New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world as 2024 begins – as it happened

That is it from me, Martin Belam. We will be closing this live blog shortly. Thank you for joining me to see in the new year, and again I wish you all the very best for a happy and more peaceful 2024.

Details of the archbishop of Canterbury’s new year message have been released, with Justin Welby asking people to “seek to make peace” in 2024.

In a message to be broadcast on New Year’s Day, the archbishop says:

Wars seem everywhere at the moment. Wars we know about, wars forgotten.

I’ve seen for myself the ongoing human cost of war. In Ukraine I went to Bucha where evidence of atrocities was found. I’ve meet Ukrainian refugees, most recently in Georgia and Romania: families having to start again in a new country.

I’ve met refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh after they left their homes because of conflict. And in Jerusalem last October I sat and listened to some of those traumatised by war, Palestinian and Israeli.

Jesus Christ tells us to stand with those suffering because of war, and to seek to make peace.

A still of the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, delivering his New Year’s message, which is to be broadcast on Monday 1 January. Photograph: BBC/Lambeth Palace/Jason Bye/PA

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From London to the world: a message of unity, love & hope. Our city is a place for everyone. You are free to be who you want and love who you want. Our NHS are the best of us. A greener, fairer, future is within our grasp.

Before I wrap up the live blog for the evening – well, morning here now in the UK – here are a few more pictures of celebrations from around the world as 2024 begins.

Traditionally, the Berlin fire brigade welcomes the new year with blue lights and sirens. I bet the neighbours love that. Photograph: snapshot-photography/T Seeliger/REX/Shutterstock

Fireworks illuminate the sky above Lake Zurich in Switzerland. Photograph: Ennio Leanza/AP

A worshipper holds a candle during a New Year’s prayer at the St Joanes, Legio Maria of African Church Mission within Fort Jesus in Kibera district of Nairobi, Kenya. Photograph: Monicah Mwangi/Reuters

Spectators are waiting near Times Square for New York’s celebrations, with just over four hours to go until midnight on the US east coast. Photograph: Derek French/REX/Shutterstock

People pose for a photograph as they watch the first sunrise of 2024 near the Tokyo Gate Bridge in Japan. Photograph: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images

Firework and drone displays are all very well, but you have to ask yourself, do enough new year celebrations involve carrying burning whisky barrels through the streets? The answer is that at least the Allendale Tar Barrels Parade in Northumberland keeps this tradition going.

Men, known as guisers, carry burning whisky barrels through the streets during the Allendale Tar Barrels Parade. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Only men born locally are allowed to carry the barrels, and they do so in fancy dress. Apparently the tradition has been going for 160 years.

I don’t want to be disloyal to London, since it is my home town, but I do feel that Paris looks like it was the place to be this evening, as it ushered in a year in which the city will host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics. A French government minister has said 800,000 people attended.