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Revellers around the world toasted the start of 2026 on Thursday, bidding farewell to a volatile year when temperatures soared, US President Donald Trump upended global trade, and the brutal conflict in Ukraine raged on.While a fragile truce took hold in devastated Gaza, violence in Sudan continued unabated. A new American pope was installed at the Vatican, the world lost pioneering zoologist Jane Goodall, and Labubu dolls sparked a worldwide frenzy.In Sydney, partygoers paused for a minute of silence to remember the victims of the mass shooting on Bondi Beach before fireworks lit up the skies at the stroke of midnight.Heavily armed police patrolled the shoreline, packed with hundreds of thousands of people, barely two weeks after 15 people were gunned down at a Jewish festival in Australia’s deadliest mass shooting for almost 30 years.The famed Sydney Harbour Bridge was bathed in white light to symbolise peace.Pacific nations including Kiribati and New Zealand were the first to see in 2026, with Seoul and Tokyo following Sydney in celebrations that make their way around the globe with each passing hour.In Hong Kong, a major New Year fireworks display was cancelled in homage to 161 people killed in a fire in November that engulfed several apartment blocks.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was “10 percent” away from a deal to end the fighting with Russia, soon to reach the four-year mark.Russia’s Vladimir Putin meanwhile used his traditional New Year address to urge his compatriots to believe that Moscow would deliver a victory in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.And Kim Jong Un praised North Korea’s “invincible alliance” with Russia, where Pyongyang has sent troops to assist Moscow.In the Ukrainian city of Vyshgorod, beauty salon manager Daria Lushchyk said the war had made her work “hell” but that her clients were still showing up.”Nothing can stop our Ukrainian girls from coming in and getting themselves glam,” Lushchyk said.- Tariffs and fragile truce -This year has brought a mix of stress and excitement for many, war for others still — and a daring jewel heist at the Louvre.Pop megastar Taylor Swift got engaged to her American football player boyfriend Travis Kelce, and K-pop heartthrobs BTS made their long-awaited return.Trump returned as US president in January, launching a tariff blitz that sent global trade and world stock markets into meltdown.The 79-year-old Republican met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for five meetings in his first year back in office — and hosted the ally at his lavish Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, at a glittering New Year’s Eve party.After two years of war that left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, pressure from Trump helped land a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October — though both sides have accused each other of flagrant violations.”We bid farewell to 2025 with deep sorrow and grief,” said Gaza City resident Shireen Al-Kayali.”We lost a lot of people and our possessions. We lived a difficult and harsh life, displaced from one city to another, under bombardment and in terror.”In contrast, there was optimism despite abiding internal challenges in Syria, where residents of the capital Damascus celebrated a full year since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.”There is no fear, the people are happy, all of Syria is one and united, and God willing… it will be a good year for the people and the wise leadership,” marketing manager Sahar al-Said, 33, told AFP as bells rang in Damascus.In Dubai, thousands queued for up to nine hours for a spectacular fireworks and laser display at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.Revellers popped champagne near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Bulgaria adopted the euro, and huge crowds danced at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay street party.Crowds packed Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach for what authorities have called the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve party.”A wonderful, unforgettable day,” said partygoer Ayane de Fatima, 30, adding she hoped 2026 would be “free from the bad things happening in the world”.In the US capital, the Washington Monument was lit up as America kicked off its 250th birthday celebration year.And in New York, thousands gathered in freezing temperatures amid tight security for the traditional ball drop in Times Square.Nearby, at an abandoned subway stop near City Hall, Zohran Mamdani — a leftist and persistent thorn in Trump’s side — was sworn in as the city’s first Muslim mayor.- Sports, space and AI -The coming 12 months promise to be full of sports, space and questions over artificial intelligence.Athletes will gather in Italy in February for the Winter Olympics.And for a few weeks in June and July, 48 nations will compete in the biggest football World Cup in history in the United States, Mexico and Canada.NASA is planning a crewed mission to circle the moon during a 10-day flight, more than 50 years since the last Apollo lunar mission.And after years of unbridled enthusiasm, AI is facing scrutiny, and nervous investors are questioning whether the boom might now resemble a market bubble.bur-pbt-cw-sst/ceg/mjw

US President Donald Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a glittering New Year’s Eve party at his lavish Mar-a-Lago resort on Wednesday, according to social media.Netanyahu, who arrived at the US president’s Palm Beach residence on Monday, was spotted alongside tuxedo-clad Trump Wednesday night in a social media post from conservative influencer Michael Solakiewicz.Trump had joked that the Israeli leader could attend the party during meetings Monday to discuss the fragile Gaza ceasefire and other regional geopolitical concerns in the Middle East.The party guest list included Trump’s ardent supporters Rudy Giuliani and Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani, along with his sons Eric and Don Jr., and top members of his administration, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino.The Gaza ceasefire in October is one of the major achievements of Trump’s first year back in power, but some White House officials fear Netanyahu is slow-walking the process.This week, Trump downplayed reports of tensions with Netanyahu over the second stage of the ceasefire, saying that Israel had “lived up” to its commitments and that the onus was on Palestinian militant group Hamas.Siding with the Israeli premier, Trump said he was “not concerned about anything that Israel’s doing.”This week’s talks mark the fifth such meeting in the United States since Trump’s return to power this year.

Israeli bulldozers began demolishing 25 buildings housing Palestinians in a refugee camp on Wednesday, in what the military said was an effort to root out armed groups in northern areas of the occupied West Bank.The buildings, home to some 100 families, are in the Nur Shams camp, a frequent site of clashes between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces.Israeli military bulldozers and cranes tore through the structures early Wednesday, sending thick plumes of dust into the air, an AFP journalist reported. Many residents watched from a distance.”Being torn away from our homes, our neighbourhoods and our memories is deeply painful,” said Mutaz Mahr, whose building was being demolished.”The occupation tries by every means to wear us down and pressure us,” he told AFP. Nihaya al-Jendi, a member of Nur Shams’s popular committee, said hundreds of families had been forced out of their homes even before a military operation began earlier this year.”Today, more than 1,500 families from the camp are still unable to return,” Jendi said.”This is a major catastrophe — a real humanitarian disaster for Palestinian refugees — unfolding before the eyes of the world.”The military said the demolitions were part of an operation against militants.”Following ongoing counterterrorism activity by Israeli security forces in the area of Nur Shams in northern Samaria, the commander of the Central Command, Major General Avi Bluth, ordered the demolition of several structures due to a clear and necessary operational need,” the military told AFP in a statement.”Areas in northern Samaria have become a significant centre of terrorist activity, operating from within densely populated civilian areas.”- ‘Clear buffer’ -Earlier this year, the military launched an operation it said was aimed at dismantling Palestinian armed groups from camps in northern West Bank — including Nur Shams, Tulkarem and Jenin.”Even a year after the beginning of IDF operations in the area, forces continue to locate ammunition, weapons, and explosive devices used by terrorist organisations, which endanger IDF soldiers and impair operational freedom of action,” the military said on Wednesday.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that operations in Nur Shams, Tulkarem and Jenin had been “effective”, claiming they had reduced what he described as terrorist activity in Judea and Samaria by 80 percent.He added in a statement that troops would remain on the ground and act as a “clear buffer between the (Israeli) population and terrorist element”, with the stated aim of preventing their regrouping and thwarting attacks.Earlier in December, AFP reported residents of the targeted buildings retrieving their belongings, with many saying they had nowhere to go.The demolitions form part of a broader Israeli strategy aimed at easing access for military vehicles within the densely built refugee camps of the West Bank.Israel has occupied the Palestinian territory since 1967.Nur Shams, along with other refugee camps in the West Bank, was established after the creation of Israel in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes in what is now Israel.With time, the camps they established inside the West Bank became dense neighbourhoods not under their adjacent cities’ authority. Residents pass on their refugee status from one generation to the next.Many residents believe Israel is seeking to destroy the idea of the camps themselves, turning them into regular neighbourhoods of the cities they flank, in order to eliminate the refugee issue.

A government building in southern Iran was attacked on Wednesday, authorities said, as the country’s top prosecutor warned of a “decisive response” to any attempt to create instability after days of economic protests.Spontaneous protests, driven by dissatisfaction at Iran’s economic stagnation, began on Sunday in Tehran’s largest mobile phone market, where shopkeepers shuttered their businesses, and have since drawn in students across the country.”A portion of the provincial governors’ office door and its glass were destroyed in an attack by a number of people,” said Hamed Ostovar, the head of the judiciary in the city of Fasa, as quoted by the justice ministry’s Mizan agency, without specifying how the attack was carried out.The attack came after the country’s prosecutor general said the protestor’s economic concerns were legitimate, but warned action would be taken if necessary.”Peaceful livelihood protests are part of social and understandable realities,” Mohammad Movahedi-Azad told state media.”Any attempt to turn economic protests into a tool of insecurity, destruction of public property, or implementation of externally-designed scenarios will inevitably be met with a legal, proportionate and decisive response.”His comments came days after the Mossad intelligence agency of Iran’s arch-foe Israel posted on social media that it was “with you on the ground” in a message to Iranian protesters.Posting on its Persian-language X account, the spy agency encouraged Iranians to “go out into the streets together”. Iran, which does not recognise Israel, has long accused it of conducting sabotage operations against its nuclear facilities and assassinating its scientists.- Fighting for food -The rallies have since built momentum, with students at 10 universities in the capital and in other cities, including Iran’s most prestigious institutions, joining in on Tuesday.The vice-president of the University of Tehran, Mohammad Reza Taghidokht, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency that four students were arrested on Tuesday and released overnight.Nevertheless, the protests remain limited in number and concentrated in central Tehran, with shops elsewhere in the sprawling metropolis of 10 million people unaffected.Before the attack in Fasa, Iranian media had not reported any new protests on Wednesday.Iran’s economy has been in the doldrums for years, with heavy US and international sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme weighing heavily on it.The currency, the rial, has also plunged in recent months, losing more than a third of its value against the US dollar since last year.In December, inflation stood at 52 percent year-on-year, according to official statistics. Some basic necessities are becoming unaffordable for a portion of the population, which has been suffering from international sanctions against Iran for decades. “Everyone here is fighting for a scrap of bread,” said one protester interviewed Tuesday by the daily newspaper Etemad.- Last-minute bank holiday -Schools, banks and public institutions were closed on Wednesday for a bank holiday, with officials saying the directive was due to the cold weather and the need to save energy. The capital’s prestigious Beheshti and Allameh Tabataba’i universities announced that classes would be held online throughout next week for the same reason, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.The authorities have not linked the bank holiday to the protests. Tehran is experiencing daytime temperatures in the low single digits, which is not unusual for the time of year.Weekends in Iran begin on Thursdays, while this Saturday marks a long-standing national holiday.Iran is no stranger to nationwide protests, but the latest demonstrations have not come close to the last major outbreak in 2022 triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman. Her death in custody after being arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women sparked a wave of anger across the country.Several hundred people were killed, including dozens of members of the security forces.There were also widespread protests in 2019, sparked by a sharp increase in the price of petrol.