.New York has become the latest of the world’s major cities to ring in the New Year with spectacular fireworks displays and massive parties against a backdrop of tightened security.
Snow, freezing temperatures and a terrorism threat did not stop more than a million people gathering in New York’s Times Square to celebrate the arrival of 2010 with the traditional dropping of the crystal ball at midnight.
Security in the city had been ramped up since last week’s attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound passenger jet. .
Revellers were checked with metal detectors and were not allowed to carry backpacks into Times Square.
Earlier, more than 120,000 Russians crowded into Moscow’s Red Square to toast 2010 as President Dmitry Medvedev thanked his nation for bearing with the economic crisis.
Up to 80,000 people also turned out in Edinburgh for the annual Hogmanay outdoor street party, some sporting furry horned tartan helmets against the bitter cold as they gathered to watch fireworks by Edinburgh Castle.
“The past year was not a very easy one for our country, and I want to thank you all for bearing up together,” he said in his traditional New Year address.
In Australia, about 1.
Party-goers in the South Pacific were the first to raise their glasses to 2010, leading the world into a new decade after one scarred by war, terror attacks, natural disaster and financial turmoil.
Thousands of people also crammed into Hong Kong’s harbour, where 9,000 fireworks were unleashed from the city’s tallest skyscraper as well as other buildings in a display that lasted nearly five minutes.5 million people crowded the Sydney Harbour foreshore to watch a vast array of fireworks burst into the night sky at midnight, launched from the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and four barges on the water.
In Paris, about 70,000 people gathered near the Eiffel Tower for a multicoloured light show, while more than 8,000 police were deployed across the city and suburbs where 1,100 cars were burned last New Year’s Eve.
Such spectacles were banned in Thailand after fireworks caused a New Year’s Eve blaze at a Bangkok nightclub a year ago, killing 65 people.
The filling of portable containers at petrol pumps was banned, as were glass bottles and fireworks on the Champs Elysees, the Parisian avenue where another 200,000 people gathered to see in the New Year.
The filling of portable containers at petrol pumps was banned, as were glass bottles and fireworks on the Champs Elysees, the Parisian avenue where another 200,000 people gathered to see in the New Year.
In Spain, which took over the rotating presidency of the EU at midnight, thousands of people attended a light and sound show at the central Puerta del Sol square where a giant image of the EU flag was projected onto a building.
In Berlin, more than 1 million revellers gathered on the boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity, with live bands and DJs cranking up the party. Now I am going to work on my first hangover of 2010,” said Gerry Shalloe, a 32-year-old English teacher from Ireland who lives in Madrid and who attended the countdown with friends.
“This is the best street party in the world.
Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko, seeking re-election on January 17, assured his countrymen in a New Year’s message that they would become part of the European Union and NATO.
In Poland, around 90,000 people brought in the New Year at a concert in Warsaw in memory of Michael Jackson attended by the late singer’s sister La Toya.
– Increased security –
In New York, a downpour of confetti at midnight marked the traditional mass celebration in Times Square in the heart of Manhattan.
But the fiercely pro-Western leader looked unlikely to be in charge for much longer with opinion polls putting him far behind pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko.
“It will be a full-fledged deployment of resources,” city police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
But after security jitters rekindled by the Christmas Day bomb plot, undercover police, surveillance cameras and radiation and biological detection equipment monitored the crowds.”
The US embassy in Indonesia, meanwhile, said it had received a warning of a possible attack on the resort island of Bali, the scene of multiple bombings targeting Westerners, but local authorities denied knowledge of any alert.”
The US embassy in Indonesia, meanwhile, said it had received a warning of a possible attack on the resort island of Bali, the scene of multiple bombings targeting Westerners, but local authorities denied knowledge of any alert.
In Pakistan, where the Taliban’s bloody campaign rebounded in 2009, spirits were dampened in the city of Karachi by a deadly suicide attack during a holy Shiite Muslim ceremony on Monday that killed 43 people.
In neighbouring Afghanistan, soldiers maintained their alert after two deadly militant attacks claimed the lives of eight Americans and five Canadians, while two French journalists were reported kidnapped by Taliban.
For Cyprus, New Year’s Eve was the last chance to smoke in pubs, clubs and cafes with a new anti-smoking law in force from January 1.
And in South Africa, President Jacob Zuma used his New Year message to rally for unity for the 2010 football World Cup– the first to be held in Africa.
New Year’s Eve also presented the world with a Blue Moon, the name for a second full moon in one single month, for only the second time in nearly 20 years.
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