Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping assured listeners in his New Year’s Eve speech that “China has something to say” on international issues in 2018, promising that under his regime, Beijing will be a “keeper of international order.”

New Year’s Eve was met with celebrations in the streets of Mosul and a fireworks display, the first such revelry since the Islamic State captured the city four years ago.

Turkey detained nearly 200 people over suspected links to Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists over a two-day period as part of enhanced counterterrorism efforts ahead of New Year celebrations.

Viktor Orbán has used his annual Christmas message to call on Europeans to protect their Christian culture, and vowed Hungary will not “retreat behind concrete blocks” at Christmas and watch its women and daughters “harassed in the New Year’s Eve crowd”, like its multicultural neighbours.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tasked a number of his cabinet officials with traveling to Washington to meet their counterparts in the Trump administration in anticipation of a one-on-one meeting between the two leaders.

French authorities have been accused of a cover-up after claiming New Year’s Eve “went off without any major incident” despite more than 1,000 cars being torched in arson attacks.

The Philippines recorded a 60 percent drop in the number of firecracker-related injuries this New Year’s Eve, good news the nation’s health secretary attributes to fears of attracting police attention following President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated claims he will pardon police who kill suspects on the job.

For the second time in San Diego, California, twins were born in separate years on New Year’s Eve 2016 and New Year’s day 2017.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – Beginning on New Year’s Eve through January 2 for the Sugar Bowl, Bourbon Street will be closed off to motorists in response to the deadly truck-involved Islamic terrorist attack in Berlin.

A 26-year-old man has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization in connection with an Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) inspired plot to carry out an attack on New Year’s Eve 2015 against civilians in Rochester, NY, using knives and machetes.

A musical act mocking Bruce Jenner in the annual New Year’s Day Mummers Parade in Philadelphia is drawing the ire of the city’s mayor, LGBT groups, and others.

Following a series of protests against the celebration of the new year this week, a radical Islamist party staged a “street play” in the Turkey, featuring a repentant Santa Claus converting to Islam and reciting the Muslim profession of faith, or Shahada.

TEL AVIV – Hamas police in Gaza have banned New Year’s parties in restaurants and hotels throughout the Strip.