his opponents, one claiming that Anies had converted to Christianity, and another of a leading journalist endorsing Prabowo.

According to Mafindo, one of the NGOs working with TikTok, between January and November last year, just 7.4% of the hoaxes they recorded and helped debunk were on TikTok.

“It’s on YouTube and Facebook that we found the most disinformation, but I think TikTok is catching up. Meaning a lot of hoaxes are now happening on TikTok,” said Septiaji Nugroho, chairperson of Mafindo.

President Joe Biden won a landslide victory in South Carolina’s Democratic primary Saturday, where voters sent a clear message that they are ready for Biden to pivot to the November election.

As of 12:00 a.m. ET, Sunday, Biden had won 96.2% of ballots cast, with 97% of the total votes tallied.

The other two Democrats on the ballot, House Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and self-help author and 2020 Democratic candidate Marianne Williamson each won around 2% of ballots.

The win injects fresh momentum into Biden’s reelection campaign, and it offers a compelling rebuttal to the narrative that Democratic voters are ambivalent — or worse — about their party’s standard bearer.

“In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the Presidency,” Biden said in a statement following Saturday’s results.

“Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again — and making Donald Trump a loser — again.”

Biden will be awarded all 55 of the state’s Democratic delegates, NBC News projects, as neither Williamson nor Phillips broke the 15% threshold for being awarded any delegates. 

Biden’s overwhelming margin of victory left no question about who Democratic voters want to be on the ballot in November. 

But it came amid reports of lower than expected turnout, potentially a sign of weakened enthusiasm for Biden among Democrats. 

In 2020, approximately 16% of the state’s 3.3 million registered voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary. On Saturday, that number dropped to roughly 4% of voters.

In particular, polls have shown Biden’s support lagging among Black voters, a core Democratic party bloc that was key to his 2020 win. 

Black voters account for a majority of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina, so his victory there Saturday could help to ease some of those concerns. 

Biden’s campaign has also been under pressure to show momentum, a real challenge this year given that Democrats’ official primary season kicked off late. 

In Iowa, the Democratic party decided not to cast any ballots at their caucuses, denying Biden the chance to win there. 

In New Hampshire, Biden’s name was not on the formal ballot, but he won the contest as a write-in candidate with 64% of the vote.

Republicans will vote in their party primary on Feb. 24, where former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will attempt to pull off an upset in her home state, against former President Donald Trump.

The GOP primary is expected to garner much higher turnout and more attention than Saturday’s vote.

Unlike the Republican battle, the Democratic primary has, so far, been notable for its civility.

“Congratulations, Mr. President, on a good old fashioned whooping,” Phillips wrote on X.

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party won an unprecedented third-straight presidential term, as incoming leader Lai Ching-te pledged to stay open-minded in his approach toward governance, while committing to forging consensus in a split legislature.

The outcome of the presidential election on Saturday riled Beijing, which has repeatedly labeled Lai as a “stubborn worker for Taiwan independence” and a dangerous separatist. There are also fears this could in turn influence frosty China-U.S. relations and security in the broader Indo-Pacific region, with China having escalated military activity in the Taiwan Strait and other nearby waters.

“As president, I have an important responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits,” Lai said in a press conference, in an official party translation of his comments in Mandarin. He added though that he is also “determined to safeguard Taiwan from threats and intimidation from China.”

“I will act in accordance with our democratic and free constitutional order, in a manner that is balanced and maintains the cross-Straits status quo,” he added. “Under the principles of dignity and parity, we will use exchanges to replace obstructionism, dialogue to replace confrontation, and confidently present exchanges and cooperation with China.”

The Chinese Communist Party has refused to engage with outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen since she assumed office in 2016. Tsai did not stand at this election because she has served the maximum two presidential terms.

The DPP has not accepted the so-called “1992 Consensus,” disputing the tacit agreement for “one China” between the then-KMT government and Chinese Communist Party officials, which Beijing assumes as the basis for cross-Straits engagement.

Still, in his post-election comments in Mandarin, Lai invoked the official name of Taiwan — the Republic of China — at least twice.

DPP’s Lai — Taiwan’s current vice-president — won more than 40% of the popular vote in Taiwan’s eighth presidential election. DPP is the first party to win the presidential office three times in row since direct presidential elections were introduced in 1996. Beijing had framed the election as a choice between “peace and war, prosperity and decline.”

Kuomintang or KMT, Beijing’s preferred political partner, gained roughly 33% of the vote with Hou You-yi at the top of its ticket. Ko Wen-je — the surly, straight-talking former Taipei mayor who ran under the banner of the Taiwan People’s Party that was formed only in 2019 — received just over 26% of the vote.

Voter turnout appeared to be the second-weakest since direct presidential elections started in Taiwan in 1996. This year, 71.9% of all eligible voters cast their ballots for the presidential election, according to preliminary data from Taiwan’s Central Election Commission.

China dismissed the outcome of Taiwan’s Saturday elections, saying its ruling Democratic Progressive Party does not represent the mainstream public opinion.

“Taiwan is China’s Taiwan,” Chen Binhua, the spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said on Saturday shortly after DPP’s Lai emerged as the winner.

“This election cannot change the basic pattern and the development of cross-Strait relations, nor can it change the common desire of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to draw closer,” Chen added, according to a CNBC translation of a report from Xinhua, the official state news agency.

China has never relinquished its claim over Taiwan — which has been self-governing since the Chinese nationalist party, or Kuomintang, fled to the island following its defeat in the Chinese civil war in 1949.

Chinese President Xi Jinping regards reunification with the mainland “a historical inevitability.”

The U.S. response starkly differed, but was broadly consistent with its past positions.

“We … congratulate the Taiwan people for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

“The United States is committed to maintaining cross-Strait peace and stability, and the peaceful resolution of differences, free from coercion and pressure,” he added.

The outcome of the race to control Taiwan’s 113-seat legislature though is far less clear, with the DPP losing its majority. A hung parliament could well hobble Lai’s policy agenda, while heralding a return of the kind of notorious open feuding among Taiwan’s legislators.

“On the legislative elections, the DPP did not hold onto a majority,” Lai said. “This means we did not work hard enough, and there are areas where we must humbly review and look back on.”

As it stands, the new Taiwan government will have its hands full, with voters largely concerned with bread-and-butter issues, particularly stagnant wages at a time of escalating rents and home prices that have been worsened by high inflation.

These issues have largely helped buoy Ko’s popularity as he positioned himself as a political outsider. 

“Taiwan People’s Party got more votes than expected. Ko got 25%, showing there is still a significant number of voters wanting a change,” Wei-Ting Yen, an assistant professor in government at Franklin and Marshall College, told CNBC.

“The social force is there, and the Lai administration has to address the social and economic issues right on,” she said. “People may be supporting the DPP’s foreign policy directions, but they are not necessarily supporting them for domestic policies.”

At the same press conference on Saturday after his two opponents conceded, Lai said he will carefully consider and include policy ideas and positions of his two electoral rivals that further Taiwan’s interests.

In a nod to issues that dominated the presidential election campaign, Lai singled out the financial sustainability of Taiwan’s labor and health insurance, along with the country’s energy transition as urgent issues that he will prioritize in forging consensus.

Lai also said he will appoint the most qualified professionals and personnel regardless of political affiliations in the “spirit of a democratic alliance.”

“The elections have told us that the people expect a strong government and effective checks and balances,” Lai said. “As for the new structure of the new legislature, Taiwan must build a new political environment of communication, consultation, participation, and cooperation.”

Still, Lai also had one eye on the broader strategic significance of his electoral victory — however diminished it may seem in comparison to the DPP’s comfortable victory in the presidential and legislative elections in 2016.

“Through our actions, the Taiwanese people have successfully resisted efforts from external forces to influence this election. We trust that only the people of Taiwan have the right to choose their own president,” Lai said.

Taiwan’s DPP-led government has often accused Beijing of vote interference either by military intimidation or by co-opting Taiwan’s business elite due to their economic reliance on China.

In the run-up to Saturday’s vote, Lai said that Beijing’s meddling is “the most serious” at this elections.

Xi told U.S. counterpart Joe Biden on the sidelines of the APEC leaders summit in November that Taiwan has always been the “most important and sensitive” issue in China-U.S. relations.

Prior to Saturday’s elections, a senior Biden administration official said the White House is preparing for several different outcomes. Biden has pledged to defend Taiwan in the event of a China invasion, a position that has irked Beijing.

Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island in over two decades. Her trip was one reason that communication between the world’s two leading powers ground to a halt before a tentative resumption only months ago.

“As one of the first and most highly anticipated elections of 2024, Taiwan has achieved a victory for the community of democracy,” Lai said. “We are telling the international community that between democracy and authoritarianism, we will stand on the side of democracy.”

More than 19 million voters in Taiwan headed to the polls on Saturday to decide if the ruling Democratic Progressive Party should earn an unprecedented third consecutive presidential term — or if a leadership change is in order.

The traditional DPP-Kuomintang duopoly is being challenged this year by the emergence of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je and his Taiwan People’s Party. With a legislative majority also at stake at these elections, there are fears of a hung Parliament, which could hobble policymaking and herald a return of notorious confrontations between feuding legislators.

With China intensifying its rhetoric on its claim over Taiwan, global observers are billing this Taiwan election as highly pivotal for security in the Asia-Pacific at a time of testy U.S.-China relations.

Local voters though are mainly concerned about the incumbent DPP’s patchy policy record. It comes amid stagnant wages in the face of persistently high inflation and rising home prices and rent.

“In a two-way presidential race, it’s easy to frame it as a binary, a dichotomous, de facto referendum on China policy. When you have a three-way race, it can’t be nearly as effective a framing,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a non-resident fellow at American think tank Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

“That’s why I talk about change versus continuity, because that allows more variables with policy issues at the domestic level to get into the equation more. That’s Ko Wen-je’s primary effect for me,” he added.

Some of the more common concerns that have emerged in pre-election rallies and debates include lingering resentment over outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen’s controversial rollout of locally manufactured Covid vaccines at the height of the pandemic and criticism of a perceived broader lack of transparency.

These issues have helped buoy Ko’s popularity as he positions himself as a political outsider. Ko has picked Cynthia Wu, the eldest daughter of a prominent business family, as his vice presidential nominee.

“In particular, young voters, who typically do not have strong party affiliations, arguably care more about who can offer solutions to the longstanding issues of low wages and high housing prices, which have not significantly improved over the past DPP and KMT administrations,” said Jing Bo-jiun, senior research fellow in Taiwan Studies at the University of Oxford.

The latest official wage data show average monthly regular earnings of full-time Taiwanese employees rose about 2.2% in October from a year ago, while headline inflation was more than 3% that same month.

“This could be one of the main reasons that TPP’s Ko Wen-je has been popular among the young population, who hope that this non-traditional politician can come up with new policies to improve their lives,” Jing added.

With Tsai stepping aside due to term limits after serving two full terms, Ko will come up against the DPP’s presidential nominee this year: Tsai’s current vice-president Lai Ching-te. He has nominated Hsiao Bi-khim — most recently the Taiwanese envoy to the United States — as his vice president.

If Lai and Hsiao win the Jan. 13 vote for the Taiwan presidential office, it would mark the first time any political party has stayed in office for more than two consecutive terms since Taiwan introduced direct presidential elections in 1996.

The DPP duo will face Kuomintang’s presidential nominee Hou Yu-ih and vice-presidential nominee Jaw Shaw-kong, who is a prominent local television personality and talk show host. Hou was formerly the director-general of Taiwan’s National Police Agency and the current mayor of New Taipei City, the municipality that encloses the city of Taipei but not the capital.

“There is arguably a more anti-establishment streak among younger voters, who see both the KMT and DPP as old, ineffective, and even corrupt party machines. Ko’s stronger support among those 30-ish and lower is a good indicator of this,” said Kevin Luo, an assistant professor in political science at University of Minnesota.

Risking that support, the TPP was in talks with KMT about an alliance to field a team that is less antagonistic toward China. That plan though dramatically fell apart on live television ahead of the nomination deadline in late November when both parties could not agree on the leader for the joint ticket.

This has led to concerns the change vote would split even for the parliamentary election, perhaps even leading to a hung parliament.

“Regarding relations with China or the US, my concern would be that it provides an opportunity for mixed messages from Taiwan, one that China may try to exploit,” said Timothy S. Rich, a professor in political science at Western Kentucky University.

“Overconfidence in US support coupled with an unfriendly legislature would make responding to a growing security threat from China not only more difficult, but could lead to miscalculations,” he added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden that Taiwan has always been the “most important and sensitive” issue in the China-U.S. relations when they met on the sidelines of the APEC leaders summit in November.

“The reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability,” Xi said in his 2024 New Year’s address, according to a CNBC translation.

Biden has pledged to defend Taiwan in the event of a China invasion, irking Beijing.

Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island in over two decades. Her trip was one reason that communication between the world’s two leading powers grounded to a halt before a tentative resumption only just months ago.

China has never relinquished its claim over Taiwan — which has been self-governing since the Chinese nationalist party, or Kuomintang, fled to the island following its defeat in the Chinese civil war in 1949.

China’s Taiwan affairs office has characterized the self-ruled island’s election as a choice between “peace and war, prosperity and decline.”

The election comes as China has escalated military activity in the Taiwan Strait and other nearby waters as Beijing presses its sovereignty claims over an island it sees as its own.

Taiwan’s DPP-led government has often accused Beijing of vote interference either by military intimidation or by co-opting Taiwan’s business elite due to their economic reliance on China.

“Peace is priceless, and war has no winners,” said DPP’s Lai at a pre-election press conference in Taipei on Tuesday. “China has always meddled whenever there is an election in Taiwan, but this time, it’s the most serious.”

Weeks before the elections in late December, China suspended tax concessions on 12 chemical compound imports from Taiwan in retaliation for what Beijing deems to be a violation of the Cross Straits Service Trade Agreement.

The timing of China’s probe has led Taiwanese government officials to conclude that Beijing’s aims are more political rather than economic.

“This election will not be won over a specific policy or even cross-Strait relations,” said Charles Wu, an assistant professor in political science at University of South Alabama.

“It provides an opportunity to see if citizens in Taiwan would still be willing to let the DPP govern the country for the next four years.”

Correction: The story has been updated to accurately reflect that former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022.

As around half of the world’s adult population heads to the polls in a bumper year of elections, concern over the role of artificial intelligence in disrupting outcomes has topped the list of the biggest risks for 2024, according to a new report.

The World Economic Forum’s “Global Risks Report 2024,” released Wednesday, ranked AI-derived misinformation and disinformation — and its implications for societal polarization — ahead of climate change, war and economic weakness in its top 10 risks over the next two years.

“AI can build out models for influencing large populations of voters in a way that we haven’t seen before,” Carolina Klint, chief commercial officer for Europe at consultancy Marsh McLennan, which co-produced the report, told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro.

“How that is going to play out is going to be quite important for us to watch,” she added.

Looking further ahead, the balance of risks for the next decade shifts toward extreme weather conditions and critical changes to the political world order, with two-thirds of those surveyed anticipating a new multipolar or fragmented world to take shape.

The WEF report, which was also produced in collaboration with Zurich Insurance Group, surveyed over 1,400 global risk experts, policymakers and industry leaders in September 2023 about their biggest global concerns.

The report’s authors said the combined risks are “stretching the world’s adaptative capacity to its limit,” and called on leaders to focus on global cooperation and building guardrails for the most disruptive emerging risks.

“An unstable global order characterized by polarizing narratives and insecurity, the worsening impacts of extreme weather and economic uncertainty are causing accelerating risks – including misinformation and disinformation – to propagate,” Saadia Zahidi, WEF’s managing director, said.

“World leaders must come together to address short-term crises as well as lay the groundwork for a more resilient, sustainable, inclusive future,” she added.

The most cited risks for the next two years were, in order: misinformation and disinformation, extreme weather events, societal polarization, cyber insecurity and interstate armed conflict. Also in the top 10 were lack of economic opportunity, inflation, involuntary migration, economic downturn and pollution.

Extreme weather events, critical change to earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, natural resource shortages and misinformation and disinformation were named as the most likely risks over the next 10 years. Adverse outcomes from AI technologies was also named as a longer-term concern.

“Artificial intelligence breakthroughs will radically disrupt the risk outlook for organizations with many struggling to react to threats arising from misinformation, disintermediation and strategic miscalculation, Klint said in the report.

“At the same time, companies are having to negotiate supply chains made more complex by geopolitics and climate change and cyber threats from a growing number of malicious actors. It will take a relentless focus to build resilience at organizational, country and international levels – and greater cooperation between the public and private sectors – to navigate this rapidly evolving risk landscape,” she added.

The report comes as global leaders are due to meet next week in Davos, Switzerland for WEF’s annual summit, during which they will discuss global issues including the ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, the economy and technology, under the event’s tagline “Rebuilding Trust.”

It also comes as the world embarks on a historic year of elections, with Taiwan this weekend kickstarting the elections, which are also due in the U.S., India, Russia, South Africa and Mexico.

In a separate 2024 global risks report released Monday, Eurasia Group named the upcoming U.S. election as its top risk for the year, with “ungoverned AI” also ranking among the top five.

Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, said in a press briefing that given the wider reaching ramifications of the election outcome, the consultancy had “no choice” but to rank the risk ahead of the wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas.

LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday reportedly fired controversial Interior Minister Suella Braverman, as he begins a reshuffle of his top cabinet.

Braverman drew widespread criticism last week after printing an op-ed in The Times newspaper that ignored guidance from Downing Street and accused London police of political bias in policing protests.

The home secretary has long been a contentious figure. She resigned from the same job under Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss due to a serious breach of the ministerial code.

CNBC has reached out to the U.K. government for comment.

This is a breaking news story, please check back later for more.

Spain voters are heading to the polls on Sunday in an election that could bring the far right to power for the first time since Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.

Polls published ahead of the vote projected a conservative win, with the PP (Partido Popular) set to secure about 34% of support — which would not be sufficient to form a majority government.

Some political analysts expect PP to join forces with the far right party Vox, which could be the third biggest political force in this election and obtain more than 10% of the votes.

“The most likely outcome is a coalition government with PP firmly in the lead and in control of most key ministries, and Vox as the junior partner,” Federico Santi, senior analyst at Eurasia Group, said in a note Wednesday.

He added that this scenario “would be moderately market-positive, as reflected in Spanish asset prices over the last few weeks, with a modest outperformance of Spanish equity indices compared to European peers, while the sovereign credit spread vis-à-vis Germany has remained broadly stable.”

The conservative party PP and the far right Vox have previously made political agreements to govern in three of Spain’s regional authorities and have other accords in smaller cities.

However, their relationship seems more of a forced cohabitation than a natural partnership.

In a TV debate ahead of the elections, PP leader Alberto Feijóo indicated that he would govern with Vox, if he needed their votes. Members of the conservative party have raised concerns regarding Vox’s anti-LGBT rights and anti-immigration policies.

Vox has also been criticized by mainstream politicians for opposing abortion rights and denying climate change, among other measures.

When debating against incumbent socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, Feijóo said that his rival could not lecture other politicians on pacts. Sanchez made agreements with separatist parties to secure a working parliamentary majority.

Tacho Rufino, economist at the University of Seville, told CNBC’s Charlotte Reed on Thursday that this election is less about economic than cultural matters — including nationalism, LGBT rights, and climate change.

For his part, Sanchez has been criticized for pardoning politicians supporting regional independence, for instance. During his mandate, there have also been issues with the “only yes means yes” sexual consent law, which reduced the serving time for many convicted rapists through a loophole.

The Sunday vote might also be impacted by climate change, as this is the first election to take place during the summertime. Spain is one of the southern European nations that’s been through a significant heatwave in recent days.