President Bill Clinton pledged the US would uphold the torch of freedom as North America became the last continent to usher in an apparently crisis-free millennium with extravagant celebrations.
Almost three million revellers cheered in Times Square as New York's symbol of the new millennium -- a dazzling Waterford crystal ball -- was lowered to mark the New Year.
As the clock struck midnight, fireworks joined the ball's laser light show, bursting over the so-called "crossroads of the world." A chorus of the traditional Auld Lang Syne New Year anthem rang out and people hugged and kissed.
PHOTO:AP
In Washington, the towering Washington Monument was spectacularly illuminated with cascades of fireworks, the highlight of a three-hour millennium show on the central Mall which had included film star Will Smith and singer Tom Jones.
At midnight, Clinton and a group of children lit a fuse setting the capital's skyline ablaze with showers of sparks and streaks of colored light.
"The sun will always rise on America as long as each new generation lights the fire of freedom," Clinton said before setting off the fireworks. "Our children are ready and so again the torch is passed to a new century of young Americans."
PHOTO: AP
There were no reported security breaches or incidents despite fears that extremist groups might try to launch attacks to mar US millennium celebrations.
Seattle cancelled its planned downtown party because of fears of a terrorist attack, after the arrest near the city two weeks ago of an Algerian allegedly transporting bomb-making equipment.
Earlier, celebrations rolled across the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro as millions of Brazilians led the Americas into the new millennium with major computers apparently ticking smoothly past the midnight hour.
Some three million people -- roughly the population of Uruguay -- crowded on to the resort city's famous five-kilometer Copacabana beach to hear lively Samba bands in one of the world's biggest New Year festivities.
After Rio, it was the turn of Buenos Aires and Caracas.
Communist-run Cuba, whose leader Fidel Castro rejects Jan. 1 as the start of the new millennium, ushered in the New Year with exhortations of revolutionary fervor instead of the fireworks and street-parties seen elsewhere around the world.
Castro, for whom Jan. 1 marks the anniversary of his 1959 revolution, backs the view of some historians and experts that the new millennium does not begin until Jan. 1, 2001, because the Christian era did not use the digit zero and therefore started with the year one.
Canada entered the new millennium apparently free of Y2K mishaps as midnight tolled in Newfoundland, the most easterly province, a half-hour before other regions in North America.
FIREWORKS, CHAMPAGNE, ENTERTAINMENT AND PRAYER
People across Europe, Africa and Asia had already enjoyed their millennium moment, celebrating through the night with fireworks, champagne, entertainment and prayer.
Pope John Paul II, praying before 130,000 young people in Rome's St Peter's Square, asked God to "bless this moment of festivity and good wishes, that it may be the promising beginning of a new millennium filled with joy and peace."
In Russia, where experts had grave fears about the Y2K computer bug affecting the rickety nuclear power industry, no problems were reported.
US and Russian military experts working together at an Air Force base in Colorado to avert any nuclear missile disaster from the millennium bug breathed easier after more than half the world ushered in the new year without incident.
Russia's missile chief said the world's second largest nuclear power had kept its promise and avoided any millennium computer bug problems.
Colonel-General Vladimir Yakovlev said even before the New Year dawned he would be marking the occasion by letting off fireworks rockets in his yard with his children -- the only launches he envisaged for the night.
Fears of critical computer problems stem from older systems which were programmed with only the last two digits of a year. If the glitch was left uncorrected, computers could misread 2000 as 1900, causing systems to malfunction or even crash.
LONDON'S BIG BEN RINGS IN MIDNIGHT GMT
Fingers had stayed crossed till midnight GMT -- the global time standard based on the London suburb of Greenwich which is used by air control systems around the world.
The witching hour was rung in by Big Ben atop Britain's Houses of Parliament and a 60-meter high "River of Fire" roared down the Thames in an explosion of fireworks vast enough to be visible in space.
Queen Elizabeth joined hands with Prime Minister Tony Blair to sing the traditional Auld Lang Syne New Year anthem.
Britain was ablaze with thou-sands of flaming beacons in spite of a string of jinxes that barred passengers from London's giant new Ferris wheel and left many guests ticketless for the top people's Millennium Dome party at Greenwich.
There were no immediate reports of major computer problems, and the US government said all was well with air traffic control.
Countries from Britain and Germany to China issued early Y2K bug all-clears but some independent experts warned against complacency. Minor blips were noted in the French banking system and at US power units.
Three million people cheered in the new millennium at the biggest party in German history that stretched from the center of west Berlin to the middle of the formerly communist eastern sector of the city.
Fireworks displays lit up the skies across Germany, ending with a final bang the turbulent 20th century that brought defeats in two world wars and a 40-year Cold War division.
STRANGERS KISS IN RED SQUARE
Russians, taking in their stride the news that President Boris Yeltsin had resigned, launched into vodka-fuelled parties. Champagne corks popped, firecrackers banged and stranger kissed stranger in Red Square.
Ukraine's Chernobyl atomic power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident and a source of international nervousness, entered 2000 without a hitch. "Everything is fine," shift manager Olexander Oleseyuk told Reuters.
Fireworks burst over the Acropolis in Athens. Three million people cheered in the new millennium in Berlin.
But celebrations were not all trouble-free.
South Africa's first city Johannesburg marked the millennium in a typically violent fashion, its notorious Hillbrow district resembling an urban war-zone as revellers pelted police with bottles.
In France, half a million people entered the new century without electricity following storms that have killed 83 people. More than 1.2 million people crowded central Paris but a big panel on the Eiffel Tower counting down to midnight failed a few hours before the big moment.
The first baby of the millennium -- a boy -- was born in New Zealand at 12:01am local time in Auckland's Waitakere Hospital, TV3 News said.
PINK FLOYD THEMES IN BETHLEHEM
In Bethlehem -- where the birth of Jesus around 2,000 years ago was the point from which most of the world now counts the ages -- 2,000 "doves of peace" took wing to the recorded strains of Pink Floyd rock music and fireworks lit the sky over Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity.
Hezbollah guerrillas warned Israel the New Year would bring fresh suicide attacks against its soldiers in south Lebanon.
The first day of 2000 began in the tiny island states of the Western Pacific. On Millennium Island, part of the Kiribati island chain and newly named for the occasion, the sun, rising just after 5:30am local time was hailed by a choir of women singing: "Come, come, we are ready to greet you."
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