As last year drew to a close, revelers around the world bid a weary farewell to a year filled with political surprises, prolonged conflicts, deadly attacks at gatherings and deaths of legendary celebrities.
Here is a look at how some countries ushered in the new year.
AUSTRALIA
Photo: AFP
Sydney sent up a dazzling tribute to last year’s fallen icons with a fireworks display honoring the late singer David Bowie and late actor Gene Wilder. The display over Sydney’s harbor and bridge featured Saturn and star-shaped fireworks set to Space Oddity, by Bowie. Wilder was honored as the bridge lit up in a rainbow of colors while a song from his film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory played.
UNITED STATES
An estimated 1 million people welcomed the new year in New York’s Times Square, screaming and kissing as the glittering crystal ball dropped. Revelers began to fill the square hours before midnight. They braved cold temperatures and strong winds at the Crossroads of the World to greet the year amid heavy police protection.
Photo: EPA
Dozens of huge sanitation trucks loaded with an extra 15 tonnes of sand blocked off streets leading to the celebration zone to avoid the possibility of a truck attack such as those in Germany and France in recent months. About 7,000 police officers, along with specially armed counterterrorism units and bomb-sniffing dogs, were on guard.
SOUTH KOREA
Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans ushered in the new year with a massive protest demanding the resignation of disgraced President Park Geun-hye. It was the 10th consecutive weekend of protests that led to Park’s impeachment on Dec. 9 over a corruption scandal.
CHINA
Residents in Beijing and Shanghai, passed New Year’s Eve quietly in a relative state of security lockdown, according to Chinese media reports citing police.
Shanghai’s Bund waterfront had no celebrations, while the sale, use and transportation of fireworks in central Shanghai is to be prohibited.
More than 30 people died two years ago in a deadly stampede on Shanghai’s waterfront, where 300,000 people had gathered to watch a planned light show.
RUSSIA
President Vladimir Putin invoked a bit of seasonal enchantment in his New Year’s Eve remarks to the nation. “Each of us may become something of a magician on the night of the New Year,” Putin said in a short televised address broadcast in the closing minutes of last year in each of Russia’s 11 time zones. “To do this we simply need to treat our parents with love and gratitude, take care of our children and families, respect our colleagues at work, nurture our friendships, defend truth and justice, be merciful and help those who are in need of support. This is the whole secret.”
BRAZIL
More than 2 million people welcomed the year at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach. Twelve minutes of fireworks amazed many of the more than 860,000 tourists who had traveled to Rio for the party.
GERMANY
In Berlin the mood was somber. The tone of public debate in Germany has become shriller over the past two years with the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants. Police said they arrested a man who shouted “bomb, bomb, bomb” at Berlin’s open-air New Year’s party.
THE VATICAN
Pope Francis called on the faithful to help young people find a place in society, noting the paradox of “a culture that idolizes youth,” but makes no place for the young. Francis said that young people have been “pushed to the margins of public life, forcing them to migrate or to beg for jobs that no longer exist.”
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