Whole world welcomes 2026 amid turmoil

NY begins amid war, truces, global strain

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Palestinians walk past a sand sculpture reading “2026” on the beach in Gaza City on New Year’s Eve on Wednesday.

(AFP)

Revellers around the world toasted the start of 2026 yesterday, bidding farewell to a volatile year marked by soaring temperatures, sweeping US trade tariffs under President Donald Trump, and the grinding war in Ukraine.

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 global frenzy.

In Sydney, partygoers paused for a minute's silence to remember victims of the Bondi Beach mass shooting before fireworks lit up the sky at midnight.

Heavily armed police patrolled the shoreline, packed with hundreds of thousands of people, less than two weeks after 15 people were killed at a Jewish festival in Australia's deadliest mass shooting in almost 30 years.