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New Year’s Eve revellers toasted the end of 2025 on Wednesday, waving goodbye to 12 months packed with Trump tariffs, a Gaza truce and vain hopes for peace in Ukraine.It was one of the warmest years on record, the stifling heat stoking wildfires in Europe, droughts in Africa and deadly rains across Southeast Asia.There was a sombre tinge to party preparations in Australia’s harbour city Sydney, the self-proclaimed “New Year’s capital of the world”.Barely two weeks have passed since a father and son allegedly opened fire on a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting for almost 30 years.Parties will pause for a minute of silence at 11:00 pm (1200 GMT) as the famed Sydney Harbour Bridge is bathed in white light to symbolise peace.”Right now, the joy that we usually feel at the start of a new year is tempered by the sadness of the old,” Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a video message.Hundreds of thousands of spectators are expected to line Sydney’s foreshore as nine tonnes of fireworks explode on the stroke of midnight.Throughout the evening, residents and tourists began gathering by the city’s harbour and sailboats dotted the water to secure the best viewing spots near the Sydney Opera House. “The fireworks have always been on my bucket list and I’m so happy to be here,” said Susana Suisuikli, an English tourist.  Security was tighter than usual, with squads of heavily armed police patrolling the crowds.Sydney kicks off a chain of celebrations stretching from glitzy New York to the Hogmanay festival on the chilly streets of Scotland.More than two million people are expected to pack Brazil’s lively Copacabana Beach for what authorities have called the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve party.In Hong Kong, a major New Year fireworks display planned for Victoria Harbour was cancelled to pay homage to 161 people killed in a housing estate fire in November.- Truce and tariffs -Labubu dolls became a worldwide craze in 2025, thieves plundered the Louvre in a daring heist, and K-pop heartthrobs BTS made their long-awaited return.The world lost pioneering zoologist Jane Goodall, the Vatican chose a new pope, and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk laid bare America’s deep political divisions.Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, launching a tariff blitz that sent global markets into meltdown.The president used his Truth Social platform to lash out at his sliding approval ratings ahead of 2026 midterm elections.”The polls are rigged,” he wrote, without providing evidence.”Isn’t it nice to have a STRONG BORDER, No Inflation, a powerful Military, and great Economy??? Happy New Year!”But many expect tough times to continue in 2026.”The economic situation is also very dire, and I’m afraid I’ll be left without income,” said Ines Rodriguez, 50, a merchant in Mexico City.After two years of war that left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, US pressure helped land a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October.But with each side already accusing the other of flagrant violations, no one is sure how long the break in hostilities will hold.Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians.Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed more than 70,000, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, a figure the UN deems credible.World leaders including China’s Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin began exchanging New Year greetings.Xi said he was “ready to maintain close exchanges with Putin to jointly push for continuous new progress in bilateral ties”, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday.The war in Ukraine — sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 — grinds towards its four-year anniversary in February with no temporary ceasefire reached in the final days of 2025 despite a renewed burst of diplomacy.- Sports, space and AI -The coming 12 months promise to be full of sports, space and questions over artificial intelligence (AI).NASA’s Artemis II mission, backed by Elon Musk, will launch a crewed spacecraft to circle the moon during a 10-day test flight, more than 50 years since the last Apollo lunar mission.After years of unbridled enthusiasm, AI is facing scrutiny and nervous investors are questioning whether the boom might now resemble a market bubble.Athletes will gather on Italy’s famed Dolomites to hit the slopes for the Winter Olympics.And for a few weeks in June and July, nations will come together for the biggest football World Cup in history in venues across the United States, Mexico and Canada.

The UAE said Tuesday it was pulling its remaining forces out of Yemen, following a Saudi demand to withdraw within 24 hours as tensions escalate over a sweeping offensive by Abu Dhabi-backed separatists.The United Arab Emirates’ defence ministry said it was withdrawing “counter-terrorism teams…of its own volition”. Abu Dhabi had denied being behind the separatists’ advance.Yemen’s presidential council and Saudi Arabia, the UAE’s rival powerbroker in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, have both demanded Emirati troops pull out.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke with his Saudi and UAE counterparts, which are both key US partners, his department said.Rubio and UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan discussed “the situation in Yemen and broader issues affecting Middle Eastern security and stability”, said Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman.Before dawn, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels had struck an Emirati shipment at Mukalla port, saying it was carrying weapons for the separatists, a claim the UAE denied.AFP footage of the port showed dozens of parked military vehicles and pick-ups, several of which were burnt out and smouldering as workers hosed them down.Tuesday’s rapid-fire events come after forces from the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) marched across resource-rich Hadramawt and Mahra provinces this month, bringing fresh upheaval after a decade-long civil war.The advance has raised the spectre of the return of South Yemen, a separate state from 1967 to 1990, while dealing a hammer-blow to slow-moving peace negotiations with Iran-backed Houthi rebels.Emirati troops arrived in Yemen as part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis, who had forced the government from the capital Sanaa in 2014 and seized much of the country.The UAE pulled out most of its forces in 2019, leaving only a limited number in the government-run south where a patchwork of militias hold sway.- ‘Unreasonable’ -Its final withdrawal follows a rare public dispute with Riyadh, which accused Abu Dhabi of pressuring STC forces “to conduct military operations” on Saudi Arabia’s southern border. “The steps taken by the UAE are considered highly dangerous,” a foreign ministry statement said, adding: “The Kingdom stresses that any threat to its national security is a red line.”Also on Tuesday, the leader of Yemen’s presidential council dissolved a defence pact with the UAE and declared a 90-day state of emergency.Abu Dhabi denied being behind the separatist advance and insisted the shipment targeted at Mukalla contained only vehicles destined for its own forces.The UAE “condemns the claims made regarding the exertion of pressure or direction on any Yemeni party to carry out military operations”, a statement said.It added: “The shipment in question did not contain any weapons, and the vehicles unloaded were not intended for any Yemeni party.”Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue.”Diplomacy is still an option to stop any further escalation,” a source close to the Saudi military coalition told AFP. However, the STC remained defiant, insisting there was “no thinking about withdrawal” from its newly seized positions.”It is unreasonable for the landowner to be asked to leave his own land. The situation requires staying and reinforcing,” STC spokesman Anwar Al-Tamimi told AFP.- ‘Unacceptable to God’ -“We are in a defensive position, and any movement toward our forces will be responded to by our forces,” he added. Tamimi said Saudi Arabia had moved around 20,000 security forces along its border with Hadramawt, adjacent to positions held by the STC. The STC is also a key member of the government — a fractious alliance held together by its opposition to the Houthis.Mukalla resident Abdullah Bazuhair, whose home overlooks the port, showed AFP the damage to his property, with windows blasted clear out of the walls and glass strewn across the floor.”The children were terrified and the women frightened,” he said, calling the strikes “unacceptable to God”.The Saudi-led coalition had warned that it would back Yemen’s government in any military confrontation with separatist forces, and urged them to withdraw.Tuesday’s strike came days after reported Saudi air raids on separatist positions in resource-rich Hadramawt last week.A Yemeni military official said on Friday that around 15,000 Saudi-backed fighters were massed near the Saudi border but had not been given orders to advance on separatist-held territory.burs/ds/th/lg/phz/jgc

Iranian students staged street protests in Tehran on Tuesday, a day after the capital’s shopkeepers demonstrated against economic hardship and won a message of understanding from the president.According to Ilna, a news agency associated with Iran’s labour movement, protests erupted at 10 universities across the country, including seven in Tehran that are among the country’s most prestigious.Protests also broke out at the technology university in the central city of Isfahan and institutions in the cities of Yazd and Zanjan, Ilna and state-run IRNA reported.On Tuesday, security forces and riot police were deployed at major intersections in Tehran and around some universities, according to AFP journalists, while some of the shops closed the previous day in the capital’s centre had reopened. The student action came after Monday’s protests in central Tehran by shop-owners and a day ahead of the temporary closure of banks, schools and businesses in the capital and in most provinces to save energy during the bitterly cold weather.The Iranian rial has dropped against the dollar and other world currencies — when the protests erupted on Sunday, the US dollar was trading at around 1.42 million rials, compared to 820,000 rials a year ago — forcing up import prices and hurting retail traders.Demonstrations erupted on Sunday at the city’s largest mobile phone market, before gaining momentum, though they remained limited in number and confined to central Tehran. The vast majority of shops elsewhere continued to operate as usual.President Masoud Pezeshkian — who has less authority under Iran’s system of government than supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — met Tuesday with labour leaders and made proposals to tackle the economic crisis, according to press agency Mehr. “I have asked the interior minister to listen to the legitimate demands of the protesters by engaging in dialogue with their representatives so that the government can do everything in its power to resolve the problems and act responsibly,” he said in a social media post.According to state television, parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, also called for “necessary measures focused on increasing people’s purchasing power” but warned against foreign agents and government opponents attempting to exploit the protests.On Monday, the government announced the replacement of the central bank governor with former economy and finance minister Abdolnasser Hemmati.- Battered economy -Price fluctuations are paralysing sales of some imported goods, with both sellers and buyers preferring to postpone transactions until the outlook becomes clearer, AFP correspondents reported.According to the Etemad newspaper, one trader complained that officials had offered no support to storekeepers battling soaring import costs.”They didn’t even follow up on how the dollar price affected our lives,” he complained, speaking on condition of anonymity.”We had to decide to show our protest. With this dollar price, we can’t even sell a phone case, and the officials don’t care at all that our lives are run by selling mobile phones and accessories.”In December, inflation stood at 52 percent year-on-year, according to official statistics. But this figure still falls far short of many price increases, especially for basic necessities.The country’s economy, already battered by decades of Western sanctions, was further strained after the United Nations in late September reinstated international sanctions linked to the country’s nuclear programme that were lifted 10 years ago.Western powers and Israel accuse Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.The current protests against the high cost of living have not reached the level of the nationwide demonstrations that shook Iran in 2022.Those protests were sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women. Amini’s death triggered months of unrest, with hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, killed and thousands more arrested.In 2019, protests broke out in Iran after the announcement of a sharp increase in petrol prices. The unrest spread to around 100 cities, including Tehran, and left dozens dead.