Japanese streamed into temples, Russians packed a frigid Red Square and revelers from around the world crowded the confetti-strewn streets of New York's Times Square to greet the new year amid global concerns about war and terrorism.
Just hours before midnight, a suspected member of a separatist group tossed a grenade at a crowded roadside fireworks stall in the southern Philippines, killing at least 10 people and injuring 32 others, an army official said.
In Mexico, a fire broke out Tuesday at illegal fireworks stands in the Gulf port city of Veracruz. The fire engulfed a city block, killing at least 28 people and injuring 50 others, a city fire official said.
North Korea issued a New Year's message Wednesday, in the midst of rising tensions over its nuclear weapons program, urging its people to build an army-based "powerful nation" and defy pressure from the US.
"The United States is now becoming all the more frantic in its moves to stifle [North Korea], openly clamoring about a pre-emptive nuclear attack on it," said the message, carried on the country's foreign news outlet, Korean Central News Agency.
As 2003 dawned in Asia, the world's most populous continent held peaceful celebrations.
In Japan, millions participated in traditional prayers at Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines -- many hoping for the prosperity that has eluded the world's second-largest economy for a decade.
For five Japanese abducted by North Korean spies in 1978, it was their first chance to spend the holidays at home.
"It's like a dream being here," said Yukiko Hasuike, who was allowed a two-week visit to Japan in October that has become an indefinite stay. Hasuike and her husband, Kaoru, were snatched from her hometown.
At a Hong Kong soccer stadium, more than 1,000 Buddhist monks led thousands of people, including Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, in chants for good fortune.
New Year's Day is not widely observed in China, where the Chinese New Year in early February is the season's major holiday. Still, President Jiang Zemin (
"China's development is inseparable from the world's, and the prosperity of the world also cannot be achieved without China," Jiang said in a New Year's Day speech.
In Sydney crews spent yesterday morning sweeping up after some 450,000 people watched a fireworks display the night before. Security was tight and police reported only the usual arrests for drunkenness and assault.
Security forces around the world had braced for the threat of terrorism.
In New York, 2,000 police officers, including rooftop sharpshooters, watched more than 750,000 revelers herald the new year in Times Square. The crowd watched a glimmering, 481kg Waterford crystal ball drop and sang along to the Beatles song All You Need Is Love.
It was the 99th observance of the annual tradition in a blizzard of red, white and blue confetti. But security was tight. City crews set up Times Square metal-detector checkpoints, sealed manholes and removed nearby mailboxes. A 12-hour flight ban over the city kept pilots from flying below 600m.
In Italy, security was increased at the Vatican, at airports and at the US and Israeli embassies in Rome. Pope John Paul II opened the new year yesterday by pleading for an end to the "fratricidal and senseless" conflict in the Middle East.
"Bethlehem! The Holy Land! The dramatic and persistent tensions that the Middle East region finds itself in makes all the more urgent the search for a positive solution to the fratricidal and senseless conflict, which for too long has bloodied it," the 82-year-old pontiff told the faithful in St. Peter's Basilica.
Police were out in force in Moscow's Red Square, where vast crowds descended on the nation's capital despite subzero temperatures and jitters caused by terror attacks on a Moscow theater in October and in Chechnya at the end of the year. Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a sober message to his troubled nation.
"Russia, a country with a thousand-year history, is meeting its future properly," Putin said in a televised message broadcast as midnight arrived in each of the country's 10 time zones.
In Israel, security was tight but Tel Aviv night clubs and hotels were packed for New Year's Eve celebrations, despite the threat of terrorist attacks.
In Ivory Coast, the government rescinded a shoot-on-sight military curfew for one night. The curfew began Sept. 19 when a failed coup threw the West African nation into civil war.
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