Sydney:
Revellers across the globe began to ring in the New Year on Thursday but a Bali terror warning and a deadly shooting in Finland stoked security jitters, already high after a failed US bomb plot.
Police were on alert in many world cities after the thwarted Christmas Day attack on a US-bound plane, as party-goers from Tonga to Tijuana prepared to raise a glass to 2010 and close the door on a decade scarred by wars, terror attacks, natural disasters and financial turmoil.
But the party spirit was alive and well in New Zealand where fireworks burst into the night sky as the clock struck midnight in in Auckland, the first major city to see in the New Year.
The US embassy in Indonesia said it received a warning of a possible attack on the resort island of Bali, the scene of multiple bombings targeting Westerners, but local authorities denied any knowledge of such an alert.
In Helsinki, four people were killed after a lone gunman dressed in black opened fire at a shopping centre, the third major shooting in Finland in the past two years.
For international troops in Afghanistan, it was to be business as usual, with soldiers maintaining their normal schedule of operations, after two deadly Taliban attacks claimed the lives of eight Americans and five Canadians.
In Australia, around 1.5 million people were expected to crowd the harbour foreshore for a high-tech fireworks display on the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge.