Conclave live: First vote to decide the next Pope to take place today

Workers installed a small stove and chimney in the Sistine Chapel ahead of the conclave.

The chimney holds a crucial role in the conclave, signalling to watchers outside whether or not a pope has been elected.

If there is black smoke, cardinals are still deciding, but if there is white smoke, it means a new pope has been chosen.

Several favourites have emerged to succeed Pope Francis – but there is plenty of uncertainty around who will garner enough support to become the next pope.

Many of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics are keenly awaiting the result of the Papal Conclave.

Associated Press spoke to nine Catholics, from South America to Africa and the United States, to understand what they hope to see in the next pope.

Pope Francis accomplished a lot in his 12 years at the head of the church, but plenty of difficult work remains for his successor.

Here are some of those key challenges facing the next pope.

Just over a week ago, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Rome and the Vatican to farewell the much-loved Pope Francis.

Here are the key moments from that historic funeral.

On Wednesday in the Sistine Chapel, 133 cardinals will take a solemn vow of secrecy before the conclave begins.

The punishment for breaching that oath is excommunication.

It follows the oaths taken on Monday by the hundred-or-so support staff tasked with keeping the cardinals fed, their rooms clean and transporting them to and from the Sistine Chapel.

In that ceremony, staff from clerics and confessors to drivers, cooks and cleaners took oaths of secrecy at the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican.

From 1,000-day standoffs and personal hygiene challenges, here are some fun facts about conclaves past based on historical studies and interviews with experts.

One of Pope Francis’s final wishes was for a popemobile to be turned into a mobile health clinic for the children of Gaza.

Now, the Vatican said that wish has been fulfilled, converting the vehicle he used during a 2014 visit to the Holy Land into a diagnostic and medical clinic equipped with suture kits, oxygen supplies and vaccines.

The Jerusalem and Sweden branches of the Vatican’s Caritas charitable federation said it can be used as soon as the humanitarian corridor to Gaza reopens.

“This vehicle represents the love, care and closeness shown by His Holiness for the most vulnerable, which he expressed throughout the crisis,” the secretary general of Caritas Jerusalem, Anton Asfar, said in a statement.

The donation was announced on the same day that Israel approved plans to seize the Gaza Strip and to stay in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time.

“It’s not just a vehicle,” said Peter Brune, Secretary General of Caritas Sweden. “It’s a message that the world has not forgotten about the children in Gaza.”

The 133 cardinals gathered in the Vatican for the Papal Conclave come from 70 countries around the world.

Four of them represent England and Wales – the largest number the country has had, writes Catherine Pepinster.

The Vatican has released photographs showing the set-up inside the historic Sistine Chapel for the conclave beginning on Wednesday to decide the next pope.

The 133 cardinals who have gathered for the conclave will not be allowed to communicate with the outside world until their decision is made.