Security was tight ahead of festivities in major cities worldwide, with 1,700 police patrolling streets and beaches in Australia's largest city to prevent a possible repeat of suburban race riots earlier this month.

Sydney's landmark Opera House was illuminated at midnight by the most spectacular pyrotechnical display the city has ever seen.

Australia has 900 troops in Iraq and the government has warned repeatedly of militant attacks on home soil, but about one million people turned out in one of the first cities to leave 2005 and its violence behind.

Street parties and glittering displays marked the festivities across Asia and the Pacific, with Hong Kong boasting a light and sound show including fireworks launched from 20 buildings around its harbour.

In Beijing, bells and drums were sounded 108 times at midnightto mark an auspicious start to the year, signifying the elimination of worldly troubles in accordance with Buddhist tradition.

Authorities in Indonesia -- already on high alert for possible attacks by Islamic extremists during the New Year period -- fanned out in restive Central Sulawesi province after a bombing in a crowded market Saturday left eight dead.

The festive mood across much of the region contrasted with last year, when prayer vigils and fundraising events replaced jubilant blow-out bashes in the wake of the devastating December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

As Asia struggled to rebuild in 2005 after the giant waves killed more than 220,000 people, natural disaster sent it reeling again this October, when a massive earthquake killed at least 74,000 people in Pakistan and India.

In the Philippines, hospitals braced for a spate of casualties as revellers traditionally set off firecrackers and fire guns into the air at midnight. Two people died and more than 130 were injured in the run-up.

Police and commandos were patrolling the streets of several Indian cities amid fears of militant attacks.

In Baghdad, the Iraqi president said he hoped a new government of national unity would help improve public services and defeat the insurgency in 2006.

"Problems of lack of security, electricity and water persist and I hope they will be areas of priority for the new government, which we hope will be one of national unity," Talabani said on Iraqia television.

In Israel, young people were determined to celebrate the New Year despite the disapproval of religious authorities who regard it as a Christian festival and a nationwide alert after Palestinian militant groups warned a truce would expire at midnight.

Israeli television and public radio reported 50 security alerts, about 10 of them concrete, about attacks being plotted by Palestinian armed groups to mark the holidays.

Two Palestinians were killed in the evening by Israeli fire in the northern Gaza Strip.

However, flamboyant celebrating was not on the agenda in Lebanon, still living in the shadow of the latest assassination of an anti-Syrian political figure, the newspaper director Gibran Tueni.

"How can you imagine that we are going to celebrate when we fear what the year 2006 will bring us and we have the feeling that we are not at the end of our pains," said Nelly, who owns a fashion shop in downtown Beirut.

While in Egypt a tiny elite can afford to attend hotel receptions to hear Arab pop stars, most of the country's 72 million people could only watch proceedings with their families on television.

Those with deep pockets could enjoy an evening in the ballroom of Dubai's Burj Al-Arab, the world's only seven-star hotel, at a cost of 6,000 dirhams (1,643 dollars) including an exclusive dinner, drinks and fireworks.

In Europe, six months after four suspected suicide bombers killed 52 train and bus commuters in Britain's worst terror attacks, Prime Minister Tony Blair said the country should not waver in the fight against terrorism.

"We will not let our resolve slip to tackle the dangers we face, both at home, as so tragically illustrated on July 7, and abroad," Blair said in his New Year message.

A planned 24-hour strike by railway workers on London's Underground subway system promised to complicate the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of revellers planning to party in the British capital.

Across the Channel in France, where a state of emergency is still in force following three weeks of rioting in the country's suburbs, some 25,000 police and gendarmes have been deployed to prevent a flare-up of violence.

About 4,500 officers were on hand in Paris, where 500,000 people were expected to gather near the Eiffel Tower and on the French capital's most famous avenue, the Champs-Elysees, to welcome the New Year.

In the United States, one million partygoers were expected to pack into New York's Times Square to remember the victims of Hurricane Katrina and salute relief workers toiling to clean up New Orleans, ravaged by the August storm.

And in Africa, thousands of Kenyan prisoners decided to skip a meal on New Year's day to save money to help millions facing severe food shortages.

burs/afm/jac/

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.