Here's a look at the candidates:

- Zoran Milanovic -

Smart and driven but also often seen as quick-tempered and arrogant, Milanovic is hoping to stay in office after serving his five-year term.

Since entering office, the 58-year-old incumbent has adopted more populist and often offensive rhetoric targeting political opponents and European Union officials.

The Zagreb-born law graduate, who was among the best students of his generation, has been one of Croatia's main political figures for nearly two decades.

A career diplomat during the country's 1990s independence war, Milanovic later served with Croatia's EU and NATO mission in Brussels.

He entered politics in 1999 by joining the left-wing Social Democrats (SDP), formerly the communist party, and took over its helm in 2007.

He served as prime minister from 2011 to 2016, but after a SDP defeat at the ballot box, Milanovic quit as the party leader and withdrew from politics to work as a consultant.

He made a political comeback in 2019 as an SDP candidate for the presidency.

Earlier this year, Milanovic unexpectedly campaigned in a failed bid to become prime minister during April's parliamentary elections.

During his campaign he repeatedly slammed HDZ over alleged corruption and labelled their leader and his arch-rival Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic as a "serious threat to Croatia's democracy".

- Dragan Primorac -

The physician and scientist entered politics in the early 2000s, when he was named science and education minister in the HDZ-led government and joined the party in 2007.

A trained paediatrician and expert in genetics and forensics, Primorac made his name as one of the pioneers of DNA analysis in Croatia and helped identify wartime victims whose remains were found in mass graves in the 1990s.

Primorac unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 2009, which prompted his eviction from the HDZ.

After spending years out of politics, Primorac launched his presidential campaign this year with the hopes of staging a comeback.

Although he is not a member of HDZ, the party has thrown its support behind the candidate.

Primorac's campaign has largely centred on attacking Milanovic, while trying to play up his commitment to family values and patriotism.

Critics have panned the 59-year-old for lacking political charisma, saying he has served as the HDZ's attack dog to target Milanovic.

- Marija Selak Raspudic -

The philosophy professor and centre-right lawmaker is known for her bold and eloquent speeches.

The 42-year-old was born in Zagreb where she graduated with degrees in philosophy and Croatian in 2007.

After briefly working in public relations and as a TV journalist, she joined Zagreb University's philosophy department.

Selak Raspudic entered the parliament in 2020 as an MP of the ultra-conservative Most -- "Bridge" -- party. She was re-elected this year but ditched the party and is running as an independent.

She has advocated for stronger presidential powers, including the introduction of a veto.

"We need a proactive president who will make the most of her powers," she said.

- Ivana Kekin -

The psychiatrist and former activist has served as an MP since 2021 as a member of the green-left Mozemo -- "We Can" -- party.

The left-leaning candidate has vowed to "bring a better life to people", including pledges to improve the ailing public healthcare sector.

A long-time opponent of the ruling conservatives, Kekin made her name as a prominent activist and participated in demonstrations advocating for the rights for women and the LGBTQ community and campaigned for the protection for public areas.

In June, Kekin was elected a member of the European Parliament but later stepped back from taking the position, allowing a fellow party member to take the job.

The 40-year-old psychiatrist is also married to Mile Kekin, the frontman of the Croatian punk-rock band Hladno Pivo.

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Now that centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lost a confidence vote following the dramatic collapse of his three-party coalition, Merz may soon get his chance after decades of waiting in the wings.

Although he has never held government office, polls say Merz is the favourite to win the February 23 election.

Merz, a 69-year-old Roman Catholic, hails from the rural Sauerland region of North Rhine-Westphalia and is the top candidate of the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian allies the CSU.

A long-time rival of the CDU's centrist ex-chancellor Angela Merkel, Merz has criticised her legacy, from her open-door policy to migrants to her insistence on maintaining dialogue with Russia.

Merz is a pro-business economic liberal, who published a book in 2008 titled "Dare More Capitalism", a passionate advocate of transatlantic ties and the European Union, and a defender of traditional social values.

First elected to the Bundestag three decades ago, Merz took over the CDU leadership on his third attempt after its 2021 election defeat and was confirmed as its chancellor candidate in September.

Firmly on the right of the CDU, Merz has backed a tougher immigration policy and law and order stance and pledged to reverse marijuana legalisation and Germany's phase-out of nuclear power, as he seeks to win back voters who have drifted to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

- Seeing red -

Merz has sparked anger by labelling the sons of Muslim immigrants "little pashas" and accusing some Ukrainian war refugees of "social welfare tourism", before later apologising.

In recent months he has led the charge in raining down withering criticism on Scholz's government, blaming its "wrongheaded" policies and "green-tinted interventionism" for the woes of Germany's stuttering economy.

He is rhetorically skilled and visibly enjoys a good political scrap.

The news magazine Der Spiegel said he also tends to take conflicts personally and is given to fits of anger, writing that "if Merz were a bullfighter, he would probably hold the red cloth in front of his stomach".

Scholz too has tried to portray his rival as a "hothead" who would play "Russian roulette" with Moscow, by sending long-range missiles to Ukraine.

Nonetheless, according to news weekly Die Zeit, the old-school conservative is "currently the CDU's answer" to the recent electoral successes of the AfD, which is polling at close to 20 percent.

- Hobby pilot -

Merz was born on November 11, 1955 and has been married for more than 40 years to Charlotte Merz, a judge. They have three adult children.

Merz, who at 198 cm (6ft 6 in) stands out in a crowd, is a licensed pilot who sometimes flies his own private jet.

Trained as a lawyer, he was elected to the European Parliament in 1989 and then to the Bundestag, where his mentor was the CDU's powerful late finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

But Merz lost out in a power struggle against Merkel, who took over the CDU leadership in 2002 as the party struggled to rebuild after Helmut Kohl's chancellorship ended in a slush fund scandal.

Merkel went on to become Germany's second-longest serving post-war chancellor while Merz -- humiliated, and his influence greatly diminished -- opted for a hiatus from politics.

He left parliament in 2009 and for over a decade pursued a successful career in the private sector.

He worked as a corporate lawyer, built up a personal fortune and held senior positions on the boards of US investment firm BlackRock and multiple other companies.

His business world success and wealth have left him open to charges of being out of touch with most German voters -- a claim he has rejected by insisting he belongs to the "upper middle class".

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An astronaut, a self-portrait, a bespectacled panda and seven other pictures burst into life from her brush, painted on 10 canvasses laid out on a table, upside-down on the floor, and two easels.

It started as a party trick for the curly-haired Rajacenna -- her artist name -- who wanted a challenge to relieve her boredom.

But it has since become a profession that has shot her to viral fame, with every paint stroke worked out in advance in her head before setting to work with hands -- and feet.

"I work a bit on one canvas, then move to another one, so I'm always dividing my attention between them," said Rajacenna, who is technically left-handed.

"Five years ago, I started painting with both hands, as a bit of a challenge and to go quicker. I discovered I was ambidextrous," the 31-year-old artist told AFP.

Then a journalist asked her as a joke whether she could also use her feet as well. Challenge accepted.

Starting out "for fun" and after a few mishaps with sticky tape between her toes, she tried using plasticine to keep the brush between her toes.

It was a success and she posted a video of her exploits online, quickly becoming a viral hit. Orders flooded in.

She is so skilled that only she can tell the difference between paintings crafted with her hands and those with her feet.

"I can really see a big difference. It's a bit less precise," she said, performing her skills at a museum in Vlaardingen, her home town in the south of the Netherlands.

- 'Very special' -

Rajacenna has loved drawing since she was a small child. After a short adolescent dip in interest, her passion was rekindled by an Italian street artist.

Today her videos on social media attract millions of views, especially when she paints 10 canvasses at a time with her hands and feet.

"I get bored quite quickly, so I like to challenge myself. Doing all this at the same time gives me a sort of feeling of meditation, which calms me a lot," she told AFP.

To her knowledge, she is the only person capable of such a feat.

"But I hope that people will be inspired to do more things, to challenge themselves a bit more, to do things like paint with their feet," she said.

Her paintings sell for between 6,000 and 12,000 euros ($6,450 to $12,900), according to her father Jaco van Dam.

"It's also very special for us as parents. She surprises us too and I don't know either how she manages to do it," he told AFP.

But a study on her brain by a Turkish-German neurologist Onur Gunturkun provides a clue, he added.

"A brain scan showed that the left and right sides of her brain are three times more connected than average," he said.

Neurologist Gunturkun has said Rajacenna was "capable of things that neuroscience deems impossible".

In a nod to Albert Einstein, whose brain was famously removed after his death, a painting of the scientist by Rajacenna hangs on the wall of the museum.

Rajacenna has attracted some famous admirers, notably pop star Justin Bieber, who described her work as "amazing" when she presented him with a portrait of himself.

It certainly impressed a couple of pensioners watching her at the museum.

"It's extraordinary that someone can do that," said Anton van Weelden, 75.

"What's more, the paintings are very beautiful and realistic," said Van Weelden, who said he would never dare try something like that.

"I couldn't even paint like that with my right hand," he joked.

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The 27-year-old -- real name Paul Mwangi -- has been building up a fanbase online and on the streets of Kenya with the one-of-a-kind deck that he put together himself.

It has even earned him slots at Uganda's Nyege Nyege festival, the largest in east Africa, and on the world-renowned club website Boiler Room.

But his favourite venue is Nairobi's bustling business district, where he set up on a recent Saturday among the stands of miraa (khat) vendors, the smell of grilled corn and the horns of matatus, the colourful minibuses of the Kenyan capital.

In a few minutes, dozens of curious onlookers had gathered, taking out their phones to film the amazing machine that spits out reggae hits.

The mixing desk consists of a spray-painted wooden board on which are screwed towel racks, switches and printed circuits connected in a tangle of cables -- all connected to an amp, speaker, and car battery.

He scratches using a slider made from a magnetised spoon between two towel hooks, and his fader is cobbled together from a plastic bottle cap.

Fixes are done without breaking the flow -- at one point, DJ Boboss whips out a screwdriver, strips a wire with his teeth and repairs a fault while the music keeps playing.

- 'Make my own' -

"I've never seen anything like that in the world," smiled David Meshack, who works in a nearby electronics store that sells professional turntables.

"One day, a customer came in with a photo of it. He wanted the same one but I didn't know what it was," he said. "Today, I see it!"

Boboss is an acronym for "Be your own boss" and Mwangi got his start repairing radios.

"My dad bought me a radio. After some time it stopped 'talking' and he said he wouldn't buy another one. I was stressed because I was addicted to music and listening to radio, so I just opened it using a knife," he said.

Soon he was repairing electronic devices in his village near Meru in central Kenya.

Then one day he saw a DJ in a bar and was inspired.

"I loved how he played music and the way the crowd reacted. I didn't have the money to buy real equipment but I said I could make my own with the available resources."

Mwangi moved to the capital and now makes a living from his DJing and occasionally selling specially-commissioned turntables.

His favourite venue is the street, especially in the business district or at Gikomba, the largest second-hand clothing market in the country.

"Street shows is a special feeling, you have a contact with the people. Many people have never seen a DJ mixing live," he said.

Among the onlookers, 48-year-old ex-soldier Zachary Mibei said he loved how Mwangi illustrates the situation for young people in Kenya.

"He has no training, it's all homemade, he is showing that he has something in him. He is telling us: 'I can do it by myself'," said Mibei.

Boboss admits it is probably time for a more advanced turntable with a few extra functions, but does not plan to part with the one which has made him famous.

"We could combine both and see what we can do with them," he smiled.

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Suspicions were aroused when a claim was made for ripped seats and damaged doors on a luxury Rolls-Royce Ghost, an exclusive vehicle worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Claimants said a bear had got into the car when it was parked in Lake Arrowhead, a mountain spot outside Los Angeles, wreaking havoc on its interior.

To back up their claim, they provided photos of the damage as well as footage from a security camera, which they said showed the animal inside the vehicle.

But the company smelled a rat and contacted insurance fraud detectives.

"Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume," said a release from the California Department of Insurance.

Investigators then combed through records and found two other claims against different insurance companies alleging bear damage to different vehicles -- a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350 -- at the same spot.

Both claims had also been accompanied by video footage of the same "bear" rampaging around the vehicles.

"To further ensure it was not actually a bear in the video, the Department had a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife review the three alleged bear videos and they also opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit," Wednesday's statement said.

"After executing a search warrant, detectives found the bear costume in the suspects' home."

Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, have all been charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy over the claims, which were worth over $140,000.

Black bears, which are native to California, occasionally do get inside vehicles in the hunt for food, and can cause tremendous damage.

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Inspired by the viral success of the crunchy delicacy known as "Dubai chocolate", Fakhro, 32, hunted down a recipe and began making his own version two months ago.

"On the first day I made 20 bars, but they went fast. The next day, I made 50 -- all gone too," he said.

So-called Dubai chocolate was invented in 2021 by British-Egyptian entrepreneur Sarah Hamouda, who is based in Dubai.

The chunky treat consists of a blocky, hand-decorated chocolate bar with various quirky fillings -- the signature flavour being a rich pistachio cream.

The treat went viral when TikTok food influencer Maria Vehera posted a video of herself eating a bar in her car, which has since been viewed more than 100 million times.

The real thing is only available to local customers in limited quantities, but the trend has led to an explosion of copycat versions of the chocolate around the world.

- Queueing in the cold -

Fakhro, who runs Abu Khaled Sweets in Berlin, experimented "several times" with different recipes before finally landing on the right ingredient to give the pistachio cream its famous crunch -- a finely shredded Middle Eastern pastry known as kataifi.

Germans have been scrambling to get their hands on the chocolate with bars selling for over 100 euros ($104) on the internet.

Last week, a 31-year-old man was caught by customs attempting to smuggle 45 kilograms of the sweet treat into Germany from Switzerland.

When Swiss manufacturer Lindt launched its own version of the Dubai chocolate in Germany this month, customers queued for hours in the cold to get their hands on a bar.

At up to 20 euros per bar, the delicacy is far more expensive than your average chocolate bar -- but that didn't seem to be putting anyone off.

"I waited 10 hours. I've been here since midnight just to taste this chocolate," 18-year-old student Leon Faehnle told AFP outside a Lindt shop in Stuttgart.

- 'Easy money' -

Lindt launched the chocolate in Germany with 1,000 numbered bars in 10 shops, a spokesman for the group told AFP, and is planning a similar launch in Austria on November 30.

Dubai chocolate has also been a hit in France, with a version by chocolatier Jeremy Bockel on show at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris earlier this month.

Yannick Burkhard, 21, queued for three hours in Stuttgart to get his hands on the chocolate -- but is not planning to eat any of it himself. Instead, he will sell it on the internet.

"I would never pay that much for this. It's quick and easy money," he said with a smile.

"This bar cost 15 euros, but it can sell for almost 100 euros... There are lots of offers on eBay, up to 300 euros," said a customer who gave his name only as Lucas, 24.

Faehnle had a more wholesome plan for his bars as he exited the shop in Stuttgart beaming with pride at his purchase.

"Now I'm going to go home and share them with my grandparents," he said.

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In Japan, lost items are rarely disconnected from their owners for long, even in a mega city like Tokyo -- population 14 million.

"Foreign visitors are often surprised to get their things back," said Hiroshi Fujii, a 67-year-old tour guide, describing Tokyo's vast police lost-and-found centre.

"But in Japan, there's always an expectation that we will."

It's a "national trait" to report items found in public places in Japan, he told AFP. "We pass down this custom of reporting things we picked up, from parents to children."

Around 80 staff at the police centre in Tokyo's central Iidabashi district ensure items are well organised using a database system, its director Harumi Shoji told AFP.

Everything is tagged and sorted to hasten a return to its rightful owner.

ID cards and driving licences are most frequently lost, Shoji said.

- Flying squirrels, iguanas -

But dogs, cats and even flying squirrels and iguanas have been dropped off at police stations, where officers look after them "with great sensitivity" -- consulting books, online articles and vets for advice.

More than four million items were handed in to Tokyo Metropolitan Police last year, with about 70 percent of valuables such as wallets, phones and important documents successfully reunited with their owners.

"Even if it's just a key, we enter details such as the mascot keychain it's attached to," Shoji said in a room filled with belongings, including a large Cookie Monster stuffed toy.

Over the course of one afternoon, dozens of people came to collect or search for their lost property at the centre, which receives items left with train station staff or at small local police stations across Tokyo if they are not claimed within two weeks.

"The first thing we think is that people who lost their items must be in trouble so I think it's normal for us that we report it to police," Shoji said.

If no one turns up at the police facility within three months, the unwanted item is sold or discarded.

The number of lost items handled by the centre is increasing as Japan welcomes a record influx of tourists post-pandemic, and as gadgets become smaller, Shoji said.

Wireless earphones and hand-held fans are an increasingly frequent sight at the lost-and-found centre, which has been operating since the 1950s.

But a whopping 200 square metres (2,100 square feet) is dedicated to lost umbrellas -- 300,000 of which were brought in last year, with only 3,700 of them returned, Shoji said.

"We have a designated floor for umbrellas... during the rainy season, there are so many umbrellas that the umbrella trolley is overflowing and we have to store them in two tiers."

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