A fire was set in the stairway of a gay nightclub in Seattle on New Year's Eve which was quickly extinguished. An empty gasoline container was found at the top of the stairway.
Dataran Merdeka Thousands of protestors gather at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur to begin protests against the Malaysian government's introduction of price hikes.
Russian president Russian President Vladimir Putin broke with a long tradition of Soviet and Russian heads of state and delivered two New Year’s speeches instead of one. The second New Year’s address was made from Khabarovsk, a far-eastern city hit by devastating floods in summer, instead of the Moscow Kremlin.
Islamist militants are suspected in an attack on a gas pipeline in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. There were no injuries