World welcomes the new year
LONDON – The world welcomed 2007 with skyrockets and rock concerts, but in some corners of the globe the New Year was marked by saber-rattling and canceled celebrations.
Fireworks exploded over Sydney’s Harbor Bridge as a million onlookers greeted the New Year. In London, thousands of revelers gathered to cheer as Big Ben rang in 2007. But in India, police arrested two suspected Islamic militants about half a mile from the site of New Delhi’s main public New Year’s Eve celebrations, a report said, citing police.
Pope Benedict XVI prayed at a New Year’s Eve service at Vatican City in Rome that 2007 would bring the world “peace, comfort, justice.” But he cast a cold eye on some secular New Year celebrations, saying such social “rites” are “often carried out as an escape from reality.”
In London, Big Ben’s chimes were relayed by sound systems along the banks of the River Thames. Crowds flocked to the banks near the Houses of Parliament to watch a light show countdown projected onto the 443-foot London Eye Ferris wheel, followed by a 10-minute fireworks display “big enough and loud enough to be seen … all over the capital,” Mayor Ken Livingstone said.
At least a million revelers were expected to pack Times Square in unseasonably warm New York City, to hear singers Christina Aguilera and Toni Braxton and watch a 1,070-pound Waterford Crystal ball fall at midnight.
In North Korea, an editorial carried in all three state-controlled newspapers celebrated the new year by boasting that the country’s possession of nuclear weapons “serves as a powerful force for defending peace and security … and guaranteeing the victorious advance of the cause of independence.”
The editorial exhorted North Koreans to “mercilessly defeat any invasion of the U.S. imperialists.”
Meanwhile two former Communist Eastern bloc states, Romania and Bulgaria, took another step toward the West as they became the newest members of the European Union at midnight. Fireworks thundered through the sky in the Romanian capital.
“Citizens of Bucharest. Welcome to the EU,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said, standing on a stage with Romania’s president and European foreign ministers. The ministers from Germany, Denmark, Austria and Hungary wished Romanians a Happy New Year, and planned to fly to Bulgaria today for celebrations there.
High winds and winter storms dampened celebrations in other parts of Europe. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, an outdoor concert that was to feature soul singer Beverley Knight and rock band The Thrills was called off because of the threat of gale-force winds.
Glasgow officials said high winds and rain had forced them to cancel Hogmanay, or traditional New Year’s celebrations in the Scottish city. Edinburgh at the last minute also canceled its Hogmanay party, which was to be headlined by the Pet Shop Boys.
In Belgium, several fireworks displays were canceled after two party tents set up for celebrations in northern Belgium blew away on Saturday.
In the Philippines – where many believe noisy New Year celebrations drive away evil and misfortune – police threatened to arrest anyone setting off oversized firecrackers.
Despite the warning, 284 people were injured by firecrackers and celebratory gunfire in the two weeks before New Year’s Day, a 75 percent rise from last year, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said.